the mall that bisected Commonwealth Avenue and turned right again. There was an alley between Commonwealth Avenue and Marlborough Street and Jim ducked into its narrow passage. He shed his outer garments, touched his datasleeve and activated the skinsuit Marta had given him, pulling its hood up over his head.
She’d obtained it from a small company founded by a former NMech scientist who remembered Marta’s kindness and was willing to provide the suit. “It provides invisibility and partial armor,” Marta had explained. “The armor isn’t as good as NMech’s, but Eva can disable an NMech skinsuit. And it has a chest pocket so you can carry a few small items without compromising your stealth mode.”
“How is it different from NMech’s military garb?”
“NMech’s smart fabrics use layers of light-sensitive plastic threads that copy the appearance of the environment. It’s better than camouflage but it’s not true invisibility. This suit uses a different technology that will render you invisible.”
Jim took the unimpressive-looking suit. It was covered with a pattern of tiny hexagons that resembled a quilted mattress pad for a doll house. “You sure?”
“I hope so. It bends light using tiny crystals, stacked like a woodpile. Anything underneath the crystals is undetectable at both the visible and infrared spectrums.”
“How does it work? Give me the simple version, please.”
“It’s an old technology, developed in the early 2000s. Back then, scientists weren’t able to cloak objects larger than a tiny fraction of an inch. My colleague found that by building the crystals from nano-sized carbon molecules the cloaking effect would work on larger objects.”
Jim played with the suit. “It feels like it would be comfortable. You say it’s armored?”
“Partially. That’s the tradeoff. Complete invisibility but the armor isn’t as good as magnetic shearing fluid. It uses silicon woven into tiny hexagonal cells. Each cell transmits the energy of an impact to its six neighboring cells, and these in turn to twelve more cells. Then to the next eighteen, and so on. It spreads impact over the whole suit.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this. Is it new?”
“No. The armor was developed years ago for sports gear and luggage.”
“Wait. I’m facing Eva Rozen at her worst wearing a
“Eva can disable anything built by NMech.”
“How come nobody’s used this technology for body armor before now?”
“There’s a downside. No matter where you get hit, you’re going to feel the impact all over your body. Remember, each cell transmits the impact to each neighboring cell. The force will be reduced, but you’ll feel it everywhere. I’m hoping that this works well enough to keep you alive.”
That was two hours ago. Now Jim, invisible, approached Eva’s home on Commonwealth near Clarendon Street. He had to weave in and out of pedestrian traffic to avoid collisions.
Pausing at her doorway, Jim took a small aerosol can and sprayed an arc of nanoelectronics suspended in paint around the door. This electronic doorway would block any signals or electronic traffic from the entryway’s security. As he sprayed, he was reminded of the old Bible story of the ancient Hebrews, preparing to flee their Egyptian slave masters. The Hebrews painted a splash of the blood of a slaughtered lamb over their doorways to protect the household from the Angel of Death. Jim hoped that his sign on the doorway would disable Eva’s security measures as well as the lamb’s blood protected the Israelites.
Next, he placed a metal ring below the front door’s hand sensor. The fist-sized circle contained powerful magnets at the four compass points. He activated the instrument and turned it in a counter-clockwise direction. The magnets pulled the deadbolt free of the strike plate. If the deadbolt were crafted from a nonmagnetic material, the ring would generate an electric current to power the lock’s motor.
Eva Rozen was a brilliant chemist but she was not a security expert. The door opened to Jim’s device in seconds. Once inside, he paused in the entryway. He hoped that Eva’s determination to recreate the apartment of her youth would mean little enough security that he could find his father-in-law, stop Eva, restart the public health programs, and stay alive.
The hallway’s dark paneling lent a claustrophobic feel, and the unfinished pinewood flooring looked shabby. Jim was surprised. Eva’s wealth would have allowed any extravagance, but this part of her home was dark and cramped.
He felt his way up a stairway. There was no sense being stealthy. Most likely Eva already knew he was in. Still, he tested his weight on the outer edges of each step to minimize the groans of the old timbers. Up a second flight to the third-floor landing. He saw a narrow hallway and counted five doors down its length and saw a cramped kitchen at the end.
Jim paused at each door and listened for several moments and then placed a room reader on the door. The card-sized device displayed any movement within, even the slow rise and fall of someone’s breathing chest. It displayed the size of the room and the position of any occupants. It could zoom in on an object or take in the entire space.
There was nothing in the first three rooms. Jim sensed a presence in the fourth room even before he used the reader. When he did, it displayed a figure on the left side of the room. Someone was inside, sitting still. Jim enlarged and then focused the shapes within the room and saw that there was a man seated on a bed. The display showed a window on the back wall in the same position as shown on the Eva’s vid. Jim tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. He deactivated the skinsuit, took a deep breath and opened the door slowly, wincing as the old hinges complained. The man inside was Marta’s father, Rafael.
Jim slipped into the plain room and closed the door behind him. “Sir, are you okay?” he asked, his voice low.
Rafael was wearing a simple white tunic and gray gabardine slacks. He had cheap canvas slip-on shoes. Prison shoes. There was a black band around his neck. He started. “Who are you?”
“I’m Marta’s husband.”
“Jim?”
“Yes, I am. Pleased to see you again, sir. Do you know if Eva is here?”
“I heard her go up the stairs,” Rafael said.
“Is that a security collar?” Jim asked, pointing to the black band around his neck.
“Yeah. She said this thing will hurt me bad if I go anywhere in the house except the bathroom. Worse, if I try to take it off.”
Jim said, “Let me look, see if there’s any way to remove it.”
He examined the collar and then touched his datasleeve and linked to Dana. The commdisk on his jaw vibrated as he spoke with his son.
“Where are you and your mom?”
“Eva’s office at NMech. We can’t find anything here. What about you?”
Jim said, “I’m in Eva’s house. No sign of her yet, but I found your grandfather. Tell your mom that he’s okay.” He heard an exclamation of relief as Dana relayed the news.
“Look,” Jim continued. “There’s a security collar around his neck. I want to get it off. You have any ideas about how to disable this thing?” He held up his sleeve and captured an image of the collar and its schematics. A databurst transmitted it to Dana.
The link was silent for a few minutes. Then Dana said, “No. It’s got a fail-safe. It’ll generate a high-voltage electric shock before you could get it off his neck. Maybe fatal.”
“I suppose Eva can get it off,” said Jim. “I just have to convince her.”
“Dad, it’s got a fail-safe. I don’t know if Eva can get it off. I think it’s permanent.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Jim thought a moment and asked Dana, “What about modifying it? Can we make it harmless?”
Dana was silent again, pouring over the information Jim’s sleeve had transmitted. “We can try to lower the output, maybe make it non-lethal.”
“Can that backfire?” Jim asked.
