The Shape of Things to Come (Hypernaturals 15)

Boats Go Boom

"The radius is opening up nicely." Luciana stood, hands on her hips, looking closely and nodding in approval at one particular map on the wall of operational knowledge. She glanced over at the mission elapsed time counter nearby. "We have been running flat out for 45 minutes. I know we had a head start, but why haven't they found at least one of the blow-up boats? We spend all that time building fake us to stick on the boat and now they can't find fake us?"

"Golem Luciana is going to be having a robotic orgasm if this keeps up for much longer. That hand job has been going on forever. Good thing Golem Denise is electrical and doesn't get tired. I am glad real Luciana isn't that hard to please." Denise said.

"Talk about too much input." Anne complained of that entire conversation.

"I do not understand the value of a surrogate orgasm." Victoria semi-concurred with Anne.

"In the multi-world hypothesis implied by most interpretations of String and M theory, it seems to me to be similar to the idea that in other universes than this one I am not playing deadly games with other peoples lives, but other-me's are out on the Nightwing where I should be. Having a beer and a cuddle. That infinite set of me is happy, but that happiness is not crossing through a wormhole to this me here."

"Nerdy, but exactly right. Somewhere out there I am not sitting here watching status boards about people I know and care about running for cover on used submarines while hoping that fake versions of them are decoying the people after them away. There, maybe my little Adrian is already born and I am playing with her. That would be so much better." Anne said.

"You think that interpretation of Quantum mechanics is right?" Denise asked.

"Seems like it, as that is where the math goes, but there are a bunch of operationalists that hate the idea. Hard to prove right now either way." I said.

"I wonder in those other worlds what I am going to name my daughter." Victoria mused.

It is a nice distraction from the world we are in right now. Sitting on pins and needles and hoping our sleight of submarine-hand worked. Not understanding other than via time/speed estimates and knowing where they are going to avoid where the real precious cargo is. Where our people are laying in bunks to stay out of the way, 50 meters or more under water. Six atmospheres of pressure trying to push water through the used underwater boats hulls and get to the people inside.

The eight boats, six inflatables and two former shipping vessels have been running with their throttles wide open and crashing through the water on two ever-widening arcs. The inflatable boats that went in toward land running together are kilometers apart from each other now and getting farther from each other by the minute. The diameter of the arc expanding slowly as the radius increases at the hull speed of the boats. Not expanding as quickly as the decoys are moving away from land, but the little ships full of fake Crew are out of sight of each other. The on-board cameras can only see water in all directions now. Even from the air, if the Guardians were hovering over one, the curvature of the Earth would hide the other two in each group. That was the idea. Make them waste assets chasing us. If they come after us with drones or staffed helicopters, they need six to catch six boats now.

"Whoa. Theres a chopper searchlight. Aft of boat six. Measuring distance with the rangefinder... Taking a sec. Boat is really bouncing along. Ok. Got a fix. Looks like a couple of clicks aft." Anne said.

"Radar ping on boat six. Their air to surface targeting system found the boat." Denise said.

"I was beginning to think they flew past them." Luciana sat back down and looked at her computer.

"Closing fast." Anne reported. "They have six spotted and in their sights."

"Might as well do it. I did not think we'd get this far away from shore. Took them longer to scramble the copters than I thought it would. We are way out there. Water is plenty deep. Now: I don't want to blow them out of the sky even if they are planning of shooting the hell out of virtual us." Denise said.