The Camelot Gambit

by A. J. Scudiere

  He let that sink in but noticed that Kaya Mazur's mouth opened as though to speak. Eleri held up the palm of her hand softly, not to quell what she would say, but to ask for just another moment to keep talking. "You parents will be allowed to go with the children, either singly or all of you, and that's a decision we'll make in the next few minutes."

  Kaya nodded then, stopping her first question, but immediately jumping in with another one. "Will we all be allowed to stay together?"

  Eleri nodded. She and Donovan had already made those arrangements with Westerfield, prepping a safe house for a minimum of four occupants and a maximum of seven.

  Kaya asked another question, her eyes darting from one corner of the room to another. "Are we safe here in the house, right now?"

  Eleri nodded. "Yes, we are."

  "How can you be so certain?" Marshawn asked, peering at them.

  "Well, for one, right now you have two armed and trained FBI agents guarding you. It’s why we wanted the meeting here: this is the safest location. Secondly, we know because of the methodology the killer used—"

  Donovan heard the slight hitch at the end of her words and knew she'd cut the sentence off, as though wanting to tell them what they'd found out but knowing she couldn’t. Even though these people were going into protective custody, the two agents were not allowed to set loose any more secrets than absolutely necessary, and the method of murder was definitely on that list.

  Slowly, he sniffed the air again. The scents coming from the table were a little bit stranger now. Worry mingled with fear; other emotions flitted through, too light for him to fully distinguish. That didn't surprise him, though. The Mazur family lived almost directly across the street from two of the three murder victims. Their children had interacted with Johanna and Marat much more than Emersyn and Madisyn had, at least from what he'd gathered. The evening’s developments would create a disturbing mix of emotion from both sides of the table.

  Eleri began speaking one more time and Donovan listened, opening his nostrils. While he wished he could change his face to get the best scent possible, he couldn't, not here. The scientists at the table might welcome him as a fascinating study, but he did not believe these people needed yet another blow tonight.

  Once she had nods from all of the children, Eleri leaned forward toward the center of the table, as though telling a deep secret. "Here is what Marat Rychenkov was working on. . ."

  53

  "Cage tipped us off," Eleri told them all with a smile, noting seven pairs of wide eyes all staring at her.

  Cage frowned at her, letting her see that he didn't know what Marat’s project was exactly, even though he'd already told her the information she needed. That was what had brought her and Donovan rushing over here tonight.

  "Marat Rychenkov was working with his drones," she told them, a fact probably everyone at the table already knew. "He had several different sets. He was working to solve the native mapping program problem." Marshawn's eyebrows squeezed in. It looked like an unexpected response, but then his head tipped in question. It was Cage who picked up the mantle and explained.

  "There's a concern about drones, particularly swarms, being able to navigate unknown areas. In order to do so, they need to map while they go, and they need to both retain and relay the information they glean. They need to be able to do so in entirely new places, oftentimes places that humans can't get to.” He waved his hands as he spoke, for the first time that night seeming excited about the topic. “These may be places that are very, very tiny, and you would use nanobot type drones. In other situations, you might need a swarm to go into undersea scenarios, or into space. So there are a lot of uses, but also a lot of places that we can't predict the environment they might run into."

  That was interesting, Eleri thought. In fact, she'd not considered that some of the things the drones might run into would be anything other than physical objects. But as Cage went on, he discussed the need for drones in space, saying that they might encounter pockets of gas, stars, temperature changes, and any other number of things the drones might need to map. Underwater applications he mentioned included changes in the Thermocline; locations of moveable things, like plants or schools of fish; and locations of more solid objects, like chasms and boulders. Undersea drones would need to map the kind of material the sea floor was made of.

  “The drones need to be able to record information about these spaces and return with that information. And they need to be able to work efficiently together as a hive, perhaps at a great distance from the central control location. The distance might be great enough that they lose contact with the hive mind." Cage looked at Eleri and Donovan as though to ask if he'd done a good enough job, and Eleri nodded. He'd done better than she possibly could have.

  "And that right there," she added, "is the crux of the problem."

  Nate didn’t seem to question the information his high-school aged son had just spouted. He only looked at Eleri, an expression of concern on his face. "So Marat solved this mapping problem, and he was killed for it?"

  "Almost," Eleri added, "because what Cage just said leads to the issue. The mapping problem is just part of what he wound up solving. So if we go back to Jivika Das, Jivika is a biological mimicry specialist. She looks at various things in nature and she determines how animals, plants, and other natural elements have achieved whatever adaptations they have." This one, Eleri felt more comfortable explaining.

  "Spiders spin webs to catch their prey. So we use fisherman's nets that look like spider webs. We build wings on our airplanes with the same shape we actively stole from soaring birds of prey." She continued with several other examples. "Basically, what Jivika does is answer questions for other scientists. Marat had been working on his problem for a little while when he called her up. It seems they had not really known each other very well prior to this project.” Eleri wondered if the families caught that piece of info. It solidified the connection between the murders even more.

  “Marat promised her a portion of the sales, which might be astronomical," Eleri added, hoping to drive home the need for protective custody for probably everyone in the room. "So she agreed to help him out. However, the other problem—the one that Cage just touched on—is the need for the drones to function fully autonomously, possibly well out of range of the central computer."

  "Oh," Cage said. "They need a drone to be the central drone to operate as the hive mind when it's away from the central unit."

  "Wait," Nate interrupted, raising his hand. "You're talking about something akin to losing radio control." Only Nate was looking at Cage, no longer at Eleri.

  "Exactly,” Cage answered his father, his face and actions still fully animated. “Whatever control systems we use—satellite, radio, you name it—there's a limit to that communication once we reach a certain distance. It's a different distance in each case," he added, but Nate was nodding.

  "The issue with the drones …" Cage continued—and Eleri realized that he knew far more about it than they had guessed—"…is that we need one drone to be the hive leader. And all the other drones have to follow that command."

  "Exactly," Eleri pointed out.

  "How is that a problem?" Marshawn asked. "How did Marat solve this? Because this doesn't sound like anything other than normal, everyday robotics. I mean, the man was tinkering in his garage." He looked around the table.

  Kaya and Nate seemed to almost offer a laugh. But as Eleri watched, she could see the moment their brains kicked in and reminded them of just how serious the situation at hand was.

  “But that's exactly the problem," Cage continued. Eleri listened, ready to jump in with questions if he had anything deviating from what they had read from Jivika and Marat's notebooks. "What if something happens to the hive master?"

  "Oh," Kaya caught on. Marshawn nodded, still waiting for more information.

  "You need a system of ‘abdication of the throne.’ If the hive master runs a self-diagnostic, and it doesn't come back clean, he
needs to abdicate his status. If he's shot out of the sky, a new hive master needs to come into place. And that needs to happen quickly and seamlessly, the new hive master now communicating with all the other drones as though it were naturally the leader. Also, the sheep drones have to accept the new leadership. You can't have interference, you can't hit nodal points, and you can't have drones vying for supremacy."

  "Exactly," Eleri said. "It appears—from Marat’s own records—that the AI interfaces he used worked fine, until the lead drone was knocked out. But he and Jivika found a solution.”

  She fully intended to leave the conversation at that. The solution was worth millions—possibly hundreds of millions—on the open market. It didn't matter that Eleri had decided to hold the information back.

  Cage, a grin across his face, continued talking. "She told him about the sinoatrial node."

  "Yes," Eleri said to him. "That was what you said to me a while ago.” She looked up at the parents. “I remembered Cage told me Marat had talked with him about the sinoatrial node of the heart. That’s what made us concerned that your children know enough to possibly be targets.”

  Kaya and Nate both nodded, the information sinking it. But Marshawn turned to his girls, as though to ask, “Did you know this?” Both girls shrugged, indicating they had not. Or maybe just that they hadn’t put it together yet. Eleri became concerned that the James family would be the harder sell on protective custody, so she pushed a little harder.

  "I don't think it’s necessary to talk about the specifics." This time she said it out loud, but it didn't matter. She was overshot by a number of voices covering hers.

  "The sinoatrial node? In the heart?" Emersyn asked, frowning.

  But it was Madisyn who was nodding her head, her expression clearly showing that she was putting all the pieces together. "It's a cellular pacemaker."

  "Right," Cage replied across the table, the conversation still sparking in him. Eleri wondered if this was what Marat had looked like, telling Johanna about his discovery. The videos had certainly showed his joy, even though Eleri and Donovan had not understood why, at first. Cage was lit up.

  "The sinoatrial node operates with a cluster of cells working in series. Each one has an inherent rhythmicity, firing at a regular rate, though each regular rate is a little bit different. The fastest one runs the pacemaker section of the heart. But if that cell dies or becomes incapacitated, the next fastest cell becomes the fastest. And it sends out a signal to all the other cells when it triggers. So the first cell—”

  "So," Kaya interrupted, her hand up toward her son. “Let me get this straight. The first drone that fires sends out a signal, and because all the other drones received a signal—rather than being the one sending it—they know that they're following the leader, and they're not the leader."

  "Right," Joule piped in. Emersyn nodded along from the other side of the table. The whole family getting into a biological discussion—one that Eleri would rather they were not having. The more they discussed this, the more they clarified the solution, the bigger targets they became. Their only hope was that no one had yet realized they’d figured it out.

  Would the killer try to take out all seven of them?

  Eleri didn’t know. She interrupted, but did it loudly this time.

  "This was the idea for which Marat Rychenkov was murdered." This time she managed to stop the conversation dead. “And now, you all know too much. And you may be the targets of the same killer." She spoke now to the table at large. “The question is: How many of you are going into custody?"

  54

  Eleri was pleased. It had taken less than forty-five minutes to decide exactly which people would be put into protective custody.

  The final answer had been all four children, and both Nate and Kaya Mazur. Marshawn had decided against it, though Eleri and Donovan had assured him there was a space for him and that he would remain with his children.

  He’d been torn by the decision. “I want to stay with my girls, but I have people coming into town for meetings. Things I can’t reschedule.”

  “Dad!” Emersyn had protested. “You have to come!”

  “If I don’t make these meetings, I don’t sell my … concrete formula.” He turned to Eleri and Donovan. “Sorry, new invention. Also a little bit ‘top secret.’” He added air quotes around the words and turned to his oldest daughter. “If I don’t show, I’ll lose everything we’ve invested. Besides, I didn’t know any of this.” He looked around the table. “So I don’t think I’m at risk.”

  Eleri only shrugged and said, “I don’t know. We can’t predict exactly who the next target might be.” Westerfield had signed orders for the children, but not the parents. She and Donovan could not force the issue further.

  She didn’t want to worry his daughters, but he had been sitting in this room. Eleri pointed that out softly. “Simply because of your being here, you may be more at risk.”

  If the killer knew about this meeting, or found a way to know that they had discussed Marat’s work, that might cause problems.

  Marshawn, however, seemed to have the old high-schooler immortality clause in his brain—the idea that nothing bad could really happen to him. He’d even said, “What would a killer want with me? I’m a chemist who made a mop. Besides, I’m really strong.”

  He seemed to believe no one would come after him, or that if they did, he could simply fight them off. Eleri had almost sighed right into his face. Yes, the first two murder victims had been older—not young men in their prime, like Marshawn. And Jivika Das? She'd been a small woman. Again, not like him.

  Eleri wanted to explain that the victims had been drugged, and that once Marshawn was drugged, he might be as helpless as anyone else. But she couldn’t give out that information, and Marshawn wasn't taking any of the rest of it.

  He’d waved her away with one of his patented smiles, as though the FBI agents were silly. She would have thought he was being sexist, but he gave Donovan the same “never gonna happen” shake of his head. She almost asked what sport he'd played in high school, wondering if this belief came from some kind of athletic prowess. Most people grew out of it, but some didn't. Clearly, Marshawn hadn’t.

  Eleri didn’t have the authority to cuff him and force him to go. She was afraid he was going to become another Jivika Das, but there was nothing more she could do, and she wasn’t willing to frighten his daughters any more than she already had.

  As the meeting wound down, they split up into teams, with the goal of getting all the necessary work done as quickly as possible. She and Donovan had brought two cars for exactly this purpose. So it was Eleri who took Marshawn and his two girls back to their home to pack.

  "Wouldn't it look odd," he asked, "that you would show up with us at our own home in a different car? What if someone sees that?"

  "I agree," Eleri replied softly, "and I think it's a good reason for you to reconsider and go into protective custody."

  But he only smiled. Wide, even, white teeth glowing, as though he could see what she was doing, and he wasn't having it. "So why couldn't we take my car?"

  The problem was: What if they put the kids into protective custody, and then didn't catch the killer? How long could they last before the money ran out and the kids were released and sent back to school? How scared would they be? Would this killer just wait them out? Or would Marat’s discovery burn out at some point in the meantime and become valueless?

  She had no idea. But she didn't want to scare the children any more than necessary. So she'd motioned toward Marshawn—who had taken the front seat, luckily—to drop the idea for now and wait. He seemed to catch on, and she was grateful.

  They pulled into the driveway in front of the home, but there was no garage at any of the Shire homes. The cars sat anachronistically along the roads, which were at least paved and not true-to-origin-story dirt and dust.

  As they headed inside, Eleri made a point of sweeping the house first. Pulling her gun from its holster, she a
imed it at the ground and kept two hands on it. She stepped cautiously through doors and swung wide, leading with the barrel of her gun.

  She'd asked if the family had pets, but they didn't. Though they had one of the larger homes in the shire, it still wasn’t large by current standards. Eleri found it interesting to try and do standard sweep moves through non-standard circular doors. They did not provide the kind of cover that she was used to. She had to step over the jamb or come through the middle. Still, in the end, it didn't matter. The house was empty.

  As the two girls headed to their rooms in the back and began to pack, Eleri looked out the windows at the falling night. Flowers grew directly under the glass, right up into the visual space. The place was warm and cozy, and she had to admit she could see the appeal.

  As much as LeDonRic had said he couldn't live in the shire with Maggie, she could see that Marshawn fit into his home. But only barely. When he stood to his full height, his head was closer to the ceiling that should probably be comfortable. Apparently, he had managed to find one of the few shire homes built to a slightly larger scale. He saw her scoping the place out and smiled. “The girls loved the idea. So this is where we came.”

  Eleri grinned, but as soon as the girls were out of sight, she turned to him and explained what she couldn’t before. "Donovan and I have been checking our cars. We're confident that they are not being tracked in any way. This is why we didn't want to drive yours."

  "I can’t leave it at the Mazur home,” he protested. “I do need something to drive. I have to seem normal.”

  "No, you won’t leave it there.” Eleri tried to be comforting. "We’ll have you keep driving it. But I’ll take you and the girls back. You can get your car, and Donovan will take everyone to the new location."