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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next day, Monday, during the midmorning break at school, Kevin called Michelle's office in Seattle from a pay phone in the entrance hall outside the general office.

"Good morning, this is Prettis and Lang law offices. How may I help?"

"Oh, hi. I'd like to talk to Michelle Lang, please. Is she available right now?"

"I'll have to check. Can I say who's calling?"

"This is Kevin Heber."

"One moment."

"Thanks."

A grotesque face, eyes distended and fingers stretching the sides of its mouth, appeared in Kevin's field of view, groaning and grimacing. Behind and to one side, another of the class morons was waving and poking a tongue in an effort to distract Kevin's attention. Kevin ignored them and turned the other way. He felt hesitant about getting involved in these adult-world complications. However, if Vanessa was on those kinds of terms with the president of the company that Neurodyne's success threatened the most, Michelle needed to know. Or perhaps Neurodyne's own legal representative would be the better person to take it to, but Kevin wasn't even sure who that was. He didn't want to go through Eric because of the personal aspect of the situation. Garsten was the family lawyer, but not somebody that Kevin knew very well or normally dealt with. At least he felt he could approach Michelle. The attorneys could sort out between them who needed to do what or talk to whom.

"Hello, Mr. Heber?"

"Yes."

"Putting you through to Ms. Lang now."

Michelle's voice came on the line. "Kevin?"

"Oh, er . . . hi. I hope you don't mind me calling you at your office like this."

"That's okay if it's important. But if it weren't I guess you wouldn't be calling. So what's up?"

Kevin had rehearsed in his head what he was going to say; now he found he couldn't find two words to string together coherently. The clamor in the background didn't help. The best he could manage was, "This is kind of difficult, knowing where to start. . . ."

"That's okay. Relax and take your time."

He collected his thoughts and tried again. "It's to do with this thing that seems to be going on—all these stories and stuff about DNC."

"What about it?"

Kevin ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. "Doug thinks that some of the people at Microbotics might be behind it—or at least, mixed up in it somehow, right?"

"Doug does, but be careful," Michelle cautioned. "We don't have enough at this stage to start throwing accusations around."

"But suppose it was true. Wouldn't we be suspicious of any of our people that we found were involved with them—really closely, know what I mean?"

"What do you mean by 'our people,' Kevin?"

"Oh, say, somebody from Neurodyne, maybe really high up in the company. Or very close to my dad. . . . Maybe both."

There was a short silence. Three girls were standing a short distance away, giving him dirty looks. One of them held up a quarter and jabbed a finger at her watch, telling him that they wanted to use the phone before classes restarted. Then Michelle's voice said, "Are we talking about Vanessa?"

Kevin nodded, looking away from the girls. "Yes," he said, getting the word out with difficulty.

"But Kevin, she did work at Microbotics for a long time. I'm sure she still knows people there. That doesn't really say a lot."

"This is different. We're talking about the president—I think his name is Martin Payne. And it isn't just to do with DNC and technology and that kind of thing. It gets more . . . kinda personal, you know. I wasn't sure what to do." He didn't want to get into a protracted question-and-answer session just then. Before Michelle could interrogate him further, he went on, "Don't ask me how right now, because it would take longer than I've got. But I can show you it all on tape." The video input to the monitor on which Taki had followed the events aboard Payne's yacht had also been recorded automatically. Kevin shrugged. "Or maybe getting involved in that side of it wouldn't be your business. I don't know."

"Hey, Heber, tell your life story some other time," one of the girls called over. "We need to find out what's on at the movies."

"Where are you calling from?" Michelle's voice asked.

"I'm at the school. We're on break, but I have to go real soon."

"Leave it with me for a while. I have to think about this and look into a few things. Have you told Doug Corfe or anyone else?"

"No."

"So nobody else knows right now except you?"

"Only Taki. He was with me when the tape got made. It's a transmission from a mec that ended up in the wrong place. I only found out yesterday who the guy on it is."

"Where is this tape at the moment?" Michelle asked.

"At the house. I've got it in my room. It'll be okay there."

"Will you be there this evening?"

"Either there or at Taki's."

"Leave it with me. I'm not sure at this point what would be the best way to play this. But I'll get back to you, either by this evening somehow, or tomorrow."

 

Michelle was hired to look after the business affairs of Theme Worlds Inc., not to go getting involved in the personal lives of Mr. and Mrs. Heber. Although the situation contained what could have been considered simply an unavoidable element of overlap, she knew from experience how easily this kind of terrain could turn into quicksand for the unwary. She decided that she needed to consult with Ohira. It turned out that he had left that morning on an overnight business trip to Los Angeles. Michelle's secretary managed to raise him on his personal phone, in the departure lounge at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

"If it were just a case of her involvement in an operation to discredit the technology, it would be straightforward," Michelle said when she had outlined what she had learned from Kevin. "But this other side to it makes it messy. I didn't want to start figuring out an angle till I'd talked to you."

There was no pause for deliberating. One of the qualities that made Ohira a good businessman was a knack for cutting straight through to the essentials. "Why should she want to sabotage her own company?" he said. "Selling Neurodyne's secrets for money? That makes no sense. She's got money already."

"Then it has to be for the guy," Michelle answered. "See my problem now? This is starting to turn into a seven-figure divorce case already. That's getting away from what you pay me to do. I'm going to need your thoughts on it."

"If DNC dies, then we don't have any deal, anyway," Ohira said. "This woman could do it more damage than anybody. How can you find out what she's capable of if we don't follow up on the information we've got?"

"If it's getting this personal, I thought maybe you might want us to approach it through Garsten," Michelle said. "He is the family lawyer, after all."

"You've already talked to Garsten. He says he doesn't know anything. . . ." Ohira's voice trailed away while a distant loudspeaker announcement echoed tinnily in the background.

"Not about whatever Jack might have known, no—" Michelle agreed. She realized that Ohira had been thinking aloud more than inviting comment, dropped what she had been about to add, and waited.

"This man Garsten sounds very strange to me," Ohira said finally. "For years he worked with Mrs. Heber's previous husband as a business partner. And she brought Garsten in as her family's lawyer, yes?"

"So Doug Corfe says."

"So she and Garsten are good friends, presumably. But he tells you that he knows nothing about what this man Jack Anastole knew, who was his partner and her husband? That seems a very unlikely situation to me, Michelle. Not believable at all. I don't think I trust him, this Mr. Garsten."

Michelle was not inclined to argue. She'd had a feeling of something not being right ever since her conversation with Garsten, but it had refused to take on concrete form. Now Ohira had crystallized it for her. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.

This time there was a pause. Michelle knew how Ohira worked. He had already made his mind up what he wanted to do. She could sense him searching for an angle.

"Taki's best friend, Kevin, is also affected by this. I'm really an uncle to both of them. So we have to look after the family, eh? So what I want you to do is, follow up on this Mrs. Heber wherever it leads, and keep information to yourself. If you get into any kind of trouble, then as long as everything's legal, you'll be okay. I'll say you were working for me."

It was what Michelle had wanted: a clear directive and indication that they agreed. She nodded into the phone. "Okay, I guess that's it from me. Is there anything else?"

"No, that's all. They're calling seats now, so I got to go anyway. It sounds as if you need to see this tape."

"That was why I wanted to catch you. We can get right on with that now. When are you due back?"

"Just tonight in LA. I'll be back late tomorrow."

"Okay, we'll talk more later in the week. Enjoy the flight."

The phone buzzed again as soon as Michelle put it down. She picked it up again. "Yes?"

It was Wendy, the receptionist. "Stanley Quinze is on the line again. I tried to get a number from him, but he insisted on holding."

"Okay, I'll take it. And could you try and get Doug Corfe at Neurodyne for me? Let me know if he's not there."

"Will do."

* * *

For a long time, Kevin and Taki had been intrigued by the thought of getting mecs to fly. In their experiments, they concentrated, naturally, on the smaller models in their collection, thinning the casings to fragile shells and taking out all nonessentials to reduce weight. They designed flexible wing systems based on insect patterns, which used leverage to exploit the improving power-weight relationships that came with diminishing size and stored mechanical energy recoverably in elastic structures.

A further problem was with the dynamics: of somehow matching the speeds of slow human neural processes, evolved to suit the needs of slow, lumbering bodies, with the high-speed motions appropriate to insect-world physics. And even with some real insects, for example bees and mosquitoes, it turned out that the frequency of wing beats was a result of resonance, and was actually higher than the rate of the nerve impulses driving the system.

Their solution was a "software gearbox": a microprogram that would translate one cycle of operator-muscle contraction and relaxation—or at least, what was perceived as an operator's muscles working—into a hundred or more precoded wing beats. Hence, each voluntarily initiated beat would cause a set series of instructions to execute over and over at a rate too fast to follow individually. Since the boys wanted their four regular limbs to be available for normal use, they had programmed the wing drive to link to the neural circuits associated with the shoulder blades. Flying would thus follow from a learned process of precisely controlled "shrugging." That was the theory, anyway.

The trick, Kevin told himself as he stood poised on the edge of a cliff in Neurodyne's wooden-block benchtop test ground, was to imagine that he was swimming in a dense fluid that amplified the effects of his movements. In fact, they had tried to write the microprogram to make the feedback feel just that way, with the perceived force serving as an analog of the wing speed that was impossible to register directly. Then, what felt like deliberate motion of an imaginary limb in a tangible medium would be converted insensibly into the appropriate vibrations. Having got that firmly fixed in his mind, he extended his virtual appendages and launched off.

The problem, he admitted as he found himself spinning and gyrating erratically across the floor, was that the system also amplified every error a hundredfold before you could do anything to correct it. It was like the old adage about the computer as something that can make mistakes a million times faster than the worst imbecile on the payroll: by the time you got to know that something was going wrong, it was already history.

He flipped out of visual to become himself again, viewing the Training Lab from one of the couplers. There were several techs in the vicinity, engaged at various tasks. Patti Jukes was nearest, clicking through report screens on a terminal. "Hey, Patti," Kevin said. "Can you pick me up off the floor and save me having to get out of this? I'm a couple of feet to your left, by the bottom of the bench."

"Sure, no problem." The lab staff who had been with the company for any time at all were used to having Kevin around, and sometimes Taki also. Kevin knew most of them. Patti listened to classical music and owned a dog called Bach. Kevin had told her once that Beethoven had had a dog with a wooden leg. That was where he'd gotten his inspiration when it walked across the room: dah-dah-dah-dah. 

Patti got up and picked the mec off the floor. "I wouldn't want you to get trodden on down there." She held it over the landscape of blocks and terraces. "Where do you want to be—back on the big flat one at the end?"

"Yes. Thanks." Kevin had come in after school to use some of the firm's microcode utilities that he couldn't run at home. Taki was at his own place that evening, ensnared in some family function that had proved impossible to escape from.

"The way you guys have done this is terrific," Patti said, examining the mec before she replaced it. "How's it coming along?"

"Oh, slow, but I think we're getting there. The problem is finding a program to give just the right wing twist. Right now, it's spiraling and losing lift. That's why I ended up where I did. You want to try it?"

"I'd love to, but not right now. Maybe later, when I'm done with this. Will you still be around after five?"

"Probably. . . . No, more than probably. I'm supposed to be riding home with Dad, and he's with a couple of prospective customers. You'll have time for dinner, then come back."

"Is Kevin in here?" It was Doug Corfe's voice, from the doorway. "Ah yes, there he is." He came on in and approached across the lab area. "How's the magnificent man in his flying machine getting on?"

"I think he's amazing," Patti said. "They're going to crack it, you know, Doug."

"Did Stewart put that new lens in the Liga?" Corfe asked her.

"I'm pretty sure he did. He looked like he was aligning it the last time I was in there. That was about an hour ago."

"Good." Corfe turned to Kevin. "Can we wrap it up for now, Mr. Wright-brother-the-second? I need to talk to you."

"Well, I'd say it's still mostly Mr. Wrong-brother at the moment," Kevin said. "What's up?"

"Well . . . let's go to my office."

"Oh—sure." Kevin removed the headpiece and collar, and stood up from the coupler. "Shall I leave all this as is?"

"I'd shut it down and pick up your stuff," Corfe said.

Kevin saved his updated files onto a removable disk pack, ejected it, and collected together his coding charts and notes. He put the mec in its container and stowed everything back in his school bag, which he had left on a chair. "That's it," he announced.

"Some other time, then, I guess, Kevin," Patti said. "Okay, I'll settle for a raincheck."

"We'll have it working better next time, anyway. You wait. I'll see you, Patti."

"Take care, Kevin."

Kevin followed Corfe out of the lab. They walked a short distance along the main second-floor corridor to Corfe's office. Corfe waved Kevin inside and closed the door. "I got a call from Michelle today," he said. "She told me about this business with Vanessa."

Kevin was taken aback. "She told you about that? I thought it would be kind of confidential. I don't understand."

"It's okay. I went to see her about what's going on with DNC—we talked about it that day we were working on the boat." Corfe's manner was conciliatory. "Now, I understand—I don't want to go dragging personal things up where they're not needed, either. But if it involves a person whose interests, to put it mildly, don't exactly coincide with the well-being of this company . . ."

"You mean Payne?"

"Yes, exactly. Well, in her position, Michelle has to know."

There was no escaping the reality now that sooner or later this was going to blow up in Eric's face. Kevin sighed, felt bad about it, but still couldn't see that he'd had any other choice. The only alternative would have been to do nothing. And one of Eric's own favorite sayings was that many decisions in life were made automatically when the alternative was unacceptable.

"Okay. So what do you want me to do?" Kevin asked.

"She says you've got some kind of tape."

"Right. It's a video from a mec that accidentally got into one of her bags when she was leaving for that seminar in town last weekend. Taki and I activated it to try and find out where it was. It turned out she was with Payne on his boat—that one you said you worked on a couple of times."

Corfe looked puzzled. "Payne keeps the Dolores at a private dock behind his house in Bellevue. How could you activate a mec at that distance?"

"Taki made a local relay pack. It was in the same bag as the mec."

Corfe raised his eyebrows, thought about that, and nodded to himself, looking impressed. "I'm going to have to take a look at that."

"Sure—assuming mom gives it back."

"She's still got it?"

"I guess so. But the mec's still in the boat. It was almost out of juice."

Corfe showed his hands. "Well, there's not much we can do about that now. But in the meantime, Michelle needs to see this tape. Where is it now?"

"I've got it at home."

"Uh-huh." Corfe nodded as if that was what he'd thought. "I don't think we want to go showing it here or at the house. So how does this grab you as a suggestion? I drive you to the house now, and we pick up the tape. Then we go into town and run it for Michelle at her office. After that, if you want, you could leave it with her and forget you ever saw it."

Kevin squirmed uneasily. "I was going to ride back with Dad tonight. . . ." he began. But it didn't say much, really. He and everybody else changed their plans constantly. Eric, if anybody, was worst of all.

Corfe shrugged and recited the explanation for him. "So I had something to do in Seattle, and you decided to come for the ride. Hell, it's true. You're not telling any lies with that."

"Couldn't I just give it to you at the house?"

Corfe seemed to give the thought some consideration, but then shook his head. "Not really. If it's a mec video, it'll need some interpreting. And if you were working the mec, you saw more than what's on the tape. You know that."

Kevin nodded resignedly. "Okay, Doug. Whenever you're ready."

Corfe picked up the phone. "I'll just put in a call first, to let her know to expect us."

 

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