Fred cleared his throat and said, “So, what do we do now, Inspector? Go after it?” He wasn’t too eager to tackle the waterworks crib in a GOV.
“No, we wait for the dredge to arrive. In the meantime, we’ve equipped one of the crib maintenance arbeitors with a probe. We’re releasing it now.”
Under the ribwork, a crablike mech was working its way around the manifold. It had a low-slung body and six wiry legs. It moved across the concrete apron with surprising agility by pulling itself against the suction along a grid of recessed D-ring grips. It traveled to the very edge of the apron, near a boulder where the waste heat seemed to originate, and reeled out a thin rod to probe the boulder. But when the probe made contact with the rock, there was an explosive flash, several of the arbeitor’s legs lost their grip, and the arbeitor’s body was whipped toward the intake. For a moment it hung from two legs, but these were torn away, and it bounced off the ribwork and disappeared down the gullet of the crib.
Reilly said, “Drink that, Chicago.”
Costa said, “Looks like this backup’s got teeth. I guess we might as well wait for the dredge. How you boys doing?”
Fred consulted Reilly with a glance and said, “We’re fine.”
“I see no need for you to be hanging upside down like that. We can watch through the cameras now; I doubt Cabinet is going anywhere. Why don’t you level the car out.”
Fred said, “What’s the ETA on the dredge?”
“Twenty minutes, and an hour for deployment.”
Fred consulted life support and power stores. Their trip out had consumed only a fraction of the GOV’s supply. Again he polled Reilly with a glance. Reilly yawned.
The life of a russ seemed to involve untold hours of keeping watch in uncomfortable positions. But russes had a high threshold for discomfort and an uncanny tolerance for boredom.
“We’re fine the way we are for now.”
And so they waited. The GOV’s glom monitor chimed every few minutes, unsettling Fred each time it did. He watched for each new red flag to turn amber and then blue. Before long, there was a louder chime. A red flag was blinking—there was a glom that the anti-nano grease could not reach. It was lodged in the door frame, one of the few seams in the GOV’s otherwise unibody construction. Fred and Reilly watched the blinking red flag for several long minutes. Eventually, the car said, “Protocol suggests surfacing and preparing for evacuation.”
Fred thought about it and said, “That might be wise.”
“Not to mention smart,” said Reilly.
Costa said, “What kind of bot is it?”
“Unknown,” Fred said, “until the grease can reach it.”
“Then why don’t you do as your car advises and come up.”
Fred nodded to Reilly, who righted the car and powered it to the surface. He released control of the GOV back to its subem pilot, which hovered the car a meter over the lake surface.
Almost at once, the glom flag stopped blinking and turned amber—the anti-nano grease had engaged the bot. The glom was a three-phase nanobot, a Nanotech Assault Engine, or NASTIE. Fred and Reilly stared at each other openmouthed.
Reilly said, “You don’t see many of those anymore,” and unbuckled himself from his seat. He went back to the passenger compartment.
Costa said, “You should evacuate immediately. Deploy the raft.”
Fred said, “Aye, aye, preparing to ditch.”
Reilly said, “Heads up,” and tossed Fred a pouch of VIS-37 from the refrigerator. The two russes made identical sour faces as they popped open their pouches, raised a silent toast, and forced down the vilest, most intrusive of all the emergency visolas. It turned Fred’s stomach. Reilly belched and went back to the passenger compartment.
Suddenly the NASTIE’s amber flag turned blue—bot killed, crisis averted. When Reilly returned with the rescue raft cassette and their kit bags, he looked at the glom display and said, “Well, hell.”
The two men watched the display for a while. Finally, Reilly said, “You still want to ditch or what?”
Fred said, “We could just eyeball that door frame real close.”
Reilly said, “I’ll do that,” and went aft again.
“Take your grease gun,” Fred called after him.
Reilly returned and got it from his kit bag.
Costa said, “What’s going on?”
Fred said, “Our NASTIE is dead. We’re going to stay aboard. Where’s your dredge?”
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”
“Anybody object?”
None of the monitoring mentars spoke up. Such decisions were usually left to the humans in the field.
Fred rotated the GOV to face the city, but they didn’t have enough altitude to make out either the shoreline or the picket of canopy generators from this distance. Suddenly something startled him. Someone was standing right in front of his windshield.
It was Cabinet, the old lady chief of staff who had earlier addressed the UD General Assembly. She looked directly at Fred and said, May I have a few private words with you?
Nicholas, the Applied People mentar, said, “Commander Londenstane, what was that?”
The old lady outside the GOV raised a thin finger to her lips. They cannot sense me. We are pointcasting directly to you. Please tell them everything is fine.
Instead, Fred said, “What was what?”
“Your heart rate just spiked.”
Fred hesitated. “Nothing,” he said at last. “I was just thinking about how little you pay me for this shit.”
BB of R Marcus said, “Do you require a privileged brotherhood conversation?”
“No, Marcus, thanks. I was thinking about a personal matter. Something at home. I’m not thinking about it anymore, so let’s all just drop it, okay?”
Excellent, said Cabinet. We have a brief message for you, so please lend us your generous russ attention.
Fred didn’t like this one bit, but he played along. At the same time, he couldn’t help wondering how Cabinet was able to communicate with him right under the noses of some of the most sophisticated mentars in the world. And to commandeer his HUD, for that matter, for surely there were no emitters in the middle of Lake Michigan. Fred didn’t lock his gaze on the apparition but swept his eyes across the horizon as though searching for the approaching dredge. He found the dredge too, a small dark bump on the horizon.
We will never forget the compassion you showed our family in our time of great need all those years ago. We realize that compassion is a famous russ trait, but in you it runs deeper than in most. In other fine ways as well, you seem a remarkably gifted man.
Fred thought, Yah, sure.
Our current situation is desperate, it went on, and we are compelled once again to seek your compassion. We have a special request to make of you.
Fred glanced at the woman on his windshield. Surely, it couldn’t expect him to assist in its escape.
Ellen Starke, our late sponsor’s daughter, was a baby when you were assigned to guard the Starke family. This morning she was critically injured in the attack that took the life of her mother. We fear that whoever assassinated Eleanor will not allow Ellen to survive. If we are taken into custody, even for a brief period of time, Ellen will surely die.
Fred experienced a sudden rush of anger at this dead aff’s mentar. How dare it try to manipulate him?
Nicholas broke in again, “Sorry to return to this, Commander, but your stress levels continue to rise. Yet, we see nothing in your immediate environment to cause it. Do you believe, perhaps, that the NASTIE that has invaded your car is still viable? If so, you should request the Command to send a car to pick you up.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Or a decon team,” Nicholas continued.