The lift door closed, sealing them in the narrow chamber. Annoying easy-listening music wafted through the air as the computer searched Drex’s appointment calendar. The lift started to move upward, apparently satisfied that all was in order.
Jones took Julia’s hand and patted it; but her hand was limp and the flesh felt cold.
He stood apart from her. Might as well begin the separation now. Jones let out a long, low breath, discouraged. He had never quite realized how strong his conscience and guilt had grown. Self-defense mechanisms? He realized now—or at least he had been trying to convince himself—that he never should have purchased Julia in the first place.
Working at Resurrection, Inc., watching the way they processed the human bodies, the way they treated Servants as products—it had made him pay attention to things he had not thought about before. Escorting Servants for hours and returning home to find Julia unmoved and silent still caused his stomach to tie in knots. He could speak to Julia, and she would respond in her own way, but she would give only answers, never questions, never comments, never expressing an interest. She sat in a trance all day long; when he slept at night, she rested primly in the shadows, motionless, waiting for the daylight. No matter how hard he tried, Julia was not a friend, not a companion. Her very existence had an eeriness, an offensiveness, that Jones couldn’t reconcile with himself.
No, he never should have gotten Julia in the first place.
Days before, Jones had placed a classified ad in the Guild’s message and information transfer network. All such ads were immediately routed first to the upper-management levels, and then slowly worked their way down one level at a time as the higher echelons declined the items for sale or exchange. Rank did have its privileges.
Jones didn’t know what happened to used Servants. Since a Servant’s tiny battery pellet would continue to power the microprocessor for a century or so, a Servant must certainly be expected to outlive its owner. Jones couldn’t believe that Servants would be destroyed (of course, Resurrection, Inc. would say “deactivated” or “decommissioned”) when they were no longer needed. When someone returned a Servant to the corporation, the Servant was probably reprogrammed and sent out again—who was ever to know?
But he couldn’t bear the thought, even the slim possibility, of Julia—blank, mannequinlike Julia—being destroyed because he had cashed her in for a refund. Jones had no intention of making a profit. He wasn’t doing this for the money. In fact, even after only a short month of owning her, he had decided to ask a fairly low price, less than he had paid for her.
His ad had trickled down the Guild hierarchy, finally being snapped up by a fourth-level Guildsman, Mr. Drex, still in upper management, a good owner for Julia. Drex had asked Jones to come and show him his female Servant.
Jones did not know Drex, nor had he even heard of the man. But the administrative system of the Guild was so intricate and complex that few people bothered to learn of anyone in authority other than their own immediate supervisors. Jones didn’t think he even knew the name, offhand, of the ultimate boss of the Guild itself… nor did he particularly care.
The lift doors slid open, and Jones quickly moved out into the black-and-white tiled upper-management levels. Everything in the Enforcers Guild was supposed to be black and white, he thought ironically. The managerial levels were efficient but not ornate. A few other lights supplemented the fluorescent panels set into the ceiling. The air conditioning up here felt even cooler than in the lobby.
Jones stared for an instant, and then the doors of the lift slid shut behind him. Julia wasn’t with him; she hadn’t bothered to move out of the elevator. He whirled and punched the button again, opening the lift. “Come on! Don’t just stand there!” He tried, and succeeded, to build up some frustrated and impatient anger. He didn’t really want to be angry at her. She couldn’t help it. Would she always remember him like this?
Julia moved out and followed him dutifully. Far down the hall a man’s silhouette waved at him. “Mr. Jones! Down here.”
Jones signaled that he had heard and quickly strode toward the man. “Julia—Command: Follow!”
He flicked glances back and forth as he passed other darkened offices; in the off-hour shadows he could see the individual offices decorated to each manager’s preferences. Jones felt self-conscious, wishing he had chosen to dress in a more formal fashion. Too late now. No matter, this would be just a simple business transaction anyway.
One entire wall of the Guildsman’s office was a giant, polarized plate-glass window, from which he could look out on the dizzying panorama of the city. Bright sunlight poured in, filtered of the damaging intensity that would have caused his expensive oak desk to blister and peel.
Drex stood up as Jones and Julia went through the door, keeping his gaze mostly on the female Servant. The Guildsman had thick salt-and-pepper hair cut squarely about his shoulders and with a geometrically precise straight cut to his bangs. The wrinkles about his eyes had been accentuated with indigo dye so that his crow’s-feet looked like a blue web spreading out from where his eyelids met.
Drex spoke with slippery words in a cultivated, professional-manager voice. “So, Enforcer, this is your personal Servant? Julie, you said her name was?”
Testing, Jones could tell, testing. “No sir. Julia. That was her name in life, according to Resurrection, Incorporated.”
“Yes, yes, I see.” Jones could tell that the Guildsman was paying little attention to him.
Drex stepped from around his desk, and Jones saw that he was really quite short, standing only as high as Julia’s nose and barely up to the Enforcer’s shoulders. Drex looked at the Servant with probing eyes, waiting, and then turned to Jones with a hint of impatience in his voice. “Well? Undress her for me, please.”
Jones made no move for at least two seconds. A crease rippled the dark skin of his forehead. “Undress her? What for?”
The Guildsman scowled, and then suddenly smiled with feigned patience and understanding. He folded his hands together in front of him. “I don’t mean any offense, or to make any implications about your character, Mr. Jones, but I naturally need to see that she hasn’t been beaten or bruised. I don’t want her deformed in any manner.”
Jones told himself that this made sense, although the gleam in Drex’s eyes made him uneasy. The Guildsman leaned back against the wooden desk, brushing aside one of his piles of hardcopy as he watched.
Uncomfortable and filled with distaste, Jones undid the front of Julia’s gray jumpsuit. He blinked and his eyes went blurry with shame. He didn’t want to know if they were tears. Julia did not move until Jones muttered under his breath, “Help me, please.” With the slightest of motions the Servant shrugged out of the jumpsuit and Jones tugged it down her body, letting it drop to the floor.
Drex stood up, smoothed the back of his trousers with a brush of his palm, and took one step forward to stare at Julia. Even though the light streaming through the plate glass window left no shadows in the room, he squinted, making the indigo-dyed crow’s-feet clench together.
The Enforcer swallowed awkwardly and stepped back, trying to hide as Drex paced around Julia.
Her skin was pallid but smooth; her eyes had a great, blank, innocent look to them. The Guildsman bent closer to look at her fist-sized breasts tipped with pale bloodless nipples, the naked and hairless folds between her legs, the curves of her buttocks.
He made a little humming noise of satisfaction, but Jones was taken by surprise when the Guildsman suddenly turned and addressed him. “All right then, Enforcer, I don’t understand. Why are you trying to get rid of her?”
Jones felt cornered, trapped, and out of self-defense he spoke plainly, “I realized I don’t need a Servant after all. I’ve had her only for a few weeks and I just… it was different than I thought. I work at Resurrection, Inc., you know, escorting the other Servants and… if I may speak openly, sir, I just didn’t want her anymore.”
Drex nodded and absently ran his
spread fingers through the thick black/gray strands of hair, but the resilient and perfectly straight bangs immediately fell back into place.
“Very well, Enforcer. I’ll take her. At the price you ask.” He looked up and motioned to the console at the side of his desk. “Please logon, enter your password, and I’ll transfer into your account. Do you mind if I have the Guardian Angels check your title to this Servant?”
“No, of course not. It’s clear.”
As they transferred the money, a heaviness sank deeper and deeper into Jones’s chest. But the momentum of the transaction pushed him along and he tried not to think, following only the instructions second by second as they happened. Finally he swallowed and was surprised to find how dry his throat was.
He stood before the Servant and said, “Julia, Guildsman Drex is now your master. You have to obey him just like you would obey me.”
“Thank you, Enforcer. That was a nice touch.” Drex smiled, sincerely this time. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” His tone had a certain dismissal to it.
Jones hesitated a moment, looked searchingly at Julia’s eyes, but again he saw nothing there. “Goodbye, Julia,” he said, his voice hoarse. She made no response.
“Thank you, Enforcer,” Drex repeated, punctuating his words with an impatient finger tapping on the desktop. Jones had no choice but to leave.
Julia didn’t turn as he walked out the door.
13
“Danal!”
The Servant looked up as Van Ryman’s voice reverberated through the intercom system. Danal stopped his vigorous polishing of the stair railing and quickly ran down the carpeted stairs with precise control of his feet. He made only a whisper of sound.
He paused as the locked door under the stairs called out to him again, yanking at his puppet strings of dreaded curiosity. But he pushed past it and into the study, where his Master Van Ryman waited.
Van Ryman’s face changed immediately upon seeing Danal. He looked up from the scattered books and papers on the rolltop desk against one wall of the study. The French windows were open, letting in a cool breeze; Danal could hear the faint hum of the Intruder Defense field surrounding the mansion. The laser fireplace had been shut off, and only the overhead lights illuminated the room.
Van Ryman carelessly rolled and folded several ancient looking scrolls, charts with planetary signs, constellations, and other symbols. His odd eyes were bright but bloodshot, and he had not shaved, giving the impression that he had slept little.
Sometimes Van Ryman looked at his Servant in awe or in worshipful expectation; at other times his eyes had a wistful look, a loving expression; yet in contradictory moments, he looked at Danal with scorn and distaste. It was as if Van Ryman were seeing three totally different people.
“Ah, Danal,” the man said and wiped both of his hands on his shirt, sitting back. “Please make me some tea. Red hibiscus, I think—I’m in the mood for something… bitter. And hurry—when you come back I’m going to have a very important mission for you.”
He paused and looked up at Danal for emphasis. “This will probably be the most important thing that either one of us has ever done.” Van Ryman quickly bent back to his documents.
Danal acknowledged the orders and went into the kitchen area. The white tile and stainless steel glistened from his thorough cleaning the day before. Sometimes he suspected that Van Ryman saddled him with tedious and trivial cleaning jobs just to keep him occupied, making a good show of needing a Servant.
Danal dispensed a small beaker of water and slipped it into the insulated heating chamber; a moment later he used the beaker’s handle pads to lift the boiling water out. Turning to the tea cabinet, he selected the drawer filled with hibiscus blend and removed a small amount by hand. As the strainer sank to the bottom of the beaker, Danal watched as the hibiscus petals caused a bright scarlet color to seep into the water, red like foaming arterial blood.
Blood.
Bright red.
Steaming under the light of black-wax candles and torches.
Echoing chants like thunder.
The flicker built in his mind, thrumming. Sparks of fragmented visions came and went in front of his eyes, each a miniature nova.
He paused, cradling the fragile webwork of the oncoming memories, terrified of the revelation and too frightened to hold it back. He jerked his head upward, gritting his teeth, trying to keep control of his identity. He forced himself to pick up the beaker and pour the bright red tea into a thin porcelain cup.
But a different force grabbed hold of his mind, relentlessly cracking open his buried thoughts like a cruel stepfather throwing skeletons out of the closet. Danal moved like an automaton as he reached forward to the knife rack embedded into the wall. He strained against a rubbery nightmare, reaching forward, groping away from his past.
He removed one of the wide kitchen knives from its whet-slot and held it out gingerly, staring at it in blank-eyed horror as visions caught themselves on the glint of the blade and exploded in a panorama of dark ritual in front of his mind’s eye.
The kitchen knife became a sacrificial knife held in his hands. Runes and symbols had been electrostatically etched on the stainless-steel blade. He saw robes—white, scarlet, black. He heard the chants, synchronous, nonsensical, augmented by the microspeakers hidden in the ceiling of the yawning sacrificial grotto.
Rah hyuun!
Rah hyuun!
Rah hyuun!
But it was as if he stood on both sides of the mirror, both priest and victim. Holding the knife and wearing the black robes of a High Priest, he stared down at the naked and bound form on the altar stone.
And also, but what seemed to be a different time: He looked up, straining against the bonds, the sacrificial victim, feeling the cold from the engraved concrete of the altar biting into his back. The wide blade of a rune-carved knife rose up, catching torchlight on its tip.
But then a switch again, from the point of view of the High Priest: The hilt, made of simulated human bone, felt dry against his uncallused fingertips. He brought the knife down in a smooth arc. He watched the victim as foamy arterial blood sprayed upward, scarlet, like thick hibiscus tea.
Rah hyuun!
Rah hyuun!
Victim: He didn’t feel the tip of the sacrificial knife pierce his chest. The echoing chant filled his head, filled the heavens. A brilliant blackness exploded outward simultaneously from his heart and brain….
And Danal found himself crumpled on the kitchen floor like a survivor cast free from the wreckage of a ship. The thin teacup still wobbled on the counter where he had abruptly released it, but it hadn’t spilled.
The colors, the vibrant pain, the growing confusion and uneasiness about his former life, all made Danal reel. The thick scar in the center of his chest throbbed in remembered pain.
The Servant stepped up the workings of his microprocessor until subjective time had almost stopped; in his own timeframe he spent the equivalent of half an hour composing himself, calming his responses, searching for answers—or at least to hide from them….
Returning to the surrounding world, Danal balanced the smooth cup on a saucer. Walking with a methodical gait in his slow-time that allowed him to keep careful poise, the Servant left the kitchen, returning to the study. Van Ryman had rolled the top down on his desk, locking it. He sat in the overstuffed chair, watching Danal come in with his tea. The dark-haired man rubbed his hands together.
“Your tea, Master Van Ryman.” The Servant extended the cup forward; in an offhanded way Van Ryman gestured for him to set it on an end table instead. The man did not seem to have noticed any additional delay caused by Danal’s flashback.
“Please turn on the fireplace, Danal. But leave the heat off.”
“Yes, Master Van Ryman.” The Servant felt beneath the mantel of the fireplace until he found a pair of switches. He flicked the outer switch, and purple light flashed down, scattered from the quartz crystals and the mirrored panels of the h
earth, and sent a scintillating violet glow about the room.
Danal hesitated under the oceanscape hologram, but he forced himself to look away, terrified that he might have yet another explosion of visions. Memories seemed to lurk everywhere.
Van Ryman took one sip of his tea, grimaced at its tartness, and then smiled in satisfaction. “Now then, Danal, as to the crucial errand I mentioned. I want you to return to Resurrection, Inc. You have an appointment to meet with Francois Nathans, in person. He’s very interested in your well-being.” He allowed himself a slight smile. “And in our success. He’s eagerly expecting you.” Van Ryman rubbed his palms together vigorously, and once again Danal felt that something was terribly out of place, even deeper than the Master’s out of-place eyes.
“Will I be escorted, Master Van Ryman?”
“No! You have to do this alone. Your own actions are very important. You won’t understand now, but if everything works out as it should… well, we’ll see.”
Van Ryman stood up, leaving his tea untouched, and went over to the rolltop desk. He produced a key from a leather thong around his neck and twisted open the desk’s catch, sliding up the oak slats and revealing the scrolls and books crammed into the desk cavity. He rustled through the papers until he yanked one out of the stack.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, Danal. Listen to this, from the Writings.” He ran his finger down the handwritten pages, ticking off several items.
“You are Danal. Danal, the Messenger. You are the Prophet. You are the Bringer of Change and the Fulfiller of Promises. You are the Stranger whom everyone knows. You are the Awakener and the Awakened. You are the Destroyer. Our hope rests in your future.”
Van Ryman closed his eyes for a moment, then quickly came back to himself, pushing the paper inside the desk and slamming the desktop down again so that it locked by itself. “Come with me, Danal. We need to prepare you.”
Baffled by what Van Ryman had said, the Servant followed him into the foyer. Destroyer? Bringer of Change? Neo-Satanist ritualistic babble—it meant nothing to him. He wished now that he had taken some time alone in the house to look at the documents, to familiarize himself with the theology his Master Van Ryman took so seriously.
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