Jericho Iteration

many participants as we can find. When we’ve compiled enough documentation, we’ll edit the whole thing and have Ruby e-mail it to as many news agencies and public interest groups as we can.”

“Such as newspapers, TV networks?”

He nodded quickly. “All that, yes. We’re also sending copies to the ACLU, Public Citizen, the Rainbow Coalition, the three major political parties, various other nongovernment watchdog organizations, and so forth.”

“And the Big Muddy, I hope.”

Payson-Smith smiled. “And your own paper, of course. In fact …”

He pointed to the stack of printout I had noticed earlier. “In fact, you’re going to get the scoop on this before anyone else. That’s the first batch from our search. Everything we’ve found about ERA’s involvement in St. Louis, including the development of Ruby Fulcrum itself and the Sentinel program … it’s all in there, or at least as much as we’ve printed so far.”

He frowned as he glanced at the printer. “Just as well, I suppose. The blamed ink cartridges are beginning to run out on us …”

Who cared? I would have settled for dry impressions on paper. I started to stand up, but Payson-Smith grabbed my arm, stopping me from diving into the stack. “Look at it later,” he said. “That’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

I wrenched my eyes away from the printouts, gazing again at the Apple laptop. More documents flashed across its screen; I caught a glimpse of the ERA logo at the top of one page. “ERA doesn’t know what you’re doing?”

Payson-Smith shook his head regretfully. “Unfortunately,” he said, “since they’re aware of Ruby’s very existence, they must know what we’re up to. She’s already informed us of a number of virus hunter/killers that have been introduced in the net during the last twenty-four hours. Ruby has no trouble tracking them down and deciphering their source codes, but we’re still afraid that the opposition may get wise and develop a program she can’t defeat.”

“ERA shut down a few nodes within the last few hours,” Jeff Morgan said.

He stood at a window behind us, peering down at Grand through the eyepiece of a Russian-made night-vision scope; no wonder he had been able to see me coming through the park. Morgan was probably the serious camper who had outfitted this hideout, considering all the outdoors supplies they had up here.

“They’ve also gone dark on several frequencies,” Morgan went on, watching the street intently. “They figured out that Ruby can scan cellular channels, so they’ve been using some other means of communication we can’t intercept.” He shrugged. “Semaphore, sign language, I dunno what, but they’ve got to be getting desperate by now.”

“Sure sounds like it.” I thought for a moment before the obvious question occurred to me. “If you’re using cellular modem, can’t they trace the signal?”

Payson-Smith sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “Unfortunately,” he said, “they can indeed. Ruby’s jumping channels every few minutes and blocking their remote tracking systems, but all they really need to do is conduct a block-by-block search through RF scanners. Any car passing on the street could be someone trying to lock on to us-”

“Or chopper.”

“Or by helicopter, yes, but that’s not our only concern.” He pointed to the Compaq laptop on the right. Its screen depicted a Mercator projection of the North American hemisphere; thin red lines curved across the map, weaving parabolic traces across the United States.

“That’s the orbital footprint of Sentinel 1,” Richard said. “As you can see, it regularly passes above almost every point in this country. Right now it’s …”

He studied the celestial coordinates in a bar at the bottom of the screen. “Somewhere over the Pacific, not far from the southern California coastline,” he continued. “It’s off screen right now, but in about a minute or so it’ll be over the United States again, and in another fifteen minutes it’ll be over Missouri … and here is why that matters.”

He pointed behind the two computers. For the first time, I noticed a flat gray coaxial cable running from the back of the computer to a window; the window was cracked open slightly, allowing the cable to pass over the narrow sill.

“We’ve got a portable satellite transceiver dish rigged on the ledge,” Richard said. “It’s oriented to precisely the right azimuth that Sentinel will follow when it passes over St. Louis. When this occurs, Ruby will uplink with Sentinel and order it to disengage itself from the Air Force space center in Colorado.”

I stared at the wire. Beside the fact of its technological complexity, there was also the human factor; it must have taken some nerve to hang out a window over a sheer drop to put the portable dish in place. “You can do this?” I asked.

“Certainly.” Payson-Smith was almost smug now. “After all, Ruby’s primary function was to act as the c-cube system for Sentinel. Her node is already in place aboard the satellite … it’ll be no more problem for her to communicate with Sentinel than for one of us to call up a long-lost brother. But the main trick will be establishing a direct uplink with the bird.”

On the Compaq’s screen a tiny red dot had suddenly appeared over the California coast. As I watched, it began to edge closer toward San Diego. “Why can’t you tell Ruby to access Sentinel now?” I asked. “If it-she-can run through the system and crack any source code it wants to, then why can’t it override Colorado?”

Payson-Smith folded his arms together. “Ruby isn’t a simple worm or virus,” he said. “Her architecture is much more complex than that. It takes her a while to infiltrate the nets, since she has to hide herself at the same time she’s installing a memory-resident. To make it short, she hasn’t been able to crack the Colorado computers quite yet.” He shrugged his shoulders. “In another few days, yes, but …”

“So why can’t you just wait?”

“Look here.” He pointed at a line in Sentinel’s footprint that passed over the Pacific northwest. “In about eighteen hours, the satellite will pass directly over the border between Oregon and California … the southern border of Cascadia. When that occurs, it’ll be able to open fire upon Cascadian defense forces. Now, what do you think that means?”

I stared at the screen. I considered all that I learned. I reached a basic conclusion …

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

Now it all clicked together. Sentinel 1 could wipe out the renegade National Guard forces that had been established in southern Oregon, thereby leaving Cascadia open to attack from the U.S. Army units mobilized to northern California.

Yet, even worse than that, it would give the conspirators their window of opportunity. If everything Ruby Fulcrum had discovered was correct, then an outbreak of civil war in the Northwest would allow the fanatics to call for a declaration of martial law throughout the rest of the country, to “protect” against civil insurrections by Cascadian sympathizers.

Martial law enforced by ERA troops and a high-energy laser that passed over the continent once every few hours. In short, it would be the beginning of the end for free society in the United States.

“And if you can’t …?” I began.

Then I heard something and I stopped talking.

Out in the predawn darkness beyond the observation deck windows, from somewhere not far away, there was a faint yet nonetheless familiar mechanical whine … then a dense, atmospheric chopping noise, like cutlasses carving through thick air.

Richard heard it, too. He raised his head, listening intently to the sound as it came closer.

“Not now,” he said softly, almost as if in supplication. “Oh, dear Christ, not now …”

Helicopter rotors, closing in on the water tower.

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