Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330)

by Mitchell, Laura Remson

  Rayna opened her eyes again. “So when did you see my grandfather again?”

  “Well, let’s see now. About six or seven years after we installed the Star’s computer system, their management decided to upgrade. Al was still the liaison to Computer Applications, and so he was the one who made all the arrangements from the newspaper’s side.”

  “And you were the one Computer Applications put in charge?”

  “Not in charge,” Milgrom said, “but Al did ask for me to teach the new system. All this happened when I was between attacks. I was already using a wheelchair, but I’d been stable for about two years. I was checked out on the new system, and I was completely qualified to instruct the Star staff again, just as I had originally. Except for one thing, that is.”

  Rayna arched her eyebrows. “And that was?”

  “Stairs. The Valley Star offices were in an old two-story building that was remodeled around 1981, more for appearance than function. The way things were rearranged, most of the computer equipment wound up on the second floor, and there wasn’t any elevator.”

  Rayna frowned.

  “You look irritated,” said Milgrom. “Just think how I felt. I’d worked very hard to get where I was. I was intelligent, highly qualified, and damn good at my job, but I couldn’t do that job just because some architect or builder or business manager had decided that a slick new look was necessary, but an elevator was a luxury! It wasn’t the first time I’d run into that sort of thing, of course, but it always made me so angry. I wasn’t always exactly polite about telling people so, either. But in those days, you had to yell if you wanted to be heard.”

  Rayna could hardly picture this good-natured woman with the fashionably silver-streaked, slate-gray hair as an angry young rebel. On the other hand, she thought, maybe it was a rebel spirit that drove Milgrom to speak out about the Nitinol crisis.

  “I think your grandfather was almost as angry about the stair problem as I was.”

  “I’m not surprised. The Star should have put in an elevator.”

  “That’s what your grandfather said. They did it, too, but not for a few years. You know, I see a lot of Al Frederick in you.” Milgrom blinked and inhaled deeply. “Anyway, I saw Al from time to time after that. At least I could still service the Valley Star account as long as they didn’t need me upstairs, and he made a point of asking for me. We got together socially on occasion, too. And whenever I had a problem, it seemed he was there to encourage me. It’s been at least 10 years since I saw him last, though.”

  Milgrom gazed across the room, looking at nothing in particular. “He was an unusual man, Miss Kingman. Once, when I was in the hospital with an especially bad attack, he came to visit. I remember because he was particularly philosophical that day. He told me he’d figured out the root of the world’s problems.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Rayna said. “He used to tell me the same thing. He blamed nearly everything on fear. One day I told him I thought greed and anger might have something to do with it, but he said no. He agreed that guilt might complicate the picture a little, but he insisted that fear was the main culprit. He said most problems would disappear if you could just get people to stop being afraid all the time.”

  Milgrom nodded. “All I know is that he sure helped me get over my fears that day.”

  “You said you haven’t seen him for 10 years?”

  “That’s right,” said Milgrom. “I could sure use his moral support these days, too. How is he?”

  Rayna blinked and massaged her temples. The pain, which she had almost succeeded in ignoring, was now demanding her attention, pounding insistently against the inside of her cranium. “He died in April.”

  The director of the CDN stiffened in her chair, and her eyes grew moist. She sniffed a few times, then swallowed in an obvious effort to regain her composure.

  “You must have been very fond of him,” Rayna said. “I didn’t realize—”

  Milgrom raised a hand and shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said. “I didn’t realize it myself until just now. As I told you, I didn’t know him terribly well, but he was very important to me at a critical time in my life. Almost a father figure. The funny thing is, I don’t know if he ever realized what a difference he made.”

  Rayna closed her eyes. He knew he made a difference, she thought, but not the kind you’re talking about.

  A signal from the communicator at Rayna’s bedside halted any further discussion. Rayna covered her face with her hands, then swept her hair back before accepting the call. The visage of a young hospital volunteer formed on the large, flat screen mounted on the wall across from the bed.

  “Yes,” Rayna said, “what is it?”

  “There’s an urgent message for you, Miss Kingman. From a Mr. Carlson at the Brandemar Learning Center. He said to tell you he’s very sorry. He said he tried everything he could think of, but no one would listen. He said you’d know what he meant.”

  Milgrom looked inquiringly at Rayna, who was shaking her head in confusion.

  “Oh, and there’s another message, too, Miss Kingman. A visi-gram. Came in about an hour ago. It’s from the Board of Education. You have quite a few get-well messages, too. Do you want them now?”

  Rayna waved her right hand in a gesture of dismissal. “No, thanks,” she said, an emptiness gripping her chest, “but I’d better take a look at that visi-gram now.”

  “Certainly, Miss Kingman. Activating transmission.”

  Milgrom and Rayna watched in silence as the volunteer’s image blinked off the screen, to be replaced by the likeness of Elinor Sinclair, president of the Los Angeles Board of Education.

  “My dear Miss Kingman,” Sinclair began, a carefully drawn look of concern on her face, “the members of the Los Angeles Board of Education have asked me to convey their sincerest regrets over your injuries and their best wishes for your speedy recovery.”

  Rayna examined the impeccably groomed, golden-haired woman behind the antique wood desk and wondered what it was about the school-board president’s manner that seemed to add an unspoken “but” to the end of the get-well message.

  “Under the circumstances, of course, we don’t want to risk your health by a premature return to the classroom. We urge you to take as much time as may be necessary for a full and complete recovery.”

  Rayna’s heartbeat grew louder with each word.

  “In fact,” Sinclair said, her expression calculated to convey just the right note of friendliness, “we think you might be well-advised to take the remainder of the school year off.”

  As Rayna watched, her fingers tensed and curled and pulled themselves into fists.

  “We have decided,” Sinclair continued, “that no formal disciplinary action will be instituted for the poor judgment you displayed by taking students to the scene of a potential riot. However, we trust you understand that we think it unwise for you to return to your duties at the Brandemar Learning Center until further notice.”

  Anger clamped Rayna’s jaws together, stoking the pain in her head. Sinclair inhaled deeply and affected an insincere smile.

  “Once again, Miss Kingman, we wish you a speedy recovery. On behalf of the students, parents and staff of the Brandemar Learning Center and the entire Los Angeles Schools Consortium, we thank you for your past services, and we wish you well in your future endeavors.”

  Rayna’s nails were digging into her palms by the time Sinclair disappeared from the screen. Suddenly, she began to laugh. It began as a simple chuckle, but it gathered momentum, like a snowball rolling down a mountain slope, until it became a nearly hysterical shriek. Then, as quickly as it started, the laughter died.

  “They did it,” Rayna said to no one in particular. “Elinor Sinclair can dress it up in fancy clothes and put on a show, but the simple truth is, the Board of Education just told me I’m an irresponsible and unfit teacher.” Her temples pulsed in fury as a single tear escaped the corner of her eye.

  She turned to Milgrom and smiled
bitterly: “They just fired me.”

  Chapter 22: Celebration

  “To the future!” a beaming Tauber toasted.

  Keith quickly downed his glass of whiskey, but his mood remained sour. He drank not in celebration but in a desperate hope that the liquor’s fire could blot out the chill that ran through him whenever he thought about his last meeting with Rayna. Picturing her lying in that hospital bed, he raged first at the monster who put her there and then at himself.

  It should have been me, he thought. I’m supposed to be the one taking the risks.

  “How about another one?” Tauber suggested, holding out the Spacefarer’s bottle. “Things are looking good.... Oh, I see how it is. You’re still worried about your girlfriend.”

  Keith looked at Tauber, then slid his glass across the table for a refill. With a curt nod, he gulped the second drink as quickly as he had the first.

  “She’ll be all right, Daniels. Didn’t the doctors tell you that?”

  Keith stared into his empty glass. “That’s what they said,” he agreed.

  “Well, then.... Help me celebrate! I don’t know how that rumor about the Nitinol being destroyed got started, but I wish I could claim the credit. I’ve never seen people so mad!”

  Keith glared. “You mean like the creep who went after Althea Milgrom and tried to clobber Rayna?”

  “Oh, come on, Daniels! You know I didn’t want that to happen. Hell, if anything happened to Milgrom now, we’d have to find a new goat. We need her as a lightning rod—at least for a while.” Keith’s stomach rose as he recognized the sinister glint in Tauber’s eye. Just what was he up to now? “But thanks to your girlfriend, nothing did happen. So stop worrying!”

  Keith took a deep breath. Maybe Tauber was right. Maybe Tauber was right about a lot of things. Maybe....

  He shook his head suddenly.

  “What’s the matter? Let’s have it, Daniels. I feel too good right now to let you—or anybody else—spoil things.”

  “What’s there to feel good about?”

  Tauber grinned. “Just about everything, I’d say. It’s all going just the way I planned. Except for this rumor about blowing up the Nitinol.” A shadow of concern darkened the ex-merchanter’s face but disappeared almost as soon as Keith noticed it.

  “I have to admit, things sure have changed over the past few months.”

  “Damn right,” said Tauber , “and they’ll change a lot more before I’m through!”

  Keith shook his head doubtfully. “Listen, Hank, I know you’re a bright guy. But it takes more than one man with brains to pull off what you say you’ve pulled off. You’d need an awful lot of people on your side—people in important places.”

  Tauber’s smug laugh took Keith by surprise, and he shifted about uneasily under the long, silent gaze that followed.

  “You mean you—”

  “I mean we have allies, Daniels—lots of them. People in positions you’d never guess. Did you think all I had to work with was the likes of Wraggon and Barnard?”

  “Well....”

  Tauber grunted derisively. “Listen, pal, I’m not the only guy the Merchant Fleet screwed. There’s a whole lot of us who worked the Asteroid Belt and got kicked in the ass for our troubles.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning I—we—have friends out there who think like we do. Friends with power. Friends who have important jobs outside the Fleet but who remember enough about what it was like to want a change. And to know what it takes to make that change happen.” Tauber rested a friendly hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Hell, Daniels, you’re one of our allies yourself. Not a merchanter with a grudge, of course, but something just as good. You’re a lawyer representing merchanters with a grudge. You have any idea what those lawsuits you set in motion are doing to the court system?”

  Keith smiled uncomfortably. In the past two months, he’d initiated legal actions on behalf of five merchanters, in addition to laying the groundwork for a massive class-action suit against the Merchant Fleet and the colonies. These would be precedent-setting cases—cases that would encourage additional suits and burden the Fleet and the legal system with enormous paperwork, even if the cases all were ultimately dismissed. He wasn’t proud of himself. Although one or two of the individual cases had some merit, most were merely nuisances. But Tauber loved it all.

  “We’ll string ’em up by their bureaucratic peckers,” he told Keith happily. “They’ll be so busy in court they won’t even notice what else is going on.” He gave Keith’s shoulder a friendly pat, letting his hand linger for a moment. As Keith’s eyes met his, Tauber’s face grew pale, and he snatched his hand away as if he’d been scorched.

  For all practical purposes, Keith was now the legal adviser to Operation Strong Man. More than that, Tauber seemed to regard the attorney as his personal confidant.

  Rayna knew little of this. Keith had told her only about gaining Tauber’s confidence. The lawsuits hadn’t progressed far enough to be reported by any of the news watch services yet, though it was just a matter of time before that happened. Keith’s throat grew dry as he thought again about Rayna. Sitting here in Tauber’s apartment, toasting the success of Tauber’s plans with Tauber’s whiskey, Keith felt acutely disloyal to the woman in that hospital bed. Yet, when he was with Rayna, he couldn’t help feeling a pang of disloyalty to Tauber. He clenched his jaw and rubbed the back of his neck.

  This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. I was just going to get friendly with Tauber, and.... And what? And expose the wrongdoers, just like the heroes in those old holotapes I used to watch when I was a kid? Well, I guess it’s about time I learned that real life isn’t a holotape. In the holotapes, the heroes never got confused about which side they were on.

  “You have any cherry licorice?” he asked.

  Tauber laughed. “When you gonna give up that stuff?” he responded. “You know, you’re a big boy now, and—”

  Tauber’s discourse was cut off by the doorbell. He rose grudgingly and cued the viewer to reveal his guest, then stared at the image as the bell rang again, a sense of urgency somehow coming through in the measured, computer-simulated tones.

  “Jesus, Ethan, what are you doing here?” Tauber finally said as he opened the door and pulled a wary-looking Ethan Rensselaer into the apartment. Dressed in nondescript civilian clothes, the Merchant Fleet admiral obviously didn’t want to be recognized.

  “What am I doing here?” Rensselaer repeated, looking like a bomb about to explode. “What are you doing here, Hank? I thought you had things under control!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Rensselaer lit an Astobac cigarette and began pacing the room, his limp more pronounced than Keith had ever observed in the admiral’s HV appearances. Rensselaer! I suspected something, but I never figured Tauber’s connections went this far!

  “I’m talking about the fact that one of your people tried to attack Althea Milgrom right in front of me,” the admiral growled.

  “Wait a minute, Ethan. That wasn’t—”

  “I’m talking about the fact that I had to use my security cuff to restrain the guy or else he would have brained her. He would have turned the most beatable Senate opponent I could possibly have into some kind of martyr!”

  Tauber began to object, but Rensselaer didn’t even slow down.

  “I’m talking about the fact that he was so out of control, he might have brained me by accident. But mostly, Hank, I’m talking about the fact that the Nitinol shipment was destroyed! It’s one thing to tell the masses that, but to really—”

  “Hold it,” Tauber commanded. “What’s that about the Nitinol?”

  “You heard me. Look Tauber, it’s one thing to say the Nitinol’s been destroyed, to start a rumor, but it’s something else again to really do it! You know we’re going to need that stuff ourselves!”

  Keith could feel the pulse throbbing in his own throat as he watched the other two men. Tauber’s face was a pasty white, and
his narrowed eyes dared Rensselaer to challenge his authority.

  “What makes you think the Nitinol’s really gone?” Tauber wanted to know.

  The admiral reached into his tunic and withdrew some folded papers from an inside pocket. “Take a look at these.” He handed the papers to Tauber. “Printouts from the environmental control system your people set up to monitor the storage facility on that asteroid in Z-7.”

  As Tauber studied the papers, the veins in his temples began to throb.

  “After the debate, I got worried,” Rensselaer said. “I decided to check on the Nitinol, just in case. So I used our special security codes to get a readout.” He jerked his head in the direction of the papers. That’s what I found!”

  “Damn!” Tauber erupted. “It’s that rustbrain Wraggon! I’m sure of it!”

  Tauber handed the papers back to Rensselaer, spun around and crossed the room, his every move followed in silence by two pairs of eyes. When at last he turned to face the others, he was once more the composed, unflappable Tauber that Keith had come to know and—despite himself—respect.

  The former Fleet lieutenant smiled bitterly. “Wraggon hinted that he did something extra to the robots he sent back to R-4 Sector.”

  “I don’t care an Astie’s tit what he did to the robots,” said Rensselaer. “I want to know what happened to the Nitinol!”

  “But that’s the point,” Tauber continued, his voice becoming progressively deeper and quieter. “He instructed the robots to install a remote destruct device in the storage dome.”

  He waited for the significance to sink in. “Then, when the bastard decided the time was right, he used his own private access code to trigger an explosion!”

  Watching Rensselaer and Tauber exchange ominous glances, Keith felt his skin go cold and his knees become weak.

  “Maybe it was a mistake,” he found himself blurting out. “You can’t really be sure of all that just from a few printouts, can you? I mean, maybe you should talk to him, and—”