Raymond moved the bot up and down like a nodding head. Anya said something to the women outside, then walked through the sitting room, back into the room where Raymond had first heard her. He raced after her, and she closed the door as soon as he was in the room, a small kitchen.
"Very cute, Raymond," said Anya. "How did you get network access this time?"
"This time," said the cleaner bot. Raymond had forgotten to add the question mark to the end of his sentence. He corrected it and tried again. "This time?"
"This isn't funny. If Henry finds out about this, he's going to kick me off the project, and his mad scientist friends will treat you like a lab rat."
"I don't know what you're talking about," announced the cleaner bot. "I don't know who Henry is. I think you must be talking about a different Raymond. I mean a different copy of me."
The spacious, polite voice of the bot couldn't keep up with Raymond's gestures. It was driving him mad. He sat waiting for the words to come out, dying to hear Anya's response.
She stared at him, clearly lost.
"Maybe I'm already a lab rat," said the cleaner bot.
Raymond heard a knock at the door. Anya's eyes opened wide, and Raymond saw her arms come up and wrap around the cleaner bot. The view went all streaky, as if from a dropped video camera, and then went black. A man spoke in Portuguese, and Anya replied. Raymond heard the door close.
Anya whispered from somewhere nearby. "Don't make a sound. Now... okay. Think. Okay, I'm going to ask you a question. If the answer is yes, spin clockwise. If the answer is no, spin counter-clockwise."
Raymond visualized these directions in his head, trying to figure out if it mattered whether the cleaner bot was right-side up or upside-down.
"Do you have access to the network?" she asked.
Raymond turned to the right.
"Right. Of course you do. Okay. Can you get onto my computer?"
Raymond turned to the left.
"Hmm. Damn it. How can this be? Henry said there was no way he could get a second NBC."
"How do I stop the comet?" asked the cleaner bot.
"Ssh!" hissed Anya. "If they hear you, they'll know you're in here."
Raymond knew that cleaner bots all broadcast location data. It ultimately wouldn't matter whether he made noise, now that they knew there was a malfunctioning cleaner bot.
"I need to stop the comet," repeated the bot, as pleasant as ever.
"I don't think you can," said Anya. "You told me you made it an immutable event, and you wiped out all your Nurania backups—you were so ashamed of—"
"Can you meet me on the deck in twenty hours?" asked the bot.
"Yes. No, no. In four hours. Or twenty-four. Both. Either."
"I'll try for four," said the bot. "Otherwise twenty-four. Leave the bot here. Say it looked lost. I love you."
"Oh, I hope you're okay."
Raymond saw light again—a sideways view across the floor—and heard Anya's heels tock-tock-tock out of the room and down the hall. He hurriedly wiped the bot's communication logs. He was just about to disable a key component of its navigational system when he realized he had made a mistake.
"Shit—I changed the password. Maintenance will see it was changed, and they'll know it was hacked. If they know anything about security... or maybe they'll just see that it was reset to the default and chalk it up to hardware failure. Oh, what do I do? I could make a run for it, and try to get the bot to a hiding place... no, then they might lock up all the bots until they figure out who stole this one. What do I do?"
He heard footsteps coming down the hall, getting closer.
"It's too late to run. It's back to the default password... I'll... that's it!"
He zipped through administrator screens. The footsteps stopped nearby, and he heard the door open.
"There it is." He issued the command to restore all factory defaults. "Bink—done!" His connection to the bot dropped, and he sat back and breathed a sigh of relief. They might take this particular bot out of service, making it impossible for him to hijack it again later, but at least this way they were unlikely to suspect hacking. He turned off the mote array, in case anyone decided to scan for unusual network traffic.
Raymond glanced at the clock. It would be at least a couple of hours before the meteorites reached the Village, at which point his real avatar would be expected to wake up.
"Time to think. But first I should switch avatars, in case someone comes to wake me up early. Computer, stop session."
He found himself in the recliner again, in the darkness of 3 AM. As his eyes adjusted, he realized he was looking at the silhouette of a man in a long coat, with arms crossed.
"I was just about to head back to the Village again," said Scorpio. "You done?"
"Yep. Go ahead and move me into my real avatar again, and switch back to the blue jay. And stay close enough to keep in touch."
"You got it."
Raymond was instantly transported to the sleeping loft. He lay on his side, curled up. He felt around him for Carly, but couldn't find her. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the jungle's nocturnal life.
Henry. Who is Henry?
He signaled to Scorpio, asking to be awakened before the meteorites came, in case he fell asleep, and felt a nod in response.
So, the original me is still alive. And Anya didn't know I exist. She's working at a lab in Portugal, for someone named Henry. And his 'mad scientist friends'? Could those be the users on the Nurania box?
He signaled again to Scorpio, moving his hands beneath the covers, asking him to repeat the usernames of the other accounts on the Nurania server.
"bquinn, fgonsalez, mbonner, poverlord, tranier."
None of them start with an 'h'. But 'poverlord' stands out.
"Is poverlord online?" signaled Raymond.
Raymond's head shook side-to-side.
"Notify me when poverlord comes online," signaled Raymond. "Correction: notify me when any user comes online."
The other Raymond isn't allowed to have network access. And yet he's managed to get it. This lab doesn't seem to take security very seriously. They must not feel threatened. Maybe it's another academic project? Anya doesn't know I exist, but she does know about the other Raymond. Maybe he's part of an above-board project, while there's a secret project underway at the same time—one that Anya doesn't know about.
Aware that he should try to sleep, Raymond closed his eyes. An abnormal chill was setting in, despite his having plenty of bedcovers. He knew he was tired, yet his mind raced. Anya's involvement gave the mysteries of his situation a greater sense of urgency. In only four hours, he would have another opportunity to contact her, assuming his network access wasn't discovered and shut down before then.
He felt like the name Henry should mean something to him. Had this name ever come up in connection with the FBI investigation? Did Bob have any colleagues named Henry? The name meant nothing to him.
Chapter 19
"Raymond," whispered Scorpio. "Wake up."
The sound of his name slowly worked its way into Raymond's consciousness, and he willed himself to stir. He wiggled a finger to let Scorpio know he was awake.
"fgonsalez has come online."
Raymond gave the "acknowledged" sign and let himself drift back to sleep.
"And the meteorites will be reaching the Village soon," said Scorpio.
With gargantuan effort, Raymond roused himself. He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes.
"How soon?" he signaled to Scorpio.
"Twenty minutes."
"Hey Raymond!" called a boy's voice from far away. It sounded like Eddie, calling up from the forest floor.
Okay, so Eddie must be fgonsalez.
"You up there?" hollered Eddie. "I'm comin' up."
Raymond threw the covers aside. The movement of air against his skin made him realize he was sweaty. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sat up, and ran his hands through his hair. Everything looked sof
t in the predawn light.
Twenty minutes until the meteorites reached the Village... it must be about 4:30.
He couldn't have slept more than an hour.
"Hi Raymond." Eddie poked his head up over the edge of the sleeping loft. "Looks like you're already awake?"
"Very astute of you," grumbled Raymond.
Eddie climbed up, knelt at the edge of the ladder, and pulled something out of his pocket.
"Here, catch."
He tossed a small object at Raymond, who instinctively went to catch it, but it seemed to disappear. No, it hadn't disappeared. Raymond squinted and leaned forward for a closer look—it hung motionless in mid-air.
"What the..."
"Stand up," said Eddie.
Raymond stood up, and noticed that the bed felt oddly solid as he pushed off of it. He turned around and saw a depression in the mattress, as if he were still sitting on it.
"What's going on?" asked Raymond. He looked at the object that hung in mid-air. It was a slender white flashlight, the kind Raymond used sometimes when working on robotics projects.
"Regional time freeze," said Eddie. "Listen, I got your message. How did you get network access?"
"Network access?" asked Raymond innocently.
Message?
Eddie looked at him with a distrustful scrutiny completely out of character. "Alright, I don't know if you're screwing with me. I don't see how it could have been from anyone else, unless... no, you it was clearly from you. Okay, listen. You turned out to be a lot different than I expected, and now that I've stopped recording, I might as well get this off my chest."
Recording—so they have been watching me.
Raymond quietly let Eddie proceed, pretending to understand what was going on.
"I'm so sorry," said Eddie. "I didn't think it was going to be like this. You're not the monster he made you out to be, as if that should matter—but it does, and I can't help it. And I've been having my suspicions about him, too—independent of what you said. I can't safely do much, but I can do this. I can only begin to imagine what you're going through. I don't know how much you know or don't know, but I'm starting to see your side of things."
"You don't know how much that means," said Raymond, trying to sound appreciative for something he barely understood. "You are Gonsalez, then, aren't you."
"Yeah. But don't let him know you know that. Don't let on to any of this, or any hope we have is lost."
"Henry doesn't need to know any of this," said Raymond, going out on a limb to test his understanding of what was going on.
"He's gonna be here in a minute."
So he must be talking about Henry, and there's dissent among the ranks.
"Sit down where you were," said Eddie, "and get ready to catch the flashlight. It's not really a flashlight. It controls the recording. You see, right now, with time frozen, the recording is stopped." Eddie leaned closer a bit, in a confiding way. "When you freeze time, the recording stops, too. That's why Henry wanted me to make him one of these."
Eddie held out his hand, showing Raymond a small disk, evidently the device Eddie had used to freeze the flashlight in mid-air.
"But when you click the switch on the flashlight, the recording will start again, even though time is stopped. And if we're lucky, he won't notice. Get it?"
"What exactly—"
"Ssh! Grab it!"
Raymond put his hand up, and the flashlight flew at him. He missed the catch, but was able to recover and grab it before it hit the floor.
"Flashlight—thanks, Eddie," said Raymond, trying to sound natural for the recording.
"So you can get around at night," said Eddie.
Scorpio's voice spoke in Raymond's ear: "poverlord is online".
Raymond stood up and pocketed the flashlight. From beneath the covers that hung off the end of the bed appeared Carly—she must have been nesting in the folds of a blanket. She stood on her haunches and sniffed.
"Well hello, Carly."
He bent down to pick her up, happy to see his new friend. She climbed eagerly up his arm, but suddenly faded from view and was gone.
"Does that mean we're gonna die?" asked Eddie.
"It means the meteorites are coming," said Raymond.
"And what of the Village?" called a woman's voice from the room below.
Raymond looked down and saw Diane looking up.
Well hello, Henry.
"If the animals are disappearing," asked Diane, "I'm guessing that means the Village is in trouble."
"I expect so," said Raymond.
Who are you, Henry?
"You'll be making your exit, then?" asked Diane.
"Yep." Raymond stepped over to where Eddie knelt. "Move aside, Eddie."
"What keeps you going?" asked Diane. "Your world is doomed, isn't it."
Raymond climbed down and walked right past Diane, ignoring her question. He grabbed his airboard and globe and headed outside.
"I actually want to know," said Diane, following him. "It's more interesting to me than you might imagine."
Raymond turned and looked at her. Had Henry reached the point where he was willing to break out of character, too?
"Why is that, Diane?"
"You're living out your worst nightmare. Instead of making the getaway you hoped to make, into a world of pristine isolation, you're living in a world controlled by someone else, and you never know who might be watching you. You lost your god power. Your world is about to be destroyed, and you can't do a damned thing about it. Someone has you by the balls, and you don't even know who. And yet you keep on going? In the midst of utter defeat, you seem to have boundless determination. Is it just in your blood to go down swinging? Or is there some kernel of faith that keeps you going?"
"You know an awful lot all of a sudden," said Raymond. "You aren't really Diane, are you?"
"Is it just blinding single-mindedness?" persisted Diane. "Do you lack the breadth of perspective that would lead most men to despair?"
A series of loud, sharp thunderclaps shook the tree house, as if an array of great cannons had been fired. A wicked hissing followed, and more thunderous rumbling. The meteorites were near.
"Let's cut the crap," said Raymond. "What do you want from me?" He mounted his airboard, ready to take flight.
"If you could point to one thing, Raymond, and say, 'that's what's keeping me going', what would it be?"
Raymond looked Diane in the eye.
"Keep watching, and you'll see."
"Still so naive," Diane shot back at him.
"Still?" asked Raymond. "Do I know you?"
Diane's expression suddenly went placid. Scorpio's whisper informed him that poverlord had logged out.
"Fly away," urged Eddie, "before it's too late."
"Thanks," said Raymond.
He pushed his airboard forward, and sped up among the trees, through an opening in the foliage. He signaled to Scorpio to stay close. Something in the sky drew his attention upward. He glanced up and saw a black spot expanding in the cloudless blue sky. He pushed the airboard as fast as it would go and didn't look back. Seconds later, a horrific scorching sound, as if the sky had been torn asunder, sent him face-down on the board. The globe shot out from under him and was gone. A shock wave pushed him forward even faster, accompanied by a deafening explosion of earth as a meteorite penetrated the jungle's geologic underpinnings. Raymond gripped the board as hard as he could as he and the board cartwheeled through the air. A high-pitched whistling sizzle filled the air, seeping through eardrums that burned and felt like they might have burst. The pain brought tears to his eyes.
The airboard eventually righted itself, and Raymond clung to it, quivering, terrified, crying silently and expecting to be snuffed out of existence at any moment. Rock and mud dropped from the sky, but somehow none of it hit him. He flew on, consciously clearing his head and readying himself for death. But death did not come.
After some time, he slowed the board and dared a look back. Where
the Village had been, quietly hidden away among the trees, he now saw utter devastation, a crater surrounded by a sunburst of blown-down trees and a multitude of fires. Two more dark spots appeared in the sky above him, and he sped onward, as far out of harm's way as he could get. These meteorites dropped further away. The oddly muffled sounds of impact made him realize he had indeed lost most of his hearing. One struck the mountain where his workstation cabin stood and decapitated it, the pinnacle sliding down the far side and out of view. Plumes of dust billowed into the air above. The other meteorite, much smaller, dropped into the jungle and sent up a spray of earth.
o-------------------------------o
As Raymond flew away, it occurred to him that it was folly to think he could outpace the meteorites. The surface of the virtual planet turned at over 500 miles per hour. Without the globe, he would be caught among the falling rocks no matter what.
He pulled the board to a hover and turned to look back. From the lines of smoke rising from the landscape, he judged there to be hundreds of fires, perhaps thousands, burning in isolation. If conditions were right, they would spread and unite in conflagration. But, looking to the eastern horizon, he saw brown smoke clouds here and there—not the sky-blackening mass of smoke he would expect from widespread fire. If he flew straight east, in between the fires, he would actually shorten the amount of time he was in the meteorite shower.
Raymond signaled to Scorpio, confirming he was still in contact.
"Can you locate the meteorites?" signaled Raymond, spelling out "meteorites" because it was a word for which he had no gesture. "Can you warn me if there's danger?"
Raymond's head nodded in response, and he heard Scorpio's whisper, clear as ever—it wasn't affected by his hearing loss. "I'm already watching out for you," said Scorpio.
"I lost the globe," signaled Raymond.
"Yes," said Scorpio. "I tried to find it, but it was destroyed."
"Was the work cabin also destroyed?"
It took a while for Scorpio to respond.
"Totally destroyed," said the deep voice.
That leaves only one v-chamber. And I'm supposed to check in with Anya in less than two hours.
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