Rogue(21)

“Poison?” she suggested. “Tagged binary neural toxins, one before, one on location.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“No. I’m theorizing.”

“Research it.”

“Looking.” She used hands and mic and queried quickly. I wondered how traceable these searches were to the Caledonian Intelligence Service, and if there were moles in there. I was paranoid, but was I paranoid enough?

“Possible,” she said. “Expensive. Would take a professional lab, nothing you could do in a home shop. It would definitely make people wonder.”

“Not that, then. He likes to do things himself.” Or at least he did a decade before. “Okay,” I decided, “we assume the chameleon. If he goes for a shot, I chase him down. If he tries anything else, I chase him down. It doesn’t matter if they arrest me after I shatter his spine. As long as I maim him, we’re good.”

“That makes sense,” she said. She looked disturbed.

“Yeah, we’re going to kill him, and it’s not going to be a fair fight.”

“I know,” she agreed soberly. “It’s not just that it’s unfair. He’s a hero, really.”

“A broken one,” I agreed. “Think of him as an abused pet turned vicious.”

“I’d rather think of how to deal with a chameleon,” she said. “The best method would be sonar or laser detection. I assume they’d notice that and neutralize us instead. So we use mics to determine he’s moving, then blow dust through the ventilation system, or scatter something on the ground. He’ll leave footprints or a swept area. Ionized dust will stick and degrade the screens. After that, anything directed at him—dust, pellets, that will bounce or shadow him.”

“I like the dust. We have two local days to prepare it and sneak it into that ventilation system, hide it so they can’t see it, exfiltrate, fake some kind of ID to get us back inside, and get near the podium.”

“You don’t want much.” She looked a bit put upon.

“I trust you to do the job.” I did.

“Thanks . . . sir.”

“Can we triangulate with mics?”

“Easily. But you can’t see the sound.”

“Can we put directional indicators in a pair of glasses and hook it to earbuds? There’s enough press around no one should notice the gear.”

“I could. I can’t do that in the allotted time.”

I nodded. “And I want them to see him, too. That hinders his escape. Hopefully.”

“Will do,” she agreed as she grabbed shoes and a touristy backpack. She was out the door with a wad of cash in seconds, leaving me to figure infil, exfil and cover.

Eight hours later, we both looked dreadful. Greasy hair, dust, grime, general dirt. We were at the back gate to the convention center across from the Parliament Annex, with a backpack full of nastiness. It was early autumn and quite comfortable in the temperate coastal zone. Humans do try to pick comfortable environments when possible.

My earlier recon had revealed what I thought I could use. The gates were designed to stop traffic. Patrols and fences were to stop pedestrians. There were gaps we could get through. I surmised they relied on regular patrols to keep homeless out, but we weren’t going to be homeless. Silver had fabricated us two generic ID badges. Staff often appeared in the back of technical photos or candid shots, and the blowups were good enough for placement of bar code and picture. No one ever actually looks at an ID up close anyway. Not the kind on menials.

Getting into the grounds wasn’t hard. We lurked near a pedestrian gate with nicotine inhalers charged with scented water only, and made a point of waiting in shadows out of view of the entrance. It wasn’t long before someone else came out. He was another menial of some kind, and he already had inhaler in hand as he reached the gate.

I said, “. . . but I guess we need to get back to work. We’ve been out too long.”

“Okay,” she said.

I nodded at him and grabbed the open gate as he nodded back, and waved my ID in the general direction of the scanner, but not close enough to actually trigger it yea or nay.

I nudged her, we grabbed two rolling grease dumpsters and headed toward the refuse dock. I whipped out a trash bag from a pocket, she slid the backpack in and it went into the slimy filth in the tub.

At the door, I spent five minutes running the fake ID over the scanner, wiping it off, scanning it, bending it, scanning it again. I kept a dopy expression on my face. She managed to do the same, but I could feel the tremors of nerves through the air. She still needed practice in this.

Eventually, someone walked by inside, saw the movement and opened the door. I looked stupid, and in a slow monotone said, “It’s no workin’.”