by Tad Williams
"So we have to monkey with your badge some more. I don't know what Sellars planned. I haven't found any notes about this, but I'm still looking. He might have had some legitimate code to plug in, but I ain't got it. Maybe you could find someone who has access already, then I could, y'know, counterfeit an authorization,"
"There's a janitor who's helping me," Olga said hesitantly. "He's been up to those floors at least once or twice."
"What?" Ramsey had been listening in. "Olga, we can't tell anybody. . . !"
"I didn't tell him anything," she said angrily. "Give me some credit. I told him a big, stupid lie. He is braindamaged, or perhaps a little retarded, so you can imagine how I feel right now, using him like this." She was close to tears again, "Would his badge information help you?"
"Yeah." There was a moment's silence as the stranger named Beezle considered. "Maybe we could make it look like the janitor got off at the wrong floor or something—y'know, like he was just messin' around. . . ."
"If you do anything to get him in trouble, I will kill you!"
"Kill me?" The raspy laugh sounded in her ear. "Lady, the kid's parents tried to unplug me for weeks and didn't get to first base, so I don't know how you think you'd manage it."
Completely thrown by this bizarre non sequitur, Olga could think of no response.
"Look, just get us his badge information," Ramsey said after a moment. "You still have the ring, don't you?"
"I can do a better job with her t-jack," Beezle said.
"Fine. Just do that, Olga. Then we'll decide what to do."
Feeling like a character out of some antique farce, she hurried out of the restroom and trotted down the corridor. Jerome was standing stock-still in the elevator lobby, looking at his shoes. The overhead lights gleamed on his prominent facial bones, making him seem like some machine that had run down and stopped.
The custodian lifted his head when he heard her. The smile changed his misshapen face into something lovable, an old doll, a broken but familiar toy.
"I just wanted you to know I'm almost done," she said. "Oh, my shoe. Can I hold onto your shoulder?" She steadied herself while she pretended to adjust the shoe, taking care to lean her telematic jack close to his badge, then she hurried back to the restroom. Ramsey and his new friend were already analyzing the results.
"I can make something to get you in," Beezle said at last. "But it won't fool anyone if they check up, and they'll probably notice you going in. The schematic says there are security cameras all over that floor. There are some little indicators that are probably drones, too."
"That won't work," Ramsey said miserably. "Even if she had time to plant Sellars' little package, and we got the right place first time, someone would check the place over if they found her in there with a forged clearance. They must have engineers on call."
The relief that washed over her at the idea of being barred from the upper floor made Olga realize for the first time how frightened she was. "So it's hopeless?"
"I can't do miracles, lady," Beezle grated. "My owner Orlando always used to say. . . ."
"Hang on," said Ramsey, interrupting yet another puzzling remark. "You brought in more than one package. We can set off the smoke device."
"How is that going to help?" In a way, Olga had already begun to accustom herself to failure. Every spur to going on, even the memory of the children, had been blunted by her growing fear. She desperately wanted to see the sky again, to feel real wind on her face, even the warm bathwater that they called air down in this part of the United States. "It is not going to blow the doors off or anything, and it is too far down in the building to hide me from anyone without choking me to death at the same time."
"But if they have to evacuate the building they won't be paying much attention to who's getting on and off at the forty-sixth floor or whatever."
"You said they had cameras. Even if they don't see me at that moment, they can access the footage when they find out it's a false alarm."
"If we're lucky—if you're lucky, I should say, since I know you're the one taking the risks—you'll be done by then, maybe even out of the building, and none of it will matter. So you'll have to be quick with the tap. Just plant the device, then get out."
She felt dizzy. "I . . . I will try. Are you going to set off the smoke bomb now?"
"Not yet," Ramsey said. "Beezle needs to fake your clearance—pretending to set the building on fire won't do us any good if you're still locked out of that floor. And I'd like to study Sellars' notes. I called you in a hurry, so I've hardly had a chance to think." He sounded glum again. "I wasn't really trained for this kind of thing."
"So who was? Me?" Olga lowered her feet to the restroom floor.
"Can you find somewhere safe to hide again? We'll call you at midnight."
"Fine." She cut the connection, feeling a bit like she was watching the departure of a boat that had dropped her off on an isolated, uninhabited island.
The restroom door hissed shut behind her as she headed back to tell Jerome that her plans had changed. It was some small solace not to have to drag him into danger. She thought of the lost children. She seemed fated to be their paladin and protector whether it made sense or not, and even whether she wanted to or not. She hoped they appreciated it. What was it her mother had used to say about gratitude?
"You should be grateful to me now, while I'm still alive. It will save on postage."
But I wouldn't mind paying the postage, Mama, she thought. If I only had your address.
Her mother wanted her to go to the store with her, but Christabel just didn't want to go. She didn't want to do anything. She told her mommy that she wanted to stay at the hotel and watch the wallscreen, but she really didn't. Mommy and Daddy had a little fight—Daddy didn't like Mommy going out where someone might see her.
"We just need to lie low," he said.
"I'm not going to lie so low my child eats nothing but junk food," she said. "We have a kitchen as part of this room and I'm going to use it. That child hasn't touched a vegetable that wasn't deep-fried in days."
It was a small fight, and it wasn't the reason Christabel was feeling bad, but she still didn't like it. Mommy and Daddy didn't make jokes anymore. Daddy didn't put his arms around Mommy, or lean over and kiss her on the back of the neck. He picked Christabel up and gave her hugs, but he wasn't happy and neither was Mommy. And since the bad thing had happened to Mister Sellars and the boy, they hardly talked at all without fighting.
"Are you sure you won't come with me, honey?" her mother said. "You could pick out some cereal you like."
Christabel shook her head. "I'm tired." Mommy closed the door and came back into the room to feel Christabel's forehead, then sighed. "No temperature. But you don't feel good, do you?"
"Not really."
"We'll be getting out of here soon," Mommy said. "One way or the other. I'll bring you home something nice."
"Call if you're not going to be back by half an hour, Kay," her father said.
"Half an hour? It'll take me that long just to get there and back." But for a moment the little angry look she almost always wore these days went away and she looked at Daddy the way she used to. "If I'm still out, I'll check in an hour from now. I promise."
When she was gone Daddy went off to the next room to talk to Mister Ramsey. Christabel tried to watch the wallscreen, but nothing was interesting. Even Uncle Jingle seemed stupid and sad, a story about Queen Cloud Cat's new baby, Prince Popo, getting lost at the circus. Even the best joke in the whole thing, when Uncle Jingle got his foot caught by an elephant and it started swinging him around and around and around in a big circle, only made her smile.
Feeling bored, but also like she was going to cry, she opened the connecting door and went into the next room. Her daddy was talking to Mister Ramsey, both of them looking at Mister Ramsey's pad so they didn't even see her. She walked down the hall to the bedroom where Mister Sellars and Cho-Cho were lying side by side on one of the beds, still quiet,
still not moving. She had gone to look at them a lot of times, always hoping that she would see Mister Sellars' eyes open so she could run to her parents and Mister Ramsey and tell them he was awake. They would be very proud that she had noticed, and Mister Sellars would sit up and call her "Little Christabel," and thank her for watching over him. Maybe Cho-Cho would wake up, too, and would be nicer to her.
But Mister Sellars' eyes weren't open, and she couldn't even see his chest moving. She touched his hand. It felt warm. Didn't that mean someone wasn't dead? Or were you supposed to touch their neck? People were always doing it on the net, but she couldn't quite remember how.
Cho-Cho looked very small. His eyes were closed, too, but his mouth was open and a little spit was on the pillow. Christabel thought that was pretty yick, but decided it wasn't his fault.
She leaned in close. "Wake up, Mister Sellars," she whispered, loud enough for him to hear if he was listening, but not loud enough for her daddy to hear in the other room. "You can wake up now."
But he didn't wake up. He looked bad, like something that had been run over and was lying by the side of the road. She felt like crying again.
Uncle Jingle didn't get any better. She tried a bunch of other shows—even Teen Mob, which her parents didn't like her to watch because they said it was "vulgar," which meant bad or scary, she wasn't sure which. Maybe both. Her daddy came back then so she had to change to another show fast.
"Why on earth are you watching lacrosse, Christabel?" he asked her.
She guessed that was the name of the game. The people were swinging sticks at each other. "I don't know. It's interesting."
"Well, I'm going to lie down for a few minutes. Your mom should be calling in a quarter of an hour, so if she doesn't call, come wake me, okay?" He pointed at the clock in me corner of the wallscreen. "When that says 17:50, okay?"
"Okay, Daddy." She watched him walk into the bedroom, then switched back to Teen Mob. The people on the show always seemed to be talking about who was dancing with who—dances she hadn't heard of, like "Shoeboxing" and "Doing the Hop." Someone said "Klorine will play Bumper Cars with anything in sprays," and Christabel wasn't sure if they were talking about another dance or real bumper cars, even though there hadn't been any on the show, because someone else said, "Yeah, and that's why she's always getting hurt," which sounded more like cars than dancing. She turned off the wallscreen.
It didn't seem fair. Mister Sellars was sick, maybe dying, and they didn't even call a doctor. What if he needed some medicine to get better? Mommy was at the store buying things, but Christabel knew you didn't get real medicine at the grocery store, just fruit-flavored cough medicine and things like that. When you were really sick, like Grandma Sorensen, you had to have medicine from the drugstore, or even go to the hospital.
She wandered around the room, wondering if she could go and talk to Mister Ramsey. Mommy wasn't supposed to call for another ten minutes and Christabel felt like that would be the longest ten minutes ever in the world. And she was hungry, too. And even more bored than sad. She thought she should have gone to the grocery store with her mother.
She was looking in her daddy's coat pocket for the pretzels he had taken away from her that morning because she wasn't supposed to have pretzels for breakfast, when she found the Storybook Sunglasses.
She was surprised a little, because she had thought Daddy had left them behind back at their house. As she thought about the day when they had left, she had a really bad homesickness. She wanted to see the other kids again—even Ophelia Weiner, who wasn't always stuck up. And sleep in her own room again, with her Zoomer Zizz poster and her dolls and animals.
She took the sunglasses back to the couch and put them on, just looking at the black for a moment, because it was more interesting than anything else in the stupid, sad hotel. Then she touched them to turn them on, and although the sunglasses stayed black, Mister Sellars' voice was in her ear.
At first she thought it was one of his old messages. But it wasn't.
"If this is you, little Christabel, tell me our code word. Do you remember?"
She had to think for a moment. "Rumplestiltskin," she whispered.
"Good. I want to tell you something. . . ."
"Where are you? Are you okay? Did you wake up?" She was already halfway across the room, heading for the connecting door to go see him, but when the questions had stopped jumping out of her mouth he was still talking. He hadn't even heard her.
". . . And I can't really explain it to you, but I'm very, very busy. I know it looks like I'm sick, but I'm not—I just can't be in my body right now. I hope you're not too worried."
"Are you going to get better?" she asked, but he had started talking again and she finally understood that it was only a recording, that he hadn't called her up to tell her he was awake. He hadn't even called her. It was just a message.
"I need you to listen very carefully, little Christabel. I don't want you to be frightened. I have only a few moments, then I'm going to be very busy again, so I want to leave this for you.
"I suspect Cho-Cho is in just the same situation that I'm in—that he looks like he's sick, or sleeping. Don't worry too much. He's here with me."
She wanted to know where "here" was, but she knew it wouldn't do any good to ask.
"I'm leaving this message for two others reasons," Mister Sellars' voice went on. "One is that no matter what we say, grown-ups can't always make things come out right. I hope I will see you again and talk to you, and that we will be friends for a long time. But if something happens to me—remember, Christabel, I am very old—I want you to remember that I think you are the bravest, kindest little girl I have ever met. And I've been around a long time, so that is not small praise.
"The other thing I want to tell you is that if I manage to . . . to stay well for a little while longer, and some of the other things I'm trying to do also work out, I may need you to help me one more time. I'm not quite sure I understand it myself yet, and I don't really have time to tell you anyway—I'm as busy as the night we burned my house down and I went into the tunnels, do you remember?—but I want you to listen to me now and think about what I'm saying.
"When you first met Cho-Cho, I know he scared you. I think you have come to see that he is not as bad as all that—perhaps you understand that he has had a difficult life and does not trust people, that he is worried that only bad things will happen to him. His life has made him different than you, but there is a lot of good inside him.
"I want you to remember that, little Christabel, because I may need your help. If I do, I will be asking you to . . . to meet someone. That is the only way I can explain it. And that someone may seem even more different and frightening than Cho-Cho. You will have to be as brave as you have ever been, Christabel. And that is very brave indeed. . . ."
CHAPTER 37
The Locked Roam
NETFEED/NEWS: Suing Do-Gooder Parents for Doing too Much Good
(visual: Wahlstrom heirs entering Stockholm courthouse)
VO: The four children of the late Gunnar and Ki Wahlstrom, famous Swedish environmental activists, are suing their parents' estate, demanding that the Wahlstroms' substantial bequests to environmental organizations be given to them instead.
(visual: Per Wahlstrom)
WAHLSTROM: "Everybody thinks what we are doing is so terrible. But they didn't have to live with parents who paid attention to everything but their own children. Not a one of us cared a fig for whales or rain forests. What about us? Don't we deserve something for putting up with absentee parents for all those years? They cared much more about snails than they did about us."
Paul ran up to the front of the temple praying that the Wicked Tribe had exaggerated. As he skidded through the door the heat and light hit him like a small explosion and for a moment he could only stand, blinking against the dazzle.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw it first as a homeless shadow—something black sliding swiftly along the desert sands. Even though
he had been prepared, warned by the children, it was only when he saw it climb one of the nearby hills in just a few steps, the dust of its seismic footsteps billowing behind it, that he realized how terrifyingly huge it was.
It paused on the hilltop, a colossus come to life. The doglike muzzle lifted as it howled and seconds later the air outside the temple, kilometers away, surged and snapped. Then it lowered its head and began to run once more.
Paul stumbled back through the door on legs that felt like burned matchsticks.
"He's coming! Dread's coming!" He lurched to a halt just inside the inner chamber. Florimel and T4b and the others looked up at him, eyes wide and faces slack from terrors that seemed to have no end. "They're right—he's huge!"
Only Martine had not turned. She was facing the pure white human silhouette that had appeared to them moments earlier and now hung just above the ground like something out of a puppet show. "Tell me," she asked it, "can you talk to Sellars?"
"El Viejo?" The thing squirmed, making its outlines hard to distinguish. "Sometimes. I hear him. But he's all busy right now. Said I was supposed to stay with you."
"Then he gave you a death sentence!" Paul heard something close to utter despair in Florimel's cracked voice. A distant sound like a monstrous drum being pounded—boom, boom, boom—sent faint vibrations through the massive stones of the temple floor.
"Gonna step on us!" T4b shouted.
"Silence, please." Martine turned away from them to face the great black sarcophagus lying at the center of the chamber. "Stay together," she called. "Someone get the little monkeys."
"What are you doing?" asked Nandi Paradivash, even as he summoned the Wicked Tribe down out of the air with urgent gestures. A few of them settled on Paul, clinging to his clothes and hair.
"Just be quiet. Martine s eyes were closed, her head down. "We have only moments."
The floor was shaking in earnest now, as though bombs were being set off deep beneath the temple. Each titan footfall was louder than the last.