Counting Heads (31 page)

“Arresting friends and designated others?” said Peter.

“No, I don’t think so. And Reilly went home to bed.”

“I know,” said Shelley.

They ordered more drinks, more food, and watched the Skytel cycle through its usual smorgasbord of civic and commercial messages: sports scores, stock quotes, population clock, birthday and anniversary dedications, celebrity news, ads. A news headline crawled across the boards: Chicagoland breaks out of its shell at midnight!

“How condescending,” said Alice.

Sofi said, “If there’s anything I’d like to smash more than a slug, it’s that monstrosity up there crowding out our moon.”

“Many have tried,” said Fred.

“It seems a rather large target to miss,” Alice said.

“True, but it’s farther away than it appears, fifty-five thousand kilometers, in fact. And it’s modular, not much more than prisms, lenses, and mirrors, and the servos that point them. Hard to kill, easy to repair.”

A vibrant message rippled across the boards: “Chicago, give yourself a hug!”

The lulu Mariola giggled. “Now tell me, wouldn’t you miss that if it was gone?”

“No, I wouldn’t!” Sofi said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it
did
follow the canopies into retirement,” said Peter. “Advertising revenue alone isn’t enough to justify it anymore. Never was, in fact. And there’s no public messages on it people can’t easily access by other means.”

Mary said, “Why’d they put it up in the first place?”

“Propaganda.”

“Give yourself a hug?”

“Not for us,” said Peter. “Propaganda for the other side of the globe. The Skytel is not geosynchronous, you know. It follows the night and spends as much time over enemy and/or unaligned territory as it does over ours. The wanted posters were a little before your time, Mary, but imagine a nightly rogues gallery of fatwah posters with princely rewards for indicted extremists, dead or alive, up there where everyone could see it, mug shots as big as Texas. The extremists hated the Skytel and tried to shoot it down many times. While it tormented us with adverts here, there it might feature your next-door neighbor and put such a price on his head that no one could resist the temptation to bring him in. No one was safe from us. The Skytel was one of our most potent weapons against the Outrage for a while.” Peter raised a glass of wine and toasted the Skytel: “To blood money.”

The central billboard opened a window to show a close-up of a woman in a formal jumpsuit.

“What channel? What channel?” people asked across the Stardeck. The woman introduced Chicago CEO, Forrest Slana. The CEO’s roundish face seemed to compete with the Moon behind him. He beamed pallid sincerity upon all sectors of the great city.

Good evening, Chicago
, he intoned.
In a few moments, I will turn you over to our masters of ceremony, but first I wanted to say a few words about your decision to lower the city’s canopy
.

Decision? Did we vote on it?
someone asked on an open channel. And a hundred voices answered,
Shut up!

Our canopy, this shell of charged squamous plates, this bubble of anti-nano, has served as Chicagoland’s hard hat these last sixty-eight years
. As he spoke, the CEO glanced over his head, pretending to look up at the canopy.
In that time, it has saved many lives and much property. It has intercepted and neutralized over a trillion extremist weapons. In the last sixty-eight years, it has failed us only twice, and we will always remember our neighbors who perished on those days
. A sober pause here.

But today’s world is a different, better, safer place. The Outrage is over, thank heaven, and we won. The atmosphere and oceans and land are free of NASTIES. They have been flushed away, their energy depleted, and no new ones are being nanofactured
.

Both Mary and Shelley looked at Fred—is that true? No new NASTIES? But he was still off-line and unable to follow the speech.

Meanwhile, this barrier over our heads costs us dearly. Operation and maintenance alone comes to one hundred credits per capita annually. And that’s a lot of yoodies that I’m sure you’d rather spend on other things. And so, as the first major city to raise a canopy, Chicago will again lead the way and be the first to drop it. We will, after sixty-eight years, finally and willingly break out of our shell!

He pretended to rap against the canopy with his knuckles. Somewhere there was generous applause, though Mary didn’t see anyone clapping on the Stardeck. As a relative newcomer to this world, Mary was curious about how her Applied People colleagues were taking all this. The canopy—the Skytel for that matter—was a fixture in her sky from as far back as she could remember. And as far as the Outrage went, she had learned about it in History class.

But if there are still evil haters out there, cooking up new terrors to unleash on us
, continued the CEO,
let them know that though we lay down our defenses today, we will not dismantle them. On the contrary, the canopy pickets will be maintained in a fully functional status. We will be able to respond to any threat at a moment’s notice
. Another round of unseen applause.

And now, on with the show. I am thrilled to introduce to you our hosts for the evening, the sensational Debbie Mix and her irrepressible symbiont, Alkanuh. Let’s give them a big-shouldered Chicago welcome
.

Mix and Alkanuh appeared in frames on either side of the CEO. They giggled. They waved. They made silly faces. Their frames jumped together into the center, covering over the CEO.

Yar
, said Mix.
Me and the yik here are riding in a VIP box doing lazy eights inside Soldier Field. There’s quite a crowd here tonight. How many people would you say, Al?

The other boards opened multiple views of the crowded stands of excited spectators, the stage in the center of the field, and pages of background data and stats.

Hoo!
said Alkanuh.

The stadium crowd cheered and booed.

I think that translates to four hundred thousand. Am I right, Al?

The canopy show devolved into a typical, star-studded pastiche of the type one could find at any hour on the WAD, the type of show that clones didn’t particularly enjoy because there were so few clone celebrities included. So, although the boards were bursting with glittery musical numbers, tasteful nudity, and risqué comedy, there was nothing entertaining or even characteristically Chicagoan about it, and the Stardeck crowd tuned it out.

Fred asked Mary, “You want me to take your—ah—recyclables down to a digester?”

Mary smiled. “Thank you, Fred, but that won’t be necessary.”

“You got someone else to take them?”

She shook her head.

He’d already guessed the poor results of their harvesting, but he enjoyed the interrogation. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How many did you bag?”

“We limited out, didn’t we, Shell?”

Shelley nodded enthusiastically, with big brown eyes.

Although nust had ceased traveling down most of Heliostream’s microbeams, it still flowed to the target array outside La Paz. When Meewee reached the crash site near an outlying village, concentration of the silvery stuff was heavy enough to distinguish the blurry figures of guards cordoning off the scene. Meewee could make out trees but not individual leaves, vehicles but not their type.

It’s amazing
, Meewee said.
With enough nust, you could keep track of everything everywhere in real time
.

A despot’s wet dream
, Wee Hunk agreed.
But frankly, I don’t understand how Arrow is able to read this. It exceeds my capacity, probably Cabinet’s as well. When you can truly speak Starkese, you should ask it
.

They drifted through the trench that the
Songbird
had gouged into what looked like a soccer field. As a breeze stirred the nust, pockets of terrain moved in and out of focus.

Impressive as this is
, Wee Hunk went on,
I’m not sure what Arrow has in mind. To analyze Ellen’s DNA, you’d need more than nust. What do you suppose it’s looking for?

They left the trench and followed the debris trail where hundreds of blurry metallic persons and mechs were sifting and collecting bits of the
Songbird
. Meewee and Wee Hunk swam among them unseen.

What’s that?
Meewee said.

On the ground ahead of them was a splash of sparkles, like colored sequins. Wee Hunk hovered over the spot.
Aha!
he said.
Taggants, of course
.

For explosives?
Meewee said.

No, the taggants they put into batches of resin. Arrow must be looking for the outer shell of Ellen’s helmet. The helmet must have struck the ground here upon the yacht’s disintegration. Taggants are microscopic but are designed to be conspicuous, easily within the limits of nust detection
.

As they examined the taggant find, an orange striped line, like an usher line, suddenly shot out from it and extended north across the countryside.

Come on!
Wee Hunk said, swimming straight up.

Meewee followed and pulled himself into the sky until his vantage point was high enough to follow the orange line. It arced across South America and led back to the USNA. He used a dog paddle to swim along its length. It terminated at the Decatur canopy’s Flinn Gate. Because the nust was filtered out by the city’s canopy, Decatur and its environs appeared like a small opaque bubble.

End of the taggant trail
, Wee Hunk said,
and not much learned. We already knew the helmet was brought here. The Roosevelt Clinic is located down there in Decatur, where we both saw it unclench. I think the taggant trail is a false trail
. They swam over the invisible city, and Wee Hunk continued.
Arrow is wasting our time. I have an unimpeachable record of the helmet from the arrival of the recovery team to its unclenching at the clinic, which we both witnessed. I’m afraid we’re no closer to finding her than before
.

Wee Hunk pulled himself out of the globe display.
So much for Arrow’s help. I’m going to continue pursuing my other leads. Good-bye for now
.

Meewee rose from the quicksilver atmosphere, and when his viewpoint again occupied his executive apartment, the mentar was gone, except for a flat portrait of himself on the wall. Meewee got out of the armchair and took a few tentative steps around the living room. Except for the light given off by the globe, the room was dark. The two household arbeitors stood in their ready nooks, and the skylight revealed the first stars of the night.

Meewee had full use of his arm again, and the lump was hard and painless under his skin. He was beyond exhaustion, and he was about to tell Arrow to fetch him a glass of the wine, when he was struck by the absurdity of using such a remarkable creature as his mentar as a common servant. He could, after all, control the kitchen and arbeitors with the apartment’s houseputer.

Arrow
, he glotted,
say something to me in Starkese
.

Complying
, said the mentar. “Myr Meewee, please unlock the trophy case so that I can prepare your awards for shipment.”

That struck Meewee as nonsensical, for he possessed only one award and no trophy case. At the same time he felt an urge to return to the global nust scape, and without questioning the impulse, he returned to the scape and was surprised to find a second taggant trail emanating from the crash site. This one, though it took a separate route, ended at the same destination—Decatur’s Flinn Gate.

“Hunk!” he said. “The switch was made right in Bolivia!”

The Wee Hunk portrait filled out into three dimensions, and without waiting for Meewee, the apeman dove into the globe. Meewee dove in after him and paddled down to Decatur where he found the mentar floating over the city. Its canopy still appeared as a shiny opaque bubble.
How do we look inside a canopy?
Meewee said.

We can’t
, Wee Hunk replied.
There are about a thousand international bans against releasing microagents inside canopied space. But I’m increasing my assets on the ground there; I’ll use bees to search every cubic centimeter of the city if I have to
.

But as they hovered over the city, its canopy was gradually becoming transparent.

Hello?
Wee Hunk said, pulling himself closer.
It looks like Arrow is releasing nust inside the canopy. I sure hope it knows what it’s doing, or you’re going to prison
.

Me?

It’s
your
mentar, isn’t it? You ordered it to find Ellen
.

As the nust density within the canopy increased, the city skyline emerged from a silvery miasma, and usher lines snapped from Flinn Gate to two distinct parts of town.

That one leads to the clinic
, Wee Hunk said, swimming toward the other, which led to a neighborhood on the west side. The taggant trail ended at a single sparkle in a two-story residence. The nust resolution wasn’t heavy enough to render the house as more than a blur.

Wee Hunk said,
My resources identify it as belonging to the Sitrun Foundation. Ever hear of it?

No, what is it?

I’m researching
.

Meewee paddled down into the house. The nust density was even lighter indoors, and the rooms were barely discernible. Nothing moved.
Maybe one of the surgeons from the clinic lives here
, he said,
and brought home a stray fleck of helmet resin on her sleeve
.

Possible, but so far I’ve found no connection to any clinic personnel
.

What do we do now? Send in the Command?

Wee Hunk snorted.
You’ve got to be kidding
.

Then let’s hire some russes
.

I don’t trust ’em
.

You don’t trust russes?

As they watched, the canopy pumped out the nust, and Decatur disappeared again. The house and its neighborhood dissolved. Meewee and Wee Hunk returned to the living room where the apeman began to pace in a circle.

Russes I trust
, he said, swinging a step on his knuckles,
but not their employer
.

Zoranna? She’s the only one of that crowd that I do trust
.

Which only goes to show how ill-informed you are, Bishop
.

Wee Hunk’s rented witness bees were arriving in the west end neighborhood in force, and he opened a new diorama in the room to render the pictures they began to send. Soon the house appeared in full color and rich detail. It sat inconspicuously on a quiet residential street. The house itself was a Tudor style brick structure with neatly trimmed hedges and colorful flower beds. But the bees were only able to project them an exterior view.

Somebody’s got to go there
, Meewee said.
I guess that’ll have to be me
.

You?
Wee Hunk snorted again.
And do what? Knock on the door and ask if Ellen Starke can come out to play?

Then what do you suggest?
Meewee snapped.
You don’t trust the authorities. You don’t trust russes. You don’t trust Zoranna. Who do you trust?

Wee Hunk shook his shaggy head.
Excuse my metaphor, Merrill, but you’re talking through your ass. You are so far out of the loop you’re in a separate reality. Allow me to catch you up on recent events since apparently either Arrow doesn’t know how to keep you informed or you never asked it to. In brief then: an hour ago, Saul Jaspersen’s compound in Alaska was attacked by a missile and completely destroyed. As luck would have it, Myr Jaspersen, himself, was inside his mountain redoubt and escaped harm
.

Meanwhile, Andie Tiekel in her Oakland hillside home was not so lucky. A laser pulse, probably from a suborbital drone, pierced the top of her skull. Her hair and makeup were hardly mussed, but inside her skull, the yolk was poached, so to speak
.

This is my Ellen’s life we’re dealing with, Merrill, not your position on the GEP board, not the launch schedule of your Oships. I don’t have Cabinet’s resources. I don’t have the luxury of error. But I’m not completely helpless
.

Meewee said,
So, who are you sending?

The caveman grinned.
Why, the same folks who are going to move your stuff out of here tomorrow
.

At first Meewee didn’t follow, and then it made no sense.
You’re sending a moving company?