AI - Alpha Part 48

"Breach sealed!" Spaulding said. He took an audible breath. "General Wharington?"

"I'm fine." Thomas lowered his arms. Nothing separated him from Spaulding; the sec-tech was still at his weapons console, but he had nothing at his back. The gunfire had destroyed the upright portion of

the pa.s.senger seat. Spaulding must have thrown himself out of its path; otherwise he would have been smeared all over the car. Bile rose in Thomas's throat, and he forced it down.

Hernandez finally got the Cheetah's wheels deployed, and he took off with a screech. The third Shadow

was trying to pull away from the sizzling wreckage of the second, and as Hernandez raced down the street, the first Shadow leapt in pursuit.

Intent on his console, Spaulding swore. "Their fog is killing my bees."

Thomas knew the trick. The Cheetah could send bee-bots to track and target the enemy vehicles, but the Shadow could release a fog of bomblets that destroyed the bees.

"Can you reverse the nav-chip in your bots?" Thomas asked.

Spaulding looked back. "Sir?"

"Have the bees fly backward. Bomblets have no AIs, just chips to direct pursuit. If the bees leave, the

bomblets will follow. When the fog clears the Shadow, send in more bees."

"We don't have many left," Spaulding said.

The car's AI spoke. "Sixteen bees remain."

Hernandez suddenly cursed and slammed on the brakes. Thomas jerked forward, but his harness kept

him from thudding into Spaulding. The sec-tech wasn't so lucky; the projectiles that had destroyed his

seat had also shredded the supports of his harness, and he slammed into the dashboard.

Swearing fast and low, Spaulding pulled himself upright. The impact of his body had jumbled his controls, and he had lost the signal from the bees. Up ahead, a wall of dividers blocked the street, backed up by concrete mixers and dump trucks. Hernandez was working to get the Cheetah into the air, but Thomas doubted they could make it over the dividers. Even an undamaged hover vehicle would have trouble navigating that barrier. The Cheetah growled like a cat warning of its intent to attack, but it wouldn't lift off the ground.

The Shadow chasing them fired a stinger, then swerved around and took off down the road. The rocket exploded against the back of the Cheetah and the car slammed back and forth. Thomas groaned as his cast knocked the door and pain shot up his leg. He felt as if he were trapped in a crazy-house ride at a carnival. He thought a siren wailed in the distance, but it could have been the ringing of his ears from the detonation.

The Cheetah's AI spoke. "This vehicle is unlikely to survive another hit."

Hernandez quit trying to go over the barrier and brought the car around to face south, the way they had come. "Those Shadows have used all their rockets except one," he said.

"We have none left," Spaulding said grimly.

Thomas craned his neck to see Spaulding's screen. The first Shadow, the one that had just fired at them,

was far down the road now, past the remains of the second Shadow that Spaulding had destroyed with rockets. The third had foundered in the rubble and wasn't going anywhere. Its AI brain didn't seem able

to handle its own damage with the added confusion of other wreckage. It was the Cheetah's one advantage in this three-against-one combat; with mesh brains instead of human drivers, the Shadows were less versatile opponents.

The first Shadow, however, was operating fine-and coming back at them.

"Spaulding, can you send the bees that way?" Thomas pointed eastward. He didn't know enough about

the Cheetah's mesh or AI to give the full commands it needed. "Wait five seconds, blast our bomblet fog at that first Shadow, and then hit their fuel with whatever ammo we have left."

Spaulding spoke rapidly to the AI, incorporating Thomas's ideas in his commands. Bee-bots swarmed

out of the car. The silvery fog hanging around the approaching Shadow leaked after them, leaving behind no more than a metallic s.h.i.+mmer. Thomas held his breath as the Cheetah and Shadow hurtled toward each other. Then a cloud of bomblets billowed out of the Cheetah's ports and poured into the Shadow's gun ports like a gleeful, living fog. Gunfire from the Cheetah hammered its armor.

Time became thick. The Shadow seemed to swoop by in slow motion, its sides pocked by bullets. With majestic slowness, its armor buckled into the fuel tanks that Spaulding had targeted. For a second that lasted an eternity, the Shadow seemed fine-and that was when it fired its last rocket. Then its tanks exploded in a blur of flames and shrapnel.

The rocket from the Shadow blew off the trunk of Thomas's car. With a protest of metal like a scream of pain, the Cheetah flipped onto its roof. Thomas felt as if a huge hand yanked him against his harness. He groaned and hung upside down while his heart slammed in his chest. Someone shouted, but with his ears ringing, he couldn't decipher the words. The Cheetah creaked as it labored to support the vehicle's weight. Even the reinforced armor couldn't withstand such continual stress after all the battering of rockets and gunfire. Spaulding was sprawled below Thomas, either unconscious or dead.

Thomas clawed at his harness, desperately trying to free himself before the car crumpled down and crushed them. Hernandez got free first and dropped next to Spaulding. Then Thomas's harness gave way and he fell onto the roof of the upside-down car. As his cast hit the floor, he gasped with pain. The Cheetah shuddered, and a plate on the driver's side buckled.

Working together, Thomas and Hernandez wrestled open the door on the pa.s.senger's side and crawled out, dragging Spaulding with them. The air smelled of smoke and electrical discharges. The early morning chill hit them like a punch, and Spaulding groaned. They helped him stand, but not all the way; they had to stay behind the car, which was their only protection then from the wrecked Shadows and their machine guns. Spaulding recovered fast, greatly relieving Thomas, though it was also a sobering reminder of his own age, for he could no longer snap back that way.

Suddenly, Hernandez grabbed Thomas and shoved him back on the ground, behind the door they had so painstakingly pushed open. Thomas had a crazily tilting view of the street; then his guards were crammed around him, both firing at the dividers that bordered the supposed on-ramp construction. The careening paths of their cars, racing up the highway and back again, had returned them to where they had started.

Then Thomas saw it: the top of a hard hat behind a divider. He could guess why the hat showed; its tip had equipment that could target them. Hernandez and Spaulding were both firing, battering the divider with bullets. The concrete cracked and turned to dust, but that only revealed the darker surface of a harder, stronger composite underneath.

Thomas sighted on the hat. His magnum couldn't compare with the projectile guns, but he didn't need

much to destroy that small control tower. As he fired, the hat disappeared, though it wasn't clear if his shot hit it or its wearer had withdrawn. Behind them, the car groaned, on the verge of collapse. They had to get out of the way, but if they ran out of cover, they would be easy targets.

Suddenly a deluge of shots came from the left, farther up the street. With dismay, Thomas realized someone must have ridden in the Shadows after all. They were out and shooting, and he and his guards were trapped here, in a car about to crush them.

Except the shots weren't coming at the Cheetah, they were raining over the dividers, even going behind the barriers. A man jumped out from behind a divider and ran straight for the Cheetah, firing a machine gun. Thomas whipped around his magnum, fired-and the man went down, sprawling on the street.

More shots rattled from the left, hammering the dividers as if they would split the night in pieces.

With a screech, the Cheetah began its collapse. Thomas's guards scrambled to their feet and grabbed his arms, hauling him up fast. Then they ran. He lurched across the street, half carried by his bodyguards, his broken leg dragging on the asphalt. The cold air shocked his sweating body. He glimpsed police cars to their left, red and blue lights rotating in the night. It was the police who had fired, without warning, striking before the hard hats could kill Thomas and his guards, but how they had known where to fire, Thomas had no idea. They could have ended up killing him and the sec-techs- Pain exploded in his chest.It was agonizing. Unbearable. Behind him, the world screamed as the Cheetah smashed down in a shriek of armor and reinforced gla.s.s. Thomas crumpled and dragged down his guards. His teeth hurt, they hurt so much, such agony, it was killing him, and the d.a.m.nable pain in his teeth would be his final thought.He was aware of his knees. .h.i.tting the ground, of his guards crouched next to him, of running feet and shouting people. Most of all, he knew pain-in his chest, arms, shoulders, neck, and teeth. Then he knew no more.

XVIII: Vigil

Fractured, blurred images.

General Chang, her face strained.

Leila crying, her eyes huge and hollowed.

His taciturn, impa.s.sive sons. Crying.

Daniel Enberg.

C.J. Matheson and Major Edwards. Hernandez and Spaulding. Doctors, nurses, orderlies. Fragments of talk: Too soon after his last attacks . . .Hard hats staked out his home . . .Planned to blow up his house . . .Someone, somewhere, said, Full cardiopulmonary arrest.Someone said, Coma.Someone said, Never wake up again . . .Someone said, I'm so terribly, terribly sorry.He wanted to say he wasn't dead. But he couldn't speak. He was slipping further and further away.

Janice was here, beckoning . . .

XIX: Beyond the Lake

A face slowly resolved before him-into Daniel Enberg. Not Janice, beautiful, ethereal Janice, but instead it was Thomas's cantankerous, balding doctor, checking monitors by a bed. Hospital bed. Unable to move or talk, Thomas just watched.

After ages, or perhaps moments, Daniel straightened up, turned toward the bed-and froze."Thomas?" he asked."Hi." His answer was almost inaudible."Thomas?" Daniel shouted the word.Thomas winced. "Yes?""Oh my G.o.d. My G.o.d. I can't believe it!""Too loud . . .""I'm sorry." Daniel gave an unsteady laugh. "Good Lord, you're back!"Thomas managed a smile. "I'm a tough old bird.""You sure as h.e.l.l are." Daniel's eyes had a glossy look. If Thomas hadn't known better, he would have thought his curmudgeonly doctor was about to shed tears.

Daniel told him what happened after Thomas had collapsed. A helicopter had brought Thomas to the hospital. Doctors operated for hours. Twice they believed they had lost him, and twice his beleaguered

heart had begun to beat again. But afterward, Thomas had lapsed into a coma. That had been eleven days ago.

Somewhere during all that, Daniel buzzed for the nurse. She brought in Tom, Leila, and Fletcher, who

had been sleeping in the waiting room. Groggy and still half asleep, with tears in their eyes, his children hugged him, and admonished him, and cried some more. Hernandez and Spaulding stood back, as discreet as always, but they smiled slightly, a great show of emotion for them.

His children told him more about what had happened. Apparently someone had seen the cars fighting and called the police. The story hit the local papers first, then the national press. The Air Force spokesman said a multinational cartel dealing in illegal weapons and robotics had tried to kill Thomas after he learned too much about their operations, resisted their coercion and bribery, and nearly died bringing in their superfighter. The public loved it. Thomas, it seemed, was a hero. He didn't feel heroic.

But he was alive, and with his family, and that was what mattered.

Thomas spent another week in the hospital. When he got restless and started to call Matheson, General Chang showed up. She told him that if he insisted on working, he should write his report on Hughes.

Thomas suspected she knew that it stressed him more to do nothing than to work, and she probably figured this way he wouldn't get up and go into his office.

He wrote the report on his laptop film and sent it over a special line to the Pentagon. Then he waited, dozing or browsing the mesh. Sure enough, Chang showed up that afternoon, secured his room with tangle-comm beetles, and grilled him on his report.