Versailles

by Yannick Hill

  Scout was gone and he was saying her name, again and again, telling her he was lost, I went looking for you, Missy, and I got lost. ‘I’m lost and I want to go home, Missy. Can you take me home, Missy, back to the trailer? Can you help me find my dad?’

  46

  In his dream, River is back in the jungle as the black panther cat. This has become a recurring dream and his latent awareness of this lends the sequence a lucid quality, but not so much that he cannot enjoy it as one enjoys a movie in the cinema, playing out in front of you as someone else’s fantasy might just. And this fantasy has him as a panther prowling through the undergrowth in pursuit of a young man with deep brown skin wearing only a diamond tiara.

  The feeling of the dream is a breeze pushing its way through the trees, the rustling of long leaves, the paths of ants as they crawl along up and down the hard spines and limbs of all the plants. The feeling is of anticipation. Intense calm before a perfect storm. For River is in complete control. At this very moment he could sink his white teeth into the flesh of his prey. At any moment. This isn’t a hunt, this is pursuit.

  River is following the man deeper and deeper into the jungle. His bright yellow eyes never leave the man’s body, how the mus­culature rearranges itself again and again as he navigates the dense undergrowth, ducking, moving forward on his haunches, occasionally breaking into a reckless sprint and disturbing other, smaller, but no less dangerous, creatures. This isn’t a hunt, this is pursuit, an anticipation that has River moaning quietly out loud in the waking world, his penis so stiff it has lifted the waist of his shorts clean away from his belly. The man in the diamond tiara is growing tired. River begins to circle his prey, increasing his speed exponentially in a wide flanking maneuver. His yellow eyes never leave the man’s body. The dream has never lasted this long. River doesn’t know what will happen next.

  When the man emerges into the clearing River is waiting for him. Their eyes meet and the man turns to run but River is so much faster and brings him down with two mighty front paws, no claws. His claws remain retracted. River uses raw power and repeated snarls to suppress his victim. With his prey pinned to the ground, River settles down, almost bored. He yawns and blinks against a shaft of sunlight coming through the canopy above. He looks down at the man and sees the tiara, although he doesn’t really see a tiara because he is a black panther cat and doesn’t know what one is.

  What next? At this very moment he could sink his perfect white teeth into the flesh of his prey but he doesn’t. Instead he takes his big cat tongue and licks the man’s face slowly, neck to ear, neck to ear. His brown body undulates with involuntary pleasure, his left hand slowly opening to reveal a white key, the chocolate key turned overnight to bone, and River knows. This is the answer. All these years looking for a hack and here’s the answer. The dream of an answer and River knows, knows that he is sleeping, and when he wakes up this key will be a line of code. The gift of a solution given him in dreams, a perfect, gleaming shell on the shore of consciousness, left there for him to find. A blade to cut through everything, the black curtain. A key, a key to every door. His father’s secrets. One hundred rooms and a second master. Master River Baer of Versailles, USA.

  47

  They walked hand in hand, Missy and the boy with no name, this canvas city shifting in the summer breeze, but no music in the air; the meet was over, the trolls were heading home. Missy watched as people took down their tents, rolling black and silver poles up in dirty ground sheets, collecting trash, folding chairs and dousing smoking embers with the water from half-scrunched plastic bottles. They were moving on, taking care to leave the ground as they had found it. And Missy wanted to go with them, climb in the back of some car, anybody’s car, drive north, west, east, it didn’t matter anymore, anywhere but home. Somewhere in the moment, with people her own age. She just wanted to be in the back of some car, along for the ride.

  The boy with no name was lagging behind. Missy would have given anything to go with these other guys, but right now she had to help this little boy find his father. He needed her. She’d planned it in her head. The moment they found Silas, the moment she set eyes on him, she would point the kid and run again, just like before, run as fast as she could before he saw her, and then find one of these other guys. She would find a nice person and get away in their car, these trees in the rear mirror, drive to the next place, wherever that was. Some inland city in the shadow of a mountain. Yeah, a quiet city, dark gray mountains in the background. They’d pull up outside the library, a modern building with large windows and an area of grass. Here is fine, she’d say, climb out of the car, thank them kindly for the food and the ride, step out onto the street and start walking. One foot in front of the other along the sidewalk. She was Missy Baer. She was smart, she was mature, she knew stuff, she would get a job, some money. A little apartment. She’d make friends. People seemed to like her. She would make friends, one by one, until there was a group of them. Shared jokes, private jokes, shared stories. Some inland city. She may never tell this story. The sword, Nora, Cass, the bikers, the boy with no name, Silas, the journey north, Crystal, Marchpane, the Molotov, Deep Sky . . . She may never tell the story. How she got here. Maybe that could be her secret. All the pictures in her mind, saved there for another time.

  They walked hand in hand, Missy pulling the boy after her by his arm. ‘You’re hurting me,’ he said, twisting himself free.

  ‘You’re too slow,’ Missy said.

  ‘Why you being so mean?’ the kid said, ‘You weren’t like this before.’

  But Missy couldn’t answer. They were all leaving without her, heading out, and she towards danger. Silas. The thought of him. Who was this guy? And Deep Sky. Scout’s warning, the diamonds for eyes, all these people leaving, heading home or to the next adventure. She wanted to get in the back of one of their cars, half-open windows, the smell of their skin, their music less strange as the tarmac passed by underneath, the miles of road and the thrill of escape. Some inland city. Shared memories, shared stories. But this little kid, all alone and because of her, because she ran away. This kid needed her right now. Like a big sister. He’d lost his rabbit. Not a day over seven.

  They walked hand in hand, the boy with no name keeping pace. The burning man was now a pile of ash, white upon gray upon black. A perfect circle of charred wood at the outer edge. Missy could still smell burning but there wasn’t much smoke, all this sky where her father had stood. It felt like a dream. All this sky and she remembered the black pill with the white star. This had all been Deep Sky. Silas, Crystal, Marchpane. They were all connected somehow. She adjusted her sunglasses against the bright sunlight.

  She thought the boy with no name was lagging again, but he had changed direction. He was leading her now, trying to tell her something. ‘Missy, please, Missy, look!’

  She looked up and it was a hot air balloon, towering over them, slowly swaying, changing shape in the breeze. Looming and benevolent. Never been this close before. She’d only seen them on TV, and once or twice in the blue sky, high above Versailles. The balloon was orange, with a circle of triangular white flags one third of the way up. No sound except the lightest rippling of material, the soft roar of the blue flame, and the creak, creak of the giant basket below. There was a tent off to the side. Balloon Rides read the sign, yellow letters against sky blue.

  ‘Missy, please, Missy, can we go in?’ said the kid, pulling at her sleeve.

  Flying crocodile. She found herself walking toward the entrance to the tent, the slow billowing of the balloon above, a continuous blossoming of fabric into this perfect thing, this great big, orange balloon with the pretty white flags and the roaring blue flame. All this sky, away, away from Versailles. One ride. No harm in that. Twinkies. They were on her mind but she could not think why. One ride. Flying crocodile. High above the turning earth, suspended there from a brightly colored air balloon and rising, Versailles too small to see, everything, the ocean waves unmoving, areas of blue, patches of green, y
ellow, brown and then— Missy continued walking, all reality left behind, only this balloon, the entrance to the perfectly pitched tent before her, the last tent standing in this field. Balloon Rides, the sign read. They walked hand in hand into the tent and that was it. A heavy cloth sack pulled down over Missy’s head and two strong arms around her waist, lifting her from the ground momentarily. Even through the sack she could smell his sweat, hear the creak of the biker leathers. She struggled against his bear hug but it was no good. ‘Now, Missy, don’t fight,’ Silas said. ‘I gotcha, I gotcha. Now now.’

  part four

  Dark Profile

  48

  The monitor lizard is making his way along another empty corridor in Versailles. His teeth are bared but he is not angry. His yellow eyes look mean but he is not mean, he is a monitor lizard who has not eaten in over a week. Just then he passes a white door. According to Versailles’ schematics, this is Room 50, the server room, and there is someone inside, though there is no way the monitor lizard could know that.

  All of the footage from the thousands of cameras installed throughout the mansion is archived here in these servers: four cabinets constructed of carbon-fiber-reinforced black plastic, each standing eight feet tall. Every second of every minute of every day, month, year and decade that the family have lived in and outside this house is recorded here and in the same instant made available for live stream over any and all of Casey’s mult­iple devices, his phones, tablets and various other computers. Conversations, altercations, their little hands and feet, their little mouths and deft articulations, their eyes and mouths and little ears for listening. And the process is ongoing. At this moment footage of Silas carrying Missy from the balloon tent over one shoulder is being archived as it happens, as are myriad other feeds of the rooms and corridors of Versailles where nothing at all is happening. Space and time. Negative space. Silence. The silence is a roar. The space crackles with undirected electricity. Versailles as witness. Versailles as witness to itself. The miles of cable and the level of control, the choice of cameras.

  Why here one might ask? Why not have the servers stationed elsewhere? Less chance of discovery. Because Casey likes the smell. It reminds him of the first time he stepped inside the server room for the social network. An entire building built in the shadow of a mountain in the north. The smell is of hot plastic. The smell is industrial. The smell is of power. Casey likes the smell and wanted the Versailles server situated here so he could come and go as he pleased. He’s here now, returned to the house under cover of darkness, clothes damp through from walking in the hot city. He’s in Room 50 now, the server room, breathing the smell of the hot plastic deep, deep into his lungs. Casey is breathing with his belly, his shoulders coming forward with the effort of each inhalation, his spine elongating like a lazily conceived creature of science fiction. The action is grotesque, almost sexual, like a cat arching its back to meet the stroking hand of its owner. Nothing less, only more.

  In these moments Casey is like a machine, processing the smell of these other machines, turning it into this utterly banal sense of power, power over all the other creatures. Outside the food chain, the animal kingdom spread out before him like a living, breathing, squealing, squeaking banquet, all their eyes twinkling, twinkling like the blue lights of his network’s server units, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, like stars in the deep sky, the deep, deep sky below, his darkness and the pleasure of this smell of hot plastic, motherboards warping under the stress of so much data, all your thoughts, your feelings, hopes, dreams, fear, fulfillment, disillusionment, all the photographs, the video, available right now, more, more, more available than now, all the data to be processed and only he knows, only Casey Baer could know what to make of it all. For he is the denominator, the innovator, the motivator, terminator, king of the castle, king of social, father of two. Father of two beautiful kids. His two little Baers. Missy & River. #pride&joy

  River is intelligent. River is creative. River is good with computers. River reminds Casey very much of himself when he was a boy, a natural coder, logical, a problem-solver. But River has this creativeness behind it. His son could be whatever he wants to be, if only he would leave his bedroom fortress once in a while. Or not. These days you can invent yourself right there on your laptop. But maybe if his son got out of that room he would meet more girls, at least give them a chance. River is an attractive kid, what young girl wouldn’t want to date someone like him? Rich, talented, athletic. The acne will pass, the bad skin will eventually give way to good skin. River has his mother’s eyes, her yearning. All River has to do is get out of that room.

  Missy is sensitive, beautiful, independent, willful. Missy reminds him of her mother when they first met. Always searching, always reaching for something better, something beyond the now. Forget about yesterday, what about tomorrow? And she has a dark side too. A secret life. She may look like an innocent young girl but she is more mature than other people know, more even than her mother knows. Sure she and her mother have been close in the past, but Casey has seen things, Casey has seen and heard things. It’s all here on the server, collected, collated and indexed. The blinking blue lights. He knows his daughter, better perhaps than she knows herself.

  Yes, his two little Baers. Missy & River. His pride & joy. He breathes the smell of the plastic deep into his lungs, the first-person footage of Missy being tied up in the back of the trailer playing out on his smartphone. She is still unconscious. Silas ties his knots a certain way. There’s an economy to his movements, a soldier-like efficiency. He’s done all this before.

  Casey stops breathing so deep, sets his feet a fraction wider apart, straightens out his damp gray sweatshirt, smoothes out the wrinkles with the flats of his palms like he’s preparing himself for company. But no one is coming. No one knows he is here, and that is as it should be for now.

  49

  River blinks against a shaft of sunlight coming through the canopy above. He looks down at the man and sees the tiara, although he doesn’t really see a tiara because he is a black panther cat and doesn’t know what one is. The sunlight reflects off the diamonds brightly and River has to blink again, only this time he was blinking in real life, opening his eyes and waking up, a shaft of sunlight coming in through the small, high window in his bedroom. The bunker his mom called it.

  River got into a sitting position, saw the box of tricks. He set about carefully removing the seven pins from his forearm. They’d been in there too long. The pain now wasn’t nice so much as dull and sickening, a bruised feeling that actually dovetailed pretty well with the way he felt every morning, self-harm or no. River wasn’t quite awake, the taste of chocolate. The sparkling tiara and the line of code. A line of code. One hundred rooms and he’d dreamed a hack. Could it really be? This stuff only happened in books and movies. He shoved the box of tricks back into the low shelf with his foot and skated across the room to his workstation. It was only then that he noticed the time. Holy crap it was past midday, how could this have happened? He opened his email.

  Congratulations, you are the competition winner! Please log in to scoutfan at 12:12 today for your one-on-one with Scout herself. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get some private time with the most downloaded artist of her generation. Don’t be late.

  It was 12:03, he still had time, but not enough time for the tennis ball cannon. Goddammit. He had to think. He still wasn’t awake really, like, thirty to forty per cent of him was still in the dream as the black panther. He slapped his face from both sides with his hands. Not enough. He coiled his fist. The first punch was practically a knockout. He picked himself off the floor, climbed back into his chair for one more. Bam. He was bleeding now from his nose, this was messier than he’d hoped. He held the fleshy part of his nose to create a clot, wet some cotton buds in his mouth, rolled them between his hands and inserted one in each nostril. All good in the hood. 12:09. He was ready now. He clicked the link in his email and a dialogue box prompted him to log in to sco
utfan. Next thing he was in an old-style chat room, no emoticons, just a white box that cast no shadow.

  Scout is typing . . .

  scout

  Hey, pr1ncess, how are you? I’m touring right now and it’s so nice to be able to take some time out with my laptop and chat to one of my amazing fans! So, where are you from, pr1ncess?

  pr1ncess

  My name’s River Baer and I’m not a fan, I’m here about Deep Sky. I think they have my sister, Missy. My question for you is this: Where have they taken her? Where is Deep Sky? That’s still one question, by the way.

  River kicked away from his desk in the office chair but went much further than he expected so he had to scoot back a little bit. His arm was starting to bruise up pretty good. Not his best work.

  Scout is typing . . .

  scout

  River you need to walk away from this thing. If your sister’s at Deep Sky it’s because she wants to be there.

  pr1ncess

  I know my sister. If she was in trouble she’d come to me first. There’s no way she’d just disappear for no reason.

  scout

  River I don’t want to speak out of turn but everybody has their secrets. It’s possible there was something Missy didn’t think she could share with anybody, not even her little brother. Deep Sky is the perfect place for her right now.

  pr1ncess

  Well you’re wrong. And I’m not her little brother, we’re twins, although it’s weird that you’d say that. Just tell me where she is. I have a right to know.

  scout

  River, Missy has a right to her privacy. If she wanted you to know where she was, she would have told you.

  pr1ncess

  Nice talking, I’m calling the cops.