Paradigm

by Helen Stringer

  Until that night in the clearing.

  It had been Mutha guiding the attackers. He knew the voice too well to doubt it. But why was it looking for him? If it hadn’t been for the loud com-link, he’d have thought they were just opportunistic scavengers. But they weren’t.

  He turned onto his side and stared at the wall. A few moments later he felt something wet on his face. He reached up and wiped it away, but more came. Tears without crying, pouring down his face as if he had suddenly sprung a leak. He hadn’t cried for years. He wouldn’t allow himself. Once both his parents were gone, he couldn’t let anyone see any sign of weakness or emotion.

  But they were there now, streaming silently down his face.

  Because he knew. Suddenly he knew.

  There was no com-link.

  And the buzzing wasn’t just the precursor to a headache. It was exactly what it sounded like—whispering.

  “Did you hear any voices?”

  His dad had known. He’d expected it to come with Sam’s headache in Chicago all those years ago, but it had waited like a time bomb in his head. Waited for that moment in the dark under the ironwood trees.

  Sam lay still, wondering why it had taken him so long to put two and two together. Why he’d persisted in telling himself it was just a precursor of the headaches.

  He rolled onto his back and examined the smooth grey ceiling. There was a spider in one corner, industriously bundling up its most recent kill, saving the juicy bits for later.

  Voices were bad. Even if it wasn’t Mutha, voices were still bad. He’d read plenty of books where people heard voices in their heads and the outcome was never good. Usually it meant heavy medication for the rest of their lives, or worse: incarceration in some kind of mental institution. There weren’t many of them left now, but those that still existed could give the Victorians a run for their money.

  Was that why his dad had given him the green pills? He’d told Sam they were for the headaches, but maybe they were more than that. Some kind of medication to delay the psychosis he knew would strike his son. Did it run in the family? Was that why he’d asked about it in Chicago? Or was it all something to do with that “locule” stuff Drake had mentioned? Sam had never heard the word before, but the old man had expected him to know all about it. A thing within a thing within a thing.

  He turned on his side again, wishing that they’d just come and get him. Get it over with. He needed to get out of his head and face something concrete, like Carolyn Bast and whatever she meant by “dinner party.”

  The minutes ticked by. He got up and listened at the cell door for any sign of life, but it was as if he was the only person left on the planet. No stomping boots, no barked orders, nothing.

  He sat on the bed again and his thoughts wandered to Nathan. Vincent had implied that he had once been a Rover, but what was the big deal about that? Granted, he hadn’t known Nathan all that long and most people in the Wilds had something in their pasts they’d rather forget, but that didn’t explain his naked terror at the mere sight of the travelers. Sam couldn’t help feeling sorry for them—cursed with the lifespan of mayflies through no fault of their own. Perhaps their methods of survival were a bit morally dubious, but he found it difficult to condemn them for that. Dead by eighteen. The life expectancy of a cat.

  He lay down and closed his eyes. He really wanted to sleep, but it was no good. His brain still galloped along, the endless questions punctuated by the image of Alma, her black hair around her shoulders and that smile, the real smile, on her face.

  It was a relief when the cell door finally scraped open and Levitt and Cranby stepped inside.

  “It’s time,” grunted Cranby. “Stand up.”

  Sam hauled himself to his feet, picked up his coat and started rummaged through the pockets.

  “Now!” barked Levitt.

  “I’m just…she said to make sure I was…” his voice trailed off as he found his vest, put it on, and fastened the watch in place before shrugging on the big coat.

  “Quit goofing around!” yelled Cranby, grabbing him by the arm and half-flinging him toward the door.

  Sam steadied himself, then fell in between the two guards as Cranby led the way along the corridor to an elevator. They shoved Sam inside, reached in and hit a button.

  “There’ll be someone else waiting up above. And don’t get any smart ideas—it’s an express.”

  The doors whispered shut and the elevator ascended about two stories, by Sam’s calculation, before the doors slid open again revealing yet another armed man-mountain. Sam couldn’t help wondering where Bast found these guys. That kind of bulk generally required a lot of food and some serious steroids, neither of which were easy to come by any more.

  The man reached into the elevator and heaved Sam out.

  “Jeeze!” complained Sam as he stumbled into the opposite wall. “What is with you guys and the shoving?”

  “Shut up,” snarled the mountain, giving Sam another push. “This way.”

  They marched along the gently curving corridor in silence, but hadn’t gone far before the mountain’s com-line buzzed.

  “MacLaine here,” he said. “What?...I’m escorting a prisoner…Can’t someone else …No, sir! … Yes, sir! Right away, sir!”

  He clicked off and pushed Sam forward again.

  “Bad day at the office?” said Sam, smirking.

  “Hey, you!” barked the mountain.

  A shadow seemed to detach itself from the wall and turn around. Sam tried to stop the grin that was trying to take over his face.

  “What?” said Alma, her face a mask.

  “Take this prisoner to Bast. They want me in interrogation.”

  “I don’t do pick-up and delivery.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No.”

  “Aw, c’mon. Henderson’ll drill me a new one if I don’t get down there. Seriously… I’ll give you my meat ration.”

  Alma stared at him for a moment.

  “All of it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Deal.”

  The mountain nodded his thanks and took off at a trot in the opposite direction. Alma grabbed Sam and gave him the approved company shove along the corridor.

  “Move it!” she growled.

  Sam waited until he could no longer hear the clod-hopping steps of the mountain, then spun around, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Hello, again,” he said. “I assume the message was you.”

  “Shut up and listen,” whispered Alma, moving in close. “I’ve been talking to the kitchen staff. The drinks are okay, so is most of the food.”

  “Most? Wait…it really is a dinner?”

  “Yes. Steer clear of the fish. Apparently she has it shipped in from some lake up north.”

  “Tahoe?”

  “You know about it?”

  “I’ve heard. The fish are toxic.”

  “According to the chef some people like it. The dinner’s in there,” she said, nodding towards a grey door at the end of the corridor. “Catch you later.”

  Sam waited until she had gone, then turned and looked at the door. Every instinct told him to turn and run, but he knew it would be pointless. He reached forward, pushed the door open, stepped inside…and stopped.

  Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t this. It was an actual old fashioned dining room, with a beautifully set table, elegant chairs, candles, and even a floral table center. There was a sideboard on the left side of the room, laden with silverware and a large covered tureen, while on the right was a long bar groaning under the weight of every kind of liquor, liqueur and cordial imaginable.

  A man in a dark suit and bow tie appeared at Sam’s side.

  “Commander Bast’s apologies, sir, but she is momentarily detained. She asked that you get a drink and join the other guests on the balcony. May I take your coat?”

  Sam hadn’t even noticed the balcony, but there it was—through a set of leaded glass double doors at the end of the room. He s
hifted his pill box to another pocket and handed his greatcoat to the obsequious man, then got a glass of water from an equally deferential bartender and meandered across the room and outside.

  Only it wasn’t outside, and it wasn’t so much a balcony as a cantilevered room. Like the dining room, it had an opulence that belied its location: marble facings, a sinuous wrought iron table, decorative cabinets, chairs, and a small green sofa. All perched high above some kind of office area.

  Setzen was there, along with an overly touchy-feely woman and four other people he had never seen before. Other than Setzen, the people appeared to be civilians, and quite wealthy ones at that, if their clothes were anything to go by. None of them paid any attention to Sam, much to his relief. He had no experience of any kind of formal gathering, but had read enough to know that some kind of small talk would be required and he really didn’t feel up to the task. He leaned over the balcony and peered down, then wished he hadn’t.

  The space was almost completely occupied by people sitting at, or huddled around, desks and tables of every size and shape. At first sight, it looked as if there was no technology in the room, but the sudden, searing pain and unmistakable screaming voices in his head told Sam that each of them was connected with the others and with every operation that Carolyn Bast was running all over the world. For a moment he was frozen, and it took a supreme effort to step back, gasping, his hand instinctively reaching for the pill box in his pocket. He looked up. Setzen smiled and nodded a greeting, then turned his attention back to the other guests.

  Sam sat down on the green couch, took the pill and waited for the cacophony in his head to subside to the familiar muffled buzz.

  There was no mistaking it this time. Those were definitely voices. Not Mutha’s voice, but the voices of all the people who were using it. Did that make it worse or better? Should he try to hear what they were saying? Or would actually listening to the voices be a spectacularly bad idea?

  He was still sitting on the balcony when Carolyn Bast finally joined her guests, breezing into the dining room in a diaphanous green dress that seemed to float around her body rather than actually touch it. The effect was very feminine and totally incongruous.

  The other guests had moved into the dining room as their hostess welcomed each in turn, chatting and laughing as if she were a pre-collapse suburban housewife and they were her closest friends in the world. Sam felt sick and was wondering if there was any way he could get out of this and go back to his cell, when he noticed Setzen whispering something to his boss. They both glanced over at him and Carolyn Bast nodded slightly before joining Sam out on the balcony.

  “What are you doing here?” she cooed, her voice all solicitous concern.

  “Nothing,” he mumbled, unsure of how to respond.

  “Well, come inside. There’s nothing out here but a boring view of a lot of boring people.”

  Sam stood up and allowed himself to be propelled into the candle-lit dining room. As soon as he was inside, the balcony door closed and floor-length bronze-colored curtains swept across the entire wall, completing the illusion of a dining room in some grand country house rather than in a faceless office building in a grim city state.

  The candles flickered against the silver and rare porcelain, and softened the faces of the guests as they stood, drinks in hand, talking softly. Sam glanced at Setzen, now deep in conversation with the clingy woman, and couldn’t help but notice that all the candles in the world couldn’t do much for his stark demeanor, any more than Carolyn Bast’s dress and attitude disguised the psychopath beneath.

  “You look quite presentable,” she said, smiling. “Well done. The watch is a particularly nice touch.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam, his voice barely above a whisper. He felt like a small animal in a trap, hopeful of escape but resigned to the inevitable grisly end.

  “And what is your name?”

  “Sam. Sam Cooper.”

  “Well, Sam, come and meet some people,” she said, looping her arm into his as if they’d known each other for years. “I believe you’ve met Major Setzen, one of my best operatives.”

  “You flatter me, Commander,” he growled.

  “Not at all. Oh, and this is Mrs. Longford, the wife of Century City’s esteemed mayor.”

  “The mayor?”

  Sam was unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. The way she had been behaving around Setzen, it hadn’t occurred to him that she could be married.

  “Yes,” she simpered. “But please call me Phyllida, everyone does.”

  Sam managed a smile as Carolyn Bast led him away and over to the next two guests. The first was an overweight man with a lazy eye and a bulbous nose who she introduced as Hector Stone. He shook Sam’s hand with an unpleasantly sweaty paw.

  “Pleased to meet you, son,” he gurgled. “What’s your line? I’m in oil myself.”

  “Plenty of time for chat later, Hector,” said Carolyn Bast, smiling. “I’m just making sure Sam here gets to meet everyone. Sam, this is Ida Caxton, she’s a reporter.”

  “A reporter?” said Sam, surprised. “But the mayor told me there weren’t any. He said there were no newspapers or anything.”

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” said Ida Caxton, in a voice that rasped like some of the louder birds in the Wilds. “The fact is—”

  “Later, my dear.”

  Bast steered Sam away and over to the last couple.

  The woman was slim and elegant and dripping with jewels but seemed on edge. Sam could relate to the feeling, but wondered what brought it on in her case—he was fairly sure she hadn’t tried to steal anything. Then he noticed the way Carolyn Bast was looking at her husband. It was the same expression a cat has when it has located a nest crowded with baby birds on the day that the chicks have to learn to fly.

  “Dustin,” she said, her voice silky and deep. “This is Sam Cooper. Sam, this is Dustin Farmer, he owns three banks here in Century City. And this is Tiffany, his wife. You look lovely, my dear. Most people can’t wear quite so many diamonds and make it work.”

  The lovely Tiffany smiled thinly and moved to link an arm with her husband, which he deftly avoided by stepping forward to shake Sam’s hand. Carolyn Bast then abandoned Sam for the attentions of the banker, strolling to the far side of the room with him and speaking urgently.

  Tiffany sighed and looked Sam up and down.

  “You’re very young,” she said, her voice languid as if nothing was really a surprise any more. “Come on, let’s get you a proper drink.”

  “It’s okay, I have a—”

  “A proper drink. You’re going to need it.”

  “Why?” said Sam, following her to the bar, his stomach lurching. “What’s going to happen?”

  Tiffany glanced back at him and smiled.

  “You needn’t look like that,” she said. “She may be something of a maneater but she doesn’t actually eat them. At least, I don’t think she does.”

  She handed Sam a dark brown drink in a heavy-bottomed glass and looked over to where her husband was still deep in conversation with their host.

  “It might be nice if she did, though,” she muttered, downing her own drink in one go and getting another.

  “So why do you think I need a drink?”

  “Because you’re embarking on the most tedious night of your life. If it wasn’t for the fish course, I’d have begged off. Had a convenient headache or something.”

  “But I’d heard the fish was…not good.”

  “I don’t know who told you that. Bast has them flown in specially. Sends a helicopter up there or something. You’ll never get it fresher…unless you go up and haul it out yourself, of course. But you’d have to be mad to try that.”

  “Why?”

  “Lord!” Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Where’ve you been living? It’s big business. The kind of big business that doesn’t like competition.”

  “Or witnesses.”

  Sam spun around. Ida Caxton was standing b
ehind him, helping herself to another martini from the bar.

  “Witnesses?”

  “Yeah. Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing. That’s the least of it, though. What happened to the local people may have been an accident to start with, but it ended up getting a whole lot worse. I did an expose on Tahoe while I was with the Reno Tribune. Didn’t get published, of course.”

  “So what happened to them?”

  “The leak from the research lab turned the water toxic back before the second collapse, as far as anyone can reckon. But the poor saps had been drinking it for years before Hermes Industries decided that maybe they should ‘fess up about it. That was right before the third collapse, when we still had some kind of a national government. Kicked up a hell of a stink. People were dying and the kids were lucky if they made it to fifteen without developing some terminal disease or other.”

  “Wait…if it all happened before the third collapse, what was your expose about?”

  “Drug trafficking. Everybody wanted the little fishies, y’see. The locals made quite a good living, but it was only a matter of time before the cartels moved in. Next thing the locals are gone, wandering around like the lost tribes.”

  “The Rovers.”

  “Yeah. The cartels fought amongst themselves for a while before forming a syndicate and settling down to rake in the cash. The paper wouldn’t publish. Too scared, I guess. Can’t really blame ‘em.”

  She meandered off to speak to Bast and the banker, leaving Tiffany to take another slug of her drink and snort disdainfully. Sam noticed that the more she drank the less attractive she looked—her studied poise and manner slowly disappearing.

  “Did you see that? The way she just walked away?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Everyone does that. They all want to talk to the rich guy. Well, she’s got a surprise coming.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “She’s working on some kind of story about Dustin’s banks and the Bast woman’s company. She thinks they don’t know.”

  “But they do. So?”

  “You’re not drinking.”

  Sam smiled and took a sip. The stuff was sweet like syrup but packed a wallop at the back end that left him gasping. Tiffany looked pleased.