Cristofer stared at him.
Trent said, "It seems a reasonable goal."
Cristofer said slowly, "You stole"
Trent nodded. "I stole. This morning. It's what I do and I'm very good at it."
"Who are you?"
"That's a great question. I'm not going to answer it, but I admire you for having the cojones to ask it with a straight face."
"You're talking too much to be planning to kill me. Why are you here?"
Trent took a step toward the man. Cristofer held his ground. "I want you," Trent said slowly, staring at the man, holding his gaze, "to never hire the Gypsy Macoute again. Ever, for anything. I need you to forget about your prize, because it's gone and will not be coming back. I want you to believe that I meant no disrespect stealing from you, and if I'd known you were the target, I'd have been far more cautious about separating you from your property. I need you to deeply, truly, and without reservation, agree with me that hiring assassins to protect…thingseven very beautiful thingsis inappropriate, unacceptable behavior."
The silence stretched for a long moment after Trent was done speaking. Finally Cristofer said, "And what happens if you don't get what you want and need?"
"The obvious answer to that," said Trent gently, "is that the next person to come through your hotel door at three o'clock in the morningwon't be me." He glanced at the door, still open behind him. "I'm going to leave now. Don't follow me." He looked back at Cristofer. "You'd regret it."
Cristofer nodded, once, shortly. "I believe you."
The clock on the wall read 4:45 a.m.
Reverend Andy and Jimmy and Milla all sat together in Reverend Andy's office. Not even the coffee was managing to keep them awake any longer.
"He just does this sometimes?"
Milla sighed. "It started two, three years ago. He justvanishes. A day, two. Three days, once. Nobody knows where he's going."
Reverend Andy said, "Or if he's coming back?"
Jimmy said, "He always comes back."
Milla added, "I'm sure he's okay." Pause. "He's careful."
Reverend Andy got to his feet. "People, it's late, and I'm very tired, and I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow. You two sit up together if you like. No need to hurry yourselves out of here."
After he'd left, Milla said, "I'm sure he's okay."
Jimmy said, "I'm sure he's alive."
Milla said wearily, "That's all I meant."
Jimmy nodded.
"Hey, wake up."
Jodi Jodi opened one eye. "Wha?"
Bird said, "It's really cold." He looked at her expectantly.
Jodi Jodi said groggily, "Turn the heat up. Start a fire. Or something."
Bird sat down on the edge of her bed. "Jimmy and Milla didn't come home last night."
She nodded. "They're at the Temple."
"Neither did Trent."
"I know."
A pause. He looked at her expectantly.
She looked back. "Well?"
"Can I sleep with you?"
Jodi Jodi rolled back over on her side. "You steal my covers and I'll whack you so hard your head'll turn around."
It's morning now, the planet just turned enough that the first rays of the Sun are striking the Flatbush Fringe, and Jimmy and Milla are sitting up in Reverend Andy's office, both dead asleep.
Reverend Andy is asleep, in his bed, alone, not dreaming.
Bird and Jodi Jodi are still asleep, though Bird has kicked Jodi Jodi twice, and been kicked in return seven times; Jodi Jodi is a believer in massive retaliation, and being unconscious does not prevent her from carrying out this philosophy.
Dominique Simon is laying on the couch at her parent's house, just as dead this morning as she was yesterday. No one at that house slept this night.
In Manhattan, Trent is walking into the office of the man who hired him. His employer is about 35 years of age and completely bald. He's dressed in clothes that cost more than most Fringe families see a year, sitting behind a desk that Trent would have been happy to steal, if it were smaller. The objects of art scattered around the office are, Trent would estimate, worth ten or fifteen thousand CU.
Security guards stand at the corners of the room, and Trent is sure that they're the least of the precautions this man has taken before meeting with Trent.
The man looked startled when Trent entered the room.
"You're…Trent."
"You're Gideon Hamilton, the Executive Director of Acquisitions for the American Museum of Natural History."
"you're younger than I'd expected."
Trent stopped a few feet before the man's desk. He didn't bother to seat himself.
"Did you bring the stone?"
Trent said, "Call Barrister Davenport. 201311-BARD."
A pause. Hamilton said, "Command. Call 201311-BARD."
Another pause. The holo of a gray-haired, elderly woman appeared floating off to Trent's right.
Barrister Davenport said, in a clear, calm contralto, "I have been instructed by my client to inform you that I am in possession of the object. It will be delivered upon completion of the funds transfer."
Hamilton flushed with anger. "You didn't bring it with you?"
"To your office? With your guards? With their guns?" Trent shook his head. "No."
"There's a problem with the funds."
Through the numbness that had enfolded him, Trent felt the first flicker of anger. He took another step forward, saw the security tensing up. "I want my Credit!"
"We had difficulty getting together the hard Credit you requested"
Trent said, "I'll take soft Credits delivered to my barrister's account. You have one hour. After that"
Barrister Davenport said, "My client has instructed me to drop the object into the Atlantic Ocean."
Hamilton said, wonder in his voice, "Do you know what you have?"
Barrister Davenport said pleasantly, "No. But I do know what my client's instructions are."
Hamilton made a poor villain; Trent saw the man's shoulders slump in defeat. He said quietly, "I can arrange soft Credits in that time. The funds will be transferred before the hour is over."
Trent turned to leave.
The man's voice. "Trent--"
The words exploded out of Trent. "Four people died yesterday. Do you know that? Do you care?"
Gideon Hamilton said dismissively, "People die in the Fringe all the time.... You did something very important for us. We are not unappreciative."
Trent could not keep the anger out of his voice. "You know what the problem is with you? You think you're one of the good guys."
The man shrugged. "You're one of the best contractors I've ever had. I hope you'll work with us again."
Trent's hands shook. The rage made it difficult to talk. "I'm a professional. I get treated like a professional." He took a step toward the man, saw the guards reaching for weapons. "I get told the truth by my clients and I get paid"
Only the desk was separating Trent from Hamilton. Lasers were being pointed at him. Trent stared at the man, the fury still washing through him
Hamilton said gently, "I know."
The words hurt his throat, coming out. "and I'll work for anyone."
Reverend Andy climbed up through the trapdoor to find Trent sitting in one of several chairs scattered across the roof, watching the sunset.
Trent glanced at him. "You don't get many this pretty in December."
Reverend Andy looked around. "No. It's nice up here."
"I like sitting up high. Looking out over it all."
Reverend Andy walked to the edge of the roof to look out
Trent said dryly, "You want to get back from the edge like that. Somebody going to mistake you for a sniper."
Reverend Andy backed up quickly, pulled a chair over and sat down next to Trent.
The question came abruptly. "Who are you?"
Trent said slowly, "Just me...trying to keep things together. Look out for my family. And I didn't do my
research and I got four people killed."
"Not your people. Not your family."
Trent nodded. "Not this time."
"I been hearing about you for a while," Reverend Andy said. "One of the reasons I came out here was to meet you...and now I have and I don't know if I believe in you. Basic principal: when something seems too good to be true, it usually is."
Trent actually laughed. "I seem too good to be true? You are one lousy judge of character."
"What happened?"
Trent stared direclty into the orange ball of the setting sun. He thought about where to start. "About…two billion years ago, a mixture of corundum and titanium and iron oxides was pressed into a little blue ball. A 563 carat star sapphire. About four hundred years ago it was dug out of the ground in Sri Lanka. In 1900 J.P. Morgan gave it to the American Museum of Natural History. In 1964 Murph the Surf stole it from them. Rappelled over the heads of guards and customers...nobody looked up." He smiled, quick and faint. "He didn't get to keep it, though. They caught him. Fifty-four years after that, during the Unification War, the Museum was looted. Priceless things were taken. One of them was the Star of India."
"So you stole it...to return it."
"That was the contract." He paused. "It's a beautiful rock. I got a fifteen year old girl killed over it."
"I got a call this afternoon. From the World Food Bank."
Trent just looked at him.
Reverend Andy said, almost apologetically, "I'm a regional director."
Trent nodded in resignation. Of course he was.
"Someone gave us a quarter million Credits this afternoon. On behalf of the Flatbush Temple of Eris...for a thousand Credits, the World Food Bank can provide food and shelter and medicine for one person, for two years. For a quarter million Credits...twenty-five hundred people won't die of starvation this year. Or next. Hell of a Christmas gift." After a long pause, Reverend Andy said, "When a person seems too good to believe, he usually is. But not not always. And the exceptions change the world."
Trent did not reply, and after a while Reverend Andy got up, and left him alone.
Later that night Milla came out to sit with him.
She brought a blanket with her, sat down in the seat Reverend Andy had vacated some hours ago.
"You going to be up here all night? It's supposed to snow later tonight."
He didn't answer. She sat beside him, and put the blanket around his shoulders. She was startled by how badly he was shaking, and she leaned forward to hold him. He wasn't crying, just shaking, and the shaking didn't stop, didn't lessen, while she sat there with him.
"You know," Milla said, some time later, "I've known you almost six years. And this is just about the first time I've ever really thought that you were human."
Interlude: Earth
November 5, 2068
On a grim cold Friday night late in November of 2068, Trent stood in a doorway, drinking black coffee with the bright warm restaurant at his back, and looking off across the water, watched snow fall on Manhattan Island.
Capitol City. The Big Town.
Pale blue eyes were the most visible features in a face that was poorly lit by the cracked, aging glowpaint on McGee's roof. Trent had turned the heating coil on the mug as high as it would go, but the top layer of liquid kept going cold regardless when he waited too long between swallows.
He stood in a bubble of silence and stillness, slightly drunk himself. The wind whipped the snow wildly only centimeters away from the end of his nose, but where he stood the air was calm and cold, which was good enough.
He did not know how long he'd been out there before somebody from the party came looking for him. Trent's coffee cup was long since empty when Jimmy came out through the restaurant's roof entrance and joined him. "Word up."
Trent inclined his head slightly.
"My brother," said Jimmy quietly, his voice ten centimeters from Trent's right ear. "Where are you?"
"On the roof," said Trent without turning around.
"This I see. Where else?"
"Right here on the roof, Jimmy. Nowhere else."
Standing immediately behind Trent, Jimmy nodded.
Without looking around, Trent added, "I can tell 'cause it's cold."
"Personally I think you're on the beach again."
The beach had been the furthest thing from Trent's mind. "Absolutely," he lied, and turned to look at Jimmy. "Sitting on the beach, drinking 'stralian beer, and watching the little brown girls go by."
Jimmy grinned back after a moment. "Sho 'nuff. You'll be there someday. Maybe the rest of us will come visit sometimes."
"Sure." Trent heard his voice as though it were emanating from someone else's throat. "We should be in the Big Town by Christmas. One more boost like yesterday's--"
Jimmy licked his lips and leaned in on Trent. "That soon?"
Trent shook his head slowly. "Just the five of us. Four's going to be the most I can take out with me. And I don't trust anyone else anyway. We have to do it, you know. We can't stay out here forever."
Trent could hear the alcohol in Jimmy's speech. "Ain't so bad in the Fringe. The Patrol Sectors are safer, but man, ain't hardly any Peaceforcers at all in here. In Patrol Sectors, all over, we gon' have to stand there with the Peaceforcers tossing down on us, and stay calm. It's gon' to be hard putting up with that genejunk."
"We can't stay in the Fringe forever. I don't want to get old on the street."
"True enough," Jimmy conceded. "And for sure not on this cold roof. There's people inside, bro, including Jodi Jodi who looks at you with the big eyes. What you say?"
Trent nodded. "What happened with you guys? I thought you two were made."
Jimmy shrugged. "I don't even know the word, Trent. Very happy and then very chilly. Not gon' to break my heart. Besides," he said simply, "you like her, I mean for real. Rather let her bounce off you than someone else."
"Okay."
Jimmy cocked his head slightly to one side. "I got you figured someday, my man. I think maybe you come out of the Big Time. Just--"
Trent grinned at him again. "Someday."
"So not yet," Jimmy conceded. "What was in your head when I came out here?"
Trent told him the truth. "A frog named Mohammed."
"Indeed. Frenchie with an Arab name?"
"Strange but true."
"Always the dramasuit," said Jimmy softly, breath pluming, "like there's nothing on your face except what the suit puts there." Trent did not reply. "You gon' to kill this frog?"
"Jimmy. Killing is--"
"--wrong, I know. You keep saying." Jimmy studied him. "You ever kill anyone?"
"Once. It was an accident," Trent said. "He drowned."
"Bro, what hurts?"
"Something that happened a long time ago." When you are seventeen, six years is almost forever. He did not wait to let Ramirez say anything further. "Let's go back in."
In all Times there are legends. But before the legend, there must be some piece of sharp, shiny truth to catch the light of day and hold it glowing in the midst of night's descent.
Legends are rarely gentle. Gentleness is not remembered so long nor so well as valor or love or greed or death. Great deeds alone do not insure legend, and their lack will not prevent it--the winds of myth can rise from the lowest deserts.
I have known many of the Continuing Time's great. I knew Ifahad bell K'Ailli briefly, and I was there when a congress of well meaning Zaradin began the Time Wars. I was there when the High King Arthur died under Camber Tremodian's hand, and I grieved for him. I have known Shakespeare's mind as he wrote, and Erl Moorhe's as she composed her last and most popular sensable, the twenty-seven-hour Lord of the Rings.
I have known well all three of the deadliest night faces the human race has ever produced: Shiva Curiachen, and Ola who was Lady Blue, and Camber Tremodian himself.
Of the long list of regrets that define my life, I most regret the fact that I never knew Trent the Uncatchable.
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About the Book And Me
Emerald Eyes is the first novel in The Tales of the Continuing Time. I believe the first published description of internet addiction occurs in this novel.
The text is Century Schoolbook; the headings are Albertus.
The book was purchased in 1986 by Amy Stout at Bantam Books, and was edited by her. The current edition was edited by this other person, Amy Stout-Moran. Like everything else, this was for her.
I'm currently (August 2007) maintaining a blog at:
http://DanielKeysMoran.blogspot.com
Sean Fagan and David Silberstein have maintained a fan site for years at:
http://kithrup.com/dkm
And Sol Foster has maintained the Continuing Time mailing list for about fifty years now - you can sign up at at:
http://ralf.org
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A free ebook from http://manybooks.net/
Emerald Eyes Page 28