"So you're offering the next best thing to a kick?"
She shrugged. "I think, if you found the right cause, or the right woman, nothing could keep you in that shell. I haven't been able to find her—or it. Neither have you. I keep hoping."
For some reason, I could feel my throat thickening. I was so fortunate to have her as a sister. I wasn't so sure she was near as fortunate in her brother. After a moment, I answered. "Believe it or not, I do occasionally look. I'm not sure that it's something you can find by looking for it—or her."
She sighed. "I suppose not. I have to tell you that I worry, though."
"I appreciate it." And I did. Aliora had always been there.
"I'm glad you did upgrade your security system. Dierk said that was a smart thing to do. After the attacks on Everett, he thinks there will be more. The PAMD people are dangerous."
"I worry more about their opponents. The reaction to PAMD could be worse than anything that those so-called patriots could do."
"Why do you think that?" Her brow furrowed in concern.
"History. Internal reactions to outside pressures are always nasty. The Spanish Inquisition really didn't get brutal until Catholicism was under attack. The civil freedoms of the old Commonocracy practically vanished under various threats, none of which were that serious. The Great Repression of the Sinese Commune..." I shrugged. "It's an old human pattern. Tolerance flourishes in times of prosperity and lack of threat, and vanishes under pressure. It's a fragile flower." I paused. "You never said why you linked."
"I hadn't heard from you. Not for a few days, and after what you told me last week, I thought I'd check."
My sister ... always concerned. "I'm fine—even if I'm more withdrawn than either of us would like. I'll try to do better."
She smiled, and I could tell it was for my benefit. "See that you do."
"I will."
After she broke the link, I sat looking into the twilight, wondering...
Chapter 45
By pushing on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, I finished the draft of the H F study and sent it off to Bruce for comment. Then I checked the printed copies of the Centre report. At one-forty, I left the house, setting the much more elaborate external security, and began walking down to the maglev station. I only had to wait five minutes for the next maglev. The trip to the Northtech stop seemed faster than usual, and with a good ten minutes to spare, I was striding up the walk of replica cobblestones toward the dark redbrick building that held the Centre and its tenants, three other associations.
The virty guard offered his standard salutation and request for destination, and I replied, and he cleared me. I stepped through the stainless-steel gate as it opened, then made my way up the ramps to the northwest corner and the Centre offices.
The very real receptionist was expecting me. "Good afternoon, Dr. deVrai. Director Uy-Smythe and the others are already in his office."
"Thank you." I stepped through the open door into Uy-Smythe's corner office.
Besides the director, there were three others seated around the conference table, but all four rose as I stepped into the office. Each had a copy of the first draft lying on the table.
"Dr. deVrai... punctual as always." Uy-Smythe smiled broadly.
I just nodded.
"I'd like to introduce the others. Dr. Carleton Brazel, staff director of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee..."
Brazel was a tall and thin blond fellow, looking like he was barely out of grad studies, but his position meant that he effectively worked for Senator Crosslin, perhaps the most conservative of the LR senators, if one of the more effective.
"Annika Dalaand, a fellow here at the Centre..."
Dalaand was even younger looking, with a cheerful round face and bright green eyes under a short thatch of brown hair.
"Edward Cameron, another Centre fellow..."
The black-haired Cameron looked as though he'd rather have been anywhere else, his mouth puckered into a sour facsimile of a smile.
"And Maria Ruiz, assistant staff director of the House Subcommittee on Regulatory Structure."
The redhead flashed a warm smile, the first genuine expression I'd seen in the office, and I returned the smile. I took out five bound copies of the study and handed them to Uy-Smythe. There were two more in the case I carried. I'd also learned that years before. If people have to share copies, the consultant is always blamed—no matter what the client said.
"How would you suggest we handle this?" asked Uy-Smythe, settling back into his chair.
"It looks like everyone has read the study," I began, taking the one vacant chair and then sliding my own copy onto the table. "I'll just direct you to the additions. You can read them, and, if there are any questions, or areas where you think clarification is necessary, let me know."
"That sounds like the best approach," concurred Brazel. His voice reminded me of the glee of a jackal coming across fresh-killed carrion.
So ... off we went.
There were questions, usually from Brazel.
"Why did you use the term 'off-rez' here? Do you think that your explanation is adequate?"
"Do you think you should add a section about the costs involved in rez projection for a personal appearance? Or a comparison to costs for netlink uses?"
"Is the study broad enough to be representative?"
"Are there any comparative studies involving other Earth governments?"
"Do you know if particular multis are specializing in political media presentations? Or were these uses that you reported developed independently?"
When I finally left, slightly after four-thirty, they were all pleased and had accepted the revised version. I was wrung out, mainly from the effort of smiling and biting my tongue.
The maglev was full, but not yet crowded, with a mixture of faint scents, mostly faded perfumes and worn-out colognes. I couldn't help but think about Aliora's link on Monday. I looked around the maglev car, and there were plenty of faces, most of them pleasant, if not attractive, but I didn't see a one that called out to me. That wasn't them. That was me.
As usual, although the maglev had been full, only a handful disembarked at my station, Greenbelt South. Three were young women, who hurried southward away from the station. The other was a man, who remained waiting on the platform, I supposed for someone on a later shuttle.
Worried as I was about both the implications of the Centre study and the Prius legal action, I scanned the lane outside the station as I walked through the security gates. Gateway Lane was empty, and on Altiplano—the parallel main street leading out of the area and to the foothills guideway—there were only a few groundcars humming uphill toward the houses farther away from the Greenbelt station. I didn't see any heading the other way. Since I could take both Gateway and Altiplano, I opted for the quieter lane.
I'd almost reached the first cross lane when I heard the whine of an electrocar being driven far too quickly and coming up Gateway from behind me. I glanced back. The groundcar was a dull gray, and there were two figures in it. Another groundcar glided out of the side lane, stopping under the wall of the corner house.
The two were an announcement. I didn't wait for the rest of the message, but sprinted for the front yard wall of the house to my right; it was made of cut stone, about shoulder-high. The scrambled vault was one of my better athletic efforts, even if I did drop the document case on the sidewalk before I cleared the dressed stones.
I could feel the heat of something flash overhead. Lasers weren't exactly suited to chasing running men, but they did have the advantages of silence and untraceability. I kept low and scrambled back downhill. Fragments of stone sprayed overhead. I hadn't heard the report of a weapon, and that meant they had slug-throwers with silencers. More stone sprayed behind me.
I sprinted to the corner of the wall, then vaulted over into the next yard. As I smashed down onto some sort of bush, a siren went off, with enough volume that it staggered me, but only for a second, and less than the man with th
e slug-thrower who was a meter away and turning slowly toward me.
Since running would have gotten me killed, I attacked. Between the siren and my unexpected charge, he was slow in bringing the slug-thrower to bear, or slow enough that I was able to take the handgun and break several of his fingers in the process. He kept struggling, silently, as though he felt little pain, and the gun went flying somewhere into the bushes. Such a strong and quiet struggle meant another damned cydroid. So I crushed his throat and broke his right knee. That did slow him down.
A quick glance to the east revealed that the rear courtyard of the house was surrounded by another wall, more than two meters high, and I wasn't going to be vaulting over that.
So ... keeping low enough that the lower front wall shielded me, I sprinted back in the direction of the maglev station. I didn't see anyone at the far end, where the wall ended, and I came to a stop there. My combat enhancements were up, although I didn't recall triggering them. I could sense another two men, one on the far side of the lane, and a second farther north, near the section of the first wall I'd vaulted. None of the three had said a word or uttered a sound.
I decided to wait.
Ten minutes passed, and so did two groundcars, but neither even slowed, and the two men/cydroids were still waiting and watching. I let another ten minutes pass, using my hearing and enhancements to keep track of the attackers.
After almost twenty-five minutes, the figure across the lane from me began to walk, his steps casual, toward the iron gate less than ten meters north of where I was crouched. Just inside the wall, on each side of the gate, were two pfitzers trimmed into the shape of miniature towers two meters high. If he stepped through the gate and past the pfitzers, he'd have me trapped in a corner where bullets could ricochet and worse. I began to ease back toward the gate, until I reached the nearest pfitzer. There, once more, I waited, crouching behind the topiary tower.
In time, the cydroid stepped through the gate.
"You two! Get out of my yard!" The voice blared from a hidden speaker. "I'm summoning the safos."
The cydroid frowned and turned toward the speaker. He fired twice before the speaker squawked and fell silent.
Just as the second shot went off, I struck. This time I not only broke fingers, but got the gun and turned it on the cydroid and put a single shot through his right eye. I froze for a second, maybe longer, as I realized that the cydroid was me. Or looked like me.
I swallowed and dropped into a crouch. There had been cydroids running around in my image ... Damn, damn, damn!
The shock of the cydroid's death should have immobilized whoever had been on the other end of the shunt. I kept the gun and eased forward into the space between the walls where the gate would have rested in the closed position. The other cydroid was running toward me.
It took three shots before he went down. At least, that one didn't look like me.
I couldn't sense anyone else, but I knew all sorts of alerts had to be going to the safos, and probably there might even be reinforcements for the attackers headed after me.
I began to run, uphill, then through a side lane and onto the looped lane that held my own house. Once I was within a hundred meters of the house, I managed to link with the house security system. No one had intruded there, although the system had recorded one attempt. I kept scanning the area and moving in irregular jerky patterns, even as I tried to alert the safos.
Safety Office]
Phase state your name, location, and problem.
Jonat deVrai, NNW 445, Aspen Circle, off Gateway ... Three men are attacking me with various weapons ... That wasn't quite true, because all of them were down, all that I knew of, anyway.
Notify Central Four also ... codes follow ... Just as I got the codes off and crossed onto my own property, heading for the less exposed side door, something slammed into my right shoulder, and spun me down. I hit the winter-hard lawn with enough force to knock the wind right out of me.
From somewhere I could hear a siren ululating, but it seemed to waver in and out of my ears before blackness and silence washed over me.
Chapter 46
Ghamel and Mydra sat before the empty table desk, their backs to the permaglass wall to the west. Neither looked through the tinted windows to the south, either, in the direction of the Capitol Complex.
Nor did they stand when the man who called himself Tarn Lin Deng appeared and settled himself into the seat behind the ancient table desk. Only when the privacy shield enfolded the three did Ghamel speak.
"Why can't we find out what happened to deVrai?" asked the redhead.
"As you know, he has vanished."
"You've had people searching for a week, and even with all your sources, you don't know where he is? The great and mighty ISS? With its even more astute SPD?"
"The Special Projects Division undertakes difficult tasks. It is not an intelligence agency. Why should it be, when we have access to safo, DomSec, and CI reports?" Deng shrugged fatalistically. "It is unlikely that he is alive. There are no records of his admission to any medcenter in any of the western NorAm districts. It is impossible to survive an AP rocket without highly intensive medical attention."
"ISS has no idea where he is?" probed Mydra. "Or was?"
"The safo monitors show a safo medvan and picking him up. There were two safos loading him into the medvan. Our sources within the Public Safety Office can find no records of such van usage. Every safo has been accounted for. None were there. They had all been assigned elsewhere, well away from the area." Deng's smile was faint. "That was as planned."
"What if the PAMD rescued him somehow?" asked Ghamel. "Or the Sinese localists?"
"What if they did? That would just confirm that he was their tool," Deng observed.
"DeVrai knows he wasn't." Mydra glanced to Ghamel.
"If he is alive ... if he has a mind left... and with the nanite loads in the rocket, that remains most unlikely," Ghamel pointed out. "If he remains out of sight for another few months, it won't matter."
"How is all of that affecting the development of the campaign reform bill?"
"It is proceeding more expeditiously than we had planned. You know that the Denv Public Safety Office has been forced to admit that deVrai was attacked, and that he was seriously wounded, and that they cannot find him. We forced them to reveal that he had reported the DNA theft two years ago, and more recently, that he had reported seeing individuals who looked like him. When it was clear that there was solid evidence that he had been killed or severely injured, we used the contingency plan for the VanOkars. That resolved two difficulties at one time. When deVrai's semi-clone was implicated in the other attack, that proved extremely useful in suggesting how deeply entrenched those who would overthrow the NorAm government are. The Centre has released his report, and we have suggested to those in the media that what deVrai discovered was more than enough reason for him to vanish."
"I saw how Jeri Brooks grilled Carlisimo." An amused smile crossed Mydra's lips. "She even asked him about the 'coincidence' that his security people had tried to stop deVrai from attending too many of his rallies. He denied that, and then had to retract it."
Ghamel laughed. "That idiot Carlisimo didn't know. He left all that up to campaign security, and when Zerak found the planted stuff about deVrai, he had to watch him, even if he didn't believe it. Otherwise, if anything had happened, he would have been found negligent."
"You're certain that the safos don't know anything about where deVrai is?"
"They have even grilled the AIs. That had to be done carefully, but it was done." Deng nodded. "All is proceeding."
"I still worry about deVrai. No one should have been able to take out three combat-level cydroids."
"The unexpected does happen, Director Mydra," Deng said politely. "That is why there was a fourth, and why we have in-depth contingency plans. Now ... we need to discuss when it will be most feasible to implement stage two..."
Chapter 47
A face s
wirled into view, looking down on me. It was my own face, except reversed. There was no expression on it that was mine. A flash of light blinded me, and when I could see, another face had appeared, an angular face, with protruding eyes. The eyes rolled up in their sockets, showing white, and then began to melt down the decomposing cheeks.
"You thought you were so smart... so smart..." The words echoed like thunder before they faded into the darkness that surrounded me, enfolded me.
What had happened? I hadn't been shot, had I?
The darkness pressed in, all around me, a hot darkness, and so much pain that I could hardly think. Where was I? Who was I? Had I ever really known?
More darkness followed the questions, a haziness that seemed to last forever, a darkness that was interrupted abruptly by a searing slash of redness. For a moment, I could see—or I thought I could—but all that was around me were surfaces of smooth plastreen ... and I dropped back into the hot darkness.
Sometime later, the heat began to fade, and, in between the dark clouds, bits of memory appeared. Two gray groundcars, three cydroids, stone fragments spraying over my head...
I couldn't believe any of it, not really. Or maybe I could, in a way, but except for the pain it seemed unreal. The pain was very real. Very real, with lines of fire, alternating with lines of ice, both like swords slashing into my body. Did I have a body? I had to; it hurt too much not to be real.
I blinked—or I tried to. My eyes were gummy, and I couldn't lift my hands to my face. My eyes wouldn't open.
Wherever I was ... it was almost silent. Medcenters weren't silent. I'd visited them enough to know. And they weren't dark. Was I dead? Was that the darkness, the last awareness ... except everyone said that was light. What did they know? What did I know?
I tried to speak, and my jaw didn't work. Neither did much of anything else. All that came out was something between a grunt, a sigh, and a cough.
Do not struggle ... you have been badly injured. You will recover. It will take time.
Through my implant?
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