The kid nodded knowingly. "Oh, the package. I see." He turned serious again. "Is that why you guys were spying on her? Is it some kind of contraband? Drugs or something?"
"I told you. I'm a friend. Now you can either tell me your name, or I'll shoot you now and look through your wallet myself."
"All right, all right. My name's Alphon Quince. I'm a freelance infrastructure troubleshooter from the west coast."
"And that explains why you've got Meg's blood all over you?"
The 3D printer pinged completion of whatever it was making, reset its mechanism, and fell silent. Alphon looked over at it for a second, and then back at Ferd. "You've heard about the Golden State Barrage?"
"The sea-wall in Frisco that was blown up by terrorists? What about it?"
"That's not what happened. It failed for some other reason, and I was searching for clues on the Internet. There was a reference to something called the Green Party in the original design review, and the document it mentioned was supposed to be on Maira's, I mean Meg's, share at the Post Office. Only it wasn't. She told me the missing reference was put there as bait."
"Bait? Bait for what? Or whom?"
"Me, I guess. She said a friend of hers had put it there to hook the interest of someone who could help, um""
Ferd relaxed a bit. "I get it, I get it. So what were you looking for? What's in those papers?"
"These"?" Alphon turned his hand and glanced down at the printouts. He thought for a moment, and then he jerked his head back towards the entrance. "She's dead. Meg, Maira, you knew her better than I did. We've got to do something to honor her memory, and I thought maybe--." He stopped suddenly, a frightened look on his face. "Crap! We don't have time for this." He glanced frantically around the lab. "Whoever sent that camera drone she shot down is gonna be sending someone, or some thing, out here to-- were they interested in that box she got today? Is that it? What did you two order, anyway?"
"Where's the box?"
"Under the seat on her jetraft. We'd just--"
Before Alphon had a chance to complete the thought, Ferd spun around and ran towards the door. "If you're right, kid," he called over his shoulder, "we've got to get it somewhere safe, somewhere--."
He stopped short soon after he was outside. A drone was hovering over the raft, a big one; the payload section was about a yard across. The thing was lofted on four fans. He recognized the steerable lenses at each corner: pulse-laser weapons. It was military grade. But it was something else entirely that sent a chill down his spine: the thing also had a vidscreen, and a stern-looking man with close-cropped hair and wearing a khaki shirt and cap was glaring out of it. It was a telepresence drone. They only sent those after high-value targets that had intel they wanted. The stakes here were higher than he thought. But why? Meg wasn't anyone special. Well, not that special, anyway.
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