 
### Neptune Road Volume VI-C: Episodes 176-200

Copyright ©2015 Betsy Streeter

Published by Betsy Streeter at Smashwords

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About Neptune Road

After a few false starts, Earth has managed to make Neptune into a habitable planet. Now every misfit, hacker, criminal, improvised life form and leftover seems to find a way there. Looking for a new start? Running from a murder investigation? Orphaned? Maybe Neptune is the place for you. The air and sunlight are borrowed, the surface is unstable, and the people are – inventive.

Welcome to Neptune Road.

At this point in the story, the episodes are becoming much longer and more involved. Plots are deepening, characters' lives are expanding. Several distinct story lines have taken shape: Philo and May, Sam and Angelica Brubeck, Agent Millman and the Darby's Bar crowd, and more. Most likely these stories will demand their own space soon...

So if you have read this far, you should know that several spinoff stories are in the works: Philo and May, about the two of them looking for May's origins; The Gelica Protocol, which you'll have to read to get an idea what's going on; and Rocket Angels, our fearless motorcycle club and their adventures in something called the Nonstop Derby. Please come along and enjoy these and further Neptune Road adventures... and thank you for reading.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

176 - Facial Recognition

177 - Darby Meets May

178 - Digging Into The Data

179 - Sam's Change

180 - Earth

181 - Earth, A Highway

182 - The Tumbleweed

183 - Breaking In

184 - Scar City Casino

185 - Agent Millman's Apartment in Scar City

186 - The Tumbleweed Bridge

187 - Earth

188 - Scar City, Neptune

189 - Arrival in Scar City

190 - Earth

191 - Darby's Bar

192 - Kitchen of the Tumbleweed

193 - Earth (again)

194 - Downstairs at Darby's

195 - Earth

196 - Scar City

197 - The Tumbleweed

198 - Earth

199 - The Tumbleweed

200 - Radio Neptune

About the Author
Acknowledgements

For all the Neptunians, who have spent time with the Neptune Road gang, and made it worth it for me to keep bringing you more and more stories. Let's see what happens next!
176 - Facial Recognition

"What have you found?" Rebecca asks Philo.

"It's not so much what I found, but what found me," Philo says. His screen lights up with long strings of characters. "As you know I have been running searches relating to the Tipton Prize, specifically recipients of the prize around the time that Angelica Brubeck was presented with it. I also looked for links with other students present that day, in hopes that one of them might be related in some way to May. Her ancestors, perhaps."

"Right," Beck says. "There has to be a reason May and my dad both have that same old news clipping."

"At first I looked into school records, transcripts, addresses. Data on those who may have been present. But I found very little. And certainly nothing pertaining to May or her family," Philo says.

"But then," he goes on, "I instead tried a search based on visual information rather than demographics. There were many photos taken that day, some by other students or teachers, others by the press, all from differing angles. So I recreated as much of the scene as I could." Now Philo's screen shows a fly-through of a three-dimensional model of the school courtyard, complete with faces for as many of the students and faculty as he has identified. It's like a strange digital puppet show.

"I loaded May's facial features, and sifted through all of the imagery. I thought perhaps a parent or grandparent might have been there, or a cousin."

"Makes sense," Beck says. "Clearly the clipping came from someone other than May. The obvious choice is her parents."

"Two things stood out to me," Philo says. "First, I was unable to locate anyone who might have been the correct age and appearance to be May's parents or grandparents. However, the facial recognition filter kept pointing me to an unexpected place."

"What was that?" Beck asks. "Was the family dog there or something?"

"No," Philo says. "But every time I loaded in May's features and filtered for genetic relations based on physical features, I kept getting the Tiptons themselves."

"The Tiptons? The couple presenting the prize?" Beck says, raising her eyebrows.

"Yes, take a look," Philo says. He splits his screen in two. On the left, May. On the right, Mrs. Tipton. Lines stretch across from one face to the other, mapping similarities. "It would appear that May shares enough physical attributes to the Tiptons that she could conceivably be related to them."

Beck puts her hand on her chin. "Wow," she says. "So it's possible this photo was with May's parents not because of who was getting the prize, but because of who was giving it."

"That is how it would appear," Philo says.

"And a scientific family of the prominence of the Tiptons, they are not very likely to have been erased like May's immediate family has been."

"Hopefully not, such an action would certainly draw the attention of the family and of the scientific community," Philo says.

"This is the break we needed," Beck says. "How do we go about discovering if this facial match actually represents a blood relation?"

"We will require DNA from someone in the Tipton family," Philo says. "Then we can run a test and see if May is in fact related."

Beck frowns. "We will have to do that very quietly," she says. "We can't attract any attention. The minute we set off too many hits in someone's database they will be onto us. And by 'they' I mean whoever has gone to so much trouble to disappear May's parents while they were here on Neptune."

Beck looks out the window. The sunlight amplifiers in this sector are firing back up, smearing the sky with orange and purple.

"This sounds like it merits a visit back to our friend Darby, the genetics expert," Beck says. "How about a beer?"

"I will be happy to look at or sit next to a beer," Philo says.

"Great. Let's go."
177 - Darby Meets May

By day Darby's bar is busy, but not with patrons. Barrels of beer roll around on dollies, the floor-to-ceiling windows get a cleaning. Darby himself sits at a back table, performing accounting tasks.

Darby hates accounting. It makes his head feel like it is full of dryer lint. But he does it himself, because this is how one controls a business. He has known too many people to lose their shirts because they entrusted the intricacies of their business to someone who knew how to skim, or who just didn't know how to do their job.

So, Darby sits with a beer at his elbow and fills in sheets of numbers. Tracking supplies, negotiating discounts, handing out raises, pondering possible unplanned expenses ╨ plant diseases, patron misbehavior, what have you.

A few run-down folks do slouch over the bar, looking out of place in their disheveled work clothes amongst all the glass and chrome and glowing lights. Life on Neptune is rough. Nobody argues that.

Rebecca instinctively places her hand on May's shoulder as the two of them reach Darby's front entrance. May's eyes widen as she takes in the vast bar and the endless array of bottles and glasses behind it.

"Let's go see Mr. Darby," Beck says, nudging May forward.

"Ah! Hello there," Darby says, smiling warmly as the two visitors approach. "Welcome back, Ms. Mangrove. Good to see you. And might this be the young subject of your research?" He takes May's hand and shakes it in a grown-up way.

"It is," Beck says. "She wanted to see the place so I figured I'd bring her down when it's not a giant dance party in here. This is May."

"Well I'm glad you came in, May," Darby says. "I hear that your friends are sorting out some things for you. Ancestors and such."

"Yeah," May says, running a finger along the edge of the shiny table. "My parents got disappeared. On purpose. They were climate researchers."

Darby considers this. He doesn't want to say anything insensitive that might upset the girl. "I'm sorry to hear that. Have you found out anything new?"

"Well, that's why we came down," Beck says. "As you know, actual genetic information has proven impossible to come by, since someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to wipe it out. However, we may have hit on some facial matches that give us hope. Would you take a look?"

"Sure thing," Darby says, grateful to be doing something other than accounting.

May pulls a small tablet from her pocket, on which she displays a digital copy of the Tipton Prize photo featuring the young Angelica Brubeck.

"This photo, I found one in my books, the ones that belonged to my parents, and then we found Dr. Mangrove has one too, because they went to school together," May explains, turning the tablet to face Darby. "Philo - you met him, television head - he ran a bunch of models and tried to find other people who were there who might link me with Dr. Brubeck. You know, cousins, family members, another student or something."

"I see," Darby says.

"There was nothing," May continues. "But then Philo did some face stuff, and it kept matching me with the Tiptons."

"Based on Philo's modeling, it's possible that May is a blood relative of the Tiptons," Beck says. "But looking like someone doesn't constitute a genetic link. We've got to find more. We were wondering if you could help."

"This is fascinating!" Darby says. "Quite a mystery. So you need to trace your lineage to someone you don't know, and who is no longer living. Sounds like we need to reverse-engineer a broken family tree."

"Meaning...?" Beck asks.

"Well to do this right, we need some Tipton DNA. We can't just go dig people up, so we need to locate blood relatives somewhere. Probably on Earth. Right?"

"Yes, that part we get," Beck says. "The challenge is, doing that without being detected."

Darby's face darkens. "Well as you probably know, I was not subtle enough in my own sample collecting - which is how my last venue got burned to the ground and we ended up here."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Beck says. "Really."

"But do you know how to get somebody's DNA without them knowing?" May asks.

Darby smiles. "Well, it's tricky. And with the added challenge of knowing that there have been some concerted efforts to disappear some people, we can assume that some not-very-nice folks are involved."

"Why didn't they disappear me?" May asks.

Darby looks at the girl. "You know, I haven't any idea," he says. "but I am certainly glad they didn't, or I would not have gotten to meet you here today." He smiles. He can't imagine what must go on inside this child's head. Especially with her obviously considerable intelligence.

He leans in and lowers his voice. "I do have an idea of something we could try."

"What?" May says.

"Well, I kept a lot of my research, I sent it off so nobody could destroy it. I knew my lab might bite the dust, so to speak, at some point. Neptune can be a violent place. So I backed everything up elsewhere. How about you take a look through it?"

"Yeah!" May says. "That would be cool."

"Alright, it's a deal," Darby says. "Now this is a delicate operation, and I think it would be best for you to conduct your research on your airship. I'm sure there are those who still watch this place pretty closely. But I believe in open-source."

"Thanks, Darby," Rebecca says. "This puzzle keeps getting stranger and stranger, and we don't even know who the players are."

"It is a strange one," Darby says. "But perhaps there's a link somewhere to the Tiptons, someone related to them who spent time in my establishment. The Tiptons are a large, extended family. There's no way they all went missing."

"No way," May says.

"Yeah, let's just see if we can sort this without anyone new disappearing," Beck says. "I have a feeling we're about to poke a hornet's nest."

"By having May with you," Darby says, "perhaps you already have."

"True," Beck says. "We'll just have to stay one step ahead."

178 - Digging Into The Data

The Tumbleweed bridge could use a cleaning-up. Most likely Feller will appear soon, mutter, and scrub it down.

"I don't get it," May says, chewing on a banana.

"What?" Philo says. He's got numbers and DNA patterns running up and down his screen and his feet up on the console.

"So, this Darby guy, he's in this bar place, right?" May says.

"That is correct," Philo says. His screen pauses, then proceeds with the next batch of numbers.

"And then he does DNA research, without anybody knowing," May says. "Why does he do that?"

"Some people are compelled by a thing that interests them," Philo says. "In the Casino I spent years studying odds and gambling as a science of human behavior."

"So it's a field of study?" May asks. "Do you get a degree in it or something?" She tosses the banana peel across the bridge into a trash incinerator.

"Not everyone gets a degree in their life's work," Philo says. "Some people just study things. It's what they do."

"What do they get for it? What's the purpose?" May asks.

"Learning," Philo says. "That's the reward."

"So it's like me with the robotics books."

"Exactly," Philo says. "You have no degree in robotics, but you have Dog and your other inventions. And of course you were able to rebuild me, which I appreciate."

May considers this.

"I have another question," May says.

"Yes?" Philo says. He unplugs a cord from a panel on the back of his head and reroutes it into the Tumbleweed console.

"How is Darby's data from his bar customers going to help us if Mr. and Mrs. Tipton lived on Earth a long time ago?"

"That is a fair question," Philo says. "But it looks to me like some of this information is not from Neptune."

"Weird," May says. "So Darby was doing his research before he left Earth. He didn't mention that."

"No, he wouldn't mention it," Philo says. "I think most of what he does is invasions of people's privacy."

"Is that illegal?" May asks.

"Depends," Philo says. "There are laws on Earth, not so much here. On Neptune it's just something people don't like."

"So that's why his bar was burned down?" May asks.

"It would appear so," Philo says.

"Bummer," May says.

\----------

Cass, Queen of the Bird people, sweeps her black skirts through the front door of Darby's bar and marches toward the rear of the establishment. Darby has resumed his accounting tasks.

"Hello Cass," Darby says without looking up. "I see you did not forget our appointment."

"Of course not," Cass says, removing her hat and veil. "What do you have for me?"

Darby stops writing, puts down his pen and takes off his spectacles. "I regret to inform you, Cass, I have nothing for you. I am afraid that I will not be able to supply you with further information. I am, how do you put it, going legit."

Cass makes no facial expression, since her raven head does not allow for facial expressions. Her black eyes blink and she turns a bit to the side to look at Darby. "Legit? I think you left the idea of legitimacy behind a long time ago."

"Well, the loss of my bar gave me something to think about," Darby says. "In fact I had a lot of time for thinking while we built this new place. And living the double life, collecting data without my patrons' knowledge, the whole shadowy business has lost its luster. Not to mention endangering my and my staff's health."

"A respectable choice," Cass says. "However, your research, and our work with you, did yield the serum for your Edward's... friend. Don't forget that there are many benefits."

"It's only a benefit if the patient takes the medicine," Darby says. "As far as I know, Millman is walking around with the medicine in a bag without taking it."

"Your Edward may need to get up some guts and help things along," Cass says. She smooths her skirt. "Anyway, I am willing to compensate you handsomely for your data to this point, and then be on my way."

"I'm afraid I no longer have it," Darby says.

Cass stares at him, her black eyes unblinking. "You don't have it? What can you possibly mean by that? We - the Bird People - we helped you gather it. We supported you, gave you equipment and security. What do you mean, you don't have it? It is partially ours."

"I don't have it," Darby repeats. "I handed the entirety of my data over to some other - researchers. People. Who can benefit from it."

Cass says nothing. She straightens. Darby waits. It is very disconcerting to be stared down by a Bird Person. It makes one feel like prey.

"Well, Mr. Darby, I am sorry, but if you give me the identity of these new researchers, perhaps I can negotiate a price with them."

"This will have to be on their terms," Darby says. "I am not in the habit of outing people without their permission. I will, however, let them know of your offer. You have my word on this."

Cass will not be satisfied with this, but it is the best she can do for now. "Very well. I am disappointed, Darby, but I am sure everyone must make decisions that they believe are for the best." She turns, skirts swirling and rustling, and leaves. A fellow with a Peregrine head and top hat waits for her outside. Darby watches them climb into an ornate black carriage hovering three feet above the dirt. Soon they are gone.

179 - Sam's Change

"I look real good with black hair, Mom."

"I'm sure you do. Maybe someday I'll see it."

Sam stands in a motel bathroom adjacent to the Neptune-Earth Transport station.

"Do you suppose I ought to get my nose changed or something?"

"Don't you dare. I gave you that nose, and you are not to mangle it."

"This nose has already been broken plenty of times. But fine. I'll leave it as is. Sam out."

Sam switches off the interface and takes out his earpiece. He rolls up his discarded clothes and stuffs them in a trash dumpster outside.

Time to test out this new getup on the public.

He walks across the dirt parking lot to a diner the size of a shipping container. A neon sign mounted on top says, "EAT."

Sam has gotten used to seeing his face everywhere. Once in a while there's a renewed campaign to locate him, the fellow wanted for questioning in the death of his mother, Angelica Brubeck. The woman whose consciousness he now carries in his pocket and who he interfaces with by way of devices in his right eye and ear.

Sam's accustomed wardrobe of a hoodie and leather jacket has been replaced by a rather slick-looking and tailored suit and narrow tie. When he first put it on he laughed to himself that he resembled Philo with a human head - only a lot shorter. The suit is dark grey with narrow pants. He finishes it off with a purple pocket square and sleek black shoes.

His hair, now black, is slicked back from his face and he's got sharply-defined sideburns. He looks like one of the young bureaucrats who used to visit Sam's Earth labs and pelt him with questions about financing, and viability of his findings, and other annoying queries.

Sam has a seat in the diner, and the young waitress is all wide smiles and pet names and more attention than is necessary to serve a plate of eggs with an English muffin on the side. Sam decides not to share this particular data with his mother.

When he pays the bill, Sam makes a point of standing right next to the TV screen blaring the news. He hopes something about him will come up on the screen and he can test his disguise with the public. Sure enough there he is, a guy with spiky yellow hair in a little photo just over the anchorman's shoulder. Description, brief and inaccurate attempt to explain his field of research, disappeared from Earth the day before he was to begin teaching at a prestigious university, the whole thing. Again.

Sam hands his bill to the cashier and looks her full in the eyes. He looks up at the TV. He stares down the counter at the row of hard-working Neptunians consuming their breakfast. He tries to show his face as much as a person can without being obnoxious about it.

Nothing.

"... might be in disguise or have altered his appearance," the TV says. Still nothing. Nobody is looking for him anymore. Not the general public, anyway. Not even with a cash reward. People on Neptune aren't very impressed with cash. They like materials and supplies. And music and entertainment. Cash is cumbersome for most things. Just get it done.

Sam decides to try a little harder.

"They're never gonna find that Brubeck guy, eh?" Sam says loudly. "Why don't they just give up?"

"I heard he lives in a hole in the ground in the Badlands," somebody at the counter says. "He can stay there. Fella who murders his own mother. Not a pillar of society, that one."

"Nope, real loser," Sam says. Nobody looks him in the face. He gives up, slides black sunglasses onto his face and heads outside.

It's almost time for the Transport to leave. He switches on the interface in his ear.

"Hey Mom, we're leaving the planet shortly."

"Okay," Angelica says. "That's ironic. After everything you did to get off that rock."

"I know, but the things we need are there," Sam says. "we're going back to the scene of the crime to get away from the scene of another crime."

"We just have to prove it all," Angelica says. "And for that we need evidence. Before it's all gone."

"Let's hope we're not too late," Sam says. "Or I might have to stay on Earth and look like this permanently."

180 - Earth

"Well, this is weird," Sam says.

Walking through the Earth-Neptune Transport Depot on arrival at Earth involves passing by any number of screens displaying Sam's former face. Or rather, his former appearance. Nobody pays any attention them, or to him. But for Sam the effect is surreal. He's mixed in with all sorts of unsavory-looking individuals, like wanted posters in an Old-West post office.

The depot on Earth is an extra bit appended onto a regular airport, so its setting is much larger and more elaborate than the minimal stopping points on Neptune. It's a gleaming place with soaring windows held together by a latticework of probably-award-winning architecture. Announcements read over loudspeakers echo through the halls, too muddled to understand. Newsstands crowd against each other and digital displays everywhere flash with weather, flight information, news, and wanted criminals. Like Sam.

Where Neptune is sparse and dusty and improvised, Earth is polished and bustling. Sam can't believe he is back here, so soon.

Every so often there's a break in the newsstands and shops to allow space for a plain, grey counter occupied by a grim-looking android. It's got on a wig and a suit but it sticks out of the counter from the waist up. No legs, and the arms just sit at its sides. It is incapable of gesturing, and it can make about ten facial expressions. When it turns its head the wig moves in unnatural ways, shaking as if it might fall off. The head looks like something re-used from a department store window.

Amazingly, the androids are the crowning achievement of many years of expensive research. Earlier efforts centered on getting them to appear more lifelike, giving them moving faces and hands. Teaching them to show empathy. That didn't work. The androids terrified absolutely everyone, including the researchers. So they dialed it back to these department store dummies on carts. Still terrifying, but not in the same way.

As basic as the androids appear, they are wired up inside with a staggering array of scanning and analysis equipment. If necessary, its counter will split open and the android will roll forth atop a ghastly-looking wheeled cart, equipped with restraint and propulsion systems capable of subduing even the largest and strongest of humans.

The name of the game is, do not attract the android's attention. Once it calls upon your or demands your papers, you're finished. It beams your face to headquarters and you're in the system.

Sam goes to great lengths not to enter the scanning range of the androids. He snakes back and forth through the crowds and keeps his face down. Being detected now would end this whole trip in a hurry.

"It may not be worth going to the hospital at all," Angelica says into Sam's earpiece. "By now most of the records may have been expunged."

"Probably, but we can get the lay of the land. Find out who is doing the expunging. That will give us some clues as to where to go next."

"There's a facility," Angelica says, "supercomputing resource out in the middle of nowhere. It's where the personnel records are kept. Every identity on Earth gets piped through that thing."

"Is that the place I went to get your download protocols?" Sam asks.

"Yes, it is," Angelica says. "There's a guy there, you met him before. Carl."

"Right, the fellow who helped me back you up," Sam says.

"Yes. Carl should still be there, and he has all the right clearances. We can contact him once we get hold of some secure equipment."

"Or, we can just go there in person," Sam says. "Avoid the risk of beaming our communications around and getting intercepted."

They have nearly reached the depot exit. Behind him Sam can hear an android accosting some hapless traveler, who shouts in vain that his papers are in order, and that he followed all the protocols, and there has to be a mistake. The android does not know what a mistake is. This person will not be traveling anywhere today.

In the parking garage, an equally gargantuan and gleaming structure, Sam heads straight for the long-term parking. He walks through several aisles and looks the place over. There's a huge black sedan, probably belongs to an official of some sort. It will have tracking on it. Another one is covered in a fine coat of dust. Obviously someone gone for a long trip, but that trip may be just about over. He needs a clean car, one that just arrived and whose owner won't be back for a few days.

Here's one. "Mom, what do you think?" He focuses his eye on the vehicle and presses a button on his earpiece to relay the data. There's a model number, fuel level, and this one has cloaking, which will come in handy. Angelica extracts the make and model as well.

"This one will do," Angelica says. "It's got fuel. And cloaking."

"Excellent," Sam says, and in a few seconds he has broken in and is sitting in the driver's seat. He fires the thing up, pulls up his list of hacked garage exit codes, and out they go.

Behind them, a black sedan starts up and follows at a safe distance.

181 - Earth, A Highway

"So of course we are being followed," Sam says, pulling out onto the highway. The airport is far outside of the nearest city so they must travel on a four-lane highway for a while to get anywhere. Various skylines loom on the horizon in different directions. Sam has not missed this place.

"I have every confidence you can lose them," Angelica says. "Meanwhile, I shall proceed to plug in and see what I can find."

"You'll be the digital eyes and ears then, I guess," Sam says.

"Just like you are for me in the - what do they call it? - dirt world," Angelica says.

Angelica can detect the speed of the car, air temperature, traffic conditions and any number of other readings by way of the sensors in Sam's eyepiece. She can also process this data at a much higher speed than an average human. Sam is counting on this.

"Let's see how this cloaking thing works," Sam says. He punches a button in the dashboard.

"Please state duration of cloaking," a female voice says.

"She seems nice," Angelica quips.

"She's a car," Sam says. And then to the car: "Ten minutes."

A series of musical-sounding tones, and the car declares, "Cloaking in progress." The exterior of the car is now invisible to other drivers.

Sam punches the accelerator. This feature is only useful out in a isolated area, where there is no traffic. It's impossible to drive cloaked in the city, everyone would just run into each other. Sam knows he can't go off-road, because he will kick up telltale dust. So he goes for flat-out speed.

The car behind accelerates, but not as much. And then, it cloaks too.

"Wonderful, they cloaked too," Sam says. "Maybe we'll just crash into each other and that will be the end of it."

Sam knows that whoever is following him will extrapolate his speed and trajectory based on his last known path, and that they will expect him to go faster to get away. He decides to take a chance.

"Please let them not be straight behind me," Sam says to the steering wheel. "Please let them not be straight behind me..."

He lets his foot off of the accelerator, slowly. The car slows down, and slows down, and pretty soon they are at a crawl. He grits his teeth, fervently hoping the car pursuing them doesn't slam into their trunk. He waits a few more seconds, still moving at a snail's pace. If they haven't hit him, surely they've sped past by now.

"Okay measure for air disturbance," Sam says, scanning back and forth with the eyepiece. "Anything?"

"Yes," Angelica says, "they've passed us. Traveling at high speed. Looks like they are betting that you're trying to make your getaway all at once."

"Well they bet wrong," Sam says. "Now all I've got to do is keep from running up behind these people. Going slowly the whole way was not exactly the plan." He speeds up a little, but not too much.

"At this rate we'll be driving forever," Sam says. "We've got to turn this cloak thing off pretty quick or someone else will crash into us."

"Based on what you're showing me visually, they are long gone," Angelica says. "No sign of them."

"Alright, I'll wait until we're not on such a straight road and then uncloak. Did you pick up anything on who they might be? Bounty hunters maybe?"

"I couldn't tell," Angelica says. "If you can't see it, I can't either."

"Bummer," Sam says.

"We are close enough to civilization now that I can get a look around," Angelica says. "I'm going to see where Carl may be stationed. If we can find him at the computing center that's a good start."

"Alrighty," Sam says. "I'll try not to run into anything."

\----------

A monitor sits on a metal desk in a small room lined with imposing black banks of high-speed computing equipment. The screen is blank, except for a single blinking cursor. Then, a series of numbers scroll across. And a message.

CARL ITS ANGELICA

THE GELICA PROTOCOL

CARL CAN YOU SEE THIS

Nothing. The room is silent except for the low hum of the equipment on the walls. Tiny red and green lights flicker on and off, here and there.

CARL ARE YOU THERE

Carl's desk is empty. There is nothing in the desk drawers. There is not so much as a pencil on the desk surface.

IM GOING TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND CARL

The screen erases, no trace of the messages remains in memory.

\----------

"I found Carl's location, or assigned location based on his badge, but he's not there," Angelica says. "I'm going to poke around in his terminal and see what he was last working on."

It is quiet in the car for a few minutes. Sam maintains a steady speed, not too fast. He knows he will have to uncloak as soon as he encounters any other vehicles at all, or he risks an accident. It's only a matter of time before someone comes along.

"Well this is interesting," Angelica says finally.

"What do you see?" Sam asks.

"I went into Carl's files on his terminal, and they are all empty. But the files themselves have identifiers on them, like they are carefully maintained. It is almost like a shell computer, all for show and no actual information."

"Can you tell what the identifiers mean?" Sam asks.

"That's the strange thing. They are clearly identity files, you know, for individual citizens. But they are empty. There is nothing in there. I'm taking a look to see if this is a particular group of people. I know that there is a protocol for expunging records when an individual is deceased."

Angelica processes again. "The codes de-encrypt into names and birthdates," Angelica says. "They think they are so clever doing that."

"Yeah, so regular people can't get into their own information," Sam says. "Yet another thing I love about this place. You have the right to your information, but just you try to get it. Oh wait, go get a degree in cryptography first."

"The other thing that is strange is," Angelica says, "The grouping and order of these files. They are not alphabetical, or by geography, or anything. They are almost like randomly-chosen lists. And the lengths of the lists vary. There will be just one, and then twenty, and then three, and so on. Most of the people don't even look related. Here's one, it's just two people. Bob, and Mavis. Nothing more."

"What's the maximum number you see in a group?" Sam asks.

Angelica processes for a few seconds. "Thirty-six," Angelica says. "There are no groupings on this particular terminal that contain more than thirty-six entries. Empty entries, that is."

Sam is quiet.

"What are you thinking, Sam?" Angelica asks.

"It might be nothing," Sam says, but the standard Earth-Neptune transport carries a maximum of thirty-six passengers, is all. It seems odd, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does," Angelica says. "We'd better get to that computing center and find Carl."

182 - The Tumbleweed

"May?" Philo says. He gently nudges her shoulder. May fell asleep on her floor again, reading. "May, wake up."

"Huh?" May says, rolling over. Philo certainly is tall. Especially when viewed from the floor.

"Oh. Hi Philo," May says.

"There's something you should see," Philo says.

"Um, okay," May says.

In Dr. Mangrove's lab, there is a line of monitors in varying shapes and sizes sitting on the workbench. Each screen displays endlessly scrolling strings of characters. Every so often one of them stops scrolling, a line highlights, some data is saved and then the scrolling resumes. This creates an effect a little like blinking holiday lights on a long line of TVs.

May comes in, rubbing her eyes. "Hello Cornelius," she says to Dr. Mangrove. She never let go of the ridiculous fake name he sometimes gives himself when he goes to the markets: Cornelius Dog, or Corn Dog. "Philo said you wanted to see me."

"Hello May," Dr. Mangrove says. "How are you?"

"Awake," May says.

"Well, it's very preliminary, but we may have found something in Mr. Darby's data that pertains to the Tipton bloodline," Dr. Mangrove says.

"Is it a person? Is there somebody alive? Where are they?" Questions tumble out of May and she is now fully awake.

"We think we can locate someone," Dr. Mangrove says, "here on Neptune. It appears that Darby's research is much more far-reaching than just samples gathered at his establishment. There is an enormous amount of information here. I have no idea how he got it all."

"Like what?" May asks.

"Well, some time back, several years ago, a Tipton grandchild visited Neptune for a research summit. The visit was covered in the media, which is how we know about it. We cross-referenced this with the date and location, and then looked into Darby's dataset to see if anything overlapped. And, it did. I don't know how, but Darby somehow got hold of genetic material from this individual. We examined it next to your own DNA, and you are definitely related, May."

"Holy cow," May says. "Holy cow! I'm a Tipton! I'm a super famous science-y person!"

"Sort of," Dr. Mangrove says. "It's a distant relation at best."

"How do we find this person?" May says.

"Well, he went back to Earth quite some time ago," Dr. Mangrove says. "But we found something else while we were crunching the numbers. May, are you sure your family was wiped out in the Calamity? All of them?"

May's face darkens. "Well it was a little hard to mistake," she says. "I mean, they were there, and then they were gone. And I was alone. And believe me, I looked for them for days. So yeah, I'd say it was pretty obvious everybody died."

"Well, there's an individual in Scar City," Dr. Mangrove says. "Appears to be a relative. A close one. And not your parents. I mean, it could always be a misreading, a mistake. Corrupted data. But do you have any idea who that could be?"

"Nobody else came to Neptune, just us," May says. "No cousins or anything as far as I know."

"There's one other bit of information," Dr. Mangrove says, "that perhaps narrows it down somewhat. This person appears to have some genetic anomalies, of the physical and cognitive sort that would necessitate a wheelchair."

May freezes. "What?"

"It appears to be a boy, age thirteen."

"Oh my god," May says. "That can't be true! Everybody..." she bursts into tears.

"May? Why are you crying?" Dr. Mangrove punches a com button. "Philo? Your little one here is a tad upset. Could you come down?"

He leans down next to her. "May? Can you tell me what's wrong?" He puts a hand on her shoulder. She's shaking with sobs.

Philo enters. He has a seat quietly next to May and just sits there, saying nothing. Something about his presence calms her.

May looks up. "I had a brother."

Dr. Mangrove's eyes widen. "A brother? Who was with you on Neptune?"

"Well, yeah," May says. "I mean, he died. There's no way he survived." She wipes her nose. "He was in a wheelchair, he couldn't get around on his own. He had to have a lot of help. There was a special lift, to get him in and out of the shelter. I just remember him going up and down on this big contraption. It made noise. The day everybody disappeared, he was outside. That's all I remember."

"Is it possible someone appropriated his identity?" Philo asks. "Perhaps Darby acquired falsified information in Scar City?"

"Maybe," Dr. Mangrove says. "I'm sorry May, I had no idea."

"I never thought to look for him," May says. "What if he survived and I didn't know?"

"Given the circumstances," Philo says, "It is reasonable for you to assume that he perished along with your parents. In addition, we know there were things done to your shelter after you left, when samples or other identifying information were removed. Perhaps some of it was retained for later use. Let's investigate this one step at a time."

"Okay," May says. She brushes her bangs from her eyes.

"We should go to Scar City and try to locate this individual," Philo says to Dr. Mangrove. "But without his knowledge. In case they did for some reason steal May's brother's information. Once we have an ID, we can decide how to proceed from there."

"Sounds good," Dr. Mangrove says. He punches the com button again. "Rebecca dear?"

"Yeah, Dad, what can I do for you?" Rebecca's voice says through the speaker.

"We've got a travel request," Dr. Mangrove says. "Scar City, to see if we can track down someone who either is, or is pretending to be, May's brother."

There's a pause. "Wow. Really? Okay," Rebecca says. "I'll have Feller lay in a course. We've got to go around a couple of storms to get there. I don't want to spend all my time repairing this thing."

"Thanks dear," Dr. Mangrove says.

"We will find out what happened," Philo says to May. She can see her own face reflected in his screen.

"Thanks Philo," May says. "And thanks, Cornelius." She manages a smile.
183 - Breaking In

Sam stares into the retinal security scanner alongside an imposing, grey-black double door. Angelica makes adjustments to Sam's eyepiece to alter his retina's appearance, and the door clicks open.

"You know we can get in basically anywhere now, right?" Angelica says into Sam's earpiece.

"Anywhere with retinal scanners," Sam says.

"Which is any secured data facility in this whole complex," Angelica points out. "We are rock stars."

"That we are," Sam says. He waits a moment for his human-eyes to adjust to the dim lighting in the room.

"Carl?" Sam calls. "Carl are you here?"

"This was Carl's last known location, according to the badge reader," Angelica says. "But it's been a while. He may have gone offline."

Sam walks down the center aisle of a room lined with imposing black banks of computers emitting a low collective hum. He can see Carl's desk at the far end, but the chair is empty. The terminal looks to have been switched off.

"Is this were you sent the message?" Sam asks.

"I think so," Angelica says. "I was thinking he might have returned by the time we got here."

"And there's no evidence his badge has checked in somewhere else?" Sam asks.

"No. No sign of him."

Sam reaches the desk. It is uncharacteristically tidy. Carl was always messy. When Sam had Carl download Angelica's consciousness, Carl nearly handed Sam a memory drive containing video games instead of his mother. There were half-full coffee cups everywhere. There were handwritten notes. Carl was a visionary, someone who tinkered constantly with the data systems that were his responsibility. And contrary to his role as a data expert, he was a paper-and-pencil kind of a guy.

Carl has clearly not been here tinkering. Or here at all. Sam runs a finger over the surface of the desk. There is a thin layer of dust.

"Carl is gone," Sam says. "Looks like he's been gone a long time actually."

"There should be another terminal in here," Angelica says. "Go over to it."

Angelica is right. She got to know this room very well, when she was first uploaded. She kicked around in these boxes for what seemed like forever, until Sam was able to retrieve her. She knows every component, and how they are connected. And she knows how many terminals there are, and their locations.

"Ah, I remember this," Angelica says. She can't see what Sam does, but she receives a wealth of data; everything from telemetry, air flows, temperatures, and shapes and distances of objects. Her digital consciousness pieces together a digital world.

"This is the terminal that monitors goings-on with the mainframe," Angelica says. "It's separated from the other one on the desk, to preserve its memory for tracking vast numbers of routines running all at once. Wake it up."

Sam gives the keyboard a poke and the screen lights up. As described, the screen scrolls with millions of tiny characters, each depicting an action taking place somewhere deep within the enormous banks of processors behind him.

"Okay, plug me in," Angelica says.

Sam pulls a cord from his pocket. He plugs one end into the earpiece, and the other end into the terminal. "Okay you're good to go," he says.

He can hear a faint, high-pitched beeping in his ear. The beeps get closer together, then almost continuous until they are one solid tone. And then the sound stops.

"I'm in," Angelica says.

The screen changes. The tiny characters are interrupted in their scrolling by a blank line with a blinking cursor.

THIS IS THE GELICA PROTOCOL. PLEASE INVENTORY ACTIVITY ON THIS TERMINAL.

Nothing.

PLEASE RESPOND. GELICA PROTOCOL MAXIMUM CLEARANCE. A series of numbers scroll by, downloaded by Angelica from her stores of stolen passwords and other access codes.

This elicits a response.

WELCOME GELICA PROTOCOL

Then nothing again. The cursor blinks. "Anything?" Sam asks.

"Hang on, it's processing," Angelica says.

TERMINAL 620 PERFORMING DELETE ROUTINE 277-A

STATUS IN PROGRESS

COMPLETION 77%

"Delete Routine?" Sam says.

THIS IS THE GELICA PROTOCOL PLEASE DESCRIBE DELETE ROUTINE

The cursor blinks.

DELETE ROUTINE INDEXED REMOVAL OF IMPACTED IDENTITY RECORDS

"Indexed removal? Impacted? Is this like purging?" Sam says. He looks at the screen more closely. As the characters scroll by, certain sets are boxed and removed and the rest of the characters move in to take their place.

"Mom, what is this thing doing? What does impacted mean?"

"That is a nice way of saying deceased," Angelica says. "But this thing is taking out massive numbers of records, all at once. But like we saw before, the batches are never more than thirty-six items long."

"Can you extract a set of records before they get deleted so we can look at them?" Sam asks.

"Yes. Let's get ahead of the process a little bit," Angelica says.

The screen begins to scroll faster, moving far beyond where the boxes and deletions appear. Here Angelica selects a set of records and brings them to the foreground.

"Here's a batch. These are all different, a range of ages, locations - not much to tie them together. But..."

"What?" Sam asks.

"Isn't this someone you know?" Angelica says, highlighting one record on the screen.

Sam peers at the data. The name, origin, time of... what? "Can you get more detail?"

"I think so. There should be a full record display here." Angelica says.

A few seconds, and the screen fills with what looks like a profile. There's a photo. Sure enough, it's Feller. Pilot of the Tumbleweed. Former grocery store employee.

"Is Feller's record slated to be retained or deleted?" Sam asks.

"Based on what I see in the header, this one is going away," Angelica says. "Everything about Feller is meant to be expunged from these records. And this will have a cascading effect on other systems, which will tag the identity as defunct and expunge it themselves. It will be as if Feller never existed."

"What batch is he in? How many records?" Sam asks.

Angelica looks around for a few seconds.

"Seven," Angelica says. "All different origins, dates of birth."

"Okay, okay," Sam says, pacing back and forth. "We know Feller isn't deceased. At least he sure didn't look it last time I saw him. So what else is notable about him? He's on Neptune. We know that. Cross reference his record with the others, see if there's a Neptune departure date..."

"Already looking," Angelica says. The terminal's hard drive whirrs.

"That's it," Angelica says. "All of these records set to be expunged, including Feller's, have the same Neptune departure date. They were on the shuttle together."

"So this thing is deleting people who have traveled to Neptune?" Sam asks.

"That's what it looks like," Angelica says. "Let me try some more samples."

The screen lights up again with different data, and a box appears around another set of records. Angelica digs into them, sifting through the data like a virtual spy. And again, it's the same. Another group, sixteen this time, all left Earth on the same date.

"This can only mean one thing," Sam says. "They are targeting people who have left for Neptune and erasing them. Because they are going to be erased."

"Shit, I think you're right," Angelica says. Who knew an uploaded consciousness could use cursewords.

Sam yanks the cord from his ear out of the terminal, turns and runs back toward the door.

184 - Scar City Casino

Three men sit side by side at the slot machines in the Scar City Casino District 47-F, yanking handles and watching cartoonish pictures spin around.

It's early morning, though that doesn't matter. These three are on holiday from their atmospheric maintenance jobs. They are happy to be on solid ground after the equivalent of three Earth months jetting from one upper-atmospheric sensor unit to another. It's mundane and terrifying at the same time, tinkering with the machinery that makes it possible for everyone on the planet to breathe. These fellows need to blow off some steam and relax.

They are fit, made strong by their jobs and their training. Even so, life in higher gravity on days off means muscle fatigue. So here they sit.

A drink robot rolls across the carpet behind them. It lets out a series of beeps, and offers up their orders. One of the men slaps a card onto a sensor to add a tip to whoever mixed up these concoctions back at the bar.

"Thank you," the robot says, and rolls on. The lighting on the ceiling shifts to a new color scheme. The rug pattern rearranges itself into colorful swirls.

"So, you gonna ask out sunlight girl this time around?" The man on the left asks the one in the middle.

"None of yer business," the middle man says, and yanks the slot machine handle.

"Aw, c'mon, man!" the man on the right says, elbowing his friend. "She was waiting for you to last time out. You better act on this or you'll miss your chance. I know it's been a while, but that's what we're here for," he glances across at the man on the left, "to help things along. You know, like friends do."

"What are you, studying me like a nature special?" middle man says. "Seriously? Get outta my business."

"Okay fine," the man on the left says. "Oh look! Geronimo!" he shouts as coins pour out the front of his machine. "Drinks on me!"

Devices beep in all three of their pockets. "Somebody answer that," left man says, scooping up coins. "I'm busy."

The middle man fishes out a phone and reads. "Headquarters. All-hands meeting for our team in 24 hours."

"Aw man, I can't spend all this in 24 hours!" left man says.

"I wonder what it's about," right man says, yanking the slot machine handle again. Music plays and pictures spin. Lights flash on and off. Somewhere in another sector someone wins big and loud music blasts while electronic bells ring. A gaggle of women in white lab coats, most likely on leave from some research institute in the City, stumbles by.

"All-hands, huh?" the left man says. "That's never good. Another of EarthAdmin's indoctrination videos, I suppose."

"You're probably right," right man says. "A briefing on safety procedures, wrapped in some thinly-veiled threats about what bad things happen if we misbehave."

"Yeah, like we're a bunch of children," the man in the middle says, frowning. "Why we need so many reminders to behave I don't know. You'd think we were incapable of doing our jobs without constant lectures. Do they think we're stupid?"

"I think they think someone is misbehaving," left man says. "You've heard the stories. Sabotage, stealing and copying of technology - I personally have never seen it, but the EarthAdmin folk sure do seem to believe it goes on."

"I heard somebody 3D printed a sunlight relay," middle man says. "in all its glory. And it works."

"Who cares?" middle man says. "We work with technologies. We fix them. We learn how they function. Otherwise we couldn't do our jobs. What difference does it make if someone figures out how to replicate the mechanics of the atmospheric systems, or the sunlight amplification? Do they think someone is going to go build a competing planet or something?"

"Yeah, Neptune is gonna get nudged outta the market by Pluto," left man says. The three of them laugh. "In the meantime, we've got coin to spend. Here's some so you can buy that girl a drink," he says to middle man, dropping a fistful of money into his friend's hand. "You go for it."

"Uh, thanks," middle man says. "Although I don't have her number and I don't know if she's on leave. But beyond that, should be no problem."

"She has your number," right man says. "I gave it to her."

Middle man stares at his friend. "You did what?"

"Yeah, you know, she kind of asked. Or, maybe she didn't. Does it matter?"

Middle man's phone rings. It's an unfamiliar caller.

"This is her, isn't it."

"Oh, maybe," right man says. "Why don't you answer it and find out?" He grins and climbs out of his seat, with some effort, to help left man pick up the rest of the coins from the floor.

185 - Agent Millman's Apartment, Scar City

Night in Scar City. Agent Debra Millman stands outside her apartment door and pulls her key from her bag. Her feet ache in her pumps and she's fixated on kicking them off the moment she gets inside. But then she pauses. Something isn't right.

She turns on her heel and takes the elevator back down to the ground level, crossing the street to look up. Somebody is home, and it's not her. She can see flashlight beams flitting around her apartment. Her windows flicker yellow in the dim night of the City. The sunlight amplifiers have been shut off for several Earth hours now and the sky is a bluish-purple.

She pulls out a scope and trains it on her window, but whoever is up there knows to stay back and out of sight. The light shifts as figures move around; one, two, possibly three. They are moving fast, from the look of it. She pops an earpiece into her ear and tunes in the apartment's interior. She's always ready to spy on her own place. She fully expects break-ins.

There's not much in the way of talking going on, Agent Millman can't make out any words. These people probably fully expected her to listen in on their break-in as well. What she can hear, though, is a lot of paper being torn, envelopes being opened, items being shredded or tossed around. Who are these clowns, and what exactly are they looking for? And how do they know her location?

The lights flick off. Perhaps her visitors have finished their business. She waits, holding still in the shadows, for her visitors to emerge from the building. It will take a few minutes; the penthouse apartment sits atop a gleaming skyscraper.

"Don't move, Agent."

It's a voice off of her right shoulder. She hears the click of a weapon near the side of her head.

"You know I can't have you shoot me in the ear. This is an expensive piece of equipment," Agent Millman says without turning.

"Hands out where I can see them. Bag on the ground."

Agent Millman lets the bag fall and puts up her hands. She turns toward her new friend.

"Do not turn around! Hands on the back of your head."

This guy had police training or some such on Earth. "What can I do for you, sir?" Agent Millman says, sweetly. "Something you're looking for in my apartment there?"

The police-like man doesn't answer. The apartment above is dark now, the intruders most likely headed down. She doesn't have a lot of time.

"My feet really hurt in these stupid pumps," Agent Millman says. "If you don't mind, I'm going to slide them off now..."

"I mind," the police-fellow says. "Stay right as you are."

Agent Millman lets out a sigh. "It's just that these shoes really hurt," she says. "I've been in them all day. You wouldn't understand. Unless you've got, you know, a little hobby on the side..."

"Shut up," police-man says through his teeth.

"Fine," Agent Millman says. She knows she's only got a few seconds, thirty at the most. She's timed both banks of elevators, there's a four-second difference between them if there are no stops. But she doesn't know which one is in use.

She flicks her heel back, sending her pump straight up into the air. She snatches it with her right hand, spinning around to her left, and in one motion stabs police-man in the gun arm with the specially-reinforced heel.

Police-man, at once surprised and punctured, lets the gun fly sideways. Agent Millman snatches up her other pump and shoves police-man against a pole, the shoe heel under his chin. He flails his arms, unable to get air.

"Who are you working for?" Agent Millman hisses. She knows it could be any number of people: EarthAdmin who originally hired her to find Sam Brubeck, other parties with an interest in Sam Brubeck, yet more parties wanting her information...

"Talk," Agent Millman says, shoving the shoe up higher, but not so high the man can't make words. His feet are up off the ground now.

"I don't know, they just said V-T, I don't know what that is," the man croaks. This is a small-time security freelancer, most likely. He's not on the inside.

"What are they after?" Agent Millman says. But she's not going to get a reply. From lack of air and/or stress, police-man has lost consciousness. She lets him slide down the pole into a heap on the ground.

The Agent clears off before the clowns from upstairs emerge from the building and discover their hired hand on the sidewalk. They will find a note scrawled on his shirt in lipstick: I DON'T WORK FOR YOU ANYMORE."

\----------

A few blocks away, Agent Millman leans against a wall, breathing with difficulty. Her head hangs down and she's covered in sweat. She looks at her hands. Blood is pooling in them and they have turned brownish-purple.

She pictures the pill bottle in her bag. She knows she can't wait much longer. Edward told her, she only has a few episodes left before her cells begin to separate and essentially, she beings to fall apart.

But when the time comes, how does one go about choosing a gender? Agent Millman is equally David and Debra. Each is indispensable. Each talented in his or her own way. Agent Millman feels as if she's been asked to kill off one of her own children.

She sinks to the ground, hands shaking.

186 - The Tumbleweed Bridge

May sits in her customary spot on the floor of the Tumbleweed's bridge. She's got on her favorite AC/DC shirt. Her brown bobbed hair hangs in her face as she looks down at a monitor screen situated in front of her.

"Hey Feller," May says, chewing on a bite of apple. "Remember those codes we got from the bad Angelica copy? The ones she said as we deleted her from Corn Dog's brain?"

"Yeah," Feller says, staring into another monitor and noting changes in Badlands weather patterns. He notices there's a storm a couple clicks to the north; they will need to evade it or ride it out at high altitude. Feller lays in a course to another region of the Badlands; best to avoid any damage to the airship and the costs of repair. "What about the codes?"

"Well, it turns out some of these get us into databases on Earth," May says. "They don't all work, and the info might not be up to date, but the codes are clearances to different terminals in the main computing center. I bet Angelica stole these when she was being stored in the mainframe there."

Rebecca comes in, carrying two handfuls of copper wire. "Hey, I got these at market in trade for that burned out terminal. We can re-wire that busted communication interface now." She lays the wire on the console.

"Cool," Feller says. "By the way, May here says some of those codes our friend Angelica spat out when we deleted her copy might be useful."

"Really?" Rebecca says, having a seat on the floor next to May. Beck's Mohawk ends in long black strands of hair that she swings onto her back. "What have you got?"

"Well, you know how Sam stored Angelica's consciousness for a while at the computer center on Earth? I think she did a little cruising around and collecting things. When we deleted the copy from ol' Cornelius and she started spitting out all those numbers, they were codes from that system. Look, they match the format for these databases that Sam hacked into before he left."

"Interesting," Rebecca says. "I wonder what other bits she picked up while she was in there. Too bad we can't ask her."

"Well, it was more important to extract her copy from your dad's noggin than it was to preserve the integrity of the data, at the time," Feller says, adjusting a pair of heavy goggles propped on top of his mass of curly hair hair. "As you recall, she was running around creating some pretty big havoc there. I thought the good doctor's head might explode."

"Yeah, that was bad," Rebecca says. "Courtesy of the Bird People and their never-ending bizarre experimentation with everything they can get their hands on. It's only a matter of time, you know, before they upload somebody's consciousness into one of their skyscraper-sized metal-and-bone dinosaurs."

"No doubt," Feller says. "Meanwhile, I guess we need to decide what to do with these Earth codes. Are they useful, or do they just get us in trouble when someone notices that we are sniffing around?"

"There's always risk," Rebecca says. "However, we can mask our signal at least so our spying can't be traced back right away. They'll know someone was there, but they won't know who - and we can get out before they identify us." She punches a series of characters into the screen in front of May on the floor. "This way, a second signal will travel along with the first, obscuring its origin or saying that it's from someone else."

"Cool," May says.

"There you are," Rebecca says. "Now try your query using the access codes and let's see what we get. Put this up on the main screen."

The screen at the front of the bridge, nearest to Feller, lights up and begins scrolling. Long strings of characters, probably encrypted text.

"Okay I'm logging into whatever this is," May says. "I did it before. I hope it still works."

The scrolling stops and a box appears demanding credentials. May knows she's only got one chance, so she goes with the code that has already worked. The system will lock her out if she puts in something invalid even one time and then they will have to start over.

"We're in!" May exclaims. The screen refreshes, and a heading reading "Personnel Data Maintenance" appears at the top. Below, tiny characters are scrolling by at high speed. Every so often, a box appears and a set of characters disappears before the display continues on.

"What is happening there?" Feller says, leaning in.

"It's deleting stuff," May says. "See? It makes a box, whatever is in the box disappears, it consolidates, and then it moves on."

"Personnel," Rebecca says. "That's kind of a worrisome word. In my experience that's EarthAdmin's master records on individual citizens. Why would it be deleting them?"

"Usually there's a regular purge to remove deceased individuals," Feller says. "When I was on Earth and worked at the grocery store we got updates from EarthAdmin regularly that had supposedly been cleaned up. If a record was 'impacted,' that meant that it would be removed. It's really crazy. That thing can go out and reach into every system on the planet and remove someone until it's like they never existed at all. My parents never wanted the updates. They believed there was more going on than removing deceased folks."

"I wonder if that's what this is - deleting impacted records," Rebecca says, rubbing her chin. Her brown-black eyes narrow. "May, let's compare this with something familiar, so we get an idea what we're looking at."

"Ooh, can we look up me?" Feller asks, perking up. "That could be fun. I'd love to see what they have in there on me. Probably horrible school pictures or something."

"Okay," May says, and makes a query to request records on Feller. She uses his EarthAdmin ID Key, a unique identifier.

The screen does nothing.

"Uh, Feller, I don't have your ID right," Rebecca says. "Can you type it in?"

"Sure," Feller says, spinning in his seat and typing into the keyboard on the console. "There. And, enter."

Still nothing.

"Now, why would that be?" Rebecca says. "Hang on. Let's look up someone else. Maybe we're doing this wrong."

She types in the ID for Dr. Mangrove. Surely he's in the system. EarthAdmin spies on him all the time, it seems.

Nothing. No response, no records come up on the screen.

"These codes are bogus," May says.

"Well, bogus or not, we've got to stop sniffing around or we'll get discovered and the damn thing will counter-hack us," Rebecca says. "I've had to rebuild this bucket's systems enough times. So have you, Feller. So let's lay low for a while until we figure out what's going on."

"Okay," May says, and logs out, purging the digital trail indicating what just happened. But she's got a frown on her face. Something about those records just didn't look right.

187 - Earth

The EarthAdmin Neptune Monitoring Station sits on the side of a hill, in a semi-wooded area. It's made up of a hulking crowd of hangar-sized buildings encircled by a thick wall, like a sleek Medieval castle.

"You're going to have to trust me and my thieving skills on this one, mom." Sam Brubeck has his back up against the station's outer wall. Sam once worked here, as did his mother Angelica. That was before Angelica was fired and removed, and Sam walked away from his job and his teaching gig and exited the planet.

"I don't like this, breaking in, sneaking around the cameras," Angelica says, surveying the visual data being piped in to her by way of Sam's optical interface. She can detect motion, vehicles, people. Too many people in too close of a vicinity. And security cameras, everywhere, turning in all directions. Can Sam really maneuver quickly enough to evade all of them? Can he avoid every scanner, every laser-guided surveillance field?

"I know you don't like it, but we've got no time," Sam says. "If EarthAdmin is purging Neptune data, we've got to find out why. And quickly. There's not enough time to communicate back to Rebecca, or anyone else for that matter. Whatever we do, we have to do here on Earth."

"Agreed, but if we get caught, we won't be doing anything on Earth either," Angelica objects.

The front of the station is approached by a two-lane road, ending at an opening in the outer wall just wide enough to drive a car through. Just inside of this, there's a small security booth. Sam remembers it from his working days here; it's on the left. Once inside Sam knows he can use his retinal device to unlock doors. But you can't unlock a human being that way. His new hair and fashion sense got him this far, but he's got no badge and no clearance. He has to find another way in. Perhaps a delivery truck.

Sam backtracks and heads around the corner. He remembers the layout pretty well. There's another entrance on the back side, mostly used by maintenance folks and for accepting deliveries. It takes a few minutes to get there, scrambling uphill over leaves and rocks; this is a big place. Inside are housed full-scale simulation facilities that mimic weather, gravity, every condition on Neptune. This is where Angelica did most of her work to give Neptune its stable core and surface.

"I'm glad I can't directly see this place," Angelica says into Sam's ear. "I never wanted to lay eyes on it again after they shut me out. I still remember that day like it just happened."

Sam remembers it too, because he was on the inside when Angelica was fired. He remembers her face, outside the security perimeter, as she was escorted off the premises and installed in a big black car. He didn't know that was the last time he would see his mother in flesh-and-blood form, alive and conscious.

"Damn," Sam says. He's made his way to the back entrance, but it is shut tight. In fact, it's very quiet.

"I wonder if they use this any more," Sam says, running a hand along one side of the huge blank door.

"Doesn't look like it," Angelica says. "I'm getting signs of corrosion and metal breakdown consistent with non-use. Looks like this door hasn't been opened in a long time." She's right. The access road also looks unused, obscured by dirt and leaves.

"I wonder if this had to be closed off for some reason," Sam says. "Maybe someone was here before us, and got in where they weren't supposed to."

"It's possible. Break-in attempts are probably still pretty common. That would explain them sealing off this entry," Angelica says. "EarthAdmin is the most paranoid organization ever to exist. One breach, and that's it."

"You would know," Sam says. "Meanwhile, we've got nothing until we get in there. No evidence, no credibility. Just theories."

"It's not theories, it's fact," Angelica says. "I know what I saw when I worked here. This purge of data is pre-emptive. It's to keep anyone from knowing definitively who is on Neptune in the event of a Calamity. And this purge is being done with no Calamity. Which means that either they know one is coming, or..."

"Or there is a plan to create one," Sam says.

"Exactly," Angelica says. "It's like, rebooting the planet. Clear it off, and start again. That's what's happening here. You mark my words."

"If that's what's happening," Sam says, "if someone is planning to push a button and reboot the planet for some reason, then that action can be reversed or stopped. We've got to find the mechanism by which it's done. And that is inside here. It has to be."

"Yes, it does," Angelica says. "And this crazy old bat conspiracy theorist, who is supposed to be dead, is going to find it."

"Not until we get inside," Sam says.

A shape moves at the edge of Sam's vision. What was that? Someone around the corner?"

"Sam?"

It's a dusty man emerging from the trees, in worn slacks and a coat. His reddish-blond hair is swept back from his sun-freckled face and he's growing some unkempt sideburns. He looks like a homeless scientist.

"Carl?" Sam says.

"Yeah, it's me," Carl says with a light Scottish brogue, coming out fully from the leafy shadows. Boy, he looks bad.

They shake hands, two men looking quite unlike themselves.

"You're the only person who has recognized me since I came back to Earth," Sam says. "What gave me away?"

"I knew you would come," Carl says. "I waited for you. Look, you can't stay here. It's too dangerous. Come with me."

"Careful," Angelica says into Sam's ear.

"Come with you where?" Sam says.

"I've got a place," Carl says. "Not far." He gestures toward a scooter partially obscured in the bushes. "We can use this."

Angelica uses Sam's contact lens to run a scan of Carl's face. "It's him," she says. "But stay on your toes. You don't know his agenda yet. He might have been hired to be out here."

Sam climbs on the back of Carl's scooter and the two (or two-and-a-half) of them head off downhill. Security cameras mounted atop the walls turn in unison to watch them as they go.

188 - Scar City

Agent Millman wakes up in a heap of garbage. She immediately grabs for her bag, and finds it untouched at her side. She sits up, rubbing her head, just in time for a mech fitted with a sort of snow shovel on the front to roll by, scooping up the trash and driving away with it.

Looking around her, she is unsure how long she walked before she landed in this particular spot. Her pumps are gone, and her feet feel raw. Otherwise she's in one piece. Most of the sunlight amplifiers have come back on so it must be early morning in Scar City.

"Ah! You're awake."

Agent Millman sees no one at first, until she glances behind her. Sitting on a short flight of steps coming down from the back of a nondescript building, is Edward. Edward from Darby's Bar. The Edward who gave her the pills that she carries around with her in her bag. The pills she has not taken.

"How long have I been here?" Millman asks, rubbing her face and trying to unstick her hair from her forehead.

"Not long, I don't think," Edward says. He looks a lot better than she does. Pressed white shirt, slacks, shiny shoes. Black hair slicked back above Chinese eyes. Sideburns.

"How long have you been here?" Millman asks.

"That's a complicated question," Edward says.

"Why?"

"Well," Edward shifts uncomfortably and glances up and down the alley. "I kind of never left."

"Haven't you been at Darby's? That guy can't run the place without you," Millman says.

"He gave me a little leave of absence," Edward says.

"To come here?" Millman asks.

"Well, yes. I had this patient, you see, and I had prescribed medicine. Life-saving medicine. But, it turns out, medicine isn't any good unless you take it."

"I see," Millman says.

"So, I kind of stuck around, because I figured this moment would come when things started to go South."

"Go South as in, the patient's cells starting to fall apart," Millman says. "As tends to happen to people with my condition."

"Yes," Edward says. Suddenly he stands. "I have no manners. Can I get you something? Water?" He extends his hand to help her up.

"No," Millman says. She takes Edward's hand and stands unsteadily on her feet. Her eyes burn, and her muscles feel like she has come down with a raging fever. Her knees buckle, and Edward helps her over to sit on the steps. He has a seat next to her.

"So?" Edward says.

"So... what?" Millman says.

"Shall we dose you now? It will take some time for your cells to mend. There's quite a lot of damage at this point. I've become - somewhat of an expert on your condition."

"Well then you know," Millman says, "that halting the gender shifts is no simple matter. A person like me, I have two lives. And I like them both. I value them both. I know who I am, as long as I have both. Maybe that makes no sense, but I imagine it is what identical twins feel like."

"I understand," Edward says. "But I feel responsible to tell you, if we don't act, you will lose both."

Edward looks upset. He stares at the tops of his shoes, fidgets his hands.

"And what's more," Edward says, "obviously my motivations are partially selfish. Look, I have no idea if you think I'm just a stalker, or an overzealous scientist, but I will tell you this - I just want the chance to get to know you better. I've known this since the first time I saw you. I figure that even if you just want me to go away, the least I could do was to help you, keep you from suffering. Falling apart on a cellular level is an ugly way to go. I wouldn't wish that for anyone. So..." Edward looks down again. "There it is. I spoke some words. I'll stop now."

"Did Darby convince you to come here?" Millman asks.

"He suggested it," Edward says. "He said I would regret it if I never did anything. If I just stood behind the bar and watched everything go by."

"Darby is very wise," Millman says.

"Yes, he is," Edward agrees.

"So, which is it, then?" Millman asks.

"Which - what?" Edward asks.

"Which of me are you really following around? The man or the woman? You can't tell me that it's the same either way. That it's no matter to you."

Edward sits quietly for a moment, considering the question.

"I would have to say," he says finally, "that the first time I saw you, talked to you, you were as you are now. But I think I can also say, with no hesitation, that it really does not matter."

Agent Millman lets out a big sigh. "Well there it is then," she says. "Given the circumstances, it would seem I have to ask. So, a woman it is then."

Edward looks puzzled. "Woman?"

"Um, yes," Millman says. "It's not a choice. There isn't time. We have to go with whatever is current."

"Agent Millman, have you looked at yourself?" Edward says.

Millman reaches up and touches - a rough chin. Is it possible that she - that he - did not notice a gender shift? That something major happened overnight? Now that Millman considers it, yes, something is very very different. Many things, actually.

"I'm a guy, aren't I?" Millman asks.

"Yeah, a guy in a skirt," Edward answers. "Not that there's anything wrong with that..."

189 - Arrival in Scar City

Once again the Tumbleweed lumbers into the outer streets of Scar City. It's always a challenge to maneuver the three-story RV-like airship through the city's chaotic traffic. Smaller vehicles just get out of the way, but larger ones tend to stand their ground. Scar City is a competitive place. Fortunes are made and lost here on a daily basis. A person can change identities on a dime.

May, however, has up until now had no identity other than what she can piece together from the memories of a five-year-old. Most of this is images; her brother in his wheelchair being lowered into their shelter, her mother's face, the sound of her father's voice. The roar of the building storm outside. Screams. Piles of hoarded food packets. Books. Dust.

"Huh, that wasn't there last time," Feller says, pointing out the Tumbleweed's front window at a newly-completed and gleaming structure. The thing must be several hundred stories tall, bolted at intervals to the canyon wall of the Scar.

It's possible to make a guess at how long a building has existed in Scar City by observing how many passageways have been built between itself and its neighbors. Structures spring up, alliances are struck, deals made, navigation and escape routes built. Some of the more established buildings resemble spiders sitting at the center of a steely web. They reach out and sink hooks into the things around them. Others stand alone, either because they are new or because their owners want it that way.

"Let's park this thing," Feller says, swinging the airship to the right and positioning it between two other contraptions in a makeshift parking lot. Beams illuminate and shoot up from the ground, securing the Tumbleweed to the spot or at least ensuring that it does not bump into its neighbors. The propulsion system shuts down and components fold themselves into the bottom of the airship with gears grinding.

During the trip here, Philo has been sitting in a folding lawn chair plugged into a wall in one of the Tumbleweed's passageways running from the front to the rear of the craft. He has loosened his tie and taken off his shoes. Can a cyborg develop a need to relax?

He has run search after search across his telly-screen against the EarthAdmin personnel records, erasing his digital trace after each attempt. He has scoured the records for any copies of Angelica Brubeck, like the one that contacted him before and requested his help. But he has not located a single shred of data relating to the Tumbleweed crew, or Angelica, or even Sam. It is as if none of them ever existed.

Rebecca emerges from the bridge to check on him.

"How's it going out here?" Rebecca asks.

"Very quietly," Philo says. "Something unusual is happening at EarthAdmin's data center."

"Have you found any records of any of us?" Rebecca asks.

"No, and so I have taken the opportunity to generate a set of questions inspired by this circumstance," Philo says.

"Like?" Rebecca says.

"The obvious first question is, why are records being erased," Philo says. "But there are other questions as well. For example, are they erased, or are they simply sequestered somewhere that we cannot access? Have they been moved? Are we even looking at a true EarthAdmin database, or some kind of copy or decoy?"

"Those are deep questions," Rebecca says. "Any answers occurring to you?"

"No, but it brings up an interesting point relating to our friend Darby," Philo says.

Rebecca considers this. "Yes, it does, doesn't it. Based on your findings internal to EarthAdmin, it's entirely possible that the data that Darby handed to us is now the only copy of anything, anywhere."

"Exactly," Philo says. "Darby lifted vast stores of data from EarthAdmin in the course of his genetic research at his bar. If that data has been expunged on Earth, the value of Darby's work product increases exponentially. Which would explain the number of hacking attempts I have repelled since beginning this process."

"Hacking attempts?" Rebecca says. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Yes, at least several a minute," Philo says. "There is a routine out there taking shots at us at regular intervals. Fortunately I spotted it early and was able to build a firewall to it. Here's another one." A red box lights up on his face, blocking off a paragraph of code and deleting it. Another query blocked.

"Any idea who it might be?" Rebecca asks.

"Yes, the signatures and syntax would suggest an association with the Bird People," Philo says. Code, like writing, has a style and personality. Philo has become versed in recognizing these patterns and tying the code to its probable author.

"That would have been my first guess," Rebecca says. "The Bird People will want this stuff bad. Especially if they have discerned, as we have, that this might be the only copy. They are the ultimate scavengers."

"The Bird People also have a troubling history of creating corrupted backups, and then using them anyway," Philo points out. "For example, the nanotechnology used to install a copy of Angelica Brubeck into your father's circulatory system. That copy should never have been used."

"I agree, that was a serious lack of ethics," Rebecca says. "I'd say it's in everyone's interest for us not to let this information go anywhere near our bird friends."

"Once I finish this series of searches, I am going to pull the data and move it," Philo says. "The Bird People, and anyone else interested in the data will catch up before too long, but at least we can spend more time investigating and less time building firewalls."

"Thanks Philo," Rebecca says. "We've got to determine why EarthAdmin would be expunging records like that, and whether it's a generalized problem or if it's focused just on people on Neptune."

"Yes," Philo says, pulling a plug out of the side of his head and repositioning it. He leans back in the lawn chair. "If this is a Neptune-specific purge, we must determine why."

"In the meantime," Rebecca says, "let's see if we can locate May's brother - if he exists - in this giant haystack of a city."
190 - Earth

"How long have you been here Carl?" Sam says, looking around. Carl's bunker embedded in the side of the hill, down-slope from the EarthAdmin Neptune Monitoring Station, is packed with materials as if he has been holed up for years. Sam picks up a sheet of paper from atop a pile near the door. It's got on it a list of provisions. There are bookshelves lining the walls and a barely-visible square table at the center of the room. Electronics are piled on the floor.

"A while," Carl says. "They booted me right after you left. I had been picking up one thing at a time, like a squirrel." He smiles. "You know me, I was always organizing everything."

"Yeah, and you were always making piles," Sam says. "That's how we knew you were gone - your desk was far too clean."

"I was so close to replicating my terminal here, creating a mirror copy so I could operate from the outside," Carl says. "I had almost everything I needed. I was just missing a few protocols. But then it all went sideways..."

Sam can't help noticing how disheveled Carl looks. It's as if the man hasn't spent time indoors - other than in this underground bunker - in a very long time. The bunker itself is musty, as if moisture is coming through the walls. Carl seems oblivious to this the way an animal hiding in the forest might dispense with certain comforts in order to evade predators.

A crashing noise outside, like a garbage truck emptying out a dumpster. Metal on metal. And then the walls shake. Soil comes loose.

"Oh, here we go," Carl says.

"What is that?" Sam says, turning to look out the bunker door.

"Don't go out there! You're toast if you go out there," Carl says. "Don't worry. Nothing will happen to us."

Sam peers upward into the trees. He sees nothing, and then out of nowhere a steel claw the size of a car swings forward and down, grabbing a huge chunk of soil out of the ground. The earth shakes and the claw roots around like a gigantic dog digging on the beach.

"What is going on?" Angelica says into Sam's ear. "An earthquake?"

"Nah," Sam whispers. "Giant claw. Hang on."

"What?" Carl says.

"Nothing," Sam says. "And why in the world do we not want to run like hell?"

"Because it won't dig here," Carl says.

"You are sure of this?" Sam asks.

"How is he sure?" Angelica says into the earpiece.

Another slam into the ground, more digging.

"See, they know people have dug shelters out here," Carl says. "There are others, we are out here biding our time. Working to break back in. They know it. But they can't risk looking bad. So I think this is supposed to look like construction. I'm pretty sure. Excavating, something like that."

The claw comes down again, its hydraulic arm hissing. More of the ceiling comes loose. This explains the layer of dirt on everything in the room.

"We have to get out of here, Carl. This isn't safe," Sam says.

"It isn't safe if you run. You can't run. Then it gets you," Carl says. "Trust me. I've been here a while and it's never found me. But others have run. They didn't make it."

The claw pivots on whatever machinery brought it here. It is like a destructive steam shovel rampaging through the forest. The ground rumbles as the thing draws closer. Now there are only a few trees between the doorway and the enormous metal beast.

"You know, Sam, your mom was a good person," Carl says. "I appreciate you trusted me to upload and store her like you did.

"Was?" Angelica says into the earpiece.

"Thanks, Carl," Sam says, glancing out the door again and again. "Hey, are you sure..."

"Positive," Carl says. "That thing won't dig here. I hacked in and blanked out this area. It thinks we don't exist."

"And you're sure it hasn't changed its mind?" Sam is looking almost straight up at the claw at this point. It would only have to come directly down to land right on top of them.

But then it pivots, and rolls off in another direction. Soon it has decided to resume digging several hundred yards away. The ground only shakes a little now.

Sam resumes breathing.

"I have an idea," Angelica says to her son.

Sam says nothing. They never discussed this, how to decide whether or not to reveal Angelica's presence. Sam isn't sure what to do.

"Carl, I need to go outside and check a signal for a sec," Sam says.

"Okay," Carl says, without looking up from a pile where he's rummaging for something. "When you come back in I've got stuff to show you. Schematics. My terminal. I was so close..."

Sam climbs out of the bunker. Once a few yards away, he whispers.

"Mom? We need some signals. Something. Maybe I hold up fingers to answer yes or no. We didn't think this through."

"Speaking of not thought through," Angelica says, "I have an idea. Hear me out."

"Okay," Sam says. His stomach tightens. His mother has always pushed limits. He fully expects this idea to be dangerous, if not outright unfeasible.

"I want you to help Carl complete his terminal and break in," Angelica says, "and then I want you to load me back into the EarthAdmin system."
191 - Darby's Bar

"How is the patient this morning?" Darby asks. He wipes down a glass and places it gently in a shelf under the gleaming bar. Across the room the piano tuner makes adjustments to the jet-black baby grand, notes plink-plinking like tiny bird songs.

"Marginal," Edward says, having a seat on a stool. Darby's is empty. The horizon outside the glass walls has gone blurry; the latest storm is smearing ground and sky together into a mishmash of brown and black and grey.

"Is he holding steady, at least?" Darby asks. He pours Edward a drink and drops in two ice cubes. He slides the glass across the mirror-like surface of the bar. Edward takes it.

"Steady enough," Edward says. "But his cells are all over the place. I can practically see through him. He's got no immune system currently." Edward takes a sip.

"How fortunate he is, to have infatuated a scientist with the skills to save his life," Darby says. "Things work in interesting ways sometimes."

Edward shoots Darby a look. "I'll agree with you once he's stable," he says. "Millman waited far too long, went through at least two more gender switches before starting treatment. He could have fallen apart by now."

Darby turns to the mirror behind the bar and smoothes his black hair. Then he pokes out his chin and straightens his starched collar. "We'll be very busy soon," he says to his business partner.

"We will," Edward says. "The vehicle holding area is already full of folks looking for secure parking to ride out the wind. Soon we'll have to descend for the duration of the storm."

Margaret emerges in the lift, a lovely wrought-iron contraption that rises straight out of the floor. She pushes open the doors and lets them shut on their own.

"I've put all the greenhouses on minimal power for now," Margaret says. "To preserve energy for life-support if we need it." She swings her red-brown braid back over her shoulder. The botanist always looks out of place in the shiny bar, dirt on her clothes and hands from tending the enormous plantings below. She's got rolled up sleeves and heavy boots. She enjoys making visits to this softly-lit and slick bar, though, to see the fruits of her labors. She's an emissary from an underground farm.

"Thank you, Margaret," Darby says, and smiles at her. She avoids his eyes but smiles as well.

A blast of air hits the windows. Time to repurpose the furniture and prepare.

Staffers appear out of nowhere and begin folding bench seats into beds. The first storm refugees appear at the doors and file inside. The noise level grows slowly, though everyone keeps their voices at a respectfully low level. This is a time to work together, not party or pick fights.

In about an hour, Darby's is full. Time to cover up and ride this one out.

Darby hits a few buttons and the lighting shifts to blinking red. Urgent, but not unpleasant. A chime sounds, letting everyone know what's happening.

Darby picks up an intercom. "In or out, folks, we're folding up for the night. Please clear the doors." There's a general shuffling as people grab their belongings, last-minute customers rushing the doors. Outside the sky is a violent purple and the ground looks like water.

Darby punches in the codes for the descent sequence and the roof folds downward. Before the doors lock, though, two figures appear and step inside. They are the last to arrive before the walls go opaque and the entire establishment begins lowering into the ground.

"Who are these guys?" Darby asks Edward. "They don't look like they need shelter."

"I'd guess that they are EarthAdmin," Edward says. "Observe those skinny ties."

"Indeed," Darby says. "We'll have to keep them entertained until we can get back up out of the ground."

Blinking lights slide up the walls as the structure lowers farther and farther into the ground. Eventually, like an enormous freight elevator, Darby's bumps to a stop. Air vents open and begin piping in clean air.

"Thanks for coming, everyone," Darby says. "Those who brought provisions, we'll serve in half an hour."

The bustle of dinner preparations provides distraction for a while, though Darby keeps an eye on the two suits anyway. They are both men, both olive-skinned. They look like they could be related. Maybe they are a matching set, or twins who wanted to work together. Who knows.

Food spreads across the bar and folks make their way up in small groups to find something to eat. Every so often a deep roar overhead reminds everyone of the storm outside. These unsettling sounds are counteracted by the soothing drone of the air recirculation system.

Darby shines up part of the bar and turns to rinse out his cleaning rag, when the two men appear suddenly right in front of him. How did they get there?

"Hello Mr. Darby," one of them says. "We're wondering if we could ask you a few questions."

Clever of them to wait until everyone is trapped underground to approach, there's no graceful way out of this conversation now.

"Certainly, sirs, how can I help you?"

"We are looking for an Agent David or Debra Millman," the other one says. "Missing from duty, under investigation for misuse of evidence and failure to report activities. We have reason to believe this Agent Millman is here."

Darby blinks, then smiles. "He could be," he says. "Can you tell me what this agent looks like?"

The two suits hand Darby a pair of photographs, one male, one female. "This agent is capable of significantly altering his or her appearance."

"Ah," Darby says. "I'll keep my eye out."

"We'd like to conduct a search," the suits say.

Darby was expecting this. "Fine, but not until dinner is over," he says. "Too much going on, and I won't compromise safety. You've got to wait." He stands firm.

"Very well," the suits say. They retreat to a bench seat near the wall, and sit down next to each other, watching.

Darby waits until an appropriate moment to slip downstairs.

192 - Kitchen of the Tumbleweed

May swings her legs back and forth underneath the table bolted to the floor at the center of the Tumbleweed's kitchen. She digs a spoonful of cereal out of her bowl and crunches it loudly. One of the great things about being in Scar City is, there are many more types of food available.

Every so often the room sways as the airship gets jostled from outside by a larger passing vessel or by the flow of traffic.

Rebecca sits across the table from May, reading dispatches from spy feeds on a small screen popping up out of the table's surface. It seems there are many people looking into this mysterious deletion of data by EarthAdmin, all of them trying to discern why such a purge would take place. The dominant theory, currently, is that something is going to happen on Neptune and that everyone there is in danger. Rebecca isn't sure this theory holds up, given the size of the population and the measures taken to prevent any further Calamities on the planet, but she keeps this idea in the back of her mind nonetheless.

May, for her part, has the clipped photo of Angelica Brubeck and her parents' handwritten climate logs spread out in front of her on either side of her cereal bowl. She spends a lot of time staring at the photo, particularly at the Tiptons themselves. This is the closest thing she has to a family photo, and she's not even sure she's related.

"Boy, a lot of people think Neptune is doomed," Rebecca says. "Rumors are running rampant that data is being purged because the planet is next."

"Is it doomed?" May asks, taking another bite of cereal.

"I don't see how that's possible," Rebecca says. "So much has happened since the last Calamity. Safeguards put in place. Redundant systems. The whole technology maintaining the atmosphere is totally different. We still have the storms, but it's not the same."

May looks nervous. Rebecca realizes that this is probably not the best topic for a nine-year-old.

"What's interesting about this is," Rebecca says, "that the database Darby gave us is one-of-a-kind. He collected information by his own means, and now we have it. That stuff is like gold. I wonder how many people out there are plotting right now to get their hands on it."

"Can those people get their hands on it?" May asks.

Rebecca scolds herself silently again. Stop bringing up scary subjects.

"Not a chance," Rebecca says. "What's interesting too is, Darby is hardly the only one on Neptune who has been collecting data. There are many folks out there who have been conducting extensive research, gathering information, of all kinds. EarthAdmin is not the only source by a long shot. I suspect a trade in data will spring up quick, if it hasn't already. Maybe we can use our leverage, as the keepers of Darby's information, to gather more clues about your potential relatives."

"I want to go find him," May says.

"Find who?" Rebecca asks.

"My brother," May says. "He's here in Scar City. I'm sure about it. I want to go and find him."

"Well, that's complicated..." Rebecca says.

"He's my brother, and we should be together," May says. "He won't be hard to find. He's in a wheelchair. He's a teenager. He looks like me."

"Yes," Rebecca says, "but what if there are folks out there who don't want your brother to be found? We don't know his circumstances."

"I want to go find him," May says again.

Rebecca considers May's situation. Here is a kid who survived by herself for several years, at an extremely young age, in the Badlands. Who taught herself robotics from books. May has tremendous talent and skills, but the psyche of a child. Rebecca wonders what she would do in May's place. She also wonders what might have happened to a kid in a wheelchair, whether he also possesses skills or knowledge that someone values. He was older when the Calamity happened. Perhaps he had more awareness, more information.

"Fine, but let us help you," Rebecca says.

"I want to go by myself," May says. "I can do it. I have Dog. Anybody who messes with me gets seriously damaged. It's not a problem. You should've seen these two guys who tried to kidnap me at the market once. Dog zapped them until they couldn't move. They just laid there like big idiots."

"But this is Scar City," Rebecca points out, "not the Badlands. It's bigger. There are many, many more people here. You can't just pop into an underground bunker and hide. Everyone does not have your best interests in mind, May. I can't let you just go off on your own. Any more than I could leave you alone in the Badlands once I knew you were there."

"I will go with you," Philo says from the doorway.

Rebecca and May turn to look at him.

"I will go with May," Philo says again, "and ensure she is safe. May rebuilt me. I can protect her. It is a fair trade."

"Can I go with Philo?" May says, bouncing up and down in her chair. "Can I? Please?"

"Well, that changes things," Rebecca says. "I would feel better about such an arrangement. I would also feel better if we have some kind of monitoring system worked out, a homing beacon. A way to find you if you get in trouble. We don't know who your brother is with, what he's doing, if he's safe."

"We will be much more maneuverable on our own," Philo says. "In a big city sometimes it is best to stay anonymous. It can be easier to disappear here than it is in the Badlands."

"You would know, having been in the Casino all that time," Rebecca says. "Fine, let's make a plan. Nothing happens though," she waves her finger at May and then at Philo, "until we have a plan."

"Okay!" May says. She jumps up and hugs Philo. "Thank you, Philo!"

Philo displays a picture of a sunset on his screen, the image that he uses to convey contentment.

193 - Earth

Sam and Carl shuffle through heavy foliage, taking a wide path around the Neptune Atmospheric Monitoring and Research Station - Or whatever the place is called these days. Sam never could keep up with all the name and acronym changes anyway. He only knows this is the place where he used to work, and where his mother did much of her research into creating a solid and stable core for planet Neptune.

Sam stops walking and looks down. "What is this, a trap door in the ground?" he asks. "This is new." He runs a toe along the edge of a flat, nondescript panel partially obscured by leaves.

"Oh, new construction to go with new security measures," Carl says. "They sealed off the whole back of the compound, you probably saw that before I found you there in the woods. Probably while you were looking to gain access by way of the cargo area, like the old days."

"Well, yeah," Sam says. "But I could see right away that things had changed."

"Exactly," Carl says, "This is underground access. Literally and figuratively. You go in this way, you can't be traced."

Sam looks at the flat place on the ground, featureless metal surrounded by bolts and fittings. He touches it with his toe and its outer edges light up with a dim neon-like blue light. "How do you operate it?"

"You don't," Carl says. "It's entirely operated from inside."

"So when you say you can't be traced, you mean this is used to disappear people?" Sam asks.

"I'm not sure," Carl says. "We broke in and got the schematics, you know, while it was being built..."

"We? You and who?" Sam asks.

"Me and a couple other engineers," Carl says. "Other folks who had found themselves abruptly on the outside one day with no warning. Even though our access was cut off, we still had a basic idea of the protocols. So we started snooping around, and got a hold of some of the early blueprints. Mind you, I have no idea if the designs are what they actually built. But this sure looks like what we saw."

"Carl," Sam says, facing his friend, "why did you get thrown out? What did you do to attract their attention? You always had the highest clearances. Shoot, when I brought you the backup of my mom from the hospital, you were the only person here who could upload her into the right volumes for safekeeping. What happened? What are you doing out in the woods hacking into construction blueprints?"

Carl looks down. He sighs. "The nature of the thing has changed, Sam," he says finally.

"I can see that," Sam says. "But how? This was a terraforming and atmospheric sciences station. Everyone knew that. You worked here. I worked here."

"I worked here," Angelica says into Sam's earpiece.

"The truth is, nobody on the outside seems to know what this facility is for, now," Carl says. "I used to know every inch of this place. I had access to everything. I could run every system in there. But now, try and find out what goes on inside those walls, and you'll get a whole lot of nothing. That's why I've been working to create a clone of my terminal on the outside. So I could get some idea what they even do in there now."

"Before we came here, we went to the computing center," Sam says. "It was nowhere near this weird. Everything was basically the same. The security, the protocols - but things were being deleted, Carl. Records. Of people. And it seems to be people on Neptune. And then we come here, and it's like the whole thing has - mutated. And you're running around in the woods."

"Yeah," Carl says. "I got disinvited to the party pretty abruptly. This fellow I had never seen before showed up, and told me to get my stuff and get out. Wouldn't explain a darn thing. Wouldn't even look me in the eye. I got a pic of him, before I went out the door, but I couldn't ever find him in any facial recognition systems either. Like some kind of ghost."

The two men walk farther, one in worn clothes and boots and the other in a suit that will get beat up soon enough out here.

"So why are you back, Sam?" Carl asks. "You had it made. Got off Earth. Got a new start. The stuff about your mom was finally quieting down. Did you have a diabolical desire to poke the hornet's nest?"

"I could see things were happening, and I couldn't find anything out from Neptune," Sam says. "It reaches beyond me and my mom, Carl. The murder case is irrelevant compared to this stuff."

"Says who?" Angelica says into Sam's earpiece. "I'm the one who was murdered! I'll be the judge of that!"

"I'll be the judge of that," Sam says.

Carl stares at him.

"Did I just say that out loud?" Sam asks.

"Yes, you did," Carl says. "Who are you talking to? Did you bring Angelica back with you too?"

"Uh..." Sam says.

"Oh, just tell him," Angelica says. "Carl was there when I got uploaded. It's not like me being portable is news to him."

"Yeah," Sam says. "I did. She's in this drive, here." He pulls the tiny device from his pocket. "I rigged her up with voice, and then we programmed a sensor for my eye so she can pick up telemetry and other data. See?" Sam leans in and Carl peers at his eyeball. There it is, the contact lens.

"Wow," Carl says. "So can she hear me? Right now? Hey Angelica, can you hear me?"

"Yes, she can," Sam says.

"I can speak for myself," Angelica says.

"Not so Carl can hear you," Sam says.

Carl looks at Sam again. "So she is saying stuff into your ear."

"Yeah," Sam says. "Look, we'll need to rig up something so you can hear her, too."

"That would be - interesting," Carl says. "No offense, Angelica. I mean, Doctor Brubeck."

"Right," Angelica says. "Let's get Carl fixed up with an earpiece. I have an idea, and I want you both to hear it."

194 - Downstairs at Darby's

"How's the patient?" Darby asks, shutting the door behind him. He's descended to a tiny room at the bottom of a narrow staircase reached from behind the bar, a space almost entirely occupied by beeping medical equipment, bed with patient, tubes, wires, and Edward sitting nearby.

"Stabilizing," Edward says. "He still thrashes around from time to time. I have to hold on to the tubing so he doesn't tear it all loose. I'm getting good at reattaching things."

Millman is in a heap under a blanket, one arm hanging off the side of the bed. Most of his face is buried in a pillow, his hair hides the rest of it. His skin has taken on a peculiar color, kind of a pale blue as if he were a television picture out of focus. His cells are knitting back together, slowly.

"We've got company," Darby says.

Edward looks up at him. "What kind of company?"

"EarthAdmin company," Darby says. "As you know, your friend here is an Agent. Probably accountable to someone back home. Who knows. But they are going to do a sweep. They are looking for him."

"Well, stall them," Edward says. "We can't move him. Not now."

Before Darby can reply the door swings open and the two suits fill the entrance, blocking anyone from leaving.

"Step aside," one of the suits says, striding past Darby and lifting Millman's hair from his face. He leans in and looks. "It's him," the suit says.

"It's who? What are you doing?" Darby asks. "This is a delicate medical situation. You can't just barge in here."

"We just did," the other suit says. "This fellow in the bed here needs to come with us."

"I don't think so," Edward says, standing. "First of all, he's in no shape to be moved. He has to stay here for at least a few more days. Any disruption will endanger his..."

"No time," the first suit says, putting up a hand in Edward's face. "Stay out of the way."

"Why so urgent?" Darby says. "Can't you wait? It's not like he's going anywhere. Let him recover and then take him." Edward shoots Darby a look but Darby doesn't look back.

"Look," the second suit says. "This Agent has created a lot of problems and owes some answers. So whatever you're doing here, it's concluded. We'll take it from here." The suit steps forward and yanks a power cord from the wall. The equipment wheezes. Millman does not respond or move.

"What good is he to you dead?" Edward says. "This move, or whatever you call it, will kill him. He can't go anywhere. What you're doing makes no sense."

Simultaneously the suits pull devices from their pockets and apply them to Edward's and Darby's necks, causing them both to drop to the floor unconscious.

"That's enough of that," the first suit says. "Now let's figure out how to get this problem child out of here."

The two suits set to work unhooking wires and tubes. The equipment protests with strange noises and uneven beeps and then falls silent.

"This guy looks bad," the second suit says. "Suppose he dies before we can get him to the transport or extract any information."

"He won't die," first suit says. "This particular Agent has survived so many attempts on his life I doubt a little illness will get the best of him. Millman is one slippery individual, that's the truth. I can't believe we finally located him. Shoot, he could be faking right now. I don't trust the guy." First suit hoists Millman's limp body over his shoulder. Millman's arms flop down and hang there.

Darby opens his eyes, but can't seem to get his arms or legs to move. Whatever zapped him is shutting down his muscles. He can't focus his eyes, either. He tries to get out words but only produces vague moaning sounds. What he can see is a pair of figures maneuvering next to the bed, probably getting ready to transport their human prize out of here. Darby has no doubt that this process will kill the Agent.

Darby puts all his concentration into his right hand, willing it to move. If he can just regain control of his body, he can try to trip the men up before they can leave. The two figures are still just dark blurs...

And then, the blurs drop like limp dolls. One of them thunks to the floor, the other appears to flop forward onto the bed. And a third blur appears. Or is Darby's head just spinning?

Darby blinks his eyes furiously. With every third blink or so, his vision clears. He can see Edward leaning against the wall, rubbing his forehead.

Millman's voice. No coherent words, but it sounds like he's in pain. "Hang in there, stay with me," a voice says. "We may have to put you back in the isolation chamber for a while." The sound of the suit who had fallen onto the bed crashing to the floor as he gets shoved out of the way.

"Who..." Millman asks.

"I'm Margaret, the botanist," the figure says. "I injected our friends here with some - herbs. They'll be asleep awhile. We've been re-growing you, helping your cells regenerate and knit you back together. You almost flew apart like your own mini-galaxy, I have to tell you."

Millman murmurs something.

"You rest, I'm going to go get you put back together," Margaret says. "We can't lose you now."

"Margaret?" Edward says, sitting up. "Wow. Thanks. Nice timing."

"We've got to hurry and get these EarthAdmin people contained somewhere," Margaret says. "Before they come to their senses."

Darby, his head clearing, sits up and checks on the suit lying on the floor closest to him.

"Uh, Margaret?"

"Yeah," Margaret says. She's leaning over the back of the bed, re-attaching wires and plugging in equipment.

"This guy isn't going to come to his senses anytime soon. He's pretty dead."

Margaret stops what she's doing and whirls around. "What? No! That's not possible! I didn't dose them with..."

"Yeah, this one too," Edward says. "Doornail. What did you give these guys?"

"Um, well..." Margaret looks nonplussed. "I didn't mean..."

"I guess we have a little more time than we thought to get them out of here," Edward says, rising to his feet. "But their bosses will want to know what happened to them before too long."

"True, but we've got a bar full of storm refugees upstairs," Darby points out. "We need a plan for what to do with these bodies."

Edward and Darby survey the suits on the floor while Margaret continues re-attaching all of the equipment. Millman rolls onto his side and goes back to sleep.
195 - Earth

"How's that?" Sam asks. "Mom, say hello."

"Hello Carl," Angelica says.

"Woa, that's weird," Carl says, adjusting his new earpiece with a thumb and forefinger. "This feels like you're talking to the inside of my head. It even sounds like you."

"Good thing it's my voice," Angelica says. "It would be no fun to have someone you didn't like talking into your brain."

"Indeed, Dr. Brubeck," Carl says. "It's good to hear you."

"Good to be heard," Angelica says.

The two men and one virtual intelligence are back in Carl's underground bunker. Outside, scanners and cameras mounted in trees and atop structures sweep every inch of the area. These security systems do not appear to judge Sam and Carl to be a threat, since they muster no response even when the two men have clearly been detected. From what the scientists can tell, the facility is now so fortified against break-ins that their presence walking around outside has become irrelevant. It would take an enormous piece of equipment - or one of the Bird People's giant metal-and-bone raptors - to break into the station now.

"Let's take a look at those schematics you ripped off from the station's computers," Sam says.

Carl plugs a tiny drive into one of his processors, and pulls up the stolen files on a salvaged computer screen. It's a series of blueprints, presumably from when the station experienced its last round of construction. The men can see the shape of the outer edge of the Neptune Atmospheric Monitoring Station, labeled with strange abbreviations they can't recognize. Outside the perimeter rectangular symbols denote entrances at various points, similar to the glowing trap door they found on the ground outside. Zooming in on these, multi-leveled diagrams come into focus, with specs for systems to mask entrances and exits at these points.

"Seems the whole idea of these trap doors is for people to go in and out of the facility without being detected," Sam says. "But why? And why stick these doors out in the woods where people like us can wander into them?"

"That's what I wondered too," Carl says. "So I dug farther into these schematics to trace where these entrances lead. I thought that might give us a clue about the trap doors' purpose."

As Carl zooms around on the screen, green and white lines bend downward and angle in every direction. The passage that appears below the nearest trap door dives underground at a steep angle toward the station, then flattens out. Beyond the flat area the passage widens into what appears to be a large rectangle-shaped chamber.

"I don't recognize that big room there," Sam says, pointing at the chamber. "It must have been added after I left and you got kicked out."

"Yes, that room looks new," Angelica says into both the men's ears. "There have always been large testing hangars aboveground, but I never knew of any underneath. Perhaps the need arose for a new facility but for some reason the construction had to be kept within the perimeter."

"Why?" Sam asks. "Why not just expand the whole station? There's plenty of space. Heck, when I first started working at the station it only consisted of five or so buildings. All these outer walls and fortifications were added later."

"We keep asking more and more questions," Angelica says. "It's time for us to break into this place and procure ourselves some answers."

"Uh, well," Carl says, "Remember, I don't know if these schematics represent what was actually built. These were the plans. Just be aware that it could turn out totally different once we get in there."

"Only one way to find out," Angelica says.

Sam grins at Carl.

"I'm outvoted here, aren't I?" Carl says.

"Of course you are," Angelica says. "Remember, we are equipped with the sensors in Sam's eye. Using those sensors I can calculate distances and pick up the presence of personnel very quickly. We're like a four-legged two-earpieced super cyber being."

"Exactly the term I would have used," Sam says.

"Okay," Carl says. "But we will need an escape route. If we get inside the walls and it turns out nothing like we expected, we've got to have a plan to get back out of there."

The whole room shakes. A few chunks of the ceiling fall down. The computer monitor goes blank. Sam grabs on to the table and Carl puts his arms over his head.

"What the..." Sam runs to the entrance to look out and up.

A claw is bearing down on the shelter, gears grinding and hydraulics letting out loud hissing sounds. Tree branches snap under monstrous wheels.

"Carl?" Sam shouts back into the bunker. "I don't think these claw beasts are ignoring your hole in the ground any more."

More shaking. Sam sticks his head up far enough to see a steel claw descending through the trees directly on top of Carl's shelter. It smashes into the ground like a giant fist that knows there's something beneath the dirt and wants to find it.

"That monster only needs maybe three direct hits to totally flatten this place," Angelica says. "The ground will crack like an egg."

Carl is sweeping equipment off of the table top into his arms.

"Come on, man!" Sam yells. "You gotta get out of there! You'll get crushed!"

"Hang on..." Carl says. Another hit. This time the back half of the bunker caves in. Carl cradles a collection of equipment and a tangle of wires in his arms. One leg sticks in the rubble, and it takes Carl several desperate yanks to pull himself loose. He sprints for the exit, hurdling over chunks of the walls.

Just as the men clear the exit the claw comes down one final time and pounds the entire shelter into the ground. The roof caves and the ground collapses into a crater littered with rocks and wires. Table legs stick up at various angles from the dirt.

The two humans and a consciousness sprint into the woods. Angelica proceeds to analyze the data she's received from Sam's contact lens.

"Put as much distance behind you as you can," Angelica says. "That mechanical claw can sense movement. It's got infrared. If it's scanning for warm bodies it will pick the two of you up fast. I don't get any indication of a human operator, either. The machine is running on a program. And clearly its threat definitions have changed."

The two men do their best to increase their speed, stumbling over rocks and branches and weaving in and out between thick tree trunks. The machine behind them bellows and wheezes, revving up to pursue them.

"There!" Sam shouts, pointing. The trap door they encountered before glows like a blue rectangle, out of place amongst the dirt and leaves.

"We don't know how to open it!" Carl says.

"Give me a sec," Angelica says to them. "Sam, I need a visual."

Sam gets down on hands and knees on the door and positions his eye over the control panel. There's no retinal scanner, no keypad. Just a blank metal surface with lights glowing as if from within.

"Lean in," Angelica says. "I can't..."

The door beneath Sam vaporizes, and he drops into the ground almost without a sound.

"Sam!" Csarl cries. "Sam what..."

But there is no Sam to talk to. Carl looks up at the trees, takes a deep breath, and jumps in after him.

196 - Scar City

The Tumbleweed airship pulls into the Ready-Freddy Parking Garage and Supply Depot in Scar City. It's a dome-shaped building, a round hangar occupied by a spectacular array of hacked-together vehicles parked around its perimeter in concentric circles. The ground floor is reserved for things with wheels, airships go on top and bolt onto the walls.

Each parking position connects to the outer edges of the facility by way of a suspended walkway. The exterior of the dome is painted to resemble a kind of psychedelic layer cake, the interior decorated with dark blue paint and tiny, glow-in-the-dark stars. At the very bottom of the hangar in the center, tables and chairs sit every which way occupied by folks playing chess or checkers or poker. Many are hired navigators or mechanics waiting for supplies to come in or for repairs to be made on their vehicles.

Feller powers down the Tumbleweed's engines. He peels his goggles off his face and props them on top of his mess of curly hair. "Well, here we are."

Rebecca looks out the Tumbleweed's front window at the stacked layers of airships and other vehicles in the hangar. She wonders what the other captains are here for, about their stories. "Yeah, I guess we are here," she says.

"I hope we're doing the right thing," Feller says.

Rebecca sighs and runs her hand back through her Mohawk. "Yeah, me too," she says.

\-----

May swings her legs back and forth from her perch on a stool in Dr. Mangrove's workshop. She watches him sauter something onto a circuit board.

The workshop has always been a place where May could come and hang out at any time of day or night, no questions asked. She has spent hours sharing space with "Corn Dog," as she calls the old scientist, observing him working or reading her books or trying experiments herself. Sometimes May brings her robotic companion Dog down with her and updates its programming or makes improvements to Dog's propulsion system. Dr. Mangrove has always allowed May free access to whatever components or materials whe wants.

"How come you came to live on Neptune, Corn Dog?" May asks.

Dr. Mangrove looks up through the rectangular window on his welding mask. "Well, I needed some space. Literally, I guess. And, a friend highly recommended it."

"Really? What friend?" May asks.

Dr. Mangrove takes off the mask and has a seat next to May. He sets the heavy head gear down on the workbench with a thunk. He locates his glasses in a pocket on the front of his rumpled shirt and puts them on, hooking the earpieces over one ear at a time.

"An old friend, someone you have sort of met," Dr. Mangrove says. "Angelica Brubeck."

"Sam's mom? The virtual intelligence? The one that tried to take over your brain and gave you a headache?" May asks.

"Yes, well, not that exact version of her, that was a corrupted copy," Dr. Mangrove explains. "And, Angelica used to be a real person, not a computer file. As you know, she and I were in school together. The two of us have known each other a long time. We grew up as scientists and as friends. Our work was complementary."

"Did you like her?" May says, grinning.

Dr. Mangrove looks down at May and frowns. "Maybe. This is not your problem."

"I know, but did you? Like her?" May asks again.

"Perhaps," Dr. Mangrove says. "Let's change the subject now."

"Fine." May picks up the welding mask and puts it on. "Do I look cool?"

"You look lovely," Dr. Mangrove says. It is easy to forget that May is a child, until she begins asking personal questions and putting things on her head.

"So how come Dr. Brubeck told you to come to Neptune?" May asks. "Did she think that it's better?"

"It was more of an issue of getting off of Earth," Dr. Mangrove says. "The situation back home had become terribly complicated. Things were changing quickly, and Angelica felt that I ought to make myself scarce for a while. Coming to Neptune seemed like a way of becoming very scarce indeed."

"I guess so," May says.

The two of them are quiet for a moment, side by side. May pulls off the mask and sets it back on the table.

"I'm going to miss you, little girl," Dr. Mangrove says, placing a hand on top of May's head.

"I'll visit," May says. "I promise."

"Just let us know if you need anything," Dr. Mangrove says. "Don't hesitate, and don't think you can just do everything yourself. Call us."

"I won't," May says. "Remember, I'll have Philo. He can look out for me."

"Yes, but he's a cyborg," Dr. Mangrove says. "He is subject to mechanical failure and malfunctions."

"He's a seven-foot-tall cyborg," May points out. "And, I know how to fix him."

"True," Dr. Mangrove says.

"Promise you won't worry all the time," May says.

Dr. Mangrove smiles. "I promise."

\----------

Philo runs through his diagnostics one last time. He plugs a cord into the side of his head and installs the other end in a panel in the Tumbleweed's wall. The panel is one of many dispersed throughout the airship that offer access to redundant communications systems, added on a piece at a time as the Tumbleweed has grown larger and larger.

He searches his archives for routines to delete. Corrupted Angelica Brubeck protocols, gone. Obsolete and defunct access codes, stored away. He retains the schematics for the Scar City Casino, though he expects these will require updating once he gains proximity to the Casino's main systems. No doubt construction there has continued at a rapid pace and many sections of the sprawling entertainment complex have been relocated or altered. Or destroyed.

Philo always feels lighter after cleaning up his files. Less connections and overlaps, less stored information. More processing room.

He runs an inventory of his joints and moving parts. His knees do tend to wear, so he has to keep a close watch on those. He must also maintain his spine, the part of his frame tasked with holding up his heavy TV monitor head.

All seems in order. He pulls on his jacket and straightens his tie.

May appears in the hallway. "You ready?" she asks.

"Of course," Philo says. "I am happy to be of help."

The pair make their way to the Tumbleweed loading dock. There, Rebecca and Feller and Dr. Mangrove wait for them.

"I got you something," Rebecca says, handing May a small card-like object. "Food outlet scanner. You just use this to locate the nearest source. I know in Scar City sometimes supplies run short in one place or another, so keep this just in case."

"Thanks," May says, and slips the card into her knapsack.

"It's been a while since we found you out in the Badlands," Feller says. "And found Philo minus his body in a cave. You both stay in one piece, okay?"

"Sure," May says. She gives Feller a hug. Then she hugs Dr. Mangrove.

Rebecca looks May in the face. "Take care of your giant cyborg, will you?"

"Okay," May says. Suddenly her face clouds over and she looks like a sad little girl. She hugs Rebecca, buring her face in the captain's shirt.

"Let us know what you find, or who you find," Rebecca says. "I want to meet this brother of yours."

"I will," May says. "As long as he's not a psycho or anything."

"He won't be a psycho," Rebecca says. "Weird, probably. He's related to you, isn't he?"

May smiles. "Well, see you guys."

Philo shakes each person's hand in turn, and then the group watch as Philo and May climb down the ladder and out of the Tumbleweed.
197 - The Tumbleweed

"Well that's odd," Feller says, staring down at the console at the center of the Tumbleweed's bridge.

"What?" Rebecca asks.

"It's a call from Darby," Feller says.

"That doesn't seem too odd," Rebecca says. "Maybe he wants all his DNA data back. Maybe he changed his mind about giving it to us."

"That's not the odd part," Feller says. "The odd part is, the call is over a heavily encrypted channel. Since when does Darby communicate that way? And it looks like an EarthAdmin frequency, too. The sort that an agent would use."

"Huh," Rebecca says. The two of them pause there, watching the message light blink on and off.

"I suppose I should answer it," Rebecca says.

"Please do," Feller says.

Rebecca punches the com button. "Hello, Darby, is that you?"

"Hello Rebecca, lovely to hear your voice," Darby says.

"What can we do for you, Darby?" Rebecca asks. "Have you decided you want to stay in the research line of work after all, and you're calling to please ask for all your data back? I have to tell you, the information has been instrumental in finding May some potential relatives. She and Philo have gone off into Scar City on their own to investigate."

"That's wonderful," Darby says, "And no, I don't want the data back. It's yours. That I handed over to you in good conscience."

"What is it then?" Rebecca asks.

"Well, life here has taken a little turn for the -- more complicated," Darby says. "As you know we regularly shelter people when the storms come across the Badlands. Well, during the last storm, we had some rather unwanted visitors, and I'm afraid we might have - accidentally - killed them."

"Really? Wow," Rebecca says.

"Yes, and the unfortunate part is, we believe them to be EarthAdmin."

Rebecca looks at Feller and raises one eyebrow. "How does one accidentally kill a well-equipped agent - or two - in a bar? Did you give them too much to drink? Was there a brawl? Your establishments have never been that sort of venue, Darby."

"Well, no, no brawl, but it was, as I said, a complicated situation," Darby explains. "It involves your old friend, Millman."

"Okay back up," Rebecca says. "Are you saying Millman killed two agents in your bar?"

"No, no, not at all," Darby says. "In fact, Millman had nothing to do with it. He has been here -- recuperating. His cellular makeup fell apart pretty badly. Edward got him the treatment he needed to stitch back together, but it's been an uphill battle to keep him in one piece."

There's silence.

"You're confused," Darby suggests.

"Yes, that's a fair statement," Rebecca says.

"Okay, well," Darby says, "I was wondering if the Tumbleweed might be able to - shelter us for a while - myself, Edward, Millman, and Margaret, our botanist. I think we need to keep on the move, while we sort out what to do next. My staff here can run the bar for a while. But I worry that EarthAdmin will turn up presently, and they will want answers. And I don't have any good answers for them at present."

"So you need to hide out and buy some time?" Rebecca asks.

"Exactly," Darby says.

"Okay," Rebecca says. "Of course, Darby. We can help you. It may take some time to get there, we are in Scar City. And we've got a bit of business here. But lay low, and send me your coordinates."

"Thank you Rebecca," Darby says. "I know this is all very complicated. But we'll try to be good houseguests. You won't even know we're there."

"As long as EarthAdmin doesn't know you're here, that's all I care about," Rebecca says, smiling. "Now you disappear until we can come get you. And then you can explain how you go about accidentally killing agents."

"Sure enough," Darby says. "You have my gratitude."

The channel closes.

There's a banging on the window. "Hey!" a guy outside shouts. "You wanna window wash?"

Feller leans out over the console. "Yeah, sure. What are you needing?"

"Copper wire," the man says. "And any kind of circuit boards you don't want."

"Fine," Feller says. "Meet me at the loading bay." He turns to Rebecca. "I might as well offload some things, since it sounds like we're going to need more space anyway," he says.

"True," Rebecca says. "I can't wait to hear about what happened at Darby's. Or maybe I don't want to know. We've got to figure out how to handle this without landing squarely in the sights of EarthAdmin."

"Too quickly, you mean," Feller says. "EarthAdmin will be in our face soon enough."

"Yeah, they will," Rebecca says. "We'll need a plan."

198 - Earth

Sam and Carl land hard in complete darkness. The floor feels like it's made of some plastic-like, unfamiliar material. There's no way to tell the size of the space; no light sources, no ability to see walls or ceilings.

Sam's earpiece flew out of his ear. He swishes around on the floor for it, making bigger and bigger circles. Finally he locates the tiny device and pops it back in.

"Can you read any measurements? Distances? Objects?" Sam asks Angelica.

"Is the lens still in your eye?" Angelica asks.

Sam blinks and checks, and the lens appears to still be present and operational. At least that part didn't come loose in the fall.

"Yes, it's there," Sam says.

"Weird, I read nothing," Angelica says. "That can't be right. We're in a three-dimensional space. I should be able to bounce a signal off of something."

Carl moves his arms in careful arcs around him. "I can't make out any kind of... anything," he says. "Did we fall into a dungeon?"

"Even a dungeon would be more interesting than this," Sam says, getting to his feet slowly. His balance is unsteady, because he has no visual cues from which to orient himself. He stands but he wobbles. "Carl? Where are you?"

"Right here," Carl says. "Wherever that is. Now what?"

Sam pulls a device from his pocket and turns it on. The tiny screen throws out feeble light, but it's something. All he can see, though, is grayish black. No features, no walls, no signs, nothing.

"It's as if I'm getting anti-readings," Angelica says. "Like this space was designed and built to be a non-space and deaden every kind of sensory input. I wonder why."

"That's one way to secure your facility, make it impossible to navigate," Carl says. "I wonder what is being kept so secure, though?"

"There has to be a system underlying this," Sam points out. "Some kind of infrastructure. Machinery. Power. Something. Or it wouldn't be here at all."

"True," Angelica says. "Let's try something. Recalibrate my sensors so that I pick up only electrical impulses. Maybe this is a dampening material and if we focus, we can clue into the weaker signals."

"Okay," Sam says. He sits down and works on the control device for several minutes, adjusting what goes into the lens in his eye. No more air or sound, just electrical. Nothing else.

"Try that," Sam says. He stands, opens his eyes wide and turns slowly in an uneasy circle. He still can't balance in this darkness. This effect is beginning to make him feel nauseated.

"Hold right there, there's something," Angelica says. "It's faint, but there's definitely power running through here. If we can trace it, maybe we can navigate toward the center of the facility."

"It's worth a try, right now we've got a whole lot of nothing, or less than nothing," Sam says. "You okay over there Carl?"

"Carl?"

"Hey Carl, where are you?" Angelica says. "Sam, where is he? His device has gone dead."

"I can't tell," Sam says. "Carl?" Sam puts his hands out in front of him, groping in the air. "Where did you go?"

"Look out Sam!" Angelica shouts into Sam's ear. "Duck down!"

Sam goes into a crouch, but hears and feels nothing.

"What was that?" Sam asks.

"I don't know," Angelica answers, "but some kind of major power surge just went by. A very large amount of electricity packed into one place. About the size of a baseball, from what I could measure."

"Could you tell what direction it traveled?" Sam asks.

"Yes, I can trace its general path," Angelica says.

"We've got to find Carl," Sam says. "What if he fell off of an edge? There's no way to tell where the floor is."

"Power is routed through the structure," Angelica says. "That routing reveals a little about the nature of this space. It's a long tube, just like we saw on the schematics. It should slope downward. That's what I can see from here. The power surge traveled downward as well."

"Do you pick up any drops, or edges? Anywhere Carl could have fallen?" Sam asks.

A pause. "No," Angelica says. "From what I can tell, Carl should still be right here. There's nowhere for him to go. As in, no space. No distance. Nowhere. But I don't get any movement, sounds, anything."

"I don't like this," Sam says. "It feels like a sort of prison, like solitary confinement. Sensory deprivation. Storage."

Storage.

"Mom, we need to keep moving," Sam says. "Can you point the way downward? Can we follow the power source?"

"We should be able to," Angelica says. "And the signal should get stronger as we get closer."

"Okay," Sam says. "I don't know what else to do. I don't want to leave Carl, but it would appear that Carl already left us. Whether he wanted to or not. Mom, can you tell if there's any sign of him at all? Movement? Anything?"

"Nothing," Angelica says. "I don't get it. And I see no resemblance between this place and the facility that was here before."

"Well maybe we'll find some of the original structure as we move inside," Sam says. "That's all we can hope."

"And maybe we'll find Carl," Angelica says. "Maybe he got lost and we just have to find him again."

"Man I hope so," Sam says. "It's like he just got absorbed by this place, without a sound."

199 - The Tumbleweed

Rebecca straightens a row of books in May's former quarters. She plans to leave this room unoccupied, so her kid-friend can come back whenever she likes. She imagines this is what an "empty nest" is like; preserving a space, hoping its original occupant will return to it once in a while.

Shortly, the Tumbleweed will pull into the sector of the Badlands where Darby's Bar is located. Darby will hand the bar keys to one of his associates, and Darby, his business partner Edward and botanist Margaret will walk out the bar's door. Again, leaving a space behind that hopefully they can return to. Just like May's room.

Rebecca wonders what kind of shape Millman is in. And what gender.

The intercom beeps. It's Feller in the kitchen.

"Hey," Rebecca says.

"Hey Beck," Feller says. "I got a transmission from Earth. It's... somebody. Says it's the Gelica Protocol. But I couldn't authenticate. It's coming from a source I don't recognize."

"Okay, put it through," Rebecca says. "Just sweep it for any piggyback signals first. I don't want to acquire anything yucky off this transmission."

"Got it," Feller says.

Rebecca flips through some of May's notebooks. They are filled with schematics, some of which include improvements to Philo's mechanical parts; better walking, integrated weapons, many different ideas. As far as Beck knows none of these improvements have been installed, yet. Philo is still the same seven-foot-tall android he was before.

Beck gets to the back pages of one of the books and notices something different. It's a collection of clipped articles, all of them about Sam Brubeck. Seems May kept quite a stash of information on him. There's the announcement when he initially took a teaching post at a prestigious university on Earth. Then there's the article about his sudden disappearance on the day before he was to deliver his first lecture. And there are many, many clippings about Sam's mother's mysterious death. In almost all of them, Sam is described as the lead suspect. The same surveillance photos appear over and over; one taken in a hospital hallway showing a blurry Sam leaving his mother's room, another photo of the outside of the hospital and a figure (allegedly Sam) leaving the scene.

The intercom beeps again. Rebecca answers. "Yeah? Got the message?"

"Here it is," Feller says. "See what you can make of it."

Rebecca hits the playback button and hears an unfamiliar and mechanical-sounding voice.

"Hello, Beck. It's Sam. Sorry about the disguised voice. I didn't want filters to pick up my sound signature before you had a chance to hear this.

"Hey, we've come upon some troubling things here on old Earth. The facility where I worked, where my mom did her research, is no longer in existence. It's been replaced by something I can only describe as an artificial intelligence of some kind. We're going to try to access it and find out why records of people traveling to Neptune are being deleted. There are access points around the perimeter so that's where we'll try to get in.

"Meantime, Beck, I'm sorry. I've been a lot of trouble to you and put a target on your back that you didn't need. And then I left abruptly. Please know that was to protect you. I say that before I also say this: we may need your help. Neptune may need your help, if my suspicions are confirmed here. And you're one of the only people with the expertise necessary and who I can trust.

"Take care of that bucket of bolts, and I'll contact you again as soon as I know more. This is serious stuff, Beck. A lot of people might be in danger."

The recording cuts off. But the intercom light comes on again almost immediately.

"Beck?" It's Feller again. "I got another one."

"Um, okay," Rebecca says. "Same source?"

"Yeah, swept this one too. No bad bugs on it."

"Okay." Rebecca hits the button.

It's a different voice this time, female. Rebecca recognizes this as the Gelica Protocol, the name for Angelica Brubeck's intelligence.

"Calling the Tumbleweed airship. This is the Gelica Protocol. I will be transmitting packets of data to your vessel that are of the utmost priority. Please capture and store this data without opening it. I will follow with instructions shortly."

Then, silence. Rebecca is about to turn off the intercom, but then the message continues:

"Sam Brubeck has been compromised. I believe he has been uploaded. I am running diagnostics at this time to determine his location. We have been breached by a digital intelligence that gained control of the Neptune Atmospheric Research Facility. We have not yet been able to determine the nature of this intelligence, nor its intentions..."

The message cuts off again.

Rebecca hits the button.

"Hey, Feller? Look out for some incoming transmissions. Data packets. Send them in their raw form directly to the storage module in my quarters. We will sequester them there until I have a chance to look at them. Sounds like something serious is going on on Earth."

"Everything okay?" Feller asks.

"I'm not sure," Rebecca says, frowning. "I don't like the sounds of these messages."

"Well, we're here at Darby's," Feller says. "Time to pick up some additional crew members and one patient."

"Alright," Rebecca says. "I'll go down there and meet them."

200 - Radio Neptune

Goooood afternoon, Neptunians! This is Radio Neptune coming to you from the radio tower nearest to wherever you happen to be. Here's hoping you are safe and sound and well-supplied for the next storm!

Speaking of storms, we've had reports that the most recent Neptune weather disturbances have included bonuses like sideways lightning and hail the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. So stay safe out there. If you're in the Badlands, don't try to gut this stuff out by yourself. Find a parking facility or bolt your vehicle to the ground. And get busy with preparations as soon as the warnings come through! Don't dilly-dally.

Let's hear it for Sally Ann Smithers (her friends call her "Smithereens"), our latest winner in the copper wire sweepstakes! Sally will be wiring up her abode in fine fashion shortly to make use of her winnings. Congratulations!

An update from the Nonstop Derby, where Flaming Florence has taken the overall lead in Leg 3 in front of her very own husband, Hydro Harry! Let's hope she shares the spoils of victory with him. There's still a ways to go, though, to determine who will be the ultimate victor this round! For those of you new to the Derby, the race requires that each driver alter or replace a minimum of sixty percent of their vehicle while in motion on the course. Florence is looking good as always at seventy-three percent, and anyone hoping to rip off any parts from her vehicle to alter their own runs the risk getting crispy-fried.

There's an Underground Support Group meeting this evening in Scar City at The Watering Hole, for folks coping with the unique challenges of spending long stretches in shelters beneath the planet surface. What with the limited sunlight here on Neptune, it's no wonder some of us can wind up getting a little down. Grab some companionship and a beer and make the best of it!

If you're in Scar City today, the Casino is performing maintenance in the tunnels at the entrances to District 44-A and 44-B. So if you've a hankering to pull the lever, take another route or risk a long wait! There will be drink bots patrolling the area to ensure all are looked after. And remember, put your faith in the cards at Scar City Casino!

That previous message was brought to you by Scar City Casino.

The Museum of Failed Experiments celebrates its grand re-opening tomorrow, right at the corner of First and Scar Boulevard next door to Sloppy's Chop Shop. Come find out how not to do a lot of things, then head next door for a meal.

We've had reports of an unmanned velociraptor in Sector 142.5 in the Badlands. No damage as yet, but then, there's nothing out there to damage. Just be careful in those VHS corridors when you hit your maximum speed, if you spy something shiny it might be a three-story chrome dinosaur and you'd be well advised to take evasive action to avoid a crash. Those creatures tend to have quite an attitude and they can really move. Hopefully whoever built the thing will get it under control right quick.

News from Earth: The Council on Scientific Efficacy has issued a summons for Sam Brubeck, lead suspect in the killing of his mother, Neptune atmospheric and surface scientist Angelica Brubeck. No one expects Mr. Brubeck to appear, as he is rumored to have left the planet some time ago, but the administrative powers that be must turn their gears to show they are doing something. Meantime, the mysterious coma and death of Dr. Brubeck remains unsolved.

There's an Earth drop scheduled for tomorrow, in Badlands Sector 50.6.7. Conflicting reports of what might be inside, and there's even one rumor that it's not a drop at all but a pirated supply run from one of the larger Scar City businesses - possibly a chain of steak houses. So be sharp out there - remember that salvaging is great, but piracy and stealing create their own set of problems. Like, someone wanting their stuff back. And if you do get out to the site, please drop us a line and let us know if it was in fact a year's supply of meats or an assortment of motorcycle parts - or something totally different. We can't wait to hear!

That's it for now, so just remember, be safe, everybody eats, and get out there and do something worth putting on the radio!

Radio Neptune Out.

[Flock of Seagulls song plays]

About Betsy Streeter

Betsy grew up amongst cows, wineries and physicists. There she learned to score infinite points on Space Invaders for the Atari and played in the first soccer league for girls ever formed in her hometown.

After college she went on "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride Through Corporate America" as a designer and creative director, enjoying the splendor of mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, flaming stock options, and the creation of a special effect using dry ice and surgical tubing.

Betsy writes science and speculative fiction, makes cartoons, and draws steampunk things with bird heads. Among other things. Like running, eating chocolate and drinking beer.

You can find her in these scenic digital locations:

http://www.betsystreeter.com

Twitter: @betsystreeter

Instagram: @betsystreeter

Wattpad: betsystreeter
