Cybernation

He blinked at her. She was, what? Five two, maybe a hundred and twenty, twenty-five pounds? He took a step toward the cabin’s phone on the bedside table.

Somehow, she got between him and the phone and shoved him. He was off-balanced by the little push. He fell on the bed.

Screw this! He might get mauled by a man like Santos, but he was not going to be pushed around by some little woman! He jumped up, intending to slap her silly. He swung his hand at her face, hard—

She ducked the slap, and hit him with a brick in the ribs! Before he could recover, she did something to his feet, tripped him, and he fell back on the bed again.

He lost it. All the suppressed rage he’d felt at being used and abused by Chance, at being assaulted by that trained ape Santos, at being attacked by a woman in his own room, it all exploded. He screamed and leaped at her. He was going to choke the life from her—!

He came out of grayness, puzzled. He saw a woman sitting next to him, watching him. Who was this? Where was he? His thoughts were sluggish, as though wrapped in sheets of lead. He hurt, more than he had before. He needed a pain pill, that’s what he needed. Had he been in an accident?

“Sorry,” the woman said.

Part of it came back to him. He was in his cabin, on the ship. He’d come here, to… to do something, and this woman had been here. She had attacked him. Hit him with a club. Where was the club?

“Wh-who are you? What do you want?” God, he hurt.

“It’s not important who I am,” she said. “But we need to talk. I need you to tell me all about what you’ve been up to.”

A surge of depression broke over him. This sucked! He had been beaten by Santos, threatened with death. And now, he had been beaten by a woman! A tiny little woman! It was embarrassing. He was ashamed. He felt himself starting to cry. What had he done to deserve any of this? It wasn’t right!

“It’s all right,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “I won’t hurt you anymore.”

That really made things worse.

In the Air East of Fort Lauderdale, Florida

The Sikorsky’s intercom bonged: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. As you’ve noticed, we’re getting a little weather here, and apparently the conditions are worse at our destination. While we could probably make it just fine, I’d rather not take the risk, so I’m afraid we’re going to have to abort our flight and go back to Fort Lauderdale. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

With those words, the big helicopter started a slow turn to port.

Howard sighed. Of course. It had been too easy. He looked across the aisle at Julio and nodded.

Julio unbuckled his seat belt, stood, then stepped into the aisle and headed forward.

One of the two flight attendants moved to intercept him. “Sir, please take your seat. The captain has the seat belt sign lit.”

“I’m gonna puke,” Julio said. He moved closer toward the flight control cabin, which wasn’t far.

“I’ll get you an airsickness bag, but you need to sit down—”

Julio said, “Sergeant Reaves?”

Reaves, a brawny man with a high-and-tight buzz cut, came up and grabbed the flight attendant, one arm pinning her arms to her body, the other hand covering her mouth. The woman tried to yell, but only a little sound got past the sergeant’s powerful grip.

The second flight attendant, at the back, saw this and reached for an intercom mike, but a trooper caught her and sat her back in her seat.

Julio reached under his tails-out Hawaiian shirt and pulled his pistol, the old warhorse of a Beretta he carried, and hurried forward to have a little chat with the pilot and copilot.

A few seconds later, the helicopter turned back toward the southeast.

Howard looked at Michaels and gave the commander a little shrug. “Stuff happens,” he said. “No problem.”

Howard turned and motioned to his pilot to go forward. The man did. A minute later, Julio marched the copilot back and sat him in the vacated seat. His pistol was tucked back into its holster. He went back to his seat and buckled himself in.

“Everything okay, Lieutenant?”

“All systems green, sir. The captain has decided that cooperation is in his best interest, since our pilot is in the second chair with a gun and he’s let the captain know he knows how to fly this thing. He wasn’t ordered to turn back, it was his decision. ETA is thirty minutes. Might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.”

A downdraft dropped the copter at that moment, a free fall that made them nearly weightless for a second or so. The fall stopped, and the craft shook as if it had bumped into something in the air. Howard looked at Julio.

“Think of it as a new and exciting ride at Disney World,” Julio said. “The Upchucker.”

On the Bon Chance

Santos looked at his watch and frowned. Forty-five minutes, and no sign of Mary Johnson. He had called and found that she had checked out, but the rain and wind were worse now, and they had shut down the commercial flights back to the Mainland, and according to their records, Ms. Johnson had not left yet. So she was here somewhere, and if she wasn’t in her room, or in the casinos, restaurants, or bars, where was she?

Maybe she had found a lover? Was lying in bed letting the roll of the sea rock her and some lucky man into easy sex?

Well. It didn’t really matter. Pretty soon, he would have to leave. Too bad.

His com rang. He pulled it from his belt and opened it. “Yes?”

Missy said, “Have you seen Jackson? He’s supposed to be in Computer Operations and he’s not.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Santos said. And wasn’t likely to, if Jackson saw him first. “You try his room?”

“He’s not answering his phone, his pager, or knocks on the door.”

“Maybe he’s in a bathroom throwing up? Boat’s moving some, and that Jackson, he’s got kind of a weak stomach. So I heard.”

“I doubt that.”

“Or maybe he’s getting himself a little pussy. I hear he likes that.”

“Grow up, Roberto!” There was a short pause. “You’d better get going. The storm is getting worse, and you have to be on the Mainland.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m not gonna disappear like Jackson.”

He flipped the phone shut, tapped it against his other palm, then stuck it back on his belt. That was odd, that Keller wasn’t around. He lived for his computers. Maybe before he took off, he should check Keller’s cabin, make sure he hadn’t had a heart attack or something.

* * *

Toni listened, astounded by the scope of the planned attack on the Internet. Keller, once he got started, was babbling like a man stoked on amphetamines, talking so fast he kept running out of air and had to suck more in big gasps.

Hacks. EMP devices. Men with guns and cable cutters. This was major. She was going to have to call Alex with this, it was too big to risk letting it get started. People were poised to do all this in a few hours, and authorities around the U.S., around the world, had to know.

Keller knew some of it, but not all. They needed to get the locations for attacks on the hardware, so they could stop them. Undoubtedly those were in the computers. Could Keller access those plans from here?

Yes, he could. He had his flatscreen. He could download those files. Would she like him to do it?

Toni smiled. This would justify her staying here! “Do it,” she said.

It didn’t take that long. When he was done, he burned the download into a mini-DVD and ejected it from the machine. “Here it is,” he said.

Toni took it. She would call Alex, right now. If he wasn’t on the way, this would be important enough to scramble a military copter and get help here. Toni said, “You did good, Jackson. Now just sit there for a minute while I make a call.”