Tricker slapped his hands onto the arms of his chair and just looked at them. He had to admit that they had him. He didn’t like it, but knew for sure he was beating a dead horse. Unless he really did want to select their head of security himself.
He considered it briefly. Nah! Too much work. He would, however, keep a hawk’s eye on Serena Burns, and at the merest hint of misbehavior he would demand her resignation.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, rising. He turned at the door, pointing a finger. “I’ll be watching.”
There was silence for a full minute after he left. Grinning, Warren raised his hand and they high-fived like kids.
“That was a first,” the president said.
“Felt good,” Colvin agreed. “Let’s take the wives out to dinner, I feel like celebrating.”
Serena sat concealed in the upper branches of a cottonwood tree across the street from Roger Colvin’s home. Given the distance between the houses in this neighborhood and the road, she was nearly a half mile away. She wore charcoal
leggings and a matching hooded sweatshirt, black running shoes and gloves, and dark glasses. The only part of her that stood out was the pale skin of her forehead and cheeks. She’d been in position since four A.M., ignoring everything extraneous, including an incontinent pigeon.
The computer part of her brain was able to translate the images her eyes saw, bringing them in closer for detailed scrutiny. Right now she was watching Colvin’s wife shepherd their young into the absurdly huge van that the well-off seemed to think essential for the most mundane chores.
The boy, dressed in a blue uniform, yellow neckerchief, and yellow-piped cap, was on his way to a scout meeting. The little girl in her pink coat and tights had a pediatrician’s appointment. Or so Mrs. Colvin had told her husband as she stepped out the back door.
Serena heard this from her post in the cottonwood because she had high-powered microphones built into her DNA augmented ears, feeding directly into the part of her natural brain that governed hearing. Training and some of the animal DNA in her genes gave her the ability to move the external part of her ear to catch sound still more efficiently.
They should be gone for at least two hours, Mrs. Colvin had said.
Assuming that woman can ever get them into the van, Serena thought, genuinely puzzled at how long it was taking.
The boy had a toy in his hand that his mother apparently didn’t want him to take with him. The child threw it on the ground with all his strength. A piece of it went flying. His mother picked up the toy and went to retrieve the part. Then she
hunkered down in front of her son, seemingly in order to reason with him.
Serena wasn’t interested enough to listen. The child refused to look at his mother, his small face sullen.
Everything Serena had studied about humans from this time period indicated that the young were especially annoying. But the visible proof of it was still astounding. How did the species ever survive to this point? I’m amazed they don’t eat their young at birth.
Finally, after much to-do and a chase around the van after the little girl, which ended when her brother punched her—though that began a whole new scene—
they headed out. The security gate opened at Mrs. Colvin’s electronic command and the van drove off. This had taken half an hour. Serena shook her head in amazement. Then she started down the tree and casually jogged down the street.
There was a home nearby whose only security was a waist-high wall. It was owned by a man who apparently was unaware that the world was a dangerous place.
She made for the side of the property, where a neighbor had built a much higher wall, and climbed over. Then she carefully proceeded across the yard. There didn’t seem to be any security here other than the walls. She shook her head. At least the humans in her time knew they were vulnerable.
Finally she was in the Cyberdyne CEO’s backyard, squatting under a Douglas fir and watching Colvin sipping coffee as he read the paper. She really wasn’t sure how he would react; it was a fifty-fifty situation. He might be impressed at her audacity, or he could become too hysterical for effective communication.
But she’d been able to find jobs for only two of her rivals and the longer she
waited the more certain she became that she needed to act. So it was time to play her ace.
The phone rang and Colvin got up to answer it.
Silently, Serena trotted over to the back door, picked the lock, slipped into the kitchen, and took his place at the table, hiding behind the newspaper as he talked on the kitchen phone.
“See you at two, then,” Colvin said cheerfully. He hung up the phone and turned.
And froze. There was a stranger reading his paper.
Serena looked playfully around the newspaper and smiled at him.
“Good morning, Mr. Colvin.” She snapped the paper closed.
Everything in his body, from his throat to his bladder, seized. Then he felt nauseous. All he could think of was that Michael Douglas movie Fatal Attraction. Thank God we don’t own a bunny, he thought inanely.
After a moment he got his voice back. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”
“I needed to see you privately,” Serena explained. “For one thing I wanted to demonstrate to you just how rotten your security system is. Not to mention your locks. I opened the door to the room you were in and you didn’t even know it!”
He blinked, then shut his mouth, letting anger take over.
“Are you even slightly aware of how creepy this is?” he demanded. “You’re invading my home! You couldn’t call my secretary and ask for an appointment?”
Serena reached into her pocket. She suppressed a smile as she watched Colvin react to the potential threat. Then she pulled out a disk in its plastic case and slowly laid it on the table.
“I’m living,” she said, “in a house with an interesting history.” She pushed the disk toward him with her fingertips, watching him watching her. Then she licked her lips and smiled. “It used to belong to Miles Dyson. A lovely place, but people are uncomfortable with its history.” She shrugged, raising her eyebrows.
“So I got it very cheap.”
The CEO looked from the disk to the woman and back again.
“Are you suggesting that came from Dyson’s place?” he asked.
He didn’t believe her. They’d searched, thoroughly, and Dyson, or his kidnappers, had made a clean sweep of his work.
Serena rose, tipping her chin upward and regarding him from half closed eyes.
“The disk is a sample of what I’ve found.” She smiled slyly. “Look it over and then you tell me where it came from.” She turned on her heels and walked to the door. “You know where to find me when you want to talk.” She left without a backward glance.
Colvin stared at the closed door for a full minute, then experienced a full-body shudder that got him moving. In a few long strides he was across the room and locking the door. Not that it would keep her out, obviously, but it seemed the
appropriate thing to do.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. She broke into your house?” Warren’s voice cracked with disbelief. He lowered the whiskey he’d been about to sip and stared.
“Yeah. I turned around and there she was. Never heard a thing, even when she picked up the paper. It almost gave me a heart attack.”
Colvin poured himself a drink and swirled the amber liquid around in the heavy glass. He was finding it hard to look Warren in the eye for some reason, as if he were ashamed. Though why he should be he couldn’t imagine.
“Christ!” Cyberdyne’s president said softly. He shuddered, and wondered if she’d be paying him a visit later. At least she’d waited until Roger’s wife and kids had left. He didn’t like the idea of trying to explain Serena Burns to his own wife.
“This makes me much less inclined to hire her,” he said aloud.
“If it had been just that, I would be, too,” Colvin agreed.
He took a seat opposite
Cyberdyne’s president and a deep gulp of his own whiskey. They were in the CEO’s home office, and though it was before noon, Colvin had felt a need for a stiff drink.
“What do you mean?” Warren asked nervously.
“She says she bought Miles Dyson’s old home and found some material there pertaining to…” Colvin waved his hand vaguely, but his eyes were intent.
Warren leaned forward. “The project?” he gasped.
The CEO nodded and took another sip of whiskey.
“But we looked… that’s not possible!” Paul Warren shook his head. “Do you believe her?”
“Let me show you what she gave me,” Colvin said, rising. He brought over a laptop. “I’ve taken out the modem,” he explained. He turned it on, took a disk out of his shirt pocket, and slipped it in. “Read it and weep,” he muttered.
In less than a minute Paul sat back, his hand over his mouth in horror.
“It’s real!” he whispered. He looked up at Roger. “What did she say when she gave it to you?”
“She said to look it over and then tell her where it came from. She said we knew where to find her when we wanted to talk.”
“Is that all?” Warren asked.
“Yup.” Roger sat back in his chair and, closing his eyes, leaned his head against the cushions. The implication, of course, had been that if he didn’t get back to her, someone else surely would.
“Should we tell Tricker?” Warren asked.
Colvin opened his eyes and considered the question. There didn’t seem to be a right answer. If they didn’t tell him, when he found out—and Tricker would find out—he might just yank the whole project from them and kick Cyberdyne off of government property. If they did tell him, he might go after Burns on his own,
risking the loss of this tantalizingly promising material.
“Hire her, then tell him,” Colvin decided. “Once we’ve got that material safely in hand, I don’t care what he does. But I don’t want him going off half-cocked.”
Warren pursed his lips, then nodded slowly. “You’re right, of course.”
He took another sip of his whiskey. “I don’t see any alternative. Did she say what else she wanted—besides the job, that is?”
Roger shook his head, gazing into the middle distance. “No. She didn’t even mention the job, let alone any compensation for the use of this material.”
“Well, it’s our material,” Paul snarled. “Any court would uphold our claim to it.”
Colvin looked at him from under his eyebrows. “Somehow I don’t see Tricker going to the law under any circumstances. Especially these.”
Warren opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again, looking thoughtful.
He glanced at the CEO. “He’ll be furious.”
“Tricker is always furious.” Roger said. “I think the fact that we exist infuriates him. I say, what the hell, it’s high time we gave him something to really be furious about.”
Cyberdyne’s president chuckled at that. “She said we knew where to find her,” he said after a moment. “But her application said she was in the process of moving.”
“Yeah—into Dyson’s old house!” Colvin said.
Warren grimaced. “That creeps me out.”
Roger covered his eyes with one weary hand.
Then he sat forward and looked at his friend. “I tell you one thing, though. I’m going to make it a point of honor never to invite that bitch to my home.”
Paul’s eyes slid over to his boss. “I don’t want her in my home either. And we certainly can’t meet with her in the office.”
Colvin nodded and suppressed a smile. Mrs. Warren was outrageously jealous. It forced poor Paul to behave suspiciously even though he didn’t even want to think about cheating on her. The sight of Serena Burns would drive the president’s wife up the wall.
“Okay, we’ll choose a bar at random, someplace within thirty minutes of Dyson’s place. I don’t want to give this whiz kid a chance to bug the place or anything.
We’re gonna be in enough trouble as it is.”
“Okay,” Warren said, rising. “Where’s the phone book.”
NEW YORK CITY: THE PRESENT
“I’ve been waiting to see you all morning!” Ronald Labane shouted. “The least you could do is give me the courtesy of a few minutes!”
The man he was bellowing at was a literary agent, a small, middle-aged man, neatly dressed. Since he was also a native New Yorker, the agent wasn’t likely to be intimidated by mere yelling.
“What I am going to give you is ten seconds to get out of my office and not come back! Or do I have to call security?” His glare and the quiet authority of his voice brought Labane back to some semblance of rationality.
“I’m sorry,” Ronald babbled. “I—I didn’t mean to raise my voice. My apologies, I’m really not usually like this. I’m just so frustrated!”
“How many seconds is that now, Tildee?” the agent asked his secretary.
“I said I was sorry!” Labane protested. He held up his hands in what was meant to be a calming gesture. “Look, the publishers won’t even look at my manuscript unless it comes from an agent, but I can’t even get an appointment with an agent.
It’s driving me crazy! Couldn’t you just look at my manuscript?”
The agent looked down; the stack of paper on the floor beside Labane’s feet was easily eighteen inches tall. The text appeared to be single-spaced.
“It’ll never sell,” the agent said.
“You haven’t even read it!” Ronald said, aghast.
“I don’t have to, it’s too long.” The agent leaned over, read a few words.
“Nonfiction, right?”
“Yes.” Labane drew himself up. “I have a message—”
“Hey, ya gotta message, drop an e-mail. If you can’t say it any more succinctly than this, you haven’t got a prayer. This thing is about the size of the national budget and I bet it’s about as interesting.”
Labane looked shocked. “Buf it’s a plan, too,” he said softly.
“It’s a message, it’s a plan,” the agent said, “it’s a candy, it’s a breath mint. If you can’t cut it down from this, it’s unsellable is what it is.”
Closing his eyes, Ronald took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His shoulders drooped with exhaustion and discouragement.
The agent tightened his lips; this guy looked like he was going to cry. But he wouldn’t be the first author who’d broken down in his office. Publishing was a puppy-kicking business.
“Look,” he said, “make up your mind which is more important, the message or the plan. You don’t have to put them both in one book, you know. About your plan it may help to think—God got it down to just Ten Commandments and humanity still has a hell of a lot of trouble with them. So keep it simple. Oh, and it’s double-spaced, one-sided or they won’t even look at it. And that’s all the help you’ll get from me. Now get out of my office and don’t come back.”
“Thank you,” Labane said as he struggled to gather up his manuscript. “Thanks, really.”
The agent pointed to the door and Ronald struggled through it. When he was gone the agent leaned against his secretary’s desk.
“You’re a softie,” she said affectionately.
He folded his arms and smiled. “I just can’t shoot down a guy’s dreams when he’s right in front of me. I think that makes me more of a coward than a softie.”
After a moment she said, “You’re waiting for him to disappear, aren’t you?”
The agent rolled his eyes. “You think I want to ride down in the elevator with him? I’m afraid he’ll kidnap me.”
Ronald hoisted his manuscript onto the van’s passenger seat with a grunt and ignored the beeping and honking from the crowded street. He was angry, with the system and with himself. He’d made a complete fool of himself in front of that agent; he’d done everything but break down and cry. But he was exhausted and hungry, which always made him prone to being emotional.
Labane leaned his arms and head onto his manuscript and sighed. Nothing in New York had happened the way he’d hoped. With a grunt he sat up and thought that it was time to take stock.
At least the commune hadn’t had him arrested for stealing the van. He’d spent more than a few happy moments while he drove cross-country imagining how the conversation must have gone around the dinner table when he didn’t come back from town. But, it didn’t matter what they thought or felt. He’d been lucky they hadn’t charged him with theft—yet. And the decrepit van had performed beautifully in the sunnier climes he’d driven through on his way here. Labane took it as an omen: he was finally heading in the right direction.
Now he had to find some way to make people want to look at his book. And more immediately, a way to support himself. He’d allowed himself to withdraw only three thousand dollars from the commune’s account. They’d be a lot less complacent about that, he suspected. But he was quickly running through his money, even living on fast food. So he had to get a job of some sort.
Wait a minute; hadn’t someone on the Net mentioned an ecology expo in New York, happening about now? Hey, I could give talks about my plan, he thought.
Maybe not at this one, but he knew there were expos and New Age conventions all over the country, all of the time. They would have information, and he could make contacts.
It would mean catering to the sellouts for a while, but it could be quite profitable.
And the sad truth was, you couldn’t accomplish anything without cash and a lot of it. Meanwhile he could revise his work until it became publishable.
Bowed, but not broken, he thought. I will find a way.
“I’m the president and this gentleman is the CEO of Cyberdyne,” Warren explained for the third time to the MP, this time a little more slowly. “We want to get into our offices to do some work on secured computers. Our home offices are not secure.” He was beginning to wonder if the young man staring into his window was impaired in some way when he finally waved them through.
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