AI - Alpha Part 43

"No. Yes." Thomas exhaled. "I wasn't trying to trick her, if that's what you mean. We talked a lot. I tried

to find out how she escaped the safe house."

"A lot of people would like to know that," the major said dryly. "Your report says you think she had inside help."

"I see no other way she could have managed." He didn't suggest names because he had no evidence, but

he had to report his suspicions to Chang. Realistically, the person who could have most helped Alpha was Matheson. Thomas considered himself a good judge of character, and his experiences over the years had borne out his judgments. He couldn't see Matheson committing treason. But that left what Jamie had told him, the word of a three-year-old, an unusually precocious one, yes, but still a small child. Could she really hold the key to one of the worst security breaks in history?

Thomas didn't know, but somehow he had to find out.

By the end of the week, Thomas was driving C.J. crazy with his calls. General Chang finally took pity on the beleaguered Matheson and allowed Thomas to come to work, with the agreement that he travel only to and from the base and nowhere else. He suspected she gave the order as much to prevent her restless lieutenant general from overdoing things as to protect him from a threat that might or might not exist.

In his office, with access to his secured files, Thomas could do a more extensive search for Sunrise Alley. He read everything he could find about the Baltimore Arms Resources Theater and Bart's evolution since its demise. He sifted through obscure, hidden, or marginally legal mesh sites. He traced the call Bart had made to his office until he lost the trail at the University of Maryland. He checked every record of Bart's contacts with the Pentagon, and every one led to a dead end. He found no path to the Alley. How did you contact a disembodied ent.i.ty that lived "out there" in the world meshes? He had no idea.

Finally, in frustration, Thomas went to the internal NIA page that had his picture, bio, and contact information within the agency. It was accessible only to someone on the NIA meshes, which meant it was surrounded by layers of their best security.

Jamie might be mistaken about Bart. Perhaps she heard Thomas discussing the Senator or the EI and confused that with the time she had spent in C.J.'s office. A hundred ways existed to explain the call she thought Bart had made to her.

Or it could be exactly what she had said.

Thomas added a short message at the bottom of his NIA mesh page:

Bart, call me.

General Chang met Thomas in the NIA cafe for lunch. A waiter-bot with a tray-top rolled over, took their order, and trundled off, lights blinking. Chang settled back at their table by the window. Outside, sunlight slanted across the buildings, lawns, and parking lots of the base. In the gilded autumn light, the four stars on Chang's shoulders gleamed. It bemused Thomas; he was old enough to recall when a female general, while not unheard of, was rare enough that he had never expected one as his CO. They were still rare, but less so now, and more and more women were coming up in the ranks.

"Jim turned in a report to me this morning," Chang said.

"Jim O'Reilly?" Thomas asked.

"That's right."

That could explain this lunch invitation. "He worked fast."

"Oh, he wants to keep seeing you. This is just an interim report." She leaned her elbow on the arm of her

chair. "However, he doesn't expect his conclusions to change substantially."

Thomas wondered what she would do if he came out and asked how the doctor had evaluated him.

Chang was watching his face. "Interested in his results?"

"If you feel it would be appropriate, then yes." That was a major understatement, but she probably knew

that.

"He thinks you're tired and disoriented."

"Oh."

"He's also concerned that you seem forgetful."

"I see."

"And he thinks you're lonely," she added.

Thomas winced. This was excruciating.

Chang smiled at his expression. "Doctor O'Reilly also says you're dealing well with everything, and that

he has confidence in your a.s.sessments of your situation while you were a prisoner."

Thomas didn't realize how much he had tensed up until his shoulders relaxed. He didn't want to show too much reaction, though, so he just said, "Well. Good."

"He also says," she added firmly, "that if you have problems with irritability or with your memory, or if

you feel unusually tired, go see Doctor Enberg."

It was exactly what Daniel had told him. Thomas's latest attack had been less serious than the last, and

the episode on the island might have been only an arrhythmia, or irregular beat. But it could have developed into cardiac arrest if he hadn't had nanos releasing medicine into his body.

"I'll be careful," Thomas said.

Chang seemed satisfied. "This business with Alpha is a mess."

"She'll talk when you give her asylum."

The general spoke dryly. "Asylum from what country?"

"From Charon's organization."

Chang exhaled, and the lines around her eyes showed more than usual. "Her cooperation would be

invaluable. But we don't know if she'll try to trick us. If we take her apart, we may not get it all, but we can a.n.a.lyze everything we do get, and it won't be filtered through her own agenda."

Her comments chilled Thomas. "It would be murder.""It could be murder. But is it?" Chang rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "With Turner, it's more clear-cut. He was a man, a citizen. His body is his own, despite the replacements. It's easier to think of him as alive. Alpha doesn't even try to act human."

"She seems very human to me." That was what drew him so powerfully to Alpha; the woman he saw

developing.

"Half the time she talks like a mesh system," Chang said. "She doesn't give a d.a.m.n how we view her.

She told one agent he 'annoyed her processor.' I think she does it on purpose."

A smile tugged his lips. "She's ornery as all h.e.l.l."

"Yes, well, mesh systems raise my blood pressure enough even when they aren't trying to provoke me."

Chang gave him one of her famous, or perhaps infamous, looks, as if she could turn him inside out with a glance. Even after working with her for years, he still found her sharp gaze unsettling.

"And now you think we ought to recognize Sunrise Alley as a sovereign nation?" she said. "Good Lord,

Thomas."

"We have to do something." He thought of his talk with Jamie. "I've reservations, though. Alpha had to have help escaping from the safe house."

"You think it was Sunrise Alley?"

"Well, they help formas. And she's an android."

"So was Charon. The Alley claims they find him abhorrent."

"So they say."

"You have evidence otherwise?"

"Nothing concrete," Thomas admitted. "Bart may have accessed a holo-label on a crate in Matheson's

office."

"We need the record."

"The crate was thrown out. I just have the witness." Wryly he added, "Unfortunately, she's only three."

Chang frowned at him. She already knew, from his debriefing after the first kidnap attempt, that he had

brought Jamie into work. Although she hadn't reprimanded him, she obviously didn't like it. Taking care of Jamie had given him a window into what Leila dealt with every day. Perhaps that was why Chang didn't censure him; with three children, she had dealt with the same. To reach her position, she would have had to manage her family life without disruption at her job. She had come up through the ranks as one of the few women at her level, her every action under scrutiny. Sometimes that made a person harder on those in similar situations, but underneath her tough exterior, Chang had a flexibility she used well. She knew when to stand firm and when to give. She read people better than anyone else he knew, including himself, which was probably why she had four stars and he had three.

Today she said only, "It's not much to go on."

"I'll let you know if I find anything concrete."

"Good." She fell silent as the robot rolled over with their lunches in its tray.

"Your repast is prepared," it said, and gave them their food.

"Thanks," Chang told it. After the bot left, she laughed. " 'Repast'? Who programs those things?"