“This is ridiculous. I just spent half an hour getting here in a car your guy ordered, because he told me to. Now, please, just let him know I’m here!”
“Sir, please moderate your tone.”
Grow a pair, Joel. These guys only understand authority.
“Look, you rent-a-cop, whatever fucked up my comms is your company’s fault,” I said, summoning every ounce of bravado I could muster. “Now, I’m going to step inside and speak to your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, William Taraval. So either let me through or arrest me.”
The guard emotionlessly contemplated my statement a moment longer than I would have liked. Perhaps he was comming someone. Perhaps he was going to hurt, then arrest me. “Roger that,” he finally said, then returned his gaze to me. He released my arm and held the door open. “Go right ahead, sir.”
It worked? Holy shit, I can’t believe it worked.
As casually as possible, I walked past him and entered International Transport. The building’s totalitarian exterior was in complete contrast to its interior. The lobby was cavernous and lavishly adorned with gold accents. A few burgundy velvet sofas were arranged in a semitriangular formation, almost like an arrowhead, leading to a gold elevator bank at the lobby’s rear. All in all, the place resembled a well-appointed palace. Sharply dressed businesspeople and scientists in lab coats moved through it like ants in a colony, each seemingly knowing their task and destination.
I started toward the building directory when someone or something grabbed my arms from behind and pinned them together. “Ow!” I yelled. “What the hell?”
I turned to face my assailant, but there was no one there. Still, my hands were cinched together like they’d been zip-tied. Something nudged me in the back. Two light pokes against my shoulder blades. The pressure escalated to a push, and then a shove. Something was edging me forward. I tried resisting, but the more I struggled to hold my ground, the more forceful whatever it was pushed me forward. I fell to the floor. People turned to look.
“Stop! I can’t breathe!” I yelled, feeling a crushing pressure on my chest as I was smothered to the ground. My legs kicked in panic. A sinking, cold feeling began to fill my gut. For some reason I was reminded of seventh grade, when I hacked the age restriction on one of my school’s cafeteria printers. I thought I would be a hero, supplying my classmates with contraband cupcakes and warm cheese-filled pretzels—until the lunch lady caught me. She marched me to the principal’s office, all of my classmates staring in silence as I was dragged to meet my fate.
Just like back then, no one came to my aid. I squirmed on the floor like a trapped, dying fish, while everyone around me went about their business. Nothing to see here. Better him than me.
The last thing I remember before the lobby went black was trying to comm the police. The very people I’d hoped to avoid mere moments ago.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. INVALID USER.
10 Joan Anglicus’s bomb exploited the nature of teleportation to activate a quark trigger for a muon-catalyzed d-t nuclear fusion that bred and then split a Francium atom. It was utterly undetectable. They called it a quantum bomb, but really it was just an improbable bomb with a quantum trigger. In order to effectively teleport something from one place to another without invoking the teleportation paradox, there must be an absolute certainty that the correct object had indeed arrived at the destin. What the Gehinnomites had done was build a quantum switch that exploited the fact that all possible future states of an object must be calculated in order to effectively teleport it. This means that if someone who’s teleporting is in the midst of licking a Tootsie Pop, there’s some amount of probability that their next lick will reach the Tootsie roll center. Joan’s quantum trigger didn’t need her to reach the Tootsie Roll center in order to go off; it just needed the possibility to exist. And as we all know, every time that fucking Tootsie Pop enters your mouth, there’s an increasing likelihood of biting that goddamn disgusting candy center.
CUT LOOSE LIKE A DEUCE
“IT WAS SECURITY NANOS,” Zaki said.
Moti and Ifrit looked at him. I don’t want to say that my story had kept them rapt so far, but there had been relatively few questions. A couple of clarifications here and there, dates and times, that sort of thing, but for the most part, it had been me, telling the three members of this probably-not-a-travel-agency how I’d ended up on their doorstep.
“What nanos?” said Moti, setting down the antique pencil with which he had been taking notes. “What are you talking about, Zaki?”
“Security nanos. In the lobby of IT,” enunciated the huge man, flipping his cigarette between his thick brown fingers. “That’s what knocked him out. When his comms didn’t register, the security nanos got him.”
Moti turned back to me. “Please, Yoel. Continue.”
“Right. So that was the first time I managed to get knocked out today, if you’re keeping count.”
As I woke up, I found myself in an upscale corporate conference room. I had no idea that at least two more near-death experiences awaited me that day. Which was probably a good thing, because if I had known, I might just have given up when offered the chance. I’d like to think a lot of heroes, if they could see their futures, would do the same. I gotta go through all that? Forget it.
Not that I consider myself any kind of hero.
A big, oval, tastefully light-brown wooden table stretched out before me. It was surrounded by black chairs, one of which I found myself slumped in. My hands were still bound behind me. I tried wriggling out of the chair, but my shoulders were held down as if they’d been cast in concrete. Somebody wanted me to stay right where they had left me.
As I attempted to move again, the ergonomic smart chair struggled to embrace my form. I guess it wasn’t used to dealing with a holding-someone-against-their-will kind of a situation. Not very ergonomic. It was probably thinking, Why is this crazy person keeping their hands behind them? That’s not normal. How can I make them comfortable? The seat began by warming up its cushion and wicking away moisture, then kept shifting among several structural configurations until finally settling on refactoring itself into a kind of drafting chair. Clever, and—considering the circumstances—pretty comfortable.
“Good job, chair,” I thought out loud.
“Thank you!” responded the room. “I do not seem to have a profile for your rather unique seating preference.”
No fucking way. They left the room in interactive mode? Finally something I can work with. Smart rooms are so eager to please, pwning one of them should be pretty easy. First let’s see how experienced it is.
“Oh, hello room! Excuse my rudeness. I didn’t know interactive mode was enabled.”