“The precip tower’s down.”
“Damn.” It didn’t make sense. Strassenberg wasn’t a place anybody went. Yet. Except for the construction crew, the transport people, and a handful of sniffer pigs and handlers. “Anybody hurt?”
“Reports are still coming in,” Catlin said. “A perimeter alarm went off. ReseuneSec reports the alarm triggered was between the port and the barracks. Somebody attempted approach. They thought it was a platythere: they scrambled to deal with that. Then the tower came down.”
“No need to disturb the party, sera,” Florian said, “at this point. There is a general shutdown of perimeters, a search in progress, but it’s believed they got in by river, overland, not by using the port. ReseuneSec’s placed Reseune and Reseune Township on yellow alert; they have river patrols out, looking for the landing site. They re diverting flights to Moreyville.”
Strassenberg was several hundred klicks upriver, still in Reseune Administrative Territory. It was a long stretch of river to try to find anything human‑sized–even a small boat. Reseune itself, on yellow alert, sat isolated in the midst of a no‑fly zone, surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of unbreathable atmosphere and antagonistic flora and fauna. The Novaya Volga ran along its shore; it had an airport. Those were the two most likely approaches for trouble to take. Overland was too much work. But–
She saw, down the hall, Yanni and Frank, in process of leaving.
She went that way. Yanni delayed for her at the front door, by the waterfall.
“I heard.” she said. “Yanni, can I help?”
“I’ll handle it,” Yanni said. “Just carry on. We’re not going to make a big thing of it. Natural gas explosion. That’s what we’ll say.”
“It wasn’t, though.”
“Whole damn truckful of explosives by the look of it. You carry on, you and your young people. This is going to take some sorting out.”
“Go,” she said, and by this time cousin Patrick had shown up, tucking a napkin full of something into his coat pocket, one more piece of Admin on his way.
“Ari,” Patrick said, with a little bow, and then he followed Yanni and Frank out, alone–they didn’t wait for him.
“Searches are in progress,” Florian said, “there and here. We’re under a mild alert, nothing that should bother the guests.”
You didn’t get into Reseune by water that easily these days. The bots zapped anything small; they reported anything big. The big machines that channeled the wild part of the river–they didn’t let things in easily, either. Somebodyhad gotten to Strassenberg a short distance overland, she’d bet on it. There was legitimate shipping that got close enough to it. You landed, and there were no barriers on the river shore yet, nothing like Reseune.
“Why?” she asked, the big why, but she wasn’t surprised when Florian and Catlin both shrugged an I‑don’t‑know.
“We’re hoping to find out, sera.”
“Understood,” she said, and thought, damn. She knew she had a worried, unhappy expression on her face, and tried to amend it as she walked out into the living room, but maybe Yanni and Patrick hadn’t been too discreet in their departure: heads turned. Conversation, already at a low ebb, died.
“We’ve got a problem,” she said. “Tower blown upriver at the new construction, definitely hostile action, but that stays under this roof. We don’t know why or what. We’re under a mild security alert here: if you’re going anywhere else this evening, use the storm tunnels.”
“Damn,” Amy said, just, “Damn.” And conversation stayed dead for a moment.
“Well,” Ari folded her arms and looked at the rest of her guests. “So we’re stuck here. Anybody want to follow this on the System?”
“Is somebody possibly on the grounds?” Maddy asked.
“Unknown, sera,” Catlin said. “But this wing is secure. Also secure: Admin, Ed, Labs A, B, C, and D. Search of Residencies A and B proceeding. Search of grounds proceeding, cascading alert. All AG notified.”
“Slow,” Ari muttered. She’d had time to hold converse, and they were just now closing up AG? “They can move faster than that.”
Storm sirens blew. Finally. They advised anyone out to get under cover, into the storm tunnels. Lethals might be patrolling the grounds: the little weedzappers, which already had a camera function, turned suddenly nasty and helping defenses target any response. It wouldn’t be a time to be walking around out there.
“Well,” Maddy said with a nervous little laugh. “I’ll stay in the Wing tonight. Champagne, anyone?”
There were takers, most of the party, and staff moved about seeing to it.
“It’s just become a dinner party,” Ari said. “In case any of you had planned on elsewhere after this: we’ll be serving something, and serving late, Joyesse, go tell Wyndham so.”
“Yes, sera,” Joyesse said.
“Catlin, tell Wes put the security screens up.”
“Yes,” Catlin said. Florian was in the hall, checking something, probably conversing with Wes and Marco, maybe communicating with Rafael and company.
The fish tank went opaque, dark blue. Then the other wall came alive with images, some with sunset darkening to night, showing the downed tower from a perspective below the cliffs, some with numbers, and one showing the view from a bot scurrying at turf level across Reseune grounds.
“Ari.” Justin came up at her elbow. “My father. I’d like permission to leave.”
Above all else she didn’t want Justin running around in the dark with the whole complex under alert. No was the reflexive answer.
But she couldn’t hold on to him. Or she’d lose him. She understood that.
“I’m going to be a spacecase until you get back. You’ve got Mark and Gerry with you. Get your father on the phone. Be sure he’s all right before you go anywhere. Security may have moved. Mark and Gerry can pull rank.”
“I–” he started to protest, but the security comment quieted any objection.
“Thank you,” Grant said, and the two of them went for the door, while she advised Marco to have Mark and Gerry meet them somewhere before the security desk.
Amy drifted over to her side, champagne glass in hand. “Something up with Jordan?”
“Not in play,” she said to one of her oldest co‑conspirators. “Whatever’s going on, if it’s Paxers, or if it’s not, Jordan’s a piece worth pinning down. Justin’s just going to tell him we care.”
Amy nodded, took a slow sip of champagne. Quentin was over with Florian and Catlin, getting information, watching the screens, which weren’t apt to change much this far into the emergency. Just the little robot skittering along in the dark, gone to night‑vision.
From Novgorod to Moreyville, even in Big Blue and faroff Planys, that scene was playing. The world was on alert.
Wonder if they knew, Ari asked herself. Wonder if this is specially for me. Another housewarming gift.
That implied a certain knowledge of the inner workings of Reseune–where the fact of so many relocations into Alpha Wing had, in fact, created quite a stir, and quite a lot of gossip.
The storm sirens still blew. Not a physical storm in the offing–but a storm, all the same.
BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter vi
JULY 3, 2424
1934H
Two security were in the lower hall, black‑uniformed, rattling with full kit, including seldom‑worn helmets, and on an intercept. It didn’t make quiet company, but they were earnest types–Mark and Gerry, their names were. They hadn’t had time to introduce themselves formally–two lanky, tall azi, a lot alike: Mark, a serious fellow and Gerry a little less so: Justin actually recalled their files; but both were deadly serious at the moment.