“Has stopped dead in its tracks!” Kafari gripped the woman’s shoulder, hard. Ruthlessly shoved aside her own tearing agony, her own desperate desire to rush down there and pull Dinny’s son to safety. She couldn’t. No one could. And she had to make the boy’s aunt understand why. “It hasn’t fired a single shot. It hasn’t crushed him. Do you have the slightest idea how strange that is?”
Rachel shook her head. “All I know about Bolos is what that thing has done, in POPPA’s pay.”
“Well, I’m a psychotronic engineer and I’ve worked on Bolos and I’m telling you, that’s damned peculiar behavior. I don’t know what’s going through that flintsteel mind, but he’s stopped. And it looks like it’s Dinny’s little boy that’s done it. You know how I feel about Dinny…” Her voice went dangerously unsteady. The “Commodore’s” deeper voice made the sudden catch even more powerful.
Rachel paused in her own wild panic and terror to stare at her commander. Then she whispered, “I’m sorry, sir. I know you thought the world of him.”
“He saved my life,” Kafari said bluntly. “He and his mother. Back during the Deng War.”
“I didn’t know you were here during the Deng War.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, soldier. Right now, there’s nothing we can do to help Dinny’s son. If anyone goes near that Bolo, he will fire and there will be hell to pay before the smoke clears. It’s possible — just possible — that the idea of running over a lone, helpless child is more daunting than running over potentially armed rioters in Darconi Street. Even if he’s just thinking about it, we’re ahead of the game. We’ve gained a few more minutes and that’s how I’m measuring our lifespans, right now, in minutes. The more of them he spends sitting there, thinking, the more of them I’ll have to figure our way out of this mess.”
“Yes, sir,” Rachel whispered. Then, voice breaking, “Thank you, sir. For stopping me. For… trying…”
Kafari gripped her shoulder again. “We’re doing what we can to give Dinny’s son — and the rest of us — a chance. What I need from you is vigilance. Stand guard here. Stand guard all night, it that’s what it takes. Keep watch and report instantly if that machine so much as twitches.”
“Yes, sir!” Rachel saluted crisply.
Kafari began to relax, just a few muscles here and there. “Good work, soldier. Keep me posted. Phil, I need someone to monitor military and civilian broadcasts. Things are heating up in Madison and I don’t have time to monitor what’s happening.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lena,” she said, “I need someone to act as liaison with the urban units. The students and combat vets know you. I want you dedicated to full-time radio duty.”
“Yes, sir.”
They followed her back to the access door. Rachel, on guard at the end of the dam, was standing straight and tall again, focused on her job, not her panic. Kafari nodded to herself, satisfied, then headed for her office. “Black Dog, this is Red Dog, come in.”
“This is Black Dog, go ahead.”
She told Simon what had happened.
He whistled softly. “Now that’s unexpected. Why would Sonny stop? And why is that child alive?”
“I want to know the answer to that more than anything in this universe. I’m still trying to hack into their network to find out what they hit us with.”
“I may be able to shed some light on that, from my end. Do me a favor, Red Dog. Turn the power back on.”
“Turn it on?”
“Yeah. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”
Kafari said, “Okay, babe, you got it.”
She relayed a message to her engineer, who was on permanent duty in the power plant. “Turn it on?” he echoed her confusion.
“That’s right. We’ve had an official request from our urban partners.”
“Well, okay. Whatever you want, sir, we’ll get it done.”
Simon’s voice came through again just as they reached her office. “Grid’s back up. Good work. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks,” Kafari said, voice dry.
He chuckled, then signed off.
She put Phil and Yalena to work, then dove back into her own efforts to break into POPPA’s computers. She was so involved, Phil’s abupt yell nearly brought her out of her chair.
“Look-it this!” he shouted, yanking up the volume on a P-News broadcast. “Holy mother-pissin’…”
When Kafari saw the screen, she understood his shock. Somebody had blown a hole through the dome of Vittori Santorini’s Palace. A really big hole. As in, the dome was gone. It was still smouldering, lurid against the night sky. Federal army units had surrounded the Palace in a defensive ring, bristling with artillery and lesser weaponry. The reporter on the scene was babbling into the camera.
“—unclear on President Santorini’s location. He is believed to be in the Palace, as he was broadcasting from the studio when the missile struck the dome. Security is unbelievably tight. A curfew has been declared city-wide. Anyone trying to approach within a kilometer of the Palace will be shot on sight.
“A group of urban rebels has taken full credit for the strike, in retaliation for the brutal massacre of half a million helpless refugees in Klameth Canyon, tonight. It is not yet known what the full situation in Klameth Canyon is, but reports are coming in that a war gas was released in the canyon on orders from Vittori Santorini, himself. Other reports indicate that Commodore Oroton is still at large and that the Bolo has stopped moving and is refusing to obey any orders issued to it. We’ll have more on that situation when we can make contact with the federal troops at Maze Gap…”
Kafari stared at the screen, stunned speechless. What the hell was going on in Madison, tonight? The wording of the report on Klameth Canyon, alone, was flabbergasting. Brutal massacre of half a million helpless refugees…
Yalena’s voice jolted her out of shock. “That’s Billy Woodhouse. He’s not a P-News reporter. He’s one of my classmates from Vishnu. What’s he doing, covering a broadcast for P-News?”
Kafari glanced sharply at her daughter — and saw several things all at once. Of course Simon had needed the power back on! He’d needed the datascreens in every home in Madison functional, which meant he needed power restored to the city’s millions of private residences. “It’s your father,” she said wonderingly. “He’s taken over the P-News studio. My God, he’s taken it and put our own people in the field as news correspondents.”
On screen, Yalena’s fellow student was continuing his report, the first factual news report on Jefferson in nearly twenty years. ” — we’re getting reports of sporadic violence in Madison. We have confirmation that seventeen POPPA-Squad stations have been destroyed, apparently by hypervelocity missiles in a well-orchestrated, simultaneous attack—”
He paused, listening, then said, “This just in, we’re picking up a broadcast from the Joint Chamber. Assembly Hall has been surrounded by forces claiming to belong to the Urban Freedom Force. We’re trying to establish contact with our special correspondent at the Joint Chamber. Melissa, are you there?”
After a moment of dead air, a girl’s voice replied, “Yes, Bill, I’m here.”
The picture switched, showing the interior of the Assembly’s Joint Chamber.
“That’s Melissa Hardy!” Yalena crowed.
Melissa was speaking with creditable calm. “We’re just stunned by tonight’s events, Bill. The Assembly is in shock, as you can see behind me.” She turned to gesture at the Joint Chamber floor, where Assembly members were moving in agitation, gesticulating, talking, trying to take in the fact that they were surrounded by hostile forces who genuinely bore them ill-will. “As you can see, only half the Assembly is in the building, tonight, but the Members are just stunned by what’s happening.”