Someone was cradling his shoulders. Carlos? "It'll be okay, Professor Parker." The voice turned away from him. "I'm having some access problems, too. But the error messages make sense. I think the library riot is soaking up too much resource."
The little girl's voice was scornful. "So much that I can't even sming?"
"How about laser direct to the freeway?" That was Robert.
The girl's shadow repeated the strange little dance. "I can't quite reach it from here." She was silent for a moment. "We're just playing into the Badguys' hands. Here. Take a look at this pdf."
Winston again: "There will be a car! If one doesn't show up in five minutes, we'll — we'll carry Tommie down the hill ourselves."
Tommie's heart had stopped. No, it was back in butterfly mode. He'd have a few seconds of clarity. The girl was probably right, but there was no way he was going down that hill. The others should go, see if they could get far enough to put out a real alarm. Or maybe they should go back into the labs and give the enemy a big surprise. Darkness was rising inside him. In a moment or two this would not be his problem. And his friends were too stupid to leave him here. Maybe he could set some of them loose.
Listen to me ! But Tommie's words came out scarcely louder than a sigh: "Guys… we gotta split up." And then the darkness had him.
27
The Revocation Attack
Xiu Xiang looked out from their car, at the dark hillsides. "I feel pretty useless, Lena."
"You feel useless?" Lena Gu shifted irritably in her wheelchair.
Their plan had been to be a mobile presence across the places where Robert was most likely to show up. Tonight they would be on the scene and no one could balk them. Instead, all the action was elsewhere. Even the transportation was uncooperative, operating under "special event rules" in all areas near UCSD. Their car was moving as slowly as they could make it go, but in another thirty seconds it would reach the south end of this old bit of asphalt, at which point — no matter how loudly they demanded otherwise — it would turn left at the little T-intersection, away from the hillside, and take them back to the freeway. Then, if they wished, it would drive north to the Ted Williams Expressway, turn and come down here still again.
Xiu stared into the dark of the hillside. And saw nothing. "I've practiced so much, and still I can't make my contacts work right."
Lena said, "Actually, there isn't a whole lot to see here. This hillside has to be the dumbest public land near campus."
There was some real light. It silhouetted the hilltops and lit the low overcast; around the library, insanity still reigned. A few minutes earlier, Lena had guided Xiu through some of the views. Celebration, riot, whatever it was, the network stats were impressive. Now Xiu couldn't see any of it.
Okay, I confess defeat . She reached into the backpack on the floor by her feet. The pack contained her shop-class projects. She had told herself they might come in handy tonight. How, she couldn't really imagine, but the gadgets did prove that X. Xiang could still create. There was something useful there, even if it wasn't one of her gadgets. She pulled out her view-page, sat back, and enjoyed the clunky comfort of its old-fashioned inter-face. What a fall from grace this was — but just now, she was too nervous for Epiphany.
Lena abruptly said, "We have more audio from Juan!"
The boy's voice was almost a whisper: "We're still in Pilchner Hall. We're waiting for Miri's grandpa to come back from the basement." Miri's voice came faintly to the microphone: "They're not doing anything ."
"Lemme talk to Miri," said Lena.
Xiu listened to the two for a moment. They couldn't get any video, and Miri's Epiphany had suffered a 3030 error. (Xiu had looked that up; "3030" was a catchall code for a system deadlock caused by licensing conflicts.) Meantime all they had were these very occasional, very brief voice messages through Juan.
"Gotta go," whispered Juan, and the session was ended.
Lena was silent a moment, just watching the familiar dark landscape slide by. "I want to see those kids. They're needing a smart grilling… Any chance the link was faked?"
"Juan is a careful boy. It would be almost impossible to fake his Epiphany's cert — "
Lena harrumphed. "And as far as I can tell that was their voices, but talking in whispers and not saying much except that everything is boringly safe."
It was strange, if the children needed stealth and a low bit rate, that they had not used silent messaging. Maybe someone thought they could fool a pair of old ladies. In fact, with Juan's wearable, I could fake sessions like this ! She glanced at Lena. "Maybe you should call in the marines." Bob and Alice.
"Yes, but if it's a small emergency, they can't do anything more than you or I. And if it's a big emergency — well, they might have to do something awful." Lena hummed a few bars of something nervous. "And Miri says everything is fine. Just fine."
"Maybe we should call the police."
"Ha! Nowadays you don't have to call the police; they just happen to you." Lena was staring at the hillside, her fingers trembling against her lips.
The last couple of months, Lena Gu had been such a reliable source of certainty. What if we both wimp out ? Xiu thought. Now, that was a frightening idea. She tried to think of something really forceful to say: "um, your ex has been 'doing nothing' for almost half an hour. Don't you think that's too long?"
Lena's head bowed, and she said softly, almost to herself, "Oh, Robert. You're up to something terribly stupid, aren't you?" She stared into the dark. "Let's give Miri five more minutes. Then we'll call 911."
"Okay." They tooled along the valley floor, slowly enough that the windows could roll down. The resinous scent of manzanita drifted in. On their left was southbound Highway 5, a lightless torrent of fast-moving vehicles, edged by the blaze of the manual lanes. On their right were steep, dark hills, violet light flickering along the ridgelines. Xiang brought up a local network view, looked back and forth between that and the physical world.
Their little automobile was speeding up again. A pleasant male voice spoke within the passenger cabin: "This portion of Valley Bottom Drive is misfunctioning. You may return after ten a.m. tomorrow."
"What? Now we can't even circle back! There has to be some override, Xiu."
Xiang shook her head. This would be their last drive through here tonight. Xiu had helped design the hardware security layer. It solved so many problems. It made the Internet a safe and workable system. Now she was its victim… She thought again of the bag of tricks that sat on the floor beside her feet. She had spent the whole semester building those gadgets, her mechanical daydreams. Maybe —
"Xiu! Traffic!" Lena was pointing up the hillside.
Xiu leaned over and looked out Lena's side. She saw two spears of light that just now were turning away from them. "It looks like a car on manual," or maybe it was on automatic, but driving on unimproved roadway.
"It must be on the service road." Lena paused, and a map appeared on Xiu's view-page, showing the road they hadn't been able to get on. The road that led to Huertas's old back entrance.
The lights turned back toward them, then disappeared behind an outcropping. Xiu's view-page didn't even show a nav marker for the other vehicle.
"What are they up to?" said Lena.
Their own car was almost to the T-intersection.
"Car!" said Lena. "Turn right."
"Sorry. That's not an existing road. The only legal turn is left."
"Turn right! Turn right!"
"I'm sorry. I'll have you in safe traffic in less than five minutes. Please think about giving me an ultimate destination." Xiu bet herself that company logic had decided it was dealing with a DUI customer. If they didn't come up with something sensible, the vehicle would take them all the way back to Rainbows End.