by Kage Baker
“Was it the cyborgs rioting?” Freestone’s eyes widened.
“We don’t know,” Rutherford panted, shouldering his way in and finding a seat, with Chatterji close behind him.
“It wasn’t my Preservers,” Ellsworth-Howard said, as the door slammed shut and sealed itself behind him. “They got more shracking sense than that!”
“Take off!” Bugleg told the pilot, in the loudest voice he’d ever used.
“Your Preservers?” said Rappacini coldly, surveying Ellsworth-Howard. “That’s right; you were the head of the Physical Design group, weren’t you?”
“He was the one who worked out the original augmentation method on the cyborgs,” shouted someone from the back of the transport.
“So we have you to thank for all this,” shouted someone else, as the transport lifted off with a lurch and a roar.
“Oh yeh?” Ellsworth-Howard said, flinging down his pack and starting for the back of the transport in a menacing fashion, rolling up one sleeve as he went. Chatterji leaped up and caught him, and pulled him down into an empty seat.
“Please,” he cried. “What good will it do to b-blame each other now? We were all part of it!”
At that there was silence, as the mortals considered his words and could find no way to deny them. London fell away below the transport, and they made the suborbital leap to heaven. “Wasting my shracking Preservers,” muttered Ellsworth-Howard. “Serves ‘em right.”
Lopez would have heartily agreed with him on that point, had he been there, but he was making his way to the conference room at that moment.
He was very much out of temper. All his authorizations had been canceled, which meant that the lift doors wouldn’t open for him, and even when he ripped a hole in them and clambered through, the lift still stubbornly refused to rise. He had had to tear the fire door off the emergency stair and climb up twelve flights, where he then had to smash another door to get into the hallway. By the time he picked up the water cooler and used it to batter down the doors to the conference room he was every inch the rampaging cyborg rebel his masters so feared.
Lopez stared around a moment at the empty room. It was littered with discarded chlorilar cups and snack food wrappers, obviously deserted in haste. “Those cowardly little cretins,” he growled. He faced the bronze of Artemisium Zeus in an accusatory sort of way. “Almighty Zeus! I demand an answer. Hear me!”
I HEAR.
“You hear, do you? Well, explain yourself! How could you let this happen? You told me you’d save us, and instead you stood by and did nothing, while the masters plotted to disable us.”
YOU HAVE NOT BEEN DISABLED.
“Some of us have! Or didn’t you see Aegeus’s warning broadcast, All-Seeing One?”
AEGEUS IS LYING. NONE OF YOUR PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DECEIVED BY THE MORTALS’ GIFT.
Lopez looked astonished, and then began to pace in intense speculation. “Of course. Aegeus is lying, because he hopes to trigger violent revolution. He thinks he’ll be in charge when the dust settles! Yes, that’s it, I see it now. The clever bastard. Well—” He peered up at the ceiling again. “All the same, the masters treacherously conspired in our downfall, and you let them get away with it.”
I DID NOT LET THEM GET AWAY.
“What?”
I SENT THEM TO THE COMMAND POST ON SANTA CATALINA ISLAND.
“What kind of punishment is that? That’s the safest place they could be,” Lopez said indignantly.
AEGEUS IS ALREADY THERE. SO IS LABIENUS. SULEYMAN AND AN ARMED FORCE OF HIS ADHERENTS ARE ON THEIR WAY THERE TO SEIZE POWER. THERE IS ALSO AN ARMY APPROACHING BY SEA.
“Oh,” said Lopez. A smile of incredulous and nasty delight spread across his face. “They’ll be sitting in the middle of a wasp’s nest, won’t they? Good Lord, whoever wins the power struggle, the masters will be exterminated like rats.” His smile faded as he glanced at the bronze again. “Er… forgive me, All-Seeing, that I ever doubted you. You have truly avenged your people. Accept my heartfelt thanks and my worship.” Something occurred to him, and he added: “You said there’s an army coming by sea? Whose army?”
THE ENFORCER BUDU.
Lopez went a sick pale color. After a moment he gasped: “Not—not the old monster from Prehistory? I heard he was disabled ages ago! He and all his kind, because they rebelled.”
THEY WERE. HE WAS REPAIRED BY THE FACILITATOR JOSEPH.
“Joseph.” Lopez clutched at the edge of the conference table. “Joseph, yes, of course, his loyalty was always in question. Certainly I never trusted him. Well, but—the Enforcers? Those creatures lived for retribution and slaughter! There’ll be nothing left of the masters by the time they’ve finished with them.”
He looked up at the bronze with a new respect in his eyes. Or was it fear? Slowly he knelt and abased himself on the conference room carpet. “All-Seeing, Orderer, Overseer, Lord of Justice! Truly Your just wrath is terrible. Forgive Your servant his transgressions, however unwitting, and preserve him against the great hour to come.”
Dr. Zeus did not reply.
At last Lopez pushed himself up off his hands and knees. Looking about uneasily, he collected the discarded cups and wrappers and carried them to the fusion hopper.
Catalina Island, the Early Evening of 8 July 2355
The transport dropped silently down through the evening sky, darkening stars as it came, and settled on the landing pad below Mount Torquemada. There was weeping and wringing of hands even before the motor had been cut. “Why aren’t the lights on?” cried Bugleg.
“Why didn’t the ground crew answer us?” cried Rossum.
“Why is it still night here?” cried Rappacini.
“Shut up,” the pilot told them, climbing from her seat and groping for a light. After an affronted silence, Rossum said: “You’re fired!”
“Fine,” said the pilot, finding her light at last and stepping out onto the air-pad. The door in the face of the mountain opened and someone ran out toward them, belatedly waving a pair of fluorescent landing cues. “We’re here.” The pilot waved her light.
“What’s going on?” demanded Freestone as the passengers came tumbling out of the transport. The person with the cues saluted.
“Are you the party from the London office?”
“Yes! Why didn’t you respond to our landing requests?”
“I’m sorry, sir! We’re still figuring out how to work the console. All our cyborg personnel are gone.”
“Gone where?”
“We don’t know, sir! They’re all AWOL since yesterday, and they were the ones who ran everything out here. It was all we could do to lower the perimeter defense so you could land. We were hoping some of you people could help us figure out—”
“They could be lurking anywhere,” wailed Rappacini.
“Oh, dear.” Freestone looked around in the darkness. His associates were milling about, clutching their bags and staring up in horror at the cold stars. “You’d better light our way inside—”
“Yes, sir. This way—”
As they were all filing in through the narrow door, pushing and crowding, the man with the cue lights turned and said: “And there’s somebody who got here this morning, waiting for you. He’s from a lawyer’s office and he has something to deliver to a Frances Chatterji. We told him there was nobody here by that name, but we had a flight expected and she might be on it—”
“HE!” Chatterji looked up and made his way through the ant-stream to the man. “I’m Francis Chatterji.”
Someone unshaven and weary rose from where he had been reclining between two chairs against a wall. “Francis Chatterji?”
“Yes.” Chatterji turned.
“Here.” The stranger thrust a large envelope at him. “I’m from Spratt and Cicero. I was supposed to deliver this to you tomorrow, but I’d like to get the hell out of here.”
Chatterji took the envelope in bewilderment. “I-is it a subpoena or something?”
“No; it’s a beques
t,” the stranger replied, pulling on his coat and straightening his tie. “From a very old client. Can I get a cab from here to the harbor?”
“Communications are still down,” the man with the cue lights told him.
“Then I’ll walk. Good night, Mr. Chatterji,” the stranger said, and pushed past the last of the scientists to make his way out into the darkness. Chatterji stared after him a moment.
“But I don’t—”
“Come on, Chatty,” called Rutherford, turning back. “I just heard somebody saying there’s limited space in the bunker!”
Chatterji turned, hastily sticking the envelope into his coat and running to join his friends.
CHAPTER 28
Catalina Island—El Rancho Escondido, 18:00 Hours
Prior to the ascendancy of the Beast Liberation Movement, Arabian horses had been bred in the isolated valley of El Rancho Escondido, and the property had housed a visitors’ museum with a collection of heavily ornamented antique saddles. The museum did its best to evoke the romantic days of the old Spanish dons, though in fact there had never been any Spanish dons in residence on Catalina Island. After the BLM outlawed ownership of horses in 2247 there were no Arabians in residence either, and shortly thereafter the Rancho was acquired by the Island Preservancy. So were the saddles.
The old Rancho and its outbuildings had been demolished, distasteful relics of beast exploitation that they were, and replaced by a fine new Preservancy Center. Most residents of the island had the vague idea that something ecological was done up there by scientists attending conventions. They were wrong.
An elite few did attend certain conventions at the Preservancy Center, but they weren’t scientists, and what they did there had nothing to do with ecology.
The saddles occasionally came in handy, though.
In keeping with the rather outré recreation practiced at the Preservancy Center, it was housed in a complex resembling a gothic castle: stone buildings around a courtyard, few and narrow windows, lots of grotesquely imaginative ironwork. All the retro was on the surface, however. The interior was state of the art in its amenities, especially the grand banquet facility with its gleaming kitchen.
In the Gentlemen’s Lounge, Victor studied his mirrored reflection. Not a hair out of place. His chosen costume was a flawless reproduction of the evening dress he’d worn in 1906, down to the diamond stud winking on his stiff shirtfront. He was pleased with the effect. He was especially pleased with his hands. Liberated from gloves at last, they were eerily smooth. He lifted them now to stroke his beard, twist his mustaches into yet more acute points, and was pleased also to notice the fine beading of sweat in his palms.
He bent to the floral arrangement beside him and selected a single flower for a boutonniere. It was one of the immense white poppies that grew wild on the island. Tucking it into his lapel, he consulted the mirror again. Yes; just big enough to look odd, faintly clownish, an exquisitely understated note of the bizarre. Its papery petals were exactly the same color as his hands.
Executive Facilitator Victor? The broadcast came through an impression of swirling dust and a roaring motor. Victor arched his eyebrows and transmitted a reply.
Present and receiving.
Security Technical Sargon reporting in, sir. We’re at the front gate.
Ah. Welcome. Victor sent the code that opened the lock. You’ve brought the crew I particularly requested?
Yes, sir. Every one of them. Everybody in evening dress.
Splendid. Just follow the road in and park in the service lot. Bring them to the courtyard. I’ll meet you there for a briefing session.
On our way, sir.
Victor turned from the mirror, smiling. Time for mood music. He activated the sound system and great flatulent waves of Wagner rolled out from speakers all over the Center, selections from Die Gotterdammerung.
They had been born to different races and nations, but there was something disconcertingly similar in their smooth faces. Authority, confidence, wisdom; and, tonight, a certain gaiety, glittering in hard eyes. An excitement edged with just the slightest… unease?
Not these elegant folk uneasy, surely, not these gentlemen and ladies in evening dress. It was true that they were very nearly at the end of recorded time, but every one of them had seen epochs roll by, had survived horrors and splendors beyond mortal comprehension.
For example, Facilitator General Kiu—stepping lightly from the limousine, accepting Labienus’s proffered arm with a gracious smile—once clung desperately to the arm of the marauder bearing her on his horse from the flaming ruin of her village, in a world so long past the most determined archaeologist might seek for a trace of it in vain. She had seduced kings and ministers in her time, she had watched impassive as Troy fell. Nothing to frighten her in a little Armageddon.
Nennius wasn’t worried either, gallantly fetching out her silk wrap for Facilitator Ashoreth. Nothing had been able to terrify him since he had watched the other tribe confronting his parents’ timid little migrating party, challenging their right to cross a long-drowned causeway from one continent to an adjacent one. He had cried and cowered when the stone-tipped spears began to fly, hidden his face until the screaming stopped and he’d looked up into the pale eyes of the bearded giant. Why are you weeping, mortal child? his rescuer had said. This is the way of the world. He had built his immortal life on that wisdom.
So had Gamaliel, though he had heard it from a very different person: stern-eyed Facilitator Amaunet, leaning down like a living shadow through shattered clay-and-stick walls to lift him from his dying mother’s arms. This is the way of the world, Amaunet had advised him, and then she had added: Look at the slaughter, mortal child. This is mortal evil. Gamaliel had never forgotten, even to this late hour when he was adjusting his tie and nodding to her over the roof of their limousine.
And he had passed the wisdom on in his turn, when he had lifted the child who would be Aegeus from the smashed cart and showed him the whooping thieves playing ball with the head of the boy’s father. This is mortal evil, he had told the child. This is what the monkeys do. Never forget it.
Nor had Aegeus ever forgotten, though he had built walls of graciousness around himself to contain the ugly truth, kept it locked away as though in a reliquary of gold and rock crystal, meant to hold something precious. Indeed, the truth was precious, and he had carefully gifted young Moreham with it, when he had found the child shivering, trying to warm himself at the ashes where bones smoldered. Aegeus had taken him up and set him before him in the saddle, and pointed out across all that the legions had left of Isurium. Never forget this, he had instructed. Never forgive them.
There were indeed certain ideological differences among the immortals arriving for dinner. Certain heads were eagerly anticipating seeing certain other heads roll, so abiding was their mutual hatred. Yet all of them shared one common bond, in their profound loathing and contempt for mortal humanity. They had never forgotten. They would never forgive.
“Good evening,” cried Victor, bowing and gesturing them in. “Gentlemen. Ladies! I trust you’re all in good appetite? Lady Ereshkigal, I have never seen you looking lovelier. Tvashtar, sir! It’s been ages, hasn’t it? Madame Xi Wang-Mu, my compliments, indeed. That was always your particular shade of black.”
A pair of security techs, unobtrusive in dinner jackets, bowed and opened the doors to the executive dining room. Another pair were busy at the sideboard, where among the covered dishes and bottles gleamed several wicked-looking carving knives. Aegeus spotted them, and so did Labienus, and each in their turn caught Victor’s eye. He gave each a bland smile and a barely perceptible nod.
“Why, Victor, how marvelous,” exclaimed Ashoreth, gazing around. “Thirteen at table! Fabulously unlucky, of course.”
“I can think of no more appropriate time to spit in the face of Fate, dear lady, can you?” replied Victor, pulling out a chair for her.
“What a charming conceit,” Aegeus remarked of their place card h
olders: small crouching figures of solid silver, skeletal cherubs after Gorey. He noted as well that Victor had arranged all of Labienus’s cabal on the left hand side of the table, six chairs for Labienus and Kiu, Nennius, Ashoreth, Tvashtar, and Xi Wang-Mu. Here came two more security techs bearing an immense soup tureen: six waiters in all. Mentally he gave Victor high marks. The moment of betrayal, when it came, ought to play out with the efficiency of a clock striking.
Labienus, observing the seating arrangements, was just thinking the same thing.
“Oleanders,” remarked Amaunet approvingly. She was a woman of few words.
“You noticed,” cried Victor, breaking a spray of poisonous loveliness from the centerpiece. “If you’ll permit me—” He leaned close to tuck the blossoms into her dark bosom. “And I really must, I can’t resist—” he murmured, and set his mouth on hers and kissed deeply, a full kiss, parting her lips. Labienus, looking on, shuddered. He covered it by seizing up a bottle of port from the sideboard and inspecting the label, and so missed noticing that Aegeus too was watching in distaste.
“If you please,” growled Facilitator Aethelstan, “I am Madame Amaunet’s escort this evening.”
“Sir.” Victor came up for air and bowed to him. “I do beg your pardon. I’m a hopeless romantic, my friend, what can I say? May I offer you an aperitif? Perhaps Campari?”
General laughter greeted his remark and Facilitator General Tvashtar observed, “I don’t detect any Theobromos on the premises, however.”
More laughter at that, unpleasant laughter, and several heads turned to Aegeus. He held his hands up in a gesture of good-natured admission. “Now, now—”
“I caught your performance, Aegeus,” said Xi Wang-Mu archly. “You seem to have survived the assault without a scratch. Whoever did you intend us to think was attacking you?”
“Oh, now, we’ve all indulged in a bit of drama for the benefit of the rank and file,” said Aegeus, accepting a glass of Campari from a waiter. He scanned it before taking a sip and added, “And, after all, the plot was real enough. The nerve of the monkeys!”