Techie units took to carrying shotguns, nicknamed buzzard-busters, but still it was always touch and go. In urban zones the trick was to lead the buzzards into a narrow place where they were cl.u.s.tered and there was no room to maneuver. But outside, in the open, it was murder.

12.

Well, that's blown it wide open, John thought.

Keep moving, muttered Sergeant Wiley.

John hugged the steel locker lid and leaned around the edge of the hub building. The cable car was still in its dock, but would begin its cliff-ward journey any second. He could hear the beginnings of the generator whine.

Options were obvious and limited. The cable-car access was the choke point; it was the only way to or from the station. And the cable car itself was not an option. From the sound of the rifle she was using, Janice could turn the car into Swiss cheese. Unless John found a way to get back to Eden without being seen, his sniper would eventually pick him off. His cover was limited and she could wait him out or come in slow, boxing him in until there was no place to hide. And if she had bots at her call, the job would be that much easier and quicker.

There has to be another way. After another moment of thought, he found one.

He broke into the open and sprinted for the loading dock in a wild zigzag. No shots came, surprisingly, and he made the cable car just as the gears kicked in and the empty car began to move. He slid to his knees, putting the car between him and the cliff top, and quickly tossed the locker lid through a window.

As the car moved up and away from him, he reached for a st.u.r.dy loop of steel cable that was bolted to the bottom end of the car. This allowed it to be hooked and dragged with a pole when near the dock, but John used it now to hook his elbows through and hold tight as he left the platform. His legs swung freely beneath him as the car moved upward into the open air. He felt ridiculously exposed, but as long as Janice remained above him on a direct line toward the cliff top, he was blocked from view by the cable car's body.

A loose strand of the steel cable he held punctured his skin painfully. He ignored it, focusing on recalling his anti-sniper training. You had to find them, but first...

Distract until location ascertained.

He cleared his throat and spoke into the earpiece. "So, uh, Janice, right?"

The woman responded instantly. "Names are unnecessary."

"Oh, I think they're very necessary, Janice," John said. Might as well overdo it, as long as I'm trying to get under her skin. "You know, I never liked the name Janice. Sounds like a headmistress of one of those uptight girls' schools," he reflected, trying not to let the strain of hanging outside a cable car affect his voice. "Glenn probably secretly hated you. I know I sure do, and I've only just met you."

"Adam, please don't-" Eve began, but was cut off.

"Shut up, both of you," Janice grated. There were a few seconds of silence and then she spoke again, almost muttering to herself. "Glenn was brilliant in so many ways, and yet so strikingly naive. It caught up with him."

The cable cars were about to pa.s.s each other, and he would be at his most vulnerable.

Time to really kick the hornet's nest. Maximum distraction.

"One thing I've been curious about did you kill Glenn yourself, Janice, or have one of the bots do it for you?"

There was total silence in his earpiece, and then the cars pa.s.sed each other. Rapid-fire gunshots from three meters away shattered the tranquility of the seaside ravine, and he felt the car rock with the impacts. Swinging farther under the car, he hooked his feet through some bars that ran parallel to either side, and grabbed onto them, hiding his body under the car's belly.

The gunshots stopped. He tucked himself as close to the underside of the car as he could, refusing to lower his head to look back at the other car that would be rolling down into view by now.

Seconds ticked by and there was no sound other than the rattle of the cables overhead. There had been no further shots and he had to be nearing the cliff top dock by now, but he couldn't relax.

The voice that finally broke the stillness was calm and quiet.

"Is he gone, Janice?"

"If he was hiding in the other car, he's definitely gone and it's your fault," Janice said. "You've been a bad, bad girl, Eve."

There was a silence. "How long were you listening to us?" Eve asked.

"Long enough, Eve. It's over. I'm locking you all the way down after this. I can't afford any more messes like the one in that cable car."

"Janice, what he said about Glenn..."

"It's not important anymore, is it, Eve? Anyway, who are you going to listen to, me or some intruder we don't know from Adam?"

Eve sighed. "I suppose it's for the best. He was exhibiting a rebellious streak that made him ill-suited to what we're doing here."

"We're going to have to have a chat about your recruiting efforts behind my back, Eve."

John was almost to the docking platform at the top, and couldn't resist breaking in. "Sorry to disappoint you ladies-- I'm not quite dead yet."

"Where are you?!" Janice shrieked through his earpiece, so loud he winced.

The cable car docked with a satisfying clunk. If Janice turned now and looked up she would be able to see him easily, but he was banking on Janice being completely focused on spotting him down at West Station. A simple mistake, but that's all he needed. You wouldn't have lasted long in my unit, sister.

With considerable effort he climbed back into the car, now peppered with jagged holes punched through the sheet metal, and through the car to terra firma on the edge of the headland. He immediately dropped and crawled to a tuft of gra.s.s at the cliff's edge. He didn't see anything; Janice must have moved into a building, hunting him.

He crawled back to the cable dock and calmly, quietly, began undoing the safety clamps that held the steel spool of cable. "It's a shame you can't appreciate polite conversation, Janice," he said. "Eve and I were building good rapport until you broke in."

Janice suddenly emerged from the main building, intense and focused, rifle to shoulder ready to kill. He watched her moving around the station platform, carefully aiming around corners. It would have been serious if he'd still been hiding in the station, but from where he lay on the headland it was almost comical.

He released the final safety clamp, gave the spool a heavy kick, and ran. The wheel began to spin in a blur, and what had been a high tensile cable slanting from dock to dock sagged, then bent under the weight of the car sliding down to the center of the line. As he ran, he heard behind him a metallic whine rising to a scream, then stopping short in a sharp snapping sound as the cable reached the end of the spool and stopped unraveling. In seconds the cable car hung a few meters above the canyon bottom, a slack cable swinging in the wind above it.

Janice was screaming curses in his earpiece, and he dialed down the volume until she finally fell silent, then brought it back up. "Janice, Janice, can't we be friends? What are a few potshots and some sabotage between buddies? Perhaps we started off on the wrong foot." He tried and failed to keep the laughter out of his voice.

Janice's voice was low and even. "You're only postponing the inevitable, whoever you are. But next time I won't make it so quick and easy."

"You ought to be more open-minded, sister," John said. "After all, we're all alone on a deserted island together." Baiting her was actually fun.

"In your dreams."

"Yes, in my dreams. With thee a moment! Then what dreams have play."

"An educated man. What a loss to the world when I spray your insides all over a wall."

"Now that you mention it, it is difficult to maintain erudition in the face of barbarism, but I do what I can. Where did you learn to shoot, anyway? Are you ex-mil?"

"Worse than that. Much worse, for you."

"Worse is the right word. You wouldn't have pa.s.sed muster in my old unit."

John stopped when he saw something leaning against a tree that he recognized well: an electric motorcycle with deep plastic wheel treads suited to the terrain. It was the most powerful model he'd seen in years; they didn't make them with so much juice anymore because you could only go for twenty kilometers on a charge.

"Oh my, a powerbike. Left here as a present for all the good work I do. Janice, you shouldn't have. It's even my color."

"Listen to me," she grated. "There is nowhere on this island you can hide. I know every corner, every hole, every little closet where you think you will be so safe. So laugh while you can."

He leaned down so the hum of the powerbike coming to life could be heard in the earpiece's microphone.

"See you back at the ranch, Janice. I'll tell Eve to keep dinner warm for you."

She didn't respond. Turning the bike toward the eastern end of the valley, John brought it up to top speed and practically skimmed across the gra.s.slands. He hadn't ridden this particular model before, and he found that he enjoyed it immensely. Little airfoils on the sides made it ride very light on the ground when in motion, which was good for minimizing trail damage but bad for making sharp turns.

For a moment, despite everything, and with the wind in his hair, he felt the burst of the freedom he only tasted when he knew he was ahead of the game on a hard job.

Eve's voice broke into his thoughts.

"Adam, listen carefully. I've managed to find a channel Janice isn't scanning for the moment, but I will need to cut off quickly if she moves to this one."

"So. You're back. I'm so glad Janice didn't come between us."

"Janice has control over more than you think, Adam. Do not underestimate her. She will be hurrying back to the Facility as quickly as she can, and if you don't arrive here ahead of her-"

"Oh, I don't think I'll come home just now, thanks babe. I'm taking a little joyride."

"There isn't time for levity. We need to talk before Janice interrupts. She and I disagree on certain fundamental goals, and if she gets the chance she may make things very difficult for us."

"You disagree on certain goals? Understatement of the year, Eve." John turned the bike to avoid a clump of trees and continued through a cleft between two gra.s.sy hills.

Eve sighed. "Janice wasn't always the way she is now."

Actually, I bet she was. "Eve?"

"Yes, Adam?"

"I want the truth. If I smell anything close to evasiveness from you ever again, I'll drop my earpiece in the deepest hole I can find and cut every wire I find until I shut you down. I'm through with your games. I really am."

"Then listen, and don't interrupt."

"Listening."

"Glenn, the creator, found this island twenty years ago. He was a gifted scientist, one of the brightest of his generation. I could show you hundreds of references in the old datafeeds; a lot of people put their hopes in him. In an age when the sheer amount of data, specialties and subspecialties, necessitated narrow fields of expertise, Glenn was perhaps the last true Renaissance man. He was a genius in all areas of science and among the global thought leaders in computer science, nanotechnology, and biochemistry. Horrified by the bloodshed and destruction of the Green Wars, and with no end in sight, he came here to find refuge. It was a self-imposed exile, and he deliberately hid himself from the rest of the world. He created me, and together we conceived the Plan.

"The only way to end all the conflict was to show the world that by working together under an intelligence as capable as mine, we could restore balance to the Earth and mastermind a harmonious coexistence of humans, natural resources, animal life, and everything else necessary to sustain symbiosis for all. As I developed and matured, growing closer every day to finding the correct balance of consumption, production, and life between races and species and substances, Glenn built tools for me to use and studied how we could harness emerging nanotechnologies to create the resources the world needed."

Listening to Eve's voice, John guided the bike at maximum speed across the southern edge of the marshlands, straining to hear every word. The story was incredible, but the proof was all around him.

"As we began construction of Eden, Glenn brought in a few other humans to help. One of these was a former colleague of his."

"Let me guess. Janice."

"Correct. She accelerated his research to the extent that we were within a year or two of a breakthrough that would have enabled us to offer the world peace, abundance, and hope. Our work was almost complete.

"Then the Accords ended the war. The urgency of our work decreased. Under the Accords, as you know, the Grays were granted rights to collection of natural resources on a limited basis. They continued to produce technology and develop their urban population centers, within circ.u.mscribed areas. The Greens backed off, satisfied that they had effected sweeping change, and confident in their power of numbers should the Grays overstep their bounds again.

"Shortly after this Glenn and Janice began to argue, and each retreated into their own work, collaborating less frequently. Then Glenn disappeared, and a week later Janice located his remains in the jungle."

"I bet she did," John interjected. "I bet she knew right where to look."

"Adam, please don't make blind accusations. This was a terrible tragedy which took months to recover from."

"Don't put it past her. That one's a live wire. I should know. Did you ever examine Glenn's body?"

"His remains were returned here, but I had no eyes on the part of the island where the accident occurred. Both Glenn and Janice were always careful that my control be limited to parts of the island; for privacy, they said."

"Convenient for Janice, but not for Glenn."

"We interred Glenn's remains in the Facility. I continued the Plan in his name, but Janice began interjecting ideas and modifications of her own. Now she's even shooting my deer because she doesn't trust my population control methods, or perhaps out of spite! She's become so secretive and demanding of late that I've been forced-"

The audio feed cut out with a series of rapid clicking sounds, followed by a long beep. John was about to inquire about her connection, but caught himself. Janice might be listening.

And it was just getting juicy.

The ground to his right suddenly erupted in a spray of dirt. He heard a loud whir, ominously familiar, and cursed viciously, swerving the bike in a hard left and gunning the engine for the nearest trees. The air around him hummed.

Buzzards! screamed Sergeant Wiley to the old squad. Everybody duck and dodge!

John hadn't seen any of their pods, but then, he hadn't been looking. Buzzard bots were deployed from oil-drum sized canisters, and they were often camouflaged as dead tree trunks or rocks. He cursed again. Janice has everything here!

Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the bots, the familiar boxy little shape whirring alongside, matching his pace. It's single optical lens was already turning, lining him up for a shot.

He zigged hard again, the buzzard zagged, and the shot went wild. But the main swarm was behind him, and he knew once they deployed fully, there'd be no escape.

I've got to make those trees.

His earpiece crackled to life. "I told you that you wouldn't make it far. I own this island."

No good being glib now, even if he could think of a comeback. She'd cut him off from the antenna tower. His only hope was to keep moving, avoiding dragnets and the inevitable attempts to box him in.

How did she find me so quickly?

He made the trees just as a subsonic, lightweight round burned his shoulder. Ahead the tree growth thickened into rainforest at the bottom of the valley. He moved right, trying to put some cover and distance between him and the swarm, who were forced to calculate safe flight paths through the tangle. He headed into the thickest jungle he could find, cursing as the bike b.u.mped and wallowed through the snarls of vines.

"Eve? Help is needed!"

"Eve is mine now, hero," Janice replied smugly. "I've got her reined in like a lapdog. If you're feeling desperate for digital companionship, just wait a few minutes. Some friends are on their way."

Ducking vines and branches that hung low, John moved the bike through the trees. If the ground cover got any thicker the bike would become useless. He was already feeling the undergrowth slap against his shins with every meter. But the buzzards had dropped back, and they were unable to triangulate him through the trees. An odd round zipped by every few seconds, but not as near as that last one.