Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [112]
Mancuso pointed at the display above the magazine sleeve on the gun. The magazine itself lay on Petersen’s desk, grey and copper bullets visible in the glow of the desk lamp. ‘“M-T”. What the hell does “M-T” mean?’
‘It means no ammunition. The gun is empty. It also means the bastards were too cheap to give you anything more than a three‐character display. You can also use that readout to do a general systems check when you dismantle the weapon. It’ll probably also show the time and date and store phone numbers for you.’ Mancuso picked the magazine up and thumbed bullets out of it on to the desk, the spring easing a new round up each time. She remembered bright colours flowing out of plastic bottles, gathering at her feet.
‘I was holding it, talking to Breen. This witchy girl came out of nowhere, from behind some shelves. She had us. We were finished. She had her gun right on me. Then this thing moved, aimed and fired itself.’
‘That’s pretty smart.’ Petersen was carefully working the intelligence chip out of its socket. The thin glowing light around its edges remained on as it left the mother board.
‘Maybe you can examine that, tell me something about it.’
Petersen set the chip on his desk and adjusted the lamp over it. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t mind some answers before I go off duty. I might be able to get some sleep if I know what I’m carrying on the street tomorrow.’
But Petersen didn’t reply. He was no longer looking at the chip. His eyes were on the desk screen, watching the numbers from the door coder flashing. He stared at the numbers for a moment, then began pulling magazines out of the piles of paper that buried his in‐tray.
‘What is it?’
Petersen ignored her. He had a magazine open and was looking at the screen again. The magazine was printed on cheap yellow paper with occasional high‐quality ivory‐toned pages for colour illustrations. It was a scientific journal of some kind.
‘Jesus,’ said Petersen. He was running his finger along a row of figures printed in the journal, looking up at the screen and back down at the magazine.
‘What’s going on?’ said Mancuso. ‘What is that?’
‘It’s an article in the math section. Not really my field. It’s about the ozone holes and modelling their behaviour. The big problem is predicting the movement in the atmosphere.’
‘I know. I had a cousin in Oregon.’
‘Well, they’ve got these equations.’ Petersen was looking at the screen again. ‘Basically, all you have to understand is that it’s an unsolvable problem,’ he said, reaching for the release button for the door lock, ‘and that someone standing down there in the alley is solving it.’
The steel bars securing the street door made a dull thudding noise as they drew back into the wall.
He was smaller than Mancuso remembered. In the drugstore she’d thought of him as the little guy, but somehow in her memory he’d grown. Now she was startled to see how small he was. She looked into his disquieting eyes, then down at his small, delicate hands. They were empty. Mancuso held her own hands out of sight behind Petersen’s desk.
‘There’s no need for that,’ said the man, looking at her. Mancuso lifted her hands and brought her Colt sidearm into view. She didn’t point it at the man, but she didn’t point it away from him either. Petersen ignored both of them, concentrating on his desk screen. He was ransacking the buffer, retrieving as much as he could of the sequence of numbers the man had keyed in on the door coder. ‘It’s chaotic but patterned,’ said the man.
Petersen glanced up and smiled, then bent back to his work. He was happy. He was going to get a paper out of this.
‘Did you find the hovercraft?’ said the man. ‘I thought you ought to know about it.’
‘That was a really stupid move,’ said Mancuso.
‘Not only was it illegally parked, but I also suspected it of being involved in the commission of a felony,’ said the man.
‘I can’t remember if I gave you your rights,’ said Mancuso.