by Gwynn White
Leta shrugged. “The utilization of syns outside of the resource planes is irregular and highly—”
“Yes,” Darya interrupted, “highly illegal. Mahayana has an exemption, as do many of the Arcadian estates. You know this?”
“Yes, though I haven’t seen many in my visits.”
“Other Arcadians choose to employ support staff from the Homeland and reserve the right to utilize syns for the fields and subterranean factories. However, there are security concerns here”—her eyes flashed across the pieces in the room—“concerns other estates don’t have.”
“Understandable,” Abby said.
“I assure you all of the precepts are followed specifically. Each Lily and Peter is manufactured on site and may never leave Mahayana. Any attempt to stray from Mahayana’s borders results in immediate retirement.”
“I’m sure everything is in order,” Abby said. “Besides, we’re not here to investigate alignment with the Syn Accords, we’re here at the request of Mister Winslow to inspect the scene of the event.”
“Certainly, I will lead you to where the Jasper was displayed.” Again, she peered deeply into Abby’s eyes. “Without my assistance, one could easily lose one’s way and never be heard from again.”
16
The first two floors down were styled in a similar décor as the surface level of Mahayana. The third level was where the mass of the estate took shape. Darya led them through a set of glass double doors at the end of a wood-paneled library into the first tier of the subterranean complex: a large white room three stories deep and at least half as long as the above ground estate. They traversed down a flight of metal stairs; the steps painted white, the tread diamond etched—a stairwell more at place in a factory than a mansion. Across the floor, several Lilys and Peters were working at various tasks, and on the far side of the cavernous room were elevator platforms filled with a number of air and surface craft, mostly heavy farm equipment.
“Amazing,” Leta said through her chin chip.
“The surface level is the tip of the iceberg,” Abby responded in a near whisper. “The true homes of the Arcadians are the bunkers below, some the size of cities. Factories, farms, aquariums, pools, even bowling alleys.”
“What is a bowling alley?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you later. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if this place goes ten to twenty stories down.”
“Why don’t they live on the surface?”
“Too dangerous. New Bubbles are still being discovered, and there is only so much security on the ones the Bureau polices. Remote quants are always a threat. Remember, the resonators not only pretty up the place, they camouflage Arcadia from anyone who enters that shouldn’t, especially the Maro and the Omni.”
The stairwell landed on a catwalk that led to a doorway, another descent, another large white room, then yet another. Along the way, they passed scantily clothed Lilys and a few Peters.
“Darya,” Abby said aloud.
“Yes, Commander?”
“I notice all of the syns wear collars with polished stones, some red, some green, others purple. I’m sure they’re trackers. But what do the colors signify?”
“You are correct,” Darya said. She continued forward. “They are trackers. One of the precepts of the accords.”
“And the colors?” Leta asked.
“The colors signify department. That is for Mister Winslow’s pleasure. He is very particular that a Peter assigned to work in the orchard isn’t confused with one that works in the garage.”
The next door opened into a glassed corridor overlooking a vast farming facility. Multi-armed machines maneuvered precision tools around branches and leaves while tilling soil and injecting fertilizer. A female model of syns they hadn’t seen on the levels above tended to the rows of strawberries and tomatoes that hung from the grid of plastic tubes. Suspended above were stalks of corn, nestled by beans and squash, growing together in a twisted organic web work.
When they reached the sealed door at the end of the corridor, Darya raised her bangle past a hidden sensor. The door slid to the left, allowing them to enter an anteroom. Within this room were four new syns, a male model they hadn’t seen. These syns were a far contrast to the short awkward Peter. Each brick-house-built man stood over two meters high. The four were pillars, gazing outward, motionless, dressed in padded black battle armor.
“They’re armed,” Leta said. And they were; each syn had a blade strapped to his side.
“Didn’t I mention that?” Darya asked indifferently. “Another exemption to the accords. A lot of good they did protecting Mister Winslow’s property.” She stopped near the syn to the right side of the door, leaned up close, and slid her hand across his chin. “Though the Goliaths do have other…assets.” The guard stood sentinel.
17
By now Abby had noticed the dramatic affect wooden paneling had on Leta. At the sight of exotic wood, she became entranced. So was the case in the red mahogany-walled corridor beyond where the syn Goliaths stood sentinel. The grain was porous and the reds rich and marbled. Abby understood why, having never seen such a surface, she would be intrigued, but Darya was moving forward and they needed to maintain the pace.
When he placed his fingertips on the inner curve of Leta’s spine to nudge her forward, she returned to the present with a glare that assured him that if they were anywhere else, she would probably take his arm off.
It was easy to be caught up in the marvel of Arcadia.
He, too, had to remind himself to keep the pace.
Oil portraits in thick, intricately carved frames hung every half-meter and to either side of the many closed doors. Augments flew into his pupils as fast as he walked, dates ranging from the fifteenth to the twenty-second century, and most every one of them, portrait and frame, were antiquities thought to be lost or stolen.
Between the classic pieces were vanity portraits of Winslow posing with people Abby recognized as syndicate heads and celebrities. Darya pointed out one in particular that drew his attention. In a single motion, she raised her hand, flipped her hair, then brought a seductively innocent eye back to them. With her hand still raised, she extended her index finger in the direction of the portrait. “This is Director Lin on his last visit,” she said. “Several decades ago, I believe.” She didn’t need to say anything else.
Each corridor became a further discovery. Alcoves revealed pottery of the Gortys dig Winslow had financed in Crete. Abby had been on that expedition.
They descended a grand mahogany stairwell onto a large paneled landing where a great urn stood to either side, holding several five-meter-tall palm fronds in each. Abby’s jawbone was flooded with a slow gasp of elation. He glanced over at Leta, her mouth slightly open, taking small breaths of excitement, as her hand gently glided along the polished trunk-thick banister.
“Your chip’s on,” he whispered.
Though she didn’t lift her hand, he saw her fingers curl. She cleared her throat. “Sorry. My mother told me to search for the simple things, as they can bring the greatest joy.”
“Apparently, she was right.”
Beyond the landing was a huge paneled hall, a gallery, with several other open galleries. In the center of the hall on a pedestal was a ten-meter-wide relief, carved into a slab of onyx. Darya led them to the front center of the slab and stopped. Abby recognized the sculpted mural from another dig he’d worked. The mural was one of the reliefs in the same fashion as the many in the Bubbles. This one was recovered not far from the Knossos Bubble in the waters off the ancient city of Heraklion, sunk into the sea millennia ago. The relief detailed a war party of Maro and Centaur battling mortal warriors. The few Centaurs he’d come across during his early planar expeditions were fierce, but, fortunately, kept to themselves. How differently, he thought, the Spectral Wars may’ve gone had they not remained neutral. Facing another warrior-based culture aside from the Maro would’ve changed the outcome. Few knew how close things had come. Then again, if
the Omni could’ve reined in the Horses, they would’ve.
“The gallery that was infiltrated is over here,” Darya said. Her high heels clicked on the red marble floor, and the amber light cut through her short robe. As she walked from the mural into the brighter side gallery, the thin fabric of robe seemed to disappear, revealing her smooth naked backside and the small dimples above her kidneys.
Abby sucked a breath in deep through his nose.
The journey through the manor had distracted him from Darya’s obvious beauty. Something about that last glimpse caught him off guard.
Leta was less distracted. “Am I right that all of these things are contraband?”
“Describe contraband,” he said.
“Well, at least illegally acquired.”
“Sure. Every one.”
“Then why would he call us down? Flaunt everything?”
They followed Darya into the side gallery.
“Doesn’t matter how he came upon the items. Not anymore.”
“There’s no statute of limitations on contraband.”
“There’s no contraband here. Simply private property, just like everything else.”
Leta stopped, faced him, and said in an open whisper, “What do you mean?”
“Everything is private, there are no more public institutions. They stopped pretending to be public during the war. That’s how they pulled me first round. Every institution in the Homeland, worldwide, museums, archives, entire university systems, are owned by one of the Five.”
“But they operate under the auspices of the Bureau.”
“And who is on the Bureau board?”
“Well,” Leta said. She sounded as if she was being scolded and, in a way, she was. She glanced toward Darya waiting in the gallery, then back toward him. “The board is composed of the representatives from the Five. Everyone knows that.”
“Uh huh, the board is composed of the five corporate syndicates, and the corporate syndicates are run by?”
“The Arcadians.”
“That’s right,” Abby said. He smiled toward Darya and entered the gallery. Under his breath, he said, “We are under their auspice. We work for them, and this is all theirs.”
18
The side gallery was dense with ancient artifacts that Abby dated to the same era as the Jasper, and most all of these—like the small jade statue—were from other planes. Abby sensed Winslow had been searching. The back wall alone, a three-meter-high set of shelves behind glass, held hundreds of small pieces, too many for his augments to read clearly from across the room. He blinked off his indexing array to take in the collection. It was comparable to any held by the great old museums of the UK or NorEast Megs. Brightly painted war bonnets fashioned from the skulls of other Maros and various planar creatures—some of which he couldn’t easily identify—hung against the back wall of the case, and neatly displayed below, rows of Maro bone daggers and swords. The collection shifted to the right from warrior to shamanic garb. Headdresses elaborately detailed to represent the Great Old Ones and their Minions hung above skull-capped staffs, all draped in feathers and strips of leather. He glanced at the corners of the enclosed case, humidity controls and, yes, resonators to reveal the bone and flesh of every ornate addition to each object otherwise hidden on the Arcadian Plane. Further down were the totems, the charms, the necklaces and gems, all trinkets to the novice, treasure to the collector. All of the planar items in the case, the tapestries on the wall, all had a common theme.
“He became a believer,” Abby said.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” a man said from the entrance to the hall. Abby spun slowly to meet his host, a young-looking man with dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair, dressed in slacks and an authentic open-collared red silk shirt. “Merely an avid collector. Although I am guilty of obsessing on the collection a bit.” He put his wrists together and winked with a light chuckle. “Put me away.”
Abby was unsure of the man. The Malcolm Winslow he’d known, the man in the portraits that hung in the hall, was far older, in his fifties, and by no means had any sense of humor. This happy man appeared to be twenty.
“Mister Winslow—” he began to say before Winslow interrupted.
“Let’s not stand on formality, Abby. Call me Malcolm, I insist. What’s it been? A hundred twenty, a hundred thirty years?”
“About that long, I’m sure, although I must say the years have treated you kind.”
“Oh, yes. I suppose I was much older when we last met. Physically anyway.” He chuckled again. “Funny how that is, the older we get, the younger we get. Hmm, some of us, anyway.” Winslow spoke swiftly, almost more to himself than to his guests. “I forget these things. You’ve met Doctor Bedrosian.” He gestured toward the near-naked guide. Abby and Leta nodded. “Well, she saved my life. I contracted a rare disease, incurable, I’m afraid, even in our age of wonders, but her research in gene therapy not only subdued the progress, she has actually reversed the aging process.” His eyes widened and he held his hands up to his sides. “Can you believe it? I mean, I won’t turn into a child, but I look great.” He turned to Leta. “Right, Captain Serene? May I call you Leta? Call me Malcolm. I insist.”
“Captain Serene is fine, Mister Winslow.”
“Hmm,” Winslow said, feigning disappointment for a moment. “Well, I mean, you may call me Malcolm if you like. I don’t receive many visitors and I haven’t left Mahayana in over sixty years. A condition of the treatments, you see. I need several a day, so traveling is far too great a risk.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Abby said.
Winslow’s face went somber. “Yes. Yes, indeed.” Then as quickly, his eyes lit up once more. Abby was sure the man was jacked on elixir. “I do have my collection, though. I’ve nurtured, grown, and focused it. You must tell me what you think.”
“I admire your acquisitions. They—”
Winslow interrupted. “Darya, did you know the commander here is a fellow connoisseur of antiquity? Did I tell you? An expert, really, a doctor of…well, I don’t know, antiquity, I guess. I knew him at the New York University before the wonders, before he became a Warlock.” The wild-eyed man flashed back to Abby and raised a pointed finger. “Once a Warlock, always a Warlock. Uh, that’s what they say, don’t they, Bureau Boy?”
Abby was a bit thrown with the man’s comment. The way he spoke, like an inside joke, and while Leta was beside him. “You know,” Winslow said proudly, “you have me to thank for that. I told them they couldn’t do better. Too bad you retired. I heard you retired…” Winslow appeared to be lost for a moment then alertly reconciled. “Hmm. Well, you’re here now.”
Darya approached Winslow, brushed her robe open, then pulled the sides together again, an obvious gesture to flash her employer. “Mister Winslow, may I be excused? I wish to prepare for your next treatment.”
Abby and Leta shared a knowing glance.
“Hmm,” Winslow said. “Of course. Yes, of course, Darya. Please make yourself ready, hmm, prepared, I mean.”
Darya smiled at the three then took her leave from the room, her heels clip-clopping on the marble floor with louder claps as she added a sway to her backside that she hadn’t had on the journey down from the surface. This was for Winslow’s benefit and he was taking in the whole show. A few steps out of the gallery, she pulled the sides of the robe she was still holding tight and let the light garment fall from her shoulders onto the floor behind her. Without losing stride, she continued out of view toward the grand stairwell.
“Is she always so…” Abby paused, not sure if Winslow was listening. “Eccentric?”
Winslow was listening, somewhat. He spun his head back around, sucked in a breath, and spread his wild eyes wide in a way that said they had just shared a rare spectacle. “Always…?” he asked.
“Eccentric,” repeated Abby.
Winslow didn’t answer.
“Naked,” Leta said. “Is she always naked?”
“Oh, yes, yes. Darya, Doctor Bedr
osian, is most always naked. Unless travelling to the Homeland, of course. I’m quite used to her…what did you call it?”
“Eccentricity,” Abby said yet again.
“Yes, she has a gorgeous eccentricity. Wouldn’t you say? Refreshing really, especially when I receive my pain therapy.”
Abby smiled. “We saw that when we arrived.”
“Oh, so you did, yes. I am sure I could coax her into giving you a session before you go if you like.” He peered at Leta. “Each of you. Very vigorous, stimulating.”
Leta looked away. “Could we see where the event occurred?”
“Oh, yes, yes. Through here.” Winslow went to the end of the glass case and waved his hand. A laser fanned into his eyes then the last cell of the display receded into the wall and rotated inward. “You are the first to enter since the event. The gallery sealed itself when the thief entered.” Winslow gestured them through the opening first, then followed.
“Wait here, Malcolm,” Abby said.
“Oh, yes, the crime scene. I’ve been so looking forward to your visit, Abby. Just to show you what the Jasper can do.”
19
The augments in Abby’s optics engaged once again when they entered the hidden gallery. Countless digital images overlaid the dense floor-to-ceiling collection of rare Planar and Homeland objects, but what drew his immediate attention was the void in the rear of the room.
The vid card playback that Yun gave him put the Jasper under glass near the corner, but the wood-paneled corner was no longer there. In its place was a spherically concave indentation into the concrete behind.
Abby knelt down beside Leta, who was already gliding her fingers across the perfectly smooth surface.
“He could’ve had one of his syns laser this, or brought somebody in, but the curve is perfect,” Abby said.
“A laser could never curve cut,” Leta said. “A master with a modified plasma unit, maybe.” Her head swung slowly side to side as she surveyed the entirety of the void. “The only way to achieve this form is with a mold or a quant.” She stood, stretched her fingers, then tightly curled them into a fist. “But the molecules have been shaved. This is definitely a Bubble event.”