Operation Home Front: Project Chicago, ...Into the Wall Author: Private Third Merengue, VRDET Logging onto her computer, Ren found a message waiting. FROM: Blanca Mountain Com (Fwd: Dae'ar, TRESNet) Attention! All Jihaddi on Operation: Home Front That would include me, she thought. The main gist: If you've taken out the Array Element in your area, get to Kansas within one day by plane, bicycle, or winged horse. We've found the Generator, and there's not much time. Attatched to the note was a map of Kansas pinpointing the exact location of the Base. Ren heard someone laughing incredulously and several seconds passed before she realized it was herself. Here she had been, trying to play supersleuth and getting nowhere, while other people had all but completed their mission objective. She shook her head. Being obstructively cynical wasn't going to help. No, she hadn't been going nowhere. She knew where her Element was, and the instant it was taken care of she was going to Kansas. On a sudden thought, she scribbled a note to her biomom. Mum, If I'm not back when you get home, please don't worry about me. I'm trying to help save the world. Look in my closet if you get really worried. --Love, your middliest daughter She wondered what mum's reaction would be. Ah, well. She couldn't hide forever. Ren pulled out her SporkSaber and fooned. She wanted to be ready for action the instant she landed. .............................................. Senior Sponge Technician Reynolds was humming softly to himself as he worked on the Element. He liked it; all the nice little parts fit together in their nice little places and, now that most of them were there, the machine had begun to make a happy little whirr. If he occasionally drooled on the housing, nobody seemed to mind. Suddenly he felt a whoosh of air behind him. He turned around, that was glowing in her hand, and similng in a way that made him want to whimper. She glanced at his ID. "Reynolds," she said gently, "I think it would be a good idea to go over there now." She pointed to a far corner of the cave. "Over there?" he said. "Yes. And don't move until I tell you to or things will not be good for you at all." Reynolds sniffled, scared, and shuffled across the floor. He cowered in the corner, watching Ren. The smile grew measurably bigger as she looked over the Element. Then, extending the tines to their full length and holding the spork like a paintbrush, she began methodically slashing at the housing. Shards of hot metal tinkled to the floor, and smoke arose here and there in thin wisps. She worked her way around the device, tiptoes barely touching the floor and sometimes forgetting to touch it as her subconscious mind remembered how to negate the laws of gravity. Had Ren been aware of this she would have been ecstatic. But she was engrossed in her task. From the center of the device a small light glowed, flickeringly now that its power source had been demolished. With one last flick of her SporkSaber Ren quartered it, then sixteenthed it for good measure. She retracted the tines, unfooned, and called to the sponge, who had remained petrified on the far side of the cavern. "Oh, Reynolds," she said, grinning like a cat, "you can come out now." "You awful, mean, nasty Jihaddi!" he said, raising his voice in a white hot tantrum. "You ruined it! How could you be so- so- so NOT NICE!" She shrugged and shifted out. ...................................... Merengue stood in what appeared to be open fields, seeming to do nothing but stand there. In reality, she was... listening. The main base was huge, sprawling, and largely hidden to the naked eye. Ren could sense spongin wandering more or less aimlessly through a maze of criscrossing tunnels. One or two minds in that labyrinth were not so aimless, but they were keenly aware and she felt it would be unwise to scan them more deeply. At any rate, the dull tuneless hum of the Main Generator came unmistakably from a chamber locked deep in the subterranean levels. Without thinking, she shifted into its immediate vicinity. And landed right behind a large I-beam. She kicked herself internally. Idiot! And what would have happened to you if that 'port had gone two inches forward? Think! She hadn't even stopped to see if there were any Jihaddi in the area. A quick scan revealed that there weren't, which created another problem. What the schnatz did she think she was doing here alone? Peeking judiciously around the beam, she saw the Main Generator, freestanding, and apparently lightly guarded. That didn't make sense. Smithers hadn't known anything about her orders, and if someone was infiltrating the sponge chain of command-which seemed to be the case-then they would know enough to set up appropriate defenses against anything. Even people who could work around the normal laws of the continuum. The Generator was bigger than the Element at Waller had been, reaching a height far above the floor and crowned with another shining tetrahedron. The crystal pulsed rhythmically, and Ren knew that rhythm like she knew the smell of spoiled milk. But she couldn't see anything other than the two or three guards on the perimeter. Why would they go to all this trouble and then leave the crucial part so unpro- <> The security 'bot swung its Blunt Weapon back into the cradle and hefted the unconscious Jihaddi. It beeped and opened a channel to the main computer. Beep. Intruder apprehended at sixteen hundred hours twelve minutes. Beep. Intruder appears to be of target type 1, Jihaddi. Beep. No information on access or entry gathered. Beep. The main computer checked this information, double-checked it, and issued a command. Beep, said the bot. Transporting intruder to containment bay 3 for processing. Beep. ....................................................... Ren regained consciousness grudingly, achingly aware of her head, and dimly remembering that her situation was far from ideal. She was strapped down and unable to move her limbs-not a good sign. She opened her eyes just a slit, then closed them again with a moan. A man was leaning against the wall across from her, an air of smugness surrounding him. He was most definitely not a sponge. "Have a nice nap?" he said. Ren snarled inarticulately. She was still too groggy to 'port or she would have been out of there like a snowball from Hades. He chuckled. "I expected as much. The automated surveillance is still rather clumsy, but it's very effective." Ren declined to answer. He continued. "Of course we know that you're able to teleport as there have been no entries or exits for the past hour..." Oh, that was smart of me, she thought. Wonder what else I did wrong. "...so you're going to be kept as sedated as possible to prevent your escape. We're still working on why you're here. Are you acting on orders? Where's your backup? That sort of thing. If you don't want to tell us we can always do a mind probe." That was fine with her. Let them just try to scan her. "And, of course, you're not going to be allowed to leave intact." Intact? That didn't sound good. Spongified or dead, most likely. "So if you'll just tell me what you know. Now." All hint of the mock friendly banter he had been trying to create was gone. She hesitated a moment before starting to speak. This guy knew nothing about her, save that she was a Jihaddi, a teleport, and from all accounts a greenhorn. He wouldn't be asking if he knew about the attack, and he wouldn't still have her alive and normal if he didn't desperately need her information. The problem was, she didn't actually know that much about the operation. She had been trying to stop Smithers and hadn't inquired too deeply. Probably the other Jihaddi had discovered something she needed to know, but as it stood, her choice seemed clear: Obfuscate. "Ah," she said, "but can one really know that one knows anything?"