Author: Laurence E. Dahners
Date: 2014-05-06T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: “Rescue" is the eleventh of a series of near future SciFi/Thrillers whose young heroine Ell Donsaii’s nerve mutation makes her a genius and provides her some astonishing athletic abilities. In “Rescue,” President Stockton tells the FBI to tone down its efforts to imprison Ell. Unfortunately, the SCDF, a group of ultraconservative survivalists now has the President in their sights. Their attack on the President succeeds far beyond anyone’s imagination. Could it be that Stockton’s very life will now depend on the woman she has been imprisoning and harassing? Meanwhile, Stell Simsworth, the ten y
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Rescue

An Ell Donsaii story # 11

By

Laurence E Dahners

Copyright 2014 Laurence E Dahners

Kindle Edition

Author’s Note

Though this book can “stand alone” it will be much easier to understand if read as part of the series including

“Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story)”

“Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2)”

“Lieutenant (an Ell Donsaii story #3)”

“Rocket (an Ell Donsaii story #4)”

“Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5)”

“Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6)”

“Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7)”

“Allotropes (an Ell Donsaii story #8)”

“Defiant (an Ell Donsaii story #9)” and

“Wanted (an Ell Donsaii story #10)”

I have minimized repetition of explanations that would be redundant to the earlier books in order to provide a better reading experience for those of you who are reading the series.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

Table of Contents

Preprologue

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Author’s Afterword

Preprologue

An unusually gifted quarterback, Allan Donsaii had been widely recognized to be startlingly strong and a phenomenally accurate passer. During his college career he finished two full seasons without any interceptions and two games with 100 percent completions. Unfortunately, the pro teams never drafted him for fear that his size would allow him to be dominated by bigger opposing players.

Extraordinarily quick, Kristen Taylor captained her college soccer team and rarely played a game without a “steal.” Usually she had many.

Allan and Kristen dated more and more seriously throughout college and married at the end of their senior year. Their friends teased them that they were only marrying so that they could start their own sports dynasty.

Their daughter Ell had Kristen’s quickness, magnified by Allan’s strength and highly accurate coordination. The child also had a new mutation affecting the myelin sheaths surrounding her nerves. This mutation produced nerve transmission speeds that nearly doubled those of normal neurons. With faster nerve impulse transmission, she had much quicker reflexes. Yet her new type of myelin sheath was also thinner, allowing more axons, and therefore more neurons, to be packed into the same sized skull. These two factors resulted in a brain which had more neurons, though it wasn’t larger, and a faster processing speed, akin to a computer with a smaller, faster CPU architecture.

Most importantly, under the influence of adrenalin in a “fight or flight” situation, her nerves transmitted even more rapidly than their normally remarkable speed.

Much more rapidly…

Prologue

Wichita, Kansas—AirDyne announced their plans to begin selling a port fueled and jet powered personal flyer. Consisting of a cylinder for the passenger to stand in which is surrounded by three AI-controlled jets mounted in pods, it isn’t exactly the “jet pack” of many people’s dreams. The passenger steps into the chest high cylinder through a small door. A joystick is lifted to take off, tilted to go different directions and twisted to turn the mini vehicle. Extremely unstable without AI control, it will be sold with a powerful enough AI that a license will not be required to fly it. The AI will not only maintain stability, but will also keep the vehicle away from flight lanes and prevent landings in areas where the jets might injure someone below.

Critics point out that direct jet powered lifting like this consumes inordinate amounts of fuel, is extraordinarily noisy and will start fires if landed on dry vegetation. Nonetheless, the vid of a young woman demonstrating the flyer has gone viral and the company has been swamped with interest. Many orders have already been placed and there is said to be interest from several policing organizations as well.

AirDyne is obviously taking advantage of the publicity afforded personal flying vehicles by Donsaii’s display of a model flying car during her now famous speech at the G-20 in Brazil…

Acting FBI Director Sheila Rhodes waited outside the Oval Office with a sense of unease. She hoped that Stockton wouldn’t spend this entire meeting on Donsaii. Her first meeting with Stockton had nearly derailed Sheila’s career.  She’d had to tell the President that Donsaii’s friends had escaped from prison somehow. Though Stockton had looked as if she desperately wanted to fire someone, she’d eventually acknowledged that, having only taken over a few days before, it was unreasonable to expect that Sheila should be held responsible. Nonetheless, Stockton had expended the remaining time in their appointment browbeating Sheila about the need for her to come up with a plan for capturing Donsaii.

An aide appeared and ushered Sheila into the Office where to her relief Stockton came around to the front of the desk and shook Sheila’s hand. “Sorry we got off on a tense note in our previous visit,” she said. “Before we get into other business, I would like to talk about Donsaii again. My advisors have ganged up to convince me that I’ve got to let the Donsaii issue rest for a while. In the face of this ridiculous Nobel Peace Prize she’s been awarded, and the popularity of that fluffy talk she gave at the G-20, they think it would be political suicide for the party if we were to toss her back in the slammer right now.”

“So, while I’d like you to continue efforts to find her, I want you to hold off on actually arresting her for a while. Figure out where she is, come up with an ironclad plan for taking her down, and when the political cauldron stops bubbling, then we’ll drop the hammer, OK?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“OK, now brief me on what’s happening with the FBI’s other missions.”

“Well, one of the items that you should be aware of is that we have finally located a few members of that South Carolina survivalist/terrorist cell.”

“Those sons-a-bitches that shot the people going into the abortion clinic in Greenville?”

“Yes Ma’am, and blew up the clinic in Charleston. And planted a bomb in the Thurmond Federal Building in Columbia. That one would have killed hundreds if it had gone off.”

Stockton shook her head, “How the hell can they call themselves ‘pro-life’ and then kill people to enforce their beliefs?”

“Our assessment is that they’ve fallen under the sway of Dupree Fallon. He’s unbalanced but extremely charismatic.”

“That sick son of a bitch is with them? I thought he’d disappeared?”

“He has disappeared from the net, but AI analysis suggests that much of the rhetoric on the website for the South Carolina Defense Force, or SCDF as they call themselves, was in fact written by Fallon. We think that the SCDF is not just his mouthpiece, but also his ‘action arm.’”

“And you know where Fallon is?”

“No Ma’am, but we’re pretty sure we’ve identified some members of the SCDF. We’re planning to arrest them and then hopefully sweat the location of Fallon out of them.”

“Good, go after those bastards!”

“I wanted to warn you that their site claims they have plans for massive retribution against the government if it interferes with their operations.”

Stockton had turned to look out the window, “Well, you just interfere them right out of existence and we won’t have to worry about it, will we?” She turned back to Rhodes, “That reminds me, what progress have you made on taking out that syndicate in Boston?”

***

Intently focused on her CAD for the new VLGC (Very Large Graphend Chamber) it was a few moments before Viveka felt a presence behind her. She turned and looked back over her shoulder. It was Dr. Pace, apparently studying her graphics.

“Hey, that looks good!” he said, still intently focused on her CAD. “Is that a row of ports all along one side of the chamber?”

“Yes,” Viveka said shyly, “you might prefer to use lasers, but you know how we need to quickly boost the temperature to get the allotrope formation dynamics to favor diamond?”

Pace nodded, still staring at the diagram.

“I’ve had this idea that when we’re trying to form graphend, we can just rotate our template in the chamber and send heat from a solar parabolic mirror in through these ports to warm the area where we want to form diamond allotrope. The rest of the chamber would be kept at graphene forming temperature and as the template spun it would be making diamond on one side and graphene on the other.”

“That… could be a stroke of genius! Or of course, it might not work at all if the transition from one temperature to the other is too slow. We need to try it with something smaller than the VLGC.”

“Well,” Viveka tilted her head as she concentrated, “if solar parabolic doesn’t work we could also send laser beams in through those ports, rather than mounting the lasers directly on the VLGC. Then we could use the lasers for other projects when the VLGC wasn’t in production.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea.”

“I’ve also been thinking…”

“Mmm hmm.”

“How about if we built a VLGC up in orbit? Then there wouldn’t be gravitational stress deforming the template. We could use lighter templates.”

“Oh, now that’s a great idea! I was just coming over to ask you if you wanted to go up to the habitat with me. Get a feel for the issues out there in space so to speak? I’m flying out to the island in about an hour and going up this afternoon.”

Viveka turned excitedly in her chair, “Really? Don’t I have to have training or anything?”

“No it’s pretty routine now. The flight crew will put you in your emergency suit and you can review habitat safety on the flight up. You’d need to go home and pack for a couple of nights.”

The flight out to the island was Viveka’s second experience with flying, only after her trip around the world from India. The small Lear jet was very different from the large planes she’d flown around the world in and she excitedly spent much of the time at the windows where Gary pointed out the sights.

After they arrived at the island, it turned out that they had an hour and a half until the flight up to the habitat. Gary took her to the big house where they sat out and enjoyed the sea breeze under a big canopy. The staff brought them a lunch menu. Gary looked at her over the menu, “I wouldn’t eat much if I were you.”

Viveka looked at him, surprised that he would be so rude as to suggest she go on a diet. She didn’t think of herself as fat, but knew that some men liked women who were extraordinarily thin. However, it wasn’t as if they were romantically involved so that he should think he could tell her what to do like so many men did to women. Or, does he think that because he is my boss at work that he can tell me what to eat? Will he start telling me what to wear next? She had a sinking feeling. America’s supposed lack of such a patriarchal attitude was a big reason she was glad to be out of India.

Suddenly, Gary looked at her and seemed to realize that she was unhappy. His face reddened. “Uh, I’m not trying to tell you what to eat, just warning you that many people get sick when they first go weightless. That’s much more unpleasant if your stomach is full.”

“Oh,” Viveka said, embarrassed that he had somehow seen what she’d been thinking. “What would you suggest?”

“Uh, their fruit smoothies are really good and you’ll absorb a smoothie before you get up to orbit.”

“OK, thank you,” she said.

The flight up was on one of the space adapted 747s. It had a small compartment for passengers which contained luxury seats for people going up to the Habitat’s Hilton for vacations. Most of the 747’s space, however, was dedicated to cargo. This trip it carried a “living quarters module” which would be spun up to provide g forces to keep people healthy. Turning away from where she’d been pressed to the window, Viveka asked excitedly, “How many of the living quarters modules are there up here now?”

Gary rubbed his chin, “There are living modules rotating around the hubs at each end of each weightless module and I think there are more than twenty weightless modules now, so that would be about forty.”

“And how much space in each one?”

“Hmm, their interiors are 100 feet high by 55 feet in diameter. They divide that into ten ‘floors’ with each floor having about 2,300 square feet of space.”

Viveka’s eyes widened, “That’s about 214 square meters per floor or 2,140 per module! They must have about 85,600 square meters of living space that has simulated gravity! Or,” she tilted her head, thinking, “about 921,400 of the square feet you Americans like to use.”

A little astonished that she’d done that math so quickly in her head, Gary said, “Yeah, I think they’ve mostly got four rooms to a floor which could add up to about 1,600 rooms, but with some big luxury suites and using some of that space for restaurants, meeting rooms and exercise facilities, they actually only have somewhere around 1,200 rooms so far. Still, a lot of people are living up there now,” he shrugged, “if you count the hotel guests as living there anyway.”

Viveka winked at him, “You Americans take up so much space though. You could have a lot more of us Indians living in that same space.”

Gary grinned, “That’s certainly true.”

Viveka and Gary pulled themselves down the central tube that passed through the weightless modules from end to end, connecting them to one another. Gary towed a large plastic bag as they went. Making Gary envious, Viveka had shown absolutely no evidence of space-sickness. The Allosci module was five down from the main airlock at the end of the string where the 747 had attached itself.

When they entered the Allosci module, Viveka’s eyes widened. She could tell the space inside it was huge, but much of it was filled with what she recognized to be graphene spinners of all different sizes. “You don’t have room for a VLGC in here!”

“No,” Gary said, looking around, “If your idea of making graphend on gossamer templates out here works out, we’d have to buy another module.”

“But, modules must be very expensive!”

Gary shrugged, “Our profits on graphene are surprisingly large.”

Viveka looked around the module with a dawning realization. She glanced back at Gary and found him apparently admiring her. Whereas the gaze of many of the men back in India had angered her, she found she enjoyed Gary’s appreciative gaze. A little embarrassed she said, “What’s in the bag?”

Gary snorted, “Little Styrofoam beads that Ell wants coated with graphene. She asked me to do it a long time ago but we just now got a small coating chamber installed up here. All the graphene up here has been made with spinners.”

Viveka’s brow furrowed, then cleared. “You want to coat them in a weightless environment so their electrostatic charges will keep them separated?”

Gary’s eyes widened, this girl is really smart! “Yeah, that’s why,” he said with a grin after a moment, a little embarrassed that Viveka had figured it out on her own when Ell had had to suggest it to him. “And we can try graphend coating some of your gossamer structures in the little chamber while we’re up here this trip.”

Viveka glanced at him shyly, “Can I try flying around in here? I’d like to make sure I know how to use the harness.”

Gary grinned at her and said with a wink, “It’s OK to just admit you want to fly.”

“OK,” she grinned back at him and grasping the joyball at her waist she pushed it forward. The jets on the back of her harness pushed her forward into the big chamber. “I just want to flyyyyy!” She twisted the ball and rotational jets turned her back to face Gary as a huge smile split her face. Turning the ball upward slowly flipped her end over end. With a joyful shriek Viveka said, “This is so fun!”

***

Roger and Ryan walked into the Evich Ophthalmology Research Lab where they were scheduled to meet with the director, Dr. Ulrich. Ulrich turned out to be a pleasant man in a wheelchair. After shaking their hands he smiled, “I’m excited that you guys are interested in connecting to the optic nerve, though I have to admit that I selfishly wish you were working on the spinal cord instead.”

Ryan said, “We do have some thoughts along those lines for someday, but as you can imagine, reconnecting something as complex as the spinal cord will be orders of magnitude more complex than a simple peripheral nerve.”

“And you’ve done peripheral nerves for your prosthetic arms already right? I suppose I should be glad to be helping you move up to the optic nerve, which in many ways is more like a part of the central nervous system than other peripheral nerves.”

“Yes, we’re worried about that. All our experience is with myelin covered peripheral nerve axons. We’re able to get those axons to grow into our neurotrodes with a mixture of growth factors, but since the myelin of the optic nerve comes from oligodendrocytes rather than the Schwann cells of the peripheral nerves we’re worried that they might react differently.”

“Well, only one way to find out, and that’s to try it with some real optic nerve axons. I assume you know that we’ve got a pretty good research model using the rat optic nerve?”

“Yes sir,” Roger said. “That’s why we contacted you. We can make neurotrodes and Ryan’s attached them to peripheral nerves but we have no expertise in that kind of surgery.”

Chapter One

Washington D.C.—Despite the recent brouhaha over President Stockton’s penchant for playing golf and the taxpayer costs for golf outings by her and her cronies, her approval ratings continue to climb. There is no doubt that this is mostly due to the recently improved employment figures. The Republicans claim that she is unfairly taking credit for the economic boom resulting from the new PGR and portal technologies. The thriving economy has boosted employment and raised revenues which the Stockton administration is spending on popular public works.

Though Stockton has toned down her anti Donsaii rhetoric, she refuses to have Donsaii removed from the FBI’s Most Wanted list. This despite the public ridicule of the “Ementhal Committee” in the wake of journalistic investigations of the committee members. Dr. Ementhal himself has been subjected to scathing criticism following a blue ribbon panel’s scientific examination of Ementhal’s work. After those inquiries, the Blaustein bill barely survived an attempt to rescind it sponsored by the North Carolina delegation and few expect it will survive very long after the midterm elections.

Despite public opinion in favor of Donsaii, Stockton claims that even if Donsaii could no longer be accused of breaking the law as constituted by the Blaustein bill, Donsaii remains a danger to the nation and the world because of her solo control of several extremely dangerous technologies…

Shan sat in the living room of the farmhouse staring at his son. Lying in his lap, head on Shan’s knees, Zage stared placidly back at his father. He blinked occasionally, but otherwise seemed perfectly happy.

Everyone told Shan and Ell that they were extraordinarily lucky because Zage cried so little. Even back when he cried at night for a feeding, it fell regularly at about two AM when Ell was awake anyway. Day or night, when he did cry, he didn’t wail until someone came, he cried for about ten seconds then stopped. If no one came he would cry again a minute or two later.

Amy had told them tales of when Janey had been a colicky baby, crying inconsolably for hours on end. Just like with other babies, the sound of a crying Zage was one of the world’s most disturbing sounds, but Shan realized that they were extraordinarily lucky that he did it so infrequently.

Shan tried tickling Zage. Zage squirmed away from Shan’s finger but didn’t laugh or giggle. After a bit Shan sat his son up on the couch beside him and opened Mathematica on the big screen in the living room.

Amy climbed the steps to the farmhouse and let herself in the kitchen door. She put away a few groceries, then headed into the big room. Shan had Zage beside him on the couch while he intently studied the big screen where some kind of graphic display was shifting back and forth in response to quiet commands. Zage sat beside him, also staring at the screen, apparently interested in the flickering changes of the multicolored display.

Amy shook her head. Zage had to be the most placid baby she’d ever encountered—or heard of for that matter.

Amy studied Shan for a moment.  He’d washed off the bronzers he’d originally worn as Daniel Reyes and bleached his new crew cut a much paler blond than that of his natural hair. When he left the house he inflated his cheek prostheses and looked much different than he did as Shan. He looked like a Reyes from Spain, instead of from Mexico.

Shan’s focus on his math program was so intense that he hadn’t noticed her enter the room. Amy worried that he didn’t pay enough attention to his son while working on his research. The way he concentrated she didn’t think he could keep the child safe. Of course, the way Zage just sat, watching the world around him, it didn’t ever seem like he was about to get himself into trouble.

Amy walked across the room and picked Zage up. The little guy transferred his gaze from the screen to her face, searching her face interestedly for a minute with his eyes, then rolling his head back and to the side to focus on the screen again. Amy looked down at Shan, tempted to just head downstairs with Zage, but she’d done that before and when Shan came up out of his fugue state, he’d panicked to find Zage gone. “Daniel,” she said quietly. When he didn’t respond, she reached out and nudged him with a toe. She felt tempted to call him Shan instead, but they’d agreed to go by their pseudonyms at all times so as not to confuse Zage—as well as to keep the habit ingrained for when they were out in the world.

After a brief pause Shan blinked and looked up. He looked a little like a man surfacing from a dive. “Hey Amy.”

“I’m Amelia, Daniel,” Amy said patiently.

“Oh… yeah, sorry, when I’ve been concentrating I… I make mistakes when I come out of it.”

“I know Daniel, but are you sure you should be doing that when you’re watching Zage?”

“Doing what?”

“Your math.”

Looking puzzled, Shan said, “Why not?”

“What if Zage got into something while you were thinking?”

Shan frowned, “How would he get into something? He doesn’t go anywhere.”

Amy sighed, “One of these days he’s going to. When that happens, you’re gonna be caught off guard.” Amy turned to go down the stairs and see if Ell needed anything.

Amy crossed the basement proper, a room filled with the kind of junk typical for many cellar’s owners. People who didn’t get rid of the rubbish and refuse of their life. It made perfect camouflage. Lifting a hidden latch underneath a shelf she pushed back a section of wall and headed down the tunnel to Ell’s lab.

Not for the first time, Amy wondered how Ell had had the tunnels and her lab bored out of the solid rock down under the layer of soil on the farm. Amy hadn’t disbursed any funds to a miner like she had when Ell had had the tunnels dug at her farm in Chapel Hill. She’d asked Ell about it once but Ell had deflected the conversation elsewhere. Steve thought Ell must have used the same technology that she’d used to break Steve and the guys out of prison, but he had no idea how Ell had done that either.

Amy had her AI ping Ell’s to tell her she was coming in, then opened the door and stepped into the lab. She blinked, a new extension of the lab stretched out from the far wall. The main room had been getting a little crowded with esoteric equipment that Ell had had delivered to a warehouse in Chapel Hill. Randy and Barrett would drive up to the warehouse in the middle of the night, lifting the heavy items onto Randy’s heavy duty truck with a winch on a graphend frame. The same frame lifted the equipment out of the truck once it had arrived back in the barn at the farm. Then they’d move the truck and the winch would lower the heavy gear down a shaft into an extension of the tunnels which ran beneath the barn.

Still, it looked like Ell had doubled the size of her lab without Amy seeing a single soul arrive to do any of the work, much less any heavy equipment. Ell crouched along one wall of the new area, gluing outlets to the wall. “I hope you’re going to get a qualified electrician in here to hook up those outlets?”

Ell grinned at her, “Ports Amelia, ports. They’re already hooked up through ports. I’m just putting them where I want them.”

Amy gave an embarrassed little snort, “Duh, of course.” She frowned, “Why don’t those machines come already hooked up to power through ports?”

Ell jerked her head, “That one over there does. I suspect more and more of them will in the future. Actually, it has a plug too, the plug’s just hooked up to it by port. You can plug it in in your room if you have a high power outlet there, but you can also just plug it in at your breaker board or down at the power company if you want. It uses a lot of power so I suspect most people plug them in at the power company rather than rewiring their building’s breaker box.” Ell got up and walked over to take Zage, snuggling her face down against his head. “I still love the way this little guy smells… at least when his diaper isn’t full.”

She leaned him back and Zage smiled up at his mother. Ell’s skin was dark, though in an effort to make her skin color more compatible with Zage’s she had lightened her color from the original shade she had used as Elsa Gardon. Not only was her skin lighter than it had originally been, but she’d started growing out and coloring her hair brunette instead of wearing wigs. She hardly ever appeared as Ell anymore so it was easier that way. Besides, Zage would soon be pulling wigs off and they didn’t want him confused about his mother’s hair color.

Zage dropped his head back and looked around the lab as if fascinated by all the machines. Amy said, “You need me to do anything Elsa?”

Ell handed Zage back to her, “Just keep an eye on this guy. Thanks though.”

Amy gazed fondly down on Zage, still flopped back and looking around the room, then looked up at Ell. “Hey, when you see the pediatrician this afternoon?”

“Mmm hmm,” Ell said, studying the new area of the lab.

Knowing Ell would hear her even though she seemed to be preoccupied with something else, Amy continued, “I’m a little worried about how Zage…” she trailed off, uncertain how to say it.

“How Zage…?” Ell prompted.

“Um, how he just doesn’t do much.”

Ell looked back at Amy. Focusing all her attention on her, she tilted her head, “Really? What should he be doing at six months? That he isn’t doing, I mean.”

“He should be starting to sit himself up, kinda moving around and… I don’t know, not just placidly sitting like he does, staring at vids. He hardly even cries! And, he’s kinda chunky, you know?” She shrugged, “I’m not really an expert, but I think my kids were a lot more active at that age. It’s probably not anything to worry about, but I wanted to suggest that you talk to a professional who actually does know whether to worry or not.”

Ell looked at Zage a moment, “OK, I’ll ask.”

***

Gary glanced at Viveka out of the corner of his eye. As opposed to most people up in the space habitats who tended to orient themselves generally in the same direction, Viveka seemed completely comfortable tilted off at whatever random direction she happened to be in. At meetings where something was presented on a screen, she did tend to turn herself upright to the screen in order to make it easier to read, but right now she and Gary were simply examining the small graphene beads they were making for Ell and she was tilted off at 120° to Gary.

They had only coated a few beads so far as a test run. As Ell and Viveka had surmised, charging the walls of the coating chamber the same as the beads themselves made them float out into the center of the chamber in microgravity conditions. They stayed separate from one another as well. This had made them relatively easy to coat with graphene without the beads sticking together.

The beads themselves were only a little bit bigger than BBs and the ports in them were tiny. Nonetheless, they had successfully dissolved the Styrofoam out of them using acetone and now they could inflate and deflate them at will. Deflated, the beads seemed more like bits of sand. Inflated they made perfect little spheres, even more perfect than the original Styrofoam because of the tendency for the air pressure to stretch them round.

Viveka rolled a couple of beads back and forth in her fingers, then looked at Gary, “What does Dr. Donsaii want these for anyway?”

Gary shrugged, “I have no idea. I guess they would make good ball bearings, but I have no idea what use anyone would have for inflatable ball bearings. What do you think they might be for?”

“I don’t know… And I find it pretty frustrating that I can’t figure it out. If Dr. Donsaii wants them for something, they probably represent some kind of genius level innovation. One of the reasons I came here was to try to learn from her, and I really want to understand each stroke of genius as I come across it.”

“Yeah,” Gary sighed, “the problem is, I think she’s so much smarter than the rest of us that we have no hope of emulating her.”

“Well, let me start making the rest of the beads for her. Maybe it’ll come to us before we deliver the beads back to her.”

***

Ryan turned to Cindy Stauvich, Dr. Ulrich’s lab tech. She had the second of the two rats that had neurotrodes on their left optic nerves in a chamber with an inhalational anesthetic. “I’m ready, how’s she doing?”

“Ready for me to apply the blindfold,” she said lifting the rat out of the chamber and securing a hood over its face. She put the front end of the rat just inside a tube barely big enough for it.

Sure enough, as soon as the rat woke up a little, it squirmed deeper into the tube, feeling safe in the confined space. The little infrared camera in the tube showed the rat’s head, busily sniffing the air.

“OK, she’s ready,” Cindy said.

Ryan tapped a momentary switch that should send an impulse down the optic nerve axons. Far from a picture which would take extensive work to determine which axon correlated to which pixels from a camera, the rat should perceive this impulse as a bright flash. They knew from earlier tests that rats hiding in the dark little tube had a startle reaction to a flash of light inside the tube. Presumably they thought their little hiding place was being breached.

The rat didn’t react to Ryan’s tap.

He tried it again, then several more times without any reaction from the rat. Closing his own eyes he sighed disgustedly. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yup,” Cindy said.

Ryan felt a flash of irritation, but he’d come to realize that Cindy considered the research to be merely a job. She had little emotional investment in whether the experiment worked or not. Well, probably she realizes that if none of the experiments work, Ulrich will lose his grants and she’ll lose her job, but she’s not invested in any particular experiment and certainly not invested in mine. Out loud he said, “Well, the failure points I see are first, that it could be that the impulse generator isn’t working, or second, that the port connection to the neurotrode has failed, or third, that the neurotrode didn’t connect to the axons.”

“Or that optic nerve axons don’t respond to your neurotrode impulses,” Cindy ventured.

Ryan shrugged, acknowledging the possibility, “OK. First let me make sure the impulse generator is generating an impulse.” Ryan disconnected the generator from the jack to the fibers that entered the port to the rat’s neurotrode and hooked it up to a diagnostic display. The display showed an impulse all right. Next they tested the port by sending an impulse to the neurotrode that it had been designed to return for testing purposes. It returned the signal intact indicating that the port functioned OK.

“OK,” he said dejectedly, “I guess we need to harvest the neurotrodes and submit them for histology to see if the nerve’s axons actually grew into the microtubules.”

***

Gary attempted a gentlemanly little bow and wave, suggesting that Viveka should precede him into the tube leading down to one of the living modules. Unfortunately he wasn’t holding onto anything when he did it. Being weightless, both the bow and the small circular wave he tried to make with his hand threw him out of position. Embarrassed, he felt certain he had not given the sophisticated impression he had been going for. Nonetheless, Viveka, who had very rapidly become surprisingly adept at maneuvering in weightlessness, smiled and slipped into the tube without making any comment on the way he was tilting out of position.

She grabbed one of the rings on a long belt which went up one side of the tube and down the other. It began moving her down the tube. After she had gone down the tube a ways, the centrifugal force generated by the swinging of the living module around its pivot point began to gently pull her mass down the tube. As this happened the weight of her body made it swing downwards in the tube to hang below the hand that gripped the ring. Her long glossy braid of hair swung down to hang along her back as she pivoted. She put a foot in a ring a little farther down and began holding herself up by bearing most of her weight on her foot.

Gary watched her do all this very gracefully and felt glad that it took enough of her concentration that she didn’t look upwards to see him fumbling a little as he got himself situated on the passing line of rings. Looking down at her he saw a woman riding the up line of rings which were ascending the opposite side of the tube from where he and Viveka were riding down.

They got heavier and heavier as they traveled down the 250 meter tube to arrive at the living module. The top floor of this living module had been made into a restaurant where Gary had made reservations. Typical of habitat décor almost everything in the restaurant looked like it had been assembled from long slender pieces which could be easily passed through ports. Nonetheless, it all seemed to be of high quality, giving the impression of an expensive restaurant.

When the menus arrived Gary was gratified to see Viveka’s dark eyes widen as she took in the prices. He had known the prices would be high, but then he was startled himself when he saw just how high. He had to remind himself that graphene had been very good to him. No matter how high these prices were, he could easily afford them.

Viveka looked up at him and said, “Dr. Pace, this restaurant is far too expensive!”

He grinned at her. “Are you ever going to start calling me Gary?”

She wrinkled her upturned little nose impishly, “Gary, these prices border on the ridiculous.”

He winked at her and waved a hand airily. “No cost is too high when I’m buying dinner for my best employee.”

Viveka looked startled, then wary, “Um…”

Suddenly worried that he might have offended her, or that she might feel he was coming on to her, Gary quickly said, “Sorry if I’ve upset you. Actually, prices are high everywhere up here at the habitat. Besides, graphene is making us a lot of money. We can afford to buy you a nice dinner.” He didn’t mention the fact that prices at this particular restaurant were known to be higher than any of the others. He’d become enamored of his young, pretty employee with her dark silky skin, pert nose, and flashing smile. He thought of this as a date, but suddenly realized that she may have been thinking of it as simply two coworkers going out for dinner. “I’ll be putting it on the company tab.”

Viveka gave him one of the brilliant smiles he loved. “OK,” she said, sounding relieved, “I couldn’t have afforded a meal here.”

The food was good, but Gary hardly noticed. All of his attention was focused on his dinner companion as she enthusiastically commented on the flavors of the meal, how “cool” it was to be weightless, how much she loved the challenges of working with carbon allotropes, and how she missed India.

It became evident that Viveka was somewhat homesick. She had invited her mother to come visit her and was really looking forward to showing her around America. “When will she get here?” Gary asked.

“Two weeks, Sunday. She’ll come in on the flight from London. Of course she’ll be exhausted when she gets here. That will be on top of the fact that she has never flown in an airplane before, something that’s frightening her quite a bit. Thank goodness my little sister is coming with her. Nothing frightens Rana, she’s very adventurous.”

“Maybe…” Gary said, pausing when he wondered whether what he was about to propose was a good idea.

“What?”

“Maybe… I could take you and your family out to dinner while they are here?”

“Oh,” Viveka said, looking startled, “I could never talk my mother into coming out here to the habitat!”

“No, by here, I meant North Carolina.”

“Really?” Viveka said, her eyes sparkling, “That would be so nice!”

***

In the morning Viveka awoke feeling wonderful. She decided that everyone should get to sleep at 0.3 G’s sometime in their life. Being so light, you hardly had to turn over to stay comfortable. She had decided that if you didn’t have to turn as often, you slept in longer stretches which left you feeling more refreshed. She loved being out at the habitat and wondered if she would get to make more trips to it.

After her shower, Viveka packed her little bag, putting the tiny sack of “sand” that was all that remained of the huge bag of Styrofoam beads into the bottom of it.

After one more stop at the Allosci weightless module to check out with the graphene spinning team, Viveka and Gary climbed into one of the space planes which was about to head back down to the island. This space plane was enormous, so Viveka spent some time gawking around, trying to comprehend the size of the payloads it might have delivered.

***

Jan Rowski studied the baby sitting placidly in his mother’s lap. The baby was surprisingly light skinned considering the color of his mother’s skin. He looked healthy, though overweight, weighing in at the 95th percentile. Jan hadn’t found any abnormalities on the neurologic exam. Something seemed a little off though. Jan just couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

Suddenly the pretty young mother said, “Is everything all right Doctor?”

Jan chewed her lip a second, “Seems to be.”

“One of my friends thinks that Zage doesn’t… do enough. I haven’t been around babies very much so I don’t know if what he does is normal or not.”

“What he does?”

“Well, more… what he doesn’t do.” Gardon shrugged, “He can sit in the same spot for hours. Especially if he has something interesting to look at.”

Rowski tilted her head, “At six months most babies aren’t crawling off on their own yet, though that should happen soon.”

“He doesn’t cry or even fall over. My friend thinks it’s unnatural.”

“Unusual maybe, I think ‘unnatural’ might be a little strong. Every baby is different, and each one develops at his or her own rate.” Rowski reached out, “Let me have him again.” She held him facing her and placed him on his feet. He held a little weight on his feet for a moment, then sat, though smoothly, not thumping down like most babies. He looked at her interestedly. She would have sworn for a moment that the baby looked amused. Amused or not, he didn’t avoid her eyes like many autistic babies. After a moment he did turn to look at a screen her office used to entertain the children. At present it showed animals playing. She leaned down in front of him and tried a peek-a-boo. He smiled at her, though he didn’t cackle like many babies would. In fact, she could have sworn he looked indulgent.

Rowski looked back at the mother, “Really, I think he’s fine. He’ll probably start crawling pretty soon and you’ll think back fondly on these days when he didn’t get into everything. Be sure your house is child proofed ‘cause we’ll probably be laughing about these worries at his next well baby check.” Rowski stood up, “In a minute Eva will be in with his vaccinations and I’ll have her draw a little blood to check his thyroid and the like. Unless anything shows up in the tests I’ll see him in three months.”

Later Eva said, “You know, the most amazing thing? That little Gardon baby, when I gave him his shot? He just turned his head away, like a grown-up. Didn’t cry at all.”

Rowski turned to stare at Eva, thinking she might be joking, but Eva looked completely serious. Rowski’d never heard of a baby doing that, but didn’t know what to make of it. Whatever, if it was something wrong, hopefully it will show up in the labs. If not, whatever was wrong would become evident at a future visit and an early diagnosis wouldn’t make that much difference.

***

Stell Simsworth and her mother walked into the Ophthalmology clinic. She squeezed her mother’s hand anxiously, “Do you see Dr. Keller?”

Julie Simsworth looked down fondly at her daughter. The girl evidenced no stage fright when she sang, perhaps because she couldn’t see the audience, perhaps because the girl understood just how astonishing her voice was. That didn’t mean that doctor visits didn’t make her anxious. “No, silly, we’re not even signed in yet.”

“Mom! Dr. Keller’s the researcher from Quantum Biomed. The Ophthalmologist we’re seeing is Dr. Jenner. Dr. Keller said he’d meet us here in the waiting room.”

Julie laughed a little, no longer embarrassed by how much better her blind daughter could keep track of such details. “Sorry, you’re right. I do see Dr. Keller. I’ll take you over and you can sit with him while I sign you into the clinic.”

___

Ryan Keller saw the pretty little blind girl walk into the doctor’s waiting room with her mother. A couple of people nudged each other and turned to look at the girl, obviously recognizing her because of her famous music videos. Mrs. Simsworth saw Ryan and started his way. He wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his pants and stood, wondering how they were going to react to the news that so far the rat experiments had failed. Once again he thought that he should have worked out a way to talk to the girl and her mother somewhere other than here at the doctor’s office.

It had seemed so reasonable back when he’d set it up.

The mother and daughter approached and Mrs. Simsworth said, “Dr. Keller?”

Ryan nodded; then realized with embarrassment that Stell wouldn’t see the nod. He cleared his throat, “Um, yes, Mrs. Simsworth. Hello Stell.”

“I’m going to go sign Stell in at the desk. Can Stell sit and talk to you Dr. Keller?”

“Sure, please call me Ryan.”

Mrs. Simsworth showed Stell the location of the chair and then headed to the desk to sign her in. The little girl turned to Ryan and asked excitedly, “How is the research going Dr. Keller?”

“Um,” Ryan swallowed, “Not so good thus far, Stell.”

She frowned and tilted her head questioningly, “What’s gone wrong?”

“Well, you know what we’ve hoped to do is to hook up the optic nerve of the eye to a camera. So far we haven’t been able to get the axonal fibers of the optic nerve to grow into our neurotrodes like the axons of other nerves do.”

Stell’s frown became even more worried looking. Though, rather than wearing sunglasses she normally kept her eyes closed, they momentarily blinked open. Ryan saw her corneas were milky rather than clear. She said tremulously, “How many times have you tried so far?”

“Twice, but don’t give up on us yet,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “Research like this seldom works right away. We’ve got some more growth factor cocktails we can try.”

“Growth factor?”

“Yes, they’re substances that stimulate cell growth. We put factors into the neurotrodes to stimulate the axons to grow into the little tubes that connect the nerve to our system and the cameras. The factors we used for regular nerves didn’t work but we’ve still got some other factors we can try for the nerves to the eyes.”

Stell still had a furrowed brow, but before she could ask more questions they were called back to see the doctor.

As the doctor reviewed Stell’s records, talked to her mother and Stell, and then examined her eyes it became evident that the problems with Stell’s eyes were unusual. Her corneas, the transparent section over the pupils, were milky and opaque due to a rare congenital condition. Her previous doctors had tried a corneal transplant which usually worked for such conditions, but her new corneas had gradually turned milky too. In addition, when they’d removed her opaque corneas they’d been able to see that the lenses of her eyes were cloudy with cataracts as well. Normally, cataract surgery could repair that problem, but such surgery seemed pointless without clear corneas.

The doctor was able to determine that Stell’s retinas and optic nerves were functional. He talked to them about the possibility of another corneal transplant, but didn’t hold out much hope that the same problem wouldn’t occur. Finally he leaned back and looked at each of them, “It would be hard for me to consider cutting Stell’s optic nerves and hooking them up to neurotrodes like we’ve been contemplating. If that didn’t work and then later we were to find a solution to the problem with her corneas and lenses, it would be terrible to have destroyed her nerves and retinas.”

Stell’s face crumpled and tears brimmed over her damaged eyes to run down her cheeks. “So you won’t even try?”

Her mother gathered the pretty girl into her arms, “Oh Honey,” she said, tears pouring down her own face, “He didn’t say that. Maybe we could try the transplant.”

“No!” sobbed the little girl piteously, “It won’t work! Nothing will work!”

___

Ryan drove home from the encounter feeling emotionally shattered. He’d been so excited to perhaps be part of restoring someone’s sight, especially someone as special as Stell. Sitting with her while the doctor came in and out he’d found that he really liked her. Now he’d not only failed to get neurotrodes to work for the optic nerve but, even if they did work, it didn’t sound like neurotrodes were something they should try in Stell. If they were going to be tried they should be in someone who’d lost the entire eye so failure to attach neurotrodes to the optic nerves wouldn’t be such a potential loss.

When he walked into Quantum Biomed, Roger looked up and said, “Who shot your dog?”

Ryan explained what had happened, though of course Roger already knew about the failures with the rat’s optic nerves. He buried his head in his hands, “Man, I was so excited about what we were going to do for the blind. This is so much worse than a research failure!”

“Hey, come on now, remember what you’ve done for amputees. Besides,” Roger got kind of a distant look on his face, “neurotrodes aren’t the only trick in our bag.”

Ryan looked up curiously, “What do you mean?”

“Well, with Stell’s eyes, the issue is that light isn’t getting from the front of the eye to the back, right?”

“Yeaah?”

He shrugged, “So, light goes through ports. And ports-R-us!”

Ryan frowned, “So you want to what… put a port in front of her eye and another back behind her lens and let the light skip going through her bad corneas and lenses?”

Roger still had a distant look, “Yeah, something like that.”

“But… you need a lens to focus the light on the retina correctly.”

“So, the port in the front passes the light to an optical system somewhere else that correctly focuses it. Then it passes the light into the port behind the lens and on to the retina.”

Ryan had a stunned look on his face, but then he frowned again, “Wait, if you put a lens on the front of the cornea… then activate it…” he looked at Roger, “the cornea would be bulging through the port right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Roger said looking disappointed, “and there are a lot of sensitive nerves in the cornea. Nerves sticking through ports produce a lot of pain! I should know, having stuck my finger in a bunch of ports.”

“Well,” Ryan said with a look of concern, “I was more worrying about the port closing and cutting the cornea right off the front of the eye, but the pain issue would probably be a deal breaker too.”

Roger shrugged, “Well we could just send video from an AI headband to the port behind her lenses. It doesn’t have to come from ports on the front of her eyes.”

Ryan quirked his mouth unhappily, “But then she’d have to turn her head to look at stuff, it’d look unnatural.”

“Better than nothing, my man. Way better than blind.”

Ryan shrugged agreement, but said sadly, “It’d be great if we could talk to Ell. She… so often… has ideas for things like this that the rest of us miss.”

Roger lifted an eyebrow, “Yeah, it would be good to talk to her.”

After Ryan returned to working on his neurotrodes, Roger headed to his office and put in a call to an old friend.

***

Ell sat back after talking to Roger, a distant look in her eyes. A picture of eye contacts floated in her mind’s eye. Contacts weren’t all that common anymore, most people having corrective surgery instead, but she understood them and could picture them floating on the front of the eye. A ring of quantum entangled buckyballs around the edge of the contact could let Ell form a port there, but Roger was right, the cornea would protrude through the port and that would be painful. And, if the port cut off, it would be disastrous.

She kept picturing a port with a bulging interface that stood out away from the cornea, lying right on the surface of the contact.

Ell leaned back and laced her fingers behind her head, mind racing. As she worked her way through the math, she realized that nothing said a port had to be flat. She’d never considered the possibility that it might be useful to make one bulge so she had just never investigated the possibility before.

***

Roger and Ryan sat down with Emma.

Ryan began, “So here’s what we’ve come up with so far. I’ve talked to Stell’s ophthalmologist and he says that since Stell has severe cataracts behind her bad corneas it wouldn’t be unreasonable to do a cataract surgery where he would remove the cloudy internal part of the lens and then normally implant a lens to replace it. The idea with Stell’s surgery is that a port would be inside the lens he’d implant. We’d provide the port that we can then hook up to an optical system which would focus images on her retinas from the cameras on Stell’s headband.”

Emma frowned, “That sounds pretty straightforward. Sterile port, implanted inside the same material they normally make their cataract lenses out of. Is there something you think we still need to figure out?”

Ryan nodded, “When her eyes turn to look to the left we need to send her retina images from her left. That way she wouldn’t have to turn her whole head. Presumably from a left facing camera because we think it might look creepy for a camera to be turning whatever direction her eyes turn. We’re thinking that with your expertise in electronics you could provide some kind of sensors to go in the lenses that would tell the AI which direction her eyes were pointing?”

Emma snorted, “That doesn’t need to be inside her eyes. There are existing camera systems that can tell what direction your eyes are pointing. They’re tiny, so you could just hang them off the front of her headset.”

Roger and Ryan looked a little embarrassed, “Really?”

“Yeah, the military’s been using them for a long time, but a lot of commercial enterprises are tracking eye movements too.”

***

Viveka jittered nervously around her apartment. Dr. Pace was supposed to pick her mother, her sister, and her up in a few more minutes and take them out to dinner, a surprising kindness. Rana, Viveka’s sister, was very excited to go out with a real American, to a real American restaurant. Viveka’s mother, on the other hand, seemed very reserved, almost worried.

Viveka sat down from wiping a few more imaginary flecks of dust off of her little dining table. Her sister was across the room staring out the window. Viveka’s mother turned to her and, speaking in a low voice that Rana wouldn’t hear, said, “This man, Dr. Pace, you say he is the boss where you work?”

Viveka nodded.

“And why is the boss taking you and your mother and sister out to dinner?”

Viveka shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s very nice…” she trailed off.

Her mother pierced her with an eye, “Are you sleeping with him?”

“No mama!” Viveka practically hissed at her.

“Does he know you’re adivasi?”

Viveka shrugged again. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m not sure he even knows what adivasi is.”

“But surely he knows you’re not upper caste!”

Viveka’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I think so,” she said in a small voice. “I think he’s just a very nice person.”

“And surely he knows that I cannot afford the kind of dowry he must expect.”

Viveka’s eyes rose again to her mother and in a quiet but fierce tone she said, “I told you I think he’s just being nice. He doesn’t want to marry me! He doesn’t want a dowry. He doesn’t want to sleep with me! He’s just a very nice person.”

Her mother turned to look out the window again, “We’ll see…”

Viveka was saved from retorting by a knock on the door. She stood abruptly and tugged at her blouse. Before she could go to the door her mother gripped her wrist and said, “Viveka… lean down here… your hair…”

Resisting the urge to snap at her mother Viveka leaned down. Her mother reached up and smoothed a few hairs. “You’re very smart,” she said quietly, “and very pretty… but it wouldn’t do to get your hopes up.”

“I don’t have my hopes up,” Viveka said as she left to go to the door. To her astonishment, when she opened the door, Dr. Pace had a small bundle of flowers in his hand. She felt heat rush to her face and was momentarily glad that her dark skin could not turn red like she’d seen happen to white girls when they were embarrassed. “Come in, come in,” she said as she took the flowers he was holding out to her.

She couldn’t decide whether she should put the flowers into water first or introduce him to her mother first. She had never had anything like this happen to her before. Finally deciding that it was most important to show respect to her mother, she led him into the living room. “Mama,” she said, ignoring her mother’s wide eyed focus on the flowers, “this is Dr. Gary Pace. Dr. Pace, my mother.”

“Namastē Ms. Janu,” Dr. Pace said, smiling.

It astonished Viveka as she realized that he had taken the time and made the effort to learn the Hindi word for hello. She felt sad that his efforts were wasted on her mother who spoke English and her own adivasi tribal language, but did not speak Hindi.

Dr. Pace continued, “Your daughter is absolutely brilliant. Her work has been tremendously important to us down at Allosci.”

Feeling the heat rising in her face again, Viveka took a respite in the appearance of her sister at Dr. Pace’s side. “Dr. Pace, this is my younger sister Rana. Rana, Dr. Pace.”

Pace smiled at Rana, “Well, you look like you will grow up to be beautiful like your sister. Do you like science like she does?”

The normally talkative Rana shook her head, looking down and twisting a toe in the carpet.

“I’m afraid not,” Viveka said, “she’s more interested in fashion.”

“Well,” Dr. Pace said, rubbing his hands together, “shall we go? Our reservation is at seven, so we don’t have all that much time.”

“Let me just put these in water.” Viveka said.

For dinner Dr. Pace took them to a nice Italian restaurant. He said he’d considered taking them to an Indian restaurant with the thought that it might make them comfortable, but then had worried that Indian food here in America might not be all that much like their food back home.

Viveka had not had Italian Food other than pizza when it had been delivered at Allosci for lunches. Her mother and Rana had had no experience at all with Italian food, but Dr. Pace was very courteous and helped them all choose menu items that they might like.

He treated her mother very respectfully, and carefully drew her out in conversation during the meal. He especially acted interested in their lives back in India and repeatedly complemented her mother over the sacrifices she and Viveka’s father had made so that Viveka could get the education she so desired.

When he finally dropped them off at the end of the evening, Viveka’s head practically whirled. Dr. Pace had been so polite. What would her mother think of him now? Why was he treating her and her family so nicely? Did he do this for all of his employees? Did he really think that she was brilliant?

As soon as the door closed on his exit, Viveka’s mother turned to her and said, “He may not be sleeping with you now, but he wants to sleep with you.”

Aghast, Viveka said, “He does not!”

Narrowing her eyes, her mother said, “Grow up! All men want to sleep with all women. But, he in particular has his eye on you.”

“You’re crazy! How can you be so sure that he’s not just a nice person? Besides, you shouldn’t be talking this way in front of Rana!”

Her mother waved a hand in dismissal, “Rana needs to learn how men are very soon anyway. And apparently, so do you. You complained about how the men in India treat women. Men are men. Just because he is an American man does not make him any different. Go ahead and imagine if you want, that he is ‘just a nice person.’ But, listen to your mother as well, so that when he turns out to be just like all other men, you won’t be heartbroken.”

Viveka turned and stormed away, unsure whether she was more angry with her mother, or with herself because she also wondered why Dr. Pace was so nice to her.

***

Shan came in from his run, toweling his face. Amy sat at the big dining table with several screens scattered around her. Zage sat placidly in the middle of the room. The baby boy glanced back a moment at the sound of the door, saw Shan then turned his attention back to the screen he’d been watching where some kind of National Geographic animal programming played. “What’cha doing Amelia?” Shan asked, looking at his son.

“Checkin’ up on the payroll program my AI is running.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she looked up at him, “Elsa asked me to check every so often to be sure nobody’d hacked it and to be sure it was keeping up with the cost of living.”

“Ah,” Shan said distractedly squatting down next to his son and looking at him. “Aren’t you worried that Zage is going to take off and get into some kind of trouble? Seems like you gave me grief about that possibility a few months ago.”

“Well, that’s true.  But I don’t get so deep into what I’m doing that I wouldn’t notice if the world blew up.”

“What about Zage though? At nine months shouldn’t he be doing something more than sitting around like a chubby little Buddha?”

Amy got up, came around and knelt down next to Shan.

Zage looked curiously up at them for a moment, then turned back to his animal show.

Amy said, “Yeah, he should be crawling, or trying to. And standing while holding onto things. I’ve been a little worried about him, but Elsa asked the doctor about him at his six month checkup and the doctor thought he was OK.”

“He seems happy though.”

“Yeah,” Amy chuckled a little, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a happy baby. Or maybe peaceful is a better term. Your calling him a ‘little Buddha’ isn’t too far off.”

“Maybe I’m worrying too much?”

“He’s got his nine month checkup pretty soon. Surely if there’s something wrong, the doctor will tell Elsa then.”

Shan lifted his eyebrows, “Hey, I should go along.”

Amy arched one eyebrow back at him. “Yes, you should.”

***

Ell pulled her rolling stool up to the lab bench in the basement. She had a five centimeter port set horizontally on the bench top. The new port controller she’d designed bulked large next to it. For experimental purposes she’d built the controller big enough to allow for manual control of the various parameters. She flipped the main switch on, and the port popped open. After asking Allan to dim the lights she dialed up the frequency of its opening and closing so she’d be able to see the surface of the port from the faint blue glow that emanated from the port’s surface at each opening.

Once the port interface was readily visible she reached for the slider at the right end of her controller and nudged it up.

Sure enough, the center of the interface bulged slightly up from the center. Punching her fist in the air Ell leapt up and danced a little jig around her stool. She’d tried it twice earlier and it hadn’t worked, but each time she’d found technical errors so she’d been pretty sure it wasn’t an error in the math.

Sitting back down, she pushed the slider up, uncertain whether the port would fail as she pushed the bulge out farther. It continued to bulge up higher as it deformed itself toward becoming a half sphere. But, as Ell had expected she kept having to push the voltage higher and higher with less and less bulging resulting from the change. As she pushed the voltage farther into this region of diminishing returns it finally reached a shape that appeared to represent a half sphere. When she tried to push it further than that, the port popped out of existence, or rather, the port simply stopped forming and reforming.

Rather than being disappointed, Ell gave a little fist pump. She’d been afraid that something had been wrong in her calculations and that it might extend much further.

That would have made it a devastating weapon. Coming on and off while protruding a long way could have made it into something like the light sabers of the old Star Wars movies. It would have readily cut through anything, and therefore been another piece of technology she couldn’t share with the world.

Chapter Two

Viveka started when a voice came over her shoulder.

“I hear you’ve got something for me?”

Viveka whirled, “Dr. Donsaii!”

“You’ve got to call me Ell!”

“Yes Ma’am,” she said standing up and moving to the end of the bench. She picked up a zip lock bag that appeared to be full of sand. “Here are your graphene beads.” She tilted her head curiously, “What are you going to use them for?”

Ell grinned at her, “I can’t really tell you, but nothing really important. More of a party trick, actually.”

“Oh, I was hoping it was another of your world changing inventions.”

A little bit embarrassed that she had had Gary and Viveka invest so much time in her “party trick,” Ell changed the topic. “How are you getting along? I hear your mother is here for a visit?”

“Yes, and my younger sister, Rana. It has been a lot of fun to have them here.” Viveka said a little wistfully, carefully not mentioning any of the friction between herself and her mother over Dr. Pace’s interest and attention. “They’ll be going back soon, and I’ll get back to my lonely little life.”

Ell tilted her head and frowned, “Oh, I’ll bet you are lonely here. It’s probably been difficult making friends?”

Viveka nodded.

“I hope you know that Gary thinks the world of you? But maybe we need to do something to get you more involved with other people?” She rubbed her chin like she was concentrating then said resolvedly, “I’ll talk to Gary about it.”

As she walked away Viveka felt torn. Relieved that someone was going to help improve her dismal social life, sad that she needed help, and worried about what Dr. Donsaii would say to Dr. Pace.

She hoped it wouldn’t be too embarrassing.

***

Ell fidgeted as she watched Dr. Rowski putting Zage through his nine month checkup. Zage seemed to be watching curiously as Rowski examined him, studying the otoscope before the pediatrician got it in his ear, then grinning when Rowski flashed the light in his eyes and looked in his mouth. When Rowski finished listening to Zage’s heart he got a grip on the end of the stethoscope and held it up where he could look at it for a moment.

Rowski put him in her lap and studied him, “He seems physically healthy. You say he can crawl, but seldom does?”

Ell nodded, feeling apprehensive. It didn’t sound like that was normal.

“And, if you hold him up,” Rowski lifted him, “he always just pulls his legs up rather than trying to stand?”

“Pretty much,” Ell said, glad that her voice hadn’t broken.

“And he watches videos, but not cartoons?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Ell said, trying not to sound disconsolate.

Rowski tried to peek-a-boo with Zage, but when she hid her face, Zage turned to look at his mother. When Rowski peeked back out at him he didn’t seem amused.

“He used to seem to like that game, but not anymore,” Ell said.

Rowski turned to look at Ell and Shan, “And you’re worried.”

They nodded.

Rowski said, “Try not to get too wound up about it. It’s true he’s behind on some things, but he’s ahead on others. What are you worried might be wrong?

“I don’t know,” Ell said, almost plaintively. “Autism, cerebral palsy? He just doesn’t seem to be doing what he’s supposed to be doing.”

“Well, he doesn’t have cerebral palsy, his coordination and limb use is too good for that. Autism, that’s hard to diagnose at this young age, but he smiles and looks me in the eye, so I don’t think it’s that either.” She paused, looking at Zage who still had his head turned to look at Ell. “Zage?” she said.

Zage turned his head back to look at the pediatrician.

“And he responds to his name, also a suggestion that he’s not autistic.”

Ell said, “We’re thinking about getting him into some kind of pre-school so he can be around other kids.”

Rowski lifted an eyebrow, “He hasn’t been around other kids? Not in day care or something like that?”

Ell shook her head, feeling despair over the thought that she might not have been raising her son right. “Should he have been?” The fact that they could afford to have Amy care for Zage had seemed like such a good thing. What if it had actually been bad for his development?

“Well,” Rowski said, “seeing and being around other kids might inspire him to do some of the things that kids his age normally do. ‘Pre-schools are for older kids though.” She frowned at the puzzling baby. “I think it would be a good idea to get him around other kids somehow if you can. There’s a couple of ‘Mother’s Morning Out’ programs that start at age 1. Meanwhile, you could try to find another mother with a child the same age and let them play together.” Rowski looked up and smiled at Ell, “Try not to worry too much though. Other than being overweight he seems awfully healthy.”

Shan said, “Should we be putting him on a diet?”

She smiled, “I wouldn’t worry too much, but you might feed him just a little less.”

Despite the pediatrician’s admonition, Ell couldn’t help leaving with a sick feeling in her stomach.

Outside the office she turned to Shan, “Should we get another opinion?”

“I think we should relax. The doctor didn’t seem all that worried.”

___

Long after they’d gone, Rowski’s mind kept coming back to baby boy Zage Reyes. Could she be missing something? The baby seemed healthy and seemed so far ahead with some things like motor coordination. But barely crawling and not trying to cruise at all? Could this be some kind of rare syndrome?

***

Dupree Fallon looked around at the men in the little cabin, pleased by their serious looks. There’d been some jackin’ around that afternoon and from the shooting scores it had become evident that some of them hadn’t been keeping up with their target practice. Focus on the positive, he thought to himself.

“OK,” Dupree said, “Redman, the way you bypassed the AI on that
truck was pretty impressive. You’re sure you can do that for any truck?”

“No, only Toyotas.”

Dupree frowned, “Why Toyotas?”

Redman, an unemployed electrician whose real name was Joseph Bindless, shrugged. “If we’re gonna steal a truck and blow it up, I didn’t want to be takin’ it from someone who buys American.”

Dupree smiled like a shark, “Good thinkin’. And that software is going to let you make it drive wherever you want? I mean off the street and right into a building?”

Redman spat into his cup. “Right into a building. Out the other side if you want.”

“Excellent work. The SCDF could use more men like you.” Fallon turned to Jerry Winlake, codenamed Salem. As much as possible he tried to keep it so that they didn’t know each other’s real names or addresses. What they didn’t know they couldn’t tell the Feds if those SOB’s got ahold of them. “How about you Salem? Have you found a source of fertilizer?

Salem, dour as always, nodded. “Farmer. Keeps it on hand.”

Dupree went on around the room. They had detonators and Tevex stolen from a West Virginia mine. Salem had containers and a source for fuel oil in the form of a couple of partly empty fifty gallon barrels of diesel. They had found a location with equipment for mixing the fertilizer and the fuel oil in proper ratios. Every step was planned to occur far from any of their homes or workplaces, using stolen or borrowed equipment that couldn’t be traced to them. They had used a refurbished AI to download a pre-established list of queries on bomb building over a PGR chip. Once all the information was on the AI’s memory, they’d destroyed the chip, moved the AI and never hooked it back up to the net again. There was no way those data dumps could be traced to any of them. Any time they needed the info from the AI off site, they printed it out as hardcopy. Then they burned the hardcopy when they were done with each step.

Dupree’s son Ellis Fallon, codenamed Cola, had worked out most of the plan, a fact in which his father took great, though silent, pride. The boy had also won their sharpshooter prize today. A chip off the old block, Dupree thought, if only more of the SCDF were up to his standards.

“OK,” Fallon said, “I’ve picked us a great target. That God damned abortion trial is set to happen at the US District Court in Florence next month. If those liberal pantywaists make a pro-choice decision, we’ll blow Hell out of their building by sending in the truck that we’ll have already parked outside. If they step up and decide in favor of the right to life, then we’ll move the truck across town to an abomination of an abortion clinic located on Elm Street. We’ll deliver a message there telling the world that we agree with the Court!

***

Jenny sat down next to Carter. “Daddy, are things OK at work?”

Carter put down his screen and looked at his ten year old daughter. She’d always been serious and had truly been affected by the period when he hadn’t been able to find a job a couple of years ago. Sometimes it seemed that she couldn’t stop worrying that the good times that had resulted from his employment at ET Resources might come abruptly to an end. This wasn’t the first time she’d asked how things were at work.

Concerned that she worried too much, he tried to evince a positive attitude even though the fact that the President seemed to have it in for Dr. Donsaii made him a little nervous himself. What if Stockton tried to nationalize the company? He feared that if government bean counters were in control they wouldn’t be so generous with salaries. Though lord knows, he and Abby knew how to get by on a lot less than he earned now.

Carter smiled at Jenny, “Things are great! We keep building more and more onto the habitat. Lots of companies want to make stuff up there in microgravity so they keep us really busy.”

“Aren’t you worried about what you’ll do when enough stuff has been built up there?”

He grinned at her, “Not really. I think we’ll always want more stuff built up there in space.” Widening his eyes at her and lowering his voice as if telling a secret, “You know what we’re working on now?”

Excitedly she asked, “What?”

“We’re trying to build a place to live and farm on Mars!”

“Really? Why not the moon?”

“Well,” Carter shrugged, “Initially, we were going to do it on the Moon, but the gravity there is only about seventeen percent of Earth’s. Peoples’ bones get weak in low gravity. On Mars, the gravity is about thirty eight percent of ours, so the settlers’ bones would be healthier.” He tilted his head, “Though still not great. Venus would be much better for gravity, but it’s really hot and the atmosphere is awful.”

“Won’t it take a long time to get to Mars?”

“Yeah, even with the new port driven rockets and waiting until Mars and Earth are close to each other, it’ll take six or seven weeks, but that’s a lot less than it would have been without them.”

Jenny stared at him, thinking, “Isn’t Mars dangerous?”

“It is, but so is the Earth, just not as much. There’s a lot of radiation so we’d need to live underground.”

“Underground? How can you farm without sunshine?”

“We’ll collect sunlight with parabolic mirrors and send it into our Mars tunnels through ports.”

After studying him another moment, Jenny said, “How are you going to dig the tunnels?”

“We’ll use parabolics to heat the front of a big, bullet shaped machine and push it into the side of a big canyon there called the Valles Marineres. It will melt the soil and rock, pushing them out to the sides where the melted rock will form the walls of the tunnel.”

This time Jenny frowned at him for a long time, then said, “Why not just build these ‘tunnel farms’ here on Earth? Then the gravity would be right, and when you were done farming you could go outside without a spacesuit.”

Carter grinned at her for a moment, then said, “You ask the hardest questions! I’m not sure there’s a good reason to do it either, except to see if we can.”

Jenny rolled her eyes.

Carter didn’t say anything about spreading mankind to another planet to prevent extinction in case of some kind of disaster or nuclear war. The girl fretted enough without his giving her something else to worry about.

***

Viveka arrived at the lake feeling very nervous. Apparently at Ell’s suggestion, Dr. Pace had decided to have an Allosci party to boost morale and provide a socializing opportunity for Viveka. Since it was July and hot, he had chosen to hold a picnic at Jordan Lake. Allosci had rented several pontoon boats as well as some jet skis and power boats.

She had heard other Allosci employees talking excitedly about the party. What had her worried was the fact that she knew Americans liked to play in the water. She’d heard some of the women worrying about whether they would fit into their swimsuits. Evidently they expected to get in and out of the water from the houseboats, and to ride around on the jet skis or the powerboats. Viveka had been aware that American swim suits were scandalous, but when she went to a store to try to buy one, she was horrified by how skimpy even the most modest suit was.

Viveka had purchased the most modest suit she could find, a thick white one piece. She had it on under her blouse and shorts, but doubted she would find the courage to remove her outer layers of clothing.

Getting out of her car she heard someone call her name. Turning she saw Cindy, one of the purchasing agents who Viveka frequently worked with while trying to get new equipment.

Viveka’s eyes widened. Cindy had on a bikini with a gauzy cover-up over it. The gauze really hid nothing, so Cindy’s figure was completely on display. Despite being a little pudgy, Cindy appeared to be completely comfortable in her scanty clothing. “Hey,” she called, “are we gonna have fun, or what?”

Uncertain what to say, Viveka settled for, “Fun!” turning to walk with Cindy down towards the dock. Arriving at the dock they found one of the pontoon boats, loaded with people, about to pull out. Someone shouted, “Wait! There’s Cindy and Viveka!”

Viveka looked warily at the boat. There were a lot of people on board already and she wasn’t sure it would be safe to add two more. Even if it was safe, the crowding made it look like she would be groped for sure. However, Cindy squeezed on, high fiving several people as she did so, then turned and held her hand out to Viveka.

Doubtfully, Viveka took her hand. Cindy pulled her on board, shouting, “Make room, make room.”

To her astonishment, one of the men opened a beer and handed it to Viveka without even asking if she wanted it. Nonplused, she stood holding it and feeling uncomfortable. She wondered if perhaps she had been intended to pass it on to someone else. Meanwhile, the boat pulled out and began to head across the lake to raucous cheers from the people on board.

To Viveka’s further surprise, despite the high spirits of the crowded people on board, the preponderance of men, and the fact that many of them appeared to have already had a beer or two, no one tried to fondle her. After crossing the lake they pulled slowly up near another pontoon boat in a cove along the edge of lake. Viveka could see Dr. Pace, wearing nothing but sunglasses and a pair of swim trunks, sitting in the captain’s chair in front of the steering wheel for the other pontoon boat. He was cheerfully talking to one of the chemists, though he turned and waved at the second boat when it arrived. Viveka’s heart skipped a little beat when at first she thought he was waving to her. Then she realized he was waving to everyone in her boat.

Viveka decided that the water near the pontoon boats must be shallow because several people’s heads were visible in the water off the stern of the boats. Other people on jet skis zoomed around the lake out in front of the boats. Some people already in the water clambered out into the boat Viveka was in, speaking excitedly to their friends in the boat. The boat would have become extremely overcrowded, but several people from Viveka’s boat had jumped into the water which freed up some space.

Wide eyed, Viveka tried to take it all in. In the heat almost all the men were shirtless and the women wore only their swimsuits. They frequently jumped in the water to cool off.

Though Viveka was sweltering she didn’t want to get in the water in her shorts and shirt and certainly didn’t want to take them off. She kept glancing over at Dr. Pace, wondering if he might talk to her. On the one hand, she didn’t want him to, fearing that if he did it would only be because he wanted to sleep with her like her mother had said. On the other hand, despite the crowd she felt somewhat lonely and he was very pleasant to talk to. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, that she’d like to do more than talk.

Besides he was over on the other boat and Viveka had no way to get there.

Viveka was knocked out of her reverie by the arrival of Cindy who’d obviously had a beer or two. “Viveka! You gotta get in the water! You’re sweatin’ like a hog.”

Despite the fact she recognized that Cindy meant well, Viveka was mortified to have her perspiration pointed out. She mumbled, “I can’t.”

“What? Didn’t you bring a swimsuit? Just jump in in your shirt and shorts then!”

“No, I’ve got a suit on, but…”

“Well hell! Take off your clothes then! You’ve got a lot better body than most of us girls here. Nothin’ to be embarrassed about!” Cindy actually reached up and started unbuttoning Viveka’s blouse.

Though she felt completely mortified, Viveka offered no more than token resistance as Cindy pulled her blouse off her shoulders. When Cindy reached out to start undoing Viveka’s shorts, Viveka forestalled her by undoing them herself. After she got them off, Viveka stood a moment, clutching her shorts and blouse to herself in a vain attempt to preserve some modesty. Then, with a panicked sensation, she realized that many people were staring at her. She turned and whispered to Cindy, “Is there something wrong with my suit?”

Cindy had been staring at the Indian beauty, whose dark skin contrasted so sharply with the brilliant white one piece swimming suit. “Oh, hell no! You just look awesome! That’s why they’re all gob smacked. Gimme those clothes and let’s get you in the water before you melt.” She grabbed Viveka by the elbow and guided her over to a little door in the rail of the boat.

Viveka stood in the small opening and suddenly wondered how deep the water was. She had been thinking that the water was wading depth. Because Indian women seldom swam, Viveka had never learned how.

Behind her she heard Cindy say, “In you go.” A palm shoved into the middle of her back and Viveka found herself flailing as she fell into the water.

To her horror she discovered that the water was deep. Deep enough that her feet didn’t touch the bottom even as she plunged downward.

Was she about to drown?

Viveka flailed her arms about, wondering how she was supposed to get herself back to the surface. She’d never thought about it before, and now wondered desperately how people kept one motion of their arms and legs from canceling out the other. When she pulled her arms downward it lifted her up, but then when she raised her arms back up it seemed like that pushed her back down. She felt too frightened to think rationally about how she might turn her hands one direction on the up stroke and a different direction on the down stroke. She did feel like she was floating slowly upwards, but the surface appeared to be far above her. She didn’t think she could hold her breath that long.

___

When the second pontoon boat had arrived Gary felt thrilled to see that Viveka had come on it. He had been looking into Indian culture a little, and though he knew it was a large country with many subcultures it seemed that swimming was an uncommon endeavor for Indian women. The clothing she wore at work was always fairly modest and he had wondered if she would be comfortable in a swimsuit.

Unfortunately, she was on the other boat. He decided that after a polite interval, he should go for a swim. Then he would be able to climb out on the other boat, acting as a genial host, and eventually be able to spend some time with Viveka. Even as he carried on conversations with other people on his boat he wondered whether it was appropriate for him to be attracted to and possibly spend more time with a woman a decade or so younger than himself. Especially since she was his employee?

However, he found himself more and more attracted to the pretty young woman. Though her physical appearance certainly had something to do with it, he felt even more attracted to her brilliant mind. The fact that she was so modest about just how smart she was, or perhaps didn’t even realize how much more intelligent she was then everyone else at the company, made her even more appealing.

Joe, a chemist the company had recently hired for his expertise in vapor state molecular interactions was actively supporting Gary’s train of thought. A little bit of a blowhard, Joe never missed an opportunity to point out his own brilliance. Even though Allosci had hired him because he had expertise no one in the company possessed, he had been pointing out all the errors he had discovered so far in other people’s work.

Gary found himself wanting to point out to Joe that they had hired him specifically because they knew they weren’t doing some of those things correctly. He didn’t think Joe should be particularly proud of the fact that he could do the things he had been hired for better then the people who had been doing the best they could until he arrived. Then, Joe’s eyes suddenly focused on the other boat.

Gary turned to see what had drawn Joe’s attention. It looked like Cindy, the purchasing agent with the oversized personality, had talked Viveka into removing her shirt and shorts. Standing there in a brilliant white one piece swimsuit she had drawn the eyes of many people on both boats.

Gary felt stunned. Though the sharp contrast between her dark skin and the white suit certainly drew the eye, the young woman also had an absolutely beautiful body. Mentally, he laughed a little bit at himself as he realized that he would now have another source of internal conflict—wondering if he was only attracted to her phenomenal figure.

Gary tried to pretend he was still focused on the conversation with Joe, but most of his attention, out of the corner of his eye, remained on Viveka. Cindy guided her to the edge of the boat where Viveka paused in the little gate in the rail of the boat. Gary turned his full attention on her for a moment, wondering if she was going to get in the water. It didn’t look like it, she appeared somewhat apprehensive. But then Cindy gave her a shove and Viveka fell, flailing, into the water.

Now all of Gary’s attention focused on her. His mild apprehension that she might not swim well shot through anxiety to panic in just a few seconds as he saw her wildly kicking and moving her arms without rising toward the surface.

Gary stood suddenly, stepped up onto the rail of the boat, and dove into the water without any more thought.

___

Just as she was beginning to feel truly desperate, a large splash signaled the entrance of a body into the water between Viveka and the first boat. That person curved gracefully under the water, coming up under Viveka, grabbing her waist, and driving her to the surface.

As her head broke the surface, Viveka gasped a desperate breath, feeling immensely grateful to whoever had rescued her. Her rescuer held onto her arm, supporting her while she gulped in several more lungs full of air. She could hear Cindy shouting, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t think you would even get on a boat if you couldn’t swim!”

From just behind her shoulder she heard Dr. Pace’s voice, “I’m sorry Viveka. I should have thought more about the fact that you might not be able to swim. I believe that swimming is not a common thing in your culture, is it?”

Viveka turned her head to see that it was Dr. Pace who had rescued her and was currently supporting her with a hand under her arm. “I’m sorry too,” she gasped, “I assumed, I’d be able, to stay, on a boat. I didn’t know, it would be, so hot.”

“Grab a rung,” Dr. Pace said.

Viveka realized that he had swum her over to his pontoon boat and the ladder was right beside her. She reached out and grabbed on, the ladder’s solidity very comforting to her. “Thank you!” Viveka gasped in relief.

“Catch your breath, try to relax. There’s no rush to climb into the boat.”

Viveka looked up and saw a row of concerned faces looking down at her.

From close in the water behind her she heard Cindy’s wretchedly say, “Viveka, I didn’t mean to drown you! I’m so sorry.”

When Viveka turned to respond to Cindy she saw the rail of the other boat was also lined with worried looking people. It gave her a warm feeling to realize that many of these people did care for her. Starting to feel self-conscious again with all the people staring at her she dropped her eyes back down to the swimming Cindy. Viveka said, “It’s not your fault. There’s no way you could have known I can’t swim.” She grinned at her, “Although it is pretty rude to go around shoving people into the water!”

Cindy tilted her head and arched an eyebrow, “You’re not going to make me sorry I didn’t finish drowning you, are you?”

Viveka coughed up a laugh, then waved a hand in surrender, “No, no! No more criticism from me!”

Dr. Pace said, “Are you feeling up to climbing the ladder yet?”

When she’d climbed out, Viveka felt people’s eyes on her again. For a moment she worried that the white swimsuit had turned transparent when it became wet. However, a quick glance proved that not to be the case. Are they just staring because I’m nearly naked? A lot of them have even less clothing on than I do! She realized with some desperation that her blouse and shorts were still in the other boat.

Cindy had climbed out behind her. She whispered fiercely to Viveka, “They’re only staring because you look so freaking great! Don’t be embarrassed and huddle up like that, stand up straight and be proud!”

Just when Viveka was about to say that she couldn’t avoid being embarrassed, Dr. Pace stepped up to the other side of her and held out some orange padding. “Here, here’s a life vest.” He winked at her, “I’ll bet you’ll feel more comfortable wearing it, huh?”

Cindy helped Viveka put it on. In a low voice she said, “You might feel better wearing it, but all the rest of these gawkers are going to be disappointed.”

Viveka found herself spending most of the afternoon talking to Dr. Pace, who again kept insisting she call him “Gary.” She discovered that she felt safe in the water while wearing a life vest, once Gary had talked her into climbing slowly back in. After a bit she began regularly climbing in and out of the water to stay cool. Several of her coworkers offered to teach her to swim and, though she didn’t take them up on it she enjoyed talking to them.

As her car drove her home, she reflected with some satisfaction on the enjoyable time that she had had. Their customs were certainly different here, but if she wanted to fit in here in America, she would need to adjust to their customs rather than hoping that they would adjust to hers.

As she climbed the stairs to her apartment, her AI said, “You have a call from Dr. Pace.” A little thrill shot through her. She said, “Put him on… Hello D-d… Gary. How can I help you?”

“I just wanted to say that I had a great time today out at the lake. I especially enjoyed the time that I got to spend talking to you.”

Impressed that Dr. Pace was taking the time to call all of his employees and thank them for coming to his party, Viveka said, “Thank you very much for inviting me, I really had a nice time myself.”

“Um,” Dr. Pace said, seeming uncertain. “I was hoping that you might consider, um, going to dinner with me next Saturday?”

Viveka blinked several times, feeling startled. Was the company having a dinner that he was inviting her to? Or could it be, that he was inviting her on a date, like these Americans liked to do as a part of their courtship rituals? It can’t be a date, can it? But, what else would it be? Realizing that she’d been thinking about it long enough that he probably thought that she was being rude, she quickly stammered, “U-uh, sure, thank you for the invitation. What time should I be there?”

“Oh,” he said, “I’ll pick you up at 6:30.” There was a pause, then he quietly said, “Thank you,” and disconnected.

***

Carter sat down across from AJ, “My daughter thinks we’re crazy to want to send people to Mars.”

AJ grinned at him, “You’re raising a philistine?”

“She is surprisingly practical for a ten year old. I tried to get her excited about space by telling her that we hoped to send people to Mars and how we were going to farm there.” He raised an eyebrow, “When she figured out that we were going to have to live underground, and grow our crops in tunnels, in conditions of inadequate gravity, and under a surface with insufficient atmosphere, and too much radiation, she pointed out that we could farm in tunnels much more safely here on Earth!”

AJ laughed, “Girl’s exasperatingly intelligent.” He glanced up musingly then back at Carter, “Maybe you could point her to the Mars Society’s ‘Founding Declaration.’ It outlines the reasons they think we should go there. Most of the reasons are about knowledge and might not impress someone as practical as your little girl.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially and said, “And, we’ll have to hope that she doesn’t realize that most of the Mars Society’s goals could be achieved by waldoes. By the way, the Society has found us hundreds of volunteers who want to make our trip and do our farming.”

Carter snorted and shook his head, “I think she’ll figure the waldo thing out all by herself. You ready to talk to Donsaii?”

“Sure,” AJ asked his AI to see if it could connect them to her.

“Hello,” Ell said, “you guys got your plan for interplanetary domination all worked out?”

“Well, no. But we’ve got a little test data. Our twenty four inch diameter test tunnel borer is out in the Valles Marineres. You’ll remember the borer is just a bullet shaped tungsten penetrator heated by solar parabolic mirrors. Just like it did tunneling here on Earth, it melted right into the walls of the Valles leaving a tunnel walled with a glass-ceramic of melted soil. We ported back some samples and the ceramic has good compressive strength. We’re working up a design for an eighteen foot penetrator we can ship up to orbit in pieces using the 747 space planes and then fly to Mars on its own set of rockets.”

“Hmmm, let me see it.”

There followed a pause while Donsaii looked at the CAD they’d sent her, then she said, “Looks like you’ve followed the plan of existing tunnel boring machines with hydraulic jacks to fix the back end in place and then thrust cylinders to push your melting head forward.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Now don’t you guys be Ma’amin’ me. I’m not that old. I think it looks good except you need to join the modern age.”

“Huh?”

“Talk to Gary. Get him to make you a big graphene balloon that you can blow up in the tunnel to ‘fix’ your back end in place. Then he can give you a set of long narrow segmented balloons that you can blow up to push your melting head forward instead of those hydraulic thrust cylinders. You can use another balloon with an airlock built into it to plug the entrance to your tunnels.”

“Um, but isn’t graphene expensive?”

Ell snorted, “Yeah, but not as expensive as shipping that massive hydraulic machine to orbit then buying enough rocket fuel to push it all the way to Mars.”

“Oh… yeah. That would save some money wouldn’t it?”

“Uh huh, all you have to transport to Mars is a relatively thin walled tungsten bullet head with struts to hold the port delivering the light from a big solar parabolic. Well, and the graphene balloons we just talked about, but they won’t weigh very much.”

***

Gary stared at Viveka in astonishment. He glanced around the table at the other Allosci scientists sitting there with him. Sure enough their expressions were as stunned as his must be.

Viveka hadn’t even noticed. She continued speaking while pointing out salient items on the screen regarding her idea for diamond or graphend coating large objects in situ. The whole idea had required several intuitive leaps that were the kind of thing brilliant people made, but ordinary people seldom did. Leaps that seemed obvious when you looked back on them, but seemed impossible before someone had thought of them.

If it works we’ll need to patent that second one, Gary thought, and I’ll be really surprised if it doesn’t work! She’ll need to be named as inventor on it. And receive some substantial royalties.

Damn, she’s amazing!

Gary had been thinking that Viveka should feel lucky that he was interested in her. Now, the combination of some of her brilliant insights and her astonishing appearance in that white swimming suit out at Jordan Lake had him wondering why she would even consider going out with somebody like him. Good thing I already have a date arranged with her for Saturday night, he thought to himself.

***

Viveka waited nervously for Gary. She wondered again whether his picking her up to take her out to dinner constituted what these Americans called a date. Perhaps, he simply wanted to talk about work and didn’t feel he had the time to do so at their workplace? She’d seen some American movies and had some idea about how their “dating rituals” went. However, it seemed from the movies that sex was often involved.

Her thoughts hopped from one possibility to another.

Gary was just being friendly.

He, like her mother had said, just wanted sex.

It was a business dinner.

He intended a romantic evening because he really liked her.

He recognized that as a lonely woman in a foreign country, one who depended on him for a job, she was an easy target for a “one night stand.”

He really did think she was brilliant and wanted to get married.

He wanted to fire her, but didn’t want to do it at work for fear she would make a scene.

No, Ell had told her that he thought the world of her. It must be a date. However, he might still expect to have sex.

Even if it was a romantic overture on Gary’s part, Viveka had no idea what she would do. She had always expected that her family would be involved in negotiating and arranging any marriage that might come her way. Though, because of their poverty, it had always seemed very unlikely that a marriage could even be arranged for her. Her family would not have been able to afford a dowry. Her thoughts bounced to the fact that, at her current salary, she could fund a dowry herself. On the other hand, though she could afford a much more substantial dowry than someone of her previous status in India would ever have expected, Gary to a large degree, owned Allosci. He would, of course, have so much money that any dowry she could provide would seem like a joke. Her prospects would be much better, she thought, with some of the machinists who worked there at Allosci.

She jumped when the door AI chimed and stated that Dr. Pace had arrived. Getting to her feet she quickly rechecked her appearance in the mirror and then answered the door. The door AI showed her that Gary had flowers again, a gesture the meaning of which she felt highly uncertain.

As the door opened, he smiled broadly, and reached out with the hand not holding the flowers for a little hug. “Hey, Viveka, you look great! But then, you always do.”

Viveka stepped forward and leaned towards him to accept the small hug, patting his back in a weak attempt to reciprocate the hug. “Thank you,” she said, wondering whether this was a standard, friendly greeting hug, or some kind of declaration of romantic intent. Her mind whirled as she dithered about, finally putting the small bouquet of flowers in one of her tall drinking glasses. She thought to herself that she would need to get a vase if he was going to keep doing this.

He took her to a restaurant that appeared to be very upscale. Certainly, the prices were appalling. Is this simply because he has so much money that these prices mean little to him? Or is he trying to signal romantic intent? Or is it a business dinner that he can charge to the company? Viveka settled for choosing one of the cheapest items on the menu. Nonetheless, it was still expensive, and very good.

Gary did not direct the conversation to business. Viveka didn’t know whether she was relieved or worried about this. He asked her more about her childhood and her struggles to get an education, seeming very interested in her life.

Suddenly realizing that he had learned a great deal about her, but that she knew very little about him, she began asking him about his history. It surprised her to learn that he’d grown up across the country in Nevada, but not that his parents were professionals, an engineer and a programmer.

Considering her, however unlikely, romantic thoughts about him, she was relieved to learn that his family was not wealthy like she had imagined. Not wealthy for Americans that is, of course they would be considered unimaginably wealthy in comparison to her practically destitute family.

This led her to ask him how he had come to be the CEO and majority owner of Allosci. “Well I had this process,” he said, “for making graphene. It almost worked down here on earth, and I thought that I might be able to get it to work better in microgravity conditions. Since Ell was building the habitat then, and I had read about it in the news, I called her and asked if I could fly up a small test rig on one of her launches.”

“Wait! You just called up Dr. Donsaii?”

“Well, I already knew her, so I was pretty sure she’d answer my call.”

“How did you know her?”

“Well, Ell told me about how she met you, so I know that you are aware that she disguises herself as Raquel Blandon?”

Viveka nodded.

Gary explained how he had met Ell, as Raquel Blandon, at a martial arts school in Las Vegas. He winked at Viveka, “So you’re not the first beautiful, brilliant woman I’ve ever gone out with, you see?”

Viveka felt stunned to realize she’d just been favorably compared to Dr. Donsaii! And he just said, “gone out with,” which I think means that this is a date! She blinked at him, too astonished to come up with a response.

After a moment, seeming embarrassed, he said, “I’m sorry. That was rude, bringing up my dating history while I’m out with you. It was a long time ago. I hope I haven’t upset you.”

Still too flabbergasted to speak, Viveka merely shook her head in negation. It really does sound like he thinks of this as a date! After a moment, hoping her voice wouldn’t break, she said, “I’m sorry, but after going out with Dr. Donsaii, being here with me must seem quite shabby by comparison.”

His eyes widened and he shook his head, “No! No, I didn’t mean that all. I have been… looking forward… to, to this evening, with… much anticipation. I think you’re… wonderful, so beautiful, and so very, very smart! I’ve been admiring you more and more every day since you arrived at Allosci.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts, then said, hesitantly, “It might be wrong for me to date one of Allosci’s employees, but I just can’t seem to get my mind off you.”

The remainder of the dinner passed in a blur. All too soon Viveka found herself walking up to the door of her apartment with Dr. Pace. Her door AI recognized her and unlocked the door. Putting her hand on the door Viveka turned and said, “Thank you so much for such a nice dinner.”

Dr. Pace said, “You’re so welcome. I hope I can take you somewhere again soon?” he said stepping closer and slipping an arm behind her back. He leaned towards her.

No! He wants sex! My mother was right! Twisting the doorknob, Viveka jerked her head away and turned. Stepping in through the door, she closed it all but an inch, which she peered back out through. “Good night,” she said shakily, and then closed the door until it latched. She stood there shaking in reaction for a moment, then turned, tears streaming down her face, and walked back to her bedroom. This is so confusing. I don’t know what it all means! Maybe he didn’t want sex?

___

Gary stood outside her door, stunned, and unsure of what had just happened. For a moment he considered knocking on the door and trying to apologize. She obviously had not wanted a kiss, which was disappointing, but he could live with that. However, she had acted as if she were either frightened or repulsed. She had practically torn herself out of the slight hug he had started to give her. Now his own hands were shaking with reaction. What had he done?

Chapter Three

Sheila Rhodes, now back to her previous position as Deputy Director of the FBI, looked up as one of her Associate Deputy Directors knocked on her door frame. “Hey, Rak, what’s up?”

Rakeem stepped into her office and closed the door, frowning. “It’s the SCDF, Sheila. You’ll know how the three we arrested have revealed nothing on questioning so far?”

Sheila nodded.

“It’s like they’re brainwashed or something. Some members of the SCDF task force think that Fallon practically hypnotizes them. These guys don’t even seem to know his name, but they have EEG, pupillary and pulse rate reactions when we show them pictures of the SOB.” He shook his head, “Anyway, we haven’t been able to sweat anything useful out of them and they all had wiper programs on their AIs. Our only break has been that one of them had made a backup chip for some of the data on his AI. He’d hid the backup and a few paper notes in the binding of an old bible.” Rakeem shrugged, “We’re actually pretty lucky we found it, so it wasn’t such a bad plan.”

Sheila grinned, “Simple plans are often the best. Is it going to help you track down any of the others?”

Rakeem shook his head disgustedly, “No. However, it had a recipe for ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil explosive), disguised as a recipe for granola. One of the agents recognized the proportions. And it has a bunch of clippings about an abortion rights trial about to come up before the US District Court in Florence, South Carolina. Finally, we reconstructed a shredded hand written note out of his trash saying, ‘pro-choice, granola barrels in Toyota under McMillan, boom – pro-life, abortion clinic boom.’”

“McMillan?”

“The Federal Building that the District Court is in.”

Sheila sighed and rubbed her eyes, “Is there parking under McMillan or something?”

“No, but there’s a kind of glass enclosed section on the bottom. We think they might be able to drive a vehicle in under there somehow.”

“When is this trial?”

“Starts tomorrow.”

“Sweet Jesus. How are you planning to deal with this?”

“Assign extra agents during the trial. Sharpshooters on the roof. Incognito agents to check out all Toyotas in the area with chemical sniffers.”

“The briefcase versions?”

Rakeem nodded.

“Dress them in suits so they’ll look like lawyers. Pretty good disguise around a courthouse.” Sheila leaned back, thinking, “Have them be especially on the lookout for recently stolen vehicles.”

Rakeem lifted an eyebrow, “If they’ve stolen a vehicle, they’ll have to disable the AI. That’ll mean someone would have to drive it under the building on manual. It’d be a suicide mission.”

Sheila shrugged. “Remember Fallon’s brainwashed those guys to the point you can’t sweat anything out of them. What do you think are the chances he could also talk someone into a suicide mission?”

***

Dupree tensely watched the feed from a camera mounted on the dash of the Toyota Tundra that Redman had stolen the day before. It had a windowless camper shell on the back into which they’d loaded Salem’s two 50-gallon barrels of ANFO.

Because Redman had taken the Tundra’s AI completely offline to keep the police from shutting it down now that it had been stolen, Dupree’s son Ellis was manually driving the truck. Ellis turned onto Evans Street and Dupree could see the distinctive profile of the McMillan Federal Building where the US District Court should be handing down its decision on the abortion case this morning.

Dupree’s gut unclenched when he saw that no vehicles were parked on the right side of Evans Street where Redman had programmed the starting location for the truck’s AI. Ellis pulled in and parked in exactly the parking space Redman had programmed into the AI’s GPS. When Ellis turned the net-isolated AI back on, the big four wheel drive pickup truck would wait ten minutes, then pull over the curb and sidewalk, accelerate across the empty lot at the corner of Evans and McQueen, cross McQueen at speed, barrel through the fence around the building and into the glass framed understory. Once it had halted somewhere underneath the main building, Ellis would detonate the ANFO remotely.

Then that godless bunch of heathens would learn of the wrath of the SCDF.

Dupree felt a little frisson of excitement run up his spine at the thought of the death and mutilation that would result. The Oklahoma bombing, admittedly much bigger, had actually left the investigators with an extra leg they could never identify to an individual. Dupree found it amusing that the Feds couldn’t sort out who the leg belonged to, though, of course, God could.

Fallon thought momentarily of the agony the families would go through later today when they would learn of the loss of their loved ones. He shrugged. Those families shouldn’t have let their loved ones work in the evil corruption represented by that government building. It was too bad that the legal team arguing the pro-life position had to die too, but everyone should be prepared to make sacrifices for the greater good. Besides, even the pro-life team members were lawyers, a breed of mankind for which Dupree felt nothing but loathing.

As if in response to that thought a group of lawyers in suits left the building and started down the sidewalk, their precious briefcases in hands. Dupree shook his head glumly at the missed opportunity their unknowing escape from the McMillan Building represented. Bastards had lucked out, but Dupree took consolation in the fact that there would be plenty of other lawyer types still inside that misguided den of iniquity called a federal courthouse.

Dupree turned to look at his other screen which carried a feed from the trial. It looked like the judge was about to hand down his decision. He looked back at the first screen where the three lawyers were just about to walk unknowingly past the Angel of Death, the Angel who had been incarnated in Ellis Fallon and his truck-bomb. Dupree thought, those sorry bastards probably think they dispense justice. Today they’re going to see real justice bestowed, mostly on their own ilk!

Suddenly the screen showing the take from Ellis’ headset cameras blurred as his head turned violently to the right. Dupree’s eyes widened as he stared up at the screen. The window of the Toyota had just shattered and one of the lawyers leaned in through it pointing a gun.

Dupree unconsciously flinched away from the bore of the weapon on the screen, as it appeared to point right between his own eyes. With short-lived pride he saw Ellis’ own weapon rise into view.

Dupree only had a moment to think, Nooooo! Then the two weapons discharged simultaneously.

The view from Ellis’ HUD jerked up and back, then descended slowly past the agent who’d been knocked back from the window.

The view from the HUD slowly continued to sink forward and to the left, finally stopping with nothing but the carpet on the floorboards of the truck in its field. A moment later a red haze obscured the camera as blood dripped over it.

Dupree sat staring at the unmoving red image until the HUD was removed from Ellis’ head and cast aside. Minutes after that, in the screen from the camera mounted on the dash of the truck, he saw Ellis’ body being loaded unceremoniously into the back of an ambulance.

The sheet had been pulled up over Ellis’ head. Those bastards aren’t even trying to help him, Dupree thought as blackness descended over him. My only son! Those bastards will pay!

Those damned bastards will pay!

THOSE GOD DAMNED BASTARDS WILL PAY!!

***

Sheila Rhodes stepped into the office of the new Director of the FBI. The President had appointed Madison Arquette, one of Stockton’s buddies from the political sludge heap. The man was handsome and articulate, but very careful to keep his hands clean and his image spotless. Sheila liked him well enough but had a mild revulsion for his careful intent to keep any blame from sticking to him.

He came around his desk to greet her pleasantly enough, “What’s up?” He took in her unhappy look, “Did someone screw up?”

“No,” she said defensively, trying to protect her people, “no one on our team screwed up, but that damned SCDF is proving a really hard nut to crack.”

Arquette frowned, “Come on Sheila. The President told you guys to take those bastards down. If they’re still around, somebody’s screwed up.”

“Things aren’t that simple. We captured three of their members, but we think Fallon’s brainwashed or hypnotized them. We just aren’t able to get anything useful out of them using legal questioning.” She shrugged, “Though they all seem to have been from a single cell, so they may not know much about the rest of the SCDF. We’ve torn apart their homes, vehicles, yards and places of employment looking for physical clues and only come up with a couple scraps of paper and a memory chip that had to do with a plan to bomb the US District Courthouse in Florence South Carolina.”

“Oh Christ! You’re not going to tell me they just blew it up?”

“No, we did find a truck with a couple barrels of ANFO in the back. The agents tried to capture the driver who turned out to be Fallon’s kid. Unfortunately, the kid pulled a gun and then he and the arresting agent shot each other.”

Arquette closed his eyes, “Tell me you’ve got the Fallon kid in custody so we can use him as leverage on his dad.”

Rhodes narrowed her eyes, noting that her boss hadn’t asked about the condition of the agent who nominally worked for him, though pretty far down the chain, “No sir. Fallon’s dead, shot in the head.”

“Christ! In the head? Is that how you guys are trained? Shoot to kill? I thought you were supposed to just ‘wing’ important subjects?

Rhodes sighed, “Sir… of course we’d rather he hadn’t killed Fallon, but it’s just not that easy when the other guy is pointing a gun at you.”

A disgusted look crossed Arquette’s face, “Sounds like a training failure to me. Please tell me we have some other good leads to this SCDF.”

“No sir.”

“Christ,” Arquette said for the third time, this time with a sigh. “Edith asked me for a little good news she could use to float the midterm elections and you hand me this pile of crap!”

“Sir, we did prevent a bombing of a Federal Courthouse. That’s a success, no matter how you look at it. Fallon wounded our agent and I’m damned proud of him. I just can’t accept your comment about a ‘training failure.’”

Arquette rolled his eyes. “OK, I’ll try to sell that story to the President, but you’d better make some progress on those bastards, and soon.”

***

Gary entered the lab where Viveka normally worked. Since the disastrous ending of their date a few weeks earlier even their interactions at work had been very strained. He had repeatedly cursed himself for trying to kiss her and wondered if there was anything he could do to get things back to the way they had been before.

Despite a plethora of rehearsed apologies, he had not come up with one that sounded right to him. Besides, it was too late to apologize now; at this point it would sound ridiculous.

“Viveka?” he asked, somewhat apprehensively, “you wanted to see me?” He feared that she wanted to quit her job, return to India, or otherwise somehow physically distance herself from him.

She spun in her seat as if startled, “Oh!” she said rising to her feet, “Yes, Dr. Pace, I have the first results from our in situ graphene deposition tests. I thought you would want to see them.”

“Yes, yes I do,” he said feeling relieved that she wasn’t leaving, but again dismayed by her insistence on distancing herself by calling him doctor. “What have you got for me?”

Over the next 30 minutes she showed him the results of a number of test runs, initially unsuccessful, but then gradually honing in on a setup that produced high quality graphene in nice even layers with very few flaws. Gary blinked at the results. He had thought her proposed setup would likely work, but not this well. Additionally, he felt flustered by her close presence as she leaned in to point out various problem areas on her test piece. She even brushed against him while pointing out the quality of the coating in the depths of a corner. This sent tingles radiating through his skin from that spot.

Nonetheless her demeanor was completely professional at all times. If she harbored any personal feelings toward him, either good or bad, she certainly hid them well.

Taking a deep breath, he resolved to be completely professional himself. “This is truly excellent work Ms. Janu. Of course, that’s what we have come to expect from you by now.” He glanced around her exceptionally well organized workspace; then turned back to her, “I’ll ask Mr. Miller, our patent attorney, to set up a meeting with you the next time he is here at Allosci. You’ll need to help him draft a patent application based on this brilliant idea of yours. If you haven’t reviewed the terms of your employment as regards intellectual property, you should. You’re entitled to 40% of any royalties that proceed from this invention.”

Gary shook her hand in congratulations, and left the area. He didn’t see the single tear that trickled down Viveka’s cheek as he departed.

***

Washington D.C.—In her weekly radio address President Stockton complimented the FBI for their arrest of four members of the radical South Carolina Defense Force. The SCDF is a group with a number of extremist ideologies and a history of violent protest against abortion. In the takedown the FBI apprehended three members of the SCDF and then captured a truck-bomb the SCDF had allegedly intended to detonate under the McMillan Federal Building where the US District Court had just handed down a “pro-choice” decision. The driver of the truck, one Ellis Fallon, son of long time militant survivalist Dupree Fallon, was killed in the operation. One FBI agent was wounded, but is expected to recover…

Dupree learned of Stockton’s radio address by seeing mention of it on his newsfeed. That night he listened to her speech over and over, becoming more and more convinced that he heard a gloating tone in her voice when she spoke of the death of one Ellis Fallon, Dupree Fallon’s only son.

Incessantly and repetitively until nearly dawn, Dupree continued to replay Stockton’s words. The next day, he not only knew every word by heart, but had attributed hidden meanings to every nuance and inflection. Others might think she was trying to puff up her administration for the midterm elections but Dupree knew she’d just declared war on the SCDF in general, and on the Fallons in particular.

A black rage filled Dupree’s heart. The lost feeling he’d had upon Ellis’ death now replaced itself with malignant hatred. A hatred focused almost entirely on Edith Stockton.

***

New York—The Journal Science today announced the publication of another stunning treatise carrying the name of Ell Donsaii. Shannon Kinrais, co-author of her fourth paper is once again the lead author of this, her eighth paper. This time a Gareth Pace is the second author with Donsaii the last author.

Donsaii’s first three publications, the first on quantum entanglement through the fifth dimension, the second on the two slit experiment, and a third on PGR communications were all solo authored and each shook the foundations of the world of physics. Her fourth paper on the effects of a 5th dimension on gravitation and redshift over great distances was her first co-authored paper, that time with Kinrais. That paper has revolutionized the world of astrophysics and become known as the “K-D paper.” Most people are already aware of the three co-authored papers that followed, these in the journal Science, regarding the Tau Ceti solar system, as well as the biosphere and the primitive but intelligent inhabitants of Tau Ceti’s third planet. Though those seven were the only papers she had published until now, any one of those papers would have established their authors as major players in the scientific pantheon (she won a Nobel Prize for the first one). The third paper shook the world’s economy as well.

There is no doubt that Donsaii could publish another paper on her ports that would also shake the scientific world. The only paper published on her ports has been the patent publication and it did not detail the specifics of the science behind them. Despite the efforts of thousands of bright people all over the world, Portal Tech, a subsidiary of D5R, the company Donsaii leads, has apparently been the only one to succeed in making functional ports. Of course, even if others did successfully build some ports, patent law would constrain them from doing it for profit.

This new eighth publication is the first one to stray into the realm of chemistry. This time she and her co-authors are publishing a graphic description of the optimization of conditions at which the formation of various carbon allotropes will reliably occur. These allotropes include diamond, graphene and lonsdaleite, a little known allotrope that is even harder than diamond!

If these claims are substantiated by other investigators, it is hard to imagine that she and her co-authors would not be up for another Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry. An amazing run of scientific discoveries for one person…

Stell sat nervously waiting for the doctor. The post-surgical bandage was due to come off her eye today and she felt terribly worried about what might or might not happen. Someone sat down next to her. “Hello Stell,” Dr. Keller’s voice said warmly, though she thought he sounded nervous too.

“Hi, Doctor Keller. I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“Well, I thought this would be a good time to find out from your doctor if it would be OK to try out your implant.”

“Oh! OK!” she said excitedly.

“If it’s OK with you I’d like your permission for my AI to communicate with yours? I need permission so your AI can send the video from your headband to the fancy AI that will deliver it back to your implant.”

Stell turned her face up toward her mother, “That’s OK, right Mommy?”

“Sure.”

Ryan spoke with his AI a moment, then had the video from Stell’s headband fed to his own HUD to be sure her camera was working. She of course had never been able to look at the feed from her cameras, just wearing them as many people did, to keep a record in case they were assaulted. The advent of AI video records of a person’s surroundings had markedly reduced the incidence of violent crimes. You were much less likely to attack someone when you knew that an AV record of the attack would be available to the courts. PGR connections had furthered this change because of the fact that now the AIs that stored the AV record were physically somewhere far away and the attacker could no longer hope to destroy the AV record by destroying the AI itself.

Ryan had just gotten a good feed off Stell’s cameras when they were called back into the doctor’s office. The three of them sat in the exam room, each nervous in their own way, then Dr. Willoughby leaned in the door of the room and said, “I’ll be another few minutes, has she been able to see anything through the port yet?”

Ryan said, “We haven’t tried it yet, would it be OK for me to give her a feed?”

“Sure, I’ll be right back.”

Ryan turned to Stell, “Are you ready to give it a try Stell?”

Trembling with excitement Stell nodded.

Ryan spoke to his AI, asking it to feed a very dim picture at first as it seemed to him that having sudden bright light after years in darkness might be painful. He said, “Start at five percent brightness now.”

Stell threw her head back!

“Off!” Ryan shouted, “Are you OK Stell?”

“Yes!” Stell said tremulously, “Oh! Turn it back on! It just scared me. Please! Turn it back on!”

Ryan gave her the video feed back and she exclaimed excitedly again, clapping her hands together. “What do you see?”

“Light!” she said, practically squirming in her chair, “I haven’t seen light since my transplants went bad.”

“Can you see me wave my hand around?” Ryan asked, waving his hand out in front of her AI’s camera.

“I see something moving, it’s really soft though.”

Ryan’s heart fell. “Soft” sounded to him like how a blind person might describe blurry. Though, he supposed, blurry sight was better than none at all. Then his mind hung up on the thought “blurry.” Eyes widening a second, he spoke to his AI, “Adjust the focus gradually, starting at the focal distance you’re at and moving toward the other end.” He turned to Stell, “Let us know if the image gets any better.”

Stell’s camera was actually feeding the image to a set of adjustable lenses back at D5R. Before the image was sent back to Stell it could be brightened or darkened or infrared light could be converted to visible. Then the light was fed to a set of lenses so they could focus it. The image needed to leave the port at the back of Stell’s lenses focused so that it formed a sharp image on her retina because she couldn’t focus it herself, her cataract laden lenses having been removed to put in the port. The motors controlling the focus slowly shifted and suddenly Stell shouted, “I can see your fingers!”

“Great! Are they sharp yet?”

“Sharp?”

“Yeah, if the image is in focus you should see abrupt or sharp edges to my fingers.”

Legs kicking back and forth, Stell exclaimed, “Sharp like a, like a knife’s edge! Yes! They’re getting sharper and sharper… Oh! Oh! Uh, now the edges are getting softer again.”

Ryan turned over the focus to Stell’s AI so she could tell it directly how to adjust the focal length. A minute later she said, “Oh! That’s perfect!” She turned her head up toward her mother and said, “Mommy, I can see! I can see you!” She reached out a trembling hand to touch her mother’s face. It waved back and forth a moment as the little girl adjusted to seeing her own hand and controlling its motion by sight. Then it touched her mother’s cheek. She frowned, “Mommy? This is your cheek right?”

Her mother nodded microscopically.

“Why’s it wet? Are you crying?

“Tears of joy, Stell, tears of joy,” her mother croaked out.

Ryan wiped the back of his wrist at his own eyes. “Uh,” he rasped, then cleared his throat, “Can you see any colors?”

“I don’t know,” Stell said, turning her head to point her camera different directions, “Or, actually, I’m not sure I know what colors look like.”

“Oh,” Ryan stood and moved to a large poster picture of the anatomy of the eye on the wall behind the door. “This is pink,” he moved his finger, “and this is yellow.”

“Uh, I can hardly see that over there.”

Ryan blinked, looking at the chart, then back at Stell, heart back in his throat. Absently he pushed the door out away from the picture.

“Oh! I can see it better now!”

Roger’s eyes widened. “Stell, ask your AI to increase the image brightness,” he said eagerly. “You’re only at five percent. Try ten, then twenty.”

Stell spoke to her AI, saying, “Try ten percent brightness.” She exclaimed, “Oh! Oh! Oh! Try twenty!”

At seventy she frowned and asked it to go back down to sixty, then smiled, swinging her head around to look at the things in the room. “Dr. Keller! Show me pink and yellow again?”

Soon Ryan and Mrs. Simsworth were eagerly pointing out various objects in the room, telling her what they were and what color they were as she excitedly asked for more and more. “Oh!” Stell said, turning her head toward the door, “Are you Dr. Willoughby?”

Ryan and Stell’s mother turned to see the ophthalmologist standing in the door of the exam room, staring at the little girl in astonishment. Then he laughed, “My first reaction was to wonder how she was seeing when she still had the bandage over her eye.”

After Dr. Willoughby had finished removing the bandage and examining Stell’s eye, he seemed to be as excited as they were to have participated in giving the little girl her sight back. “We should wait a few months before doing the other eye so we can be sure nothing goes wrong with this one.”

The others agreed, though it frustrated Stell who wanted to go ahead with the second surgery immediately.

Willoughby tilted his head as he watched Stell using her new sight.

“It’d be nice if somehow the cameras on her headband could be made to point the same direction her eyes are pointing. Then she wouldn’t have to turn her head toward everything she wants to look at.”

Ryan reached into a case he’d been carrying, “Well, I think we have a solution for that too.” He pulled out a headband with many more cameras on the front of it than the standard. “This headset has two tiny cameras that track the direction Stell points her eyes. It also has enough cameras pointing outward from the headband that its high end AI can feed her retina pictures from whichever direction her eyes are pointing.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Simsworth exclaimed, “That AI and headband combo sounds very expensive. Even though Stell’s making some money from her singing, we still wouldn’t be able to afford what you’re talking about.”

Ryan touched her arm, “Don’t worry Mrs. Simsworth. Ell Donsaii funds Quantum Biomed well enough so that we’re able to do these kinds of things for free.”

Stell, over looking at herself in the mirror, turned and said, “Is President Stockton ever going to stop picking on Ms. Donsaii so she can come back from wherever she’s gone to and start helping people again?”

Ryan shrugged, then realizing that Stell might not know what a shrug was, and really wasn’t looking his way anyway, said, “I don’t know, but I sure hope so. Ell’s… really very sweet and kind.”

“I think so too,” Stell said, then turned from the mirror and came over to peer at everyone else’s eyes. She frowned, “My eyes are different from yours. Yours are… black in the middle with colors around it and mine are… not black.”

“Yes, Stell,” Dr. Willoughby said, “there is a clear part in the middle of the eye called the cornea. It’s over the iris which is the colored ring. The black area in the center of the iris is called the pupil. But, remember your cornea has something wrong with it so that it’s white instead of clear.”

Stell turned to look up at her mother. Quietly and sadly, she said “Are other kids still going to make fun of me because my eyes look different even though I can see now?”

No one knew what to say. Stell’s mother swallowed and almost whispered, “They might. Kids can be very cruel.”

Dr. Willoughby said, “We have contacts that you could try. They have a colored iris built into them for people who want to have eyes that are a different color. Do you want me to fit you with some?”

Stell nodded solemnly.

A short while later Stell had been fitted with a pair of light blue colored contacts to match her mother’s irises and to go with her platinum hair. She looked back and forth at her face in the mirror, then at her mother. “They still look wrong, ‘cause they’re white in the center instead of black.”

Her mother nodded and swallowed, then tried to make the best of it, “But they look better than all white.”

Ryan said, “I’ll bet I can get the contact company to make you some colored contacts that are black in the center.”

Stell clasped her hands together and quietly whispered, “That would be nice, thank you.”

***

Viveka’s mother called at 9:30 PM. It was early morning back home in India and her mother had only been awake for a short while. “How are you?”

“I’m fine Mama. Have they finished repairing your roof?”

“Yes, yes,” her mother said impatiently, “they finished it days ago. Have you decided when you will be able to come home yet?”

“No Mama, when I come home I want it to be for several weeks to make it worthwhile. I don’t think I should leave my job for weeks at a time when I’ve only been working here for such a short while.”

On the video her mother frowned at her, “I thought your boss liked you?”

“You’re the one who says he only wants me for sex!”

Her mother waved down away with a dismissing motion, “Yes, yes, probably that’s all he cares about, like most men. All the more reason why he won’t complain if you need a vacation.”

“But the other people I work with, it isn’t fair to them if I leave for a long time.”

“Hah, they’ll get by fine without you for a few weeks.”

Viveka I wondered uneasily if this could be true. Her coworkers and even Dr. Pace were always telling her how brilliant she was, and how important her insights were. They acted like she was indispensable, but perhaps that’s just the way people talked here in America? Or maybe they did think she was indispensable, but would quickly find out she wasn’t if she were gone long and they got by fine without her. “Uh…” Viveka said, uncertainly.

Her mother narrowed her eyes, “Has Dr. Pace asked you out to dinner again?”

“No Mama,” her voice almost breaking, “not since…”

“Not since what?” her mother said suspiciously.

“That first time, I think he wanted to…”

“What? Have sex?”

“No! No. He just wanted, I think, to kiss me. I pulled away, and I think it hurt his feelings.”

“Yes, yes, first a kiss, then more and more…”

Even though she’d been worried about the same thing, Viveka didn’t want to admit it to her mother. “I don’t think he’s that way,” she said, “I…”

Her mother waved dismissively, “Of course you don’t think he’s ‘that way.’ You’re young and naïve. You think love is all important.”

“You and Poppa loved each other!”

“Yes, but we were very lucky. Most people don’t have that. Maybe you’ll be lucky too, but don’t count on it…”

After her mother hung up, Viveka went to bed, her emotions in turmoil. She felt a tremendous attraction for Dr. Pace, and sometimes could convince herself that he felt the same way about her. Especially right after he had complimented her, which had been pretty common. But, then her mother’s cynical words would come back to her, raising doubt after doubt. Her mother had told her many times about how men used flattery to seduce, though Viveka’s impression had been that such praise typically revolved around a girl’s appearance, not her intelligence. She thought she could love Dr. Pace, if she didn’t already, but she would be heartbroken if it turned out that her mother was right. She didn’t want to be just another conquest like she’d heard had happened to others.

Chapter Four

Ell studied the ophthalmic contact as it sat on one of the prosthetic eyes she’d bought for her project. She squirted a little more solution on it to keep it moist. The contact had been cast out of one of the standard hydrogels that ophthalmic contacts were normally made out of. Near the periphery of the front layer of the lens lay a conducting ring with quantum entangled buckyballs on it. This ring formed a port with a curve that kept it right on the surface of the lens. The port passed light that normally would have entered the eye and instead sent it to an optical processing device akin to the one Ryan had provided for Stell. Light amplification, UV or infrared detection all occurred there. In addition, any needed heads up display information got added to the light path. Then, closer to the back surface of the lens, another ring of buckyballs formed a second smaller curved port. This port sent light from the processor on into the eye and through the lens to be picked up by the retina.

Ell had been practicing wearing cosmetic contacts just to get used to them. She’d had these “active contacts,” as she thought of them, mounted on the prosthetic eyes for weeks now in an attempt to be sure that they weren’t somehow going to fail catastrophically and damage the eyes they rested on. Any time the port opened or closed it could cut any material of the hydrogel protruding through the surface of the port so she had worked hard to place the port exactly on the surface of the curve of the lens. Additionally, she had made the electronics for the port very robust to prevent accidental shutdown. Even if it did shut down, as long as the curvature was correct when it did, it wouldn’t cut anything.

Deciding that she’d have to try them sometime, she sighed and reached out to pluck the contact off the prosthetic eye. It felt different than the contacts she’d been wearing for practice because the central portion where the ports were mounted was a little thicker and stiffer. Carrying it to a mirror she put it in her eye. She blinked a few times, getting used to its increased thickness and then started putting it through its paces.

A few hours later Ell still felt pretty comfortable with the contacts in place. She’d put lenses in both eyes and worn them steadily. She’d worked with Allan on how to place the HUD information in her field of view. In the past she’d been able to look up at her HUD, finding certain information, like the time, in customarily specified locations on the display up beneath her eyebrows. Now, since the display floated on the front of her eyes, if she looked up, the display also moved up.

So she couldn’t point her eye at the time anymore.

However, she found that Allan, analyzing the image sent by the contact, could easily recognize the typical movement she’d always made to look up and to the right at the time where it was displayed on her HUD. When she looked up like she would have to check the time Allan simply displayed a clock image for her momentarily. Even better, she had been able to teach him to recognize when she was straining to see something. When he detected straining, he then auto adjusted the brightness and contrast to sharpen the image for her. She could even ask him to zoom in the image somewhat. It wasn’t like a digital zoom that made an image larger but really didn’t have any more information. Because the contact was gathering light from the entire area of her cornea rather than the smaller area that the pupil normally let light in through, the quality of the image was excellent until it had been zoomed quite a ways.

With a little work she and Allan had been able to set it up so that, like a regular HUD, she could look around a document or picture Allan projected for her. He would initially put it up so that the document was centered in her field of view. Then, when she looked up to the upper left corner, for instance, and began reading the document, he shifted the document appropriately in her field of view. Therefore instead of the document staying centered in her field of view even though she’d moved her eye, he projected the document as if it had moved down and to the right. This actually wasn’t difficult when she was sitting still. Allan could simply project the document in the same location over her surroundings despite the fact her eyes had moved to point somewhere else. In fact, he could do this so well that it felt to her like the image stayed perfectly still in her field of view while her eyes moved around to examine or read different parts of it. After Allan had had some practice doing this, he was even able to project it correctly when she was walking around and the background was moving, though you wouldn’t normally project an opaque HUD image into the middle of your visual field while you were moving around.

Ell headed upstairs where she found Amy in the play room they’d set up for Zage. “Hey Amelia, has the Z-man been giving you a lot of trouble this afternoon?” she asked smilingly, hoping that Amy would tell her that Zage had done something besides sit and watch nature shows today. Sure enough Zage sat, his attention fixed on a biology show. He rarely cried except to signal the need for a diaper change, a desire for food, or to let them know that one program had finished and he wanted another. He also cried if they tried to show him a repeat of a previous show. He could crawl, but rarely did. He never made any attempt to walk. If you held him up, instead of trying to stand on his feet, he just pulled them up in the air. He didn’t want to watch children’s shows which seemed mature, but he never even tried to speak any words which he should be doing by now. Ell fretted constantly about it.

Amy shook her head, “No problems out of Zage today,” she said affectionately, “not that there ever are.” She stood and started getting her things. “He’s going to be a year old pretty soon. He’ll be starting the ‘Mother’s Morning Out’ program and spending more time around other kids. Maybe they’ll teach him to cause more trouble.”

Ell picked Zage up, telling the show to pause. Zage also cried if he was taken away from his show when it had been left to run so that he couldn’t come back to it at the same place. “Did he play much with Billy at their play date today?”

Amy shook her head, “He pretty much sat there watching Billy like he watches his shows. Billy crawled over and started hitting him with a little Tonka truck. Zage just pulled the truck out of Billy’s hand and held it out of his reach. It was kind of cute but didn’t really amount to ‘playing.’”

Ell shook her head, “It’s pretty sad that I’m worried he doesn’t cause more trouble isn’t it? I’d rather be worried because he hit or bit Billy over the truck incident. Better that, than worrying because he doesn’t really play at all.”

Amy shrugged, “Yeah. It’s hard to know what to make of his development.”

“See you tomorrow,” Ell said as she put Zage on her hip and headed for Shan’s study.

They found Shan sitting in front of his big wall screen, staring at a plethora of symbols and rubbing his temples in frustration. “Hey Hubby, what’s got you down?”

“Arghh! Just not making any progress. It turns out that getting my PhD didn’t make me any smarter than I used to be.” He muttered, “Still dumb as a post in fact.”

Ell sat Zane down on the couch and snuggled up next to Shan, throwing her arms around him, “Well I think you’re plenty smart. You want me to look at what you’re doing? See if I have any ideas?”

“No!” He waved his hands in mock terror, “I want to figure this one out myself so I don’t feel like everything I’ve ever accomplished needed you to make it work.”

Ell laughed, “Finding the changes at large distances and graphing the allotropes were all you, both of them!” She smiled at him wistfully, “I think we make a good team.” She stood back up, “But right now, it’s quittin’ time. Amelia’s put Zage back in our charge. How about you watch him while I cook us some dinner?”

Shan looked at her curiously, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I cooked dinner and you watched Zage?”

Ell frowned at him, “Are you casting aspersions on my cooking?”

Shan put his hands up in mock surrender, “No! No, I’ll try to eat whatever you make, really I will!”

“You’d better, man o’ mine!” Ell said, poking him with a finger, then grinning, “but actually you’ve seen through my underhanded ploy to try to get you to cook dinner while I play with the Z-man.”

Getting up he said, “It’s a deal, if you guys will come talk to me in the kitchen while I’m slaving away.” He lifted his chin at her curiously, “Why aren’t you wearing your headset?”

As they walked into the large farm style kitchen Ell grinned back over her shoulder at Shan, “I am wearing my headset.”

Shan blinked, “What do you mean?”

She pointed at her eyes, “Contacts with ports in them. They send incoming light to a processor that enhances it, adds my heads up display and then ports it on back to my retinas.”

Shan’s eyes widened as he took in her meaning, “No shit?” he whispered.

Ell nodded and he threw his arms around her and Zage, dancing them up and down and around in a little jig. Looking down at his son, he said “Your momma’s really smart, you know that?”

Ell sat Zage on the middle of the kitchen table while Shan busied himself making fish tacos and asking about the contacts. She tried playing peek-a-boo, but as usual Zage seemed uninterested. Tickling his feet brought a grin to his face and when she impulsively picked him up and hugged him, he hugged her back, snuggling his head to hers.

Ell wiggled a finger around in front of him. He tracked it with his eyes. She zoomed it in to tickle him which got a smile from Zage. From what she’d read he didn’t seem autistic… but he didn’t seem normal either. She put Zage on the floor, “I’m running to the bathroom so I’ve parked your son on the floor here, don’t step on him.”

Shan grunted affirmatively.

As Ell started across the room she noticed that the baby safety gate at the top of the stairs to the basement hadn’t fully latched. For a moment she considered leaving it open, Zage never went anywhere after all. Then she shook her head, a good mother would latch it, just in case. She walked over, latched it and went on across the room to the bathroom.

Returning from the bathroom to the kitchen Ell looked around, then said, “What did you do with Zage?” Hiding Zage is just the kind of trick Shan would think was funny, she thought.

Shan, stirring salsa, said, “I didn’t do anything with him.” He snorted, “Where did you last set him? That’s where you’ll find him.”

Ell looked around the kitchen again, then stepped out into the family room, Where could he be?

No Zage in the family room. Ell leaned down to look under the low end tables, “Shan? This isn’t funny!”

Shan walked out into the family room, salsa bowl still in his hands, “Really? You don’t know where he is? Where did you put him?”

“On the floor in the kitchen, behind the table, just like I told you!” Ell said, feeling a little panicked. Could someone have snuck into the house and kidnapped Zage without us seeing them? She looked in the bathroom she’d just come out of. No Zage!

“Uh, Ell?” Shan’s voice came from the other room.

Ell rushed out of the bathroom, “Where are you?”

“In the play room.”

When Ell got to the playroom she found Shan standing in the doorway. She peered past him to see Zage sitting where she’d found him when she’d picked him up from Amy earlier. “How did he get in here?” she asked exasperatedly.

Shan shrugged, “I guess he could have crawled. Even if he hardly ever does, we know he can do it.” Shan eyed her out of the corner of his eye, “But how did he turn on the video?”

Realizing that the video Zage had been watching before had indeed resumed play. Ell felt a little tingle of electricity run down her back. The little AI supplying the video normally responded to verbal control and Zage hadn’t even learned to say “Mama” yet. “I don’t know,” she breathed.

She looked up at Shan, a pleading look in her eyes, “I don’t know…”

***

Ryan looked up as Roger called his name. Roger waved at him and crooked a finger. Ryan followed him into one of the little conference rooms. “What’s up?” he asked.

Roger closed the door. “Well, I figure you’re aware that people have contacted Ell since Stockton put a bounty on her. In fact, you might have heard that when Emma and I got married she was matron of honor?”

Ryan grinned, “Yeah, I heard she was in and out in a hurry.”

“So you might suspect that I can still reach her using a special PGR chip?”

Ryan nodded.

“So you won’t be surprised that I reached out to her when you mentioned how nice it would be to get her ideas for orienting Stell’s retinal input to arrive from the same direction that her eyes were pointing.”

“Well that’s just what I had in mind when I suggested it,” Ryan cocked an eyebrow at him, “but I had no idea that Emma would solve the problem without Ell’s help.”

Roger grinned back, “But having set Ell a problem, what do you think might have happened?”

“She solved it too?”

Roger spoke to his AI, “Throw up the diagram of the port contacts.”

A cross sectional diagram of the front of an eye with a contact on it appeared up on the wall screen in the room. The rings of the two ports in the contact were visible. Little arrows showed the light entering the port at the front, diagrammed the shunt to the optical processing unit and then the shunt back to the port at the back of the contact.

Ryan stared, then thumped suddenly down into one of the chairs, “Hooooolyyy sheeit!” Then he frowned and turned to Roger, “Wait, that won’t help Stell. The light’s returning to the back of the contact and being delivered to the front of her cornea. It still won’t get through her opaque corneas and lenses!”

Roger grinned and pointed at his own head, “Look Ma, no headband.”

Ryan’s eyes flashed to the diagram, then back to Roger’s head, “Noooo!” he breathed.

“Oh yesssss,” Roger said with a big grin. His eyebrows bobbed up and down, “Quantum biomed now has a product for normal people.”

***

Shan stepped into the play room and found Ell sitting on the couch watching Zage. Her son sat, Buddha like, staring placidly at another of his interminable videos. “Hey, Elsa, you ready to go for a run?”

Ell didn’t answer. After a moment Shan looked at her more closely. There were tears running down her cheeks. Walking over he knelt and put his arms around her, “Hey, Babe, what’s the matter?”

She looked up at Shan, then put her arms around him, hugging him fiercely. Whispering in his ear, she said, “I think… what happened to Zage… is from me flying around at altitude rescuing people when I was pregnant.”

“What happened to Zage?”

“You know,” she shrugged in his arms, “how he’s wrong on all his milestones.”

Zage had turned to look curiously up at his parents. He briefly appeared to look sad, but then turned back to his video.

Shan whispered back, “He’s ahead on some milestones!”

Ell turned back to look brokenheartedly at Zage. After a moment she turned back to Shan and buried her head in the crook of his neck, “Something’s wrong Shan,” her voice broke, “and, it’s all my fault. I was such an idiot!”

Shan, hugging his wife and searching for words to comfort her with, was suddenly distracted by motion at the corner of his eye.

Zage stood up.

He stood smoothly—without unsteadiness.

He stood without pulling up on anything.

He walked towards them.

Not the staggering walk of a baby learning how to walk.

Not the clumsy gait of a toddler.

Not even the slightly unsteady tread of a young child.

He looked… coordinated.

Reaching Ell he threw his arms around her legs to give her one of his strong little baby hugs.

Ell turned and picked him up, “Oh, Zage, can you tell I’m worried about you?”

Wide eyed Shan stared at his son. Having given his distressed mother a hug, Zage simply turned his attention back to his video.

“Uh, Ell…sa,” Shan said, having trouble remembering to call her by the right name when his emotions were running so high, “uh, you’re not going to believe what just happened behind your back!”

“What?” Ell said, wiping at her eyes and peering up at him.

“Zage just walked over here.”

“Really?” she said, turning to look down at her son.

“Really! I’ll send you my AI’s video of it.”

“I believe you.” Ell said with a frown, “Oh, I guess I should watch my son’s first steps, huh?”

“Yeah, especially ‘cause I don’t think they were his first steps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wait ‘til you see how he walks!”

***

Kristen Donsaii climbed the stairs out of the tunnel that connected her house at Lake Royal to Ell’s house across the street. She still found it astonishing that Ell had trusted someone to cut a tunnel through the bedrock under the street between the two houses. She also wondered how they’d done it without the noise of cutting through that hard rock disturbing the neighborhood. Even more, she wondered how Ell had been able to trust someone to do it and keep it a secret. And, for that matter, how she’d trucked away all the dirt and rubble from the tunnel without disturbing everyone.

And if she had paid someone to do it, why had she let them get away with leaving such a rippled and rough surface to the tunnel, especially on the floor?

Walking into the living room Kristen found Zage sitting placidly in the middle of the floor, watching one of his videos. He turned and grinned one of his sloppy little grins at her as she entered the room.

Kristen sat down beside him and pulled his considerable bulk into her lap. Zage twisted and put his chubby little arms around her as far as he could to give her one of his baby hugs.

Grinning down at him, Kristen said, “How’s the birthday boy, huh?”

Zage blinked at her a few times then turned back to his video.

Ell looked around the corner to check on Zage and saw him sitting in Kristen’s lap.  Stepping into the living room herself, she said, “Hey there Mom, how’ve you been doing?”

“Things are great.  It’s good to get my arms around Zage again.” Kristen put her hand up in front of Zage to block his view of the screen.

Zage put his chubby little hand up and pushed Kristen’s hand out of his line of sight.

Kristen picked Zage up and held him so his feet dangled near the floor.  Nonetheless, Zage held his feet in the air rather than trying to stand.  Kristen said, “I thought you said he was walking now?”

Ell sighed, “He did walk… once.  I’ll send you a video record of it from Shan’s viewpoint when he was walking.  In it you’ll see that Zage walked very well.  He doesn’t look at all clumsy like other children, even those much older than he is.  But, he hasn’t walked again, at least not where either of us have seen him.”

Kristen looked up and saw Ell wiping at the corner of her eye.  “You’re upset?”

Ell sat down with a thump and leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder.  “Yes,” she croaked, “something is wrong with Zage.  He is all messed up on his developmental milestones. Admittedly, he’s ahead on some, but he’s way behind on others.  I think it’s because, trying to rescue my security team, I flew around at substantial altitudes while I was pregnant.”

Kristen cast an arm back over Ell’s head and around her shoulders, “Wasn’t that right before Zage’s delivery?”

“Yeah, right before his delivery.”

“He would have been nearly completely formed by then.  I doubt it had much effect on his development.”

“That’s not true. Anoxia during childbirth is a common cause of cerebral palsy.”

Kristen shrugged, “That might be true, but I doubt that he would be ahead on some milestones if that were the case.”

Burying her head against her mother, Ell whispered, “Maybe he’d be ahead on all his milestones if it weren’t for what I did.”

Zage reached up and grabbed his mother’s forearm, pulling it down into his lap and hugging it as if realizing she was upset, but nonetheless continued watching his show.

Kristen looked at Zage, taking in his intense focus on the video.  Turning to Ell, she said, “Are you sure you should be letting him watch so much video?”

“No,” Ell almost sobbed, “but he cries when we don’t let him. It’s pitiful. There’s hardly anything else that will make him cry.” She sighed, “He’s such a happy baby otherwise; I just hate to make him miserable.”

“Don’t you think that if you leave him without his videos for a while he’ll eventually find something else to do?”

Zage turned and looked up at his grandmother with a frown on his face. It almost looked as if he understood what she had said.

Ell closed her eyes for a moment.  Opening them she said, “If you’ll hold my hand while he’s crying piteously I’m willing to give it a try again.”

Kristen, thinking her daughter needed a lesson in determined parenting, said, “Sure, I’ll give you moral support. Video off.”

The video Zage had been watching, one on the insects of the Amazon, snapped off.  With a wretched wail Zage turned and threw one arm around Ell’s thigh and the other around his grandmother’s knee.

“Wow!” Kristen said, “He really does like those videos, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ell said sadly, “sometimes I tell myself it’s OK because the ones he likes to watch are educational. Other times I tell myself there is something horribly wrong, that a one year old child likes to watch stuff like that instead of cartoons.”

Kristen peeled Zage’s hand off her leg and stood.  “Let’s go in the other room.” She looked at her grandson with a stern eye, “I don’t want to listen to all this crying.”

Ell pulled herself free as well and they went in the kitchen.  “Here’s some salsa and chips.  If you’re going to stick to your guns about not letting Zage watch videos, perhaps we should mix up some margaritas to dull the pain.”

They’d finished making a blender full of margaritas and just poured their first glasses when Zage stopped crying.  Kristen said, “See, I told you he’d wear himself out.”

Ell looked off into the distance and cupped her hand behind her ear, “No, I think he’s managed to turn the video back on.”

Kristen frowned.  “How could he do that?” She got up and walked over to look around the corner into the living room where Zage was sitting.  Sure enough the video was playing again.

“I don’t know, but he frequently does manage to turn the video back on by himself.”

Kristen snorted and took a sip of her Margarita.

“What are you laughing about?”

“I don’t want to turn the video off either.  I don’t want to listen to him cry.” She stiffened her shoulders, “But it’s the right thing to do.” She spoke to her AI, “Turn off the video. Keep it off until I give permission.”

Ell bowed her head into her hands as Zage started crying again, “Oh, I hate this.”

Kristen put a hand on Ell’s forearm, “But it’s the right thing to do,” she said, without as much conviction as she had intended.

The two women sat sipping their margaritas and trying to ignore the doleful sounds from the next room until Shan and Duncan came back.  “What’s wrong with Zage?” Shan asked.

“We turned off his video,” Ell said sadly.

“I thought we’d given up on that?”

“Mom thought we should give it another try.”

Shan rolled his eyes. Turning them seriously on Kristen he said, “We’ve already tried that, a lot of times.”

Kristen shrugged, “Ell’s worried about him not making his milestones. He’s overweight, and pretty much does nothing but watch videos. I know it isn’t any fun, but part of parenting is making the hard choices for your child.”

Shan frowned and was about to object when suddenly Kristen lifted a finger and said, “See, he’s finally stopped crying.”

Shan stepped over to look through the opening to the living room.  “No, he’s left the room.” He walked into the living room to search for his son.

When Shan returned, Kristen, Ell, and Duncan looked up, “Where did he go?” Kristen asked.

Shan shook his head somewhat exasperatedly, “Back to his room.  He’s playing a video on the screen back there!”

“Did you turn it off?” Kristen asked.

Shan snorted, “No!  If someone wants to torture the poor kid, they’re gonna have to do it themselves. I’m not gonna be the bad guy. I’ve done my time, and I’ve given up.  As far as I’m concerned, if that kid wants to watch videos,” he sighed, “he can watch his damned videos.”

***

Carter looked down at his feet as he flew their Martian test waldo down toward its landing in Valles Marineres. Actually his AI still flew the waldo. He merely watched the rusty surface of Mars rise in his VR goggles. He could trust the AI to bring him down close to the surface more quickly and with less waste. If he flew it himself he’d be forced to reduce speed at a higher altitude for fear he’d be traveling too fast to stop when he got to the bottom of the huge canyon. It would be pretty embarrassing to wipe out this waldo just because he wanted to fly it himself. Also he could count on the AI to land him within sight of the opening their tunneler had made into the side of the rift valley.

Despite the practicality of letting the AI land it, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to participate in the landing himself. This wasn’t the first waldo to land on Mars. NASA had landed a number of them at various study locations they’d picked out as interesting from decades of unmanned missions. They’d been sending back samples and looking for evidence of life. So far they’d found nothing but fossilized colonies of microscopic life, nothing still growing. They still hoped to find viable spores near the poles, but hadn’t been successful so far.

The flow of the walls of the Valles past Carter’s cameras slowed as the waldo approached the bottom.

Carter saw a dark circle in the wall of the canyon. Switching control of the waldo over to his own controller he increased the lift from the waldo’s rockets and boosted over to the opening. The waldo was only eighteen inches tall, but that still made for a fairly snug fit into the twenty four inch opening. He landed the waldo just in front of the opening, then stepped inside and walked back into the opening about two body lengths. He looked at the walls of the tunnel. These walls appeared to be similar to the walls of the test tunnels the borer had melted in tests here on earth. Here it had formed a kind of glassy ceramic with tiny cracks in its surface. He wondered if the melted soil-ceramic in the Martian soil would prove to be airtight. Some of the tunnels they’d bored here on earth had been airtight, but some had leaked.

Well, if they leaked, he could seal them, but it might be a pain in the ass.

Pulling his left hand out of the waldo controller glove, Carter felt around for the first of the graphene “tunnel sealer” balloons that Dr. Pace had given them. He put it on top of the port that connected to the front of the waldo. He closed and latched a grating over it and told his AI to open the port. With a whoosh the balloon vanished to Mars. In his VR goggles the collapsed balloon appeared to fly out of the port on his chest. It bounced around the tunnel a little oddly in the low gravity. Picking it up he unscrewed a protective cover off the base of the balloon and then smacked the base into the wall of the tunnel. The smack broke the cover over a bubble of cold tolerant adhesive so it stuck to the wall. Stepping back, he told his AI to inflate the balloon.

The balloon quickly blew up, occluding the tunnel. Dr. Pace had told him that it was a “standard” ¾ meter balloon which they made in some quantity over at Allosci. Since the twenty four inch tunnel was 0.71 meters, the balloon filled the tunnel with a little to spare. He backed the waldo up another couple of body lengths and repeated the procedure so that there would be two balloons that could form an airlock. He did it a third time about ten meters farther along so that the tunnel was “triple locked” for insurance against decompression. At that point he left the port to the Mars tunnel open so that air would blow through the port into the tunnel. With the tunnel opening sealed, and assuming no big leaks, he should be able to pressurize the tunnel system the borer had been making over the past few months relatively quickly. The howling of air through the grate into the Mars tunnel was pretty annoying, so he disconnected from the waldo controller and left the room. Outside in the hall he told his AI to calculate how long it should take for the grid of tunnels to fill with air and alert him when it should be about done.

When Carter returned, a slow drift of air still seemed to gently be moving through the port. He confirmed that with a small smoke generator that he turned on in front of the port. Sure enough the smoke sucked slowly into the port.

Opening the grid over the port, he passed the smoke generator through the port, then got back into the waldo controller gear and picked up the smoke generator from where it lay on the floor of the tunnel out on Mars. Blowing a little smoke out of it, he saw that the smoke drifted deeper into the tunnel instead of out toward the balloons blocking the opening. Walking the waldo deeper into the tunnel, he squirted little puffs of smoke ahead of himself to continue confirming the direction of the airflow.

Twenty meters deeper into the tunnel the smoke disappeared into a crack a couple of millimeters wide running through the walls. It looked like a porous layer of rock that had formed separately. Geological processes had tilted the layer so that it intersected the tunnel obliquely.

Carter passed a tube of silicone sealant through the port to the waldo. It took the entire tube and part of another to caulk the leak to his satisfaction, but it seemed to work. Once he’d done it, a puff of smoke stayed put, suggesting that he’d found the leak. He’d been worried that the low Martian temperatures or melted glassy surface would keep the silicone from working.

A hundred meters in he came to the first large cavity. There they’d had the AI make the tunneler begin doubling back on itself. First it doubled back horizontally a number of trips to make a wider passage, then it went down a layer and made some passes to make a taller chamber. It did this while carefully leaving some occasional columns of rock to support the roof. He used the jets in the waldo to lift it up to the ceiling of the chamber and stuck a “glue on” port to the ceiling. Landing again he had the port open on a ten-percent open duty cycle, flooding the chamber with light from a solar parabolic mirror. Turning off the waldo’s headlight, he could finally see around the chamber without deep shadows everywhere except where the waldo’s headlight was pointing. The lighting port didn’t have to be very big because it sat at the mirror’s focal point. Just before the focal point sat a special filter that deflected most of the UV light back out into space so it wouldn’t be toxic. This was needed if they were going to live and grow things in the tunnels of Mars since the light wouldn’t be passing through a thick atmosphere and ozone layer like on earth. Also, as opposed to the asteroid mining mirrors, there wasn’t a sapphire lens on this parabolic to convert the light into a beam. Instead, it passed through the focal point at the port and then spread back out inside the chamber. A ground glass diffuser helped spread the light even more widely into the chamber.

Carter increased the duty cycle to nearly full; flooding the chamber with so much brilliant light that it would begin warming it up. Before leaving, he put a thermostat on the wall so that an AI could control the temperature by adjusting the duty cycle of the light port. After a last look around, he moved on to the next cavity to install another parabolic light. Once he’d installed lights in all of the chambers, he left the waldo parked in a tunnel so it could monitor the temperature at a distance from the heat sources.

They wouldn’t be able to plant anything in the chambers until the temperature rose from its current frigid Martian to a balmy Earthlike.

For a moment he felt proud; then he laughed internally as he wondered what his ever so practical daughter would think of their small Martian outpost.

***

Stell and her mother walked into the ophthalmology clinic. Dr. Jenner had sent them an appointment with a little note saying that he had some new contacts for her to try. True to his word Dr. Keller had gotten her some contacts that not only had pale blue irises, but also had black pupils in the middle of them. They looked better than contacts that showed her milky cornea in the centers, but Stell was really hoping they had something that looked a little more natural.

While her mother went over to check her in, Stell glanced around the waiting room and was excited to see Dr. Keller sitting there. She went over and plopped down next to him. “I didn’t know you were coming! I’m only here to pick up some new contacts, so I didn’t think there was any reason for you to show up.”

“I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see my best girlfriend!” Dr. Keller said. “How are you liking your new eyesight?”

“It’s wonderful! At first I had a lot of trouble telling what things were when I saw them. But now I can figure out what almost anything is when I see it. It’s only occasionally that I have to ask my mom or go feel something before I know what I’m looking at.”

___

Ryan felt a great feeling of satisfaction wash over him. “So, are you ready to have the other eye done sometime soon?”

“Oh yeah! I know I’m only here for a contact fitting, but I’m hoping to talk Dr. Jenner into scheduling the other eye too.”

“Well, I have some other news. It doesn’t really apply to you anymore, but I thought you’d be interested. We’ve finally got optic nerve axons growing in to our neurotrodes in rats.”

Stell clapped her hands together excitedly. “That’s wonderful! So, you think you’ll be able to help other blind people sometime soon?”

“Well, I don’t think the FDA will approve it until we’ve shown that it will work in other animal models. And of course, when we do try it in people it will have to be in just one or two. But, yeah, I think we’re on the road to helping quite a few of the blind people out there.”

Stell’s mother came over and sat down with them then. “It’s going to be a little while, Dr. Jenner’s nurse said he had two patients with really complex problems that put him behind schedule.”

Stell told her mother about the good results from the rat neurotrodes and the three of them talked excitedly for a while about what this could mean for patients with seriously damaged eyes. Stell had several blind friends and she was dying to tell them about even the possibility.

___

They didn’t actually have time to get bored before they got called back. The nurse did the basic check in and testing of Stell’s eyes and vision, then they did have to wait a little while for Dr. Jenner to actually show up.

When he did, he was quite excited about how Stell’s eye was performing and how healthy it seemed to be. “Well, this has really boosted my day. I was pretty depressed after having to give a couple of patients some bad news earlier this clinic.”

“Oh, are those the complex patients that put you behind schedule?” Stell asked.

“Well, they weren’t really all that complex. They had macular degeneration, which will make them go blind eventually. There really isn’t any treatment for it like they’d been hoping. Giving people bad news always takes a little longer. Unfortunately, then it backs all the other patients appointments up and they’re often angry.”

Stell said excitedly, “Dr. Keller’s neurotrodes are working in rats now! Is macular degeneration something that might be fixed if he could give a feed directly to the optic nerve?”

Jenner looked up at Dr. Keller, “Really?”

Dr. Keller nodded, “It’s looking pretty hopeful now.”

Jenner looked back at Stell, “Yes, macular degeneration is a problem with the retina. So if Dr. Keller could feed an image directly to the nerve it would bypass that problem. If this really works, it’s going to make a lot of people very happy.” He leaned back and looked at Stell for a second, “Are you ready to try this new contact?”

“Yes,” she squirmed excitedly, “is it going to look better than the old one?”

Jenner glanced at Keller, who gave him a slight nod. Then he looked back at Stell, “We hope so, we’ll just have to see.”

They busied themselves putting in the new contact. A minute or so later, Stell said, “Can I go look in the mirror?”

Jenner glanced at Keller and gave him a little nod. Dr. Keller said, “Hang on one second, we’d like to try something, if you’ll give us control of your AI for a second?”

Stell did, and a moment later, after Dr. Keller had given a few commands, she squeaked. “Something happened to my vision!”

Dr. Keller sounded concerned, “Can’t you see?”

“Yeah, and the image is nice and sharp, but it shifted. Also there’s something blocking the side of my visual field,” she said, sounding concerned. She reached up and touched her headband. “There’s nothing blocking my cameras,” she said querulously. Then a startled expression crossed her face. Slowly, expressing amazement, she said, “I can still see when I block my cameras!” Her hand slowly slid downward in front of her eye, “Oh my god! I’m seeing through my eye, not my cameras!” She turned to stare at Dr. Keller, then reached up and touched her nose. “It’s my nose that’s blocking my vision!”

Keller took her hand, “Actually, there’s a port in your new contact that feeds a camera. That camera is the one that’s feeding you your new vision. Pretty cool, huh?”

Stell jumped up out of her chair, and ran to the mirror. She turned excitedly back to them. “I thought a contact with a camera in it might look like a machine, even worse than my old contact. But this looks… this looks like a normal eye!”

“Yep,” Dr. Keller said, looking inordinately proud of himself, “light goes both directions through the port in your contact. So we set up a pale blue “iris” behind the port, so that from outside your eye, it looks like you are seeing a normal iris through a cornea.”

Stell ran to Keller, throwing her arms around him, and hugging him hard. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Without taking her arms from around him she turned to look at Jenner, “When can you do my other eye?”

Chapter Five

Gary turned to survey Allosci’s corner of the sports bar. Everyone looked like they were having a good time. Mentally he thanked Ell for her suggestion that he take the Allosci research group out occasionally. He felt like their morale had significantly improved since that first event out to Jordan Lake. They talked to one another more easily and generally seemed to get along better.

As his eyes passed over the group, they hung up for a moment on Viveka, speaking to one of the young optical scientists who she’d been working with on the VLGCs. She and Matt seemed to get along pretty well. Gary tried to tell himself that he felt glad for her. Matt was more her age.

However, it was breaking Gary’s heart.

“You two are acting like a couple of sixth graders,” Cindy’s voice said behind him.

“Huh?” Gary said with some confusion, as he turned toward Cindy, wondering who she was talking to. Or about.

Cindy pointed her chin at Viveka, “You, and Viveka over there. When you’re not looking, she’s making moony eyes at you. And I see you, trying to pretend you’re sweeping your eyes over the entire group, but your eyes always hang up on her for a second or two. It’s like you’re both trying to pretend you’re not hung up on each other, the way grade school kids do.”

Gary’s first impulse was to deny it, but then he realized he did need advice. He shrugged, “I’ll admit that I’m … very distracted by her. But, I think you’re wrong, I’m pretty sure that my feelings for her aren’t reciprocated.”

Cindy snorted, “You two might be all ‘science’ brilliant, but you’re ‘socially’ impaired! My little niece understands love better than the two of you.”

Gary glanced back towards Viveka momentarily, “Really? You don’t think she’s pissed at me?”

“Oh no you don’t!” Cindy laughed, “The next thing I know, you’re going to have me going back and forth between the two of you carrying stupid little messages such as, ‘he likes you,’ and, ‘she likes you back.’”

Gary gave her an embarrassed grin, “Well I know I’m that clueless. I’m a guy after all. But do you really think she’s as out of touch as I am?”

Cindy snorted, “Yeah, she’s got ‘geek’ stamped on her forehead in big bold print, can’t you see it? You really should try talking to her,” Cindy winked at him, “That’s what normal people do, you know?”

“I would, but I took her out on a date several months ago, and I think I really pissed her off.”

“Well, apologize! That’s what grown-ups do in those situations.” She wrinkled her nose at him, “It ain’t rocket science.”

Gary turned to look musingly at Viveka, “You’re right.”

***

It was Christmas Eve and the family had settled into one of Ell’s properties in the mountains of western North Carolina.  Because Ell feared the FBI would be especially vigilant about watching Kristen around the Christmas holidays, Ell had had Kristen make several false starts as well as changes in cars and appearances on her way up. Gram and Duncan had gone with her and suffered through the same extra effort.

Now they were all settled around a fire with hot chocolate. Zage had been put to bed and they were just talking.  Kristen turned to Ell and Shan, “Zage is 15 months old now, is he walking more?”

Shan snorted, “We think so.  But he never walks in front of us.  He just puts up his hands asking to be carried.  However, if we leave him in a location where he doesn’t want to be, he will eventually appear somewhere where there is a video screen for him to watch.  We have a couple of security camera clips of him walking from one location to another at times like that.”

Ell nodded, “It feels like a strange game he’s playing with us.  It’s as if he doesn’t want us to know he can walk.  We also haven’t figured out how he manages to turn on the videos and select biology shows like he wants to watch.”

Kristen frowned, “He only watches biology shows?  What about cartoons?”

“I found him watching a cartoon once, but then it turned out to be an educational cartoon!”

“Yeah,” Shan shrugged, “He sometimes watches shows that aren’t biology, but they always seem to have something to do with science.”

Ell wiped at an eye and huskily said, “Sometimes I feel proud that he seems to watch programs that are almost exclusively educational.  Other times I feel sad that our child is so weird.”

Kristen shrugged, “Every child is different.” she winked at Ell, “And as you so thoroughly proved, different is not necessarily bad.”

Ell produced a Kleenex and blew her nose, “Maybe, but I can’t help but worry.”

“Well,” Kristen said with a grin, “Duncan had an idea for a Christmas present that might help.” She winked at Duncan.  He grinned back.

Ell looked back and forth from Kristen to Duncan.  “What is it?”

Duncan smiled, then said, “I’m not telling.  I think it will be a fun surprise for you too.”

Ell raised an eyebrow and mock glared at him.  “It had better not be something that’ll piss me off.”

Duncan raised his hands in counterfeit surrender, waving them back and forth, “I hope it won’t, but I’m still not tellin’.”

***

In the morning, as they gathered to open presents, Ell found herself more excited to find out what Duncan had brought for Zage than she was about any presents of her own.  Disappointingly, just like Zage had exhibited little joy over the peek-a-boo game, the opening of presents did not seem to excite him very much either.  She wondered if he was just too young, and asked Kristen and Gram what they thought.

No one was very sure how a 15 month old usually reacted to presents, but the consensus was that real Christmas excitement wouldn’t come for a few more years.

Finally, it looked like they had opened all the presents.  Ell wondered if she had missed it when Zage opened the present from Duncan.  But then Duncan came in from the other room carrying a medium sized box which he brought over to Zage, setting it in front of him.

Zage looked at the box placidly like he had his other presents, but then the box wiggled.  Ell’s eyes widened as she noticed a couple of holes in the top of the box.

Zage leaned forward, grabbed the tail of the bow in the ribbon and pulled.  The knot came undone and with a delighted expression Zage lifted the lid off the box.

As Ell had feared, a small, chocolate brown, short haired puppy sat in the box, tongue lolling out. Zage reached out to him and the puppy licked his finger.  With an excited squeal Zage picked the puppy up behind its front legs and pulled it out of the box and up against his body.  Rolling backwards, Zage and the puppy wound up next to each other on the floor, Zage’s arms around his dog, his face lit by a happy smile.

As Ell, who had never had a pet herself, opened her mouth to protest, the puppy wiggled free and scampered clumsily across the room.  The adults’ eyes all widened as Zage rose to his feet and gave chase.

The puppy might have looked clumsy, but Zage did not.

Over the next several days, as their family enjoyed the holiday together, Zage and his puppy, now named “Tanner,” scampered inseparably around the house and, bundled up, outside in the snow.  The remainder of Zage’s new toys lay lonely under the Christmas tree.

Though the adults were ecstatic about Zage’s newfound physical activity and his surprising degree of coordination, their concerns soon rose again. Zage might be walking, but when would he start talking? Most babies were saying some words by age fifteen months. Zage had never even said “Mama.”

***

Dupree Fallon looked out over the assembled members of the SCDF. He’d taken the unprecedented step of gathering them all in one location rather than communicating through their cell structure like he usually did. They’d each had to leave behind all of their electronics to gain admission to the area. Redman and Brick had met them up at a rendezvous by the highway where their vehicles had dropped them off one at a time. After each man had been wanded and patted down to be sure they hadn’t forgotten any electronics, they’d been hiked two miles through the woods to the actual meeting.

Wearing coats in the cold weather, they were gathered now, all fifty seven strong. They met in a small clearing in the woods where Dupree could speak to them from atop the trunk of a fallen tree. He watched them, waiting for them to quiet, finally staring directly at the last few who had continued carrying on their own conversations. They stumbled to a stop.

When silence reigned, he glanced at Redman who spoke, indicating Dupree and calling him by his codename, “This is Crossbow. He’ll lead this meeting.”

Fallon launched the rich baritone with which he had mesmerized so many others in the past, “The time has come… the time for patriots to speak. Speak, not with words, but with actions. For if a picture can be worth a thousand words… an action can be worth a thousand pictures.

“Last August…” he drew out the pause to look around at the men before him, “last August those craven maggots at the FBI arrested three of our members and killed one…” he paused, “our brother Cola.” Looking out into their eyes he could see that many knew from the news that Cola had been Dupree’s son. He could also tell that they respected him more for denoting Cola as their brother rather than as his son.

Dupree spoke then, hypnotically painting a picture of a government run amok, destroying their God given personal liberties while condoning the immoral practices of the slothful, immoral, and indecent. As Dupree’s harangue wore on, dusk fell and the temperature dropped further.  Redman started a fire in the center of the clearing.

With the fire burning well, Dupree worked it into the symbolism of his speech. First it burned the soul of our great country. Then it became the hell where our enemies would spend eternity. He encouraged the men of the SCDF to throw pieces of wood onto the fire as surrogates for their enemies in the government. Sparks flew up as branches landed violently in the flames. As they added wood, the fire built and built until they had a real bonfire, pushing back the cold night air, leaping in the mind’s eye, and symbolizing both the ongoing destruction of their country and the devastation they would soon visit on the government that had betrayed them.

All the while, Dupree’s exhortations built and built, his personal charisma, word pictures and hypnotic tones inciting the men further and further until he had them marching around the bonfire. Though they would think of it as a march, it had much in common with tribal war dances performed in other places and other times.

Finally, having built their hate to a degree that would have astonished an outside observer, Dupree began to ask them how the SCDF should respond to the travesties visited on them and their country. For a while he let them build their violent fantasies, one on the other, each man shouting a more vicious proposal than the last…

Then he began to guide them.

He focused their hate, gradually, but surely onto Stockton, the she demon Dupree could still hear gloating over his son’s death on her putrid little radio show.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, as he pretended that the men had led him to recognize her as evil incarnate. “I see your vision! By taking down that Satan’s whore, we can send a message! A message that this country will no longer stand idly by while she and her so called government of misfit cowards tries to strangle our liberty!”

By the time the bonfire began to burn down, Dupree Fallon had them practically falling over themselves to sign up for probable suicide missions. These men, men who considered themselves patriots, began begging to scout and plan and fund and participate in the assassination of their own country’s president.

***

Research triangle park, North Carolina—Quantum Biomed, a subsidiary of D5R, announced today the development of new, “port enabled,” contacts. These contacts not only allow for the correction of vision errors, but also allow your AI to insert your HUD display directly into your vision without needing a headset. In combination with tiny “audio ports” placed in your ear canal, these contacts will allow you to have full access to the AV resources of your AI without any visible devices mounted on your head.

In addition, the Quantum Biomed representative pointed out, these contacts can correct your vision to supra normal. This is because the intake port on the front of the contact gathers more light from a larger area than your pupil normally allows to enter the eye. This light is then sent to an optical processor where various enhancements can be made. These include zoom magnification, the conversion of UV or infrared light to visible wavelengths, improvements in the contrast and brightness, sharpening of the image, boosting of dim light, and even the highlighting of items in your visual field which your AI may feel pose a threat.

Quantum Biomed will also sell small “hearing enhancers” which fit entirely inside the ear canal. These, like the contacts, will have ports at the opening of the ear canal which take in sound, send it to your AI for processing, and return it to another port deep in the ear canal. The processing can help people with impaired hearing by boosting sound frequencies they don’t hear well. For people with normal hearing, the processing can enhance hearing by increasing the volume of quiet sounds and protect hearing by diminishing the volume of loud sounds. Finally, of course, your AI would be able to insert its own audio stream for you as needed.

Allosci had shut down somewhat over the Christmas break. The resulting drop in production had made them late with a few of their deliveries and Gary had been spending time smoothing ruffled feathers. Instead of working on the science part of things like he loved, he’d found himself dealing with the business end. He realized that he only thought of the business end of Allosci’s endeavors as a necessary evil that funded the fun part of things.

Now that things were somewhat back on track, he was going around to see what the researchers in the various areas had been accomplishing. As he stepped into the first big lab he found Viveka and Matt, heads together as they peered into the new VLGC. Gary felt frustrated on several levels. First, he had planned out his route through the labs so that he would finish in Viveka’s usual lab. Second, he’d been hoping to apologize and get back into Viveka’s good graces before she fell for the handsome young optical scientist.

He had the feeling that somehow he’d been “cut off at the pass” by Matt, who’d moved in ahead of him. Feeling frustrated, he quickly turned and left, heading for the next lab and hoping that Viveka and Matt had not noticed his brief entrance and retreat.

After talking to the chemists in the next room for a while, he felt frustrated on a different level because they hadn't been making much progress. Joe, the vapor state chemist, despite his subtle bragging about his own skills, only seemed to be able to manage problems that he’d encountered before. Admittedly, he had a lot of experience, but Allosci was working with entirely new problems, and when the problem called for innovation Joe seemed lost. Worse, the two young guys working the problem before he had arrived seemed to be intimidated by his “expertise.” If Joe told them an idea wouldn’t work, they accepted his opinion as the gospel.

One of the worst things about being boss, Gary was finding, was the necessity of demoting, or sometimes firing, people who weren’t performing at the level he had hoped for. He wondered if perhaps he could move Joe out of the research area and into the production area. There Joe’s experience might serve him well in managing processes where the innovative parts had already been worked out. Perhaps he could even convince Joe that it wasn’t a demotion?

While he’d been pondering the problem Gary had slowly walked into the middle of the lab Viveka normally worked in and stopped there, thinking. When he came back to the present and looked up he found Viveka staring at him with a questioning look on her face. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, “woolgathering.”

Viveka looked puzzled, “Woolgathering?”

“Uh, ‘woolgathering’s an Americanism. Means ‘thinking,’ usually not very productively in my case.”

“Oh, can I help?”

“Sorry.” He smiled, “Not with this particular problem. I’ll just have to suffer with it by myself. I was actually coming down here to see how things were going for you?”

Viveka smiled, “They’re going good! Matt’s really been able to help with the focusing of light energy from the solar parabolics. With the greater precision we’re getting out of his setup, we’re able to generate graphend with a lot fewer flaws.”

Gary felt a stab of irritation. He’d just been worrying about Matt and Viveka getting together. Her obvious admiration for Matt felt like a slap in the face, even though Gary told himself she admired Matt for what he’d done, not who he was. “That’s great,” Gary said weakly, looking everywhere but at Viveka.

“You seem upset?”

“No, no, I, uh, am still worried about the problem I was woolgathering about before. It’s really great that you’re getting the VLGC going. Do you think you’re going to be able to produce graphend of the same quality we do with the smaller chambers?”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure. We’re already very close.”

“That’s great!” Gary said, turning and leaving the room, without actually being sure what he had thought was “great.”

Viveka stared after him, wondering what was wrong and whether he was mad at her.

When Gary got back to his office he realized he had completely failed to deliver the apology he had set out to give to Viveka. Damn it, he thought to himself, I’m such an idiot.

For a while he pondered going back specifically to apologize. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, it would be too embarrassing. He’d have to do that on another day.

***

Ell asked Allan to connect her with Carter and AJ. A couple of minutes later they came on line. “Hey guys, I haven’t heard from you for a while. What’s happening with your little farm on Mars?”

There was a brief pause, after which AJ said, “Uh…”

After a moment with nothing more forthcoming, Ell said, “Let me guess. Something’s gone wrong and you’re embarrassed?”

“Yeah,” Carter sighed. “Our plants aren’t doing too well.”

Ell laughed, “Failure is a common companion when you’re doing something that no one has ever done before. Who’ve you got helping you with your ‘farming’?”

“Uh, no one. It seemed pretty straightforward. We’ve brought in light, filtered to a fairly close approximation of sea level light here on earth. Atmosphere’s going through a port, so it’s the same as here. We brought in rich topsoil from here in North Carolina, spreading it a couple inches deep. It has to be pretty thin because the chambers aren’t very big. We installed sprinklers and have been providing water at rates typical for excellent growing seasons here on earth.” There was a pause, then he continued, “But, the plants are sick and many of them are dying. We’re not sure why.”

“Have either of you done much gardening or farming?”

“No Ma’am.”

A laugh exploded from Ell. She obviously had been struggling to control it, but just couldn’t seem to hold it all inside. When she’d gotten it down to an occasional giggle, she said, “I’m thinking farming sounded pretty simple to you compared to physics and engineering?” She snorted, then continued without waiting for them to answer, “But, there’s a lot of science and a fair amount of art in growing things and doing it well. NASA has been working on growing plants in space for some time now. You might see if you can consult with someone who’s been involved in that kind of work. Or at least see if anyone at NC State’s Ag school would be interested in the problem of growing things on Mars. I’ll bet it will turn out that you’ve ignored something obvious.”

“Yes ma’am,” they said, sounding abashed.

“Stop saying ma’am to me!” she laughed. “I hear that your big subterrene melting tunneler is nearly finished and ready to start on its way to Mars?”

“Yes M… uh, yes, we’re attaching the rocket nozzles now.”

“Are you going to send it, or wait to see how your farming efforts go?”

“Uh, we were going to send it. We’ve already spent more building it, by a substantial margin, than it will take to send it there. Even if we never figure out how to grow things on Mars it seems like it might be nice to have an underground base there where people could live.”

“I agree. Go for it.” She snickered again, “Good luck with the farming.”

***

Charlotte, North Carolina—Stell Simsworth, the young girl from Asheville who has been storming up the music charts with a series of hit songs, astonished the audience of her first concert this year by appearing on stage and telling her fans that she can now see. No one doubted the truth of her assertion as she moved around the stage easily and without guidance, waving to fans that waved to her. In interviews afterward she claimed that her newfound sight became possible through technical innovations made by Quantum Biomed, the medical subsidiary of D5R.

Apparently, a pair of Quantum Biomed’s new contacts that have generated excitement because of their ability to provide heads up display without a headset are part of Simsworth’s new sight. The contacts feed an image to a port inside of Simsworth’s damaged eyes. The port then projects the image directly on her retina.

Stell’s blindness turns out to be of an unusual form, and this solution apparently will not work for most blind people. However, Quantum Biomed is also working on feeding an image directly to the optic nerve, similar to the way they interface their artificial limbs with amputees’ nerves. They believe that this solution will help many other blind people recover their sight!

***

Viveka’s AI chimed at her, reminding her that it was time for her lunch with Matt. They had recently come to a kind of informal understanding that they would meet each other in the lunchroom every day at noon. Viveka wasn’t really sure how it had happened, and had actually been thinking that they just happened to eat at the same time each day. But the previous Thursday she hadn’t arrived in lunchroom until 12:15 and Matt had acted as if she had broken a date.

She liked Matt well enough, though he didn’t really compare to Dr. Pace. Unfortunately, Dr. Pace had been acting oddly ever since their one abortive date. The more she thought about how much she liked him, the worse she felt about how she had acted when he had leaned towards her.

She wasn’t even sure that he had actually been trying to kiss her. And if he had, would that have been all that bad? After all, she’d been having little daydreams in which he tried to romance her. And she was the one, after all, who’d been telling her mother what a nice man he was. She’d been saying that he didn’t just want sex like her mother claimed. So what if he’d wanted a kiss, that wasn’t sex was it?

Oh well, she thought to herself, there really isn’t any chance he’d romance me any more after the way I acted. Little enough chance before I behaved as if I thought he was trying to rape me. For a moment she wondered whether she might be able to apologize for the way she behaved and get back in his good graces.

Forget it, she thought, I’d just as well accept the fact that I’ve destroyed my chances with Dr. Pace, and if I’m to have any romance here in America it will be with Matt. She stood and picked up her small lunch bag. When she turned she was startled to find Dr. Pace standing behind her.

He looked upset.

Panic struck through her! Could he be about to fire her and send her back to India? Her mother had said that men whose sexual demands had been frustrated could be very vindictive. “Yes Dr. Pace?” she asked, nervously.

“Um,” he said, obviously uncomfortable, “I’d like to talk to you, if you’ve got a minute?”

“Sure, just let me send Matt a message telling him I won’t be there for our lunch.”

Dr. Pace’s face tightened almost to a grimace, but he smiled in a strained fashion and, waving a hand dismissively, said, “Oh, no, no. You guys have your lunch and I’ll catch up with you some other time.” He turned abruptly and walked away, leaving Viveka wondering whether he was as upset as he looked. If so, what was he upset about? It didn’t seem likely that he had come to fire her. If he had, it didn’t seem like her lunch with Matt would have kept him from it.

***

Agent Max Venter grinned to himself. This assignment to tail members of the Kinrais family, originally irritating and extremely boring, had taken a decided turn for the better. He’d managed to hear the Kinrais girl talking to one of her friends about a vacation to Vail, with dates and everything. To his surprise, when he’d asked the agent in charge if he should follow her on their ski trip, he’d been told yes.

Apparently, at least someone thought that there was a reasonable chance that Donsaii and her husband Shan Kinrais would attempt to meet the Kinrais family on this vacation. From what he’d heard, the family took a ski vacation almost every February or March.

So now Max was on his way to Vail on the FBI’s dime, to do some skiing and watch for anyone who might meet Donsaii’s description hanging around the Kinrais family.

Life’s a bitch, he grinned to himself.

***

Viveka fidgeted around her living room. Matt had invited her to go out to dinner and she supposed that it was some kind of a date. She felt uncertain about this, after all she felt naïve about romance in her home country, she certainly didn’t understand how it went here in America.

Ever since Matt had invited her on this maybe date, Viveka had found her thoughts cycling through a series of questions she had no answers for.

She really wished that Dr. Pace would ask her out again, though she found that extremely unlikely after the way she had behaved on their first date. However, she continued to wonder whether there was some way she could apologize or somehow make him realize that her refusal of his kiss—if he had even been attempting to kiss her—had been a horrible mistake on her part. She even daydreamed about walking up and kissing him, though she knew she would never get up the courage.

Matt seemed nice enough, but Viveka didn’t feel much of a romantic interest in him. She suspected that that was only because he seemed to come off so poorly in comparison to Dr. Pace. Matt was smart, but Dr. Pace was brilliant. However, setting her sights on Dr. Pace seemed unreasonable. If either of the two men might consider her as a marriage prospect, Matt seemed much more likely.

After all, although she’d been told that a dowry was not necessary if you married an American; that seemed very unlikely to her. Through frugal living and her generous salary, she was saving money as fast as she could. Sometimes, she felt astonished by how much money she already had in her bank account. She could fund her own dowry now, a dowry much better than she had ever dreamed might be possible when she was younger. It now seemed conceivable that she might marry a nice young man from a good family back in India. However, the money she had saved would seem a pittance to Dr. Pace and his family. She could conceive that it might have some influence on Matt’s family, though she hadn’t met them. Perhaps they were wealthy enough to put him out of her reach as well.

Even if she gave up her silly dreams of Dr. Pace, and somehow became more attracted to Matt, and even found that Matt’s family was poor; she still would have no idea how to find a “go between” here in America to arrange her marriage and negotiate the dowry.

The door AI chimed. When Viveka went to the door she found Matt standing there in jeans, a long sleeve T shirt and a light jacket. She felt very overdressed in her nice skirt and blouse.

“Whoa,” he said, his eyes widening, “you look great!”

Though she had been considering asking him if she should change, this assessment of her appearance made her decide it wasn’t necessary. “Thank you,” she said, putting on her jacket, “shall we go?”

“Sure,” he said, stepping back and waiting for her to close her door.

As they walked down the little sidewalk leading away from her apartment he put his arm around her shoulders. Viveka was startled by this. Though she knew that American couples frequently walked with their arms around one another, she had thought that this meant they were in a committed relationship. Was she wrong? Or did he think they were in a committed relationship now that they were going out on a date? Did he expect her to put her arm around his waist? She decided she was glad to be wearing a jacket. It put something between his hand and herself.

Matt took her to a steakhouse. Though Viveka wasn’t of the Hindu religion, she felt surprise that he took a person from India to a restaurant that specialized in beef without asking about their beliefs first. To herself she thought, Dr. Pace wouldn’t have done that. She hadn’t actually ever eaten any beef, and despite having no actual religious objection, she found herself uncomfortable with the thought of doing so.

To her relief, it turned out that the restaurant had several different fish dishes. Viveka ate one of those. The dinner was nice and Viveka enjoyed talking to Matt, much like she had fun talking with him over the lunches they shared at work.

After their dinner, Matt drove her to another place that turned out to be a bar. Viveka had heard of bars, but had never been in one. She knew that they served alcohol, but had often wondered what else people did while they were in such establishments.

Matt found them two bar stools right at the long wooden bar and ordered them each Long Island iced teas without asking Viveka what she wanted to drink. “What kind of tea comes from Long Island?” she asked.

He winked at her, “Fun tea.”

When the drink came, Viveka was stunned by its taste. It tasted absolutely nothing like any tea she’d ever had before and smelled strongly of ethanol. “Uh,” she said, squinting at her drink, “I don’t think I can drink this!”

“Oh come on, don’t be a party pooper!” To Viveka’s surprise, Matt badgered her for a while, trying to get her to drink the tea despite her distaste, before he finally gave in and ordered her a Coke at her insistence. Then he drank both of the Long Island iced teas that he had purchased for them.

Although she saw that some people were playing pool towards the back of the bar it seemed that Matt had no intent to do anything other than drink their drinks and talk. Since they talked nearly every day at work Viveka found this somewhat boring but went gamely along.

As she had suspected from the smell, there must have been quite a bit of alcohol in the tea, because Matt soon evidenced significant drunkenness. Though Viveka had not recognized the drink, she had had plenty of experience with inebriated men back home in India.

When Matt ordered another Long Island iced tea from the bartender, Viveka put a hand on his arm, “I’m getting kind of tired. Is it OK if I go on home?”

“Well you’re no fun!” Matt said, “Are you sure you won’t stay and have another one with me? Maybe even a little glass of wine?” He lifted an eyebrow.

“No, thank you.”

“Well then, I’d better take you home,” Matt said in a slightly disgusted tone, getting up off of his barstool a little clumsily.

“You don’t have to, I can get myself home.”

“Yes I do,” he said as if quite irritated. The bartender arrived with his third long island iced tea. “Just let me finish this,” he said guzzling the big drink. As soon as he finished it he took her hand and led her out of the bar.

Matt’s car had found a parking place just down the street from the bar. They had actually stayed in the car until it parked and then walked to the bar from that location. Now Matt started off down the street in the wrong direction so Viveka reminded him where his car was parked. He didn’t admit to being wrong however, instead, he told his AI to bring the car to his current location, then turned to look in a store window. He said, “I just wanted to have something to look at while I was waiting for the car to get here.”

Viveka was grateful that all of the American cars were controlled by AIs. Back home in India many cheaper cars were still available that had to be driven manually. Manual cars, when combined with drinking, still managed to kill many people back in her home country.

To her dismay, Matt switched the car and began to drive it manually. However, after only a block, its AI determined that he was driving erratically and took control back from him. Unfortunately, this left Matt with nothing to do. He turned drunkenly to Viveka and reached out to put an arm around her shoulders. At first it was little different than the way he had rested an arm on her shoulders when they were walking away from her apartment. After a moment though, he pulled her to him and turned his face towards hers.

As opposed to when Dr. Pace had leaned towards her, there was no doubt that Matt wanted to kiss her. He pulled her close despite her resistance and forced his lips against hers. She found his boozy breath distasteful and turned her face away, using both hands to peel his fingers off of her neck. Are all American men like this? she wondered as she fended him off.

Then she corrected herself, Dr. Pace was nothing like this. He didn’t drink and he didn’t put his hands on me. I think I would have liked it if he’d kissed me— if only I hadn’t panicked and pulled away. Of course, maybe he wasn’t even trying to kiss me, in which case I should feel even more foolish.

When Matt’s car arrived back at her apartment complex, Viveka jumped out of the passenger door, “Good night, and thank you for a nice dinner,” she said as she hurried away up the sidewalk towards her apartment. When she had her door open, she glanced back. Matt was standing unsteadily about 15 feet up the sidewalk towards the apartment building from his car. Viveka waved to him, stepped inside, and locked her door. Then, somewhat nervously, she asked her door AI to give her a video feed of the outside.

Her fear that he might be trying to follow her to her apartment was unfounded. To her disgust, he had turned to the side and was urinating on one of the other buildings.

He always seemed like a nice enough fellow! Viveka thought to herself. Is this normal behavior on a date in America? Or is there something about me? Do most American women think this kind of behavior is OK and I’m the weird one, or does something about me make American men behave badly?

Viveka watched until Matt returned to his car and it drove away. However, after she went to bed the same questions kept cycling through her mind.

At work that Monday Viveka ate her lunch in her office, hoping to avoid Matt. It didn’t work. He showed up in her office at about 1:30, looking sheepish and scratching his head. “I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember most of our date. I think I had too much to drink, unless you slipped me a roofie?”

She stared at him in unhappy puzzlement, having no idea what a roofie was.

He laughed uncomfortably, and waved his hands as if fending off her ire, “Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. My hangover told me I had too much to drink. Since you skipped our lunch today I suspect you’re mad at me. I hope I didn’t do something really horrible?”

Viveka shook her head, “No, you just got drunk. You didn’t do anything terrible.” To herself she thought, bad enough, though.

“Oh, good maybe we can start over?”

“Sure,” Viveka said, while thinking, but it’ll never go anywhere from this start.

Chapter Six

Shan pulled open the door, and knocked on the door just behind it. The two doors, back to back within the wall, joined the two condos.

He was looking forward to this.

At first he’d been astonished when Ell had told him what she’d done. Under a few of her various and sundry identities she owned nine of the thirty ski condos in this particular building. That included these four in a row on the second floor, all of which had been connected into one large one with this type of paired adjoining doors. He, Ell and Zage had the first of the four. Amy had the next one. Mary and Barrett had the third one that he was standing in right now. Knowing that Shan’s family liked to go skiing each winter, Ell had managed to make them an excellent offer for the fourth condo through a vacation rental website, without their knowing who actually owned it.

Ell’s other security team members were in some of the ground floor units, so essentially the whole team was out here in Colorado for a working vacation.

Shan, Ell, and the team had all been here since Wednesday, but Shan’s parents and sisters had just arrived for a week’s vacation starting on a Saturday. He knocked again. This time someone started fiddling with the lock, and a moment later the door eased open a little to show him a frowning Lane peering through the gap.

“Hey, baby sister, ‘bout time you opened that door.”

“Shan!” she squeaked, jerking the door open wide and throwing her arms around him. “How did you…?”

Shan could practically hear the wheels turning in her head, then Morgan appeared behind her. Morgan’s eyes went wide, then she gave a sly grin, “Aren’t you the tricky one? How long have you been working on this little secret?”

Shan put his hands up, “Hey, you guys are always so suspicious! We just came out here to do a little skiing. Who would have guessed that you guys would go skiing the same week, at the same resort, and even rent a condo in the same building?”

Shan’s mother appeared behind his sisters, eyes wide at first, then narrowing. She shook a finger at her son. “You, you’re always so in love with practical jokes.” Then her eyebrows rose in anticipation, “Is my grandson here?”

“Wasn’t me!” Shan put his hands up in surrender, “Elsa thought this whole thing up.” He shrugged, “I’d take you right over, but you’ve arrived just as Elsa’s been putting said grandson down for a nap.”

“No! Here they come!”

Shan turned to see Ell coming their way through the intervening apartments, carrying Zage and smiling. She said, “I’ve been trying to get him to go to sleep, but no luck. I figured we’d just as well come over and say hello.”

Soon, they all were gathered around in the Kinrais’ apartment, cooing over Zage and exclaiming over Ell’s arranging for them to all be there together without the Kinrais even knowing about it.

“So,” Malcolm said, “I thought the Z-man and his puppy were inseparable? Where’s the dog?”

“Yeah,” Shan sighed, “we left the Tanner behind in a kennel and little Zage has been acting depressed.”

“Have you taken him out to play in the snow yet?”

Shan laughed, “I did. He seemed pretty interested for about 20 minutes, then got bored with it. His mom,” Shan winked at Ell, “may be interested in physics, but the Z-man likes biology.”

To Fay Kinrais’ astonishment, after a bit, Zage simply fell asleep in her arms. He didn’t get grumpy or cry for a while like most kids do when they get tired, he just dropped off to sleep! She turned to Ell, “Does he often just fall asleep like that?”

Ell shrugged, “Yeah, don’t other kids?”

Fay slowly shook her head, “Most of them get irritable and have a little meltdown when they’re tired out in public like this.”

Ell chewed her lip, “That’s what Amelia says too. Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

Fay’s eyes widened, “Don’t say that! Most mothers would be delighted to have a baby that falls asleep when he gets tired instead of going ballistic.”

Ell sighed, “I guess. He just worries me. He doesn’t seem to be much like other kids.”

Shan gave a forced little laugh, “He’s different all right, but most of the differences are things that I think should make us happy!”

Fay looked at her son, seeing that he looked a little strained. She wasn’t sure whether he was upset that Zage was different, or concerned because Ell worried about him. “I’m sure he’s fine. We all worry about our babies. Most of the time, we fret beyond all reason.”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes, “Does he still spend a lot of his time watching videos?”

“Yeah,” Ell said, sounding depressed. “It’s better since he got the puppy. He loves playing with Tanner, and chasing him around gives Zage some physical exercise. But he still spends a lot of time watching videos.”

“I’m gonna sound like a curmudgeon here,” Malcolm said, “but I think you should just take the videos away from him. Watching too many cartoons rots your brain!”

Shan said, “He doesn’t watch cartoons, Dad. And, we get that advice from everyone!”

Malcolm made a waving away motion with his hand, “Whatever junk he watches, doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does matter. He pretty much only watches science shows. That’s a lot better than watching cartoons or ‘junk’ in my mind.”

___

In his own condo, not too far away, Max had his AI pull up the feed from the tiny bead camera he’d glued to the banister across from the Kinrais’ apartment. He set his AI to record snippets of video whenever anyone entered or exited the apartment. If Donsaii or her husband came by to visit, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a record of it.

___

Over the next week of skiing, Shan and Ell were careful to come and go from the condo at different times from the rest of the Kinrais family. Though they often got together in one or the other of the two apartments by walking through the intervening ones, they never entered or exited through any door but their own. When they ran into Shan’s family out on the slopes they made it appear accidental. They might ski together for a while, but not for an extended length of time. While they did ride up the chair lift together on occasion, it wasn’t a regular thing, and when they did they were careful to make it appear that they had only accidentally gotten in line for the lift at the same time.

They spent a lot of time together, inside the condos where no one could see them meeting. Steve had arranged the installation of the doors that joined the four condos on the sly, so that no one else knew the four separate apartments could be combined into one. They couldn’t go out to dinner together as one big family, but they could eat together in the condos, either by ordering out, or several nights when someone took on the task of cooking a big meal.

Altogether, it was a very satisfying vacation for everyone, except for the frustration of Zage’s grandparents, who wanted to play outside with him, but couldn’t. However, without his puppy to play with, Zage spent most of his time sitting around doing nothing. Efforts made to get him to play were mostly frustrated. Though he good-naturedly watched the members of his family as they socialized and happily sat in their laps during their conversations, he still said nothing himself. Nearly a year and a half old, and he hadn’t said “Mama” yet. Or anything else for that matter.

If they left him alone, somehow he usually managed to turn on a video, though no one could figure out how he was doing it. He didn’t cry when they turned the videos off, but managed to look so sad that it was practically heartbreaking to do so. Besides, Shan would turn the videos back on for him. This left the rest of the family wondering if Shan was the one that somehow snuck in and turned them on for him when Zage was in a room by himself.

___

By the end of the week Max felt pretty frustrated. He’d gotten in some great skiing, but no one else had visited the Kinrais’ apartment. He’d followed them occasionally on the slope and though they sometimes skied with someone else, he hadn’t seen them with anyone that he could credibly imagine might have been Donsaii or her husband.

They didn’t go out as a family except to ski. A couple of nights, Lane Kinrais went out bar hopping with her sister. Max faithfully followed them, an enjoyable task in its own right.

Late one afternoon, as Max sat frustratedly in his car out in the parking lot near the condo the Kinrais were staying in, he was stunned to see a young man and woman who were about the right height for Kinrais and Donsaii leave the building. Just as he was about to leave his car and go check them out, he realized the woman was carrying a baby. He decided to watch long enough to make sure the baby wasn’t actually a doll, just being used as protective coloration. Soon they put the baby on a sled and started pulling it around an open area. He could see it moving. Besides, it seemed crazy to go out and pull someone else’s kid around just to hide your identity.

Then for a moment his eyes narrowed, could they have? He carefully went over the timeline since Donsaii had been in prison. Nope, there wasn’t a nine-month stretch in there for her to have had a baby. Well, he realized, there was a sufficient stretch after she’d appeared in Brazil about 16 months ago. But then the baby would only be about seven months old. He didn’t know much about kids, but this one looked awfully big for a seven-month-old. He sat wondering whether it might just look large because it was bundled up My sister’s kid is 14 months old and I think this kid’s bigger than he is, Max thought.

Just then, a dog trotted down the lane next to the little meadow they were towing the kid around in. The kid rolled off the sled, came to its feet, and took off after the dog running hell for leather. The parents ran the kid down, but it looked like a minor challenge chasing the kid down. Jenny’s boy looks like a spaz compared this kid, he thought. The way this kid moves, he has to be a lot older than 14 months.

Max told the car’s AI to take him back to his own condo.

***

Allan said, “You have a call from Carter DeWitt.”

“I’ll take it,” Ell said, “Carter, I see the big tunneler’s started out of orbit on its way to Mars!”

“Yes Ma’a… Ell. It should be there in July. We’re kind of worried that, for some reason, it won’t function as well out there as it did here on earth.”

“Welcome to the real world. Problems arise at every turn. You sent some waldos out with it if I remember right. Hopefully, whatever goes wrong will be something the waldos can fix with some material ported out there from earth.”

“We hope so too,” Carter said somewhat fervently.

“Have you figured out what was wrong in your little farm?”

“Um, yeah. It was kinda stupid.”

“Well then, you gonna have to tell me so I can bring it up the next time you guys get too big for your britches.”

“Um, well you remember we were watering them on a schedule to match good growing seasons here in North Carolina?”

“Yep.”

“But we were growing them in a chamber walled with the melted soil-ceramic that the tunneler makes?”

“Oh ho! So the water wasn’t draining away and your plants were swimming in stagnant swampy mud?”

“Yeah,” Carter said, sounding disgusted, “you must think we’re mentally challenged.”

Ell laughed, “I didn’t get it either ‘til you gave me those big hints. So what are you gonna do? Install drainage or try to grow hydroponically?”

“Well, we did suck out the excess water and, once the roots weren’t sopping, the plants started looking healthier and they are growing some now. But, our consultant thinks we’ll do better growing hydroponically, which it turns out is different than just waterlogged. After all, the tunneler, being round, makes troughs anyhow. If we just have the tunneler digging slightly deeper as it goes along, there will be a natural flow from one end of the trough to the other that the hydroponic nutrients can flow through.”

“That’s a great idea!”

“The big tunneler has a cross section like a Roman arch, so that it produces a flat floor. That’ll be more convenient for the living spaces. Our plan for the farming area was to run the tunneler back and forth in parallel rows, gradually getting deeper to promote flow of the water. We’d leave walls between the rows to hold up the roof. Then we’d cut big holes in the walls to leave a large open area held up by columns. But if we don’t cut the holes in the walls all the way down to the floor, it’ll still leave big, flat bottomed troughs the hydroponic solutions can run in.”

“Hmmm,” Ell said followed by a pause long enough that Carter began to worry. “I’m a little worried that if you try to form a large space held up by columns, it might turn out the columns aren’t up to the job. Didn’t you start your tunnel down near the bottom of the Valles Marineres?”

“Um, yes. AJ and I have realized that that’s just asking for trouble. Even in the low Martian gravity, starting at depth like that will mean there’s a tremendous amount of pressure trying to collapse our tunnels. Our plan for the big tunnels is to land the tunneler on a big ledge we found closer to the top of the Valles. That way we won’t have so much overburden.”

“Well that should improve things quite a bit. However, I’m still concerned that the columns you’re leaving behind might not be sufficiently strong considering they’re made out of melted dirt.”

Carter laughed, “That would be pretty bad. We brought back some samples of the rock at the ledge we’ve chosen though. It turned out to be a form of Martian basalt which has pretty good compressive strength. The tunneler will still melt it so we should be able to work with it.”

Ell said, “Great, I’d still suggest however, that except for when you really want a large chamber for social purposes or something, you keep your chambers small. That will tremendously decrease your risk of a catastrophic collapse. For instance on your farm, I don’t see any reason why you should try to make a large field. Sure, that’s the way farms are here on earth, but in theory you could just have a single long straight tunnel for your farm on Mars. That’s not actually what I would recommend you build. I’d double it back and forth and make small connecting tunnels between the loops so that someone working the farm could get from one end to the other without walking the entire length.”

There was a pause while Carter considered her suggestion, then he said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We would like to have some large chambers where people could gather to socialize. But that’s exactly the worst place for a collapse to occur, what do you suggest we do about that?”

“Hire a mining engineer with underground experience. I’ll bet the engineer will tell you that, close to the surface, in basalt, under low Martian gravity, that the risk of collapse will be very low. If there’s any question you could get Gary to make you some inflatable bracing.”

“Inflatable bracing?” Carter sounded incredulous.

“Yeah, he can make you a brace the size and shape you want out of Styrofoam, coat it with graphene, then dissolve the Styrofoam out of it. After he deflates it, he can give you something easily small enough to port to Mars. Once you’ve got it there, you put it about where you want it, softly inflate it, adjust its position, then really pressurize it. Highly pressurized graphene tubes are extremely strong.”

***

Art Vinson, codename Brick, walked along Pennsylvania Avenue. Brick had recently been laid off by Palmetto Electric Cooperative as more and more of PEC’s customers had their power delivered by port. With power delivered by port and the power lines coming down, the Coop needed fewer and fewer line repairmen. PEC had given him a severance package that included tuition intended to help him get a different job, but Art had little love for schooling. With no job, Art had plenty of time to be one of the SCDF’s scouts in Washington.

Still, he’d been observing the White House for days now and couldn’t see any way that a force, even a suicide force five times as large as the entire SCDF, could penetrate the defenses here to take out the President. The approaches were blocked to vehicles. Men on foot had even less chance. Overflight was impossible.

Worse, Crossbow wanted a plan that would allow them to capture the President. Killing her would be almost impossible, but capturing her? No way!

Crossbow wanted to hold her and make demands intended to improve the plight of America’s true, died in the wool loyalists. Once concessions had been granted, the SCDF was supposed to make its escape, but Brick couldn’t imagine how that could be done.

In fact, such a plan seemed so unlikely to succeed as to border on the ridiculous. Brick had no way to know or determine the Secret Service’s plans for protection of the President in case of an assault on the White House, but it seemed likely that any such assault would immediately result in their spiriting her away through some kind of tunnel system at the first intimation of the attack. In their place, Brick would have set up such a plan.

He had no illusions about the Secret Service’s ability to make better plans than he could.

As Art stood disgustedly considering the impossibility of the mission he’d been set, a line of big black SUVs suddenly started rolling out of the White House grounds. Not really expecting an answer he said, “The President going somewhere?”

A burly man standing next to him grunted, “Yup.”

“Where? I didn’t know she had any trips planned.”

“Golf,” the man said disgustedly. “Plays at least once a week. Probably costs us a few hunnert thou’ each time she does.”

Brick’s eyebrows went up, “Where does she play?”

“Different courses. Mostly the course at Andrews Air Force Base, but hell, sometimes she leaves town and plays in Florida or North Carolina. That’s when the bills really pile up.”

“North Carolina?” Art asked, astonished.

“Yeah, she likes to play at Pinehurst in the spring and fall, Florida in the winter and up in the Catskills in the summer. Firin’ up ol’ Air Force One really racks up the dollars.”

“Is there a published schedule for this?”

“Naw. They’d be afraid some terrorist would use that. Though,” the man tilted his head, thinking, “she is scheduled for a week’s vacation in Pinehurst the first week of October.”

***

Viveka walked over toward the area Allosci had reserved at the park. The April morning had been cool but the afternoon was warming up. The trees were budding in green leaves, the sky was a brilliant blue and overall it was shaping up to be a very nice day. The area they had reserved had some picnic tables, a barbecue grill, and a small playground for the children who had come with their parents. Several of the kids were already running, shrieking, and playing enthusiastically. The adults seemed to be gathered around a small barrel which sat inside a tub.

Curious Viveka walked up to the group to see what it was. When she arrived Cindy handed her a cup filled with a foamy liquid. A quick sniff told her it was beer. Cindy said, “Sorry, this one’s mostly foam, the keg’s just been tapped.”

Viveka didn’t want to drink it; she’d had enough bad experiences with other people who were drunk. She considered handing it back but thought that might be rude, so instead she decided to carry it around with her for a while. She wandered over to watch a group of men who were cooking something on the barbecue grill. There were several of them gathered there watching the meat cook. Since they were talking enthusiastically about something, she expected them to be discussing the best way to barbecue. After listening for a bit it became obvious that they were discussing sports, the outcome of some event called “March Madness” being the main topic.

Having no reference for this conversation she quickly became bored and wandered on, stopping to watch the children playing in the little playground. Matt’s voice came from behind her, “Hey Viveka, is that a beer I see in your hand?”

“Uh,” she said, glancing down at the cup in her hand, “it is. I didn’t want it, but someone handed it to me and I thought it would be rude to refuse it. Would you like it?” she held it out to him.

“Sure, mine’s still mostly foam.” He took it from her and sipped it with obvious relish, “Ah, that hits the spot. I’m thinking we should find you some Coke?”

“I’d like that,” Viveka said, looking around.

Matt pointed, “I’ll bet there’s some Cokes in that big cooler over near the keg.”

He started in that direction so Viveka followed him. Once he’d dug a coke out of the ice in the cooler, popped the top, and handed it to Viveka they stood uncomfortably. Since their disastrous date, they had been having more and more difficulty carrying on an ordinary conversation. Fortunately it didn’t seem to have affected their ability to work together; they just didn’t seem to socialize well anymore. Viveka found that she didn’t dislike him, however she no longer had any thoughts of a romantic nature concerning Matt.

She saw Dr. Pace glance her way several times. Each time she hoped he might come and talk to her, but he always looked away again and found someone else to talk to instead.

“Hey, I need to talk to Cindy about something. I’ll catch you later,” Matt said, turning and walking that direction.

Viveka felt alone and wondered whether she was ever going to make more than a few friends here in America. She saw Alex, one of the fabricators working on the VLGC with her. She didn’t think he had much education, but he certainly had a genius for working with his hands. He always spoke pleasantly to her so she tried to drift his direction, hoping he would strike up a conversation. She hoped she wasn’t being too obvious about it because she couldn’t think of a topic herself.

Alex was sitting on one of the picnic tables with his feet on the bench bolted to it. She saw that he had on those odd shoes called “cowboy boots,” and a topic had suddenly presented itself. Before she turned to ask him about them, however, he said, “Hey, Ms. Janu, it’s good to see you out here away from work. Do you like barbecue?”

“I don’t know. I don’t believe I’ve ever had it. I’m eager to try it though.”

“Well,” he winked, “it may be these guys don’t know how to barbecue. If you don’t like what they’re cookin’, you’ll have to give mine a shot.”

Viveka smiled at him, delighted to have someone to talk to. “You like to barbecue?”

He affected a strong drawl, “Ya cain’t be a good ol’ boy if‘n you don’t barbecue!”

Viveka laughed, “I’m not sure I even understand you when you talk like that.”

He grinned and spoke normally, “Well then, the answer to your original question is, yes, I like to barbecue.”

Viveka found herself with no way to continue that conversation, so she said, “Are those cowboy boots?”

“Yep,” he grinned again, “also required, if you wanna be a good ol’ boy.”

A pretty young redheaded woman approached them, “Hey Alex, your turn to watch the rug rat.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the playground.

“Aw man,” he chuckled, “there ain’t no rest for the wicked.” He got up and headed towards the playground.

The redhead plopped down where Alex had been sitting and smiled up at Viveka, “I’m Patti, Alex’s wife,” she said, staking a not too subtle claim on Alex. “You work at Allosci? Or are you here with someone?”

“I work there. Your husband is a genius with his hands.”

“Oh, are you the Indian lady he’s been working for?” Patti’s eyes drifted up and to the left for a moment, “Janu?”

“Yes ma’am, Viveka Janu, though I’m not his boss. It’s more like we’re working together.”

Patti’s eyes drifted over Viveka, “He didn’t tell me you were beautiful.”

Startled, Viveka said, “I’m not!”

Patti snorted, “Sure you’re not.” She glanced to the side, then back at Viveka, “Don’t look now, but the big boss has his eye on you.”

Viveka’s eyes widened, but she kept them on Patti. “You mean Dr. Pace?”

“Umhmm,” Patti said. “Now he’s walking this way.”

Viveka wiped suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans.

Patti grinned up at her, “You two have something going on? He looks all nervous, and I swear you look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Uh, no,” Viveka said, uncomfortable talking to Patti, but not wanting to turn to face Dr. Pace.

Then Pace’s voice came over her shoulder, “Viveka?”

“Yes?” she said, turning to face him and feeling somewhat relieved to be out from under Patti’s gaze.

If Patti’s eyes had made her nervous, Dr. Pace’s intense focus was even more intimidating. He said, as if casually, which his eyes belied, “Hey Viveka, I was hoping we could talk?”

“Sure,” Viveka said starting to move away from Patti, who she didn’t want hearing any conversation they might have. “What’s the issue?”

Dr. Pace’s mouth worked, but he said nothing for a moment. Then, “Maybe this isn’t the best time.”

Viveka’s heart skipped a beat. It sounded like it must be serious.

Once again she worried that he was about to tell her that she was fired. The last time she had thought she was about to be fired was many months ago. She had worried about it for days afterward, but nothing had ever come of it. She wasn’t sure she could stand worrying about it again like she had before. Shakily she asked, “Isn’t the best time for what?”

“Uh, how are you and Matt getting along?”

Viveka blinked at him, why would he be asking something like that? Did bosses in America normally take interest in their subordinates’ relationships? Did she have to answer?

After a few moments with no response, Dr. Pace suddenly blushed and said, “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.” He turned to leave.

Viveka touched his arm lightly, “Matt and I work together well.”

He gave her a strained smile, “Of course you do. And that’s all that really matters. I’m sorry I tried to interrogate you.”

He moved off, leaving Viveka with a sick feeling in her stomach. It just doesn’t seem possible that that whole conversation was about how Matt and I are working together. Is he trying to fire me, but just can’t get up the courage?

***

Art Vinson stepped into the coffee shop and looked around for Crossbow. They always met in a different place and he’d never been here before. Pretty froofy for Art’s taste, it looked like Art was going to have to drink some barista constructed coffee concoction instead of the simple black coffee he preferred. He got in line, seeing Crossbow sitting against the back wall and Redman sitting halfway along the window wall.

Once Art had his coffee he headed back to the table Crossbow sat at, glancing at, but not acknowledging Redman as he walked by. He nodded to Crossbow and pulled out the chair across from him, sitting down. The man appeared to have shrunk somewhat since the FBI killed Cola. But it was as if Crossbow had shrunk down to a hotter, more concentrated kind of the same fire he’d had before. His eyes could be frighteningly intense when they focused on you, making you feel like you couldn’t look away. Art desperately didn’t want to disappoint the man.

Crossbow looked up, “Brick,” he said acknowledging him with a nod. After a pause, “What did you learn?”

Art took a sip of his coffee and frowned down at it, thinking how can they charge so much for this crap? Looking back up at Crossbow he started detailing what he’d learned. He told him about the problems with attacking the White House itself, describing the defenses he could see and the difficulty he foresaw in overcoming them. Then talking about suspected issues, for instance the tunnels he knew were there, despite not knowing much about their nature.

Crossbow’s eyes remained fixed on Art and Art found he desperately didn’t want to disappoint the man. He rushed his thoughts to continue, “So, while I can imagine that we might be able to take her out at the White House with a well laid-in mortar when she was on her way to her helicopter, even that would be a highly difficult suicide mission. However, I think I’ve found a weak link in her golf trips.”

“Golf trips?” Crossbow asked, sounding astonished.

Art nodded. “She loves golf and plays almost once a week. She even goes on golfing vacations. On a golf course she’s out in the open, often surrounded by trees. She’ll have a security team with her, but snipers in the woods could take all of them out. Then we just have to snatch Stockton and get her out of sight.”

“Golf!” Crossbow said an appalled tone in his voice. “For God’s sake, she’s supposed to be running our country and she’s out playing golf?”

Art nodded, looking into Crossbow’s eyes and wondering if the man ever did anything for fun himself.

“OK, we’ll need to scout the courses up there to figure out which one would be best.”

Art raised an eyebrow, “She’s going to take a golfing vacation in Pinehurst the first week of October.”

“No shit?”

Art nodded.

“That’s perfect, just freaking perfect.” Crossbow leaned back with a smile, thinking, “You play golf?”

“A little.”

“So does Redman. Time for you two boys to go play Pinehurst and do a little scouting.”

***

Ell woke up at six in the morning, like she usually did. She padded down the hall to check on Zage. Entering his room, she had a moment of panic. His crib was empty!

Taking a breath to call out to Shan she scanned the room, then let the breath out in a long sigh. Zage lay on the floor, arms around Tanner, looking as peaceful as he could be.

Ell glanced back at the crib. Its side was down. Could I have forgotten to put it up when I put Zage to bed last night? She asked Allan to bring up the video from her putting Zage into the crib the evening before. A moment later it scrolled before her eyes and she saw her hands lifting the crib’s side into place. She watched a moment longer to make sure she hadn’t put the crib’s side down before she left, but that wasn’t the case. She went back on the video to the point where she had lifted and latched it, then had Allan zoom in on the latch to be sure it had fully clicked into place.

Turning, she looked at Zage, musingly. He looked very innocent. She knew kids often started climbing out of their cribs at around age 2, but Zage was only 21 months. On the other hand, despite the way he sat around a lot, when he did do things he seemed very capable. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had climbed out already. However, figuring out how to undo the exterior latch, from the inside seemed pretty difficult.

She lifted the side of the crib back up until it latched. She tried to reach it from the inside of the crib. The rails were close enough together that she couldn’t really do it, but she could imagine that with Zage’s smaller arm he might be able to.

She turned to study him some more. I guess I should put him in a regular bed, she thought. Even though it appears that he’s coordinated enough to lower the rail and climb out of the crib, it seems crazy to put him in a situation where he has to do that. It would be safer for him to climb out of a regular bed.

***

Brick and Redman had had to learn each other’s real first names in order to golf together without sounding like a couple of oddballs. This had been their first day of golf in Pinehurst. Art had always played in sloppy clothes at cheap courses and felt oddly overdressed wearing the nice pants and golf shirts they’d bought for this mission. They’d been paired into a foursome with a couple of old duffers who were even worse golfers than Art and Joe were. Art had tried to pump them for information about Pinehurst, but they were there on a vacation and didn’t seem to know much about the area.

Like a lot of southern courses, the course they were walking had numerous tight fairways surrounded by trees. There were a couple of holes where it looked like you could hide a small army just off the fairway.

In the clubhouse they went to the bar and pulled up stools, hoping to learn something by shootin’ the shit with the bartender and patrons as Crossbow had suggested. Art felt a little nervous about it; conversation with strangers had always been difficult for him.

At first it seemed to Art that they were going to be stymied on this point as Joe just sat there, saying nothing and steadily drinking his Miller High Life. However, most of the way through a second beer, Joe lifted his chin at the bartender and said, “Been workin’ here long?”

To Art’s amazement Joe had soon extracted the man’s life history. The bartender had been working in Pinehurst in various capacities for fifteen years. Joe got opinions on which courses were the best, who were the best local golfers and whether any other locations could hold a candle to the North Carolina golf courses. Eventually he worked his way around to the questions that mattered, “Hey, I hear that Stockton herself comes down here and plays sometimes.”

“Yeah, supposed to be a pretty good golfer, but it really screws things up.”

“How’s that?”

“Aw, you know, clearin’ the roads for her motorcade, Goddamned Secret Service everywhere, every other cop from miles around blockin’ off roads. It makes everything a nightmare for the rest of us peons who’re just tryin’ to get on with our lives.”

“Humpf, which course does she play?”

The bartender shrugged, “Different courses. Number Two of course, just ‘cause everybody says it’s the best, and she plays the Country Club of NC pretty often. They say she really likes this new course named Shalimoore, up north along 15-501. Seems like she plays others kind of at random.”

As they walked out of the bar and back to their car Art said, “That was freakin’ amazing! You practically milked that guy. I had no idea you could do that kind of thing!”

Joe shrugged, “I get talkative when I’ve had a few beers, but you need to stay with me so I don’t get stupid drunk.”

The next day they went out with a Real Estate agent, posing as two guys who’d shared a winning lottery ticket. They were supposedly thinking of buying vacation homes in Pinehurst. They looked at mini mansions on golf course fairways, especially the three courses the bartender had said Stockton liked to play. They professed a special interest in empty lots, several of which were still available at Shalimoore.

Those lots were heavily wooded.

***

Brick and Redman met Crossbow in the woods the next time. He was carrying one of the venerable AK47s with which the SCDF had outfitted itself. Purchasing the AKs had been a real pain because there were so many restrictions on them nowadays. Nonetheless Crossbow had pushed it hard and eventually every member had been outfitted through purchase or theft, mostly theft. Everyone had a 9mm pistol as well.

Crossbow had a brand new police issue bulletproof vest in his other hand. Redman took the gun for Crossbow, so Art carried the vest as they went deeper and deeper into the forest. When they came to a meadow Crossbow stopped and had Art carry the vest out and tie it to a lone tree in the clear area. Crossbow asked about likely distances of golfers from the trees since he’d never played golf.

Then they took turns shooting at the vest from back in the woods deep enough to hide well. The vest was good enough to stop standard rounds but Crossbow had some armor piercing rounds that went right through it. Of course, armor piercing didn’t do as much damage as softer bullets, but, since just about all the President’s men would be wearing vests, they’d either need shooters good enough to make head shots or they’d need to use piercing rounds.

Crossbow chewed his lip a while, “We’ll need to get the men out for some situational shooting to see how many of them would be able to make head shots from these distances. We also need all the AKs converted to full auto so they can fire a lot of rounds if they aren’t very accurate.” He thought a little longer, “We also need more clips. And the men need to practice a lot.”

***

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina—ET Resources will be attempting to land a subterrene tunnel boring machine on Mars today. Although they, NASA, and a number of other private enterprises have already landed multiple small exploration type rockets, this will be the largest thing landed on Mars so far. Working by melting its way through the Martian underground, the machine will leave behind a passage eighteen feet wide and eighteen feet high. People will be able to live and farm hydroponically in the spaces created. Needless to say, landing such a large, heavy object on a relatively narrow shelf of the Valles Marineres rift valley will be more challenging than previous landings. I wish them luck, because I for one, would like to go to Mars…

As if AJ and Carter didn’t feel nervous enough, with their tunneler hurtling down out of space and possibly about to destroy millions of dollars’ worth of work and equipment, Rob Braun, and Ben Stavos walked into the room and sat down. There’s nothing like having the big bosses breathing down your neck to really bring out the sweat on your brow! Trying to smile, AJ said, “You think we’ve got a chance of landing this thing without ripping a huge hole in the Martian landscape?”

Braun, the rocket scientist, shook his head glumly. “No, I just went over your numbers. I think you slipped a decimal point ‘cause you’re under powered by nearly a factor of 10. If you really like that shelf you’re shooting for, you’re about to destroy it.”

AJ’s sphincters spasmed before he saw the little grin on Braun’s face. He grinned back, “Now that was just plain mean.”

Braun laughed, “I just thought it would be a good idea for you to change your underwear before the landing,” he turned to watch the room’s big wall screen where a small fiery dot had just become apparent in the infra-red supplemented image.

They’d flown one of the little waldoes from their small test tunnel up to the upper rim of the Valles, above the shelf where they were going to land the big tunneler. Its AI had turned its lenses to the correct direction to pick up the descent of the tunneler. Since the tunneler essentially had a built in heat shield in the form of its tungsten nose, they had had it scrub off a lot of its velocity in the Martian atmosphere rather than burning rocket fuel to slow it down. It had just finished a nearly complete circumnavigation of Mars and the tungsten was really hot.

For a minute or so, the hot spot on their screen disappeared, as the jets on the tunneler spun it end for end in order to bring the big rocket nozzles on the other end into play. Then the hot spot reappeared as the rockets began firing.

From there it was somewhat anti-climactic, as they simply watched the big rocket descend and land on the flat spot beneath the waldo. Still, when it was finally down, they all let out a big breath of relief. In theory, even if one or two of the rocket motors had failed, the AI could have compensated by increasing the thrust of the others. However, AJ had figured that, surely if two motors had failed, Murphy’s law would have resulted in both failing at the same location, resulting in an imbalance that couldn’t be corrected.

Looking at the position of the tunneler, Carter had it lift and turn a little bit so its flat side was toward the wall. The position looked good, so he fired a rocket on the other side, tipping the tunneler over to fall on its flat side. The flat side would form the flat floor of the tunnel so he now had it right side up, with its nose pointed into the wall.

The nose was already hot from its trip through the atmosphere, but not quite hot enough to tunnel into basalt. They opened up the port to the big solar parabolic, feeding heat into the tunneler. Inside the tunneler their specially-cut sapphire lens spread the heat evenly around the tunneler’s asymmetrical nose.

While they waited for it to heat, Ben Stavos pulled a cooler out from under the table and popped open a couple of bottles of champagne to a big cheer. Once everyone’s flutes had been filled, he lifted his, swung his eyes around the room at the group that had gathered. He finished his perusal on AJ and Carter. Arching an eyebrow he said, “A toast, to a job well done!”

AJ took a sip and mimed wiping sweat from his brow, then said, “It hasn’t cut a tunnel on Mars yet.”

Braun pointed, “It looks like the temperature is up. Time to find out if it will?”

Carter checked the numbers. The nose of the tunneler was up to about 1500°C, far below tungsten’s 3,000°C melting point, but well above the 650°C it took to liquefy most basalts. He gave some instructions to his AI. They all watched through the eyes of the waldo as the big rockets at the back of the tunneler opened up and began pushing its nose into the wall of the ledge. The nose cone slowly melted its way in and disappeared, leaving only the rocket exhaust blowing back out of the tunnel.

Once it was in about ten meters, he shut off the rockets. In their earphones they all heard Ell’s voice, “Congratulations! I assume you are going to let the walls cool before you extrude the base plate?”

“Yes ma’am,” Carter said, unsurprised that she had been listening in. “Once it’s cooled we’ll extend the graphene pushers until the base plate is outside the tunnel and drop the plate off. Then we’ll shorten the pushers, blow up the big graphene balloon that wedges it into the tunnel and start pushing the tungsten penetrator again. We’re keeping the penetrator pretty hot in the meantime.”

“How long till you start farming?”

“Well, that’ll be at least a few weeks…”

Chapter Seven

Art and Redman were tasked with bringing in the SCDF in small groups so Crossbow could watch them do some shooting to evaluate their current skill levels. Crossbow would shake his head then sermonize them about target practice. The cells were encouraged to target practice together using ropes to move the targets around in order to simulate moving targets. Then they were scheduled to come back later for reevaluation. Cells were kept separate as much as possible and Crossbow preached to all of the members about the importance of avoiding any knowledge of anyone else.

Crossbow also talked extensively about how to remove any evidence of the SCDF from their lives. No paper records. Few electronic records and any of those set to auto delete after the attack. Especially records of where they’d gone to meet or any AV records of SCDF people or meetings. SCDF member Buckboard, an IT expert helped each of the other members install software and set it up to ensure this would happen.

All the AKs were converted to full auto.

Redman disabled the AI on his truck and the men were taught how to drive on manual, off road and through woods.

Redman taught selected, mechanically apt, members how to break into a vehicle, disable its AI and take it over.

One of the SCDF members, a guy codenamed Peanut, showed up with a stack of ghillie suits, trimmed out to fairly closely match the vegetation around the Shalimoore course. The suits had been modified with ports to blow cool air into the outer layers making them hard to see with infrared as well as more comfortable on a hot day. The men practiced wearing them, advancing slowly in them, and doing their target shoots in them.

Art had the feeling that half the reason Crossbow wanted to bring the men in was so that he could talk to them. Art didn’t know how he did it, but even if they came in with serious doubts about the mission, after talking to Crossbow they left full of fire and brimstone. Art had had the same experience after all. Somehow when you talked to Crossbow all your doubts fell away. Art’s niggling concerns that as a patriot he shouldn’t be plotting against his own president had been replaced by a grim certainty that Stockton should never have been elected and was destroying the land he loved. Like Nathan Hale, Art concluded it was a pity he had but one life to give for his country.

They brought the men in on weekends so as not to interfere with their jobs. Brick, Crossbow and Redman went up to Pinehurst during the middle of two separate weeks to look over the area, especially around the Shalimoore course.

Everyone in the SCDF scheduled themselves to be on vacation the first week of October.

***

Gary leaned back and rubbed his eyes. Viveka’s latest iteration of the VLGC had just formed a large and very complex graphend object. The testing numbers on the prototype were nothing short of amazing.

The in situ allotrope coating system she had come up with also worked astonishingly well. Viveka had taken advantage of the fact that most of the allotrope formation peaks on the graphic projection that Kinrais had produced were at sub-atmospheric pressure. This meant that soft rubber seals around the in situ system were sucked down against the object being coated as soon as they started pumping the pressure down. It made achieving a seal relatively easy. This let them control the pressure in the chamber formed by the in situ allotrope coating system. Once they had correctly adjusted the temperature and the mix of gases inside the chamber, they could form either diamond or graphene on the surface of the object they were coating.

Allosci would soon be making large profits coating the underside of aging bridges with graphene. With a relatively thin layer of graphene absorbing the tensile stress in a bridge fatigued by age, it could be counted on to hold up for many more years.

There was even some talk about diamond coating old monuments to stop their deterioration.

The girl was a genius! Even if she didn’t seem to appreciate it herself. Humble as she was about both her accomplishments and her looks, everybody seemed to love her. Gary still looked back in horror on the way he had destroyed his chances for real love on the one date he had had with her. It seemed like disappointment was the recurring fate of his love life. First he’d met Ell, by his recollection developing an almost instantaneous infatuation. Though he hadn’t exactly “blown” his chances with her, any romance they’d had had been lukewarm at best. With the marvelous Viveka, he’d felt like he might have had a real chance. That chance he had blown.

There came a knock on his doorframe, but he’d worked himself up into such a state that he certainly didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. “Busy,” he croaked out without turning to see who it was. He had an open door policy, but surely people knew he couldn’t talk every time they came by.

Like a voice directly from the tumultuous nightmare he’d been going through while awake, Gary heard Ell’s Raquel voice, “No problem, give me a call when you’ve got time to talk.”

Starting in his chair, Gary said, “Wait!” he rubbed at his eyes, then turned around.

“Whoa, you look like crap.” Ell said matter of factly while walking into his office and over towards his desk, “Did someone die?” She asked sympathetically.

“No,” he shrugged, “just having a hard time dealing with some personal issues that have got me all wound up. I shouldn’t be worrying about them here at work. How can I help you?”

“Heck,” she said, sitting down, “I don’t need help. I just thought I’d drop by and see what was going on at Allosci. The question is what can I do to help you?”

Gary laughed bitterly, “You can tell me to grow up and stop my silly little pity party over lost loves. Feed me some sappy lines like, ‘If you can’t be you with the one you love, love the one you’re with,’ etcetera.”

“Who broke your heart?”

“I broke my own damned heart.” He shook his head, “I only seem to fall in love with women who turn out to be ‘impossible dreams,’ first you, now another. I thought I might have a chance, but I ruined it.”

___

Ell gripped her lower lip in her teeth for a moment to keep from smiling, then said, “Who, did you ‘break your own damned heart’ over?”

Gary dropped his gaze to his own right shoe which he was scrubbing back and forth on the floor in a kind of a fidget. “Viveka,” he muttered in a barely audible and self-pitying tone.

Ell felt glad that Gary wasn’t looking at her because she was sure she wasn’t adequately suppressing her grin. “So what happened?”

Gary looked up at her, so Ell was glad she had control of her expression by then. He shrugged, “I took her out on one date. Things seemed to go well so at the end of it, like a fool, I tried to kiss her. I should have known, with all the cultural differences, that that was a stupid thing to do. She pulled away in a panic and that was the end of our friendship. I can hardly carry on a conversation with her now. Well, except about work. We can talk about work just fine. She is absolutely amazing. She has insights, she develops new tools, she works out new methods, she comes up with new products—I swear she makes creative innovations on an almost daily basis! If anyone else at Allosci came up with an idea to match one of hers on a quarterly, or even a yearly basis, I’d think they were great employees!”

“So you’re glad I hired her and then dumped her on Allosci?”

“Oh yeah! She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to this company.” He turned and stared out the window, “For a while I thought she was gonna be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Ell said, trying to sound morose, “You’re the second person I’ve talked to today whose heart is breaking.”

“Sorry, we shouldn’t be loading you down with our personal problems. It’s not like there’s anything you can do to help.”

“Yeah,” she said musingly, “this one also had to do with a kiss denied. Seems like it’s a problem that’s going around. Though this time, it was a girl who didn’t let a guy kiss her. She’s regretted it ever since. Quite a coincidence.”

___

Gary’s eyes had been tracking around to focus on Ell. They narrowed, then he noticed she was grinning. His eyes widened, “Who?” he breathed.

Ell only nodded at him.

“Viveka?”

Ell grinned even wider, then frowned, “Here I thought I was running a company. Instead I feel like a grade school girl who’s running back and forth between two of her classmates saying, ‘she likes you,’ and ‘he likes you too.’ I guess now I’ll have to make the return trip with that second message.”

“Really?”

Ell winked at him, “For a couple of really smart people, the two of you have pretty dysfunctional communication skills! Maybe,” she said thoughtfully, “I should lock the two of you in a room until you actually talk to each other.”

Gary snorted, “Maybe you should. I think she has cultural misconceptions, and I’m… just an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Ell grinned, “that’s about how I size it up too.”

Gary grinned back, “Well, if you’re just going to be rude to me, I think I’m going to go visit my new girlfriend.” He stood up.

Ell blinked, “You don’t wanna stay and tell me what’s been going on at Allosci first?”

“Uh…” Gary hesitated, looking like he didn’t know what to say.

Ell grinned and stood up as well. Giving him a little shove, she said, “Go, talk to your girlfriend! If I tried to talk to you right now you’d be about as useful as a dolphin in the desert.”

___

Viveka stared at one of her screens, trying to get some work done, but her mind kept replaying the conversation she’d had when Dr. Donsaii had dropped by her office a little while ago. Dr. Donsaii had asked how she was doing, decided Viveka was depressed, and somehow had extracted from her the entire story of her abortive date with Dr. Pace. Then she had sympathized with Viveka and tried to cheer her up with an unfamiliar analogy about “fish in the sea” that had left Viveka feeling cross-eyed.

Intellectually, Viveka could understand that there probably were more fish somewhere, but pondering that fact hadn’t helped Viveka’s bleak mood.

She heard someone enter the lab. Not wanting to talk to anyone right then, she huddled down over one of her small screens as if concentrating intensely. Whoever it was walked into the lab and she could hear their footsteps approaching her. To her irritation, the footsteps came up and then just stopped somewhere close behind her. Apparently, whoever it was didn’t want to interrupt her concentration, however, it seemed they did intend to simply stand back there and wait until she wasn’t concentrating any more.

Frustrated, Viveka considered continuing to pretend she was intensely focused until they went away. Then she realized with mounting embarrassment that the screen she was pretending to focus on only had up an e-mail about the next Allosci social function. If whoever was back there could see over her shoulder and saw what she was pretending to be focused on, they would know she was simply being rude.

She quickly flicked the screen off and turned.

Dr. Pace stood there smiling down at her. Rather than the uneasily worried expression he had worn around her of late, he looked positively beatific. “Yes Dr. Pace?” she said with a puzzled tone.

For a moment he said nothing, then, “I thought you were going to call me Gary?”

“It feels rude to me,” Viveka nearly whispered.

Gary tilted his head, “To me it feels distant and formal when my friends call me ‘doctor,’ so I’m truly hoping that my friend Viveka Janu will call me Gary.”

“Friend?”

Gary nodded, then said obtusely, “Do you know our expression, ‘a little bird told me’?”

Viveka shook her head.

“It’s a way to say you heard a bit of gossip, but pretend that it came from a bird instead of another person.” He shrugged, “Usually you’re trying to protect your source, but I think in this case you’ll know who told me anyway.”

Viveka stared at him in confused puzzlement.

“Viveka, I admire your creativity, your brilliant mind, your beauty, and your sense of adventure. In short, using one of our colloquialisms, ‘I’m crazy about you.’ I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about you and I’ve been hating myself for getting off on the wrong foot with you on our date. Since the aforementioned little birdie told me that you don’t actually hate me like I thought you did, I have developed a theory. A theory that not only on that date, but on several other occasions, cultural differences between us and general clumsiness on my part have resulted in misunderstandings that have damaged our friendship.

“So,” he sighed, “I want to apologize. Apologize for trying to kiss you on our first date without considering that that might not be appropriate for you. I want to tell you just how sorry I am that I didn’t immediately ask for forgiveness.” He sighed, “It is my intention to do my utmost in the future to fully grasp your thoughts and desires despite the differences in our cultures. I fervently hope to prevent any future misunderstandings like the ones we’ve just lived through.”

Viveka felt her eyes welling with tears. She stood. “I… I…” after a pause, she tilted her head, and as a tear ran down her cheek, she said, “Ell told you… how much I admire you?” she whispered.

Gary nodded solemnly then grinned, “She refused to carry my message of admiration back to you.” He winked, “She seemed to think I was old enough that I should be carrying that message back myself.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. Without taking her eyes from Gary’s, Viveka reached back onto her desk, found a box of Kleenex and pulled one out. She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes.

Viveka said nothing more.

After a bit, Gary said, “I asked you once before how you were getting along with Matt. I’m hoping to clarify what I thought I was doing that time so that there won’t be another misunderstanding. I had been thinking that you two were becoming a couple, and that if you were getting along well, that I should step aside and suppress all my romantic thoughts. When you looked at me with concern, I thought that you were angry that I was butting into your personal life.”

“Romantic?”

Again Gary nodded solemnly, “I love you Viveka Janu. But if you are actually already in love with Matt, I will step aside. I love you enough that I want you to be happy, with or without me.”

Viveka stepped closer to him and slowly reached out, gently circling her arms around Gary’s neck. In this loose embrace, her lips close to his ear, she whispered, her voice breaking, “I love you too Doct…” she took a deep breath and more firmly said, “I love you too Gary.” She stepped back and dropped her hands. Disconsolately, she dropped her eyes to the floor and said in a barely audible tone, “But it will never work.”

Gary let out a long breath. After a moment he said, “The old Gary would have said, ‘OK,’ and walked away with a broken heart. The new Gary is going to do his best to understand why. Can you tell me why it wouldn’t work?”

Viveka’s eyes glanced up at him then dropped back down, “I… my family is very poor.”

Gary nodded, his concerned eyes focused intently on her. When she said nothing more, he said, “I know. I don’t think that’s a problem, but perhaps I don’t understand?”

She whispered, “We can’t, can’t afford… a dowry. Well, a small one, but it would be as nothing to someone like you.”

“Viveka,” he said, taking her hand, “in America neither brides, nor their families provide dowries.” He shrugged, “Perhaps a remnant of the dowry is that the bride’s family typically pays for the wedding, I’m not sure. But, even there, many families share the cost of the wedding, and weddings can range from very cheap to extremely expensive. In any case, I’d be happy to pay for any wedding myself, be it large or small.”

He reached out with his other hand and tipped her chin up to look into her eyes. “However, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.” He grinned at her, “In America, we think a couple should go out on more than one date before they plan their wedding.” He snorted, “Especially when the one date they did have ended in disaster.” Softly he said, “Might I take you out to dinner again this Saturday?”

Viveka nodded, afraid to say anything because she knew her voice would break.

A look of concern on his face, Gary said, “I would very much like to give you a little hug now, but I don’t want to offend you like I did trying to kiss you before. Would that be OK?”

Rather than nodding, or saying anything, Viveka stepped forward into his embrace. He held her lightly and timidly, but she put her arms around his back and hugged fiercely.

***

Carter, his wife Abby, and his daughter Jenny, now 11, walked into the local California Pizza Kitchen. They had just watched the afternoon matinee of Disney’s newest movie “Tyrant,” about an evil king on a distant planet. Carter still felt great joy at having enough money to take his wife and daughter out for a movie and a meal at a restaurant. The movie had been enjoyable and they liked the food at CPK.

When they had ordered their food, Jenny looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Dad?” she said. When he’d looked at her, she continued, “Are you still going to send people to Mars?”

“We don’t know for sure yet,” he said, “but already we’re starting to build a ‘space ship’ to fly them out there. You remember that we dug some small tunnels and started trying to grow plants in them?”

His serious daughter nodded.

“We had some trouble at first but now those plants are growing pretty well. We’ve started digging much bigger tunnels. We’ve got a little farm going in the big tunnels where we’ve been able to successfully grow quite a few more crops. We’ve also tunneled out a lot of space where people could live, so it should be possible for us to send some people out there and for them to live safely.”

Jenny stared at him for a moment, then said, “How are you going to get them to Mars without the cosmic radiation making them sick in transit?”

“Well, you’re right, there is a lot of radiation in interplanetary space, and they’ll be out there for a couple of months during the trip to Mars. We’re building their main ship out of asteroidal metal which will absorb some radiation, but not nearly enough. So, just like for the habitat, we have big Vectran bags around the ship. Once the rockets have the ship up to speed on its way to Mars, we’ll use ports to fill the bags with water. The bags will be three meters thick and that much water provides very good radiation protection.”

“But doesn’t it take a lot of energy to port water into an object that’s moving fast like a spaceship?”

Carter’s eyebrows elevated, “Well aren’t you the smart one! You’re absolutely right; we have to feed a lot of power into the port so that it will be able to boost the speed of the molecules it’s transferring up to the speed that the spaceship is traveling.” He raised an eyebrow, “But it will still be more efficient than using a rocket to push that water up to interplanetary speed like we’d have to if we filled the bags here in earth orbit.”

Jenny looked at him doubtfully, “Really?”

“Yes, because, we’ll pull the water back out of the bags before we use the rockets to slow down and enter Mars orbit. Believe it or not, when we take that high velocity water back through the port, it generates energy back at our end. It’s kind of like if we pump water up a hill, it takes energy, but then when we let the water run back down the hill we can get energy back out of it.”

Jenny tilted her head, “That’s pretty cool.”

Carter felt pretty proud of himself. First, for having a child bright enough to ask the questions she had just posed, and second, for explaining them to his critical child’s satisfaction. Then she looked up at him again, “I still don’t understand…”

“Yes?” Carter said looking forward to explaining something else to her.

She wrinkled her nose in puzzlement, “Why would anyone want to go to Mars and live in a tunnel? They could do that here! And, then go out to a movie and a restaurant. They won’t be able to do that there.”

Carter grinned. Trust his daughter to poke a hole in his balloon. After a moment he said, “You’ve got a good point. Living in the tunnels there won’t be much different than living in a tunnel here on earth except for the low gravity,” he shrugged, “and the danger of being so far from home and help. Nonetheless, we have people lined up and begging to go. They’ll be able to go out and explore Mars for short periods if they want. A lot of people really like to explore.”

Jenny frowned, “They’ll still be getting a lot of radiation! Mars doesn’t have a magnetosphere, and it doesn’t have enough atmosphere. Even if they only spend a few hours a day outside they’ll still be getting thirty times as much radiation as they would here on earth!”

“Well, you’re right. They’d be getting quite a bit more radiation than we do here on earth, on average. But some places, and some jobs, right here on earth get a lot more radiation than others.”

“Not as much as Mars.”

Carter grinned at Jenny, “No, you’re right, very few result in as much radiation as you’d get on Mars. But, if you only stayed on Mars for a few years, you could still stay at very acceptable lifetime radiation exposures. If you really did want to stay on Mars for the rest of your life, you might have to spend less time on the surface.”

Jenny sighed theatrically, “I just don’t see why anyone would even want to go if they were going to live in a hole!”

***

Holly Scott watched the four toddlers scrambling around her family room. She and their three mothers had come up with a plan to let their four kids, all about two years old, play at one of their houses in rotation twice a week. This being Thursday of the second week it was Holly’s turn to watch the kids. Watching over four 2-year-olds was a pain in the butt, but getting three days with no kids in return made it worthwhile.

Actually, it was more like watching three 2 year-olds. That Zage Reyes kid was so quiet it was almost creepy. Holly almost had the feeling he was watching the other three kids just like she was. Except he wasn’t watching them to keep them out of trouble. He looked like he was studying them, as if they were some kind of an experiment.

He was a weird kid, no doubt. Mostly he just sat around, watching the other kids and petting her cat. That was bizarre enough by itself. Toddlers his age usually scared Holly’s cat, pulling on her fur and poking at her. The old tabby, however, had learned that if she plopped herself down by Zage, he would scratch her neck, which she loved. Right now she was purring contentedly.

Weirder yet, though Zage seldom got up and walked, when he did, he did it much more smoothly than the other kids. Sometimes Holly wondered if he had one of those weird diseases like progeria, except maybe in reverse, so that he could actually be a 10-year-old that only looked like a two-year-old.

She shrugged, that wouldn’t fit either, the kid can’t even talk. All three of the other babies were babbling all the time and saying a few understandable words, but Zage was silent. He did cry sometimes, if he’d been hurt, but generally made so much less noise than the other kids, that his stillness alone would have made him seem pretty weird.

Holly felt sorry for Elsa Gardon. Whenever they figured out what was wrong with Zage, Holly had a sad feeling that it would turn out to be something pretty awful.

***

Art thanked the gods for personal air conditioning. He sat in a chair in the sweltering attic bedroom of the house they’d broken into on the Shalimoore golf course. The air conditioning in the house, of course, remained off. They didn’t want anyone wondering why the empty vacation home was active. With the sun on its windows, the upstairs room had to be over ninety degrees, even with the pleasant October weather outside. However, Art’s AC shirt cocooned him in a pleasant flow of cool air. If only it could fend off his boredom. He’d been sitting here every day for four days now and they had begun to wonder if Stockton would actually play Shalimoore on this trip.

Suddenly he sat forward; a convoy of large black SUV’s were rolling up the driveway to the clubhouse! He picked up the little PGR walkie talkie sitting beside him on the desk. Crossbow didn’t think they should trust any kind of AI headbands. They still wore headbands because you looked odd if you didn’t have one, but the chips had been removed from them. The walkie talkies they had purchased had as many as sixty PGR chips in them providing secure two way connections to all those individuals at once, or one at a time. Art pushed the two buttons that connected the two chips in the walkie talkie that went to Crossbow and Redman, “We’re on! They’re just pulling in.”

“OK,” Crossbow’s calm resonant voice came back. Art knew Crossbow would have connected himself to the walkie talkies for the entire SCDF. “We’re on. That stupid bitch Stockton is pulling in to the clubhouse. All of you know your jobs. Just do those jobs, calmly, like we’ve practiced. Don’t rush it, and you won’t blow it.” Crossbow continued talking, calmly and persuasively in each man’s earpiece, settling their nerves, reminding them how important the mission was, replaying the sins of the people they were about to kill.

Art checked and saw that the flag on the green leaned away from the fairway, confirming that the prevailing wind indeed blew up the fairway, across the green and into the woods.  This would drive the scent of the men away from the dogs the secret service would be bringing.  In addition Crossbow had told the men to turn on the ports attached to their weapons and ghillie suits.  Those ports were sucking air in and sending it down to South Carolina in an effort to carry the scent of the men and their weapons away from the dogs.

Art knew that Redman would be pouring a small quantity of deer pheromone through a port they’d hung in a tree. It hung at the edge of the lot next to the one where the guys lay on top of their rifles in their ghillie suits. The pheromone would splatter into the grass there and should distract and confuse the dogs to some extent. Peanut would be carrying two drugged rabbits down to drop them off in the brush near the edge of the fairway. For a while they’d worried that the dogs would smell Peanut’s recent passage, but then they’d realized that golfers walked back into the brush looking for balls with a fair frequency. The mere scent of people having passed by in the brush shouldn’t be a big problem. The rabbits would stay drugged through a little port Redman had put under their skin. From previous trials they knew that when they shut the drug off, the rabbits woke up in about ten minutes. Peanut would turn off the drugs when the first foursome teed off on the hole.

***

Secret Service agent Will Argant hated Stockton’s golfing boondoggles. Not because he begrudged her the time to relax, the woman worked long hours and deserved a break now and then. Not because they were expensive. Much of the cost the press attributed to her golf junkets were fixed costs, like the costs of the agents who went with her, or the cost of the airplane which had to be maintained and kept available whether she flew somewhere or not.

No, what Argant hated was the difficulty of providing real security out on a golf course. They did what they could when they were out away from Andrews like this. They kept the schedule of which course she was going to play a secret until they arrived at the course. Their current strategy used two “look alike” foursomes in bulletproof vests also playing the course. One of the look alikes always played in the first foursome. Sometimes the real Stockton and her cronies were in the second foursome, usually in the third.

The agents accompanying the lead foursome carefully swept the area with chemical sniffers, looked for IR hot spots and used some millimeter wave radar tech to look for unexpected metal in the area. The agents in the actual foursome worked hard to interpose themselves and their body armor between Stockton and any possible sniper’s hiding places. Unfortunately, Will himself could think of quite a few ways to defeat their security measures.

He just hoped that any bad guys out there weren’t aware of what methods the Service was employing to try to detect them, or weren’t smart enough to work around said methods. Will had a recurring nightmare involving a bomb planted under a green or tee box. Sealed, washed and planted months before, then detonated by PGR, it would be almost impossible to detect. They’d never even be able to catch the SOB who planted it.

***

Will walked past the Stockton look alike who’d just chipped up onto the thirteenth green. He stopped for a moment and frowned out at the undeveloped lot off the end of the green. Covered with a mix of hardwoods and evergreens it provided dense cover. Someone could hide a small army out there.

He didn’t see anything, but he walked that way anyway, turning and walking along the verge, then stepping back into the undergrowth a ways and walking along about six feet back into the vegetation. He saw a lost golf ball but nothing else. For a moment he thought about calling the dog back. It had passed along the edge of the woods here a few minutes back, but a couple of rabbits had bolted, distracting the dog.

Finally he settled for tramping a little farther back into the bushes himself. He stopped and looked around but saw nothing. Finally he turned to head back out to the course.

***

Art had moved to a different upstairs room in the house and been watching the three foursomes of the Presidential party. Each of them had a tall heavyset woman to match Stockton but as expected, when he’d zoomed in on the first foursome, the woman had proved to look pretty young. Thin face too, she probably only looked thick because she had on a bulletproof vest.

In the second foursome the woman walked like an older woman. He had a hard time getting a good look at her because it always seemed like there were several agents in the way but when he finally caught her face with his scope he could see it actually was Stockton. “Crossbow,” he said on the walkie talkie, “she’s in the second foursome. They’re coming up on the tee for thirteen now.”

“OK,” Crossbow said, then he started talking to the men again, somehow both calming and exhorting them. He had the men in the ghillie suits start moving slowly forward through the brush toward the green.

***

With a feeling of unreality Tom Jessup slowly rose to his knees and brushed some dangling strands from his ghillie suit out of his eyes. He braced his AK against the tree and sighted in on his assignment, the third agent from the left. He hadn’t counted the caddy because the first volley was just supposed to take out the Secret Service. The agent that was Tom’s target was slowly walking towards Tom. Thankfully he wasn’t traveling across his sight. Tom placed his sight on the man’s upper chest right below his head. With the AK firing on auto it would tend to rise. Rather than fight it, Tom would let that action lift it into a head shot. Alternating armor piercing and soft jacketed rounds, some bullets would penetrate the armor and some would be especially effective against the target’s unprotected head. Finger curled on the trigger Tom waited patiently, still finding it hard to believe what he was about to do, but utterly determined not to let Crossbow down.

In his ear Crossbow serenely said, “Fire,” and Tom carefully squeezed the trigger. Surprisingly, the explosion of noise from the other men firing around Tom didn’t startle him at all. He watched his sight rise with the satisfied feeling of a job well done. The agent’s head disappeared in a spray of blood and Tom moved his head to look for anyone still standing. His gun started to swing of its own accord toward one of the golfers but then the guy went down too.

They were all down. Even the President, though hopefully she was just ducking.

Tom stood up and started to back into the woods away from the golf course. Soon he turned and stepped out, bringing up a primitive GPS and looking for the pip which would guide him to a rendezvous with his truck.

***

Riding one of the golf carts outfitted with millimeter radar, Will Argant was most of the way around the fourteenth green when he heard the hailstorm of AK-47 fire erupt back at the thirteenth green. Heart sinking, he ripped the wheel out of the radar agent’s hands and floored the accelerator back toward thirteen. He called base, “Code Red! Extensive automatic weapons fire at POTUS location. Security team to the thirteenth hole at Shalimoore. Activate medical rescue, choppers in the air. Surveillance drones zoom in on POTUS location, tell us what’s happening!”

In his heart Argant knew that there was no way his President could have survived. From the tremendous volume of fire this hadn’t been a lone sniper. Someone really had snuck a small army in somewhere near that green.

On his watch!

Goddammit!

As Will drove the seemingly endless fairway back to thirteen he saw several pickup trucks jounce out of the yards of houses bordering the course. They careened out across the fairways toward the thirteenth green. With some self-aware amusement he realized that he felt somewhat offended when they drove right up onto the green, damaging its putting surface. The four trucks all parked briefly on the green, then took off in different directions. “What the hell just happened there?” he barked into his HUD. “Surveillance! What did they do on the green?”

The overhead drone’s controller said, “Picked up POTUS and a bunch of mobile men, probably their own people ‘cause they came out of the trees.” The voice came back, “or her body. They put her in the brown truck. Probably don’t realize we have eyes overhead and think we won’t know which truck to follow.”

“Shit! One of you stay on that truck. The other zoom out to try to follow the others and give us some idea where they go in case it’s a trick.” Will’s golf cart rolled out onto the thirteenth green. Bodies lay everywhere. Will saw Senator Arkon and multibillionaire Howard Esmer lying near the flag. Stockton’s body wasn’t among the others however. Will’s eyes registered his good friend Bob Schutz lying not far away, the left side of his head a bloody mess.

Sickened, Argant heard the drone controller’s voice come on again, “Problem. The brown truck has pulled onto a long section of narrow road where trees overhang. I can’t see the truck most of the time. I think it must have stopped as we should have had glimpses of it farther down if it kept moving. I’m zooming back, not seeing it, not seeing it. Oh crap, now I’m getting glimpses of multiple vehicles driving away from that area! I’m not even sure how many and I sure can’t tell what types.

Sweet Jesus, Argant thought, they’ve not only kidnapped the President but they’re going to get away with her? “Get the other drone to your area. Guide the choppers to your area too. Try to track as many of the vehicles as you can. Zoom back so we can at least track all of them later.” He paused, then sighed, “If anyone has any great ideas, let me know, I’m desperate here.”

***

Art stared wide eyed out the attic window of the house. Bodies littered the thirteenth green and its aprons. Counting the Presidential foursome, their caddies and sixteen agents, there had been twenty four people around the hole. Now twenty-three bodies lay scattered about, none of them moving. The security teams from twelve and fourteen were on their way. Of the twenty SCDF shooters that had been in the trees, eleven had run out onto the green and climbed into the trucks. The others would have begun beating their retreats back through the woods. In their ghillie suits with ports for food and water, they could stay out in the forest for a long time, but most of them should be out of the area by dawn tomorrow. Well, he thought, time for me to get out of Dodge before the President’s men get their shit together. He started down the stairs.

***

The stolen trucks that picked up the men on the thirteenth green ran until they could drop the men under trees, but near their own vehicles. They paused under trees in many other locations to confuse any possible watchers in the sky. After the men driving got out, the stolen trucks were sent back home under their own AI control while the drivers hopped into their own cars for the ride to their next assignment, or back home to South Carolina.  They made it out just ahead of the roadblocks setting up to prevent their escape.

About eight miles west of Pinehurst an SUV pulled into the garage of a rented house on the Foxfire Resort. Once the garage door had closed behind it, Redman got out of the driver’s side and walked around to the back lift gate. Salem, who’d rode shotgun, met him back there. They lifted the President of the United States to a sitting position and, putting her arms over their shoulders, stood her up. With significant effort they maneuvered her through the big garage. As they approached the door into the house proper, it opened. Crossbow stood there, unsurprised, unexcited, merely expectant. He congratulated them matter of factly, but still, in response to his praise, they swelled with pride.

Stockton had recovered enough from the drug they’d given her to stand with assistance, but she remained very clumsy, stumbling frequently. Since she was both tall and heavy she posed a problem for the two men as they maneuvered her down the stairs into the basement. They did finally get her downstairs without a serious fall. They put her in the modified recliner, tipped it back and handcuffed her wrists and ankles to bolts that had been attached for that purpose. Her head lolled back and her eyes closed again. They passed a heavy stainless steel U-bolt around her neck and snapped it into the locking mechanism of the bomb Redman had assembled. She could shower in it, but Crossbow could detonate it any time he wanted by PGR. Cutting the bolt would cut a wire inside of it that would set the bomb off. The only freaking way she would ever escape from here would be without her head!

Redman and Salem sat looking at her in astonishment, unable to believe that Crossbow’s plan had been successful. The goddamned President of the United States! In our custody!

Crossbow, on the other hand, went upstairs to make a sandwich as if nothing at all unusual had happened.

Twenty minutes later Stockton lifted her head and looked around blearily. “Wha’ happ’n’d?” she slurred out. She struggled briefly to sit up which tugged on her restraints. She looked briefly down at the handcuffs with a puzzled look. As if it were too much to comprehend, her head fell exhaustedly back against the recliner and she drifted back to sleep.

Chapter Eight

Washington D.C.—ASSAULT ON GOLF COURSE CAPTURES PRESIDENT! A military style assault captured President Stockton while killing everyone in her party including Senate Majority Leader Harold Arkon, professional golfer Tim Turney, and multibillionaire Howard Esmer, a major donor to Stockton’s campaigns. They were playing the thirteenth hole of the Shalimoore course near Pinehurst North Carolina when a fusillade of automatic weapons fire struck them from a densely wooded lot bordering the course. Four caddies and sixteen members of the Secret Service are among the dead. The dense trees and rural geography have allowed the perpetrators to flee successfully so far, though there is no doubt that the devastation they wrought seems to have had a paralyzing effect on the Secret Service. The FBI is arriving in force to the area and the military has cordoned off the area. Unfortunately, many believe that the men involved have already escaped the area with the President.

So far, though there has been a great deal of speculation, no one knows who, or rather what group, carried out this horrific assault and kidnapping. Most observers find it difficult to countenance the possibility that anyone could have organized and motivated such a large group to carry out such an atrocity. Such acts are usually carried out by deranged loners, or occasionally by stressed though tightly knit military groups. In civilian life shaping such a group without at least one of them having an attack of conscience and reporting them to the authorities seems unlikely in the extreme.

One might point out that history is replete with individuals such as Hitler and Stalin who successfully organized groups as large as entire countries to atrocity. They did not do so, however, without resistance and it would only have taken one objector to derail this particular horrific endeavor.

Madison Arquette, Stockton’s recently appointed Director of the FBI, flew to Pinehurst to oversee operations himself, saying that recovery of President Stockton is absolutely the FBI’s highest priority, with capture and justice for the responsible parties a close second.

As the kidnappers have not published or otherwise communicated any demands so far, it is very difficult to know what they might want or intend with our President…

Zage in one arm, Amy clattered down the stairs into the basement, “Ell—sa! Did you hear? The President’s been kidnapped! She might be off our back sooner, rather than later!” Amy’s gait and speech faltered as she saw Ell standing ramrod straight in the middle of her lab. Ell’s back was to Amy but Amy had a strong feeling that something was wrong. It was as if Ell were at attention.

Quietly Amy walked around Ell to look at her face.

Tears streamed unnoticed down Ell’s cheeks as her eyes scanned the images and text on her invisible HUD. “Ell?”

Though the rest of her body remained motionless, Ell’s eyes blinked and turned to look sadly at Amy, “Sorry? I wasn’t listening.”

“Uh, Did you hear about Stockton?”

Ell nodded.

“Uh, it’s horrible about the people in her party and all, but, uh, it could be good news for us?”

Ell blinked a couple of times. In a quiet and somehow distant voice she said, “It’s a profound tragedy. There can be no silver linings.”

“But, but she’s been so horrible to you!”

“Yes, but she’s acted as she has because she has believed it to be the right thing to do. Initially I disliked her, and, admittedly, she’s still not my favorite person, but I’ve come to respect her. Respect her more and more as I’ve better understood just how hard she tries to do what she believes to be right, come hell or high water. I still disagree with her regarding what’s actually the right thing to do for our country, and for the world as a whole, but I respect her for the sacrifices she’s willing to make to do what she believes in.”

“Sacrifices?”

“Yes, she’s taken a significant hit to her popularity, not just because of her vendetta against me, but also because of her stances on several other political hot button issues. Many other politicians would simply have rolled with popular opinion in order to get their numbers back up…”

***

Washington D.C.—As specified in the twenty fifth amendment, Vice President Landon Dowd has now convened the Cabinet and they have transmitted a declaration to Congress that President Stockton is temporarily unable to discharge the duties of her office. Therefore Dowd has assumed the powers and duties of Acting President. His first act was to convene a press conference at which he assured the public both that the President would be recovered and that her captors would be brought to justice.

At this conference he announced the capture of a Thomas Jessup, tracked down in the woods north of the Shalimoore resort carrying both an AK-47 and a camouflage garment known as a “ghillie suit.” Jessup apparently fell in the woods, breaking his ankle and slowing his escape from the government’s dragnet. Acting President Dowd predicted that Jessup would be the first thread pulled from an unraveling plot and projected rapid progress now that he’d been captured.

Warren Newton sighed as he watched Jessup through the one way glass. The interrogation team had been questioning him for twenty hours now and had squat to show for it. They knew who he was, where he lived and where he worked. They’d found his car parked over on the other side of the woods from the golf course, its AI off line and the AI’s memory wiped. So, if he’d been anywhere else on his drive up here or had had anyone else in the car they couldn’t determine it. Usually if an amateur tried to wipe his AI’s memory, the FBI could still retrieve most of the data, but someone who really knew how to wipe a memory had either done the job himself or given Jessup a program for it.

Jessup had performed the same kind of wipe on his personal AI’s memory before they’d found him. The FBI’s experts thought that he’d used a program that “ate itself” when it had finished the rest of the wipe.

Teams were down in South Carolina searching Jessup’s home and his place of employment. His wife, apparently honestly, had thought he was a “war gamer” gone a lot of weekends on his “stupid little war games.” Her horrified reaction to finding out that he’d been involved in the Shalimoore tragedy and her assistance to the FBI as they turned her home upside down looking for clues had convinced everyone down there that she must be innocent. However, they couldn’t find any evidence linking Jessup to the tragedy—in his home, on his property or at his job.

In fact, other than his presence in the Shalimoore area, his recently fired AK-47 and the extensive gunpowder residue on his body and clothing, there was little evidence to tie him to the horrific event. Sure, he belonged to the NRA and regularly practiced with his weapon, a little more frequently recently. However, no one could find evidence of any planning regarding Shalimoore on his part. It seemed that he’d most likely received instructions to appear at Shalimoore with his weapon and obeyed them. No one had ever seen him with a ghillie suit. No ghillie suit fibers in his home. No one knew where he went on his weekend “war game” trips.

No one had even heard him say anything bad about Stockton or her administration. However, he currently exhibited “la belle indifference” regarding the events at Shalimoore and could even be described as appearing surprised that the massacre had upset anyone.

Newton’s mind had been wandering over the case as the interrogation became about as exciting as watching iron rust. He turned to watch with some interest as another agent entered the interrogation room and strode to Jessup. The agent pointed to the wall screen and said, “Recognize that bastard?”

Newton looked at the screen himself, seeing a face that seemed familiar but he couldn’t place it. He turned to the monitoring agent, “Who’s the guy on the screen?”

The agent said, “Dupree Fallon.”

“That’s the Fallon that’s thought to be heading up the SCPF?”

“SCDF, South Carolina Defense Force. I was assigned to the FBI’s task force on them and, yeah Dupree’s the Fallon that’s involved with them. Thought to be the head guy, but it’s impossible to know. Jessup sure knows Dupree though. His physiologic monitoring spiked when he looked at Dupree’s picture.” The agent looked curiously back into the room, “Isn’t that interesting,” he said slowly, as if surprised.

“What’s interesting?”

“They just showed Jessup pictures of the three SCDF agents they picked up August fourteen months ago when the SCDF tried to bomb the District Court in Florence.”

“And?”

“And, nothing. Jessup didn’t react, he’s never seen those guys.”

“So… you think this SCDF has a cellular structure, or Jessup’s new… or he’s not really part of the SCDF?”

“He knows Jessup. He doesn’t know the other guys. That’s all I can tell you for sure. Why he doesn’t know them? I don’t know but maybe he’s not part of the SCDF.” Musingly he said, “But we couldn’t get jack out of those other three SCDF guys either.”

***

Will Argant stalked towards the wooded lot where all the shooters had been stationed off the thirteenth green. He’d lost the President on his watch, and the respect he’d earned over a stellar career had been quick to follow.

The FBI had been tasked with recovery of the President and when Will had gone to them to ask how he might assist, they’d told him to, “hold himself available for questioning.” They hadn’t exactly said to “get lost,” but the sentiment no doubt ran close beneath the surface. Now he was pissed. They were ignoring one of their best sources of information and he, by god, wasn’t going to let them do it.

He walked up behind an agent who was walking the verge, carefully studying the ground beneath his feet. “Hey, I’d like to make a suggestion.”

The man stopped and turned curiously, when he recognized Will he frowned, “Yeah, please, just back off and let us do our jobs, OK? This is what we do.”

Will narrowed his eyes and turned back toward the area where the K-9 who’d been checking the verge had become so distracted. Will began doing his own version of the FBI agent’s slow walk back and forth, carefully examining the ground to see if he could see anything that might have distracted the dog.

Just as he was getting completely frustrated at finding absolutely nothing, one of the FBI agents came over and asked him to leave the area, “You’re contaminating the crime scene,” the man said.

“You guys have already walked this area right?”

The agent nodded. “We might come back to it.”

“But you didn’t find anything, right?

The agent shrugged an acknowledgement.

“And you don’t want to hear from me about why I think this particular area is of prime interest?”

“No! We just want you to get out of here and let us do our job.”

“Yeah, well I think you’re ignoring important clues that might help find the President.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact,” Will put his hands on his hips and arched his back and neck to pull the kinks out from bending over, “that the service canine that went over this area before the President played the hole went crazy right here and…” Will blinked, there was something hanging in the tree limb over his head, “that it might have something to do with that thing there,” he pointed up at it.

Twenty minutes later the FBI had taken numerous photos and then cut the limb from the tree. It proved to be a port tied to a fishing weight and three treble hooks so someone could just toss it up there. The FBI’s dogs not only went crazy about the smell on the ground there, but also over what was probably residual smell on the port. With this strong suggestion that some odorant had been dripped through the port to distract the Secret Service dog, the FBI instantly decided the port represented an important clue.

They took Will more seriously too and he led them to where the rabbits had burst away, running upon the approach of the dog, and just so conveniently distracting said K-9. An extended search of that area turned up some fur, possibly rabbit, but nothing more.

They let Will go back into the woods where they’d found plenty of shell casings for AK-47s, but the shells had probably been loaded with gloves on as there weren’t any fingerprints or DNA on them. There were plenty of boot prints, but all of them were from commonly available hiking boots. There were areas of crushed vegetation where men had lain, presumably waiting to make the attack, but the agents hadn’t been able to find any other artifacts or anything with sufficient intact human DNA for an identification. Will spent time back there, but left feeling frustrated, having not contributed anything worthwhile besides finding the odorant port.

***

Vivian Varka’s AI said, “You have a call from Warren Newton, the FBI agent that served as liaison for prevention of port terrorism.”

“Connect… Hey Warren, how can I help you?”

“Hi Vivian, I’ve been temporarily reassigned to the effort to find the President. One of the clues we’ve recovered has been a port that they apparently used to drip some kind of odorant to distract the Secret Service dogs. Under a microscope we’ve been able to find a couple of numbers inscribed on the port. Would they be some kind of model and serial number?”

Varka sighed, always a little distraught to find that the tech she’d help bring into the world could be used for evil intent. “Yeah, model and serial. I can look them up, but I’m not sure how that information would help you? It’d be pretty much limited to when the port was manufactured and what its capabilities are.”

“We’re turning over every pebble in a very meager field of data. Anything you can tell us might be of help.”

“Oh, and our system could also tell you when it’s been activated because it would have drawn some power whenever they put something through it. Give me the number and I’ll have my AI look up what we’ve got on it.”

Newton read the numbers to her and a couple of minutes later she said, “OK, that was a 12.5 millimeter port, but you probably already knew that. Manufactured January seventeenth of this year. Only activated once, October seventh, 11:31… I guess that’s right before the attack on the President, huh? Why would they use such a big port to drip odorant through? Are you sure they weren’t just blowing the odor through it as a gas? Seems more reasonable.”

“Good question. We don’t know. Maybe they were just trying to blow odor through it, but some of the odorant dripped through to the ground. Maybe they just happened to have a 12.5 millimeter port on hand so that’s what they used?”

***

Allan said, “You have a call from Vivian Varka.”

Ell looked up, “OK… Hey Viv’, what’s up?”

“Hey, I know that you like to be kept up to date when ports are used for terrorism. The FBI just contacted me because a port was used at the kidnapping of the President the other day. They wanted to know what info they could get from its model and serial numbers.”

“Oh no! How did the terrorists use it?”

“Well, they didn’t use it to carry out the attack or anything so I thought maybe I shouldn’t bother you with it. They just dripped some kind of odorant through it before the attack to distract the dogs used to clear the area.”

Ell closed her eyes, “I guess that isn’t as bad, but it’s sad that our tech had anything to do with that horror.”

“Yeah, and from what Warren said, the FBI isn’t having a lot of luck tracking those guys down so far.”

“Really? I thought they’d already caught one of them?”

“I got the feeling he’s not talking and that they haven’t learned much from his home or job.”

“My God! I thought they’d have those guys in no time.”

“From some of the things Warren said, I got the feeling that the attack was surprisingly professional and that they’re pretty worried about how long it’s going to take to sort it out and find the bastards.”

***

South Carolina—Ultraconservative radio and web station WAKF today broadcast as well as posted a monologue sent to them by a man calling himself “Crossbow” and claiming to be the commander of the South Carolina Defense Force. The distinctive voice on the broadcast is thought to be that of Dupree Fallon, a known extreme right wing survivalist associated with several attacks on abortion clinics.

In his monologue Crossbow claims to have “arrested” President Stockton for unspecified crimes against the United States. He repeatedly states that if any attempt is made to rescue her, she will be immediately killed. Pictures of Stockton with a bomb fastened around her neck by a massive U-bolt were provided on the web site as evidence for this. Diagrams of the bomb indicate that cutting the bolt around her neck will cause it to explode. They also say that it can be set off remotely with a PGR chip, which we all know cannot be blocked.

Though a transcript of his speech shows it to be poorly organized and difficult to understand, those who have heard it claim that upon listening it is surprisingly convincing. Some have wondered whether this hypnotic quality might be what allowed him to organize a large group of men to carry out such a horrific attack.

In the monologue Crossbow makes many demands regarding jobs for Americans, a return to strict Christian values, deportation of non-Christians and establishment of a fund to recompense those injured by Stockton’s policies. There is little detail in the speech regarding how he expects these demands to be practically met.

WAKF has been harshly criticized for broadcasting Crossbow’s inflammatory diatribe rather than just turning it over to the authorities. They have excused their broadcast by citing an attached segment in which Crossbow threatened attacks on WAKF’s own families if they did not broadcast the piece. “Having seen what this group is able to do to the most protected people in the United States, we were reluctant to offend them,” WAKF’s editorial stated. However, critics have pointed out that WAKF received a tremendous amount of free publicity from the broadcast.

The broadcast includes snippets of a subdued sounding Stockton quoting FBI Director Madison Arquette’s speech about the attack. Evidently these quotes are intended as evidence that Stockton remains alive. A video clip of Stockton speaking those words from an ordinary appearing, though windowless room has been put up on WAKF’s website. In the video Stockton is wearing camouflage fatigues and appears haggard, though not broken…

Art looked speculatively at Stockton. Crossbow had had them leave her chained in the recliner for twenty four hours without anything to eat or drink. By that point she’d fouled herself and looked kinda sick. Then he’d had them give her some water to drink and unchain her. They’d made a production out of inputting the code to unlock the detonator of the bomb under her chair. Once out of the chair, she’d been allowed to walk to the shower and clean herself, though of course she still had the bomb around her neck. They’d placed some fatigues in the bathroom which she’d put on instead of her dirty clothing. Then Crossbow had told her to clean up the mess she’d made in the chair.

Instead she’d turned and headed for the door out of the room!

Astonished, they’d watched her trying to unlock the door. Giving up on that she’d instead begun searching for another way out. Finally Crossbow had had them hold her down. He’d taken off her shoes and socks, then he’d shoved a toothpick up under one of her toenails. She’d grunted and twisted in their grips but hadn’t screamed or begged or any of the things Art thought he might have been doing if Crossbow had done that to him.

Crossbow had pulled the toothpick back out and again ordered her to clean up the mess. Instead she’d resumed looking for a means to escape or communicate with the outside world. After two more toothpick episodes Crossbow had given up. He’d had Art clean up the mess and then they’d chained her back into the chair with water but no food. Crossbow had pointed out that she could afford to lose a few pounds.

The old battle-axe was tough though, you had to give her that.

Art sure had more respect for her now. Crossbow had wanted her to read his manifesto and order the government to do some things, but she’d held out despite some more toenail and then a fingernail’s worth of torture. She’d read Arquette’s speech without much of a fight though; Art suspected she was happy to let the world and the FBI know she was still alive.

The drugs they shot her with when picking her up off the course were ones that typically prevented transfer of short term memory into long term memory. This strategy seemed to have successfully kept her from remembering what happened on the golf course. She’d asked several times how they managed to capture her with all the Secret Service agents around her. She seemed to think that there must have been some traitors in her protection detail. Crossbow had told them not to tell her what happened for fear she might put up more resistance if she knew that every other member of her golf party had been killed.

***

Ell closed her eyes.

She couldn’t seem to concentrate on her modified ports. Her mind kept tripping back to the fact that the FBI was having trouble tracking down President Stockton. I should have offered the Secret Service some implantable ports so they could GPS her! Though, admittedly, a successful kidnapping, rather than assassination of the president seemed so unlikely. She doubted that they guarded very much against kidnapping. In fact, it seemed bizarre that anyone would actually believe that they could pull it off.

Ell pulled up the speech that Fallon had broadcast through WAKF. The smoothly authoritative baritone voice and the hypnotic cadences made the oration surprisingly compelling. But compelling to what? Ell had to go to the text version to try to understand the thrust of Fallon’s speech and, even after reading it, didn’t feel sure she understood what he wanted people to do. Well, he obviously wanted to stop abortions and generally minimize government. Otherwise his tirade contained a lot of hate and general direction but few specifics.

However, she came away from her listening with a feeling that he could easily talk many people into doing what he wanted, a talent he had obviously used to arrange the attack and kidnapping at Shalimoore. The broadcast on WAKF lacked thrust she decided, because Fallon himself didn’t know exactly what he wanted them to do at present. She listened and read some of his previous diatribes available on the net and concluded that they were much the same.

A little reading on the subject convinced Ell that it wouldn’t be forever before some members of his SCDF would fall out from under his thrall and somehow provide the FBI information which would break the case.

However, she couldn’t be comfortable that this would happen in time to save the President.

“Allan,” Ell said, “find me the info the FBI gave Vivian on the port that the SCDF used to distract the dogs before the attack.”

A moment later Allan displayed the model number of the port they’d used with its specifications. It was a 12.5 millimeter port designed to resist transport of flammable liquids.

Ell sat staring at the specifications for a while wondering, why would they use a 12.5 millimeter port to drip odorants through? Surely a smaller port would have done the job and been harder for the FBI to find! She had Allan pull up all the data he could find on the attack.

Ten minutes later Ell still sat looking at the available information. The FBI had strictly limited dissemination of specifics regarding the massacre and kidnapping. However, numerous speculators on the net had gone over every bit of information available, analyzing it. From the brief period of weapons fire and the numbers of dead, estimates ranged between fifteen and thirty shooters in the woods. They had apparently lain quietly in port cooled ghillie suits each day, waiting for Stockton to play Shalimoore.

Wait! If it was a commercial ghillie suit and they bought a bunch of the suits at the same time…

“Allan, contact Vivian.”

Ell pondered the grip Fallon had had on those men to convince them to lie there day after day, moving little and eating… Hmm, they were probably getting water at least delivered by port. Maybe they even had ports to deliver ammo?

In her ear Vivian said, “Hey Ell.”

“Hey. Call your friend at the FBI…” Ell stuttered to a stop. “Sorry, I’ll have to give this some more thought. I’ll call you back if I work it out.” Ell had been about to point out that if the company that made the ghillie suits had the cooling ports’ serial numbers and the ports were bigger than ten millimeters, Portal Tech could tell the FBI where the suits themselves were from the GPS locators in the ports. In their effort to prevent port terrorism Portal Tech manufactured all ports ten millimeters and above with GPS location built into them so that they could be turned off if they entered restricted areas around the White House or the Pentagon or other terrorism sensitive sites. But… pointing out to the FBI that this kind of data could be extracted opened up a huge morass of legal and ethical problems regarding invasion of privacy. People were bound to be upset if they found out that Portal Tech could determine where they were. Especially if law enforcement realized they could do it and started subpoenaing the information.

On the other hand, Ell thought, we should do it if it would save the President. But maybe there was another way?

Ell leaned back, thinking and getting back to her ported ammo idea. “Allan, what are the dimensions of the cartridge for the AK-47?”

“Fifty six millimeter length, bullet diameter 7.92 mm, cartridge diameter at the base 11.35 mm.”

Ell felt prickles at the base of her neck. They might have purchased a lot of those 12.5 mm ports to deliver water, food and ammo to their men, then just used one of the ports they had on hand to deliver their odorants. “Allan, do you have the serial number for the port they contacted Vivian about?”

Allan read it to her. He was connected to the Portal Tech database and picked it out of the query she’d made when the FBI contacted her.

“OK, get me GPS data on ten ports with the preceding serial numbers and ten with the following serial number. Map them up on the big wall screen.”

By the time Ell had turned her head to look at the big screen Allan had projected a map of the eastern United States that had four pips in Atlanta Georgia, fifteen scattered in South Carolina and one in North Carolina.

Near Pinehurst.

Ell narrowed her eyes at the map, then said, “Are the four in Atlanta all at the beginning or the end of the list of serial numbers?”

“Yes, they’re the last four.”

“OK, project ten more with serial numbers preceding the ones that are up already. Remove the ones in Atlanta. Fit the map to the pips that we have now.”

Now the map showed three more pips scattered around South Carolina. But it also showed seven more in North Carolina. All at a single location just west of Pinehurst. Ell had Allan zoom the map in on it. It was a house on a golf course at the Foxfire Resort.

Ell had Allan keep adding earlier and earlier serial numbers until pips started showing up in other parts of the United States again. It appeared to Ell that the SCDF had purchased a box of one hundred 12.5 mm ports. Twenty of them were located in that one house at Foxfire. Twenty-four were at a wilderness location in the Sumter National Forest in South Carolina. The rest were scattered around South Carolina. Well, except for the one that was co-located with the FBI’s temporary command post in Pinehurst.

Ports came in pairs. The 100 paired members of the ports she had just looked up were all at the wilderness location in Sumter.

After studying the map a while longer Ell decided that Stockton was most likely under heavy guard at either the Sumter location or the Foxfire location. Presumably, each of the men guarding her still carried a port through which they could be delivered food, water and ammunition.

Should she give the locations to the FBI? If so, how would she explain…?

Even worse, how would the FBI safely extract Stockton from a presumed group of twenty men armed with AK-47s who had absolutely demonstrated their willingness to use them? Oh yeah, and had a bomb bolted around the President’s neck.

Ell sighed and got up. Thinking, this is probably a bad idea, she turned to her workbench where she’d been building curved ports.

***

Stockton gritted her teeth wondering where the hell the FBI was. How can this sorry bunch of rednecks be holding the President of the United States on what appears to be U.S. soil without the FBI and the Secret Service turning them inside out?

With a sigh she turned back to doing what she could to help herself. She’d been talking to her guards pretty much constantly while she was awake. She wanted them to see her as a human being that they’d therefore be less likely to kill. Besides, she was a politician. Perhaps she wasn’t the most gifted speech maker, but still she should be far better than the average person. If she worked at it, perhaps she could sway them.

Well, probably not Dupree Fallon. They called him “Crossbow,” but he was the same Fallon she’d seen in her FBI briefing photos. When that bastard spoke to the other guards they looked mesmerized.

When Stockton spoke to Fallon, his frenetic eyes told her she’d never convince him of anything.

___

Redman came down the stairs. “Brick, you’re relieved.”

Art got up off the couch where he’d been listening to Stockton talk to him almost endlessly. He shook his head, this must be what a filibuster sounds like. To Redman he said, “Thanks, be good to stretch the kinks out.”

Upstairs, Art went in the kitchen and got a snack, taking it out to the big game room where the off duty crew were relaxing. The big house had six bedrooms with two guys each and they had eight cots set up in the large living room. Only he, Crossbow, Redman and Salem spent time with Stockton, the rest of the guys spent their time guarding the house. He turned to one of the other guys sitting there, “Where’s Crossbow?”

“Said he was going to check the guards.”

They had guards by the doors, but probably Crossbow was most worried about the guys watching out the windows upstairs and scrutinizing the net to detect FBI activity that regarded them. When Crossbow “checked on” someone, he mostly talked to them, more motivating them to be on their toes than trying to catch them slacking.

Art hoped that Crossbow would come talk to him. Stockton talking at him endlessly when Crossbow wasn’t in the room made him uneasy. When it came to persuasion she couldn’t hold a candle to Crossbow, but she had raised a few doubts here and there. He’d like it if Crossbow put him back on track.

Chapter Nine

At midnight Ell slipped off the side of the hoverbike and started spooling down to check the Foxfire house. She would have waited until two in the morning, but if Stockton wasn’t here, she wanted to fly to the Sumter site tonight. Using the air jets on her harness she compensated for the breeze that threatened to blow her off course and successfully came down along the side of the big house, gently pushing off with fingers and toes to avoid the windows.

Landing gently in the grass next to some shrubbery, she knelt beside the foundation and pulled out a one way “observer” port as she called it. It had a lens behind it that shot video Allan could play on her HUD through the new contacts. Right now she had the port “fish eyed” so it bulged outward. When she opened the port a fisheye lens popped forward and shot one second of video covering the entire basement room it had opened in. The floor plan for the house she’d downloaded from the net didn’t give very good indications what the different rooms in the basement might be used for so she’d only been able to rule out one of the four which looked to be the utility room. She studied the room revealed on her contacts’ HUD. The dark room appeared to be empty on her IR image. Her port had opened right in the upper corner, right where she’d hoped to have placed it.

Turning a little to her left, Ell opened a port where she thought the next room should be, but couldn’t see anything but sheetrock. Apparently it had opened inside the wall. She moved four inches to the left and opened it again rather than trying to adjust the port’s distance.

The lights were on and Ell could see someone lying in a recliner. Focusing on the face, Ell could see it was Stockton all right. Two men were in the room with her, one sitting on the couch and another at a small table watching a little screen. No one moved in the one second video loop the port’s camera had provided her.

Staying crouched, Ell considered her options. She could still call the FBI and report this location, but couldn’t think of a safe way for the FBI to extract the President without significant risk that the SCDF boys would use the President as a hostage or just kill her.

After a bit she composed a message to the FBI with the location and situation, then put it on hold to be sent at a command, or if she were injured.

Next she inflated her body armor and told Allan to keep her joints covered but free to move. Then she reached back and pulled up her new hood of inflatable graphene armor that covered her entire head. It had cameras on the outside that fed images to the HUD in her new contacts. Allan was completely capable of feeding her a corrected image from those cameras that made it look like her vision was unobstructed. Cameras inside the hood told Allan which direction she was looking and he fed her an image from that direction.

Looking up, Ell tugged the graphene cable to the hoverbike free from where it had caught on the shrubbery and moved a little to her right, where the kitchen was supposed to be according to the floor plans. Moving with the armor inflated felt a little odd as the rigid sections moved and shifted over one another around her joints, however she could almost move completely freely. She’d tried extreme movements such as gymnastics at home and sometimes at really large joint angles the shifting plates pinched her or blocked actions, so if she needed to do something truly athletic she’d need to deflate the ports around her major joints at least.

When she opened a port down low in the kitchen she saw no one. Moving around the side of the house she opened one into the living room. There were eight cots with five figures on them. Plus six bedrooms on the floor plans. If they have two guys per bedroom and one of those 12.5mm ports per guy, it would add up to the twenty ports that are located here, one per SCDF member. Damn! That’s a lot of guys.

___

Cable padded down the stairs in his socks. He was the “roving guard” this watch and had just checked the upper floor. Just as he reached the main level he saw a tiny flash of light from the living room. It was the kind of flash that some electronics made, just to tell you they were OK, but it had come from a spot along the wall where he didn’t see any electronics. Cable unholstered his 9mm and stepped carefully into the living room.

Nothing was going on in there. Five guys asleep, his cot and two others empty just like they were supposed to be. He looked around a little longer, then moved on to check on the game room, family room, dining room and kitchen.

Everything copacetic. He turned to the stairs into the basement. He wasn’t supposed to check on the President herself, just the basement rooms and knock on the door to the room they had her in to get the code word from them.

___

Ell peered down at herself using IR to be sure that the cooling ports in her clothing were keeping her infrared signal to a minimum. She needed to get past the front door, but suspected that they were monitoring its AI’s cameras. She considered going around the house the long way, but there might be cameras at the back door too.

Glancing up she twitched the graphene cable to be sure it hadn’t caught on anything again. Then she had Allan spool her up and used her harness jets to lightly swing across the roof so she could descend on the other side. A quick glance down low through the wall with her observer port showed the big air handlers for the central air conditioning unit that the floor plans had said were in that part of the basement. She was hoping that if anyone heard the whooshing of her digger they would think it came from the air handlers.

She reached into the big pocket on her jacket and her waldo in its mountain hideaway passed her a big singleport tunneler. Turning it on, she began digging down along the foundation, careful to make the hole in the relatively soft dirt wide and shallow enough that it couldn’t collapse in on her. Once she had a large, step sided, bowl shaped depression about six feet deep she took another look through the cinderblock foundation wall, then cut a hole in the blocks about two feet wide and five feet high.

___

Cable checked the last of the rooms in the basement then knocked on the door to the room they had Stockton in. “Cabbage,” he said.

A muffled voice from the other side said, “Root beer.”

Cable nodded to himself and started back up the stairs.

___

Putting away the tunneler, Ell took off her lifting harness, then stepped through the hole in the wall into the big utility room. She crossed to the door, quickly peeked through it with her port to be sure no one was in the hall, then opened it and moved across the hall to the wall adjoining the room they had the President in.

Not wanting the flash of its opening to catch the guards’ attention, Ell reached up high to put an observation port into the room that had the President.

___

Most of the way up the stairs, Cable heard the door gently creak open back down behind him in the basement. He wondered, Do the President’s guards want something? The stationary guards often asked the rover to fetch snacks or drinks which was pretty irritating. He didn’t like being a gofer, feeling that it was beneath his dignity. However, Crossbow encouraged it because he thought it built camaraderie and helped the watch standers stay awake.

Whoever it was didn’t say anything, but he didn’t hear them close the door either. That was definitely against protocol. He turned and padded back down the stairs to give them hell.

The door was shut and no one was there. But I heard it open! Cable leaned down to look farther down the hall than the door.

A woman stood on tiptoes in the hall, holding something against the wall to Stockton’s room! Cable could see the door to the utility room standing open. The woman looked like she had some kind of plastic bag over her head. Cable took all this in as he was scrabbling to pull his 9mm out of its holster.

He swung it up and began pulling the trigger.

___

Focused on the images of the President and her two guards in her HUD, Ell didn’t notice the guard coming down the stairs in his stocking feet. Her first indication was the stinging punch of a 9mm slug flattening itself against the armor over her left thigh. Starting to drop into her zone she lowered herself and turned towards the man as another bullet struck her left lower abdomen. Her left hand rose, seemingly slowly as her pulse thundered then slowed in the zone. Her index finger pointed and a Taser dart appeared in the air in front of her, flying towards the man as his 9mm barked again. This bullet struck her on the chest. Each of the bullets felt somewhat like someone smacked her with a ping pong paddle. The armor stopped the bullets, but did it by spreading their considerable energy out over a wider area.

The man spasmed and fell. Ell’s right hand pointed at him and shot eight milligrams of midazolam into his thigh while horror bloomed in her. Those three gunshots would bring everyone in the house down on her. Even worse, the men in the room with the President might injure her.

Ell told Allan to send the message she’d composed to the FBI as she turned to the wall, pulled the big tunneling singleport out of her jacket and pointed it at the wall.

___

Cable felt proud of his reactions as his 9mm rose and barked its first death message at the intruder in their sanctuary. He saw the impact of it striking her leg, though something about it looked funny. Crossbow was going to be proud when he saw how immediately Cable had reacted. Crossbow had talked to them about reacting immediately.  Not doing stupid things like saying, “Halt!”

The woman started to turn as Cable’s gun fired again. Hey, she’s quick, he thought as she spun. Again Cable saw an impact like something had hit her. Nonetheless, she pointed a finger at him.

Though he was astonished to see that she was still moving after he’d shot her twice, his gun barked one more time.

Then his muscles spasmed.

He started to fall forward. His face was going to smash into the floor! Shit! he thought, as his cheekbone shattered on the tile floor.

As Cable twitched on the floor, his head lay at an angle that let him see the woman, still on her feet, turn to the wall again. She didn’t seem hurt. Did I completely miss at a ten foot range?!

___

Art stood up to walk around and fend off his drowsy nodding. Stockton lay cuffed in her chair, asleep. Redman glanced at Art and then looked back down at his screen.

Suddenly the distinctive bark of one of the SCDF’s Glocks sounded from out in the hall. It fired three times, then it stopped, Seconds later they faintly heard the thud of a body hitting the floor.

Art found his own Glock in his hand. He glanced over and saw Redman, his own 9mm in hand, stepping toward two AK-47s that leaned against the wall by the door.

With a “whoosh” an eight inch diameter circle of the wall disappeared. The hole moved around, enlarging itself. Redman reached the AK-47s, picked one up and tossed it to Art, then Redman suddenly appeared to get stiff and he fell twitching out full length onto the carpet. Art dropped the muzzle of the AK toward the hole and his thumb reached up to pull the safety lever down.

Then something hit Art in the chest and his own muscles locked up. He began to fall off to his right. What the hell just happened here?!

___

Stockton jerked awake at the sound of the gunshots. She blinked repeatedly, trying to clear eyes that were dry and cruddy with sleep. She couldn’t rub them because her hands were cuffed to the arms of the chair. She saw her guards up, moving around, guns in their hands. With a bizarrely quiet whooshing noise a big hole appeared in the wall.

First one, then the other of her two guards fell quivering to the floor as if someone had electrocuted them. She could hear shouts from upstairs as if a lot more men were responding to whatever had happened.

The hole in the wall got bigger and someone wearing a semitransparent bubble helmet climbed through it.

Moving faster than Stockton could believe!

It looked like a girl! She didn’t even have a weapon!

What the hell?!

___

Ell could hear the shouts of the men upstairs. They’d been awakened by the gunshots and were preparing to do something about it, though she couldn’t know what they might do. Reaching into the big pocket of her jacket she pulled out one of the deflated 2.5 meter graphene balloons. She tossed it up onto the stairs so that it landed on the sixth step then told Allan to emergency inflate it.

As the balloon rapidly swelled to fill the stairwell, Ell pulled out the big tunneler and opened a bigger hole in the wall next to her. As she stepped through she pointed her right finger at each of the guards, giving them the big 8mg dose of midazolam to keep them down, though she expected that she might need to Taser them again before the midazolam kicked in.

Turning to the President, she had Allan set the single ended ports in her right index finger to cutting mode and quickly cut through the steel handcuffs on Stockton’s wrists. She leaned down, cutting the ankle cuffs. As the cuffs fell away she gripped Stockton’s wrist preparatory to helping her stand.

In a dismayed tone Stockton said, “Don’t try to get me out of the chair! There’s a bomb underneath it. It’s set to go off if my weight comes off without a code keyed in!” Stockton pointed to a digital keypad, set at an angle where she wouldn’t have been able to see the key being entered.

Ell’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the pad. She also took in the heavy stainless steel collar around the President’s neck. She could hear a lot of shouting from the general direction of the stairwell outside, then a couple of gunshots followed by an agonized sounding scream. She crouched to look under Stockton’s recliner, thinking, Sounds like one of them ricochet shot himself, or a friend, trying to break the graphene balloon, but that balloon isn’t going to hold them forever. Pretty soon they should realize they can go through the sheet rock walls and around the balloon. If nothing else they could get in the same way I did if they think to go outside.

As Ell looked under the chair she saw that indeed there was a block of something, presumably of some kind of explosive, strapped to the underside of the chair. A lot of wiring under the chair extended to what might be sensors. Ell wouldn’t have wanted to trust anyone’s life to such a hodgepodge of sloppy wiring. She wondered how they had ensured that the sensors wouldn’t go off if Stockton simply shifted her weight. Or whether this bomb actually worked? Could it just be a dummy meant to slow down any rescuers?

Ell had been hearing some hard thumping from down the hall toward the stairs. She feared it represented someone trying to kick through the wall just above the graphene balloon in the stairwell. Then feet pounded into the kitchen above Stockton and Ell’s head. A gunshot rang out above them. This one sounded like one of the AK-47s. Worse it sounded like they’d shot it into the floor!

Ell stood, grabbed the back of Stockton’s recliner and dragged her toward the door in the corner of the room that she hoped connected to the next room. Sure enough, moments later the sound of an AK on full automatic opened up in the kitchen above. Right after that, rounds started punching through the ceiling, spraying out around the room, fortunately falling just short of Stockton’s new location.

In the zone, her distended time sense let Ell count each of the twenty two rounds in the thirty round magazine that managed to punch through both the floor and the ceiling to enter the room with them.

Ell tried the door.

It was locked.

She cut through the latch using her right finger’s single ended port.

Before she could pull the President into the next room, she heard an AK begin firing into the floor almost right above the President.

Then the first of two bullets punched through, narrowly missing Stockton’s leg.

By the time those bullets penetrated, Ell had already pointed her right index finger up into that area while giving staccato commands to Allan.

As the rounds started coming through, she had begun waving the finger around—feeling both horror and resolve.

___

In the kitchen above, a four foot long, three millimeter wide line of cutting ports appeared over the floor. The first thing it cut was a longitudinal oblique slice through the proximal barrel of the AK-47 that Ell had been aiming to disable. The next round the AK fired tumbled out of the oblique opening in the now one inch long barrel, departing at an angle displaced by the portion of the barrel that extended along just one side of its path. Then the cutting ports passed through the forearm holding the gun and the finger relaxed off the trigger. Next it cut through the ankle and head of the man.

Then through the body of the man next to him.

Then the thigh of the next man.

The three men fell to the floor, blood pouring from their horrific wounds.

The other four SCDF members in the kitchen took in the ghostly dismembering of the men next to them with wide eyes.

As a man, they turned and bolted, one of them bellowing his fear.

___

Ell pulled out her one way “observer” port. She aimed it in the direction of the stairwell where the SCDF were trying to get past the graphene balloon. Allan adjusted the distance using the dimensions from the floor plan he’d downloaded off the net. She aimed it high in the direction where she thought the stairwell would be and had Allan point the opening downward. When it opened she saw that it was inside a wall. She adjusted the direction slightly and when it next opened, she saw a group of men gathered in the stairwell. They were all around one who appeared to be kicking his way through the wall. A command to Allan had Ell’s waldo back in the hideaway tunnel pouring the “sand” Ell had received from Gary and Viveka through the observer port. At another command the observer lens was put back through the port and Ell could see several men looking up, shading their eyes and apparently cursing as the sand fell on them. Another command inflated the small graphene balloons.

___

Salem poked at the translucent balloon blocking the stairs to the basement while he waited for Pickaxe to finish kicking his way through the drywall of the stairway just above the balloon. It looked like some kind of funny plastic but felt hard as steel. It had resisted knives and, as Pepper had found out, trying to shoot a hole in it had turned out to be a terrible mistake. He wondered if they’d be able to get Pepper to a hospital in time to save his life. Being shot in the gut was supposed to be bad, but Salem had no idea how fast it would kill you.

Suddenly sand started pouring down on them. Squinting upward, it looked to Salem as if the sand was just appearing out of thin air. He assumed that it must actually be coming out of a hole in the ceiling, though he had no idea why there would be sand in the attic. The men around him were bitching, so Salem barked, “It’s just sand! Ignore it!”

A moment later something made the sand granules swell to become something a little bit bigger than BBs. Thousands and thousands of them. At first he didn’t think it was a problem, but then the little balls started getting under people’s feet, making them slip and fall down. It looked like a goddamned slapstick movie! “Don’t move your feet! If you have to move ‘em, slide ‘em so these damn little beads don’t get under them.”

Pickaxe cursed as he slid back on the tiny ball bearings that seemed to be covering everything. Each time he kicked at the wall he skidded away from it. But then several of the guys knelt beside him, bracing him so that he could keep kicking. A minute or so later he said, “I’ve got a pretty big hole. I’m climbing through.” He turned onto his stomach and pushed himself through the opening feet first, grabbing his AK-47 off the floor and pulling it through with him. He turned somewhat sideways to get his chest through between the studs. Breaking free, he dropped to the floor in the room beside the stairwell and turned, moving off to Salem’s right.

Salem turned to the group of men waiting and said, “Go, go, go!”

One by one they dropped to their knees and shuffled backwards through the hole.

___

Down in the room, Pickaxe saw another one of those funny balloons in the doorway to the next room. Someone was standing behind it, but it didn’t look like one of the SCDF!

___

Ell had spared a moment to look through the observer port again in order to judge the effectiveness of the small graphene “ball bearings.” She could see the men slipping, sliding, and falling down. For a while, the one trying to kick his way through the wall couldn’t brace himself well enough.

Ell grinned, but before she could congratulate herself on the effectiveness of her little ball bearings, she suddenly realized she could have achieved the same effect, much more cheaply, by pouring oil or some other lubricant through the port. She did grin then. A wry grin, accompanied by a snort of self-derision at the lengths to which she had gone to make them slip and fall down. Keep it simple, stupid, she said to herself.

Ell turned to look behind herself. Without the sound of the weapons fire above, she suddenly realized that she could hear the thumping of the men kicking through the wall of the stairwell behind her. Looking back she realized with some further embarrassment that the room she’d been about to pull the President into was the one next to the stairwell. As she looked, a large piece of sheetrock burst outward as a boot came through it. More pieces of sheet rock broke open around it as the man enlarged the hole.

Ell pushed Stockton’s recliner back into the room she’d just pulled her out of. She reached in her pocket and dropped another 2.5 meter balloon into the doorway. It rapidly inflated, blocking off the doorway and cracking the doorframe with its pressure. Through it, she could see a man squirm through the hole in the sheetrock, turned sideways to fit between the studs.

The man dropped to the floor and Ell reset her fingers to left Taser and right midazolam. For a moment she regretted the seconds it had taken her to reset because she wondered if she could have blocked the hole in the wall with his Tasered body.

Then Stockton said, “Look out!” and Ell turned.

___

Wide eyed, Stockton had watched the woman in the bubble helmet who’d entered the room. The two men she’d knocked down when she first entered the room lay twitching but still breathing so it looked like the woman must have taken them down with some kind of electrical device like a Taser.

Stockton felt astonished by the way the woman reached out to Stockton’s hands and ankles, moving like a striking snake. Startled to realize that somehow the woman had cut her cuffs off, Stockton had panicked when it looked like the woman was about to try to pull her out of the chair without disabling the bomb underneath it. The woman moved so quickly that Stockton had barely been able to stop her in time.

Stockton had barely registered feet pounding into the room above her head when a gunshot rang out and something slapped into the ceiling.

To her absolute astonishment, the woman immediately towed Stockton’s chair out of the middle of the room. Stockton knew she was heavy and could hardly believe the way this slender woman moved her bulk, somehow both smoothly, yet very rapidly over into the corner. Then a sudden fusillade of gunshots signaled the onslaught of bullets pouring through the ceiling into the area where she’d just been sitting! They were trying to kill her rescuer, but apparently they didn’t care if it killed Stockton as well! Where was this woman’s backup? Was she from the FBI? Why had it taken them so goddamn long?

Then more bullets punched through the ceiling right over her! Only a few, then they stopped with a scream, the woman’s backup must have arrived up there and taken out whoever was shooting at the floor.

Stockton glanced at her rescuer and saw her drop something on the floor. It blew up into a large gray translucent balloon, filling the doorway to the next room. Through the balloon Stockton saw a man crawling backward through the wall. Damn! We can’t get out that way either, Stockton thought. She looked around the room she was in. One of Stockton’s guards was rising drunkenly from the floor and woozily bringing his pistol to bear. Knowing it was far too late, Stockton bellowed, “Look out!”

The gun went off. The bullet must have missed because Stockton heard it spang off across the room after ricocheting off of something hard. The woman pointed her hand faster than Stockton could believe and the man went down again spasming. His fellow guard spasmed too. The woman turned to peer again through the door and pointed her fingers at the men in there. The closer one twitched and fell down, just like Stockton’s guards had. How is she Tasering them, or whatever she’s doing, right through that balloon? And just by pointing her fingers at them?!

The woman crouched down behind Stockton’s chair, out of sight, but Stockton could still see the men dropping out of the hole in the wall in the next room, taking a couple of steps toward them, then spasming and falling.

She realized that, hard as it seemed to believe, it had only been a couple of minutes since the woman stepped through the wall into her little prison.

___

Dupree felt all his months of careful planning falling apart around him. Neither Brick nor Redman were responding to his calls on their AIs. They’d been down there with Stockton when the shooting started and they had those PGR chips in their headsets that weren’t supposed to be able to be blocked, though they only had PGR Comm’s word for that. He didn’t trust big corporations.

At first, when Dupree’d heard the shooting he’d thought someone was trying to come in the front door near the top of the stairs to the basement. When he’d realized that it had come from down in the basement, he worried about a mutiny, but then, trying to go down the stairs, he’d encountered that damnable balloon. He felt certain that none of his men had access to a balloon that could stop bullets.

So, someone had gotten in past the front door guard, despite the man’s protests that it couldn’t have happened. Dupree wasn’t sure what the people down there in the basement thought they could do with the President, but it had seemed likely that reinforcements were on their way so he’d ordered a team to the kitchen to unload a couple of clips through the floor into Stockton’s room.

If they killed whoever was with the President, but not Stockton herself, that would be win-win. If they killed the President, it would still be a win. The only question would be how to figure out who was dead.

Then something mysterious had slaughtered the team in the kitchen!

At first Dupree had thought the kitchen team hysterical, then he’d walked up and looked into the kitchen himself. Seeing the cut up bodies of his dismembered men freaked him out. Those wounds were unearthly!

Now, the team that Dupree had been sending through the wall of the stairwell were failing to respond. He’d lost two MIA in Stockton’s room and Cable who they could see through the balloon in the stairwell, lying in the basement hall. Three dead in the kitchen. Now he’d sent seven more men through the hole in the wall of the stairwell.

None of them were responding.

Thirteen down, seven left. Shit! “Hold up,” he said to the men waiting to climb through the wall into the basement. They all looked up at him, “We’ll just detonate the bomb under Stockton’s chair.” He held his hand out to Salem for the detonator.

___

Ell studied the mess of wiring around the brick sized object under the President’s chair. Every twenty seconds Allan reminded her to look back over her shoulder and Tase the men dropping into the next room. She shot midazolam into them too, then re-Tased any of the ones she’d shot before who looked like they might be getting back on their feet.

She suspected that some of the wiring was supposed to be a decoy. Unfortunately, she didn’t think she had time to sort it out, even in her zone enhanced state which resulted in time flowing slowly past her.

She glanced around the room. Her eyebrows lifted. Keep it simple stupid, she said to herself.

As she climbed out from beneath the chair, she looked into the other room again. No more men were climbing into the room. The next to last was struggling to get back to his feet so Ell re-Tased him. Then she stepped to one of the men who’d been in the room with Stockton guarding her. He’d been shot several times by the fusillade of bullets from the kitchen above, but he still seemed to be breathing.

Picking him up, she stepped to Stockton and spoke slowly so Stockton would understand despite Ell being in the zone, “Scoot over.” Wide eyed Stockton leaned to the side and Ell dumped the guard into the chair with Stockton. She held out her hand to Stockton, “Let’s go.”

Stockton narrowed her eyes, “I think I weigh more than he does.”

“Not much. If they had set close margins, the bomb would have gone off any time you moved.”

Stockton took her hand and apprehensively slid up out of the chair.

Nothing exploded.

Stockton let out a long breath, “What are we going to do about the bomb around my neck?”

Ell narrowed her eyes as she studied it wondering about her plan for it. “Did they talk to you about how it was set to go off?”

“Yeah. If you cut the part around my neck it goes off. Fallon has a PGR detonator for it too, so that son of a bitch can set it off from anywhere he wants.”

Taking a deep breath Ell stepped up to Stockton and rotated the heavy metal device around so that the big stainless steel box on it was behind the President’s head. She reached into her jacket to pull out the large version of her curved port. For a moment she squeezed her eyes shut, while trying to think of another way to remove the bomb safely.

No ideas came so she told Allan to set the frequency on the port to 50,000 Hertz. She had already had Allan set the algorithm so that this port would initially open flat. Then each time it opened, it would reform slightly farther into the hemispherical shape it could create. So, it started as a ten inch diameter flat circle. In 100th of a second it would form 500 times, each re-formation a little bit more hemispherical until the final one would be a complete hemisphere, still ten inches in diameter but now five inches deep. The other end of the port was on Juno. She turned on the port, letting it form its hemisphere with a loud pop, just behind Stockton’s head. Confident that she knew where it would appear, she grabbed the back of Stockton’s head so that the vacuum wouldn’t pull it in to the hemisphere. Then she turned it on again so that the glowing blue half-ball encompassed the explosive box. The port opened its 500 times in 100th of a second, cutting not only the wires, but all the electronics in the box and sucking them and the explosive away in tiny slices. The activation made another loud pop. The back of Stockton’s hair and a portion of her shirt sucked up into the vacuum and disappeared with the bomb, but Stockton still seemed okay.

The U-bolt fell from around Stockton’s neck, dropping down Stockton’s front to the floor. She jerked a foot back with a curse. “How the hell did you do that?” she asked.

Ell didn’t answer, but did breathe a sigh of relief.

Taking a grip on Stockton’s arm Ell towed her through the hole in the wall and across the hall into the utility room.

In Ell’s ear Allan said, “The FBI has been refusing to accept the location data you instructed me to send. I have tried to connect a call from you, but they have rejected that as well.”

“Why?”

“They seem to believe it is a prank call. They point out that Ell Donsaii is a felon. They are threatening prosecution for interfering with an important government operation.”

Ell stepped through the hole in the foundation of the big house, stepping up into the hole she’d dug in the earth outside the wall. “Call the Secret Service; tell them I have the President.”

___

Stockton was squeezing through a hole in the wall of the basement when she heard the woman holding her arm say. “Call the Secret Service; tell them I have the President.”

Thinking that the woman she’d believed to be a rescuer was actually just another terrorist in the midst of stealing her from Fallon and the SCDF, Stockton started to pull back.

Then a huge hand thrust her through the hole in the foundation, knocking her on top of the woman who’d been guiding her out of the house.

Stunned for a moment, Stockton felt confused. Then her ringing ears and the yelling inside told her that what had actually happened was that the bomb under her chair had gone off. The overpressure had popped her out of the basement like a cork out of a champagne bottle.

The woman under her squirmed and Stockton realized with surprise that the woman was covered with something hard. She must be really skinny if she can wear armor without looking huge. Stockton rolled her bulk to the side and the woman wriggled out from under her, then helped Stockton to her feet.

The woman looked around, then helped Stockton climb up out of a huge shallow hole that’d been dug in the dirt next to the house. Once she was up on level ground, Stockton looked around, wondering how she could get away from this woman and her compatriots.

The woman bent over and picked up a strange harness from the ground. She shook it out and knelt, saying, “Here step into this.”

Stockton narrowed her eyes and took a breath to refuse. Then she heard the front door of the house bang open and Dupree Fallon’s distinctive voice speaking urgently.

The woman said, “Quickly, they’ll be coming this direction. Their trucks are parked back here!”

Stockton stepped into the loops the woman held out to her, wondering what the harness could do for her. The woman lifted it up her legs, adjusted the straps with unbelievable speed and then Stockton found herself shooting up into the air, the woman clinging to her back like some kind of monkey.

Holy Christ! What’s holding me up? She looked up and around for some kind of wings or cables or something, but she and the woman seemed to be suspended by the buckle at the back of her harness, and the buckle itself had no visible means of support. Is this some kind of anti-gravity or something?!

Swinging across the darkened countryside hundreds of feet in the cool air Stockton thought, Jesus, I sure as shit should have asked what this harness was going to do! Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire! She leaned back and spoke loudly to be heard over the wind of their passage, “Where are you taking me?” Not that she’ll answer me, Stockton thought to herself.

“Pinehurst. That’s where they’ve set up the command posts for your rescue. The FBI’s refusing to talk to me, but I’m pretty sure the Secret Service has its own command post there. We’re trying to figure out where that is.”

Stockton felt like her brain was getting whiplash. So this is a rescuer after all? “Uh, just who the Hell are you?”

“Oh, sorry Ma’am. I imagine that this bubble distorts my appearance. This is Ell Donsaii.”

Stockton felt prickles form in her scalp and run down her spine. Ell Donsaii? Why would she be rescuing me? If they know where I am, why the hell isn’t the FBI running this rescue?

“Why the hell are you rescuing me?”

“Um, I was afraid no one else could,” Donsaii said.

Like that’s an explanation! Stockton thought indignantly. She would have questioned further, but before she organized her thoughts the ground was rising up to meet them.

Chapter Ten

Will Argant’s AI buzzed at him. He picked the headband up off his nightstand and held the earpiece to his ear, “This is Argant.”

“Sir, we’ve got a call to the command post from someone claiming to be Ell Donsaii. Says she’s got the President and wants to know where to bring her.”

“Does it sound like Donsaii?”

“Yes sir.”

“Put her through to me,” he said, wondering, has Donsaii actually been holding the President this whole time? Has this whole thing been some kind of revenge over Stockton imprisoning her and her people? He shook his head. He couldn’t believe Donsaii would gun all those people on the green down.

Argant had his headset on and was reaching for his pants when Donsaii’s voice came through, “Hello?”

“Hello, Dr. Donsaii. I hear you have the President?”

“Yes sir, currently we’re en route to Pinehurst, where would you like me to bring her?”

“So, you’re not the one who’s been holding her?”

“Uh!” She seemed startled, “No sir! I’ve just brought her out of a house on the Foxfire resort where she’d been held. I assume by the SCDF as they claimed. There were twenty armed men in the house so it seemed like a pretty well organized group of some kind.”

“Why aren’t you talking to the FBI?” Will asked suspiciously.

“Um, they won’t talk to me; I am on their most wanted list after all.”

“OK, bring President Stockton to the Homewood Suites. We’ll be ready for her.”

As soon as he disconnected from Donsaii, Will had his AI contact his entire team. He rushed down to the lobby. He sent his snipers to the roof and to windows next to the parking lot. He ordered their helicopters airborne but hanging back.

In the lobby he had a couple of his men shrug into the jackets of the hotel’s doorman and desk clerk, sending the two hotel men into the kitchen. He positioned himself just inside the door of the main entrance. He wondered how long it would take for Donsaii to drive to the Homewood suites in Pinehurst from the Foxfire resort. He’d heard of a Foxfire, but didn’t really know where it was. He asked his AI and it told him the distance was seven miles and should take eleven minutes at ordinary driving speed. Peering out the window he worried that it was all just some kind of prank. He was about to ask his AI to reconnect him to Donsaii when the big door creaked open on the other side of the lobby. It was the one that led out to the pool.

Will turned to have one of his men hold whoever was entering the lobby from the back.

Then his eyes caught on the distinctive form of the President at the big pool door.

There’s no road back there! How the hell did Stockton get to the back door? He started across the lobby to Stockton. As he ran towards her he called in his men and told his AI to get Marine One on its way to the hotel.

Arriving at Stockton’s side he asked, “Was it really Donsaii that brought you in?” glancing past Stockton to see who was with her and wondering how to get them in custody when he couldn’t even see them.

“Yes,” Stockton said disgustedly, “Why am I being rescued by Donsaii of all people? What the hell’s wrong with you sons-a-bitches?” She looked around the room and frowned even more, “And where are those assholes from the FBI?!”

Will almost grinned to himself, doesn’t sound like this little experience changed her temperament at all. “We weren’t able to find you. Do you know how Donsaii was able to track you down? Is she still outside?” He motioned meaningfully to a couple of his men who’d just run up and they started out the door to look for Donsaii.

Stockton shook her head, “Don’t bother going after her, she’s got some kind of harness that lets her fly. She flew me here in it, with her clinging to my back. Once she dropped me off, she put the harness on herself and zipped back up into the sky.” She looked around at the agents surrounding her, “How in the hell did you guys let those SCDF bastards get me?”

Will stared at her in astonishment, then realization came over him, “You don’t remember what happened?”

“No! I just woke up in the basement of that goddamned house!”

Will lowered his voice, “They probably drugged you when they picked you up and the drugs disrupted your short term memory.” He lowered his voice even further, “A large group of men with automatic weapons killed everyone on the thirteenth hole, except you.”

Suddenly ashen, Stockton said, “Everyone?” She swallowed, “Esmer? Arkon?”

Will nodded slowly, “Everyone.” He found himself blinking back tears again at the memory. Huskily he said, “Sorry Ma’am. Somehow they hid twenty or more people in the woods in ghillie suits.”

Stockton reached shakily for the chair behind her and sat down with a thump. “Have you found the sons-a-bitches yet?”

“No Ma’am. We don’t even know where you were being held. Let me call Donsaii to ask her for that location so I can at least tell the FBI where to look. Marine One is landing outside; let’s get you into her and on your way back to Washington while I’m talking to Donsaii.”

Stockton let them lead her out to the big helicopter, still looking like she was in shock.

Will had his AI reconnect him to Donsaii and she gave him the address of the house.

Then he asked to be put through to the Director of the FBI. He got through to an agent, but the agent refused to wake director Arquette for him, continuing the FBI’s display of disrespect for the Secret Service in general and Will in particular. Will said, “Well, when your director awakens from his beauty rest, tell him that we have the President back. Oh, and if he wants you boys to check out the house the President was being held in, he can call me for the address.” Then, with a feeling of great satisfaction, he cut the connection.

***

Washington D.C.—The White House this morning announced the recovery of President Stockton from her kidnappers. Her doctors have declared her fit and she has re-assumed the Presidency from Vice President Dowd. Stockton described her experience as “harrowing” and has expressed her gratitude to all those who held vigils for her and to the tens of thousands of people who sent in tips to the FBI.

Strangely, virtually no details regarding Stockton’s internment by the SCDF have been made available as yet. Not the location where she was held, not how the FBI found her, not even how she was rescued from the custody of the SCDF without injury. Her rescue seems even more amazing in view of Fallon’s photos of Stockton with a bomb bolted around her neck. A bomb he claimed could not be removed without setting it off. A bomb that he said he could set off from anywhere, thus making it impossible to retrieve her without his permission. So far the FBI has been mum in regards to the methods they used to remove the bomb.

Edith Stockton looked practically incandescent. She paced the oval office, alternately spearing the directors of the Secret Service, the FBI, and their various assistants with her eyes. She had said nothing during the five minutes that had passed since they had shuffled into the room. The tension in the room had built until it was positively crackling and sweat had appeared on many temples. Finally, she grated out, “So, as I understand it, twenty men from the SCDF snuck into the woods by the 13th green. One more hid in the attic of an empty house along the fairway, and several more in pickup trucks in nearby yards. The Secret Service,” she glared at its director while continuing in a tone of near loathing, “failed to detect this small army of men armed with assault weapons converted to automatic fire.” She grimaced, “These men proceeded to kill my friend Howard Esmer, the other members of my foursome, our caddies, and sixteen members of the Secret Service! Then they drugged me, and carted me away.”

Leo Abel, the director of the Secret Service, started to say something, but Stockton held up an imperious finger and waggled it back and forth, staving him off. She continued, “Next, they lost our overflying drones and managed to drive me to the Foxfire resort where they put me in an empty house with twenty members of the SCDF. In fact, all but one of their men escaped the area! Holy shit! Somehow I had been under the misapprehension that my people and I were being protected by the very best.” She paused to let her eyes roam over the people in the room. “Or did we hire a bunch of mall security cops while I wasn’t looking?”

Without waiting for an answer to that question, she glanced at Madison Arquette and Sheila Rhodes of the FBI. She continued, “Now the FBI takes over. As a side note, they don’t listen to Will Argant, because, after all, this went down on his watch. They bumble around, but days pass and they make essentially no progress.”

Stockton sighed, “As if the SCDF hadn’t already made you look enough like the Three Stooges, while you’re being made into the laughingstock, Ell Donsaii, who I’ll remind you is at number one on the FBI’s most wanted list, swoops in to rescue me. I’m just waiting on tenterhooks for her to announce a press conference in which she will describe how she rescues me all by herself when thousands of you idiots were still trying to find your own asses. Talk about an embarrassment!”

Several hands had gone up, but Stockton shook her hand disgustedly. “No, no don’t make excuses right now. I think they’d make me want to puke. What I want, is for you to go back to your offices, and each of you draft me two letters. One should be a letter of resignation, the other can offer whatever pathetic reasons you come up with for why you don’t think you should be fired.” She shook her head wearily, “I’ve got to call that little bitch Donsaii and humiliate myself by begging her not to embarrass us even further.”

While the people in her office got up and began to shuffle out, Stockton sat down at the Resolute desk and buried her head wearily in her hands. To herself, she muttered, “So I’ve nearly fired members of my administration for calling Donsaii while she’s on the most wanted list,” she paused, “ now I’m gonna do it myself.” For a moment Stockton considered just having her AI put through the call, but then turned and asked her secretary to put it through for her. Somehow it didn’t feel quite so unclean having the call come from her office rather than herself.

All too soon Deborah said, “I’ve got her on the line…”

Stockton sighed, “Put her on,” she said, “Ms. Donsaii, I’m calling to thank you for rescuing me from those sons of bitches in the SCDF.” She paused, “I’m assuming you want some kind of quid pro quo. What did you have in mind?” She steeled herself for some outrageous demands. At the very least she expected that Donsaii would want to be off the most wanted list. At worst… only God could guess.

Donsaii sounded startled, “Oh, no ma’am. No quid pro quo. I’m just glad you’re OK. Has the FBI caught those guys?”

Stockton squeezed her eyes shut in loathing. It’s worse than I thought! She wants to make me sweat before she drops the other shoe. Grimly, she said, “Well, the three you killed, however you did that, those bastards didn’t get away. Neither did the one who appears to have shot himself with some kind of ricochet. Nor the ten you drugged,” she raised an eyebrow Donsaii couldn’t see, “however the hell you did that. The remaining six fled the house in several vehicles, two of which the FBI apprehended, catching four more.” Sounding disgusted, Stockton said, “Of course, that SOB Fallon is one of the two the FBI didn’t catch. They claim it’s only a matter of time, but I swear those boys have to have a lot of luck to find their own peckers.”

“Killed?”

“The ones in the kitchen.”

“Oh,” Donsaii said quietly, sounding regretful.

“Don’t sound like you’re sorry for them! The assholes were shooting at us!”

“I know,” Donsaii said, still sounding depressed. “What about the other shooters from the golf course?” Donsaii asked, a harder tone back in her voice.

“Only a matter of time,” Stockton repeated in a singsong voice, as if imitating somebody she had no respect for.

“If they need help, I could give them some addresses.”

Stockton narrowed her eyes, then, truly irritated to be asking, grated out, “How are you doing these things?”

“Um, which things are you interested in Ma’am?”

“How did you slice up the bastards in the kitchen for one? They found Taser darts in a lot of those guys. You didn’t have a Taser. How the hell did you shoot ‘em? They were drugged up with some kind of short acting tranquilizer. How did you do that? Once again, you blocked doorways with some kind of balloon or force field. I would have said balloon, but the FBI claims they can’t find any remnants of balloons. Do you have a force field you haven’t told us about? How the hell do you fly?”

“Oh,” Donsaii said regretfully, “I’m afraid I don’t want to answer those questions.”

“Shit,” Stockton said resignedly. “And what do you want? Let me guess, you’re planning a press conference to embarrass the FBI with how you rescued me when they couldn’t.”

“Oh, no Ma’am, I would never do that.”

Stockton sighed, “Why did you rescue me then?”

Quietly, sounding resigned to the difficulty of explaining a, to her simple, concept, Donsaii said, “You’re my president. You were in trouble. The FBI was having difficulty finding you… but I could.” She paused again, then continued, “In addition you had a bomb around your neck that I didn’t think anyone else could remove safely. Since I believed that I was the only one who could do it, I felt I had a moral obligation to do so.”

“Oh yeah, how in all the hells did you get that bomb off me? The FBI says removing that bomb without killing me should have been impossible! In addition, I’m missing some hair and part of the collar of my shirt. The FBI says they don’t know what happened to that either.”

Sorry, those are more questions I don’t want to answer.”

Stockton let out a long suffering sigh, “Well, I suppose I owe you my life. When you’re ready to call in whatever favor you’re angling for, let me know. If it’s not too outrageous, I’ll come through.” She cut the connection in irritation.

Stockton sat staring out the window for a minute, then said, “Deborah, tell those stupid…” after a pause to grit her teeth she continued, “Sorry, tell the FBI that if they’ll call Donsaii, she can give them addresses for some of the SCDF,” she turned and looked back down at her desk, “somehow…” she muttered quietly enough that Deborah wouldn’t hear it.

***

Phil smiled as the server set down his plate with a sirloin and French fries. Carol already had her salmon. He felt a little nervous because Carol didn’t often suggest they splurge on a nice restaurant, just the two of them. He’d learned that when she did, she often had something serious she wanted to talk about. The last time it had been about buying a house. He hadn’t been sure that a house would be a good idea when they were both hoping to get assigned to a long mission, but she’d already mustered all of her arguments and he’d had no preparation.

She’d gotten her way.

This time when he looked up from his steak, he found her staring at him over the rim of her wine glass. With a certain sense of resignation, he said, “Yes?”

She carefully set the glass down and said, “I got an interesting bit of news today.”

Phil thought to himself, that doesn’t sound like trouble, and picked up his fork and steak knife. “What was that?”

“It seems that a certain astronaut couple is close enough to the top of the list for the Mars mission that they are almost certain to go.”

Phil’s eyes widened as excitement flooded over him, “Us?”

Carol nodded, but not with the broad smile that he had expected.

Phil said, “But that’s great,” he paused, then asked querulously, “isn’t it?”

She nodded again, slowly, consideringly. “Yes, yes it is,” she said slowly, “except, I’m not quite sure how we got to the top of the list? There were quite a few other couples, who, by the way the rules were written, should have come out ahead of us.”

“Uh, maybe they dropped out?” he said, then winced when he realized she would have already checked that.

“Nope.” She said, definitively, indicating she knew for sure as he should’ve expected.

“Maybe something else went in our favor?”

“Yeaaah,” she said drawing the word out, “When I talked to Maggie, she said, ‘Maybe Phil talked to Ell Donsaii?’”

Phil grimaced, “Well, I did send her a little message about how much we wanted to get on this mission. You know she was a classmate of mine at the academy?”

Carol pointed her fork at him, “I find it hard to believe that she’d throw over the whole selection process for a,” she made little quote marks in the air with her fingers, “classmate.”

Phil shrugged, “Her company’s funding the entire thing. She wouldn’t have to throw anything over, she’d only have to say a word or two to make it happen.”

Carol leaned forward, staring intently into Phil’s eyes, “Phil Zabrisk, I think she was more than just a classmate. Are you telling me that that was all she was?”

Phil swallowed. He’d sworn he wouldn’t lie to Carol. He realized that he’d been skating pretty close to the edge of it already. “Yeah, we were very good friends,” he said hoarsely. “The best. She was my only real love before you.” He frowned, “I’ve been afraid to say anything about it to you. I don’t know why, you’re the one I love now. But she’s still my friend. I suspect… I suspect she’d do a lot more than fiddle the Mars mission priorities for me if I asked. I probably shouldn’t have asked, but we’ve wanted to go so badly.”

Carol studied him a minute longer, then said in a serious tone, “You’re telling me that I married one of Ell Donsaii’s castoffs?”

With a sinking feeling, Phil sheepishly said, “Yeah.”

Carol leaned forward, still intently looking Phil in the eye, then picked up her wine glass and held it up. “Well,” she grinned, “Donsaii screwed up.” She winked, “I got the best of that deal!” She nodded at him, “Thanks for getting us on the mission.”

Phil absently clinked his beer glass against her wineglass, then said incredulously, “You were layin’ for me!”

“Yeah,” her eyes twinkled, “and we’re both glad you didn’t lie to me. Actually,” she grinned, “I’m pretty proud to have married the guy even Ell Donsaii couldn’t land. I’ll be bragging about that to all my friends.”

Phil studied her for a moment, then decided that Ell had never actually “dumped” him, so it wouldn’t be lying to let Carol keep thinking that Ell just couldn’t keep him. Mentally he shrugged, he wasn’t sure Carol actually believed what she’d just said anyway. “Carol,” he said with intense feeling, “I had a few dates with her, and I’d be lying if I tried to say that she isn’t amazing. But, I love you. Now, and forever more. That’s what really matters,” he grinned, “Well, that and going to Mars!” he held up his beer glass for another toast…

***

Viveka eeled joyfully down the long tube that joined the various habitat modules. ET Resources had been undertaking a program to rearrange the modules somewhat. The initial setup had had the large weightless modules arranged longitudinally in a chain. They had had hubs between them which the living modules spun around.

As the chain of modules grew longer it became more inconvenient to have the large weightless modules actually be a part of the chain. First of all, some of the module owners didn’t want traffic passing through their modules from one part of the chain to the other. Second, the modules were long from one end to the other making the chain much longer. So, ET Resources had begun putting the large weightless modules on hubs as well. This let them shorten the chain at each of these sites by the difference between the length and the width of the modules. It also let them put several weightless modules at one location on the hub.

Of course, moving the living modules transversely to get them closer together at the new hubs could have been quite a hassle. They were constantly swinging around the hubs to produce the centrifugal forces that simulated gravity in the living areas. However they all had multiple ported jets scattered about their surfaces anyway. The jets were used to spin them up to speed and to correct for any deflections caused by meteoroid impacts. Those same jets could even be used in the event that a living module broke free from its hub and shot away. The jets could slow it down and eventually return it to the orbit of the rest of the habitats. Of course, using the jets to move the modules while they were spinning rapidly around the hubs was a very complex problem. However, that was just the kind of problem that AIs excelled at.

Allosci’s old weightless module, the one they had been spinning graphene in, had recently been moved to a hub. Allosci had paid a fee to retain the other five spots on the hexagonal hub for themselves and just had their second weightless module installed directly across the hub from their old one. Viveka was up at the habitat supervising installation of a set of her VLGCs in the module.

It had been a long day, but the installations so far had gone extremely well. They had emptied the 747 space plane of its VLGCs fairly quickly and sent it over to someone else’s manufacturing module to pick up a load of microgravity products too large to easily send back down to earth through a port. Allosci’s graphene cables, of course, were simply spooled back down to earth through a port, but the large objects being built in the VLGCs would need to be shipped back down in 747s as well.

So far, Viveka and her crew had only temporarily tied down the VLGCs. Tomorrow they would more securely fasten them into place. Surprisingly, once the VLGCs were secured Viveka and her team would essentially be done. Even though she had designed them, it still boggled her mind to some extent that the VLGCs didn’t have to be “hooked up” or anything. Ports installed back down on earth brought in the electrical connections and delivered whichever carbon containing gases—usually methane—filled the chamber and served as a source for the deposition of graphend.

In fact, even as Viveka headed out for dinner and a well-deserved rest, one of the VLGCs had started a test run depositing graphend on a series of gossamer forms to create rotor blades for lifting craft. Assuming the blades went well, the rest of the VLGCs could start turning out product as soon as they had been securely fastened into place tomorrow.

As she’d been doing at the end of each workday, Viveka turned right at one of the new large hubs and started down a long tube that took off from that hub. As opposed to most of the tubes that extended a long distance from the main habitat throughway, tubes which spun to provide gravity to living modules, this one did not spin, so she remained weightless. Three hundred meters out on the end of this single stationary tube, ET Resources had placed a large transparent bubble. As she approached, Viveka slowed herself with some gentle squeezes on the cord she was traveling along. She arrived in the bubble proper moving very slowly, then grabbed the joystick at her waist and used it to gently nudge herself out into the bubble. As usual a few other people hung silently in the bubble staring out at the vistas of space.

Viveka quietly asked her AI to feed Beethoven’s ninth symphony to her ears as she drifted gently in the bubble. A slight residual rotation caused the myriad stars to slowly pan across her field of view. She resisted the temptation to let her eyes drift too quickly to the right to drink in the stunning sight of the earth. Instead she allowed its blue and white majesty to cut gradually across her view like an oblique horizon. They were over the day-night terminator so half the globe was dark, but a storm on the dark side was flashing its clouds brilliant white with lightning bolts. She let her gaze drift up toward the pole where the aurora borealis was visible as a filmy green curtain.

The bliss Viveka felt whenever she hung weightless in this transparent bubble and gazed out on the magnificence of space never failed to prickle her skin with wonderment.

After she’d been hanging there for about five minutes, she started at a touch on her ankle. Looking down she felt a smile build on her face, “Gary!” she said dreamily.

Tugging gently at her ankle, he pulled himself so that his head was at about the level of her waist, but remained with his head tilted up to look at her. “I know that the tradition is different in your country, but in mine the custom is for the man to kneel before his lady and offer her a ring in hopes that she will agree to marry him.” He shrugged, “I can’t kneel here in this weightlessness,” he said, producing a ring, “but I hope that you’ll agree to marry me nonetheless?”

Viveka reached down and tugged on the front of his jumpsuit, pulling him up to her. Throwing her arms around him, and hugging him tightly, she whispered in his ear, “Of course, there’s nothing I want more in all the worl…” her eyes darted back and forth at the tear blurred stars she saw over his shoulder, and she changed the last word, “universe.”

***

President Stockton looked at Madison Arquette and Sheila Rhodes of the FBI. “So, the addresses Donsaii gave you worked out?”

Arquette and Rhodes looked at each other a moment, then Rhodes said, “Yes Ma’am. As you know, Fallon proved to be at one of the addresses. We’ve found men fitting the profile at the other addresses as well. We have accumulated enough evidence to convict some and at least circumstantial evidence on the others. She was very helpful.”

“And have you figured out how she knew where they were?”

“No Ma’am.”

Exasperatedly, “Have you figured out how she did any of the other impossible things she did?”

“No Ma’am. Well, our theory for one of them is still that she blocked the doors with graphene balloons. After all Allosci, the makers of graphene, is a part of D5R. However, we’re not sure how she would have removed the graphene balloons from the scene like she appears to have done. There doesn’t seem to be any remnant of graphene in the areas she blocked. Well, actually, just above the stair that she blocked with a balloon we found thousands of tiny objects about the size of grains of sand that are at least partly made of graphene. Analysis also suggests they may have had tiny ports in them. They seem to be partly melted as if someone ran too much current through them.” She shrugged, “How these tiny granules could have formed a large balloon is not clear at all. Besides, we didn’t find any of the tiny fragments near the downstairs doorway you said was blocked.”

“Have you figured out what her angle is for doing this? I mean, she risked her life! Can you figure out what her upside is?”

Arquette flipped up his fingers in a prissy discarding motion, “We don’t know what it is yet. But I’ll bet we find out soon.”

Stockton saw Rhodes frown. “You disagree, Sheila?”

“Yes Ma’am, I do. I think she did it because she’s a citizen, you’re her president, and she recognized that she was the only one in the world who could get you out of there alive.”

Stockton drew back in surprise, “Come on, I thought you had some plan?”

“Ma’am, we couldn’t even find you. We would have eventually, no doubt. But we weren’t making much progress. And, I have to tell you, our bomb experts didn’t think there was any way we’d get that thing off your neck without days to work on it. They told us that unless we captured Fallon with his PGR trigger intact so that we would at least have many hours to slowly cut our way in and bypass the wiring, that there would be no way we’d get it off of you without it blowing.”

“How in the hell,” Stockton said exasperatedly, “did Donsaii get it off in a matter of seconds then?”

“We don’t know.” Rhodes sighed, “We assume she must have used one of her new technologies, but it doesn’t seem to be one she wants to share with us.”

“Christ,” Stockton said mostly to herself, “what are we gonna do?”

“If I might make a suggestion?” Rhodes asked.

Stockton nodded wearily.

“Welcome her back in from the cold. Take her off the most wanted list. The only thing she’s done wrong is to refuse to share technologies that are so dangerous that I, personally, feel very glad she hasn’t turned them loose. She’s probably done more good than any other person in history. She doesn’t deserve what’s been done to her.”

Stockton felt anger pouring into her. That had, after all, been a direct slam on Stockton’s own policies. She took a deep breath and pointed a finger at Rhodes, preparatory to letting her have it with both barrels.

Then she closed her eyes, let out the breath, and said with a despondent sigh, “Maybe you’re right…”

Epilogue

Gloria Sanchez felt unclean. She’d spent the day helping Rubin Carivel establish a new identity. He’d been accepted into witness protection after agreeing to provide information and eventually testimony that would lead to the capture and conviction of several of the big drug lords from Mexico. Gloria felt no doubt that the drug lords needed to be taken down. They were horrible people running a reign of terror.

But Carivel himself was a disgusting specimen of humanity. Though there wasn’t proof, there was a great deal of suspicion that he’d arranged murders and participated in rapes. It was a shame that the “greater good” had to be so tainted with slimy evil.

As Gloria thought back on her years in the Marshals’ Office she was struck by how few people she’d helped disguise who weren’t despicable themselves. A few families threatened because of who they knew, and Ell Donsaii, threatened because of what she knew.

She pulled up in front of her house and walked up the sidewalk. Sitting a little ways in front of her door was a clear glass vase with a single white rose in it. Little gold beads filled the bottom of the base which seemed odd. Gloria narrowed her eyes in suspicion, have I pissed anybody off sufficiently for them to leave me a bomb? Could that be a bunch of BBs packed around an explosive?

She leaned down and sniffed, it’s a real rose all right, she thought to herself. She saw a card taped to the side of the vase. Reaching into her utility belt she pulled out a little multi tool and carefully used it to cut the card off the vase. Holding up to the light and feeling it, it didn’t seem like the card could have anything dangerous in it.

She pulled open the card and read, “They took me off the ‘most wanted list’ today. Thank you for your discretion until now. Raquel.”

A warm feeling washed over Gloria.

Ell, one of the good ones.

One of the very few who’d ever taken the trouble to say thank you. She reached down to pick up the vase…

Startled she looked at the vase. It was glued to her front stoop! That just didn’t seem like the kind of silly joke you’d expect from Ell. Could it be anyone else? Gloria didn’t remember anyone but Ell using the “Raquel” pseudonym.

Gloria squatted down and looked at the vase. It seemed to be clear glass and she didn’t see any evidence of glue holding it down. She grabbed it and tugged a little harder. It wasn’t glued. It was just really heavy!

Heart thumping, Gloria carried it into the house. Her daughter ran in from the other room, “Mommy!” The five year old girl’s eyes focused on the flower, “A rose!” Nodding, Gloria headed into the kitchen where she got out her colander and, plucking out the rose, poured the water and the heavy beads into the colander.

Gloria’s husband, Felipe, stepped into the kitchen behind her. He frowned, “Somebody sent you a rose?”

Gloria nodded, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out her little digital kitchen scale. She set a bowl on it.

Felipe said suspiciously, “You goin’ on a new diet?”

Gloria grinned at him, “It does look suspicious doesn’t it? Getting a flower and then getting out the diet scale?” She pressed the tare button on the scale and picked up the colander. Pouring the beads into the bowl on the scale, she said, “I’m just wondering how much these beads weigh.”

Felipe’s brow furrowed as he watched the little beads pour into the bowl. They sounded heavy. “Why do you care about the beads?”

The little scale read 3.05 kg. Gloria thought, I’ll bet it weighs exactly three kilograms once the water evaporates. She glanced up at her husband and winked, “‘Cause I’m pretty sure they’re gold,” she whispered.

Felipe’s eyebrows rose, “Gold?” He reached out and picked up a couple of beads, surprised at their weight. “How much is three kilograms of gold worth?”

Gloria spoke to her AI a moment, glanced up at her HUD, then smiled broadly. “About $190,000.”

“Holy crap!” Felipe’s eyes narrowed, “Is it dirty money?”

“No,” Gloria said dreamily, “I think it’s about as clean as money can get.”

***

Ell picked up Zage and started down the stairs of their old farmhouse. As expected, Tanner got up and started along in her wake, his toenails clicking on the wooden floor. Just as she reached the ground floor she hissed as she felt a sudden pain in her right index finger.

Holding it up, she saw that she had picked up a splinter from the old banister she’d been sliding her hand along. Need to have those replaced, she thought to herself as she turned towards the bathroom.

She sat Zage on the floor in the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet to look for tweezers. Zage promptly got up and started playing in the drawers. Ell glanced curiously at him. Usually he stayed where he’d been placed until he got bored, then he went to find Tanner, or one of his videos.

Turning back to the cabinet she found the tweezers. She flipped on the light, looked carefully at her finger, and plucked out the splinter without a great deal of difficulty. She still felt irritated about the banister though.

She turned back to Zage and found him holding a Band-Aid out to her. Not only that, but he’d put away the box he’d gotten the Band-Aid out of and closed the drawer. She smiled broadly, immensely proud of her son for trying to help her, and for recognizing that she might need a Band-Aid like he’d had put on his own injuries in the past. Reaching down to take it she said in a singsong, talking to baby, voice, “Did the Z-man get his Mommy a Band-Aid?”

Zage held the Band-Aid just out of reach. Looking at her with concern he distinctly said, “You should wash your finger first.”

Ell’s heart practically stopped and she felt herself starting to drop into the zone. Suddenly weak, she took a deep breath and sat with a thump on the floor next to Zage. “Zage! You can talk?”

Zage’s brows drew together, giving him an expression that made Ell think he thought it was a stupid question. He nodded but said nothing.

“Why don’t you then?”

Zage only shrugged.

For a moment Ell felt frustrated, but then in a sudden burst of exuberance, she picked Zage up. Swinging him around in a joyous dance, she made her way into the kitchen.

Shan was setting out cereal, bowls, milk, and a banana. He frowned, “Why is Zage carrying a Band-Aid? Did he get hurt?” Then he looked up and saw the beatific expression on Ell’s face. “Why are you so happy?”

The End

Hope you liked the book!

If so, please give it a positive review on Amazon.

Try the next in the series, to be published someday soon.

Author’s Afterword

This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I have always been partial to science fiction that posed a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically plausible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Essentially you ask, “what if” something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world? Each of the Ell Donsaii stories asks at least one such question.

“Rescue” asks what might happen if a charismatic terrorist assembled a large group and took on the government? Real charisma can wield surprising power for either good or evil in its own right, but what if such a person took advantage of some of the apparently simple things ports could let you do?

How might we use the huge amount of heat energy that could transit a port from a near solar parabolic mirror to revolutionize subterranean engineering? There was actually a moderate amount of work done in the 60s on the possibility of using nuclear power to heat subterrene tunnelers. The idea was that they could then be used to melt their way through soil and rock, with the melted material fusing to form a kind of glassy ceramic wall for the tunnel. This would be much simpler, of course, than digging a tunnel, moving all that dirt, and then bringing in concrete to coat the wall. Though in the story, melting tunneling is proposed for Mars, it should be obvious that subterranean real estate could be opened up here on earth using the same technology.

If we really had ports, their potential applications in the medical realm would be almost endless.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Nora Dahners, Allen Dietz, Kat Lind, Kerry McIntyre, and Abiola Streete each of whom significantly improved this story.