Crawlers (16 page)

“They’re capable of Internet savvy,” Bentwaters said, “so why wouldn’t they steal funds that way, if they could? Electronically, digital robbery.”

“Because there are firewalls, and that might get five or six other agencies involved, if they’re detected. It could bring the whole damn country down on them. They must know the Feds are holding off on them—a little matter of bureaucratic paralysis.” He looked at Gaitland when he said that. “They’re playing their cards close to their vest. If they show up stealing money in the system, digitally, they force our hand. And we’d be watching for it, too. Instead, they steal actual, physical cash, and use it to buy the equipment they need. And that’s
high camouflage
—exactly how they’re supposed to be.”

“You’re hypothesizing,” Gaitland said. “Guessing. You don’t know. It could be just an ordinary gang of thieves stole that money.”

“All the parts you’d expect they’d want have been bought up for twenty miles around Quiebra,” Stanner said. “I spent most of the day yesterday checking.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Bentwaters muttered.

Gaitland shot him a look of warning. To Stanner he said, “And you think they’re using this stuff for proliferation? They can’t have everything they need to accomplish that.”

“You know damn well they can manufacture whatever else they need themselves,” Stanner retorted, leaning forward. “What they’re buying is transmission equipment, communication infrastructure, prosthetics, and components for ‘the cradle,’ the makings of imprints for further proliferation—for one thing, all the etching chemicals—”

“Etching chemicals,” Bentwaters muttered. “Doesn’t sound good, Gaitland.”

Stanner sat back and took a pull at his coffee. “Not quite as bad as Quiebra PD coffee but almost.”

“I wasn’t aware that you spoke to Quiebra PD,” Gaitland said, watching him.

“I asked them questions. I stuck to a moderately believable cover story. They gave me some leads. Now, look, the breakouts can’t convert just anyone, anytime. They haven’t adapted the conversion principles yet for everyone. They’re doing it selectively, at first, I figure. So it’s not completely out of hand. Not yet. But they’re going to get faster and better at it—and soon. We’ve got to act, Gaitland, right now.”

“Come on,” Bentwaters said, frowning, “conversion has to take a while in itself even when they’ve got what they need.”

Stanner shook his head. “They were getting better and better at it, even before Lab 23. They’re doing it a molecule at a time—but that can be faster, rather than slower. I believe it can be done in maybe a minute, in some cases.”

Gaitland leaned back, looked at the ceiling, and spun his chair slightly. He made an
uh-hmmm
sound deep in his chest, just loud enough to be heard. At last he said, “I’ll make that recommendation. But they may want to send in their own teams for confirmation.”

Stanner had been in intelligence a long time. Gaitland was a fair-to-middling liar. Not bad, really. But just another liar and Stanner knew, by now, when someone was improvising to keep him on a string.

“Gaitland, you guys are watching this already. There are people who want to learn just how fast it’ll spread.”

Bentwaters squirmed in his seat. “You’re saying we’re using the people in this town as lab rats? That’s pretty insulting.” He cast a doubtful glance at Gaitland.

“I doubt it was the original intent,” Stanner amended. “But maybe they figure since it’s gone this far, it’s too late—and they’ll just see how far it’ll go. Maybe they’ve decided that the town is fucked either way, so they might as well gather some useful data.”

Gaitland’s eyes flicked at him and away—making Stanner think he’d guessed rightly. He went on, “But people go in and out of that town. And so do
they
, Gaitland.”

“Actually,” Gaitland said, “I don’t think they go very far—if they’re there at all, I mean. They have to protect their cluster. They still have a main organizing cluster, wherever they are. The brain. Have you found it?”

“You dropping
your
cover story, Gaitland?”

“I’m not confirming anything. This is all hypothetical. Have you found a central organizing cluster?”

“You mean—” Stanner allowed himself a thin smile. “—the ‘hypothetical’ cluster?”

“That’s what I mean. Yes.”

Stanner shrugged. “No. I’m not so sure there is one. They might’ve innovated beyond that. They’re constantly experimenting. The animal-redesign models I’ve seen in the woods around there prove that. They’re trying out new modes all the time.”

Bentwaters frowned. “Gaitland’s right—if there’s a cluster, and there probably is, they won’t go far from it, at least not till they’ve established other clusters elsewhere.”

Stanner felt a chill go through him then.

Other clusters elsewhere.

He stood abruptly. “I’m going to get proof that this thing is out of control, Gaitland. If that’s what I have to do. But I’ll tell you something—I think it was out of control days ago.”

Gaitland shook his head. “I don’t think you should make another move out there without orders.”

“You’re telling me to stand down?”

“I don’t outrank you—I know that. But I am conveying an order from upstairs.”

“I want it in writing.”

“You’ll have to wait for that.”

“Then,” Stanner said, “it doesn’t apply. I’m going back into the field.”

“I don’t think the brass is going to be thrilled about loose cannons booming away in that town, Stanner,” Gaitland said coldly.

“That’s
Major
Stanner to you, asshole,” Stanner said.

He saluted Gaitland and walked out. The cameras turned whirringly to watch him, until he left the building.

13

December 7, late afternoon

Adair was lying on her back in bed, limp, still, her knees drawn up; her head was tilted, so she could look at her computer. Now and then one of her knees would sway back and forth a few times, metronomically, but mostly she just lay there unmoving. Inside herself, though, she was all jumpy, kinetic.

She wanted to get out of the house. No homework—two of her teachers were out sick or something—and she didn’t want to stay home tonight. She didn’t have any money; Dad and Mom said there was no money for allowances, all of a sudden, and lately they wouldn’t even pay Adair and Cal for extra chores. So no money, she couldn’t go anywhere.

Siseela had had her computer stolen, and she was, like, the only one Adair talked to on-line lately, except for Waylon, now that Cleo was playing Princess Bitch. A lot of people had just sort of disappeared from on-line. Most of the regulars, gone. There was a school chat room, and some people would be there.

But now, after everything else, Adair was unable to get her computer to work. The monitor was just a blank blue-white glow.

At last she sat up, then got to her feet, feeling a little dizzy. She kicked through her junk to the hall and looked in the door of Cal’s room. He was stuck here, too, because the car wasn’t working. Someone had trashed the engine, torn all sorts of shit out of it, and Dad had taken the truck. Dad was gone a lot without explaining where, and the bus that used to come through their neighborhood had stopped running, and where would you go with no money? Mason wasn’t answering his phone, either, and Cal’s friends had gone off to college.

“Hey, Lump,” she said, which is what she called him when he sagged in his room playing his Game Boy Advance. She looked vaguely around the small room. The rectangle of the single bed against the wall, the desk and the laptop that sat on it were the only oases of order in the layered chaos of Cal’s domain. Paperback books and random diving gear and a pizza box and a couple of old McDonald’s bags and some
Electronic Gaming Monthly
magazines half-torn, lying like dead birds in the mix, and peeling Tony Hawk and Limp Bizkit and Moby posters on the wall. Cal’s cheap red Gibson-knockoff guitar was leaning on a boom box, and some sound equipment and clothes were spilling from the closet. Mom and Dad had made them clean up a lot more, before.

Then she thought,
Before what?

Aloud she asked, “Can I use your computer, Lump?”

“Lumps don’t have computers.” He didn’t look up from the game.

“My darling cool handsome smart big brother, can I use your computer, please? Or can you fix mine?”

“What’s wrong with it?” Still not looking up, his thumbs clickety-clacking on the Game Boy like insect mandibles.

“It’s not booting, nothing. Power’s going in. It was fine yesterday. I want to go on-line.”

“I don’t want you to go on-line on my computer. You download hella MP3s and you leave them on instead of erasing them and you’re gonna get me a virus—”

“Cal, I won’t. I just want to talk to someone. I’m going crazy here.”

“It’s totally fucked up here. That’s for fucking sure. But, no, you can’t use my computer. Go away.”

“You suck. Where’s Dad?”

“You suck. I don’t know.”

“You suck. What’s Mom doing?”

“You suck. She’s in the garage. Again.”

“You suck. We could watch a video or a DVD.”

“You suck. DVD player’s broken. VCR’s broken, too.”

“Shit.” She felt so bound up, like a spring about to snap.

She thought of getting into Dad’s booze again. But she remembered all that puking, after the last time, and having to pretend she’d had stomach flu. So instead she said, “At least look at my computer. I’ll stand here and whine if you don’t. Whine. Whine. Whine.
Whi-i-ine.
”

“Fuck!” He threw the Game Boy down so it bounced on the bed. He continued to sprawl there a moment, glaring at nothing. Then he lurched up and went growling to her room, half tripping over a bowling ball.

She followed him to her room. He kicked her backpack out of the way and went over to her IKEA desk, looked at her computer, scowled, and hit reset. It didn’t.

“Huh,” he said.

He leaned over the desk and looked at the back of the computer.

“Well, fuck,” he said. “No wonder.”

He pulled the monitor toward him and to one side, which in turn pushed the keyboard so it fell off the desk to dangle there by its cord. He turned the computer’s hard drive box around.

“Watch out! You’re wrecking my keyboard.”

“Shut up if you want me to fix your—oh fuck, it’s—well, look— did you try to install some hardware and leave it half-done or something?”

“What? No.”

“Look at this.”

She looked into the back of the computer. Wires were sticking out, torn ends; there was no motherboard. There was no RAM.

He snorted and shook his head. “Somebody reamed out your computer, Adair. For real.”

She started to cry.

Cal nodded. He understood: Her computer was totaled.

Oh, no.
Her computer.

When Waylon got home, his mom was asleep on the couch again. She was dressed for work, except for being shoeless.

He tossed his heavy backpack on the floor near her head, hoping the shake of it would wake her.

It did. “Hi, baby,” she said, opening her eyes halfway and stretching.

She sat up and shook her long dyed platinum hair out of her eyes.

“Had trouble sleeping last night,” she said. “I almost fell asleep at my desk at work this morning.”

She didn’t smell like liquor, and he didn’t see any bottles around. She was supposed to be staying sober.

But she could have pills. She was just as likely to take those as she was to suck up the wine coolers. And the way she kept smacking her lips like her mouth was so dry, that was a pill thing.

She caught him looking at her as if he was wondering, and she frowned. She didn’t like it when he acted like the parent.

Then you shouldn’t make me do it,
he thought.

He went into his bedroom and turned on his computer and the classified frequency scanner he’d worked up. He got that certain frequency with no problem and listened to it for a few minutes. Was it all code? Not exactly.

He switched it off.

He felt too jangled right now, with his mom being the way she was today, to really think about it. He just wanted to eat something and see Adair and maybe . . .

He went into the living room. Mom was still lying on the couch, staring moodily at the ceiling. He asked, “There anything to eat?”

“Um, not really. I’ll send out for pizza, I guess. We should really conserve money though. I got laid off today.”

His heart sank. It wasn’t just the money worries that would come. It was also that he knew that without a job she’d fall apart and slip into that swampy place she lived in sometimes. When she was unemployed she tended to smoke a whole lot of cigarettes and watch a lot of daytime TV, instead of looking for work. Then she’d get depressed because she didn’t have any work. Which made her smoke cigarettes and watch daytime TV and then she’d start the heavy drinking again. It’d been like this before.

He thought about calling his dad. But he couldn’t quite imagine doing that. What would he say? Send more money?

What am I,
he thought,
a family court judge? Fuck that.

But the idea lingered, as he went to the phone. It wasn’t about money.

He knew his mom had moved out here against his dad’s wishes. Dad could even do some shit in court to get them back to New York State. But he’d heard Dad tell a lawyer on the phone that he didn’t want to take Mom to court because “the boy would be caught in between.” Sometimes he wondered what his mom told his dad in private, and if there was a reason for his dad not being in touch.

He stood over the portable phone—transparent purple plastic— and gazed down at it. But he didn’t call his dad. He hit
3
on the speed dial for a different phone number.

“Quiebra Quick Pizza,” said a bored teenage voice.

“Yeah, a double cheese pizza.” He gave the name and address and added, “That you, dude? It’s Waylon.”

“Waylon, oh, yeah, what’s up, dude.” It was Russell, whom Waylon had met a few days before. Introduced by Mason.

Waylon said, a little softly, “So, dude, you know about that extra spicy you mentioned? The other day?”

“Yeah.”

“Some of that, too. Like, one packet.”

“I gotcha.”

They hung up. His mom called from the bathroom, “You ordered extra spice on it? You know I don’t like spicy stuff.”

“That’s on the side, Mom.”

Since it was some pretty strong marijuana, he thought, it should really be on the side. He had twenty bucks stashed away, he’d slip Russell for the dope along with the money his mom gave him for the pizza.

He’d been trying not to start smoking pot again. He couldn’t get any homework done when he smoked, and it made him kind of paranoid. If Mason was any evidence, it made you forgetful and stuck in a rut. But on the other hand, he just felt like getting stoned.

He went to the window, looked out in the gathering darkness toward Rattlesnake Canyon. Had he been paranoid that night? He hadn’t been smoking. And Adair had seen some shit, too. Worse than him. Toxic gas?

Bullshit. Major Tightass was lying about that—maybe about a lot of stuff. But who knew what exactly?

If he could find out, maybe he could get some kind of deal for an exclusive story or something with the
National Enquirer
or Fox TV. Help him and Mom get out of the hole they were going to slide into now that Mom was laid off. Maybe he’d go on-line and ask again if anybody else had seen anything weird in Quiebra.

But he didn’t want to say too much to anyone, not yet. He wanted to get a line on what had happened so he could be the one who got paid for it.

He imagined himself talking gravely on television about his experiences.
I knew something was up because of the helicopters and the
lack of reporters there and stu f like that. You could just feel it in the air. I
knew I had to find out the truth.

He smiled. That would be so cool, to nail those liars on national TV.

Hadn’t Adair said her aunt Lacey was some kind of reporter? Maybe he could set up something through her. Some kind of deal so she didn’t steal the story.

Mom was washing her face in the bathroom, putting on that moisturizer shit that women use. She was saying something about how she was so sick of being a paralegal, she was really kind of glad they’d laid her off. She wanted to do something else. She even went by the bank in Quiebra to apply there, but it had got robbed bigtime and it was all confusion in there. There was some kind of internal investigation and the bank was closed till they finished the investigation into some kind of inside job thing, but then banks don’t pay very well anyway.

“I’ll probably end up being a paralegal again. But then again . . .”

She was just nattering on the way she did when she felt guilty about something.

Maybe she was . . . was
seeing
someone. There was the manager of the apartment building—seemed like the dude was interested in her. But it was just too gross to think of that big fat bald doofus handling his mom.

Suddenly he felt a leaden heaviness in his chest and arms. Like he wanted to just lie down on the couch and go to sleep himself.

But he wouldn’t be able to sleep. So he chose his other refuge. The computer.

They’d take half an hour getting the pizza here. So he went to his room, went on-line to see who was on from his buddy list. Maybe Adair was on.

Yeah, there she was, probably instant-messaging with people from school. She shot him an IM, telling him something about her computer getting wrecked.

WAILIN2003:
Your computer? Fuck! What are you using?

ADAIRFORCE3:
My brother’s old laptop . . . it’s really slow
and hard to type on . . . it sux bigtime . . . not having a computer is the ass totally the ass. I have to hide this one my parents are being weird pretending they didn’t wreck my other I
feel like I’m going crazy without my computer I had all this
art on it and I can’t work on it cant even do half my homework its just the suckass shit . . .

And then she was telling him about that old Garraty dude he’d helped with the wheelchair, climbing the roof.

ADAIRFORCE3 :
They were all of a sudden like Chinese
acrobats or something, these geezers—

He couldn’t credit that. She must be making a wack weirdass joke, he supposed, playing with his head. He typed a response.

WAILIN2003:
Whatever, but checkitout Morgenthal says nobody broke into his shop or stole nothing now. He’s all,
“Stolen?, hello nothing was stolen.” It was a misunderstanding and I’m all, whatever dude.

ADAIRFORCE3:
You didn’t believe what I said about the
Garratys, did you. You suck. G2G. Dinner now.

Then she was gone.

Had he pissed her off again somehow? It seemed like he had before, too—that night they’d gone out to the crash site, too. Pissed her off, some way.

He figured he’d go see Adair after he scored. It felt good, being around her, even when she got irritable for no reason he could make out.

He wondered if Adair smoked pot. If she didn’t, he wouldn’t offer her any. He didn’t want to get her started.

He’d been to enough AA meetings with his mother—and AA had almost as many dopeheads as alcoholics now—to feel weird about smoking dope. You couldn’t feel like it was normal after you went to those meetings, even if you still felt like doing it. Even just pot. Too many people had problems with “just pot.”

But sometimes you had to find a way to change how you felt.

It was dawning on him, more and more, that he felt like shit. Just like total fucking shit.

December 8, late afternoon