Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Forty-Four

Durwood drove. With seven people in back, plus its usual payload, the Vanagon rode like a pregnant mare.

He steered them through the vast Shop-All parking lot. Cars squealed in front of them. Several wrecks occurred, folks scrambling from the scene. Durwood weaved the wobbly box through to the interstate.

Sue-Ann sat on the passenger seat. Around her paws were fragments of the quiet suit. Bent nanocameras. Ragged mesh. Several wire ends remained stuck in Durwood's side where the suit had adhered too strongly to his skin.

It was beyond repair. And he'd not yet found a replacement for Yakov.

Voices raged from the cabin.

"This is garbage on a galactic scale!" Josiah went on, swearing colorfully. "Are we hostages? Is that about what we are?"

"Not about," Quaid said. "It's exactly what you are."

"What do you even want? You've been jocking us since Pittsburgh. You had a spy."

Durwood glanced in the rearview. Molly's face burned. The Mice they'd taken were spread about the cabin, handcuffed by one wrist.

Quaid said, "We want information. For starters, we need to hear about this kernel of yours. The virus, whatever is is your nonverbal friend here built."

Piper Jackson had not spoken a word, hunched below the Stingers. A ball of anger.

"Why should we tell you—?" Josiah swore again.

"Because we're in charge now. You started this mess, you lost control. Now we grownups have to clean it up."

"By clean," Josiah hissed, "you mean stop. You mean retard the march of progress."

"Don't tell me about progress," Quaid said. "As governor of Massachusetts I voted 95 percent with the progressive caucus, and I didn't see one thing that even remotely resembled progress back there..."

Then he went into grandstand mode. Telling about responsibility, and the trap of self-righteousness.

Josiah argued back.

Quaid said, "You won't cooperate? Then it gets simple. We pass you off to the feds. They don't control much, but they sure would enjoy trotting you out for the press, tossing you in some ultra-max detention center."

A new voice said, "This cuff is cutting off my blood flow! I can't feel my hand."

The voice was young but husky. Molly's friend, Garrison.

Quaid said, "Ah, you'll be fine. Handsome guy like you? Bet you can make purple work."

"Release us!" Josiah roared. "Right now, or we...or we unleash the hounds of hell, the worst there is. Our followers will find us."

Durwood was reminded of rearing children, conversations he and Maybelle used to have with theirs. The stubbornness. Ignorance of one's place and station.

"Sue," Durwood said.

The coonhound shifted her milky eyes.

Durwood raised his right hand, fingers curled in an exaggerated claw. He commanded, "Scare."

Something like a sigh issued from Sue-Ann. She climbed over the center console, arthritic hips quaking, and got to it.

"Roo roo! Roo roo, ruff! Roo roo rrrrrrrruf!"

In the cabin, shoes scampering over metal. A toink that might've been bone on titanium. Then a terrible shriek.

The shriek had the reedy ring of Josiah's voice.

Quaid said, "Whoa there, killer. He'll get himself sorted out, you don't need to go for the groin."

Josiah whimpered a moment more, then stayed quiet.

Without his mumbo-jumbo, Durwood's headache receded. He was able to hear other conversations.

Molly and Piper were nearest the cab. The hacker had yet to speak, Moll pleading.

"...really did believe what I was writing," she was saying. "The blog entries, Mollyforchange.org. I bought into it, even though I—you know, was trying to..."

Piper was not answering. Durwood peeked in rearview, found her pupils still as a hawk's.

"And I realize it's a sore spot, with what they did to your brother," Molly continued, "and you feel betrayed, and I feel like I betrayed you—I do—but we can help. We really can."

Piper muttered something Durwood didn't hear.

Nor Molly. "What?"

Piper said, "Who's we. These dudes you with."

Molly met Durwood's eyes in the rearview. "They're...well, they call themselves 'small-force private-arms operators.'"

"The hell is that?"

Molly tried to explain, but Piper only scowled.

She gave up and said, "Their names are Quaid Rafferty and Durwood Oak Jones."

"Durwood?"

"Right. He used to be a solider in the army."

"And Quinn?"

"Quaid. He was a politician, but then he got arrested. Now they're partners."

"Mercenaries," Piper said. "And you too. Probably working for some big corporation that didn't want to get hit."

"Oh, that isn't, we—we just want to stop this." Durwood heard the cringe in Molly's voice. "Don't you think it's time? Don't you think it's time to stop the kernel?"

Piper said nothing. Durwood checked the rearview. Was that shame in her face?

Or emptiness?

Molly seemed to sense an opening. "Maybe it feels like your child in a way, since you built it. Your instinct is to protect. To make excuses." Her psychology schooling coming in now. "I know I do, I'll want to argue back if one of Zach's teachers says he isn't applying himself, or needs extra help. But after I go home and sit with the knowledge, after I've cooled off and applied some rational thought, I realize—"

"I didn't build it," Piper said.

Durwood pulled off to the shoulder and braked.

Molly's face was still twisted with emotion, thoughts of her son. "Who did?"

The hacker gazed across the cabin to Josiah and Hatch. Their six eyes were a single falling weight. A grouse dropped by a hunter's twelve-gauge blast.

She said, "Some French dude."