Ruth Longknife's First Christmas: A Kris Longknife Christmas Read online

  As the ride began, Nelly said, “We have a battalion of defensive nanos aboard out elevator car. They are trying to eliminate the bots and nanos that are still with us or got in with us. I note that the elevator is not moving at its most efficient speed. I suspect they are using the time to destroy invaders.”

  As they rose, the seconds were punctuated by small pops and sparkles in the air. Kris put the blanket over Ruthie’s baby bucket, but Nelly did better, converting the transport bucket into a survival pod with its own air filter. There were advantages to having a baby bassinet made by a supercomputer out of Smart MetalTM.

  Ruth was the safest person in the whole tower.

  So, Ruthie missed out when Kris said. “Dad, how did Grampa Al get his hands on Sarin gas?”

  “Sarin gas?” Mother asked. “What is Sarin gas?”

  “Nothing, love. Kris, I really wish you wouldn’t say things that disturb your mother,” Dad said, not answering the question. Not at all.

  Kris exchanged glances with Jack then her father then back to Jack.

  IF YOU’RE TELLING ME ‘LET’S YOU AND HIM FIGHT,’ I’M NOT GOING TO DO IT, Jack answered on Nelly Net. YOU GET HIM TO ANSWER YOUR OWN QUESTION OR IT AIN’ T GONNA GET ANSWERED.

  Kris’s question went unanswered

  They finally reached the hundredth floor and it was time to change elevators again. This time, they were held in the vestibule of the elevator they’d just ridden up as defensive nanos scoured them. Security personnel in black suites, ear plugs and all, went over them with wands, not once but three times.

  “This must be a very stubborn nano infestation,” Special Agent Foile said to one of the fellows overseeing the pat down. He said nothing.

  I WON’T BE SURPRISED IF SOME OF THESE NANOS DON’T GET ALL THE WAY TO AL’S OFFICE, Nelly said to all on Nelly Net. THE NUMBER OF SLEEPER NANOS ON YOU IS DRIVING THEM CRAZY. I BELIEVE THEY HAVE SUGGESTED TO THEIR SUPERIORS THAT WE BE RETURNED TO THE BASEMENT, AND FORCED TO STRIP NAKED THERE AND BE SHOWERED. NEITHER IS AN OPTION THEIR BOSS WANTS TO SUGGEST TO HIS EMPLOYER.

  They were finally allowed to move around to the next bank of elevators. Once again, they rose slowly. In fact, they slowed down even more as they passed the 125th floor. Nelly told them, but Kris was able to feel it herself.

  They stopped at the 150th, were allowed to change to the fourth bank of elevators and again slowly climbed to the very top, 200th floor of the tower. Kris knew from experience that the top most floor was reserved for offices. Grampa Al had his personal suites on the two floors down from there.

  SO, THIS IS A BUSINESS MEETING.

  KRIS, HE COULD BE WORKING UNTIL WE GET HERE.

  EITHER WAY, JACK, IT DOESN’T NOT BODE WELL.

  OF THAT WE CAN AGREE.

  The elevator opened on a huge expanse of carpet. Here three secretaries at three different desks widely spaced around the vast plain of royal blue carpeting waited patiently for anything to happen. Since all three looked like graduates of Wardhaven special forces, Kris doubted that typing was their main concern.

  Kris and Honovi led the way to the middle secretary. They had experience with taking their children to visit their grandfather.

  Billy Longknife had not talked to his father for nearly twenty years. The two had not exchanged a word since Al had demanded that his son withdraw from politics after the death of little Eddy.

  From the way he hung back, it was quite possible that he was prepared to go another twenty.

  The one thing Kris noticed was the total lack of Christmas cheer in the wait area. There were several visual bits of art that Kris strongly suspected were holograms, but not a holotree anywhere.

  This time the secretary did not attempt to slow them down. He was up and out of his chair, buttoning his suit jacket to hide his automatic, and leading them to the door to Al’s office. Kris and Honovi paused there for a moment while their security details and the Prime Ministers did a quick check to verify that the reputed most safe place on Wardhaven was, indeed, safe and up to government standards. Done, they withdrew to wait just outside.

  Only the Longknifes entered to meet with the man they all descended from.

  From the smell of it, Grampa Al had splurged on a real tree. It was fully decorated and sparkling with lights next to a conversational pit. Once Honovi’s kids spotted the presents under the tree, their best behavior vanished. The boys dropped their dad’s hands and Brenda wiggled out of her mom’s arms. Together, they bolted right past Grampa Al and didn’t stop until they were kneeling in front of the tree, excitedly reporting that some of the fancy wrapped boxes had their names on them.

  “Can we open them?” “Can we, please?” “Oh, please, please!” was the youngest and cutest. She had a bit of a lisp at present.

  “Ask your great-grandfather,” Honovi said, which led to a second round of begging.

  Al had ignored the children, being busy asking the adults what they wanted to drink. “You may, in a little while. If you are good.”

  So three kids, settled on their knees by the Christmas tree, being very good and very silent but making sure the tree and its presents didn’t make a dash for the door.

  Mentally, Kris shook her head. Al had ignored these tiny Longknifes only to play his power games with them when they begged for his attention.

  This ends. This ends here. All this cold bullshit ends with my generation.

  I don’t know where it came from, but I will nourish my children. This will not pass to Ruthie and I so hope Honovi and Linda are as successful as they seem to be.

  But to all who looked her way, Kris wore a smile as Al insisted on serving all the adults a drink of their choice. It was three o’clock, but Billy actually talked to his father as he ordered a scotch and Brenda a daiquiri. Honovi and his wife asked for white wine and Al produced it with a flair. Kris and Jack asked for and were served Chamomile tea with a bit of a scowl from their host. While Alexander proved himself the congenial host, the three couples settled onto the three available couches. Beside Kris, Ruthie’s baby bucket becaming a small bassinet under Nelly’s quick and easy control.

  So naturally, Ruthie announced she wanted up. As soon as Kris had her in her arms, the cantankerous infant wanted down. Kris set the smallest princess on the carpet.

  “Is she crawling yet?” Linda asked.

  “No,” Kris said. “She’s got this other thing she does.” And as they watched, Ruthie did it.

  Her pudgy hand and legs waved about but never quite touched the carpet. Her milk belly kept her quite high and it looked impossible for her to go anywhere. Still, she giggled and cooed and wiggled and next thing anyone knew, she was over next to the couch with Honovi and his wife.

  “Did anyone see how she did that?” Kris asked.

  Brenda went to pick Ruthie up, but the infant quickly objected to her grandmother’s attention and Kris relieved her mother of a fussy infant. She held Ruth until she decided she’d seen enough and closed her eyes and fell asleep. Kris laid her carefully in her bassinet and laid a blanket over her. She sucked happily in her dreams.

  Only when Grampa Al was satisfied that everyone had a drink did he settle down in his big chair and smiled at the other, “I am so glad to see all of you here,” he said. “We don’t get together nearly enough as a family.”

  He got six nods, but uttered not a word in answer.

  “So, I hope you will stay for supper. I’ve had my cook prepare a Christmas goose and black pudding according to an old recipe from Earth.”

  “That sounds delicious,” Linda said, desperately trying to fill the void.

  Nothing followed that.

  “Can you stay for dinner?” Alexander finally asked.

  “I think we can,” Kris said, glancing toward Honovi.

  “I’m not sure I can trust my little pixies at a fully dressed dinner table. Little Bill is not yet out of his hot dog phase, and tiny Brenda is more likely to want cheese than anything else.”

  “I am aware that children ofte
n do not perform to expectations,” seemed to hint that the three carpet rats around the tree might not be the only humans unable to perform to expectations.

  “I had my cook prepare a small table in the kitchen. I thought the three youngsters could eat in there. Likely they’ll also want to play with their new toys.”

  “That might work out very well,” Linda said, glancing at her husband. “Won’t it, honey?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Honovi allowed.

  While this strained conversation was going on, Kris had been hearing a strange hum in the background. It grew louder and louder, until even Al was looking for it. “What in God’s seven hells is that racket?”

  “Nanos are hurling themselves at the window,” Nelly reported. “They have taken off the aluminum reflective coating and are now starting to abrade the glass.”

  “That is three inch, bulletproof glass,” Grampa Al said, not rising from his chair, totally secure in his Tower of Security.

  “The nanos are under some control,” Nelly said. “They are also attacking the steel holding the glass panes in. I think they are making more progress there and reinforcing the attack.

  “Computer, inform me what is being done to defend the windows of my office,” Al demanded.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Why forever not?”

  “There is not an attack on your office windows, sir.”

  “Computer, get me Security Central.”

  A moment later Al continued. “There is a God awful noise outside my office window. I am informed that they are under attack by nanos. Confirm or determine the error of this report.”

  “Nanos outside the 200th floor, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t have anything that goes that high.”

  “Well, get someone on the roof and report what they see. Now! What do I pay you for?”

  “Yes, sir. Immediately, sir.”

  “Nelly, can you repulse a nano attack?” Kris asked.

  “With what, Kris? Alexander Longknife, do you have any Smart Metal at hand that I could convert into nano defenders?”

  “Of course, not! Why would I have Smart Metal up here?” said the man who owned the patent on the stuff.

  “To save your life, sir,” Nelly growled, clearly wanting to replace the sir with something else.

  Kris was already reaching for Ruthie. “Take the bassinet,” Kris ordered.

  Even as Kris lifted Ruthie into her arms, the bassinet began to erode away as it evaporated into millions of defensive nanos.

  “I will form a defense bubble around you, but you need to get in close,” Nelly said.

  “Children. Here. Now,” Honovi commanded.

  It told well of their upbringing that the children abandoned the shiny packages and ran to their father and mother. The boys took their father’s hand. Brenda was pulled up by her mother. Around Kris, her family closed in on each other. For the first time in a very long time, Kris found herself touching her mother and father. Honovi and Linda stepped in close to Kris and Jack. Only Al remained in his chair, sipping his scotch.

  “This is preposterous. There is nothing to fear.”

  “Sir,” came from Al’s computer assistant. “We sent several men up to the roof. They were attacked. Two were killed. More nanos got in the building before we could slam the door. Some of the attackers are micro bots and carry explosives. We will release all our defensive nanos. That should defeat this attack.”

  “There is a great distance between should and will,” Kris said. “Grampa Al, get over here.”

  This time the man came.

  “Nelly, can you hold?”

  “I do not know, Kris. I may need your help,” and suddenly Kris saw the room in a totally different perspective.

  She and Jack with their two powerful computers were the central node in a series of nodes that spread out from them. She could not make out all the tiny nanos at the end of all the nodes, but she knew they were there, the same as she knew her fingernails were at the end of her hand.

  “Can we fight and beat them here?” Kris asked. “Should we retreat into the central office and get everyone on the floor into this bubble?”

  “The windows will not hold long,” Nelly said. “My scouts already report attack bots and attacking nanos in the office space. I agree Kris, we could better protect all the humans here from a redoubt in the center of the office.”

  “Folks, we are going to walk slowly, and carefully, everyone hand in hand, until we get to the waiting room,” Kris ordered. “Al, get your minions to report to your secretary’s desk.”

  “I will not . . .”

  “Do it now or they die,” Wardhaven’s premier fighting commander ordered.

  Her grandfather meekly told his computer to call his people out of their offices and to his secretary’s desk. Meek was a strange thing to see on Alexander Longknife.

  “Jack, you cover the rear, please,” Kris said as she, with Ruthie in arms, led her family toward the door. Once there, Billy stepped ahead to open it for Kris, then waited as his family filed out, going through only a step ahead of Jack.

  “Should I close the door or leave it open?” Jack asked.

  “Keep it open,” Nelly ordered. “It’s not going to hold back anything that can break through those windows and I need to be able to move my nanos.”

  Outside was chaos. Several bodies lay dead across the vast expanse of the waiting room. The three truncated Longknife security teams had their weapons drawn and had formed a circle, weapons out, but there was little they could do. Mahomet had his black box out, so at least the teams knew what they faced, but their weapons were worthless.

  Kris took her family into the circle the security people had formed, then organized her defensive perimeter with Jack.

  Now two dozen men and women in business suits hurried from offices toward the central desk. Several of them did not make it. There was no pattern to who fell, or where or why. Death came randomly.

  Kris moved her family and security team at a slow walk toward that desk. There, she told everyone to sit down in as tight a space as they could manage. She sat on the desk with Ruthie in her arms and her back to Jack. They were in both the most protected place on the 200th floor, and, at the same time, the center that if it fell, the entire leadership of Nuu Enterprises as well as the prime minister of Wardhaven died.

  “Can’t we take the elevator down?” Grampa Al demanded.

  “How easy is it to cut a wire?” Kris answered, then quickly added, “Nelly, patch me through to the Security Center.”

  “Who is this?” came quickly.

  “This is Admiral Kris Longknife, I command a redoubt on the 200th floor. I am defending your boss and his entire family from a hostile nano attack. Now, listen to me. Evacuate the building. Do not use the elevators. Understood?”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “I need Smart Metal up here, soonest. Get me some and send it up the elevators.”

  “We don’t have any, ma’am.”

  “Then get some. Your boss’s life depends on it. Move. Now!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Kris hoped that he could do something. Ruthie’s bassinet had formed a limited number of nanos. Around her neck, Kris felt the simulated diamond necklace that held Nelly begin to melt away to the minimum needed to hold her in place at Kris’s collar bone. Likewise, Jack’s tie tack began to shrink, contributing all it had to Nelly’s defensive nanos

  Nelly was calling in her last reserves.

  There was a whoosh of air through the floor as a glass pane fell away from the face of the building. In Kris’s mind’s eye, she could see as Nelly pulled back her defensive perimeter to just those around her.

  Now, several waves of defense nanos stormed forward to meet the invaders in Al’s office. There, they fought. The big attack bots were easy to spot, even to the naked eye. They looked like little more than flies, or gnats. Nelly’s nanos attacked them, stripped them of their wings and sent them
crashing down.

  But not all bots died easily. They began to explode as soon as they lost their wings, taking their attacking nanos with them.

  Kris ordered a change in her own nanos attack. Now they weakened a wing root. The bots flew on, then lose their wing a few centimeters later where their explosion hurt nothing.

  Kris didn’t actually make the decision for her nanos to do things different. Her thoughts solved problems at the speed of light, and her orders went out at the same speed.