Bug Park by James P. Hogan

As the car pulled away, Tigger turned and sat itself down on the top of the fascia, apparently to take in the view. But after a while, the mec ceased responding to Eric’s remarks. He reached out and picked it up, but it was inactive. Evidently Kevin had tuned out.

Eric’s frown of worry deepened. Despite the road and the weather, he picked up the phone again as he drove, and telling himself he should have done this before, punched in Doug Corfe’s personal number.

It was Eric’s asking Kevin if he was at Neurodyne that had alerted Kevin to the danger he could be in, which he hadn’t had time to give any thought to so far. He knew that Vanessa was part of whatever group had planned this; and they now had the van. So, even if they hadn’t worked out who, exactly, was operating Tigger, they would quickly deduce that whoever it was had to be physically coupled in from Neurodyne. And from what Kevin had seen of the way they’d picked up Michelle, it wouldn’t be long before another deputation showed up in Tacoma. There wasn’t time to wait for Eric to get back. But what else could he do? The exit routine was blocked as solidly as ever. He forced himself to stay calm and tried to think.

The only mec-connection capability he had, apparently, was to the modified ones that he and Taki used, not any of the regular Neurodyne models. The only way to get out of the coupler, by the look of things, would be to have somebody switch off the system from the outside. If Eric was still hours away, and nobody else knew of his predicament, then the only logical alternative was to get a mec here to do it. Logical, yes. But how was he supposed to translate that into practice? His mecs were at the house, not here—and in any case, they were all shut up in boxes or clipped immovably into racks. And the mecs at Taki’s place were always locked away even more securely because the house was permanently overrun by children. Kevin wished now that he had lent one to Avril when she asked. At least she lived in Tacoma, which would have been a lot nearer. . . . But that wouldn’t have done any good, anyway—hadn’t she said something about going off on a hike in the mountains today? But maybe they’d canceled it on account of the weather.

He thought back again to when Avril and Janna had visited the house—had it really been only last Sunday? The parachuting mec had gotten caught in the tree, and they’d had to send Ironside up to free it. Strangely, he couldn’t recollect anything more about Ironside after that—certainly not of returning it to its normal place in the lab at the house. So what had he done with Ironside? Where was it? . . . He couldn’t remember. He and Taki had had this same problem before with the mec that had gone lost and turned up in Vanessa’s bag. Well, he knew the simple way to find it this time.

He pulled down the Control menu, disconnected from Taki’s relay in the trunk of the Jaguar, and rerouted to the system in the basement of the house. Ironside was listed as one of the available channels. He pointed with a virtual finger and selected “Activate.” . . .

And found himself underneath what seemed to be a wooden bridge, wedged among empty soda cans about the same size as himself, and a mountain of balled-up, soggy paper. He wriggled his way out, feeling as if he were emerging from a garbage pile, and straightened up. The floor he was standing on was also of wood, curving upward on either side of him to become an enormous wooden canyon with the open sky above. A boat? His boat. That was right! Now he remembered—he had put Ironside under the seat when he, Doug, and Taki took the girls for a trip across the inlet, and then forgotten all about it. Ironside had been there, out in the boat, ever since.

He scrambled up onto the seat and peered over the side. The boat was moored at the dock, and he could see the familiar view of the house through the trees from the bottom of the rear slope. He could get other mecs out of their boxes and racks now—Ironside was big enough and strong enough to accomplish that. But this was still a long way from Tacoma. He stared up at the trees, and memories came back of flying up over them with Taki and looking down at the house. . . . And the beginnings began forming in his mind of what was surely one of his craziest ideas yet.

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