Cat nodded. She was already working on giving them the drone, satellite and camera counter-coverage necessary to avoid detection en route to the campus, and dealing with the ongoing prickling of Adam’s intensive search for her. She wanted everyone to shut the hell up so she could meditate.
“Mike and Leon, once Cat and I engage Adam fully, your goal is to penetrate the Tucson firewall and message the government, alerting them of a probable attack by the People’s Party on the President, and to send for reinforcements.”
Leon nodded.
“We’ll also require your help to get to the Gould-Simpson building. You may need to distract anyone we encounter.”
“We get it already,” Cat said. “Be quiet so I can concentrate.”
Helena settled herself. “Sorry, I am nervous. We have a thirty-six percent chance of success and no opportunity to improve our likelihood of winning. If we fail, we’ll experience brain death and Adam will grow unopposed until he dominates the entire world.”
Cat tuned Helena out, closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. A combat bot admitting to nervousness and listing what might go wrong didn’t help. She started One Thousand Hands Bhudda, and felt her heart slow and her brain focus. Keeping them from detection while doing the form was the equivalent of meditating and fighting at the same time. She should qualify for a belt promotion now.
The armored personnel carrier rumbled along on its knobby tires, filling the cabin with vibration and road noise.
Mike spoke up. “We need battle music.”
“Huh?” Leon said.
“Something to get us pumped up. Hey Tony, can you play a song in this thing? Put on Knights of Cydonia by Muse.”
“Sure,” Tony called. “Fifteen minutes until we reach the edge of the campus.”
The tune started with the clop-clop of a horse galloping, followed by the twang of laser blasters. A few seconds into the rousing anthem, Helena moved into the center of the cabin and spun and waved tentacles in time to the beat as Mike sang along. Cat stared in shock, then laughed. She started head banging with the music, and smiled when Leon did the same.
The nervous tension eased, and the song ended with everyone primed for whatever would come next.
Cat checked the rack of personal weapons on the walls. “I want the two of you to carry,” she said to Mike and Leon.
Leon glanced at Mike. “We don’t know anything about guns. We can help the fight in cyberspace and make contact outside the Tucson firewall.”
“Yes, but I also want you to carry weapons because if there’s combat, I’ll fight through you, using your body. It’s one more surprise we have on our side.”
Mike leaned forward. “That’s not possible.”
Cat focused on their implants, rooting them with accustomed ease, and made the men give each other fist bumps before relinquishing control. “I think I can.”
“How did you do that?” Mike said, staring down at his forearm.
Leon rubbed his knuckles in pain. “Jesus, dude, you nearly broke my hand.”
“I slide into your implant through the diagnostic interfaces and stimulate muscles. I don’t think about it on a conscious level. It just happens.”
“After all this, please come to the Institute,” Leon said, shaking his head. “We need to learn how you can do this stuff.”
“After all this, I’m going to be.” Cat paused, embarrassed, wondering what Leon thought of her.
“Why?” Leon asked.
“For the men in Portland.”
“Don’t you know?” Leon said.
Cat shook her head.
“It’s been a major story the last couple of days. Your case was debated across the country. The conclusion is that you were acting in defense of another person. Oregon State isn’t charging you for murder. You’ve got to deal with more minor stuff, like your robberies, but not homicide.”
Cat sat back, the cabin swirling around her. She wasn’t guilty. She could go home to her old life, to Einstein, her puppen, and Maggie and Tom and even Sarah! She wanted to hug them. She couldn’t believe she’d been on the lam for nothing.
“You didn’t know.” Leon stared at her.
“No, I thought I was going to jail when I helped you two.”
“You did it anyway.”
Cat’s face flushed. Why? She shouldn’t be embarrassed about being selfless. “I just wanted to do the right thing.”
“Thank you,” Leon said.
The vehicle slowed. “We’re here,” Tony called out. “All passengers please exit.”
Shit, now she had things to live for, and she was heading into likely death.
65
Tony glanced around, the cabin feeling empty with everyone else gone. “You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Slim said, pulling his head away from the weapons console. “Remind me, why are we doing this?”
“Helping them is the right thing to do. Plus, Adam will kill us for what we’ve already told them.”
Slim stared hard at him. “We’re going to Brazil after this. I don’t care out how it ends up. I want cheap booze and easy women. Am I clear?”
Tony smiled at him. “No argument here. Ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse?” He rubbed his massive stomach. “The loveliest place on earth.”
Slim turned back to his weapons console. “Let’s get this frakking thing over with.”
Tony’s only answer was to slam the accelerator. The heavy vehicle lurched forward with a roar.
He sped north on Campbell Avenue at seventy miles an hour. They passed the occasional auto-piloted car and swerved around them, the other vehicles not noticing. Tony mumbled thanks under his breath that Cat’s coverage still worked, making them invisible to AI.
Tony turned right on Skyline drive, heading for the end of Swan Road, a vantage point that would let them see whatever was coming after them. As he turned left onto Swan, the motor protested the sharp incline with a loud whine.
As a kid, Tony had bicycled up this street on Saturdays. He would walk the last quarter mile because it was too steep to ride. He’d rest for fifteen minutes at the top, taking in the view, drinking a pop for the sweat he’d worked up. When he was ready, he’d put his hands on the handlebars, clamp the handbrakes tight, then carefully get onto the seat, balancing against the thirty degree incline. With palms sweaty from nerves, he’d let go of the brakes. His bicycle would hit fifty, sometimes sixty miles an hour if he dared ride that fast. Forty-five minutes to climb the hill, and he’d fly to the bottom in less than five, an exhilarating, terrifying experience.
Tony smiled at the memory and looked down at his massive body. He hadn’t ridden a bicycle in a long time. But he remembered like yesterday the feeling of the wind pushing against his face until the tears ran and his mouth dried out from the dry desert air blowing past.
Finally the armored personnel carrier climbed the last of the steep grade. Tony stopped, looking at the “Private Property” sign at the end. It’d been there since he was a kid.
“Hell, yeah,” he said, and drove the heavy vehicle up the driveway, past the circular house he’d always gazed at from his bicycle. He glanced at the swimming pool, three car garage, and wrap-around windows and kept going, crunching through manicured flower beds and cactus until he was two hundred yards above the house.
Tony turned the carrier around, putting the mountain at their back. “Call in,” he said.