I nodded without comment, and again found my opinion of Hugh shifting. He seemed to be honestly concerned about getting Bender out of Heaven's River. If he was also interested in the AI issue, was that necessarily nefarious? Was I overreacting? Part of the problem was that I didn't want to find out. It was a true to form original Bob problem, a tendency to not want to deal with uncomfortable personal issues. I clearly had no replicative drift in that particular department.
Hugh’s suggestion about moving away from the water was a good one, and I made a point of doing so that night. Under cover of darkness, with my scent turned off, I hoisted the shipping crate and made my way uphill. I wanted a location where I can see around me but be camouflaged and where I had an escape route if someone approached. Eventually I found a deadfall formed by several trees in their root balls which created a natural kind of cave. Only one problem: it was occupied. Some kind of badger-like animal, with all the accompanying friendly behavior, rushed out and tried to bite me when I came to close.
I tended to be a live and let live kind of person, but I'd been running for too long and I was getting decidedly short tempered about it. I reacted on instinct, the same kind of reflex you get of the dog lunges for your leg. I jumped back and as the animal continued to charge, I hauled off and kicked it.
“Yipe!” said the badger, as it sailed over the deadfall, and “Ow, fuck!” said I, and “Oh, shit!” said my internal monitors, or something to that effect. Bottom line though, my kicking leg seized up. I gaped at the unusual, and certainly unhealthy angle of my knee, then turned to the heavens and used every English, Pav, Quinlan, and Deltans swear word that I had ever saved up for just such an occasion. I don't think any of the underbrush actually burst into flames, but it was a close thing.
Eventually, when I found myself circling around into the third repetition, I let it wind down and began to hop my one-legged way into my new home. There were enough branches and sticks available to make a defensive array of stakes, in case the badger tried to come back and dispute ownership. However, any question of escape was gone until I could affect repairs, and that with a severely reduced complement of fleas. Most of the work would be done by the nanites, but the fleas would've sped up the process. I hoped it was just a case of straightening out some bent components, and not something worse.
“You blew out your knee?” Bill exclaimed, incredulous. He gave me the hairy eyeball from his video window. “What you now, an athlete?”
I chuckled ruefully in reply. “Yeah, in the international sport of badger-kicking. If it helps, I put him right between the uprights.”
“Uh-huh,” Bill said. “How much damage?”
“It’ll be repaired by the time Hugh gets here, as long as no one else comes a searching. I'll be okay, but right now if anyone finds me, I'm screwed.”
“Bob, you should really be cloning yourself. Get those other Mannies back in the game.”
“To what end, Bill? They’re thousands of miles away. I’ve already stripped them of most of their money and devices, and even with five Mannies, we couldn't take on a horde of Crew. Plus, I think it’s more important to get more surveillance drones built before more matrices.
“But you've got Bender now.”
“For the moment. But if I lose him, we need to be able to find him again. And even if I don't, it sure would be great to have eyes on my surroundings with SUDDAR so I can see approaching pursuers and such.”
“Ah. Fair enough.” Bill was silent for a moment. “I’ve been playing with the idea of going in the opposite direction. Build a few more Mannies, stock them with a ton of dough, and just buy a boat to come get you.”
I laughed “That’s thinking big. And a couple of weeks ago, it probably would've worked. But I’ll bet you anything that all infrastructure is being closely watched now. If not by the Administrator, then by the Resistance. You'd be spotted as soon as you tried to gain entry.”
“Yep. My thoughts too.” Bill sighed. “No matter how we parse this, it's essentially down to a simple case of broken field running. You’re trying to get past them, and they’re trying to stop you. There doesn't appear to be any way to finesse it.”
“What I don't know,” I said, “is whether they know where we're trying to get to. Have they identified Garrick's Spine as our point of origin? Do they have video archives, or is the fact that it's the closest connection to the outside enough to make it a prime candidate?”
“True. If they figured that out, they'll just create a huge court on around Garrick that a mouse couldn't sneak through.”
“I did write it on my crate’s tag…” I mused.
“An obvious ploy, if you wanted to plant a red herring,” Bill replied. “They’ll consider it is a possibility, but they won't buy it.”
With that cheery thought, Bill waived and signed off. I put my hands behind my head and stretched while I considered what he’d said.
Bill was right. This was just going to get harder as we got closer to the finish line.
My new home was a superior-quality highly-coveted residence. I knew this because the former owner tried several times to take it back. The stakes did their job of keeping him at bay, and we generally ended up snarling at each other from opposite sides of the barrier for several minutes. After the exchange of pleasantries, the enraged critter would leave, but I could always hear him pacing around the deadfall, growling what were undoubtedly badger-ish curses.
Eventually he settled on a
