“Is this an interest of yours?” Uri asked.
Nathan looked up momentarily, then back to the contents of the case. “Very much so,” he said. “Although the closest I’ve come is building Micro-bots.”
“And very impressive ones, too,” Emily said, with pride in her voice. She briefly related the story of how they had used one of Nathan’s very realistic looking robotic bugs to entrap an employee of the Food and Drug Administration who was up to no good.
“Impressive,” Uri said, and meant it.
Emily glanced at Nathan. Was he blushing?
“Through this application, I’ll upload the girls’ photos to the bots,” Uri explained. “When we release them to Cevallos’s mansion, assuming Yvonne’s twins are there, they’ll seek out anyone not resembling the girls and sting them. They’ll be out for about three hours, giving us time to remove the kids.”
“How will we find out if that’s where Cevallos is keeping them?” Emily asked.
“I’ll arrange for a regular drone to be sent out from Nellis Air Force Base,” Uri said. “With its high-resolution camera it can search the estate from a distance. It will also be able to look in to all the windows with extreme precision. I doubt Cevallos will have them locked up in the basement, but if that’s the case, we’ll send the drone above the house and run a heat scan.”
“Want me to take care of that?” Gene offered.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Uri said, appreciatively. “Grab the address from the info we now have on Cevallos. Also, have the drone provide a live feed directly here. We’ll keep an eye on it. I want to see how many henchmen he has protecting his property.”
Gene went back to his desk and made a call.
“Won’t they get suspicious seeing a military drone flying around?” Emily asked, imagining something similar to that flying high over the Mojave.
“No,” Uri said. “There’s no indication that it’s military.” He got up and walked to a cabinet in the far corner of the room. “We have a similar one somewhere in here.” He started rummaging around in an open drawer. “I can never find the damn thing.”
“It must be a photo he’s looking for,” Emily said.
“I imagine so,” Nathan replied. “Unless there’s a massive enclosure behind that cabinet where they hide their unmanned aerial vehicles.”
“Bottom drawer,” Gene shouted over.
Emily and Nathan looked at each other puzzled. Obadiah, none the wiser, shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Ah!” Uri exclaimed. “There you are.” He walked back with something in the palm of his outstretched hand.
“You’re kidding,” Nathan said, amused.
Less than two inches in size, the four-propeller drone looked no more than a miniature toy one would give a child to keep it amused for five minutes.
“This is extremely high-tech,” Uri said, seriously.
They could believe it.
He placed it casually on the table next to the container of Nano-bots.
“I still can’t believe how tiny these bots are,” Emily said, her eyes back on the contents of the container.
“We have others that are very much smaller,” Uri said. “Grouped together, they resemble nothing more than extremely fine dust. They’re designed to work with a hive-mind approach; of no use on their own, but working collectively, very practical. We call them AI-bots.”
Artificial intelligence built into Nano-bots was another thing Nathan had told her about, some time back. She thought he was exaggerating.
“Like the individual cells that make up a human heart or lungs,” she said. “Purposeful only when grouped together for a specific function.”
“Exactly,” Uri said, nodding.
“And you also develop those AI-bots here?” Nathan asked.
“Three flights down in Level-5’s labs,” Uri said. “We take the security of their development a little more seriously than these larger more cumbersome bots in front of you.”
It had never really occurred to Nathan that beyond what they were doing, there must obviously be far more going on in the basements below. He pictured a high level of clandestine activity right under their feet.
“The bots you see here, on the other hand, all work independently,” Uri said. “Each has its own program with built-in facial recognition and instructions to land on a human target and inject a tiny amount of effective, but non-lethal, drug. It will then self-destruct.”
“Much like a bee after it has stung you,” Obadiah noted. “A one-way trip to oblivion.”
“It will, of course, require more than just one bot to knock out a human,” Uri explained. “Usually a few hundred do the trick. To Obadiah’s point, they work just like bees. Each knowing exactly what needs to be done, but only truly effective in larger swarms.”
Another of Obadiah’s rare but profound observations, Emily thought.
“Look,” she said suddenly, pointing at the TV.
The desert had just swallowed one of the diggers.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Miguel Gonzales was given clear instructions by Angelo Cevallos that once they find whatever was buried in the Mojave, they were to report back. They were not to touch anything.
Miguel watched the diggers doing their job. The sweepers had now moved out of their way into the limited shade offered by the truck. He was frustrated at the slow pace they were working but didn’t challenge them on it. He understood the conditions they were subjected to. Angelo had no problem treating them like slaves, but Miguel was far more humane.
Illegally brought in from Mexico, most of them were honest people, seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Miguel wondered just how many would have been better off staying where they were. He genuinely felt sorry for them, and a few were also his friends.
None of the migrants would dare go up against Angelo. A few that did were never heard from again. Miguel knew exactly how Angelo, or his personal thugs, disposed of them. It’s said that your first few kills are the difficult ones, but then, it becomes increasingly easier, to a point where human life is meaningless and insignificant.
He’d seen Angelo slaughter in much the same way others stomp on bugs. Killing for no reason other than the fact they existed and were annoying. Miguel doubted that Angelo’s first kill came with much difficulty, or the second, or the third.
Miguel looked at the pitiful crew digging away. First, Angelo took their meagre life’s savings, and then, he seized their lives. Miguel wondered if those executed weren’t the lucky ones. In the pit of his stomach, deep-seated hatred lay festering. He had too many haunted memories of the work he was doing here in Las Vegas. Maybe it was time he and Angelo parted ways.
Over the past year, Miguel had been sharing some very intimate moments with a beautiful young maid working in the mansion. He had even grown to love her, in his own way. With enough money saved, he would soon take her with him to his birthplace of Los Mochis on Mexico’s West Coast. He could work for his brother’s small but successful fishing business or join one of the smaller transport companies.
It was time he abandoned this unacceptable lifestyle for a more honest existence, and he had no doubts that Bonita would love Los Mochis. Yes, his treasured, Bonita. She really would love Los Mochis.
Miguel was woken from his daydreams by a sudden anguished cry. He rushed over to where the group of diggers were shouting all at once. Two of them clutched onto a set of frantically waving arms that were reaching out from the ground. It appeared as if one of the diggers had fallen into a pit of sorts and was getting covered in sand. As Miguel came nearer, laughter erupted as the shaken man was pulled free.
On closer inspection, Miguel concluded that they’d found the entrance to the cavern. He told the rest of the diggers to scoop away as much sand as possible.