She suddenly felt weary — not physically, but intellectually. She drew a deep breath, pulled the heels of her running shoes up to the seat of her shorts one at a time for a last stretch, and began her jog along the almost circular sidewalk.
She emerged from the shadow of the house into the marvelously sunny day, rounding the fountain at a moderate pace and heading up the drive for the gate. She wore her summer running gear — black, thigh-length stretch pants and aerobics tote — and goose bumps rose from her bare midriff in the chilly breeze. She hadn't counted on any mountains when she'd packed for the South Pacific. She hadn't counted on anything she had found there so far.
It wasn't as if she were in a different world, Laura thought. It was as if she had stepped into a different time. She had boarded a plane at the beginning of the twenty-first century and had landed squarely in a small pocket of the twenty-second.
Laura got to the gate and had to make a choice. The road that passed the house headed to the left and to the right. Without pausing she turned left toward the Village — the direction with which she was familiar.
The path that paralleled the left side of the curbed roadbed was perfect for running — the concrete slab new and wide and flat.
She looked up. The mouth of the tunnel ahead was black in the bright rays of the sun. She knew the tunnel was lit and had a railed walkway running down its full length. But when she got to the foreboding opening, she turned back and headed up the hill the way she'd come.
Laura didn't want to run all the way down the mountain anyway, she reasoned.
Gray's mansion came slowly into view over the wall of roughhewn stones lying alongside the path. The house was so beautiful Laura had to smile. Golden stucco rose to a dark gray roof of domed slate tiles.
French doors opened onto verandas at either side of the main entrance.
On one terrace a servant was now placing brightly colored cushions on black wrought-iron chairs. Another was setting a large table, and a third emerged from the house carrying a huge floral centerpiece. Green wooden shutters framed the windows of the upper floors, and still more colorful flowers sprouted from planters beneath the windowsills.
She passed the house and headed up the hill away from the tunnel.
When she crested the ridge a short while later, she saw that the road ahead descended gently through the trees. It twisted out of sight to the right as it traversed the exterior wall of the crater. A sign by the side of the path warned: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSERS.
Laura rolled her eyes in amusement at Gray's obsession with control. Her legs moved effortlessly as the downhill path fell away beneath her running shoes. Her speed rose, and she sprinted by the yellow sign with its thick black letters.
There was nothing tame about the landscape that surrounded this stretch of road. The ground was thick with chest-high shrubbery, and the jungle was dark with interwoven branches swaying gently in the breeze.
Her muscles began to warm, and the golden glow of that warmth spread slowly through her body. She glanced up at the light that danced in the canopy of trees. She wasn't a particularly religious person, but at moments like this Laura understood why others felt the presence of God.
The light filtered through the leaves in brief flashes, forming a pattern so complex as to defy description. But it was a complexity that Laura realized had been equaled by the treasure Gray had buried deep underground.
Two men walking shoulder to shoulder up the road rounded the curve far ahead. Laura came to an abrupt stop. Both men carried menacing black rifles and wore camouflage uniforms and boots and floppy jungle hats.
Behind them was a gate that was lowered across the road. A small hut off to the side was painted with alternating diagonal stripes of orange and white.
Laura turned and began to jog back up the hill.
"Hey!" one of the men yelled. She looked over her shoulder to see them trotting after her. Laura bolted — sprinting as fast as her feet would carry her. "Ma'am!" she heard a soldier shout, but her feather-light running shoes ate up the smooth white concrete under their treads.
After almost a minute at the dead-uphill run, she looked back down the path behind her. The men had not continued their pursuit, and she slowed her pace to a jog. Laura's lungs burned from the cool air and her thighs ached from the exertion. She ground her jaws together so hard that they hurt, too.
By the time Laura got back to Gray's house, the momentary fear she'd felt on the path had metamorphosed into full-blown anger. All the things she knew about Gray came bursting out of the box into which she'd crammed them in her rush to accept the job. Why were there men with rifles roaming the island? Why were there restricted areas and retinal identifiers and black eyeballs terrorizing the likes of poor Dorothy with fears of "thought police"?
Laura had been too hasty, she knew. She had leapt at an opportunity that had been presented to her at a vulnerable moment in her life.
She had made a mistake during a moment of weakness. It had been her life raft from a sinking ship of professional failure. But the harm caused by her mistake wasn't irreparable. The picture of the FBI card flashed through her head as she bounded up the front steps two at a time.
There was no one to be found in the house. Laura looked in the dining room, in a drawing room on the opposite side of the foyer, in a study lined with beautiful dark wood paneling. She wandered between the twin staircases toward the back of the house.
Another set of stairs led to a lower level — light streaming onto a landing one story below through a wall of glass overlooking the Village.
Laura headed down.
At the bottom the stairs opened onto a corridor that was unadorned by artwork of any kind. The hall led away from the window, back into the mountain. She heard music — a hard, driving beat. Headbanger music, her students called it, which was popular on the club scene in Boston.
"Hello!" she called out. There was no answer. She headed toward the sound of the music.
When the hallway turned right, Laura came upon a long window overlooking a spacious interior room. The music was much louder there — its strident guitar licks and thudding drumbeat pierced by lyrics more screamed than sung. Stepping up to the window, Laura saw Gray.
At least that was who she assumed it was. Laura looked down onto a windowless exercise room two stories below. It was filled with gleaming chrome weight machines, an old-fashioned punching bag, and a small basketball court. One entire wall was a rugged stone cliff pockmarked with holes where pitons had been driven for climbing. A small open door led into a squash court.
And then there was Gray sprinting on an unusually wide treadmill — sweat pouring down his bare torso. He wore a contraption that covered his entire head. His face was hidden from view by what looked like a black gas mask. A wide, flexible tube protruded from the mask and led into a small tank strapped to his waist. In place of lenses there was a semicircular black box that ran from one side of the mask to the other.
Headphones covered his ears, making Laura wonder why music blared into the room from giant speakers evenly spaced around the walls. As Gray ran, his hands pumped through the air and she saw that he wore gloves with tubes down the backs of each finger leading to thick, doughnut-shaped bands around his wrists. Stretched across his chest was a black strap — a heart-rate monitor. No wires were visible anywhere. Laura guessed the small plastic bulb at the top of the mask would contain an infrared transmitter like on wireless stereo headphones.
Gray leapt into the air for no apparent reason, dodging first one way then the other on the fifteen-foot-wide belt. He held a gloved hand out to the side, his knees rising waist-high before he again hurdled thin air. He clapped his hands together and held his other glove out stiff-armed. Suddenly both Gray and the treadmill came to a stop. He bent over at the waist to catch his breath. His jaw was moving and his chest heaving. He was saying something, yelling something, laughing — all within the confines of his mask.
His ches
t, shoulders, and waist were lean. There was definition to the muscles in his arms. The exercise equipment in the room below was obviously not a neglected toy like the rowing machine in Laura's bedroom closet at home.
Gray stood now at the ready in the center of the tread, his hands on muscular thighs. He took off in a sprint to the right, and the treadmill rolled quickly to accommodate the burst. He clapped his hands, then tucked one glove to his side. He reversed field, leapt into the air again, and weaved left and then right. He threw his hips to the side, held an arm out, then lowered a shoulder.
He's playing football! Laura thought in amazement.
After an extended burst of speed in which Gray seemed to tightrope an imaginary sideline, he held his arms in the air exultantly. An end zone dance was followed by the spiking of an invisible ball.
Laura laughed and rolled her back to the wall beside the window.
16
Janet led Laura toward the gathering of servants who waited just inside the open French doors. One held back the gauzy curtains that drifted into the house with the chilly breeze. Laura saw the department heads assembled outside on the veranda for breakfast and grew worried she would be far too cold. Although she had dressed for the frigid computer center — blue jeans, three pairs of socks, and a jersey tied around her neck over a T-shirt — her hair was still wet from the shower and pulled back as it was in a ponytail it wouldn't dry for quite a while.
She passed Janet's staff of white-jacketed stagehands and walked out onto what felt like a movie set. It was Hoblenz's scene and he was regaling the group with a story. Laura took the only place remaining open at the table. It was the seat at the far end of the veranda next to Gray. There she felt the gentle warmth of some unseen space heater toast the legs of her blue jeans under the linen tablecloth.
"That new VR helmet is unbelievable," Hoblenz was saying in an animated voice. "Ever'thing was crystal-clear. The ring, the crowds, the cut doctors workin' on your face while the trainer barked out instructions. I set my helmet to the challenger's perspective, and when that roundhouse from the champ came screamin' in his glove just kept getting bigger till it filled up the helmet's screens and wham!"
His fist slapped loudly against his palm in time with the reenactment, which seemed to excite only Hoblenz. "Right on your kisser! The guy's mouthpiece went spinnin' out end over end and the air just exploded in sweat! Next thing ya know you're lookin' up at the lights. One of the boys spilled his damn beer all over my new couch!"
"How were the sales?" the director of space operations asked.
Hoblenz heaved a loud sigh. "Cain't you people just appreciate the beauty of it? I mean talkin' about your human drama? The guy was lyin' on the mat and rollin' his head all around. When he looked at the wrong corner for help, you knew he was done for. It was just like bein' there!" There was nothing but silence. Hoblenz still got no takers.
"Forty-eight million orders worldwide," Dr. Griffith said in answer to the almost forgotten question. He had a wry smile on his face. "At a hundred dollars per order, that's four point eight billion."
Laura rocked her head back in shock. "Dollars?" she blurted out. "You made four point eight billion dollars? From one prizefight?"
"Well, that gross," Griffith said. "We did have expenses."
It was a joke that brought joyous laughs from the department heads, whom Gray compensated by something called a "revenue slice."
Laura arched her eyebrows and said, "I should ask for a raise," just under her breath.
Unexpectedly, the table exploded in laughter, which caused the blood to rush straight to Laura's cheeks. She'd finally struck a chord familiar to her teammates — a love of the obscene amounts of money Gray raked in.
"Did you enjoy your run?" Gray asked Laura, smiling.
She hadn't intended to raise the subject until after the meeting, but he'd asked, and everyone waited for her response.
"Why do you have armed soldiers down that road over there?" Laura twisted in her seat and pointed toward the crest of the ridge to the right of the gate.
"They're my people," Hoblenz answered.
"Dr. Aldridge," Gray said, "you've been told of our security concerns. Surely, after last night, you understand the value of the trade secrets I possess."
"But… a private army?" she said.
"I'm governor-general of this island under my lease with Fiji."
Laura rolled her eyes at the lame justification. Gray's face remained expressionless, but his voice was laden with feeling. "You have no idea what I'm up against," he said, and everyone at the table looked up. It wasn't the volume of his voice that attracted their attention. It was the way he spoke the words. If delivered with a sneer, his statement could have been taken as derisive. A put-down by a self-proclaimed visionary, perhaps. But to Laura it sounded like a plea for understanding. A moment of frankness spent bemoaning his mistreatment by society.
At least that was the way Laura took it, but what about the others? They too had heard something compelling in Gray's voice and were now watching Gray intently.
"This isn't United States territory, and… and despite the fact that I'm a U.S. citizen, pay U.S. income taxes, and have never broken the law, I can't exactly count on Washington for support." Gray looked down at his nearly empty plate — forlorn, bent under the weight of his solitary struggle. At least that was what Laura saw. "Dr. Aldridge," he said softly, "it's extremely difficult to control an idea."
Laura knitted her brow and focused on Gray — on what he'd said.
The computer had spoken of thoughts and ideas and knowledge the night before in a similarly curious way.
"But, Mr. Gray," she said, "surely you're not… surely you aren't trying to control people's ideas." From the quick looks that were exchanged around the table Laura wondered whether she'd said something wrong. "I mean, the whole point is to share knowledge. To spread it as widely and freely as possible so we can build on each other's accomplishments. It's only through that type of collaboration that we've been able to advance as a… as a civilization."
Laura had simply expressed what to her was an obvious truth — an unchallenged tenet to which her career in academia clung like a vine.
But the table fell deathly silent, all eyes on Gray — waiting.
When Laura turned back to Gray, she saw that he was staring at her with eyes ablaze. If he had not said a word Laura would still have taken away from that moment the memory of his look, of his eyes, and of the physical effect they registered on her. But he did respond, and Laura struggled to follow what he said.
"On this island, one rule stands above all the rest. The intellectual property — the knowledge — to which you become privy by virtue of your engagement will come to rest in your brain. You will not write any papers. You will not gossip with anyone, including even the people here at this table. You will treat the knowledge to which you are exposed with the utmost care," he said slowly, "out of respect for the power it represents. Out of respect for the danger that it poses to every human on earth."
A quiet descended on the table, many seated there with heads bowed.
"Now," Gray concluded, "do you accept those terms?"
Laura frowned. She couldn't understand why Gray had made such a big deal out of her remark. She tried not to let her hurt feelings show as she said, "All right."
Gray's servants arrived just then with breakfast. The interruption seemed to evoke a sense of welcomed relief from all the others and bring the odd episode to a close. But the service struck Laura as strangely ill-timed — coming, as it did, during Gray's stern lecture.
Laura looked at the open French doors and caught Janet's eye. Gray's majordomo flashed Laura a smile, then slipped quietly back into the house to continue giving directions to her staff.
"Okay then," Gray said, "let's move on. Any results reported from the phase-two?" he asked as if nothing had happened. As if nothing important had been said. But something important had been said, Laura knew. She just didn't unders
tand what it meant.
Filatov and Holliday were looking at each other in the silence, but neither ventured a word in reply. Everyone waited on the two of them.
"Well?" Gray prodded — somewhat more testily than before, Laura thought.
Filatov reluctantly spoke up. "We haven't been able to load the phase-two. We still don't have the resources."
"I thought we'd already started the off-loading," Gray said. "We were up to six and a half percent free last time you and I spoke."
Filatov shrugged. "As soon as we hit eight and defragged we started to lose it."
"What do you mean 'lose it'?"
"I mean lose free resources. The system's throughput surged before we could load the phase-two, and the free space in the annex just… evaporated."
The look on Gray's face betrayed nothing. It was his delay in responding that made Laura suspicious. He broke his intense gaze at Filatov and redirected it toward Dorothy. She arched her brow as if to ask him why he was looking at her. When that didn't seem to suffice Dorothy shrugged in an exaggerated gesture.
Gray's eyes fell absentmindedly to his plate. After a moment, he realized what he was looking at and stabbed a sausage link with his fork. He froze like that with fork to plate for an odd and unexplained interlude, then it was over. He plopped the sausage into his mouth and asked casually while chewing, "Do you know what filled that capacity up?" He was staring again at his plate, but Laura could tell that he was waiting for the response.
"We can't tell," Filatov replied, continuing in a tone of concern. "And, Mr. Gray, we haven't been able to resume processing the wire-clearing operations."
Filatov and many of the others, Laura sensed, considered the news to be near catastrophic. Laura assumed that meant expensive — piece of their revenue pie growing smaller — but Gray just nodded and ate. All of a sudden he was more interested in his food.
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