by Scott Cramer
As the hydrogen engines dropped to a whisper, she glimpsed Petrov's biodiversity garden inside the Citadel. The lush greenery, growing beneath a thin argon blanket, took up seventy percent of the space. In the corner of the garden, a rocket sat on a launch pad.
The jet dipped below the wall, and soon they made a smooth landing.
“Welcome to Boston. Local time is 8:17 a.m.”
When her harness unbuckled, Raissa stood and stretched her arms. Next, she would meet the Bulgarian hacker to secure the devourware.
* * *
At Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport, Ashminov counted twenty-two other passengers at the boarding gate. He prayed the seat next to him on the flight to Boston would be empty.
A sight-impaired woman, seated across from him in the departure lobby, was tilting her head toward him, which put him on edge. He had two Bibleware chips, a trans, his mindport, and two kilos of tryp. Can she sense the contraband? Will she report me?
He cranked his head left and right to check for security paladins, but, after a moment, he relaxed. The days of bomb-sniffing dogs, X-rays, full-body searches, and paladins patrolling airports were over. The nanochip had addressed the misguided compulsions of people who wanted to blow aircraft out of the sky.
Ashminov clenched his jaw with a sudden recollection. He had failed to inform Signora Villanova that he’d be away for a few days and she’d worry about him. In the abstract, her concern delighted him—somebody cared. Sending her a text, he knew, would be useless. The last time he’d gone to her place for lunch, he’d seen her messenger buried under cookbooks, unused and uncharged.
To replace his unpleasant feeling with a pleasant one, he accessed his messenger and sent his favorite Prince playlist to his cochlear speaker. The music rinsed away the final silt of self-recrimination as Prince grooved on “U Got the Look.”
A loudspeaker crackled to life. “Air Italia Flight 219 to Boston’s Logan International Airport will board now.”
Ashminov found his assigned seat. A flight attendant supervised a robotic trolley delivering meal tabs, but he waved off the trolley. When the belt tightened over his lap for takeoff, he sighed in relief. No one had taken the seat beside him.
Soon they were accelerating down the runway, and in less than three minutes, the hydrogen engines propelled them to a cruising altitude of 33 kilometers. Without a chip to blunt his irrational fear of heights, he avoided looking out the window.
Needing to pee, Ashminov lamented that despite the many advances made in air travel, one still needed to trudge to the rear of the plane to use the toilet. Then, a grand idea exploded in his mind. He grabbed the satchel with the tryp, stepped into the aisle, and sauntered to the bathroom.
He shut the door to party like it was 1999.
* * *
Deplaned, Raissa set her bags and viola case down in the main terminal of Boston’s Logan International Airport and checked the arrivals board. Flight 219 from Rome would land in fifteen minutes.
Looking forward to meeting her partner, she made her way to the gate with her gear. The flight touched down on time, and four minutes later, the first passenger emerged. More passengers trickled out, but no Ashminov. A woman with a laser cane hobbled past Raissa, after which the mouth of the tunnel remained empty. Five minutes elapsed, then ten. Raissa’s anxiety ratcheted higher with each passing second. Did he miss the flight?
Raissa pulled out her messenger and punched in the number of her Boston rebel contact to report Ashminov missing. It rang three times, then clicked, and in the background, she heard light breathing and a humming noise of indeterminate origin. She disengaged the connection. Contacting the rebel was risky.
She walked over to a service agent working behind the counter. “Excuse me. My uncle, Christian Ashminov, is supposed to be on Flight 219. Could you please see if he made it? Maybe he left a message for me.”
The short burst of a siren caught Raissa's attention. An ambulance cart with a blue flashing light skidded to a stop nearby, and two medics hopped out. Grabbing a stretcher and first aid bags, they disappeared down the tunnel.
“Yes, your uncle’s on the flight, but there’s been a problem,” the agent replied.
“Problem?”
“It seems he’s unconscious.”
Raissa rushed after the medics, pausing before she entered the plane to pull her joule from her waistband. Unobserved, she flicked its switch to stun. Then, tucking the weapon back into her waistband, she stepped inside. At the end of the plane, the medics attended to a gaunt, lifeless person on the floor. A flight attendant watched their efforts.
As Raissa approached them, she recognized the Bulgarian. The female medic was kneeling beside him, and her male colleague was preparing a trans to conduct a chip scan. What if they take him to the hospital? Raissa had to search his clothing and luggage here on the plane before they took him anywhere—no devourware, no mission.
The female medic popped a medicine cartridge into an injector and, positioning the tip under Ashminov's chin, discharged a micro stream of medication into his neck. His eyes sprang open, and he sat up. She must have injected him with the stimulant Burst.
Raissa kneeled before Ashminov. His pupils were big as saucers. “Uncle Christian! It's me, Raissa.”
He mumbled.
“What's wrong with him?” Raissa asked.
The flight attendant spoke up. “Your uncle apparently spent the entire flight in the toilet. When I opened the door, he tumbled to the floor.”
“We’ll know more in a moment,” the female medic said. Her colleague held up his trans, ready to take a reading off Ashminov.
Raissa's training kicked in. Without hesitating, she pulled the joule from her waistband and plugged both medics and the flight attendant. They all dropped to the floor and, after making sure each person had a pulse, she grabbed Ashminov by the arm and yanked him to his feet. “Do you know who I am?” He stared at her blankly. She shook him. “Ashminov, do you know me?” He didn't. “They'll revive soon. Do you have the devourware?”
His eyes widened. He understood. “I’ll get it,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
Shuffling toward the rear of the plane, he leaned against the meal trolley as if his legs might buckle and then continued unsteadily to the bathroom where he stepped inside and closed the door.
The male medic groaned, alerting Raissa that he was recovering. His arm twitched, and he clenched and relaxed his fist. “Hurry,” she called out in a low, urgent voice.
As she surveyed the medics' supplies, Raissa thought about lashing the male medic's wrists together with plastic tubing, but then she spotted the injector and had a better idea. The spent cartridge was Burst. She rifled through the medics’ bag until she found Fade cartridges, loaded one up, and injected the sedative into his neck. Immediately he closed his eyes, and his head lolled to the side. She glanced at the bathroom, wondering what was taking Ashminov so long. She raced down the aisle. The door was locked, and she knocked. “Ashminov? Are you okay?” She banged on the door using the butt of the joule, but there was no sound from inside.
The female medic was trying to form words, so, with a sigh, Raissa rushed back to address the problem. Kneeling beside the female medic and the flight attendant, she inserted a fresh cartridge of Fade into the injector.
The male medic suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist with surprising strength. He had only glassy slits for eyes, but it still felt like he was digging his fingers into her bones.
* * *
Ashminov was thankful that Raissa had stopped banging. He needed a moment more to gather himself. What had he been thinking? He had almost sabotaged the mission. Did he have a tryp problem? Moderation!
Looking for his satchel, Ashminov scanned the area around his feet in the cramped bathroom. When he found it, he bent over to pick it up, but a wave of dizziness hit him. He straightened, splashed water on his face, and ran a hand through his hair. After examining his dilated pupils, he donned his sunglasses. The
n, to retrieve the bag, he squatted and hooked the strap with his finger. With it sitting on the sink counter before him, he reached in and secured a pinch of the green crystals, which he sprinkled on his tongue. His insecurities faded at once.
Ashminov hitched up his pants, tucked in his shirt, and pulled his shoulders back. The individual staring back at him in the mirror glowed with confidence. Feeling as good as he looked, he threw the strap over his shoulder and reached for the door handle, but a fresh wave of doubts diverted his hand back to the tryp.
He heard a scuffle on the other side of the door as he deposited a generous pinch on his tongue.
* * *
Raissa called on every bit of her strength while telling herself to remain calm. Despite a dose of Fade and taking an electronic slug, the medic was trying to snap her arm in half. Keeping hold of the injector, she twisted her arm down against his thumb, rolling her forearm until he lost his grasp. He surprised her by grabbing her hair with his other hand and pulling her down until he had her in a headlock. Pushing his face away with her left hand, she freed herself, but he grabbed her again, this time closer to her elbow.
Raissa drove her shoulder into his chest, which knocked him backward, and, before he could recover, she lunged with the injector. She missed her desired target and the female medic yelped, collapsing in a stupor from the Fade. Raissa tossed the injector aside, ready to subdue her attacker by hand.
The male medic pounced and wrapped his hands around her throat to choke her. Raissa chopped the side of his head with the blade of her hand. Three more sharp chops loosened his grip, and then she sank her teeth into his shoulder. Shrieking, he let go of her neck.
The flight attendant was awake now and up on one elbow, trying to grab the two-way radio clipped on the female medic's belt. When Raissa glanced back, she froze. The male medic was pointing her joule at her face. “Hands up,” he slurred.
Raissa threw a roundhouse kick, completing the sweep of her foot as she heard the snap-buzz of an electron slug missing her head. The joule went flying from his hand. Staying on offense, she pinned him on his back, but he flipped her onto her side and then rolled her onto her back. He drove his knee into her ribs. Grunting, she kept her right hand at her side, waiting for the right angle to deliver an incapacitating blow.
Twisting her head, Raissa saw the joule on the floor a meter from her nose. Dread crept up her spine as she watched the male medic reaching for the gun while he shifted more weight onto the knee digging into her ribs. He curled his fingers around the weapon.
Ashminov appeared and stepped on the joule, pinning it to the floor. While the medic was distracted, Raissa balled her right fist and threw a punch toward his face. The blow glanced off his head, but it delivered enough force to rock him to the side. The second punch put him on his back.
She rolled in the other direction, got up onto her knees, and with the same speed and abandonment, used a left-right combo to the medic’s jaw to knock him unconscious. Turning to the flight attendant, who was still struggling in a panic with the other medic's radio, Raissa dispatched her too. Without pausing, she stood up and collected herself. Ashminov seemed much improved, standing tall with a satchel slung over his shoulder. In fact, she hardly recognized him. Raissa grabbed his hand, and they hurried down the aisle.
ANALYSIS: PHASE 03
As a throbbing headache threatened to bash Caleb’s thoughts into senseless fragments, he broke into a fast jog outside the Guido van Rossum Building. He might be late for his first appointment, but he had to reboot Jack’s chip, come what may. Afterward, Zoe would realize something about her husband had changed, starting with the fact he'd be friendlier to her brother.
Caleb could live with his sister’s incriminations if it meant he could keep Jack from killing again.
His messenger rang, and he gulped when he saw the caller’s name. Slowing to a fast walk, he took the call. “Zoe, what’s up?”
“It’s about Jack,” his sister said.
Caleb’s blood chilled into an icy slush. “What about him?”
“Why are you shouting?”
He veered toward a bench. “Zoe, what about Jack?”
“Is something wrong? You’re breathing hard.”
Caleb sat. “Zoe, has Jack been acting strange?”
“Caleb, I’m picking up negative vibes from you.”
His neck muscles, along with those in his upper back, pulled tighter. “Where is Jack now?”
“At work, I imagine.”
“Please stay away from Jack for the next thirty minutes.”
“Is this a joke?”
Caleb dropped his chin to his chest. It served no purpose to tell Zoe here and now that her husband had poisoned their child. Ensuring her safety was all that mattered to him. “Zoe, I’m busy. I have to go.”
“Are you too busy to go to a concert tonight?”
“Concert?”
“Brandford is conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They’re playing Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Jack knows how much you love classical music, so he bought tickets for you and me.”
Jack’s chip was more messed up than he had first thought. He couldn’t remember Jack ever doing anything nice for him.
“Tonight at eight,” Zoe said. “Can you make it?”
Not knowing what else to say, he replied with “Sure.”
“Meet me at Symphony Hall at 7:45.”
“See you then.” Caleb disconnected the call.
He sprinted to Torvalds, rode the elevator to the seventh floor, and hurried into his office. He closed the door, sat at his mindport, and opened Paladin Finder. After he entered Jack’s information, a map appeared on screen with a blinking dot showing Jack’s location. He was in a boat on the Charles River, midway between the Mass. Ave. Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge.
Caleb downloaded the latest paladin chipset and called up the developer notes which highlighted the recent changes made to the code, including bug fixes and new features. Reviewing them before a reboot was a good practice. Dr. Petrov had approved all the updates; in fact, Dr. Petrov had authored many of them. If they were good enough for Dr. Petrov, they were good enough for him, and he skipped the review.
Next, Caleb launched a transmission blimp app on his messenger, which loaded another map of Boston on the screen. He tapped Jack's location, and the app identified a transmission blimp hovering a kilometer away. He issued the intercept command, and the app reported the blimp’s arrival time was forty-five seconds.
The closure rate to the target appeared onscreen. Fifty meters…forty…thirty…
He pictured the unfolding scene. Jack, taking water samples or whatever, might never notice the approaching blimp. Or he might think the shadow was a passing cloud.
Twenty meters…fifteen…
Jack wouldn’t feel a thing. Murderer one minute, upstanding environmental paladin, loving husband, and cordial brother-in-law the next.
Ten meters…five meters…
A yellow light blinked on the screen, signaling the blimp had arrived in an optimal position for transmission. Suffused with dread, Caleb reached out and executed the final command.
A green light replaced the yellow; the transmission was successful. Although Jack was now cured of whatever technical hiccup had compelled him to commit an unspeakable act, Caleb wondered how he could ever look his brother-in-law in the eye again.
ANALYSIS: PHASE 04
Impressed that Raissa had incapacitated three civilians with ease, Ashminov stared at her with awe as she hailed a taxi outside the airport terminal building. “Why did you bring a musical instrument?” he asked.
A taxi pulled up. “Please get in,” she said.
They climbed in the back, and she craned her neck. “Taxi, 25.5 Commonwealth Avenue.” Then she faced him. “Our safe house is on Beacon Street. Paladins will look for us.”
Her green eyes interrupted his ability to think for a moment. “Nobody will come after us,” he finally assured her.
“We assaulted two medics and a flight attendant. I discharged a joule. They know your identity. A hundred cameras captured our path from the plane to here.”
He paused, pretending to weigh her argument before he countered. “Security paladins will interview the victims. They’ll write a report and submit it to a team of NanoArtisans business analysts who will try to find out who we are and what went wrong with our chips. By the time they figure out our identities, humankind will be free.”
“Let’s hope.”
Ashminov made a mental note to burn a devourware chip for Raissa when they reached their destination. He settled back and looked out the window. The diverse architecture, a blend of the modern and old, reminded him of Rome. The local citizens dressed less stylishly than Italians, but they wore the same placid expressions. New environments unsettled him, and he set the bag of tryp on his lap.
“What’s that?” Raissa asked.
He took a pinch, and his spine stiffened at once. “Tryp. Care for some?”
From the way she scrunched her brow, she was apparently too young to know about it. She shook her head. “Is it what made you sick on the plane?”
“The trick is moderation.”
“You don’t seem to be very good at that.”
He chuckled. That was true, but the way she eyed the bag on his lap troubled him. Does she want me to refrain? He would prove to her that he could.
Suddenly, Raissa bolted forward. Ashminov jerked back in his seat, afraid she would snatch his supply, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. She pointed to an enlightenment wall mounted on a tall building. “What is that?”
Prince was performing in front of an audience. “That’s Prince,” he said in a shaky voice. “He was the greatest American pop star. That’s the Capri Theater, Minneapolis, January 5, 1979.”
“I never saw anything like that in Jerusalem.”
