Chapter 16 – Rusty Bucket
Thursday, June 25, 2308
The clamshell-shaped hall was dominated by a mahogany table at the lowest level, opposite two rows of six tables each, arrayed in gentle curves before it. The tables held pitchers, filled with water and microphones, set into slender vases, at the center. Chairs were gathered around.
The bodyguards stood behind the chairmen’s assigned seats. The second row of delegates sat on a higher tier, so the standing mercenaries didn't obscure them from the front.
The outer shell of the hall was composed of tinted sheaves of glass, attached to massive hinges at the far sides of the room. Outside, a wide balcony held cafe tables naked against the sky.
Fox entered the alcove at the back of the hall and found Croswell and Stanwood waiting for him. Stanwood’s shadow, Deputy Director Von Kalt, was nowhere to be seen.
"Was the mole hunt necessary?" Fox asked.
"It would seem so," Stanwood said. "Considering."
“Considering what?” Fox asked.
“In the past two hours there were over a hundred treasonable acts committed. Thirty suspects are already in custody, and another twenty have been terminated. I suspect that, by the end of business, over fifty people will be charged. A resounding success.”
“A mole hunt with a hundred suspects means the problem is systemic. It can’t be rooted out in a single pass. It’s a corrupt culture, not a cure,” Fox said.
Stanwood rolled his eyes, but Croswell laughed.
“Is everyone here?” Fox asked.
“The Varashavya convoy never showed,” Croswell answered. “But everyone else did, and it looks like they all brought their donations too.”
“Are we going to do this, or what?” Stanwood asked.
“Yeah, let’s get it over with,” Fox said.
Fox, Stanwood and Croswell entered the main hall, walked to the center dais and took their seats at the table.
Congressman Harris stood and addressed the room, "Gentlemen," he said. "As I look around today, I see some of the most influential men of the world. Senators Clarke, Grey and Miller, Citizens Morgan, Roth and Anderson. And I dare not leave out the youngest personage present." Harris grinned. "Citizen Pierce, you must be hardly out of your teens."
Pierce was obscured behind four mammoth crates of cash.
"He certainly seems interested, doesn't he, Dr. Fox?" Harris said.
Fox had heard about the young Pierce, he had an explosive temper and a penchant for gunfights. He had no doubt the cases were props for some idiotic outburst, unless Harris goaded him into one early.
Harris addressed Pierce directly, "You know, the installments are just a show of good faith. It goes straight to the treasury department, to offset operating costs. Fox doesn't see a dime. We're all interested in success of this project." Harris spoke to Pierce, but Fox suspected the words were meant for him.
Before Pierce could rise to Harris’s challenge, Senator Clarke cut him off. "Let’s get to it. We all know why we're here." He nodded to Fox, gesturing for him to get started.
“Yes, Senator.” Fox stood with exaggerated slowness. He slipped his chair into place and came around from behind the table. "I don't know if you read the report. It wasn't sabotage. It was the interface. The human variable is too unstable. It's over."
"Okay, but unstable how?" Senator Clarke asked.
"Initially, it discriminated based on intellect. The smart ones survived, and acquired more power than they knew what to do with."
"Ha! We could call it life," Harris joked.
A few delegates laughed.
"We could," Fox said. "In the end, they all died."
"What was the initial ratio?" Senator Clarke asked.
"Ratio?" Fox replied.
"Success to failure, one to one, two to one?" the senator inquired.
"One to one, but that's irrelevant. Today, it is one to forty thousand."
Clarke conferred with Senator Miller and Congressman Harris, who held and pointed to sections in the summary of Fox’s report. After a moment, they returned their attention to Fox.
"What's interfacing?" Congressman Harris asked, reading from the table of contents.
"What?" Fox asked, surprised. He realized the Senators were fully aware of the project; they were going to make him lay it out for them.
"You said interfacing?" Harris asked. "You called this the Mental Computer Interface? Is that correct?"
Dr. Fox scanned the crowd. They weren't scientists; they had no idea what he was talking about. Harris, Clarke and Miller knew everything, but no one else did. They hadn't read the report; after all, this was the briefing.
Jack and Geoff escaped Ashley's line of sight while she'd been distracted by the kite boards. She ran off after them, frustrated to have let them get away. She had no problem chasing after them; she kind of enjoyed the responsibility. Except when Geoff got into something before she could stop him, then she resented the authority and the responsibility.
From around the bend, and down a shallow slope, she heard Jack barking. Geoff and Jack had disturbed a group of older boys doing tricks on their hoverboards in a shallow forest bowl.
Ashley rounded the corner, and slid down to where Geoff was being lectured. He looked scared, and Jack barked wildly. Above the racket, Ash heard a familiar voice.
When the older boys saw her, they forgot about Geoff. At their center was Evan Dunkirk.
Ashley stopped a little distance away.
Jack ran over to her. Ash knelt to pet him.
She was old enough to understand the differences between men and women, and knew that physical beauty could cause strange reactions in people, especially boys. She was aware she possessed this characteristic by the way people behaved around her. Young men had a tendency to stare, and adults would speak more politely or be more reserved around her. It allowed Ashley to be more reserved in general.
"You ought to keep that thing on a leash," Evan snapped at her.
Ashley had also noticed that not all the attention she received was positive. "Why's that?" she asked, calmly.
"Cause dogs in the park have to have a leash. Those are the rules, and you know it." Evan popped his hoverboard against the ground. It hummed as the charge built up.
"Those same rules say hoverboards need a leash," she said.
Evan took his foot off the board, and it shot toward Ashley. She didn't move. It missed her, but only by a tiny bit.
"See, where's your leash?" she asked.
Jack pursued the board across the forest floor.
"What's your problem, Fox?" Evan asked.
"You," Ashley replied.
"No, I'm the solution.”
Evan's friends gasped, chuckled and giggled at her.
"Oh, that's a threat?" Ashley asked.
"Yeah, what are you going to do about it?" he taunted.
Ashley smiled, "I guess I'll let you live, this time."
Evan’s friends burst into laughter.
"Yeah, I'm scared.”
In the distance, Jack wrestled with the board, which continued to slip away from him.
"If that animal slobbers on my board, you're going to have a real problem," Evan growled.
"Jack," Ashley called the beagle.
Jack trotted over and sat next to her.
Evan's board continued to drift away, sliding downhill.
"Come on, Geoff. Let's go somewhere else," Ashley said.
"Yeah, come on, Jack," Geoffrey echoed.
"You're not going anywhere, until someone goes and gets my board."
Ash looked at the board. It had drifted a good way down the canyon. In the distance, she saw two other kids, playing at being soldiers, creeping closer to the confrontation. She looked back to Evan.
"Go get it, yourself," Ash replied, with all the condescension she could muster.
Evan's friends snickered and laughed. He glared over his shoulder at one of the laughing kids and snapped, "Jason, you think it's so
funny, you go get it."
"Why me?" Jason replied.
"Cause you still have a board. Unless you want me to knock you off of it."
Evan took a couple of steps toward Jason, who retreated by sliding away. "I'd rather hit a fat kid than a girl!" Evan roared.
Jason turned and angled down the hill.
Ash saw Doug and Jamie, moving along the tree line, a few feet behind the bigger kids. Doug signaled two kids she hadn't seen yet. She spotted them, hiding near a dense thicket of brush.
Jason gained speed as he approached the board. He scooped it up from a crouched position and made a wide turn back uphill. He bounced his board a few times, charging it to gain some elevation, and coasted back toward the group of kids.
Suddenly, something big and heavy came flying toward his head. He wiped out, both boards flying away from him and sliding downhill.
"What the hell?" Jason yelled, already angry. "Who threw that?"
Jack growled and began barking again. Ash slid the choke chain around his neck.
"That's right, leash your bitch, bitch," Evan said. He stepped forward, his arm raised overhead, close enough to swing at her.
Ash remembered how he'd punked Bobby. She didn't flinch.
The canyon went silent. Even the birds made no sound.