Behind the panel lay a foamcast indentation shaped like a squared funnel. About four feet deep, it narrowed at the far end to a square only eight or ten inches. The indentation hadn’t been on the building plans Lizzie had dipped while planning this raid. At the end of the funnel was another bolted panel.
She leaned into the indentation. But she couldn’t quite reach the small panel, especially over the awkward bulge of her belly. She heaved herself into the opening and crawled forward.
These bolts wouldn’t unscrew. If only she had a lasersaw! Doggedly she worked the bolts, but they wouldn’t loosen. Yet they weren’t nanofitted; the building was sixteen years old, too old for most nanotech.
Finally, in frustration, Lizzie whacked the panel with the butt of her screwdriver. “Damn it all to stinking hell!” Billy’s favorite oath.
“Awaiting instruction,” the panel said.
She stared. She’d never even considered that the thing might be a screen or voice-activated. Stupid, stupid. What if she’d damaged it by her pounding?
“Awaiting instruction,” the panel repeated.
“Run test sequence.” Find out what she was dealing with.
“Running test sequence.”
The lights in the factory turned off. Five seconds, ten, then back on. Next the noise of the robotic line ceased—a silence shocking as an explosion. Before the din started again she heard Vicki yell, “Hey! Lizzie?”
Lizzie, intently studying the small screen, didn’t answer. Elation ballooned in her. It was running the entire sequence—including the outer security shield. She knew what it was now. Part of the backup system, minimally accessible from the outside of the building for safety control but physically unreachable by any of the line ’bots—which, as Lizzie had just demonstrated, were all too easy to reprogram. Some of the old-style factory systems had experimented with all sorts of weird redundancies to take physical control back from mischievous disablers. If she could dip this auxiliary system, she could control the Y-shield from here.
And she would be able to dip the system. She was the unbeatable Lizzie Francy.
“Repeat test sequence,” she said, intending to call out to Vicki at the next silence. But right after the lights check, the little wall panel blanked. Then it flashed, without vocals, TEST SEQUENCE ABORTED. 65-B.
65-B. A standard industrial code for a microwaved master signal from a supervising, physically present source outside all systems. It was a common fail-safe for any process involving radiation. The entire operation could be halted by the right signal from a handheld remote at close range. Donkeys had arrived at the factory.
Lizzie backed out of her cramped hole eight feet above the floor. Her feet felt for the metal platform of the forklift. It wasn’t there.
Frantically she twisted her pregnant body until she faced outward. The forklift had rolled three feet away from the wall, probably as part of the machinery test sequence. Balancing precariously, Lizzie stretched out both arms full-length. She could just grasp the edge of the alloy panel resting on the forklift’s raised platform. But the panel wasn’t fastened to the forklift itself, and she couldn’t use it to pull the machine forward. And then suddenly the fork-lift came to life again and started to roll toward the line, returning to its normal work, and Lizzie was left with the alloy panel dangling from her fingers eight feet above the floor.
Below, the demented nonwork continued: ’bots assembled Y-energy works and then smashed them against misaligned cones; cone shells rolled across the floor; forklifts stacked air. From behind a pile of packing crates Vicki raced into view, yelling something over the din. Probably Lizzie’s name. And then the main doors, on the adjacent factory wall, sprang open and two donkeys walked in, a man and a woman, with drawn guns.
Immediately, not even thinking about it, Lizzie pulled the alloy panel back into place, holding it from the inside with her fingernails. Heart hammering, she cowered high inside the foamcast wall.
Interlude
TRANSMISSION DATE: November 4, 2120
TO: Selene Base, Moon
VIA: Toledo Enclave Ground Station, GEO Satellite C-1494 (U.S.), Satellite E-398 (France)
MESSAGE TYPE: Unencrypted
MESSAGE CLASS: Class D, Public Service Access, in accordance with Congressional Bill 4892-18, May 2118
ORIGINATING GROUP: “Roy L. Spath’s tribe,” Ohio
MESSAGE:
Mother Miranda! Blessed are the poor in spirit, them, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! We are the poor, us, and we beg you for mercy! You gave us God’s gift, you, with them Change syringes, and we honor you! Blessed are thou amongst women! You gave us freedom from the Horsemen of Famine and Pestilence, and so now we ask you, us, for freedom from Death! Give us this day our immortal life, and send syringes that can Change us to live like you do, forever and ever world without end amen! Pray for us, you, that we have no hour of death! Thank you!
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: None received
Three
Fifty miles from Willoughby, Cazie said, “The factory security shield’s down.”
Jackson glanced at his ex-wife, her face intent on the screen of her handheld mobile. The aircar flew on automatic and he had been half-asleep, secretly pleased with his ability to doze in her presence. That meant her effect on him was lessening—didn’t it? Or maybe it just meant he wasn’t used to being awake and in the air at 6:29 in the morning. In the east the sky was lightening, and in the pearly light Cazie’s profile looked pure and luminous. Theresa would say Cazie looked like a saint. At this thought, Jackson snorted.
She said, “You don’t believe me? Look for yourself.” She thrust the mobile at him.
He thrust it back. “I believe you. The program must be malfunctioning. Nobody can break into a Y-shielded factory.”
“God, Jackson, your faith in technology is touching. Especially for a scientist. The program is not malfunctioning. The shield went down for a thirty-second manually controlled test sequence. Not only that, it went down last night as well, that time triggered by an outside system with the proprietary aircar signal. I wonder why they collapsed the shield entirely, instead of just opening a car passage?”
“Nobody has the proprietary signal but you and me and the chief tech. Who, you told me, is in the Mexico complex this week.”
“He is. Somebody must have dipped the data banks. God, that dipper must be good. Maybe we can hire him. He’s in there now.”
“In there now?”
“Two human bodies recorded on infrared,” Cazie said. She was smiling, presumably at the drama. In the face of her enjoyment, Jackson felt ashamed to say he wasn’t keen on confronting two possibly armed intruders. Who were probably crazy. What could anybody want inside a cone factory? Cones were cheap: TenTech shipped all over the northeast (or so Cazie had told him); no donkey would break in just for the hell of it. Except kids, of course. It must be hotshot kids, counting datadipping coup.
He said, “What are they doing in there?”
“Jackson, infrared scans aren’t detailed enough to show what people are doing. I thought doctors were supposed to be good at machines.”
“I’m good at the machines I need to be good at. They don’t happen to include factory robotics.”
“Well.” said Cazie sweetly, “maybe you should broaden your horizons.”
Jackson folded his arms and resolved to say no more. Cazie could always make him feel like a fool. Well, this was her party. Let her run it.