“Give it a shot,” Hernandez told him.
Cam spoke again in tandem with Sawyer: “If there’s nothing upstairs, try those computers beside the scanning probe. Dutchess wiped just about everything but a good hacker should be able to reconstruct deleted files from the hard drive. You’ll have at least preliminary designs on the archos components.”
There was motion behind Ruth, as Todd or maybe Hernandez stepped toward those PCs. She kept her attention focused on Sawyer, wondering at the change in him.
He continued to speak and Cam echoed him: “If you have full data, use model R-1077 as your base. R-1077. There’s no fuse and its mass is under one billion AMU. Less than a quarter of that is programmable space but it should hold the rep algorithm and your discrim key.”
You. Your. He was putting everything in their hands. He must have felt that he was losing the war against himself. His unusual strength of will, his rage, his private terror — these were all useless against the wet touch of spittle at the corner of his mouth, the clumsy meat that had been his arms and legs.
He might hang on another five years but in the truest sense he was dying, and he knew it, and in this lucid moment he wanted most of all to escape his own bitterness.
Ruth managed another smile, more genuine this time, and Sawyer’s intense gaze flickered from her eyes to the sad quirk of her mouth. He nodded — and then the lab came to life around them in a cacophony of beeps and buzzing. Many pieces of equipment had still been on when the electricity went out, and the overhead fluorescents winked and then smothered them in furious white.
The distractions broke the wordless communion between Ruth and Sawyer. He glanced away and Ruth saw his expression loosen, tense as he fought to hold on to his thoughts, then ease again as he was overwhelmed by new stimuli.
Already his concentration was fading.
* * * *
D.J. returned downstairs with a small zippered packet of CD-RW discs and a smaller, flat metal case like a gentleman’s cigarette holder. He made quite a show of his finds, proudly holding them out. The Special Forces unit had also returned to the main lab and D.J. created an eddy through the gathered suits as their curiosity led most of them after him for a few steps.
Ruth forgave his self-important grin.
Lined with form-fitted sponge, the case held sixteen vacuum wafers no bigger or thicker than a fingernail. A container intended to be manipulated by human hands was of astronomical proportions for a batch of nanos, even compartmentalized, but the microscopic structures within would be fastened to a carbon surface for easier location under the microscope.
This was not archos. Freedman would never have brought complete, programmed nanos outside the hermetic chamber. But the sectional components would help them to intuit the full potential of this technology later on — and the base prototypes might serve as their vaccine nano with only minor adaptations.
The discs offered more magic. Sawyer perked up again when D.J. showed him the CD packet, which was lurid pink and sported the too-cute, doe-eyed face of a PowerPuff Girl. Somehow, fleetingly, that made Freedman real to Ruth as an individual for the first time, a woman who’d spent a few extra bucks on a vibrant case instead of buying a plain one.
“Series twelve,” Cam said, still diligently translating. “The series twelve discs are the replication program.”
Someone caught Ruth’s arm and she looked up. Beyond the few suits clustered around Sawyer, the rest of the group were now getting ready to haul equipment outside, pushing chairs back into the far corner, unplugging computers and disconnecting keyboards.
The man who’d grabbed her elbow was Captain Young.
“You have it?” he asked, his voice muffled. The Special Forces team leader had shut off his radio. He thrust his face close and Ruth leaned away, startled, but Young pulled on her again and pressed his helmet to hers. Conduction improved the transfer of sound waves.
He spoke more precisely. “Do you have what we came for?”
She hesitated. She nodded.
Young bobbed his head in response and then turned, releasing her arm, reaching for the radio control on his belt. His voice filled the general frequency. “Green green green,” he said, and unslung his rifle from his shoulder.
27
Cam glanced away from D.J. and Sawyer at the strange announcement, “Green green,” and saw at least half of the men raise their left arms in what appeared to be a choreographed movement, their gloves balled into fists. It was a gesture of identification. Then they stepped toward the other soldiers with their sidearms drawn.
“What—!” he shouted, but the radio filled with chatter.
“Freeze fucking freeze right there crazy what are you freeze hey Trotter hold it don’t move!”
The coordinated action took just seconds. There must have been a prior signal he’d missed. Each of the attackers stood close to one of the others, and none of the attackers had anything in hand, whereas most of the rest were encumbered with a computer monitor, an armload of cords, a stack of electronics.
Each attacker put his Glock 9mm in his opponent’s face and grabbed at the man’s waist, seizing not the man’s holstered pistol but his radio control. Their wiring ran safely inside their suits except for a short length that extended from every left hip to every control box, which allowed their headsets to be unplugged and jacked directly into another communication system like that of a plane. Now the attackers silenced the other men.
Something shut off in Cam as well. Confusion, dismay, anger — the shock wave through his head left him empty and clear, tuned entirely outward. He absorbed details into his body like oxygen. It was the fluid, immediate thinking of an animal, disassociated from logic or emotion.
It decided him. He ducked sideways like a blitzing cornerback angling for position.
During the past hours Cam had become able to distinguish among his companions in spite of the suits — some of them, at least; Dansfield because of his height; Olson with grime on his sleeve; Hernandez because of his clipped stride and his tendency to be the group’s focal point. Instinct said that it was the Special Forces who were taking over and Hernandez who was in trouble. Given time, Cam might have reached the same conclusion with a quick count. The crush of beige suits was five on five and two more attackers hung back with assault rifles, wicked black metal in their suit-thick arms. But he had forgotten numbers. And he knew that they had forgotten him.
The nearest rifleman stood three paces from Ruth, his M16 pointed at the ceiling. Captain Young. His helmet shifted as he reiterated his code, “Green two green tw—”
Cam hit him in the ribs, shoulder to body, and like a cornerback striking a ball carrier he chopped down at the captain’s arms.
“No!” The only female voice.
Then another rise of male shouts: “What did shit look out!”
The M16 rattled, four shots into floor. Spent casings leapt against Cam’s chest as he and Young tumbled together, their momentum increased by the weight of their air tanks.
Another, heavier gunshot reverberated through the enclosed space of the lab. Then they hit the tile, Young underneath him. But the air pack kept Young from falling flat. Its bulk punched his body up as Cam slammed down on top of him, and Young didn’t fight when Cam tore away the M16.
Slipping, crawling, Cam stabilized himself on his left hand and his knees and brought the weapon level. He couldn’t have fired. His fingers were splayed over the flat base of the trigger guard between the rifle’s grip and the magazine.