He stepped back and raised his visor. The cut edges of the steel were still glowing red.
In addition to pipe smoke, Major Raju reeked of satisfaction. “That contraption is as amazing as they say!” he remarked. “Imagine what one could do with a suspension bridge. Or a skyscraper. Or—well—anything that conducts electricity and is big and important!” He puffed on his pipe for a moment, staring up into the moonlit sky as visions of collapsing bridges danced in his head. “You could mount one on a drone,” he mused. Then, as if arguing with himself: “But that would leave out the human angle.” This snapped him out of his reverie. “Sergeant Singh! Big Fish! What did you just do?”
“We have just—”
“You. You.”
“I have just struck the first blow in the defense of our Breadbasket against the toxic and aggressive actions of those who would seek to, uh, change the climate in a way that is, uh, deeply toxic and racist.”
“Cut everything after ‘Breadbasket,’” Major Raju muttered to one of the cameramen. “You have work to do, Sergeant Singh! Very good work! Best get on with it!”
“Yes, sir!” Laks started making tracks for the next net stanchion. As he did, he could hear the major giving an order to the subordinate who’d given him the backpack: “If I’m not mistaken, we have some additional materiel that needs to be transferred into Sergeant Singh’s flying chariot for use during Phase 2.”
PINA2BO
The touch screen that was supposed to serve as the elevator’s UI was dead like everything else that had been reached by the electromagnetic pulse. But the system still had power from below. Someone had to rip the control panel off the wall and then figure out how to hot-wire it. This was far from being the most difficult technical challenge tackled by White Label Industries engineers during their years-long quest to alter world climate, but it still took some doing. For example, it was decided that they needed someone to climb the ladder all the way down to the bottom of the shaft to flip a switch and poke at some wires. Jules volunteered and scampered down the shaft. Several minutes later his voice could be heard echoing up from below. He began to follow instructions hollered down to him by Conor, the engineer who’d taken the initiative with the crowbar and was now standing in the elevator, hands in pockets, evaluating a tangle of wiring harnesses and connectors.
During that procedure T.R. and Saskia—whose only role, here, was to be protected by all the other people—had nothing to do but pace around and drink water. It had been years since she’d been completely disconnected from all electronics, and she found herself wishing she’d brought one of the many unread books piled up on end tables and nightstands in various residences.
About forty-five minutes after the EMP they saw lights gliding through the air down around Bunkhouse. It was obvious from the way they moved that they were drones and that they were swarming in a coordinated fashion. Saskia’s first assumption was that the Black Hat people around High Noon had deployed a fleet of these things that had somehow survived the EMP and were setting up an air patrol over Pina2bo. The first wave of them only came up as far as Bunkhouse. A second wave, however, soon began to advance toward the gun complex.
Gunfire sounded from Bunkhouse. The boss of the Black Hats, one Tatum, ordered his men to begin dispersing into positions where they could find cover. Saskia and T.R. he herded into the elevator. “Close this door,” he said to Conor, the engineer who had been messing with the wires, “and get them to the bottom. Even if it means y’all gotta climb down the ladder.”
Closing the door was a thing that Conor had figured out how to do pretty early, and so that was the last they saw of Tatum or of anyone or anything else on the surface. Saskia and T.R. were now sealed up inside a rather small box with this Conor. He was a short, stocky white guy, probably in his mid-thirties, who had given up trying to cope with the complexities of male pattern baldness and just gone over to stubble. His burly physique took up more than its share of space in the elevator but Saskia would not begrudge him that if he could get the thing to move.
“I was trying to figure out how to do this the nice way,” he remarked. “The terrible way is easy.” He evaluated his fellow passengers, seeming to assess their overall health and state of mind, in a way that suggested he really wasn’t kidding.
“What’s the terrible way?” T.R. asked.
“Just turning the motor on and off.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”