Dome Nine

by John Purcell

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  The walk to Washington, DC, was long, hot, and, in Luma’s words, spooky. Total devastation surrounded us, mile after mile. Such destruction could only have been caused by catastrophic windstorms. The hollowed out buildings, flattened houses, and endless, empty roadways gave us our first sense of how much life had once existed here, and how much had been lost.

  Despite the highways that stretched out in every direction, we never saw the remnants of a single car or truck. Bim explained that the GR had rounded them all up and melted them all down, reusing the metal for new construction.

  We walked in silence through the heat, our footsteps muffled by the carpet of moss beneath our feet. Occasionally, the stillness was broken by a distant whine, as drones passed high overhead.

  The temperature peaked at 102 degrees. Were it not for the VaporFlask and the umbrellas, the Three would have been forced to take shelter. Instead, we moved steadily northward, the green Dome looming larger and larger on the horizon.

  At long last, our roadway veered to the east and angled upward, merging with an elevated superhighway coming in from the west. When we reached the top, we could see the rim at last. To my surprise, it seemed to be anchored smack in the middle of the Potomac. The superhighway, now six lanes wide, stretched out over the river for half a mile before entering the Dome through an enormous archway.

  Now that our goal was in sight, we hurried toward it. As we drew closer, something didn’t look quite right. Magnifying the view, I could see huge piles of debris blocking the archway. All six lanes were obstructed.

  At first, I couldn’t make out what sort of debris it was, with its shades of white and gray and brown. Then I began to pick out familiar shapes: a sandaled foot, the folds of a robe, a hand grasping a sword, a horse’s head.

  And then it all made sense. I was looking at marble and granite and bronze. Someone had barricaded the archway with hundreds of statues, tearing them from their pedestals and stacking them on their sides. The result was a gigantic junk pile of arms and legs and heads.

  The archway wasn’t completely blocked. On the far right, at its base, was a narrow gap that appeared to be a doorway. We were headed straight for it.

  When Dogan noticed the barricade, he said, “What is all that stuff? Are those statues?”

  I said, “According to Lewis, UNK/C did it during the Invasion.”

  Luma considered this. “But what for? Weren’t they trying to get into the Dome?”

  I looked at Bim.

  He said, “Good point.”

  The Three collapsed their umbrellas and stashed them in Luma’s backpack again. Then we passed through the doorway, one at a time, stepping from bright orange sunlight into deep green shadow. Moto and I paused, giving the Three time to let their eyes adjust. I dilated my own pupils and looked around.

  In theory, the inside of the Dome should have been completely dark. It was plain to see, though, that it had its own source of light: the moss. The pavement within was as thickly carpeted as the pavement without, and all six lanes were gently glowing. The greenish light wasn’t as bright as Glorb-light, but there was a great deal of it. I could easily make out everything at ground level. Not only that, the ceiling was covered with glowing moss, as well. The entire Dome, it seemed, existed in perpetual green twilight.

  Other than moss, there wasn’t much to be found in our vicinity. I went to the guardrail and looked over the edge. It was a long way down to the inside base of the rim. I saw no sign of water, which meant the base functioned as a dam, keeping the Potomac out.

  The roadway before us made a steep descent from its highpoint on top of the rim. A quarter of a mile down, I could see signs of life. Seven identical white house trailers had been arranged in a semicircle on the pavement. The informal courtyard this created was home to various bits of furniture and a half dozen potted plants. A hand painted banner was draped across the road signs that spanned the highway overhead. It read: No Man Is Good Enough to Govern Another Man.

  We made our way downhill toward this outpost. As we approached, we could see a young man stretched out on a sofa in the courtyard, asleep, an open book face down in his lap. He was dressed in a faded uniform and appeared to be Korean.

  Scattered around him were five armchairs, a second sofa, two coffee tables, and a large bookcase stuffed with books. The armchairs looked so inviting that the Three hurried to them and plunked themselves down. The young man opened his eyes and sat up, blinking, taking us all in.

  Luma said, “I’m so sorry! We didn’t mean to wake you but we just had to sit down. We’ve been walking a long, long time.”

  He yawned. “Don’t worry about it, that’s what they’re for. You’re here to see Cassius?”

  I said, “We hope to.”

  He turned to me. “Do you need a place to stay?”

  “I’m not sure. Any chance we might see Cassius today?”

  He shook his head. “The woman in Trailer 3 has been waiting for over a week. Yesterday, the guy in Trailer 6 gave up and went home.”

  “It takes that long?”

  “You never know. It depends when Cassius appears and how long he stays. One day, he might see ten people, the next day two. The next day he might not appear at all. It’s impossible to predict.”

  “If Geff arranged a meeting for us, would that speed things up?”

  He seemed slightly offended. “You mean will Geff let you cut in line? In case you haven’t heard, all men are created equal. That goes for kids, too. You’ll just have to wait your turn.”

  The Three had been following the conversation. Luma looked dejected and Dogan was scowling. Bim didn’t seem the least bit surprised.

  The young man smiled for the first time. “Don’t take it so hard! Sooner or later, Cassius sees everyone. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of food, and you’re welcome to a trailer. Or you can go on into town and see the sights and camp wherever you want.”

  Luma said, “Did you say something about food…?”

  He stood up. “Would you like something to eat? I’ll bet you’ve never had fruit fry.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think you’ll like it. It only takes a few minutes to make. But first we need to pick some hazelberries.” He offered his hand. “Come on, you can help me.”

  He pulled Luma to her feet and led her over to one of the potted plants. The pot was quite large, but the plant itself was small and wilted. A bucket of water was sitting on the ground. He picked it up and poured it into the pot.

  It took about a minute for the water to soak into the soil and make its way to the roots. Then the plant came to life, doubling in size and raising its branches. Clusters of shriveled berries grew fat and succulent before our eyes. They looked like miniature Planet Earths: deep blue, with cloudlike patches of white.

  The young man picked one and handed it to Luma.

  When she popped it into her mouth, her eyes widened. “Wow! They’re unbelievable!” She turned to Dogan. “Dogan, you deadbeat! Get over here and try these!”

  Dogan pushed himself out of his armchair and joined Luma, who had a hazelberry waiting for him. He opened his mouth and she popped it in.

  Watching her do this gave me a twinge of pain in my stomach. I could think of no reason why this should be so.

  The young man began picking berries, dropping them into the empty bucket. Luma threw a berry in the air and caught it in her mouth. When Dogan tried the same trick, the berry bounced off his forehead. This gave Luma a bad case of the giggles, which Dogan soon caught.

  I turned away, wondering where Bim was, and found him crouched by the bookcase, head cocked, scanning the titles.

  The young man finished collecting berries and started for the nearest trailer. I had all sorts of questions for him, most of which were impolite to ask.


  I caught up with him as he opened the door, saying, “Do you mind if I join you?”

  I could tell he didn’t want company, but he said, “Sure, come on in.”

  There wasn’t much space in the trailer, but it was organized very efficiently. It was essentially an entire house compressed into one long room.

  He offered me a seat at the kitchen table, which resembled a booth at a restaurant. I picked a bench and slid onto it.

  There was a mixing bowl on the table, filled with some sort of batter. He added the berries to this and began stirring it with a wooden spoon.

  I said, “Is this where you live?”

  He nodded. “It may not be much, but it gives me what I need most.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Solitude.”

  “Have you lived here long?”

  “Three years, seven months.”

  I risked pushing him too far. “Where did you live before that?”

  He stopped stirring and stared into the distance, making up his mind. For a moment, I thought he was going to throw me out. Instead, he looked me in the eye. “I used to be a GR peacekeeper. But you already figured that out.”

  “It’s pretty obvious. You’re still wearing your uniform.”

  “I know. I make a point of it. I’m not ashamed of who I am or anything I’ve done.”

  “But no one ever asks you about it.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Suppose I were to ask. Would you be willing to talk about it?”

  He stopped stirring and crossed to the stove. He placed a frying pan on the stovetop and turned on the burner, then slid into the seat across from me.

  He sighed. “To tell you the truth, I think I need to talk about it. Otherwise, it will just stay in my head forever.”

  “All right. What’s your name?”

  “Everybody calls me Dean.”

  “You look Korean but you speak perfect English.”

  “My parents were both born in United North Korea, but they served in the Richmond Domes.”

  “Here in America?”

  “Yes, Richmond, Virginia. Just down the road.”

  I looked up “Richmond, Virginia.” Among other things, it was the Confederate capitol during the American Civil War.

  I said, “How did you end up in the army?”

  Dean looked surprised. “I was born into the army, just like my mother and father. The Richmond Domes are packed with peacekeepers. That’s where Central Command is located.”

  “Born into it, in what sense?”

  “In every sense. Born in the army hospital, raised in the army nursery, schooled in the army schools, housed in the army barracks.”

  “You didn’t live with your parents?”

  “Of course not. Nobody does. I went straight from cradle to bunk. I never slept in a bed until I got here.”

  “That’s why you value your solitude.”

  “When you spend your whole life crammed into a bunk that’s crammed into a room that’s crammed with hundreds of people, you think about solitude a lot.”

  He paused for a moment, lost in thought. Then he blinked a few times and slid out of his seat. “I think the pan’s hot enough now.”

  He poured in some batter and the pan began to sizzle.

  I said, “I’ve spent my whole life listening to the same GR lies over and over again.”

  He sat back down, nodding. “Me, too. Probably the same ones.”

  “Did they tell you there were millions of Goths Outside, trying to destroy the Domes?”

  “That’s the biggest lie of all, their justification for everything. When we were little, they made the Goths into Boogie Men. Our bedtime stories were all about the things they did to the children they caught. When we were older, they drilled us and marched us from dawn to dusk, preparing us for the day we would fight the Goths.”

  “But that day never came.”

  “Our commanding officers would tell us war stories, as though they’d fought them themselves. Sometimes, they’d put captured Goths on display, parading them around before they executed them. But no one I knew had ever been deployed to fight them.”

  “So where were they deployed?”

  He stood up. “As far as I can tell, most peacekeepers just rotate through the Arctic.”

  He went back to the stove and started flipping the pancakes.

  I said, “What do they need peacekeepers for?”

  “Guard duty, basically. Do you have any idea how many workers the GR has up there, in the farmlands and the oilfields and the power plants?”

  “I know how many men from Dome Nine have been killed in action.”

  He set down the spatula. “Okay, multiply that by the number of Domes in the Northern Hemisphere. You’ll get a figure close to a million. It takes a lot of peacekeepers to guard that many people. And for every peacekeeper working guard duty there are ten more standing by, in case all hell breaks loose.”

  “You mean a rebellion?”

  He slid back into the booth. “The GR’s worst nightmare. They’re not worried about you or me, or even Cassius. There aren’t enough of us down here to constitute a threat. But up there, they’ve got hundreds of thousands of prisoners living like slaves. If they ever managed to break free, they could take control of everything. All the food, all the oil, all the electricity for half the planet.”

  “Half the planet?”

  “The Northern Hemisphere. They have the same operation in the Antarctic, for the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “Were you ever deployed to the Arctic?”

  “Twice. I escaped on the way back from my second tour.”

  “Why?”

  “Let me put it this way. They can march me till my feet bleed or drill me till I drop, but I won’t fire into a crowd of half-starved men who are just trying to get something to eat.”

  He pushed himself out of his seat and went back to the stove. Picking up the spatula, he transferred the pancakes to their plates.

  I said, “It can’t have been easy to escape.”

  He switched off the burner and sat back down at the table. “A lot of it was luck. To begin with, I was assigned guard duty at the train depot, where they make repairs. That’s where I saw a disassembled bullet train. On the outside it’s cylindrical, to cut down on wind resistance. But the interior is basically box-shaped, because of the floors and ceilings. I realized there was empty space below the floors, enough for someone to hide in. There was also a way into it, from underneath the train, through an access panel. The problem was, I couldn’t get to it unless the train came to a complete halt inside the tunnel. Not only that, it had to happen late at night, when the officers were passed out drunk.”

  “How unlikely was that?”

  “Well, bullet trains do stop from time to time, and the officers drink themselves senseless every night. But it still required a lot of luck.”

  “You weren’t locked in?”

  “Why bother? You’d have to be crazy to make a run for it in those tunnels. They go on forever and there’s nowhere to hide.”

  “So the train stopped and you managed to climb underneath?”

  Dean nodded. “Believe it or not.”

  “When did they notice you were gone?”

  “An hour later, the train screeched to a halt. There was a lot of commotion while they searched the cars, inside and out. I was holding the access panel in place, but they never checked it. Then the train continued on to Richmond.”

  “And after that, you came here.”

  “More or less.”

  I thought of Luma and Dogan. “Did you ever try to contact your parents?”

  “Contact my parents?”

  “So they’d know you were all right.”

  He looked at me as though I were mad. “I barely knew my parents, and my parents barely knew me! They were just good peacekeepers, that’s all, doing their patriotic duty, making lots o
f baby peacekeepers.”

  I was certain now that Dean would be willing to help us.

  I said, “We’re trying to track down someone who was taken to the Arctic as a prisoner. How should we go about it?”

  “Where in the Arctic?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Is he working the oilfields? The farmlands?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “That isn’t much to go on.”

  “I know. That’s why we need to see Cassius.”

  “All I can tell you is this. Every prisoner has a serial number tattooed on his wrist. If you can find out his number, that would be a good start.”

  “Would Cassius be able to—”

  Just then, the door flew open and Bim rushed in.

  He said, “Teo, you won’t believe what I just found! Come out here!” Then he turned and hurried back out the door.

  Dean looked confused. “Am I going deaf?”

  I stood up. “It’s a long story. Thanks for talking to me.”

  When I came out of Dean’s trailer, Luma and Dogan were up the road, playing fetch with Moto. Bim was standing by the bookcase, holding a copy of Feats of Clay.

  As I approached him, I said, “Why the fuss? Is there something different about that one?”

  “No, same lousy book. But I’m glad I leafed through it. Look what was tucked inside.”

  Bim handed me a neatly folded piece of paper, glossy to the touch and in fair condition. I carefully unfolded it and checked the lower corner. It was a page from TimeLifeLookPeopleUs magazine, dated June 2nd, 2065.

  I looked up at Bim. “Have you read this?”

  Bim shook his head. “The moment I realized what it was, I ran to get you.”

  “I knew this interview existed, but I never dreamed I’d find it.”

  “You knew about it?”

  “Yes. I found an article about my father in the New York Times.”

  Dean emerged from his trailer carrying plates, and called to the Three. Luma and Dogan left Moto holding the baseball in her mouth and hurried downhill to the courtyard. Dean set the plates on one of the coffee tables. The pancakes were now covered in blue syrup. I told Bim to go try the fruit fry and sat down in an armchair, still marveling at my luck.

  It only took a few seconds to scan in the article. It was short and disturbing.

  Joseph Clay, the so-call father of modern android technology, and foremost apologist for disgraced ex-President Timberlake, dropped in last month for a chat. He sat down with Celebrity Investigations Bureau Chief, Ty Manta, believing we actually wanted to talk about climate change!

  In classic TLLPU style, Ty turned the tables on the seemingly grief-stricken “doctor.” On the strength of our investigation, police reversed their accidental death ruling and reopened the case as a homicide. Gotcha, “Dr.” Clay!

  TimeLifeLookPeopleUs: Tell us about the death of your wife and daughter.

  Joseph Clay: Wasn’t this supposed, uh… Don’t you want to discuss global warming?

  TLLPU: We should discuss this instead. You don’t want people to think you’re hiding something, do you?

  J.C.: Hiding something? No, I think…it’s just…this is a difficult time for me. They only died last month.

  TLLPU: Under suspicious circumstances.

  J.C.: The circumstances… They were just, uh, normal circumstances. We were out sailing, we’ve done that before…

  TLLPU: The police tell us the investigation is ongoing. Is it possible they suspect foul play?

  J.C.: Foul play?

  TLLPU: How do you explain their deaths?

  J.C.: We were sailing, and, uh, the boat capsized and…they just drowned. I couldn’t save them…

  TLLPU: But you managed to save yourself.

  J.C.: I can’t swim, I never learned to swim. I was wearing a lifejacket. Lena was a good swimmer, she swam in college. Jules was only two. When Jules went under, Lena went down after her. They never came up…

  TLLPU: You’ve publicly supported ex-President Timberlake in the past.

  J.C.: That’s true.

  TLLPU: Don’t you find it ironic that you’re embroiled in your own scandal now?

  J.C.: You can’t, uh… I don’t really see how you can call it a scandal.

  TLLPU: Don’t you think it’s strange that their bodies haven’t been found?

  J.C.: I don’t know. Not really.

  TLLPU: Experts say the bodies should have floated to the surface by now and washed up somewhere. Unless they were weighted down.

  J.C.: What are you saying?

  TLLPU: How much was your wife insured for?

  J.C.: What? I don’t… You mean life insurance?

  TLLPU: Yes. How much?

  J.C.: Why…nothing. Not a penny. Wait a minute, hold on! Are you trying to suggest I killed her? For money?”

  TLLPU: Did you?

  J.C.: I would never do such a thing! I would never harm a hair on her head! I loved her!

  TLLPU: Okay, okay, calm down! We were just kidding. We know she wasn’t insured.

  J.C.: You do? Oh… All right, then. You have an offbeat sense of humor…

  TLLPU: How much was your daughter insured for?

  J.C.: Pardon?

  TLLPU: We understand you recently took out a life insurance policy on Jules, for five million dollars. True or false?

  J.C.: (stands up) That’s it! Not another word!

  I sat for a time just staring at the page, wishing Bim hadn’t found it. Not only had my father collaborated with UNK/C, now it seemed he’d murdered his wife and daughter.

  Strange to say, that wasn’t the worst part. Emerald had called Joseph Clay one of the great minds of the 21st Century, but I could see no evidence of that. Quite the opposite. Here was my father, bumbling his way through the interview, oblivious to the trap being set for him. I slipped the paper back into Feats of Clay and returned it to the bookcase.

  The Three had gobbled up their fruit fry and were begging for more, so Dean offered to teach them how to make it. They all picked more hazelberries and disappeared into his trailer.

  That was fine with me. There seemed no point in rushing into the city. I decided to take advantage of this lull in activity.

  I thought back on my meeting in the Ruins with Gutenberg. He’d left me with a message for Cassius, and also a clue to his identity: when I’d told him that Cassius wasn’t in the encyclopedia, he’d said, “Keep looking.”

  I hadn’t meant I’d found nothing at all. There was indeed an entry under “Cassius,” but it listed historical figures from ancient Rome, none of whom had any discernable connection to the present-day Cassius. What I hadn’t done was search the entire encyclopedia, looking for the name Cassius within each article.

  There wasn’t enough time for that now. Even with my audio-visual functions closed out, it would take at least 2 hours to search all 3052 pages.

  But I could start searching the encyclopedia letter-by-letter. It would only take me 7 minutes to search all the entries listed under the letter A.

  I stretched out on the second sofa, closed my eyes, and started the search. When I opened my eyes again, only 2 minutes 19 seconds had elapsed. The name Cassius appeared in an article on page 67.

  The entry, under “Ali, Muhammad,” was brief:

  American boxer. Originally named Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., he changed his name in 1964 on becoming a Black Muslim. After winning an Olympic gold medal in 1960, he turned professional. In 1964, he defeated Sonny Liston, winning the world heavyweight championship. In 1967, however, various state and foreign boxing commissions stripped him of the title when he refused induction to the armed services on religious grounds. In 1974, Ali regained the championship by defeating George Foreman in a fight held in Zaire.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a big improvement over the Romans. At least this Cassius had lived within the last 200 years. Furthermore, the entry under B
lack Muslim confirmed that he was Negro. And the fact that he’d refused to join the army suggested he might have been a man of peace, like the present-day Cassius. On the other hand, how peaceful could a professional boxer be?

  Then, of course, there was his last name. I didn’t want to make too much of this, as Clay was a common enough name. There were a handful of Clays in Dome Nine alone.

  I wondered how many Clays were listed in the encyclopedia. I found four: Henry Clay, Clement Claiborne Clay, Lucius DuBignon Clay, and, most surprising of all, Cassius Marcellus Clay.

  At first, I assumed this was Muhammad Ali’s father, but that was quickly disproved. Cassius Marcellus Clay turned out to be some sort of politician and newspaper publisher who’d lived in the 1800’s. The article didn’t mention his race, but it seemed unlikely he was Negro.

  I could go no further. Judging, however, by the laughter coming from Dean’s trailer, I still had plenty of time to myself. I turned my attention to Gutenberg’s message: anger cubed knows hope. This was clearly an anagram, one I needed to unscramble before meeting Cassius.

  It was only 19 letters long. To increase calculation speed, I closed out my visual functions.

  The vast majority of combinations produced no words at all. Every so often, sets of complete words appeared, all of them meaningless. A few combinations produced sentences that made some sense, but not enough. In my first 12 minutes, I came across any number of these, such as group chews naked bone, we see drunk bongo chap, and when nude go bake crops.

  Just as I hit upon a sentence that made perfect sense, Luma called my name. I halted the search and rebooted my visual functions. When I opened my eyes, she was hopping up and down with excitement.

  “Teo, wake up! Get up! Cassius wants to see us right away! Geff sent a carriage to pick us up!”

  I sat up. “What sort of carriage?”

  “Don’t ask me! I’ve never seen anything like it! And the horse is pink!”

  I stood up and turned around. Down the road, just beyond the trailers, stood the carriage in question.

  It looked more like the skeleton of a vehicle than a vehicle itself, just a low-slung platform supported by four widely spaced wheels. The wheels were covered with fenders, making the rest of the carriage look even more incomplete. In the center, two seats jutted up, simple frames covered in webbing. Anchored in front, like a bizarre hood ornament, was a stack of electronic equipment topped with an inverted silver umbrella.

  The horse it was hitched to was bright pink and metallic, a robot of some sort. The driver, tall and thin, was still in the saddle, talking with Dean. Bim and Dogan were busy examining the carriage. Moto had already hopped aboard and curled up under the seats.

  As Luma and I approached, Dean turned and started back toward his trailer. As he passed us, he said, “Looks like you’re cutting in line after all.”

  This time, he seemed more than slightly offended.

  The driver was wearing a faded cap with the words “DC Cab” printed above the visor. He looked at me and said, “Teo?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Name’s Humphrey. Finest cabby in town. Only cabby in town. Hop in.”

  As the three climbed up ahead of me, I said, “That’s an unusual horse.”

  “Only one in the Dome. Over 100 years old.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Her.”

  “Where did you get her?”

  “Originally President Savage’s. Bought it for his daughter, custom made in China. Cost the taxpayers two million.”

  The Three were lining up on the two seats, Bim in the middle.

  I said, “And where did you get this buggy?”

  “Air and Space Museum.”

  “What was it used for?”

  “Driving around the moon. Light as a feather, really takes a beating. But enough chatter. Geff needs you pronto.”

  There was no place for me to sit, so I went around and hopped on the back and rode standing up, gripping the seatbacks for support.

  Humphrey took us downhill at an alarming speed, but the moon buggy hugged the road and we soon realized the ride wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed. The glowing highways twisted and merged and split, passing over and under and through each other, but Humphrey and his steed never wavered. We passed a body of water, a domed monument, and blocks and blocks of low granite buildings, then took a harrowing left turn and skirted along the edge of a park.

  Through the trees, I caught glimpses of a towering obelisk with a gigantic marble head impaled on its tip. It reminded me of the python heads in Wissahickon Park.

  Humphrey veered down a side street, cutting over to a roadway that circled an imposing structure made of marble and cinderblock. We pulled up to the curb, in front of the entrance. This was marked by three more identical house trailers and another assortment of mismatched furniture.

  I assumed Geff would be waiting for us, but the armchairs and sofas were all vacant. The only person I could see was off to one side, slumped in a wheelchair. Behind him stood a Menial, wearing a type of uniform I’d never seen before.

  Humphrey said, “Lincoln Memorial! Everybody off!”

  I looked up “Lincoln Memorial.” Apparently, the interior of the monument contained a statue of Abraham Lincoln. This was blocked from our sight by cinderblock walls constructed between the columns.

  As soon as our feet hit the ground, Humphrey made a U-turn and sped off, leaving us standing at the curb. No one was quite sure what to do next, except for Moto, who trotted over to the nearest armchair, hopped onto it, and curled up.

  The Menial looked at me and said, “Teo, I presume.”

  I walked over to where he stood. “Yes. I think Geff is supposed to meet us here.”

  “That’s me.”

  I didn’t know quite what to say. “I wasn’t expecting an android.”

  “No, no, not him. I’m the one in the wheelchair.”

  Geff hadn’t moved a muscle, but I could see now that his eyes were staring straight at me.

  I said, “You’re speaking through your Menial.”

  “Correct. I don’t suppose you’ve seen MediTrons in Dome Nine.”

  “Never.”

  “Or cripples.”

  “No.”

  “I’m very lucky to have Daniel, here. Otherwise, I’d just be a glorified doorstop. Say hello, Daniel.”

  Geff relinquished control. Daniel said, “Good afternoon, Teo.”

  “Hello, Daniel. These are my friends, Luma, Bim and Dogan. And this is our iPup, Moto.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  Geff resumed control. “Geff again. That goes for me, too. Okay, Cassius wants to see you right away.”

  “All of us together?”

  “No, one at a time. Teo first.”

  I studied the front of the monument. The only way in seemed to be a crude opening in one of the cinderblock walls. It looked as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

  I turned to Geff. “Where will I find Cassius?”

  “You can’t miss him.”