Nichols turned his attention back to the couple at the edge of the water. The red blobs in the IR scope were bent over, making odd motions. What were they doing?
It clicked. They were taking off their shoes. And now their pants. A little rendezvous on the beach. The couple now appeared to be kissing passionately, red lines blurring in IR, only heads and limbs distinguishable in the image. He was about to look away, when they did something he didn't expect. They turned, hand in hand, and ran into the Bay, water splashing up around them. They ran till they were hip-deep, the lower halves of their bodies disappearing from IR view, and then dove head first into the water, and vanished under the waves entirely.
"Isn't that water a little cold for a swim this time of year?" Nichols asked aloud.
"I was just thinking the same," Bruce Williams replied. "Can't be much more than fifty degrees."
On screen, twenty feet further out, the head and shoulders of one of the red blobs. Nichols held his breath. Wait for it… Wait for it… Nothing. The other was nowhere to be seen.
"Fuck!" he exclaimed. "Get Mobile 2 there now! Scramble the mini drones. Light that place up. Find that guy!"
Kim and Williams furiously hit keys. On screen, Mobile 2 turned on its lights and spun tires as it accelerated to the spot, leaving the road and crashing into the manicured greens of the course. A narrow beam spotlight shot out from the overhead Sky Eye. The naked figure in the water turned, put her face in the water and kicked towards shore.
"And pull over the car with Shankari in it!" Nichols called out.
"Yes, sir," Jane Kim replied.
A tense minute passed, and then another. Mobile 2 arrived at the scene and took Tania Wellington into custody. Yes, she confirmed, that had been Cole. And no, she had no idea where he was going.
Cole was gone. If he had a rebreather or had undergone black market blood hyperoxygenation, he could stay down for hours. He could come up anywhere. Unless they were very, very lucky, he was gone.
California Highway Patrol had more luck. On screen a cruiser pulled in behind the vehicle carrying Rangan Shankari. Moments later, they had him in custody.
Sam took her time in replying. "I'm human, Kade. I've made compromises. I've accepted things that are necessary for me to do my job, to help keep people safe."
"Funny," Kade said, "I don't feel any safer with you around."
"You don't see the things we do on your behalf."
"I saw what you did tonight."
"There are monsters out there, Kade," Sam said. "We have to stop them."
"I'm no monster."
"You're no monster," Sam agreed, "but they're out there. There are people who would do awful things with this technology."
"There are people who would do wonderful things with it, too," Kade replied. "We'll put safeguards in. That's always been the plan. We don't want this used for mind control any more than you do."
"Other people will reverse-engineer the technology. They'll remove the safeguards, or figure out how to build a clone system that doesn't have them. That's how it always works. Once the genie is out of the bottle, you can't control what they do."
Kade threw up his hands in frustration. "You can't control what people do with phones, or planes, or the net," he replied. "People do terrible things with all of those, but the good things outweigh them. Should we take all of those back too?"
"Those don't change what we are. We're still human."
"You get to decide who's human? Pretty damn arrogant."
Sam tried to stay cool, didn't entirely succeed. "Arrogant? You're the one who's taking risks that could affect billions of people. You're the one threatening to make real humans obsolete. Do you have any idea the danger you're putting the whole world in?"
Kade shook his head bitterly. "You have this so backwards. I'm not making choices for anyone. I'm giving people options. I'm giving them new decisions to make for themselves. You're the one taking people's freedoms away. You're the one locking people up for doing the wrong science, or for trying something new." He stabbed an accusatory finger in her direction. "If there's any monster here, it's you."
The state trooper placed Rangan in the back of his squad car. Bruce Williams patched Nichols into the CHP comms system.
Nichols put on his headset. "Rangan Shankari?" he asked.
Silence. On the screen, Rangan looked towards the floor of the vehicle, making no sign he'd heard.
"Mr Shankari, you are now in the custody of the Emerging Risks Directorate. My name is Special Agent Nichols."
More silence.
"Mr Shankari, is Samara Chavez still inside Hangar 3? What's her status?"
"I want to see my lawyer." Rangan uttered the words without looking up.
"Mr Shankari, you're under suspicion of very serious crimes in breach of the Emerging Technological Threats Act. Under these conditions you don't have the right to a lawyer."
Silence.
Nichols continued. "What I care about is the safety of Samara Chavez. Is she still in that building? What's her situation?"
Rangan said nothing.
"Mr Shankari, I have a team of men ready to knock down the door of that building and do whatever it takes to get my agent out. There are also at least a hundred civilians in the building, many of whom are your friends. If we go in with force, some of your friends could be hurt. Do you understand me?"
"Suck my dick."
Nichols was irritated now. "Rangan, you may think you're accomplishing something with this, but you're not. If you're covering for your friends, we already have Watson Cole," Nichols lied. "What we want is to know if Samara Chavez is still alive, and a way to communicate with the people inside that building to get her out."
Rangan said nothing, but shifted slightly in his seat.
"If you don't help me, we're going in, and people are likely to get hurt. People might get killed. You understand that?"
Rangan shifted again. "I want my lawyer."
"You're not going to get one. Are you going to help us, or do we kick in the door and start shooting?"
Rangan visibly hesitated, then spoke. "They're going to let her go in a couple hours."
Nichols leaned back in his seat. So, she was alive. And being held.
"Let's end this now," he said. "Not a couple hours from now. You're going back in there, and here's what you're going to tell your friends inside…"
Fifteen minutes later, a black SUV deposited him outside the hangar's back entrance.
"…if there's any monster here, it's you!"
The handle of the door to the storage room turned. Both Kade and Sam turned, startled, to see Ilya enter, a glum look on her face, trailed by Rangan, dressed in a grey hoodie and jeans. Rangan looked pale and unhappy. His eyes were fixed on the ground in front of him. Party sounds followed them in.