Demons

by John Shirley

  Dickinham rattled on proudly. “We’ve pulled all the old computers out of the digital-scan room and donated them to UC Davis. We use the site for agents-testing now, though we do have other plans for this section.”

  Stephen swallowed, looking neither to the right nor the left as he walked through the room—seeing only peripherally the cages of rabbits, rats, and chickens. Some of them were dead, some weren’t.

  What is this weakness I have for animals? he asked himself angrily. It’s stupid.

  It wasn’t as if he were a vegetarian. But he didn’t—couldn’t—think about chicken or beef as coming from living things, things that walked around and breathed and suffered as they were slaughtered, before he ate them. His uncle had laughed in his face when he’d taken him on a hunting trip as a boy, and he’d burst into tears, watching the deer writhing from a bullet wound.

  “Why don’t you finish ‘im for me, Stevie boy? Here—just put the muzzle right behind his ear. Come on, shoot ‘im—your dad’d be ashamed if you don’t do it.”

  That’d made the boyish Stephen take the rifle, shove the muzzle against the back of the deer’s head, and pull the trigger. But he’d gotten sick when he’d blown its eyes out the front of its skull. And his uncle had laughed again.

  Now, he felt Glyneth watching him, and he was relieved when they left the testing room and passed into other labs that were mostly storage—some of it refrigerated—for sundry volatile chemicals. There were complex devices for safely decanting them; and in room-sized glass boxes men in antitoxin suits, complete with helmets, worked with beakers of a rather pretty blue fluid.

  Without thinking, Stephen commented, “Those suits—it’s as if they’re handling nerve gas. Is the stuff really that dangerous?”

  Stephen regretted his outburst when Dickinham glanced sharply at him. “No. It isn’t. It’s just . . . before it’s combined with other chemicals, it’s pretty toxic. By the time it gets into the field, it’s not bad at all. You know—diluted and muted. And we overcompensate here, for the safety of our employees.”

  “Sure, of course. I forgot. My specialty was always general business and marketing. I’m a little weak on the science side.”

  Dickinham grunted and led the way into a one-story rectangular building attached to the dome, into the smell of hot food and coffee. “Well now, Steve . . . Glyneth . . . what would you say to some lunch?” He gestured with humorous grandeur at a steaming buffet table laid out at one end of the little cafeteria.

  Glyneth responded instantly, not quite deadpan, “What would I say? I’d say ‘Lunch, I’m ready for you, so I hope you’re ready for me.’ ”

  Dickinham smiled apologetically at Stephen. “Those little jokes are a staple of Glyneth’s.”

  “Makes the workday go faster, I’m sure,” Stephen said, wincing inwardly at the forced sound of the remark.

  “Is that our young Mr. Isquerat?” came Winderson’s voice.

  Stephen turned and jumped when he found Dale Winderson standing between him and the buffet table, beaming, thrusting out his hand. Winderson seemed eerily backlit by a wall light, his face half hidden in its glare.

  “Well, Stephen, you going to shake my hand or just leave it there for a bird to build a nest on?”

  “Sorry!” Stephen crossed to him and stuck out his own hand—which went right through Winderson’s. He stared, then experimentally ran his hand through Winderson’s middle. “A hologram!” The light behind Winderson’s head was actually a little mobile projector that hovered like a flying penlight in midair.

  Winderson laughed. “A damn good hologram, though! Most of ‘em fall for it, and you did, too!” In the background, Dickinham was chuckling politely as the boss went on. “I’ve had projectors and surveillance put in most of the important West Wind research centers. I like to maintain an on-site presence of one kind or another.” Winderson turned to Glyneth. “Who’s the charmin’ young miz?” Though he was in a transmission booth back at West Wind headquarters, his hologram mimicked his every movement.

  “Ms. Glyneth Solomon,” Dickinham said.

  “Mr. Winderson,” Glyneth said, pretending to curtsey, smiling just the right amount.

  “A curtsey! I like that. Dickinham, why don’t you curtsey? Call me Dale, Glyneth. I was just touring the facilities and thought I’d see if I could pull a fast one on young Stephen here. But you guys look hungry. You’ll find West Wind does well by its employees in these outlying research centers. It’s all catered in hot.”

  “It’s damn good, too,” Dickinham said redundantly.

  “Well, I’m out of here. Just remember, Harry, Stephen’s important to us. But see to it that he does plenty of bottom-floor work to get his feet wet, so to speak . . . all right?”

  “Yes, sir, that was the memo. I’m on it.”

  “All righty.” The hologram wiggled its fingers good-bye at them. “Check you later!” And he blinked out . . . gone.

  Stephen shook his head, laughing softly. “Am I a chump or what?”

  Glyneth said, “Or what. You hungry?”

  They heaped their sectioned trays with boeuf bourguignon, surprisingly fresh vegetables, rice, and apple crisp, then sat at tables near the long strip of windows looking out over the valley. Out there, a rainbow shimmered in and out of view through leaden gossamers teased from the clouds. Inside, cutlery clicked, and for a while no one looked up from their food except to make an occasional casual remark.

  Other workers came to the buffet and sat at tables in twos and threes, men and women in white coats and hairnets, with rueful smiles or an air of quiet brooding. Some of them had reddish noses with broken veins.

  A white-haired man with long sideburns, purplish lips, and doughy features slapped his tray down across from Stephen. Dickinham introduced him with a notable lack of enthusiasm. “This is Fritz Crocker, our head of D17 research.”

  Crocker grinned at them. Some of his teeth were a little too white, a little too straight, in contrast to the others, artificial perfection side by side with natural snaggles. “How’re you likin’ that French beef dish, there, Steve?”

  What accent was that? Maybe Florida? Stephen nodded approvingly over his meal. “Much better than I expect from a buffet.”

  “You can’t taste the Dirvane 17, of course,” Crocker said casually, “but it’s there—you know, residual, from the feed the beef got. We wouldn’t test anything on the public we weren’t willing to digest our own selves, right, Steve?”

  Stephen, chewing a mouthful of beef, glanced at Crocker and then at his plate. Reluctantly, he swallowed the stuff, almost choking.

  Crocker exploded with laughter.

  And Dale Winderson blinked back into the room, appearing seated in a chair at Crocker’s elbow, saying, “Don’t mind this chowderhead, Stephen.”

  Crocker jumped, almost as startled as Stephen at Winderson’s magical arrival.

  “Crocker’s having his little joke,” Winderson continued. “Of course we don’t eat Dirvane-contaminated food ourselves.”

  “I suppose we run enough risk of exposure to organic compounds, just working in the business,” Glyneth remarked, as if she weren’t talking to a hologram.

  “Hm? Yes, exactly.” The hologram of Winderson appeared to squint at Glyneth, as if to see her better, but it was looking a bit to the left of her.

  “I was just havin’ some fun with the new guy,” Crocker said. “Food’s safe, Stevie, don’t worry about it. Pullin’ your leg.”

  “Practical jokes seem to be popular around here,” Stephen said, trying to find the right smile and tone to convey what a good sport he was. “Maybe I should think up one or two of my own.”

  “You do that,” Winderson’s hologram said with a wink. Then he seemed to look intently into nowhere—at something in the room where he actually was. “Jonquil! It’s all right, my dear. No great need for privacy here. Come into the projector field and say hello. You remember Stephen . . . and Dickinham. There, in that screen.”

 
Suddenly half a woman was there—the right half, split down the middle. A holographic projection of part of Jonquil. “Hi, Stephen. Hi, you guys!” she said, all the words said with half a mouth.

  “You’re only half there, Jonquil,” Stephen said, his heart thudding. “I know the feeling. Great to see even half of you again.”

  She chuckled and stepped farther into the field, the rest of her appearing. She looked as if she’d been poured into what might have been, on some other woman, a simple coatdress. Silver-gray and blue, conservatively cut, but on her the garment had the impact of lingerie—quite possibly it was a little too small for her. “Is that better? Am I all there yet?”

  “As much as you’ll ever be!” Winderson said, the joke coming rather distractedly. He seemed to be staring at something else again that was out of hologram range.

  Stephen tried to think of something to say, to keep her there. She was such a relief, after this bleak place, these mostly unrelatable people. Her blue eyes glimmered, even in a hologram. Her pearly smile seemed to beckon him, and she tossed her head a little as if the long wavy blond hair had gotten in her eyes, though it hadn’t. “I came to tell my uncle he’s expected for a business dinner with the second most powerful Japanese businessman in the world, and here he is trading jokes with you guys. That’s so typical. I don’t see how he makes any money, I really don’t.”

  “The other corp heads just take pity on me, honey dear,” Winderson said. It seemed to Stephen that Winderson’s hand went behind her, as if to cup her shapely ass; and she stiffened, her smile strained. But that couldn’t be right—she was his niece. “Okay, muh dear, tell ‘em I’m rushing down there right now. I don’t want to keep Mr. Koto waiting a second longer than I have to.”

  “Like he’ll believe that. But I’ll tell ‘im.” She turned to look approximately toward Stephen. “Good to see you.”

  He wanted to think of something that would convey his eagerness to see her again without upsetting the social apple cart. But all that would come was, “Me, too.” He winced, thinking, That was lame, but then she was gone.

  And Winderson put on his serious face. “Joking around is fine—even important sometimes—but never forget that our purpose here is serious. You are the vanguard of West Wind, all of you. We’re counting on a revolution in pest control and in marketing. That’s your cue, Fritz.”

  “Yes, sir, you bet—”—

  But Winderson blinked out again.

  Stephen stared at the empty chair. “How does he project himself—his image—into a chair so . . . I mean, a standing image in the middle of the floor I can figure but sitting . . .”

  “We have the best communications technology available,” Dickinham said proudly. “Projects him right where he wants to be—and how he wants to be.”

  “I see.” Stephen remembered his discussion with Winderson about the so-called demonic invaders, and found himself wondering if this kind of holographic technology could have been used along with other devices—robotics?—to create the illusion of a demonic invasion. For a moment he wished he were back on that white-sand island, with its patchy communications, even its badly ventilated factory and its blissful ignorance of the whole hysterical, apocalyptic mess.

  There was a moment of awkward silence in the cafeteria, broken by the murmurs from other tables, arcane discussions about chemical compounds, talk of stock options, and the distinctly annoying sound of Crocker chewing. Stephen found that he was uncomfortable—even afraid. He had no idea why. It wasn’t Winderson’s unseen presence, really. It was some other unseen presence.

  He looked around. It seemed to him for a moment as if everyone were chewing in unison. Dickinham and Crocker both had their mouths open, chewing green vegetables with marchlike regularity.

  Stephen looked away. Sipping cranberry juice, he glanced at Glyneth—and found she was looking at him. It wasn’t as if she were staring at him. It was as if, somehow, she were looking for something in his face. Watching and waiting.

  A gust of wind rattled the window—like a distant, frustrated roar.

  To relieve his unease, Stephen asked Dickinham, “Do you have a specific agenda for me here? Frankly, Dale was kind of vague about it.” He wondered how much they knew about psychonomics. Winderson had told him firmly that he wasn’t to discuss it with anyone.

  Crocker put a lot of jeering into one syllable: “Dale?”

  Stephen shrugged. “He asked me to call him Dale. Although it’s true I didn’t have the nerve to call him that to his face just now. Mr. Winderson, then.”

  Crocker grunted and seemed about to say something else, then glanced at the chair beside him and thought better of it. Winderson might be listening.

  Odd, Stephen reflected, knowing that Winderson could be watching them electronically, eavesdropping on them like a trickster god from mythology brooding over his minions.

  Dickinham seemed to be pondering Stephen’s question. Then he put down his fork, made a tent out of his fingers, and said, “Okay, it’s like this. They’ve got you slated to do some kind of special work—some kind of experiment. They’re preparing for all that in some way—and meanwhile we’re supposed to get you ready by giving you experience in the field. Stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do. West Wind fieldwork.”

  Crocker snorted. “Like a silver-spoon kid who has to do a little work on the assembly line before he gets to inherit.”

  Dickinham shook his head. “No, there’s some other reason. I don’t know what it is, though.”

  Stephen thought it might be good if he didn’t seem entirely out of the loop. “As far as I can work it out, from what you’re telling me and what . . . Mr. Winderson . . . has said, it’s probably about getting me ready to market Dirvane 17 and other West Wind products, and to get ideas for doing that I need to get out into the field, see the stuff doing its work firsthand. Like when we did that Petrochemicals Changing Lives campaign. Some of our copywriters went out to the oil rigs and got a sense of the way the oil comes right out of the ground. Then, in the commercial, we traced it all the way to the production of plastics used in a kid’s toy. From the guy programming the rig robotics to the kid playing with the plastic truck.”

  Dickinham blinked at him. “Yeah. It could be. You know. Something like that.”

  Portland, Oregon

  “You could do it if you wanted to, Yanan,” Ira was saying. They stood in the chilly entryway of the old, rented Odd Fellows’ lodge hall where they’d held their meeting that evening: a little room of excessively lacquered wooden floors, mildewed walls, and a rack of rain-musty coats. “They were supposed to call me today—and they didn’t call at the fallback time. Both she and Nyerza have palm communicators. There should be a good satellite fix now. But they didn’t call.”—

  Yanan nodded. His dark eyes were full of understanding, but they were also unyielding. “Yes, I see. There could be many reasons, eh? You are too soon panicking. I cannot call them any better than you can.”

  Ira’s heart was pounding. It was a terrible thing to have to confront Yanan in this way. Yanan was a father figure to him, really. And he’d never known his own father.

  “You can talk to Nyerza. You’re part of the circle. You can . . . you know . . .”

  Yanan looked at him blankly. “No. I don’t know, hm?”

  “The Conscious Circle. Like the other day in the café . . .”

  “And what happened the other day in the café?”

  “You . . .” Ira lowered his voice. “You contacted the Circle, telepathically or presciently.”

  “Did I say to you I did such a thing?”

  “Not exactly, but you closed your eyes, you went into a sort of trance, and you came out of it with information.”

  “It was only a reverie. Perhaps—perhaps someone had told me something earlier in the day and I remembered it then, eh?”

  Ira turned away, grabbed his coat, jerking it off the hook. He began to put it on, but in his angry confusion he couldn’t find the sleeve. He knew h
e shouldn’t make a decision in anger and fear, but the feelings had taken him, and he couldn’t stop now. He didn’t really want to stop.

  “You are too lost in your anger, taken by it, you cannot even put on your coat, Ira.” Yanan helped him into the sleeve, showing not the least exasperation. There was no sense of tension about him to match Ira’s.

  Ira turned toward him. “So you don’t trust me enough to speak plainly.” Or perhaps, Ira thought, he’s taken a vow never to speak of such things outright—some adepts did. “But you know you could help me find them.”

  Yanan sighed gently and gazed into the middle distance. “Something . . . prevents me.”