Bug Park by James P. Hogan

“Hi, this is Doug Corfe. Is Taki there?”

“Hello, Mr. Corfe. I think my brother just set himself on fire with something. . . . Oh no, he’s okay now. One moment. I’ll fetch him.”

Taki’s people could move now, without risk of more delays. And they were close to Tacoma. Of course, there would have to be explanations later. But hell, a lot of explanations were going to be called for anyway.

“Hi, Doug. Taki here. How’s it going?” Taki’s voice was low, with a hint of apprehension. That was understandable—he knew what was supposed to have been happening at Garsten’s today.

“It all went wrong,” Corfe said.

“Oh, my God! How?”

“I can’t go into details now, but I just talked to Eric. He’s on his way back. Kev’s in some kind of trouble at the lab. I don’t understand what, exactly, but it seems he can’t decouple from the machine. I don’t know for sure when I’m going to be able to get back. Can you get Ohira over there and check the situation? Eric’s worried.”

“This is terrible,” Taki gasped. “But if I ask Ohira, he’s going to have all kinds of questions. How much can I tell him?”

“Anything he wants to know,” Corfe said tiredly. “The whole thing’s going to come out now, anyhow.”

“Are Payne’s people on their way there too?” Taki asked. “Do they know about Kevin?”

Corfe hadn’t thought of that. He didn’t immediately see how they could—but then, his faculties hadn’t exactly been working at their best for the last hour or more. Vanessa knew that the van had been involved. Anything was possible. “I don’t know. Maybe. They could, I guess,” he replied.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Taki promised. “Shall I call you on your personal number when I know something?”

“I might be in an awkward situation. Best if you wait for me to call you.”

“Check. Will do. Operation Intercept-Bad-Guys signing out.”

Corfe told the cabbie to drop him off a hundred yards from Microbotics, and walked the remaining distance. Keeping well to the side of the front parking area, he followed the fence past the main building to the rear. The van was still there, although both Garsten’s Cadillac and the black Lincoln were gone. To his mild surprise the rear parking area was deserted, and nobody appeared when he got into the van and started the motor. He backed out from the slot and drove out through the side gate without interference. His first priority was to put a respectable amount of distance between himself and Microbotics.

Which way to go then? He wasn’t sure. But the absence of the two cars told him with reasonable certainty that Michelle was no longer out here. With Ohira mobilized in Tacoma, Corfe could get back to trying to get a lead on where Payne’s people had taken her. And now that he had the van back with its equipment for linking to mecs, he no longer needed the help of the police to accomplish that.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The two cars headed west along the Evergreen Point Bridge, back in the direction of Seattle. Michelle had no idea where they were heading now. She was in the back of the Lincoln, one of her two inseparable shadows next to her and the other in the passenger seat up front, both as communicative as crash dummies. The red-headed man called Kyle was driving. Finnion was with Garsten and Vanessa in Garsten’s Cadillac ahead. At least that way they didn’t have to deal with her questions and protests, Michelle supposed. Not that she was any longer of a mood to sustain much in the way of protest. She had been running on tension since the previous day, and after the calamity at Garsten’s had gone into a state of nervous collapse that left her numbed and exhausted. To make it worse, she had lost her one means of possible contact through which she might have made her whereabouts known: Vanessa had taken not only the phone from Michelle’s purse but also the mec that had been in her coat pocket—although by that time it had ceased being active. Vanessa had made no attempt to disguise it as a casual search; she had obviously known the mec was there—maybe from spotting it in one of its sorties to try and follow what was going on. That meant that she would very quickly have deduced who was operating it, and very likely, Michelle imagined, where from. What those facts in turn portended, she wasn’t sure.

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