Worse was Willy’s predicament, and losing his body was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Before the attack against Atopia, a warrant had been issued for Willy’s arrest for breaching Atopian border security. After the attack, and with Willy’s body missing and his virtual presence having fled, the warrant was stepped up to an international one with Interpol getting involved. He was a hunted man.
Terrorists were blamed for the rise in the number of disappearances of pssi-connected users, but this didn’t seem to be deterring the public from flocking to it. The media didn’t specify who the terrorists were, just that their aim was to slow down the spread of Atopia’s product release. The implication was always that Sid and Bob were tied to Terra Nova. That Willy’s body counted as one of the “disappeared” didn’t detract the media from lumping him in with the Terra Novan conspiracy theories.
“And Jimmy and Nancy were hanging over his dad’s shoulder during the whole message,” Brigitte added. “Jimmy was saying that he’d take care of everything, that he and Nancy were worried sick.”
“She sure doesn’t look worried on stage,” Vince said, regretting it even as it came out. Nancy might look happy in the press events and promotion holograms that were promoting Atopia, but who really knew what was going on in the background, what she might have been forced into doing?
But then again, that was exactly the point: who really knew?
Hotstuff frowned at him. “She’s been trying to get in touch with us, but Bob blocks her. Of course she’s worried. She’s thinking the worst.”
And the worst could be very bad.
Vince nodded, but his mind was already elsewhere, gathering the last incoming data before their connections were cut off. The trees thinned as they reached the plateau. In a clearing before them a network of dusty dirt roads stretched into buildings and farmhouses that undulated into the distance. Storm clouds gathered over snowy peaks, while cows huddled for protection under ponderosa pines that lined the edges of the farms and forests.
Vince instructed the walker where to stop. “This is it,” he announced. Comms would be cut off soon. Inside the event horizon of the Commune, there were no wikiworld feeds, no data streams at all. In a few minutes, he’d need to shut off his feeds from the PhutureNews for the first time in thirty years.
“Don’t be so nervous, boss.” Hotstuff was done up in safari gear for the trip. “I’ve got it covered. We’ll wait for you here.”
With flare-ups in the Weather Wars subsiding, the mediaworlds were filling up their empty slots with an unending stream of reports of new apocalyptic cults, and the Commune was the granddaddy of them all. For the first time they caught a glimpse of the shimmering halo that hung in the sky over the Commune. Drones hovered around its perimeter. One skimmed in front of them, its angular curves black and menacing. Behind, almost invisible, floated the aerial plankton, tiny bots that floated on the breeze, their nano-scale rotors keeping them in place. They formed a shell a few dozen feet thick, stretching ten miles around the circumference of the Commune and a mile above it, acting as a giant, electrically-connected Faraday cage that shielded the Commune from any outside electromagnetics and confounded visual and audio signals, as well.
Nearing the outermost road, the walker stopped and squatted.
“I guess this is where we say goodbye,” said Vince to Hotstuff as he unhooked himself from the seat and clambered down, stopping to lend a hand to Brigitte.
Not only would comms be shut down, but so would the smarticle networks in their bodies. They’d been pinged with warnings to turn them off the last hundred yards as they approached the perimeter. This meant Hotstuff and Willy couldn’t make the trip. The walker stood up and turned around, making its way back the way they came. Brigitte and Willy began their goodbyes, and Vince turned away.
The Commune was mute on the topic of how they were supposed to get there. Their only instructions were to meet the robotic walker at a specified longitude and latitude along a mountain road. Vince squinted into the distance and then up at the gathering storm clouds. “Maybe the rest of the way on foot?”
“Don’t think so.” Brigitte pointed to a trail of dust rising on one of the roads coming out from the town center.
It was a horse and cart.
Vince shook his head. “You can’t be serious.”
The storm clouds churned over the mountaintops, obscuring them, as the buggy and horse neared. There was one driver, dressed in black with a large matching hat. The rolling clouds hit the Commune’s perimeter, skidding across its surface to form a dome high in the sky before breaking. The man on the cart motioned to them, urging them toward him.
Brigitte and Vince walked forward. The aerial plankton opened a path in the perimeter wall, and they continued at a jog, running to meet the driver and cart on the other side.
A young man, his cheeks ruddy, pulled up the horses. “Wooooah.”
They all stared at each other.
“Come on, don’t just stand there.” The young man waved at the clouds and coming rain. “We’ll be soaked in a minute.”
Vince stepped forward. “And you are…?”
The young man laughed, holding the reins in one hand while he tipped his hat with the other. “Zephyr.” He said it like they should already know him. “Zephyr McIntyre. Didn’t he mention me?”
Vince and Brigitte exchanged glances.
“Willy McIntyre’s cousin, Zephyr. You’re his friends, right?”
5
Jimmy scadden leaned back in his chair. “You have a responsibility.”
Nancy looked out the glass window-walls of the Cognix boardroom. Beyond the glittering blue security blanket, a thousand feet below, the leafy green canopy of the Atopian top-side forests swayed in the breeze. Waves caressed the white sand beaches. A paradise, but one in which she was coming to realize she was trapped.
“To who, you?” she replied, turning to face her captor.
“Yes, to me.” Jimmy looked around the conference room at Rick Strong, Commander of the Atopian Defense Forces, and Herman Kesselring, the main shareholder and CEO of Cognix Corporation. Dr. Granger sat at a corner of the table, almost behind Jimmy. “To me, to all of us here, to the entire human race.”
How easily the words rolled off his tongue. She remembered the awkward Jimmy Scadden of their shared childhood, the one that could barely get a word out. In his struggle to connect, whatever stumbling words he’d managed had at least been honest.
But no more.
“I want—no, I need—to go out and find Bob,” Nancy insisted. Had Jimmy noticed her infiltrating one of his meetings? She still hadn’t told anyone else what she’d found out.
“What we want to do, and we need to do, these are sometimes two different things.” Jimmy looked at Commander Strong. “Isn’t that right?”
“I agree,” said the Commander. “It’s too dangerous outside Atopia, especially now.”
Jimmy held no direct authority at Board level, but official positions didn’t mean much anymore. Nancy wondered again what power Jimmy held over the Board. Perhaps it was the same power that he held over her.
Fear.
“Too dangerous?” Nancy questioned. “For who?”
Jimmy smiled. “For you.”
Just two words, and yet so many ways to interpret them.
“It wouldn’t look right if you went out and searched for Bob yourself. A bit of a conflict of interest, no?”