by Bright,R. F.
“The tiny train’s destination. The place where the Lilliputians live. Lily.”
“That’s beautiful,” said Lily.
“I gotta go, dad,” said Max, disguising his fears in phony bluster.
“What? The old Booby Duck isn’t good enough for you, Mr. Max Von Zeppelins? You always was ready to kiss somebody’s ass to ride in one of these . . . Chinese bladders.”
“I got better things to do than hold your hand, old man. I been carrying you all along.”
Lily was shocked. The father-son banter was all new to her.
“You listen to me, you little shit,” said Fred. “You take care of that girl, or I’ll be up your ass with a ten-foot pole.”
Max clapped a bear hug on his father, then stepped back and delivered what might be their last words.
“You’re probably not going to make it, dad, so tell me now. Should I dump you in a hole, or dump your ashes in the Little Conemaugh?”
Fred aped some consideration. “Compost.” He hugged Lily again, but this time he saw Max’s mother in her. She turned to go, then rushed back and planted a daughterly smacker on the apple of his cheek. It was so loud, they both exploded into laugher.
She joined Max, who shouted over his shoulder, “You’re gonna make some tasty worm shit.”
Fred gave Max the thumbs up. “Useful to the end, and then some.” He’d always thought Max’s striking out on his own would lead to some profound end-thing. But he was wrong.
It never ends.
Camille continued her heel-to-toe figure eights in the space between hospital beds, hoping to calm her herself. She hated Saturdays. They belonged to the devil, the father of all corrosion. The hospital bed she’d slept in was as comfortable as her own, but it was way too quiet here. The stillness was claustrophobic. She’d awakened gasping for air several times during the night. Was it night? How could she tell?
A legion of nurses and technicians traipsed in and out, smiling politely and checking probes and beeping sensors. She’d counted eleven surveillance cameras. What a fishbowl. I’ll never live in a place without a view, she assured herself. She left MacIan’s room for brief stretches, but stayed within earshot. A range that increased with each foray.
There were no straight lines or right angles in these caverns, and only a little natural light. It was disorienting, but she moseyed around checking things out, staving off the numbing boredom, until she spotted Catrina Enders.
“I came to see how you were doing,” said Catrina, raising a digital notepad and swiping several times. “MacIan is recovering like there’s nothing to it. He’s a bull.”
“He’s been asleep the whole time,” said Camille.
“He’s in a deep healing state. A little experimental. No danger. We’re monitoring everything. We hadn’t intended to be a hospital, but our data collection process relies on machine intelligence, automated sensors, which just fit a small hospital like this. There isn’t anything about him we don’t know.”
“Everything?”
Catrina frowned knowingly. She knew.
“When will he . . . ya know?”
“We’ll begin to warm him after midnight. He’ll be fully awake by 6:00 a.m. We’ll check him out and be sure to finish in time.”
“In time? For what?”
Catrina looked puzzled. “In time for the show.”
64
Bishop Virginia Hendrix had gotten used to sleeping alone; she actually preferred it. She slept as late as she could on Saturdays and kept a slow footing. Mindful relaxation. Tomorrow she’d be up bright and early and at her frenetic best. But today a black mood dampened her spirits. She wrapped herself in a heavy satin robe, slid on her furry slippers, and went looking for Petey. Neither he nor his usual noises were anywhere to be found, but there was an unusual level of activity down on the dock. She pulled a matching satin hoodie over her robe and set off to see what all the fuss was about.
It was not unusual for a dozen or so men to be working at this time, but today there were scores of them moving boxes and furniture onto the barges. And there were several young ladies strutting about. Who the hell were they? She walked along the dock, shocked by how Petey’s quirky hobby had turned into a major enterprise. This thing was as big as any ocean liner. A ranch style ocean liner for old men who hated stairs.
“Bishop!” came a voice from the herculean ocean-going tug attached to the rear. “You’re going to freeze out here.”
She didn’t recognize the man bracing himself against a rail wound with heavy rope. “It’s warmed up quite a bit, hasn’t it?” she yelled politely. “Where’s Petey?”
He pointed down the dock to where Petey was jogging toward her at an exasperated pace.
“Virginia!” he shouted, shooing her away. “You’re going to catch a cold.”
She pulled her hoodie tighter, but her smile faded as she looked more closely at what seemed a finishing rush. “What’s all this about?”
“I’m so excited,” he said. “Tomorrow we take her out on her maiden voyage. Whaddaya think? We’ll all go for a ride, after the show.”
“How’d it get so big? It’s a block long.”
“You know how it goes.”
“Come back in for breakfast, at least.”
“Can’t. The last ten per cent takes half the time. And you know you can’t trust anyone to do things right. I’ll come up in a while, but for now I gotta stay focused on this.”
“It’s Saturday!”
“Yeah, I know, and they tell me there’s some kind of celebration going on.”
“Where?”
“Central Park.”
65
General Joe Scaletta couldn’t sleep, so he’d gotten up before dawn and began drawing up contingency plans, by hand. None of the computers were working. He’d been lying low in his room in the officer’s quarters at Quantico to avoid having to lie to anyone who might luck onto the right questions. He went to his very utilitarian toilet—this was a barracks even for officers—and checked his teeth in the polished steel mirror. The right questions? He’d been wearing only his thermal underwear all day, but now it made him feel undignified. That, and the fact that he wasn’t absolutely sure he had asked the right questions. What were the questions? “Oh yeah, oh boy,” he explained to the mirror. “This is how Tuke plays his game. Puts you in an untenable situation, then badgers you with questions. Makes you uncertain. Yeah, that’s his mind fucking game.”
He decided to put on his elaborate uniform. “Yeah. Well, I’m playing Joe Scaletta 3.16. And I know who my opponent is. I know my enemy.” He had just about assembled himself when someone knocked on the door. He tucked his shirt in, folding two perfect pleats in the back and smoothing out the front, then opened the door to the width of his face. His aide-de-camp, Corporal Elvgrin, stood ready for a second knock, but paused. “Sir. I have a message. There’s some kind of communications shutdown.” He looked at a note in his hand. “A fluctuating magnetic surge.”
Scaletta rolled the implications around, then said, “Have you talked to Cassandra?”
“No, sir. We can’t communicate with anyone.”
“So, we don’t have any way to communicate beyond here?”
“Not really, sir. It’s extremely intermittent. One minute it’s normal. Then nothing. Then only one or two frequencies. It’s in and out — tens and fours.”
“Someone taking care of it?
“They say there’s a festival in New York, in Central Park, and the geeks have set up some kind of electrical show. We can hear them, then we can’t. It’s a mess. Should we send some guys there to see if that’s the problem? It’s almost . . . tomorrow.”
“Good idea. Send . . .” He cut himself off. “No, no. Don’t do anything. This is a feint. This is Tuke. He’s probing. He’s trying to get me to tip my hand, to crack out of turn. Do nothing. Let’s not show our hand. Got it? Nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
Scaletta put the tips of his thumb and first finge
r to his lips, and whispered with a sly grin, “Nothing,” then rotated them like a key in a lock, and closed the door.
Corporal Elvgrin took a few steps before Scaletta’s door popped back open. “Get me a sandwich or something.” Corporal Elvgrin nodded and left. Scaletta checked the hall both ways and disappeared into his room.
He leaned against the inside of the door and bumped it shut with his butt. “Tuke. Fucking Tuke. Central Park. How dumb do you think I am?”
66
The Portage rail workers hauled Airship One into the middle of the yard on nylon ropes that dangled from its whale-like tummy. It was buoyant by the narrowest margin, which wouldn’t matter once they were aloft and traveling horizontally. The yardmen paid out the ropes until Airship One rose above the surrounding trees. The forest really wanted to claim one of these Chinese bladders.
It rose six hundred feet off the ground before Mr. Leun deployed the fan-jets. With the elevators at full tilt, they climbed sluggishly to 3,500 feet before he pushed the throttle to half, and tapped on the odometer. “Go sixty-five now.”
The oval-shaped gondola attached to the airship’s belly, including its wraparound windshield, was molded plastic. A long plastic bench was molded into the dashboard, which had only three indicator gauges and three levers to make it go. Its brakes were the nylon ropes they’d drop. Lily stood at the window. Max buried his nose in her hair until it touched the hollow in the back of her neck. They both shivered.
Their monitor flashed acid-green and a Nipponese version of “I’ll See You in My Dreams” by the Kyoto Rascals rattled its tinny speakers. Mr. Leun looked at Lily nervously. She looked back reassuringly and said, “The green guys are good. I think.” She squirmed out of Max’s arms and pulled from her pocket the acid-green card the ukulele player had left her. “Look what it says on the back.”
Max flipped it over: You are what we fight for.
“I’m not sure what that means,” she looked a little embarrassed, “but I like it.”
Max moved closer. “I know what it means. They’re good guys.”
She blushed.
“What’s it say under that?”
“Expect us.”
“Who!?”
The music stopped and a cluster of deliriously happy Asian faces appeared on the monitor, shouting in a ping-ponging timbre. An involuntary ‘awhhh’ escaped Lily’s throat. Mr. Leun pointed to a woman on the monitor, then broke into a rant that sounded hostile to Lily. She couldn’t tell where one word began and the next ended, and the tone was brittle and aggressive. The woman listened intently, face blank, then replied just as belligerently but twice as shrill. For a few seconds they stepped all over each other’s lines, fingers pointing, heads wagging, and straightaway they both laughed and smiled adoringly. This must be a love song, thought Lily, because Mr. Leun was dancing in his seat.
The corners of her mouth turned down, but her eyes smiled at Max. “That’s so beautiful,” she said and returned to the window.
“That’s family,” said Max, brushing his lips on the back of her ear.
Her eyes snapped open. The sound of that ancient whistle was right below them. She leaned close to the windshield and pointed at the valiant Booby Duck plowing along way down there. “It’s them!”
The Booby Duck was opening a lead on the bloated airships. The rickety little train was much faster, but its route much longer, and they were still in the mountains. It would be an up-and-down haul for the next twenty-five miles, then a coast to the Port Authority Station in Philadelphia. But in the meantime, they were burning through their coal trying to reach speeds that would help them over the next hill, and the next . . .
67
The KNim’s directive had driven Manhattan’s corporate IT guys to Central Park’s Great Lawn late last night, many dressed in pastel blazers with corporate logos stenciled across the back. Most looked ready to run. Especially the ones who sincerely believed in the corporate state. Those who had never believed in anything else. Corporate life felt perfectly natural to them, but they looked so sad now.
The Great Lawn was designed for a herd of one hundred and forty-four Aberdeen sheep, a long-forgotten decorative notion that was about to be upstaged by the ultimate geek phallic symbol — the original Tesla Coil. It had been unaccountably reassigned from the nearby Tesla Museum on Roosevelt Island.
The gigantic electro-phallus was mounted on a flatbed tractor-trailer and hemmed in by a ring of incredibly large generator trucks clearly marked ‘Astoria Studios.’ The IT guys touched the base of the huge coil and quickly retreated into academic caution — hairless apes accosting the electric monolith. They were all very nice guys, but faceless members of a thankless army of digital maintenance workers. But right now they had a Tesla Coil. A beacon, a bonfire, an exaltation of geekdom.
The always prudent IT guys had brought sleeping bags or blankets and wore practical shoes. More than a few wore the same kind of red parka Max had inherited from Arthur Gager. These things would have to comfort them in the absence of their gadgets, which was a stretch. But they had been told by the KNim to leave all their devices behind. And although they’d followed orders, this was the most dangerous thing that’d happened to any of them, ever. And then . . .
Women!
The Tesla Coil had aroused a tremendous sense of possibility in the IT guys, but this? Women streaming onto the Great Lawn.
However, these women had come to take their Pick of the Litter. Pickin’s were iffy, but the selection huge. Naturally, the women took charge.
Christopher Eddy, Senior Segmentation Engineer, Bickers & Bickers Inc., twice divorced and middle-aged, was not amused. And a Tesla Coil wasn’t going to quell his nagging sense of failure. His life’s work was the decoupling of networks — segmentation. Although extraordinarily difficult, segmentation was the only way to contain hackers and thieves and that sort. Those posers. The cool guys in the weird outfits who lived to sabotage his work. Christopher Eddy wanted to know how those clowns broke his masterpiece.
Despite Christopher Eddy’s scowling face, balding head and less than average height, a trim, dark-haired beauty walked up, and said, “Hey! Aren’t you Christopher Eddy? Bickers & Bickers?”
He gawked and thrust out his hand.
“I know your work,” she said, ignoring the hand. “I’ve studied it thoroughly. It’s brilliant.”
He mumbled something vaguely affirmative.
“I’m Anita Boenig. Segmentation . . . enthusiast.”
Spring was a long way off, but it was suddenly pollen season on the Great Lawn for Christopher Eddy.
A convoy of delivery trucks drove onto the Lawn and parked along the tree-lined border. A flurry of shiny hackers jumped out and began to unload tents and hammocks and sleeping bags. A 3D projector was set up on a delivery truck’s roof and cast an acid green cube with the martini glass logo on all six sides into the air above the crowd. The ITs inched forward as the cube flashed — ASSEMBLE HERE. They closed the circle, apprehensively.
An athletic young woman bounded up the bumper, over the hood, and onto the roof, then lifted her shiny hood to reveal a pretty face and bottle-black hair. She pulled from inside her duster two huge pompoms on long sticks, set them on fire, and waved them frantically.
A portly IT guy in a frayed knit cap yelled in astonishment. “It’s not just the KNim. Or Tuke!” He tore off his blazer and threw it in the air. “It’s the Manhatmazon. The Manhatmazons are in on it, too!”
68
At the Meadowlands Stadium, young people in martini hats came and went from Todd Williams’ improvised command center in the old ticket office. The installation team was trying to get out, but Todd said, “Put Tuke on that monitor when the Spires link to us.”
Tuke appeared immediately, split-screen, and asked, “Do we have cameras on the field?”
A shy woman raised her hand. “Yes, right here.” She put up a dozen angles of the complex on a cluster of monitors, including the parking lot, which was
packed with women waiting to play Pick of the Litter.
“Levi!” said Todd. “We can’t get one more person in here. Look at the parking lot.”
Tuke frowned. “We need that parking lot to land the airships. Didn’t take long for everything to fall apart, did it?”
“And yet we soldier on,” said Todd. “What about Philadelphia? That little train?”
“The Booby Duck!” shouted Tuke happily.
Todd shrugged. “And the . . . Booby Duck? It has to get to Weehawken; that’s the only tunnel that’s still dry, according to Turnstyle. And the Philadelphia Train Station has been in the dark for a decade.”
Tuke raised his hands to Todd, and smiled broadly. “Send in the hydro.”
Eleven Peregrines slipped through the Twin Spires. Hydrogen-powered generators in stainless steel cylinders dangled from eight. The other three carried welders and electricians. They flew at a cautious speed, but would make Philadelphia in less than an hour.
Tuke watched them exit. “Captain DeWeese?”
“Yes, Levi,” answered a man with a pointy nose.
“Here are the coordinates of The Booby Duck . . .”
“The what?”
“That little train from Lily. Keep an eye on it for me, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Peregrines and Booby Duck were both on course for Philadelphia, and within a few minutes Captain DeWeese spotted The Booby Duck chugging over the Susquehanna River Bridge, at Harrisburg.
On The Booby Duck, Fred supervised the crews shoveling coal into the boiler. They had started with three full coal cars, but had used at least one, maybe more. Pastor Scott had the controls; once he sat down, he was hard to move. Hundreds of passengers slept or huddled up and watched the marshy Susquehanna roll by.
“Levi,” said Captain DeWeese. “They’re going about sixty miles per hour. Two of three coal cars look full.”
