Alexander Jablokov - Brain Thief

by Alexander Jablokov

  “Some people are sex tourists,” Bernal said. “Some people are suffering tourists.”

  Len shook his head. “Whatever happened to taking a novel to the beach?”

  Bernal looked at him. “You tell me.”

  “Touché. I don’t do that much anymore. Sand gets in my keyboard, and suntan lotion stains the screen. But these guys ... they wear titanium dickeys.”

  “They do not.” Magnusen was disgusted.

  “They do! They may be crazy, but they’re not... well, they’re crazy.”

  “Where would you buy a titanium dickey? Russia? I think you—hey! I just got a completely new observer message. Says Hesketh isn’t on this track at all.”

  “What?” Len tried to yank the laptop away. Magnusen held it in an iron grip. “Who’s the message from?”

  “Not sure. It’s the same signal I got last night, when it completely left track and looked like it was mating with the abandoned car over by the Black River. Got right on lop of it—and after that, we lost it for good.”

  “I can’t believe you’re developing your own sources out here,” Len said. “Who the hell is it?”

  “Could be Hesketh itself, for all I know. Its information was good last night.”

  “Let’s go!” Oleana was clearly the decisive one of the group. The other two could have argued this out all night.

  “Don’t you see?” Len snapped the tripod legs shut, fumbled with a lens cap. “It’s making a break for it. Someone’s trying to kill it, and it’s trying to get away. We knew this day would come. Didn’t we, Oleana? We knew it.”

  He threw equipment into the back of the van.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Magnusen shrieked. “Some of that shit’s rented!”

  Len slowed down and snapped shock cords over the equipment. “If we can get into contact with the rover—”

  Oleana chimed in. “Render appropriate assistance—”

  “Gold,” Magnusen said. “Pure, undiluted gold.”

  Len was breathless. “Then we find a surplus launch vehicle.. . .”

  “I saw an old Japanese one on auction last week,” Magnusen said.

  “Rent a launch site in Brazil or Congo... .”

  “Plenty of slots, nowadays. ..”

  “Achieve the Enigmatic Ascent!” they shouted together.

  Oleana hit the accelerator and they tore down the unevenly patched asphalt of the road.

  They passed someone walking up the road in the opposite direction, toward the power lines. They were past before Bernal realized who it was.

  He had to get out of this car and after her. He used the first stratagem that came to mind.

  “Oh, God,” Bernal said. “I feel sick.”

  “Don’t lose lunch on the optics!” Magnusen couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Rented,” Len said. “They have his credit card! The damn thing’s almost maxed out as it is. He just isn’t careful with his money....”

  “Never mind my finances, Len.”

  “Please . . .” Bernal whimpered.

  “Do you really need that gym membership? You never go. And what’s up with the almond butter? What’s wrong with peanut?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s—” Oleana slammed to a halt. Bernal pulled open the side door and stumbled out. “Hey, you okay, man?” Magnusen leaned out after him.

  “Go.” Bernal stood bent over, holding his stomach. He hoped he wasn’t overdoing it. “Go ahead. You can’t let me hold you back.”

  “You sure?”

  “For God’s sake, Magnusen.” Oleana was furious. “Stop being nice, and get back in the car. We’ll come back and pick you up later, mister.”

  “Yeah,” Len said. “I’ll have pictures for you to look at. With this lens . . .”

  “Len! Stop gabbing!”

  In a moment, their taillights had disappeared around the corner.

  11

  Who Bernal had spotted on the road was Charis Fen, walking with a heavy, relaxed pace, like a householder carrying the trash to the curb.

  He straightened up and trotted up the quiet street lined with small split-levels on lots that had returned to woods. He hadn’t been paying attention to the drive, but they couldn’t have gone far from the rendezvous point. And he couldn’t remember Oleana making any turns.

  Bernal was surprised at how angry he was. Charis clearly thought he was an idiot.

  She’d told him she’d decided to move on to a more promising project, and advised Bernal to do the same. Move along, nothing to see here. Hesketh’s just a collection of spare parts. He’d bought it.

  But here she was, heading for where the Wisconsin gang had said Hesketh was due to take its run.

  He was breathing hard when the metal struts of the power pylons were finally silhouetted against the sky ahead of him. Of course. The map Charis had in her front seat, the parallel lines with the Xs. It had been a map of this powerline. She’d been planning this all along. He paused, listening. Nothing.

  Presumably Charis had linked herself in as a local info source to the Enigmatic Ascent team. And she had just sent them a completely false piece of information that had them charging off in pursuit of a wild goose, while she came here and took care of Hesketh in peace.

  Bernal found the mountain-bike path, ran up it, and then sat down in the dry grass. He’d probably have to sit here by himself for the rest of the night, but crashing around looking for her wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He forced himself to be calm. The air was still. Bernal didn’t hear a lot of bug action this time of spring, though there was a twittering of frogs down in the drainage ditch that ran past where he had originally parked. He consciously relaxed his muscles.

  For a few minutes, nothing. Then—was that a rustle in the high grass? Bernal raised himself up.

  Someone was walking toward him. Bernal tried to change his angle so that whoever it was would be silhouetted against the sky. But he couldn’t manage it. But wait . . . was someone crawling? He couldn’t stand it. He finally stood up.

  A crackling and a snapping of twigs, and a dark carapace appeared in the weeds. It struggled along on its six legs, each of which felt carefully at the surface before committing its weight, and carried specialized manipulator limbs folded along its back. Four feet long, three wide, the body’s basic hexagonal shape was obscured by the various crude functional additions that marked Hesketh as a classic garage product.

  As he gaped at it, the rover jumped into the air, tucked all of its legs, and rolled back down the hill.

  “Goddammit!” Charis half-rose from the depression that had concealed her. She held what looked like a toy gun: a stubby black thing with a parabolic antenna on the end. A curly cable led from that to a backpack. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I—”

  “Jesus!”

  The gigantic insectoid figure hung in the air. Hesketh had jumped. Without aiming, Charis fired. Instead of a bang, all Bernal heard was a loud sizzle, not much different from the sound of the power lines. Then Charis’s shoulder hit him, and he hit the ground.

  The impact had taken him in the solar plexus, and for a long few moments he thought he’d never breathe again. He lay on his back, looking at the stars. Was that really Hesketh’s goal, somewhere out there, crawling across the rocks of some distant planet circling one of those ... something unclenched, and he was able to draw in a thin stream of clear, cool air.

  Charis stood over him, looking down at something on her gun. “Come on, baby. Come on! Cheap-ass capacitors!”

  Hesketh rolled on the grass and then was moving again. But even from where Bernal lay, he could see that something had happened to the legs on one side. They shook, as if the machine had just developed Parkinson’s. Instead of attacking again, it scuttled up the hill, away from them.

  Bernal pushed himself up to a sitting position.

  “What is that thing?” he asked.

  “This?” Charis waved her stubby weapon. “A piece of crap. Thos
e guys in supply think they’re so smart. Then they short me on the capacitors. ‘Plenty of speed,’ they said. ‘No need for more weight.’ Ha!”

  “That’s a herf gun, isn’t it?”

  “You could call it that. I call it—”

  “A piece of crap,” Bernal finished. “If you—”

  “There you go, baby!” Charis charged up the hill after Hesketh.

  “HERF” stood for high-energy radio frequency. It was like a focused electromagnetic pulse and could fry complex electronics with minimal physical damage to anything else. Bernal had heard that they could be made with easily available materials, but this was the first time he’d ever heard of one actually being used. Charis’s backpack presumably carried the capacitors that held the massive charge the device required to be effective. The high-energy radio waves generated by the parabolic antenna set up currents in printed circuitry and destroyed it. It was the perfect weapon to use against an uppity planetary probe.

  Bernal got to his feet and followed. He hadn’t responded fast enough. He’d already let her damage Hesketh. He couldn’t let her destroy it. This was probably why Muriel had wanted him here in the first place, and he was falling down on the job.

  They crested a hill. The right-of-way roller-coastered down from there. Charis walked down the mountain-bike path, scanning fences to the right and left, looking for a break. A plane heading for Logan flickered above the power lines. A few moments later, its distant roar filtered into the silence.

  He ran after her. “Stop!”

  “What?”

  She had half turned to look at him, when Hesketh jumped again, from behind a hummock. She tried to aim properly, but set off her herf gun too early. Hesketh shuddered away, its still-functional legs churning through the grass. She clipped her herf gun to her power pack and pulled out something else.

  Bernal didn’t know what else to do, so he tried to tackle her.

  It was like hitting a foam-covered concrete post. She didn’t go down, but she did drop the beer-can sized device she had been pointing at Hesketh. She lowered her shoulder, slid under him, and was out of his grasp.

  “Damn it!” she said. “Just let me do my job.”

  “No. I can’t let you do it.”

  He threw himself at her again, but this time, forewarned, she dodged, and he didn’t even manage to get a grip on her.

  “This isn’t a good idea, bucko,” she said. “I don’t have time for it.”

  “You have to make time.” He thought about trying to punch her but realized that his chances of landing anything were slim. What was he supposed to do with her?

  “No, I don’t.” This time she charged at him. She caught him just as he crested a hillock. He found himself propelled down a steep slope, lost his footing, and fell headlong. But that was it. She didn’t knock him out with a rock or anything.

  She searched in the grass for whatever it was she had dropped, and then her footsteps receded into the darkness.

  He scrambled to his feet. He ran up the slope after her and crested the hill again. The trail dropped steeply at first, a fun drop for anyone mountain biking, then bottomed out in a swale before rising again in a series of bumps.

  Well, at least he was faster than she was. He could see her blocky shape struggling up the opposite slope, not too far ahead of him. He didn’t see Hesketh, but the thing was too low to be spotted easily. From Charis’s intentness, it must have been just ahead of her.

  By the time he caught up to her again, the air was tearing in his lungs.

  “Jesus, can’t you just give it up?” She turned to face him. “I need to check the thing out. Relax.”

  “I . . . won’t . .. relax.”

  “I’m sorry. Here’s a bit of mandatory vacation.” She raised the beer can.

  Bernal heard a loud thwang, like a giant rubber band. Something grabbed his legs and threw him backward. He fell on his back and tried to get up, but something held his legs in a firm grip. He felt at them. Rubbery cords had wrapped around them, pinioning them. When he struggled, the cords grew tighter.

  He forced himself to relax and really analyze what held him. The cords were elastic, but not sticky. At least, they didn’t stick to his pants, though they did seem to stick to each other. He swung his legs around so that he had some chance to see what the arrangement was.

  They were mutually sticky through something like Velcro. He could feel how the ends of the cords penetrated each other. He was held by a dense network.

  He managed to slip his hand into his pocket and pull out his multitool. If he had to cut every cord, he would be here all night. But networks often had points of maximum vulnerability. He plucked the cords to get a sense of the tension, cut one, then another. Already the net was looser, but he had to be careful not to try to escape too quickly, which could cause it to twist and tighten up again. He thought carefully and cut a third.

  Ah. He wriggled out of it and was finally able to stand with his legs free. Then, moving deliberately, he set off after Charis and Hesketh.

  12

  The right-of-way crossed a road. Bernal saw Cha-ris’s Hummer parked a few yards away, but it was dark.

  Scratches on the asphalt ran across the road and back into the grass. The damaged Hesketh was still going strong.

  Bernal moved more quickly. Beyond the road, the right-of-way swept wide to the left, where it met a high chain-link fence. Tracking Hesketh was easier than it might have been, because the right-of-way was hemmed by back fences and other barriers on both sides, and because Hesketh made an astonishing amount of noise pulling its body along on its remaining functioning legs.

  He almost went past it, but some noise beyond the fence redirected his attention.

  Something had ripped a hole in the fence, partially screened by dried weeds. Some of the weeds were freshly broken.

  He pushed his way through.

  The giant shapes of tire shredders bulked in the darkness and the air smelled of burned rubber. Dishwashers and clothes driers stood in crushed rows. Two bulldozers stood in mid task, construction waste for recycling piled up in front of their blades. Above them rose a tire hill, with a subpeak of giant truck tires, and a sinuous wave of car tires.

  _______

  Charis carried another of her blocky, cheesy-looking weapons. She should hire a decent props department, Bernal thought. She’d climbed partway up the slope and was now looking downward, almost at Bernal.

  Below her, Hesketh climbed tenaciously up the slope of tires, its legs spread wide. Two of the legs on the left side were dead and dragged uselessly, while one on the right jerked spastically. It was a wonder it was going anywhere.

  Charis bent over, heaved, and toppled tires down on top of Hesketh, yelling something Bernal couldn’t hear. It slid a few feet back, then spread its legs out farther and climbed more deliberately. Charis chucked a couple more tires, but they bounced harmlessly off its carapace and off a projection on its back.

  It was an antenna. The thing had a high-frequency antenna on its back.

  Why was it still heading toward her, instead of fleeing?

  “Charis!” he yelled up.

  He thought back to their fight. She probably could have taken him out at any time, much more effectively than the guy with the cast-iron doggie doorstop had. But, at every point, she’d only used as much force as she needed to.

  “Give me a minute.” Her voice was surprisingly calm. “Then we can have a talk.”

  She shouldered her weapon and fired. It seemed to be some kind of crowd-control hoser and fired padded pellets. They were meant to stun unarmed rioters. And it had the desired effect, knocking Hesketh completely off its legs and rolling it down the hill. She charged down after it.

  He was finally close enough to get a look at Hesketh.

  It looked really slapped together, with bubblegum welds that would have shamed a first-year shop student. Nothing about this operation was as high class as he would have liked.

  She knelt over Hesketh
and looked up at him. “You okay? I mean, I had to—”

  “Charis,” he said urgently. “That thing is radio-controlled. I’ll bet it has no more processing in it than a remote-controlled airplane. It’s nothing but a decoy.”

  “Then why the hell would it be—” She glanced down at it, then ran.

  She’d almost gotten out of range when the thing exploded.

  _______

  He felt the compression wave of the explosion. He stumbled backward, hands in front of his face.

  But he was still there. He hadn’t been knocked into blackness. But, for a moment, he remembered what had happened to him, and huddled, curled up, hoping to protect himself.

  “Where are you injured?” Charis’s big hand on his shoulder, her wide face shoved into his.

  “I’m ...” He took a breath. “I’m fine. Just... I had something happen once. Still cracks, here and there. Give me a minute, I’ll be okay.”

  Blue flames licked up from where Hesketh, or whatever, had been. Its pieces lay all around the crater it had blown in the pile of tires. Bernal choked on the smell of burning rubber.

  He looked up at Charis. “How are you?”

  “Alive. Thanks to you. But not much better than that.” He now saw that half her face was black, and there was a bloody tear in her leg.

  “Bandages?” he said.

  “In the car. But don’t worry about that now. Get the extinguisher. Under the steering column.”

  “Let me help you down—”

  “Now. Tire fires are nightmares. Move”

  Bernal found the red extinguisher easily enough. The climb seemed much harder this time. Every third step, his foot sank into a tire. Loose lengths of radial belt tore at his pants.

  The stench was incredible.

  By the time he got back up the hill, Charis had torn a length of cloth from her shirt and tied off her bleeding calf. Her fingers moved with quick expertise: she knew field first aid.