Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict

by Thomas T. Thomas

  She saw Dr. Ming standing to one side, fully gowned and masked, recognizable only by her finely slitted eyes. The anesthetist was somewhere behind and above Wells’s head, but she watched gloved hands press a plastic cup down over her nose and mouth. Other hands began untying and lifting her gown, arranging green sheets around her torso, securing them with clear tape that looked silvery in the overhead light, and painting her stomach with a cold fluid.

  Wells was still awake, although time was becoming disjointed. She could hear clearly when Dr. Ming turned to an assistant and said, “Let’s hope this is her last outbreak of cysts. The next one won’t be anywhere so easy to fix.” To which the assistant nodded and said, “Yes.”

  She wanted to ask what the doctor meant. These were kidney cysts, weren’t they? Little grapes that crowded out the organ. No, wait. … The grapes were in her liver. Her kidneys had grown what? Buckshot. … That had to make a difference, didn’t it? … But where else was Dr. Ming going to look for grapes? Grapes … Shapes … Ming … Mary Ming … Ming Meirong … Ding-dong …

  * * *

  Jane Jaspersen worked in her Cousin Susannah’s Planning and Procurement Section as an accountant. She had shown an aptitude for handling numbers at the age of sixteen, and from that point forward the Praxis Family Association had shaped her training toward quantitative relationships, higher mathematics, statistics, finance, accounting, and general business practices. She could solve equations in her head and, with the help of her cortical array, talk directly with the intelligences that kept the family books. But it didn’t take prompting from one of the electronic proctors for her to see that something was amiss in the Praxis Forest Development accounts. Jane had been fretting over it for two weeks now.

  “Look at this!” she said aloud when she could no longer contain herself. She didn’t actually drop a stack of ledgers on Susannah’s desk, but metaphorically her dataset landed on the forefront of her cousin’s mind with a thump!

  Susannah barely glanced at the headers. Oh, the castle thing …

  But isn’t this extravagant? I mean—!

  The Patriarch wants it. A mental shrug.

  Look at all those ’bots that he’s requisitioned—

  Made specially for this project, Susannah sent.

  That’s still a lot of steel, resin, and circuitry.

  I think we can afford to humor Gee-Daddy.

  He’s pulling out good stone, too—stuff we could sell.

  Don’t we have enough money? I thought this thing was covered.

  “That’s not the point!” Jane wailed aloud. We have so much else we need to do first, she went on in mental mode, pulling up charts of examples. The roads are a mess. We need to prepare for a new energy source. And pretty soon we’ll need to expand the family compound—or start another one—to accommodate the next generation.

  Here she ran up a chart of growth projections. Jane and Susannah were not on it themselves, or not yet, but her sisters were both working on their own families—Jennifer’s second child just born, Jessica’s third in gestation. Every year the Association had more little mouths to feed, housing to find, educations to arrange, careers to plan. Not to mention the burden of caring for their army of paid retainers.

  We’ll handle it, Susannah sent back. We always have.

  When they get wind of this palace, people will surely talk.

  Well, at least it’s up in the mountains, away from public view.

  Do you mean, you really don’t care? Jane asked incredulously.

  No, but you should try going up against Gee-Daddy—or your grandmother. Her cousin grinned. See what that gets you!

  * * *

  Against her better judgment, Antigone Wells had accepted John’s invitation for a day’s outing. She was still a little stiff through her midsection from the surgery, but her doctor had approved of her getting out and about. So she took a water taxi halfway across San Francisco Bay to the heliport on Treasure Island and waited on the concrete apron for John to arrive.

  At the appointed time one of those ridiculous, insectile contraptions, whose wings turned into rotors, or rotors into wings, came screaming and spinning out of the sky and landed on the painted bull’s-eye. It’s radar-dark hull bore the insignia of the Praxis Family Association. The landing created a wind that nearly lifted the wide-brim hat Wells still wore in public. She had to grab at it, and the funneling of her elbows made its veil whip about her face.

  The side door rolled back, and the silent, bronze-haired Pamela, John’s bodyguard, jumped out. He followed a second later, moving as quickly and surely as the younger woman, even though he had to be twice her age or more. He came directly toward Wells, while Pamela hung back, for privacy.

  “I’m so glad you could make it, Tig!” he said, all smiles, although she could feel his eyes probing her black veil and the long, dark dress.

  It occurred to her that, shrouded in such fashion, she might have been anyone. And someone who knew her and had intercepted his message would now be in the perfect position to assassinate him. Yet he moved so easily, without fear, in these dreadful times.

  “You didn’t say where we were going,” she replied. “I didn’t know how to dress.”

  “Just a hop across country. There this morning, back this afternoon.”

  She nodded, the veil still ruffled by the cold breeze.

  He gently took her arm and led her to the machine. Pamela helped Wells up into the fuselage and the forward-facing seat. John followed her, and the bodyguard went around the nose and sat in the front bubble with the auto-intelligence’s sensor clusters. In ten seconds the engines went from mumble to roar, and the flat landscape of the island and the Bay’s water fell away beneath them.

  John’s idea of “a hop” seemed to be halfway to the next state. As they crossed the Central Valley, he enthused about how good it was to see her—although so far he had seen nothing of her—and how much he missed the times they had spent together. Wells tried to deflect these sentiments by observing how much their lives had changed, how important he had become, how much responsibility he had, and how different her life was now. Through it all, he regarded her with the hopeful eyes and hesitant smiles of a young dog trying to please a new master. She could almost feel sorry for him.

  After three-quarters of an hour in the air, they were flying over dense forest with no landmarks other than glimpses of small lakes here and there, flashes of roads snaking through the trees, and occasional stone outcrops. From their general direction of travel, and John’s obvious interest in what lay below, she guessed they were over the Stanislaus National Forest. Wells was about to ask where they were going, when he suddenly pointed down into a fold between the mountains.

  “There it is,” he said.

  It was a long narrow lake—Cherry Lake, if she recalled the survey maps correctly. It was an artificial body of water, created by a dam at the southern end of the valley. But something new and just as artificial had been added here in the north. It was a pile of white and gray stone, with a sharply pitched roof of black slate. A long trestle or arcade, made of more of white stone, connected the pile to the shoreline. And then, as the ariflect swung lower and gave her a better angle on the structure, she recognized it.

  “Oh, John!” was all she said. What she really meant to say was, “Oh, no!”

  * * *

  John Praxis knew the site was not quite ready. He had made trips up to the mountains about once a week to view the progress that Leonard and Jeffrey were making, and each time he was more and more pleased. The basic structure, all the stonework, the interior infrastructure of electric power, communications, and plumbing, as well as the building’s weather tightness in terms of caulking and windows, all were now complete. But the interior finishes, like a final polish on the exposed stone surfaces, as well as plaster, woodwork, and paint, were still to be added. And that was the point of this trip.

  The AFR-III landed on the primary laydown area along the shore, inside the retaining wal
l for the sunken garden. The area was still in barren, sandy soil littered with Artificers and other ’bots, along with half a dozen blocks of granite and chert that never did seem to fit the pattern. “We’ll plant this part like in the original château, with lawn and shrubs and intersecting walkways,” Praxis explained as Pamela rolled back the craft’s door and helped Antigone down to the ground.

  “Or a garden,” Antigone suggested. “If flowers will grow at this elevation.”

  “A garden would be very pretty,” he said. “What a wonderful idea!”

  On his cue, Pamela disappeared, going off among the machines. Nothing was going to hurt him up here.

  Praxis led Antigone up to the round Gate Tower and through it into the Gallery. The place was cold and smelled of fresh cement and broken stone. He wondered if perhaps this trip, at this incomplete stage of construction, might not have been a good idea.

  Antigone walked slowly the length of the vast room, over its checkerboard of imported white and black marble. She crossed once to the windows and briefly looked out on the lake. “It’s very … impressive,” she said.

  Praxis nodded, not wanting to take personal credit for the project. He would let it speak of his heart and the memory of their visit to the original in France, so long ago.

  Inside the main residence, he led her through the unfinished rooms, up the staircase, and into more rooms. All were bright, airy, and open, with sunlight reflecting off the water and up into chambers full of rough white quartz and flecked gray stone.

  “Why did you bring me here, John?” Antigone asked at last.

  “So you could pick out your apartment and have it finished any way you like,” he replied. Then he went on, even though he knew it might sound desperate, “You can face east, with the sun rising over the mountains, or west, with it setting among the trees. The lake’s beautiful here in summer—”

  “Do you think I’m going to live here?” she asked. “Because I have my own place, you know, my own life, in the city.”

  “You could come and visit,” he said. “Anytime you like.”

  “But … I need to take care of my ward, Angela.”

  “Then she can have her own apartment.”

  “Did you think this would bring us back together, John?” she asked sadly. “That we would live here together? Be a couple once again? Fall in love again?”

  “Wouldn’t this be the place for it?” he suggested.

  “For any other two people, perhaps. Not for us.”

  “But what did I ever do?” he said hopelessly.

  “Nothing. Just that you couldn’t save me.”

  And there, in those words, Praxis realized that the woman of his heart, the Antigone he had known and loved, no longer existed. Maybe she never did exist, except in his own mind. The woman who loved him, wanted to be with him, to share his life, his enthusiasms, had been like a summer storm. All those years ago, she had passed over the mountains, arising in the west, shedding her life force—her gusts of romance and sensual pleasure, her rain of occasional tears, her lightning flashes of hot anger—all too briefly. And then she had disappeared into the east.

  In the place of his loving, playful, sympathetic Antigone, with her fresh spirit and dancing eyes, there was now this distant, closed, selfish woman, no warmer than the stones of the room in which they were standing. She had once borne an image of herself, the beautiful Antigone Wells, who commanded courtrooms, judge’s chambers, and conference rooms with her presence, her stature, her exquisite beauty, and her bell-clear voice. And then, one day, in her quest to preserve and extend that beauty, some doctor had damaged that face and that voice—and Antigone had never recovered. She still wore the hat and veil that everyone who saw her now insisted were unnecessary. But they had become her dark persona.

  Antigone had become an old woman, set in her ways, like a bubbling, free-flowing stream that had frozen into a single, narrow channel. She had not grown senile, exactly. She was still able to function as an attorney, or as an online legal reference, a ghost among her databases of law and precedent, operating within that self-defined channel—or so his great-grandson Kenneth said. But while her body might still be strong and supple from her karate exercises, she had grown old and brittle in spirit. Perhaps she had always been that narrow and inflexible, and he just couldn’t see it. But she was no longer the woman with whom he had fallen in love. That woman was gone forever.

  “I’ll take you back to the plane,” he said.

  * * *

  Having deciphered the names of his targets, Hsu Bolin discovered they were the chairman and president, respectively, of the Praxis Family Association. That made them difficult, but not impossible, to approach and destroy. He had immediately deployed his resources to the San Francisco area and made new contacts there as well. One of them was an intelligence in the Bay Area Air Control Center, who agreed to track the family’s aircraft through the flight plans they were required to file.

  Unfortunately, there was a lag. On the day that one of the PFA’s armored ariflects—the one designated No. 5 and reserved for the chairman’s personal use—was scheduled for a stop at the Treasure Island Heliport, Hsu got the word ten minutes too late. By the time he arrived, the craft had come and gone. However, witnesses on the scene reported that a man and woman had both stepped out of the fuselage, met with a woman in black, and escorted her back to the plane.

  The intelligence had lost track of the AFR-III once it left the Greater Bay Area’s airspace. But Hsu had no intention of chasing his targets to their presumed destination. The BAACC intelligence also reported that the ariflect was due to return later in the day, and the witnesses under further questioning recalled that the woman had no luggage. All of which indicated that the touching performance would be repeated that afternoon. Hsu was patient. He could wait. And the café at the heliport offered an excellent cup of tea and selection of dim sum, even if it was prepackaged.

  Sooner than he expected, however, the air-control intelligence alerted his smartphone that the No. 5 aircraft was inbound. He just had time to finish his tea, get down to the apron, and prepare himself mentally and physically for engagement.

  The dark-bodied machine landed in a clatter of blades, the door opened, and a tall woman in a black dress, hat, and veil—looking like the widow at a western funeral—stepped down. Watching from fifteen meters away, Hsu waited for more people, perhaps his targets, to descend behind her. But the door closed immediately. Hsu could see other figures inside the cabin, but they were just shapes and shadows. All told, the ariflect was off the pavement and into the air within thirty seconds.

  Not a matter for concern, he decided. This was simply his first contact. Others would follow.

  In the meantime, this woman in black was definitely a person of interest: someone that a man and woman, who might have been his targets, had cherished enough that morning to descend from their plane and meet with touches and smiles.

  He followed her out of the heliport at a discreet distance.

  * * *

  When Antigone Wells returned to her condominium after that painful flight up into the mountains, she knew something was wrong the moment she turned the key and walked into her own front hall. From further down came a rustle of startled activity, the exchange of hushed voices, and the slamming of a door. It originated in Angela’s bedroom. “Hello?” Wells called.

  After a slight hesitation, the answer came back: “Aunt? You’re home!”

  “And who else would it be?” Wells demanded.

  Angela came out of her room. She was barefoot, wearing a light silk robe, and nothing much else—in the early afternoon.

  “Are you all right?” Wells asked.

  “I was just napping,” the girl replied and gave a big yawn. She covered her mouth with the back of one hand and raised the other in a half-stretch. It was almost convincing.

  “Is someone here?”

  “No. Why would there be?”

  “Because I heard two people’s voices
.”

  “Oh! That was just …” And there Angela ran out of excuses.

  Antigone Wells stalked down the hall, brushed past her ward, and entered the bedroom. The bed was unmade and rumpled, the covers thrown back, the pillows piled up against the headboard. The door to the connecting bathroom was suspiciously closed. Wells crossed the room and pulled it open.

  Kenneth Praxis stood there on one leg, his pants up around his hips but still unzipped, his arms through his shirtsleeves but with nothing buttoned. One foot was bare, the other jammed halfway into a sock. He looked up with shame in his eyes. He shook his head at Wells and the girl standing behind her.

  “I don’t have to ask what you two were up to,” Wells said.

  Praxis put down his foot, stood with his arms at his side.

  “I’ll give you the chance to arrange yourself and leave.”

  When Wells closed the door, her ward came up to her.

  “I love him, Aunt,” she said. “I’ve always loved him.”

  Wells just stared at her. “Cooking classes, indeed!”

  * * *

  John Praxis had received an urgent message from Antigone, asking him to meet with her that evening. He did not know what to expect, after their disastrous trip up to Cherry Lake and the long, silent ride back. Would she try to make up to him, apologize for her behavior, unbend a bit and recognize his grand gesture? Would she declare a latent love for him, burning slowly over the long years? And, even if she did have a change of heart, after all those years, after the decision Praxis had made for himself as they stood facing one another in the cold stone room overlooking the lake, would he care now?

  His HUMV-IX paused in front of Antigone’s condominium building. Pamela stepped out of the vehicle and preceded him across the sidewalk to the lobby door. The mechanical doorman recognized them both and admitted them. Praxis nodded to his bodyguard, indicating she should wait in the lobby while he went up.

  At the apartment door, Antigone met him herself, let him in, and led him down the main corridor to the living room. He expected to find Angela there, as usual, but he suddenly sensed the place was empty. That could be good for the coming encounter, or very bad.