Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330)

by Mitchell, Laura Remson

  “I came of age a long time ago,” Rayna reminded them. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  Bill Kingman looked away, then at his wife, then back at Rayna. “By that time,” he said softly, “you were so much a part of our lives that we never thought about the adoption anymore.”

  Kingman had been assigned to his firm’s British division in 1985 and 1986. It wasn’t too difficult for the couple to return to Los Angeles with a new baby that would be accepted as their biological offspring.

  “Not even your grandparents knew the truth,” Ann whispered, her eyes moist.

  “Oh? How did you manage that?” Rayna demanded. “Grandma G must’ve been in a positive uproar. How could a Gianelli girl give birth without letting her own mother be present for the blessed event? I can hear her now: ‘Thank the Lord your father isn’t alive to see this day.’”

  Ann Kingman cringed at Rayna’s mocking words.

  “And Baba and Grandpa, what about them? All of a sudden, you show up with a baby. No letters or phone calls beforehand to prepare them, either, I’ll bet. Just a fait accompli in swaddling clothes.” Rayna was glaring at her father by then. “You’ve always told me it took Baba and Grandpa a long time to get over the shock that it was you and not Aunt Vickie who married a gentile. After all, you were the bar mitzvah boy—the one who seemed so concerned about keeping the faith. And you were always so dependable. Aunt Vickie was the wild one, the free spirit. From her, they might have expected the unexpected. Right? But not from you. Or was all that a lie, too?”

  Bill Kingman’s eyes narrowed. “Stop it, Rayna,” he demanded in a low voice. “I don’t like your tone one little bit. I know all this has been a shock, but—”

  “A shock? You can’t begin to understand—” The round-faced man with the aquiline nose and the bald pate cleared his throat loudly and tried to explain.

  “Please understand. We had to do things the way we did. Your grandparents were pretty angry with us, too, but somehow, we managed to smooth things over with them, and there was this kind of unspoken agreement not to bring the subject up again. They just accepted you as our natural child.”

  With long, delicate fingers, Ann Kingman reached out to touch Rayna’s cheek. “We never meant to deceive you, honey,” she murmured. “We loved you so much.”

  Once, when Rayna was about 5, her parents had considered telling her the truth. She’d been with them so long, the Kingmans had reasoned, that surely no one could object now. They’d been reading up on how they might approach the subject. Visitors must have wondered why they had a stack of books on the topic. Al Frederick even asked them once if they were planning to adopt.

  But before they had the chance to tell Rayna, they received a letter from the lawyer who had arranged the adoption. The letter reminded them that the terms of the original agreement remained binding, in accordance with the wishes of the child’s (Rayna’s) natural next of kin.

  Rayna glanced out the bus window. The highlights of the city registered only on her subconscious. Then, suddenly, there were the spires of the carefully preserved Watts Towers, awash in the afternoon sun. The ride was nearly over. A veteran of the tour, she knew the route by heart. Strange how things stay with you, even if you’re not aware of them, she thought. In all the times she had taken this tour, she had never paid much attention to its sights or sounds. Yet, she was certain she could conduct the tour herself.

  “Hope you’ve enjoyed our little trip,” the driver announced in a deep baritone as he pulled the bus up to a debarkation platform beneath a large sign that read “Hover-Tours, Inc: Your Key to the City.”

  “Please exit to the rear of the bus,” he added.

  Rayna allowed herself to be jostled along until she found herself standing on a street corner adjacent to the Hover-Tours station.

  What do I do now? she asked herself as she crossed the street and continued walking without any particular destination. Who the hell am I? She was the child of a Jewish “father” and an Italian Catholic “mother” who had emphasized the importance of ethics and honest communication, yet had failed to tell her she was adopted. The Kingmans were never told anything about her true parentage, they insisted. And according to the computer, the adoption records were sealed. She’d need a court order to open them. That meant a lawyer.

  A lawyer? She halted suddenly, permitting a smile to spread slowly across her face. Keith. Keith’s a lawyer. And he’s only minutes away by Trans-Mat.

  Rayna looked about and spotted a single Trans-Mat booth on the corner. A curtain of gloom lifted. She was sure Keith could help her.

  Her mind wandered happily as she made her way to the booth. She knew Keith’s coordinates by heart. She entered them on the control board and inserted her universal transaction card in the appropriate slot. A readout showed her account had been charged the correct amount, and she pressed the “transmit” button. She could feel the usual light-headedness as the transmission process began. A moment later, she stood in the lobby of Keith’s building.

  Unlike the complex where Rayna lived, Keith’s building was an older structure. It had once been what people used to call a “mansion.” Rayna found it hard to believe that so large a place once served as home to just a single family. (In fact, the story went, it had been owned by an old eccentric who had no family. However, a number of the owner’s employees—domestic help, secretaries and various business advisers—had lived in the building at the owner’s insistence. He had wanted them handy at all times.) The interior of the three-story house had been remodeled about 30 years ago, dividing it into eight comfortable, attractive apartments. Keith’s was on the top floor.

  Rayna strode out of the Trans-Mat booth and headed directly for the elevator. The doors opened just as she reached for the call button. An attractive woman in her mid-twenties brushed past Rayna, leaving behind the lingering scent of a distinctive yet delicate perfume. Rayna watched as the woman turned to greet someone at the lobby entrance and then continued on her way. For some reason, the woman made Rayna feel uneasy. Something in the woman’s bearing was at once galling and threatening. Maybe it was her air of self-assurance. Yes, that was it. The woman was too self-assured. An icy blast had shaken Rayna’s world, and she resented the warm coat of invulnerability that seemed to cloak the stranger.

  Enough of that, Rayna told herself sharply as she turned and entered the elevator.

  On the third floor, she headed left down a short corridor to Keith’s apartment. She touched the sensor pad next to the doorjamb. There was a momentary delay; then she heard Keith’s voice through the entrance intercom.

  “Hang on a minute,” he said, without bothering to ask who was at the door.

  Through the intercom, Rayna thought she detected the background sounds of rushing water. Probably taking a shower, Rayna surmised. Her pulse quickened with unexpected desire as she pictured Keith’s lean, hard body emerging from the spray.

  She drew a deep breath. By now Keith would have toweled himself off and donned his robe. Now he’d be approaching his main communicator console and pressing the “entry” key to check the identity of his visitor. From where Rayna stood, nothing seemed to happen, but she knew how Keith’s specially designed “entry” function worked. She’d seen it often enough from inside. With a rapid shimmer, the special material in the front door would shift its molecular alignment, and what usually appeared as opaque whiteness would temporarily become a one-way window.

  “Rayna!” Keith exclaimed right on cue as the door slid open. “What’re you doing here?”

  I need you, she thought. I need you, and I want you. Now. But something in Keith’s eyes warned her to back off. Better stick to business.

  “Well that’s a fine greeting!” she said, kissing him lightly on the lips. “You’re all wet!”

  “Shower’ll do that to a fella every time.” Keith’s smile seemed strangely forced.

  “I have a little problem that requires the skills of a good lawyer. Know anyone who might be abl
e to handle the job?”

  Rayna moved confidently into the room, her spirits rising once more as she assured herself that Keith was the key to finding her identity.

  “That depends,” Keith snarled. “Some new problem involving dear old Al Frederick? Because if it is....”

  Rayna looked at him in perplexed silence as his words died away.

  “Have I been that preoccupied with Al since he died?” She shook her head. “I know I haven’t exactly been easy to be around lately, but I never realized....”

  Keith shrugged his shoulders but said nothing.

  “Well, this isn’t about Al. It’s about me.” Keith breathed a quiet sigh of relief and waited for Rayna to continue. “I just found out for sure yesterday,” she told him. “I’m adopted.”

  Keith’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Oh?”

  Rayna nodded. “Mom and Dad—the Kingmans, that is—they say they don’t know anything about my real parents, and the thing is, the adoption records are sealed.”

  “Sealed?” Keith looked incredulous. “In this day and age? Hardly any adoption records are sealed anymore.”

  “I know. That’s why I need your help.” Rayna moved closer to Keith. She wanted more than just his professional assistance. She put her arms around him and rested her head against his chest. But instead of returning her embrace, Keith’s arms hung uncertainly at his side.

  “I feel lost, Keith. It’s like going home after a long, hard day at work and finding out your building isn’t there anymore.”

  Tentatively, Keith raised his arms to offer a gentle caress, then broke away suddenly to assume a more detached, businesslike demeanor.

  “Look,” he said, “we need to sit down and talk about this, but right now, I’m standing around wearing nothing but a damp bathrobe. Not exactly the current fashion for the hotshot lawyer on the go.” Once again, he offered a wan smile.

  Rayna looked at Keith pensively. How odd, she thought.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked as she followed him into the bedroom.

  “No. No, of course not. Everything’s just fine.”

  “You tired today?” she inquired, plopping onto Keith’s unmade bed as he busied himself hunting through dresser drawers.

  “Huh? Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, pausing for a long, deep breath. “You don’t usually have an unmade bed at this time of day. I thought maybe you slept late or took a nap or something. Besides, you seem a little tense.”

  Rayna cocked her head to one side as she finished speaking. Something was tugging at her memory, but she couldn’t quite identify it.

  Activating the closetron mechanism behind his closet door, Keith inspected a visual directory, selected a shirt and a comfortable pair of slacks, then closed the door. With a soft hum, the closetron located the items in its memory banks, retrieved the compacted atomic versions from storage, and reconstituted the clothing.

  “Yeah. Maybe I am a little tired,” he said as he opened the door and removed the shirt and slacks. “Or maybe sleeping late just makes me grouchy.”

  “I know just the thing to give us both a lift,” Rayna said brightly, grabbing Keith’s hand as he walked past the bed. “I really need you right now, Keith,” she added earnestly as their eyes locked.

  Keith pulled her to her feet and kissed her, more with tenderness than with passion.

  “Give me a minute,” he said gently. “Look, why don’t you go wait in the living room. I’ll be right in, and we can feed all you have into the computer. That’ll give us a starting point.”

  Rayna nodded and headed for the living room.

  “By the way,” she called out, her forehead creased in concentration as she sniffed the air, “what’s that strange odor. Are you hiding some kind of exotic flowering plant around here?”

  Keith hesitated before answering.

  “I don’t smell anything,” he muttered.

  Rayna moved to the computer terminal and ran her fingers nonchalantly over the keyboard dust cover.

  “Well, it’s not a very heavy smell. Kind of light and pleasant, really. Even seems a little familiar, though I can’t remember what it is.... Oh, well. Never mind.”

  Rayna flipped the power switch on the terminal and moved the nearby chair to a comfortable position as the dust cover retracted.

  “Think I’ll catch up on the news,” she announced, calling up the latest news briefs. “When you going to expand your service, Keith? I’d think that as a lawyer, you’d want a lot more information than the briefs give you.”

  “As a lawyer, that’s all I need,” he responded from the bedroom. “If I need more, I use my special access code to hook into the law library’s 24-hour news watch. I need it so seldom that it would be ridiculous for me to get news watch service for myself. Besides,” he added, peeking out the bedroom door, “I can always check with my friend Rayna Kingman, the news junkie.”

  Rayna smiled, then turned back to the terminal. “Jesus!” she said as Keith strode to her side. “I haven’t paid much attention to what was going on for the last day or two. Look at these headlines!”

  She gestured at the screen, barely glancing up at Keith. “More problems in the Middle East. Some new trouble in Southeast Asia. Unrest in South America. Africa, too. And closer to home. There are three stories about local burglaries, another one about vandalism with racial and religious overtones, and even one story about an assault—all taking place over the last few hours.”

  Keith peered over Rayna’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, things look pretty grim. Look at Brief Number 12.”

  Rayna turned her attention to the story Keith had cited.

  LOS ANGELES POLICE ARE GEARING UP TO DEAL WITH A MAJOR CRIME EXPLOSION THAT HAS ROCKED THE CITY OVER THE PAST SEVERAL WEEKS, ACCORDING TO LT. FRANK HERNANDEZ, WHO HEADS A POLICE DEPARTMENT TASK FORCE CHARGED WITH RESTORING ORDER.

  “WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S TRIGGERED ALL THIS,” HERNANDEZ SAID, “BUT WE’RE DETERMINED TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT. MEANWHILE, WE WANT THE PUBLIC TO START TAKING CERTAIN PRECAUTIONS. MOST RECENT BURGLARIES HAVE INVOLVED UNLOCKED HOMES OR OFFICES. MOST OF THE VICTIMS ARE HAVING AS TOUGH A TIME DEALING WITH THE FEAR AS THEY ARE DEALING WITH THEIR MATERIAL LOSSES.”

  CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IS UP 30 PER CENT OVER THE SAME TIME LAST YEAR, HERNANDEZ POINTED OUT.

  “MY PARENTS USED TO TELL ME STORIES ABOUT YEARS BACK WHEN PEOPLE WERE AFRAID TO WALK THE STREETS IN LOS ANGELES—EVEN WITH A POLICE FORCE FIVE TIMES THE SIZE WE HAVE NOW. WE’RE NOT GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN AGAIN. OUR PEOPLE ARE GETTING SPECIAL TRAINING, AND WE’RE BRINGING IN MORE AND BETTER WEAPONS. SO FAR, MOST OF THE INCREASE IN CRIME HAS BEEN NONVIOLENT. BUT IF THAT CHANGES, THIS DEPARTMENT WILL BE READY.”

  Rayna shook her head sadly from side to side.

  “‘The whole world progressively falling to pieces,’” she said softly.

  “Huh?”

  “‘The whole world progressively falling to pieces.’ It’s something Al used to say. Whenever I asked him what it was like living through some of the most exciting times in history, that’s what he’d say. ‘Like the whole world was progressively falling to pieces.’ He said that’s how it all seemed to him working in the news business.”

  Keith grunted. “Well, if you want me to help you unseal those adoption records, maybe we should get started.”

  Rayna looked at him closely, trying to read his expression.

  “Okay,” she said simply, rising from her chair.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Keith asked. “I mean, the Kingmans were pretty good parents, weren’t they? Why bother to dig up things that somebody went to a lot of trouble to bury?”

  “The Kingmans were—are—wonderful parents. But they hid the truth from me.... No, that’s not really the point. The point is that I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve always felt a little unsure of myself—like a homing pigeon with a fuzzy sense of direction. I never quite understood it or knew what to do about it. Maybe find
ing out about my real parents will help.”

  Keith shrugged and seated himself before the terminal. He typed in a series of codes requesting the latest rulings governing the opening of adoption records.

  “I guess I can understand how you feel. It’s tough enough to figure out where you’re going when you already know where you’ve been.” He watched the terminal screen carefully as information began to appear. Periodically, he would tap instructions to send certain rulings to a special file.

  “Now, my father gave me some very solid guidelines to follow,” Keith said, his jaw set firmly. “Very solid guidelines. Told me I should always do my best at everything I tried. ‘If you can’t do your best,’ he used to say, ‘keep looking till you find something where you can do your best.’” He paused and glanced at Rayna, then returned his attention to the screen.

  “I got pretty good at a lot of things,” he said, “but I’ve never quite managed to be ‘the best’ at anything. Guess that’s why I keep changing careers. I already had three at an age when most people are just starting to consider a second one. Always had to give it my best. But my best was never quite good enough.”

  Keith jabbed sharply at a final key, then offered Rayna the chair.

  “Here. You take over and punch in the answers to these questions. Then the computer can check out any special legal problems that might apply in your specific case.”

  Rayna began keying in answers as Keith walked away from the terminal, his hands drawn into fists as he paced the room.

  “Okay, Keith,” Rayna said after a time. “Now what?”

  “Hmmmmh? Oh—let’s see,” Keith responded, moving close behind Rayna and examining the screen thoughtfully. Reaching around her, he punched in a series of instructions and carefully studied the data that pranced across the screen.

  “Uhhh,” he grumbled. “This may take awhile. Your case involves several different jurisdictions—at least one each in England and the United States. I won’t know quite how many courts will have to clear this till I start opening things up. You might as well go home, and I’ll let you know when I start getting somewhere.”