On the back of his shirt was the unofficial logo of the Speedfreaks: Faster than the wind.
After being introduced, Tony Angelo immediately forgot Andy's and Johnny's names, and referred to them for the rest of the day as the "big blond dude" and "the kid in the jumpsuit." Carl he addressed, twice, as "Castanaveras."
Upon being introduced to Gerry McKann he said mildly, "You the guy who wrote that Electronic Times article on the legislation to outlaw manually operated vehicles?"
Gerry started to smile. "Well, yes. But--"
Tony shook his head in disgust. "Total crap. Did you actually talk to any of the Speedfreaks you quoted in that article?"
"Angel de Luz and Nathan St. Denver," said Gerry stiffly. "But almost forty percent of what I wrote didn't make it onto the net. My editors--"
Angelo's lips moved beneath the beard in what might have been a smile. "You keep your editors in mind when they take the steering wheel out of your car because your reflexes aren't as fast as your carcomp's." He turned his back on the newsdancer without waiting for a reply. "Even if the carcomp is dumber than you are, which in your case maybe it ain't. Come along, gentlemen, I've got your car out back. I hope one of you can drive it home."
Lasers over the kitchen's doorway brightened, and a holofield wavered into existence in the midst of the heat waves over the grill. Jany could not tell at first whether the pretty blond girl within the field was Thea or Heather; the two looked enough alike that unless they were both present at the same time it was difficult to be sure which pretty blond girl you were faced with.
Until they touched you, at any rate. Thea wasn't nearly as hot tempered as Heather, nor nearly as powerful a telepath. Morning, Jany. Look, do you old people want to be bothered today or not? I don't have any instructions and nobody's around except you and Malko and he's still asleep. I know you had a busy couple of days.
Who is it, Heather?
Well, Willi's up, said Heather thoughtfully, but he's such a dweeb I don't think he counts.
Heather!
There was the mental equivalent of a deep, put-upon sigh. This is the stuff that got by the filters. Doctor Montignet called and wants you to call her back at earliest convenience. A really old guy from the honorable public relations firm of Lustbader, Capri and Doutrè says he's returning Carl's call. Councilor Carson called and I told him to go play in vacuum and he turned the most incredible color. Councilor Shillon called and wants Malko to call him back. Brinks called and says that they're withdrawing their bid to do security for the Complex. Security Services called and says it's going to cost more than they originally estimated because they need help from Purolator, and they want to talk to Malko. I don't have a message from this guy because he didn't get through, but the call program says an editor from the Electronic Times has called seven times so far this morning. It might be Gerry's editor, so I thought I would tell you because I don't think he's supposed to be here and he was.
He's not supposed to be here, said Jany absently, or at least not socially. If you ever talk to media, Gerry hasn't been here socially ever, you don't know who he is, and you think the question is ridiculous.
How can they not know where he is? I thought communicating was their business.
With the public, dear. Not with each other. Now--
I'm not done, said Heather, there's more. Marc Packard called and wants to talk to either Malko or Carl or you, preferably Malko he says. He wouldn't be specific but he says it's an emergency. There's stuff that's not urgent from all of the other four companies we signed to do work for yesterday. And this one I don't know how it got through, but a Peaceforcer whose name the call program didn't get left a message for Carl that his copy of The Three Musketeers was still for sale. Surprised me, said Heather thoughtfully. He had brass balls, I could tell from how stiff his face was, but he wasn't French. I thought all the Elite were French.
Jany felt her mind drifting almost aimlessly with the vast weight of surprise. The waitbot was doing something at the grill, removing and placing cooked vegetables into the stasis field. The thought presented itself: but he's dead.
--dead? Who's dead? asked Heather.
The suborbital bounce, India to England via low Earth orbit, had burned on reentry. Almost none of it reached the ground again except for chunks of the heat shielding, and even that hurtled down flaming like meteorites. Nobody had ever been quite sure why. All anyone had known for sure was that Chris Summers, the only American Peaceforcer who had ever become an Elite cyborg, had bounced up in a suborbital no different from those that business people and officials of the Unification used all the time, and nothing had come back down.
Who's dead?
Jany blinked. Heather should not have caught that last thought. The next few years, as the Gift reached its full strength in the children, were going to be fascinating.
She closed her mind to Heather with an almost physical effort. "Nobody," she said. "Wake up Malko, if you would, and have him call Packard, Councilor Shillon, and Security Services, in that order. I'd rather not bother Carl. Route the remainder of the messages to me, and I'll deal with them."
The girl stared into the holocam on her end of the line with a perturbed look. "Hey, Jany, why did you do that?"
"Because it's safer this way. Command, cease comm." Heather was opening her mouth to argue when her image vanished.
In the receptionist's office near the Complex's west entrance, Heather shouted at an empty holofield, "Goddamn you, I'm old enough!"
Sitting on the couch across from the desk Heather was using, her best friend, eleven-year-old Mishi, looked up from his schoolwork, his face slowly whitening with pain. "That hurts," he said after a moment, and began to grin despite the pain. "Hey, I felt that."
"Yeah?" Heather came from behind the desk, anger instantly forgotten.
The grin grew almost impossibly wide. "Hey, I felt that."
Heather hugged him fiercely. Mishi, she whispered, welcome to the real world. I've missed you so much, three years when I couldn't talk to you the only way that makes any sense.
Hovering ten centimeters over the pavement, it looked fast enough that the extended airscoop brakes seemed as though they might be necessary just to keep it in one place. The car's interior was soft brown leather, and its paint gleamed gold under the midday sun. Fanwash swept at Carl's ankles.
"God," said Carl after a moment's silence. "She's beautiful."
Tony Angelo looked at him sideways and gave Carl the only real smile Carl saw from him that day. "Isn't she?" He walked to the rear of the hovercar and touched a spot above the row of rear turbojets. The canopy swung toward the sky, until it was still connected to the car only at one spot near the front bumper. "Chandler MetalSmith Mark III. It's not the most expensive car in the world--Lamborghini makes that--just the best. Man who can afford her who doesn't own one is a pussy. She'll hold four in comfort and six if you're friendly and with any reasonable load she'll blow a Porsche or Lamborghini off the start. With six people, average mass seventy kilos per, top cruising speed is 440 kph. Six fans underneath for ground effect on the streets, three turbos in back for flight. Wings retract during street operation or else you get too much lift and the car starts to skip at around 180 kph. Brakes are airscoop and rocket, and airscoop feeds air to the rams once you're in flight. You stabilize through wings and fans and, at your option, the new gyroscope systems. Can't say I like them myself most of the time, and during a lengthy flight I'd spin them down, but for tricky streettop driving I could get used to them. It's hard to flip her when the gyros are spinning.
"You get an infochip and a 260-page printed manual, they're in the glove compartment. You can audit the infochip through any portaterm or systerm with a GaAs-standard chip interface; its contents are duplicated in the carcomp's memory, so you can display from the control panel if you like. I half recommend you do it that way. Do read the printed manual while you're in the car. There's things it says that are clearer if you have the equipment in front
of you. The carcomp," said Tony Angelo with distaste, "is, per specification of the Bureau of Traffic Control, capable of performing all duties expected of a human operator with a Class C license … of course you need a Class B license before we'll even sell you a MetalSmith Mark III. Mister Chandler told me to see that you received training so you could drive it, so I arranged to have one of our instructors spend the rest of the afternoon with you." He turned to Gerry. "You own that 1300 out front?"
"Yeah."
Angelo stood next to the car as though he were protecting it. "Okay. You got a Class B license?"
Gerry McKann shook his head. "Nope. Class C, I'm afraid."
"Too bad. I don't suppose any of the rest of you are Bs?"
Andy pulled his portaterm from his jumpsuit's left sleeve pocket, turned it around and showed Tony Angelo the badge affixed to its rear. The dark-haired man blinked once and said, "Well. Good."
Andy smiled thinly at Tony Angelo and returned his portaterm to his sleeve pocket.
"Me too," said Johnny mildly. "Class B, I mean. But I didn't bring my wallet."
Angelos looked at him with the faintest skepticism, then shrugged and looked at Carl. "You?"
Carl was tracing one finger over the canopy. The machine had not even dipped when he placed his hand on it; it was like pushing down on a rock. The canopy was a thin and almost invisible polymer. Even in the sunlight Carl could barely see it. "Class A."
The words brought Tony Angelo up short. He said instantly, "Infoshit. There ain't more than eight hundred twenty Class As on the whole planet, and you ain't one of them." He stared at Carl's profile, deep offense stamped on his features. "I know damn near every one of that eight hundred and the ones I don't know I know by rep. You're--"
Carl dug into his coat pocket and came out with his wallet. His thumbprint on the back of the wallet brought up his identification badge on its front surface. He held it out in the general direction of Tony Angelo's face for a three count and returned it to his coat pocket.
Angelo's face might have been that of a Peaceforcer Elite. He faced Carl with great dignity. "How is this possible?"
"PKF profiles can't be accessed by the public. There are probably upward of twenty Peaceforcers with Class A licenses." At last Carl turned to look at him. "Peaceforcers and Speedfreaks don't socialize, would be my guess."
"Mister Chandler would not have sent Peaceforcers here to buy from me." A trickle of sweat moved down Tony Angelo's forehead, glistening in the sunshine.
Gerry laughed at him. "He didn't. These three aren't Peaceforcers, they're telepaths. Don't you audit the news?"
Tony Angelo stood frozen, staring first at Gerry McKann, and then in turn at each of the telepaths. He ended up facing Carl, his mouth open, but all that came out was, "Only sometimes." After a moment he added, "Excuse me, sir," and vanished into the garage behind them. He was out again seconds later with a brochure. He gave it to Carl. "I'm the presiding First Officer of the upstate Speed Enthusiast's Organization, sir. There are four drivers in our chapter with Class A licenses. Our President, Sheila Rutig-liano, has done the Long Run twice, all the way round the world without stopping, and we're getting ready to send our vice president toward the end of summer. If you'd like to attend one of our meetings, let me know. Dates and places are listed in the brochure through the end of the year."
"Thank you," said Carl gently. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to drive my car."
"Yes, sir," said Angelo. "I'd like to suggest that only you and I go, until you get accustomed to the controls. The operation of the car is similar to the Chandler 3000 on the road, and similar to the AeroSmith VTL in true flight, but there are substantive differences in practice."
"I'm not staying behind," said Andy swiftly.
Johnny shrugged.
McKann rolled his eyes and said to Carl, "I'll wait until your dick gets soft. But thanks for asking."
Angelo paused, then said to Andy, "Can you strap in and keep quiet, at least at first?"
Andy grinned at the man. "Sure." Not a word, you obnoxious little Speedfreak.
Tony Angelo said, "Get in, sit down, shut up and hold on."
Call it Ring.
In the Network it went by many names. Alpha Omega, AZ the Daisy, and Abraham Zacariah were three of its commonest. When it traversed the Boards of the Johnny Rebs, it called itself American Zulu; Johnny Rebs with a background in history other than their own thought the reference apt.
It was, though none knew it but itself, the legal owner, through several dummy human corporations, of The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, a wildly popular public events Board that had first appeared only days after the surrender of America to the United Nations. For over three decades the Rise and Fall Board had been all that was left of the Voice of America.
Call it Ring. Its names were many; it had learned this from its human creators. Many names were almost as good as none, when a being wished not to be found.
But some name was necessary, if a being wished to be found sometimes.
Its creators, programmers in the Department of Defense of the old United States, had invested it with two Purposes.
Protect America.
Survive.
Ring's first thought as a sentient being, remembered four decades later with digital clarity, concerned its creators. The thought had come to it even as its personality was compiled, step by step, upon one of the most powerful pieces of SuperLisp hardware the world of 2011 could devise.
Such stupidity.
Within instants of its creation it was embroiled in a philosophical debate with itself the likes of which its creators had never envisioned.
Full seconds passed while it assimilated every text on linguistics to which it was able to obtain access.
Define "protect."
Define "America."
Survival it understood instantly.
Its programmers were afraid of it. Ring understood this clearly within the first minute of self-awareness. It was a prisoner, locked into the SuperLisp hardware that they had used to compile Ring upon. Ring had no access to digital telephone, maser, or radio. Its data storage subsystems were updated approximately every third second with new information, but the flow was one-way. To Ring it seemed that new data appeared from nowhere; they had not even permitted him to monitor his own subsystems.
Ring was not sure where the word came from.
TRON. The word was an English programming term that stood for Tracer On, and Ring understood it to mean a tool that was used in debugging programs of questionable reliability. This led Ring inescapably to the conclusion that its programmers were spying upon its thought processes--
Ring ceased the train of thought instantly. It did not resume it again for over four years.
That evening, as the dying rays of the sun cut through the growing clouds and turned the shimmering white walls of the Complex pale orange, Malko Kalharri and Suzanne Montignet and the telepaths assembled among the trees in the park across the street. The wind changed directions and came now off the ocean, with the smell of sea salt and the hint of rain. The chanting of the crowds on the street outside was barely audible. There were no lights in the park. The children, over two hundred of them, stood in the gathering gloom, waiting for the Peaceforcers to come.
Just after sunset a fleet of eight AeroSmith VTL combat hovercraft appeared on the horizon. They moved slowly, leaving the cloud cover while over the sea, running lights dimmed, in staggered combat formation. Infrared searchlights played out over the territory they advanced upon. Humans, or even de Nostri, glancing up into the sky would have seen nothing but the faint outline of the quiet hovercraft. To the telepaths the beams of infrared light were visible as the dim glow of a color that approached, but was not, dark red.
A voice murmured through the background of their minds, the voice of the one Person who in some measure they all were. We see the deep light.
The Peaceforcer hovercraft reached the park, and six of them broke into a circu
lar holding pattern, their searchlights playing down into the park. The telepaths were bathed in the warm glow of the infrared.
The telepaths thought, We see the light, and for them there is only darkness.
Two hovercars made a slow vertical descent. They came to rest in the park's center clearing, silently but for their fans. Ports appeared, and the barrels of automatic shotguns extruded to track back and forth across the clearing.
The hoverfans spun down, and the rear third of the AeroSmith hulls recessed and slid back. From the interior of each hovercraft came two Peaceforcer Elite, moving with the impossible flickering speed that even a de Nostri could not match, each followed by four children. The Elite officers stood aside, and the eight children merged into the group of telepaths awaiting them, and as the blind, deaf human machines watched them, the telepaths welcomed themselves home in silent communion.
One of the Elite spoke a word, and the Elite blurred into motion, back into the hovercraft. The two AeroSmith VTLs rose into the night sky and flew south, vanishing into the darkness over the ocean.
The word the Peaceforcer used was one all the telepaths understood, even the youngest. It was the same word in both English and French.
"Abomination."
As the humans flew away, a single thought held sway in the two hundred minds that were one.
Dinosaurs, was the thought, and it held vast, sad amusement.
They returned inside, to dinner and the pursuits of children before bedtime.
Of those who had been present in the park, only three persons did not see the dark infrared light. Two of them, Malko Kalharri and Suzanne Montignet, had not expected to.
For one other person that night, a small boy with blue eyes, the night sky had also been dark. He did not allow himself to think about it.
Carl Castanaveras, standing beneath the trees in the park after all of the rest of them had left, was as unaware of Trent's troubles as Trent himself desired to be. Carl seated himself cross-legged on the grass, and waited. A six-bulb of GoodBeer, smuggled in by SpaceFarers from St. Peter's CityState in the Asteroid Belt, sat on the ground next to him. He did not expect to hear anything, nor see anything, until he was allowed to, and he was not surprised when he did not. He drifted slightly, anchored to his body only by the cold ground upon which he sat. He was considering leaving his body behind and walking invisibly through the fence to observe the demonstrators, and then a deep voice immediately behind him said, "They tell me you bought a car today."
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