Part Four

Summary: U-Masters get blowed up real good.

In his dreams Tyler was moving through Manservant Neville's life again, from behind his boss' eyes. It felt more natural this time. Trivial things like sorting through e-mail, big ones like buying other companies. He was starting to anticipate Neville's trains of thought, his manner, like someone humming along to a familiar tune. Neville called up a file on his desk computer, hidden behind six layers of security Tyler had never seen before. He didn't know details of what Neville was doing, but he was flooded with satisfaction and anticipation. It felt like completing a successful business deal, but on a vaster scale.

Tyler stood in a black-and-chrome bathroom he recognized as part of Neville's penthouse apartment, ten floors above the office. He was shaving. When he looked into the mirror he saw Neville's dark eyes, not his own blue.

Sudden shift. The new images were distant, colors washed out, shorn of emotional context. It was like watching a bad videotape. A security camera videotape; Tyler vaguely noticed numbers in the corner of the image. A big house, a college fraternity or sorority by the Greek letters over the entrance. As Tyler watched that guy, coatless and rumpled, burst out the front door. Wendy was clinging to his back, fighting like a wildcat. They scuffled on the ground for a few seconds, broke and squared off like gunfighters. Wendy was weirdly competent at this, like she hade been beating up Tyler in his own person that afternoon. That guy was strangely in-competent, but his expression was eager and ugly. He wanted to hurt Wendy; he was looking forward to it.

Wendy kicked him in the crotch. That guy punched her in the face, so hard that he knocked her unconscious. Tyler was back in his own body, or partly so, enough to feel himself flinch at the savagery of it.

Another image even more distant; a still photograph of somebody's suburban house. A crappy old car was smashed through the wall for two-thirds its own length. Tyler felt the same dread; he knew, wordlessly, that the crash had been no accident. He felt....

Awake.

------

Ida had gone out, overnight, and bought four new U-Masters for cash at four different stores. She'd set out a range of analysis gear on a big table in the middle of the main control room; the Middleman helped her organize it. He was up before Wendy, as usual. She staunchly refused to join his morning routine of a workout and a healthy breakfast. He tried not to nag, especially since annoying her before 8 a.m. and/or her first cup of coffee could be actively dangerous.

"This thing could be the size of a matchbox, if it just played mp3's like they claim it does," Ida said. In fact, the U-Master was a cube four inches on a side. She had the first one, turned off and without batteries, under a scanner that made it transparent one layer at a time. She pointed. "The hard drive with the exterior output, that little one, holds fifty hours of music. The other drive has ten times the capacity, but the dork on the street wouldn't even know it was in there. It's got a completely separate wi-fi setup from the headphone. Probably uploads and downloads any time it's got a signal. Again, user hasn't got a clue." She touched a switch, and another section of the U-Master became visible. "Also there's this."

"That looks like a global positioning system," the Middleman said. "Give me a more detailed scan of the circuitry, Ida. Why do they need to keep track of where their customers are?"

"I'll have to give it some power."

"Fine." The Middleman finished his glass of milk and set it on the table.

"Yo, Boss." Wendy wandered in with a cup of coffee for herself and another milk. She set the full glass next to the empty one. "You're hitting that stuff a lot harder, lately."

"Milk is full of vitamins, calcium for strong bones, and high-quality protein for energy and stamina," he said blandly. "This is no time to take risks." He waited a split second after Wendy had spotted the sexual innuendo, and grinned at her.

Wendy was used to making all the jokes. "Oh? Somebody's full of himself."

On second thought, she snagged the glass of milk from him and drank about half of it. Couldn't hurt.

Ida rolled her eyes. "Don't make the robot hurl. Or your guns might not work when you need them. This thing's ready to fire up."

"Go on," said the Middleman.

Ida turned on the U-Master. It sat for two seconds, hard drives humming, and then caught fire in a shower of sparks.

"Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that," Wendy said.

"The internal GPS booted first thing, then sent a signal to rupture the batteries," Ida said. "FATBOY doesn't like this neighborhood. I can't take out the GPS without wrecking the whole thing, but I can keep it from reading a location." The Middleman nodded; Ida unboxed another U-Master and locked it in a wire mesh cabinet. "Ready."

The U-Master sat for three seconds, and blew up with measurably more energy. "Kinky," Wendy said.

"These are ordinary U-Masters, or should be," he said. "It must be a hard-wired feature of the equipment. Ida, are there recorded cases like this among normal U-Master customers?"

The robot blinked briefly, linked to the HEYDAR. "Not a one."

"I think the U-Masters dislike our headquarters," the Middleman said. "It might work differently if the machine was turned on for the first time and configured somewhere else."

"We could borrow Lacey's," Wendy put in. And stopped, appalled. "Lacey. They know who we are, they know she's a friend of mine. She's in danger. And Noser, Noser's got a U-Master too. We've got to warn them."

"It'll be more credible in person," the Middleman said, and picked up his jacket. "Ida, keep working."

-------

Bill didn't have anything against his wife, really; she was just dull. Dull, and predictable, and always treating him as if he was dull too. She never seemed to think that other women would be interested in him, for example. That was insulting when you thought about it.

She was going to be insulted too, when she found out about Tammi. But that wasn't his problem. Bill brought up the household bank account on the Internet and clicked Transfer Funds.

The music from his U-Master was booming in his ears, suddenly. Bill turned the volume down but it didn't seem to help. The song had changed to a soppy country-western ballad about a good woman done wrong. Bill felt like the biggest bastard in the history of the universe. He felt the urge to text Tammi and call it all off right now,

Don't be a dipshit. Bill tried to pull off the headphones, but his fingers wouldn't coordinate right. He tried to bull on ahead with his money transfer, but he couldn't see the screen well enough. A clumsy mis-key logged him off the bank website entirely. He cursed out loud. He got the computer turned off, still cursing; his head was pounding.

Moisture on his face. When he reached up, his nose was bleeding. One damn thing after another today. He shoved tissue in his nose and left for work in a foul mood. He was still wearing his U-Master, but he no longer noticed it.

He was still wearing it two hours later when he collapsed at work. Bill's cube-mate called an ambulance, but the brain aneurysm had hit hard and fast. The EMT's didn't bother unpacking their equipment when they arrived. No one suspected anything unusual at the time.

------

The Middleman excused himself on the ground floor when they reached Wendy's building, saying something vague about security. She went up the freight elevator alone. She'd never been afraid to come home. Not the night a super-intelligent gorilla shot at her in the hallway with an automatic rifle, not the day she'd found a rogue Middleman chatting up her roommate. She was afraid now, and the laser gun on her hip didn't help.

Half the weight on her chest lifted when she saw Noser safe and sound in the hallway, tuning his guitar. "Hey, Wendy Watson."

She rushed up and grabbed him by both shoulders. "Noser, where's your U-Master? Never mind. The point is, don't use it. Don't wear it, don't turn it on, don't try to take the batteries out, don't touch it. Leave it right where it is." She shook him. "Understand?"

"Understand," Noser said. "Also, ow."

"Sorry." Wendy let go. "I'm a little freaked out. Listen, is Lacey home?"

"Yeah. You might want to wait a while, though; she's got company."

"This is too important."

"It's Tyler."

Wendy spit out a word the Middleman never used. "His funeral." She rushed inside.

----

Wendy moved silently by habit, now. They didn't notice her at first. "I know you had a thing for him too," Tyler was saying earnestly. "But those guys don't walk around in I hit women t-shirts. They come on charming at first, put the pressure on one notch at a time."

"I get it the breakup hurt," Lacey replied. "I do. But if you're really scared for Wendy, don't be. If anybody says 'how high?' when the other one says 'jump,' it's him."

"I've got the poor guy seriously 'whipped, all right," Wendy said in a hard, light voice. Tyler flinched when he heard her. Wendy came closer. A brochure headed Warning Signs of Partner Abuse rested on the kitchen counter between Tyler and Lacey.

Tyler was babbling something, explaining or excusing; Wendy didn't listen. She visualized the complete Ninety-Seven Steps of Death in crystalline detail. It was the only way she could stop herself using them. "What part of 'get out of my life' did you not understand?" she snarled.

Lacey looked hurt; she hated conflict. "Dub-dub, I really think he means well. He's just mixed up."

Tyler had on a Bluetooth earpiece. The oversized cube of a U-Master hung on a belt attachment. Wendy's hand shot out like a cobra, grabbed the headset. Tyler yelped in real pain. She stomped it like a cockroach, swept the U-Master main unit into a terminal trajectory with one of the brick walls. "I came to say that those things are dangerous," she said. "I just saw a couple of them explode."

"You're insane!" Tyler rubbed his ear. "What are you, on drugs or something?"

"What am I? What are you ..." Wendy drew a hand back, but Tyler wasn't standing in front of her any more. She thought he was flinching, or ducking, but he kept going. Tyler sat down hard on the floor as if his legs had turned to rubber.

Wendy forgot to be angry at him. "Keep still." Tyler's temperature felt normal, pupils equal and responsive, pulse fast but steady. "What has Neville done to you?"

He pushed her hands away. "Nothing. I'm just a little dizzy."

"Can you get up by yourself?"

Tyler shook his head. "Stop trying to be my mom."

Wendy crouched down to his level. "This isn't normal. And you know it. Knocking off something like a Walkman shouldn't put you halfway into a seizure."

"That cost five hundred dollars, you know," he retorted.

"I'll write you a check." Wendy wasn't seeing many expenses these days, living largely at Middle HQ. She felt torn between leveling with him -- the Middleman was right, he was smart -- and not saying anything that might go straight back to Manservant Neville. "Tyler, I'm worried about you."

"Yeah. I'm worried about you, and nobody seems to care. One day everything's great, the next you're gone." The skin under his eyes was shadowed almost to the point of bruises. Wendy wondered if he'd been sleeping. "You never even told me what I did wrong."

"Nothing. It wasn't about you." Tyler looked like he'd been struck. Wendy wondered if that wasn't more hurtful than calling him every name in the book. "It started with my job. If I worked for the government, I'd be using words like ultra-top-secret." Surely Neville already knew that much. "I'm pretty much living two lives. I couldn't be fair to you, to anybody when you only knew about the simple one." She looked across at Lacey. Her friend gave her an accepting, only slightly sad smile in return. But friendship wasn't romance. "He's my partner and my friend, he's seen me through hell ... I wound up falling in love on top of all that."

"You don't have to sleep with him to work with him," Tyler said doggedly.

I've made promises. Almost on impulse, like her overture to the Middleman in the first place. But sometimes an impulse was the subconscious making a decision really fast. She wasn't sure how to define her improvised vows in the (virtual) presence of a couple of hundred dead Middlemen. She did know they'd come to mean as much to her as they did to him.

Going back, even for Tyler, would be like sawing her own leg off. "I'm sorry I hurt you. That's on me, you know. I put all the moves on him, not the other way around."

"Doesn't matter." Tyler looked bleak; he turned his face away. Levered himself up by the edge of the kitchen counter. He jerked his arm away fiercely when Wendy offered to help. "I'll stay away from you, you stay away from me. I'll help my boss change the world. You do whatever it is you do. I'm not gonna wait around for you any more."

"It's a deal." Wendy couldn't think of a thing to say or do that wouldn't hurt Tyler all over again. Even I'm sorry. He seemed to agree; he left without a second glance.

----

The Middleman hadn't done a security scan in and around Wendy's sublet since she first started her job. It was overdue by any measure. He'd also noticed Tyler's car parked not far from Lacey's. He didn't want to act domineering or make an awkward situation worse. This was a good time to sweep around the building.

No explosives in a multi-block radius, no radioactives; that was pure routine. No alien tech... but there was unexpected human tech. Off-the-shelf gear. He'd never have noticed it if it hadn't come from a building that had stood empty and for sale for months. The old Viper Publishing building, straight across from Wendy and Lacey's windows.

Fresh scrapes on the keyhole at the main entry door; a key, not lock picks. The Middleman's own version didn't leave marks. Inside the sealed ex-warehouse was stuffy, the still air heavy with dust. Enough had precipitated to the floor that he could see faint, recent scuff marks.

He'd seen better surveillance posts. He'd used better. But it was an impressive effort for civilian tech, no expense spared. The line of sight would be just as good for sniping if anyone was so inclined. The Middleman's most thorough search turned up no weapons or signs any had been here, which was some comfort. The fingerprints his general-purpose scanner read and identified were no comfort at all.

He used the window himself, saw Tyler leaving Wendy and Lacey's apartment with every sign of emotional upset. A little physical shakiness, too. The two young women were safe and sound. He tracked Tyler by eye until the younger man left the building and drove away. It would have been a long shot, with a handgun, but he could have managed. Not that Wendy couldn't take care of herself.

Wendy talked to Lacey a while longer, hugged her. She threw a few things into a bag and left. When she looked for him, outside the front door, he raised his Middlewatch. "Across the street, the Viper building. Door's unlocked."

Once she was inside, Wendy grasped the observation post -- in essentials if not in fine detail -- as completely as the Middleman had. "Crap."

He appreciated that she used more euphemisms than outright strong language, these days. "Exactly. Mr. Ford's fingerprints are on most of the gear, positive ID. No one else's."

"They've done something to him." Wendy looked across through the window, looked away. "FATBOY. I grabbed his U-Master -- I was pretty p-peeved at him -- and he damn near fainted. That thing's in his mind. He's not responsible for this."

He's responsible. Whether he's to blame or not. Wendy started to pick up the video camera. "Leave that." The Middleman opened a compartment on his belt, attached coin-sized objects underneath each piece of Tyler's electronic equipment. "Leave everything just as it is. This is the first clue we've managed to find before instead of after an incident; we need the lead."

Wendy stared. "You said Tyler wasn't an enemy."

"I still hope he isn't. But he is an information channel to FATBOY and to Neville's intentions. We can't afford to waste that."

"I'll get Lacey on the phone. Noser's apartment's on the other side of the building; she can stay with him a few days."

"No," the Middleman said again.

"She could be in danger."

"I don't think so. There's no sign of weapons here; the sublet is only being observed. If no one's home, nothing to observe, the clue will lead nowhere."

"Lacey didn't sign up for that risk," Wendy said. "Not like I did."

"I know." His voice softened, reminding Wendy that he cared for Lacey as well. "It's the best we can do. She's already endangered by knowing us. The quicker we find out what FATBOY is doing, the safer she'll be."

Wendy thought it over, nodded. "There are things I hate about this job."

"You wouldn't be much of a Middleman if you didn't," he said.

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