Tommie's breathing was a raspy wheeze. Every few paces he twisted within their grasp. "About hundred yards more…" He shuddered and went limp.
"Tommie?" Winston hesitated, bringing them almost to a halt.
"Keep going… keep going." And then after a moment, "So our Librareome protest was… fraud from the beginning, huh?"
"I don't know, Tommie. I knew it was silly, but it seemed worthwhile." Blount looked across at Robert. "I thought it would lead to something I really want."
"Me too," said Carlos, his voice faint. "In the end, Sharif-whoever got to all of us, didn't he?"
"All but Tommie."
Miri was watching the back-and-forth silently, but her eyes were wide. Well, she had earned the right to listen.
Robert said, "So what did he promise you, Winston?"
Winnie's lips pulled back from his teeth. "I sure as hell won't tell you." He hesitated and the snarl became a twisted smile. "But I bet I know what your deal-with-the-devil was." When Robert didn't reply, Blount's smile broadened and he continued, "You tried to disguise it, Gu. All the times we met in the library, and never once did you pull your old tricks. At first I just figured you were setting me up for one of your extreme traps. After I learned about Sharif, I thought maybe you were running him ." Winnie laughed. "But then I began to suspect the truth. You've lost your killer edge, the way you could look inside people and see what would hurt them the most, and then do it to them. You've lost that, haven't you, Robert?"
Robert lowered his head. "Yes." The word came out softly, without anger, almost a sigh.
"And I bet you can't write poetry anymore, either."
"It's the poetry I want back, Winnie."
"Oh."
Tommie twisted in their grasp, trying to suck in breath. "Shut up… the north gate should be in… next hundred feet."
They walked in silence, eyes straining for some sign on the unmarked wall.
And now that Robert was looking, he saw something else. Not more green lettering, but a blinking icon that meant pending mail. One last message before Miri had cut the fiber link. Almost without thinking, he shifted his grip on Tommie's leg, and tapped a go-ahead on his waist box.
A pdf, by God . He hadn't seen anything like this since his teaching days. The table of contents floated in the air above him. The critic in him couldn't resist scanning down the page. The ToC was impeccably formatted, with perfect spelling (at least, if you ignored context). The bullet headers were a mishmash of unparallel constructions and grammatical infelicities. It looked as if it had been thrown together by a gang of par-aliterates in a hell of a hurry.
But what it said was… important:
FIXME: This needs to be replaced with proper formatting, actually doable, but not now.
While We are out of Touch
or
How to Survive and Prosper during the Next Thirty Minutes
by Your Friend, the Mysterious Stranger Dedication:
To the idiots among you who cut the fiber link. Now Alfred can't see you, but I'm cut off, too. Hence, I'm breaking my stealthy cover and shipping down this bolus of bits before Miri pops the connector.
Executive Summary
[none provided]
Table of Contents
Introduction…page iv o How to use this document
Chapter 1, Saving Tommie Parker…page o The Huertas back door o The keycard that should not work, but does!
Chapter 2, Your beknighted wearables…page o Not really hecho en Paraguay , unfortunately for you o The knockout gas — ah, but I already told you about that o What you can and cannot trust about these gadgets
Chapter 3, What Alfred is up to…page o And why you really don't want Alfred to succeed *The animal model — or, world domination out of little fruit flies grows o Why calling 911 is not fast enough to stop him o If you don't believe me, just show this file to Miri!
Chapter 4, What you can do to help…page o Map of Huertas territory o Map of GenGen MCog arrays. Alfred owns this territory, networkwise — but I'm there, too o How to get back to the MCog arrays o What you can do to defeat Alfred o Come be my hands in this glorious struggle!
Chapter 5, What's in it for you?…page o Promises made and promises kept o With your helping hands, I can still deliver
Appendix A…page o Neat stuff that will impress the Department of Homeland Security and which may make life easier after your arrest
Appendix B…page o Why Scooch-a-mout should be the Library's lord and mascot
Robert looked at Miri. She was concentrating on holding up Tommie's shoulder. For the moment all her nerdly interests seemed far away. But we need the nerd as much as ever .
Robert — > Miri: <file type='pdf7> And he pushed the Stranger's file across to her.
Tommie did his best to count Winnie's paces. But there were distractions. There was this rock concert playing in Tommie's chest, and every screech of the beat sent fire across his shoulders and down his arms. This wasn't a real heart attack. This was just his pacemaker fallen into wild chaos. The last few years, Tommie hadn't been too envious of other people's diddling medical miracles. So what if his vascular system was falling apart; the pacemaker would keep him going till classic science-fictional immortality arrived. But now all his plans for living forever were in trouble. Count the paces. Count the paces !
And then there would be seconds when the pain would let up, and his heart was a butterfly flutter in his chest. For a few seconds his thoughts would clear, and then he would black out… They were carrying him still, though the ride was bumpy. Ol'Robert was shifting around like he had business with the box on his belt.
"Okay. Stop," he whispered. He would have shouted, but the whisper was all he had just now.
They heard him. And then he was lying on the cold, hard concrete.
Winston's voice came down from high above him. "So where is the door?… I see!" Sounds of Winston fumbling with the keycard. Something big slid aside and there was a wall of faint light, maybe the night sky. He felt cool breeze on his face. The sound of the freeway was like distant surf.
"No alarms," said Winston.
"Maybe… silent alarms?" he managed to wheeze. This exit had been such a wild-ass escape option in his original plan.
Winston was a shadow against the sky. He was tapping at his keypad. "I got 911, Tommie!" Now he was talking to someone Tommie could not hear, telling them about a man down with a heart attack.
"They're on the way, Tommie! They want your med log."
The rock concert was back, whacking a new tune in his chest. "Bet… med log… is fried." He twisted onto his elbows. There were more important things. "Tell'em about the labs, Win!"
"I told them. I just called 911 myself." That was Robert's granddaughter. Her feet were right beside his head. Now she stepped away, became a second shadow, beside Winston. She turned this way and that, the way kids do when they're playing games with their wearables. "I don't like this," she said after a moment.
"You heard the Highway Patrol, kid." Winston's voice was tight, like he was worried as hell. "They're sending a car. We just have to sit tight for a few moments."
Tommie's pacemaker was working upward to the next crescendo. Okay, give it a few seconds more and the pain would lessen — or maybe this time, his heart would break.
The girl's words floated in and out of hearing: " — is an emergency. They should airlift. And the net is screwy. I can't route to my… friends, not even sming. I think someone's spoofed the local nodes and — " Tommie rolled from side to side, pain blotting out the rest of the sentence.