No Future Christmas (24 page)

Mike hoped that the Guardians were on a direct route to
somewhere and not searching for their headquarters.
He kept back, not sure
whether their heat-seeking radar would pick up on his craft or if the
invisi-shield protected him from that too.
He should have asked before he left.

The Global Guardians flew straight and sure for twenty miles
then abruptly turned left.
They flew straight for five miles then turned left
again.
After twenty miles and another left turn Mike knew they were flying a
search pattern.
How did they know to look here in this part of the Alps?
Mike
followed them knowing that from this vantage point the buildings down below
wouldn’t be seen.

Thank God for George’s invention.
The Guardians flew their
pattern for an hour then turned right and flew away.
Mike punched in the
coordinates to the landing zone and the craft nosed down.

“Warning.
Warning.
Fuel cell failure,” the computer intoned.
A clanging filled the interior of the skycar.

“Shit.” Mike’s heart rate sped up but he kept his head
clear.
Pages of the skycar manual filed through his brain.
Fuel cell failure
can be caused by a couple of things.
A clogged filter, of all things, or a
cessation of electrical energy.
“Computer, check fuel filter.”

“Fuel filter clear.”

“Computer, check electrical charge.”

“Electrical charge off.”

“Computer, turn on electrical charge.”

“Malfunction of solar panel,” the computer intoned.
“Emergency glide to landing zone.”

Now he had two failures.
The fuel cell and the solar panel.
They were probably related but Mike wasn’t sure.
He felt the skycar take over
the controls as it headed toward the ground.
Silence reigned inside for a
minute.
He pushed back the feeling of dread.
A malfunctioning solar panel would
stop all the avionics of the skycar.
With no way to get continuous energy the
computer would shut off.

Mike knew that skycars could be flown manually under glide
conditions until landing.
The controls would be sluggish and hard to use.
Maneuverability would be gone and speed would be a factor.
But under a glide
the skycar would speed up as it descended.
Slowing it for landing was critical.
Touchdown was known to be a job for advanced fliers.

Why was the skycar suddenly falling apart?

“Invisi-shield off,” the computer droned.

“Double shit.” Mike scanned the sky for the Guardians but
they seemed to have given up on the area.

“Skycar touchdown in three minutes.” The flat voice
reverberated throughout the interior of the vehicle.

The ground rushed up at an alarming rate.
The angle of descent
was too steep.
Mountains rushed by in a blur of white.
Mike punched in commands
to the computer.
“Level out, you rust bucket.” He pulled back on the stick but
the skycar didn’t respond.
Mike stood on the brakes.
Usually controlled
automatically, he used the old manual maneuver to hopefully slow the skycar.

* * * * *

A loud wail rent the air like a tsunami warning.
Everyone
inside Subversive headquarters rushed to their stations.

“Incoming,” a steady female voice said over an internal
speaker.
“Rate 260, angle 40 degrees, speed 340 knots.
Looks like a drone, it’s
flying on auto.”

“Drone my ass,” Douglas muttered.
“Prepare for a missile
attack.”

“
No
!” Shauna stepped to the nearest screen.
“That’s
no missile.
That’s a skycar.”

“What?” Douglas said.
“We would have had more notice.”

“Look at the outline on the scanner, there’s no
invisi-shield.” Shauna scanned the figures running across the screen evaluating
the incoming object.
“It’s an out of control skycar— Oh my God.” Shauna’s hand
flew to her mouth while her other hand punched a holographic keyboard.
“The
scanner says it’s skycar 101,230.
That’s Mike’s vehicle.”

The room went silent.
Then in one instant, motion and noise
filled the air.
“Emergency vehicles to the landing zone,” Douglas ordered.
“Techs, try to find the computer’s problem and repair it.
Surgery, prepare for
incoming injured.”

Shauna ran from the room.
She grabbed a hover scooter, raced
to the landing zone and looked up in time to see a streak of sparkly purple
arrow toward the ground.
“Come on…come on.
Pull up,” she prayed.

Emergency vehicles shot to the landing zone, no lights or
sirens.
They hovered a short distance away not sure where the skycar would come
to a rest.

The seconds felt like hours.
Shauna watched terrified.
In
less than a minute the skycar would plow into the ground if it didn’t level
out.

Something wavered in front of Shauna.
Just when she thought
Mike wouldn’t make it, the skycar’s nose leveled out.
She screamed her joy.
But
it still flew too fast for a landing and now headed toward some storage tanks.

As the skycar rushed closer and closer a brown net rose out
of the ground to block it.
Made of the same strong composite material that
skycars were made from, it was the last-ditch attempt to stop an out of control
skycar.
Shauna watched as Mike’s craft flew straight into the net.
The nose
plowed through the composite netting but it had slowed enough that the body of
the skycar stuck.

Shauna jammed the controls of the hover scooter to full
forward and raced to the scene.
She pictured Mike inside dead from the impact
with the net and the suddenness of the stop.
Emergency vehicles sped past her
and reached the broken craft first.

The medics brought Mike out of the skycar on a stretcher.
“Mike…oh Mike,” Shauna sobbed.
She rushed to his side.
He lay on the stretcher
his face bloodied and swollen.
His eyes were open, glazed.
“Oh, darling, you’re
alive.” Shauna gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
“Thank God.”

* * * * *

“Shauna, I need you to look at this,” her father said.
There
was something in his voice.
Her mother glanced up at his tone and he gave her a
slight nod.

“On my way, Dad.” She’d been by Mike’s side for two days.
His injuries were healing well, a broken leg, two cracked ribs and a stiff
neck.
Today she was back at work inserting incriminating evidence against the
CEOs into the worldnet, spoon-feeding what her parents wanted to leak out.

“Would you like some coffee?” Louise asked.

“Sure, honey,” Douglas said.
A look passed between them.

Shauna and her father waited in the office until Louise came
in with three steaming mugs of Starbucks.
Once the mugs were distributed and
the door closed Douglas got to the point.
“I’ve swept this room and it’s
clean.”

“What?” Shauna asked.
“Why would you do that here—” She saw
her father’s eyebrows lower and his lips turn down.
“Oh no.
You think there’s a
mole.”

Louise slammed her mug on the table.
The happy melodious
ringing sound was out of place in the silence of the room.
The three family
members stared at each other.

“We can rule out Mike, that’s for sure,” Shauna said.

“Yes.
He hasn’t been in this century long enough to cause
any damage,” Douglas agreed.
“But everyone else is on the table.”

“How’d the mole get through?” Louise asked.
No one answered.
“Our investigations were so thorough.” She scrubbed so hard wiping up the
spilled coffee that the table rang a flat protest.
“Oh, hush.” Louise threw the
towel toward the sink.

“I have to think that the person who infiltrated us has been
with us for quite a while,” Douglas said.
“Someone we’d never think would give
us away,”

“So now our friends are suspect as well as our employees,”
Shauna said.

“Exactly,” Douglas nodded.
“We have to start a search.
But
we can’t let anyone know we’re doing it.
That’s going to be tough, since
everyone here has the highest access allowed.
They wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“I have an idea, Pops.” Shauna tapped the table.
“Let Mike
start the search on one of his old computers.
He’s well enough to do that after
numerous sittings with the medic.
The medic used Roll Away on his face and
ribs, set the bone in his leg and used it on that three or four times.
Mike’s
not in a cast, can walk slowly and is itching to do something.”

“Basically he’s cranky,” her mother deadpanned.

Shauna laughed.
“Exactly, Mom.” She turned to her father.
“What do you say?”

“Good idea.
He can start accessing old records and see if it
leads to a trail of some sort.” Douglas paced the room, his head bent forward
in thought.
“We have to act as if nothing’s amiss.
Treat everyone the same.
Laugh, joke.
Put them at ease.
Don’t expect the mole to slip.
He or she’s been
at this for a very long time.”

“Okay, Dad.
I’ll go and whisper sweet nothings in Mike’s
ear.”

“Make sure he gets the message without hurting himself,” her
father said.

“Dad!
I would never lead Mike on.
Especially in his weakened
state,” Shauna said with mock seriousness.
“After all, I have to protect his
reputation.” She lifted her head and airily walked out of the room.
The sound
of her parents’ laughter gladdened her heart.

* * * * *

Bored out of his mind Mike stared at the images on the
monitor across the room.
Television, or what had become of it, wasn’t any
better than his day.
Oh, sure, there were three thousand channels now.
They’d
surpassed hi-definition with something called an orbital receiver where the
picture was so clear you felt as if you were inside the room with the actors,
or outside in a storm getting cold and drenched.
But sit-coms were the same.
Soaps were such an addiction in the twenty-second century that they had over one
hundred channels for them alone.
And they all were awful.
Sports had over five
hundred channels, a bit of overkill if anyone bothered to ask and the only good
movies were the ones that played from his century.
Go figure.

Mike gingerly rose from his bed.
The window beckoned.
Bright
sunshine warmed the sill and Mike sat down, already a bit winded.
He touched
his hand to the composite material and muttered, “What are you doing right now,
Scott?”

“Oh, that’s bad.
You’re talking to yourself.” After three
long strides Shauna bent over and kissed Mike.
She nuzzled his ear, nipped his
neck and nurtured his lips.
“Don’t pull away,” she murmured in his ear.

“Why would I?” Her breath smelled minty, her lips tasted
like cherries and her citrusy scent drifted over him.
Mike hardened and
groaned.
“Great time to arouse me, woman.
Take pity on an invalid.” Shauna’s
laugh tickled the lobe of his ear.

She licked behind the sensitive shell then said, “There’s a
mole inside The Subversives.”

* * * * *

The cleaning crew usually picked up anything left on a desk
and shredded it.
That was procedure, ordered by the CEOs.
Each shift was
monitored by cameras.
Shredders could be heard all night long.
This evening a
cleaner rubbed a coffee stain from a desk.
She hated the brown ring that marred
the beautiful patina of the table with colored striations that looked like a
forest just after a storm.
Straightening the desk with her other hand she moved
a paperweight out of the way.
A slip of paper, folded into a tiny square
fluttered off the desk and to the floor.
The cleaner picked it up, read it and
gasped.

Not looking at the intrusive cameras lining the walls she
kept to her routine.
The paper slid into the shredder.

But the woman in the cleaner’s uniform had a photographic
memory.