Artemis by Andy Weir Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t. I built huge holding tanks outside Armstrong Bubble. They’re in the triangle formed by the connector tunnels of Armstrong, Bean, and Shepard. Totally safe from idiot tourists, and if anything goes wrong, they’ll just leak into the vacuum. They’re connected to Life Support’s systems, but they’re separated by a physical valve outside. No harm can come to the city.”
    “Huh.” I spun my glass on the table. “You want me to stop Sanchez’s oxygen production.”
    “Yes, I do.” He stood from his chair and walked over to the liquor credenza. This time he selected a bottle of rum. “The city will want a fast resolution and I’ll get the contract. Once that happens, I won’t even have to build my own smelter. Sanchez will see the futility of trying to make aluminum without free power and they’ll let me buy them outright.”
    He poured himself a fresh drink and returned to the table. There, he opened a panel to reveal a bunch of controls.
    The room lights faded and a projection screen came to life on the far wall.
    “Are you a supervillain or something?” I gestured to the screen. “I mean, come on.”
    “Like it? I just had it installed.”
    The screen showed a satellite picture of our local area in Mare Tranquillitatis. Artemis was a tiny blob of circles brilliantly illuminated by sunlight.
    “We’re in the lowlands,” Trond said. “There’s plenty of olivine and ilmenite around. Those are great for making iron, but if you want aluminum you need anorthite. It’s rare around here, but the highlands are
littered
with it. So Sanchez’s harvesters operate in the Moltke Foothills three kilometers south of here.”
    He turned on his Gizmo’s laser pointer and pointed to a region south of the city.
    “The harvesters are almost completely autonomous. They only call home for instructions if they get stuck or can’t figure out what to do next. They’re an essential part of the company’s operations, they’re all in one place, and they’re completely unguarded.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I see where this is going….”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I want you to sabotage those harvesters. Take them all out at once. And make sure they can’t be repaired. It’ll take Sanchez at least a month to get replacements shipped here from Earth. During that time they’ll get no new anorthite. No anorthite means no oxygen production. No oxygen production means I win.”
    I folded my arms. “I don’t know if this works for me, Trond. Sanchez has like a hundred employees, right? I don’t want to put people out of their jobs.”
    “Don’t worry about that,” Trond said. “I want to
buy
the company, not ruin it. Everyone will keep their jobs.”
    “Okay, but I don’t know anything about harvesters.”
    His fingers flew over the controls and the display changed to a picture of a harvester. It looked like something from a catalogue. “The harvesters are Toyota Tsukurumas. I have four of them in my warehouse, ready for use.”
    Whoa. Okay. Something the size of a harvester would have to be shipped in chunks and assembled here. Plus, it would have to be done in secret so no one asked awkward questions like “Say, Trond, why is your company assembling harvesters?” He’d had his people on this for a long time.
    He must have seen the gears turning in my head. “Yeah. I’ve been working on this for a while. Anyway, you’re welcome to examine my harvesters for as long as you want. All in secrecy of course.”
    I got out of my chair and walked up to the screen. Man, that harvester was a beast. “So it’s my problem to find a weakness in these things? I’m not an engineer.”
    “They’re automated vehicles without any security features at all. You’re clever, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
    “Okay, but what happens if I get caught?”
    “Jazz who?” he said theatrically. “The delivery girl? I barely know her. Why would she do such a thing? I’m baffled.”
    “I see how it