Legacy of a Mad Scientist (47 page)

"Sugar's not good for you," Geoff mocked. "Soda's too
heavy to carry. Chips take up too much space. No matter what I
want, you're going to say
No
," he complained.

Ashley almost blurted out,
'No, I won't'
but
realized that would prove his point. "I'll make you deal," Ash
offered. "How about instead of coke, we get juice."

"Whatever, Mom."

“We need to think long term. After this, we are done.
Total underground, understand?”

“What do you mean?” Geoff asked.

“After this we are not showing our faces in Angel
City again. No more shopping. We get the evidence, and we leave.
Deal?”

“Well, when the new comics come out, we could just
wear masks.”

“Ha! No.” Ashley rolled her eyes, and the cart,
deeper into the store.

Ashley’s Journal, Thursday, July 30, 2308

At the moment, everything is okay. Geoff and I are
having a picnic, eating burgers and reading comics. Well, Geoff’s
reading comics and we just finished the cheeseburgers. They were
awesome. I swear I could live on cheeseburgers.

This morning we bought backpacks and sleeping bags,
all the comics Geoff wanted and set off no alerts. We were using
the secret emergency account, and it seems clean. We bought
whatever we wanted.

I was looking through Geoff’s comics. He shoved one
at me; it was a western - cowboys versus ninjas and pirates. I’m
not sure how pirates and ninjas could end up in the old west, but I
guess that’s the point of the story.

Thursday, July 30, 2308

First Lieutenant Grey arrived at the Montrose cabin
in the late afternoon. He anchored the massive tank at the end of
the row of similarly anchored tanks. Their phase-cam caused them to
shimmer in his Micronix-enhanced vision.

Grey landed on the deck and deactivated his phase-cam
before opening the sliding glass door. Reverend Wolfe and
Ambassador Becket were both present, also wearing their Black
Willow armor. It had been some time since either of them had been
serving members of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.

“Kilo,” Becket nodded.

Wolfe rose and nodded as well.

“Gentlemen. What’s the situation?”

“King and Snow are in the stew,” Becket answered.
“Ross is on over-watch and Reid ran out to prep a server farm for
degaussing.”

“What are we doing?” Grey asked.

Secretary Croswell came into the living room from a
hallway leading to one of the decanting tanks.

“We have a very urgent task before us,
Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Sir. How can I help?”

“Gentlemen, we need to find a way to jam this
Micronix scanner of Bergstrom’s or we are sitting ducks.”

“Well, let’s not all congregate in one place,” Grey
joked.

“And you wonder why you haven’t soared up the ranks?”
Croswell smiled.

“Actually, I don’t. And you’ll never hear me
complaining. I’ll stick it out as long as they let me. I live for
the shit, you know that.”

“Animal Mother,” Becket laughed.

“Hoorah,” Grey smiled.

“The issue at hand?” Croswell asked.

“How’s it work?” Grey asked.

When King infiltrated, Bergstrom said something about
being able to hear and smell it. We figure he’s got some particle
reflection algorithm or something.”

“Or something, huh?” Grey looked at the ceiling.

“It works like old school radar. Snow was able to
spoof it by tethering to her battle suit and sniping them from a
thousand feet over head.”

“So she looked like one blip?” Grey concluded,
smiling. “Well, the obvious conclusion is to saturate the city with
the op sys. How fast could we do that? Could we even do that at
all? And barring that, what about altering the signature?”

“How’s that?” Croswell asked.

“I read that briefing material, doesn’t this guy Von
Kalt have an amplifier?”

“It’s corrupted,” Croswell said. “He’s already
burning out from exposure.”

“He was piloting one of the wolves. Why didn’t his
Metachron set off the scanner? Obviously Bergstrom used it as a
model, as a reference point.”

“Obviously?” Croswell asked. “You’re just plug-full
of attitude aren’t you?”

“I’m right. You know I’m right,” Grey said. “You want
my help or not?”

Croswell looked over to Becket, “What kind of figs
are you feeding him, out there in the holy land?”

Ambassador Becket raised his hands. “He’s his own
man.”

“If you want to jam it, here… Give me your
amplifiers.” Grey held out his hands, his own amplifier in his
right palm.

“Wait, what about Ross, Reid and the kids?” Becket
asked, handing Grey his Micronix, as Croswell and Wolfe did the
same.

Grey held the amplifiers in his hands and closed his
eyes.

“It’s done,” he said a few moments later, returning
the devices.

“What’s done?” Croswell asked.

“Let me forward it to the others… There, done and
done.” Grey smiled.

Croswell raised and eyebrow.

“I wrote a script. It will react if pinged. It was
easy enough to check the amplifier’s history. Bergstrom’s scanner
is operating at 608-614 megahertz, the medical emergency band; it’s
mostly empty. The next time he turns it on, it will over heat and
burn up, if not blow up.”

“You’re sure?” Croswell asked.

“I’m sure,” Grey answered. “He used a similar device
back in eighty-five. I read about it. That one operates on a
parallel oscillation of airborne terillium. This will cause the
process to double exponentially and melt his components.”

“So you’re saying our phase-cam is tight again?”

“Yes, Sir. Speaking of, my platoon was holding some
desperate ground when I pulled out. I should be moving, unless
there’s more I can do here?”

“Do you think you could leave your tank here?”
Croswell asked. “We lost a couple, and you can’t exactly go
exposing top-secret assets on the front line….”

“If I can have your permission to swing by El Toro
Nuevo and pick up a couple mortar platforms, that would be a very
fair trade, Mister Secretary, Sir.”

Croswell laughed. “Take what ever you need son. Good
luck out there. We appreciate your sacrifice, Lieutenant.”

“Say
Hello
to the rest of the team for me.”
Grey rose from the couch and shook hands with the senior men. “If
the situation changes, please don’t hesitate to call.”

Grey exited the cabin and vanished, flying to the
southeast, headed for the massive Marine Corps anti-gravity
air-station.

“Fucking smart ass,” Croswell muttered ad looked over
at Becket. “What does he know about Andrew?”

“Not a thing. He was given a cursory introduction to
the Micronix and believes it to be a neural interface with the
battle suit. He has no idea what the amplifiers can really do,”
Becket answered.

“Keep it that way. “He’s too smart for his own damn
good.”

Becket laughed. “He’s harmless.”

“Harmless? Hence the nick name, Kilo, right?”
Croswell smiled.

“Is that a true story?” Reverend Wolfe asked.

“Oh, it’s true all right,” Becket answered.

“Didn’t work out the way he expected, though, did
it?” Croswell laughed.

“You could promote him,” Becket said. “He probably
just saved our lives.”

Croswell gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his
eyes. “Not today, and don’t you go expanding his permissions
either. He doesn’t need anymore access than he’s already got.”

“Oh, relax.” Becket said.

Reverend Wolfe leaned forward. “If you don’t mind my
saying so, you trust him because you need him and you distrust him
for the same reasons. How do you expect him to react?”

“Yeah, thanks buddy.” Croswell smiled.

“I don’t mind sticking around a couple of extra
days.” Reverend Wolfe offered.

“Me either,” Becket said. “You guys should have
called us in sooner.”

“It kind of unraveled all at once,” Croswell
explained. “To be honest, I’d hoped we could keep a lid on it.”

“But it had to fall to Reid?” Becket said. “You let
Fox and Ana get killed, King and Snow are in the tank? Really?”

“You should have called us when they went after Kelly
the first time,” Wolfe said.

“Thank you, Captain Hindsight. It happened how it
happened. And all for the best, I might add. Dr. Te has agreed to
share his bots,” Croswell nodded to Becket. “Thank you for that.
And Fox had a real break through while he was out in the
desert.”

“What do you mean, breakthrough?”

“He forwarded the details, but if you’ve been that
wrapped up hunting demons, I guess it’s possible you might not have
noticed.”

“What?” Becket asked. “I haven’t had any time
either.”

“Fox did it, boys. I think he truly ‘expanded’ for
lack of a better word, beyond the confines of his body.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Stanwood took him prisoner out at White Sands for a
few weeks. By the time we found him, Fox had manifested a second
body out of sand and was out walking around, beyond the
perimeter.

“From there he visited Conway in the Oval office and
tried to bring him onboard. Conway gave him clearance to take the
Centaurs out to the Hammered Bracelet to do some terillium
mining.

“He also, apparently hinted that while Stanwood might
be something of a thorn in his side, but that he couldn’t be
charged with murder until he’d committed murder.”

“So that’s was why Fox blasted us all with that
Don’t Fire Until Fired Upon
bit? He was taking one for the
team?” Becket asked.

Croswell touched his nose.

“God, what’s that done to the kids?” Wolfe asked.

“Which catches us right up to the present,” Croswell
said. “Oh, I did give Stanwood a bit of a belly washing the other
day. I’m sure he’s still pissed about that. Probably walking with
cane too, but he earned it.”

“Why not just kill him?” Reverend Wolfe asked.

“He’s President Conway’s nephew,” Croswell
answered.

Becket whistled and rolled his eyes.

“He and Fox have hated each other since grammar
school and Epsilon was just the excuse he needed to paint Fox as
unstable,” Croswell said.

“Well, dragging Bergstrom into it was a mistake for
sure,” Wolfe said.

“Yeah, but it was a good one. Fucking great mistake,”
Croswell said.

Thursday, July 30, 2308

On the National Guard complex, Von Kalt rose some
time after sunset. He had tossed his phone, but apparently he
hadn’t been divested of his powers as Deputy Director of National
Intelligence. He walked from the medical ward to the command and
control center of the Angel City National Guard Armory.

When he demanded the Officer on Watch turn over the
ready response teams, the man did so without thinking twice. Von
Kalt, discovered, however, he had no commands to give.

Von Kalt apologized to the watch commander for his
abrupt tone and submitted that a government sedan would be a
perfectly acceptable method of transportation for the few
logistical errands he needed to run.

The commander nodded and reassured Von Kalt that they
were there, should he need them. Von Kalt left the facility and
just drifted in a loop on the urban freeways.

Using the Metachron, the director sought out
Bergstrom on District Thirteen. The doctor didn’t answer his call.
Bergstrom had been badly burned during the assault that destroyed
his hangar.

Friday, July 31, 2308

The next morning, Ashley and Geoff drifted through
the local mall. Whenever Geoff asked why they weren't on their way
to Canada, Ash replied that she wanted to wait until it was safer
to travel. In truth, she wanted to find out just who Stanwood and
Von Kalt were, but she didn't dare tell Geoffrey, for fear that
he'd go looking in cyberspace and run into the Eel or other equally
sinister fellow, someone capable of causing him serious harm.

When he mentioned that she’d said
no more
shopping
, she changed the subject. They checked out stores,
played sample video games and tried out furniture. Ashley noticed
several different sets of people in the mall around them.

She knew that anyone could be there to abduct her and
Geoff. At any given moment, someone might approach them, produce a
weapon and bark clipped commands, as the agents in the library
had.

Ash realized she was increasingly reluctant to search
for Stanwood or his deputy online, it was her search for her father
that had brought the other agents to the library. This time she
seriously doubted that there would be another Major Ross waiting to
rescue them. From here on out, they had to be more careful. They
couldn't be making stupid mistakes.

She did consider walking through one of the busiest
shopping centers in one of the busiest cities something of a
mistake, as did Geoff. However, she told him they were
hiding in
plain sight
.

She also understood that all the guns and research in
the world couldn't get her any closer to what she wanted. She
needed evidence, solid, concrete, undeniable evidence. If it
existed, there was only one place she was going to find it. She
just needed a way to convince Geoff the returning home was the best
idea.

Meanwhile, Ross, Reid, Croswell and Reverend Wolfe
all took turns hovering above the children.

Ambassador Becket had been called back to his post in
Jerusalem shortly after Lt. Grey returned with a small fleet of
mobile mortar platforms. This was close to being a breach of the
non-proliferation agreement for the tinderbox of an area, but Grey
had fairly distributed them to all the front line units and thus
avoided a major international incident, and possibly war crime
charges.

Croswell had rolled his eyes and asked Becket to
forcefully remind Grey of the difference between a ‘couple’ and a
‘fleet.’