Lethal Velocity

  Proust talked of visiting his aunt, making her lime-blossom tea. Water Buffalo had visited his own grandmother, once or twice. Then he’d stopped visiting for good. He wondered what lime-blossom tea tasted like.

  When he’d first started reading the book, it hadn’t made any sense to him. From what he could make out, it was just some Frenchman blabbing about his childhood. Who gave a shit how long it took the guy to fall asleep? But then Water Buffalo had found himself on an op—a very long and tedious op—near the Mexican border. He’d given the book another chance. Bit by bit, memory by memory, Proust’s life began to take on shape and structure. And then he thought he understood. Maybe the priest was right: books really were doorways to other worlds.

  The worker had stopped descending the dome and was making his way along another lower horizontal catwalk, only thirty-odd feet now above the surface of the escarpment. Water Buffalo settled himself carefully in the gully, spreading his legs wide, digging his toes into the stony soil. He placed the rifle’s bipod against a small ledge of rock at the gully’s edge, made sure it was firm. One hand slid forward to grip the rifle’s forearm, while the other snicked off the safety and settled around the trigger guard. He took a breath, then another.

  The worker unclipped his tether, moved around the metal skin of the vertex to the next window. Water Buffalo timed his shot between heartbeats, pulling the trigger just as the man was reaching forward to reclip the tether to the catwalk.

  The man jerked his head upward as if someone had called his name. Through the scope, Water Buffalo watched the red plume blossom against the white cloth. Automatically, he ran the bolt, still sighted in, ready for a second shot. But it was unnecessary: the slug had mushroomed inside the body as intended, taking out most of the vital plumbing. The man was already sliding, headfirst, down the dark face of the dome.

  Water Buffalo followed him with the scope, watching as the man came to rest in a shallow gully at the dome’s base. He was almost invisible there, one hand cradling a rock as if he’d stretched out for a catnap. Water Buffalo watched for a minute, then two. At last, he let the scope fall away from his eye. There had been nothing to see against the dark roof of Callisto, nothing to raise any alarm. It had all gone exactly to plan. And now, he was alone.

  He slid the rifle back into the duffel, took a long swig of water from the canteen. Then he pulled out a government-model .45, which went into a shoulder holster. The radio came next, followed by a loaded backpack. Last to emerge were two camouflaged utility belts, their oversize pockets bulging. Crouching in the gully, Water Buffalo snapped these around his waist. Then he turned back to the duffel. He hesitated a moment, hand on the zipper, looking down, a little regretfully, at the paperback.

  Then he tugged the zipper closed, rose cautiously from the gully, and began making his way through the rocks toward the dome.

  SARAH BOATWRIGHT SAT behind her desk, microcassette recorder cradled in one hand. Fred Barksdale stood close beside her. They were silent, listening to the calm, pleasant voice of John Doe.

  “Pay attention now, Sarah,” John Doe was saying. “At precisely 2:15, you are to notify Dispatch at the Galactic Voyage attraction to send five empty cars through the ride. You will place the package in the middle car. When the cars reach the Crab Nebula turn, the operator is to stop the ride for ninety seconds. Ninety seconds. Then he can proceed. In every other way, business should continue as usual. Once I’ve verified the contents of the package, you will hear from me again. If all goes according to plan, that’s the last time you and I will speak.”

  There was a brief silence in which Sarah heard the whispered rattle of the tape.

  “Sarah, do you understand everything I’ve just said? It is very important that you understand everything I’ve just said.”

  “I understand.”

  “Please repeat what I told you.”

  “At 2:15, send five empty cars through Galactic Voyage. Leave the disc in the middle car. When the cars reach Crab Nebula, halt the ride for ninety seconds.”

  “Very good. And—Sarah—I don’t need to remind you there are to be no tricks. This isn’t the time for cleverness. All the source code, the latest iteration. And no heroics. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Sarah. Now, you might want to get started. You have a busy half hour ahead of you.”

  Sarah snapped off the recorder and turned to place it beside her teacup. As she did so, the faint scent of Barksdale’s cologne reached her nostrils. As always, it reminded her, somehow, of tweed and hunting horses. She turned toward him. He was staring at the recorder, a strange, faraway expression on his face.

  “Are things set on your end?” she asked.

  At the sound of her voice, Barksdale recollected himself. He nodded. “Once all three of our digital keys are entered, the security protocols will be satisfied. We’ll be able to download a single decrypted copy of the core routines onto a glass master. Then I’ll transfer over the low-security files. I assume you want the disc rendered uncopyable?”

  “Of course.”

  “Right, then. Burning the intentional read errors takes a little time, but still we’re talking about ten minutes, I’d say.”

  “What about the other question?”

  “I’m sorry? Oh, yes.” His blue eyes grew more troubled. “Clearly, whoever’s behind this has an intimate knowledge of our systems. And they have the access necessary to move around at will.”

  “How many people on your staff are capable of that?”

  Barksdale reached into the jacket of his suit and withdrew a folded piece of paper. As always, his movements had a habitual, graceful economy. “To hack the Metanet, override intrusion alerts, reprogram passcards, access the Crucible’s security protocols—eight people. Nine, including myself. Here’s a list.”

  Sarah glanced quickly over the names. “And how many are in the Park today?”

  “Six. I’ve located all of them except Tom Tibbald. Nobody’s seen him since this morning.”

  “Get a copy to Bob Allocco, please. Ask him to put an alert out on Tibbald, but quietly. And we should check the security logs. But first, you’d better burn that disc. Emory’s standing by in New York. Call when you’re ready for our digital keys.”

  Barksdale nodded, brushed her cheek with the palm of his hand. The troubled look had not left his face.

  “What is it, Fred?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing, really.” He hesitated. “I was going to ask if you had the bot from Griffin Tower sent down to Andrew Warne.”

  “Bob Allocco was going to see to it. Why?”

  “It’s nothing, really.” He stroked an eyebrow. “But putting that list together made me think. Shouldn’t it wait?”

  “What?”

  “Involving Warne. This doesn’t seem at all the time. He has his own agenda here, and it’s not the same as ours. Remember Shakespeare’s words: ‘love all, trust a few.’ Not the other way around.”

  “You’re not suggesting he could somehow be involved in this? The Metanet’s his baby. You saw his face in this morning’s meeting.” She looked at him sidelong. Then—despite everything—she broke into a smile. “You know what, Frederic K. Barksdale, Esquire? I think you’re just a wee bit jealous. The ex-boyfriend, and all that.” She drew closer. “Am I right? Are you jealous?”

  He returned her gaze. “No. Not yet, anyway.”

  She took his hand, caressed it. “You’ve got a funny sense of timing.”

  Barksdale looked away a moment. “Perhaps I was wondering,” he said. “His coming back like this. If I wasn’t around—in the picture, I mean—do you think the two of you might—”

  Her fingertips froze in mid-caress. “How can you even ask that? I’ve got you now. I don’t want anybody else.” She took hold of his other hand, drew him toward her. And still the troubled look did not completely leave his face.

  The door to the office opened and Andrew Warne stepped in.

  To Sarah he seem
ed like a specter, summoned abruptly by their conversation. His eyes went from her, to Barksdale, to their joined hands. For a moment, a look of pain lanced across his face. Almost as quickly, it was gone.

  “Didn’t mean to crash the party,” he said from the open doorway.

  “No party,” Sarah said, casually dropping Barksdale’s hands and stepping back. “Fred was just leaving. Fred, I’ll see you at the Galactic Voyage pre-show, ten minutes after two. Precisely ten minutes after, okay?”

  Barksdale nodded again, then moved toward the door. Sarah watched the two men exchange passing glances.

  Abruptly, Wingnut rolled into the office behind Warne, forcing Barksdale to half leap, half sprawl into the corridor to get out of its way. Behind the robot came Teresa Bonifacio, short black hair swinging across her face. Normally, that face wore a private little smile, as if contemplating a practical joke. Right now, the smile was absent.

  “Sorry about that,” Warne said, approaching Sarah. “Interrupting an intimate moment, I mean.”

  “It wasn’t all that intimate,” she replied, moving back behind her desk.

  “And such a nice man, too,” Warne said. “I’m so happy for you both.”

  Sarah looked at him curiously. There was the same speculative arch to the eyebrows she’d always known. At Carnegie-Mellon, he’d stood out like a wasp among moths: the brilliant bad boy of robotics, with his controversial theories and remarkable creations.

  But she had seen a different Warne in the meeting this morning: a man besieged, under fire. And this bleak sarcasm was something newer still.

  “I don’t have time for this right now, Drew,” she said.

  Terri looked back and forth between them. “I think I’ll go grab a cup of coffee in the staff lounge,” she said.

  “No. Stay put. You of all people deserve to hear this.” Warne pulled up a chair, collapsed into it with a laugh. He glanced back at Sarah. “You don’t have time for this right now? My God.”

  The bitter words echoed in the chill air.

  “Okay,” Sarah said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “You lure me out here with a phony story. Then you sit me down in a conference room, give me a dog and pony show about how the Metanet’s misbehaving. You even guilt me about it, make me feel responsible for that boy on Notting Hill Chase. You ask me to pull the plug.”

  She watched him lean toward the desk.

  “All that shit. And you didn’t even have the decency to tell me what was really going on. Instead of scaling up robotics development, you were cutting it to the bone. Compromising the program, knocking Terri’s legs out from under her.”

  “I didn’t tell him to say that,” Terri said.

  Sarah’s eyes rested on her a moment, then returned to Warne.

  “I’m not happy with the way you were brought here, Andrew. That was the decision of the home office. As for the robotics, it’s a shame, but this is a business, not a think tank. I told you as much right here, when I gave you Wingnut. It’s all about demographics.” She raised her teacup, glanced at the clock: 1:57.

  “Demographics, sure. Nightingale would turn in his grave if he knew how accountants and pollsters were running his Park.” Warne laughed again, mirthlessly. “You know, in another context this might almost be funny. Because we’ve learned there’s nothing wrong with the Metanet, after all. It’s your goddamn Park that’s broken.”

  Sarah lowered the cup. She looked at him more closely. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, Barksdale was partly right. The Metanet has been doing these things, changing robot procedures and the like. But he was also partly wrong. Because the Metanet wasn’t transmitting its own instructions to the bots. It was transmitting somebody else’s.”

  When Sarah was silent, he went on. “Here’s the way it must have worked. Somebody on the inside—let’s call him Mister X—would write a routine instructing some bot to misbehave. He’d slip it in with the rest of the Metanet’s instruction set. The next morning, the Metanet would make its regular downlink to the bots. Except along with the usual program updates and firmware patches, Mister X’s program would be sent to a particular bot. And that particular bot would act naughty. An incident report would be duly logged. But Mister X would make sure to slip that bot’s regular programming back into the next morning’s downlink. And cover his tracks by instructing the Metanet not to log either change. So when a team got around to inspecting the misbehaving bot, it would appear normal, the victim of some phantom glitch.”

  He glanced at Terri. “How am I doing?”

  She gave him a thumbs-up.

  “The only time things didn’t happen this way was with the Notting Hill bots. And that’s because they were taken offline after the accident. Cut off from the Metanet. There was no chance for Mister X to restore their normal programming.”

  He looked at Sarah. “Why don’t you look surprised by any of this?”

  But Sarah was thinking quickly. “Let’s accept your hypothesis for the moment. You know the Metanet better than anybody. Could you search for a hack trail? Find out which robots have been—are being—affected?”

  Warne didn’t look up. “Maybe. It would take some time. One of the things that clued me in was the lack of—” He stopped. Then he glanced up at her. “Wait a minute, I recognize that look. You know something, don’t you? You’re holding something back.”

  Sarah glanced down at Barksdale’s list of possible moles. Teresa Bonifacio’s name was number three.

  “Sarah, answer me. What the hell’s going on?”

  Her mind raced through the possibilities. Warne was in a unique position to help. Here was somebody who could strike back; who could hit these bastards where they live. Sarah glanced down at the list again. She could order Terri from the room. But Warne would probably tell her regardless. And chances were, he couldn’t do this alone; not in time, anyway. He’d need help.

  Sarah had always disapproved of Terri’s un-Utopian attitude, her rebellious streak, her habit of voicing her opinions whether solicited or not. But in her gut, Sarah didn’t think Terri would betray the work she loved. And Sarah always trusted her gut.

  “Teresa, close the door,” she said quietly.

  She waited until Terri returned. “What I am going to tell you must be kept in strictest confidence. Strictest confidence. Do you understand?”

  She watched the two exchange glances. Then they nodded.

  “Utopia’s being held hostage.”

  Warne frowned. “What?”

  “There’s a team of operatives inside the Park. We don’t know how many. Remember that man who entered my office just as you were leaving? He calls himself John Doe. He’s their leader. They’ve sabotaged some of the bots, probably in just the way you suggest. They also claim to have placed high explosives throughout the Worlds. Maybe the threat is real, maybe it’s not. But we have to assume it is. We have to hand over the source code for the Crucible, our holographic engine, or…”

  Warne had gone pale. His eyes locked on hers.

  “Or what?”

  Sarah did not reply.

  There was a moment of stasis. Then Warne jumped to his feet.

  “My God, Sarah. Georgia’s in the Park.”

  “We’re making the handoff in fifteen minutes. We’ve been promised that no harm will come to anybody. Drew, if you can use the Metanet to track down which bots have been affected, maybe we can—”

  But Warne wasn’t listening. “I’ve got to find her,” he said.

  “Drew.”

  “How the hell do I find her?” he cried, leaning across the desk. “There has to be a way. Help me, Sarah!”

  She looked at him a moment. Then she glanced again at the clock. Two o’clock.

  “We can trace her tag,” Terri said.

  Warne turned abruptly. “Trace her tag?”

  “Every guest is given an imagetag, a unique multicolor sticker, to wear while they’re in the Park. You’ve got one, too. It’s embedded in your pin.”

/>   Warne glanced down at the stylized bird on his lapel. Then he wheeled toward Sarah. “Is this true?”

  Sarah stared at him. She could feel this opportunity fading, right before her eyes.

  She exhaled in disappointment. Then she turned to her computer. She’d have to do this fast.

  “There are cameras throughout the Park, taking photographs of guests and Utopia personnel,” she said as she began to type. “Each night, after the Park closes, we run pattern-recognition algorithms against the photos, isolating imagetags of the guests. We process them together with the cards people use to buy food, souvenirs. Knowledge-discovery software helps us track attraction flow, purchasing patterns, the like.”

  As Warne listened, his tense look seemed to ease a little. “Big Brother does data-mining,” he said. “But I’m not complaining. Come on, let’s find her.”

  Sarah typed additional commands. “I’m bringing up the tag retrieval application,” she said. “I’ll enter Georgia’s name.”

  They waited a moment.

  “Okay, there’s her tag. Now I’ll request a chronological breakdown of camera sightings.”

  There was another wait, longer this time.

  “What’s taking so long?” Warne asked impatiently.

  “I’m requesting a special job. It takes a lot of horsepower. Normally, we only run this in the evening, when the computers aren’t busy handling Park operations.”

  Then her screen cleared and a new window appeared, a short list inside it. “Here it is,” Sarah said.

  Warne and Terri came up behind her, and together they peered at the screen.

  “I don’t understand all those abbreviations,” Warne said.

  “She’s in Callisto. Four minutes to two, Rings of Saturn.”