Kaleidocide (31 page)

In this case I could not only see her in the kitchen, but from the cameras up on the high walls I could also see three figures in the adjoining living room. They were Min, the Chinese tech who had just arrived, and a tall A.I. tool chest that followed the tech into the room on its own power. The white robot looked something like a refrigerator with controls and displays added to its surface, and treaded legs protruding slightly from its bottom.

“I've never seen any of your maintenance, Min,” I said, genuinely interested. And I became more so when I realized that I had never taken the time to find out all of the giant's capabilities. So I said to the tech, who was fiddling with the refrigerator thing, “Could we have a tour of his augmentations?”

Min and the tech said something to each other in Chinese, and I remembered that the Cyber Hole employees didn't speak English.

“Here,” I said, “let me turn on the room's translation grid.” I did, and then spoke to the tech again: “Can you understand me now?”

“
Shi,
” he said, and right after the room said “Yes.”

“Do you want me to say to you the augmentations of this man?” The room translated this with an impressive speed also, and it was surprisingly good translation. But then the man added, “Good apples.” These programs were always a mixed bag, because of the complexities and colloquialisms of all languages. But I got the idea, from the “eager to please” expression on his face.

“Lynn,” I said, “I think you'll find this interesting.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” she said distractedly, continuing whatever she was doing. “I'll be listening from over here.”

The front panels of the tool chest swung open, like arms awaiting Min, who stepped into it. As he did, the whole machine sunk lower, hiding at least half of the apparatus that had been showing at the bottom, and making me glad for Lynn's sake that our wooden floors were built and treated so well. Between the outstretched “arms” of the “medical closet,” as it was called, appeared a digitized display. From directly in front of the closet, where the smaller Chinese man stood, the display was overlaying Min's body and showing the tech everything he needed to see inside of it.

“I can see already what we must do,” the tech said. “The shield repelled all the bullets. The clothing is not even holes, and not the skin damaged. But the force of blows on the shield pushed right shoulder back, out of line, and right hip. And plate of chest also must be moved forward tiny piece.”
A little bit?
Seemed like it, but I wondered if the Chinese really used that expression. I also realized that the area around Min's right side must have been where the sniper repeatedly fired, which meant that the double and my wife had been just behind him at that spot, and well protected by him. It made me grateful again for the loyalty and help of the big bodyguard.

“My tool box can change to operating table,” the tech continued. “But I do not understand if you want me to work on him here. He will be, ah.… without clothing, and with blood.”

“You can use the medlab below,” I said. “But first tell us about his equipment.” I switched cameras on my screen and zoomed in so I could see the body display better.

In the halting translation, but well enough that I could understand most of it, the tech then proceeded to show me what made Min the most state-of-the-art, kickass weapon I had ever seen, even after the many years I served in British special forces. In addition to the Sabon antigravity augmentations in his legs and the Atreides shielding I had just seen in action, the seven-foot cyborg had plasteel armor plating under the skin throughout his body, and retractable rail cannons in his forearms that energized tiny caseless bullets, making them as powerful as a .50 caliber machine gun but only needing a small tunnel in his upper arms to store hundreds of them. They were also able to be fed thousands more from a rig that Min could strap on at a moment's notice, for combat or high-danger situations.

Then the tech told the cyborg to turn around, so that we could see the display of his back, which gave the term “shoulder blades” new meaning. In recesses of the plating on his upper back were stored two three-foot swords, which he could reach back and pull out anytime he wanted to wreak hand-to-hand havoc on some unfortunate enemy who would soon be “resting in pieces.” Min could wield the blades with the Atreides shielding extended to his hands, so that he could wade into opponents while repelling their ballistic fire, in the event he ran out of ammunition himself. And below that was something that left me speechless—I wasn't sure whether to say “Wow” or break out laughing.

“Min,” I said incredulously, “am I mistaken, or do you have a cannon in your arse?”

The weaponry was actually more in his gluteus maximus, but the big cyborg still seemed embarrassed by the question. He stepped backward, out of the medbox, to defend himself like an insecure teenager.

“I must have some way to eliminate threats from the rear, in the melee of battle. So I can fire gas and explosive rounds when needed.” He lifted his big hands and shrugged his massive shoulders. “Where else could I have something like that? Not in my torso, near my vital organs. But there's plenty of room back there.”

“‘Rear' and ‘butt' being the key words,” I laughed, prodded on by his very human discomfort—a side of him I had never seen. “Let me see … clearing out the area with posterior emissions. Well, I guess skunks have been doing that for a long time.”

“And football fans,” Lynn added, from out of my camera view. I didn't even know she'd been listening.

I noticed that even the Chinese tech was smiling, though I wasn't sure it was from what Lynn said or what he was about to say.

“He has weapons in his mouth,” the room's grid announced after the tech said something in Mandarin. I figured this was a wooden translation of “armed to the teeth,” and again was surprised that the Chinese used that expression, too.

I didn't have long to think about it, though, because at that moment the entire mountain shuddered below the room, causing Lynn to scream out as the lights and her kitchen appliances flickered off and on with several rapid-fire tremors that grew in magnitude. Even though I was only watching from the cottage far away, I was struck hard with the sense that people were dying in the hill below, and that what killed them was racing upward toward the house.

 

29

FIRE

“Min!” Terrey yelled into all channels. “Get Lynn into the air—the aero in the garage.” The big cyborg had already forgotten about his human embarrassment, and began to move again with the efficiency of a machine, escorting Lynn out of the kitchen before Terrey could even finish. “The lab caught fire while Go was working there, and it's spreading fast in all directions. I don't know if any of us can get to the hangar or another exit without being blocked by—”

“Wait,” Lynn said, grabbing the doorway as she was ushered through it. “They told us the fire system is really good.”

“True,” I said quickly. “But take her up anyway, just in case.” Min moved her through the door with a perfect balance of gentleness and force.

As if in response to Lynn's statement, the hill shuddered once more, presumably from the fire causing another explosion, and then the lights went completely out for a minute or more. By the time they came back on, everything was still and quiet, and the almost extrasensory perception I had developed in the military told me that whatever happened had stopped. Terrey confirmed this shortly after.

“Is everyone okay?” he asked, on all channels again. Everyone responded that they were, except for Go, so he continued. “Ni and San are plugged in to the base, and they tell me that it has an EM suppression system, so once it identified the fire locations and allowed a few moments for any humans to escape, it killed the flames.” This was the latest development in indoor fire safety: scientists had discovered that physics actually worked better than chemistry in fighting fire, and that waves of the right kind of electromagnetic energy could disrupt the cold plasma that made up a flame. So rather than a sprinkler system, the rooms of the base and the house above had been built with the ability to send a blast of electricity into them when a harmful fire was detected.

“The girls are making their way into the burnt area right now,” Terrey continued, “to find their sister and find out what happened. In the meantime, I suggest you all make your way to the aero bay, so we can debrief but also be able to take to the air at a moment's notice. In case something else happens.”

While I was telling Min to keep Lynn in the air for now, until we knew for sure what was going on, I noticed on my screen that the medbox was still standing in the living room, but there was no sign of the tech from Cyber Hole. I was thinking that he must have panicked when hearing of the fire, and run off in some random direction, until I switched cameras and noticed that he was hunched up
inside
the box. Its doors were still open, presumably because there wouldn't be enough room inside if they were closed, so I wasn't sure how he thought this would protect him from a rabid fire.

“You can come out now,” I said, and the room translated it into Mandarin. He stirred slowly and sheepishly emerged from the box, only to run right back in when I added, “The fire is out.” He must have been unsure about my first statement, and the translation of the second must have given him the impression that the fire was outside the room, or something frightening like that. I tried a few other ways of saying it, and finally broke through the communication barrier. I told him the way to the aero bay in the hill below, because I knew he still had to work on Min in the medical bay (if it wasn't burnt to a crisp) and wanted him to be at a place where he could be evacuated easily, like Terrey had said.

Not long after, everyone was gathered in the bay and I was looking in on them through the surveillance system there. I had to fiddle with the zoom and the audio more, because this was a very large room, since it had to be big enough to hold a number of aeros and a couple Firehawk helicopters as well. The hillside entrance, or “mouth” of the bay, also had to be quite large, of course. It was hidden from the outside by a huge holo that made it look like part of the hillside. The protection team, minus the triplets and with the addition of the Chinese tech, were huddled near several aeros at the mouth of the bay, ready to jump into them if a wave of lethal fire should suddenly start heading their way.

To make sure I could hear everything, I tuned the second screen on my wall to the double's eyes and ears, and when I did I could hear Stephenson talking to his partner as they waited for Terrey to begin the debrief (Terrey was currently talking to the triplets on his earpiece).

“You're not gonna believe this,” the little man said to Korcz, with his trademark wide-eyed enthusiasm.

“Another drimm come true?” the big man said, with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

“Yeah, I had a dream about fire, since New York. I thought it was just a recapitulation of that episode, but it could be prophetic. I'll have to run the precog scale on it. But we just escaped a fire.” Then his enthusiasm dimmed a bit. “Although in the dream I'm running from it.”

“The more you see the dreams come true,” said Tyra, who was also eavesdropping, having planted her floating chair near Korcz as she usually did, “the more you think I'm gonna die.” It occurred to me that this woman was safer than anyone from the threat of a fire, because she could simply fly out of the hangar on the chair—she didn't even need a car.

“Don't listen to him,” Korcz answered instead of Stephenson, requiting some of her affection, or at least showing some concern for her feelings.

“You don't think it's God, or voodoo?” Tyra said to Korcz. “I've heard a lot about both in my life. But the Catholic hoodoo isn't much different from the African voodoo, ya ask me.”

“How many drimms you have at night?” Korcz asked Stephenson. “How many on the machine?”

“About ten to twenty.”

“Can see anything,” Korcz said with a grunt, talking to both of them now. “Can see anything you want to see.”

“But you're forgetting,” Stephenson objected. “We're talking statistics here. They don't all have the same precog value.”

“Did you ever have a high precock,” Tyra said, “and it didn't come true?”

“It's
precog.
And yes, sometimes.”

“Then you don't really know, danyet?” Korcz said, “It's ahhh … what you call it?
Presvorninck?
”

“Random?” Tyra said.

“Da,” Korcz said, still in the Russian mode, and more delighted in Tyra. “You know Russian?”

“No, I guessed,” she said. “But I could learn.” She sent a big grin his way, and I noticed she was prettier when she smiled. And he actually returned it, though his version of a smile made him look worse.

“I thought it was ‘precock,' too,” Korcz whispered to her, after Terrey had started calling the team to order, and the triplets came into the room, two of them carrying the scorched body of the third on an unfolded stretcher. I noticed immediately that a pall hung over both of them, and their skin patches were now a flat black. They had obviously turned off all the moving colors in the nanotech decorations, in honor of their sister's suffering. They asked the Chinese tech (in flawless Chinese) if they could use his box, because they didn't want to be in the med lab right now, for the same reason everyone was gathered in the bay. He was more than willing, and soon the refrigerator transformed itself into an operating table and both triplets went to work on the third. Their hands moved much faster on the table, and their bodies around it, than I was used to seeing. It was like watching a normal operation in fast forward.