Sea of Silver Light

by Tad Williams

  "Good Christ, what are you doing?"

  Beezle's voice echoed as it drifted up out of the hole in the floor. "What you asked me to do, boss. You wanna let me work?"

  The red light was climbing steadily up the tower. Ramsey could not bear to watch. He turned to the rusty desert that covered one whole wall. He could see now that there were small beetlelike shapes in the sand, half-buried and as motionless as fossils. He dimly remembered reading something on the net about the MBC Project on Mars, how the little robots had stopped working.

  That'll teach them to trust machines, he thought bitterly, wincing as the saw started up again, accompanied by what sounded like a jackhammer, shaking the walls of the 'cot until it seemed the whole thing might fall down. A plume of dust floated up out of the hole. A dragon's skull vibrated off a shelf and shattered, a piece of the jaw coming to rest beside Ramsey's feet.

  In the midst of it all, the red dot rose serenely upward.

  Despite the smoothness of the silent elevator, Olga felt as though a giant had grabbed her in its fist and was lifting her up, up toward a monstrous face she didn't want to see. She suddenly knew exactly why she'd dreamed of the circus, all its performers now dead and gone—a part of her life that was equally dead. It had been just like this, the climb up the ladder to the high platform, no matter how many times she did it: part of it had been almost mechanical, hand over hand in practiced motion, and even the surface of her mind had been full of rote memorizations, all the things her father had taught her to set her mind and prepare herself for whatever might come.

  "Always you must be inside your thoughts and outside your body, my dear one." She suddenly could almost see him in the elevator with her, as close as Jerome was standing, Papa with his neat, graying beard, the scar across the bridge of his nose where his own brother's heel had broken it when they were young performers. It was only one or many scars—his large hands were ribboned with them, scored by nets and tent cables and guy wires. He often claimed that on his days off, he played catch with Le Cirque Royale's knife thrower. The first time he had said it, when she was three or four, she had been terrified until he assured her it was a joke.

  He smelled of pine resin, always, which he used to keep his hands dry in the ring. That and her mama's cigarettes, those foul Russian things, even after all these years the two smells always brought back her childhood in an instant. Watching her father with his big hands on Mama's shoulders, or wrapped around her waist from behind while they watched rehearsal. Mama always, always with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, her chin lifted to keep the smoke out of her eyes. She had been ramrod straight, slender, her dancer's body hard and muscular well into her seventies, before she got sick.

  "My Polish princess," Papa had called Mama. "Look at her," he had always said, half-mocking, half-proud. "She may not be royalty, but she's built like it. No rear end on her at all, hips like a boy." And then he would give Mama a playful swat on the backside, and she would hiss at him like a cat being annoyed by a child. Papa would laugh, winking at Olga and the world. Look at my good-looking wife, it meant. And look at the temper she has on her!

  They were both long gone now, Mama dead from cancer, her father following not long after, as everyone knew he would. He had said it himself: "I don't want to outlive her. You and your brother, Olga, God grant you long lives. Don't take offense if I don't stick around to see the grandchildren."

  But there weren't any grandchildren, of course. Olga's brother Benjamin had died not long after her parents, a freakish piece of bad luck when his appendix had ruptured while he was on a mountaineering holiday with friends from university. And long before that she had lost her own baby and her husband in the same week—her entire chance at happiness, it had seemed then and still somehow did.

  So I'm the last, she thought. That line from Mama's and Papa's parents and grandparents ends with me—maybe ends today, right here in this building. For the first time in days she felt truly overwhelmed. So sad, so . . . final. All the plans those people made, the baby blankets they knitted, the money they tucked away, and it all comes down to an aging woman probably throwing her life away over a delusion.

  The elevator seemed to be creeping upward as slowly as a rising tide, the little squares on the black glass panel lighting one after the other. So sad.

  "Do you have a family around here?" she asked Jerome, just to hear some human noise.

  "My mom." He was squinting at the blinking lights on the panel as though hypnotized. She wondered how well he could see. They climbed from 35 to 36 to 37. For a modern elevator, Olga thought it seemed cruelly slow. "She lives in Garyville," Jerome went on. "My brother lives in Houston, Texas."

  "Olga? Can you hear me?" The sudden voice in her head made her jump and gasp.

  "What's wrong, Olga?" Jerome asked.

  "Just a headache." She put a hand to her temple. "Who is that?" she subvocalized. "Mr. Ramsey, is that you?"

  "Jesus, I never thought I'd get through again. You need to get off the elevator."

  She looked at the panel. 40. 41. "What are you talking about? How did you know. . . ?"

  "Olga, you look really sick."

  She waved her hand to show she didn't want to talk.

  "Just get off the elevator!" Ramsey's obvious panic cut through her confusion. "Now! If that door opens above the forty-fifth floor, you're going to set off alarms all over the building. Security will be on you before you can blink."

  The feigned headache was becoming real. "Stop the car," she told Jerome. "What floor are we on?" The blinking panel suggested it was 43. "I need to use the restroom, Jerome. Is that okay?"

  "Sure." But even as he pressed the button, the car had already moved up another floor. Olga found herself holding her breath. The car slid to a stop and the door hissed open, revealing a carpeted hallway and a bizarrely festive lighting scheme. It took her a moment to see that the walls were hung with shimmering pieces of neon art. Jerome stood in the open doorway. It took Olga a moment to realize he expected her to know where the restrooms were. After all, she was an employee, wasn't she?

  "I haven't been on this floor," she explained. When he had told her where to go, she asked him to wait in the elevator lobby, afraid that someone might notice an elevator stopped on one floor too long.

  The restroom was empty. She sat down in the farthest stall and pulled up her feet. "Tell me what's going on," she said to Ramsey. "Where did you people go? I've been trying to call you all day."

  His explanation did not make her feel any better about anything—in fact, it was hard to think of something more carefully designed to destroy what little confidence she had left. "Oh, God help us, Sellars is . . . gone? So who is this Beezle who is helping you out? Is he one of that army fellow's specialists or something?"

  "It's a long story." Ramsey didn't sound very eager to tell it. "Right now, we have to figure out what we're going to do. Are you in a secure place?"

  She had to laugh at that. "I am in enemy territory, Mr. Ramsey! I am about as secure as a cockroach standing in the bathtub when the light comes on. If someone doesn't smash me with a shoe, yes, I suppose I am just fine."

  "I'm doing my best, Olga, honestly. You don't know how hard I've been trying to get back in touch with you since Sellars . . . since whatever happened to him." He took a deep breath. "I'm going to put Beezle on with you. He's . . . he's a little eccentric. Don't worry about it—he's very good at what he does."

  "Eccentric I can live with, Mr. Ramsey."

  The voice, when it came, was like that of some ancient comedian from the Television Era. "You're Olga, right? Pleased to meetcha."

  "And you." She shook her head. Sitting fully-clothed on the toilet talking to an escapee from the Catskills circuit, probably twenty vertical feet or so from armed men who would be happy to kill her, or at least beat her senseless, if they knew what she was trying to do. There has to be an easier, more sensible way to commit suicide, she told herself.

  "Look, if there's a bunch
of machinery up there, that may be just what Sellars wants," Beezle told her after she explained what she had heard from Jerome. "We won't know until we find it, and even then we won't know anything anyway, since according to Ramsey this Sellars is kind of a sleeping partner at the moment." His snort of indignation was audible and almost funny. "But if you try to walk in there without authorization, you're lunchmeat, seen?"

  He sounded a bit old to be using kiddie slang, but Olga had spent her life among showfolk who liked affecting Bohemian airs. "Seen, I suppose."

  "So we have to monkey with your badge some more. I don't know what Sellars planned. I haven't found any notes about this, but I'm still looking. He might have had some legitimate code to plug in, but I ain't got it. Maybe you could find someone who has access already, then I could, y'know, counterfeit an authorization,"

  "There's a janitor who's helping me," Olga said hesitantly. "He's been up to those floors at least once or twice."

  "What?" Ramsey had been listening in. "Olga, we can't tell anybody. . . !"

  "I didn't tell him anything," she said angrily. "Give me some credit. I told him a big, stupid lie. He is braindamaged, or perhaps a little retarded, so you can imagine how I feel right now, using him like this." She was close to tears again, "Would his badge information help you?"

  "Yeah." There was a moment's silence as the stranger named Beezle considered. "Maybe we could make it look like the janitor got off at the wrong floor or something—y'know, like he was just messin' around. . . ."

  "If you do anything to get him in trouble, I will kill you!"

  "Kill me?" The raspy laugh sounded in her ear. "Lady, the kid's parents tried to unplug me for weeks and didn't get to first base, so I don't know how you think you'd manage it."

  Completely thrown by this bizarre non sequitur, Olga could think of no response.

  "Look, just get us his badge information," Ramsey said after a moment. "You still have the ring, don't you?"

  "I can do a better job with her t-jack," Beezle said.

  "Fine. Just do that, Olga. Then we'll decide what to do."

  Feeling like a character out of some antique farce, she hurried out of the restroom and trotted down the corridor. Jerome was standing stock-still in the elevator lobby, looking at his shoes. The overhead lights gleamed on his prominent facial bones, making him seem like some machine that had run down and stopped.

  The custodian lifted his head when he heard her. The smile changed his misshapen face into something lovable, an old doll, a broken but familiar toy.

  "I just wanted you to know I'm almost done," she said. "Oh, my shoe. Can I hold onto your shoulder?" She steadied herself while she pretended to adjust the shoe, taking care to lean her telematic jack close to his badge, then she hurried back to the restroom. Ramsey and his new friend were already analyzing the results.

  "I can make something to get you in," Beezle said at last. "But it won't fool anyone if they check up, and they'll probably notice you going in. The schematic says there are security cameras all over that floor. There are some little indicators that are probably drones, too."

  "That won't work," Ramsey said miserably. "Even if she had time to plant Sellars' little package, and we got the right place first time, someone would check the place over if they found her in there with a forged clearance. They must have engineers on call."

  The relief that washed over her at the idea of being barred from the upper floor made Olga realize for the first time how frightened she was. "So it's hopeless?"

  "I can't do miracles, lady," Beezle grated. "My owner Orlando always used to say. . . ."

  "Hang on," said Ramsey, interrupting yet another puzzling remark. "You brought in more than one package. We can set off the smoke device."

  "How is that going to help?" In a way, Olga had already begun to accustom herself to failure. Every spur to going on, even the memory of the children, had been blunted by her growing fear. She desperately wanted to see the sky again, to feel real wind on her face, even the warm bathwater that they called air down in this part of the United States. "It is not going to blow the doors off or anything, and it is too far down in the building to hide me from anyone without choking me to death at the same time."

  "But if they have to evacuate the building they won't be paying much attention to who's getting on and off at the forty-sixth floor or whatever."

  "You said they had cameras. Even if they don't see me at that moment, they can access the footage when they find out it's a false alarm."

  "If we're lucky—if you're lucky, I should say, since I know you're the one taking the risks—you'll be done by then, maybe even out of the building, and none of it will matter. So you'll have to be quick with the tap. Just plant the device, then get out."

  She felt dizzy. "I . . . I will try. Are you going to set off the smoke bomb now?"

  "Not yet," Ramsey said. "Beezle needs to fake your clearance—pretending to set the building on fire won't do us any good if you're still locked out of that floor. And I'd like to study Sellars' notes. I called you in a hurry, so I've hardly had a chance to think." He sounded glum again. "I wasn't really trained for this kind of thing."

  "So who was? Me?" Olga lowered her feet to the restroom floor.

  "Can you find somewhere safe to hide again? We'll call you at midnight."

  "Fine." She cut the connection, feeling a bit like she was watching the departure of a boat that had dropped her off on an isolated, uninhabited island.

  The restroom door hissed shut behind her as she headed back to tell Jerome that her plans had changed. It was some small solace not to have to drag him into danger. She thought of the lost children. She seemed fated to be their paladin and protector whether it made sense or not, and even whether she wanted to or not. She hoped they appreciated it. What was it her mother had used to say about gratitude?

  "You should be grateful to me now, while I'm still alive. It will save on postage."

  But I wouldn't mind paying the postage, Mama, she thought. If I only had your address.

  Her mother wanted her to go to the store with her, but Christabel just didn't want to go. She didn't want to do anything. She told her mommy that she wanted to stay at the hotel and watch the wallscreen, but she really didn't. Mommy and Daddy had a little fight—Daddy didn't like Mommy going out where someone might see her.

  "We just need to lie low," he said.

  "I'm not going to lie so low my child eats nothing but junk food," she said. "We have a kitchen as part of this room and I'm going to use it. That child hasn't touched a vegetable that wasn't deep-fried in days."

  It was a small fight, and it wasn't the reason Christabel was feeling bad, but she still didn't like it. Mommy and Daddy didn't make jokes anymore. Daddy didn't put his arms around Mommy, or lean over and kiss her on the back of the neck. He picked Christabel up and gave her hugs, but he wasn't happy and neither was Mommy. And since the bad thing had happened to Mister Sellars and the boy, they hardly talked at all without fighting.

  "Are you sure you won't come with me, honey?" her mother said. "You could pick out some cereal you like."

  Christabel shook her head. "I'm tired." Mommy closed the door and came back into the room to feel Christabel's forehead, then sighed. "No temperature. But you don't feel good, do you?"

  "Not really."

  "We'll be getting out of here soon," Mommy said. "One way or the other. I'll bring you home something nice."

  "Call if you're not going to be back by half an hour, Kay," her father said.

  "Half an hour? It'll take me that long just to get there and back." But for a moment the little angry look she almost always wore these days went away and she looked at Daddy the way she used to. "If I'm still out, I'll check in an hour from now. I promise."

  When she was gone Daddy went off to the next room to talk to Mister Ramsey. Christabel tried to watch the wallscreen, but nothing was interesting. Even Uncle Jingle seemed stupid and sad, a story about Queen Cloud Cat's new baby, Prince Po
po, getting lost at the circus. Even the best joke in the whole thing, when Uncle Jingle got his foot caught by an elephant and it started swinging him around and around and around in a big circle, only made her smile.

  Feeling bored, but also like she was going to cry, she opened the connecting door and went into the next room. Her daddy was talking to Mister Ramsey, both of them looking at Mister Ramsey's pad so they didn't even see her. She walked down the hall to the bedroom where Mister Sellars and Cho-Cho were lying side by side on one of the beds, still quiet, still not moving. She had gone to look at them a lot of times, always hoping that she would see Mister Sellars' eyes open so she could run to her parents and Mister Ramsey and tell them he was awake. They would be very proud that she had noticed, and Mister Sellars would sit up and call her "Little Christabel," and thank her for watching over him. Maybe Cho-Cho would wake up, too, and would be nicer to her.

  But Mister Sellars' eyes weren't open, and she couldn't even see his chest moving. She touched his hand. It felt warm. Didn't that mean someone wasn't dead? Or were you supposed to touch their neck? People were always doing it on the net, but she couldn't quite remember how.

  Cho-Cho looked very small. His eyes were closed, too, but his mouth was open and a little spit was on the pillow. Christabel thought that was pretty yick, but decided it wasn't his fault.

  She leaned in close. "Wake up, Mister Sellars," she whispered, loud enough for him to hear if he was listening, but not loud enough for her daddy to hear in the other room. "You can wake up now."

  But he didn't wake up. He looked bad, like something that had been run over and was lying by the side of the road. She felt like crying again.

  Uncle Jingle didn't get any better. She tried a bunch of other shows—even Teen Mob, which her parents didn't like her to watch because they said it was "vulgar," which meant bad or scary, she wasn't sure which. Maybe both. Her daddy came back then so she had to change to another show fast.

  "Why on earth are you watching lacrosse, Christabel?" he asked her.