by Tad Williams
Paul frowned, trying to understand where her thoughts were going. "It . . . it takes the story literally? It wants us to get it out of its hole?"
"Out of its imprisonment, yes, it could be."
"Which one of us is the dog?" Florimel said with heavy sarcasm. "I hope we are not expected to volunteer."
"The dog. Of course!" Martine nodded her head violently. "Oh, could it really be? Perhaps I am right. Let me say this, however foolish it sounds." She raised her hands to her head, eyes tightly shut. "Renie told me once that all the sims I have worn within this network look very . . . unexceptional. Is that true? Almost like generic sims."
"Yes, I suppose," said Florimel. "So?"
"She told me that only in Troy did I look like a specific person. But that was because in Troy I was given a specific character made for the simulation—Cassandra, the king's daughter. All the rest of the time I have been in some version of this original peasant sim from Temilún, and it is not as detailed as yours is, Florimel, or as the false Quan Li's was."
"Granted. What does that mean?"
"We are all of us interfacing with this system as almost pure information, yes? Whatever our real bodies might look like, we exist on this system only as minds—as sense-memory and conscious thought, correct? And the system sends information back to us along the same neural pathways."
Paul looked over at T4b, expecting the teenager to be annoyed by the long, complex discussion, but the boy had his head turned away, watching the fire. For a moment, Paul envied his detachment. "But that's basically the definition of this sort of VR environment, isn't it?" he asked. "Gives people input at the sensory level, bypassing information coming from what would normally be the real world."
"Ah." Martine sat up straighten "But there is no such thing as 'this sort of environment.' We have seen that already—it is unique! Unique in that we cannot find a way to go offline, unique in that we cannot find our own neurocannulae, or even the cruder input-output devices Renie and !Xabbu are using, even though we know they are there. And when Fredericks tried to go offline, he . . . no, she, I almost forgot! . . . suffered terrible pain."
Florimel grunted. "You are still not explaining. . . ."
"Perhaps the network—or more specifically, the operating system, the Other—can interface with not just our conscious thoughts, but our subconscious thoughts as well."
"What? You mean, read our minds?"
"I do not know how it might work, or what the limits might be, but think! If it could reach into our subconscious, it could implant suggestions that we cannot go offline. Like hypnosis. It could convince us, below the conscious level, that removing ourselves from the network would cause us great pain."
"Jesus." Paul suddenly began to see it taking shape. "But that would mean . . . that it wanted you all to stay on the network. What about your friend Singh? It killed him."
"I do not know. Perhaps the security system part of the Other, the part that guarded entry, to the network, was under more direct control by the Grail Brotherhood. Perhaps it was only when we had made our way inside that the Other could truly see us, contact us." She was growing excited. "If it was trying to act out a story somehow, the story of the boy in the well, it might well have decided we were the allies it was looking for!"
"It makes a kind of sense," Florimel said slowly. "Although there is much to think about before I am ready to agree. But you haven't explained about the dog, yet. I said something about the dog in the story, and that set you onto talking about sims, about how your own sims worked. . . ?"
"Yes. Do you know what your face looks like?"
Florimel flinched. "Are you speaking of my injuries?"
"No, in everyday life. Do you know what your face looks like? Of course you do. You have mirrors, you have photos of yourself. Any normal person knows what he or she looks like. Paul, have you seen your sims? Do they resemble you?"
"Most of them. Except when I was someone specific, as you said, like Odysseus." He looked at her, puzzled, then a moment later it came clear. "You don't know what you look like, do you?"
Martine shook her head. "Of course not. I have been blind since I was a child. I know I don't look like that anymore, but what the years since have done to me, I have no idea, except by touch."
Florimel was staring at her. "You are saying that the Other . . . read your mind?"
"In a way, perhaps. It may have tried to take some sense from each of us of who we were, what we looked like—or wanted to look like. Didn't Orlando say that he looked like an earlier version of his own character? Where did that come from, if it wasn't from the mind of Orlando himself?"
Paul's weariness was still powerful, but the unfolding vistas of this new line of thought could not be ignored. "I wondered, when he told me. I wondered about a lot of this, but there hasn't been any shortage of unanswered questions."
"Of course," Martine said. "We have been fighting for our lives each and every day, in circumstances no one else in history has had to endure. It has taken a long time for, as you English say, the penny to drop."
Paul smiled wanly. "So what do we do with this knowledge, if it's all true?"
"I am not done yet." She turned to Florimel. "You asked about the dog. Orlando was not the only one of our group to find his Otherland sim a surprise. Do you remember what !Xabbu told us?"
"That . . . that he had been thinking about baboons. . . ." Florimel began, then stopped, her expression now honestly dumbstruck. "He had been thinking about baboons, because of some tribal story or some such . . . but he had not planned to be one."
"Exactly. But someone . . . something . . . chose that appearance for him. Do you know what the old name for baboon was?"
Paul nodded, impressed. "The European sailors used to call them 'dog-faced apes,' didn't they?"
"They did. So imagine the Other, trapped in darkness, praying and singing in the small corner of its own intellect where it could hide from its cruel masters. It remembers a story, one of the most vivid things it knows, something that has been with it since a time that was perhaps as close to a childhood as it ever had. A story about a boy in darkness, tortured and frightened. As it sifts through the thoughts of the latest group of intruders, while its security programming deals with the gross physical facts of the intrusion, it perceives that one of them has an image firmly in his mind—perhaps even a sort of self-image—of a four-legged creature with a head like a dog's head. And, if by probing at the subconscious it can sense anything of its subjects' true nature, it may even have perceived !Xabbu's kindness and loyalty.
"Perhaps it had a plan before that moment, perhaps !Xabbu or something else about us triggered the thought, but from that moment on the Other was not trying to destroy as—or at least the 'child' part of it, the thinking, feeling part, was not. It was trying to find us. It was trying to bring us to it. It was praying to be rescued."
"Jesus." Paul was dimly aware he'd already said this a few times, but could not help saying it several more. "Jesus. So the mountain. . . ?"
"A neutral ground, perhaps?" Florimel offered.
"Perhaps. Perhaps a spot near—if we can use such physical terms about this network—to the Other's own secret place, to the center of its 'self.' If we had been able to remain there, if Dread had not interfered, it might have spoken to us."
Paul stiffened. "And so Renie was right. She and the others really are in the heart of the system?"
Martine slumped back. "I do not know. But if we want to get there, we will have to find some other way, since Troy seems to be barred to us now."
"We will think of something," Florimel said. "Great God, I had not expected to feel this way about the thing that crippled and stole my Eirene, but if what you guess is true, Martine . . . oh! It is a terrible thought." Martine sighed. "But before anything more, we need sleep. I have quite overwhelmed myself, and I did not have much strength in reserve."
"Hang on." Paul reached out and touched her arm. He could feel it trembling with fatigue.
"Sorry, but one last thing. You said something about Nandi."
"The one Orlando met."
"I know. I met him, too—I'm sure I told you. I think you were right. If anyone can help us puzzle out the gates, it's him."
"But we don't know where he is," said Florimel. "Orlando and Fredericks last saw him in Egypt."
"Then that's where we need to go. At the very least, it gives us something to aim for!" He squeezed Martine's forearm gently. "Did you notice whether it was one of the . . . available destinations? When you were looking for Troy?"
She shook her head sadly. "Too little time. That is why I accepted this place when I couldn't find Troy—it was the default setting." She reached out and patted his hand, then turned away, searching with her fingers for a clear spot to lie down and sleep. "But we will look for it at the next gateway." She yawned. "And you are right, Paul—at least it is something."
As she curled herself tighter in her blanket, and Florimel did the same, Paul turned to T4b.
"Javier? You haven't said much."
The boy still didn't have a great deal to say. He had clearly been asleep for quite a while.
CHAPTER 13
King Johnny
* * *
NETFEED/NEWS: Jiun Would Not Want State Funeral, Heirs Claim
(visual: Jiun at Asian Prosperity Zone ceremony)
VO: The heirs of Jiun Bhao, Asia's most influential mogul, say that the state funeral planned for the businessman is inappropriate.
(visual: nephew Jiun Tung at press conference)
JIUN TUNG: "He was a very modest man, the embodiment of Confucian values. He would want what was due to a man of his position, nothing more."
(visual: Jiun meeting group of farmers)
VO: Some observers suggest that the family is being more modest than their late patriarch actually was, and that what they really object to is the state's expectation that the Jiun family pay for part of the massive ceremony. . . ."
* * *
Calliope drummed her fingers on the countertop. She was definitely, definitely going to give up caffeine, go for the no-octane varieties. Tomorrow. Or right after that.
Every noise from the other room seemed louder than it was. It was so strange to hear someone else in her apartment. Calliope's mother hated leaving her little house, fearful of crowds and unfamiliar places. Stan hadn't visited in months, mostly because they saw so bloody much of each other at work: even friendly partners didn't want to spend any more time in each other's company than they had to.
Calliope had just decided to pour herself a drink of something counter-effective to coffee—although, as wired as she felt at the moment, it would probably take some kind of morphine derivative to slow her down—when the bedroom door popped open. Elisabetta, the waitress-muse, leaned in the doorway, only a yellow towel covering the completeness of her tattooed glory. She held another towel in her hand and waved it at Calliope. "I took one for my hair, too. All right?"
Detective Sergeant Calliope Skouros could only nod. The towel-clad apparition vanished back into the steamy bedroom. God, the girl was beautiful. Maybe not in the runway-model sense, but strong and just vibrating with youth and life.
Did I look like that once? Did I have that glow, just because of how old I was? Or rather, how old I wasn't?
Stop it, Calliope. You're not that bloody old, you just work too hard. And you eat too much crap. Find a life, like Stan always says. Go to the gym. You've got good bones.
As she mulled over the dubious value of good bones, something her mother had always assured her she had when a younger Calliope was feeling particularly unpretty, Elisabetta appeared again from the bedroom, a towel around her head, the rest of her now dressed in a black knit top and a pair of black 'chutes slashed with insets of glowing white.
"These are so. . . ." She waved at the silky trousers. "I mean, I know they're utterly cutting, but they're so much more comfortable than that latex shit."
"Cutting. . . ?" asked Calliope, knowing even as she did so that she was just confirming her own official middle-agedness.
Elisabetta grinned. "Cutting edge. Meaning old-fashioned. It's just something this friend of mine says." She gave her hair a last rub, then ceremoniously draped the towel over the door handle. Which, Calliope reflected, for someone in her early twenties probably represented "not leaving a mess."
"It was really nice of you to let me use your shower. It's so far back to my place, and the traffic. . . ." She bent for her bag, then straightened up. "Oh, and thanks for the drink, too."
"No problem. I enjoyed it." Calliope considered some further affirmation but could not come up with anything that didn't sound utterly stupid in mental rehearsal. I love your company and I have weird fantasies about you all the time? I'd like to be genetically reengineered to have your babies? I drink three gallons of coffee a day just to watch you walk around dropping salads on peoples' tables, so it was quite nice to have you naked at my place, even in the next room?
"I really want to go to this party. My friend's house-sitting, and the people told her it was okay to have it—they've got this amazing place, with walls, like a castle. And you can have fireworks every night. They're not real, they're just holograms or something, but my friend says it's wonderful." She pushed damp hair out of her eyes and looked at Calliope. "Hey, maybe you'd like to go. You want to?"
Something squeezed at her heart a little bit. "I'd love to." Something else squeezed—her conscience? "But I can't. Not tonight. I have to meet someone." Am I closing a door? she wondered nervously. "My partner. My work partner. About work."
Elisabetta regarded her solemnly for a moment, then returned to the task of rummaging around in her bag. But when she looked up, she wore a smile that was both amused and ever, ever so slightly shy. "Hey, do you like me?"
Calliope carefully leaned back on her chair, just to stop herself drumming her fingers nervously on the tabletop. "Yes, Elisabetta. I do. Of course I do."
"No, I mean do you like me?" The smile was still shy, but challenging, too. Calliope was not entirely sure she wasn't being teased or mocked in some way. "Are you . . . are you interested in me?"
Further obfuscation was not going to work, although it was tempting. Calliope realized that after almost a decade and a half of police work, after sitting in interrogation rooms facing rapists and robbers and murderous psychopaths, she couldn't think of a thing to say. After what seemed like half an hour, but was probably three seconds, she cleared her throat.
"Yes." That was as much as she could manage.
"Hmmm." Elisabetta nodded, then slung her bag over her shoulder. She still seemed to be enjoying some secret joke. "I'll have to think about that." As she reached the door, she turned, her smile wide now. "Got to fly—see you later!"
Calliope sat in her chair for a long minute after the door whooshed closed, unmoving, as stunned as if she had been hit by a car. Her heart was hammering, although nothing had really changed.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
"Technically," Stan Chan said after a short silence, "this should be the portion of the conversation where you ask me, 'and how was the big meeting, Stan?' I mean, now that we've spent twenty minutes or so talking about some waitress I don't remember."
"Oh, Jesus, Stan, I'm sorry." She stared at the bowl of cocktail crispies, then defiantly took another handful. "I really am. I haven't forgotten about it. It's just . . . I've been out of circulation a long time, what with one thing and another. I forgot how much like shooting some weird drug it is. Does she like me, should I care, what does that little thing mean. . . ? Damn, see, I'm doing it again. Tell me about what happened, please. I'm getting sick of listening to myself, anyway."
"That's why you and I make such good partners. We agree on so many things."
"Die, China-boy."
"You'll never take me down, you goat-chasing lemon."
"I'm glad we've got that straightened out."
Stan nodded happily, then sobered. "I'm afrai
d that's going to be the highlight of the evening."
"So they didn't go for it," One of the reasons she had been wasting time with waitress-trivia had been a bad feeling about Stan's meeting with the department brass.
"Not only didn't they go for it, they pretty much made it clear that they thought a couple of garden-variety homicide dicks should keep their noses out of things they couldn't understand."
"Meaning the Real Killer case."
"Yep."
"Did you ask them about the Sang-Real thing I was thinking about? The whole King Arthur and the Grail idea?"
"Yes, and they informed me that they'd thought of it themselves a long time ago, and had beaten it into the dust. Looked up Arthurian scholars, checked the seating lists for Parzival in case the guy's a closet Wagner nut, every angle they could think of. I have to admit, it sounds like they were pretty thorough."
"So basically, then, the answer was 'piss off.' "
"That sums it up pretty well, Skouros. They already decided once that Merapanui wasn't anything to do with their serial killer. And the captain was there, too—did I mention that? She thinks it's a lot more likely that minor villain Buncie got his dates wrong than he saw Johnny Dread alive after his check-out certificate, and she's also beginning to wonder why we're putting so much time into this case, since it's five years old and—in your own words when they gave it to us, Skouros—'as dead as good manners' " He shrugged.
"The captain. . . ." Calliope leaned forward, thoughts of Elisabetta's shoulders shining with water drops vanishing quickly as she realized what Stan was trying to tell her. "Oh, God. Does that mean. . . ?"
Stan nodded. " 'Fraid so. She basically said we should wrap it up and put it away. She asked me if we'd found any actual evidence that our Johnny was still among the living, and I had to admit we hadn't."
"But . . . damn." Calliope slumped. There wasn't any, of course, not hard evidence, not the kind you could even take to a prosecutor. She felt like she had been hit in the stomach with a club. The whole thing was a structure built on guesswork—the kind of paranoid fantasy that kept thousands of net nodes busy. But she knew it wasn't pure fantasy—that the hunches were built on something. And Stan knew it, too. "Didn't you argue?"