DNA

by Laurence Dahners

  Jamieson backhanded the kid, “Shut up and hold still!” With an angry stare he leaned down close to the kid’s face, trying to intimidate the little snot.

  Instead of being intimidated, the kid snapped his head forward, bashing his forehead into Jamieson’s already throbbing nose. Jamieson reared back with an agonized bellow. He had to blink a couple of times to clear his vision.

  Then he smacked the kid harder, gratified to see the little shit’s head sagging to the side and his eyes looking dazed. “You hold still or I’m gonna beat the crap out of you!”

  Jamieson cut the clothes off the now listless kid, I hope he’s got a concussion! Jamieson thought.

  The trailing car from Ell’s security team skidded to a stop beside Amy’s Focus. When they’d realized something was happening up ahead, they’d gone to manual and started to pass the slow-moving vehicle in front of them. When they’d tried to do that, the vehicle had put on its turn signal as if turning left. Dan had swerved back into the right lane to go by on that side, but then the car had turned off its signal and swerved back into the right lane as if its AI had been avoiding the overtaking vehicle. When Dan had turned back to the left lane, it had again tried to turn. Finally realizing that the vehicle was actively blocking them, Dan had accepted some fender damage to force his way past it.

  However, by the time they’d arrived at the scene of the kidnapping, all the vehicles which had forced Amy off the road were gone!

  Up ahead, Dan saw the lead car speeding back toward him.

  Dammit! He thought, looking around. Several roads led away and he had no idea which direction to go.

  ***

  Steve said, “Ell, I’ve got bad news.”

  “Zage and Amy’ve been kidnapped.” Ell said rapidly, unwilling to wait for him to explain it at his pace, “I’m on my way.”

  “How did you know?!”

  “Allan… He monitors everything. He hasn’t been able to localize them off their GPS though. Do you know where they are?”

  Steve’s eyes darted up to his HUD, “Um, no, not yet.”

  “Do you know what’s wrong?”

  “Uhhh… Maybe it’s just taking a minute to acquire?”

  “It’s been several minutes already! Where are you?”

  “On my way to where they were captured. I can’t review the video from the scene because I’m driving on manual to get there faster.”

  “Me too,” Ell grunted.

  “Mary,” Steve said, “have you gone over the imaging yet?”

  “Working on it still,” Mary said, sounding intently focused. “Vid from the cameras in Zage’s contact shows them being put into a panel van. Current imaging shows no windows in the back and foil between the back and the front driving positions. I suspect no GPS signal is getting into the van for their implants to pick up.”

  “Dammit!” Ell said, “I knew we should’ve found a way to put bigger antennas on the implants.”

  “Probably still wouldn’t have worked inside that metal box on wheels,” Mary said. “When they take them outside to move them into a building, or whatever, we’ll get the location then.”

  “We’re getting farther and farther behind the eight ball though,” Ell said, her voice expressing anxiety and irritation. “Feed me the image from Amy’s cameras.”

  The image in Ell’s left contact went black for a second then flashed back to show her the road. Allan said, “There’s no imaging coming from Amy’s cameras so I’m not going to keep giving you the image from it. It’ll only block your view of the road. Her headband’s been put in some kind of a box. I suspect a metal box to block it from getting GPS.”

  “Let me see the feed from Zage’s contact then!”

  “You should turn the driving of your car back over to the AI before you have me do that.”

  “Override the car’s AI and keep it going at the highest possible safe speed. Then give me that feed!”

  Ell’s left contact started feeding her a view compatible with the inside of a panel van. It wasn’t very good, because Zage’s eyelid was at half-mast. His head was drooping off to the side and the view pointed toward the floor, rocking back and forth with movement of the vehicle, “Did that son of a bitch drug Zage?!”

  “I have not seen him administer any drugs,” Allan said dispassionately, “he did however, strike Zage on the side of the head. I suspect Zage is concussed.”

  Ell’s voice seethed with anger, “I’m gonna hurt that bastard!” She watched the back and forth rocking of the image for a moment, then said, “Allan, you should be able to tell when the vehicle turns left and right from the way the image from Zage’s contact leans as it goes around corners. Assume it’s traveling at the legal AI speed and calculate the route it must have taken from the site where they were captured.” Zage’s head lolled to the right and stayed there.

  Mary said, “Ell, there was a lot of rocking back and forth from the uneven shoulder when the vehicle pulled back onto the road, Allan won’t be able to tell which direction the van initially turned.”

  “All he has to do,” Ell grated, “is figure the distance to the first turn it made. That distance will be different depending on which way the van started. Even if it is uncertain, Allan can calculate the distance to the next turn, then the next… No matter which way they go, eventually they’ll be turning in a direction and at a distance that only fits one route out of there. Trust me, Allan’s good at this kind of stuff.”

  Allan said, “Assuming that the vehicle’s under AI control, at standard speed, the timing of the turns they’ve made so far most likely places them at this roundabout.” A map popped up on Ell’s HUD with a red arrow flashing beside one of North Carolina’s many traffic circles. “Unfortunately, the movements of Zage’s head suggests that the vehicle has sped up and slowed down more than one would expect with an AI in control, suggesting it is being driven at least partially on manual control. If so, it could be at either of these two other roundabouts.” More arrows started flashing at the other locations, “In addition, the vehicle has been going around a roundabout for long enough that when it exits, we won’t know which direction it’s going. We could make a guess if we assume it’s going at exactly the standard AI controlled speed, but we couldn’t be sure. I will continue calculating and refining possible locations based on all the data I can get from speed assumptions and Zage’s head motions. I may be able to narrow the possible locations, but it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to define the exact location.”

  “Oh geez!” Ell moaned. “Be sure you’re querying GPS constantly. We don’t want to miss a quick transition from the van to a building.” She paused for a second, then said, “Connect me to Zage…” Putting on her Raquel voice, she said, “Zage, can you hear me?”

  Zage didn’t respond.

  Ell sighed, “Okay, try connecting me through Amy’s implants… Amy, can you hear me?”

  No response there either…

  ***

  Zage awoke muzzily as he was being carried down some rough stairs. He struggled a little bit, then realized he was wrapped in a blanket. And his hands and ankles were strapped together! The memories of being dragged out of the car and into the van shot through him. He twisted his head around and managed to poke it out a gap in the blanket. He tried to look around. Someone was carrying him past a room filled with junk. Chairs, fans, wheelchairs, old tables, a couple of bicycles, a toolbox, junk shelves and cleaning supplies. He felt a little muddled and couldn’t quite take it all in, but even though he felt a bit confused, he realized his AI would be able to play it back for him later.

  Past the storage room, Zage was carried into a small bedroom with a single double bed, a chest of drawers, a small table, some shelves with books, and nothing else. The man laid the Zage on the bed, unwrapped the blanket from around him, cut the plastic bands around his wrists and ankles with a pair of wire cutters, and stepped back. He pulled open the drawer, rummaged around and then tossed some clothing on top of Zage.

 
Another man came in carrying Amy, also wrapped in a blanket. She looked unconscious. The guy dumped her unceremoniously on the bed beside Zage. A couple of minutes later, the plastic bands on Amy’s wrists and ankles had been cut. They dropped a coverall on top of her naked form, then went out the door.

  Zage heard them setting some locks. He waited quietly until he’d heard the sound of their footsteps going up the stairs. Uncomfortable being naked, once he felt sure they were gone, he rolled quietly off his side of the bed and quickly put on the clothes. Feeling more comfortable himself, he picked up one of the blankets they’d tossed on the floor and used it to cover Amy. As he worked he whispered, “Osprey?” He wondered if they’d removed the ports from inside his ear canals and off the backs of his teeth while he was unconscious. His tongue could feel the bumps of the ports on the back of his front teeth, but wondered if they might have done something to them. However, since that kind of tech had come as a benefit of his mom’s job out at D5R, most people didn’t know it existed. He hoped the men might not have searched hard enough to find it.

  With great relief, Zage heard Osprey respond, “Yes?”

  “Call 911 and tell them that some bad men have…” Zage realized he wasn’t actually sure what had happened. He’d never heard of kidnapping. “Shot Amy and I and taken us somewhere in a van. Use your GPS to let them know where we are. I think they’re… pretty ruthless.”

  “The police and your mom already know what’s happened. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to use GPS to know where you are. I’m connecting you to your mother now.”

  Zage heard his mother’s voice, “Zage! Are you okay?”

  “Yes…” Zage found himself unable to continue around a sudden frog in his throat. He gasped a little sob; then said, “Some bad men…”

  Concern writ large in her voice, Ell said, “I know kid, we’ve been able to watch what happened on Osprey’s record. Um, you should barely whisper when you speak to us. We think they don’t know about the ports in your ears and on the backs of your teeth, or about the HUD in your contacts. We don’t want them to figure that out by hearing you talking to us”

  “Why are they doing… this?!” Zage said, his whispery voice trembling.

  “Um, probably for… a thing called ransom. They’ll threaten to keep you unless we pay them a lot of money.”

  “Oh, no!” Zage didn’t say anything for a second, then in a puzzled tone he said, “Why wouldn’t they steal some rich kid? You guys wouldn’t be able to pay them very much!”

  Ell didn’t say anything for a second, as if she were thinking. Then, “We, um, have more money than a lot of people.” She paused, then pointed out, “Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to send you to that special school or pay Amy to help take care of you... Is Amy okay?”

  Zage turned to look at Amy, “She’s asleep… I think they did something to her…”

  “They probably drugged her,” Ell said. “She’s breathing, so she probably isn’t hurt too bad.”

  “Do you want me to take the blanket off so you can look at her?” Zage said with some trepidation. He didn’t think he should be uncovering somebody who was naked, but he didn’t think his mom could tell much about whether or how she’d been injured while she was covered with a blanket.

  “Maybe in a little while if she doesn’t seem like she’s waking up.”

  Zage glanced over at Amy, “Should I… uh … try to put her clothes on her while she’s still asleep… so she’s not embarrassed when she wakes up?”

  “I think,” Ell said, sounding like she was trying to stifle a laugh, “that she might be looking at the record from your AI someday. That might be even more embarrassing. Just look the other way when she needs to get dressed.”

  Zage thought for a moment, “I’ll at least straighten her blanket,” he said, doing so carefully. Then he said, “Osprey says he can’t get a GPS signal so he doesn’t know where I am. Do the police know where we are?”

  His mom sounded unhappy when she responded, “No, no one’s been able to figure it out yet. We thought we’d get it when they moved you from the van to the house but you weren’t outside long enough to acquire the satellites.” Her voice gained some resolve, “But we’re going to find you. Don’t you worry.”

  “Will you… be able to pay enough to make them happy if the police can’t find us?” Zage asked, frightened yet embarrassed. His voice had started trembling again. He didn’t want his mom getting upset because he was scared.

  He didn’t want to sound like a little kid, even if he was.

  “Yeah,” she said, “we’ll be able to pay them enough, don’t worry about that.”

  Zage thought she still sounded worried though. “Is there anything I should be doing right now?”

  There was a pause, as if his mom had been surprised by the question. Then she said, “I think you should explore the room they’ve got you in. I’ll be watching through your contacts. Maybe, between the two of us, we can somehow figure out where you are. Or, how you might be able to escape.”

  Glad of something positive to focus on, Zage said, “Okay,” and walked over to the door. He jiggled the handle and twisted the knob, looking at the row of new appearing deadbolts above and below it. “I think these are new locks.”

  “Yeah,” his mom said, “knock gently on the door. See if it sounds hollow.”

  “Hollow?”

  “Yeah, a lot of the doors inside buildings are cheaply made with hollow cores. You could kick your way through one of those, but,” she said unhappily, “I doubt they would have installed a row of locks in a hollow core door.”

  Zage reached up and knocked gently on it. “It sounds solid to me.”

  “Yeah,” his mom said, “try thumping it hard once so we can be sure.”

  “Thumping it?”

  “Bang on it with your fist, pretty hard, but just once.”

  Zage did. “What do you think?”

  “It’s solid.” Zage thought his mother was trying not to sound too bummed about it. She said, “Try knocking gently on the wall next to it.”

  “The wall?” Zage said, reaching out and gently knocking on the wall near the door. “They don’t make hollow walls, do they?”

  “Actually, most walls are hollow. They have this stuff called sheet rock on each side. It’s not really the kind of hard rock you might think. It’s pretty easy to break through.”

  Zage said, “I think this one sounds like it’s solid though.”

  “Yeah. Try knocking about four inches to one side of where you just rapped on it. You might have been thumping right over a stud.”

  A stud? Zage thought. In his favorite topic, biology, a stud was a male animal used to get female animals pregnant. He couldn’t imagine what one would be doing inside of a wall. With a mental picture of a big burly rat hiding in the wall, Zage knocked about four inches to the side of where he’d started. “It does sound hollow here.”

  “I think you’re right,” his mother said. “So it’s important that you know that, if you had to, you’d be able to just punch and kick your way through the wall in an area where it sounds hollow like that. That’s only for emergencies though. If you started doing that right now, those men’d hear you doing it. Once they realized how dumb it was to put you in a room where you could get through the wall, they’d do something to make it so you couldn’t.”

  Zage frowned, “Mom, why would they keep studs in the wall?”

  There was a moment of silence, then evidently his mother understood what he was thinking. He could tell she was suppressing a laugh when she said, “Um, not a male animal. A wall stud is a piece of wood that the sheet rock’s nailed to.”

  “Oh… So how do we get through the wall without kicking it down?”

  “Let’s keep exploring the room. If you find something hard, you can probably just scratch at the sheet rock until it cuts its way through it. That’d take a while and it’ll still make some noise, but not as much as kicking a hole in it.”

  Zage
made his way around the room, checking the walls, looking in all the drawers, looking under the dresser and under the bed. The drawers had a few more sets of clothes in them. Zage found some underwear that might fit Amy and took it over to put it on the bed next to her. There were also some short stubby toothbrushes and small tubes of toothpaste. A door in the corner revealed a small closet that contained some coat hangers, a couple rolls of toilet paper, a trashcan, and a blanket.

  The trashcan was one of the metal ones with a lid that went up when you stepped on a pedal. It was lined with a heavy plastic bag. His mother had him lift the bag out and look under it “Good,” she said, “there’s some extra bags in the bottom in case you need them.”

  “What would I need plastic bags for?”

  “I can’t think of anything right now, but they’re surprisingly useful. It’s good to know they’re there.”

  The back and right walls of the room were made of something his mother called “concrete block.”

  She told him he wouldn’t be able to punch his way through those walls.

  She said, “Let’s go back to the left rear corner of the room, beneath the shelves.”

  Zage went back to the corner and squatted down. There was a set of shelves in the corner, mounted on the wall. Someone had screwed a couple of metal rails to the wall. The rails had metal brackets sticking out from them that were holding up the wooden shelves. The shelves were empty except for a few ancient paperback books on each. “What did you want to look at back here?” Zage asked.

  “Tap on the wall there. See if it’s hollow.” When Zage started to tap on it right below one of the metal rails, she said, “Not there. The rails will be screwed to the studs. Try the area right between the rails.”

  Zage tapped there. “It sounds hollow, now what?”

  “Hmmm,” his mother said, “step back so I can look at those shelves from a little bigger distance.” A moment later, she said, “Gaze all around the room one more time.”

  Zage did, wondering what in the world a wider viewpoint of the shelves would be good for.