CHAPTER FOUR
Bessy’s smile was still in place the next afternoon when a battered old motorcycle spewing steam careened into the parking lot. The short but curvy young woman riding it whipped off her goggles and helmet and charged up to the door as the steamcycle sputtered to a stop.
“Bessy, where are they? Did Bubba chop them up for steak? Did they give up and go home? We told everybody to be nice to them. Real Nice. Extra-special nice. So where are they?” she cried. Bessy put a cup of coffee and plate of smoked chicken in front of the girl as though she hadn’t spoken.
“Now, Miss Kalliope, you need to not get so fussed. Those boys seemed real happy with life when they left here, so I imagine they are still poking around somewheres.” The blond woman shot Bessy a look as she took a bite of broccoli casserole. “Oh now I’m sorry, Miss Clio, I forgot you gone and cut your hair. What are you doing, tearing across the countryside on your sister’s contraption like that?”
“My scooter sprang a leak,” Clio grumbled, pulling out her handheld, “Kalliope’s fixing it.”
“Well that girl can fix anything and if she doesn’t add any of her little inventions to it, you should have it back right quick,” Bessy replied sympathetically, “And how’s your Momma?”
“She’s fine. She and Joanna are stuck talking to those damn Malsanto people this afternoon, so I’m supposed to roll out the red carpet for these visiting computer geeks. What were they like, anyway?” Clio seemed to relax under the soothing spell of smoked chicken and coffee.
“Well, they was real nice for poor, uncultured Yankees. Imagine not knowing what chicken-fried steak was! A little standoffish but they had some real pretty manners. Not too bad looking, but they were peaky like they needed feeding up.” Bessy beamed, happy to give her opinion.
She leaned closer to Clio conspiratorially, “So why are we being so nice to these boys?”
Clio smiled mysteriously and mock-whispered, “These boys are looking to set up a satellite office for Omerta Corp. They specialize in computer security. They are very good at helping people keep secrets. And between worrying about the government and the terrorists, we sure do need some security. I’d explain more, but I’ve got a zillion things to do today and now I’ve got to figure out where these guys went.”
“Well, sugar,” Bessy said, producing a slice of apple pie like a rabbit out of a hat, “You could have just called, you know.”
“If I’d called, I would have missed out on your apple pie,” she laughed. Clio’s handheld chirped and she answered it. After listening for a few minutes, she flicked it off and paid Bessy.
“Mom says Dan Martinez called to tell her that aliens are camped out in his south pasture, scaring his goats. So I think I found my missing geeks.” Clio cranked up the steamcycle and roared off.
An hour later, she was hiking through the tall brush to get to a large black tent in the middle of a field with a hovercar parked next to it. The tent looked like it could comfortably hold a maharaja and most of his harem. She noticed a collapsible satellite dish and two large fans built into one side.
“Hello in there,” she called. “I’m Clio. My friend Joanna was supposed to meet with you gentlemen today, but she’s stuck doing something very boring so here I am to help you out. You all need a local guide?”
After a minute, a man called back, “Of course, please come in.” When she did, she found the entryway had two sets of zippered doors, like an airlock.
“Man, you guys really love the black, don’t you? A dark tent like this ought to be scorching hot.” It was actually quite cool with the fans, however. She looked around with interest at the dimly lit interior. It was packed with various screens and sensors. Clio wondered how all this equipment came out of the tiny hovercar. Then the two men captured her attention.
“Hello, I am Seth and this is my uncle, Max,” Seth shook her hand formally.
She smiled, delighted with his manners and his strange accent. “Well I’m sure glad I found you. We thought y’all had given up and gone home. Looks like you are prepared to camp out on the moon in this thing.”
“Your chamber of commerce group graciously offered to arrange for us to stay at your local inn. I am sure it is charming, but we really wanted to get started with our survey of the area. We also wanted to test out the tent. It’s made out of solar fabric. It generates enough electricity to run the fans and some of the equipment,” he smiled like a kid with a new toy. She couldn’t be sure in the dim light of the tent, but he looked kind of cute.
“You know old Farmer Dan thought you were aliens come to scare his goats?” she said, taking in Seth’s longish dark hair and generous smile. He seemed just as interested in her flyaway curls and generous curves.
“Imagine what a fright we will give them if we buy this land and install our server farm,” Seth replied. “We have plans for simply huge solar installations. The goats will think we’ve taken away the sun.” He pulled up a map of the property on one of the screens and overlaid it with building plans to show her what they had in mind. She whistled low in appreciation. As she stepped forward to study the plans, he studied her backside with appreciation.
Clio turned and caught his look. She arched an eyebrow. Seth blushed and turned to fumble with some equipment.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” she asked, turning towards his uncle. Her attention was captured by the images and data streaming across the large screens while Max’s hands flew over the touchpad.
“Yes actually, there is,” replied Max. “We wanted to get started with our survey as soon as possible. However, while we are getting excellent transmissions through the globenet, we can’t seem to get the local satellites to do a deep scan of the area. Everything else seems to work fine, but the satellites aren’t able to take a picture of the ground here. It’s very strange. And the maps we were able to pull from the globenet were rather old and not particularly high quality.”
It was Clio’s turn to blush and stammer. “Ah well, it’s Texas, you know. Since The Troubles, we don’t have the most reliable equipment here, especially out in the sticks like we are. Most of our satellites are maintained by a company out of Houston and they have been known to have a few problems.” Seth looked at her. She seemed nervous just now. He decided she was probably just embarrassed to admit that they were technologically behind.
Some people referred to The Troubles as “The Global Crap Out” or “The Big Screw Up” but the government frowned on that sort of negativity. Frowning meant they’d lock you in a torture prison until you saw the error of your ways. Or you died. They weren’t picky.
The effects of dumping tons of chemicals into the soil to produce vast swaths of monoculture corn and cows finally combined with the effects of dumping garbage in the water, air and everywhere else. The result made the old hype about Global Warming seem like worrying about getting gray hair and then finding out you’ve got lung cancer. The environment couldn’t have gotten more messed up if God himself grabbed the earth and gave it a good hard shake. But people muddled through like people always do.
It probably would have been fine if the governments of the world hadn’t started viciously fighting over the last of the world’s natural resources like oil. The U.S. had been at war for so long that most people couldn’t remember who we were fighting now and which war this was anymore.
The environment couldn’t take all the side effects of a world at war on top of everything else. The sea levels went up. The Sahara desert became a swamp and Europe hadn’t seen rain in years. Most places couldn’t support large cities anymore, so everyone spread out over the land, hunkered down and hoped the weather would stop acting so crazy. It made for interesting times.
“I’m sure you’ve heard all about our little terrorist problem?” asked Clio. “I think the Texas government is trying to make it more difficult for them to target places by keeping things like satellite images off the globenet. Not that we’ve ever had a problem with terrorists out here! I really think the media is just over-hyping what must be a few crazies with too many matches. Anyway, we have detailed geological maps in town that I’ll be happy to supply you with. Is there anything in particular you were looking for?”
“Caves,” Max abruptly joined the conversation from behind a large screen. “One of the attractions of this area is the limestone bedrock and it’s high propensity to form caves. If we could find caves large enough, they would be ideal for storing the servers. Also we have some ideas for using caves to store compressed air from the wind farm we’d like to install.”
“Well peachy keen. That’s something I can help you with,” said Clio. “I know the county agriculture department did deep scans of this area when they were planning out local reservoirs sixty years ago, but probably nobody ever cared enough to put them on globenet. They’ll be pretty old, but caves system aren’t exactly a highly changeable thing. I’ll call Beth.” She’d already tapped it out on her handheld and was chatting away as she walked outside.
*****
Seth listened with amusement to about fifteen minutes of “How’s your mama doing?” and “Well, have you tried giving him some hot peppers?” Eventually she wandered back in to tell them that Beth had located the needed maps and would upload and send them over as soon as she could.
“Which could be a while. She says her computer seemed plumb tuckered out and she was giving it a rest,” Clio cautioned.
Max looked horrified. Clio shrugged, “The Ag Office isn’t exactly high on the list for new equipment and you know the government, always ten years behind at least. I can tell you that there is an extensive cave system over to the north if you just want to take a look.”
“That is very kind, but I know that you are a very busy woman. You are the lead scientist of one of the foremost genetic engineering companies in the world. I must say your work is very impressive.” Seth privately thought that her work was one of the many impressive things about this woman and wished he’d looked up her age when he’d researched Floracopia. Surely someone with such an extensive list of achievements must be older. Clio didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
“Besides these caves will probably be dirty,” muttered Max. “If we have maps there is no need to actually go crawling through them.”
“Ah, well, Texas is a tricky place. The locals say that the land here laughs at maps. I’ve been elected to roll out Ambrosia Springs’s welcome mat for you, so I’d be more than happy to feed you and take you to look at some caves,” Clio offered amiably. “Besides, I’m stumped on a project at work and need a distraction.”
“Thank you, that would be lovely,” Seth stammered. He liked the idea of distracting this woman. “We have much to do today so I think we will decline to look at these caves. But we’d love to join you for dinner this evening. Perhaps after dark?”
She shot him a slow smile that sent shivers up his spine. “Hope you like it hot,” she drawled as she swept out the door. She didn’t see the handheld clatter to the floor, ignored in the wake of her exit.
Seth stared after her for a full minute before his uncle laughed. “You are lucky the food is so good here. Even though the heat here is repulsive, I will visit you often,” Max smirked.
“We haven’t confirmed this site, even if it is promising. It was not part of the plan for me to move here for the satellite office,” Seth replied absently, bending to pick up his handheld. He tried to remember what he had been doing before she walked in.
“Oh, I think we will have our energy farm here and you will stay,” Max said firmly. Seth thought of several retorts, but didn’t bother. Seth knew his uncle too well to think he’d ever get the last word. Besides, moving to Texas really wasn’t such a bad idea.
Although he wrote cutting edge software that catered to the rich and powerful, he was getting bored with his life. As glamorous as it might sound to guard the secrets of every major organization in the world, the reality was long lonely days with his computer. Part of the reason he came on this trip was the thirst for new experiences and this little town definitely seemed to have plenty of those.