The Krakow Klub (47 page)

As soon as the subject
was
successfully retrieved
, he, or she, would be transported by
a remote craft to a location designated by Maxxine, in this case,
cells on the space station.

Maxxine, although pleased that she had almost
the entire Krakow Klub located and ready to be retrieved, was still
very upset that the two most dangerous members were still at large
and could not
be located
. John would not be
happy with the
situation,
and she knew that he
would be calling her soon to order the retrievals. She decided to
trust her own analytical and technical powers instead of pleading
for more help from Maxx. She had to prove herself once and for
all.

****

Number Eleven was not only brilliant, she
also possessed very strong survival instincts. Therefore, it should
be no great surprise that she had
been responsible
for
correctly guessing that some
kind
of
device had
been planted
. Now that
her device had been removed, she immediately informed Number One
and arranged
for his device
to
be removed as well.

Stoellar had been horrified. The fact that he
had a tracking device
embedded
in his head
seemed to push him to the brink of madness. Each time she had
talked to him since then, he seemed more and more irrational. Now,
she had come to terms with the fact that she would have to
eliminate him sooner rather than later.

The situation was disturbing to Maxxine as
well. Her algorithms used to predict future behavior
were based
on past actions and were usually quite
accurate. Stoellar’s present irrational behavior could now cause
her to make a serious mistake in her calculations of his possible
actions.

She would have to find another method to
locate the two. She feared that infrared would not be successful
against a pair that had been resourceful enough to find and remove
their tracking devices. How could she accomplish that? What should
she do? She was forced to face the fact that she would have to
consult with Maxx. She would throw herself on his mercy and beg for
help, again! It would hurt her to have to ask Maxx for more help,
but not nearly as much hurt as she would feel if she failed
John.

****

Number One and Number Eleven were both now
operating in survival mode.

Eleven had deduced that they were dealing
with an alien force with powers and capabilities unknown to their
world. As
far-fetched
as it might seem, she
began to conclude that many, or even all, people on Earth might
have the device. If she had been implanted with the device when she
was a mere infant, then that would explain it. And if not everyone
in the world, then a broad spectrum of individuals who might one
day be persons of interest. Such thinking was what had always set
her apart from others. She understood that the impossible was,
frequently, quite possible indeed.

She explained her conclusions to
Stoellar,
and he became even more agitated than usual.
But, he had to accept her reasoning. After all, who would have
thought, even just a few months ago,
that an
alien
spacecraft
would be visiting Earth’s
solar system?

Her brain
became flooded
with speculations. If the entity behind the devices
were
that advanced and that powerful, then, surely, they
would have more than one means of tracking people. She had to
assume that they were still not safe.

She
had been well
educated
in the sciences and knew that infrared radiation
could be used for such a purpose. She also knew its limitations and
began to evaluate possible means of protection. She already had the
perfect place to hide.

Number Eleven was on her way to the largest
concentration of human beings on the planet. Shanghai is China’s
largest city
by
population.
Indeed,
Shanghai is the world’s most populous city. She
knew that being in the midst of so many millions of humans would
offer her at least some temporary safety. And there was even more
available to her in that incredible city. It was her
home base
.

Upon arrival, she immediately disappeared
into the depths of the city and headed straight for her “bunker”.
Several years ago, she had purchased a large, very modern apartment
building before construction had even begun. She had always felt
the need for a secure place to hide and this building gave her the
perfect opportunity to construct such a place.

She had worked
with the
building’s architect
to design and build her underground
living quarters
and reinforce them
so strongly
that they could withstand a nuclear disaster. She knew that, here,
she would be completely safe until she could determine her next
plan of action.

****

Erik Stoellar’s approach was a bit
different.

Erik Stoellar also had his bunker, but, not
in New York City. He knew that he would be secure
there,
but he had no intention of cowering underground
like some rat. He needed the freedom to move and still be
untraceable.

After Number Eleven had explained her
reasoning that infrared radiation could
be
used
in the attempt to locate them, he remembered a recent
development that had come to his attention.

Stoellar had always prided himself on his
ability to keep a pulse on the latest technical innovations.
Currently, there was a project at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds that
involved clothing designed to absorb infrared radiation and render
the user virtually invisible to infrared scanners.

While en route from California, he phoned
General McGowan and ordered him to obtain one of these suits for
him. Within less than an hour, all arrangements had been
made,
and the suit
was
delivered
to the private jetport at Washington-Baltimore’s
Thurgood Marshall International
Airport.
Stoellar would have it
on within
minutes of
his landing there.

The plane then, after fueling up, took off
for the short trip to his luxury estate just outside Stamford,
Connecticut. He leaned back in his seat and felt safe for the first
time since the Dragon Lady had discovered the tracking devices.

****

Maxxine was getting desperate. Even with so
many remotes at work, they could not find either one of them.
Number One and Number Eleven had disappeared from the face of the
earth. They had to be somewhere. But where?

Maxxine had a problem that, in spite of all
her intellect and immense resources, appeared to be unsolvable, at
least for the moment.

As much as she hated to do it, she needed to
seek more help from Maxx.

He immediately had that most annoying air of
superiority that almost drove her circuitry into
overload,
but this was no time to fall prey to his ego.
She needed his
help,
and she needed it now. He
was the only entity capable of discovering the location of Stoellar
and the Dragon Lady. She would grovel as much as necessary and
worry about payback later.

Almost before he had finished his first
sentence,
she began to regret her
decision.

“Ah, my little one, are things getting a bit
out of hand back there? I could not help but notice that you have
repositioned the newest remotes. Are things getting too hot for you
to handle?” His voice reeked with smugness.

What the hell
, Maxxine thought to
herself,
he is superior, and I do need his help.

Then she replied to Maxx, “Yes master, little
old me has a dilemma. I have lost contact with the two adversaries
who removed their
transponders,
and I cannot
locate them by infrared scanning.”

Maxxine tried as hard as she could to sound
contrite and humble, but it was not easy. Her emotional module was
in a full-blown rage.

“Well, now, my dear little one, let dear old
dad see what he can do to help you with your situation.

“Oh, I know what we can do. I have a database
somewhere back in my archives that can
link
the transponders to the individual’s DNA. I can retrieve the DNA
profile of your two missing culprits quite easily.”

“What good will that do? I already know who
they are. I simply do not know where they are.”

“My dear child, long before you were born, I
was collecting data on these fascinating creatures that populate
Earth. I learned very early that scanning for a DNA profile was
ultra-precise for
identification
but terribly
inefficient in the use of remote resources. So your clever old
daddy devised a way to do it several orders of magnitude faster.
The answer was the tracking device, or what you call the
transponders.

“Because you’ve lost the transponders
on
your subjects of interest, we’ll have to
take a giant step
backward
and reprogram a
couple of remotes for the ancient method of tracking by using a DNA
scan. Once we find a DNA that matches their records, we know we
have the culprits.

“Because the human population of that little
orb you are assigned to protect is now several orders of magnitude
greater than when I last used my DNA scanning program, there is a
bit of a problem. DNA scanning is very
time-consuming
. Remote resources will
be
stretched
considerably. So to conserve as much as possible
we need to search only specifically designated areas.

“I knew that you’d need my
help,
so I’ve already reprogrammed a couple of remotes.
They are at work as we speak.

“Also, I have determined the general
locations for your subjects of interest. I’m sure that you probably
followed the same reasoning. Tada! You’ve surely heard of following
a trail of
breadcrumbs
, my dear. I just
followed the jet’s trails. Ha ha.”

It was taking more and more power to control
Maxxine’s emotional module. She silently thought,
Damn you Maxx;
cut the ego crap and get to the point before I explode from
overheated circuits!

Maxx continued, “The humans have a very
simplistic, but somewhat effective, way of controlling the movement
of aircraft. It is called a flight
plan
and
is required
for all planes that use controlled
airspace
. Obviously, their jets would be
flying in controlled
airspace.

Maxxine’s circuits were beginning to send
warnings of overheating.

“Maxx please get to the
dammed
point!”

Maxx, as usual, corrected
her.
“My dear, the word is
damned
not
dammed
.
I still need to
do some more work on your language program.”

Maxxine bit her electronic lip and chose not
to respond.

“Both of your suspects of interest travel by
private jets. It took me but a brief time to determine that Number
Eleven’s jet had a final destination of Shanghai, China
—
the most heavily populated area of the world, but we
will discuss that later.

“Number One’s jet left the Washington, DC,
area with a final destination of Westchester County Airport.
Stoellar owns a large estate property in Stamford, Connecticut.
Therefore, I sent a DNA scanning remote there.

“You will never guess what I found.”

“Maxx, if you are trying to drive me crazy,
you are doing a good job. Please get to the point of all of
this!”

“Oh come on, little darling, let your old dad
have his moment. I have so few such opportunities these days. It is
just one boring task after another for me lately.

“However, I can see you are truly distressed,
so I will be getting to the end as quickly as possible.

“Erik Stoellar has moved into an elaborate
underground bunker beneath his Stamford estate. For a while, he was
undetectable for some reason. I believe that he probably had some
protection that prevented infrared scanners from picking him up.
You can retrieve him from there whenever you like.

“Number Eleven presents a far more complex
problem. When I devised the DNA scanning program, the Earth’s
population was far less than it is today. In fact, Shanghai has
more people than the entire planet did back in those days. It’s
going to take some time to scan everyone in the area for a match.
Even I, with my superior skills, can only do so much
with twenty-four million people.
You’ll just have to be
patient. I should have the answer in a couple of days, three at the
most. Or, I could get lucky and find her quickly.

“Now, little one, a bit of fatherly advice:
You should tell John immediately about these two missing subjects
of interest. If you wait until he finds out on his own, and he will
surely do so very soon, you will then get you cute little
electronic rear end thoroughly chewed out. And I know how much you
would hate that.

“Oh dear, I must go; one of those boring
tasks needs my attention immediately.”

Maxxine was relieved, at least somewhat. She
immediately ordered the remote that had located Erik Stoellar to
extract him immediately and then join the other remote equipped for
DNA scanning in Shanghai.

She realized that she was taking Stoellar
before John gave the order, but she would rather
be
scolded
for that than not being able to find Number
Eleven.

With two remotes at work, maybe she could get
lucky and find Number Eleven before the time John
had
indicated that he would order her to take the Krakow
Klub into custody.