Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,94

charging. You could direct it through radio telemetry, fly it into the Fukushima reactor to assess the radiological threat level. Hell, it could recharge itself off the radiation in the air.” He leaned forward, his eyes shining. “Now imagine we equip it with thermal cameras and FPV capabilities—”

“First-person view,” Soo-jin said lazily from the perimeter.

“—and fly it into inaccessible earthquake disaster zones to locate trapped survivors. Or to track endangered wildlife populations. Or to catch poachers in Africa or South Asia. It could read wind patterns inside wildfires, guide water hoses to the source of a conflagration. Imagine crawling a centipede through the wreckage of 9/11—”

Soo-jin sat forward. “Brendan, perhaps just a quick hi to your other guests—”

“They’re here drinking my alcohol, eating my food, making use of my house. That’s sufficient social reciprocity to help our people leverage relationships moving forward.” Without so much as a change in his cadence, Molleken kept on his previous track with Evan. “—or a solar-powered octocopter that could provide wireless Internet in remote poverty-stricken regions in Haiti or Lesotho. What if a fleet of them delivered food? Vaccinations? Brought blood samples to medical labs to help thwart disease outbreaks? Tested for harmful gases and chemicals in the air? Imagine being liberated from size, from range, from power sources.”

“It that achievable?”

Molleken brushed back his lank bangs, which had fallen to touch the top of his eyeglasses. Then he reached in a drawer and pulled out a bigger touch pad.

“Brendan,” Soo-jin said. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s creepy.”

“Mr. Specter won’t find it creepy,” Molleken said. “He’s a curious man. Unlike the drunkards downstairs.”

He placed four of his fingers on the pad. Evan heard a faint hum from the corner over by Soo-jin. He turned, and she rolled her eyes and pulled her feet up onto the chesterfield. A metal trunk in the shadows juddered slightly, its latch rattling.

Then the lid popped open a sliver. Something seemed to pour out of the interior, but Evan couldn’t make out what it was.

It spread across the floor, a wave dispersing into individual drops that scuttled toward him. He felt his stomach turn in revulsion, a precursor to fear. The edge of the flood swept beneath Soo-jin’s stockinged feet.

A faint ticking of tiny legs against floorboards, multiplied by a thousand. The surge swept to Evan’s chair, enclosing it. He resisted the urge to leap up. He looked down.

Robotic ants.

Thousands of them.

He looked back at Molleken, who was still grinning, his fingers manipulating the pad, spread as if gripping a bowling ball.

Evan’s chair shuddered. And then lifted unevenly. His arms flared as he kept his balance.

The army of ants conveyed him in his chair around the huge desk. He stared at Molleken, who seemed to approach lurchingly. Evan’s chair was deposited next to Molleken’s. He looked down as the ants peeled themselves off the wooden legs, lowering him to the floor.

That awful skittering noise resumed as the robotic ants retreated back into the shadows. Soo-jin watched him from across the room, the pale skin of her face the only part of her visible in the shadows, her expression unreadable.

Evan heard the latch rattle once more, the lid of the metal trunk click upward. A pouring sound, like ball bearings dumping into a bin. The waterfall sound went on for much longer than seemed plausible. Then the lid clanked down once more and silence reasserted itself in the study.

Evan realized he’d been holding his breath.

He and Molleken sat facing each other, their knees almost touching, not more than a few feet between their faces. Molleken seemed unbothered by the lack of personal space. Those duplicate pupils gazed into Evan, and again Evan had the unsettling feeling that Molleken was seeing more of him than he wanted to reveal. He resisted the urge to adjust the chewing gum beneath his upper lip.

“No wonder the military wants in on this,” Evan said. “The applications are spectacular.”

“The military is small-minded,” Molleken said. “But they do spend an awful lot of money.”

“I’d like to make clear,” Soo-jin called out, “that this discussion is strictly off the record. Do you understand, Mr. Specter?”

“I understand.”

Evan kept his focus on Molleken as Molleken did on him when addressing Soo-jin. She was an external embodiment of her boss’s concerns more than an actual person in the room with them. She seemed like a figment of Molleken’s imagination. The fact that she was East Asian and submissive, lurking in the shadows, gave Evan the same discomfort he’d felt downstairs at the young