Hunter (9780698158504) Page 21

  Cam said, “So they’ve outsmarted us.”

  “Not them,” Lance said. “Casey Duval. I reckon he’s behind this.”

  Thalamus said, “Duval’s a genius—he’s almost as smart as me—but we don’t have any evidence of his involvement.”

  “Well, evidence or not, I’m still right. We know Duval’s worked with Terrain and Dioxin, neither of whom is particularly clever. He keeps them around because they’re useful and they can follow orders. But they don’t have what Slaughter has: almost unlimited strength and a fury to match. Terrain couldn’t have found Slaughter on his own. He doesn’t have the imagination. And I don’t think he’d even have wanted to find her anyway. His profile suggests he’s uncomfortable around strong women. So we start from the assumption that Duval is the mastermind here, and build on that.”

  “Hunter . . . ,” Thalamus began.

  “If this is about lack of evidence again, don’t bother. Our records show that Casey Duval is the only person who’s ever been able to successfully talk Slaughter out of one of her rages. That means he has power over her.”

  “Correct. So we need to find Duval. Or at the very least find out why he wants her.”

  “How would we go about doing something like that?”

  “Simple, Cam. We ask him.”

  “OK, now I know you’ve lost it. Even if we could find a way to ask him, why would he tell us anything?”

  “Because he’s got an ego almost as big as Max’s. And he’ll talk to me because I’ve met him before—he’ll want to take the opportunity to tell me that he was right.”

  Thalamus said, “Hunter, the last time we went down this road, Max contorted our plan for his own needs. Who’s to say he won’t do that again?”

  Lance smiled. “Guys, I think it’s time we cut the apron strings and made some decisions on our own. Max can only control us if he can get to us. And we’ve got the skills and the knowledge to keep him at a distance.”

  “We need Adrianne,” Cam said. “She knows where Max is at all times.”

  “No. She doesn’t remember us, and Max is the only one who can restore her memories. Besides, I don’t want to put her in harm’s way. She has kids.”

  “But you’ll put us in harm’s way?”

  “You guys are already here.”

  Thalamus said, “Max will never let us get away with this.”

  “Sure he will,” Lance said. “Because we’re going to make it more appealing for him to go along with us than to stop us. We’re going to give him what he wants. Right now, we need to focus on finding Duval. Then I’ll talk to Max.”

  “Max’s people have been searching for Casey Duval for years,” Thalamus said. “Every time they think they’re getting close to him, they discover that he’s led them in the wrong direction. They only find him when he wants to be found because he’s an expert at planting false data. What makes you think we’ll have better luck?”

  Lance began to count off on his fingers. “One, he doesn’t want to be found. Two, he’s extremely intelligent. Three, he’s got practically limitless resources. Four, he’s conceited. Put them all together, and you have a cautious egomaniac genius with big plans and lots of money. He’s going to be monitoring all news reports and computer signals to see who’s talking about him.”

  Thalamus’s shoulders sagged. “So again we’re working with a collection of baseless assumptions. I can’t believe I keep letting you talk me into this sort of thing.” He paused, then added, “But that’s your skill, isn’t it? I just hope it works on Duval.”

  “We need to put out a message that he will receive, and understand, and be unable to resist.”

  Cam said, “You mean something like, ‘We’re sick of Max Dalton and we want to go over to your side’? Or ‘Give us ten million dollars and we’ll sell you Max’s secrets’?”

  “No, it needs to be more subtle. He’s not going to fall for anything like that. See, in some ways we’re in the same situation with him as we are with Max. . . . We have to give Casey Duval what he wants.” Lance smiled. “We’re going to feed those two jerks to each other.”

  “WE HAVE HIM,” Lance said to Max over the phone two days later. “We don’t know exactly where he is, but we know where he’s going to be, and when. Thalamus and Cam have constructed a computer model that can predict Duval’s movements. It’s all to do with the heuristic probabilities of crowd theory, but instead of applying it to lots of people at the same time, we’re applying it to one person over a long period on a four-dimensional grid. I don’t really get it myself, but it does look like it works. To test it we fed it only the first half of the data we have on Duval, and it correctly predicted the next appearance with a ninety-one percent probability.”

  “Ninety-one percent isn’t good enough.”

  “I know. But then we told it that its guess was correct, and it went on to the next one. Ninety-one point two percent probability. The more appearances we confirmed, the higher the probability for the next point. It now has all the data, and it’s predicting ninety-nine point eight nine percent.”

  “This doesn’t seem—”

  “Max, I don’t think you understand what’s happening here. We’ve created a computer program that can accurately see into the future! OK, so we’ve got a long way to go before it can predict everything, but this prototype works. You know what that means? Forget Casey Duval—we need to throw every resource you have at this project. This could be the single most important invention in the history of the human race. You know how people sometimes describe the future as an unexplored land? Max, this is a map of that land!”

  There was a long pause, then Max said, “All right. But we deal with Duval first. Send me the data and I’ll prep the team.”

  “Not gonna be that simple, Max. Not this time.”

  “Complications?”

  “Of a sort, yes. We want out.”

  “Out? Lance, I don’t have the time or the inclination to pander to—”

  “Let me be more specific. We want autonomy. We want to be our own team, not your puppets. We’re going freelance. We’re not giving you the software, but we will allow you to use it. For a price.”

  “You created the program on my equipment, under my employ. I already own it.”

  “I don’t think so, Max. See, you’ve never paid us. We never signed any contracts. And you won’t let us quit. We can argue that you’ve kidnapped us and forced us to work for you. This is slavery. On top of that, our new software exists only on the machines here in the Strategarium. If you don’t agree to our terms, then we’ll wipe it forever. Are you willing to take that chance? This is a good deal, Max. You won’t have any responsibility for anything that happens to us, but you’ll still get all the benefits.”

  Max gave a short, sharp laugh. “And how are you going to fund your project?”

  “Simple. We’ll use what we already have to play the stock market. Thalamus knows a lot about the stock market. I think that’s mostly because it’s all numbers, and he likes working with numbers. And once we’re up and running, we won’t be working solely for you. When you don’t need us, we’ll be providing our services to others. But I’ll sweeten the deal with a special offer—we won’t work for any company that’s a direct rival to any of yours. That said, we also won’t take on any work from you that we deem to be immoral or illegal.”

  “No, Lance. Save your daydreams for your own time. Don’t waste mine with them.”

  “That special offer has an expiration date. After today, it’s off the table and we can work for whoever we want. You try to take the software by force, and we’ll wipe it.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort, McKendrick. The status quo will be maintained. Because that’s the way I like it, and there’s nothing you can do or say to change my mind.”

  “You think so? See, we’re playing you at your own game now, Ma
x. Here it comes . . .” Lance nodded to Thalamus, who pulled his keyboard closer and began typing. “The fire alarms have just been activated in every one of your buildings in Tokyo. Good thing it’s only a test, right? No harm done. It’s not like, say, everyone below management level in your Detroit plant has just received a sudden five-hundred-dollar bonus. . . . Or have they? Your payroll people would be able to tell you, but their computers are now acting up. Strange, that. Hope that there’s no effect on the regular bribes you’ve been paying to certain government officials in eighteen different countries. Do you want me to name them?”

  “You’ve made your point, Lance. You’ve also made an enemy.”

  “I warned you about this when you strong-armed me into working for you. You’ve spent years pushing people around. You shouldn’t be surprised when they start pushing back. I mean, you’re not a complete idiot, are you? Though looking at your school records, maybe you are. You failed every test you ever took.”

  “I did not!”

  “According to the records I’m changing right now, yes you did. Look, here’s your police record too. Let’s see, what are your crimes? Public nudity. Stealing from a poor box outside a church. Selling expired candy to children. Owning and operating a hot-air balloon without a license.”

  Max laughed . . . but it sounded different than normal . . . not as confident. “That’s a good one. Look, Lance, you know you don’t have to do any of that. Just make your case through the proper channels, and I promise I’ll give it the appropriate consideration. You’ll need to look at overheads, setup costs, projected income, all of that. Yeah, there might be some merit in having you guys as a group separate from the rest of my companies. . . . You’d want to be able to keep operating if anything were to happen to me. You do realize that it won’t be cheap to bring that software from a prototype to a fully functional system, don’t you? The security alone will cost millions. What we could do is this: I come in as a partner providing the funds, then when the company earns enough to pay me back—plus, say, a dividend of ten percent—I’ll withdraw and you go it alone. That way you get the support you’ll need at the beginning.”

  I don’t believe this guy’s ego, Lance said to himself. He’s trying to talk me into the idea!

  “So what do you say?” Max continued. “I can have my legal team work out the logistics for you, get some preliminary contracts drawn up before the end of next week. You’ll need lawyers of your own, but that shouldn’t be a problem. They’ll try to charge you a fortune for their services, so here’s a tip: Sign nothing with them until they agree to a three-month deferral of payment. Otherwise they’ll try to fleece you from the start.”

  “Yeah, good tip. Thanks, Max. But there’s one more thing. We don’t deal with you in person. Ever. You don’t get within five miles of us. You know how it is—we don’t want you eavesdropping on our development meetings and stealing our secrets.”

  “All right. I’m not saying it’s a done deal, but we can start with that and build from there.”

  “Cool. We’re going to do one more run-through of the system, then we’ll send your people the location and time of Duval’s next appearance. It’ll take about fourteen minutes, once we get it started.”

  “Thanks, Lance. Good work.”

  Yeah, that’s right, Lance thought. You play the part of the friendly boss who’s trying not to let on that his employees have outmaneuvered him. Aloud, he said, “No problemo. Later, Max.” Lance hung up the phone, and across the room Cam and Thalamus gave each other a high five.

  Lance jumped out of his chair. “Thalamus, you’ve got the delay set? Then let’s go.”

  THALAMUS AND CAM HAD RIGGED the Strategarium’s computers to feed false data to the building’s security system. According to the records, they never left the room and no one used the mall’s main entrance for hours.

  Once outside, they found a quiet coffee shop down the street and settled in. The coffee shop was close enough to the mall that they could hear the first explosions quite clearly.

  A few minutes later, a man burst into the shop shouting, “There’s a bunch of superhumans beating the living tar out of each other over at the new mall! You gotta see this!”

  Lance sipped at his coffee. “You guys want to go watch?”

  “I’ve seen more than my fair share already,” Thalamus said.

  “No way I’m missing this,” Cam said, and stuffed the last of his donut into his mouth.

  “I’ll come with you,” Lance said. “It’ll be nice to see who turns up.”

  They stood on the street with the other onlookers, who cheered when they saw Hesperus and Thunder flying into action. The windows in the top half of the fake mall were already belching flames, and every few seconds another one would shatter.

  The battle lasted almost an hour, and ended with Slaughter unconscious from a sustained attack by Hesperus, Terrain almost pummeled to a pulp by Titan and Thunder, and Dioxin captured by Roz, who was using her telekinesis to keep him suspended in midair, where his acid-dripping skin couldn’t come into contact with anything else.

  The one downside was that Casey Duval had fled even before Lance and Cam arrived on the scene.

  “He must have figured it out,” Cam said. “Man, I wouldn’t want to be us when Max gets here. He’s going to really lose it. Still, we got that psycho back, and the other two are a bonus.”

  When Max arrived, he took one look at Lance and strode toward him with his fists clenched and teeth gritted. Then he slowed to a stop, and his shoulders sagged. “A bluff.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’ve just cost me a fortune, and we don’t even have Duval.”

  “Not our fault,” Cam said. “Your guys should have fought harder.”

  Max said, “There’s no program that can predict the future. You figured that someone in my organization would relay the phone call to Duval. Probably the same person who let Terrain know where to find Slaughter.”

  “Are you guessing this, or reading it from our minds?” Lance asked.

  Max didn’t answer that. “Duval decided he wanted the program for himself. Then you sent your fake report saying that this place was predicted as his next location.” Max nodded slowly. “So that just proved to him that the program really existed.”

  Lance said, “That was the idea. A self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  “I should be proud of you—no one else has ever been able to pull anything like this on him before. But couldn’t you have directed him somewhere else so that the base wouldn’t be destroyed?” Without waiting for a reply, Max provided his own answer. “No, of course you couldn’t, because he was going to come here for the software that told him he was going to come here. . . . This is one serious mess, McKendrick. Why couldn’t you have let me know?” Again, Max answered the question himself. “Because you needed my genuine reaction to sell the story to Duval.”

  “You have to admit, catching three out of four bad guys isn’t bad. Plus no one got killed.”

  Max rubbed his face with his hands. “You are going to drive me crazy.”

  “You’ve always known what I’m like, Max. I’m a con man at heart. And this was the biggest and best confidence trick I’ve ever pulled.” He couldn’t help smiling. “I think we deserve a raise.”

  “And you’ll get one, if you can find out who’s betraying me.”

  “How many people do you have working for you who’d be in a position to intercept messages and reports?”

  “Maybe three hundred. But I know them all. I’ve scanned their minds. I know they’re all loyal.”

  “Then it’s one of them who doesn’t know that he or she is passing on reports to Casey Duval. Check them more thoroughly, and check all your procedures. All it would take is for Casey to send someone a faked memo saying, ‘From now on, copies of all reports must be immediately sent to this location.’ And then something
like, ‘This is a matter of internal security. You are forbidden to discuss this new policy with anyone else, not even your supervisor.’ I mean, if I was one of your minions and I got a memo like that, I’d probably do what it says. If I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong, you wouldn’t be able to sense any guilt.”

  Max nodded slowly. “That’s . . . interesting. Worth investigating.”

  “You’ll find your traitor, Max. You’re a telepath. Of course, that’s a disadvantage too, isn’t it? If you want to pull a con on someone, sometimes it’s best to pick the people who think they’re so smart they can’t possibly be fooled. The mark’s overconfidence is the scam artist’s greatest ally. What’s that old saying again? The smartest men are not those who say, ‘It can’t be done’ but those who say, ‘I don’t know how it can be done, but I want to find out.’”

  • • •

  With the Santa Barbara base in ruins, Max booked rooms for himself, Cam, Thalamus, and Lance in a nearby hotel. “We need to rebuild,” Max told them. “First thing tomorrow morning you’ll be meeting with some of my computer and security experts. This is your opportunity to redesign the Strategarium from the ground up.”

  That evening, during a meal in the hotel’s restaurant, Lance excused himself to the bathroom, and on the way back through the lobby he was stopped by a porter. “Oh, Mr. McKendrick? Phone call for you at reception.”

  “Thanks, I . . . Wait, who did you say it was for?”

  “It’s for you, sir. Lance McKendrick.”

  “No, my name’s Washington.”

  “The gentleman described you quite accurately, sir.” The porter gestured toward the reception desk. “Perhaps you could . . . ?”

  Whoever it is can hardly attack me over the phone, Lance thought. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take it.” At the desk, a smiling receptionist handed him the telephone. Lance took a deep breath and said, “Can I take your order, please?”