Part 24 (1/2)

'That's their plan. Simply destroy the component that happens to be running haywire. I'm sure we can do a little better than that. Shut it down and repair the damage it's done.

All I need is a few moments with the Eridani's Interrupt device.'

There was a soft thump. We both turned. I swear the device had moved across the bedspread by several inches. The Doctor gave me an enigmatic smile and picked the thing up.

As good as his word, the Doctor sat down at the kitchen table and pried open the device with a set of jeweller's screwdrivers. He peered at its guts with an enormous Sherlock Holmes magnifying gla.s.s, 'hmming' and 'ah yesing' to himself. Half an hour later he announced that it would do what it was told now, and we could get going.

Swan had, all unknowing, emailed several pictures from each of her security cameras to Bob's computer. Bob set up the Apple to email those pictures to her at regular intervals the same intervals as her minicomputer. Then he crawled across her kitchen floor, pulled the keyboard from the Eclipse down to a chair, and typed in commands to stop the real pictures being sent to her office. As far as Swan would be able to tell, her house was quiet and empty.

It would never have worked if Swan didn't have the willpower to leave the Savant behind. She was determined to stay at her office until she cracked the secrets of its program: she wanted to be able to take advantage of the Savant without it taking advantage of her. My bungled burglary must have convinced her that it really was safe to leave the Savant on its own.

The moment Bob gave us the all-clear, Luis was up the stairs like a raped ape. When the Doctor reached the bathroom doorway, he was already holding the Savant in his arms.

It was a kill or cure moment. If the Savant had lashed out at Luis the way it had lashed out at me, it might have been more than his already affected brain could handle.

But it snuggled comfortably into Luis's arms, playing with a TV remote which it had partly disa.s.sembled. There were individual b.u.t.tons spread all over its sticky fur.

Luis didn't say anything. He just stepped out into the hallway, brus.h.i.+ng past us, and sat down on the carpet with his back to the stair railing.

It took us a while to get Luis down the stairs. He wasn't interested in anything except the Savant. In the end Bob and I marched him out to the Travco while he cradled the thing against his chest, inside his sweater. It was hard to believe we were doing him any favours.

We sat him down on the bunk bed. Bob and I perched on the double bed in the back. Once again, Peri handled the maps and the Doctor did the driving.

'That thing freaks me out,' confessed Bob in a low voice.

I was sitting cross-legged on the bed, peeking out through the venetian blinds into the twilight. 'The Doctor reckons it's harmless.'

'I can't work out what it is,' he murmured. 'Is it a mammal? It's got fur. But it doesn't have a body body. Just those three cylinders. Where are its eyes? How does Luis know which one is its head?'

'The one with the beak?'

'Yeah, but he doesn't hold it that way up.'

'Uh-oh. Doctor,' I called out 'I think we're being followed'

Bob peeked out through the blinds. A small, dark blue car was sitting right on our tail. 'Is that Swan back there?'

I staggered forward up the length of the Travco. 'Pull over,' I told the Doctor. 'I'll jump out and talk to her. As soon as she stops, you take off.'

'You're sure?' He was already slowing.

The car pulled over to the shoulder behind us. I jumped down from the Travco as it was still rolling to a stop, and then strode back down the gravel.

A moment later I was running back towards the departing campervan, waving my arms. 'Hold on! It's Mondy!'

The Doctor leaned out of the window. 'Find out what he wants.'

The phreak didn't get out of his car; he wound down the window. 'Hi Chick, he said. He was doing odd things with his face, rolling his eyes and twitching his cheek, as if trying to point with his eyebrows.

'What's up? Are you following us?'

He grinned weakly, in between twitching. 'I guess I am. I guess I just want to see how all of this comes out.'

'How'd you find us, anyway?'

'Police radio,' said Mondy brightly. 'You just ask if anyone's seen the vehicle you want. They do all the work for you.' He quit twitching and gave me a 'you idiot' look. 'Wait, I have to blow my nose.' Mondy reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of tissues. He extracted one of them and handed it to me. I uncrumpled it reluctantly to find three words written in thick black marker pen.

SWAN IN BACK, said the note.

Swan emerged from the back door carrying a shotgun. If I had thought fast enough, I could have slammed the door on her. But I didn't. Which meant I was on the business end of the gun a couple of seconds later. I'd been there just once before in my life, when I was fifteen years old and caught with a farmer's daughter. The same instinct possessed me then as it did now: I froze and shut up.

'You know what I want,' she told me.

I must have hesitated. Or maybe Mondy made a move she didn't like, I don't know. Swan turned and gave the Escort both barrels. The windscreen burst inwards, showering the front seats with gla.s.s. 'Holy c.r.a.p!!!' announced Mondy. He shot out of the pa.s.senger side door and disappeared into the trees at the side of the road. His car rolled forward until it b.u.mped into the Travco and idled there.

Swan cracked the gun to reload it. I grabbed the barrels, burned h.e.l.l out of my fingers, and s.n.a.t.c.hed them away. She flipped the shotgun closed as though she'd done it a thousand times, laughing as I blew on my fingers.

She gestured at the Travco, moving the gun in a small oval from me to the campervan and back. 'Open it up,' she said.

I did it, moving in slow motion, partly so she could see everything I was doing, partly to give the Doctor and co a chance to react. I had caught a glimpse of the Doctor watching in the rear view mirror, but I didn't dare look back there now in case Swan took it the wrong way.

n.o.body, but n.o.body, stopped to see what was going on. I don't think anyone even slowed down.

I opened the narrow side door. Swan peered in at this sitting on the bunk bed, clutching the Savant like a dozing four-year-old.

'Hand that over or I'll blow your frigging head off,' she told him.

' Que to jodan Que to jodan,' he said, clutching the Savant so tightly I was worried it couldn't breathe.

'You know I'm not joking,' said Swan. 'You know just how I feel. You can either hold onto that thing and lose your skull, or you can give it to me right now.'

'You don't feel!' Luis was weeping. 'You're not attached to this thing as though it was your own arm or your own hand.'

I said, 'For G.o.d's sake, man, hand it over. It's not worth your life.'

'Maybe we can work together,' he begged her. 'I could come with you. I'll look after it for you.'

'You know that won't work,' said Swan.

'You'll kill it!' screamed Luis. He folded up around the Savant as though his own flesh and bones could save it from a shotgun blast.