She looked onto the vastness of the water and wondered how much bigger or smaller it would be compared to those on Earth. She assumed it was larger. Everything was larger on Danu, in some way.
The horizon of ocean and sky was as straight as an artist’s drag of a thin line of paint to separate the two bodies. No other obstruction was visible to give hint of the origin of such an artifact. She had no more time or interest now.
She looked to her route back to retrace her steps and saw that the tide had returned. She darted in the direction of the castle and slipped on rocks that were now under the weight of waves as they licked and splat against the larger boulders. The sandy shoreline had thinned to a strip and was no more.
As the water encroached, the shoreline looked as if it was receding with even more vigor. She examined the cliff face and started her ascent through a narrow passage. It ended abruptly into a well that channeled into the sea below and the sky above. Roots webbed the interior. The water below had laid siege to the shoreline. She stepped into the tunnel, placing her hands and feet on opposite sides, and chimneyed toward the surface.
The water lunged up the channel below her with an occasional splash of water landing on her face. The jerk of reflex threatened to break her grip. Deep breathing helped her advance, and soon her head surfaced among the grasses at the foot of the castle.
She leaned forward and lunged to the edge, gripping the ground as her lifeline. She heaved her leg over the side and rolled onto her back to rest for a moment while the swash of water hit against the banks below.
She brushed herself off and headed back to the veranda. Her nerves steadied as she neared it. As she reached the top of the steps, she saw that the table had been cleared.
“Do you need a towel?” came the butler’s voice.
Margi turned to see him in the doorway. “Yes, thank you.” She took the towel he offered and wiped her hands and face. “What a mess.”
“Please don’t come to harm’s way on my watch,” he chided her. “Stavon would disapprove.”
“I won’t.” She chuckled. That one was a charmer, no doubt.
“Will Stavon return today?” She was uncomfortable not knowing where he was just as he must be with her.
“No, he had a matter to attend to.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know how to receive that.
“He has sent for a driver this evening.”
“Oh.” She was disappointed her time in the castle was to be cut so short. “Alright then.”
He bowed his head as she handed him the towel. She headed back inside, all the while thinking of what would happen if Stavon’s precious Rivner were to come to harm’s way.
* * *
Stavon paced to the end of the conference table.
“He attempted to send one directly from Earth to Meno,” Loz said. “We had an anomaly show up in the middle of a Path transfer.”
Stavon stopped pacing. “Was he successful?”
“No,” Loz replied.
“Make sure he’s not. I can’t afford such nonsense with my clients’ lives.” Stavon sat in his chair.
“I’m not sure I could stop him if he was.” Loz fidgeted in his seat.
“He’s trying to start his own venture.” Stavon squinted. “I want you to learn everything he is doing on Earth. I mean everything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you secure Margi’s Path?” Stavon’s eyes tempered with concern.
“Yes. It modulated a great deal, but Rolo managed to isolate it.”
“Good.”
Loz left the room.
Farther down the corridor, a man removed his communicator and watched Loz return to his office.
* * *
Margi retreated to the bedroom. It had been cleaned and pillows put back in their places. She felt embarrassment for a moment and brushed it off. She rinsed the sea and grime from her body and stood in the closet for the second time in one morning, this time with patience. She looked over the clothes and held up a pink feathered cape. You minx, she thought.
She spied a few of the less formal pieces and set them aside to bring back with her. Her city clothes were too camera-ready.
She continued her snooping and came across books that she considered to practically be antiques even in her own time on Earth. She didn’t think of Rivner as being a traditionalist, or a conservative, or whatever they would call a person who read from the physical page—besides a scroll, which was odd in itself. Rivner wasn’t as one-sided as Margi had thought.
She sat in a reclining chair on the balcony near the vines and began to read. The story was a fairy tale. She was delighted to use imagination to take her away from her situation. Fairy tales were always much harsher on their subjects than real life, which made a reader more comfortable with one’s own reality.
Then, she recalled the scroll given to her by the waiter. Remember who you are was its message. But who would risk giving her such a thing? Not the castle’s butler who would be subject to Stavon’s retribution.
She reminded herself that Rivner was an entirely different person with her own life. One cut short. Margi had combed through her closet, made love to her husband, taken her place in the company and with the public. Rivner was all but dead. The pretense of assuming her life was mere survival, and Margi felt an increasingly horrible sense of no way out. Her life had become a fairy tale.
She rested her gaze on the horizon. Off to one side, she could now see the structures of the city disappear into the clouds. A watercolor fog encircled its base where holograms glared. She considered a moment that she could have been born in that fog, grown up looking up at the fancy hover cars and structures, torn by the demand of the holograms and the want of the sapphire sky. Even now, could she have neither of them in this body she had claimed and to opt, instead, to live in a castle and be served? No, that would not do. Yet Rivner seemed to navigate all worlds with ease and the respect of others, even Ferli, though having another kind of respect—one being subjected to authority, was the ward of power at Rivner’s command.
A dark object in the sky grew larger as it approached the lighthouse. Her driver had arrived. She had him collect her things and load them in the car. She then took her place in the backseat and peered out the window like a child on an airplane, watching the vantage point to land give way. And with it, the castle, the ocean, the forest floor, and a semblance of the peace of mind that had been offered by the great Stavon. Yet if money were bodies, that castle would be a mass grave. She couldn’t escape the duality of the life she now lived. She simply could not.
CHAPTER TEN
The penthouse was vacant and as quiet as purgatory. Margi neared the lamp, and it began a rosy glow. She backed away and took her bags toward the next room. As she passed the kitchen she saw several discs placed beside a scroll. She stopped to read the message. This was her final study assignment, due by the end of tomorrow. Stavon would stay the night at DanuVitro. Signed Ferli.
She grabbed the objects and headed to the closet. A thought nagged her. Rivner wouldn’t have been given this homework. Shivers coursed through her upon that realization. She had to be Rivner. Fast.
As she unpacked her bag, she came across the purse she carried at the gala. She opened it and read the note inside. Remember who you are.
Was her behavior as Rivner so odd that even a stranger could observe it and consider it justification for giving her such a note? And risk angering Stavon? Then who actually was this Rivner?
She grabbed the discs and placed one into a device and read.
She saw the moon’s shadow in the hallway travel to the great room and fade. Night had come, and she continued to read as she lounged on the pillows in her closet.
She read of the technology for the holograms of The Great Venue and advances in the field of cloning, then rehearsed every speech that came with it. No mention yet of the participants. Anger bubbled within her.
Margi read on and came to Rivner’s bio. Rivner joined the com
pany upon marrying Stavon, the CEO of DanuVitro. As their spokeswoman, she is credited with the goodwill that the company has come to be known for.
Various photos were attached to the article. One showed her giving tokens to the poor for a community park and another conducting a raffle of one Great Adventure to those who couldn’t afford it. A pit in her stomach grew as she read on.
Rivner’s life was that of a public persona, wife of Stavon, spokeswoman for DanuVitro, reader of fairy tales in a castle. Remember who you are—the articles gave no indication of the person Rivner was before becoming the wife of Stavon.
Margi reached for the diary entries of Rivner’s Great Adventures and played the next tape. Rivner’s mellow voice filled the intimate space of the closet. She told the adventure in such detail that Margi could experience it as if she were there. The voice was hers, too, after all. Yet Margi sensed a quality in Rivner that was very different from her own. It was the prize of experiences that resonated above the livingness of it all. Rivner collected them. She wasted them.
Like a hoarder, the woman consumed the lives of others for a mere trinket of an experience. This was a person without a boundary, one without a moral compass. Freedom. It sounded just like the truth. It wasn’t. It was Stavon.
Margi studied the manuals while Rivner’s diary entries played on.
Another entry queued. She heard background rustling as Rivner prepared to speak. Once she began, Margi knew this one was different. Rivner’s voice was younger.
“I will grow old someday, and I will die. Stavon does not believe this. How can he? A conqueror does not consider defeat. Yet I see them in my head.” Her voice trailed off and was silent. “Losing their respect was my first death. May Tolman forgive me.”
“Tolman.” Margi meditated on the name. The man who’d guided her through the streets, who’d risked bringing her back to Stavon’s home. Rivner knew him. Why did he come to her after all this time? Wouldn’t she know the way of the streets?
Margi sat upright. She set the video to display and replayed the audio. Rivner had aligned the camera to frame her face, which resembled Margi’s in her late twenties. She was looking into the camera as best she could but was clearly remorseful.
Margi grabbed the device and played the prior entry.
Rivner began speaking. “I took my first Great Adventure this week. I went as a teenaged boy.” Her voice cracked. She turned off the camera. Then the video resumed with Rivner composed. “I named him Welser because that was the name I knew him as back on Danu. I knew this boy.” She looked down and then peered into the camera a moment before continuing. “I killed myself on Meno.” She ran her hands through her hair. “I spent a whole lifetime on Meno and did nothing. I wish I hadn’t done it.” She turned off the camera.
Margi didn’t have the nerve to replay the video. She stared into space until the next video queued. Her attention darted to an image of Rivner now in full screen, life-size. She felt as if she could reach through the virtual boundary and pull Rivner to safety, to sanity. Yet Rivner’s personal diary played on, unfazed by the enlightenment of another. The degradation taking place in her was obvious as the life in her eyes waned, and her Great Adventures proved to be less than noble. The aftermath was one facet in the wake of becoming self-aware through another’s eyes that she’d obviously not expected.
Margi compared the videos to those in the DanuVitro promos, where Rivner was the epitome of beauty, success, and happiness. The promo videos were made much later than these diary entries. The rebound in spirit was unfathomable. So much so, that she couldn’t imagine the skill required to pull it off, knowing what she now knew. No wonder someone had slipped Margi the note at the gala. Someone knew Rivner, her true self, someone from more than a decade ago, at least in Earth years. It would be someone who knew the woman in the diary entries. One who wanted her true self to survive the chaos of alternate lives, the marriage to evil and being its spokeswoman.
Margi felt her own spirit now resonating like the appearance of a long-lost friend. She hadn’t noticed that her familiarity of intuition had faded until that moment of its return and didn’t remember when it had left.
She hid her things away and went to bed.
She heard Stavon come from his garage and slip into bed with her. She pretended to sleep. Part of her wanted to kill him while he slumbered, but she was not that person. She thought of her options. Soon, the gravity of hopelessness lulled her to sleep.
She awoke to a quiet room with the soft light of day spilling in. For a moment, she thought she could smell the flowers on the vines and the sharp tang of algae and salt water.
She stretched and her attention darted to the end of the bed. No Ferli. She sighed in relief. Then, she quickly looked beside her. No Stavon. She pulled the sheets over her head and stayed there awhile.
Not having Ferli at the foot of her bed began to trouble her. So, she ventured to the main living area. More notes, she thought. From Ferli. Margi had a tour. She checked the time and realized she was running late. She practically flew down the hall, jumped into the shower, and readied herself for DanuVitro. Yes, she would fire Ferli, if she could.
She heard the driver ring from the landing pad. She rushed forth, ready to go.
After she arrived at DanuVitro, she walked to the clients’ room and greeted the guests. As she led the group down the hallway, she passed Ferli. Neither acknowledged the other.
She continued the tour as the consummate professional. However, with each passing moment, she was also working out what would be her first move and to what end. As much as she hated to admit that Holan was right, she knew that she had to play the part. But such things would need to end.
* * *
After the tour, she went to the café by the agora. She watched Tolman’s sea creatures tease the passersby and forgot the harshness of her newly gained knowledge of Rivner’s private fate. Yet Tolman was in some way an integral part of Rivner’s story. Margi decided to use this human element for her exposé if she ever returned to Earth. All of Danu would be exposed.
She approached the security desk and asked for information on the artist. She was given a map of where his studio resided. She thanked the man and left for home.
She opened the penthouse door as the driver angled the hover car over the landing pad’s edge and disappeared. She caught sight of it and startled as, for a moment, her subconscious thought the car had fallen away. These moments reminded her of the normality of her life back on Earth, the familiarity of cause and effect that Danu seemed to be devoid of. Part of her mind craved normalcy.
She had no time for the luxury of yesterdays. The thought made her shudder. She hoped that she didn’t return to Earth just in time for her own death. So many questions. Holan only gave answers that instilled fear. Curse him. But she was a reporter and would get her answers.
She went to her closet and slipped on the day clothes she had brought from the forest castle. They were for leisure and went well with the walking shoes that matched. She nestled a hat underneath her arm, made her way to the elevator, and descended. The time it took to reach the street level didn’t bring her any more ideas of what she’d say to Tolman.
Margi emerged onto the pave and saw the holograms coursing their way along the surface of the walkways in the near distance. She unfurled the map to see a spot highlighted where she was. An iridescent flow of light showed the way to Tolman’s art studio, which was indicated by a pulsing dot on the page.
She donned her hat and took her first step to the studio. As she did, she thought a man took pace with her. When she glanced back, he had gone in another direction. She was reminded of the spy that she and Tolman had lost in the tunnels of Kalgare. Nothing was assured, she reminded herself. She placed the hat on her head and continued on.
She strolled along the boardwalks, keeping stride with the others so as not to draw attention to herself. She could tell from the seam in the grade that a road system once existed, banked by sidewalks. They had
no need for them now except as tracks for the advertisements that coursed along the smoother center portion of its surface.
She pretended to look at the storefronts around her while actually scanning the area for any peculiar faces. Any that would read spy. She saw none and went on her way.
The structure that housed DanuVitro came into view as she rounded a corner. It still seemed near, being so very much larger. However, she let her eye follow the line of shorter street-level buildings toward it as their numbers revealed the true distance. She was glad to go so far away. She continued as the spot on the scroll grew near and found her pace quicken with anticipation.
Up ahead, a low, white building came into view. No sign hung from the roof. No hologram rushed to its door, making the shop most intriguing even to the average eye.
Margi waited at the stoop of another site, watching to see if anyone emerged from the building. Her attention also spanned the entire street to catch anyone watching, waiting as she waited, moving when she moved. She spied no one.
Then, she saw him. Tolman strolled along the walkway to a side door and entered. She gave her heart a moment to calm and made her way to the front door. No one appeared to notice beyond the fixed attention to the holograms littering the way, that she cut through with each step. Some she almost felt brush her legs as she moved. She knocked on the door before she lost her nerve.
She kept an eye out to the streets as she listened for sounds inside the building. She heard footsteps and stepped back.
The locks clanked free of their chambers. The door creaked open and widened.
Tolman stood before her. They stared at each other for a moment until Tolman pulled her inside.
“Were you followed?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
He looked along the streets and rooftops, and slammed the door shut.
“You must know so,” he warned.
“I didn’t see anyone.” She had hoped for a warmer welcome. She took off her hat. Her hair cascaded to her shoulders.
The Assumption Code Page 11
