Bug Park by James P. Hogan

“Let’s have a look at what we’ve got there,” Michelle said.

The cursor moved over the screen, stopped, and then a box appeared with the legend: enter password

“Okay, I think I’ve got this,” Kevin muttered. “Give me a second to look up what we taped. . . .”

“Okay, can you do without me now for a while?” Corfe said.

“Sure. We’ll be okay now,” Kevin answered.

Decoupling from the can-size telebot on the desk, Corfe reactivated the other mec to find himself back down on the floor. He selected some tools and devices that he thought he might need from the collection they had laid out there, and departed for other parts of the house.

Michelle was not the only one who had been watching. Although Corfe had looked hard enough during his visit, he had seen no sign of internal surveillance, and had concluded that the building’s protection was limited to standard measures for detecting external break in and entry. But some of Garsten’s business was such that he didn’t always want his clients to know that they were being observed and recorded. Also, he did highly confidential work for Martin Payne, and Payne owned a company that dealt in some pretty advanced technology.

Each of the principal rooms had a normal-looking mirror, wall plaque, or framed design concealing a miniature camera that could be remote-directed. And the bases of the ceiling-lamp fixtures contained sensitive motion detectors that responded to reflective metallic surfaces. Garsten had good reasons for not wanting either the police or any of the regular private security companies in any kind of proximity to his affairs. Accordingly, he relied on Microbotics for his security arrangements, and the alarm lines from his office went directly to the company’s premises at Redmond.

Garsten was with Vanessa and Andy Finnion in the room at the top of the lab block where the equipment was set up, when a call came through from the supervisor currently on duty in Security, across in the main building. They were killing time, waiting for Eric to reach the hazardous stretch of road that they had picked for the “accident.” All modern vehicles carried a satellite-linked positioning system, and it was simple for Vanessa to check the car’s location by dialing a number that returned its current map coordinates. Payne himself had joined the yacht, now at Fox Landing, where he was finalizing preparations for the holiday weekend.

“Andy, it’s Kyle here. We’ve got trouble. Can you get over here right away?”

“What is it? What’s up?”

“Is Phil Garsten still with you?”

“Yes, he is. Why?”

“Bring him too. We’ve got an alarm condition from his office. You need to come and see this for yourself.”

Finnion hung up, looking mystified.

“Perhaps I’d better come too,” Vanessa said. There was time yet. Their last fix had shown Eric in the same place for almost thirty minutes, probably stopped somewhere for breakfast. Finnion nodded. They took an elevator down, left the lab block, and arrived in Security several minutes later.

Garsten’s eyes bulged as Kyle showed them the current view from one of the live cameras and a replay of some of what had been happening. “What are they?” he protested in a strangled voice, pointing an outraged finger at the screen. “What’s going on? . . . Goddamn robot things all over my office. . . .”

Finnion blanched. “Something’s screwed up big. I need to call Martin. We may have to scratch the operation.”

“No!” Vanessa’s voice was tight but firm. “Think about it. Whatever’s happening has nothing to do with the plan. Phil’s office doesn’t come into it. It’s something else going on there, a coincidence.” Garsten and Finnion glanced at each other. Maybe she had a point. They waited to see what she would make of it.

Vanessa stared at the screens, thinking rapidly. “The van has to be there somewhere. Whoever it is has to be doing this from the van. . . . It’s no use us just going crashing into the building. All it’ll do is alert them that we’re onto them and scare them off.” She shot a look at Finnion. “Andy, can you mobilize some of your guys quickly—you know, ones who can be trusted?”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *