Strong Arm Tactics (22 page)

Chapter 13

The company passed through the turnstyles, huge brass wheels that looked ornate and friendly, but were calculated to allow one-way passage only. Daivid tried pausing in the center and nudging his wheel back the other way, but it locked into place. It was in, or nothing. In the ceiling of the pylon square sensor arrays scanned every person entering. They ignored Naughty Emma, but as soon as D-45 tried to enter with his plasma rifle, the turnstyle wheel halted, trapping him and a discreet but urgent bonging began.

The android put her hands on her hips and pouted at the ceiling. “It’s all right!” she scolded it. “Uncle Oscar said they could come!”

The noise died away with a disappointed moan, and the wheel came free. D-45 shoved out of the barrier and stood looking back at it with suspicion.

“Why didn’t it stop me?” Daivid asked.

“Oh, you’ve only got a bullet gun and a knife. I scanned you. You could only shoot or stab one person before the protectors stopped you.”

“Why wouldn’t it want me to get rid of my weapons before entering the park?”

Emma beamed at him. “Well, you might not use them at all. We like to think the best of people. But
his
gun,” she pointed accusingly at D-45, “is a Richards 203H model shoulder mounted plasma cannon. It could clear a swath a meter wide and a hundred meters long. And the backwash might kill more people right around him. That would make just too much of a mess. Uncle Oscar wouldn’t like that.”

Daivid’s eyebrows went up.

“I think the space service could take some lessons in security from your Uncle Oscar. Take me to him.”

“All right,” Emma said, taking his hand again. “Come with me.”

They followed their little guide up the center street of Anyville. Though seldom featured in the many broadcasts and specials that originated from Wingle World, Anyville was the heart of the park. It had been the first part constructed by Oscar Wingle the first, to give settlers on this world so distant from Terra a taste of home, though it was a home that no one living, even at that time, had ever seen. The cosy, warmly-colored buildings with their gingerbread cutouts lining the gables of the peaked roofs betokened a well-established, warm, peaceful town that stretched far back into humanity’s origins. It seemed to strike a chord with other species as well. The sound coming over the open helmet channel from Ewanowski made it sound like the big semicat was purring.

Underfoot, the red-brown cobblestones made for unsteady walking, but Daivid could see how they were calculated to make one stroll leisurely up the lane, instead of striding briskly and going past the attractions and, more importantly, the gift shops too quickly. Hoverchairs were available for small children and the handicapped, obviating the need for personal vehicles that ran on wheels or rollers.

The shop windows were empty, and the showrooms behind them were dark, but the street was exactly as Daivid remembered it. As if he had never left, he recalled every single detail of his previous visit to Wingle World. He looked around, summoning up memories of parades full of colorful floats, loud music, and the faces of rapt children looking up at the familiar characters who waved and joked with the spectators. If he glanced up he could see the big façade on the upper level of City Hall that featured Bunny Hug, the famous spokes … rabbit, looking down at them, the huge blue eyes in the pink and white face. When he was a little boy it made him feel safe and loved. Now, it was …

“Creepy,” stated Meyers, interrupting his thoughts. “Look at that thing looming over you. Makes me think of the CO.”

“Yeah. Same blank expression,” said D-45, with a boyish grin.

“Why aren’t there any people here?” Daivid asked their escort, who towed him along firmly, refusing to let him pause to glance at any of the rides. They passed an interactive map that displayed every attraction in the park, scrolling the list so that every one of the thousand-plus items could be seen. As Daivid drew within a meter of the standard, it called out to him in a comforting female voice. “Hello. What is your name? May I suggest some things you would enjoy seeing, based upon your age and interests?”

“No, thanks,” Emma said nastily, pulling him away before he could get a good glimpse. He ordered his helmet recorder to take a full image of it to peruse later. Might as well see what he would be missing. Surely Oscar Wingle would let them look around the place even if wasn’t operating.

How oddly exposed it felt walking through the streets with no one else in sight. Even as a child he’d had the distinct impression that he was being watched. At least with fifty thousand people surrounding him he had the anonymity of the crowd. But what with face-recognition software he was sure that the security force could find him any time it liked. Wingle World had a reputation for reuniting lost children with their parents faster than almost any other facility in the TWC. Perhaps faster than the children might like, considering where they were, but no successful abduction had ever been carried out within the Cheerful Community. Children who had been momentarily separated from their families usually returned with an icepop or corn treats and tales of an underground city with nice people who reassured them, washed their faces and let them use the bathroom. Daivid longed to get a look at the security system for professional reasons. There must be a thousand spy-eyes either implanted in the facades and ceilings of buildings, or hovering around in the air disguised as balloons or other merrymaking impedimenta. But no people. Daivid waved a hand in front of Emma’s face to get her attention.

“Why is it so empty here? Where is everyone? I would have thought this was the time that the park underwent maintenance. I’d have expected to see hundreds of people.”

“In Fimbul? Oh, no,” Emma scoffed. “Everyone on the planet goes on holiday all at once. The only ones who don’t go are the ones who can’t. Or don’t like to,” she added, thoughtfully.

Daivid looked around longingly as they left Anyville and moved into Future Land. Roller-coasters. Water rides. Parachute drops. Holo-adventures. All of them temptingly near, and all of them closed for the season. Even more desirable, the food concessions hadn’t turned off their threedeeo displays. Visions of meter-high sundaes and sauce-soaked sandwiches danced along the marquees of booths that were, disappointingly, also shuttered. He stared at a vision of steak-on-a-stick, trying to decide if he would have liked the selection with extra onions or not, when Emma poked him in the side.

“There’s Uncle Oscar’s place. Go right in.”

Daivid brought his attention to the building she pointed at. Stuck into the perfectly green grass was a rustic wooden sign that read “The Old Inventor’s Workshoppe.” He
sort of
remembered the cottage, or he had seen it in crystal-threedeeo features about Wingle World. It was a tiny, plaster-walled bungalow with a roof made of fibrous bundles like sticks. The shutter-framed windows were very small, set deeply into the walls. They didn’t look as though they’d let in very much light.

“That can’t really be it,” Daivid said. “He wouldn’t really have his lab right in the middle of the park for everyone to see. It looks like straw and plaster.”

“Don’t let appearances fool you,” Emma chided him. “That kitschy cottage is made of a supertough polymer. Resists wear, scratches, graffiti, even bullets. Uncle Oscar invented it himself.”

“But he couldn’t just leave the door open like that.”

“Why not?” Emma asked. “No one bothers him.”

“But you could just walk right in.…” Daivid protested, gesturing toward the open door.

On either side of the path, clay pots full of bright flowers perked up at the sudden movement and began to sing.

“Welcome, we bid you welcome! Welcome to Wingle World! Welcome, come one, come all! You’ll get your turn to see it all, you’ll sing and play and have a ball, So when you leave our gates we’ll miss you lots, but we will keep you in our hearts. You’ll want to come back … to Wingle World!”

Jones groaned. “That’s terrible.”

“Children like it,” Emma said, imperturbably. “But it keeps any over about ten from wanting to go inside and visit, which is the way Uncle Oscar likes it.” She opened the door and stood to one side. “Go right in. There’s room for everyone.”

Daivid glanced at the little cottage doubtfully. It looked as though it could only hold eight or nine people, which didn’t leave much room for the Inventor. He had to bend over slightly to go under the lintel, but Emma was right: the room would hold them all. The sense of smallness was an optical illusion, a Wingle specialty. One by one the Cockroaches joined him, Lin and D-45 having to ship their plasma guns to make it inside. The inside was much like the outside, plaster walls and flower pots, a primitive fireplace with black andirons and a kettle on the fire. But the wooden floor was bare of furniture, let alone the presence of their host.

“So, where’s Uncle Oscar …” Daivid began to ask, when the floor dropped out from underneath them. The entire platoon found themselves hurtling through a titanium-lined tube.

“You knew you shouldn’t do anything I say!” Emma’s voice echoed above them.

“Oh, slaaaaaagggg!” was all Daivid had time to say, before he and all of his troopers landed heavily in a swimming pool-sized tub full of pads. Thanks to the armor, no one was hurt. Their highly trained reflexes got them out of the container and back onto their feet in seconds, weapons out and on guard. Daivid had his sidearm drawn in a flash as he surveyed the dimly lit room. There was nothing in it but the landing tub, and one furious company of space troopers.

“Goddammit!” Boland growled. “Now I remember that little fraxer from the kiddie shows! She was always getting people in trouble. And we fell for it! Literally! It’s a good thing we’re not fighting the lizards, or that goddamn Insurgency. We’d have been toast!”

“Serves you right,” said a cranky voice from behind the tub. The lights brightened as Oscar Wingle the 7th entered the room. The lined, sharp-chinned face with the wild gray hair, eyebrows, and mustache would have been familiar to trillions of children throughout the galaxy. He and his many-times forefathers had delighted the young with their calm, warm speeches, and their own pleasure in the entertainments they seemed happy to offer their viewing and park-going public. None of that placid hospitality was evident on this face. The deepset gray eyes with the avuncular crinkles at the corners were amused, all right, but definitely inclined to laugh at, not with, his current audience. Wingle was dressed in a coverall made of slightly shiny fabric Daivid recognized as being proof against fire and most known kinds of caustic fluids. He pointed a wrenchlike tool at them. “You said you knew not to trust her, and what do you do? You obey the first thing she tells you to do. Hah! Grown men and women falling for a trick like that. Literally, falling! I loved it! A kid wouldn’t have listened to her. He’d have remembered the rule. You grownups, you just believe whatever you hear last. And what’s all this about cockroaches? I don’t stand for bugs in my park.”

“That’s, er, that’s the nickname of our unit, sir,” Daivid said, recovering his wits. “Lieutenant Daivid Wolfe, X-Ray Platoon. My unit. The Cockroaches.” He nodded briefly toward the immobile ghosts arrayed behind him. Wingle was unimpressed.

Wingle gestured with his wrench. “What in hellfire are all of you doing here in my park in the middle of the off season? Go away at once.”

Daivid was faintly shocked. Wingles didn’t swear. They told children it was bad manners to use bad language. There was even a song about it.

“Sir, I have orders from my commanding officer to receive an item from you, a controller chip. I have, er, no other description, but I am sure you know what I’m talking about. If you will just give it to us, we will return to our ship.”

Wingle’s eyebrows went up, then down. “So, they didn’t listen to me after all. Hear me now, you young scoundrel:
the chip is not ready yet.
I told your admirals that they could have it when it’s ready. It’ll be ready when it’s ready! Did they try and hurry Michelangelo? Did they try to hurry Leonardo da Vinci? Did they try to rush Paine Fitzwallace?”

In fact, their patrons
had
tried to hurry the first two in their endeavors, but the third was a stranger to Wolfe. “Paine Fitz…?”

“Inventor of the shields for string-drive starships,” Borden murmured in his ear, using the implant channel. Wingle’s eyebrows went up again.

“Right you are! Bright girl. And without even an electronically enhanced memory. Don’t like those things anyhow. But you shouldn’t mumble. I can hear you fine, just fine. Technology’s a wonderful thing.” Borden made a quiet noise of astonishment. Wolfe stared. Wingle shouldn’t have been able to hear a secure channel. The brows dropped once again. “Now, can you hear
me
fine? I told you to scoot. Come back when it’s ready. I’ll send a message.”

Daivid opened his mouth to say that it wasn’t so easy to get back there, that their ship was on its way to a war they didn’t want to be late for, and Harawe would cut off his personal parts if he returned with a message like that. “Sir, I will have to check with my superiors.”

Wingle watched the changes in his expression, no doubt reading his mind. “Never mind, then, boy. I’ll do it. This way.”

O O O

Weapons still at the ready, the Cockroaches fell in behind the old man. Wingle heard the click as D-45 automatically thumbed off the safety on his plasma, and glared back. “You don’t need that here. Nothing happens here and nobody comes here without my say-so. You’re safer here than you were in your mother’s womb.”

“Didn’t have a mother,” Adri’Leta growled under her breath.

D-45’s head swiveled toward Wolfe, who nodded. The safety clicked back on, and the squad chief slung the gun strap over his shoulder. His squad, and the other two, followed suit.

The shiny steel walls of the corridor were strongly lit not only from above, but from the tops of the walls. Triple shadows caused the chameleon coating of the Cockroaches’ assault armor to go crazy trying to disguise itself. Daivid watched the play of light and dark on the backs of the squad ahead of him, though he kept his eyes on their host, who stumped along at the head of the parade. In his humble opinion, Thielind made a much better drum major.