Mammoth

And here he was, participating in what would probably become known as the heist of the century.

"HE'S on what they call 'come-along' mode," Susan said. "He'll follow the controller wherever it goes, never get closer than five feet."

Five feet felt entirely too close for Matt, who kept looking back over his shoulder to see if the damn thing was still back there, and was never quite sure if he was happy or not to see that it was, at a steady, dependable five feet, lumbering along as naturally as any actual living beast he had ever seen.

"So it's for use in the... what do they call that part of the park? With all the mechanical critters?"

"No, he's for the center ring... maybe."

"You can't be serious. Howard plans to palm off a mechanical substitute for the real thing?" "I said maybe. There's still a lot of bugs to be worked out. Can't have 'Fuzzy' falling over during the show and just lying there, trying to walk. So they figure they're about a year away from being able to chance it, not with this one, but with Mark Three or Four, which you saw back there being put together."

"It's partly my fault. Howard and I have been head-to-head over this thing practically from day one. He wanted three shows a day, I wanted one; we settled on two. I wanted two days off per week, we settled on one. Howard had power over me, because he's sure it would take a lot to make me quit here. Fuzzy is... like a child to me. It would be very hard to leave him. But I've got some power over him, too."

"What's that?"

Susan gri

"Fuzzy won't work for anybody but me."

Matt laughed out loud, then looked nervously at the camera they were just passing. (Not far away, Jack wondered what the hell the idiot found so fu

"You're kidding."

"He imprinted on me that night, or he loves me, or he's just ornery, look at it any way you want to. He lost his mother, and never attached to any of the wet nurses we provided for him. In fact, he didn't seem to like elephant milk much. He preferred to suck the stuff that I mixed up from a bottle. He has other handlers who groom him and can lead him around from place to place if they don't get in the way of what he really wants to do, but he only fully cooperates with me. Howard didn't find that out until the first time he fired me, three years ago, and he was apoplectic."

"Fired you 'the first time'?"

"Oh, he's fired me several times since then, but it lasts about an hour or two. Actually, a while after Andrea came along, he stopped firing me. She's been a good influence on him."

"He could use one."

"Sometimes he seems almost human. Anyway, this robot was supposed to take some of the burden off the real Fuzzy. Do the early show, sub three or four times a week, something like that. But it's one thing to make a titanothere that can walk around a predetermined track with a human operator inside, and something else to make a robot that can do tricks and really fool the eye under bright lights. The project is way behind schedule. I'm sure they'll get it right one day soon... and by then I really, really hope they'll need it badly... because here we are, and this is the last chance to turn back."

JACK watched them on his screen as they opened the gate to Fuzzy's enclosure and Susan entered, alone. Fuzzy had heard her or smelled her, and he turned from his manger and greeted her with his trunk. She patted his big flanks, gentling him, offering him a treat which he snarfed up. Fuxxy had come to a halt when Susan turned off the follow-me button on her controller. Now she turned it on again, and the imposter lumbered through the open gate and into the enclosure, stopping faithfully just behind her.

He explored the newcomer with his trunk. Jack wondered what the beast was thinking. Surely Fuxxy didn't smell like a mammoth, but he sure looked like one. But when Susan touched his side gently with the ankus, Fuzzy turned and went with her outside the stall, and when she touched him again and spoke to him he stood beside Matt, apparently incurious about this new guy. And why not? Fuzzy met a hundred new people every day, and was friendly to them all. Fuzzy was everybody's friend, but only took orders from Susan.

Susan got the mechanical monstrosity positioned just where Fuzzy usually spent the night. Later, Fuzzy might normally lie down for an hour or two, seldom longer than that. If he didn't lie down—which Fuxxy couldn't do—neither Darryl nor Ed would think anything of it. Jack watched as Susan did something with the controller. Fuxxy began the slow, back-and-forth swaying that was a normal behavior for Fuzzy when he was content, or asleep on his feet. The mechanical trunk curled from time to time. It looked pretty lifelike to Jack. He looked over his board and down at Darryl's. The kid was still getting the tape loop of the real Fuzzy on his screen. It was very, very close to the realtime picture now on Jack's. He wiped sweat off his brow.

Then Susan jammed the controller deep under a pile of hay, closed the gate behind her, and moved out of camera range with Matt and Fuzzy.

He followed them down several hallways to a point where a right turn would lead them into the arena, and a left turn to a big door to the outside. They turned left. He checked the external camera. No one out there. He got out his cell phone and punched 1, which dialed Susan's phone. He saw her answer. She said nothing, and he punched the number 2, which sent the text message all clear. He watched her switch off, and punched the electric door opener. He gritted his teeth, imagining the racket the thing was making. If somebody were to drive into the wrong parking lot right now...

They left the building, the door rumbled back down (silently, to Jack), and the unlikely trio headed out across the parking lot to where Susan had parked her big pickup and monster fifth-wheel trailer. Before they even reached it the tailgate was coming down. From his angle Jack couldn't see inside, but he knew there was a dune buggy parked in the garage in back. Susan had been parking the rig there every Sunday night for months now so she could get an early start for the Oregon Dunes near Florence, or some other off-roading destination to spend Monday, her only day off.

The next part was tricky. Jack couldn't see most of it because of the angle, but it seemed to go smoothly. In fifteen minutes Susan climbed into the driver's seat of the pickup, started the engine, and pulled away.

As soon as she was out of camera range Jack punched nine buttons, ejected nine cards into his hands, and replaced them with the proper ones. There wasn't even a flicker on the screens as the recorded views were replaced by the real ones. The Unknown Hacker's magic was still working. SUSAN pulled the truck up beside the security booth and braked gently to a stop. Harry, the night guard, left his booth smiling. He liked Susan. He wouldn't after tonight, but there was nothing she could do about that.

"Getting a late start," Susan said. "Probably head east a bit, there's a good place around Bend."

"Don't break your fool neck, okay?" Harry noticed Matt sitting on the other side.

"He's my guest," Susan said.

"Sir, could you give me your visitor card?"

Matt handed it over, and Harry swiped it through a device that agreed that Matt had been legitimately allowed entrance. Susan opened the door and Harry stepped back to let her out. He followed her around back, and Susan keyed the ramp to come down.

"Damn stupid, having to search this damn thing, Miss Morgan, but you know how it is. Rules are rules."

"I don't mind a bit."

Harry stepped onto the ramp and walked up to the dune buggy parked in the back. There was room to walk around it and into the kitchen and living area. He shone his flashlight around, all the way to a narrow hallway where the bathroom was, and three steps leading up to the bedroom. If Susan was stealing office supplies or circus costumes or even computers she could have concealed a lot of them in this place, but why on earth would she? It would be insulting to Miss Morgan to do a thorough search of this rolling Hilton every Sunday night, and nobody had ever asked him to. He was supposed to make sure nobody in a large vehicle absconded with one of the bigger robotic creatures, and there sure as shit wasn't enough room to hide any of them in here.