“Sir!”
“I’ve told you to just call me Noah over three hundred times. Are you ever going to listen, Alan?”
“No, sir. But I have news that I hope will make you forgive me for that. One of the private investigators has found the contents of the minivan.”
I let out a relieved sigh. “At least something is going right today.”
“You’ll need to stop at the bank in the morning. You’ll need fourteen thousand dollars in small unmarked bills. I’ll send you the address where you’ll make the exchange.”
It’s a better price than I could have hoped for. I can only thank Mom that they have no idea what they have is actually worth.
“Do I even want to know who we’re paying for it?”
“You do not, sir. But I have assurances that everything that was taken is still intact.”
We can definitely afford it, but I’m sure we could just kill or incapacitate whoever has the stuff and take it without any trouble.
WARNING! LOG TEXT INDICATES MURDEROUS INTENT! THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU KILL ANYONE!
Shit. Am I getting worse?
“We’ll get the money first thing then. Anything else I need to know about tonight?”
“That’s all, sir. Get some rest. You sound totally exhausted.”
“I only sound like that because I’m totally exhausted.”
“Of course sir. Good night.”
I slip the phone back into my pocket and walk back over to where Evan is putting the finishing touches on the rebuilt storage units.
“How’s that look?” he asks, pointing to the row of garage doors in front of him. The detail work is good and the replacement sections of the building match the original parts pretty well. It took another half an hour of work to restore things, but we figured that was better than leaving a huge half-sphere hole in the ground that might remind the world of how dangerous nanotech can be.
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“Still too new, but at this point I don’t even care. It’s not like anyone is going to complain that the building doesn’t look just like it’s fifty years old anymore.”
“I guess we can untie the manager and let him out of the office then.”
“Yeah. Let’s make sure we’re well out of here before we do though.”
“Would have been nice if he hadn’t come by. I thought we were going to save the world without anyone even seeing a thing.”
“He didn’t see much,” I assure my brother. “Not enough to identify us or know what actually happened here.”
“Let’s get out of here then. I’m starving.”
Evan cuts through the welding that he put on the outer gate of the facility earlier. Once we’re a few hundred meters away I let the restraints I put on the manager dissolve and pull my cloud back toward me. He was only tied up for a few hours, so he should be fine. Not sure what he’s going to tell the owners of the units near Jeff’s trap about why the contents of their storage units are gone, but that’s not my problem.
I’m just glad no one had called the police while we were dealing with Jeff’s wild nanobots. I’m not sure how many cops I could have dealt with while keeping my focus on bots fighting bots.
“That looks like it’s open.” I say, pointing to an all-night diner up ahead on the corner. “Greasy burgers sound OK?”
“We haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. A burger sounds like the best thing in the world.”
We stumble the rest of the way down the block and get a booth in the corner. The waitress has purple hair and a very low voice. The burgers come out pretty quick and the limp fries taste like salty bites of pure heaven.
“Next time we stop the world from ending I say we get lunch delivered.” Evan dips a fry into his strawberry shake. “It’s the least the world could do for us.”
“Sure.” I slump against the window side of the booth. “Can we take nap breaks too? I can’t remember the last time I felt this tired.”
“You probably can’t remember anything at this point.”
“Not much, I’ll admit. Seems like my whole life has been little tiny robots eating little tiny robots.”
“So where do you think Jeff ended up?”
“Could be anywhere by now.” I wipe my greasy fingers off on a brown paper napkin and sip the last of my Coke. “Or he could have died when he jumped in the river.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and find his body washed up on the banks of the Mississippi. Think it’s too late to call Lin and see how the search for him is going?”
“Lin,” I say. “I know that name. She’s the voice in my ear from earlier. How do I know her again? I think I like her a lot. Do you think she might like me?”
“You’re losing your brain again, brother. You’ll find out all about her again in the morning. You need sleep bad.”
I really do.
“Come on then.” I get up and throw a few twenties onto the table. I don’t know what the bill is but it’s a lot less than that. “Let’s find the nearest set of beds and crash.”
It doesn’t take us long to find a motel and get a room. I check the clock in my brain. Past three in the morning now. I try to remember what I did today without looking back through my log and realize I can’t get much of anything before we ate our late dinner. Why am I so tired? I flop on top of one of the double beds and feel myself fading as Evan pulls off my shoes.