Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End

"How far are they from Goal A?" Alfred asked Rabbit. In fact, that was the site of his private research program. He would pretend to inspect it along with the others.

"Almost there." Rabbit waved airily. "They'll start dropping off equipment in less than ten minutes. Don't worry about a thing."

Alfred looked out through his surface viewpoints. "Most of my mobiles are trapped on the north side of Gilman Drive." In conventional combat, his bots would have simply seized the local infrastructure and come storming across. Instead, they were balked by the human and automobile traffic along the roadway. At least one had been struck by an auto.

Rabbit spread its paws in mock sympathy. At least it didn't bring out another carrot. "You can't have everything. Hacek and Scoochi fans have done everything we could pray for: The human staff is out of the labs. The riot is sucking in the local comm resources. It'll be a regular black hole by the time it peaks. And it all looks totally innocent . Don't tell me you could mask this operation any better."

Vaz let that brag go unanswered. He'd come to realize that irritation was the kindliest emotion he could feel for Rabbit. He sat with his back to the concrete caisson and tracked ongoing developments. He could see that the Department of Homeland Security people were watching closely, but they were watching the wrong places. Analyst consensus was that Rabbit had tuned things to match DHS paranoia perfectly. Maybe Alice Gong had been taken down, but undetected by Alliance monitors? Underground, Rabbit's stooges had almost reached Goal A. In ten minutes the "investigation" of that site would begin. In another half hour, he could begin to report his doctored results… and after that it was simply a matter of getting out and letting the stooges be captured. Things were going so smoothly, he could have stayed back in Mumbai. Not that he was complaining!

Analyst red flag . Someone reviewing stale video had noticed something. Alfred brought up the flag report. It was a ten-second snippet from one of his mobiles on the north side of Gilman Drive: Two children with bicycles. They were standing by the roadway and looking at something that might have been a crushed mech. Those are the two I saw earlier . Queries spread outward: Who were the children? Was the mobile one of Alfred's?

Ugly answers came back.

Rabbit didn't have access to the Indo-European analysts, but suddenly the creature sat up and gave an admiring whistle. "Well, I'll be dipped! We've got company, Doc."

Miri left her bike in the rack outside Pilchner Hall. Juan insisted on bringing his fancy foldup into the building. When Miri pointed out the absurdity of this, the boy just shrugged. "My bike is special."

Lena and Xiu were no longer visible, but Lena's voice followed them through the wide-open doors. "There should be better security, Miri. I don't like this."

"It's the emergency overload behavior, Lena. Unoccupied rooms stay locked. The others are open."

Lena said, "And we can't see you anymore."

The sudden drop in data was very strange, but Miri wasn't going to say that. Instead: "I bet high-rate forwarding isn't supported except for around the library."

Xiu said, "Yes, we still have spectacular views from there." The main corridors in Pilchner Hall had searchable viewpoints. There were glimpses of Robert's recent passage. That was enough to guide them downstairs. But now there were places where Juan and Miri could talk only to each other.

"It's like a haunted house." Juan's voice was hushed. His hand reached out and grasped hers; she didn't shake him loose. She needed him to keep cool. Certainly losing connectivity in the middle of an office building was an eerie thing.

They came around a corner, and there was a glimmer of connectivity, enough for sming:

Miri — > Miri Gang: I think we're getting close.

Lena — > Miri Gang: First we lost video. Now we can barely talk. Get out of there.

Miri — > Miri Gang: It's just temporary. I'm sure wikiBell is shifting extra coverage into place. How bad could an entertainment riot get?

Miri imagined Lena was having a similar discussion with Dr. Xiang in a certain car driving around the north side of campus. Grandmother seemed truly anxious.

Xiu — > Miri Gang: I agree with Miri. But give Lena and me regular reports.

Lena — > Miri Gang: Yes! Even if that means you have to backtrack. Where is Robert now?

Miri –> Miri Gang: Real close. I can ping him direct.

The twisty hallway was brightly lit, just what you'd expect during a network brownout. Juan's bike coasted along almost silently, all folded up into portability mode. He only had to give it a push every so often. Their footsteps and the faint snicking of its tires were the only sounds. They took another corner. The hall was narrower, with intersections every few feet. This was one of those temporary makeovers that crazy architects-for-a-day liked to do.

For a few dozen feet they had high-rate connectivity. Ads and announcements appeared on the walls; someone's medical research project loomed like a monster on the left. She gave Lena and Xiu a continuous video as they turned another corner — and lost all outside connectivity.

Juan slowed, drew Miri to a stop. "This place is really dead."

"Yeah," said Miri. They walked forward a few more paces. Except for her point-to-point link with Juan, she might as well have been on the far side of the moon. And there was another corner ahead. She pulled Juan forward.

Around the corner, the corridor ended at a closed door. "I can't ping your grandpa anymore, Miri."

Miri looked at the map she had cached. "This has to be where they are, Juan. If we can't get through, we'll just pound on the door." Suddenly she didn't care too much about embarrassing Robert and his friends. This was too strange.

But then the door opened and a man in dark clothes stepped out. He might have been a janitor, or a professor. Either way, he didn't look friendly. "May I help you?" he said.

"How did they find us?"

Rabbit a made warning gesture. "Not out loud, Doc," it hissed. "They might actually hear you." It seemed to look over Alfred's shoulder. "I'd say they're following the girl's grandfather."

Vaz glanced at the heap of clothes that lay by the caisson. He sminged back, voice format: "Those clothes are still transmitting?"

"Well, of course. To the outside, it looks like the old guys are just sitting around, maybe playing cards. I'm faking everything, even their medicals."

Alfred realized he was grinding his teeth.

"That Gu kid is such an pain," Rabbit continued. "Sometimes I think she — "

Alfred waved his hand and the creature disappeared — along with all public network communication. There was now a deep local silence, a hard deadzone.

But his milnet link was still in place, a fragile chain that led through his mobiles to his stealthed areobot and thence across the Pacific. Alfred's analyst pool in Mumbai was estimating sixty seconds till the deadzone got serious attention from the campus police and fire departments.

Braun — > Mitsuri, Vaz: This can't be sustained, Alfred.

Vaz — > Braun, Mitsuri: I'll clear the deadzone in a few seconds. This was why successful missions had a Local Honcho. He probed the mobiles that had made it into the building: the children were about thirty feet away, well inside the deadzone, and still coming. He could hear them, right through the plastic wall. He glanced at the door; it was locked. Maybe he could pretend to be empty air while they pounded on the door. No they'd just back off and call the police.

Okay, time for direct action. Alfred set the twe nearest mobiles into motion. These were network-superiority bots with essentially no antipersonnel capacity, but they would be a distraction. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the hall, confronting two children and a folded-up bicycle.