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"I wish I would have never invented those damn things!" I bit my lower lip in
anger.
"Anson, if they're really Casimir effect devices can't we just give them a
good jolt?" Jim said hopefully.
Tabitha looked grim. "Jim, we can't risk it. What if one of them . . ." She
couldn't bring herself to say what Jim was now thinking, what we all three
were thinking.
"Exploded!" Jim finished it for her.
"Okay everybody, just calm down." I turned to the confused Dr. Reese, "Doc,
can she be moved safely?"
"What? Are you serious? Invented what things?" He thought we were all nuts.
"She is in ICU. You can't seriously think she could be moved?"
"Listen to me, Doctor, and listen very carefully. If the things in this
picture you just showed me are what we believe they are, then 'Becca is
contaminated with Top Secret nanoscopic explosives. Don't ask where they came
from. One, and I mean one
," I emphasized by holding up one finger, "of these tiny devices could blow
her arm off." I told him.
"Whew!" Reese whistled, "There are most likely millions of them in her body!
"I was afraid of that," Tabitha said. "More than enough to destroy the whole
city."
I was beginning to realize the awesome power of the dumbbells and how they
might could be used as a weapon of terror. There would be no way to detect a
dumbbell or millions of them. And they could be hidden inside the terrorist's
own body until, kablooie
!
"Why haven't they gone chaotic?" Jim mentioned.
"Good question, Jim, but first things first." I tried to think of a plan of
action. "Doctor, she has to be moved to a safer location and we may be able to
cure her with your help. Tabitha . . ." I turned to see if she could get us
some help but she was already on her cell phone ordering a helicopter,
security containment, and general support.
"No I don't care what your orders are! They just changed damnit!" she was
ordering into her cell phone.
"Tabitha, we need to track who has seen these pictures." I reminded her. She
just nodded. Tabitha knows how to do her job so I decided not to micromanage.
I switched gears to something I could do to help. "Jim, are you parked here?"
"Yes. Why?" he replied.
"Let's get over to the lab and gather some diagnostic equipment, my laptop,
and whatever else we
can think of that might help. Doctor, please keep her healthy as long as
possible." We left Tabitha to take care of business at the hospital. Jim waved
his cell phone at her as we were leaving as if to say, "Call us if you need
us. You have the number." Tabitha gave us the thumbs up and waved us out.
Down the elevator and out to the parking garage we went. We had to climb about
fifteen steps to the level where Jim's car was. I realized on about the fourth
step that one of my lungs was healing from a bullet wound. My chest was on
fire, but I pushed on to the car.
"Are you okay, Doc? You look pretty bad."
"Fine," is all I could gasp out. After a few minutes sitting in the passenger
side as we made it to the lab I began to feel better.
"Anson, how is it that you have stitches in your chest and back and Tabitha's
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face is all cut up? That is, I mean, if you two were in your spacesuits, how
bad was the crash?" Jim was figuring things out even though he had been told
by security not to even speculate.
"Let's not talk about it right now, Jim." I gave him the nod that now wasn't
the time or place.
"Okay," Jim said. "Then what is your take on 'Becca's flu."
"The answer is obvious, I think. The only problem with that obvious answer is
that it's too damn unbelievable."
"You mean that you think the dumbbells have been in her since the accident and
somehow a flu virus mutated with them?"
"That's the only way I can see it. It's just amazing." It was amazing. How
versatile viruses must be if they can mutate to capture physical objects. Or
at that scale, is everything physical or biological the same? In other words,
on the nanoscale is there no way to distinguish live from mechanical? If you
think about a bacteriophage for example, some of them look just like a
nanoscale Lunar Excursion Module
(LEM). And what do they do? They land on a cell and inject the occupants of
the LEM cabin into it. The occupants go and rewrite the code of that cell to
reproduce more bacteriophages and the cycle continues. The cell is just
redesigned to manufacture a different product. That's pretty damn amazing. Is
it biological or mechanical? It's my view that everything in the universe is
due to electromagnetic interactions. Just some interactions appear to have
been animated.
"I don't know, Jim. Let's just hope we can figure out a way to get those
things out of her and neutralized."
As we came to the guard shack of our laboratory parking lot, one of Tabitha's
security requirements, we both noticed that there was no guard anywhere to be
seen. "Jim, stop the car!"
"There should be a guard here." Jim did his best to rubberneck over the
windowsill of the two-man shack.
"I don't like this." I began to feel edgy and thoughts of Johnny Cache flooded
my mind. I opened
Jim's glove box. "Jim, the Orbiter didn't just explode due to some accident,"
I began as I chambered a round in Jim's Glock. I grabbed his other clip and
placed it in my pocket.
For you folks that don't live in the South, I guess I should mention that most
everybody has at least one pistol in his or her glove compartment. Those who
don't, well they are carrying theirs on them somewhere. That's why our crime
rate is so much lower than the big "no-gun" cities. There, only the criminals
are armed. If you recall history, the "shoot out at the O.K. Corral" was over
a no-gun ordinance in the city of Tombstone. In the South we try to keep the
playing field as even or better as we can.
Therefore, criminals know that if they want to start something in the South
that they will be shot back at.
Deterrence is a very good crime prevention technique. Hell, it kept the
Soviets at bay during the Cold
War.
"Jim, you're right. The stitches are to fill up the bullet holes left by
terrorists. Tabitha is limping on a shot up leg. Johnny Cache shot her. Long
story. Do you have any other weapons in the car? I asked.
Jim smiled and popped the trunk. His karate gear and his tournament bag were
in there. He
rummaged through the gear and dug out two kamas, two escrima sticks, and one
set of nunchukas.
"Which do you prefer?" he grinned.
"This will do fine," I brandished the Glock 19 with the pre-Clinton-Reno era
clip. "Sixteen shots ought to do. Besides, I ain't in any shape to be
fighting. I'll have to keep you covered. Sorry."
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The front door to the office had been opened effortlessly. Obviously, the
guard's keys came in handy for somebody. We cautiously scoured the entire
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