Detouring around an icy puddle the software paints neon red, I resume trudging toward the Tahoe parked maddeningly far from Dodd Hall’s back door. Paying close attention to where I step, I follow my mapped route while watching a video in my lenses, another local news update on the presumed fatal motor vehicle crash in Norfolk.
“. . . No clue about the identity of the driver, any remains recovered are expected to be badly incinerated,” the correspondent says from his news desk, showing helicopter footage of cars at a standstill. “Police say the vehicle may be stolen, possibly related to the car show in town that kicked off Friday night at the Hampton Coliseum . . .”
More aerial views of emergency workers in heavy winter gear using winches and hydraulics to load the charred twisted wreckage onto a flatbed truck. They’ll be clearing the road momentarily, and I can count on Joan calling from the OCME again, mad as a hornet, demanding to know where I am.
That’s assuming Carme doesn’t show up first, pretending to be me. And if she’s not gotten there by now and doesn’t soon, then we have a much bigger problem.
“Somehow, I have to be reconnected,” I tell ART out loud as I slip-slide along, the straps of my bags digging into my shoulders. “And is my sister on her way to the morgue?” It sounds ominous as I say it. “Is she okay? What’s happened to her?”
It stands to reason that ART knows. If Carme and I share the same Artificial Research Technician because of our SINs, then obviously she’s talking to him at least as much as I am. Possibly more since she was implemented first. ART could be communicating with both of us simultaneously, and the thought makes me feel less important.
He might give her preferential treatment because they’ve known each other longer. He might tell her things he doesn’t tell me, possibly leaking what I share with him in confidence, choosing her over me as pretty much everyone else always has done, and now I feel stung.
“Bottom line, you know what’s going on with her,” I make my point firmly but respectfully, having learned my lesson about contagious demeanor. “You know where she is at all times and what she’s doing. Is she alive and unharmed? It wasn’t Carme in that accident, was it? Can’t you at least tell me that?”
“Not authorized,” ART replies, and once again it’s up to Dick and whoever else comprises his Gemini project pantheon.
“For the record, that’s unfair,” I reply, a slick of black ice dead ahead. “But if you’re not going to tell me what I want to know, at least let me find out for myself. Let me see for myself what I need to know.”
Should Carme suddenly show up at the OCME, I have to be in the loop, I add a tad aggressively. Each of us needs to be privy to what the other’s doing so we can help without interfering or blowing our cover. We’re supposed to tag team, act as partners, be in this together while being apart, reminding him of Dick’s own mantra, my tone a little sharp.
“You will be appropriately warned,” ART’s reasonable voice is about to get testy in my earpiece.
“That would be much appreciated,” I dial it back, making sure I don’t sound bossy or strident. “Also, at this level of technical sophistication, I shouldn’t have been logged out of the camera system just because I hung up on Joan. Which wouldn’t have happened to begin with had you reminded me about background noise from the airfield,” I don’t say it accusatorily.
“Do you wish to reconnect with her?” ART asks in my ear. “It will require logging back into the OCME CCTV surveillance system through her mobile device . . .”
“No, please don’t!” That’s the last thing I want.
“Copy. Unable to reconnect otherwise.”
“What! Why?”
“L-O-S,” is his response.
Duh and shut the front door! I don’t need my own private Genius Bar to figure out that much. Of course, I’m disconnected from the OCME camera system because I have a loss of signal.
Which is the same thing as informing me that my computer stopped working because it suddenly turned off. Or the power’s out because there’s no electricity. That doesn’t tell me why or what the frick to do about it!
“Rats! Rats! Rats!” as I wade through snow, the Tahoe 15 meters (50 feet) out. “And don’t take it literally,” I’m quick to add, not wanting ART to research the slightest thing relating to rodents, nor do I want to be startled by photos of them in my lenses.
I don’t understand why he can’t reconnect me to the OCME’s cameras unless I’m out of range. Certainly, this isn’t the best spot, surrounded by big trees, buildings, endless stretches of woods and water in a remote area of the Air Force base. What a bad time to be cut off, left in the dark, freaking out about my sister.
I tell myself there’s not a thing I can do about her at the moment, to pay attention before I make matters worse by taking a bad spill. I pick my way across the slippery, sloshy parking lot as winter-bare trees clack like bones, and old evergreen shrubs rustle like stiff petticoats when the wind blows hard and fitfully.
12
I FOLLOW the vivid yellow path mapped in my FIND while monitoring all sorts of data in my PEEPS and SPIES.
Constant weather and news updates crawl by, and also emails, messages, including a BOLO Fran just this minute forwarded. The be on the lookout notification is about a real-life grand theft auto at the Tidewater International Car Show, it seems.
Two concept vehicles, together valued at half a million dollars, have vanished into thin air. Hampton police are on their heads about it, and I remember the snippet I heard on TV when I turned it on by pointing my finger hours earlier.
Just local news so far, Fran says in her text. But gonna be a sh*t show. When are you getting here?
“Text her back that I’ll be there in a few,” I tell ART.
F-22 Raptor tactical fighters growl and roar like supersonic dragons, drowning out every sound, percussing in my hollow organs.
“What’s the problem with the internet?” raising my voice over the deafening din as if ART is walking next to me and not part of my SIN. “And can you somehow fix it?”
“Line drop error,” he says in my earpiece as I continue trudging.
I detour as instructed in my FIND, and the closer I get to the shaded area where the Tahoe is parked, the icier and more dangerous the conditions.