“Let me see,” Fred said, doing a quick calculation. “Corrine would be three wives ago. Right now I’m married to an evangeline named Mary Skarland.”
“An evangeline. What a charming name. I don’t believe I’ve met one of these evangelines.”
“They’re rather recent and somewhat rare,” Fred said.
“Is she here, Fred?”
“No, Myr Harger. She’s at home. I’m here on duty. Anyway, when I saw that you were here, I wanted to say hello. Also to offer my condolences for your loss.”
Samson blinked. “Henry, have I lost something?”
“I am Belt Hubert,” replied the chair, “a fraction of my former self, and Officer Londenstane is probably referring to the tragic death of your ex-wife Eleanor Starke two days ago.”
The news hit the ancient man like a train. He gulped and choked and pushed himself into a half-sitting position. “Hubert, take me to Roosevelt Clinic immediately.”
The chair’s motors revved up, and its brakes unlocked, but the girl jumped in front of it and said in a very adult tone, “Stop!”
“Kitty, is that you?”
“Yes, Sam, I’m here.”
Samson reached out over the side of the basket, and Kitty took his hand.
“Kitty, I must go. My daughter needs me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ellen, my daughter. She survived the crash. I must go be with her.”
This is where I came in, Fred thought and backed away. Outside the holo cordon he paused to sniff his hand. It stank.
BOGDAN FOLLOWS A rubberband to Troy Tobbler. If the Tobb boy happened to turn around, he’d see it stretched out on the floor behind him and either cancel it or follow it back to me.
It vibrates faster the closer we get to each other. I race along it, and it leads me to the open doors of a grand ballroom where I am stunned by a ghastly sight—the Rondy Nursery—hundreds of kids and thousands of grown-ups rubbing their heads.
Bogdan is a graduate of the Rondy Nursery, magna cum laude, having spent his first nine Rondies in them. And though that was twenty years ago, his impulse is to turn around and flee. But he spots the Beadlemyren, the two ghouls from dinner last night, standing next to the lily pond with—Bogdan discovers—Tobbler Houseer Dieter, who is handing them a toddler dressed in a bright orange-green-brown playsuit—a Tobbler toddler! The Beadlemyren attempt to bounce it, and when it begins to cry, they bounce it harder and make goo-goo faces; when it starts to shriek, they give it back to Dieter.
I weave through the crowd following my rubberband until it vibrates so fast it rumbles, and I spot him, Troy Tobbler, heading straight for the Beadlemyren. His mouth falls open and the tongue in his head begins to wag. I sprint to cut him off. The humming rubberband goes pop when we collide.
Whoa! The feck! Goldie!
Listen very carefully, Tobb. I want you to keep your big mouth shut about Hubert!
It’s enough to make him think, but only for a moment. He shoves me in the shoulder and says, Make me, Kodiak!
But I don’t shove him back. I can’t make you do anything, Troy, but there’s one thing you should think about before you say anything. If this micromine merger of ours falls through, then we won’t be leaving Chicago and we’ll be your neighbors forever.
That gets his attention. Even a boy can see the logic in it. So I crank it up a notch. Or even better, your charter will merge with them and you’ll be the ones going to Wyoming. You, Troy Tobbler, the microminer. Is that what you want?
That does the trick. I can see a parade of horrors passing through his brain. So why don’t you give the whole Hubert thing a rest and keep your fecking mouth shut.
Something in my tone? He looks suddenly defensive and says, You’re not my boss.
I know I’m not your boss, and you don’t have to listen to me, only think about what I said.
Losers, he roars and shoves past me. I grab his arm but the ceiling lights swing by in a swoosh and BAM! I’m flat on my back, all breath driven from my lungs.
He stands over me and says, Don’t never touch me, Goldie.
To the left and right of us, kids are being snatched up by vigilant adults. I swivel on my back and sweep his feet from under him with my leg. He goes down but not hard and not for long and in a flash his boot sweeps across my vision and explodes in a red ball behind my nose. Hot blood is gushing from my nose.
Legs all around, adults making a pen with their bodies. I try to stand up but get all woozy and have to fall down again and sit in my own blood. And if that’s not humbling enough I lean over and add a layer of triple mondo choco-fudgy puke.
Oh, hell, says a tugger who presses a thick wad of field dressing against my face. His partner looks down at me and says, MC, we need a medic and a mop. Tuggers are big feckers, especially when you’re on the floor. Troy tries to sneak away but they grab him. Looks like you boys need some time in the penalty box.
Not the Tobbler, not the Tobbler, Dieter is shouting from outside the circle. The Kodiak started it. Punish him.
Just then another officer shows up, not a tugger—a pike!
Pike yells at everyone, Break it up, break it up. The TUGs tell him, We’ve got the situation in hand, officer, but he yells at them to feck off.
It’s handled, officer. No need to butt in now.
The pike whips out his wand and snaps it open. The TUGs back off and give him plenty of floor. Dieter backs off too, and the Beadlemyren have eyes round like saucers.
The pike spins me around and glues my wrists together. Leave them alone! roars the room. Don’t touch them! roar the TUGs. Troy tries to sneak away again and the pike snicks him on the butt with his wand. Just a little snick but it must be cranked up all the way because Troy falls down and flops around like a fish. Everyone is screaming genocide and I’m screaming too.
Just then another officer, a belinda, shows up and orders the pike to halt. She keeps the crowd back and shouts, Stand down, Rudy, that’s an order. But the pike twists Troy’s arm behind his back and glues it way up high to his opposite shoulder. Then he lifts him up by the arm and Troy is all crazy-eyed.
Then another officer shows up, a russ who doesn’t shout but speaks in a calm voice, Officer Pells, let the boy down. The pike has to think about it. Officer Pells, I’m ordering you to release that boy at once.
Yes! Sir! The pike bounces Troy once by his arm and there’s a sharp crack. Then he drops him on the floor.
They disarm the pike and take him away. The russ unglues us, and a medic attends to Troy’s arm. The russ says, That’s quite a nose you have there, son. Then he notices my colors and he sniffs me and says, Another Kodiak?
Thursday
3.10
At the Roosevelt Clinic, the lights were low in Feldspar Cottage. The silent scent clock marked the passage of time: lavender, mushroom brie, the sea. There had been no medical rounds since midnight, and the night evangelines were slowly succumbing to the seduction of sleep. Only the skull’s eyes were wide open, but cloudy and dull.
Cyndee yawned and whispered, “I’m going for coffee. Want some?” In the chair next to her, Ronnie shook her head. Cyndee stood up and stretched her arms over her head. When she glanced at the daybed, the Ellen jacket’s feet were twitching. “Myr Starke?” Cyndee said. She reached to touch her shoulder, forgetting it was a jacket. “Ronnie, get the vurt gloves!”
Ronnie was already out of her chair. She dashed to the table and fumbled for gloves in the dark. Suddenly all the cottage lights came on, the door swung open, and Concierge strode in with a procession of physicians, Jennys, medtechs, and carts. They surrounded the tank and set frantically to work. Wee Hunk appeared too, in a tiger-striped bathrobe. He glanced at the tank but joined the evangelines at the daybed.
“Hello, Ellen,” he said to the jacket. “It’s me, Wee Hunk.”
The Ellen jacket’s only response was to arch its back and stretch its face in a grimace of pure, uncut anguish.
NOISE AND
BRIGHT light woke him up. Meewee rubbed his eyes and struggled to remember where he was.
“This is happening live at the clinic,” a voice said. Meewee sat up in bed and swung his feet to the cold concrete floor. There was a large diorama of the cottage interior in the middle of his bunker bedroom, and Wee Hunk appeared both within and beside it. Inside the cottage, a throng of medical staff surrounded the tank, while nearby, the Ellen jacket was frozen in a rigid pose.
“What’s happening?”
“The doctors are uncertain,” Wee Hunk said, “but it would appear that the neurological dynamics within Ellen’s brain have shifted catastrophically.”
“What does that mean?” It was chilly in the bunker. Meewee felt around with his feet for his slippers, and he draped blankets over his shoulders.
“It would appear that Ellen’s awareness is trapped in an endless moment of terror.”
“My God! Can they stop it?”
“They’re attempting to, even as we watch.”
Inside the scape, Concierge left the group at the tank and joined Wee Hunk and the evangelines at the daybed. He looked down at the jacket and shook his head.
“What’s he saying?” Meewee said.
The diorama zoomed to the daybed and the audio shifted to Concierge. “—cafeteria lounge. I’ll summon you when it’s all right to return.”
The evangelines looked doubtful. Ronnie said, “Our instructions are to remain here.” She glanced at Wee Hunk for confirmation, but he merely watched her.
Concierge also appraised Wee Hunk’s lack of reaction, and he continued. “That may be so, Myr Ryder, but inside the clinic, I have the final say. Now run along.”
The evanglines glanced nervously at each other. In the bunker, Meewee said, “Aren’t you going to back them up?”
“I’ll step in if I have to, but I want to see how they react. After all, how do they know that that’s really me standing there? Besides, I’m willing to bet that these evangelines won’t need me. Would you like odds?”
“Go along now,” Concierge said dismissively. Behind him the doctors were shouting orders, and the control unit displayed a large pulsing brain.
The evangelines went to the door but stopped before exiting and turned around. Cyndee said, “I’m calling for arbitration. Nick?”
Nicholas, the Applied People mentar, appeared suddenly in the cottage as a dashing young man in formal evening clothes. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a silk serviette and said, “I’m afraid Concierge is acting within its rights. Although your client has ordered you to remain in the cottage with those silly hats, in point of law such orders have no force. Like a captain of a ship at sea, Concierge is the final arbiter here, and so I am authorizing you to disobey your client’s orders. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m at dinner with Strombly Mahousa.” He vanished.
Meewee said, “Is that true? Concierge has such authority?”
Wee Hunk replied, “It’s a gray area. I can’t find enough case law to say definitively one way or the other. But that wasn’t Nick, only a clever forgery. This is Concierge’s simiverse, don’t forget.”
Not Nick? But it had looked and acted just like Zoranna’s mentar that Meewee knew so well. The thought occurred to him to challenge Wee Hunk’s identity.
In the cottage, the evangelines looked into each other’s frightened faces as into a mirror. They returned to the daybed and Cyndee said, “We refuse to leave.”
“Stay then,” Concierge said and returned to the tank.
The Wee Hunk in the diorama smiled at the evangelines then and said, “Well done, companions.”
Meewee said, “Why did Concierge do that? He knew you were watching. And he does it while Ellen is suffering a crisis. How monstrous!”
“Tactically, it’s an ideal time to probe the enemy’s weaknesses,” Wee Hunk replied. “I believe I would have tried something of the sort myself.”
That was too much; Meewee challenged the mentar in Starkese: “Now that I’m awake, are there any other news headlines I should know about? Do we have a plan yet?”
“I’m still weighing options,” Wee Hunk said, answering the challenge. “In the meantime, why don’t you return to bed. I probably didn’t need to awaken you to see this.”
“Not at all,” Meewee said and yawned. “I’m glad you did. And please wake me again if anything changes.”
“Good night, then,” Wee Hunk said, extinguishing the scape and himself.
Meewee returned to bed and stared skyward as his eyes attempted to adjust to the darkness. He no longer felt buried alive in the bunker. Instead, he felt like he was at the bottom of a deep well. “Ten lumens,” he said, and the room lit up with a dim, even glow, like moonlight on snow. He turned on his side and tried to sleep. After five long minutes he turned on his other side, with no better results. Finally, he sat up and found his robe and slippers and got out of bed. “Usher line to the lifts.” A faint orange line led out of the room. He followed it across the expanse of the bunker shelter to the blast doors, where Wee Hunk was waiting for him.
“Going somewhere?”
“Yes, I need air.”
“We can generate any kind of air you like down here. What do you prefer: meadow, rainstorm, deep forest?” When Meewee didn’t answer, Wee Hunk went on, “If I can’t protect you up in the manse, how in blazes am I supposed to protect you outdoors?”
“That’s my risk to take.”
“You are correct, Bishop. I consider you valuable in helping me free Ellen, but not indispensable. So, if you insist on exposing yourself to harm, be my guest.” With that he vanished again.
Meewee took the elevator up to the ground floor. He walked through dark, silent rooms to a set of french doors, opened them, and stepped out onto a patio. The air was crisp and laden with the perfume of life, which he doubted anyone could counterfeit.
Meewee strode across the moonlit patio to the lawn, where he removed his slippers and waded across dew-soaked grass to a gate. He hadn’t had a chance to explore the manse grounds and had no idea what lay beyond the gate.
Meewee put his slippers back on and went through the gate. One ghostly path led to another as he passed through fields of fragrant troutcorn and sunflowers. He came to a meadow in the shape of an hourglass. In each bulb of the hourglass was a large pond. He went to the nearer pond and stood on its bank. A chorus of crickets filled the meadow with ratchety chatter. There was a splash, and as Meewee watched, a large fish leaped out of the dark water and seemed frozen for an instant in the moonlight, before falling again and slapping the water with the side of its body. A female, no doubt, loosening her roe sacks. When Meewee was a child, his family farmed fish too. Nostalgia and sadness filled him, and he felt unequal to the task that Eleanor had left him. “I’m sorry,” he said to the night. “I try, but I am not smart enough.”
BOGDAN PAUSED AT the bottom of the stairs. Never in his life had the charterhouse seemed so lonesome. Everyone was still at Rondy. At least he had convinced them not to cut their own enjoyment short on account of him. The McCormick Place medic had applied a moleskin to his face to set his nose and relieve the swelling. Her autodoc had found no internal injuries, and the russ security officer seemed only too glad to be rid of him.
Bogdan considered buying a Sooothe at the NanoJiffy, but his latest Alert! was about to run out anyway, so he climbed the creepy stairs. He forgot to stop at seven and found himself at his old room above nine. It was sealed with a new metal door with a flashing NO ENTRY glyph. The door was locked, so he continued up to the roof.
Bathed in moonlight, the garden exhaled audibly, and the city around him grumbled. Across town in Elmhurst, E-Pluribus struck camp and moved with Annette
Beijing to a city beyond his reach. The pirates in the bricks sang work songs as they mined Calumet clay, and the Oships left the solar system without him. The Beadlemyren and Tobblers fell in love and got married on top of a trash heap. If only he’d been able to connect with one good punch, it might have all been worth it.
When the Alert! ran out, there was no time to go down to Rusty’s room, so Bogdan slogged to the garden shed and unrolled a seed mat on the floor. He was asleep before he fell on it and he slept soundly for the next thirty hours.
FRED ARRIVED HOME at 3:00 AM, thinking only of sleep. The moment he entered the apartment, he sensed that something was wrong.
The living room was serving a self-teaching lesson on “The Regeneration Rates of Necrotic Neurotransmitters,” but Mary wasn’t in the room, and her spot on the couch was cool to the touch. The door to the bedroom was open, and the lights were on, but there was no sound.
The slipper puppy came over and waited expectantly. Fred sat down and traded his shoes for slippers. Only then did he catch the whiff of Samson’s odor on his own clothes. He sniffed his hand.
When Fred went into the bedroom, Mary was sitting up in bed, reading something. He said, “Hi, there,” and she flicked her eyes at him in the most perfunctory of greetings. He leaned over to see what she was reading. Poetry. For an evangeline to be reading poetry at three o’clock in the morning wasn’t a good sign, but not necessarily a bad sign either.
Fred went to the bathroom to tear off his clothes. He took a hot, pelting shower with plenty of gel. He scrubbed his hands. He exfoliated in the dryer. Had his hair trimmed. Shaved. Used an extra dollop of cologne.
When he returned to the bed, the lights were off, and Mary lay with her back to him. That could be either bad or good. He climbed in and spooned himself against her. She was very warm. After a couple of minutes, he whispered, “How was your day?”
For a while, it seemed that she was asleep, but then she said, “A very full and successful day, though exhausting. What about you? How did the chartist convention go?”
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