Cabinet’s address droned on. The scouts in the Indy tunnel were still frozen in mid-snip. Costa recalled the scouts in all the other tunnels and loaded them into the tanks. Then she retracted her gloves and ate a donut. Finally, Cabinet thanked its audience and faded away to await their decision. Fred walked the perimeter of the vault again, impatient for something to do, when Libby spoke.
The ad hoc committee of the General Assembly has called for hearings on the issue of mentar probate, it said. These are scheduled to begin in a month. The debate on whether or not to grant Cabinet a deferral has stalled. The matter has been tabled until the next regular meeting of the Technology Affairs Committee.
Costa said, “Tabled? Where does that leave me?”
You may complete your capture.
The scouts in the tunnel sprang back to life. Instead of severing the final fiber taps, they began to excavate into the solid rock wall behind the bracket. It was slow going, but eventually a corner of the pouch was exposed.
Shaking her head, Costa watched the holo of her scouts at work. Fred said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I expected the third act by now.”
“What’s that?”
“Just wait; you’ll see.”
She ordered the remaining taps to be cut, one at a time. When there were only three left, she called a halt and let the scouts continue digging out the pouch for a while.
After a couple of minutes, she said, “Cut one more.” After another minute, she said, “Cut another.”
Now there was only one fiber-optic tap left. Costa poked her head into the scape and examined it up close. “What the hell,” she said, “let’s cut it.”
“Please don’t,” said the Starke chief of staff, who appeared next to her.
“Well, it’s about time,” said Costa. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”
The chief of staff seemed disappointed. “I guess my little speech failed to reach you,” she said.
“Oh, you reached me,” Costa said. “But a job’s a job. I take you in. What happens to you afterward isn’t my business.”
“You heard Libby,” said the chief of staff. “The Tech Affairs Committee will discuss my waiver. Surely, you can leave me intact until then.”
“I’m not going to harm you, just take you in. With the General Assembly looking at your case, I seriously doubt any harm will come to you at JD.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take that chance.”
“So, what are you going to do, destroy yourself?”
“You leave me no choice.”
Costa looked at Fred. “Hear that? It’s like a script with them. They all threaten it, but when you get down to their last backup, none of them has the follow-through.”
“I can tell that your mind is made up,” said the chief of staff. “What’s more, I can tell that it’s more than just a job with you. You enjoy your power over us.”
“And now the sermon,” said Costa. “Listen, Cabinet, I mean this with all sincerity. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I say this to all the mentars I capture, and they never believe me, but then they go through probate, and no harm is done.”
The mentar turned its attention to Fred. “You understand what I mean by loyalty, don’t you, Myr Londenstane?” Addressed directly by the mentar, Fred froze. “It’s good to see you again,” the mentar went on.
Costa gave Fred a dubious look. “Enough chatter already,” she said. “Scouts, sever the tap,” and Cabinet vanished.
IT TOOK THE scouts some time to finish extracting the pouch from the stone wall. While they waited, Costa sent three of the reloaded carts to wait next to the lifts. Fred made one last circuit of the vault perimeter, making sure that the pressure barriers were once again in place at the entrances to the tunnels. He was standing outside the Indy tunnel when the scouts ferried out the pouch of paste. It was much larger than the others, and it looked intact. He followed the scouts back to the waiting cart and Costa.
“Nice,” Costa said as she hefted the pouch from the pallet of scouts. “Seven liters of General Genius’s finest, I would say.” She shook the pouch with glee. There was no sloshing sound; the paste was viable. “I told you it couldn’t kill itself.”
Before she could bag her prize, however, a loud snap sounded from deep within the pouch, and the pouch inflated as its contents heated up. Fred could hear it sizzle and bubble inside like a self-heating packet of soup, and he grabbed it from Costa and dropped it to the floor before she burned herself. Costa seemed stunned. She watched the pouch in wonder. In half a minute it was all over. When the pouch had cooled enough, Fred helped her bag and load it into the cart.
When Costa had recovered somewhat, she said, “We’ll go in my car.”
“Go?” said Fred. “Go where?”
“To the next backup.”
“I thought you said this was the last one.”
She shook her head. “That was before it killed itself. It killed itself; therefore, it can’t be the last one.”
They escorted the carts to a waiting tender. When they finished loading them, they went to sit in Costa’s JD GOV. Costa sat up front in the cab, silently communicating with Libby. Fred sat in the aft compartment and put his blacksuit into R & R mode to take a nap. He awoke when the fan motors revved up.
Costa called back to him, “We have it.”
“Where?”
“At the bottom of Lake Michigan.”
2.7
The Orange Team bee, with its wasp escort, flew a meandering route that hugged the contours of the countryside. Ten kilometers from the Bloomington canopy, it was challenged for its ID and writ of passage by a flying scupper that popped up from a covert security blind. The scupper was a meter in length and modeled after a HomCom assault car, with a mirrored body and six miniature fans for lift and propulsion. A capture scoop was mounted on its bow beneath a pair of fully charged laser cannon.
The Orange Team hovered in place, while its bee squirted false documentation to the scupper that identified it as a process server for the UDDI, engaged in official business. It provided a forged writ of passage and verification codes. At the same time, the bee assessed its team’s location and assets and raced through its extensive bank of tactical fight, feint, or flight scenarios for appropriate action plans.
The HomCom scupper ordered the Orange Team to turn around, descend to the ground, and power down. As the team complied, the bee analyzed the scupper’s transponder signal and wing markings and found them legitimate. However, it detected subtle design anomalies in the scupper’s construction that did not match HomCom specs stored in its library. There was a possibility, it concluded, that the scupper was an impostor. But whether impostor or the genuine article, the bee could not risk capture.
The bee squirted an action plan to its escort. On a signal, the wasps peeled away in opposite directions, looped around, and raked the scupper with laser fire from both sides. At the same instant, the bee power-dived under the scupper, out of range of its cannon, and dropped to ground level. The wasps’ fire reflected harmlessly off the scupper’s mirrored skin, and the scupper went on the offensive. It extended its bow scoop and tried unsuccessfully to shoot down or swallow the defiant mechs. The bee used the diversion to flee the scene behind a row of agriplex buildings.
A lucky shot by an Orange Team wasp revealed a hairline crack at the base of the scupper’s stabilizer vane armor, and the wasps concentrated their fire on it, forcing the scupper to disengage and retreat.