Daemon

the mansion’s front steps and raised its camera arms – shining the bright lights into the yawning, black maw of the doorway. The door was still wedged open.
    A score of federal agents in the command trailer craned their necks to see the monitors.
    Trear nodded to Garvey, who took a breath and eased theleft joystick forward. The little robot’s motors whined as it inched up the stone steps.
    Before long it moved warily through the front door and into the foyer, where some type of fearsome technology had assaulted Guerner and his team. Washington wanted more information. The robot’s camera arm panned the room. Glass from a shattered vase littered the tiled floor – along with vomit and specks of blood.
    Someone in the back muttered, ‘Jesus.’
    One of the bomb squad guys leaned in. ‘Look for transceivers or sensors on the walls.’
    Garvey started panning the walls with the camera lights.
    It looked like a classic Mediterranean, but there was a lot more than paintings and sculpture alcoves along the winding stairs. Near the ceiling an array of mysterious, white plastic sensors lined the walls.
    Trear called out. ‘Guys, what are we looking at?’
    A deafening silence filled the darkened trailer. In the glow of the camera monitors Trear looked for Allen Wyckoff, an FBI senior systems analyst who always seemed to know what he was talking about. Although there were bomb squad agents and a couple of computer forensics experts on hand, this wasn’t a bomb and it wasn’t software. It looked like a system. ‘Wyckoff. What am I looking at here?’
    Wyckoff was just a silhouette in the darkness, except for the lenses of his round glasses, which reflected the monitor images. ‘Those are standard motion detectors … also what looks to be infrared sensors … I have no idea what
that
is … The round pod might be a transmitter of some sort.’ He turned toward Trear, and the monitor reflections disappeared from his glasses. ‘Sir, we’re going to need to analyze this video. There’s a lot of technology there I’m not familiar with.’
    Trear looked around at the assembled experts, who were silently nodding in the dark. ‘So no one can tell me how the bomb disposal team was incapacitated? No guesses?’
    The agents exchanged glances in the shadows.
    Garvey ventured, ‘Should I keep going?’
    Trear nodded. ‘Get us into the server room.’
    Garvey took another breath and eased the joystick forward again.
    The robot moved easily across the floor toward the center doorway at the back of the foyer. The mercury light revealed a long hall with stone tile flooring and embroidered rugs. Mission-style furniture braced the walls here and there along the length of the hall.
    One of Garvey’s team spoke from the console nearby while examining blueprints. ‘We want to take the next hall on the right. Then it’s the second door on the right.’
    ‘Got it. Turning.’ Garvey turned the robot in place and shined the camera lights down a short side hall. It led into the recreation room toward the back of the house. Garvey panned the hallway, examining the walls and ceilings. More of the mysterious sensors lined the walls. It was dark except for the lights on the robot.
    ‘Cellar door, second on the right. It should lead down to the server room.’
    Garvey brought the robot forward, then moved to a second set of controls to activate the robot’s arm. The mechanical hand slid into camera view and swiveled once to align with the lever door handle on the cellar door. The arm moved forward, grabbed the door handle, then depressed it.
    Suddenly the camera image jolted wildly and shouts of alarm filled the trailer. In a moment all the screens were filled with snow.
    Trear pushed forward. ‘What just happened?’
    Garvey’s hands hovered over the useless controls, his mouth open in shock. He turned. ‘I don’t know. I …’
    ‘Do we have any signal from the robot?’
    Garvey and his assistant checked the console and shook their heads. Everyone was talking again.
    Trear shouted, ‘Quiet down! Everyone shut up.’ He turned back to Garvey. ‘Play back the video – in slow motion.’
    Garvey nodded, then rewound the video. All the monitors flickered, then a still image came up again: the mansion side hall.
    ‘Roll it forward slowly.’
    On-screen, frame by frame, the robotic arm grabbed the door handle and pushed down.
    ‘There.’
    Garvey stopped the image.
    There was an unmistakable gap in the floor toward the