Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [75]
“No. But we just might be able to make our way into the tunnel space from one of the adjacent basements, which I confirmed still exist. The question is: which one to try first?” Once again, that gleam that had been so often absent in recent days returned to Pendergast’s eyes: the gleam of the hunt. “I’m in the mood for doughnuts,” he said. “How about you?”
34
St. Francisville, Louisiana
PAINSTAKINGLY, MORRIS BLACKLETTER, PHD, FITTED the servo mechanism to the rear wheel assembly. He checked it, checked it again, then plugged the USB cable from the guidance control unit into his laptop and ran a diagnostic. It checked out. He wrote a simple four-line program, downloaded it into the control unit, and gave the execute command. The little robot—a rather ugly confabulation of processors, motors, and sensory inputs, set atop fat rubber wheels—engaged its forward motor, rolled across the floor for exactly five seconds, then stopped abruptly.
Blackletter felt a flush of triumph all out of proportion with the achievement. Throughout his vacation—staring at English cathedrals, sitting in dimly lit pubs—he’d been anticipating this moment.
Years ago, Blackletter had read a study explaining how retired people frequently acquired interests diametrically different from the work that had occupied their professional lives. That, he thought ruefully, was certainly the case with him. All those years in the health profession—first at Doctors With Wings, later at a succession of pharmaceutical and medical research labs—he had been obsessed with the human body: how it worked, what made it fail, how to keep it healthy or cure its ills. And now here he was, toying with robots—the antithesis of flesh and blood. When they burned out, you just threw them away and ordered another. No grief, no death.
How different it was from those years he’d spent in Third World countries, parched and mosquito-bitten, threatened by guerrilla fighters and harassed by corruption, sometimes sick himself—working to contain epidemics. He had saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives, but so many, many others had died. It hadn’t been his fault, of course. But then there was the other thing, the thing he tried never to think about. That, more than anything, was what caused him to flee flesh and blood for the contentment of plastic and silicon…
Here he was, thinking about it again. He shook his head as if to rid himself of the terrible guilt of it and glanced back at the robot. Slowly, the guilt drained away—what was done was done, and his motives had always been pure. A smile settled over his features. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The robot’s audio sensor took note, and it swiveled toward the sound. “Robo want a cracker,” it croaked in a metallic disembodied voice.
Feeling absurdly pleased, Blackletter rose to his feet and walked from his den to the kitchen for one last cup of tea before calling it a night. He suddenly paused, hand on the teapot, listening.
There it came again: the creak of a board.
Slowly, Blackletter set the pot back on the counter. Was it the wind? But no: it was a quiet, windless night.
Somebody in the street, perhaps? The sound was too close, too clear for that.
Perhaps it was all in his mind. Minds had a tendency to do that, he knew: the absence of real auditory stimuli frequently encouraged the brain to supply its own. He’d been puttering about in his den for hours, and…
Another creak. This time Blackletter knew for certain: the sound had come from inside the house.
“Who’s that?” he called out. The creaking stopped.
Was it a burglar? Unlikely. There were far larger, grander houses on the street than his.
Who, then?
The creaking resumed, regular, deliberate. And now he could tell where it was coming from: the living room at the front of the house.
He glanced toward the phone, saw the empty cradle. Damn these cordless phones. Where had he left the handset? Of course