“You? How?”
“If we could wait until Opening, I could simply pay our admissions, and then cut off our Dreambands once we were inside, with the device you saw me use earlier—”
Mike shook his head. “I can’t wait that long, Annie’ll be—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hormat said. “Even if you could wait, I cannot. By coincidence, half an hour is almost all the time I have, too. It is important that I get back before I am missed.”
“So then, how—”
“I’ve already started,” Hormat said, and put the car back in gear.
He stayed on the shoulder for the hundred-odd meters it took to reach the Dreamworld turnoff and exited there. The familiar skyline approached. Safety, tantalizingly near.
“What are we gonna do?” Mike said urgently. “What’s the plan? What’s my move, Hormat?”
“Say as little as possible and act stunned,” Hormat said, concentrating on his driving.
Mike gave up trying to figure it out—gave up trying to figure anything out, ever. “I can do that,” he agreed.
“Good,” Hormat said, the irony lost on him.
He drove them to the extreme north end of the parking lot, took the road marked Do Not Enter, hung a right at the end of the wall. He drove past the fake VIP entrance, and pulled up just before the real one. Even though it was well out of sight of the parking area, it was most inconspicuous, a plain door with no knob. The fake entrance a hundred meters behind looked much more plausible, with canopy, spotlights and red carpet…but it led only to a holding area. Not many noncelebrities knew about the real one—but Mike was not particularly surprised to learn that Hormat did.
“You’re Joey Wilson; I’m your Uncle Ed,” Hormat murmured as he shut the engine. There was enough spill of light from the fake entrance to see by, here.
Mike nodded. The door was already opening. A Security man came out, apparently unarmed; his partner remained in the doorway, one arm out of sight, in case he needed cover. He circled the car, stood by Hormat’s window, and rotated his finger, clearly intending to ask Hormat, politely but very firmly, who he thought he was and what he was doing here.
Out of his view, Hormat hit the window down button—but when it was open a decimeter or two, he also hit the window up button. The window stopped closing, but kept whining. He shrugged and released both buttons. “It’s jammed,” he told the guard through the crack, and gestured at the two deflated air bags. “Must have happened when we had the accident.”
The guard’s eyes widened when he saw the air bags, and again when he took in the blood on Mike’s chin. At once he postponed the question of who Mike and Hormat were and made an it’s okay; come here gesture over the top of the car to his partner as he said, “Can you unlock the door?”
“I think so,” Hormat said, and did so, unsteadily.
At once the guard had the car door open and started checking him over. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Yes, I think so,” Hormat said. “Just a little shaken up. Nothing hurts.”
Mike’s own door was opened, and he found himself being examined by the second guard. Past her, he could see that the VIP door had shut behind her. Her hands were gentle, knowing, and thorough. By the time her eyes got back up as far as his face, he’d had time to reopen the cuts on his lip and ear, and cross his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said.
“Does your neck hurt?” she asked. “Or that left hand?”
“Nah.”
“Okay, let’s try getting out. Lean on me.”
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Lean on me,” she insisted, and helped him from the car. On the other side, the first guard was doing the same with Hormat. Once she was sure Mike could stand unassisted, she said, “Okay, let’s see you walk a straight line for me.”
Mike wobbled a little, careful not to overdo it, taking his cue from Hormat.
“All right,” Hormat’s guard said, “let’s get them inside and call it in.”
Mike’s guard nodded and steered him toward the door. “What’s your name, son?” she asked.
“Joey Wilson,” Mike said, dragging his feet to let Hormat catch up with them. “He’s my Uncle Ed.”
“What happened to you guys?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he temporized. “Uncle Ed, what exactly did happen?”
“And why did you come here, instead of the main gate?” she added.
Hormat held up a horny hand, and winced as if it hurt his ribs. “Let’s get in out of the chill and sit down for a moment and I’ll tell you the whole story,” he said.
Mike’s guard nodded, glanced down at her Command Band to punch the unlock sequence. Hormat caught Mike’s eye, and just as he had back in Haines’s torture room, pantomimed holding his breath. Mike did so. The door opened and he followed his guard in. As soon as all four of them were inside, both guards dropped bonelessly and silently.
Mike waited until he saw Hormat was breathing again, and said, “Once they come to, they’re gonna report this, and then—”
Hormat was shaking his head, looking around. “They cannot report what they do not remember—and they will remember nothing that happened to them within the last half hour or so.” Mike blinked at that, but said nothing, and hastily put on his poker face. Hormat had spoken without thinking.
They were in a short wide corridor, and the two chairs by the door were obviously where the guards were in the habit of sitting. Each chair had a paperback on the floor beside it; one was an adventure novel and the other a romance. “Help me,” Hormat said, and with Mike’s assistance soon had his own guard propped up on the former chair, and Mike’s on the latter. “With any luck,” Hormat said, “each will assume he dropped off to sleep, and be too embarrassed to mention it to the other.”
“Did it work the same way with Haines and Conway, too?” Mike asked as casually as he could.
Hormat nodded impatiently. “Save that they will know something happened, yes. They had you for much longer than half an hour. And they have more evidence from which to form deductions. You can find your way from here safely?”
“Huh? But aren’t you—”
“Good-bye, Mike.”
“Hormy, wait,” Mike said urgently.
The dwarf shook his head. “I cannot,” he said, and turned to go.
“Hormat, this isn’t far enough! I can’t get back home from here without help—not without my Command Band!”
Hormat froze in his tracks, turned, and regarded Mike closely. Hormat’s craggy pouting face always looked suspicious, but this stare was his masterpiece. For a moment his eyes almost slid away to the wrists of the two sleeping guards, but even as the thought occurred to him he must have realized they could not afford to have either of the guards wake up Bandless. His eyes reacquired Mike’s, locked on, and began firing bullshit-piercing beams.
Mike met them squarely. Most people’s poker faces fade under pressure because they think too much about the bluff they’re running, and the force of the other’s will. Mike was busy, trying to think of a route back Under that would plausibly require assistance.
Hormat continued to apply eye pressure, his brows curling down over them in clearly increasing skepticism.
Mike didn’t flinch. He’d thought of a route now, and the tiny added bit of confidence in his eyes came across as sincerity. “Your help I need,” he said earnestly.
Perhaps phrasing it verb-last helped touch an emotional chord in the time-traveler, as Mike hoped, or perhaps the artistic flourish was unnecessary. Either way, Hormat bought it. He sighed hugely, released Mike’s eyes, and consulted his watchfinger. “Twenty minutes from now, I must walk out that door and drive away,” he said flatly. “Even that will leave me no margin at all. I cannot risk a speeding ticket.”
Mike let most of his relief show. “Five minutes going in, tops,” he assured the dwarf, “and once I get another Band I can have you back here again in less than that. Thanks, Hormat. I just don’t know what I w
ould’ve done if you—”
“Wait here a moment,” Hormat growled, and went back outside. Mike watched from the doorway: a group of seemingly decorative architectural structures not far from the door provided a place to discreetly conceal as many as half a dozen limos, and Hormat moved his car there. He was back inside nearly at once, his bandy legs moving quickly.
“Lead the way,” he said.
Mike turned at once and did so, wondering for the first time—now that he had the luxury—whether he had just done a smart thing or a stupid one.
Well, at least it was the first thing he had done, all night, except let himself be tossed around by events. He couldn’t report back to Annie with nothing to show for the evening but a long dismal tale of disgrace, humiliation, and incredible luck; a boy had to have some pride.
THE WAY MIKE took them did indeed require someone to stand chickee at three different points, the last just before the corridor off which Annie’s place lay. And they got there in well under five minutes, as he’d promised. Along the way Mike had assessed Hormat’s familiarity with Dreamworld procedures and routines, and found it almost as good as his own: the time-travelers had obviously studied their drop zone carefully.
So when Mike stepped through the wall, he did not immediately turn right. As he’d hoped, when Hormat followed him, the dwarf did turn right, automatically. Mike gave him a two-handed shove between both shoulder blades that flung him forward; he flung up his hands with a startled cry and cannoned into Annie’s door. As he did, Mike hit the switch that Annie had showed him on his first day Under, and the holodoor they’d just come through turned solid, locking them in together.
Hormat spun around, put his back against Annie’s door, and raised his hands defensively. “Insane you are?” he cried.
Mike raised his own hands in a quite different way, signifying peaceful intent and apology. “Sorry, Hormy,” he said, “but once you knew we were home you would’ve turned on your heel and split. I want you to come in first. Just for a minute, honest.”
“Why?”
“You’ve been up all night, and you’ve got another drive ahead of you—on manual. You gotta have some coffee or you’ll wipe out.”
“There…is…no…time,” Hormat said through clenched teeth.
“Take it with you in a hot-cup,” Mike said. “Come on, there’s more than fifteen minutes left of the twenty you said you had. You can’t afford to get pulled over for erratic driving.” He was noticing for the first time how truly awful Hormat’s teeth were.
Hormat closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped, his arms lowered, and he shifted his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet.
The instant his back was no longer touching the door, it opened. Hormat whirled around and recoiled as if straight-armed again, but from the front this time—nearly backing into Mike, who barely had time to sidestep.
“You should have phoned ahead first,” Annie said coldly to Hormat.
Mike’s heart leaped at the sight of her. She looked regal, somehow wore her bathrobe and slippers as if they were the formal vestments of some elaborate ceremony of state. Whose protocol Hormat had oafishly screwed up.
“I—” the dwarf began.
She cut him off, raising her scepter. No, Mike was getting a little giddy with fatigue and relief—it wasn’t a scepter, she just brandished it like one. It was a remote control. The one for the computer.
She gave Hormat time to recognize that, then pointed behind her with it, toward the computer. “If I do not like your explanation for why you took that boy away in the middle of the night,” she said coldly, “I will use this to send a summary of everything I know about you people to Phillip Avery, the National Security Agency, and the New York Times. It’s on a deadman switch: if my thumb should relax for some reason, you’ll never find the right code to stop things before the message finishes uploading. Start talking whenever you’re ready.”
C H A P T E R 16
UNDER: THE CIRCUMSTANCES
“It’s okay, Annie,” Mike said quickly. “Hormat didn’t grab me—Haines and Conway did. Hormy rescued me. If it wasn’t for him, I’d…well, skip that…but I owe him big. I told him he could have some coffee to take with him: he’s gotta make a long drive right away, on no sleep.”
As he spoke he was communicating with her on a second level with his eyes and body language. “There is no telephone in your car?” she asked Hormat.
“No,” he said stiffly.
She nodded. “Very well. Come in.”
As he crossed the threshold she said, “Wipe your feet,” sternly. Hormat backed up and did so, winning another imperious nod. Mike came in on his heels, and found himself caught in a hug that crushed the breath from his chest. He locked his knees and returned it with what strength he had left, his head swimming with too many powerful emotions to even try to sort out.
Finally she released him. She held him at arm’s length, and this time her eyes demanded information of a different kind.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m sorry I scared you. I was just going out for a walk, to think…only Conway put a tracer on me yesterday.”
Her hands tightened on his shoulders like clamps. The one on his left shoulder really hurt; she had the remote in that hand.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “It’s gone now. Hormat tailed them and sprung me. Then he helped me get back in, ’cause—oh shit—” He hesitated. “Annie, I’m sorry, but they got my Command Band. I couldn’t help it, I was—”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, boy.”
“But they’ve still got it—”
“Don’t worry, I said.” She released his shoulders, disarmed the deadman switch on her remote, punched in a new combination, aimed it at the computer, and fired. “Your Band is just a bunch of plastic and silicon now,” she said. “It can’t do anything, and it can’t be traced to us. Come on inside; we have coffee to pour.”
Mike relaxed and let her lead him in. Hormat was looking a little pale; Mike suddenly understood that the brief interval between Annie’s firing the remote and her explaining why must have been a bad time for him. Annie realized it at the same instant. “Pardon me, Hormat,” she said. “I should have told you what I was doing first.”
“You needed to deactivate that Band quickly,” Hormat said.
She shook her head. “Not that quickly. It was thoughtless. Do you take cream or sugar in your coffee?”
He bowed slightly. “Both, please. But I fear I must drink it quickly.”
“He’s AWOL,” Mike put in. “He’s gotta get back before they miss him or he’s in deep shit.” He lifted Annie’s wrist, checked her watch. “He’s got to be out of here in fifteen minutes. Less, if one of us doesn’t go with him.” He went straight to his side of the bed and swapped his ruined shorts for a coverall; one of the staples had already torn loose and he was tired of worrying that his pants would fall down.
One of Annie’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Indeed? Then it’s fortunate the coffee is already made. Please take a seat there, Hormat. Mike, you there when you’re ready.”
She soon had them sorted out, with mugs of coffee before them and pastries laid out, and took her clothes and shoes into the bathroom. Mike fell on a cherry Danish, inhaled it in a couple of gulps, and poured coffee on it to dissolve it on the way down. Hormat stuck to the coffee.
Annie came out fully dressed and with her hair brushed, seated herself at the head of the table, and raised her own mug. “Thank you, Hormat, for rescuing Mike,” she said formally. “Our home is yours, now and forevermore.”
Hormat blinked. “I—” He broke off, tried again…failed again. On the third try he managed, “I do not think I…can convey what that means to…to one like me.” He looked down at his coffee, looked back up at Annie. “No one has ever said such a thing to me. When I am from, no one would say that to a stranger.” He dropped his eyes again and sipped coffee.
“Then you understand how seriously I meant it,” she
said. “The only other person I’ve ever said that to is Mike.”
Mike felt a warm glow.
“If there is trouble with your friends over this,” Annie went on, “you are always welcome here.”
“Thank you,” Hormat said gruffly. He tried to glance around the room without being obvious about it, from under lowered brows, but Mike caught him at it. So he looked around himself, to try to see the room as Hormat must be seeing it.
Probably the same way Mike had seen it, his own first time. There wasn’t actually much here. Bare-bones household utensils scrounged from Dreamworld inventory, a computer, a couple of bookshelves. Nothing permanent; as baldly functional as a hotel room. Annie could move everything here to another location in a single afternoon if she wanted to. Or abandon the lot, just cut and run, and reproduce most of it out of available stock in a few days…all except the books, anyway. For all he knew, this was the fifth, or the twenty-fifth, address Annie’d had since she’d gone Under. If it wasn’t, it looked like it was. Annie’s real home was not here, but all of Dreamworld itself.
So was his now, came the thought.
Hormat was trying not to look confused now. “I do not wish to pry, but may I ask you both your job titles here? I confess I am not familiar with the operations of your section.”
Mike and Annie exchanged a glance. The time-travelers still didn’t get it. They clung to the idea that he and Annie held some sort of official capacity in the Dreamworld organization, something undercover (since Mike had needed Hormat’s help to get back inside) but legitimate. They must think he and Annie were some sort of Internal Affairs-type spooks, used to keep a quiet check on Security perhaps. The misconception might give the pair enhanced negotiational clout. Mike sensed that she was asking his opinion, and moved his head a few millimeters from side to side.
She turned to Hormat and smiled faintly. “Our titles,” she told him, “are Annie and Mike. We have no job except enjoying ourselves. Dreamworld does not know we are on their property. We’re Under—underground, out of sight, unofficial—just like you and your friends.”
The Free Lunch Page 19