Free Engineering Infinity by Jonathan Strahan Page A

practically
spat the word. He perched precariously on the can and began tugging at the
latch to the window. “They have seized our database! All the Soviet records...
including what we know about the Tsarina .”
    Gennady coughed. Then he said, “I’ll
bring the car around.”
    He helped Egorov through the
window and, after making sure no one was looking, left through the hotel’s
front door. Egorov’s unmistakable silhouette was limping into the parking lot.
Gennady followed him and, unlocking the Tata, said, “I’ve disabled the GPS
tracking in this car. It’s a rental; I’m going to drop it off in Semey, six
hundred kilometres from here. Are you sure you’re up to a drive like that?”
    The old man’s eyes glinted under
yellow street light. “Never thought I’d get a chance to see the steppes again.
Let’s go!”
    Gennady felt a ridiculous surge
of adrenalin as they bumped out of the parking lot. Only two other cars were on
the road, and endless blackness swallowed the landscape beyond the edge of
town. It was a simple matter to swing onto the highway and leave Stepnogorsk
behind - but it felt like a car chase.
    “Ha ha!” Egorov craned his neck
to look back at the dwindling town lights. “Semey, eh? You’re going to
Semipalatinsk, aren’t you?”
    “To look at the Tsarina site, yes. Whose side does that put me on?”
    “Sides?” Egorov crossed his arms
and glared out the windshield. “I don’t know about sides.”
    “It was an honest question.”
    “I believe you. But I don’t know. Except for them,” he
added, jabbing a thumb back at the town. “I know they’re bad guys.”
    “Why? And why are they interested
in Ambrose?”
    “Same reason we are. Because of
what he saw.”
    Gennady took a deep breath. “Okay.
Why don’t you just tell me what you know? And I’ll do the same?”
    “Yes, all right.” The utter
blackness of the night-time steppe had swallowed them; all that was visible was
the double-cone of roadway visible in the car’s headlamps. It barely changed,
moment to moment, giving the drive a timelessness Gennady would, under other
circumstances, have quite enjoyed.
    “We data-mine records from the Soviet
era,” began Egorov. “To find out what really went on. It’s lucrative business,
and it supports the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Online.” He tapped his
glasses.
    “A few weeks ago, we got a
request for some of the old data - from the Americans. Two requests, actually,
a day apart: one from the search engine company, and the other from the
government. We were naturally curious, so we didn’t say no; but we did a little
digging into the data ourselves. That is, we’d started to, when those men burst
into our offices and confiscated the server. And the backup.”
    Gennady looked askance at him. “Really?
Where was this?”
    “Um. Seattle. That’s where the
CCCOP is based - only because we’ve been banned in the old country! Russia’s
run by robber barons today, they have no regard for the glory of -”
    “Yes, yes. Did you find out what
they were looking for?”
    “Yes - which is how I ended up
with these travel companions you saw. They are in the pay of the American CIA.”
    “Yes, but why? What does this
have to do with the Tsarina ?”
    “I was hoping you could tell me.
All we found was appropriations for strange things that should never have had
anything to do with a nuclear test. Before the Tsarina was set off, there was about a year of heavy construction at the site. Sometimes,
you know, they built fake towns to blow them up and examine the blast damage.
That’s what I thought at first; they ordered thousands of tonnes of concrete,
rebar and asbestos, that sort of thing. But if you look at the records after
the test, there’s no sign of where any of that material went.”
    “They ordered some sort of
agricultural crop from SNOPB,” Gennady ventured. Egorov nodded.
    “None of the discrepancies would
ever have been noticed if not for your