After getting out of the public terminal booth and helping the other Archive patrons out of rubble, the only conceivable exit was through the gaping hole in the roof. Since Nil and Void, with their hoverboards, were the only people capable of reaching the opening, they had to lift people up and out. It took an hour to get the numbers down by half, and another hour and a half to lift out the rest. Their arms were dead tired, and felt like limp spaghetti.
"Thank you," the last person said as she joined the others in the little cluster. Nil and Void waved back and stayed to catch their breath.
"I never want to do that again," Nil said.
"I hear you," Void agreed.
"I think we just finished our good deed for the millenium," Nil added.
"Yeah," Void said.
They sat there for a few more minutes before Nil stood up. "Zish! Our sibs! We don't know how they made out!"
Void stood up, pointing eastward, toward their home. "To the Hacking Parlor!"
With that said, the twins hopped back on their boards and sped off toward their home.
This bothered Quinn in numerous ways. First, it meant that he had the P.O. on a wild goose chase looking for Lean. Second, the people in the P.O. didn't like him already without throwing in a screw-up like this. Third, if van der Waals was back, Quinn wanted to have a shot at him.
He had to get to Sector Avi, to the Aughts' house, to the Hacking Parlor. From there, he might be able to switch on Naught or Nada's scanner programs and find the bastard. Then, he'd take his shotgun, track the little bugger down and quickly blow his psychotic brains out.
"Quinn!"
The writer spun in a circle, trying to find the source of the voice. Then he saw it, approaching from the northeast, from Sector D-Nine. It was Niente, on her hoverbike. She looked upset, which startled Quinn. Niente was not known for showing her emotions. Quinn lifted his head, acknowledging her presence.
"Quinn! Where you going?" she asked as she pulled up to him.
"The Hacking Parlor," he replied. He held up the nano-launcher. "Look what I found."
Niente squinted at it. "A stylus?"
"Look more closely," he advised. "It's a nano-launcher."
Now Niente saw it. She scowled. "That's van der Waals' technology!"
"Right," Quinn said. "I found this near the Central Sector ground zero."
"You saying that Dr. van der Waals is behind this?"
"That's what I'm saying," Quinn confirmed.
"Bastard," Niente muttered. She indicated for Quinn to hold on to her bike. "Come on, I'll get you there faster."
"Uh, sure," Quinn said, a bit uncertain. Then he shrugged, put the nano-launcher in his pocket and grabbed hold of Niente's bike.
"Hang on."
With that, Niente turned south and kicked the engines to full.
"Just point my gun your way, and I'll show you how well I remember you," Naught snarled.
Van der Waals clicked his tongue. "Temper, temper. I vouldn't try to kill me, especially not vile I have hostages." He pointed the gun at Blank and Zip.
"Put 'em down, van der Waals," DaVinci ordered, aiming his gun.
"Nein," the doctor replied. "You put your veapons down." When they didn't move, he scowled and fired a laser pulse over Blank and Zip's heads, narrowly singeing their hair. "Now! Schnell!"
Hesitantly at first, DaVinci put his gun on the ground. Lean, scowling, dropped his cane. Rollo and Tomasi dropped their fists to their sides. Nada carefully plucked Naught's gun from its holster and put it on the ground next to hers. Dr. van der Waals nodded. "Good. Now, zen, I am going to valk avay. You are not to try und follow me. If you do, I shall kill one of zese little ankle-biters."
He was a safe distance away from the whole encounter. What Lean, Rollo, Tomasi, DaVinci, Zilch, and the Flip Side Felons were seeing was a very elaborate holo-projection. It was projected by a totally undetectable nano-projector, complete with one of his new nano-bombs. If they tried anything, he'd just blow them up and be done with it.
There was a deep thud. Zilch tensed, then whirled toward his friends. "Get down!" he screamed, tackling them.
Lean recognized the sound too, but he was too slow to do anything. Brilliant white light spilled out of the door, and then a hemisphere of energy erupted out of the building. The explosion threw Lean backward, crashing into a crumbling wall. He stood up, shakily. His armor had been vaporized, his cane torn to pieces, and his hair was blown straight back. Lean blinked, then shuddered. His bitmap restored itself, armor and all.
DaVinci raised an eyebrow at this. Lean glared at him, then said, "Ouch."
"You idiot," DaVinci replied. "Now we don't know where he's gone."
"I can answer that for you," Lean snapped. "Hell. Straight to Hell, where he belongs."
"Never did know holos from reality, did you, Lean?" DaVinci said. "That wasn't van der Waals."
"He looked like him," Rollo said.
DaVinci peered at him, then turned back to Lean. "That was a decoy. Van der Waals wasn't here. He must've had a holo-projector with one of his bombs in it. When you attacked him, he set it off."
"So now what?" Zilch asked as he helped his siblings up.
"You, Lean, the Exleys, and I will go on after van der Waals. Nada, you take Naught back to the Hacking Parlor. Try to find out where he might be hiding," DaVinci said.
"Right," Nada said, letting her still-blind brother lean on her. "Come on, Naught."
"I think I'm getting better," Naught murmured. "Instead of just blurs, I'm making out shapes."
"Good, but you're still blind, bro," Nada told him as she started off.
"Not entirely," Naught said as they faded from earshot.
"So, we move," DaVinci said, indicating the hole leading down into the Depths.
"Indeed," Lean replied. "Shall I lead again?"
"Of course," DaVinci said, retrieving his pistol.
"Probably good," Quinn said.
"How do you figure that?" Niente asked.
"Law of Averages."
A voice called out. "Yo, who's in there? I warn you, we gotta pretty big gun here!"
"Nil?" Niente asked, turning.
"What, Niente? Is that you?" Nil's goggled-face appeared around the corner.
"Man, get over here!"
"Dude! Void, check it out!"
The twins popped around the corner, lowering a piece of masonry that did have a passing resemblance to a big gun, and then dropped it completely when they saw Niente. They launched themselves forward and grabbed her in a double bear hug.
"Sweet! You're okay!" Nil said.
"Good to see you not dead," Void added.
"Yeah, sure," Niente said, hugging them back for a moment, then pushing them away. "What about the others?"
"We saw Zilch just before the explosion," Void said.
"Which one?" Quinn asked.
Nil looked at him. "Zish. There were more than one?"
"Must've been the first one," Quinn said. "The Archives?"
"Right. Zilch went chasing after Lean Il Lupe, playing the part of Andrew Ginole," Nil said.
"So Lean was in-system when the bombs went off," Quinn remarked.
"Who's in there?!" another voice cut in. "If you touch anything--"
"Nada!" Quinn said. "Join the party."
"Quinn?" Nada appeared, towing Naught blindly. Then she saw everyone else in the room. Celebrations were made before Quinn put a cramp on the festivities.
"Let's focus," Quinn said. "We have Dr. van der Waals running amok with Blank and Zip as hostages. We know everyone we know is okay. DaVinci and Zilch are fine, for now, and Blank and Zip, at least, survived falling into the Depths. Obviously you all and myself are all right. Now, let's get down to business. Where could van der Waals be hiding?"
"Under a rock?" Naught offered.
"Now's not the time for jokes, Naught," Quinn replied.
"Sheesh, Mr. No-Sense-of-Humor," Naught muttered.
"Let me see the nano-launcher," Nada said. She took it from Quinn and scanned it. She consulted her computer. "Uh-huh. Short-range, in-system. That means that he could be anywhere in the Resonate."
"But obviously his little hideaway ain't near any of the ground zeroes," Nil said. "So we can narrow that down."
Surf tapped a control and a holographic map of the Resonate appeared. The Central Sector Surface--virtually all of which was controlled by the Resonate System Government--was out. The Downtown District was all owned by corporations or the (entertainment) Industry, so it was impossible for Dr. van der Waals to obtain a place to hide there. The Park Sector was out. There was no place to hide there. That left Sector Avi, Sector D-Nine, and the Industrial Sector.
"Well, let's see," Surf said. "Knowing van der Waals, he'd probably want to be well away from the explosions."
"Which largely affected the Surface Level," Quinn said. "So it's out."
On the map, the Surface Level darkened. Only a few parts of the Mid-Level were darkened.
"He'd want to be located at some place where he could observe all of the explosions without much effort," Naught said. "Factor that in."
The perimeter area of the Mid-Level and Depths darkened.
"The Park Mid-Level and Depths are all bedrock," Void pointed out. "So he can't set up shop there."
The Park Sector darkened.
"The Downtown District area is too loud and noisy with all the Industry types," Quinn said. "So he wouldn't go there."
The Downtown District darkened. It left the Central Sector, Sector Avi, and Sector D-Nine, toward the center.
"We're running out of options," Surf said.
"Wait." Niente spoke up. "What point is equidistant from all the bombs?"
Surf blinked and keyed it into the computer. A single portion of the Central Sector Depths lit up. Every one turned to look at Niente. "What? I took geometry in school, all right?"
Quinn nodded. "So Dr. van der Waals is probably there. You want to call DaVinci or shall I?"
Blank and Zip were huddled in a corner. The evil doctor turned to regard them with a wan smile. "I have completed my analysis of ze nano-bombs. It is perfect. Totally undetectable by system scanners. Totally devastating. Vat more could one ask for?" He cackled. "Mein colleagues vill like this."
"What do you want with us?" Blank asked.
Jander looked at them. "Vell, I vill turn you over to mein colleagues. No doubt zey can find a use for sprites. Probably zey vill use you as test subjects."
Blank and Zip whimpered. They remembered what happened to Quinn and Naught--the doctor's last test subjects.
Jander cackled again. "Oh, you don't have to vorry about me using you. Probably Dr. Archer vill use you. Und she is vorse than I am."
"DaVinci, we've narrowed it down to a small little area in the Central Sector Depths," Nada said.
"Great," DaVinci said.
"We're on our way there now. We'll meet you there."
"Gotcha, out." DaVinci closed the comm and put it away. "Head for the Central Sector Depths. They'll meet us there."
Fifteen minutes later, they were at the border to the Central Sector. Niente came in on her hoverbike, the twins on their hoverboards, and Nada and Naught and Quinn in the car. Nada turned to her brother and Quinn. "You guys stay here."
"Nuts to that," Quinn snapped. "I'm coming with!"
"Me too!" Naught chimed in.
"Quinn," Niente said, "you're a paraplegic in a hoverchair. You're not going to do that much."
"I can still shoot a shotgun!" Quinn protested.
"Yeah, but you're not that fast," Zilch said. "And speed is important."
"And Naught, you still can't see clearly," Nada said.
"I'm getting better!"
"But you won't be better enough in time," Nada told him. "Sorry, bro, but it's true."
With grumbling sighs, the two agreed to stay behind. Nada climbed out of the car and joined the rest of the group. DaVinci turned to Lean and the Exleys. "Try not to kill Blank and Zip."
"No promises," Tomasi rumbled.
"Vell, feel free to turn zese two over to Dr. Archer. I have no need for zem."
The two uniformed men nodded, then grinned maliciously as they approached.
"Come along, synthetics," the first one said, "you're gonna be our guinea pigs."
"A portal's been opened," the virus said. The others looked at him. "I think the good doctor's trying to make a getaway."
"In we go!" Rollo shouted, about to charge the door.
"Wait," DaVinci said. He bent down and picked up a piece of masonry. He hurled it toward the building. Two meters away from it, the masonry suddenly dissolved in midair, energy crackling. The hacker nodded. "A nanotech shield. Figures."
"So how do we get around it?" Zilch asked.
"Nanites are severely resilient." Nada was considering. "They can absorb large amounts of energy for use in construction. They can't be crushed, because they're so small."
"What about sonics?" Nil asked.
"If they're loud enough, it might overload them," Lean said. "I did some reading on nanotechnology after we last tangled."
Nil and Void smiled, then Nil withdrew the sound file they had purchased at the Sound Archives--blare.wav. Nil held it up. "Got this at the Archives just before the bombs went off. Loudest sound I've ever heard."
DaVinci nodded. "Use it."
"You might want to plug your ears."
Nil tapped his goggles, and the earpieces filled his ears, effectively rendering him deaf, which was good. Void produced a pair of earplugs and used them. The others all stuck their fingers in their ears. Nil aimed the sound file at the building, then tapped the 'play' button.
It sounded like a loud horn, amplified a hundredfold, tweaked some, then amplified again. Energy crackled around the building, then faded. Nil lowered the sound file and turned off the deafeners. Void took out the earplugs. Everyone else looked dazed, and were rubbing their ears.
"Damn, that's loud, hey?" Zilch said.
"We warned you," the twins said in unison.
Lean turned back to the building. "Well, let's go in, shall we? Boys, make an entrance."
Rollo and Tomasi stepped forward, considered the wall, then picked a target. They nodded to each other. They raised their hands, snapped twice, then lowered their shoulders and charged, screaming. When they struck the wall, it exploded inwards instantly. The terrorist brothers stopped, laughed, then motioned for the others to approach.
Zilch and Niente charged in next, taking out two consoles of computers. Lean and DaVinci came next, and looked around, before spotting a hallway that led deeper into the building. Rollo and Tomasi led the charge. Nada approached the surviving computer console and quickly hacked into it.
Nil and Void flew in on their hoverboards and heard shouts of 'help' from another hallway. Without hesitation, they sped down it.
"Put me down!" Blank said, kicking and pounding.
"They don't pay us enough for this," one of the uniformed men said to the other.
"Tell me about it."
The front man opened a door to a darkened room. A glittering tear sat there. The other man raised a portal generator and keyed a control. A portal instantly opened. With twin smirks, the two humans moved to step through.
"Hey, heads' up!"
The two men whirled around, reaching for their guns as Nil and Void flew in. Nil switched on his deafeners and Void put in his earplugs. "Kids!" Void screamed. "Cover your ears!!"
Blank and Zip didn't argue. They immediately did so. Nil thumbed the sound file in his hand. The loud sound honked again, and the two men screamed, their hands going to their ears. Void flew over and kicked them both in the head. Nil switched off the file and scooped up Blank and Zip. "Come on! We'll get you out of here!"
Void brought his foot down on the portal-gen. With a bright flash, the portal shut.
Dr. van der Waals calmly turned toward them, holding some odd-looking pistol. He pulled the trigger. With a soft chuff sound, two slim needles plunged into their necks. The drug was quick. Tomasi blinked sleepily. "Night-night, Roll." He collapsed on the floor.
Rollo yawned. "Night-night, Tom." He collapsed on top of his brother.
DaVinci stepped through the door and to the side, firing his pistol. The needle gun in van der Waals' hands flew into the wall, where it broke. Lean stepped in next, his cane sparking with electricity.
"Ah, ze hacker und ze virus," van der Waals said. "Vell, zis is unexpected."
"Time to die, Doctor," Lean said, firing a bolt of lightning.
The bolt dissipated inches from van der Waals' body. The doctor shook his head. "Vhy do you insist on trying to hurt me ven you know you can't?" He ducked under DaVinci's next shot and popped up with his own pistol.
"Damn your nanites," Lean snapped as he raised his viral shield.
"I have actually altered ze nanites' programming," Dr. van der Waals admitted. "Zey no longer simply dissipate ze energy. Zey absorb and alter it." With that, he thumbed a control on the pistol. It glowed a pale blue, then fired a bolt of lightning back at Lean.
The lightning slammed into Lean and threw him against the wall. The virus blinked, dazed. DaVinci fired back at van der Waals, who leaned to the side as the pulse sizzled by his head. The doctor pivoted to fire at him. DaVinci fell to the floor and rolled as the bolt of lightning incinerated the doorframe.
"David!" came Nil's voice. The hoverboarder tossed something to him before flying off.
DaVinci dropped his pistol and scooped up the sound file. He pointed it toward van der Waals and activated it, praying that he wouldn't be deafened by the sound.
In the confined space of the doctor's lab, the sound was made worse by the echoes. Lean writhed from it, and van der Waals spasmed as his own nanites began to malfunction. The doctor screamed with pain. DaVinci dropped the sound file to go for his gun.
But the doctor adapted faster than he thought. Dr. van der Waals raised his lightning gun and fired off a bolt that destroyed the sound file. The hacker had to dodge to avoid being fried himself. Van der Waals blinked painfully, then smiled. "Points for effort, but points off for speed."
"Heeeeey, van der Waals!" screamed Quinn. The writer came flying in on his hoverchair, his energy shotgun clutched in his hands. Before the doctor could aim at this new threat, Quinn fired.
The blue-white pulse smashed into van der Waals' stomach, driving him against the wall. The doctor screamed again as his nanites tried to process the excess energy, but couldn't. Lean stood up, wolf-howling and raised his cane above his head like a sword. He stepped forward and stabbed downward. The cane plunged through van der Waals' chest, electricity crackling all over it.
Dr. van der Waals screamed with pain, the excess energy threatening to destroy him. "This is not over!!" he wailed. "Ze True Force will destroy you all und take back vat it created!!"
Then Naught lurched into the doorway. He stooped and picked up DaVinci's fallen gun. His glassy eyes crossed, then seemed to focus. He aimed straight at the cane protruding from van der Waals' chest, then fired. The pulse struck it, and that last bit of energy sent the nanites over the edge. There was too much to process.
A tear opened. The sheer opposing forces screamed through van der Waals' body, vaporizing it. The tear rumbled, energy spearing out through the ceiling.
Naught dropped the gun, then raised his middle finger at the tear. "See you on the flip side," he croaked.
Naught stood upright and leaned against DaVinci as he made for the door. Lean turned to the tear.
"What're you doing, Lean?" DaVinci growled.
"This tear is just what I need to get home," the virus replied. "It's a lot faster than going any other way."
"Lean..."
"DaVinci, the Negacrag Base is still damaged from six months ago, and the golems still avoid the old lab like the plague." Lean shook his head. "In short, you won't be seeing me for a while."
DaVinci grumbled. "All right. I'll let you go just this once. Don't expect me to be this nice all the time."
"I never expected to."
Lean nodded to him, then held out his hand. Another cane flashed into his hand. He pointed it at the tear, then it opened a portal directly to Omega-Cragis. Lean grabbed Rollo and Tomasi, then tossed them through before stepping through himself. The portal closed behind them.
Without another word, DaVinci helped Naught out of the building, Quinn skimming along behind them.
Almost as soon as they stepped out of the building, the older one above it emitted a harsh groan. The support pillars bent, then snapped like kindling. The older building fell like a hammer, flattening the smaller building beneath it.
He considered just telling the Clarion that he had nothing to give today. But that would make the publisher mad, and Quinn needed friends in the publishing world.
There was a tone from his door. He pushed away from his desk and skimmed over to the door to open it. Niente was standing there. Quinn nodded. "Hey, Niente."
"What's up, Quinn?" she asked.
"Nothing much," he replied. "Come on in."
He skimmed back over to his desk and sat glumly in front of the blank screen again. Niente looked at him, then went to the fridge and took out two bottles of Sodee Pop. She handed one to him. Quinn pushed it away.
"Why so angry?" Niente asked.
"Lot of things," Quinn said. "One, the fact that the Clarion wants another column. Two, the publisher has demanded another Detterick Noble book. Three, stuff in general."
"Like Naught?" Following the little encounter with van der Waals a week earlier, he had gone back to the hospital for another round of tests to check the nanites in his bloodstream. Dr. Hadden had given them good news. The level of nanites in Naught's blood was low enough for them to do a system purge. Three days earlier, Naught had been given a clean bill of health. He could see, he could walk, and he could think straight.
It all served to make Quinn, confined to a hoverchair, all the more bitter.
"Like Naught," Quinn confirmed.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Niente admonished. "I'll tell you something I heard while I was at the hospital. They're working on a new treatment for spinal injuries."
Quinn turned to look at her.
Niente nodded. "They say it could help paraplegics and quadriplegics walk again."
Quinn blinked. He sat back in his hoverchair, then tapped his chin with a finger. An idea was formulating in his head. He turned back to his terminal, poised his fingers, then began to type.
"Quinn?"
"I'm getting an idea. For the Det Noble book. He finds a treatment for some crippling disease in a pharmaceutical company database and is tracked down by corrupt business types."
>THE DUMONT TREATMENT, a Detterick Noble novel, by Quinn Rentack
And then, for the first time in six months, Quinn smiled.