by Zoey Ivers
She sank down, grabbed the lower oblong. Couldn't budge it. Got her fingernails around it, forced them under and twisted. It released with reluctance.
"What are you doing?" One of the older students pushed through the crowd. Lupe Throckmorton. Great. Tori was right behind him, her makeup smeared and running. "Geeze, if you break the door, we're toast."
Thicker mist billowed through the door.
"I'm not breaking it, I'm unlocking it." She stuck the oval on the frame, and stood up.
"Yeah, right." Under cover of close proximity, Lupe smirked and pinched her butt.
She pulled the left side latch nub, grabbed Lupe and shoved him against the left side of the d-door. It opened and sucked him in. Alice spotted police, in riot gear, and shoved Tori, the councilman, some man staggering up from the lower level, ah, they were all coming up. Perfect. She sent them all through. The students joined the exodus. Mrs. Cummings tried to shoo her through, but... right, as long as she was doing this... She pushed Mrs. Cummings through and the d-door snapped closed. She checked that the room really was empty, and Jenni wasn't snogging Richard in a corner somewhere. Alice took a deep breath, then wished she hadn't. Scooped up her minicomp. Dropped it in her backpack and pulled out the two sheets of paper. George Washington and Albert Einstein. With a faint etching of circuitry in the background. I hope this works.
She grabbed the top latch and pulled the door down. Computer stuff on the far side. She stepped up on the door and jumped through.
***
Joe snatched his other backpack as he talked. "They closed the whole school for the rest of the day so the administrators could concentrate on finding out if the field trip kids are in danger. But Alice is one of them, and if she's being held hostage, well, no telling where she'll go. So at a minimum we have to tell Barton Street that something may happen in the City Hall area, possibly in the Federal Building, depending on how the d-doors work with offsite computers. And possibly earlier than we'd thought, or later, if this goes on through the night, and she can't get to a d-door right away."
Tommy climbed into his tube in the pack and Joe hoisted it up and staggered for the elevator. He'd spent the week loading up on everything they might need, including an empty backpack so Tommy could carry half, once he and everything else had changed sizes. Joe pulled out his phone and started a message to his dad. I'm leaving a message, because you're probably busy with the City Hall thing. I thought I'd better let you know I wasn't on the field trip. I'll be watching the news or out picking up gossip. TTYL. Joe.
Bad timing, Alice getting her phone taken away. I wonder what her dad does for a living?
***
Alice landed on a web of fat wires, a wildly chaotic braid of colors and light that led downward into darkness.
"Whee!" The two papers crumpled up and inflated into orange balls with recognizable faces.
George Washington started rolling down hill. "When in the course of human events... " the Declaration of Independence faded away into the distance.
"Capital E equals Capital M small c squared!" Einstein bounced, and missed the web. "Geronimo!"
"I must have scribbled something on the backside of that paper." Alice muttered. "I'm quite sure 'Geronimo' was not part of Einstein's regular vocabulary."
There were computer parts here and there, a meter tall or so, a few wires the size of garden hoses running out to join the web. They all angled downward, as if heading for someplace deep down there. She balanced carefully and started walking downhill. Not as steep as a staircase, but not as regular, either. Three meters wide or so, it didn't seem to be setting off her agoraphobia, not that she'd ever had any until that bridge...
"Everything is relative!" Einstein flew up past her, arced over... She reached out and grabbed him. It.
"Try to stay on the web." She tossed him underhanded, like a bowling ball and watched him bounce down and out of sight. And started walking again. How far apart are City Hall and the Federal Complex? And how does that translate into Dimension four distances?
Her feet slipped. She landed on her butt and started sliding. She grabbed an oversized wire and stopped herself... thought about it and let go.
"Geronimo!"
***
"I keep trying to talk to them, but they just probe and try to attack. But I have identified them, and none of them are the City Center, nor allied with the T-Rex." Barton Street looked over the edge at the fourth connection. "It appears to be made of ice, so I suspect the Stag built it. I am finding holes in my access to the Stag's files; I think I missed some passwords. I have set a hacking program on them, so I should, eventually, be able to access them. For now, I can only guess."
Joe nodded. "Well, We'll attach this rope, just in case, and see if a man can go where a stag leaps and bounds." There were protrusions from the side wall along one edge, leading to a narrow bridge. All solid ice, apparently. The lightweight, high strain, all weather climbing line was frozen to the ground above the first protrusion. Joe pulled on gloves, clipped the rope to his belt and wrapped it around his leg. He controlled his speed carefully as he slid. He hit the first protrusion, got a firm foot hold and jumped sideways and down for the next, and the next. With his feet finally on the actual bridge, he looked back up.
Barton Street had never rappelled, nor mountain climbed in his, its, life or whatever. But apparently it could program in knowledge, as it slid with fair expertise, down to the bridge, with Tommy right behind him.
Across the bridge, they entered a tunnel. Halfway up the walls changed from ice to steel. Heavy plates, riveted together. A metal hatch that led to steel walled canyons. The walls towered. They were spread out at easily triple the spacing of Barton Street's.
"I have a nasty feeling that T-Rex's domain is even larger than yours." Joe settled his pack, pulled out a notebook. "So, shall we start mapping?"
***
Alice managed to keep her sliding speed under control. Mostly. Fortunately the webbing leveled out just before they entered the side of a platform, so when she caught her feet on the raised edge, she spilled forward at a reasonable speed and staggered out... it was like a miniature computer world, meter high circuit boards, and on the far side the wires reemerged, all tidy and straight.
"This must be where the City Hall desktops all connect to the Federal Ten Peta." She broke off as something moved, beyond the tidy array of wires. Something big.
The T-Rex stepped out onto a platform, the wires hanging like a rope bridge between them.
"Bombs? George? Albert? Hello?"
"Bouncy, bouncy!" Einstein bounced over to her. "Dinosaurs are extinct."
"Yes. That's just a pretend dinosaur."
The pretend dinosaur stepped out onto the bridge. It sagged under the weight. The T-Rex took another step, careful on this flimsy shifting surface. Its golden eyed fixed on her, and lips wrinkled back from long pointy teeth.
"Bombs! Bounce across and explode right on top of the T-Rex."
The two bombs squealed in glee and bounced out, crossed the web and bounced around the avatar. And kept bouncing.
"Explode!" Alice yelled.
The T-Rex looked like it was grinning as it took another step.
"Blow up! Fast discharge your power cell!"
Alice backed up, looked for room to run, or better yet, a small place to hide.
George bounced up to her. "What am I supposed to do? I forgot."
"Blow up!" She shrieked.
A sudden flash of incandescent blue light.
"Over there... " She swallowed a bad word, then came close to laughing over her manners. Or was she close to crying? She blinked watering eyes. and looked around the bright spots for the dinosaur.
The T-Rex straightened suddenly, turning his head to look behind. With a defining roar, it threw itself back onto the steel platform and raced out of sight.
Some other emergency? Barton Street, perhaps?
A bit of white, to her right. She edged that way. A d-door. Fatigue, wal
led off until now, crashed down on her. She pried the ovals off with shaking hands and walked out.
Into a thin fog of tear gas and smoke. She spotted daylight and made for the doors. Not daylight. Spotlights. Yelling men with guns. She dropped her backpack and raised her hands.
I wonder if my father will let my groundings run concurrently?
***
After two hours of walking failed to locate a corner of the T-Rex's domain, they discussed other tactics.
"We might as well check on 'is response to people showing up." Tommy said. "That way we'll be able to figure out 'ow much time we 'ave to try to do something to 'is walls 'ere, and get away. These 'atches, instead of openings are going to slow us down badly. So we need a bit of info."
"Data on response times. Yes, that could be very valuable." Barton looked around. "We could have one of the bombs explode, if they ever come back."
"But not while we're in 'ere." Tommy stated. "We need to get back to the Stag's place, and then walk down to that jump off of T-Rex's. If we send a bomb just inside there to explode, 'e'll think we can't get across ourselves."
"Indeed." Barton looked interested. "I like your convoluted thinking process."
Joe cleared his throat. "And at that point, we'll have to hope my slick ice landing works."
Tommy grinned. "Adrenalin rushes are good for the 'eart."
After another two hours walking back, Joe could have used some adrenalin. One tired looking Gandhi ball was waiting by the hatch they'd emerged from. It opened properly, much to Joe's relief. Even though none of them had been locked so far...
Tommy tossed Ghandi up and over the edge. The bio-model climbed the rope first, and hauled first Barton and then Joe up to the ledge. They walked back to the red arrow under the ice.
"It looks like a ledge, and a passageway leading upward."
It took three tries, with instructions between, before Gandhi finally bounced along the T-Rex's path, and exploded.
Joe checked his watch, and settled down to wait.
"Your dimension five domain is roughly ten miles square. We must have marched eight miles over there, without finding a corner. So unless we landed near a corner and walked away from it, his sides are probably at least half again yours, which would make his area two and half times as large. Will his computing power be that much greater than yours?"
Barton Street nodded. "Easily. He has also assimilated all the other AIs he has killed. The Stag and three systems it had previously captured are the only AI level computers I have, other than my core self."
"Wow. So he has hundreds? I hope us vermin can make the difference."
Forty-five minutes later, the T-Rex charged out of nowhere, and leaped. Joe flinched back. The Tyrannosaurus' hind claws, scrambled for purchase on the ice. Like a huge ugly bird, the forelegs were of no help.
Joe kept going backwards. If those claws found purchase...
The avatar turned its head and pushed off. Joe hustled to the edge... The T-Rex had landed across its platform and was getting its hind feet back under itself. Would it try to jump again?
"Am I buh, buh, buh blue?"
"No, you're orange, just like the rest of us."
Two of the bombs bounced around the corner.
The T-Rex crouched for a leap.
Joe judged distances. "Barton, Tommy, I think you both need to be further away from the bombs when they go."
They both retreated.
"Elvis, Ben, C'mere. I want you two you to hop over there and blow up as close to the T-Rex as possible."
"Yipee." Elvis gave a big bounce and fell past the T-Rex. And out of sight.
"I calculate I can strike the beast!" Benjamin Franklin bounced, soared, bounced off the T-Rex's head and into the blackness beyond.
Joe choked as the T-Rex snarled and leaped. Scrambled. A claw caught.
"Hey, I forgot. What was I supposed to do?" Elvis bounced back.
Joe pointed. "Jump in his mouth and go bang!"
The T-Rex threw himself backwards, again. This time it landed on its feet. And stalked back into the gloom.
"What was I supposed to do?" Bounce, bounce.
"Elvis... I think we'll just go home, as soon as I re-ice this landing."
***
The police around her had a variety of gear and labels, from the plain old "Police," "Wisconsin State Patrol," "Sheriff," "FBI," and "DHS." Alice didn't think they'd missed anyone except perhaps a mall cop or two.
"The door closed when I grabbed for my minicomp, and then I looked around to make sure nobody had collapsed in a corner or something. I thought I was following the other students, but I couldn't see them, so I wandered around and tried to stay away from any noises, because I couldn't see if they were the good guys or the bad guys because of the smoke and tear gas, and then I found some doors and came out."
"You asked the Councilman about how automation was affecting the city? Are you sympathetic toward the Displaced Workers Liberation Front?" A City Cop had apparently won the jurisdictional fight, he was the main one asking questions.
"I think I asked about both privatization and automation and how they were affecting the city payroll. Umm, I'm not sympathetic toward the liberation front, they're just a pack of idiots resorting to violence because they don't want to go back to school to learn a new job. I sympathize with not wanting to retrain; some of them are pretty old to be back on the first rung of the ladder, but sheesh, they carry on like they're going to starve and then freeze in the dark."
"But you asked about them."
"No I didn't. I was curious about whether the private services were replacing city services with the same number of people. I expect there's even more job opportunities, because all these private companies have to have their own administrations, instead of just one city department."
"So, you are studying the subject?"
"I'm writing a school paper on it." Alice turned her head. "And I hear my father. Please, haul me away. Throw me in jail. Anything to save me this lecture!"
The head cop turned and stepped to intercept the approaching group.
Her father's dark head loomed above most of the others. "... right. My little girl? You have got to be kidding me." Yeah, he sounded pissed, and unfortunately there were some higher tones as well.
"... the school's responsibility. I cannot, I will not, leave until I'm sure Miss Brown is safe and unharmed." Yep. Mrs. Cummings.
"... odd circumstances... " Yeah, the head cop, still sure she was one of the Bad Guys.
"... odd like tear gassing hostages?" At least Father was on her side while she was under siege. Later might be a bit different. "It is a wonder you didn't kill them all."
Alice moaned. "Even my father ought to know better than to say that to a cop." One of the men who'd been interrogating her bit a lip in what she was sure was amusement. His SWAT gear labels all said FBI and Stephanopolis. He probably knew her father. Alice tried to sort out all the voices crisscrossing at high volume, as they came nearer, over the protests of the Head Cop. First her father hugged her, then he shook her.
Then Mrs. Cummings patted her, and shrilled at her father, "She's had a long terrible day. She needs some love, not a scolding."
"I need a shower, clean clothes and dinner." Alice's voice didn't stand a chance in the cacophony.
"... grounded until..." Deep tones.
"... be more sensitive to a ... " Shrill.
"Miss Brown, sign right here please."
"Not until I look it over." Deep and loud.
"I didn't have to sign anything." Shrill, puzzled.
"What do you mean 'remain available' Are you arresting my daughter!" Definite bellow.
"I'm only fourteen, can I sign a legal document?"
The policemen swapped looks. One stepped away, tapping at his phone.
Someone muttered about "... no fourteen year old ought to be able to argue like that."
Father was snapping pages as he turned them, a few crinkled. One ripped. Mrs.
Cummings kept shrilling.
Alice stuck her fingers in her ears.
A police woman from the juvenile division was added to the pack, quoting ordinances.
Alice listened to the bits about lawyers, juvenile hall, foster homes, probation, locked records... She put her fingers back into her ears.
Alice caught a glimpse of her father indignantly showing the policewoman his ID, and closed her eyes as well. Pity he isn't in SWAT gear. For once, the good suit is not impressing people.
Then her elbow was grabbed and her father towed her out of the crowd.
"Are those people still in there? Did they have other hostages?"
"No, the last have just surrendered. And yes. The other hostages... had problems with the tear gas... in the cubby they were locked in. Three of them died. No one can figure out how the terrorists lost track of where you guys were." He snorted. "Councilman Finn was completely disoriented, he thought you were all in a closet about three corridors away."
"It was pretty confusing, with the tear gas stinging, and we tried to run away right at the start, and then they shoved us around and into some other group before they locked us up."
Her father hugged her. "I'm sorry I took your phone away."
"It wouldn't have worked anyway. The system was swamped. I'm sorry I went back for the stupid minicomp."
"I'd have bought you a new one."
"No you wouldn't. You'd have made me save up my student credits."
"I'm not that bad!"
Alice shrugged off the pack and pulled out the comp. Dead. Fried by the EMP, no doubt. "What was that you were saying about buying me a new one?"
Chapter Thirteen
Its body probably totaled several tons of intricate electronics.
But without an avatar, it felt so oddly formless and unconnected.
Connections.
That must be why the T-Rex is so often found in Dimensions four and five. They are the easiest to make realistic avatar in. I do not even use maintenance bots any more. Perhaps I never needed them. Or perhaps I just had a poor understanding of what "real" is. I hoped to wall myself off and survive. I did not realize the strength, the resources, of the older AIs. They must have been fighting among themselves, and paid me no attention, when I was first activated. Pure chance that I survived long enough to learn how to protect myself.
