Meewee led the charge up the garden path, but a marshal held him back at the door and signaled her squad to go in first. Meewee was breathing hard from exertion and exuberance. When the officers had all passed inside, he boosted the heavy tank in his arms and followed them through the door.
Only to find himself standing in the clinic parking lot next to his own car.
The deputies were milling around, bewildered.
“This is our car?” said Dr. Rouselle behind him.
BLUE TEAM BEE, in its blind atop the ceiling beam, detected a sudden barrage of clinic comm concerning possible intruders. The whole southern half of the campus was being placed on Yellow. All staffers were instructed to strongly encourage guests to move indoors without causing alarm. For the bee, these events were of a tactical nature and easy to parse. Intruders could mean allies.
The bee sent the wasp to South Gate to investigate. Blue Team Wasp flew to South Gate and lurked near a plaza path until a convenient pedestrian went by. The wasp rode into the gatehouse under a hat brim.
AN ASSAULT PARTY of UD Marshals running around in circles on the greensmoat and parking lot was just the sort of funny business that Fred had been watching for. He called a taxi to pick him up on top of the container. It took him down to South Gate and dropped him off in front of the gatehouse. Behind the pressure gate, two jerry guards were on duty, and behind them Fred glimpsed enough of the gatehouse to guess its basic layout from hundreds of similar facilities he had done duty in. There would be two offset, floor-to-ceiling vehicle barricades that, together with pressure gates on both ends, segmented the gatehouse into three independent blastproof blocks. It was a summit-class gatehouse, and he was glad he had ditched the idea of trying to smuggle a weapon through.
Fred went to the far end of the pressure gate and said, “Hey,” to the jerry standing behind it.
“Hey, yourself,” the jerry replied and opened a sentry window.
Fred swiped the post with his false palm, thereby starting the clock on Myren Planc and al-Hafir’s fictitious existence.
“Myr Planc,” said the guard, “what can we do for you?”
Fred relaxed a bit, relieved that his disguise had passed its first test. He was Myr Planc, and this was a jerry. “What are you asking me for, Myr Klem?” Fred said, reading the man’s name tag. “Why not ask your Visitor Log?”
The jerry said, “I already did, Myr Planc, and you’re not in it.”
Fred made a show of scratching his chin, which was a jerry habit. Jerrys scratched their chins whenever things didn’t add up. The guard frowned and said, “Knock it off.”
“Well, it’s a problem,” Fred said. “My boss is already paranoid enough about deep-body mechanics as it is. So he sends me down here to glass your shop, and the first thing I discover is you lost my appointment?”
The jerry said, “I doubt it’s even possible for Concierge to lose an appointment, Myr Planc.”
“No, wait,” Fred said. “That’s not the first thing I discover. The first thing I discover is you have a squad of deputy marshals chasing themselves around in circles in your greensmoat.” Fred smirked at the jerry, and the jerry smirked back.
“You mean those training exercises?” the guard said. “Give me a minute, Planc, and I’ll try to straighten out your problem.” The window closed, and Fred let out his breath. He watched the deputies across the greensmoat returning to the parking lot. They piled into a GOV and sailed away. Whatever their action was, it was a complete washout.
While feigning a yawn, Fred covertly popped a spitball from the identikit into his mouth. Then he noticed movement on the ground near him. A homcom slug was crawling across the driveway. Fred had to remind himself that he was in Decatur, not Chicago. Decatur still had a canopy in its sky. And it still had slugs.
The skin mastic that Fred wore was coded to Myr Planc, but slugs generally tasted cells deeper than that. The slug made several search grid switchbacks, then stopped and changed course, heading straight for Fred. It seemed to have a lock on him.
Fred took a couple steps closer to the pressure barrier. The slug kept coming, so he pressed his back closer, generating a zone of air turbulence around him. The pressure heated his skin painfully, but the slug stopped advancing. It had lost track of him and resumed its default gridding. When it set off across the drive, Fred stepped away from the gate. Immediately, Marcus’s pulsing icon appeared in his visor. There was an urgent message from the BB of R, and Fred dared not ignore it. But he couldn’t use his newly deeper voice with the mentar, so he glotted instead.
Yes, Marcus?
Oh, it is you, Londenstane. I was unsure. I am getting confusing signals from your most recent skullcap.
It’s me, Marcus. What can I do for you?
We need to discuss a BB of R bylaw.
Now?
Yes.
The slug, which had almost crossed to the greensmoat, stopped suddenly and idled in place.
By all means, Marcus. I’ve had a long week, it’s my day off, and you want to talk shop. Be my guest.
Actually, Myr Londenstane, your time off is germane to the bylaw in question. Tell me, do you know the brotherhood’s policy on taking free-lance assignments?
Of course. We’re against it.
Correct.
The slug started creeping again. It made a looping U-turn and followed its own track back toward Fred.
Ordinarily, continued the mentar, I don’t intrude on member’s personal affairs, but given our recent discussions, I have the obligation to ask you, are you currently or recently engaged in free-lance security work for—
Fred stepped backward into the gate. The slug paused, but the mentar kept talking—for a Myr al-Hafir?
Fred inched even closer to the gate until his skin felt like it was on fire and Marcus’s transmission broke up. A narrow slot opened in the gate next to him, and he ducked into the gatehouse. The guard, Klem, was waiting for him. “Concierge has arranged a private tour, Myr Planc,” he said. “It’s sending someone down from North Gate. Go through and wait in In-Block.” He gestured to the pedestrian scanway.
Fred entered the scanway and surrendered the various prints, specimens, and samples it requested. When it was time to spit, he chomped on the spitball he had tucked in his cheek and broke it, releasing a sour wad of artificial saliva that was coded to Myr Planc and which he squirted into the collection bowl. Then he stood on the red X, his arms outstretched, facing the battery of emitters, and soaked up waves of radiation, ultrasound, and tomographic lasers. The TUG identikit seemed to be holding up under the scrutiny of the multipronged biometric inspection, and as he stood there, trying to keep the faith, trying to still his racing heart, it occurred to him that scanway technology and the countermeasures designed to defeat it, including blackmarket identikits, had been rendered obsolete by the HomCom’s new nitwork. The nitwork was a much more efficient and elegant system. Whole colonies of the little beggars took up permanent residence in burrows under the skin where they tapped the host body’s bloodstream and PNS. They sampled you continuously, knew who you were, where you were, what you ate for lunch, who you ate it with, how often you engaged in sex, drugs, basketball, or whatever, and with whom, and all in real time. And most people weren’t even aware of their presence. Until you have to purge them, like the russes in the null lock. The new nitwork was a boon to law enforcement that would make his job much easier. His former job, that is. At the moment he was standing in a scanner with his arms held out in the modern sign of the crucifixion. Good thing for him he was in Decatur with its obsolete slugs, and not in Chicago.