And then something yellow, moving fast, came at her out of nowhere. Metal flashed in an arc through the air. Although there was no sound, the pulse of vibration as Vanessa's arm flew away registered as an acoustic buzz to her senses. Momentarily too shocked to react, she stared in stupor at the severed stump of metal. The blade sliced downward again, and half of one of her center legs was gone. She stared in disbelief at the striped shape already closing again, raising some awful, scintillating weapon, the size of which alone evoked pure terror. Although the features were devoid of expression, its precise, purposeful movements left no doubts as to its intent.
Vanessa turned, tried to escape between the armrests, but another of her legs went, and she canted over. Then a pair of her pincers disintegrated before her eyes. There was no pain, but the sight of herself being physically dismembered triggered terror reflexes that it was impossible to control, and she screamed.
"What the hell is it?" Garsten's voice yelled, coming from a different world.
Vanessa tumbled over, out of control. The tiger-like apparition loomed over her; its blade shimmered and grew larger.
"Aghh! No—ooo! . . ."
"What is it, Vanessa?"
Everything went blank, and then the helmet was being lifted away. Finnion was standing in front of her, holding the unplugged interface lead. For several seconds Vanessa couldn't react, unable to shake off the horror of the image. Finnion slapped her cheeks once each in rapid succession, hard enough to sting. "Are you okay? What happened? Say something," he snapped.
Vanessa blinked, rubbed her face in bewilderment as she reorientated. Then she stood up and began peeling off the body suit. "Get my clothes," she said in a voice trembling from a mixture of remnant fear and confusion. "Forget everything. Something screwed up somewhere. It's off. The whole thing's over."
As Mozart's aria swelled to its crescendo, Kevin lifted the blade from the partly severed head. The saw wasn't built for hardened mec alloy, and hacking off the limbs had dulled the teeth. This would do all the same, he supposed.
He planted a triumphant foot on the carcass, raised his saw in a victory salute, and switched off the blade.
"Nifty," he pronounced, with deep satisfaction. "Definitely nifty."
"What's ha—" Finnion began, but Vanessa cut him off.
"It's that boy again. He wasn't just snooping around here. He was there in the car too—controlling other mecs. I don't know how."
"I thought you said you dialed in over the phone line and fixed him," Finnion accused. "How—"
"I just told you, I don't know how. But it's obvious that he knows everything." Vanessa took the clothes that Garsten had brought from the room at the back where she had changed. "Get Martin on the line," she told him. Then, to Finnion again as she began dressing hurriedly, "Kevin may be onto us, but it doesn't mean that anyone else is—yet. He may still be immobilized physically in the machine. . . ."
The phone rang just as Garsten was about to pick it up. He answered it and blinked in surprise. "It's Martin for you," he said, handing the phone to Vanessa.
"Yes, Martin?"
"Vogl just called me from the house. The police were there with Corfe, looking for the lawyer. They could go there, to the firm next. You have to get her out."
"Oh God, that's all we need."
"Why do you say that, Vanessa? What's happened?"
"The hit messed up. Look, Kevin knows everything. He's at Neurodyne . . ."
"Christ, no!"
". . . but—and don't ask how, just now—there's a good chance that right now he's stuck in the system there and can't decouple. If we can get to him before anyone else does, we might still find a way to save things somehow."
"Christ . . ." Payne said again. There was silence for a few seconds. "Does anyone else know?"
"No, I don't think so. Could Andy send somebody down there? It would give us more time, anyway."
"Is Andy there with you?"
"Yes. I'll put him on." Vanessa handed Finnion the phone. "Martin wants to talk to you," she told Finnion needlessly. She finished dressing while Finnion listened for most of the time, nodding with occasional interjections.
"Yeah. . . . Okay. . . . That's what she says. . . . Sure, they're here. . . . Okay. . . . Okay. . . . I'll get on it right now. We'll call you when we're on our way." Finnion depressed the hook, released it again, and punched in another number. "We're sending Ollie and Royal down to Tacoma for the kid," he told Vanessa and Garsten while he waited for an answer. "The rest of us are going straight on to the boat, and they'll meet us there. The lawyer comes with us for insurance. . . ." He looked away and spoke into the phone. "Hello, Kyle? This is Andy. Put Ollie or Royal on. I got another job for them. It's urgent. . . ."
The would-be slayer was slain, but Kevin hadn't solved the problem of getting himself out of the machine. He still couldn't access any regular communications services, and the thought of being trapped in Neurodyne until Tuesday was far from appealing. There was only one thing he could think to try.
Leaving the dead killer beetle on the utility tray between the armrests where it had fallen, he went back to the base of the driver's seatback and climbed it until he could drop onto the padded top of the armrest. From there he scaled the hillside of Eric's elbow encased in a windbreaker sleeve, and followed along the ridge of folds and creases toward the hand resting on the steering wheel.
Vanessa and Martin's whole, elaborate plan had almost been unnecessary. A new thought struck Eric just as he was going into a slippery hairpin, and he almost forgot to straighten out of it.
If the mass-increase with velocity that was observed in laboratories was really just an indication of approaching an asymptotic limit to the rate at which a disturbance could propagate through an electromagnetic field—analogous to the limits of acoustic waves in material media—then it wasn't necessarily an absolute limit on the velocity of mass-energy at all, so much as a limit that applied to the velocity of electrical charge. All the experiments conducted had relied on information carried by electromagnetic means; and all the mass-velocity experiments were carried out in accelerators that operated on charged particles. Nothing in the literature had considered what happened in the case of neutral carriers. . . .
At that instant something crawled off his sleeve onto his hand and broke his train of thought. A wasp? . . . He moved his other hand from the wheel to flick it away—but then realized there was something odd about it, looked again . . . and almost went off the road for the second time in as many minutes. It was a mec—one of Kevin and Taki's battlemecs.
Was Kevin operating it? But how? . . .
Whoever it was must have seen that it had Eric's attention, for the mec started waving with one of those dreadful weapons that they hunted insects with and thought Eric didn't know about. He slowed the car, spotted a flat stretch of verge ahead, and pulled over, at the same time opening the window to give the car a change of air. If it was one of the boys' mecs, it would have had a microphone added. He picked it up between a finger and a thumb, and set it down on the fascia above the dashpanel. It was the one they called Tigger, if he wasn't mistaken.
"Kevin?" he said. The figure nodded, trailing the saw in one hand and emphasizing its response with an up-and-down motion of its free arm. "Yes, it's a good trick, and I'm impressed. You can tell me how you did it when I get back. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get on. The weather here is—" He stopped as the mec dropped its saw and waved both arms above its head frantically.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Up-and-down again, with both arms: Yes. "Are you at home?" The arms made wide, over-the-head, crossed movements: No. "At the lab?" Yes. "Look, you know my number. If it's something urgent, why don't you just call?" Both arms extended sideways. Can't. "Is Doug there?" No. "Can't you contact him?" No. "Why not?" Response unintelligible. "Are you saying you need me to help?" Yes. "Do you want me to call somebody?" Again, unintelligible. "Surely you're not asking me to come back?" Yes! Yes! Yes! "But I'm on my wa
y to an important conference." I can't help that, or, You don't understand, or, Too bad. Eric stared at the tiny figure perplexedly. "Can't Vanessa help?" No! No! The mec picked up its saw again, seemed to point at it, and then waved it in Eric's direction. Eric could make nothing of what it was trying to say. He sighed. "Very well, Kevin. But I'm warning you, this had better be good."
Eric used his car phone to call the resort at Barrow's Pass and told the conference secretary regrets, but there was an emergency and he had to cancel out. He also left a message of apology for the people that he had arranged to meet for a late lunch. Then he turned the car around to head back for Seattle. Just before he closed the window, unseen by him, a blue-brown butterfly drifted in and settled down by the rear seat.
As the car pulled away, Tigger turned and sat itself down on the top of the fascia, apparently to take in the view. But after a while, the mec ceased responding to Eric's remarks. He reached out and picked it up, but it was inactive. Evidently Kevin had tuned out.
Eric's frown of worry deepened. Despite the road and the weather, he picked up the phone again as he drove, and telling himself he should have done this before, punched in Doug Corfe's personal number.
It was Eric's asking Kevin if he was at Neurodyne that had alerted Kevin to the danger he could be in, which he hadn't had time to give any thought to so far. He knew that Vanessa was part of whatever group had planned this; and they now had the van. So, even if they hadn't worked out who, exactly, was operating Tigger, they would quickly deduce that whoever it was had to be physically coupled in from Neurodyne. And from what Kevin had seen of the way they'd picked up Michelle, it wouldn't be long before another deputation showed up in Tacoma. There wasn't time to wait for Eric to get back. But what else could he do? The exit routine was blocked as solidly as ever. He forced himself to stay calm and tried to think.
The only mec-connection capability he had, apparently, was to the modified ones that he and Taki used, not any of the regular Neurodyne models. The only way to get out of the coupler, by the look of things, would be to have somebody switch off the system from the outside. If Eric was still hours away, and nobody else knew of his predicament, then the only logical alternative was to get a mec here to do it. Logical, yes. But how was he supposed to translate that into practice? His mecs were at the house, not here—and in any case, they were all shut up in boxes or clipped immovably into racks. And the mecs at Taki's place were always locked away even more securely because the house was permanently overrun by children. Kevin wished now that he had lent one to Avril when she asked. At least she lived in Tacoma, which would have been a lot nearer. . . . But that wouldn't have done any good, anyway—hadn't she said something about going off on a hike in the mountains today? But maybe they'd canceled it on account of the weather.
He thought back again to when Avril and Janna had visited the house—had it really been only last Sunday? The parachuting mec had gotten caught in the tree, and they'd had to send Ironside up to free it. Strangely, he couldn't recollect anything more about Ironside after that—certainly not of returning it to its normal place in the lab at the house. So what had he done with Ironside? Where was it? . . . He couldn't remember. He and Taki had had this same problem before with the mec that had gone lost and turned up in Vanessa's bag. Well, he knew the simple way to find it this time.
He pulled down the Control menu, disconnected from Taki's relay in the trunk of the Jaguar, and rerouted to the system in the basement of the house. Ironside was listed as one of the available channels. He pointed with a virtual finger and selected "Activate." . . .
And found himself underneath what seemed to be a wooden bridge, wedged among empty soda cans about the same size as himself, and a mountain of balled-up, soggy paper. He wriggled his way out, feeling as if he were emerging from a garbage pile, and straightened up. The floor he was standing on was also of wood, curving upward on either side of him to become an enormous wooden canyon with the open sky above. A boat? His boat. That was right! Now he remembered—he had put Ironside under the seat when he, Doug, and Taki took the girls for a trip across the inlet, and then forgotten all about it. Ironside had been there, out in the boat, ever since.
He scrambled up onto the seat and peered over the side. The boat was moored at the dock, and he could see the familiar view of the house through the trees from the bottom of the rear slope. He could get other mecs out of their boxes and racks now—Ironside was big enough and strong enough to accomplish that. But this was still a long way from Tacoma. He stared up at the trees, and memories came back of flying up over them with Taki and looking down at the house. . . . And the beginnings began forming in his mind of what was surely one of his craziest ideas yet.
But hadn't this all been a crazy week?
The mooring line was as thick as his thigh. Wrapping both arms and legs around it and hanging sloth-like, he launched out over the water and began hauling himself toward the shore.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Seattle city police car followed the Redmond city police car slowly past the front of Microbotics, then between the main office building and the laboratory block to circle through the employees' parking area at the rear.
"There, that's it! There's the van!" Corfe exclaimed, pointing from the back seat. Garsten's beige Cadillac was there. So was the black Lincoln. "She'll be here this time. Now will you believe me?"
"He's identified the three vehicles," Des said into the mike that he was holding. "The Dodge van, the Cadillac, and the Lincoln."
"Okay, let's check it out," a voice from the car ahead answered from the speaker.
"We're right behind you."
The two cars completed their circuit and halted outside the front entrance to the main building. "You'd better come in with us," Des told Corfe.
The glass doors were locked, it being a holiday. A young security man in a blue shirt came over from the receptionist's desk and let them in. The senior of the two Redmond officers asked who, on the premises, was in charge of security.
"Mr. Finnion's chief of security. He's here right now." The young security man reached for a phone. "Can I tell him what it's about?"
"Andy Finnion? Oh, sure, we know him," Des said. "Tell Andy it's Des Olesh from across in the city. We've got a guy here who thinks that a missing person might be on the premises. Also, a vehicle that he claims is stolen is parked at the back of this building—gray Dodge van, registration 437 ECH. We just want to straighten it all out."
"I'll see if I can get him."
Seconds ago, Corfe had thought things were about to turn his way at last. Now he was assailed by misgivings again. These people were all on the same side. But there was nothing for it now but to see it through once more. Finnion was not a complete stranger to him either. He had been in charge of security when Corfe worked at Microbotics—although Corfe had never had any occasion to get to know him particularly well.
While the Redmond officers stayed by the desk, the two from Seattle wandered around the lobby area, casually inspecting wall plaques, framed certificates of merit from various trade and engineering institutions, a plan showing the layout of the building. To one side was a glass-topped display case showing some of the company's products. A section of it was devoted to Microbotics's line of VR-driven micromecs. Des indicated them and grinned at Corfe. "Are they like the machines that you went into Mr. Garsten's office as?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact."
Des scowled and turned away with the look of somebody whose joke had fallen flat.
A double door opened at the rear of the lobby area, and Vanessa stepped through, followed a moment later by Finnion. She gave Corfe a cold glance, showing no sign of familiarity at seeing him. His premonition worsened.
"Hi, guys." Finnion nodded briefly at the policemen, his eyes settling finally on Des. "It's been a while now, Des. How's it all going?"
"Oh, up and down. You know, the usual roller coaster," Des said. Greg moved back to join them.
"Still
crankin' 'em in for those retirement points, eh?"
"Well, we try. What else can you do?"
Finnion indicated Corfe with a raised eyebrow. "So, what have we got?"
"Well, this is Mr. Corfe, who says he worked here at one time. . . ."
Finnion nodded. "Yes, I recognize the face. I was trying to place the name."
"He's looking for a somebody by the name of Michelle Lang, and he says he has reason to believe she's being held here on the premises."
Impatience clouded Finnion's face. "Oh hell, not that again. I thought we'd cleared it up. First it was supposed to be Garsten's office, right? Didn't my duty supervisor talk to you there about an hour ago—Kyle Welsh? The place was clean. There were no alarms." Finnion showed both palms. "That's all we know. What else can I tell you?"
"You sound as if you know Mr. Garsten," one of the Redmond officers commented.
"Phil Garsten? Of course I do. He works for the boss here, Martin Payne. We're old friends." Finnion nodded toward Corfe and lowered his tone, suggesting confidentiality. "Look, I think you should know, this guy has had a grudge against the company ever since he was fired. He's always giving us a hard time. I don't think he's exactly . . . 'stable,' know what I mean?"
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