As the nust density within the canopy increased, the city skyline emerged from a silvery miasma, and usher lines snapped from Flinn Gate to two distinct parts of town.
That one leads to the clinic, Wee Hunk said, swimming toward the other, which led to a neighborhood on the west side. The taggant trail ended at a single sparkle in a two-story residence. The nust resolution wasn’t heavy enough to render the house as more than a blur.
Wee Hunk said, My resources identify it as belonging to the Sitrun Foundation. Ever hear of it?
No, what is it?
I’m researching.
Meewee paddled down into the house. The nust density was even lighter indoors, and the rooms were barely discernible. Nothing moved. Maybe one of the surgeons from the clinic lives here, he said, and brought home a stray fleck of helmet resin on her sleeve.
Possible, but so far I’ve found no connection to any clinic personnel.
What do we do now? Send in the Command?
Wee Hunk snorted. You’ve got to be kidding.
Then let’s hire some russes.
I don’t trust ’em.
You don’t trust russes?
As they watched, the canopy pumped out the nust, and Decatur disappeared again. The house and its neighborhood dissolved. Meewee and Wee Hunk returned to the living room where the apeman began to pace in a circle.
Russes I trust, he said, swinging a step on his knuckles, but not their employer.
Zoranna? She’s the only one of that crowd that I do trust.
Which only goes to show how ill-informed you are, Bishop.
Wee Hunk’s rented witness bees were arriving in the west end neighborhood in force, and he opened a new diorama in the room to render the pictures they began to send. Soon the house appeared in full color and rich detail. It sat inconspicuously on a quiet residential street. The house itself was a Tudor style brick structure with neatly trimmed hedges and colorful flower beds. But the bees were only able to project them an exterior view.
Somebody’s got to go there, Meewee said. I guess that’ll have to be me.
You? Wee Hunk snorted again. And do what? Knock on the door and ask if Ellen Starke can come out to play?
Then what do you suggest? Meewee snapped. You don’t trust the authorities. You don’t trust russes. You don’t trust Zoranna. Who do you trust?
Wee Hunk shook his shaggy head. Excuse my metaphor, Merrill, but you’re talking through your ass. You are so far out of the loop you’re in a separate reality. Allow me to catch you up on recent events since apparently either Arrow doesn’t know how to keep you informed or you never asked it to. In brief then: an hour ago, Saul Jaspersen’s compound in Alaska was attacked by a missile and completely destroyed. As luck would have it, Myr Jaspersen, himself, was inside his mountain redoubt and escaped harm.
Meanwhile, Andie Tiekel in her Oakland hillside home was not so lucky. A laser pulse, probably from a suborbital drone, pierced the top of her skull. Her hair and makeup were hardly mussed, but inside her skull, the yolk was poached, so to speak.
This is my Ellen’s life we’re dealing with, Merrill, not your position on the GEP board, not the launch schedule of your Oships. I don’t have Cabinet’s resources. I don’t have the luxury of error. But I’m not completely helpless.
Meewee said, So, who are you sending?
The caveman grinned. Why, the same folks who are going to move your stuff out of here tomorrow.
At first Meewee didn’t follow, and then it made no sense. You’re sending a moving company?
2.24
A tired commuter, a big man trapped in a little man’s body, arrived at Home Run station in Decatur by bead car. When the car came to a stop and the hatch popped open, the man stood up and stepped across the gap to the platform. On his way to the lobby, he switched on his jumpsuit, which began to twinkle in bright neon colors and flash to the rhythm of his footsteps. He threw back his shoulders and marched to the out stiles, smiling and greeting everyone he passed. His jumpsuit cast a wide circle of merry light about him. By the time he left the station in West Decatur, he was once again the popular guy he always knew himself to be.
To the Orange Team bee, however, the commuter was nothing more than a convenient hankie. The bee and one of its wasps crawled out from underneath his wide lapels and took to the air unnoticed. The team’s second wasp was riding a separate hankie from Bloomington and was a few minutes behind.
As the Orange bee and its wasp rose above the rooftops and flew to 2131 Line Drive, the bee finished coordinating with the teams already at the scene and the Legitimate Order Giver 2 who had recently made verified contact and taken command of the mechs. LOG2 had given them a new mission—to locate and tag the prize—and it designated Orange Team Bee as Fleet Leader. The fleet was composed of the remnants of Teams Green (one bee and wasp), Yellow (one bee and wasp), and Red (one beetle), in addition to Orange Bee and its own two wasps.
The target building was shielded and impenetrable to the limited scanning assets at the fleet’s immediate disposal. Orange Bee fed what they knew to its onboard scenario mill, as well as relaying it to LOG2. The fleet hadn’t been the first on the scene. Dozens of witness bees hiding in the foliage surrounding the house at 2131 had set up a covert grid. But the neighboring houses had sensed their network and assumed a defensive posture: informing their residents, summoning the neighborhood watch, and alerting the rest of the houses in the neighborhood. The area’s heightened alert status attracted media and homcom bees. Any chance of the fleet launching a sneak attack was ruined, another fact to feed LOG2 and the scenario mill.
The mechs of Orange Bee’s fleet were in various states of disrepair, having already completed their primary objectives earlier in the day. None of the wasps had a full charge of weapons plasma, and Red Beetle had nothing but a pinch of fish food flakes left in its carapace. More grist for the scenario mill.
WHEN THE SECOND Orange wasp caught up and was integrated into the fleet, LOG2 ordered the attack. Orange Bee, choosing from among the mill’s best results, pointcast its most promising plan to its multihued armada. The mechs made a stealthy ground approach from different directions, taking advantage of local cover. When they reached the house, they explored its foundation for cracks or gaps. Red Beetle found one, and Green Wasp widened it to fashion an entry point. It was located at the seam between the clinker sill and brick foundation. It was ideal, and the mechs crawled through into the basement of the house. Orange Bee was last in line. It entered only partway and took a position with a clear line of sight to the street.
The interior walls and floors of the house were made of construction foam slab. Though the material was thin and light, it was soundproof and opaque to EM transmission. Therefore, to keep their comm open, the mechs linked up into a pointcasting beevine, with seven joints and Orange Bee as anchor. They extended up the basement stairs and probed the main floor. With the number of corners they had to negotiate, the vine could not reach every room, and twice they incorporated household mirrors to extend their range. As they crawled along ceilings and walls to map and survey, they passed their readings back to Orange Bee, which scattercast it to LOG2 while also milling it itself. There were no humans detectable in the house, no fauna whatsoever, for that matter. None of the house’s detectable machines seemed smarter than a houseputer.