Legacy of a Mad Scientist (42 page)

After visiting Bergstrom, Stanwood had pulled forty
agents from the bureau and twenty each from DHS, ATF and ICE. He
left Von Kalt to manage the search operation by traditional
methods, until Bergstrom’s Wolf Pack was ready.

At the restaurant where Ross and the Fox children had
eaten, Von Kalt and the ‘bullet catchers’ as Bergstrom had referred
to them, had locked the surrounding area down. The agents were
thick around Von Kalt; they interrogated witnesses in teams,
examined everything and bagged the plates and silverware from their
target trio’s table.

“The boy’s game stream account came online. He was
here, but it looks like someone else was looking for him too, he
tussled with a reflected security daemon and got himself reset,”
Von Kalt explained.

“I trust that’s a mistake you won’t be making
yourself,” Stanwood said, though it was unclear as to whether he
actually understood his deputy.

“Director Stanwood, Sir?” Von Kalt asked, ignoring
Stanwood’s barb.

“Yes?” Stanwood replied.

“Why are you in the capitol?” Von Kalt asked,
recognizing the office.

“This isn’t the only challenge facing the Republic,
Deputy.”

“Of course not, sir,” Von Kalt replied.

“It looks like you’re on top of things there. Did
they leave anything?”

“No. Someone noticed that they took a napkin, but
that’s not the same as leaving a hotel pen or a book of matches, is
it?”

Stanwood gave a short, uninterested laugh.

“We were within a couple of minutes. They were here.
I can feel them.”

“About that…” Stanwood paused for a moment.

Von Kalt snapped out of his self-indulgent
sixth–sense and returned his attention to his superior.

“Bergstrom certainly sensed the presence of your
amplifier. He’s creating a device that can track it. He says it has
something to do with hearing smells and smelling sounds, if that
makes any sense.”

“Perfect sense, sir.”

“How’s that?”

“The amplifier saturates an area with particles.
Those particles are inhaled and absorbed through the skin. Then
messages are reflected across the particles, like a chain of
mirrors. At the same time, the crystals, it’s not a metal, it’s a
crystal, the crystals all in contact with each other and they also
reflect high-frequency oscillation, controlling the direction of
the reflected light. It uses opposing forces to stay balanced, the
way a helicopter does.”

“That’s fantastic, Deputy. As I said, I’ve spoken to
Bergstrom. He’s going to contact you when the wolves are
ready.”

“Will you be returning then?”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“They were here, Sir. I’ll catch them. You have my
word.”

“Oh, now that you mention it, Bergstrom has a
condition for his assistance. You need to be aware of this. When
you finally make good on your promise, Bergstrom gets the girl. He
wants, as he said,
significant
amounts of DNA from both, but
I agreed that he can have the daughter.”

Von Kalt was surprised to find this didn’t bother him
as much as it might have in the past.

”Also, the parameters on this case have been expanded
to include the Black Willow operative group; namely Major Kelton
Ross. However, anyone suspected to be giving them material aid,
must be considered an accomplice. All suspects are considered
extremely dangerous and cleared for
Dead or Alive
protocol.”

“Understood, sir.” Von Kalt nodded.

“That is all, Deputy.” Stanwood disconnected the
call.

Von Kalt smiled and squeezed the Metachron in his
hand.

Geoff was glued to the TV, watching footage of the
park. After a while, Ashley realized there was no newscaster. She
asked him what channel he was watching. Geoff explained he’d hacked
into the police band. Ash sat with her brother and watched the
footage of the local citizens being interrogated.

Von Kalt had flooded the restaurant and park with
agents. Everyone for three blocks had been identified and
questioned.

The hair on Ashley’s arms stood up as she remembered
the man doing Tai Chi. She’d seen him in the library too, staring
at her, just before the agents jumped them. He was nowhere to be
seen in the police footage, but Ashley was sure it had been the
same man. Something about the coincidence disturbed her
immensely.

Despite all her extra stretching and practice, Ashley
felt agitated. A storm had come in a couple of hours earlier, but
it was more than that.

Geoff's reaction to the Micronix had been troubling.
Her initial reactions felt justified. The prototype was not a toy;
it was not something to be casual with.

She had no desire to use the mysterious hunk of
metal, either as a weapon or a mental computer connection. Yet
somehow, having it with her relaxed her. It had been her father's,
and for better or worse, it was all that existed of his legacy.

After dinner, Ross seemed weird, nervous. "Well, I
think Geoff may have tripped some alarms somewhere."

Ashley's brow furrowed over her bright blue eyes. He
had no idea Geoff continued to peruse the intelligence files over
the Micronix device.

Geoff took a deep breath.

"From what I understand, we dodged them by about two
stop lights. The whole park was crawling with cops, mercs and feds.
They had two fistfights and three arrests, just among each other.
Dragged everyone out of the restaurant and took them downtown. Then
went and found everyone else who had lunch there and brought them
in too. Always pay in cash."

"This is bad, huh?" Ashley asked.

"I don't know," Ross answered. He looked at Geoff.
"How bad is it?"

"Well. It's taken me a little to put it together, but
I think it's maybe, pretty bad. They've got bounties out on us,
eight actually. They're calling you a kidnapper, and they're
offering five hundred thousand for you, dead or alive, with an
additional bonus of four hundred for each of us, if they bring us
in alive."

"That's over a million dollars," Ashley said.

"We need to know who is offering that kind of
scratch," Ross said.

"The Angel City Police Department, Los Angeles County
Sheriff, State of California Police, FBI, ICE, NSA, DOD and the
ATF, all reporting to the office of the National Intelligence
Director," Geoff replied.

"We can't go after everyone,” Ross said.

“What about just the last guy?” Ashley asked. “The
National Intelligence Director?”

“Who gave you the nose bleed?" Ross asked Geoff.

"All he said was,
This is Eel
, and then, bam
and I was down."

"The Electric Eel, damn. I’ve heard of that guy. I
know the FBI has full-time operators hardwired into their defense
grid, so he just thought he was shutting down your system. How
could he know he was shorting-out our head?

"Anyhow, the documents are coming in today. So I want
you guys to be ready to go as soon as I get back with them."

"What about the storm?" Ashley asked.

"Visibility is for shit, radio comms are all fouled
up, you couldn't ask for better weather; the Gods are smiling on
us," Ross answered.

Sunset, Wednesday, July 29, 2308

The invisible surveillance trailer drifted in a
bending loop, locked into a track that delivered line-of-sight with
the western side of District Thirteen and Bergstrom’s attached
hangar.

Inside, First Sergeant King monitored the
transmission steams from the tiny micro-transmitters he’d sprayed
through Dr. Bergstrom’s section of the orphanage. Stanwood had
called three times, and Bergstrom repeatedly claimed to be on track
to deliver his first ‘Micronix Scanner’ by nightfall.

Stanwood had in turn, called Von Kalt and the deputy
dutifully returned the call to Dr. Bergstrom.

Now, as the sun continued to sink toward the Pacific
Ocean, Bergstrom approached final preparations in his hangar.
Assistants ran through checklists on the armored war machines,
making sure they were fueled up and the ammunition magazines were
loaded and made ready.

King’s trailer and attached Black Willow Battle Suit
both had their own phase-cam and were operating under a hundred
meter avoidance protocol; meaning the auto pilot, on it’s anchored
loop, would maintain a hundred meter cushion from any passing
vehicles or drifting vendors.

The Angel City skyscape, with three hundred days of
summer, had always been one of the more crowded utopias of the
modern world. To ask for much more than a hundred meters would be
difficult.

Given their invisibility and the autopilot protocols,
a knock at the trailer door surprised King. He opened it without
getting up.

Croswell activated the magnetic anchor on his battle
suit, linking it to the trailer, and climbed out. He fearlessly
launched himself into the open sky, leaping across the significant
gap between his suit and the trailer.

The Secretary of Defense crashed into the trailer,
needing every bit of the two steps he had to stop, before smashing
into a bank of surveillance equipment.

“That was a bit excessive, don’t you think?” King
asked from his place at the surveillance terminal.

Croswell laughed. “Gotta push yourself a little
harder every day.”

“That’s what she said.” King smiled.

Croswell laughed. “No Snow, No Ross?” he asked.

“ETA five mikes,” King answered.

“Goddamn Stanwood. He gave me his word he’d drop it,
that little bastard. We’re going to visit him next.”

“His calls were being relayed through a D.C.
substation.”

“I don’t give a shit where he is. I’ll find him,”
Croswell said.

“Well, here’s his little buddy, right on cue.” King
pointed out an approaching vehicle.

“All right. Let’s get in our gear.” Croswell
asked.

“Just let me finish routing these streams into our
suits,” King said.

“I’ll be waiting for you.” Croswell took two steps
and grunted as he leapt from the trailer.

King laughed and sighed, rising from the terminal.
The First Sergeant called his suit over and lightly stepped from
the trailer into the modular cockpit. The suit was more of an
armored vehicle, a man-shaped tank, stocked with a variety of
cannons and missile banks.

Inside, the surveillance streams were arrayed in a
strip across the top of the windshield. King settled into the suit,
his arms were its arms, his legs were its legs, regardless of the
fact that his hands and feet, at their most extended, never reached
outside the suit’s main cabin, in the chest.

There was no head, per say, just a cluster of
scanners and cameras. Twin long barreled sniper rifles protruded
from the sides of what would have been its jaw-line. Above them,
antennae reached out at twenty-degree angles. Centered between
them, like a mow-hawk, three missiles were stacked, one atop the
other, in a narrow magazine.

The armored limbs served both offensive and defensive
roles, boasting heavy armor plates and gun barrels in a variety of
caliber. Flanks of missiles were mounted to each hip and
six-barreled Gatling guns on both the shoulders and on the outside
of the massive feet. Anti-gravity drives on the soles of the feet,
the floor of the cabin and the underside of the forearms managed
elevation, pitch, roll and acceleration velocity.

King’s feet were strapped into the flight controls,
while his hands managed the three-dozen weapons systems, displayed
on the windshield and dashboard. The video and audio from
Bergstrom’s lab was piped in as well. King listened and
occasionally glanced up as the suit ran through its preflight
spooling operations.

Director Bergstrom introduced Von Kalt to his
assistants and the other pilots.

“You ready for this?” Croswell asked.

“Are we not waiting for Ana and Kelly?”

“They’ll either be here or they won’t,” Croswell
said. “I want to line up on the right side of that hangar door, and
when it slides open, wait for me, but once I open up, just let ‘em
have it.”

“Sounds good to me,” King replied.

Croswell explained the next step, “I’ll take the
outside, and as they begin to react, I’ll slide up and around to a
perpendicular position, but aiming at a downward trajectory. That
will keep the bulk of the orphanage out of the line of fire.”

“Until they fire back, that is,” King replied,
piloting his tank into position.

“Well, that will have to be on them, then,” Croswell
answered, taking up a position to King’s left. “I’ll open up first.
After the first volley, if I can effectively suppress them and keep
them from getting out, I’ll move up out of the way to reload.
That’s when I want you to swing inside.”

“The good old Jab-Cross.”

“Exactly. After you blow your load, fall out and I’ll
swing in to give them another helping.”

King laughed. “We’re going to cut this place in
half.”

On the feed from inside the hangar, Bergstrom was
helping the pilots get situated.

“Okay, you see that big device against the outside
wall?” King asked, pointing to the outside wall of the hangar,
where Bergstrom had spent the bulk of his day.

“Yeah,” Croswell answered.

“That’s their scanner. From what I understand it
works like radar, only it’s not very mobile. He said it’s probably
good for thirty miles in every direction. He claims he’ll be able
to forward them coordinates on any active amplifier in the city,”
King said.

“He hasn’t tested it yet?” Croswell asked.

“Apparently not, or they’d be scrambling,” King
said.

“That’s some pretty serious arrogance.”

“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t be Bergstrom otherwise,
would he?”

“I suppose not.” Croswell laughed.

In the hangar, the first two wolves were
airborne.