Red Tide

by Larry Niven

  “Yup,” Rob replied. “Standing there in that booth I realized that I had something they all desperately wanted, and as long as I could take it away from them, I had the real source of control. Gun in my face or no gun in my face.”

  “But Kevin was right,” Jerryberry said. “You did leave a major technical string hanging, on account of him having been able to pick his way into your system with apparently so little difficulty. Obviously the booth systems are secure. Now. Otherwise nobody would use them. Did you eventually invest in more R&D and get it figured out?

  “Hang on,” Rob said, holding a hand up. “The plot’s about to thicken.”

  ***

  Dr. Whyte slowly trudged up the narrow stairway that led from the basement to the upper floor. The man with the pistol—Mike—was at Rob’s back. Sparky clambered along at Rob’s heel, obediently going wherever Rob did. At the top of the stairs Rob opened the door and found himself in the run-down kitchen of a turn-of-the-century rambler. A grimy sink was filled with dirty dishes, and the adjacent dining and family rooms were empty, save for a few folding chairs and a folding card table that was similarly heaped with dirty dishes.

  “One of you needs to page room service,” Rob joked.

  “We don’t come here to vacation,” Mike said.

  Rob chanced a look out the back window, over the sink.

  There was desert for as far as he could see: beige sand, scrub brush, and in the distance, a couple of lonely Joshua trees.

  Not too far off, Rob noted to himself. That they were still somewhere in or at the edges of the Mojave told him what he needed to know about how much distance he’d actually crossed. Surely it had been the biggest shift yet taken. It also suggested that Kevin’s loophole technology might be proximity-based. Nobody could simply jack into the network from out-system unless they were very close to the system’s origin. Good. That might make it simpler to fix the security bug, assuming Rob ultimately found a way to get back to Lightspeed Labs.

  Kevin and the other one, Dave, came up behind Mike.

  “Nobody at JumpShift will trust any of you any further than you could be thrown,” Rob said. “Even if all you’re after is twenty thousand shares of free stock.”

  “Trust is not the question,” Kevin said. “It’s not personal. It’s business. You might discover how I cracked your network, or you might not. Dare you go live with your technology on the open market when I can sell my booth to a competitor? Especially if my booths can tap into your proprietary network? The way I see it, either you work with me, and live, or you don’t work with me, and … well, a lot of bad things can happen in the desert.”

  “Daniella isn’t liable to turn over the life insurance money,” Rob said, chuckling—despite the circumstances.

  Dave’s eyes swiveled to Kevin’s, who glanced at Rob, then glanced to the ceiling.

  A little creeping sensation went up Rob’s spine.

  “Wait a minute—”

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” Kevin said. “It’s a shame you let her languish in San Francisco while you’re out here practically all year long, slaving away. A lady can get … lonely. Under those circumstances.

  Shit.

  It suddenly made sense.

  And among their small circle of social friends, Daniella was the only one who’d known what her trip to Lightspeed Labs was all about. And on this particular day, too. Kevin had said he’d only turned his booth back on this morning. There was never a guarantee that Rob would be the one stepping through the booth and into Kevin’s erstwhile basement hideout. But on the chance that it would be Rob …

  Rob suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He’d trusted Daniella, as any good husband should. And she’d betrayed that trust. In more ways than one.

  But he wasn’t going to let his feelings show in front of his captors.

  Resisting the urge to vomit, Rob gritted his teeth and spoke.

  “The perfect alibi. Bravo. Estranged wife watches as husband chases pooch into scary gizmo. Poof. Dog and husband vanish. Nobody knows where. Industrial accident. The body stays in the desert, far away from where anyone might look. Widow and widow’s boyfriend collect the substantial check from the insurance company.”

  “And the boyfriend marries the widow, goes on to help the widow stabilize the company, perfect the technology, JumpShift still goes on the market, yadda, yadda, yadda. See, Rob, this whole thing has a happy ending for me no matter what. There is but one and only one way for there to be a happy ending for you.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Just then Sparky began to whine through his nose. Little whistling squeaks.

  “What now?” Mike said, irritated.

  “When a dog’s gotta pee,” Rob said.

  The three kidnappers looked at each other.

  “The damn mutt can’t piddle in here,” Kevin said. “This place stinks enough as it is. Take it outside.”

  When Dave reached down to grab Sparky’s collar, the dog snarled and snapped at Dave, who yanked his hand away and backed off a couple of steps. He looked at Kevin, who seemed to be deciding if he was going to let Mike shoot the dog of his lover.

  “Just take us both outside,” Rob said. “I need some fresh air, and time to think about this. Obviously you’re prepared to wait for an answer?”

  “Obviously,” Kevin said. “Mike? Will you do the honors?”

  Mike prodded Rob through the kitchen to the door that led out into the garage, which was almost dark. Flicking on the garage light, Mike then prodded Rob through the back door and out into the back yard. Which was really just a fenced-in area filled with tumbleweeds and sand.

  Rob led Sparky over by the fence proper, where Sparky began to sniff around the posts, occasionally lifting his leg and sending yellow streams into the dry dirt.

  Mike kept the pistol on Rob the whole time.

  Though he himself had not spent much time using guns of any sort, Rob got the sense that Mike wasn’t exactly comfortable with the weapon.

  Sparky finished up and began panting heavily, the desert still being hot despite the fact that the sun was starting to drift down to the western horizon.

  “Got a water bowl handy?” Rob asked.

  “No,” Mike said.

  “The dog needs agua.”

  “I don’t care,” Mike said sternly.

  Rob spied a spigot on the rear exterior of the house—which, now that Rob could get a better look, appeared to be the only home on a lonely one-lane road for many miles in any direction.

  “At least let me try my luck with that,” Rob said, pointing to the spigot. “You might not think the well water in these parts is good enough to do dishes with, but it will at least wet Sparky’s whistle.”

  Mike glared at Rob, then nodded.

  Rob walked quickly back to the garage and spied inside for a bowl or container of any description. He saw a stack of rusty hubcaps piled in a corner, retrieved one of them, then walked back outside—Mike’s pistol trained on Rob’s torso the whole time—and worked the round handle on the spigot.

  Gloppy, silt-mired water sputtered forth.

  Rob let it run for a few seconds until reasonably clean water began to spill onto the ground, at which point he filled up the hubcap, then bent over to set it on the ground in front of Sparky, who promptly and eagerly began to lap.

  Rob wiped an arm across his brow, feeling the dampness forming at his neck and in the pits of his arms.

  “I picked a hell of a place to work my wonders,” Rob said to no one in particular.

  “You should have picked Sacramento,” Mike said grudgingly. “Between the heat, and the time, and the expense, this whole deal has been a colossal pain in my ass.”

  “Didn’t want to spook anyone in the city,” Rob said honestly. “People get nervous when you play with prototype tech near population centers.”

  When Sparky had lapped the hubcap empty, Rob went back to the spigot for more.

  He filled the hubcap.

  “Aw
dammit,” Rob suddenly said.

  “What?” Mike asked.

  “C’mere, look,”

  Mike took two steps.

  Rob flung the hubcap full of water as hard as he could.

  Mike stumbled back and away, both hands raised to protect his face. The cloudy water sloshed across him, but by then Rob had pounced. He’d done a bit of wrestling in high school, and while his moves were rusty, his physique was not.

  The gun was out of Mike’s hand and Rob had Mike in a choke-hold within five seconds, the two men struggling against each other while Sparky began to bark and snarl, snapping teeth at Mike’s feet as Mike kicked them out desperately, fingers clawing at the muscular arm locked around his throat.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted from the garage door.

  Dave.

  Not wanting to find out if either Kevin or Dave had brought an additional gun, Rob threw Mike to the ground, scooped up Mike’s pistol, and bolted for the back gate, which he kicked open so hard the wood splintered and the gate hung by one hinge.

  Sparky bolted out ahead of Rob as Rob ran into the setting sun.

  ***

  Jerryberry wasn’t quite sure what to say. He’d been a newstaper for practically his entire adult life. He’d covered his share of crime and hijinks in that period. But never had he heard of anything quite so unique as what he was hearing now. It wasn’t just industrial espionage. It wasn’t just extortion. It wasn’t just a jilted spouse playing off the lover against the husband. It was a pot-boiled pastiche of all three things. To the point that Jerryberry sat back in his chair, his mouth screwed up in a skeptical pucker.

  “You think I’ve got my fingers crossed behind my back,” Rob said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Well, taken from my perspective—the steely-eyed, pointy end of journalism—a story like this is a little hard to swallow. Before I let any of this get into the exposé, I’d have to do some fact-checking first.”

  “You think I’m out-and-out lying?”

  “Not at all,” Jerryberry said, placing a calming hand on Rob’s shoulder, which despite being painfully bony, had gone tight with tension. “I just want to make sure that I can answer all the same questions that an astute viewer would begin to ask: where are Kevin, Mike, and Dave now? What about Daniella? What did you do with her after you—”

  “Shut up, and I’ll tell you the rest of it. One thing I never did like about newstapers: you guys always want to ask too many questions at the wrong time.”

  “Remember the mall riot?” Jerryberry said.

  “What about it?”

  “My asking too many questions at the wrong time on that one got the laws and the technology changed. We don’t have riots like that anymore. Nor the looting that went with them. JumpShift was able to spare itself a legal and PR backlash as a result.”

  “Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard,” Rob said. “You were in the dark until I decided to take pity on you, and help you out.”

  “We helped each other out, final analysis.”

  “Okay, I guess maybe we did.”

  “Which is why we’ve been friends ever since.”

  “Yeah, well, there is that. Listen, Barry, I’m being totally honest.”

  “Okay, so you’re being totally honest. How in the hell did you manage to make it out of the desert alive? Even if Kevin or his guys didn’t have another gun, where was there for you to go? Sounds like you were on the Nevada side, by my reckoning. Nothing but heat and parched earth for miles and miles.”

  “You’re right about that,” Rob said. “After I took off running, I got a better look at the countryside, and it was bleak. And unlike Sparky, I hadn’t gotten a bellyful of fluid. My tongue turned to cotton in my mouth. I had to find a dry creek bed and duck down in it to catch my breath. Maybe a mile from the house. And I could see they were out combing for me. I knew it wouldn’t be long until they caught up.”

  “Was there a car in the driveway? Something you circle back for, and use to make an escape?”

  “No,” Rob said. “Which, in a way, gave me an idea.”

  ***

  Dr. Whyte followed the dry creek bed, sometimes crouched almost onto all fours, until he hit the raised road. A two-meter-diameter corrugated pipe ran under the road, allowing rain water to pass through without washing away the road base during thunderstorms. He beckoned Sparky in, sat down—grateful for the shade—and tried to think. With no wheels and no way to flick back to Lightspeed Labs, he had precious few options.

  But then he’d seen no car in the garage, and unless his far-distance vision was playing tricks on him, no car in the driveway either. Nor any cars passing on the road during the time it had taken Rob to get to the culvert.

  Sparky panted at Rob’s feet.

  On impulse, he reached down and mussed the dog’s head, causing Sparky’s long ears to toss about clownishly.

  “Any thoughts, my friend?” Rob said.

  Sparky woofed in the negative.

  “Okay, but maybe I do. And it seriously bums me out, to be honest. We’re going to have to go back to that house, one way or another. Kevin’s got a second booth he’s not telling me about. It’s the only way he’s been able to get out here, though I have to wonder about his power source.”

  A line of elderly power poles ran up and down the side of the road: a lonely black-wrapped electrical wire spiraled around a steel cable, which hung from the poles’ crossbars.

  Heck of a utility bill, Rob thought.

  Or had Kevin rigged up a heck of a battery room?

  Rob pulled out the pistol and made sure the safety was on before he disengaged the little magazine and pulled the slide back, dropping the chambered round into his hand. 9 millimeter. Beretta. A policeman’s weapon. Army too, from what Rob remembered.

  He looked at the gun and sighed.

  Could Dr. Robin Whyte, physicist and would-be techno-tycoon, take another human life?

  He guessed he now had about a 50/50 chance of finding out.

  Using the opposite side of the road as cover, Rob slow-crouched his way back toward the house. Sparky trailed obediently and, thankfully, with very little noise. Every now and again Rob stopped to put his ear to the wind, listening for the crunch of shoes or boots up on the gravel shoulder.

  Nothing.

  Once he was satisfied that the house was within as easy reach as could be gotten, Rob laid down on the other side of the road—the raised slope concealing him, he hoped—and waited for dusk.

  He’d stand a much better chance getting across the road unseen if he did it in the dark.

  They waited. And waited. Sparky curled up at Rob’s side and closed his eyes, seemingly thankful for the shade. The sun sank lower, and lower, and finally slipped behind the horizon.

  Before long, Rob shivered. He’d forgotten that it got cold in the desert at night.

  Believing that it was now or never, Rob got back into a crouch and fast-walked across the road, up the empty driveway, and to the side of the brick-built garage. Sidling along with his back to the still-warm wall, Rob noticed a cement stairwell leading down to the basement floor below. He crept down the steps, his ears like radar dishes, waiting for the mildest peep that would indicate he was blown.

  Nothing.

  The handle on the door at the bottom wouldn’t budge.

  Locked. Naturally.

  Rob cursed his luck, when he noticed the grubby old mat at the bottom of the stairwell.

  Not that easy, Rob thought.

  He peeled the mat back and, by feel, discovered the key on the drain grate underneath.

  It fit into the door lock with a bit of effort—no graphite had been applied to the knob’s workings in a long time—then Rob twisted the knob very gently, very gently …

  CLICK!

  Rob froze. The door had popped open in an obnoxiously loud fashion.

  Inside, it was pitch black.

  Still no noise.


  Had Kevin and his helpers actually remained in the desert looking for their escaped prisoner? Rob silently prayed that they’d gotten lost when the sun went down. He’d need the time to figure out Kevin’s computer system, and either find a way to flick back to Kevin’s other receiver, or to the Lightspeed Labs. Assuming Rob’s fellows back at Lightspeed hadn’t torn the booth network apart—trying to discover the error that had erased their boss.

  But the Lightspeed crew knew the facts as well as Rob did. The booth technology was safe precisely because nobody got caught “in transport” only to have his or her molecules dispersed randomly. The giant neutrino either bounced to a target booth, or it reflected back. One, or the other. Somewhere, somehow, a man materialized. Every time. It was essential to the physics of the whole operation. Physics Rob had first come to understand while dawdling as a fourth-year student, just prior to picking a grad-school major.

  Hopefully someone at Lightspeed had left Booth One functional, at the very least.

  Rob crept through the dark space. He desperately wanted to find a light switch, but the bare cement walls were not encouraging. Occasionally he nosed into bare wood studding, stubbing a toe or bruising his knuckles.

  Suddenly he saw the light.

  Under a door.

  Rob eased up to it.

  Just as he reached his hand for the knob, a terrific commotion of BARK-BARK-BARK-BARK came from upstairs. Outside.

  Rob realized that Sparky had not followed him into the house.

  To hell with it!

  Rob grabbed the knob to the inner door and, when it wouldn’t yield, threw all his weight against it with his shoulder.

  The wooden door’s jamb burst, and the door flew open.

  Kevin’s booth sat empty.

  The computer ran, its monitor dancing with geometric shapes.

  Dear Lord, please don’t let the screensaver be password-

  protected!

  Rob waggled the mouse and was relieved to see the screen return to its normal self. A custom GUI interface showed numbers and graphs not too dissimilar from the kind Rob had been used to seeing back at Lightspeed Labs.

  Footfalls. Heavy ones. Rushing into the back of the house.

  BARK-BARK-BARK-BARK-BARK!