Cutting Edge (2002) Read online

  Cédric became distracted by a sudden movement at the far right periphery of his vision. He cocked his head inside the dome port for a better look, but it reduced his field of view just enough so he realized he’d have to turn his whole body.

  He applied the slightest bit of pressure to his left footpad for a thruster assist and was nudged the opposite way.

  A quick spin of his blades, and Marius shifted to face in the same direction. “Don’t tell me the shark’s returned in spite of our PODs being activated.”

  “Probably not. Whatever I glimpsed didn’t seem that large.”

  Cédric was quiet for a moment. There weren’t many forms of aquatic life down here that presented even the slightest hazard, but he was always on the lookout for an unusual specimen, making him an underwater equivalent of a bird-watcher, he supposed. Though it seemed a stretch to believe he’d have two exceptional sightings in a single dive, maybe he’d gotten fortunate. The Ogooué Basin was stocked full of unique tenants, including deepwater octopuses and nautiluses.

  He scanned the underwater dimness, kicking his shoulder lamps to their brightest settings with the touch of a switch inside his hardsuit. Then his gaze fixed on a speedily approaching object about six meters distant at three o’clock.

  He raised an arm to point. “Marius—”

  “I see it,” his partner said. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Cédric’s silence did not stem from any lack of desire to respond. He simply hadn’t the vaguest clue.

  For an instant he entertained the thought that he really had lucked into another sighting. That whatever was coming toward them was a strange, wide-bodied fish to be imaged and subsequently identified for his personal archive of marine animals. As it got closer, however, he realized it was neither fish, nor cephalopod, nor any other type of living creature.

  “I think—Marius, it looks like some kind of unmanned probe.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense . . . we’d have been informed if one was operating in this area.”

  Cédric was silent again. Marius was right, it didn’t make sense. Just as a splice that shouldn’t have been in the cable made no sense. Yet there it was lying uncovered on the seabed only a few steps from where he stood. And there in the bright fan of his lights was an autonomous underwater vehicle unlike any he’d seen in his entire diving career.

  Then it struck him that it did resemble something he’d seen before—and that flash of sudden recall instantly branched off into another like electronic data through a signal splitter. Cédric’s first clear memory was of a fish he’d often spotted skimming through the sea grass while on a year-long Planétaire telecom project in the Caribbean. His second was of an article he’d read mentioning the same creature—a fish, family Ostraciidae—in one of the scientific monthlies he read with compulsive diligence. National Geographic’s French edition, perhaps, but that didn’t really matter. The important things for him were that the boxfish was distinguished by the hard outer carapace that deterred predators but also made its body rigidly inflexible . . . and that the boxfish’s means of locomotion, which gave it exceptional stability and maneuverability despite the unbending armor, had been studied by American military researchers interested in using it as a model for the steering and propulsion systems of future generation AUVs.

  All this passed through Cédric’s brain in milliseconds, flashing along parallel but independent paths of recollection toward a sharp, startling convergence as he focused on the robotic craft bearing toward him. If he’d had time to consider them, the implications of what he saw might have caused a slow trickle of fear to filter through his surprise—but he didn’t.

  When fear did overtake him it would be in a cold, blustering rush.

  The AUV had closed to within five meters of the hardsuit pilot and leveled in a stationary position. Cédric noticed a small lenticular window on its underside, a nubby black projection at its front end, and did not like the looks of either.

  Then an opening appeared on the starboard side of the vehicle’s flat hull. Cédric would never know whether the hatch, lid, panel, or whatever it was had recessed into the hull or sprung inward like a trap door—it happened too quickly for him to tell. The opening appeared. And before he could react, a compartment behind the opening released its implausible contents into the water.

  The twenty or so dispersing spheres looked to him like metal ball bearings, although they were somewhat larger than racquetballs in size. Each of them had four tiny screw propellers—one on the upper axis, one on the lower, another two on opposite points across its diameter.

  His eyes wide with amazement, Cédric thought crazily of a toy called a Pokéball he’d once gotten his youngest nephew for his birthday, something that opened up like an egg to release a little cartoon imp.

  He was still thinking of it when the spheres assembled into tight cluster formation and came swarming toward the spot where he stood with his dive partner.

  “Cédric . . . what’s going on?” Tension brimmed in Marius’s voice. “What are those things?”

  Cédric couldn’t waste an instant with guesswork. He switched to the diver-to-surface freq.

  “Africana, we have a situation,” he said.

  He got an earful of silence in response.

  “This is a mayday, Africana. Repeat, mayday, can you read?” he said.

  More dead silence from topside.

  “God damn it, come in, what’s wrong with you up there?”

  Still nothing. And the rapidly moving spheres were almost on them.

  Cédric abandoned the radio, looked at Marius. He had no shred of a plan in his head, and the knowledge that their thrusters weren’t designed for speed hardly inspired confidence one would come to him. But Cédric had been a navy man for a very long time, and he did not like it at all that the lens-shaped aperture and black projection on the minisub were reminiscent of the guidance and homing packets of seeker torpedoes.

  The robotic swarm meant danger.

  “We have to get away,” he said. The declaration sounded blandly, hatefully obvious. “Try to—”

  They were the last words he managed to get out of his mouth before the spheres came swooping down on them.

  He felt three quick, clapping thumps on the back of his thruster unit, a fourth against the POD encasing his right hand, followed by a fifth and sixth on his left. There were some hard claps to his chest and the side of his neck, and the next instant a staggering thump-thump-thump against his foot that almost threw Cédric off balance into the muddy sediment.

  “My God!” Marius shouted over the comlink. “They’re sticking to us. Sticking!”

  More of the obvious. The globes were clinging wherever they struck. Cédric could see them becoming affixed to the same areas of Marius’s hardsuit as his own, fastening themselves to its thruster pack and dome collar joint, bunching onto the prehensors of both extremities like crops of giant metal berries. He simultaneously realized they weren’t attaching to Marius’s upper arms and legs, points that had also escaped contact on his suit.

  Again Cédric had no chance to wonder what this implied. He was far too cognizant that if either of their hulls suffered a breach, its internal environment would be displaced by sixty atmospheres of pressure—a compression so vastly beyond human tolerance that it would pulp its occupant’s internal organs and burst the very walls of his blood cells.

  He felt another of the spheres hit his back. How many were on him now? Ten, twelve?

  Beside him, Marius was close to panic. His arms rose and fell against heavy water resistance, rose and fell, flapping in what looked like slow motion as he tried to shake the spheres from his gripper claws.

  Cédric knew he was scarcely further away from losing his composure.

  “Marius, hold still, I’ll try to pull them off you,” he said. “We need to stay calm, try and get them off each other.”

  Marius met his gaze through their rounded dome ports, gathered his wits enough to stop the furious
paddling of his arms.

  Cédric reached out to Marius with his lefthand prehensor, testing its mobility with his individuated finger control rings. He was somewhat amazed to find that he could still open and close it despite the weight of the spheres attached to two of its four stainless-steel claws.

  He clamped the gripper around a sphere lodged at the base of Marius’s neck, gave it a strong tug. It didn’t budge even a little. He tugged harder, microelectromechanical sensors inside the control rings transferring his exertion to the claw as increased output. The sphere would not yield, and now Marius was screaming again, unnecessarily reminding him that it was sticking, it was sticking, the damned thing wasn’t coming off. Cédric could feel himself start to nervously perspire inside his suit and added a prying motion on his third try, straining the gripper’s servos to their limits.

  The sphere finally detached from the collar joint—but by just the slightest bit. A few centimeters at most before clamping right back on, pulling along Cédric’s MEMS-AIDED gripper claw with a powerful attraction that jerked his arm up and out toward Marius.

  All in a moment’s span his relief had budded, bloomed, and turned to ash gray wilt as fear blew through his heart in a killing frost. He could neither separate the sphere from Marius, nor himself from the sphere, which now joined them as if . . .

  Cédric blinked with the last meaningful realization of his life. Another that seemed so glaringly evident, he could only wonder how it had not dawned on him much sooner.

  “They’re magnetized,” he heard himself tell Marius in an almost matter-of-fact tone.

  Marius’s eyes were full of terror and confusion behind his view port. In fact, it almost seemed to Cédric that his features had drawn together into a bold, hanging question mark.

  Cédric was wondering just what sort of answers were expected of him when the spheres fastened to the hardsuits exploded, and the rushing sea took his thoughts.

  “Well, Casimir? My curiosity pesters.”

  “We have total success. The neodymium hunter swarm has acquired and neutralized its targets.”

  The yacht owner’s eyes were brilliant ice. “Would damage imagery be too tall a request?”

  Casimir’s attention held on the monitor and control boards.

  “It could be done,” he said. “The killfish has been recalled beyond the outer edge of the blast zone, and its backscatter sensors show a high density of suspended particulate matter within the zone. But we could task it—”

  “No need, bring it back in,” the yacht owner said. “Laziness of imagination is a common failing in this day and age, Casimir. We mustn’t allow ourselves to submit.”

  “As you wish.”

  The yacht owner reclined on his pale orange sofa, his bone-thin form barely impressing weight into its cushions.

  “And his spirit moved upon the face of the waters,” he said in a near undertone. “Fiat lux.”

  Casimir’s head turned briefly to regard him over a white uniform epaulet.

  “What was that, sir?”

  The yacht owner passed his fingertips through the air.

  “Old words from an old and very fascinating story,” he said.

  TWO

  VARIOUS LOCALES

  From the Wall Street Journal Online Weekend

  Edition:

  UPLINK INTERNATIONAL TO COMPLETE

  STALLED MARINE FIBEROPTIC NETWORK

  Experts Agree Venture May Plunge Telecom Giant

  into Choppy Seas

  SAN JOSE—In a move analysts believe marks a critical and risky juncture for the world’s leading telecommunications super carrier, UpLink International announced earlier this week that it has concluded a long-rumored deal with Planétaire Systems Corp to pick up some very large pieces left by the France-based company’s financial tumble.

  Once UpLink’s primary European rival, Planétaire has been the most recent telecom industry player forced to make sharp operational cutbacks during a period of global economic uncertainty that has seen many established technology firms struggle and fail. While many in the financial sector expect industrywide earnings to improve at least marginally over the next quarter, Planétaire’s losses have been deeper than some due to a combination of heavy capital borrowing—said to have exceeded $1.5 billion U.S.—for its construction of a submerged fiberoptic cable ring in the waters around Africa and steep declines in revenue from its cellular telephony service elements.

  Although the specific terms of the pact have not been disclosed, insiders report that UpLink has acquired all of Planétaire’s existing “wet highway” and terrestrial fiber network equipment and facilities in equatorial African nations, considered some of the most underserved markets on earth, in part due to the region’s continuing political and economic instability. Speaking on CNN’s Moneyline program, however, UpLink vice president and frequent spokeswoman Megan Breen gave high marks to the groundwork laid by Planétaire and expressed confidence in her firm’s ability meet any challenges it may face.

  “Planétaire has enjoyed tremendous past success, and I’d be pleased if our agreement allows it to consolidate and direct its assets toward a bright future,” she said. “Our companies have been very competitive, but at the same time worldwide connectivity is a goal we’ve always shared, and UpLink is wholly committed to building upon Planétaire’s established infrastructure on the African continent.”

  Ms. Breen emphasizes that commitment is long term, extending into the next decade and beyond. “It’s really a logical outreach for us,” she said. “Our driving corporate philosophy, and the core belief of our founder Roger Gordian, is that the introduction of modern, reliable Internet and telecom services to developing countries parallels the emergence of America’s rail and telegraph system over a hundred years ago and can bring about comparable industrial, political, and social progress.”

  But some have suggested that Gordian and company will have to navigate rough waters in a period of rapid financial sea changes—and beware of sinking beneath those shifting currents. The expansion mentioned by Ms. Breen would put considerable strains on the resources of any firm, even one as globally dominant as UpLink. Much of Planétaire’s African network is already connected to Europe via seabed fiber cable and there is speculation that UpLink plans to thread a transoceanic line to the Pacific Rim. This ambitious effort would require retrofitting decades-old portions of the system with high-capacity, next-generation equipment and undersea cable—a high-priced undertaking.

  Marine maintenance also can be expensive. Less than a year ago Planétaire incurred multimillion dollar repair costs when a segment of cable was damaged off coastal Gabon, the small equatorial nation where its African network hub is located. Two specialist deepwater divers were accidentally killed while investigating the service disruption. Although the tragic incident is presumed to have no bearing on Planétaire’s regional pullout, it does point toward the complexity of initiating cable projects in inhospitable and sometimes dangerous environments . . .

  “What’s wrong?” Pete Nimec said.

  “Hmm?” Annie Caulfield said.

  “I’m wondering what’s the matter.”

  “Nothing’s the matter.”

  Nimec was otherwise convinced.

  “Come on,” he said, shaking his head. “Something is definitely the matter.”

  Annie looked over at him. Nimec looked back at her. She was holding the ladle. He had the spatula.

  “What makes you think that?” Annie said, a trifle distantly.

  “This right here makes me think it.” Nimec raised the spatula and wobbled it in the air between them. It was a proffer of evidence, his smoking gun, courtroom exhibits A through Z rolled into one.

  Still looking somewhat preoccupied, Annie regarded him without comment as a bright, warm, daisy yellow torrent of east Texas sunshine washed through the window of her kitchen, where they were at the electric range fixing breakfast, Annie with her blond hair spilling mussily over the collar of her bathr
obe, Nimec already dressed in Levi’s and a T-shirt, Annie’s kids in their pajamas at the opposite end of the house, just stirring under their bedcovers, this being Sunday morning after all.

  “You’d better flip that thing,” Annie said finally. She nodded toward the sizzling dollop of pancake batter she’d ladled onto the hot skillet in front of him.

  “You sure?”

  “Unless, of course, you have some reason for wanting to serve Chris and Linda burned pancakes—”

  “Ah-hah. Got you. There it is,” he said.

  “There what is?”

  “More proof that you’re upset with me.” Nimec gave the implement in his hand another little shake. “I’m using a metal spatula right here. And the skillet’s your expensive nonstick. Means I’m supposed to use a Teflon-coated spatula or screw up the finish, right?”

  Annie looked at the blade of the spatula with surprised recognition.

  “Yes,” she said. “It does.”

  “Ah-hah,” Nimec repeated, and gave her a look that meant his case was closed, open and shut.

  He reached past Annie, slipped the spatula into a wall-holder jammed with cooking utensils, pulled a coated spatula from it, and immediately turned the pancake onto its unbrowned side.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “If you know you aren’t supposed to use my metal one—”

  “It was a test,” he said before she could finish her question.

  “A test?”

  “Right,” he said. “I grabbed it to see if you’d notice, and then remind me which spatula I am supposed to use.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “But you didn’t,” he said. “Notice or remind me, that is.”