Vaz — > EIA Inner Office: <sm>Clear Biographical Package 3 for joint intelligence viewing.</sm>
Aloud, he said, "I do have field experience. In the U.S. in fact, in the early teens."
Braun and Mitsuri both had a long stare. They were busy browsing. BioPack 3 would show them the operations. It was all consistent with what they had known before, but revealed new depths to their Indian pal. Günberk was the first to recover. "I… see." He was silent for a moment, reading more. "You did well. But that was some years ago, Alfred. This will be a heavily network-technical assignment."
Alfred nodded at the criticism. "True. I am not a young man." Mitsuri and Braun thought he was in his early fifties. "On the other hand, my specialty here at the EIA is network issues, so I'm not really out of date."
A surprised grin flashed across Keiko's face. "And you do know this operation better than anyone. So by being on-site you can supply the critical pieces without giving them to Rabbit — "
"Correct."
Günberk was still unhappy: "And yet this is an extraordinarily dangerous operation. We Great Powers compete, that is true. But when it comes to the threat of Weapons, we must stand together. This is the first time in my career that that covenant has been broken."
Alfred nodded solemnly. "We must find out the truth, Günberk. We could be wrong about San Diego. Then we'll thankfully and silently disengage. But whatever the source of this weapon, we must discover it. And if that turns out to be San Diego, the Americans will very likely thank us."
Mitsuri and Braun looked at each other for a long moment. Finally they nodded, and Keiko said, "We'll support the insertion of a Local Honcho, presumably you. I'll put planners on fallback strategies in case you are exposed. We'll provide network and analyst support. It'll be up to you to manage critical data on the ground — "
" — and keep Mr. Rabbit from taking over the whole thing!" said Günberk.
Alfred sat in his office for some minutes after his friends departed. That had been too close a thing.
When the stakes are highest, the threats always multiply. Plan Rabbit was the most sensitive operation that the Indian government had ever (knowingly) been a part of; getting the prime minister's support had not been easy. Today Keiko and Günberk had almost shut him down as thoroughly as the PM could have. As for Rabbit — well, AI might be fantasy, but Rabbit was just as much a threat as Günberk and Keiko feared.
Alfred relaxed slightly, allowed himself a smile. Yes, the threats had multiplied like, well, like rabbits. But here today he had collided some of those threats and neutralized them. For weeks he had been plotting his Local Honcho role. In the end, Günberk and Keiko had provided him with the natural excuse to be present on the ground in San Diego.
18
The Myasthenic Spelunker Society
The cabal still met on the sixth floor of the library, but that was a very different place now. Robert came up in the elevator, avoiding the Hacekeans and their Library Militant. Nevertheless, sticking to reality was difficult. Theodor Geisel still held the lobby, but the administration was franchising mind and touch space everywhere else. Scooch-a-mouti characters had infested the basement. H. P. Lovecraft's were said to lurk in the farther underground, in what had been noncirculating storage.
And the sixth floor… was empty, stripped to the bare shelving. From the elevator entrance at the middle of the floor, Robert could see through skeletal shelving all the way to the windows. The book shredders had come and gone. In the southeast corner, the conspirators were hunkered down like twentieth-century socialists plotting empire in the midst of their obvious ruin.
"So what's held up the Library Militant invasion?" Robert said, and waved at the stark reality of the empty stacks.
Carlos replied, "A delay in finding the newest haptics is the official explanation. In fact, it's politics. The Scoochi partisans want this floor for their universe. The Library Militant is resisting. The administration may disappoint them both and make this floor a simulation of what libraries were like when they were real."
"But with fake imagery of the books, right?"
"Yup." Tommie was smiling. "What do you expect? Meantime we still have the floor to ourselves."
"We are not defeated, gentlemen." Winnie's face was stern. "We've known for weeks now that this was inevitable. We've lost a major battle. But it is only the first battle in the war." He glanced at Tommie.
Parker pointed at the LED on his computer. "The deadzone is in place. It's time to resume our seriously criminal conspiratizing." He was smiling, but his gaze swept across them, catching each in the eye. "Okay. I've done my research. I can get us into the steam tunnels. I've even arranged festivities that will get the lab staff out of our way. I can get us to the shredda containers, and I have the aerosol glue. We can cause the Librareome Project and Huertas in particular a whole lot of pain. Of course, it won't stop progress on this sort of thing, but it will — "
Winnie gave a grunt. "We've already agreed that a permanent stop is impossible. But if we can block the jerks who use the most destructive methods — well, that will have to suffice."
"Righto, Dean. That's exactly what we can do. It's all set up, just missing one critical ingredient." His gaze slid across to Robert.
Such is the power of common sense that Robert hesitated almost a third of a second. Then he reached into his pocket and retrieved the plastic box the Stranger had provided. "Check this out, Tommie."
Parker's eyebrows went up. "Hey, I'm impressed. I expected a paper napkin or something." He glanced at his laptop's display and then picked up the box. "This looks like a biosample kit." In fact, the box was now showing colorful labels announcing just that function. "How did you do it?"
Yes, how? Robert couldn't think of truth or lie that would make any sense.
Tommie mistook his silence. "No, no don't tell me. I should be able to figure it out for myself." Tommie smiled down at the box for a moment. Then he slipped it into his pocket.
"Okay. We're all set then. Now we've got to decide on a time." Rivera leaned forward. "Soon. There's too much lab construction between quarters."
"Yup. And there are other constraints. You wouldn't believe the prep I've had to do. I'm netted to consultants up the yinyang. Don't worry, Dean, none of them see more than a small part of what I'm doing. I'm getting to be a real expert at affiliance." Tommie was having a hell of a good time. "I can make this work, guys! Hey, it will be like the good old days — well, maybe not for you, Carlos; you weren't even born back then." He grinned at Winnie and Robert. Robert had gone on those hikes underground often, but they'd been impressive enough, trekking through hundreds of feet of tunnel and then popping up in buildings that were dark and empty and largely unfinished. Sometimes there had been stairs in the stairwells, and sometimes not.
Winnie Blount was smiling a little now, too. "Yeah, the Myasthenic Spelunker Society." He frowned, remembering more. "We were lucky we didn't break our necks." That comment was from the side of the desk where Winnie had lived most of his life, the administrator with nightmares about liability and litigation.
"Yup. It was more fun than gaming, and a lot more dangerous. Anyway, that was back before computers — at least as we understand the term now. Today things are way different, but with my research and this bioprofile from Robert, I can get us past all the watchdog automation. At least, if we get the timing right." He typed briefly on his laptop. "Okay, here's the latest. There are three short time slots in the next six weeks when all the security holes line up."