He should have known the dangers, when he found he couldn't control the swarms. It was insanity to sit back and allow them to evolve on their own. Ricky was bright; he knew about genetic algorithms; he knew the biological background for current trends in programming. He knew that self-organization was inevitable.
He knew that emergent forms were unpredictable.
He knew that evolution involved interaction with n forms.
He knew all that, and he did it anyway.
He did, or Julia did.
* * *
I checked on Charley. He was still asleep in his room, sprawled out on the bed. Bobby Lembeck walked by. "How long has he been asleep?"
"Since you got back. Three hours or so."
"Do you think we should wake him up, check on him?"
"Nah, let him sleep. We'll check him after dinner."
"When is that?"
"Half an hour." Bobby Lembeck laughed. "I'm cooking."
That reminded me I was supposed to call home around dinnertime, so I went into my room and dialed.
Ellen answered the phone. "Hello? What is it!" She sounded harried. I heard Amanda crying and Eric yelling at Nicole in the background. Ellen said, "Nicole, do not do that to your brother!"
I said, "Hi, Ellen."
"Oh, thank God," she said. "You have to speak to your daughter."
"What's going on?"
"Just a minute. Nicole, it's your father." I could tell she was holding out the phone to her.
A pause, then, "Hi, Dad."
"What's going on, Nic?"
"Nothing. Eric is being a brat." Matter-of-factly.
"Nic, I want to know what you did to your brother."
"Dad." She lowered her voice to a whisper. I knew she was cupping her hand over the phone. "Aunt Ellen is not very nice."
"I heard that," Ellen said, in the background. But at least the baby had stopped crying; she'd been picked up.
"Nicole," I said. "You're the oldest child, I'm counting on you to help keep things together while I'm gone."
"I'm trying, Dad. But he is a majorly turkey butt."
From the background: "I am not! Up yours, weasel poop!"
"Dad. You see what I'm up against."
Eric: "Up your hole with a ten-foot pole!"
I looked at the monitor in front of me. It showed views of the desert outside, rotating images from all the security cameras. One camera showed my dirt bike, lying on its side, near the door to the power station. Another camera showed the outside of the storage shed, with the door swinging open and shut, revealing the outline of Rosie's body inside. Two people had died today. I had almost died. And now my family, which yesterday had been the most important thing in my life, seemed distant and petty.
"It's very simple, Dad," Nicole was saying in her most reasonable grown-up voice. "I came home with Aunt Ellen from the store, I got a very nice blouse for the show, and then Eric came into my room and knocked all my books on the floor. So I told him to pick them up. He said no and called me the b-word, so I kicked him in the butt, not very hard, and took his G.I. Joe and hid it. That's all."
I said, "You took his G.I. Joe?" G.I. Joe was Eric's most important possession. He talked to G.I. Joe. He slept with G.I. Joe on the pillow beside him.
"He can have it back," she said, "as soon as he cleans up my books."
"Nic ..."
"Dad, he called me the b-word."
"Give him his G.I. Joe."
The images on the screen were rotating through the various cameras. Each image only stayed on screen for a second or two. I waited for the image of the shed to come back up. I had a nagging feeling about it. Something bothered me.
"Dad, this is humiliating."
"Nic, you're not the mother-"
"Oh yeah, and she was here for maybe five seconds."
"She was at the house? Mom was there?"
"But then, big surprise, she had to go. She had a plane to catch."
"Uh-huh. Nicole, you need to listen to Ellen-"
"Dad, I told you she's being-"
"Because she's in charge until I get back. So if she says to do something, you do it."
"Dad. I feel this is unreasonable." Her members-of-the-jury voice.
"Well, honey, that's how it is."
"But my problem-"
"Nicole. That's how it is. Until I get back."
"When are you coming home?"
"Probably tomorrow."
"Okay."
"So. We understand each other?"
"Yes, Dad. I'll probably have a nervous breakdown here ..."
"Then I promise I'll visit you in the mental hospital, as soon as I get back."
"Very funny."
"Let me speak to Eric."
I had a short conversation with Eric, who told me several times that it was not fair. I told him to put Nicole's books back. He said he didn't knock them down, it was an accident. I said to put them back anyway. Then I talked to Ellen briefly. I encouraged her as best I could. Sometime during this conversation, the security camera showing the outside of the shed came up again. And I again saw the swinging door, and the outside of the shed. In this elevation the shed was slightly above grade; there were four wooden steps leading from the door down to ground level. But it all looked the way it should. I did not know what had bothered me. Then I realized.
David's body wasn't there. It wasn't in the frame. Earlier in the day, I had seen his body slide out the door and disappear from view, so it should be lying outside. Given the slight grade, it might have rolled a few yards from the door, but not more than that. No body.