“Fine,” Concierge said. “Stay. It’ll make it easier to collect you. Good-bye.”
“Wait for me,” Coburn said and rushed after the mentar through the door.
ON THE WAY from the Decatur station to the Roosevelt Clinic, the two children escorting the lifechair attracted the interest of more than one curious media bee. “I demand my privacy!” Kitty yelled at them, and the mechs quickly vacated her personal zone.
“Don’t,” Bogdan said. “We need witnesses.”
Kitty appraised the boy and didn’t reply.
“Belt Hubert,” Bogdan said to the chair, “when was the last time you tried to speak to Hubert?”
“Not since my connection was severed at 02:21 Tuesday.”
“Well, try now. Call the HomCom and demand to talk to him.”
“Done. They have no knowledge of him.”
“I see. Well, put this on your To-Do list. Call them every five minutes and demand to talk to him. Also, find some kind of lawyer domainware and incorporate it into yourself.”
Kitty said, “What are you doing?”
“Belt Hubert may not be much, but he’s something, and we need everything we got.”
A block away from the clinic, Bogdan stopped the chair and looked up at the half-dozen bees that were pacing them overhead. He motioned them to come down. One of them descended and opened a frame. A head identified its media affiliation and said, “Is this the Chicago Skytel Hacker Samson Harger Kodiak?”
“Yes, the one and only,” Bogdan said, “and we are his housemeets.”
“It looks like you’re heading for the Roosevelt Clinic. Are you, and if so, why?”
Kitty shoved her way in front of Bogdan and said in her best retrogirl manner, “Because they’re holding Ellen Starke there against her will. You heard me—Ellen Starke—and Samson is her father, and he’s going to rescue her.”
Immediately, the rest of the bees were on top of them, more heads peppering them with questions.
Bogdan had to yell to be heard, “And another thing, the HomCom has disappeared Samson’s mentar, Hubert. The same way they disappeared Samson last century and wouldn’t let him go till they seared him. Samson Paul Harger Kodiak is the last and first stinker. We demand his daughter and his mentar be released immediately!” Then he and Kitty climbed on the chair and sped down the last street. By the time they’d reached the iron arch, hundreds of more bees—media, witness, private, novella, and homcom—had joined them. The children and chair rolled through the arch and led the swarm down the red brick drive to the shimmering gate.
THE AMNIO SYRUP level in the tank fell below the crown of the skull. The thick syrup spewed from the open valve at the bottom of the tank, across the floor, and into the lower room, soaking rugs and furniture.
Hattie and the evangelines were standing next to open windows for air. Hattie drew a couple of deep breaths, then went to the hernandez tank and tried unsuccessfully to close the valve with her bare hands. She came away with pant legs and shoes saturated with the strong brew.
“I think this stuff is fully charged,” she said, kicking a spray of syrup as she returned to the window. “Even without a tank or controller, it ought to support brain tissue for an hour or so, I think. Our problem is that even if we had a medevac standing by, anywhere we took her we’d just have to face Concierge at another location.”
“What about a Longyear clinic?” Cyndee said.
“Fagan Health Group owns them,” Hattie replied.
“An emergency room?”
“Fagan Health Group.”
“What about a large animal veterinarian?” Renata said.
“Like one who does thoroughbred horses,” Alex added.
“Fagan’s got those too.”
“What about,” Mary said, “the Machete Death Grudge? I saw them in Millennium Park last night. They have severe trauma tanks.”
Hattie went to a shelf and upended a glass vase, adding its tulips and water to the mess on the floor. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she said and filled the vase with syrup from the open spigot.
Seeing this, the evangelines set to work collecting and filling vases, a teapot, a fruit bowl, waste bins—anything that might hold liquid. Mary filled her large tote bag too.
“Don’t let the syrup stay in contact with your skin for too long,” Hattie warned them as she climbed to the top of the tank, where she unscrewed the skull from its chrome halo.
“Too late,” Renata said. “My feet are soaked.”
Mary’s were too. The amnio concentrate felt ice cold but burned at the same time.
“And check the containers,” Hattie went on. “Amnio eats through most everything. Cyndee, fill the foil gloves.”
Indeed, the dresser drawers and waste bins were leaking, and even the glass vases were sweating syrup. But not Mary’s tote bag. “Think it’ll hold?” Hattie said, holding the glistening skull and its gauzy stump over it.
Mary said, “I think so. The lining folds out into an emergency hazmat suit.”
“It’ll hold then,” the nurse said and lowered the head into Mary’s tote. Then she looked around, wiping her arms on her uniform. The fruit bowl, the only other container large enough to hold the head, was sagging like warm wax, syrup spilling over its brim. Only the tote bag and foil gloves were still intact. The nurse held up a glove, which contained about two liters of syrup, and said, “We need more like this.” She unlocked the drawers of the supply carts for them to search. “Tie ’em off like this,” she said, demonstrating with her own. They found three more gloves and filled and tied them.
“FOG,” SAID THE belinda marshal in charge, “military grade.”
“Can’t you penetrate it?” Meewee said, handing off the portable tank to the medbeitor. “The clinic is obstructing justice!”
“Not anymore it’s not,” the belinda said. She made a mount-up signal to her deputies. “Your writ has just been rescinded in Superior Court.”
“You’re not going to let them get away with it, are you?” he yelled at the officer’s back. She boarded the GOV and didn’t even bother to reply. The doors shut, and off it flew—Wee Hunk’s Plan B.
Dr. Rouselle came over to Meewee and patted his shoulder. “It’s too bad that she died,” she said.
He brushed her hand away. “Save your condolences, Doctor.” He turned to the medbeitor and rotated the hernandez jr. tank in its outstretched arms until he could open the chamber door.
<Wee Hunk, are you in there?>
No reply.
Meewee reached in and removed the paste canister. It was very warm, and when he jiggled it, it sloshed. He closed the chamber door and tossed the canister of ruined paste into the backseat of the Starke sedan. “You, machine,” he said to the medbeitor, “follow me.” He led the medbeitor and portable tank across the parking zone to the brick drive, where he stopped to look at the clinic wall and pressure gate. There appeared to be two children and a lifechair waiting there. The greensmoat was aswarm with hundreds of bees charging about in every direction. More victims of the military fog.
Meewee turned to Dr. Rouselle, who had followed him. “I’m going in,” he said. “I’ll leave the tank at the gate if I have to and bring her head out in my arms. Before you decide to accompany me or not, you should keep in mind that the Wee Hunk who promised you a field hospital is kaput, and the new Wee Hunk will probably renege on the deal.”
He turned while she was still translating his words and started walking. <Arrow, is it true that you know kill codes?>
THE RETROKIDS AND chair made it to the gatehouse, but their cloud of witnesses got no closer than the greensmoat. A sentry window cleared in the gate, and a jerry guard looked out at the bees and then at them and said, “Swipe the post.”