"Oooh!" CJ exclaimed, and heeled the runner over almost onto its side, into a series of tight donuts.
Morgan had finally begun to adapt to the rhythm of the full-throttle straight-on race down the river when CJ set them into the spin, and he jerked as the water rushed up to meet his face. It didn't quite reach him, but he tightened his body lock on her till he had surely given her bruises. It served her right.
They straightened up and took off down the river again. CJ glanced over her shoulder at him. "Your face is cracking," she yelled, and a smug expression passed over her face.
Morgan realized CJ's joke was approximately true; his lips were pulled back in a wild caricature of a smile, caused by a combination of the wind beating upon him and the cold that held his teeth clenched in a grimace. And there was one other thing that went into that smile, he reluctantly acknowledged. "This is a blast," he admitted to CJ.
The grin on CJ's face was as wide as his. "Then I have succeeded." She dropped the throttle, and the sudden deceleration pressed him against her even as he loosened his grip. "Now we can just cruise and enjoy the scenery."
They turned back up the river and puttered along toward Golden Shores. They traveled in eloquent solitude for a time. Finally, Morgan asked a question he had been holding back ever since the first day he met CJ. "How did you wind up training to be an Angel?" he asked softly. "Who did you lose?"
She turned to him, and though her smile still contained a hint of wickedness, her eyes were soft. "Not everybody who goes after Shiva has lost someone," she whispered. "My family lived in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. Population three hundred seventy-nine. It's just about the last place on Earth Shiva will strike."
"That makes it all the more puzzling, then."
CJ wriggled in his arms. "When I was nine years old, my dad told me I should be an Angel. I've been training for it ever since."
Morgan hid his shock. "What kind of man would tell his daughter to go on a suicide mission?"
CJ pursed her lips. "It's not like that at all. Really." She gave him a short, harsh laugh. "For one thing, Dad doesn't really expect me to die on this trip. He thinks I, of all people, will make it back." She shrugged. "He thinks I can get back because I inherited his genes. You've heard of Hookshot Kinsman, right?"
Morgan blinked. "The basketball player? He's your father?" When CJ nodded, Morgan raised an eyebrow. "You're at least two feet shorter than he is. You sure your mother didn't have an affair?"
That made CJ laugh gaily. "She certainly could have, but I'm quite sure she didn't. For one thing, it wouldn't fit with her morality, being a policewoman and all. But we know I'm his daughter because I'm a natural athlete, just like he is. You should have seen his expression when he handed me a basketball at the age of six, and I dribbled it downcourt and swished it."
Morgan could see that expression, all right. It was the same expression Morgan wore half the time, watching CJ outmaneuver the robots in SimHell.
"Anyway, there's a second reason Dad would tell me to be an Angel. You're familiar with BKM Security, right?"
Morgan snorted. "Let me guess, the K stands for Kinsman, and your father was one of the founders of one of the Big Four security companies?"
CJ twisted and brought her nose up till it almost touched Morgan's. Her eyes were filled with mischief. "Right again, big guy. He sold out early, so he's not a billionaire, but when the Crash came and wiped out the government law-enforcement subsidies, he helped fund BKM. That's actually where he met Mom; he hired her after she got laid off from the Cincinnati police force."
"And what does that have to do with your being here?"
"Even though he started out as a basketball player, Dad was always a person who cared about people. You don't go into security and rulebook enforcement unless you care." She turned away, though she squirmed to get deeper in his arms. "Anyway, he always believed in sending the right person to do the job. He never shirked a task in his life. And when I was nine and I won the gold medal in the American Junior Gymnastics competition, he looked at me and said, 'Girl, you're an Angel. They need you.' " Water trickled down from her eyes, and it was not just river spray. "He wasn't happy when he said it, but we both knew, when he said it, that he was right."
CJ was no longer the arrogant leader of the Angels; suddenly she was a young girl, and Morgan no longer held her tight to stay alive; he held on to soothe her. She continued. "So he moved me over from gymnastics to the triathlon. 'CJ,' he said, 'you're acrobat enough now. What you need most is endurance. Your heart and your endurance will get you through.' "
"And me," Morgan said. He brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I'll get you through, too." He took a deep breath, knowing he was about to make a terrible mistake. He leaned forward, and gently kissed her.
Chapter Six
T minus Fourteen
Paolo's hands didn't shake, although his breathing was a bit staccato. Jesus, it hurt him to damage people like that! Even when they were faceless strangers. Even when they deserved it.
Paolo stepped away from his desk. He ran his fingers over the luxurious leather of his executive chair, and left the room. How many people had he just sabotaged? How many had he driven into bankruptcy and abject poverty? He would never know.
He needed some air. A chance to walk around, collect his thoughts. He would risk a trip into Sofia's garden, a lush land of fragrant delight and hidden danger.
He could see a swatch of the garden from the two-story-high window through which sunshine coursed into the stairwell. As with all things within Sofia's purview, the original garden plot adjoining the house had been transformed. Repeatedly.
When they arrived, the garden had held some simple flower beds. The parcel had been reclaimed from the jungle, tamed and domesticated.
Sofia had transformed the area back into a jungle, a place where dense green vines wrapped and twisted around the seemingly random clusters of bushes and aromatic flowers. A Spaniard arriving centuries before would have felt right at home on first glance—just another chunk of the Yucatan to hack through.
But upon closer inspection, he would have been puzzled. Perhaps he would have dropped to his knees to ask God about Satan's dark purpose. For the plants now bursting from the garden did not normally grow in the Yucatan. Here, these nonnative plants demanded unrelenting, intensive care to thrive in their carefully crafted, chaotically overgrown state.
Paolo stepped down from the staircase, around the corner through the kitchen, and out onto the short path that led into the garden. A tall bower laced with antique roses invited him to enter, at his own risk. He hesitated but a moment before plunging ahead.
The sound of burbling water drew him deeper into the hidden mysteries of Sofia's special place. Scores of vines and branches reached with delicate fingers into the path. Paolo winced as an errant rose branch reached out to strike, its thorns raking his arm just above the elbow. Tiny beads of crimson welled up along the scratch, a bright string of rubies glittering in the sunshine. Paolo cursed softly.
A sweet and innocent voice, surely the voice of Eve or one of her descendants (although it could have easily been the snake), floated to him from a distance. "Is that you, darling?" Sofia asked with dulcet charm.
"Sweetest Sofia," he responded with a voice of delicate happiness, while considering how best to saturation-bomb this place with napalm, "you have made this land of quiet splendor not only as beautiful as a jungle, but as dangerous as one, too."
Through the ivy vines of the central walkway, Paolo caught a peek of beautiful female curves gliding around a Banyan tree. A few seconds later, behind him he heard a voice gasp. "You're hurt," Sofia said. She leapt catlike across the treacherous flowering almond bushes separating them. "Let me fix that for you." She cocked her head, studied the scratch, and delicately kissed it.
Paolo grunted his thanks.
Sofia looked up into his eyes, and as her gentle smile curved into a wicked grin, she bent her head and licked the blood from his arm with long, graceful
movements of her tongue.
Paolo shuddered at the touch. "Ooof," he said, with the characteristic power of the male wit. He took a step back, thus nearly impaling himself on the rose bush once again. He was trapped like Adam, he realized, in a garden, between an alluring woman and a deadly danger. He also understood full well that the alluring woman was actually the more dangerous one. Nonetheless, like Adam, he stepped back toward the woman, on the verge of accepting the greater dangers presented by the female of the species. Then he remembered why he had come into the garden in the first place.
Sofia recognized the change in his expression with practiced ease. "Uh oh," she said teasingly, "I can see you're in no mood for teasing." She put her hands on her hips. "What terrible thing has happened?" She raised an eyebrow as her analysis of his somber mood yielded subtler nuances, leading her to correct herself, "Or rather, what terrible thing did you have to do?"
Paolo laughed with a touch of bitterness. "Ah, Sofia, I could never hide my thoughts from you." Well, sometimes he could hide them, mostly by accident. Periodically Sofia was so alert for his feelings and thoughts that she jumped at shadows, certain he was melancholy or irritated when he was perfectly fine. But today she was right on target. He took a deep breath; the perfume of Sofia's jungle garden undercut his depression. "I just shook down the tailriders," he explained.
Sofia looked at him in puzzlement.
"I created a set of trackable identities, to lure the scam artists to follow me, so I could sucker them on a bad forecast. The bad forecast—and it was a beauty, I must say—hung a hundred or so people out to dry."
Sofia closed one eye and wrinkled her nose. "You did this once before, didn't you, darling?"
Paolo nodded. "About six years ago. I never expected to do it again, but after Reggie left, I realized his article would spawn a whole new generation of gamers trying to get a free ride." He threw his hands in the air, slapped them down on his thighs. "I hate knocking people down like that, even if they ask for it."
She stepped up and wrapped her arms around him, laying her head on his chest. She had been covered with dirt from the plants; now he was too. "If it bothers you that much, why not just let them go ahead? We have enough money, let them be."
Paolo ran his hand through her hair. "If it was just the money, you'd be right, I'd just let them be. But tailriders have a more terrible effect than that. They distort the odds on the 'castpoint. Remember the mess I told you about for the Gate location?" He rocked Sofia gently in his arms. "If any tailriders were able to get a handle on my brand during the assault, they'd back my forecasts with more money, more strength, than the forecasts warranted." He shook his head. "In the normal course of events, those people would eventually lose their shirts. But there are too many life or death decisions in the next two weeks to let time and statistics teach the tailriders a lesson. Right now, the 'castpoints have to reflect mankind's best judgment."
Sofia squirmed restlessly in his arms. "Ah, yes, darling, I seem to recall this part of the conversation from the last time." She stood on tiptoes and breathed in his ear. "Let me see if I can get this straight. These tailriders, the scam artists that you just scammed, could lead Earth Defense to make the wrong decisions, so the Angels would get killed, Shiva would get to Earth, and cities would get vaporized. Is that correct?"
"Pretty much." It always surprised Paolo when Sofia revealed how well she understood the Web and its machinery. Her grasp of the features of electronic commerce seemed incongruous and inappropriate.
"Well, then, congratulations, darling, on having saved ten billion or so lives this morning. What are you going to do this afternoon?"
"Hmph." He knew she was right, but he still wasn't happy with it.
Sofia's eyes gleamed; once again, Paolo knew he was in trouble. "Come here," she commanded, taking his hand and leading him around a corner. They crossed an intersection, bore left at a fork, and found a bench under the shade of a pair of Golden Chain trees. Paolo looked around wonderingly; he was completely lost. "This garden is only fifteen meters square, isn't it?" If necessary, he could just pick a direction, force his way through the plush growth, and come out into the open. He looked at the rose bushes and the bougainvillea, and realized that the plan was untenable. Only Sofia could lead him out of here. He was completely at her mercy. No doubt she had designed it that way.
"Paolo, you see the garden from the air every day. Does it look any larger than fifteen meters? Of course not."
Paolo shook his head. "This maze is more complicated than the corridors in Shiva," he muttered.
"See how fortunate you are that I'm on your side?" she answered his unspoken thoughts. On tiptoe again, she rubbed her nose along the line of his chin. "There's a price to be paid, though, for safe passage. Quid pro quo." She purred.
Paolo laughed, lifted Sofia from her feet, and flung her gently but masterfully upon the bench.
Sofia yelled, "Wooohooo!" as she put her arms around him in response.
* * *
The aroma of lasagna wafted from the kitchen. It filled the house, reaching even Lou's little office hanging off the side of the rec room, an outcast from the family dwelling. Lou Scharanski inhaled the rich Italian aromas deeply. It was good to be alive. He could still enjoy many things, even if those pleasures were fewer now than they had once been, when he had been a spry eighty-year-old.
"Pops, get out here," his granddaughter yelled from somewhere deep in the house.
Lou heard his son's reproving voice from the rec room. "Quiet," he said in a loud whisper. "Let him sleep."
Lou flipped off his touchscreen and shouted back, "I'll be right there." He stepped out of his office into the rec room and swept his great-great-granddaughter into his arms. "Ugh," he said, "you know I won't be able to pick you up like this much longer."
Lanie hugged him. "Will you still be able to pick me up when I'm twelve?" she asked. Her twelfth birthday was just a few weeks away.
"I don't know," he said doubtfully. "Do you want me to?"
She squeezed him. "You bet, Pops."
He put her down, and they held hands as they entered the kitchen.
A ragged chorus of people shouted as he arrived, "Surprise!"
Lou winced, held up his arm to protect his eyes from the flash, then laughed, all in quick sequence. "You people really got me this time," he said. "I never would have guessed." They had done this for his birthday for over forty years—a hamster could have forecast this event. But he had to keep up the pretense for Lanie's sake.
His great-grandson lifted his finger in an orchestral motion, and an awful round of "Happy Birthday" filled the air. Lou's children had many gifts, but they did not have the gift of singing. Unfortunately, they did have the gift of strong lungs.
Lou sank into a chair. Lanie brought out the cake.
Lou looked at it in surprise. "Only one candle?"
"Sure," she said. "Mom said you get to start over after a hundred."
Lou pondered that for a moment, nodded to his great-granddaughter-in-law, and said, "Makes perfect sense." He inhaled mightily, till his eyes bulged out for the youngest members of the audience. Finally he blew out the candle. Lanie enjoyed the show tremendously.
His son hobbled over on his cane with a present in his hand. "Happy birthday," he said.
One by one, each generation of Sharanskis gave him a present. Then Lanie brought in another present. "It's from Viktor," she said breathlessly. "It came all the way around the world." She shook it, and Lou almost leaped from his chair in horror. She continued. "It makes a funny sound."
Carefully, very carefully to conceal his terror, he held out his hands. "Here, child," he said with a big smile.
The package was rather smaller than the typical Viktor gift, which only meant he'd used the newest technology. Viktor had wrapped this one lovingly in maroon velvet, with a bright silver bow. Lou himself would have had trouble not running his hands caressingly over the warm surface.
With a silly grin o
n his face, he held the package gently to his ear. Yes, it was ticking, all right. Good old Viktor.
Lou turned his smile on his granddaughter, who was old enough to understand what he was about to say but young enough to act swiftly. "Sara, while I go into my office to thank Viktor, why don't you fly everyone up to the park? I think the flag iris may be just starting to bloom."
Sara looked at him, and he looked back at her, hard. Light dawned in her eyes, and as he had hoped, she started moving with swift efficiency. "Okay, everybody, let's go. I think everyone can fit in Ben's van, can't they?"
The roomful of people looked disoriented, but the outcome had become inevitable. Lou retired to his office and sat staring at the ticking package until he heard the door slam closed. Car fans whined to life, then changed pitch as the vehicle rose in the air. Lou waited till the sound faded before taking action. Viktor had surely not designed the package to blast a hole bigger than the house itself, but there was no sense taking chances.
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