![]() |
|
|
"Of course," Lexicon continued, "if they don't get a message from me every 48 hours, they wake up on their own and initiate the default mission program." Oh well, he didn't get this far by being dumb... As Lexicon continued detailing the fine points of the drones' packet generation capability and the fail-safe mechanisms built into them, Nancy thought she noticed an excessive amount of blinking indicator lights on the CD-ROM drive. She chose not to ask Lexicon why his program was written so poorly that it didn't cache more data. Hitting the slow CD-ROM drive that much was death to any reasonable market product. "That, more or less, shows you what we're doing. The point is that if government and industry players in the Internet community don't pay, I'm prepared to put them out of service. It's just a sort of high tech, neighborhood protection program." "You're like the head of a new, electronic Mafia. Organized crime in cyberspace. John Lexicon, the Godfather." "Exactly. Now let's go over to manufacturing. There's one more thing I want to show you." As they left the office, he ejected the CD and pocketed it. "Can't be too careful with the keys to the kingdom." "What could be more exciting than your drones, John? You've got the electronic commerce market cornered with that one program." "You'll see when we get there. Just be patient." Down the elevator, across the long atrium, and down a much longer hallway, they came to the manufacturing area. Continuing through the maze of assembly lines, they finally entered the department marked Circuit Board Assembly.
In front of Roger was the robotic laser cutting head. It was positioned to begin slicing the stack of blanks into the four inch by eight inch pieces that Lexicon Industries used to hold the electronics for their x-terminals. In this case, of course, the set would not be able to pass quality assurance tests due to the fact that they would contain a high percentage of Roger Tango beneath their plastic membranes. Lexicon took hold of Nancy's arm as he asked, "Hank, what have we learned about Mr. Webb from this young man?" "He's talking a bunch of gibberish. He says there is no Webb. He says he's going to get us. He says the FBI is onto us. He's getting a little punchy at this point. "It matters very little really. At this point I don't care who Spike Webb is. I suppose I always knew that they would discover who they we're paying. I suppose I may even prefer that the world know it's me. It does mean abandoning our nice facility here though and for that inconvenience, I shall make the two of you pay! Hank put her on the other blank cutter." "John! Mr. Lexicon! Don't do that! Please!" It only took Hank Brooks a minute to lash Nancy onto the second line. Her fear turned to threats and she verbally lashed at both Lexicon and Brooks. "Roger do something!" "I'm thinking Nancy! I'm thinking!"
![]() ![]() ![]()
ISYS Idea System, Inc. designed and implemented the Spike Webb (tm) site, including all content and artwork.
Copyright © 1995 ISYS Idea Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in |
|