Part 3
"So how are we going to test this thing once we get it set up, Burt?" Kylie asked. They were on their way back from Burt's place, having gone to pick up the rest of the electronic equipment. They took the back way, to avoid meeting up with any of Burt's ardent fans. "Oh I know!" Kylie said, answering her own question. "We could get Messerschmitt from Siegfried and Roy and have him fly around the valley a few times.
"Not likely," Burt said dryly. "I've constructed some AB-sized kites at designated test locations. We will simply deploy those and see the results."
"Oh, that's what we were dropping off the other-- Who's that?"
A lone car drove toward them on the dirt road. It was odd to see anyone besides Tyler anywhere this deep in the valley. And even that was rare. Burt pulled his hat down low on his face and turned away as the car passed them. As if that would disguise the very tall man driving Burt's distinctive power wagon.
"It's some nerdy little guy, Burt," Kylie assured him. "He didn't act like he wanted your autograph, or anything." She twisted in the seat to keep an eye on the dilapidated orange car as Burt watched it through the rear view mirror. "Of course, he could be some gay guy and still part of the fan club. I'll bet he--" Kylie finally caught sight of Burt's white knuckles on the steering wheel and shut up. There weren't any hammers handy just now and she wasn't in the mood for anything drastic anyway, so she just kept her mouth shut and looked out her side of the truck, hoping time would calm him down. She didn't see why he was sensitive about this fan club thing...
Burt hooked up the last cable and turned the last dial, then proudly, triumphantly, even, flicked the power switch on his new Prototype AssBlaster Detection System.
There was a squeal as the system went nuts, dials flickered back and forth, the lights flashed, one unit shot sparks into the air, then everything shut down.
"Dammit!" Burt started examining every connection from start to finish. "That system should have worked." He disconnected one of the black boxes, the disgust clear on his face. "Blew out my modulator!"
"Hey look, Burt!"
Burt followed Kylie's gaze toward the graboid monitor he'd set up for the site. It was considerably more powerful than the one in his truck, and they could keep an eye on it from wherever they were on the site. It was flashing too.
He went to the monitor and readjusted it, but the signal just got worse. "Check the one in the truck," he instructed Kylie.
"It's the same," she reported when she'd gone to look and returned.
Burt turned the signal one way, then the other. "It's worse to the south," he muttered.
"Why's that?" Kylie asked.
He shook his head. "Something's sending a signal that's interfering with our seismo system."
"Like what? You don't have anything else set up in the Valley."
"It's not something of mine," Burt said, shutting down their equipment. His face took on the look he usually got just before he started yelling at her. But at least he wasn't mad at her. This time. "But I intend to find out what it is."
Kylie followed him to the power wagon and they headed south.
A few miles from the site, a three-car convoy approached them on the road. Burt busied himself adjusting the monitor to find out if the signal was coming from them.
Kylie looked from the cars and back to Burt. Other than making sure he didn't run into them, he wasn't paying them much attention. "Uh... Burt?"
Too late he looked up and noticed that the cars were filled with women wearing identical garish t-shirts with his picture on them. Or, rather, that ridiculous picture Jodi put together of him for the Survival School flyers.
They'd spotted him and started getting out of their cars, flagging him down. They had the road blocked, but that was no problem for his power wagon. He simply swerved off the road and went around. One enthusiastic redhead stood on the back seat of the convertible she rode in and pulled up her top. Burt looked quickly away.
"Not bad..." Kylie commented with a smile on her face, as she watched the show go by. "You know, this obsession on their part could be convenient for you."
He gave her a puzzled look, forcing his eyes to avoid the rear view mirror.
"Well, a couple of those chicks were kind of cute. And, well... obviously friendly."
He still frowned at her.
"You know," she prompted. "In case you get lonely..."
"Out of the question," he said emphatically, his puzzled frown turning to a determined glare.
"You could go see if that guy was interested..."
He continued to scowl at her.
"Just making a suggestion..." Kylie said with a snigger. "Hey, and speaking of the guy..."
"Damn it Kylie--" Burt shouted.
"No, seriously, Burt," she said, grabbing the binoculars from behind the seat. "What's that guy doing?"
Burt followed the direction of the binoculars. Sure enough, there was a car in the distance. "That the same one?" he asked, trying to take control of the binoculars.
Kylie pushed his hand away. "You drive, me look." She watched a moment more. "Same guy, all right. He just came around the car. Besides, I recognize the car - you don't see too many looking like that outside a junkyard."
"Exactly in the direction we're heading," Burt commented suspiciously.
Kylie's eyes slid over to him. "You think he's up to something?"
Burt just looked at her. "What do you think?"
"I think you think everyone's up to something." She put the binoculars back to her eyes. "But then, he's not hiking. He's got some big box he's trying to get in his trunk. Can't get a good look at--" She looked closer. "Got dials and knobs on it, Burt. It's got to be him."
Burt poured on some more speed and left the twisting road to take a more direct route.
The man heard their approach. His head snapped around toward the noise of the power wagon. He started, then began to toss the equipment scattered around the car into the trunk with considerably less care than he'd shown prior to spotting them.
As he slammed the trunk and went for the driver's side, Kylie said, "He's making a run for it."
"He won't get far," Burt said confidently.
The car started up and took off with a trail of dust, but Burt was right. The car just wasn't made for the rugged valley terrain and soon got stuck on a hill. The power wagon overtook it easily.
Burt and Kylie got out and went to the driver's side of the car, where the man huddled, guilt and overdone innocence warring on his face.
Burt leaned on the door, looking in. Kylie stood to the side, hands on knees, looking in as well.
The man in the car gave them one nervous glance then stared resolutely out the front window. He had sandy brown, curling hair that stood out from his head at all angles, as if he'd forgotten to comb it for the past couple days. His blue eyes darted nervously out the front of the car, as if looking for escape - or rescue.
"Going somewhere?" Burt asked casually.
The man still refused to look at them.
"Don't think he's going anywhere, Burt," Kylie commented. "Looks like he's stuck."
On hearing Burt's name, the man jumped and almost looked toward them, seeming a cross between excited and scared to death.
"What are you up to out here?" Burt asked suspiciously.
"Y-you're Burt Gummer?" the man asked, his eyes darting to Burt then quickly back to the front.
"Who wants to know?" Burt shot back.
He swallowed nervously. "Jasper Ferris." He swallowed nervously, but finally managed to look at Burt for a moment. "I'm from MNI."
Burt's eyes narrowed even further. "'MNI'?" he repeated. "That some kind of government agency?"
"Um..." It was clear the man could tell from Burt's voice that 'government agency' was probably not the best thing to be. He made a visible decision to look Burt in the eye. "Um... not really."
"But it does work for the government," Burt prompted.
The man looked away, then nodded.
"Oh, Lady," Kylie groaned, straightening. "From the government and lurking around the Valley. This won't go well."
Burt shot an annoyed glance at her then focused again on Ferris. "I ask again," he said, a little too gently, "What are you up to out here?"
Jasper took a deep breath. "MNI - the Munroe Nanotechnology Institute - was doing some experiments out here..."
"Oh great. He had to say the e-word," Kylie muttered.
Burt silenced her with a look. "What kind of experiments?" he asked, straightening.
The man hesitated and Kylie stepped forward to lean on the door. "You might as well spill it," she told him kindly. "You won't be going anywhere until you do." Burt tried to silence her by putting a firm hand on her shoulder, but she ignored him. She smiled at the man. "Now why don't you just tell Mr. Gummer what he needs to know?"
Jasper stared at her, then at the tantalizing stretch of cleavage shown by her leaning on the door. His face flooded with color and he wuffed out a breath or two before he finally found his voice. "I-I'm just out to ch-check on the s-status of the diggers," he stuttered out.
"'Diggers'?" Burt prompted, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What kind of diggers?"
Kylie opened the car door and helped Jasper out, then took his arm. "Now, tell us all about these... 'diggers' did you call them?"
Suddenly, the man smiled. "They're nano-scale - molecular - machines! They've surpassed even my wildest expectations. They can do anything - clean up oil spills, and rescue people trapped by earthquakes, and find ore, and oh - just anything!" He was really getting warmed up now.
Kylie exchanged a glance with Burt then shrugged and went to lean on the back of the car - but gingerly, in case the thing fell apart as she did.
"These are self-repairing, bottom up technology. There's nothing they can't do! They can scan and locate, differentiate at the atomic level, fabricate and assemble on the molecular level, and-and-and-- But, they, but, but they--" He stumbled over the words at this point, looking desperately between Burt and Kylie. "I've been trying to recall them, but they're not all responding to the signal. I--"
"Your signal that's been interfering with our seismo system, endangering all our lives," Burt persisted.
"Interfering?" Jasper said. "How could it--" He looked down at the rental wrist seismo he wore, then his eyes darted nervously around the surrounding terrain. "You mean..." his voice lowered to a frightened whisper, "...a graboid could be here, right now?"
"Yes, a graboid. Your signal distorted our system. We would have no idea where El Blanco was."
"B-b-but it's okay now, right?" he demanded.
"Now that you've stopped your interference," Burt told him. "Now what have these diggers got to do with the signals interfering with my equipment?"
"Well, they-- I-I was trying to recall them, of course. They've been reacting-- Well, malfunctioning. I'm not sure-- They are out of control," he blurted out. "They should have gotten them all, but I keep finding more. They keep tunneling and..."
Burt and Kylie turned slowly to look at each other, dawning comprehension hitting at the same moment. "The pillar," said Burt, as Kylie cried, "That hole!"
"It's the only explanation," Burt told her.
She nodded, her lips a firm, flat line.
As one, they turned back to Jasper. His words slowed died away. He turned frantically from one to the other. "What? What is it?"
"Are these diggers of yours capable of disintegrating solid rock?" Burt demanded.
"Of course," Jasper replied. "I just said that." He looked from Burt to Kylie and back again, disconcerted at their hardened expressions. "Th-th-they can soften rock and other, well, hard, um, substances, so we could--
Suddenly, Kylie leaped. In the space of a moment, she had him flat on the ground beneath her, hands locked around his neck. "We were almost killed, you shit! And that octopus thing! And I fell down a hole!"
"Urk!" Jasper managed to squeeze out.
Kylie bounced his head on the ground twice for good measure.
Burt recovered swiftly. "Kylie!" he shouted. "Stop it!" She wasn't listening. He threw an arm around her waist and lifted, pulling them both up and shaking until Kylie's grasp on Jasper's neck finally broke. He set her behind him and turned back to Jasper.
Kylie tried to dart around him but he quickly blocked her with his body, giving her a warning look. "Stay put," he growled.
She didn't.
Jasper crawled around his car and cowered, watching the interplay between them with wide, frightened eyes.
"Kylie, stop it!" Burt shouted. He grasped her shoulders and lifted her up, giving her a shake to get her attention.
She stared at him with outraged eyes, dragging in ragged breaths, still kicking to get loose. "Let me go, Burt! He-- he--"
Burt nodded, pulling her toward him until their faces almost touched. "Stop it," he told her once again. He held her eyes another moment, until her own focused on him instead of Jasper. Then he set her back on her feet. But he held her shoulders. "He didn't know, Kylie," Burt explained, the irony of his being forced to talk Kylie down not entirely lost on him. "Stay there," he ordered, and turned back to Jasper.
"Are you saying these things--"
Burt saw something out of the corner of his eye and twisted, reaching back to take the gun that had appeared in Kylie's hand. "Are you insane?" he hissed. "Stop waving that damn thing around."
Kylie glared back at him another moment, then looked away, taking a deep breath. She turned and gave Jasper one last glare then went to lean against the trunk of his car, her face a mask of sullen rage.
After he was sure Kylie would stay put, Burt put her Kimber in his belt and turned back to Jasper.
He was busy trying to hide under the car. Burt shook his head and pulled him out, then lifted him none-too-gently to his feet. He towered over him and scowled, glancing once at Kylie to be sure she maintained her position. "Are you saying these things are responsible for the degradation of the rock out here?"
"I, I, I--" he started. "W-well, that is to say... Um... I... What degradation of the rock?"
"We've had four sinkholes appear in solid rock over the past two months," Burt explained. "A solid rock shelf we were on at the time disintegrated."
Jasper's eyebrows rose in surprise, but one side of his mouth quirked into a smile. Then Kylie stood and stared fiercely at him, reminding him that the Valley's instability was not really a good thing. "That just isn't possible," he blurted out. "They couldn't do that. Of course-- Well, that could be-- I'm just, I'm not really, um, sure. Do you know where this has been happening?"
"Watch him," Burt said, and strode toward the power wagon. As he passed, Kylie reached for her gun in Burt's belt. He pushed her hand away. "I said watch him, not shoot him." As Burt trudged away, Kylie crossed her arms and glared at Jasper.
He tried to fold in on himself, in a futile attempt to appear small and harmless.
"I've found five areas," Burt said as he returned with the Valley map he'd got from the truck. He spread the map across the hood of Jasper's car. "Here, here, and here, to the south, and these two, east of here." He pointed to five areas on the map.
"You didn't tell me about those two," Kylie accused, pointing toward the last two areas he'd mentioned.
Burt barely spared her a glance. As nervous as she'd been around the valley since the incident with that hole she'd fell in, he thought it prudent to leave some of his recent discoveries out of his discussions with her. "As you can see, there are two major problem areas."
Jasper started to scramble into his car, eagerly, but Kylie grabbed him by the back of the shirt. "Wait a minute there."
He spun, throwing himself back against the car. "I just-- I wanted to get my map," he said nervously.
Kylie released him after a nod from Burt. "Yeah, just make sure that's all you get," she threatened.
Jasper pulled out a survey map and spread it on the hood next to Burt's and all three leaned over it. The map had four areas marked: two in red and two in blue. Where the red and blue overlapped corresponded with Burt's two major problem areas.
Burt and Kylie exchanged a glance.
"Your nano," Burt explained, "have gone wild and are destroying the valley!"
"But, but, but... That's impossible!" Jasper explained. "They can't--"
"They can, and are," Burt informed him. "Now how are you going to stop them?"
"They can't!" Jasper repeated. "There is not sufficient quantity of the diggers to cause the destruction you're talking about." He caught Kylie's expression. "Well there's not..."
Burt pressed his lips together, considering. He turned back to the maps. "What does the color coding mean?"
"The red indicates the sites where MNI initially released the nano," he explained. "But those were all recovered."
"And the red?" Burt prompted, relentlessly.
Jasper looked away. "W-w-well those... They... ah... They're not... I developed a new variety, and... I had to test them... somewhere." His eyes slid across Kylie and settled on Burt. "MNI didn't... exactly... ah... sanction their release." He looked from Burt to Kylie then back to Burt. "But th-there were only a few! N-n-nowhere near the quantity it would take to do the damage you're talking about!" His eyes flew from Burt to Kylie and back again. "Honest!"
"Oh, you government types," Burt began. "Want to tamper with the laws of nature. Secret experiments you have to run to see how badly you can bungle things up. Always thinking you know better..." Burt continued in this vein for some time. Kylie nodded periodically, in complete agreement with Burt for a change.
Jasper blinked first at Burt, then toward Kylie. His eyes slid toward his disabled car.
At last, Burt's comments on the government, secrecy, "experiments run amok," and, oddly, the evils of water filtration, started to wind down.
Kylie turned back to Jasper. "Have you got any way of detecting this nano crap you've infested the Valley with?"
"Well... yes, of course," Jasper said. "I've got the standard issue unit with me, naturally. I've been working on a new, smaller device, however. It's quite ingenious, really. It can detect a--
Kylie waved it off. "As long as you can find these nano-whatsits and get rid of them." She turned to Burt.
He nodded. "We'll start at the cave-in."
They piled all Jasper's equipment - standard and experimental models - into the back of Burt's truck and took off for the first site.
Kylie made Jasper sit in the back with the equipment.