The Ivar who’d thrown the switch went over to a new machine, one the second Ivar had built, and opened a panel. He pulled out a circuit and held it out to the real Ivar. Then held up two fingers. Then pointed at the door.
“You need two more or two, which means just one more?” Ivar asked, because the labeling was a bit confusing in the sign language.
The other Ivar blinked as if processing that question through a long series of synapses, then put the circuit down on the table and pointed one finger at it. Then pointed at a blank spot near it with two fingers.
“He wants two more,” Burns contributed.
Ivar was happy to leave the lab.
“Hey,” Burns said. He held up the toggle switch.
Ivar nodded.
“See you soon,” Burns said. Then he and the other Ivars suddenly stiffened. They all looked at each other.
“Only one is left,” Burns said. “We must work faster.”
“What—” Ivar began, but Burns pointed to the door. “Go. Hurry.”
Ivar went up to Winslow’s lab. It was late in the day and the building was mostly empty. The weirdest thing was that despite there being more Ivars and this getting really crazy, he was starving. As he raided the fridge, he noticed that the door to Doctor Winslow’s office was ajar.
Ivar went over and stepped inside. As he reached for the light switch, he felt something metal press against his temple.
“Do not move,” a man whispered, more hissed, “or I’ll splatter your brains all over this place. Where is Doctor Winslow?”
“I don’t know,” Ivar said.
The metal moved away and the man stepped in front of Ivar. He had a gun in his hands with a bulky suppressor screwed onto the barrel. He was a tall man who spoke with the trace of an accent Ivar couldn’t place. His face was expressionless.
“When did you last see him?” Stone-face asked.
“Three days ago.” Was it only three days? Ivar wondered.
“What’s with the Feds at his house?”
Ivar held his hands up helplessly. “I don’t know anything about that or his house.”
“What do you know?” the man asked, raising the gun so that the black hole at the end of the barrel was pointed directly between Ivar’s eyes. “What did he buy that he needed five hundred thousand dollars for?”
Ivar couldn’t blink. He was mesmerized by that black hole. He felt as if his entire being was being drawn into it.
“The hard drive.”
“A hard drive cost half a million?” Stone-face shook his head. “I think Winslow skipped town with my boss’s money. Where is this hard drive?”
“Doctor Winslow has it.”
“Then he either ran with it or the Feds have it. How can a hard drive cost so much?”
“It wasn’t the drive, it was what was on the drive,” Ivar said. “A program.”
“What kind of program?” Stone-face cocked his head, and for the first time Ivar noticed he had a little white wire running from inside his coat to his ear, like the Secret Service. “My boss is coming. He will not be asking as politely as I am. He is in a very bad mood.”
Stone-face stared at Ivar. “What kind of program?”
“You’ll have to see it,” Ivar says. “I can’t explain it.”
“Where is Burns?”
“Downstairs in the lab. The program is running.”
He waved with the barrel of the gun. “Sit down.”
CHAPTER 26
Ms. Jones took Moms’s report on the Killing of the Unlucky Horseshoe without comment. When Moms ground to a halt, an uneasy silence wavered over the radio waves for almost thirty seconds, then all Ms. Jones said was: “You have one more Firefly. Good hunting.”
Ms. Jones opened her eyes and looked at Pitr. “I wish you wouldn’t hover over me like that.”
Pitr shrugged. “You can wish all you want. I am here.”
“Winslow’s notes?”
“Nothing new there. He made some adjustments on the Rift algorithm, but he actually changed it back to an old version. Of course he didn’t know that. Whatever direction it was going in Tucson, he actually reversed, so either he was smarter than Craegan or—”
“More old-school with his physics,” Ms. Jones said. “And the phone? I want to know how he contacted Mister Burns or, more likely, Mister Burns contacted him. It could have been a call or an e-mail and it would be on that phone.”
“I’ll check on that,” Pitr promised.
“The team is changing,” Ms. Jones said.
“I know. Do we need to start looking for a new team leader?”
Ms. Jones surprised Pitr with her answer. “No. The Rift in Tucson was different. The backhoe was taking out probes, showing a plan and intelligent behavior. The horseshoe bothers me, because the team was misdirected. They would have known it wasn’t in the horse once they killed and flamed it, but they might not have flamed it enough to melt the horseshoe.”
“What damage could a horseshoe do on an incinerated horse?” Pitr asked.
“That’s not the point,” Ms. Jones said. “We’ve always considered the Fireflies random in the way they occupied. But what if they’re just trying different things? Experimenting?”
“To what end?”
Ms. Jones shook her head. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. But that is why we will leave Ms. Moms in charge of the Nightstalkers. She, and the team, are evolving also. They killed the pool and saved the horse. Change can be good.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, for saving Comanche.” Scout’s skinny arms were clinging to Nada’s neck.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nada said, prying her loose as they unloaded the gear in the garage. “Could you open the door?”
Scout ran over and did so as the team hauled their weapons and other gear into the house. The interior of the Winslow place was beginning to show the wear and tear of serving as a base of operations.
They’d seen a lot of action, one right after another, and everyone was tired. Moms could read it in the way they slumped onto the sofas and chairs.
“Good call out there, Kirk,” Moms said. “Take over-watch and try not to move too much.”
Kirk just nodded and checked the readings on his PRT before heading up the stairs. The lack of chatter bothered Moms. They’d done a good thing, killed a Firefly and kept the horse alive, even given it an entire set of new horseshoes courtesy of the well-compensated and confused blacksmith, but everyone just seemed done in, and Scout’s squeals of happiness were putting everyone on the edge of whatever abyss they were staring into. Too much change, Moms realized. And also, there was the unspoken next and final op that they’d all been avoiding.
Scout ran upstairs and Moms relished the moment of silence. She powered up the laptop but had no desire to write the after-action report. Because no matter the fact that Ms. Jones had asked nothing during her verbal report, Moms knew she’d have to report the plan to resuscitate the horse, which violated Protocol. Telling the truth, after all, was in her own Protocol.
Instead she sent an RFI: Request for Intelligence.
Scout came running downstairs with a plastic bag full of something. “I found Mrs. Winslow’s stash in the fridge in her closet!”
She proceeded to go around the room, passing out Fudgesicles. No one refused the offer and soon everyone was peeling back the wrappers. Moms ignored her laptop and just bit into the frozen stick.
“Doesn’t that hurt your teeth?” Eagle asked.
Moms shook her head. “Good enamel. I used to chew ice when I was a kid.”
Everyone stared at her, not because of the ice chewing, but they had never envisioned Moms as a kid. She was Moms.
“Moms chews ice!” Scout said. “Lots of women do. No calories.”
Moms wanted to tell the girl that wasn’t why she’d done it, but decided to let Scout have her moment. She’d chewed ice like Roland’s mother had made pine bark and needle soup. Because sometimes you make do with all you have.