“Glad I’m not the only one,” Gwen replied dryly.
“Oh, you’re not,” he assured her fervently. “I’m at a stumbling block right now. It’s like I’ve suddenly got a lot of evidence, it’s just that none of it is precisely what I need.”
He sighed, rubbing at his chin absently, “I’m afraid that I’m back to plan A.”
“Which was”
“Wander around like a tourist.” Anselm replied wryly.
Gwen chuckled, shaking her head. “When in doubt, throw a dart blindfolded. Is that it”
“Something like that.”
Gwen shook her head, “You need a native tour guide”
Anselm grinned, “I wouldn’t say no.”
In the Tower, air traveled at speeds up to forty kilometers per hour, making the trip from the bottom of the tower to the top in approximately eight minutes. Along the way, it turned a brace of wind turbines set into the side of the immense structure, generating two hundred megawatts of electrical power for consumption by the inhabitants of Tower City, as well as other residents of the Australian continent.
The net result was clean, emission free power.
Unless, of course, someone added emissions of their own.
“What’s the reading, Mr. Jacob”
“Eighty parts per billion.”
Abdallah Amir nodded in satisfaction, “If our calculations hold up, we should be able to achieve approximately double this during peak production.”
“Will that be enough”
“Enough for the effects to be felt around the world, Jacob,” Amir smiled. “They talk of `the shot heard round the globe’, but this is the one that will be felt throughout the world.”
Joshua Corvine grimaced as he looked around the room he’d reserved from Sydney.
It wasn’t such a bad room, he supposed. It was large, as such things went, with room for a bed and desk, as well as a full bathroom and access to a satellite TV that was glued to the wall. Ten years ago that would probably have made the room exceptional, actually, a high definition screen, eight feet from corner to corner. Today they rolled the things off the assembly line by the millions, and just let the store cut the plastic film to the size the customer desired.
No, the room was fine, the problem was that he was three levels underground and it gave him the creeps.
Bloody Aussies, or Eco-nuts, or whatever these people are, he growled as he thought, sitting on the foot of the bed and taking out his Portable. All the room in the world to build out, and they dig themselves a hole in the ground.
He liked the Aussies, Joshua did, at least most of the time. They were generally a nice people, friendly, who brewed good beer and knew how to enjoy themselves. All good reasons why Joshua had requested the Sydney post as a place to finish out his career before taking his government pension and retiring back home.
However, like them or not, he didn’t understand them most of the time.
Of course, what could one expect from people living in a country that housed most of the deadliest animals on the planet. Having been warned more than once concerning the danger of spiders smaller than his thumbnail back at the embassy, Joshua was relatively certain that God had tried his damndest to tell people that Australia wasn’t for them.
Course, people being people — no one listened.
Joshua drew his portable from its belt pouch and snapped it open. Like most modern portables it looked like an oriental fan when it was fully extended, the semi-circular screen fanned out around the palm grip. This one was NRO issued, one given out to each American Embassy in the world, plus there were a small handful, in the hands of agents doing jobs similar to the one, that Joshua was now on, and it included a few tricks that weren’t quite available on the market yet.
Its internal memory was measured in hundreds of terabytes, and that was only because the carbon nanotube technology wasn’t as advanced when it was delivered six months earlier as it was now. The computer itself was a four core processor capable of connecting to the CIA’s heavy metal super computer cluster if it needed any extra power for calculations. The most impressive thing the little device could do, however, was what Joshua was checking at the moment.
The device beeped at his request, then displayed a countdown timer.
Satellite available in ninety-three minutes, forty-seven seconds.
“From the observation level you can see eighty kilometers in any given direction.”
Anselm and Gwen tuned out the drone of the tour guide as he talked to the group of tourists who had driven in to see the world’s tallest man-made structure from the top down. They had moved off to the side and were enjoying the beautiful, if somewhat frightening view as they talked.
“There has to be a way to find him,” Gwen said, frowning into the distance.
Anselm shook his head, “in a city of eighty thousand It’s not that simple.”
“The Shanties aren’t a huge place, Anselm,” she said. “Strangers still stick out like sore thumbs. Plus, we know he’s had some contact with the thermies.”
“Ah, the ones who won’t talk to me” Anselm asked with a slight smile.
Gwen nodded once in grudging agreement, “he can’t hide forever.”
“No, no one can when people are determined to find them,” Anselm conceded. “But that doesn’t mean that we’ll find him any time soon.”
“I just wish I knew what he was doing here,” Gwen told him, “That thought you tossed out about radiation in the tower gives me chills.”
“It was just a thought,” Anselm shrugged, “but it has to be something to do with the tower.Otherwise why would he be here”
She nodded, knowing that Anselm had a point. There were limited things of interest in Tower City, and the Tower was most of them. What was left was almost entirely included in the twenty-five thousand acres of greenhouse that lay directly below them at the moment. The Shanties themselves were only interesting for their reputation of being the `greenest’ of green cities, with an almost obsessive attention to reducing environmental damage.
This made Anselm’s suggestion that Abdallah might use the tower to launch some sort of terror attack doubly chilling. It was intended to save the world. Good clean energy for everyone. Not cause more damage to an agonized planet. The idea that someone could twist it wasn’t something Gwen liked to contemplate.
She had her duty, however, and she would do what needs must.
“If he’s going to use the tower,” she said after a moment, “Then he needs access to it, right”
Anselm nodded, “Of course.But everyone has access to it, we’re here aren’t we”
Gwen shook her head and reached forward to rap the heavy composite dome that surrounded them, “We’re sealed in here. This stuff is practically bulletproof.if he wants to mess with things, he’ll need to be inside.”
Anselm nodded slowly, “Alright.How many employees are in the tower”
“Depends on if you mean core employees or everyone,” Gwen responded with a shrug, “People with full time access to the tower.maybe fifty, give or take. But the greenhouse itself employs a lot more, especially with the tourism factor and agriculture.”
“So.how many” Anselm asked, looking down over the green fields that were obscured by the glass one kilometer below.
“Maybe seven or eight hundred.”
Anselm was caught between being dismayed at the size of the number, and surprised that it wasn’t larger. “That’s a lot of strawberries and kiwis.”
Gwen chuckled, nodding. “They also grow medicinal plants, fragrant plants, some more basic foodstuff. Quite a lot of it actually, but that’s not surprising.”