more
time-consuming. Any time he guessed wrong he was shut out for a
while. It was going to take all day. Then, he knew the answer: 2975,
because on the alphanumeric keypad 2975 spelled out BZRK.
“Smart,” he muttered sarcastically.
Of course no one was going to have “Lear” in their address book,
that would be too much to hope for. And unless they were complete
idiots they’d delete calls to or from Lear. But they could be slightly
less stupid and yet still forget to delete the number from their trash.
The rain stopped and he headed off again. There was always the
fear that some well-meaning adult would begin to wonder what a kid
was doing standing with the smokers in the shelter of the building.
The second phone also yielded nothing.
He had plenty of cash, so he bought a couple hot dogs and a Pepsi
and wolfed it all down in a steamy, overheated diner. It was well past
lunchtime, though you couldn’t tell from the gray-on-gray sky outside.
And then, on the third phone, he had something. It was in the
trash, as he’d expected. A number. He Googled the area code, curious because it had a strange number that began with a plus sign. The
prefix was a country code, and the country in question was Japan.
Time to make a decision. If he was still part of BZRK—and where
else did he have to turn to—then he had to contact Lear. So he composed a text.
DC got burned bad. But they didn’t get me. Billy the Kid.
He hit Send.
Then he added, This is not my phone.
He hit Send again. And waited. Nothing.
He wanted to cry then because he had halfway convinced himself
that Lear—if this was really Lear’s number—would instantly respond
and come to his rescue. But nothing, and the diner was shutting
down, the cook had begun to clean the grill.
So Billy went back out onto the darkening street, heading toward
the big green space on his map app.
Rock Creek Park, as the name implies, runs along Rock Creek
at the western edge of the city. He figured he could find a place to
hide out overnight, think things through. And indeed he came upon
a stone bridge that crossed the creek.
Trolls lived under bridges, at least in games. And when he slid
down the muddy embankment a troll is what he found. A man, large,
maybe a crazy street person, maybe not.
“Hey. You,” the man said. “This is my place. Get lost.”
The man came closer. His rough, pendulous features brightened
with avarice as he saw the not-very-large boy. The rain was back, and
Billy was tired.
The man made a suggestion for just how Billy could pay for the
right to stay dry.
So Billy stuck a nine-millimeter pistol in his face and said, “Go
away.” It was getting to be a habit.
The phone chimed.
The man laughed, thinking the gun was a toy.
“Get over here and—”
The explosion lit up the bridge overhead. The bullet, aimed past
the man’s face, but not much past it, hit the water in the rain-swollen
creek.
“Jesus!” the man yelped.
“I already shot a bunch of people yesterday,” Billy said. “So I can
shoot you.”
Billy was alone when he read the text message.
Stay hidden. Help coming. Lear.
A few hundred miles north, in New York, Burnofsky watched the
data flow on his screen.
Four Hydras had each made a copy of themselves.
Eight Hydras had each made a copy of themselves.
Sixteen Hydras had each made a copy of themselves.
Thirty-two . . .
Sixty-four . . .
One hundred and twenty-eight . . .
Each round took seven minutes. So in a little over half an hour,
the four hydras had become more than a hundred.
256. 512. 1024. 2048. 4096. 8192. 16,384.
That was the number after a dozen cycles, requiring eighty-four
minutes.
32,768. 65,536. 131,072. 262,144. 524,288. 1,048,576.
It had taken eighteen cycles, two hours and six minutes, for four
hydras to become more than a million. And of course that meant at
least twenty million MiniMites.
He had used a live mouse as building material. Burnofsky pulled
up video of the mouse, at first indifferent, then agitated,
time-consuming. Any time he guessed wrong he was shut out for a
while. It was going to take all day. Then, he knew the answer: 2975,
because on the alphanumeric keypad 2975 spelled out BZRK.
“Smart,” he muttered sarcastically.
Of course no one was going to have “Lear” in their address book,
that would be too much to hope for. And unless they were complete
idiots they’d delete calls to or from Lear. But they could be slightly
less stupid and yet still forget to delete the number from their trash.
The rain stopped and he headed off again. There was always the
fear that some well-meaning adult would begin to wonder what a kid
was doing standing with the smokers in the shelter of the building.
The second phone also yielded nothing.
He had plenty of cash, so he bought a couple hot dogs and a Pepsi
and wolfed it all down in a steamy, overheated diner. It was well past
lunchtime, though you couldn’t tell from the gray-on-gray sky outside.
And then, on the third phone, he had something. It was in the
trash, as he’d expected. A number. He Googled the area code, curious because it had a strange number that began with a plus sign. The
prefix was a country code, and the country in question was Japan.
Time to make a decision. If he was still part of BZRK—and where
else did he have to turn to—then he had to contact Lear. So he composed a text.
DC got burned bad. But they didn’t get me. Billy the Kid.
He hit Send.
Then he added, This is not my phone.
He hit Send again. And waited. Nothing.
He wanted to cry then because he had halfway convinced himself
that Lear—if this was really Lear’s number—would instantly respond
and come to his rescue. But nothing, and the diner was shutting
down, the cook had begun to clean the grill.
So Billy went back out onto the darkening street, heading toward
the big green space on his map app.
Rock Creek Park, as the name implies, runs along Rock Creek
at the western edge of the city. He figured he could find a place to
hide out overnight, think things through. And indeed he came upon
a stone bridge that crossed the creek.
Trolls lived under bridges, at least in games. And when he slid
down the muddy embankment a troll is what he found. A man, large,
maybe a crazy street person, maybe not.
“Hey. You,” the man said. “This is my place. Get lost.”
The man came closer. His rough, pendulous features brightened
with avarice as he saw the not-very-large boy. The rain was back, and
Billy was tired.
The man made a suggestion for just how Billy could pay for the
right to stay dry.
So Billy stuck a nine-millimeter pistol in his face and said, “Go
away.” It was getting to be a habit.
The phone chimed.
The man laughed, thinking the gun was a toy.
“Get over here and—”
The explosion lit up the bridge overhead. The bullet, aimed past
the man’s face, but not much past it, hit the water in the rain-swollen
creek.
“Jesus!” the man yelped.
“I already shot a bunch of people yesterday,” Billy said. “So I can
shoot you.”
Billy was alone when he read the text message.
Stay hidden. Help coming. Lear.
A few hundred miles north, in New York, Burnofsky watched the
data flow on his screen.
Four Hydras had each made a copy of themselves.
Eight Hydras had each made a copy of themselves.
Sixteen Hydras had each made a copy of themselves.
Thirty-two . . .
Sixty-four . . .
One hundred and twenty-eight . . .
Each round took seven minutes. So in a little over half an hour,
the four hydras had become more than a hundred.
256. 512. 1024. 2048. 4096. 8192. 16,384.
That was the number after a dozen cycles, requiring eighty-four
minutes.
32,768. 65,536. 131,072. 262,144. 524,288. 1,048,576.
It had taken eighteen cycles, two hours and six minutes, for four
hydras to become more than a million. And of course that meant at
least twenty million MiniMites.
He had used a live mouse as building material. Burnofsky pulled
up video of the mouse, at first indifferent, then agitated,
Similar Books
