Bug Park by James P. Hogan

Above, the branch began to dip under the weight as Ironside came nearer to the entangled chute. The mec was head down now, spreading and clutching the fronds like a wary squirrel in descent mode. “Oh, I can’t watch!” Janna cried, covering her eyes, then peeking.

“Go for it, Taki,” Corfe said into the phone. “We’re right here underneath you.” He listened to a response, then finished what he was saying to Ray before the action overhead absorbed everyone’s attention. “You might have seen it about. Payne throws big parties and likes to impress his friends with days out along the coast. It’s called the Princess Dolores.”

For a moment Kevin just sat open-mouthed.

Ironside got to the chute and released it without falling off. But by then it was easier for it to just drop down into the boat rather than have to climb all the way back to the ground.

Kevin wedged Ironside in a space under one of the seats and put the smaller mec in his shirt pocket. But he was so taken aback by what he had heard that he left Ironside there when they tied up at the dock and all went back up to the house.

Later, he, Taki, and Corfe did take the girls out in the boat as promised. And when they came back from their jaunt across the inlet, he forgot all about Ironside once again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next day, Monday, during the midmorning break at school, Kevin called Michelle’s office in Seattle from a pay phone in the entrance hall outside the general office.

“Good morning, this is Prettis and Lang law offices. How may I help?”

“Oh, hi. I’d like to talk to Michelle Lang, please. Is she available right now?”

“I’ll have to check. Can I say who’s calling?”

“This is Kevin Heber.”

“One moment.”

“Thanks.”

A grotesque face, eyes distended and fingers stretching the sides of its mouth, appeared in Kevin’s field of view, groaning and grimacing. Behind and to one side, another of the class morons was waving and poking a tongue in an effort to distract Kevin’s attention. Kevin ignored them and turned the other way. He felt hesitant about getting involved in these adult-world complications. However, if Vanessa was on those kinds of terms with the president of the company that Neurodyne’s success threatened the most, Michelle needed to know. Or perhaps Neurodyne’s own legal representative would be the better person to take it to, but Kevin wasn’t even sure who that was. He didn’t want to go through Eric because of the personal aspect of the situation. Garsten was the family lawyer, but not somebody that Kevin knew very well or normally dealt with. At least he felt he could approach Michelle. The attorneys could sort out between them who needed to do what or talk to whom.

“Hello, Mr. Heber?”

“Yes.”

“Putting you through to Ms. Lang now.”

Michelle’s voice came on the line. “Kevin?”

“Oh, er . . . hi. I hope you don’t mind me calling you at your office like this.”

“That’s okay if it’s important. But if it weren’t I guess you wouldn’t be calling. So what’s up?”

Kevin had rehearsed in his head what he was going to say; now he found he couldn’t find two words to string together coherently. The clamor in the background didn’t help. The best he could manage was, “This is kind of difficult, knowing where to start. . . .”

“That’s okay. Relax and take your time.”

He collected his thoughts and tried again. “It’s to do with this thing that seems to be going on—all these stories and stuff about DNC.”

“What about it?”

Kevin ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. “Doug thinks that some of the people at Microbotics might be behind it—or at least, mixed up in it somehow, right?”

“Doug does, but be careful,” Michelle cautioned. “We don’t have enough at this stage to start throwing accusations around.”

“But suppose it was true. Wouldn’t we be suspicious of any of our people that we found were involved with them—really closely, know what I mean?”

“What do you mean by ‘our people,’ Kevin?”

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