X's for Eyes Read Free Page B

interface to extract and process Nancy’s data. Our computer is too primitive for delicate tasks.”
    “Prep the darkroom. I’ll rig a holographic projector so I can view the images from Nancy in three dimensions. As for collation, interpretation, and projection of the stored data, behold . . . ” Arthur unlocked a metal box and removed a diamond. The diamond measured three inches on a side and shone dark as polished onyx. “My friends, this is a tiny section of Big Black’s intelligence core. A piece of the brain, as it were. With your kind permission, I’ll tap LB into your mainframe and let him proceed with the diagnostics.”
    “Oh, boy.” Dred blanched. He stepped back, as if the very notion of accidentally touching the object filled him with dread. “Whoa, Nelly Belle. I am not seeing this . . . Ya smuggled Big Black out of the vault?”
    “No, no, nothing dramatic. This is merely a fragment—I took a chisel into the vault and chipped a piece while BB cycled through his evening Dreamtime sequence. Won’t harm anything and it won’t be missed. Bits calve every day. BB’s organic crystal structure will replace this within a matter of days. Meet Little Black. He can do everything his father does—except more slowly and on a smaller scale.”
    Dred shook his head in a gesture of supreme negation. “I don’t see how this is any less likely to get us skinned alive. Ya claim . . . Little Black predicted reentry zones. Shouldn’t Big Black have done the same? He could have alerted either Dr. Bole or Dr. Navarro that something had gone haywire. Or was going to go haywire . . . ”
    “Trick is,” Arthur said, “the AIs are rudimentary, extremely literal. You have to ask the right questions. I heisted Little Black weeks ago and let me tell you guys, I’ve asked him plenty. One of innumerable potentialities was an anomalous event with the probe’s flight.”
    Mac gritted his teeth. He sighed. “In for a penny. If this goes south, we’ll all get shot. Won’t that be a gas?”
    “Or worse,” Dred said.
    Arthur said, “Let’s be cool and not get busted. I advise rest and relaxation, and definitely a bath. You guys smell like booze and cheap whores.”
    Dred sniffed. “He’s right. We do. Woof.”
    Berrien met the boys as they sneaked through the servants’ entrance. He crossed his arms and grinned, formidable even in a dress shirt and coat. “Good morning, gentlemen.” His remaining teeth were gold-capped. “Spent the evening in a brothel or a distillery, eh? March straight to your rooms and try not to muck up the floor. Mildred is drawing baths. Breakfast in thirty minutes.”
    “Thanks, Berry. I’m going to skip breakfast and hit the sack—” Mac said as he attempted to brush past.
    Berrien smiled and cracked his misshapen knuckles. Crimson tattoos on the right spelled PAIN. Tattoos on the left spelled MORE. Rumor had it famous actor Robert Mitchum was a big fan. “Gentlemen, permit me to reiterate the agenda.” He ticked the items off by closing his fingers into a fist. “Bath. Breakfast in thirty—Chef Blankenship has outdone himself, I aver. Do not fuck up the floor Kate’s girls spent two hours waxing. I haven’t killed anyone today, but it’s only a quarter past nine. Questions?”
    “Can’t think of any,” Mac said. Brave as a lion, he knew far better than to test the butler’s patience.
    “Me neither,” Dred said. “I’m starving!”
    Berrien watched his charges skulk away. “Hard to say what foolishness is in progress. I dearly hope your father has overcome the understandable urge to murder his male offspring.”
    The brothers made themselves presentable, ate a hearty breakfast, dodged an inquiry or three lobbed by the butler, and finally collapsed in their over-fluffed beds to catch forty winks.

DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS
    We smoke the northern lights. We smoke the northern lights and so shall you.
    Fenris Wolf snarled. Trees sheared and blew outward; Tunguska again.