Andrea’s hands dance even faster as the footsteps get near to the door. Drops of sweat stream from her forehead despite the chill in the room. The motions are swift and graceful, like a master pianist working the keys. Evan, Louise and I hold our breath, looking to her for our salvation.
“What are you doing here?” Dorothy’s voice demands from near the doorway, the icy intonations perfect. “Get out of here, I have work to do. You’re interfering!”
I keep my jaw from dropping, but just barely. My sister is even more talented than I thought. She takes a couple of steps to sit on one of the chairs, her hand motions now concealed from anyone looking at her from the rear of the room.
Dorothy’s body on the floor flickers and disappears. The blood on the floor is replaced by clean tiles. The blobs of color in the air resolve into a blonde figure seated in Dorothy’s chair, facing into the room. The clothes are an exact match for the body that just disappeared, the hair perfectly replicates Dorothy’s. By the time General Liu reaches the doorframe, the illusion is complete from behind, though from our side the face is blank like an old department store mannequin.
“What is going on here?” the General demands in English.
“I’m getting results, that’s what is going on,” that eerily perfect copy of Dorothy’s voice says. “Do you want them to cooperate or not? Keep your child away from here and let me work!”
The figure’s arm raises and her hand waves him away dismissively. I think I’m keeping my expressions from giving us away. Evan and Louise are doing the same, their faces carefully controlled. My younger siblings are all looking terribly confused, but no one looks like they’re about to say anything. Marc hasn’t stopped his manic pacing and doesn’t seem to be aware of anything going on. That’s probably for the best. We don’t want him to blow this.
Please, Mom. Please don’t let him walk through that doorway.
Lin and Max have caught back up to the group in the wide hallway and gape at the false Dorothy’s back for a moment, shocked. Lin recovers first. She catches her father’s eye and says something in Chinese in a quiet, deferential way and walks back down the hallway with Max behind her. Max finally seems to catch on.
“Come, come! Let’s all let Ms. James work,” Max says loudly. “We’ll get what we need soon enough. She knows this family better than any of us.”
Lin says something in Chinese. Translating, I think, for anyone in the crowd that doesn’t speak English. The footsteps stop moving our way. The General takes one more look at the back of the fake Dorothy’s head. The false fingers make one more contemptuous wave. He turns, following the receding crowd. The guard with the jammer moves towards the doorway, proffering the box.
“Just put that on the floor there,” Dorothy’s voice says, as if she had eyes in the back of her head.
The guard puts the box, now mostly empty inside, on the ground and returns to his post across the wide hallway. The other guard returns as well, posting up and looking into the room.
I continue rebuilding my cloud. We’re almost out of the loose bots on the floor here, and it’s too cold now to effectively draw heat as power. So I reach out, spreading to other rooms, picking up the old bots and chewing through various metal objects. I grab whatever is handy, growing as fast as I can. I get tendrils outside and frantically drink sunshine, spreading the power back to the bots inside.
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The Geologists still seem confused, but I think they’re starting to come to grips with everything that’s going on. Marc mutters more incomprehensible whispers as he walks back and forth. I check the hallway, the group has turned a corner.
To All: Any objections to taking out the guards?
Andrea shakes her head.
From Evan: I don’t see any other good options.
From Louise: Let me. I want to keep casualties to a minimum. These guys are just hired help.
I nod.
The guards both get a funny look on their faces and about ten seconds later they both begin slumping over. I catch them and their dropped guns before they hit the ground and bring them into the room, completely unconscious at this point. I position them on their backs on the floor and reform the plastic from one of the chairs into bindings, fusing their wrists and ankles to the floor. That should hold anyone. I form gags from the chair’s padding. The guns that had fallen are now part of my cloud.
I check to make sure no one else is in earshot. We’re clear. “Is everyone all right?” I say. “As all right as we can be, anyway?”
The Geologists all nod. Marc still paces and mutters.
“Marc. Marc!” He looks my way.
“You’re going to be OK,” I say. “We’re getting out of this. She’s gone.”
Louise stands and walks over to him, putting an arm around him and taking his hand. He calms enough to stop his stream of unintelligible mumbling.
Andrea lets her illusions at the back of the room fade and lets out a loud sigh of relief. The mock Dorothy disappears, the headless body, the head, and the blood pool near the doorframe reappear. She’s still doing her magic with the security cameras, but her fingers are at least moving at human speeds now. I don’t know how much longer she can sustain the effort. We need to act fast if we want to maintain any element of surprise.
“You all remember how to resync with unlinked bots?” I ask my younger siblings.
A chorus of quiet affirmatives comes from the Geologists.
“Good,” I say, releasing a small pile of bots in front of each of them. “Everyone grow these into as big of a cloud as you can.”
I turn to Louise and Evan.
“Can anyone feel Valerie, Keeya, or Lucie? Any idea where any of them are?” I ask. I haven’t felt them anywhere, which I’m pretty sure means they were either taken from the estate this morning before I got up, or they’re in the shielded room. I tend to have the widest awareness, but it’s worth asking since even I can miss things.
“No, I haven’t seen them all day,” Evan says quietly. I don’t need to look at his panic-stricken face to know how much he blames himself for not checking on Valerie this morning.
“Me neither,” says Louise.
None of the others have either.
“OK, finding them is our first priority. Second priority is to permanently remove everyone in the conference. None of their batshit weaponized nano-atrocities get to see the light of day. Agreed?”
“Agreed, but participants only,” Louise says. “Staff gets a pass. And Max. I believe him, and he just proved he’s on our side.”
“Lin too,” I say. “Since she also just saved our asses.”
Evan agrees. Marc and Andrea both nod.
“Well, then,” I tell my siblings. “Since we’re about to kill a Chinese general on Chinese soil, along with a whole slate of Chinese and international VIPs, our third priority is to figure out how we get out of here without landing on every international most wanted list. I’m open to any ideas.”