by E. R. Mason
They stood on a mezzanine overlooking gate twelve at LaGuardia. Rogers leaned against a rail next to Markman, waiting for the empty gate area to overflow with the relieved and fatigued passengers of flight 342. The Inkman decoy was directly below, standing behind two sinister-looking agents dressed in trench coats and low-brimmed hats. They had positioned themselves just outside the waist-high barrier of the small waiting area, off to one side so that their presence was not immediately obvious to those who would be using the debarking ramp.
Suddenly the gates opened, and the colorful crowd poured into the annex and the rows of plastic seats anchored to the thinly carpeted floor. The group remained subdued and quiet. Rogers smiled and shook her head. It’s a traditional thing, she thought, the unwritten rule that suggests the safety of any given flight cannot be assumed until one is well clear of the aircraft in question.
As they began to scatter, the agents that were shielding the fake Inkman moved casually aside. Almost immediately, a disturbance broke out in the crowd. A short, husky man, his black hair trimmed evenly in a Larry-and-Moe haircut, fought his way through the masses in a direction away from the false Inkman.
Rogers watched breathlessly as he unwittingly followed the course she had provided, a roped off area that led directly to the perfect exit. The level of fear that seemed to be driving him surprised even her. He knocked possessions from his fellow passengers and pushed them rudely aside. He jumped the barrier of the gate area and raced full speed for the rotating doors that led to the pickup area. A taxi was waiting just outside. Rogers shook her head and smiled to herself, knowing his taxi ride would be direct to the headquarters building downtown. There he would be forced to sit and wait until her agents came and opened the self-locking rear doors of the bogus taxi.
“Look, you cooperate and things will go much better for you, Mick.”
“I am cooperatin’, I’m tellin’ ya. I don’t know nothin’.”
“Come on, Mick. We don’t give a damn about the drug deal you were trying to set up in Mexico. It’s Inkman we’re after. We know you’ve worked for him. Don’t try to deny it.”
“Never heard of ‘im.”
“You were a driver for him, Mick. Does that shake your memory
at all?”
“Ain’t never heard of the guy.”
The interrogator leaned back. He looked into the large, two-way mirror on the wall at the end of the interview table, knowing that Rogers and Markman were watching from behind it. He stood and left the room, and a moment later entered the small observation booth.
“I don’t know, Ann. He’s a tough nut to crack. What’da you think?”
Rogers nodded agreement. She paused to stare back out the tinted window at the squirrelly little man who sat smoking a cigarette, satisfied he had managed a stalemate.
“Okay, go for the Hail Mary. Make it sound good.”
The interrogator nodded and pulled at his already loosened tie. He left the cramped booth and quickly reappeared on the other side of the glass. He took a seat directly across from his stubborn suspect and spoke with finality. “Okay, Mick, one last time. I’m going to give it to you straight. I’ll tell you what we’ve got on you, what’s going to put you away for good. Then you get two seconds to help me out, or you take a ride to where you start the hard time. It’s that’s simple.”
“But I’m....”
“Just shut up and listen. I’m tired. I get this over with, I go home to ice cold beer and pizza, and I’m done with you forever. So just shut up. Now what we’ve got is this. We got a protected witness who puts you driving for Inkman down in Washington when one of our planes was brought down. We got an exact copy of the bomb that was used. We know it was remotely detonated. We know it was either you or Inkman. It doesn’t matter which. You both get murder one. That’s what the witness will give us. So one last time, and I’ll leave you alone for good. Was it you or was it Inkman that pushed the button? Last chance....”
Mick’s expression darkened. He shifted in his chair and looked nervously around the room for a way out. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop and searched the interrogator’s eyes for deceit. He coughed into his hand and looked away.
Markman whispered to Rogers, “You never said you had a witness.”
Rogers leaned close. “We’ve got nothing.”
Mick’s voice became hurried and rose in pitch. “I never had nothin’ to do with any a’ that kind a’ stuff. I was just the driver. He said go here, so I went there. I never knew nothin’ ‘bout what was goin’ on.”
“So who pushed the button that night? Say it.”
“Inkman. Inkman did all that stuff. I never even knew it was goin’ down. Couldn’t a’ stopped it if I tried.”
“So why are you running from him, Mick?”
The ruffled man fidgeted in his seat and looked around as though he feared Inkman might show at any moment. “They’re a creepy bunch, man, I’ll tell ya that. The money was too good to pass up. He’s got a big staff, ya know, and every now and then somebody disappears, ya know.”
“You mean they leave?”
“No man, I mean they disappear, real quiet like. You don’t dare ask nothin’. I thought I was doin’ alright, ya know. Then one night I went up to tell ‘em the car was ready, and I overheard ‘em talkin’ on the phone. I heard some stuff I wasn’t supposed to and Inkman saw me. I acted dumb ‘course, and he played it like nothin’ was wrong, but the look he gave me went right through me. Man, it still gives me the creeps when I think about it. I knew it was gettin’ late, if you know what I mean. So I took off while I still could. Been hidin’ out ever since. He’s got ways a’ gettin’ to people, ya know.”
“So just what was it that you heard that was so important?”
“Beats me. All I know is that some VIP thing is happenin’ two days from now. Like Inkman’s version of the messiah is supposed to be comin’ or somethin’. The matredam, somethin’ like that.”
“Matriarch?”
“Yeah, that’s it, the matriarch. How’d you know about that?”
“Never mind, Mick. What else did you hear?”
“That’s it. He was carryin’ on about it bein’ a big, new deal or somethin’. I couldn’t make sense out‘a it. Oh yeah, he said it was happenin’ at the last place anyone would ever suspect so there was no way this ceremony thing could be interrupted. Hey, you guys got to get me in a good place, you know. Some place he can’t get at me. You got to do that, right?”
“No problem, Mick. Give us everything you know and we’ll take care of you.”
“Okay, there was one other thing. He was always mentionin’ someplace called S18. It had to do with the big deal. I never found out what it was. He used to drive himself sometimes. I always thought it was a locker at some bus stop or somethin’, you know, with big money in it maybe. It was a pick-up, drop-off place, but I swear I don’t know where. It had to do with the big deal they were cookin’ up. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
Markman glanced again at Rogers and was surprised to find her staring at the glass in wide-eyed delight. “My God, that’s it! You’ve made Inkman! You’ve solved the downing of your airplane and linked Inkman directly to the Sensesuit deaths!”
She looked back at him and summoned her composure. “It’s not enough. That punk’s word is all we’ve got. We’ll let Inkman run free and see where he leads us. There’s more to this, a lot more.”
“It sounds like you may not have long.”
“Two days?”
Markman nodded in agreement. “Two days.”
Fifty-nine miles west-northwest of the headquarters building, Cassiopia Cassell remained strapped in her vexatious chair. Her short denim dress and soft white blouse had been exchanged for a dark one-piece form-fitting body suit that made her look like an astronaut held prisoner. The glistening TEL robot stood alone in the center of the adjoining room; a black, brick-sized transmitter-receiver fastened to its reflective chest plate.
She winced but made no pro
test as the obtrusive, black helmet was lowered over her head. Her world became dark as she waited captively for whatever would come. She sat calmly and quietly, knowing her well-being depended solely on the abilities of a single TEL robot. A methodical clicking and hissing began as the helmet engaged itself to the suit. One brilliant sunrise later, Cassiopia found herself the first unwilling visitor to the wonderland called the Virtual.
Markman stared placidly out the tinted window of the agency’s taxi. His attempts to call Cassiopia had gone unanswered. Rogers rode quietly beside him. The overcast night had brought a heavy darkness to the city. The checkerboard lights of the high-rise buildings spotted the night sky, as the towers high above them flashed pointed warnings. Steam jets rose from the sewer drains along the street, creating neon-colored columns of evaporating haze. The clamor of jackhammers and steel had faded away.
Markman squeezed the illuminate button on his watch. Eleven thirty. Rogers looked at him with a soulful stare as the taxi pulled to a stop in an alley beside the Conn Building. Without speaking, he got out and withdrew the silver case from the front seat. With a last, reassuring look, he turned and disappeared into the shadows.
The fifth floor was deserted. His footprints from the last Sensesuit battle were still imprinted in the dust. Nervously, he suited up and waited until the last moment before slipping on the helmet. The clicking and snapping sounds told him he was sealed in once more. Moments later, the artificial dawn of the Aurora City returned.
Trill was waiting within the pyramid’s apex. Markman listened carefully to his new instructions. No page would be provided this time. A penalty period was programmed into the game. He took his place in the transport tube and a second later was standing by the glimmering electronic curtain that adjoined the snake pit. The long sword was there, standing on its point within the pit, its intricately carved handle jutting just above floor level. Quickly, he retrieved it and marched back through the curtain to the chamber of copper doors.
The skeleton was nowhere in sight. The center and left-hand doors remained fractured and open. The door on the right was still sealed. Markman went to it and thrust his blade deeply into the copper engravings. The door parted open at the center.
He stepped through the door into a maze of challenges. Corridors of arcing lightning struck explosively and set fires around him. Rivers of liquid mercury had to be forded to avoid collapsing ground. Faceless creatures struck at nearly every turn. Patches of darkness in the distance meant combat was conducted by touch and instinct alone.
Two hours into the quest, the land of the Virtual began to change. Markman cut his way through a curtain of blue light and emerged onto an endless desert. It looked so threatening and impassable he quickly turned to retreat but found the exit had disappeared. Around him, there remained only barren, sandy, wind-blown landscape. In every direction, wisps of sand skimmed the dry horizon. It reminded him of a similar place he had once become lost in with Cassiopia. He took a deep, hot breath and trudged ahead.
The granular, baked ground shifted and gave way under his feet as he walked, making him wonder how such a simulation was possible. The air was uncomfortably hot and growing worse by the minute. In the distance, only the low curves of wind-shaped dunes were visible. His tired body struggled to cool itself with sweat. He licked his dry lips and retreated to within himself, where neither heat nor cold existed, the place where there was only perfection and peace.
Miles into the crossing, he abruptly collided with something. He stepped back in astonishment. The wasteland remained empty and boundless. He reached out with one hand and found a transparent barrier. It was solid and continuous. Swishing through the arid sand, he moved along laterally, following the invisible wall with his fingers. He skirted it in a long, wide arc until something out of place finally caught his eye. In the distance, a door-like opening stood in the midst of the desert sand. Blue light and cool air seemed to be coming from it.
In the ever-increasing heat, he hurried to the opening and pulled himself through, dragging golden sand onto a smooth reflective floor as he went. His sweaty body became chilled by the cool air. He regained his composure and looked around, keeping the long sword held low, but ready.
The region of blue light became a wide, sunken arena. The floor consisted of great squares of varying shades of light and dark, forming a life-size chessboard. In place of a ceiling, there were stars dotting an inky black sky. Soft illumination came from beneath the floor and behind the high walls. There were no stairwells or balconies. No viewing area of any kind.
Markman continued to scan the perimeter and abruptly discovered he was not alone. Dread flushed through him. To his left, across the open floor in an alcove entrance, the worst of all nightmares stood gloating. The menacing skeleton that had driven him from his place in level one waited, swinging its familiar human bone-club, and clacking its teeth in anticipation.
Chapter 23