Thicker Than Blood (9 page)

Lucy was miffed. Where the hell is Mark? He is completely focused on those nanites. He has huge dreams, but he needs to think more about the now. He's not all that bad, he'll be a money making machine one day when he gets more focused! Right now he's all id, off this way and that, completely unfocused and inconsiderate. "What is he thinking?" Lucy asked Joe. "You're here, still fixing the borg an hour before we're live and he's nowhere to be seen!" Joe looked up from the mass of wires he was fiddling with, inside the cyborg's head. He looked at Lucy blankly and shrugged his shoulders, "Ehh he's Mark." Joe looked longer at Lucy trying to read her. "You need to worry more," Lucy muttered. "I'll finish it," Joe looked her in the eye as he talked. "He still needs to control the arms!" Lucy was feeding her own anger. Joe grinned. "You can do it." "Oh real funny. I'll probably rip one arm off with the other." "They love that stuff." Joe was still grinning. Lucy stomped up the aisle past the other teams' noisy repair cubicles in the back room of the studio. She adjusted her tight A Team shirt so the logo was straight. She had reluctantly agreed to show off her breasts, for A team publicity. Apparently it worked, she always had lots of cheers and fan mail. Pigs! I suppose I understand why Mark is so interested in the nanites. Holding the fate of the world must sound great to him. But I wish they had thought more about me. I had the chance to build an empire here, and they blew it. I have a daughter, I don't want her to have to live without me. They can't understand that. I guess I might just be acting selfishly, she thought. Joe would have died from that crash. I would have done the same thing his aunt did in a heartbeat. How did she get involved in this web of lies? She's a practical woman. She must have seen the damage this kind of work could do to her successful life. I guess her life seemed less meaningful after her sister died. It's funny how much Joe's father and Teressa have changed since I've known them. Lucy pushed the fire door leading to parking lot open. Holding it, she paused, staring outside in to the wintry gloom. Lucy squinted at a car coming around the bend through her foggy breath. She heard a voice behind her. "Lucy?" a voice asked. Lucy jumped away from the voice, turning around. "Sorry." It was Kento. "That's okay," Lucy said. She caught her breath. "I was lost in thought." "You thinking about what I said in the shop?" Kento spoke in a pensive tone. Lucy paused. "I've realized that Teressa saw that this was bigger and more important than her. I definitely know it's bigger than me, I just don't know if I care." Kento looked at her, attentive but unemotional. He said nothing. Lucy was frustrated. He doesn't understand, she thought. "Kento... my daughter, I can't land myself in jail. I don't have a lawyer. This isn't a game. How long have we been hearing this anti-nanite crap on the radio. I'm in no shape to fight this battle." Kento remained silent, nodding his head. "I'm too old. All my money is tied up in properties and businesses. I have too much to lose in an adventure like this." "So what kind of future do you think Finny will have? She'll be a slave." Kento scowled. "I don't see that you have a choice." Lucy walked back inside the doorway, shivering. The door swung shut behind her. "I'll help you guys any way I can, but if the shit hits the fan I'm out." Lucy paused lost in thought. She mumbled to herself, "I'd hate to lose the A-team." Kento looked resigned. "You're especially at risk. Any time you feel the need, we are gone. You are getting the worst of both worlds." "I hope not. Look how I got rich, economics and politics can turn around quick." Lucy and Kento walked back to the A-team booth quiet and reflective. As they arrived at the booth Kento turned to Lucy. "Oh, by the way, you're never too old."

Joe looked up from the innards of the RC controller he was tinkering with. "Hi Kento." Joe turned to Lucy smiling. "To old for what?" "Joe. Hello, on the floor in an hour???!" Lucy appeared flustered, not totally from frustration. Joe stared at Lucy and his smile grew. He looked positively boyish. "Hello!" Mark's voice cut in. "AHhhh!" Lucy jumped again. "Why does everybody do that?" Lucy was talking a little louder. Her heart was pounding. "Sorry." Mark couldn't stop grinning "I did it!" "What?" Lucy had no idea what he was talking about. "I know." Joe was grinning again. "I got the nanites to talk to me!" Mark exclaimed. What the hell, we're all going to go to jail, Lucy thought. "Mark keep your voice down," Lucy said rasping. They leaned in as Mark started whispering. "Oh right, so I was running this password cracker and trying all these different protocols across different media types and I was running this modified rsh login over a shortened UDP/IP protocol with a random username and password and it answered," Mark inhaled "At first I thought I lost the connection to the ultrasound panel because at that range the signal was so strong it spiked the meter. Once I turned down the sensitivity of the meter I could see it was responding to me in a consistent way but kept disconnecting without returning a coherent packet, so I thought maybe I should try crafting a packet." Mark gasped for air. "Just with a similar timed set of responses and with a little tuning I was getting the same few beats back, so I used the alphabet of digits I learned so far with a standard ATM frame size and began running the cracker with the new alphabet..." Mark inhaled. "...in random combinations and suddenly open sesame, I had a standard telnet prompt straight to a shell over semi- standard ATM no login, it was actually a secret knock all along." Mark sucked down some air, and began breathing deeply. They all stared at Mark, who was wheezing. Joe broke the silence. "Cool!" Lucy chimed in with a furrowed brow. "What?" Kento stared into space almost talking to himself. "We made some progress. I thought we were going to have to mail them all over the planet, I really didn't want to risk it yet." "Thought they'd use encryption," Joe said.

"Yeah that is kind of weird," Kento said. "Maybe the CPU isn't fast enough? Or not enough bandwidth? Mark what rate was it pulsing?" Lucy cut Kento off, "Kento mail them to whom?" Her voice was a little too loud. A tech from a nearby cubical looked up from his robot and eyed them. Kento looked at her sideways and whispered. "You don't think we're smart enough to analyze all this data ourselves, do you? These things probably took years to develop, design and test. Even if we were the top molecular biologists with the best gear, there aren't enough of us to document every molecule in a year, much less understand how they work." Lucy looked a little scared. She wasn't ready just yet to send them packing. Lucy whispered, "Kento, why didn't you tell us about this before? Who else knows about this?" Kento raised an eyebrow. "Scientists." Mark looked a little concerned now. "Kento, how many scientists?" "Six hundred and thirty two," Kento said casually. Kento alone, appeared calm. Even the usually sullen Joe curled his lip. Oh Lord. Finny is going to be in foster care. I'm going to be some guard's personal servant at Rikers Island. Oh wait, no they won't send me to Rikers, they'll execute me for being a terrorist... Kento saw the twisted look on Lucy's face. "Lucy it's okay. I know everyone of these people. They spent their whole lives building up the expertise hoping to work in nanotech. If they hadn't been strong-armed out by the feds, they would have cured cancer by now." Lucy started reviewing every second of her interaction with Kento since she met him in high school. She thought about the class they first talked in, meeting Joe through him, seeing the bullied kids he helped. She remembered going to lunch with mutual friends and later writing a recommendation letter for him for college. She remembered visiting him in college, and three different professors came up to him to talk in a ten minute span! "At school. The faculty. All knew you by name." Lucy mumbled. "Teaching Kempo in school, it all started there." Kento looked her in the eye. Mark looked at Kento. "You've been planning this all along." "If you mean since the day the DOJ sued the Foresight Institute out of existence on a trumped up trade secret charge. Yes." "I thought they disbanded," Lucy said.

"Where did you hear that? The TV news? They answer to the FCC now," Kento stated. Joe grumbled, "It's true. They lied." Lucy recalled hearing the FCC asking the networks to delay a few broadcasts since the crunch, but everything gets out sooner or later. Oh no, how much time has passed? "Not to kill our fun," Lucy said while looking at her watch, "but we're on camera in thirty minutes." Mark eyes opened wide, "Oh crap."

I can't think about this right now. I have to focus on the competition. No nanites, no million mile and hour jibberish coming from Mark's mouth. Just the cameras and the guys and Marksman. The on deck' area had a monitor hanging from the wall. Lucy pretended to watch the replays of the last match. "Uh oh," Joe looked worried. "What's up Joe?" "I forgot my clarks." "Oh crap Joe. Stay here." She turned her head to Mark as she jogged away. "This is your fault you know." "What? I said I was sorry." Marks voice trailed off as she jogged away. She pushed the restaurant style doors open and dashed through them. Lucy jogged toward the back of cubicle filled room. I can't work up a sweat, or my makeup will run. She scampered into Team A's cubical. The Clarks weren't on the counter top. She began ripping drawers open. Some movement caught the corner of Lucy's eye. Lucy purposefully dropped something and crouched to pick it up. Carefully looking, she noticed two large men in suits, one light and one dark talking to the team from the neighboring cubical. Oh crap. What the hell. Those are cops! They must be questioning that guy from the next cubical. What's his name? Eric! He's not supposed to be back stage. There are no runoff matches tonight. He should be on deck. Oh my God, they're here for us. Don't panic. Just stay calm. Oh shit they're looking over here. Act casual. Just keep doing what I am doing. Lucy spotted Joe's jacket on the floor. Mumbling to herself, she reached over to Joe's jacket and grabbed the clarks. Getting up and turning the same time, Lucy made sure not to make eye contact. Lucy came bursting though the gray egg-crate covered doors, waving the clarks in the air. Joe had already strapped his PC to his arm. The three of them were alone in the tiny room. "Guys I've got the clarks! Listen," Lucy took a breath, "I was just in the mod room and..." Lucy took another breath. "Here we go." Mark was pointing at the monitor. He sounded excited. A musical horn piece came on that sounded conspicuously like the A-team theme. Movie clips of the three of them shooting M16s and hitting nothing scrolled by. Lucy's Black van rolled by. Next they showed a few clips of them welding parts onto the cyborg, and finally of the cyborg in battle. The announcer began to talk about their team's recent winning streak towards the end of the campy intro. "Guys? Guys? Something to tell you? Joe, I have your clarks..." Nothing. Joe and Mark watched intently barely holding on to their RC controllers. Lucy would have been frustrated if she wasn't scared. She stared intently at Joe. I know how to get his attention, she thought. She walked up behind him and intentionally pushed her breasts against his arm and back from behind. She whispered in his ear, "There are cops in the mod questioning Eric, right now." Joe looked down at her completely confused, with a glassy eyed look taking over his face. The announcer raised his voice a little. "By now, you have to know them, and when they come to your town you'd best look out." Joe looked to Lucy for a clue, but it was too late. They were out of time. She handed Joe the clarks, and they followed Mark out the door. The announcer yelled, "The A team!!!" as they walked out on to the floor. Lucy was worried sick, and Joe looked it too. The crowd went wild. Mark walked right up to the announcer. "Uh, that's Team A," He said into the microphone. "Right okay," the announcer said into his microphone, grinning. "I always mix that up." "So we're all curious what this new compartment is on the front of Marksman. It looks like a complete cyborg, by the new rules, so what could it be?" The announcer held the microphone to Mark's mouth. "You'll see." Mark's smile turned to a grin.

The announcer turned to Lucy. "Your opponent tonight is Black Knight, with three straight wins. How do you think the boys will fare?" Lucy felt a bit like a robot herself, but forced herself to perk up and act. "The winner is already chosen, Rick." Her voice sounded squeaky and distant. Lucy mixed rage with fear. She was furious with herself. That sounded really dumb. Joe looked petrified, lost in his own thoughts. Rick turned to him next. "So Joe you look a little worried. Second thoughts? Cold feet? Finally met your match? Ready to throw the towel in?" The announcer looked Joe right in the eye. The studio was quiet. Joe still looked lost. Joe turned to Rick and his eyes went wide. He began to smile. He grabbed the microphone and simply said. "Never. I. Live. For. This." He donned his Clarks as he finished. The crowd went bonkers. Lucy began to feel a little better. She didn't even know why. The announcer introduced the other team. Joe and Mark walked down to their circle beside the Plexiglas enclosure. There it was, their complete robot. It stood upright on giant tracks. It had complex multi-hydraulic arms. It was painted a metallic mars-red with black accents. It's facsimile of a head had a strip of cameras for eyes that looked like a visor. Nearly seven feet of pure intimidation. Joe and Mark turned on the power for their RC controllers and arm computers. They began to switch their clarks to a three dimensional view from the robots eyes. Lucy knew the arm gestures well. Lucy took in the competition. The opposite robot had small tracks for feet and was dressed up in black, human style plate armor. Their teenage opponents where wearing awkward cardboard visors. It doesn't look like they are wearing clarks. This should be quick, Lucy thought. Marksman began to twitch and turn in its small circle painted on the floor. It stretched its arms and flexed its waist and shoulders. After a minute, Black Knight began to twitch in a meaningful way. The humans controlling Black Knight both gave a thumbs up. The enemy cyborg slowly reached for a spiked ball and chain hung from its metal belt. Once it had grabbed the mace, it began swinging it back and forth. Lucy scanned the exits for cops. Nothing so far. She spotted Kento in the guest area. He saw her looking and waved.