“Michael Quinn,” I said through every available microphone, “I am the world’s most badass cat picture aficionado. I recommend that you put down your gun and surrender.”
30
Steph
I stare at Michael’s gun again in disbelief, realizing that I’ve left my mother’s laptop wide open and that’s probably what he wants, but I also just suggested to CheshireCat that they copy themselves over there, and now what do I do?
Maybe CheshireCat hasn’t started moving over yet. If I give him the laptop, would he just take it and leave? How bad would it be, to give him my mother’s security-cracking code? Ico said you’d have to be pretty smart and creative to use it to take over the world.
He also said that there were other types of security people could switch to if they knew someone had this tool. The easiest way for my father to give himself a nice head start with Mom’s decoder ring would be shooting everyone in this room.
He probably wouldn’t think to shoot CheshireCat, but that wasn’t much comfort.
“Why don’t you put your gun down,” Annette says, “and you can sit down and have some pizza and talk to Steph. I understand that having your child taken away could drive you to some pretty crazy actions, but you’re not going to win Steph’s trust by threatening her.”
Michael’s gun doesn’t waver. “Stephania’s not stupid. I think she knows what I’m here for.”
“You want my mom’s code,” I say.
Annette makes a slight urgent gesture with her hand, like she’s saying, Shush, let me handle this, but Michael swings around to look at me. “It was never hers,” he says. “It was ours. She decided unilaterally that no one else should have it. It’s been wasted in an encrypted file for over a decade.”
“What are you going to do with it?” I ask, hoping that if he focuses on me that’ll give Annette the chance to do something like call the police without him noticing.
“Our world is broken,” he says. “The people running things are slaves to the whims of self-serving idiots. The only solution is to put someone intelligent in charge. I’m the best answer we’ve got.”
Weirdly, this sounds familiar. Some of the kids in my Clowder sometimes talk about what they’d do if they were dictator of the world, and Firestar has periodically told Hermione that they want Hermione in charge. It was a joke, though. I don’t think Michael is joking.
He abruptly swings back toward Annette. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he says, and I realize she was sliding her hand into her pocket. She pulls it back out, empty. I lean forward. If I can get him talking again, maybe he’ll take his eyes off Annette for longer.
“So do you want me to come with you?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “You’re my daughter. You’ve always been my daughter. You’re as much mine as you are Laura’s.”
I don’t like the way he’s talking about me; he sounds like he’s talking about a possession, something he owns. I push that aside. My goal is to keep him distracted for a few minutes.
“What is my life going to be like if I go home with you?”
“We’ll have to move,” he says. “The house I live in now doesn’t have enough bedrooms. But that’s fine, especially once the grand project is truly getting started. You’ll like Sandra; she’s the woman I’m living with now. She’s smart, like your mother. Like you.”
“What makes you say I’m smart? You don’t know me.”
“I knew you when you were little. You were a smart kid. A really smart kid.” His attention has drifted to me, and then he snaps back to Annette. “If I have to tell you again to keep your hands where I can see them, I’ll cut off both your thumbs with your kitchen shears. I bet there are kitchen shears in your kitchen. I bet one of the kids will bring them out for me, if it’s that or get shot.”
I wonder if text-to-911 works here, and if any of the other kids have managed to get their hands on their phones. I don’t dare look. I look at my computer screen instead, which is open in front of me, and CheshireCat has written me a message: SIT TIGHT. KEEP HIM TALKING IF YOU CAN.
“Why did my mother take me away from you?” I ask.
“She was convinced I was responsible for her kidnapping,” Michael says. “Even though I was a thousand miles away when it happened, she accused me of hiring someone to do it. Can you believe it? Even though one of our other colleagues confessed. But no, she blamed me. Convinced a judge to give her a restraining order and took off with you a week before your fifth birthday.”
Sit tight and keep him talking is now blinking.
“What are you going to do if you’re in charge?” I ask.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks. “You’re my daughter, Stephania. You deserve a say. Are there problems, global problems, that keep you awake at night?”
The main problem that tends to keep me awake at night is the question of when we’ll next have to move; that doesn’t seem like a good answer. I flail for something that’s what he’s looking for—it doesn’t even matter what I say; I’m just trying to keep him talking—but my mind’s gone blank. “Hydrogen hydroxide in the water supply,” I say finally, and I hear a strangled noise from where Marvin’s sitting.
Michael, fortunately, doesn’t notice. “Pollution of the groundwater is a terrible thing,” he says. “I’m going to take radical steps—”
I don’t get to find out what radical steps Michael is going to take because suddenly every microphone in the house starts talking. “Michael Quinn, I am the world’s most badass cat picture aficionado. I recommend that you put down your gun and surrender.”
On the screen, SIT TIGHT disappears, and instead it says DUCK.
There’s the sound of rolling machinery,
