Paradigms Lost (21 page)

“Is it not obvious, my lady?” He gestured at the lights of the city, silhouetted against the darkening sky. “For centuries, humanity has wondered if there were others out there, beyond the sky; but always they were secure in their science and civilization, knowing that here, at least, they ruled supreme. The Others—vampires, werewolves, and so on—hid themselves away, not to be found by scientists who sought to chart the limits of reality, and so became known as legend, myth, tales to frighten children and nothing more. On this world, at least, humanity knew that it was the sole and total ruler of all they could survey.

“But now, they know that is not true; that other beings walk among them. And this is not one of their stories, a book to be read and then closed, to disappear with the morning light.” Verne shot a glance at me. “You recall, my friend, how you spoke about the horror stories, the Kings and Straubs and Koontzes?”

I thought for a moment, then I remembered the conversation he meant. “I think I see.”

“Yes. You were disturbed by their stories showing such titanic struggles, and yet no subsequent stories ever referred to them; as though such power could ever be concealed. But this is the true world. The genie cannot be replaced in the bottle. Even your government has realized the futility of a coverup. Winthrope speaks on the news of these events to an incredulous nation, and scientists gather to study that which is left. The world changes; we have changed it. For good or ill, the world shall never be the same.”

He fell quiet, and we gazed upward; watching as the stars began to spread—like silver dust—across the sky.

PART IV

Viewed in a Harsh Light

June 2000

CHAPTER 31

Presentations in High Places

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “Considering that werewolves weren’t even seriously considered to
exist
until a few weeks ago, how exactly would it be ‘obvious for anyone skilled in the art’ to combine these elements to detect a werewolf?”

“Hey, I’m on your side, remember?” my patent attorney, John Huffman, said. “The examiner’s pointing to prior art that involves combining infrared and visible to detect living creatures and discriminate them from non-living objects. The argument is that anyone presented with the existence of werewolves and who was skilled in the art would have tried the same thing.”

I snorted. “So what are our options?”

“Well, we can try to modify the claims slightly to include some of the dependent claims; he indicates some of the other work might be innovative.”

“I’m not weakening this basic patent. What’s the other option?”

“We have to file a formal challenge of his evaluation, specifically obviousness. That’s going to be an uphill battle, though.”

“I’ve fought uphill battles before; I’m not backing down on this one. It was
not
‘obvious.’ I had to get information about them—from sources most people wouldn’t have—and make shrewd deductions or wild-ass guesses, depending on how you look at it, to come up with that design. Either way, it’s not ‘obvious.’”

He grinned. “I agree. And to be honest, I don’t get to try this kind of fight very often.”

I saw a blinking light on my desktop monitor. “Okay, John, thanks. Sorry to cut you off, but I’ve got to go catch a plane.”

I wasn’t unfamiliar with flying, but the VIP treatment—and the fact that someone else was footing the bill—made this flight a little more pleasant. I was disconcerted, however, by seeing a mob of reporters waiting at the gate when I deplaned.
I was able to dodge them in Albany—I know the right people—but no chance here.

I ignored the barrage of questions, which ranged from the inanely obvious “Are you here for the Werewolf Hearings?” to one guy from one of the fringe outlets asking if I’d heard anything from the Vampire Council, and made my way past them.

Three men in suits seemed to materialize from the crowd; two of them flanked me and slowed the pursuit of the press as the third nodded to me and said, “Mr. Wood? Please follow me. We’ve got a car waiting.”

“I kinda assumed you would. Good coordination with your friends there, Mr. . . . ?”

“Special Agent Colin Marsh,” he said, guiding me through the maze of the airport. “Thanks. I approve of the free press, I just wish they’d be free where it didn’t hold up traffic.” He glanced at me. “Of course, if you kept a lower profile . . .”

I shrugged. “I guess I
could
turn down large sums of money for television appearances to tell people about something that’s totally blown their minds, but while I wasn’t ever
broke
before, I wasn’t rich, either.”

“Can’t say I blame you,” he conceded.

The waiting vehicle was a classic black limousine—though not quite as posh as one of Verne’s—that pulled away from the curb smoothly with only a purring hum of the engine. “So, we’re headed to the Capitol?”

“Not really,” said one of the others. “Agent Jake Finn, Mr. Wood.”

“Glad to meet you, Agent Finn. But I thought—”

“Oh, the public info says that’s where the meeting is, and we’re sure letting it
look
that way, but completely securing the Capitol Building the way it is? That’s a bitch and a half—sorry for the language—and it’d really interfere with other operations. So we’re actually meeting somewhere else.”

That made sense. “So, we’ll appear to drive to the Capitol, but then, what, switch cars?”

He grinned. “Not that complicated. We can go into an underground garage, then take an exit to a different street and continue on.”

It was, in fact, that easy, and about fifteen minutes later, we pulled into another underground parking garage across the river in the Crystal City area near Alexandria. We then walked to one of several relatively nondescript-looking buildings and entered.

A security and guard post was set up just past the main entrance to prevent anyone from getting into the building proper without permission. A familiar face was waiting there. “Hey, Jeri.”

Agent Jeri Winthrope nodded. “Mr. Wood, glad you made it. You’ll have to go through the security screening before you go any farther, though.”

I went towards the security archway, which looked like a metal detector. Three MPs stepped forward. Two aimed rifles directly at my head, one on either side. I noticed my escorts clear the line of fire. The third man stepped up. “Hold up your hands, Mr. Wood.”

I blinked, but did so. Faced with rifles ready to blow your brains out encourages compliance with simple instructions. The MP took each hand, examined it carefully front and back and scraped it with something that looked like an emery board—it probably
was
an emery board—and then stepped back. “On your left and right, you will see a metal cylinder. Please pick up each cylinder and hold it tightly. It is
very
important that you make good contact with both cylinders, sir.”

The way he said
very
, the way he now raised
his
weapon, and the way his companions each took a breath and steadied their stances, made me suspect that
I
was the one it was most important to.

The silver cylinders were each attached to a retractable cable that went into the booth walls. I grinned suddenly. “Oh, I get it. Very clever.” I squeezed both tightly. “That should work, and be pretty hard to get around.”

After about ten seconds, someone to the side gestured and the MPs moved to “at ease” stance. “All clear, sir. Welcome to the conference, Mr. Wood.”

“Thanks,” I said, not without some considerable relief. “So why that particular test, Jeri? I mean, you could’ve used some silver-based drops or something.”

She gestured for me to follow. “Yes, we could have, but if you add other substances to the mix, there’s the chance of it reacting to those substances; exposure to the chemical mess you hit Virigar with would poison a human being anyway and potentially cause a rash. We wanted pure silver since there’s no documented cases of allergic reaction to it—as opposed to silver alloy. That way, if the person holding it reacted at all, we could be pretty sure we had a wolf.”

I nodded. “And the cables there mean you’ve got it hooked to something—resistivity, capacitance, something—that tells you whether the person’s actually making contact with the metal. You use the emery board to take a sample and to scratch any coatings on the hands. Nice.” I glanced back, made out the logo above the rear side of the booth. “Oh, of course. Shadowgard Tech. Smart outfit. It’s a good stopgap, though you need something better in the long run. I can figure ways to scam this.”

She grimaced. “You’re kidding. That fast?”

“I’ve been thinking about this problem longer than anyone else. Maybe I’ll give Shadowgard a call. I’ll need someone with experience in the security industry to market my solution and if we improve their design a bit, it’ll be a good supporting solution for mine.” I looked at her. “Now,
everyone
who comes into the building goes through that procedure?”

“Including the people manning that barricade, yes.”

I whistled. “And some of the people coming in here are awfully . . . high up, I’d bet. Caught any?”

She grimaced. “Three so far. Fortunately, after Morgantown, it looks like they’re trying to be a
little
circumspect; all of the human beings they were duplicating are alive. A couple of the guards who were there when they were unmasked . . . weren’t so lucky.” She nodded to the guards at a set of double doors and ushered me in. “Still, it provided a
lot
of urgency to the meeting—”

“Especially,” said a
very
familiar voice with a Texan twang, “since one of them was my friend Sal Battaglia, the Speaker of the House.”

I stared for a moment. I’m not normally prone to stage fright, and I’d been interviewed a lot in the last couple of weeks, but this was something way out of my normal league. At the head of the meeting table was the President of the United States, Rexford Aisley Ash II, and seated near him were most of his cabinet, enough military men—some from other countries—that the room held, as a friend of mine might have put it, “More stars than Hollywood and more scrambled eggs than a truckstop diner.”

Not being a military man, I didn’t salute, but I did immediately approach the president. “A great honor to meet you, Mr. President.”

His grip was firm but not too tight—a classic handclasp in the political world. “Oh, much more my honor, Mr. Wood. You’ve managed to turn this country more upside down than I have yet. Please, take your seat—it’s down at the far end, opposite me.”

As I did so, I realized everyone was continuing to look at me, and the president stood again. “Well, everyone, our guest of honor’s here, and I’m sure we’re all ready to hear what he has to say. Mr. Wood, you read the briefing materials?”

I swallowed and took a breath.
I thought I’d just be
one
person they were talking to, not the star of the darn show
. “Yes, sir. You’re working on how we respond to a threat we never realized existed, and so you want me to give my views on the situation. I’ve prepared a presentation, and I can answer questions afterwards.”

He nodded. “All right, then—let’s get started.”

I gave a quick summary of who I was—before all this mess, at least—and reviewed the events that led to what the papers and newscasts were calling “the Morgantown Incident.” This was a careful blend of fact and fiction, but I was reasonably confident it would hold up because Jeri Winthrope had worked with me and Verne to make the story hold water a lot better than our previous vampire coverup.

“So,” one of the military, a General Jean Bravaias, a woman with gray-streaked sandy hair, said after some questioning, “you were able to see these creatures? Sort them out from regular people by using this viewer you built, right? What’s the range?”

I waggled my hand from side to side. “Hard to say, General. What little field experience I got showed that my jury-rigged gadget gave me fifteen, maybe twenty feet, but the real limit’s a combination of imager resolution and sensitivity through atmosphere. I’d already
gotten
that particular infrared camera heavily customized for absolute minimum noise, so I don’t know if you could really improve on it all that much. You’re looking for patterns of heat that are very, very small in scale and intensity combined with some emissions on the UV band, but those are
really
small. Maybe thirty, thirty-five feet at the outside.”

“Still,” she said, “that’s one hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now, which is somehow getting the target to be in contact with silver directly, then observing the reaction. If we don’t have people right there, watching, a smart man—or . . .” she hesitated “. . . werewolf, could figure out ways to
look
like they were carrying out the instructions and actually avoid it. But
with
people that close . . . they get killed.”

“Well,” said another person—someone from the CIA, I thought, “couldn’t we just give the guards better armor? I’d think—”

“Mr . . .” I squinted “. . . Rosedale, have you ever actually
seen
a werewolf?”

“Well, I’ve seen the pictures, but . . . no.”