A Child Of Our Time (The Veil Book 2) (8 page)

EXIT

Cyril is holed up with his weaselly thin assistant in their subterranean loading-bay booth, the rotund clerk having to shout over the building’s alarms into his headset.

“How the hell should I know what’s going on above eighty-five? You should know. And you know why? Because it’s your goddamned job.”

The alarms cut off, arresting them both. The assistant spies something outside, drawing Cyril’s attention to it.

“What the hell?” Cyril tosses the headset, swaggering out of the booth and across the loading area, trailed by his assistant.

Ahead of them an Emby guides an electric cart toward a bulky security truck.

“Hey!” Cyril calls out. “Hey!! Where do you think you’re going?”

Alice halts, turning to him, her projected face absent. Cyril gawps disapprovingly at her female form.

“What in God’s name—you a new model?”

Alice hands him an electronic document. Cyril takes it and shoves it at his assistant.

“Check that.” Keeping his eyes firmly on Alice, “Can’t you see there’s a goddamned emergency going on? You shouldn’t be down here.”

Alice stares back blankly.

The assistant flips through the document. “Says here it’s a heat exchanger. Headed to Langley. Authorized by a Dr. Alice Liddell.”

“In a security truck? Gimme that.” Cyril snatches the document back, looking it over with a scowl. His attention is drawn to what the cart is carrying. Something slab-like, covered with a sheet. Lucy’s MBI unit.

“The truck’s auto-drive, boss. Them Embies ain’t allowed on the freeway.”

“Don’t look like no heat exchanger to me,” Cyril says. “Christ, they cook up some crazy shit in this place.” He sizes up Alice, before dismissing her. “Get outta here. They’re evacuating the building anyways.”

As Alice heads onward, Cyril is distracted by someone else, and heads off in the opposite direction. “Hey! Hey!! Where do you think you two jokers are going?”

Alice hauls Lucy’s MBI unit into the security truck, a chunky six-wheeler, through the rear doors, locking them from the inside. The truck is empty, but is equipped with cargo anchors and fixings—Alice sets about securing the MBI unit.

The vehicle is fitted with an auto-drive system, which Lucy accesses via its local network to create her virtual world—from the internal and external cameras she is able to simulate the entire environment and manifest her little-girl self within it.

The rear of the tuck has no windows, but there is access to the driver’s cabin. Lucy heads there, while a sly Alice remains close to her unit.

“I shall remain hidden.” Alice says, “Lest we draw attention to ourselves.

Through the auto-drive system Lucy is able to take control of the vehicle, manifesting a driver’s cab with semi-automatic controls sized and positioned for a child.

She stabs the starter button, shifts the dashboard-mounted gear stick and stamps down on the accelerator. The engine roars into life, the truck surging forward, her little hands grasping the steering wheel as she tears expertly through the loading area.

Ahead, Cyril and his assistant have to scramble out of the way.

“Jee-zuz! And they say them things is safer,” gasps an out of breath Cyril. He and his assistant only see the empty cab of an auto-drive truck. It does not slow for the exit ramp.

Lucy takes the truck up the ramp, emerging into a bright, sunny day. Pandemonium is already ensuing, with police cars, fire trucks, sirens, and people running away from the building in a general panic.

A police officer approaches the truck, alarming Lucy, but he just brusquely motions the truck on with exaggerated hand gestures for the auto-drive system. Lucy obeys the hand signals, driving onward to join the main street. People are being hurried out of the area and more police appear to wave the truck onward, directing it away from the scene.

* * *

Within the Cantor Satori tower itself and orderly evacuation is underway. The elevators are out, forcing Landelle and the others down the stairwell from the one hundred eleventh floor. Landelle spots the building manager heading up in the opposite direction.

“Bertie!”

Building manager Bertie Bertram waits for them to reach her as she catches her breath.

“Everything above eighty-five is out,” Bertram says, gulping air. “No power, no phones—”

“We need to get down to the security floor on sixty,” interrupts a stern Garr. “Are the elevators working below eighty-five?”

“Those not stuck above, yes. But you shouldn’t use them in an evacuation—”

“We’ll just have to risk it. Veronica, James—you go on ahead. See if you can find Lucy, and get back in contact with Lucius.”

Boyce and Moule bound down the stairwell, leaving Landelle and Garr to proceed at a pace Garr can manage.

* * *

The city’s streets are filling with traffic and Lucy’s security truck is stuck in it. A child in a nearby car stares into the empty driver’s cab.

“There’s no driver,” she says.

“It drives itself, sweetie,” her father replies.

In her world Lucy leans precariously out of the cab window looking at the traffic ahead and behind. She darts across the cab to stick her head out of the other window. Traffic everywhere. Alice hisses her concern from within.

“You must find a way out, child. Find a route to Lucius.”

Lucy climbs out of the cab window, clambering up onto the truck roof, like a child might scramble over a playground climbing frame, yet with each hand- and foothold expertly executed. Her worried expression says something else altogether—
What to do? What to do?

Alarm pops onto her face—not far away two policemen are running toward the truck. They get to the truck, but run on by, Lucy trotting right to the very edge of the truck roof to watch them recede.

The traffic moves forward a little. Lucy makes her way back down into the driver’s cab. Back in her driver’s seat she moves the truck forward with the traffic, while manifesting a large street map display overlaid with traffic volume. Not everywhere is busy.

* * *

On floor sixty, Moule pours over a bank of display screens at a control station in the security room. Boyce has cleared a large area at the center of the room and is setting up a three-dimensional conference projector. Garr and Landelle arrive.

“I’ve found Lucy!” Moule calls out. “She’s just over a mile away.” She has everyone’s attention. “She made a connection to the public network. She can’t hide that it’s her. We can pin her location to a network cell.”

Landelle joins her at the console. “Do we know what she is accessing?” she asks. Moule sets about working that out. Landelle brings up the building’s vehicle manifest. It doesn’t take her long.

“Security truck,” she announces. “Authorized by an… Alice Liddell.”

“God, can she drive one of those?” Boyce says.

“Expertly. Is Alice with her?” All turn to see the life-sized projection of Lucius in his bed.

“Can we get control of the truck?” Garr asks Moule.

“It’s locked down,” Moule replies. “And its GPS is offline. She requested city-wide traffic information. Sounds like she’s stuck in traffic, looking for a way out.”

“She must be trying to get to you, Lucius.” Boyce offers. “And Alice is helping her.”

“Christ, a lunatic Emby on the streets of Manhattan,” says Moule.

“Alice may have become fixated by Lucy,” Lucius says. “That will subdue her paranoia and delusional behavior. But if anything happens to Lucy…Alice will lose control.”

No one noticed Landelle slip quietly away, but now Garr spots her through the office partitions furtively talking into her phone. She marches straight over to glower over her, just as she finishes the call.

“What have you done, Deborah?”

“Alerted the police and National Guard. It must be stopped.”

* * *

Lucy has the beginnings of panic in her eyes as she scours the map. Alice lurks in the back of the truck, her metal feet clunking on its floor. Ahead, a police vehicle caught up in the congestion lights up, the emergency blues and reds distracting Lucy from her map. Two policemen get out of the patrol car and look back up the street, curious about something in her direction, one of them talking into his radio.

Hurriedly she brings up the truck’s own radio display, tuning it to the police bands.

“—we’ve got one,” the radio squawks. “It’s choked down here. Taking a look on foot.”

“Don’t make a big deal of it,” the police dispatch replies. “Need to keep a lid on this thing.”

Alice clunks forward, “We are discovered, child!”

Lucy sees a small side street ahead and checks her maps. It is clear, but the way to it blocked by the traffic. The policemen approach eyes locked on the truck, the traffic inching forward. Lucy overlays the map with markers. One is stationary ahead and the others are moving in nearby streets—police vehicles.

The truck is at the side street, but the policemen are standing at its entrance, looking into the empty cab.

“Dispatch. We are at the truck. Looks like it’s on auto-drive—”

The engine roars, the truck surging forward, turning into the side street, the policemen diving out of the way.

“It’s on the move. Repeat it’s on the move—”

“All units. All units. Eyeballs on. Proceed to—”

Lucy has a firm grip on the steering wheel, driving at speed down the side street, the two policemen in the rear view mirror chasing on foot. She keeps the pace up, expertly weaving the truck past parked vehicles and other obstacles.

The side street brings her to a larger eastbound one. The traffic is lighter and she exits on to it, at a steady pace so as to blend in. No good—a police car lights up behind her, sirens blaring. Lucy floors the accelerator, the truck surging forward, quickly gathering speed as she weaves through the traffic. Ahead two more police cars appear on the far side of an intersection, moving at speed toward it. Lucy gets there first, careering the truck around a hard turn, tires squealing, wheels all but lifting off the road. Alice holds on tight in the rear.

“Take care, child! We cannot help Lucius if we are destroyed.”

Lucy is heading the wrong way down a fire lane, with oncoming vehicles sounding their horns as they dodge the truck. Then, suddenly, there are no more vehicles—the police have blocked off the road at the next intersection. Lucy brakes hard, screeching to a halt. Behind she can see a road block at the previous intersection. The police keep their distance, the stretch of road she’s on now quiet.

A black National Guard VTOL appears overhead, a deafening roar from its thrusters; a heavily armed Vertical Take Off and Landing craft. Fear washes onto Lucy’s face as it positions itself menacingly ahead, its public address system reverberating around the buildings.

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

Alice whimpers. Speedily, Lucy checks her maps again. A way out. She stabs at the accelerator and yanks at the steering wheel, the glass frontage of a large department store swinging into view and approaching fast. The glass shatters as the truck crashes through it and into the store, the few people there are jumping out of the way, not seeing the truck skillfully dodge them anyway as it tears through the display stands.

The store spans two streets, the truck bursting through the glass frontage of the far side, across the second street and into a narrow alley opposite. At the end of the alley the truck stops, revving its engine. Ahead is a large open area—a square of buildings enclosing a grassed park, ringed by a road.

The National Guard VTOL slews into view overhead, the roar of its thrusters scattering people in a panic. The truck engine revs harder, the rubber tires digging in ready to launch it forward. It surges out of the alley at speed, making its way around the park. Police vehicles appear from everywhere. The truck continues around the square’s perimeter, but all exits are blocked. The VTOL sets down on the grass, armed soldiers pouring down a ramp at the rear, others leaping from its side hatch.

The truck comes to a halt in one corner of the square, the police and soldiers taking up positions around it. An explosive charge is slapped onto the truck’s rear doors. All retreat, the charge blowing doors open. Soldiers point their weapons at the smoke-filled interior. The smoke clears. The truck is empty.

The VTOL pilot watches the events unfolding on the other side of the park. Alice appears from behind him, her face close too. He can’t help but jump with a start.

“Jesus!”

“For your safety.” Alice grabs the pilot by his flight suit, releases his seat harness with one swift motion and drags him from the flight deck into the rear cabin. He struggles violently as Alice manhandles him through the cabin past Lucy’s MBI unit, secured to the center of the cabin floor with universal locking bolts, the VTOL’s loading ramp rising at the far end.

“Be gentle!” Lucy wails from her simulation of the scene, “Don’t hurt him!”

Alice is at the hatch with the struggling pilot. Outside Lucy can see policemen and soldiers rushing across the grass toward them. She darts forward onto the flight deck, clambering into the pilot’s seat—sized for a child in her world—and brings the VTOL’s engines up to speed.