Revolution World (27 page)

"Yes, why don't you just scan in the original?" Max smirked, hinting at the number of times he observed Seth out for walks with a little dog in the forest.

Seth sighed. The stupid sculpture was something to pass the time while he sulked in his room and programmed a massive assault on the American military intelligence databases. Also, he thought it would give him something to show Clio if she ever called him again. It kept his mind off calling her first. He had, in fact, scanned in the leader of Team Pom.

"Why are you two in my room?" Seth asked.

"Because you haven't left your room in four days," replied Gloria.

"I'm working from home," Seth said defensively.

"We wouldn't know. Whatever you are doing is taking up substantial bandwidth and covered with impenetrable security," Max explained. "Naturally, I was curious. You wouldn't leave your uncle out of anything exciting, would you?"

"Just catching up on some stuff," Seth replied, wondering how he could turn the conversation. He really did not want to get into a discussion about Revolution World or what he was working on now, but he could see no way out of it. Out of sheer desperation, he asked, "So I guess you know about the dogs?"

Max laughed and then stopped. "Wait, dogs? Plural? I just saw the one? Aw, do you have two itsby bitsy cutesy little dogs?" He started laughing again. Seth took joy in realizing that Max had only ever seen one dog. That meant Team Pom really was quite good at their stealth maneuvers.

Gloria looked irked. "Dogs? Is this another one of your stupid codes?" She had never seen any dogs anywhere. She wasn't a big fan of pets. Too messy. She squinted at Seth's hologram suspiciously. "Have you coded some sort of security feature into your dog hologram?"

"What? Yes!" Seth briefly entertained the idea of creating a lie so incredibly crazy that they would never question it. Then he remembered that this plan had never worked for him before. And he tried it many times. "No, not really." He hung his shoulders dejectedly.

"Did Clio give you some stupid fluffballs that you hide in the forest out of shame?" giggled Max. "You big sucker. God, no wonder you have problems with that girl. You act like she walks on water and she sticks you with poofy dogs."

Gloria's face soured at the mention of Clio. She flounced over to a chair and sat down. She made a big show of inspecting her nails.

"Shut up," Seth mumbled. Well, it was sort of true. Clio had stuck him with the stupid creatures, even if they were interesting company and he was growing quite fond of them.

Maybe he was too needy? He'd have to pull up some psychological research on this and see what better tactics he could use. He was discovering that it was best to treat love like war. He would have to rethink his infiltration strategy since the last big push had failed so miserably.

"Sucks to be you," said Max as he collapsed on the bed and idly flicked on the wallscreen. "I'm glad to see you aren't working on a Saturday night. Want to watch a movie? I queued up a bunch of great kung fu flicks."

If Seth had known how easy it would be to distract his uncle from finding out his deepest darkest secrets, he'd have done that a long time ago. "Sure, why not? Gloria, are you in? Want me to go get some food from the kitchen?"

Gloria leaned forward and smiled nastily at Max. "Kung fu movies? And what brought on your sudden lust for that genre? Perhaps certain Somata women suggested them to you? Who's the bigger sucker here?"

Max glowered at her. "That is totally different. You are a sad, vindictive woman and I pity you." Gloria scowled right back. Evidently, that had been Max's goal because he grinned cheerily. "Now, I'm going for drinks and something to munch on. Want do you want? Wine? Mixed drinks? Tacos? Ice cream?" Gloria put in her order and made herself comfortable.

"I'll come with you," Seth said as he flicked off his hologram dog sculpture.

"Fine," agreed Max. "Gloria, you pick out the movie. Anything is fine as long as it has Michelle Yeoh in it. That woman is smoking hot." Max sighed appreciatively and Seth followed him out the door.

As they walked down the hall, Seth endured several minutes of his uncle studying him with an air of speculation. Finally, he couldn't take it.

"What?"

"Do you really not know that Gloria is choking to be your girlfriend?" Max asked. "Really? You haven't noticed the five hundred times or so she crawled into your lap and practically started chewing on your boxer shorts?"

Seth stopped and stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Max grinned. "Oh come on. Cut the innocent act for a minute. You know all about it, right?"

"What?" Seth sputtered incoherently for a minute. "Have you been drinking? Or huffing paint? Gloria does all that 'licking my ear' crap because she wants to annoy me. Not because she actually wants to do anything physical or romantic or whatever."

Max clapped him on the shoulder. "I never understand how you can be so smart and so clueless at the same time. But you do manage it, don't you?"

Seth pushed him away and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. "Delusional. That's what you are."

"Nope, I'm really not. I wish I were," sighed Max. But he didn't bring it up again as they collected goodies and drinks and went back to Seth's room.

Seth, however, spent quite a bit of brainpower on that topic. He eyed Gloria in a way that bordered on paranoid. Was she really interested in him? Surely not. Yet she laughed and flirted with him. She edged closer to him on the couch. Normally he would edge away, but this time he let her. He was shocked to find she didn't spit popcorn at him or put ice down his shirt.

He'd never considered Gloria as a possible date and his mind couldn't really grasp the concept now. She was Gloria, not a girlfriend.

Yet when he thought on it, he could see how dating Gloria might be a good idea. They had much in common. Their views were the same and their backgrounds were similar. In short, they were very compatible. If he hadn't met Clio, who knows?

"Look, I know you are rummaging through the American government's networks looking for answers," Max was saying. "What I don't understand is why you think you need to hide it. Do you think the rest of us here want to wait around for DARPA to get up the guts to come bother us again? We should be working together."

"Oh." Said Seth. He hadn't thought of it that way. But how could he do that without getting into all the Revolution World stuff? "You are right. Let's work on it tomorrow though. Tonight we should relax."

Max looked satisfied and turned back to the movie. Seth congratulated himself on dodging that bullet, at least for a few more hours. He would come up with something tomorrow.

"You forgot the chocolate milk," sulked Gloria playfully. It was one of life's minor miracles that cocoa trees adapted easily to the Texas climate with only minor splicing needed.

"We are out," replied Max. Gloria continued to pout until Seth offered to go get some for her.

Gloria looked thrilled, but shook her head. "Oh no. I wouldn't want you to go to all that trouble just for me."

"It's no trouble," Seth replied. "We are also out of my favorite beer. I'll just go down to the market. It's after dark and they should be open for a little longer. Keep watching the movie without me."

Gloria gleefully waved him goodbye.

"See you soon," he said cheerfully.

But it was a long, long time before Seth saw anybody he wanted to see.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"S
eth disappeared? What do you mean?" asked Clio. She sat down in her new lab chair and clutched her handheld.

"He went out for chocolate milk and beer three hours ago and didn't come back," Max told her. "He isn't there?"

"No, he's not with me," Clio responded. "I haven't talked to him since the DARPA raid."

He hasn't called me,
she thought.
Not once. I was rude to him that day and he was mad at me and now he's missing and it's awful.

She almost confessed all her pent-up angst to Max. But she realized now wasn't the time to get emotional about her maybe-boyfriend like some sort of pathetic teenager.

"Have you gone to the market to see if he made it there?" Clio asked Max.

"Yes, I'm standing in their parking lot right now," Max replied. "They say Seth came in, bought a few things and then left. I had Gloria review the recordings of our parking lot and he definitely did not return there."

"So, he didn't make it home," she said. "Maybe he just went for a drive or something?"

"We were watching a movie and he went out for snacks. If he changed his mind, he would have called," answered Max, fear edging his voice.

"That's true. Seth is a very conscientious guy. He would have called," said Clio. She was glad Max wasn't there to see her wince. Whether or not Seth called was a tender subject for her just now. "I'll get the police."

"Clio, I think the market has surveillance cameras out here. Can you convince them to let us look at the recordings?" asked Max.

"Good idea. I'm on it," said Clio. That was something she could do. She ended her call with Max and began firing messages to her mother, her sisters and the owner of the market.

Ninety minutes later, seven people crammed into the market's tiny office to peer at a dingy little wallscreen.

"I can't thank you enough," Harmony was saying to the owner of the market as he hovered over a young man sitting in front of the wallscreen.

"Oh, it's nothing, Miss Somata. Always happy to help, especially when someone is missing," the manager replied, wiping sweat off his forehead. The room had gotten hot. "Just wish I was better at figuring out all these digital doodads. But my nephew here will get us squared away right quick." There was a note of warning in his voice for his nephew. He could see Max was itching to push the boy aside and get at the controls.

Harmony noticed too. She slipped her hand into Max's and squeezed gently. "It's going to be alright, Max," she told him softly.

Max looked at her with anguish in his eyes. "I seriously doubt it."

"Why don't you call Gloria?" Harmony suggested. "I'm sure she is anxious to know what is going on."

"I wanted to wait until we had something to report. Anxious is a mild way to describe Gloria right now. She's working herself up to Category Five Hurricane Gloria," replied Max, glad that he was here and nowhere near her. "The only thing keeping her happy is tearing through Seth's work for the last two weeks. I don't think he has slept a minute, trying to figure what is behind the raids and DARPA's acute interest in all of us and how to make it all stop."

"So he's been really busy," commented Clio as Terpsi and Kalliope jostled her to get a better view of the wallscreen. "Too busy to call."

Max had been looking for a reason to vent his frustrations and Clio just gave him the perfect opening. "You two are such a train wreck. It's a wonder the species survives," he sighed. "Honestly. He wasn't calling you because you weren't calling him. Look, all you two have to do is make a decision. It's really easy. Either you are together or you aren't. Just pick one. But don't change your mind or second-guess yourself or wonder if your lover is as into you as you are into them. Just decide to be in love and then do it. You kids give me a headache."

"Hey," interrupted Kalliope, "Let's try to focus on what's important right now." She pointed at the wallscreen, which was now playing scenes from earlier that night. Everyone turned to the screen and pressed closer.

Clio hung her head. Apparently, she was pretty bad at focusing on what was important. That was something she vowed to fix as soon as they found Seth.

The images jumped around as they tried to find the right time. "There," cried Terpsi. "That's Seth going into the store." They let the tape play.

Seth came out of the store with a bag in his hands. He opened the passenger door and bent over to put the bag in. Two men dressed in black appeared and grabbed him. Everyone in the little room gasped.

Seth struggled, but they had a firm grip. Another man dressed in black appeared in the shot. He shoved a bag over Seth's head and slapped a set of magnetic cuffs around his wrists as they dragged him off. A few seconds later, they could make out the front end of a vehicle as it kicked up gravel and sped off.

No one spoke. The nephew backed up and played the whole thing again. And again. And again.

"Breathe, people," said Kalliope. They let out the breath they had all been holding.

They stopped the tape and Max finally pushed the nephew out of the way. He connected his handheld to the wallscreen and fiddled with it for a minute. The resolution got much better. They could see that the clothes were military uniforms. Max zoomed in on a small patch on one of the men's shoulder. You could just make out a blurry insignia.

"DARPA," spat Kalliope.

Harmony rubbed her shoulder. Her bullet wound itched like hell, but that was part of the healing process. "I am so very sick of these damn DARPA guys."

The way she said it sent chills down her daughters' spines. They knew that voice. That voice meant doom. Mom had officially lost her patience.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

S
eth marveled at how long his patience was lasting. There really was nothing like being kidnapped by military thugs to teach you the art of sitting and waiting. The whole thing would be quite Zen, he thought, if it wasn't so uncomfortable. And boring.

They had been bouncing along in a dismal twilight fugue for hours before someone roughly pulled him out of the van and yanked the hood off his head. Seth showed his appreciation for this change in circumstance by immediately vomiting all over the nearest pair of shoes. The following five minutes of cursing brought a cracked smile to his face. He briefly considered urinating on himself just to annoy them, but decided it wasn't worth it.

After forcing some water down his throat and giving him a brief, humiliating opportunity to urinate, they shoved him back in the van and began driving again. They didn't untie him or let him clean the vomit off. Seth sat crouched forward with his hands going numb behind him while the soldiers around him sat, fondling their weapons and pretending to ignore him.