As it turned out, Marta did not actually live in a house—unless you’d call the White House a house, I guess. We pulled off the highway just past Syracuse. Mr. CorpSec pulled off right along with us. We trundled through the toll booth, then made two quick rights, and turned off onto a private road.
“Tell me this is your driveway,” I said. “We’re practically running on fumes here.”
Marta leaned forward in between the seats to look at me.
“Running on what?”
I sighed.
“It’s an expression.”
“No,” Marta said. “Pretty sure it’s not.”
I sighed again, louder.
“Whatever, Marta. It means this car is going to stop moving sometime soon, so I hope we’re close to wherever we’re supposed to be going.”
“Well,” Marta said, “In that case, you’re in luck. This actually is my driveway.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well . . . good, then.”
Marta smiled.
“Don’t get too excited. My driveway is like eight miles long.”
That was not an exaggeration. We rolled through a mile or two of scrub, then through a thick stand of big, hoary old oaks and hemlocks, then a stretch of decorative things like weeping cherries and magnolias, then finally what must have been a mile or more of manicured gardens. By the time we got to the guard station, the needle on my gas gauge was distinctly below the big red E. We rolled up to the gate, with Mr. CorpSec close in behind us. A bored-looking middle-aged woman in a slightly more elaborate black uniform came out of a little wooden booth by the gate.
“Turn around, kids,” she said. “This isn’t a tourist stop.”
Mr. CorpSec was out and running toward her by then.
“Stay back,” he yelled. “They’re dangerous!”
The woman looked up at him, planted her feet, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Really, Mike?”
“Yeah, really!” Mr. CorpSec said. “They jumped me! They broke my taser!”
Marta squeezed between me and Micah then, reached across me and dropped the side window.
“Hi Gina,” she said. “Would you mind opening the gate, please?”
Gina turned to stare at Mr. CorpSec. He’d pulled up short, his jaw hanging open.
“Certainly, Ms. Longstreth,” she said slowly. “I’d be happy to.”
Marta pulled herself farther forward until she could catch Mr. CorpSec’s eye.
“Don’t worry, Mike,” she said. “I’ll tell Daddy you did a bang-up job today.”
The gate swung open, and we coasted onto the Longstreth estate.
I left the car parked just past the hedge maze that stood between the guard station and the main grounds. We climbed out, stretching and groaning, to get our first good look at the home of the world’s richest man.
The house, if you could call it that, was set at the top of a low, conical hill. The hill, which was so symmetrical that it almost had to be artificial, was surrounded by a stone wall, maybe ten feet high and topped with jagged shards of something metallic-looking. The house itself looked to be stone as well, three hulking stories, with round towers at each corner that stood another ten or twelve feet higher. My family lived in a palace. This place was a castle.
“Holy crap,” Micah said. “Your dad is not screwing around.”
Marta shrugged.
“I told you he was a little paranoid.”
Micah laughed.
“A little? Those towers are sniper’s nests, Marta. You could stand off an army from this place—as long as they didn’t have artillery, anyway.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Not sure artillery would help you much either. The stone is just a facade. The actual walls are made of the same stuff the army uses to line their command bunkers.”
We all turned to look at her then.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Devon said after a long, awkward silence, “what does a place like this go for these days?”
Marta folded her arms over her chest and stared at her.
“You know what?” Micah said finally. “Let’s go inside. Your dad’s probably wondering what we’re doing out here.”
I looked up at the nearest tower. There was a ring of open windows just under the eaves. Someone was watching us from one of them.
He was watching us through the scope of a rifle.
Micah had a tiny red spot on the back of his neck.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should probably go.”
The road led a quarter turn around the hill to a solid steel gate—the only way through the wall, as far as I could see. The doors slid silently open as we walked toward it, and then closed with a soft clang when we were through.
“Now that was ominous,” Micah said. “Project Snitch? Not ominous. Giant steel gates sliding shut behind you? Definitely ominous.”
“You get used to it,” Marta said.
I glanced up. Señor Bang-Bang was still there. Micah had lost his dot, though.
“Hey,” Devon said. “Nice zit, Jordan.”
I did my best to pull my head into my chest like a turtle.
“How about the snipers, Marta? You get used to those?”
Marta glanced up at the tower.
“They don’t usually put the crosshairs on me.”
We turned off the driveway and onto a crushed-stone path that led to a heavy, arched wooden door.
“Let me guess,” Micah said. “You’ve got a murder hole?”
Marta gave him a sideways glance.
“Yes, Micah. Obviously, we have a murder hole.”
I groaned.
“A murder hole?”
Marta pressed her palm to a reader beside the door. The lock mechanism clicked, and the door swung open.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby, Jordan. It’s mostly for show.”
If the outside of Marta’s house looked like a castle, the inside looked like a cross between the fanciest bits of my house and the Taj Mahal. The floors were marble. The furniture was teak. The fixtures gave every impression of being solid gold.
“They’re not,” Marta said when I mentioned that. “They’re just gold plated.”
She led us into the kitchen. It looked like it had been lifted from the sort of restaurant that even my dad couldn’t afford.
“Okay,” Micah said. “We’re in. What’s the plan, Marta?”
“Well,” she said. “First, we get snacks.”
Devon shook her head.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding.”
She wandered around the prep station, past the industrial-grade stove, and through an arched entryway into the next room.
“Hey,” Devon called. “Jordan. Check this.”
Marta and Micah were rooting around in the walk-in refrigerator. As I watched, Micah pulled out what looked like a barbecued dinosaur leg.
“Jordan,” he said. “Wanna go halvsies? Smells good, but it might be horse.”
I shook my head and followed Devon.
“Look,” she said when she saw me. “They’ve got a VR rig. Want to give it a spin?”
I gave a long, low whistle. She was right. This wasn’t just one of those puke-inducing helmets that you could rent for a virtual tour of Mars. Marta had a full-immersion tank taking up most of the floor space in what was supposed to be a breakfast nook or something. I’d never seen a VR tank in the flesh before. I’d seen them on the vids, though, and I had a vague idea of what they cost—lots more than my car, and just a little less than a private jet.
Well, less than a brand-new private jet, anyway. Probably about on par with a used one.
“No,” I said. “I do not want to give it a spin. If you break that thing, you’ll be in debtors’ prison until you’re a hundred years old. And anyway, aren’t we supposed to be doing something here?”
“Yeah,” she said, and crouched down beside the tank. She ran one hand lightly over the control panel. “We’re supposed to be finding out how the 0.0001 percent live.”
I took a step closer to her. She’d let her fingers settle on the controls.
“Not to be a nudge or anything, but I’m pretty sure we’re here to stop Marta’s dad from killing me.”
Devon sighed, and disengaged the lid lock.
“He’s not trying to kill you personally, Jordan.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That makes me feel much better.”
She tapped out a sequence on the panel, and the lid slid back.
“Really,” I said. “I don’t think this is a great idea right now.”
“Got it,” she said. “Fortunately, I wasn’t asking for your opinion.”
She reached into the tank and slowly withdrew the helmet. It looked like the sort of thing an old-timey shuttle pilot would wear, but with lots more wires and tubes coming out of it. She turned it over in her hands.
“Sweet,” she said. “You see those needles? This thing patches straight into your sensorium.”
I grimaced.
“Is that a good thing?”
Devon laughed.
“Yes, my simple friend. That is a very good thing. I thought they outlawed these things after the Stupid War. This was one of the ways that the NatSec propagandists said AIs could get inside your head. I guess those kinds of laws don’t apply when you’re a trillionaire, huh?”
She climbed into the tank.
“Devon?”
She looked up at me.
“Go save the world, Jordan. You’ll be fine. Come back and get me when you’re done.”
She settled the helmet over her head, then reached down and pulled on what looked like a pair of hockey gloves.
“I really don’t think . . .” I said, before realizing that with the helmet on, there was no way she could hear me. She leaned back into the padding, and crossed her hands over her chest. The lid slid back into place.
“What are you doing?”
I turned around. Micah was standing behind me, gnawing the meat from a foot-long bone. I shook my head.
“I have no idea.”
“Great,” he said. “Let’s go find Doctor Killsalot. I’ve got a full belly now. I’m ready to roll.”
“Hey,” Marta said. “Where’s Devon?”
I pointed to the tank. Marta scowled.
“Seriously? We’re on a mission here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s pretty much what I told her. Can you get her back out?”
She shook her head.
“It’s like a washing machine. Once the door is locked, you’ve got to let it finish the cycle. She’ll be down for a half hour at least.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Micah said. “Not like she was gonna help us beat up your dad.”
We both turned to look at him.
“We’re not here to beat up her dad, Micah.”
He bit a fist-sized hunk of meat from the bone.
“Sure we are. Right, Marta?”
“No,” Marta said. “I didn’t bring you here to beat up my dad, Micah.”
Micah took a minute to chew and swallow.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’m confused. Why are we here then?”
“Well,” Marta said. “Mostly because I wanted to cheese off our good friend Mike, and I knew Gina would stand him down. I hadn’t really thought too far past that.”
“Huh.”
Micah took another bite, and chewed thoughtfully.
“Just a thought,” I said, “but as long as we’re here, and considering that we all agree that releasing an apocalyptic me-killing plague would be a bad move, maybe we could try . . . I don’t know . . . reasoning with your dad?”
“Hey, yeah,” Micah said. “We could just go find him, and ask him to please consider not wiping out the human race after all. I’m sure he hasn’t considered the thought that releasing a deadly super-virus and killing every unmodified person on the planet would be upsetting to some people. Let’s go.”
I raised one hand.
“What about henchmen?”
Marta turned half around.
“What?”
“Henchmen,” I said. “Does your dad have them? I mean, are we going to have to fight our way into his lair or something?”
Marta closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let it out again.
“No,” she said finally. “My father does not have henchmen. He also doesn’t have a lair. He’s not actually a super-villain, Jordan. He’s just a little overprotective. Come on.”
She turned on her heel, and started back toward the entrance hall. Micah looked at me.
“Shall we?” I said.
He gave me a mocking half bow.
“After you.”
“Seriously?” Micah said. “This is the lair?”
“I told you,” Marta said. “It’s not a lair. It’s a juice bar.”
We were on the second floor, at the end of what seemed at the time like miles of corridors and columns and arches and lots and lots of locked doors. The door in front of us, though, was unlocked and slightly ajar.
“You’re sure he’s here?” Micah asked. “I mean, shouldn’t he be in a darkened study or something?”
Marta pressed her fingers to her eyes.
“Right. With his henchmen. Should he be smoking a cigar?”
“Do you have a cat?”
They both turned to look at me.
“A cat?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s better than a cigar. He should be sitting in a big leather easy chair, petting a cat.”
“No,” Marta said. “We do not have a cat. We also don’t have any leather easy chairs, as far as I know. Dad’s probably sitting at the bar, reading some crappy sci-fi novel on his tablet and drinking a smoothie.”
Micah shook his head.
“That’s not gonna work for me.”
Marta turned to look at him.
“Not gonna work for you?”
“Right,” Micah said. “I can’t beat a guy up while he’s drinking a smoothie.”
“No beating,” I said. “I thought we were clear on that.”
“Right. Right.”
“Look,” Marta said. “We’re just . . .”
“Marta?”
We all turned to look at the door.
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Would you like to introduce me to your friends?”