Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

“Yeah.”

There was a knock on his door. Petrovitch felt his guts tighten.

“Hang on,” he said to Pif. “In!”

The door opened. McNeil poked her head around the corner. She saw he was in the middle of a conversation and mimed that she’d wait outside, but Petrovitch waved her in.

“It’s fine,” he continued. “Give me a call when you get to wherever it is you’re going to next. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He put the rat back in its case and pushed it to one side, trying to recall McNeil’s first name again.

“Fiona.” He noticed the data card gripped between her thumb and forefinger.

“Was that Doctor Ekanobi?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Petrovitch took a swig of his coffee, and it had gone cold. He forced the mouthful down, face contorted. “Next stop, Seattle.”

She perched on the edge of his desk, hooking one jean-clad leg over the other. She slid the data card across toward him. “It’s a day early. Hope that’s all right.”

He picked it up and rolled it over and under his fingers, from one gap to the next until it reached his pinkie. Then he reversed the movement and span it back. His knuckles ached.

She stared, transfixed. “Neat.”

Petrovitch realized what he was doing and waggled his middle digit. “Physiotherapy exercise. I lost this one in… in an accident.” He put the card down. “Do you know where Hugo is?”

She shook her head. “It’s still early, though.”

“Yeah. I’m just thinking it might be time for you two to have a holiday. A long way away from here.”

McNeil bristled at the suggestion. “But we’re doing good work. We can’t stop now, just because of the Outies.”

“It’s not the right time for heroics. And it’s not the right cause, either.” Petrovitch pushed himself away from the desk, gliding until the chair touched the wall. He got up and walked over to the kettle again. “You need to get out while you can.”

“I love this post. I love this subject.” She slipped off the desk and onto her feet. She stood there, forlorn, uncertain. “I don’t want to be taught by anyone else. I want to be taught by you.”

Petrovitch scraped his nails through his hair, moving his hand back until he touched the metal insert at the very top of his spine. He blew out all the air in his lungs, and didn’t take another breath until he felt he absolutely had to.

“Find Hugo. Drag him out of bed, whatever he’s doing, get him here. We’ll talk then.”

She turned and left, and Petrovitch rested his forehead against the cool metal of a filing cabinet. The door opened again, and a black-clad figure eased in, closing the door behind him with an imperceptible click.

Miyamoto bowed once, and took up station in the corner of the room. He had his sword on his back, and a gun at his waist. He uttered not a word, and became perfectly still in a passable attempt to turn invisible.

Somehow, Petrovitch didn’t feel any safer than before.

P etrovitch examined the new solution to the equation. He carefully wrote it out longhand on a fresh sheet of paper and spent time hunched over it, absorbing the feel and shape of it, growing in confidence that he could do it justice. By the time he picked up a pencil, he knew which expressions could be simplified, and which ones would become dominant.

As he worked, Miyamoto looked on impassively. At least, it appeared he was looking on: at some point in the past half hour, he had magicked a pair of info shades over his eyes. For all Petrovitch knew, his bodyguard was watching a movie.

The math was hard going, and he had to keep stopping to consult books and papers, real and virtual, running his finger down lines of dense script until he discovered the symbols he wanted. It was as if the result didn’t want to be found. Or the AI was wrong, of course, and there was no solution there, just another point on an infinitely variable landscape.

Pif would know, but she’d be busy looking behind her at the lights of the other cars on the freeway, wondering if any of them were following her. There’d be time to talk to her later—the equation was Petrovitch’s job for the moment.

He carried on plugging away at it, and just when he thought he couldn’t go any further with it, he saw the answer. His final solution looked… dangerously unstable. He frowned at it for a long time, assuming there was a mistake somewhere. But if there wasn’t… He swallowed hard.

“Yobany stos,” he whispered reverently.

It might be the last piece of research he’d manage for a while, but he just had to see this one through. He mapped out the solution in three dimensions, just as he’d done before, and sent it to the renderer to be constructed layer on layer until it was whole.

He’d have to pick the finished sphere up later, though: there was another knock at the door, and McNeil pushed Dominguez into the office ahead of her. Both stared at sword-wearing, gun-toting Miyamoto, who in return, ignored them completely.

“Doctor?”

“Don’t sweat it,” said Petrovitch. “You can, quite literally, forget he’s here.” He pulled the cable Miyamoto had brought for his head socket off the desk and into his lap, and from there into an already-overfull drawer. He pushed his glasses up his face and gazed at the pair. Enough of physics: they were his responsibility. He shuddered.

“You wanted to see me?” said Dominguez. He sounded still tired, as sleepy as Pif had been.

“Yeah. MEA has unilaterally declared the Thames the best line of defense against the Outies, and everything north of the river is now considered expendable.” Looking at Dominguez’s expression, he realized he had to spell it out. “That means us. The university could be overrun, and no one will come to our aid. I have to look after you two, so I’m telling you both to spend five minutes throwing a few clothes and whatever else you consider important into a bag small enough to be carry-on luggage, and get to Heathrow. I’ve booked you, Hugo, onto a flight to Seville at twelve thirty hours. Fiona, your Axis flight leaves at fourteen twenty. You might think you have time enough to say goodbye to friends, email some people, stuff like that. You don’t. Get to the airport, clear security, wait till your flight is called and make sure you don’t get bumped off it, not even if they promise to make you as rich as Croesus. It’s going to get mad, so don’t relax until you’re in the air. Got that?”

Dominguez had been shocked into consciousness. “Is it that bad?”

“Would I be suggesting you bail out when there’s science to be done, if I didn’t believe it was even worse than that?”

“You paid for my flight. Our flights.” He blinked like an owl.

“I’ll be in touch.” Petrovitch inclined his head toward the door. “Go. Now.”

Dominguez took a step back, then another. Then he ran, with only one glance at the impassive Miyamoto. The self-closer on the door hissed. McNeil was still standing there.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” said Petrovitch. “Why don’t we assume I’ve said it, you’re persuaded by my force of argument to agree with me, and you’re merely collecting yourself before running off after Hugo.”

McNeil seemed to be in the grip of an existential crisis, uncertain as to anything anymore. She trembled with fear and frustration. Her hands clenched and unclenched from little white-knuckled fists to starred fingers and back. She screwed her eyes up and let out a shriek of frustration that started as a low growl and grew to be an ear-rattling squeal.

Then she fixed him with a wild-eyed stare that had him looking over his shoulder to see if there was anything there. Her whole body was heaving with effort, as if she’d exhausted herself yet still knew there was more to do.