[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
semble what the Army calls IEDs, improvised explosive devices. While
our broadcast facilities remain operational, we will continue to bring
you this breaking story. No one has yet claimed responsibility, but the
use of IEDs suggests obvious associations.
As far as the stragglers were concerned, the Garner Nanotech build-
ing was severed from the world. While they huddled here, with only
242
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 243
SMALL MI RACLES
the clueless media to explain things, Morgan s people supposedly
patrolling the perimeter of the building for everyone else s safety and
the rest of the Emergent had begun stripping the factory.
The halls were quiet cleared before Kim emerged from beneath the
desk. Aaron had goaded Watts on purpose. So what had she learned
from their exchange?
The guards wanted her and Aaron in particular. It had to relate,
somehow, to their discoveries or their attempt to contact the FDA
didn t it? More than the guards must be involved. Whenever she and
Aaron tried to look into medical complications of the bots, Brent
and Charles and Tyra got involved. So them, too, and everyone like
them.
Them. Everyone like them. It sounded so paranoid. If not them, then
what should she call . . . those involved? The bot infested? The bot
transformed?
The transhumans.
A stupid question, and yet here she was wasting energy on labels.
I m a thinker, not a doer, Kim thought. But if she and Aaron and every-
one left in the building? were going to get out of this, she had to act.
How? The transhumans knew she was in the building. At least they
thought they did, because her badge had registered on the security sys-
tem when she d come inside a few minutes earlier. If her badge was
conveniently found. . .
Kim listened at the infirmary door. Silence. She opened the door a
crack to hear faint footsteps receding. She crept into the hall, shutting
the door behind herself. The doorknob, released slowly, latched with-
out a sound.
She ached with the need to run, but where could she possibly go?
Watts said the building exits were locked. Even if she somehow forced
open an exit, running would be foolish. There were so many ways to get
caught. Armed guards patrolling outside, perhaps a flash of insight
on snowmobile. Parking-lot security cameras redirected to watch the
243
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 244
EDWARD M. LERNER
building exits. Alarms on the outside doors. One way or another, the bad
guys would be on her in a flash.
Faster than she could hope to reach someplace with cell service,
someplace from which she might call for help.
As the footsteps faded, Kim went the opposite way, to one of the
less-used exits. She dropped her employee badge onto the floor, a good
ten feet back from the door, beyond the range of the card reader. She
willed the badge to look lost by accident.
It looked posed.
Nearer the exit, the carpet mat was a sodden mess, wet with
snowmelt and filthy with cinders and salt. She pressed one boot into
the slop, then hopped on her dry boot back to her badge. A grimy boot
print made the badge on the floor look much more accidental.
Kim hopped on her dry boot to a nearby restroom for paper towels
and dried the wet sole. She didn t dare leave any tracks.
If someone found the badge but not Kim, he might conclude she
had, in fact, left before the exits were sealed. Maybe that would give
her a bit more freedom to
If only she knew what she could do.
Status? Charles/Two IMed.
He/they were asking that a lot, impatient. The VR view of the
factory showed little accomplished. Too much effort was going into
shifting stuff out of the aisles, riding herd on the anxious folks in the
auditorium, and searching the facility for Kim O Donnell. Logically
speaking, the Emergent would be long gone, their loot transferred to
the trucks waiting near Syracuse, before anything Kim could possi-
bly do could possibly matter.
Brent had been similarly convincing and here they were, impro-
vising.
Outside is suitably panicked, Morgan IMed back. Minimal casualties
so far.
244
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 245
SMALL MI RACLES
Charles/Two did not ask for a definition of minimal. The casual-
ties were all old-style humans. What else?
Cell-phone service is out across metro Utica. Police band remains open.
All the bombs had been triggered by cell. The full-scale cell cutoff
was just as Morgan had predicted.
Loading time? Charles prompted.
An hour? Morgan replied. Keeping people in the auditorium uses staff.
Uncertainty lurked within that question mark. Meanwhile, guards
were unproductively standing watch over auditorium doors.
Charles answered, Lock the auditorium exits. Quietly.
Decision time, Brent/One read.
Morgan s words hung in virtual space, starker for this featureless
meeting place. Morgan had said it was a given that Homeland Security
would vacuum up all Internet traffic to or from the bombed area. To
avoid attention, the Emergent had isolated themselves to this mesh of
WiFi LANs, covering only the building and a bit of parking lot, cut off
from the greater net.
If the need arose, Have-Mercy would reconnect them. Encryption
would obscure the content of their messages, at least in the short
term, but some insight could be gleaned merely from Internet ad-
dresses and patterns of messages. Palm-tree ambience wasn t worth
any risk of exposure.
It was all part of the standard counterterrorism stuff in which
Morgan was expert.
Decision time.
The usual suspects had gathered: Felipe, Charles, Tyra, Morgan,
and Brent. Explain, Brent/One IMed.
We found Kim O Donnell s badge near a side exit, Morgan wrote. It looks
like she lost it. There s no telling what she might say. We need to keep the au-
thorities occupied.
Brent/One did not see how Kim s whereabouts mattered anymore.
245
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 246
EDWARD M. LERNER
Kim s suspicions about bots won t interest the police or Homeland Security.
All she can say about events here, today, is that company security tried to
gather people for their own safety. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
semble what the Army calls IEDs, improvised explosive devices. While
our broadcast facilities remain operational, we will continue to bring
you this breaking story. No one has yet claimed responsibility, but the
use of IEDs suggests obvious associations.
As far as the stragglers were concerned, the Garner Nanotech build-
ing was severed from the world. While they huddled here, with only
242
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 243
SMALL MI RACLES
the clueless media to explain things, Morgan s people supposedly
patrolling the perimeter of the building for everyone else s safety and
the rest of the Emergent had begun stripping the factory.
The halls were quiet cleared before Kim emerged from beneath the
desk. Aaron had goaded Watts on purpose. So what had she learned
from their exchange?
The guards wanted her and Aaron in particular. It had to relate,
somehow, to their discoveries or their attempt to contact the FDA
didn t it? More than the guards must be involved. Whenever she and
Aaron tried to look into medical complications of the bots, Brent
and Charles and Tyra got involved. So them, too, and everyone like
them.
Them. Everyone like them. It sounded so paranoid. If not them, then
what should she call . . . those involved? The bot infested? The bot
transformed?
The transhumans.
A stupid question, and yet here she was wasting energy on labels.
I m a thinker, not a doer, Kim thought. But if she and Aaron and every-
one left in the building? were going to get out of this, she had to act.
How? The transhumans knew she was in the building. At least they
thought they did, because her badge had registered on the security sys-
tem when she d come inside a few minutes earlier. If her badge was
conveniently found. . .
Kim listened at the infirmary door. Silence. She opened the door a
crack to hear faint footsteps receding. She crept into the hall, shutting
the door behind herself. The doorknob, released slowly, latched with-
out a sound.
She ached with the need to run, but where could she possibly go?
Watts said the building exits were locked. Even if she somehow forced
open an exit, running would be foolish. There were so many ways to get
caught. Armed guards patrolling outside, perhaps a flash of insight
on snowmobile. Parking-lot security cameras redirected to watch the
243
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 244
EDWARD M. LERNER
building exits. Alarms on the outside doors. One way or another, the bad
guys would be on her in a flash.
Faster than she could hope to reach someplace with cell service,
someplace from which she might call for help.
As the footsteps faded, Kim went the opposite way, to one of the
less-used exits. She dropped her employee badge onto the floor, a good
ten feet back from the door, beyond the range of the card reader. She
willed the badge to look lost by accident.
It looked posed.
Nearer the exit, the carpet mat was a sodden mess, wet with
snowmelt and filthy with cinders and salt. She pressed one boot into
the slop, then hopped on her dry boot back to her badge. A grimy boot
print made the badge on the floor look much more accidental.
Kim hopped on her dry boot to a nearby restroom for paper towels
and dried the wet sole. She didn t dare leave any tracks.
If someone found the badge but not Kim, he might conclude she
had, in fact, left before the exits were sealed. Maybe that would give
her a bit more freedom to
If only she knew what she could do.
Status? Charles/Two IMed.
He/they were asking that a lot, impatient. The VR view of the
factory showed little accomplished. Too much effort was going into
shifting stuff out of the aisles, riding herd on the anxious folks in the
auditorium, and searching the facility for Kim O Donnell. Logically
speaking, the Emergent would be long gone, their loot transferred to
the trucks waiting near Syracuse, before anything Kim could possi-
bly do could possibly matter.
Brent had been similarly convincing and here they were, impro-
vising.
Outside is suitably panicked, Morgan IMed back. Minimal casualties
so far.
244
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 245
SMALL MI RACLES
Charles/Two did not ask for a definition of minimal. The casual-
ties were all old-style humans. What else?
Cell-phone service is out across metro Utica. Police band remains open.
All the bombs had been triggered by cell. The full-scale cell cutoff
was just as Morgan had predicted.
Loading time? Charles prompted.
An hour? Morgan replied. Keeping people in the auditorium uses staff.
Uncertainty lurked within that question mark. Meanwhile, guards
were unproductively standing watch over auditorium doors.
Charles answered, Lock the auditorium exits. Quietly.
Decision time, Brent/One read.
Morgan s words hung in virtual space, starker for this featureless
meeting place. Morgan had said it was a given that Homeland Security
would vacuum up all Internet traffic to or from the bombed area. To
avoid attention, the Emergent had isolated themselves to this mesh of
WiFi LANs, covering only the building and a bit of parking lot, cut off
from the greater net.
If the need arose, Have-Mercy would reconnect them. Encryption
would obscure the content of their messages, at least in the short
term, but some insight could be gleaned merely from Internet ad-
dresses and patterns of messages. Palm-tree ambience wasn t worth
any risk of exposure.
It was all part of the standard counterterrorism stuff in which
Morgan was expert.
Decision time.
The usual suspects had gathered: Felipe, Charles, Tyra, Morgan,
and Brent. Explain, Brent/One IMed.
We found Kim O Donnell s badge near a side exit, Morgan wrote. It looks
like she lost it. There s no telling what she might say. We need to keep the au-
thorities occupied.
Brent/One did not see how Kim s whereabouts mattered anymore.
245
039-40813_ch01_3P.qxp 7/30/09 12:12 PM Page 246
EDWARD M. LERNER
Kim s suspicions about bots won t interest the police or Homeland Security.
All she can say about events here, today, is that company security tried to
gather people for their own safety. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]