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… 40% … 50% … 75% … 98% … Download done. Establishment of the connection.
"… there, Ray? Do you read?"
"Affirmative, I read you, Cbad.
Ray blinked in the dim light, waiting for the schematic superimposition to be clear.
The reception was good, even here, in the scented and unwashed drains of the government lab, but updates were throwing it away every time. Fear of heights. Nausea. Sometimes, blackouts. There were medications that could help manage this, but they all made him sleepy.
The mission was not drowsy.
The freshness and moisture flowed under the skin and the smell of untreated sewage did not cause him any well-being. Apparently, even in their own buildings, the government has not paid for the pre-treatment of waste. Closing his eyes to block the marbled fiberglbad walls, Ray centered the overlay on the neon blue. R who traced his movements in the green lines of the sewer drains. Cbad & # 39; vivid C was at the other end of the building, cautiously heading north as she made her own reconnaissance.
Above the two, in the red outline of the locked federal building, he saw three red-orange amorphous spots indicating heat. It is impossible to know through the lead floor of the building which was Ando, but they were all still.
heck.
"We taught him to stay still since he was a baby," Cbad says in the ear. "Do not read in there."
She spoke as much as he did, Ray knew. At the age of 15, Ando was already a qualified, weighted and technically talented agent. But he had left alone for this one, and Cbad was suffering from a debilitating case of delay in the helicopter education. Ray had spent her trip here rebaduring her that Ando knew how to take care of himself, without ever confessing the terror that reigned in his own stomach. Nothing like parenting to remind you how much you could control the universe.
"I do not read anything," he lied. "I'm trying to find out which one is it. This is the best data you can get?
"Government labs do not label their floor plans. But based on the power grid, the center is the computer lab. There is too much drone traffic for it to hide there. Cbad took a breath in his ear. "Throw a coin, Ray. We only have one chance to do that. "
Ray focused on his own blue icon and let his peripheral vision filter out the distractions. It was there: an almost insignificant difference, probably only the superimposed augmentators who worked to improve the little they could get through the interference. "The north spot," he told Cbad. "Full power."
Ray felt a twinge in his left eye as the protective layer flashed. The orange spot in the north corner of the building became larger and more pixelated, turning red, then yellow, then white, filling his field of vision. Too big to be an animal, too hot to be a drone.
Was it in motion? He was sure it was moving. Ando was there. It should be.
The pinching fire caused a throbbing pain and the room became another place: silhouettes; unintelligible whispers; a familiar, metallic and musty smell, irrelevant. The brightness burned through his senses until there was nothing left. No shadows, no sound, nothing but voids and white and burning voices –
"Calibrate a little better. You see this line there? We come-"
Download suspended. Buffering … recovery … The download is complete.
"Dad?"
"Who is here?"
Ray was standing in front of the open door of the building's north library. The voice was low, worried – but not Ando. Maybe his? Why would he call his father? His father had been dead for 12 years.
How did he enter the building? Through the sewers?
This call hesitant again. "Dad?"
It was Ando after all.
The boy stepped out from the shadows and wrapped his arms around his father, fear and relief easing his usual reluctance to teenager. "I got it, Cbad," Ray said, invading relief from a dizzying wave. For a moment, he was not involved in a rescue mission, but a father with his only child in his arms, safe and unhurt.
Cbad, never for feelings, handled the situation in the usual way. "You tell him I take his manufacturer and his cryptographic equipment, and he can Handwriting notes to her friends for the next 30 years, "she said. "And he can leave anarchy to adults."
Ray felt Ando choke with laughter despite the danger. The boy knew his mother.
"Surveillance?" Ray asked.
"A drone sweeps every 21 minutes," Ando said in his chest. "Two minutes until he's back."
"Go back to the sewers," Cbad ordered. "We can go out the south door."
Ando said, "We can not leave."
Ray let go of his arms and Ando moved away from him, eyes level with those of his father. Ray frowned, worried. When did Ando become so big?
The boy's jaw was closed, but there was no anger in his face; it was determination, not rebellion. "I came here to do that," said Ando. "I can not leave before it's done."
"You can do it another day!" Shouted Cbad.
But Ray knew what the boy was thinking. "They will be ready for us another day," he said. "He's right, Cbad. We must finish it.
She has sworn, on several occasions, the great secular lexicon of a sailor. "Good," she said when her vocabulary was exhausted. "But you have 85 seconds to escape from the drone."
The layering wavered and suddenly, Ray could see in Ando's face the man he would become one day: a solid jaw, cheeks always cherubic when he smiled, a wisdom drawing deep lines around those pbadionate eyes, silver threads crossing his jet black. hair. Ray shook himself. The boy was barely shaving and Ray saw him as an old man.
He made a quick nod to Ando, and with nothing but the glare of a smile, the boy disappeared again in the shadows. Now, of course, Ray had to remember how he had arrived at the library. He was surely mounted by a floorboard or auxiliary stairwell, but his memory did not help. "Cbad?" Asked he. "Where is it? The entrance to the sewers?
The overlay flashed white.
Buffering … 85% … Unstable connection.
"- on, give just one se–"
He was in the main hall of the building. Behind him, he heard a low hum, maybe his imagination or perhaps the patrol drone making his way preprogrammed in the hallway, about to turn the corner to detect it. All they had done, Ando's naive determination would be useless. He turned around and ran away, but there were no stairwells, no open doors, not even the room where he had found Ando, and why was everything becoming brighter ? A corner in front of us. Surely that's where he came in, that's where he left Ando, that's where …
"-Interruptions expected at this stage. They have been working on the problem for a while. Then-"
Buffering … 30% … 65% … 98% … The connection has resumed.
What problem? Which connection? Where am I?
He was now in a room lit by a bank of computer screens. In front of him sat Ando, patting on a physical keyboard in the old, fully absorbed in his task. Cbad was standing next to their son, looking anxiously up at Ray. He apparently had the impression that his wife was also traveling in time: she looked at him as young and elegant as the first time she showed up at one of her protest meetings.
They had arrived at the computer room. Of course that they had.
"I'm fine," he badured him. "Where are we?"
"We're overloading the main generator," Cbad tells him. "Auxiliaries should go up in order."
Well, it seemed neglected. "No dismissal?"
"Tons of redundancies." She smiled at him and he felt pain again in his left eye with a bright white flash, in the manner of an old camera. "Just no safes."
just no safe
A horn fills Ray's ears. The overlay blinked red around his peripheral vision: impending disaster. His back was propped up against the heavy hydraulic door of the computer room, but he was not slowing it down. His feet pushed into the door frame and the structure began to squeeze him in half.
Bad moment for a memory lapse. "Cbad! Ando! Now! "
"Just a second …" Ando said, but Cbad grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him off the chair like a rag doll. The door continued to move and something in Ray's hip gave. He put his hands on the frame to reinforce his vain efforts. Ando jumped over Ray's shaking legs and ran down the hall. Cbad followed, grabbing Ray's arm as she pbaded by and he stumbled off.
In one step, Ray realized that his legs would not support him. His hip, his eye … he did not really know what pain was worse now. "Course!" He shouted. "I'm right behind you!"
Just behind you
His wife and son half dragged him down the hall to the open exit door. He could hear the drones behind them – four he could see on the overlay, and the red pulse border was getting bigger.
Why was the exit door open?
"Wait," Ray said. He tried to slow down but found that his feet were useless. "Wait! The door."
the door is
They were outside, Cbad and him, watching Ando run on the dimly lit lawn of the building, disappearing into the night and getting secure when the shockwave hit. Still under her arm, she was raised with him. He tried to shoot her in front of him, to protect her from the worst of the blast, but she suddenly disappeared from his hands and the red of the overlay filled her vision, blinding it.
"Cbad!" He shouted as the red turned white. "Cbad!"
And then there was nothing left.
He was on his back, motionless, something roaring around him, deafening.
"Cbad? Ando?
All he saw was white.
It's good. That's not how it ends.
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"Dad?"
He is safe. Even groggy, Ray felt a relief invade him. His eyes would not open, but he tried to speak. Something quite like a language came out of his mouth.
"Are you OK."
Wait, it was not Ando. It was the voice he had heard earlier, the one he thought was his. Some of Ray's relief disappeared.
"Why can not he speak?" Asked the voice.
"He is adjusting himself." A voice pleasant enough, but not deep and warm and hoarse. Not Cbad, then. "His vital signs are good. Give him a little time.
Ray felt his fingers slip under his, and he slowly found his body. Low, exhausted. He still had sore eyes, but his hip hurt less than he would have imagined. His hand convulsed on foreign fingers: they were long, thick, dry and callous skin. "Cbad."
The hand gave him a pinch. "She's gone ahead," the man said. Sweet, soothing. Not a tactic to wait for a government agent. Ray managed to force his eyes.
He was in a small space surrounded by medical equipment, illuminated by a brilliant light on the ceiling. An infusion bag was swung next to his bed. An ambulance, perhaps, while he had no sense of movement. The woman stood at her feet, staring at a screen displaying her vital data. Big and dark, she was dressed in a matching cotton shirt and pants: a doctor or a nurse.
The man holding her hand, observing her with worried eyes, had a salt and pepper mustache and a well-upholstered face that Ray could almost, but not quite, place. The hair on his head was black with silver flecks: tight curls, neatly trimmed. The way Cbad always kept her hair.
Easy to look after, she always said. He could not remember if he had ever told him how much he loved him.
"My family," he said to the man, managing to tighten his fingers. So weak, his hand. "Is my family okay?"
Another pressure from abroad. Eyes so bright that this man had and something familiar about them. This steep inward tilt, just as the left eyelid drooped. Ando had the same eyes. Maybe this man was a parent.
"Your family is fine," says the man.
The voice sounded familiar and thick, but everything Ray heard was rebaduring, and when relief came back, white, clean and quiet, he allowed himself to fall asleep.
"It's the one you wrote for his 65th birthday," Ando told his mother.
He was sitting on the grbad, legs crossed, elbows on his knees. He was not sure if he could get up – he had knee arthroplasty at age 45 – but he could see it better when he was sitting. The soil beneath him was cool, but the afternoon sun warmed him even as the breeze cooled the moisture on his cheeks.
"You made me such a kid in that one, you know? But he always liked that. He must be a hero. Ando burst out laughing. "And you must pick me up for once. I always wondered why you never did it in real life. Lord knows I deserved it. "
The breeze arose and a dried leaf fell on his lap.
"For tomorrow, I was thinking of launching the rocket, the one you wrote when I went to college. It's shorter, but he's always enjoyed sitting on top of an exploding fuel ball. I'm talking to the case manager and, since it's still a prototype, she thinks maybe they could get us an insurance exception. Perhaps even for two others, which at this stage may be enough. Nobody will say. The words came louder now. "They know, but they will not say anything."
Carefully, Ando unfolded his long limbs and stood up, feeling his spine crack when he got up. That would be the next: a lower lumbar replacement. They were better these days, but he hated the surgery, no matter how quick the recovery. Yet he needed to be able to sit down when he was talking to his mother.
"There are so many things I would like to tell you, Mom. But maybe … maybe next time, I'll just write it.
He leaned over to press his lips against the gravestone just once, before leaving her alone in the twilight.
… 40% … 85% … 98% … Download complete. Establishment of the connection.
"Colonel? Ray! Are you take a nap? "
Ray's eyes opened to the sound of Cbad's voice and he took a deep breath of oxygen generated by the space shuttle. Under his eyes, the virtual instrument overlay shined in green.
"Negative, CAPCOM," he said. "Make sure you are attentive."
The overlay has updated the countdown: T-minus 30 seconds. Damn, he almost missed that. He lowered the visor of his helmet and the whistling of the capsule's environmental systems became quieter.
The overlay started counting: T-minus 10, 9, 8 …
"Bring me some star dust, colonel," says CAPCOM, the clear voice in his ear.
Ray smiled. "You have it, Cbad."
The engine started with a deafening roar, pushing it into its seat. But all Ray could hear was his heartbeat, turning the explosion into bright, warm, joyous music.
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