by Tom Holt
Cheers,
Bill.
It was well after 1 a.m. by the time he eventually found Room 9998. He eventually tracked it down at the far end of a long corridor leading from the laundry, a huge vaulted chamber crammed with vast, silent machines. The door was open and the light was on.
His first reaction was that he’d come home. It took him a moment to figure out why. Then he realised. He’d been in a very similar room before; in fact, he’d spent a great deal of time there. He hadn’t made the connection immediately because he’d never really noticed the room, only the stuff that was in it. Room 9998 was an almost exact replica of the static inversion chamber at the VVLHC complex; the place where the chain reaction had started, when he made his big mistake.
There were differences, of course. The static inversion chamber had been lined with a hundred and ninety centimetres’ thickness of lead panelling and had housed the impulse matrix and the muon wave generator, along with twelve billion dollars’ worth of computers and telemetry equipment. Room 9998, by contrast, was empty apart from a bed, a bedside table, an Ikea wardrobe, a single straight-backed wooden chair and a Corby trouser press. But the cathedral-high vaulted ceiling with the clear-glass observation cupola set in the exact centre were pretty much the same. The walls were bare plaster, but at regular intervals there were rows of plugged holes, where retaining bolts could once have held lead panels to the walls. There were also something like a thousand electric points set into the skirting; rather an extravagance for a room whose only electrical appliance was one table lamp, with a hundred-metre extension cable.
It made no sense, of course. But, in a cock-eyed sort of a way, it might explain why the corridor he’d just walked down was absolutely dead straight and lined with the same brand of ceramic tile that they’d used for the space shuttle project. And, of course, the projection range at the VVLHC.
Pieter’s friend, he thought, in a sudden flash of intuition. And a very good friend he must have been, to have given Pieter space in his hotel to build a private, entirely unofficial replica of the VVLHC; several orders of magnitude greater than the more usual can-I-dump-my-scuba-gear-in-your-garage sort of favour that passes for an act of friendship between ordinary mortals. Fine. Even so. Passing over the question of why anyone would feel the need to build a pirate hadron collider out back of a hotel; why, having built such a thing, would you then dismantle it, strip out all the gear and convert it into a bedroom?
A very good question, but not one he felt up to answering after a very long day. He kicked off his shoes, flopped on to the bed and reached for the light switch. He pressed it. The light came on.
Theo sighed, got off the bed and set off on the long, long walk to the doorway to turn off the overhead light. When he got there, however, there was no switch. He paused, frowned and looked up. It took him quite a while to scan the vast ceiling, and he got a crick in his neck from tilting his head back, but his search left him with some valuable but disturbing data. There was no overhead light.
Nor were there lights on the walls, or angled spots set into the floor. The only light bulb in the whole place was the one in the bedside lamp. The light, almost painfully bright, was coming from the walls. In other words, the room glowed in the dark.
Some time after 4 a.m., Theo finally got to sleep, in a semi-derelict bathroom on the third floor. He’d taken twelve consecutive baths, and only stopped there because he ran out of soap. At 5.16 he was woken by Call-me-Bill, standing over him with a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry.
“There you are,” he said. “We were worried. You weren’t in your room.”
Theo scowled at him. “That room,” he said, “is radioactive.”
“A bit,” Call-me-Bill said. “Nothing to worry about, though. Don’t you like it?”
“I just said, it’s radio—”
“Apart from that.”
Theo took a deep breath, then let it go. “I quit,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m resigning. I don’t want this job any more. I’m a tad fussy about my ambient radiation levels and I can’t stand the weirdness. Sorry.”
Call-me-Bill looked puzzled. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“No, seriously,” Call-me-Bill said, “you can’t leave. Look. This’ll explain.”
From his coat pocket he produced a newspaper, rolled up tight into a tube. He flattened it out and pointed to a short column of text under a photograph of a scary-looking grinning lunatic. The headline read, Police Seek Suspect in Van Goyen Murder Hunt. The photo was an old one – Theo giving a press conference, the day before the VVLHC went online – but instantly recognisable.
“So you see,” Call-me-Bill went on, “if you set foot outside the hotel grounds, you’ll be arrested. It was on the TV news and the radio as well. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have come up with a better photo. This one makes you look like you’ve just stuck your fingers in a light socket.” He gently tugged the newspaper out of Theo’s hand, folded it and put it back in his pocket. “It’ll all blow over soon enough,” he went on reassuringly, “but till it does, you really ought to stay here, where you’re safe. I did promise Pieter I’d look after you.”
Theo opened his mouth, but it was as though someone had pressed the Mute button. Call-me-Bill smiled at him and gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “We’ll keep you off the desk for a bit, though, just in case. Don’t suppose you’ll mind that, you’ve been pulling some pretty long shifts recently. Tell you what, why don’t you give Mattie a hand sorting the linen? I can keep an eye on the desk, it’s not like we’re rushed off our feet right now.”
Theo glanced sideways at him. “That’s not what you said a few days ago.”
“Ah, well, the rush is over now, for a bit. Gives us all a chance to catch our breath.”
“What rush?”
“Good man.” Call-me-Bill beamed at him. “And if you really hate 9998, we can swap.”
“Sorry?”
“Swap,” Call-me-Bill repeated. “I’ll bunk down in 9998 and you can have my room. If you don’t mind mucking in with all my junk, I mean. Not ideal, I grant you, but we’re a bit pushed for space right now.”
“Pushed for space? We’ve got two guests.”
“Splendid.” Call-me-Bill nodded decisively. “So, if you make your way down to the laundry room, I’ll tell Mattie you’ll be giving her a hand. No rush.”
The laundry was a bit closer to the Room That Glowed than he’d have liked, and the grim, monolithic cast-iron-and-brass machines that stood silently in the corners gave him the creeps, although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what they were or what they did. He found Matasuntha standing in front of an enormous floor-to-ceiling cupboard. The door was open, and a ladder was leaning against one of the countless shelves.
“What kept you?” she said.
He’d come straight from his bathroom. “Sorry,” he replied. “Look—”
“You can start,” she said, “by getting down all the stuff from the shelves and putting it on the floor in neat piles so I can go through it all.”
Every shelf – he lost count after thirty – was laden down with folded towels, sheets, pillowcases, eiderdowns, curtains. There was enough fabric in that cupboard to make a loose cover for the Sun. “All of it?”
“All of it. Come on, don’t just stand there like a pudding. Get on with it.”
He hadn’t actually seen the main reactor of the VVLHC overload, but he had an idea of what it must’ve been like. A bit like the indescribable build-up of pressure inside him when Matasuntha made her last remark. Fortunately, he knew about pressure. You can ignore it until it bursts and trashes mountains, or you can channel it into doing useful work. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll make a start, then.”
“About time.”
The top shelf was so far off the ground he could feel distinct symptoms of oxygen deprivation as he pulled
out a crowded armful of blankets. He fought it, however, and clambered slowly back down the ladder. Matasuntha was writing something on a clipboard, with her back to him. He hesitated. He’d never deliberately attacked anyone in his life (YouSpace didn’t count) and the last time he’d been in a fight, he’d been eight, and he’d lost. On the other hand, he felt that he’d exhausted all the usual diplomatic channels, and there simply wasn’t time to get a UN resolution through the Security Council. Besides which, Russia would probably veto it. They usually did.
So, instead, he grabbed the nearest sheet, swung it through the air, like a Roman gladiator casting his net, and threw it as precisely as he could over Matasuntha’s head. For a split second it floated, parachute-fashion; then it dropped, like a bursting bubble.
Matasuntha squealed like a pig and lashed out frantically with her arms. Theo was just wishing he hadn’t embarked on this venture when suddenly the sheet collapsed and fell, quite empty, to the floor. Theo grabbed at it but he wasn’t quick enough. Then something hit him on the back of the head, and the world went offline for a while.
When normal service was resumed, he found himself lying on the floor, face downwards, with his nose in a sheet. For a moment or so he simply couldn’t think how he could possibly have got there. Then his aching head filled up with memories and he twisted himself over on to his back and looked up.
Matasuntha was standing over him, holding an ironing board. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” she yelled.
His head was swimming. “You hit me.”
“You chucked a sheet over my head.”
“You vanished.”
Slowly, she lowered the ironing board. “Yes, well. What was I supposed to do? You attacked me.”
“One moment you were there, the next—”
“Yes, all right. Oh, get up off the floor, for pity’s sake. I can’t hold a civilised conversation if you’re going to lie there all day.”
He stood up. About halfway, a great wave of pain surged through his head and crashed against the back of his eyes, making him whimper. “Serves you right,” Matasuntha said. “You scared the life out of me.”
But not, apparently, for very long. “All right, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, leaning hard against the cupboard door. “If I’d known you were going to dematerialise, I wouldn’t have done it.”
At that point, his knees gave way, and he slithered down the door and sat heavily on the floor, jarring his spine. All in all, he decided, he wasn’t cut out to be an action hero. Apparently she thought so too; she clicked her tongue and said, “Just sit still for a minute or so, you’ll be fine. Try and keep your head still, and if you throw up on my nice clean towels I’ll stove your head in. All right?”
He nodded. The great surge of energy brought on by terror, confusion and frustration had all been used up in the failed attack. Now all he wanted to do was sit very still and quiet for the rest of his life, doing exactly what he was told and not getting hit with ironing boards.
“Out of interest,” Matasuntha said, “why did you try and strangle me with a sheet?”
“I wasn’t trying to strangle you,” he said sadly. “I just want some answers, that’s all.”
“Answers?”
“Mphm.”
She sighed. “Here’s a tip for you. If you want answers, there’s these things called questions. You ask them. It’s the recognised procedure.”
“Yes, but—” He couldn’t find the energy to complete the sentence. “I said I’m sorry.”
She was looking at him. “You reckoned,” she said, “that the only way to get a straight answer out of someone around here was threats of physical violence.”
“Something like that.”
“Well.” She sat down next to him on the floor. “I have days like that,” she said. “It’s when people keep giving you bizarre things to do and making completely arbitrary decisions that affect you directly, and when you ask for a reason they pretend they haven’t heard you. I think that’s called management. You get it in a lot of businesses, including,” she added, “the hotel trade.”
He nodded. “But we’re not in the hotel trade, are we?”
She was perfectly still for a moment. Then she said, “No.”
Once, many years ago when he was a kid, he bet his friend he could hold his breath for ninety seconds. He could remember the feeling of relief when he gave up on eighty-three seconds and breathed in. That was nothing compared to this. “Not the hotel trade.”
“No. It’s just a cover.”
He took a deep breath, savoured it and let it go slowly. “What for?”
She was looking straight ahead. “You knew Pieter van Goyen.”
“Oh yes.”
“Fine. Well, Bill and me, we were his business partners.”
“YouSpace?”
“I what?”
“Sorry,” Theo said. “Ignore me. What business were you partners in?”
She frowned. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. It was something scientific and technical, and it was going to make us all very, very rich, but it was a bit against the law.”
“A bit.”
“Yup. Actually, that was your fault.”
“Most things are, apparently. What did I do?”
She grinned at him. “Need you ask?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yes.” She pursed her lips. “Apparently, after your fifteen minutes of universal fame they brought in a worldwide ban on whatever it was you were doing. In case any more mountains got blown up, I guess. Which was a total bummer as far as we were concerned, because Bill and I had invested rather a lot of money in the thing Pieter was doing – building this place, for a start – and suddenly it looked like it was all about to go down the toilet.“
“Hang on,” Theo said. “You built a copy of the VV—”
“Not an exact copy,” Matasuntha replied. “More a sort of tribute to it, if you get my meaning.”
“Tribute?”
“We took the ideas we wanted and didn’t pay anybody any money for them. That’s one of the reasons we had to keep it quiet. Also, this international ban thing, after your little accident. Anyhow, it was all coming along quite well, and then Pieter went and died on us, and now we’re screwed. He hadn’t finished doing the mathsy stuff, you see.”
Theo nodded slowly. “So you needed me?”
Matasuntha laughed. “Oh, that was Pieter’s idea. He said, if anything happened to him – and it was a distinct possibility, because this thing we’re doing can be a bit unsafe—”
“As well as a bit illegal.”
“A bit, yes. Anyhow, Pieter said, if anything happens to me, get a hold of Theo Bernstein, he’s a total flake but a bit brilliant. Actually, I think it was some stuff you did that we were paying tribute to.” She gave him a sweet smile, then went on, “Of course, once you’d trashed the big Swiss thing, obviously nobody was going to give you a job selling matches in the street. So Pieter set it up for you to come here if anything happened to him, and then we’d sort of trick you into finishing the mathsy stuff. I’m really not supposed to tell you that,” she added. “Bill’ll be livid if he finds out. But what the hell,” she said, flicking her hair away from her face with intent to cause irrelevant thoughts. “I figure, if we carry on pissing you off like we’ve been doing, you’ll up and leave anyhow, and then we’ll really be screwed. Bill’s my uncle, by the way, in case you were wondering.”
He hadn’t been, but now she mentioned it – no, definitely not. He waved his visible hand towards the huge machines in the corner. “So all this junk—”
“Isn’t for doing the laundry with, no. Again, you’d have to ask Uncle Bill about it, and probably he wouldn’t know, because Pieter saw to all that. What Uncle Bill mostly did was write cheques. He’s got really good at doing that.”
“And Room 9998?”
She pulled a sad face. “That was where it was all set up,” she said. “Of course, when Pieter died we closed it down, stri
pped out all the gear and crated it up in these enormous lead-lined boxes. It’s all stored in some warehouse right now, until we can get it back up and running. But we had to switch it off, because it was leaking a bit.”
He glared at her. “A bit.”
“More than a little but less than a lot. Uncle Bill’s got a little gadget, if the leak gets too bad it makes this squeaking noise. It’s fine now.”
Theo felt slightly reassured; as a passenger in a plane spinning out of control towards the ground might feel on fastening his seat belt. “A Geiger counter.”
“Whatever. Uncle Bill would know. Anyhow,” she went on, “that’s all there is to it, really. Mr Nordstrom and Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz are sort of the financial side of things. We had to bring them in when our cash flow got a tad constipated. You don’t have to worry about them, they’re basically no bother. Nordstrom was in business with Uncle, and Mrs D-W’s a sort of cousin.”
Theo nodded slowly. “And the vanishing?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just now. You vanished.”
“Ah.” She blushed slightly. “I can do that. God only knows how, we certainly don’t. Pieter thought it was maybe something to do with the same effect that did that to your arm, but if you ask me he was just guessing. It’s useful sometimes, when I can control it. But it can be a pain as well. Tends to happen at moments of heightened emotion.” She looked down at her hands. “It makes it hard for me to keep a steady boyfriend, among other things. But what the hell.”
Theo thought for a moment, but thinking was like wading through piranha-infested porridge. “Are the police really after me?”
“ ‘Fraid so,” she replied. “For which, I have to say, you’ve got Uncle Bill to thank. His bright idea for keeping you from wandering off. I’ll talk to him about it,” she added, “because I think it’s a bit mean, framing someone for murder. He doesn’t usually do stuff like that, but he’s been under a lot of pressure since Pieter died, what with all the money and everything.”
She made it sound like he’d borrowed a lawn mower and brought it back with one of the little plastic knobs broken off. “Where on earth did he get that much money, anyhow?”