Free Alexander Jablokov - Brain Thief by Alexander Jablokov

planetary probe.
    Bernal got to his feet and followed. He hadn’t responded fast enough. He’d already let her damage Hesketh. He couldn’t let her destroy it. This was probably why Muriel had wanted him here in the first place, and he was falling down on the job.
    They crested a hill. The right-of-way roller-coastered down from there. Charis walked down the mountain-bike path, scanning fences to the right and left, looking for a break. A plane heading for Logan flickered above the power lines. A few moments later, its distant roar filtered into the silence.
    He ran after her. “Stop!”
    “What?”
    She had half turned to look at him, when Hesketh jumped again, from behind a hummock. She tried to aim properly, but set off her herf gun too early. Hesketh shuddered away, its still-functional legs churning through the grass. She clipped her herf gun to her power pack and pulled out something else.
    Bernal didn’t know what else to do, so he tried to tackle her.
    It was like hitting a foam-covered concrete post. She didn’t go down, but she did drop the beer-can sized device she had been pointing at Hesketh. She lowered her shoulder, slid under him, and was out of his grasp.
    “Damn it!” she said. “Just let me do my job.”
    “No. I can’t let you do it.”
    He threw himself at her again, but this time, forewarned, she dodged, and he didn’t even manage to get a grip on her.
    “This isn’t a good idea, bucko,” she said. “I don’t have time for it.”
    “You have to make time.” He thought about trying to punch her but realized that his chances of landing anything were slim. What was he supposed to do with her?
    “No, I don’t.” This time she charged at him. She caught him just as he crested a hillock. He found himself propelled down a steep slope, lost his footing, and fell headlong. But that was it. She didn’t knock him out with a rock or anything.
    She searched in the grass for whatever it was she had dropped, and then her footsteps receded into the darkness.
    He scrambled to his feet. He ran up the slope after her and crested the hill again. The trail dropped steeply at first, a fun drop for anyone mountain biking, then bottomed out in a swale before rising again in a series of bumps.
    Well, at least he was faster than she was. He could see her blocky shape struggling up the opposite slope, not too far ahead of him. He didn’t see Hesketh, but the thing was too low to be spotted easily. From Charis’s intentness, it must have been just ahead of her.
    By the time he caught up to her again, the air was tearing in his lungs.
    “Jesus, can’t you just give it up?” She turned to face him. “I need to check the thing out. Relax.”
    “I . . . won’t . .. relax.”
    “I’m sorry. Here’s a bit of mandatory vacation.” She raised the beer can.
    Bernal heard a loud  thwang , like a giant rubber band. Something grabbed his legs and threw him backward. He fell on his back and tried to get up, but something held his legs in a firm grip. He felt at them. Rubbery cords had wrapped around them, pinioning them. When he struggled, the cords grew tighter.
    He forced himself to relax and really analyze what held him. The cords were elastic, but not sticky. At least, they didn’t stick to his pants, though they did seem to stick to each other. He swung his legs around so that he had some chance to see what the arrangement was.
    They were mutually sticky through something like Velcro. He could feel how the ends of the cords penetrated each other. He was held by a dense network.
    He managed to slip his hand into his pocket and pull out his multitool. If he had to cut every cord, he would be here all night. But networks often had points of maximum vulnerability. He plucked the cords to get a sense of the tension, cut one, then another. Already the net was looser, but he had to be careful not to try to escape too quickly, which could cause it to twist and tighten up again. He thought carefully and cut a