Part 7 (2/2)
”Mr. Maynard, if we're going to work together, can we just stick to scientific facts, and not go jaunting off through history and psychology?”
Maynard exhaled what might have been a laugh. ”You hold your own.”
Tinker wasn't sure what he meant by that. Sick of the whole inquisition, she forced the conversation off onto another track. ”So what the h.e.l.l do you want me to do?”
”Someone smuggled a large s.h.i.+pment of illegal goods in during Shutdown. Lucky for us, though, they were involved in a multiple-vehicle accident on the Veterans Bridge. Their vehicle was disabled, and they panicked in spectacular fas.h.i.+on, which makes us worried about what all they might have brought into Pittsburgh.”
”You didn't catch them?”
”No,” Maynard said. ”They unloaded their truck, sorted through the s.h.i.+pment, and carried away what they deemed most important. The driver had been pinned by the accident; they shot him so we couldn't question him.”
”Ouch.” That earned her a dark look from Maynard. ”So far it doesn't sound like a panic.”
”Well, throw in a carjacking, a.s.sault on the other accident victims, picking up and throwing a Volkswagen Beetle over the side of the bridge in a fit of rage, engaging in a gunfight with police, and trying to blow up with C-4 what they couldn't carry away, and you start to get the idea.”
Tinker gasped. Nathan! Nathan! ”Were any of the police hurt?” ”Were any of the police hurt?”
Maynard looked surprised at the question. ”Luckily, no. Not for the want of trying, though.”
”And how do I fit in? I was in McKees Rocks fighting wargs when that accident happened.”
”How do you know when when it happened?” it happened?”
”My friend Nathan Czernowski is a cop. He was with me at the sc.r.a.p yard when the call came in. I'm a.s.suming that there was only one multiple-vehicle pileup and fistfight on the Veterans Bridge.”
”Yes.” Maynard relaxed slightly, apparently accepting her alibi. ”Well, you'll be interested to know that the description of the smugglers match that of your attackers at the Rim.”
Tinker swore. ”Smuggle in contraband one night, attack Windwolf the next?”
”Very busy people,” Maynard said. ”It denotes a large organization, of which these men are merely disposable muscle. So far, EIA has been able to keep such crime rings out of Pittsburgh. I want to pull this one up by its roots.”
”Sounds like a plan. What does this have to do with me?”
”Some of the load wasn't contraband, just extremely expensive high-tech parts. The question is, what could they be used to make?”
”Oh, I see.”
The impounded goods had been unloaded in a warehouse in the Strip District. Basically just one low room a block long, the place fairly crawled with armed EIA. While security for the building ran high, lighting and climate control left much to be desired. Natural light came in from windows lining an upper walkway. Work lamps tacked to support columns provided additional light, plugged into jury-rigged electrical boxes on newly strung Romex line.
Because of the virgin forests occupying most of the western continent, Elfhome usually ran several degrees cooler than Earth. Since Pittsburgh suffered from high humidity, the lower temperatures were a blessing. The rain storms of Shutdown and Startup over, a rare summer heat, however, had moved in. The warehouse's only nod toward climate control was ceiling fans, cloaked in the shadows high overhead, that barely moved the ovenlike heat of the building.
Tinker found herself wis.h.i.+ng for shorts and a midriff s.h.i.+rt. In Maynard's company, she didn't even feel like unb.u.t.toning her s.h.i.+rt. Sweat trickled down her back as she followed Maynard through trestle tables set up and loaded with smuggled goods.
What she discovered made her forget the heat.
There were digital boards, stripping kits, and connector kits. For fiber-optics work, they had a full run of splice trays, hot-melt connector systems, and a curing oven. She found a spool of gold wire. Fault finders, microscanners, and status activity monitors. There were tech kits that set her mouth drooling. Punch boxes. Wire crimp tools. Small precision mirrors. There were even new digital markers that laid out a metal-based ink held in a buckyball matrix. Tinker poked through the stuff, wis.h.i.+ng she could take the lot back to her place. Lain had told her tales about the world beyond the Rim where such stuff was plentiful. Much as Tinker loved Pittsburgh, she had to admit that there was a true shortage of goods.
Maynard interrupted her trolling to hand her a length of cable with a box at the end. ”Do you know what this is?”
Tinker took it. She turned it in her hands, studying it. The box was molded plastic with two power ports. She tried the various screwdrivers she had tucked into her pockets, the third being the charm, and undid the screws. ”Oh my, this is s.e.xy.”
”What is it?”
”It's a power transformer.”
”You recognize it?”
”What's to recognize? This is a male 220 line, meaning you plug it into a 220 outlet. It would have a pull on par with an electric clothes dryer or an electric range. The female leads are typical magic connectors. It takes electrical power and transforms it to magic. The question is-what type of spell is it keyed to?”
”It would have to be keyed to only one spell?”
”There isn't any way to change the output frequency. It's preset. Although, if you knew the frequency it was outputting, then you could probably set up a secondary translation spell anytime you wanted to use it for a different spell. You'll see a loss in power efficiency on the order of eleven percent, but at this amperage, such a power loss would be negligent. s.h.i.+t, I could have used something like this on Windwolf. I'll have to build one.”
”You could build one of these?”
”Yeah. It wouldn't be too hard. Of course, there's the whole question of why bother. Here on Elfhome, there's enough magical power to fuel any spell without the cost of electrical energy. And on Earth, except for healing elves, there are already mechanical solutions for almost everything.”
”Magic doesn't work on Earth.”
”Does too.” Tinker replaced the screws and tightened them down. ”The laws of the universe don't change just because you hop dimensions. The difference is the amount of magical power in the dimension. Think of magic as a waveform pa.s.sing through multiple realities. Elfhome exists at the top of the wave: Magic is plentiful. Earth exists at the bottom of the wave: Magic is rare. Magic follows the laws of physics just like light, gravity, and time. I could show you the math, but it's fairly complex. There are types of radiation more common in one reality than the other, but lucky for us, the generation waveform seems larger, so we fall close enough on the curve that it doesn't affect either species adversely.”
”So you can do magic on Earth?”
”It's how I kept Windwolf alive,” Tinker said. ”I had magic stored in a power sink and used it to feed a healing spell.”
”Can you tell what the smugglers might have been trying to build with all this?”
Tinker shrugged. ”Not a clue. I'm afraid I don't have a criminal mind.”
”Make a wild guess.”
She sighed, glancing around. ”Well, unless they scooted off with all all the uncommon stuff, they're not going to make a wide range of items. I'm guessing all those power transformers are set to the same frequency, or else they would be labeled somehow. There's a lack of moveable parts, so it's not like a car or a bike or a printing press. It's magic-based, either many scattered copies of one spell, or one ma.s.sive spell.” the uncommon stuff, they're not going to make a wide range of items. I'm guessing all those power transformers are set to the same frequency, or else they would be labeled somehow. There's a lack of moveable parts, so it's not like a car or a bike or a printing press. It's magic-based, either many scattered copies of one spell, or one ma.s.sive spell.”
”Can you tell what spell?”
”You'd better check with the elves for that. The best I can do is to match the frequency to a known spell, but my knowledge of magic is fairly limited. For all I know, they're going to change the population of Pittsburgh into frogs.”
Maynard sighed slightly, perhaps not looking forward to trying to pry information from the always-obtuse elves. ”Anything else?”
”Well...” Tinker held out the power transformer. ”You could let me take this home and play with it. I can figure out the cycle on the magic output and search through my spell database for a match. It would at least start eliminating possibilities.”
”Take it then.”
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