The Meeting, Part 7

I leaned on the cane in the doorway of the conference room, watching Davis head down the hallway. He stopped in front of the elevator and pressed the call button. The doors open immediately – the car hadn't moved since he stepped out – he stepped in, pushed a button, and then straightened up and saw me. I raised my left hand, still holding the cane, in a mock salute. In return, Davis smiled and bounced his neural link in his open hand, just high enough so I could see it.

As part of our final negotiations, we had agreed to let him have his link back, and he had agreed not to put it on until he left the building. That wasn't the original plan, but it was a lot more convenient. Besides, we were all friends now.

The elevator doors closed, and Davis was gone.

I lowered the cane on the floor then pivoted a quarter-turn around it, backing up until I faced the room. "Well, that went well," I grinned.

The Boss grimaced. "Give me that," he said, holding out one hand.

I sighed, picked up the cane, and started toward him. "You've got to admit, that was pretty quick thinking back there," I said as I handed it over. But apparently the Boss did not have to admit anything. He merely snatched and levered himself out of his seat with a groan.

So it was like that, was it? I walked over to the copper box, and took out my laptop. "If you want to yell at anybody, yell at Omar," I remarked. "Take a look at his paw. He licked the dye right off." I opened the laptop lid and pressed the power key to bring it out of suspension. "And then he yelled out my name! What we're you thinking, Omar? Bad dog! Bad, bad dog!"

I tried to sound teasing, but that remark was pretty close to the line. On the other hand, Omar had made a pretty serious mistake. Not just because of the Boss's security fears either. If you're secretly a talking dog, the last person you want to know about it is an executive at a genetics company.

"Sorry," said Omar.

"Just check the cameras," the Boss told me as the screen lit back up. He was in no mood for joking. "We need to get out of here." He started to limp around the table. "It's all right, Omar. I let myself get worked up."

I rolled my eyes. The Boss had a theory that dogs can smell what people are feeling, even if they try to hide it. I don't know, maybe he's right. But he was still letting Omar off the hook.

The Boss started packing, and it was painful to watch. I was still waiting for the network. It would have been a lot easier for me to pack, but the Boss's eyesight was worse than his limp. If wanted the cameras checked right away, I had to be the one to do it.

The Boss wasn't blind, exactly. He had something called macular degeneration, which is a kind of genetic problem that can shows up when you get old. He could see okay out of the corners of his eyes – but in the center of his vision he was basically limited to shapes and colors. The day that he told me the name of the problem, I'd looked it up as soon as he walked out the door. There apparently used to be treatments of some type that controlled it, but now the standard approach was to clone your eyeball and replace it. The old treatment wasn't even available anymore. Since I know how the Boss felt about cloning, that was pretty much the end of the matter.

Finally the network came back, and the camera feeds started to update. Davis wasn't in the elevator anymore, but I eventually found him in a hallway on the ground floor. The camera didn't the angle or the resolution to show me his Jack, but one of his hands was closed into a fist. It looked like he had kept his word and not installed his link yet.

"What do you think? Was he lying?" asked the Boss.

I looked up, surprised and delighted… but he wasn't asking me. Naturally, he was asking Omar.

"When?" asked Omar, sounding a little whiny.

Omar can say more than one word sentences, by the way, though he did generally kept them short. His mouth didn't work right. He was a little hard to understand, too, until you got use to him.

"Yeah, when?" I volunteered, my eyes on the screen. Davis had moved out of my camera's range, so I looking for another one. "You guys were all over the map."

The Boss dropped his load onto the wagon everything had come in on with a thump, then paused to catch his breath. "Then he was lying sometimes?" he asked – again, clearly, asking Omar.

""Don't know," answered Omar sadly. He hated to let down the Boss. "Nervous," he explained. At first I thought he was referring to himself, but then he added, "Hiding something, maybe", and I realized he was talking about Davis.

What on earth did Davis have to be nervous about? Other than a secret meeting, crazy people in fake beards, and a cane to the back of his head, I mean.

The Boss sighed and headed back to the table for the last of more junk. "Where is he now?" he asked, talking to me this time.

I don't know how he did it, but his timing was perfect. "Out of the building, and getting into his car," I replied, watching the screen. "He just put in his link."

"Anyone else?"

I hesitated, cycling fast through all the cameras again as Davis, presumably, drove away. As far as I could tell, the whole campus was still deserted. As expected. "Nope," I answered and stood up, snapping the laptop shut.

The Boss had his back to me, packing something away, but he froze at the click of the laptop latch. Uh-oh. "Check the router logs?" he asked.

Uh-oh - I'd completely forgotten. But I didn't want to admit that. If I did, I'd have the boot the thing up again, and wait again, then check… and all for nothing. With only the slightest break in my motion, I continued over to the copper box. "Of course!" I lied, and tossed the laptop in.

With both of us working, it only took another minute to get everything loaded and tied down. The Boss sent Omar into the hallway, the he and I pulled and pushed the cart out right behind. We stopped right outside the room, and made sure we had everything.

Finally we were at the worst part. The Boss pulled out a fire extinguisher and handed it to me. Seeing the look on my face, he asked, "You disabled the smoke detectors?" I nodded - that I had done - so he pulled out the flame thrower. "Help me strap this on," he ordered.

I didn't like it, but did what I was told. The flame-thrower wasn't part of the original plan, but Arvin, who normally supplies us with essentials like food, somehow came up with one at the last minute, and the Boss couldn't resist.

It wasn't very big, but it was almost too heavy for the Boss to wear. To keep from falling backward, he had to lean dangerously far forward, cane in one hand, wand in the other. He looked back at me one more time. "Ready?" he asked.

I picked up the extinguisher, pulled the pin, and nodded. The Boss nodded back – maybe he was nervous too - then limped into the room. There was a click, then a burst of flame shoot out of the wand.

The Boss started at the back wall, quickly going over everything – wall, floor, table tops and chairs. He kept the nozzle moving, but even so every surface was left charred and smoldering. There weren't a lot of flames, though – thank God, or I would have had to jumped in and put them out. The Boss just wanted to destroy any trace evidence we might have left, not burn everything down. Maybe it was overkill, but I have to admit, it was a lot easier and more certain than the original plan – vacuuming to remove any trace material, then bleaching everything to denature anything we missed.

The Boss was almost finished. The paper signs that Davis had dropped ignited with a flash. The Boss ducked out of view around the door, and a minute later, flames shot between the hinges – obviously he was torching the wall I'd been pressed against. He hobbled by the doorway to the other side, then returned, backing out into the hallway. He turned released the lever, extinguishing the flame at the tip of the wand with a sputter.We both looked into the room. There was a lot of smoke and ash, but since there were no open flames, I could drop the extinguisher – it wouldn't be needed.

"Close the door, and latch it," said the Boss, as he started unfastening his straps.

I pulled the door to me with my gloved hands, and snapped the latch closed, cutting off the smoke and reducing the airflow into the room. The smoldering wouldn't last long. I leaned back against the closed door. "That room has seen its last conference," I said.

"It had anyway," said the Boss, still struggling awkwardly to get out of the harness. He didn't ask for help, but after a moment I came over and helped him anyway.

Re-packed, we started away from the elevator that Davis had used, heading toward the back of the building. "Hurry," urged the Boss, which was pretty funny. He limps, Omar limps, and I was trying to drag a wagon full of junk.

We finally made to freight elevator, then down and out to where the Boss's battered old van was parked. As we loaded everything into the back, the Boss wanted to get the laptop back out and check for activity along the way… but enough is enough. "I can't watch it and drive," I protested, sounding a little whiney myself, and suggested we stop somewhere outside of town and check then. "Unless you want to drive…"

The fact is, the Boss probably could have driven, at least once we got through the side streets and onto the highway. I-71 south is wide and pretty straight, and of course there was no traffic, just a few of the normal automated delivery trucks zipping by. Those wouldn't have caused him any problems. I used to play with them when I lived on the streets - they're programmed to avoid obstacles at all costs. Once I figured that out, I started jumping out in front of them, trying to bring them to a stop. I got did make a lot of them swerve, and even slowed a few of them down, but I never could got one to come to a complete stop. I finally got bored with it and quit trying. A dumb game, but what can I say? I was just a kid with nothing else to do.

Those trucks didn't worry the Boss either – they couldn't report us. According to him, they didn't have any uplink capability other than position tracking. They were just programmed with a set of destinations and a road map, and expected to find their own way independently. It probably didn't matter much whether they got there or not. All they did was deliver food, clothes, and toiletries to each and every Jacker in the country. If a truck broke down somewhere, and it didn't get noticed for a few days, who worried? If a few Jackers have to drop a few pounds and go a little dirty, who cared? Not me. Probably not even the Jackers.

I pulled over a few miles down the road at a rest stop. Right away, I unpacked the laptop and checked for alarms. The system back home was monitoring police and government systems for activity directed our way. If it noticed any, it would signal us by writing a file one of the many abandoned servers littering the network. Of course, there was no file there.

Satisfied, Omar and the Boss limped off to relieve themselves. Once I was sure they were out of sight, I logged into the campus routers and checked the logs. A quick scan of the link traffic showed exactly one source – Davis. There wasn't another link active anywhere in the whole areas the entire time.

The timestamps on the logs showed that Davis had been off the air during the meeting, as expected, but even after the meeting, he hadn't hung around. He must have gone straight back to the airport the fastest way possible.

Naturally. Disgusted with myself for even worrying about it, I slapped the lid shut again, and wandered off myself. The Boss and Omar had followed a sidewalk back the way we came in, so I went up toward the building. I wasn't about to go in, over course. Even if the plumbing still worked, it was likely full of mold and decay. I didn't need to smell that. Instead, I continued around to the backside of the building, facing what used to be a picnic area. I passed the time looking at the benches and tables, all rotting and broken, and the overgrown lawn, full of saplings and brush.

I took my time coming and going, expecting the Boss to be anxious to leave. But as the van came into view, I found the Boss sitting on a box at the rear of the van, facing away. There was another box opposite him, and Omar's bowl in between. The van's rear doors were still open, and sandwiches and water had been unpacked onto a folded brown paper bag on the van's floor.

I strolled to the unoccupied box, but I didn't sit. "Do we have to wait here now?" I asked, a little wary.

"No, no," said the Boss, waving his hands without lifting them. "It's nothing like that. It's just… I thought…" The Boss gave a shrug. "Long ride home," he said at last.

That didn't sound right. The Boss was trying to be… I don't know… nice. Sincere and casual. Glancing around, I immediately noticed that the food was still wrapped. Even Omar's bowl was empty.

"Was this your idea, Omar?"

Omar gazed back innocently from the ground. "I'm just a dog," he grunted.

Great, just great. The dog is apparently unhappy with me. He also apparently thinks I'm unhappy with the Boss. Of course, if I were unhappy, I doubt he'd even understand why. The Boss certainly doesn't understand it, but he believes the dog. So now he's trying to make up to me, which means sitting here in the wind and cold and trying to eat.

I looked at them, and they looked at me. Fine I sat down. Let's eat lunch.

And I'm not even hungry.

The Boss smiled weakly at me as I sat, then bowed his head in silent prayer. I went along – it was easier that way. By the time I looked up, he'd pulled off his gloves and was holding a bar of soap. I poured water for him to wash and rinse in, but when he tried to hand me the soap, but I waved him off, showing him my gloves – See, I've been wearing these all day. "Don't forget the beard," I said instead, which produced raised eyebrows and a grateful nod. I peeled off my own gloves and beard, then picked out a sandwich while the Boss fed the dog.

"You did very well today," he said, selecting his own sandwich. "You've really learned a lot over the years." Unwrapping his sandwich, he smiled and he cocked his head the way he would never did with Davis, so he could really see my face. "I really appreciate it."

Of course, all I'd really done was follow directions. "That's what I'm here for," I replied, and took a bite.

And that was that. Everything was back to normal.