by Paul Black
“Like a new branch of quantum theory?”
No, Yoichi. What you call theoretical physics only explains a fraction of the universe.
Tsukahara sensed the presence was slipping away. He only had a rudimental knowledge of quantum physics, and to continue down this path was a waste of precious time. “My superior wants to know when Ms. Goya will be returned.”
She can return whenever she wishes.
At a loss, Tsukahara was distracted by the stream at his feet. He knelt and cut the surface with his hand. Crescents of sunlight rippled out; he could feel the water’s chill as it flowed through his fingers; a small koi swam just beyond his reach. He was overwhelmed.
What troubles you, Yoichi? The voice was now softer.
“This isn’t how I imagined it would be,” Tsukahara said under his breath. He watched the koi swim a semicircle and dart from view; another bird flew overhead; its image tracked erratically across the surface of the disrupted water.
Yoichi. The presence was now just barely audible inside his head. Many things in life ever are.
25. YOU’VE LOST YOUR COLOR
Deja opened her eyes.
She was in Chaco’s bed at The Thin. Small red numerals outlined in magenta floated above the side table. 6:56 p.m.
She remembered.
After watching Chaco and Bartas twitch in their seats for an hour, she and Pavia had gone into his brother’s kitchen to find something to drink. When they returned, Chaco and Bartas were disengaged from the Net and huddled to talk. She had been relieved to hear that Cor was safe and apparently acting of her own free will, but Chaco was pissed that he and Bartas hadn’t been able to eavesdrop on Tsukahara’s meeting. It had something to do with being “walled-up,” whatever that meant. They also weren’t buying into Tsukahara’s story, which was pretty bizarre. Pavia had become very agitated, going on about his duty and how “they” wouldn’t understand all this. To Deja, it didn’t make any sense that Marl was some kind of alien. Then again, he seemed to have powers that were beyond those of a military clone. Usually, they were just hyper-humans developed for specific tasks, such as covert operations or risky space trips. Clones like Cor, on the other hand, were developed to fulfill some rich person’s emotional needs, a practice outlawed years ago.
Being in the Net had clearly taken its toll on Pavia’s brother, who had excused himself to go lay down. He had sweated profusely through the length of the session, and the smell of his sickness had grown more acrid. It was the same odor that had filled her aunt’s bedroom the week before she died of TR Syndrome.
Chaco and Pavia would have stayed all night, working out their plans and making Net calls, if Deja hadn’t laid down the law and reminded them of the late hour. Besides, what did they hope to accomplish against an alien who could manipulate matter and read minds?
The numbers on the bedside clock dissolved to 7:00 p.m.
“Hey, sleepy head,” Chaco said. “It’s time to rise and shine.” He pulled the curtains aside to let the sunset flood the room. A thick layer of ash from the offshore garbage kilns had turned the sky a deep red, and dark blue storm clouds lent the whole scene a morbid translucency.
“Sonny, close those,” Deja said before she covered her eyes. “I’m going to melt.” She was in one of Chaco’s shirts, and his musk permeated the fabric.
He sat next to her and eclipsed the light. “How do you feel?”
“Better. I really needed to sleep.”
“Me, too. That was a rough night.” He took her hand.
“Sonny ... what are you going to do?”
Chaco sighed and shook his head. “The problem is, I don’t really know what I’m dealing with. The chances of Marl actually being an alien are remote. I think Tsuka is reading way too much into this. And even if Marl is, my hands are tied. I can’t go to my boss. He’s so conservative he makes Alberts look liberal. And I certainly can’t go to DoD. Pavia’s right. I would disappear.” He sighed again, and Deja started rubbing his fingers. “He’s got to be homegrown,” Chaco said in a tone that betrayed the fact he was trying to convince himself. “The only thing I can figure is that he’s some kind of distraction. I think he’s a plant from the Pac-Rim Triad. It would be their style to imbed a clone like him. They’d love to get us going off on some tangent while they’re jerkin’ with our interests on the other side of the world.”
“But, Sonny,” Deja said, snuggling closer, “what if Marl is an alien?”
Chaco searched her face with a sense of loss behind his eyes. “If that’s the case,” he said just above a whisper, “then nothing will ever be the same again.”
* * *
The hydroshower’s wall of water gushed over Deja’s body. The mix of forced air, water, and three different lotions slammed against her with just enough pressure to massage away the stiffness from spending over an hour curled up in the back of Pavia’s car.
“Sonny?” she called when she emerged. She lost herself in an oversized towel. “Sonny?”
Deja walked to the coffee table and picked through the remains of dinner. There was a handwritten note stuck into a small mound of untouched guacamole.
Went for a walk to get my head clear on all this. Hang out and relax, the room is yours. I’ll be back soon. ~ Sonny
Deja tried one of Chaco’s French fries but couldn’t really distinguish any significant difference from her own version, even though his had been prepared to his genetic tastes. That simple fact confirmed her suspicions that all the biofood crap was just a big scam. She mopped up the last of the catsup with a limp fry and settled into one of the room’s oversized loungers.
“Request. Guide,” she said to the room’s com system.
The large impressionistic painting of a Paris street scene morphed into The Thin’s logo, whereupon the screen split into a patchwork of individual channel frames and service icons offered by the hotel. She scanned the frames until she found Life’s a Bitch. The screen filled with episode 46, a rerun from two seasons ago. She watched for barely a minute before the room announced that someone was at the door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“There is no identification, Ms. Moriarty.”
“Give me a visual.” The screen morphed again, and Corazon’s distorted face pixeled up.
Deja bounded across the room and almost stumbled out of the towel. The door slid aside. “Cor!” she exclaimed, and embraced her.
“Oh, Deja,” Corazon said, returning the hug, “I have so much to tell you!”
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, dear, I’m fine.”
They sat on the couch, and Deja couldn’t help but stare at Corazon’s orange rings. Her mind went back to the night at the club and the party booth.
“Deja, what is it?”
“I’m sorry, Cor,” Deja answered. “I feel so responsible for getting you into this mess. You could have been killed.”
“My dear, first off, I was never in any danger. I went because I wanted to. And second, there is no mess. Marl is here to help. He only wants to do what’s right.”
“Tell that to Sonny and Mr. Pavia. They’ve got it in their heads that he’s some kind of, I don’t know, Chinese diversion in a global terrorist plan.”
Corazon frowned. “They’re not planning to do any thing rash, are they?”
“All I know is that they had Sonny’s intern meet with Marl inside the Net, and that Marl claimed he was on a mission.”
“And they didn’t believe him?”
“Cor, Sonny and Mr. Pavia are cut from the same mold. They’re hard-liners. They think more in terms of the real world, not something out of science fiction.”
“But they have to understand. Marl is here to help.”
“Cor, to tell you the truth, I find it kind of hard to believe, too. If Marl is from another world, isn’t it a little weird that he sneaks around in the Net? Why didn’t he just land during the World Bowl and say hello?”
“Because, De
ja, I think that’s the point.”
“What do you mean?”
Corazon hesitated. “I don’t think he did land here.”
“What? No. He had to. How else would’ve he gotten here? He is here ... isn’t he? I mean, he was with us ... at the bar, right?”
“Was he, Deja? Was he really, physically with us?”
“Well, maybe ... I mean ...” Deja began to think. As wild as it sounded, every encounter with Marl could have been all in her mind. The idea made a little sense, but something didn’t ring true. “I can kind of buy into the concept of him entering our thoughts,” she said, “but I’ll bet you a month’s credit that he’s physically here in the city.”
“Deja, the way he explained it is that his physical self is in some sort of transition.... A state of projection is what he called it.”
The thought of it made Deja’s skin tingle. “Tell me, Cor, what’s he like?”
Corazon beamed. “Deja, he’s so wonderful. We have this connection, and I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Where did you go? I mean, one minute you were standing in front of me, and the next, you were gone. What did that feel like?”
“When he appeared, it was like we were talking, but it was inside my head. I ... I just knew I wanted to be with him. The actual act of him taking me was like going through a door.” Corazon appeared unsure of her description. “Yes,” she eventually said, staring and nodding, “it was just like walking through a door of light. He held my hand all the way.”
“Cor?”
“I’m sorry, dear. Where was I?”
“You walked through the door with Marl.”
“Yes. Then we were on a street in the Upper West Side. Just like that. He took me to a small Italian restaurant, where we talked.”
“About what?”
“Deja, it like he’s searching. He asked me all about the world, about its cultures, its politics....” The spacey look returned to her face.
“Cor?”
“Why me?” Corazon said under her breath. “I’m only three years old.”
Deja put her arm around her. ”Probably ’cause you’re the best of both worlds.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. You’re an adult, with an adult’s opinion and point of view. But you’re also kind of a child. I mean, at four years old, no matter how much you were schooled, you don’t have all the baggage that comes with a lifetime of living. You have an innocence that’s very rare. And I’d imagine your take on the world is a lot less judgmental than most. I envy you, Cor. You’re like a new drive, free of all the crap that builds up after years of use.”
Corazon shied at the analogy.
“Besides,” Deja continued, “I still think he has the hots for you.”
Corazon started to laugh, which got Deja going, too. For a moment, the weight of the situation was gone.
Corazon’s laughter soon waned, however. “Deja,” she said with a sudden urgency, “you don’t think Sonny and Oscar are really going to do something to Marl, do you?”
“I don’t know. I guess that all depends on whether you think Marl’s here or not. If he is here, I mean physically here, then I guess they could–” But Deja cut herself off, remembering a Net call between Chaco and Pavia that she overheard. They had talked a lot of techno-speak about stuff like reverse addressing and backdoor accessing. She knew all about that stuff from her years as a news researcher. She unconsciously glanced at the note peeking from under the guacamole. “Cor,” she said, the word sticking in her throat, “do you know where Marl lives? I mean, did he take you anywhere else ... after your dinner?”
“Yes. He took me to his hotel. Why?”
Deja felt a sudden arc of panic and pulled the towel tightly across her chest.
“Why Deja,” Corazon said, “you’ve lost all your color.”
26. IT’S ALL RIGHT
A strong rain pelted the windshield of the car, which wasn’t a problem for the wipers unless the storm intensified beyond a Category 1, which was when the vehicle’s intelligence core would engage the air jets. Chaco figured the ride was probably Pavia’s personal vehicle, because it looked liked it had been through the wringer. The car he drove to Atlantic City was out of the AztecaNet motor pool, which was maintained by a bunch of fanatical Israelis. Pavia had said that if he brought it back with so much as a spec of bird shit on it, they’d go off on him and bitch that they’d have to reseal it. Ever since the attack on Central Park, who knew what was coming out of pigeons these days? Pavia was off duty, though, so tonight they were slumming it.
The ride uptown was pretty bleak, especially with Pavia practicing his silent routine. Chaco hadn’t much to say either, considering he wasn’t too crazy about their plan. It just reeked of half-assedness, and while he didn’t mind breaking from the book, he still wasn’t convinced that Pavia was being completely upfront about his intentions.
Pavia’s brother had come through with an address for Marl, though how was still a mystery. And even though the incept was a perfect match, the fact that the connection point was up for grabs made the idea of busting into a hotel room in the middle of the night feel very amateurish. Even so, time was against them. The system back at NSA didn’t have any clearer incepts, so Chaco figured he’d go along with Pavia and hope for the best.
“That’s all we need,” Pavia remarked.
“What’s that?” Chaco asked.
“Rain,” he said, like it was root of all evil. “Just adds another element to deal with.”
At this time of night, traffic was light, especially considering the weather, so movement through the city was free of the gridlock that had become a trademark for most New American cities. Even with the vast network of intelligent Interway, most inner-city streets were still uncontrolled and volatile, and it could take hours just to crawl a couple of miles.
The incept points put the connection emanating from a Harlem business hotel. An odd location, it confirmed to Chaco that their boy was homegrown. If they were really dealing with a representative from a master race, wouldn’t it have picked something a little more upscale? Then again, nothing about this case surprised him anymore, and an Oprah’s MicroLodge was as good as any. At least the hotel had an all-night buffet.
“Are you sure these are correct?” Chaco asked, pointing at the SATNAV downlink on the dash.
“Bartas is rarely wrong.”
Another roar of water hit the car’s undercarriage, and the suspension groaned trying to prevent the vehicle from hydroplaning.
“So what happened to your brother, anyway?” Chaco asked.
Pavia glanced over and reprised the look he had on the LEV. His chin was striped with fingers of bright yellow coordinate numbers from the SATNAV panel. “He couldn’t resist the easy credit.”
“Doing what?”
“Some shit that cost him.”
“Cost him what?”
Pavia’s look bordered on tragic. “His family.”
The conversation was dredging up more than Chaco had bargained for, and he sensed that if he continued, Pavia might lose what little hold he had on his emotions. Something about this whole Corazon thing was pushing hard at Pavia’s pragmatism, which was strange because, when faced with a tough assignment, most corporate soldiers handled things by the book. With Pavia, however, something else was at work, and it seemed to be undermining his professionalism.
They approached an old 12-story building that hadn’t seen any retrofitting for at least a decade.
“SATNAV indicates this is the hotel,” Chaco said, pointing.
Pavia circled the building twice before he pulled into its parking area. He glided between a cheap CitiCar and a small step-up that had a goofy fish logo on its side. Pavia switched off the car, and its organics hissed into their dormant settings.
Chaco checked his Light-Force and returned it to its holster. He glanced at Pavia, who maintained his grip on the steering toggle and stared at the rain collecting on the w
indshield. “You a hundred percent with this?” Chaco asked.
Pavia sighed heavily and nodded.
As Chaco stepped into the rain, which was quickly becoming a downpour, his coat’s fabric shifted into its protective setting.
“Fucking rain,” he heard Pavia say as they trotted towards the hotel’s front doors.
The Oprah was typical of the many franchise hotels that littered New York City. Someone told Chaco once that a famous media giant named Winfrey from earlier in the century had started the chain, but he’d never heard of her. An assortment of extremely used furniture dominated the interior, but it was the overuse of fake wood paneling and brass trim that gave the whole place the feel of a country club for lost souls.
A meticulous, older black gentleman, his face buried in a system screen, looked up from the concierge desk just in time to catch their coats vibrating dry. The white part of his eyes was the color of French vanilla ice cream. They narrowed as Chaco and Pavia approached.
“Gentlemen,” he said gravely, “how can I help you this dreary night?” He looked them up and down over a pair of antique reading glasses that worked well with his vintage tweed coat and button-down shirt.
Chaco had retrieved the clerk’s stats from the NSA database on the ride over. He clicked open his Netpad and projected his badge along with an enhanced info/image of Marl from the convenience store vid.
The clerk regarded Chaco’s ID with little concern.
“Mr. Flossmore,” Chaco said in his most official voice, “is this man staying with you?”
The clerk referenced his system, pressing his face inches from the screen. “Yes.” He looked to Marl’s holoimage and back. “Room 360,” he said, tapping the screen with a bony finger. It was missing most of its tip.