by Tad Williams
Finney stopped. "But, sir. . . !"
"AND PUT THE TUTOR SOMEWHERE, TOO. WE'LL DEAL WITH HIM LATER."
Mudd shoved Paul toward the guards. One of them stepped forward as if to catch him, but instead raised a fist and smashed it into the side of Paul's head. He dropped, his skull bursting with fireworks and flapping birds.
"No!" shrieked Ava, then she had pulled free of Finney and was running toward Paul.
"STOP HER, DAMN IT!" thundered Jongleur.
Finney snatched at her nightgown, which held for a heartbeat, then tore. One of the other guards threw himself at her feet, and tripped her, sending her staggering backward toward the window. Some of the birds that had settled on the sill fluttered up in panic; she snatched at them wildly, hopelessly, as she struck the glass.
The bullet-pocked window splintered in a thousand jagged cracks and for a single quantum instant she hung there, suspended against emptiness as if frozen in flight, surrounded with radiating lines like a stained glass angel. Then the window collapsed outward in a sparkle of broken crystal and she was gone into the gray air.
A dull clung as she hit the rail of the fire escape. An endless second before Paul heard her scream begin, then an eternity before it whistled away and faded. It might have been a wordless yowl of terror. It might have been his name.
Everything was silent then—Finney, Mudd, the guards, even the giant, astonished masks of Felix Jongleur, a curving hall of petrified images. Suddenly a cloud of colors, of sparks, of something Paul could not at first understand, swirled out of the trees and darted out through the shattered window.
The birds.
Wings beating, whirring, a murmur of questioning calls finally rising to a many-voiced screech of triumph, the birds escaped their long prisoning, sprang out into the rain-misted sky and then scattered, bright feathers shimmering like the shards of a broken rainbow.
In the stillness that followed, a single gleam of blue-green drifted down through the space between the trees and the shockingly empty window, riding the air in broad loops until it settled at last on the floor between Paul's hands.
CHAPTER 40
The Third Head of Cerberus
* * *
NETFEED/CHILDREN'S INTERACTIVES: HN, Hr. 2.0 (Eu, NAm)-"Pippa's Potato Patch"
(visual: Pippa and Purdy looking for Cracky Hoe)
VO: Pippa wants to plant flowers, but Rascal Rabbit has other ideas and hides her tools. Also featuring a short episode of Magic Counting Box and when the wind blows the cradle will rock when the bough breaks the cradle will fall and down will come baby down will come baby down will come baby down will come baby. . . .
* * *
Just stay put," Catur Ramsey told her. "I don't think there will be enough smoke to make it all the way up to your storeroom, but you might keep a wet cloth handy to put over your mouth, just in case."
"By these calculations, it'll fill up the basement pretty good," Beezle said. "More than fill it up."
"Sellars wanted enough that no one could get down there right away and find out how much of a fire there was—especially since there won't really be a fire."
Olga looked at the vents high on the wall of the storeroom. "You are sure I won't be suffocated up here? Or in one of the elevators?"
"Trust me, lady," Beezle grunted.
"Trust you?" Olga was tired and nervy. She had been up and down so many elevators in the last forty-eight hours that she was starting to look for numbers every time she walked through a door. The idea of being caught inside one with smoke billowing in through the air ducts was terrifying. "Why should I trust you? Where did you come from—and who are you, anyway?"
"He's a friend," Ramsey said hurriedly. "He's. . . ."
"I'm an agent, lady. Didn't you know?"
"What?" Olga tried to sort it out. "A theatrical agent? A secret agent? What kind of agent?"
His noise of disgust was as vivid as a cartoon fart. "A software agent—I'm gear. An Infosect virtual assistant, manufactured by Funsmart Entertainment. Jeez, Ramsey, you didn't tell her?"
"I . . . I didn't . . . we were in such a hurry. . . ."
"Hold on, please. You . . . you have turned all this over to an imaginary person?" Something tickled her memory. "An Infosect? That is a child's toy! We sold it on Uncle Jingle. Years ago!"
"Hey, lady, I'm not the newest gear out of the box but I'm still the best."
"Mr. Ramsey, I cannot believe you would do this to me." It felt like betrayal. For the first time in many days of stress and danger tears sprang to her eyes. "My safety—a toy!"
"Ms. Pirofsky . . . Olga." Ramsey sounded like a boy caught stealing, almost stammering with contrition. "I'm sorry, really sorry. You're right, I should have told you. I would have told you, but things have been happening so fast. Beezle isn't just kiddie gear—he's been upgraded a lot. And I've been working with him for a while now. . . ."
"He's a child's plaything, Mr. Ramsey! We sold the damn things on my show. My God, he came in a box with a picture on it of a little boy saying 'Wow! My new best friend!' If you had a client on trial for his life would you get a Judge Jingle Courtroom Playset to do your research? I do not think so. But you're asking me to put my life in the hands of this . . . jack-in-the-box?"
"Yeah, it's nice to meet you, too, lady."
"Look, it's not like that, Olga, honestly." Ramsey sounded panicked now and it undercut a little of her anger. He was trying so hard. Foolish, maybe, but a nice young man, that was what he was, still at an age where he thought life could be argued into doing the right things.
But life doesn't argue back, she thought. It just rolls over you like the tide, over and over, taking away a little bit each time.
"Who am I fooling?" she said aloud, and almost laughed. "I came here because there were voices in my head, ghost-children talking to me. I'm sneaking around like a spy. We are going to burn down the richest man in the world's building—if only by accident. Why shouldn't a child's toy run the operation? Let's do it."
"I told you, Olga, I'm sorry." Ramsey had misread the swing in her mood, had taken the doomed amusement for pure sarcasm. "I can help you, but only with Beezle to. . . ."
"I just said we'll go on, Mr. Ramsey. Why not?" She did laugh now. It almost felt good. "Better to risk breaking your neck than never to look up at the sky, as my father used to say."
There was a moment of silence. "You know, lady," Beezle said admiringly, "you got a certain style."
"And that is all I have, at this point. But thank you."
"So . . . so we're okay to go ahead?" Ramsey still sounded as though he were a few streets behind. "Set off the . . . the smoke device?"
"The bomb. Yes. Why not?"
"We'll be careful, Olga. We've got the ventilation diagrams—we'll keep a close eye on everything. . . ."
"Please, Mr. Ramsey. Catur. Just do it before I lose my nerve."
"Right. Right." He took a breath. "Make it work, Beezle."
"Okay, here goes. Three, two, one—bingo!" He fell silent as though watching something. Olga could not help wondering what a software agent saw—shapes? Colors? Or did it just read raw data, letting it flow past and through like a sea anemone sifting the ocean currents? "Yep. We have ignition!" the agent said cheerfully. Olga closed her eyes and waited.
"Shouldn't I have been in one of the elevators already?" she asked as the door closed behind her. "To save time?"
"We got smoke on three levels now, boss," Beezle reported. "Moving up fast, too. Since they were marked on the diagrams, I disabled a couple of the seal-off valves."
"Too risky," Ramsey said, answering Olga's question. "That's also why we're starting you from close to the top. We don't want anyone paying any more attention than necessary, so we're waiting until we know the guards have already started the fire procedures. Any alarms yet, Beezle?"
"Yeah, a bunch. Sellars prepared some virals to confuse things, though—change the outgoing codes on the alarms and send 'em to the wrong authority or make
'em give the wrong location information. They haven't even gotten word to their own firefighters down on the military base yet. It'll take at least a quarter of an hour before anyone off the island figures out what's happening, maybe longer."
A blatting noise began to pulse through the walls, a sequenced honking of robotic terror as though the building itself had smelled the smoke and taken fright.
"Here we go," Ramsey said. "Key the floor number, Olga, and let's see if the changes to your badge work."
She did, then clapped her hands over her ears. The alarm had jumped a notch in volume. "I can hardly hear you!" She imagined the sound shaking the walls as smoke billowed through the lower levels, the weekend employees running in terror, the few remaining cleaners, janitors—poor, slow Jerome. . . ! "What's going to happen to the people down there?" she asked in sudden dismay. "You said it wasn't toxic, but how will they breathe if it fills up?"
"It won't fill up," said Beezle in his cabdriver's growl. "I'm venting—makes it look better, anyway. Security is getting calls from all over the island."
"You're moving," Ramsey said with relief as the elevator rose.
"I know."
"Sorry, of course. I'm just watching you here. Up, up, up." He sounded almost giddy. Olga felt as though she had left her stomach behind.
"Are there still guards in security?"
"Doesn't look like it," Ramsey told her. "They're probably already trying to get people out of the building."
"Lots of activity downstairs, no activity on the security floor monitors," Beezle said. "But when the door opens, don't go in right away, got me?"
I take orders from a toy, she thought. "Got you."
She waited in the elevator at the forty-fifth floor, feeling Ramsey and Beezle at her shoulders like invisible angels. The alarm was still blaring mindlessly. They don't need to get the alarm calls on the mainland, she thought. They will be able to hear this all over Louisiana.
"Still no movement," said Beezle. The door hissed open.
There was no one in the tastefully-lit reception area but the screentop desk had been hit by the automatic override and instead of woodland scenes it now displayed a map of the floor with the exits blinking red. The alarm was more distant here, as though the upper part of the building was built of some heavier, more soundproof material, but a secondary alarm whispered through the air, an irritatingly calm female voice instructing whoever was listening to "proceed directly to your designated escape location."
Some of us do not have designated escape locations, dear. The door at the back read her modified badge and pinged open. Even with Beezle's report, she still went through it like a trainer entering the cage of a particularly unpredictable animal.
The guard area was empty, the neon data-hieroglyphs on the plexiglass walls like cave paintings of a vanished race. The calm female voice kept urging her over and over to go to her escape location but Olga was finding it easier to disregard now.
She presented her badge to the reader set into the thick plastic. The door opened immediately, as though pleased by the visit. She quickly crossed the glassed-in area to the black fibramic shaft she had seen the first time. Sure enough, there was an elevator door set into it and a black reader plate beside the door. She took a breath and held up her badge. An instant later the door slid open, revealing an interior covered in some expensive kind of leather.
"It worked!" Ramsey sounded like he had been holding his breath.
"How can you tell? It didn't make any noise."
"Your ring. I've got the camera ring sending because we're going to need it. I saw the doors open."
But the doors in question had already closed again, this time with her inside, and the elevator was moving effortlessly upward. Three seconds, five, ten. . . .
"It's only supposed to be one floor up," she said. "Why is it taking so long?"
"Thick floors," said Beezle. "Just thought you might like to know, they're evacuating a buncha people out the front door now. Still no fire engines, nothing like that. I think Sellars may have had something else set up, too, to make sure everyone cleared out."
"What do you mean?" Ramsey asked.
"I'll tell you when I know."
The elevator stopped. The door opened into an airlock. Briefly, recorded messages about security and clean room procedures battled with the escape announcement, then gave up as the airlock door reader responded to her badge and the inner door hissed aside. Olga stepped out.
Her first thought was that she was watching a netflick, some science-fiction epic in full wraparound. It was harder work to convince herself it was real. The entire floor was one open room with only a few structural pillars to break what seemed like tens of thousands of square meters of floor space, and most of that space seemed to be covered with machines. The machine barn had no windows, only a continuous expanse of curving white wallscreen, currently painted with the escape route maps that had preempted the building's regular programming. The room was massive and, but for the quiet robot voice, as silent as a museum after closing. It was unreal.
But it was real.
". . . Directly to your designated escape location. Repeat, this is not a drill. . . ."
"Oh, God," Olga said. "It's huge."
"Lift the ring," Ramsey told her, his voice sharp with anxiety. "We can't see anything but the floor."
She made a fist and held out her hand, pointing it aimlessly down the rows of stacked, silent machines. She had thought the collection of machinery on the lower floor was imposing, but it was like comparing a toaster to the engine room of an ocean liner. "What . . . what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know. Beezle?"
"I ain't so good at reading visuals," the agent rasped. "Lotta translation effects, back and forth. But I'll give it my best shot. Just start walking. Give me a view side to side, will ya?"
Olga made her way up and down the rows as though led by her own outstretched hand, past what had to be billions of credits worth of gleaming machinery. First five, then ten minutes ticked away as she trudged along, her arm aching and stiffening. She could not help wondering if the firefighters were in the building now, and how long it would be until the security guards were back at their screens. Twice she stepped over things that suggested employees had been here recently but had vacated in a hurry—an expensive-looking, very small pad abandoned in the middle of a row, still fiberlinked to a port, and twenty meters away the shattered remains of a coffee cup and a puddle of gently steaming liquid.
She had just found a third artifact, a shapeless piece of synthetic fabric that she guessed might be some sort of clean-room headwear, when Beezle said, "I think that's it, boss."
She looked up to where her fist was pointing and saw a tower of components little different from many others, except that there seemed to be a greater-than-average number of huge fiberlink bundles snaking down into the floor conduits. "This?"
"It's worth a try," Ramsey said. "Will anything bad happen if you're wrong, Beezle?"
"The building might blow up. Just kidding."
"Funny," Olga said dully. The weirdness was beginning to get to her, not to mention the idiot voice still droning out the escape location warning.
"Sorry. Orlando likes stuff like that." This nonexplanation issued, Beezle began to give her instructions on where to place Sellars' mystery box. As before, she minutely changed its position several times until her instructor—Sellars the first time, Beezle this time, and if Beezle was gear, then what the hell was Sellars? she wondered—seemed satisfied; the box clicked, vibrated briefly, and adhered.
After a few long moments of silence Olga began to feel panicky. "Are you still there? Catur?"
"I'm here, Olga. Beezle, is it the right machine? What do you have?"
The silence again, but longer this time, much longer. Ramsey called Beezle several times in mounting anxiety. Only when almost a minute had passed did Beezle come back.
"Whoa," he said, his voice more than a little distorted. "I wish I
could swear, but like the lady pointed out, I'm a children's toy. This is un-friggin-believable."
"What?" Ramsey demanded.
"This place is carrying the dataflow of a major city, I kid you not."
"Which city?"
"Not a real city," Beezle grunted. "Don't be literal. I'm just talking about how much throughput there is. Amazin"! There's a whole light farm on the roof of the building—a laser array like you've never seen, pumping data up, readin' it comin' back. Weird, too—some kind of boosted cesium lasers according to the schematics. You want me to do some research?"
"Not now," said Ramsey.
"What is it?" Olga wondered. "All this data—is it this Grail network I have been told about?"
"Don't ask me." Beezle sounded almost surly. "I'm not up to this. You just can't understand the quantity of data ridin' through here."
"But didn't this Sellars make any provision. . . ?"
"Look, lady, I don't know what Sellars had planned. He sure didn't leave any notes about what he was going to do with this if he tapped into it. And even with all the upgrades and extra processing power Orlando rigged up for me, I can't begin to make sense of it—you might as well try to run all the UN Telecomm data through an abacus!"
For a toy, Olga thought, he sounded quite convincingly overwhelmed. And he had an admirable way with metaphor as well. "So what do we do? Mr. Ramsey?"
"I . . . I guess we've done all we can," the lawyer said. "Until we can contact Sellars again. Beezle, are you sure you can't, I don't know, hook up enough processing power to make some sense of it—any sense at all?"
The agent's snort was answer enough.
"Right," said Ramsey. "Then I suppose we really have done all we can. Good work, Olga. We'll just hope it all comes to something—that Sellars gets back to us and that he had some idea of what kind of processing this would take." Catur Ramsey did not sound entirely convinced. "So we might as well get you out. . . ."
Olga looked around the massive room. "Not yet."
It took Ramsey a moment to hear what she'd said. "Olga, that place is going to be swarming with firefighters and cops soon, not to mention J Corporation security. Get going!"