The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [128]
“You don’t do that, Mike. I do it. You stay near here and you put it all on video.”
Van drove the cart one-handed, in the dark, down the mountain slope. Van had a fully loaded elk rifle, a sling for his wounded arm, and an open laptop. Hickok had attached the oxygen mask to his face, rigging him an improvised black harness for the tank.
With fresh oxygen inside his lungs, Van literally had a second wind. Van had blown right past fear, loathing, rage, and exhaustion into a state of battlefield glory. It was two o’clock in the morning. He had killed. He had been wounded in battle. He felt not one atomic particle of remorse or doubt. His mind had never been clearer in his life.
He was exalted.
The truth was, he loved war. He had never been in war before, but now he recognized war as his home. He loved war more than he loved women, food, or sleep. He would grind his teeth when cyberwarfare was denied him. In moments of peace, he would miss his dear war gone by. He would miss it so.
Wimberley was waiting inside the operating center. He was standing over an unconscious technician. He was tapping at a mouse.
Van set his rifle aside. “So what happened to the weapon’s operator here?”
“I sprayed nonlethals on his keyboard. All over his fingers, Dr. Vandeveer. That spray-on stuff is voodoo.”
“Too bad. I was planning to interrogate him.”
“No need for that, sir,” said Wimberley. “I set Tempest bugs on his monitor. We got every screen shot. Every keystroke. I’m just resetting these system preferences so we can push this laser past the limit.”
“Can we get enough wind power to surge this weapon past its red line?”
“I do think so, sir,” said Wimberley. “And that power-console guy looked real surprised when I busted in there and knocked him cold.”
“How’d you do that?” said Van.
“I used a chair leg, sir,” said Wimberley. He stared at Van’s wounded arm and tactfully said nothing.
Another Internet technician appeared at the far end of a tall set of blue cabinets. He was carrying a hunting rifle cradled in both arms.
Van made a one-handed lunge for his own rifle, but Wimberley just turned his black-helmeted head. “U.S. Cyberspace Force!” he shouted from the keyboard. “Freeze!”
The technician dropped his rifle with a panicked clatter. Van heard an exit door bang open. He heard shoes rattling down a set of stairs.
Wimberley returned to Van with the abandoned rifle. He checked the action expertly. “No round inside the chamber. Safety still on. He busted the scope when he dropped it, too.” He returned to his screen. “You were right about the no-guns rule, sir. Guns, that’s just not our way.”
“What does a giant laser death ray run under?” said Van.
“OpenBSD. And X-Windows.”
“Awesome.” Van had another huff of oxygen.
“I can run this console. I’m controlling all the enemy’s software. You know what, sir? I’m about to blow up a spacewar weapon. I’m gonna save an American satellite. Me. William C. Wimberley. This is the most important thing I’m ever gonna do in my whole life, and I’m only twenty-one years old.” Wimberley looked at Van and blinked. “You didn’t have to give me another chance, sir. I broke your head in.”
Van shrugged.
“I am such a screwup. I’ve always been a loser. When your phone call came for me to do this, I was drunk and I was crying in my beer. I just thought, maybe he’ll give me some money. I’m a pretty smart kid, Dr. Vandeveer, but I never knew who I was, or what the hell I was doing. I’m finally gonna do something here that really, really matters.”
Van nodded. He had heard about such things before, but he had never before seen it happen. He was seeing a troubled young man rehabilitated by his military service.
“The past is over and we’re gonna set it on fire,” Van told him, waving him on with his free left arm. “You carry on.”
Van watched his laptop screen for Hickok’s video surveillance.
The observatory’s round wall was bulging. The building warped and began gently smoldering. It was very strange to witness a weapon being demolished on a screen, thought Van. He had just been physically inside that place.