Executive Summary

[none provided]

Table of Contents

Introduction…page iv o How to use this document

Chapter 1, Saving Tommie Parker…page o The Huertas back door o The keycard that should not work, but does!

Chapter 2, Your beknighted wearables…page o Not really hecho en Paraguay , unfortunately for you o The knockout gas — ah, but I already told you about that o What you can and cannot trust about these gadgets

Chapter 3, What Alfred is up to…page o And why you really don't want Alfred to succeed *The animal model — or, world domination out of little fruit flies grows o Why calling 911 is not fast enough to stop him o If you don't believe me, just show this file to Miri!

Chapter 4, What you can do to help…page o Map of Huertas territory o Map of GenGen MCog arrays. Alfred owns this territory, networkwise — but I'm there, too o How to get back to the MCog arrays o What you can do to defeat Alfred o Come be my hands in this glorious struggle!

Chapter 5, What's in it for you?…page o Promises made and promises kept o With your helping hands, I can still deliver

Appendix A…page o Neat stuff that will impress the Department of Homeland Security and which may make life easier after your arrest

Appendix B…page o Why Scooch-a-mout should be the Library's lord and mascot

Robert looked at Miri. She was concentrating on holding up Tommie's shoulder. For the moment all her nerdly interests seemed far away. But we need the nerd as much as ever .

Robert — > Miri:

Tommie did his best to count Winnie's paces. But there were distractions. There was this rock concert playing in Tommie's chest, and every screech of the beat sent fire across his shoulders and down his arms. This wasn't a real heart attack. This was just his pacemaker fallen into wild chaos. The last few years, Tommie hadn't been too envious of other people's diddling medical miracles. So what if his vascular system was falling apart; the pacemaker would keep him going till classic science-fictional immortality arrived. But now all his plans for living forever were in trouble. Count the paces. Count the paces !

And then there would be seconds when the pain would let up, and his heart was a butterfly flutter in his chest. For a few seconds his thoughts would clear, and then he would black out… They were carrying him still, though the ride was bumpy. Ol'Robert was shifting around like he had business with the box on his belt.

"Okay. Stop," he whispered. He would have shouted, but the whisper was all he had just now.

They heard him. And then he was lying on the cold, hard concrete.

Winston's voice came down from high above him. "So where is the door?… I see!" Sounds of Winston fumbling with the keycard. Something big slid aside and there was a wall of faint light, maybe the night sky. He felt cool breeze on his face. The sound of the freeway was like distant surf.

"No alarms," said Winston.

"Maybe… silent alarms?" he managed to wheeze. This exit had been such a wild-ass escape option in his original plan.

Winston was a shadow against the sky. He was tapping at his keypad. "I got 911, Tommie!" Now he was talking to someone Tommie could not hear, telling them about a man down with a heart attack.

"They're on the way, Tommie! They want your med log."

The rock concert was back, whacking a new tune in his chest. "Bet… med log… is fried." He twisted onto his elbows. There were more important things. "Tell'em about the labs, Win!"

"I told them. I just called 911 myself." That was Robert's granddaughter. Her feet were right beside his head. Now she stepped away, became a second shadow, beside Winston. She turned this way and that, the way kids do when they're playing games with their wearables. "I don't like this," she said after a moment.

"You heard the Highway Patrol, kid." Winston's voice was tight, like he was worried as hell. "They're sending a car. We just have to sit tight for a few moments."

Tommie's pacemaker was working upward to the next crescendo. Okay, give it a few seconds more and the pain would lessen — or maybe this time, his heart would break.

The girl's words floated in and out of hearing: " — is an emergency. They should airlift. And the net is screwy. I can't route to my… friends, not even sming. I think someone's spoofed the local nodes and — " Tommie rolled from side to side, pain blotting out the rest of the sentence.

Someone was cradling his shoulders. Carlos? "It'll be okay, Professor Parker." The voice turned away from him. "I'm having some access problems, too. But the error messages make sense. I think the library riot is soaking up too much resource."

The little girl's voice was scornful. "So much that I can't even sming?"

"How about laser direct to the freeway?" That was Robert.

The girl's shadow repeated the strange little dance. "I can't quite reach it from here." She was silent for a moment. "We're just playing into the Badguys' hands. Here. Take a look at this pdf."

Winston again: "There will be a car! If one doesn't show up in five minutes, we'll — we'll carry Tommie down the hill ourselves."

Tommie's heart had stopped. No, it was back in butterfly mode. He'd have a few seconds of clarity. The girl was probably right, but there was no way he was going down that hill. The others should go, see if they could get far enough to put out a real alarm. Or maybe they should go back into the labs and give the enemy a big surprise. Darkness was rising inside him. In a moment or two this would not be his problem. And his friends were too stupid to leave him here. Maybe he could set some of them loose.

Listen to me ! But Tommie's words came out scarcely louder than a sigh: "Guys… we gotta split up." And then the darkness had him.

27

Xiu Xiang looked out from their car, at the dark hillsides. "I feel pretty useless, Lena."

"You feel useless?" Lena Gu shifted irritably in her wheelchair.

Their plan had been to be a mobile presence across the places where Robert was most likely to show up. Tonight they would be on the scene and no one could balk them. Instead, all the action was elsewhere. Even the transportation was uncooperative, operating under "special event rules" in all areas near UCSD. Their car was moving as slowly as they could make it go, but in another thirty seconds it would reach the south end of this old bit of asphalt, at which point — no matter how loudly they demanded otherwise — it would turn left at the little T-intersection, away from the hillside, and take them back to the freeway. Then, if they wished, it would drive north to the Ted Williams Expressway, turn and come down here still again.

Xiu stared into the dark of the hillside. And saw nothing. "I've practiced so much, and still I can't make my contacts work right."

Lena said, "Actually, there isn't a whole lot to see here. This hillside has to be the dumbest public land near campus."

There was some real light. It silhouetted the hilltops and lit the low overcast; around the library, insanity still reigned. A few minutes earlier, Lena had guided Xiu through some of the views. Celebration, riot, whatever it was, the network stats were impressive. Now Xiu couldn't see any of it.

Okay, I confess defeat . She reached into the backpack on the floor by her feet. The pack contained her shop-class projects. She had told herself they might come in handy tonight. How, she couldn't really imagine, but the gadgets did prove that X. Xiang could still create. There was something useful there, even if it wasn't one of her gadgets. She pulled out her view-page, sat back, and enjoyed the clunky comfort of its old-fashioned inter-face. What a fall from grace this was — but just now, she was too nervous for Epiphany.