Greg Rucka - Walking dead

I raced down to Tropicana, jockeying through traffic and watching the clock. My haste wasn't truly necessary, but the more I got out of the way now, the less I would have to do later, and the plan I was forming-such as it was-was going to keep me fairly busy for the next few days. According to the rental's clock radio, it was seven past six when I pulled into the parking lot of The Gun Store, and when I went inside I got eyefucks from just about everyone behind the counter, which is never a nice thing, and all the less pleasant when the people delivering them are also wearing firearms, as all of them were.

I made it easy on them, though, because I knew what I wanted, and they had it. I picked up a Glock 19 and one hundred rounds of nine-millimeter, and while I was at it I acquired a small Benchmade knife from their selection. They ran my brand new driver's license while I listened to the sound of gunfire in all calibers coming from the shooting range. They even had submachine guns and a Squad Assault Weapon available for rental. The check on Matthew Twigg came back, and nothing in it said I wasn't to be trusted with a pistol.

Next task was to find an electronics or, better, an office-supply store, but the hour had gone late enough that I didn't think I'd be able to manage it today. I headed back to the hotel, ordered up some food, and set about checking the pistol I'd purchased, fieldstripping it and reassembling its parts before loading it and stowing it deep in my messenger bag. I was sore and tired, and when I looked at the clock, I realized it was time to call Ballygar.

Alena answered this time, sounding miserable.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I've been sick," she told me. "Throwing up."

"Something you ate?"

"No, sick."

"Oh."

"Yes." She sounded very far away, and small, and it made me miss her all the more. "I feel awful."

"I think I've found her," I said. "If everything goes well, I could be in Ireland in another seven days or so. Maybe less."

"When you reach her, speak in Georgian," Alena said. "That will help her."

"I'll remember that. Can you put Bridgett on?"

"Here she is."

"Bridgett?"

"She gets angry when she throws up," Bridgett said. "It's funny."

"Nice to know you two are still getting along."

"Things are better."

"That's good to hear."

"Yeah, she's been so tired the last couple of days she barely has the energy to insult me."

"Ah."

"I hear her right? You're close?"

"Think so."

"Good," said Bridgett. "I want to go home."

"You're not the only one," I told her. Sharala, Auggie, and Solomon met me for breakfast the next morning at a greasy spoon close to the campus.

"We've got a design we like," Sharala told me. "Limor, when she did the Wave Bubble, it was a little thing, could fit in a cigarette pack. The power you're talking about, we need to scale that up. So we're thinking of a toolbox, one of those big metal ones, which'll give us some design benefits, as long as everything's insulated. It's gonna be heavy, though."

"How heavy?"

"Well, we're using a car battery for power, so, you know, that plus some."

"Doesn't sound like anything I can't handle."

"We emailed the Gerbers this morning, like, at three A.M.," Solomon said. "We're having the PCBs sent FedEx, like, warp speed, they should be here tomorrow."

"In English," I said.

"Gerbers," Sharala explained. "Think circuit diagrams, okay? PCB is printed circuit board."

"Gotcha."

Auggie slid a piece of notepaper over to me, a sketch of the design. The drawing was of a standard-sized toolbox, cutaway, notations all over it.

"With the car battery, this thing should go two, three hours before burning out," Auggie interjected. "And it's going to burn out, this much power, it's going to get hot, start melting components."

"That's more than enough time," I said.

"Cool. The other thing with the design, here, is that you'll need to attach the antennae yourself-we're using two of them, you can see here. You just pop the toolbox open, screw 'em on, then hit the Big Red Button and away you go."

"Big Red Button?" I asked.

The seriousness with which they regarded me made it seem as if we'd been discussing a nuclear bomb, and not a cellular jammer.

"There must always," Solomon told me, "be a Big Red Button." After our meeting, I made my way to an Office Depot and dumped a couple hundred dollars on a printer, plain and photo paper, extra ink cartridges, and a spindle-stack of CD-ROMs. Next stop was a Walgreens, where I bought myself two packs of white cotton gloves, the kind used for dermatological care.

I'd checked out of the hotel before leaving for breakfast, and so headed to the apartment, where I set up a workspace on the floor. I got the printer unpacked and communicating with my laptop, and then, wearing a set of the gloves, loaded the tray with photo paper. Then, one after the other, I began printing off multiple copies of all the photographs that Vladek Karataev had taken with his BlackBerry. While the printer ran, I opened up the word processor and began writing.

It was a long process. While the writing went quickly, the printing did not, and each time a sheet was finished, I had to don my gloves to remove it from the tray. It slowed an already time-consuming process immeasurably. I'd gone through most of the ink cartridges, and the world had shifted back into night, before I was finished.

Then, again using the gloves, I loaded the plain paper, and printed out sixteen separate copies of what I had written. I put each aside, with a set of the photographs.

Last, I began burning the CDs. On each one, I included digital copies of the photographs, and most of the video that Vladek had taken. As with the photographs, I left out all images of Tiasa Lagidze. "Wow, you look wasted," Sharala said to me the next morning. "Have some coffee."

"Don't do coffee."

"You get any sleep?"

"I was up all night," I admitted. "Where are we?"

"You want the good news or the bad news?" Solomon asked.

"Bad news first."

"We're having difficulty tracking down the power amplifier," Auggie said. "All the normal supply houses we go to for parts like this, they're out of stock. Sharala and I must've gone to every RadioShack in the greater Vegas area looking for one, no luck there, either. We think we found a guy in Canada, but the earliest it'll get here will be tomorrow."

"Okay," I said. "And the good news?"

"The good news is that the yellow boards arrived just before we came out to meet you," Solomon said. "All four of them."

"Yellow boards are…?"

"The PCBs, we told you this."

"You called them PCBs last time."

"They're the same thing."

"I see."

"We'll start assembling and testing today," Sharala said. "We get the amplifier tomorrow, we could have the box ready maybe tomorrow night, the day after at the latest."

I did a quick mental calculation, which wasn't all that quick given my lack of sleep. "That'll work."

"Then we'll see you tomorrow." On the way back to the apartment, I stopped at the same Walgreens I had the day before, and then at a high-end photography store. At the Walgreens I bought first aid supplies, a couple of cheap towels, and a cheap cowboy hat; at the photo place I paid far too much for a Nikon digital camera, two lenses, an adaptor, and a sixteen-gig memory card.

Back at the apartment, I took a shower, shaved, and changed the dressings on my wounds. Where I'd torn stitches in my side, the flesh looked angry and red, but when I gave the laceration a gentle squeeze, nothing issued from the wound in exchange for the pain I inflicted on myself. If I was carrying an infection, I couldn't tell.

I finished tending my wounds, then I lay down on the floor of my unfurnished apartment and tried to get some sleep. I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but surprised myself when I awoke seven hours later, sore and stiff, but feeling marginally refreshed. I dressed and headed out, taking the car back to the rental service. I dropped it off there, caught a cab, and hit the first used-car lot I could find.