Read Online Engineering Infinity by Jonathan Strahan - Free Book Online Page B

Then he
blurted, “A pyramid.”
    Silence.
    “Really, a pyramid,” Ambrose
insisted. “Big sucker, grey, I think most of it was buried in the permafrost.
It was the only thing sticking up for miles. This was on the Northern plains,
where there’s ice just under the surface. The whole area around it... well, it
was like a frozen splash, if you know what I mean. Almost a crater.”
    This was just getting more and more
disappointing. “And why is Soviet Union Online after you?”
    “Because the pyramid had Russian
writing on it. Just four letters, in red: CCCP.”
    The next silence went on for a
while, and was punctuated only by the sound of other diners grumbling about
local carbon prices.
    “I leaked some photos before
Google came after me with their non-disclosure agreements,” Ambrose explained. “I
guess the Soviets have internet search-bots constantly searching for certain
things, and they picked up on my posts before Google was able to take them
down. I got a couple of threatening phone calls from men with thick Slavic
accents. Then they tried to kidnap me.”
    “No!”
    Ambrose grimaced. “Well, they
weren’t very good at it. It was four guys, all of them must have been in their
eighties, they tried to bundle me into a black van. I ran away and they just
stood there yelling curses at me in Russian. One of them threw his cane at me.”
He rubbed his ankle.
    “And you took them seriously?”
    “I did when the FBI showed up and
told me I had to pack up and go with them. That’s when I ran to the U.N. I didn’t
believe that ‘witness protection’ crap the Feds tried to feed me. The U.N.
people told me that the Soviets’ data mining is actually really good. They keep
turning up embarrassing and incriminating information about what people and
governments got up to back in the days of the Cold War. They use what they know
to influence people.”
    “That’s bizarre.” He thought
about it. “Think they bought off the police here?”
    “Or somebody. They want to know about
the pyramid. But only Google, and the Feds, and I know where it is. And NASA’s
already patched that part of the Mars panoramas with fake data.”
    Disappointment had turned to a
deep sense of surprise. For Gennady, being surprised usually meant that something
awful was about to happen; so he said, “We need to get you out of town.”
    Ambrose brightened. “I have an
idea. Let’s go back to SNOPB. I looked up these Minus Three people; they’re
eco-radicals, but at least they don’t seem to be lunatics.”
    “Hmmph. You just think Kyzdygoi’s
‘hot.’“
    Ambrose grinned and shrugged.
    “Okay. But we’re not driving,
because the car can be tracked. You walk there. It’s
only a few kilometres. I’ll deal with the authorities and these ‘Soviets,’ and
once I’ve sent them on their way we’ll meet up. You’ve got my number.”
    Ambrose had evidently never taken
a walk in the country before. After Gennady convinced him he would survive it,
they parted outside La France, and Gennady watched him walk away, sneakers
flapping. He shook his head and strolled back to the Tata.
    Five men were waiting for him.
Two were policemen, and three wore business attire. One of these was an old,
bald man in a faded olive-green suit. He wore augmented reality glasses, and
there was a discrete red pin on his lapel in the shape of the old Soviet flag.
    Gennady made a show of pushing
his own glasses back on his nose and walked forward, hand out. As the cops
started to reach for their tasers, Gennady said, “Mr Egorov! Gennady Malianov,
IAEA. You’ll forgive me if I record and upload this conversation to
headquarters?” He tapped the frame of his glasses and turned to the other
suits. “I didn’t catch your names?”
    The suits frowned, the policemen
hesitated; Egorov, however, put out his hand and Gennady shook it firmly. He
could feel the old man’s bones shift in his grip, but Egorov didn’t grimace.
Instead he said, “Where’s your