He remembered Soft Stone's shining lights, the beautiful images, the quiet music—it had to be for show, something the Splinter monks had concocted to comfort themselves. “How can you be so sure I'm not going to come back out and get you?” he muttered. But he knew that would never happen; despite numerous vengeful vows by criminals facing upload, COM had swallowed them all without the slightest bit of indigestion.
In this place, he expected no cathedrals of data, no shimmering angels to lead him down a golden path. Similarly, Eduard thought the ominous “sweatshop of souls” idea was just another ridiculous fantasy, no more likely than Soft Stone's cybernetic heaven or somebody else's hell.
“The final preparations will now commence,” the voice boomed.
No matter what, Eduard was going to be dead in a few moments. That was real, without question.
70
In full dress uniform, Daragon headed toward his position in the termination facility, avoiding everyone.
He had been “rewarded” with diminished duties, and some BTL bureaucrats were muttering with displeasure about his personal connection to the Eduard Swan case, his obsession that had caused his other workload to suffer. They didn't want him making any public statement, but as head of the apprehension team that had captured Eduard, he was expected to be an important observer at the execution. It was his duty. It was his curse.
Eduard's fate was already out of his hands, placed under the jurisdiction of a different Bureau. Holding himself rigid and grim, Daragon wanted nothing more than to leave. He was just a showpiece here, and he hated every minute of it. He would rather go back to the underwater BTL Headquarters, sit in the Chief's former office and remember Mordecai Ob. He would watch schools of fish swim through the kelp forest as distant sunlight sliced through the water.
And he would try to forget about Eduard.
This case had thrown Inspector Daragon Swan into a whirlpool of unwanted attention. Before long, some investigative journalist was sure to learn that Daragon himself had gotten Eduard the job working for Mordecai Ob. Therefore, the BTL officials had to make sure everything went by the book, with no deviations, no mistakes.
But Daragon couldn't leave it at that. Quietly, using every favor, every manipulation skill he knew, he had already quashed the accomplice charges leveled against Garth and Teresa, but he could do no more. Garth's mansion was shut down and silent, and since he could not find the artist, he had no chance to return the blond home-body to him. After the execution, Daragon was sure he could place some injunction against the vile Madame Ruxton—that would be as satisfying to him as when he'd quietly ruined Rhys and the Sharetakers. It wouldn't be difficult to confiscate Garth's home-body and give it back to him.
The opportunities for scandal were myriad, but he didn't care.
Now, he marched down the austere halls of the well-guarded facility. The BIE personnel showed Daragon deference, congratulated him formally. He accepted their kindness politely, then turned down another corridor as rapidly as possible. He concentrated on attending to every little thing. An Inspector was good at the details. He would get through this one minute at a time, until it was finally over.
Guards were escorting old Madame Ruxton toward the holding room, and Daragon found a reason to turn in the opposite direction. A long time ago he had protected Eduard from the rich crone's greed, and he didn't want to face her vindictiveness now—to see her gloat. With clicking bootheels, he hurried to a different control center, refusing even to look at her.
He tried to hold on to thoughts of how Chief Ob had given him such a remarkable opportunity with the BTL. Because of his inability to hopscotch, he'd been different from everybody else. Even among his friends in the monastery, he had always been an outsider. But the Bureau had accepted him. Ob's faith in Daragon's special abilities had turned him into someone powerful and impressive.
And then Eduard had killed the man who had been the closest thing to a father to him. Daragon focused on that.
Once captured, Eduard hadn't even tried to defend himself—he seemed already defeated by the fact that his former friend had turned against him. “You're all about justice, Daragon. But you can't have justice without truth.”
The BTL had done its thorough investigation, and they had found no concrete evidence to confirm Eduard's story. Even Daragon had not been able to convince himself of what Teresa and Garth believed. What other choice did an Inspector have? It was his duty.
As he tried to convince himself, the face of happy-go-lucky young Eduard, the daredevil and scamp who ran across slick rooftops to explore the city, kept haunting him. A cocky boy who stole flowers for Teresa, who threw himself into danger to save his friends. The man Daragon could never be.
No wonder he'd never experienced the same depth of friendship with Teresa, or Garth, or even Eduard. What had he done differently?
Garth's career had been launched by Mordecai Ob, who had given him the money and freedom to follow his dream. And yet, the moment Eduard came in with his wild story about the Bureau Chief's abuse, Garth had never doubted him, never hesitated before offering to help a known fugitive and probable murderer. Because they were friends.
Years ago, Eduard had thrown himself against an armed terrorist to save Teresa in the flower market. He had rescued her from the Sharetakers when Rhys had beaten her, and he had swapped into her wounded body so she could heal more peacefully. In return, Teresa had begged him to trade bodies with her when he'd gone on the run, knowing that Eduard's body was strung out and addicted to Rush-X. She hadn't doubted him, either, not for a second.
Daragon still considered them his closest friends, yet he was sure they would not have made similar selfless sacrifices for him. His throat went dry and his heart grew heavy as he realized the corollary. Would I have done it for them?
He had never been willing to take chances, to open himself. Yes, he had watched over them, using his BTL resources, and he had saved them from problems and embarrassing situations. But he had never done any selfless act that required him to take an actual risk on their behalf. He could almost hear Teresa scolding him: “You don't get closer by doing things for us, Daragon. You get closer just by being a friend.”
It sounded so simple, but he wasn't sure he could accomplish that.
Nauseated by himself, and by what he was about to witness, Daragon could think of nothing he could do—for anyone. He would just have to endure, and try to heal afterward.
He went to his position with the witnesses for the execution: Olaf Pitervald the window-maintenance engineer, the woman suffering from a muscular disease who now lived in Teresa's waifish body, the hirsute parolee, the scrawny underground worker, the inspec-tech who would never be able to recover his own body.
Behind a wide observation window laced with fiberoptic recording blips, the metal-walled chamber was ready, the COM-upload hardware prepared to drain Eduard. Daragon looked at the clock, counting down the minutes. After so long, so much work, so much anguish . . . it would all be over soon.
Prowling up and down the corridors, Daragon went about his rounds again, checking and double-checking. Nothing must go wrong.
He drew a deep, heavy breath. He didn't know whether to be glad it was almost finished, or sad for the loss of his friends. All of them.
71
The BIE escort guard's uniform felt bulky and uncomfortable, but José Meroni's body wore it naturally.
Teresa had left the man trussed up and snoring back at his apartment; she wished she could have at least given him some memorable sex first to assuage her guilt for taking advantage of him, but Meroni had fallen comatose in Jennika's body as soon as they'd passed through the door. Early the next morning she had used his badge, ID patch, and passcode to enter the incarceration and execution facility.
Now she didn't know what to do next.
Feeling inept, she did her best to assess the building and avoid Meroni's coworkers. The story about his embarrassing arm-wrestling defeat had already spread among
the other guards, though, and they made teasing comments just within earshot. It gave Teresa an excuse to pretend sulkiness, which allowed her to avoid them further.
She strolled through the corridors pretending to be a real guard, checking locked doors, nodding to BIE personnel, glaring at prisoners. She went from place to place scouting for her chance, but she understood little of what she saw or encountered. Wall diagrams helped a little, but not enough.
If Daragon came to the ceremony—and he almost certainly would—he would recognize her true identity with just a glance, regardless of what her stolen ID patch displayed.
There was no way she could get away with this. Absolutely no way. It was a ridiculous idea, impossible to plan. Oh, how she wished she'd been able to reach Garth!
She had no choice . . . only hope. She felt stronger than she ever had before, with an inner reservoir of confidence that far surpassed any muscular capabilities. And at least she had made it inside the BIE facility, though so far it hadn't done her much good.
She needed to find the control chamber, the room from which Eduard would be uploaded into COM. Attendants would force him to swap into the body of the old woman who had bought him, using the Scramble drug if necessary to break down his resistance.
At some point in the process, Teresa needed to sabotage the routine, prevent the actual upload. She hadn't even thought about what might happen afterward, how she would ever free Eduard. She was desperate and impulsive—just as Eduard had been when he'd saved her.
Impersonating José Meroni, Teresa discovered where the power stations were. Next to the control room, she took responsibility for the small details of Eduard's last moments, volunteering for additional duties. Even from here, though, the odds were not good.
Behind a transparent wall, where the witnesses waited with eager or restless expressions, Eduard sat in his restraint chair. Her heart leaped when she saw him. She stepped closer to the recording window to peer in at her friend, longingly trying to communicate with him.
He glared up at her, but from his perspective, Eduard saw only a guard who was part of the Bureau in charge of killing him. She offered him a faint smile, but he made a rude face at her. Dismayed, she turned away.
Madame Ruxton had arrived, alone. Over the loudspeakers, Teresa heard the ominous sentence read. Whether truth or lies, this was how history would remember her friend.
There wasn't much time left. Flustered, Teresa headed out of the observation deck and bumped clumsily into Daragon as he marched down the corridors. Wearing his Inspector's uniform like a dark shield, he looked busy and distracted, his expression troubled.
Alarmed, she scuttled past him, averting her eyes and hoping to appear like a busy guard with a tight schedule. He looked right at her, right into her. She saw a flash of startled recognition on his face.
Daragon stopped in his path. She froze for a moment. Her heart skipped a beat, then another.
But he did nothing. Instead, Daragon just turned and went about his business, as if he didn't know her.
Expecting alarms at any instant, she continued her charade. She made her way to the control room and tried to blend in while watching the preparations reach their final stages. A spray vial of Scramble had already been prepared for Eduard, and others sat on the shelf beside it. An attendant unsealed the door and entered the execution chamber.
Through another small window, Teresa saw Eduard waiting. Madame Ruxton was seated on his left in a restraint chair. Eduard turned his face, refusing to look at her, not wanting to see the old woman's body in which he was bound to die.
He seemed so far away from her.
72
It amazed Eduard that people would come to watch him die—and do it with such obvious glee. Lantern-jawed Olaf looked indignant and betrayed, though Eduard had given him more material for sexual fantasies than the maintenance man had had in his entire life.
Then there was the woman who had gotten Teresa's waifish body, trading with Olaf so the window man could have his lanky home-body back. Before she'd met Eduard, the woman had been overweight and dying of some degenerative disease—so what did she have to complain about?
Daragon still hadn't shown his face, but he was probably lurking about somewhere. Eduard wondered if the duty-bound Inspector even felt guilty about what he had done. Probably not, given his Bureau brainwashing. He had clearly made his choice, refusing to believe Eduard's story against his revered mentor's.
Worst of all—or perhaps best—he didn't spot his true friends, whatever bodies they might be wearing now. He wouldn't want Teresa to see him strapped in this chair. He wanted her to remember him, but not like this.
And sadly, Garth must have died by now, trapped in the decrepit old body. That part hurt the most. He had never intended to hopscotch with the artist when he'd gone to the mansion for the last time. Though he felt little remorse for the death of Mordecai Ob, after what the man had done to him and the other three caretakers, Eduard's betrayal of Garth warranted this most extreme punishment. With his selfishness, he had caused the death of his friend; therefore, in that instance, he was guilty of murder.
Just before the “beneficiary” of his body was led in to join him, Eduard sat seething as technicians wrapped his chest with a flexible stun mesh—a conductive fabric connected to discharge packs that could knock him flat if he tried to resist.
If he tried to escape, the BIE guards would probably gun him down, maybe drag his bleeding and mortally wounded body back here so they could upload him before he died. The end result would be the same—except then Madame Ruxton wouldn't have the benefit of walking away in Garth's body.
Maybe it would be worth the trouble after all.
But Eduard was finished running. Having had time to objectively consider Artemis's long but ultimately wasted life as a Phantom, he realized how little he had accomplished in his own existence, as well. Maybe the old bitch Ruxton would live for another century in borrowed bodies. Eduard hated that thought.
The first attendant held out a spray vial of Scramble, as if it were a weapon. “This'll make you groggy and knock down your resistance.”
“No need. I'd rather keep my clarity of thought. I won't resist.” Eduard raised his chin to indicate the ugly industrial walls, the metal plates with protruding rivets. “I want to see this beautiful scenery to the end.”
“Suit yourself.” After the tech powered up the COM upload links, the arm restraints on his chair slid away, leaving him with only the leash of the stun mesh.
Gracious escort guards ushered in the weary-looking crone. Eduard remembered Ruxton leering at him before the surgery and how she had tried to steal his body afterward. “You don't deserve this reward, no matter how much you paid,” he told her. Garth had sacrificed much more for him.
Ruxton met his burning gaze, her face open and hopeful. She seemed calm now, properly smug. He remembered her during the meat-market auction, her eager shouts and predatory actions that had dominated the other competitors. She had ruthlessly outbid everyone else just so she could purchase his body and exact her revenge—and he despised her for it.
Next to him, one of the two attendants saw his face redden. He held up the ominous spray vial again. “Do I need to use this, after all?”
Eduard glared at Ruxton. “No problem.”
He flexed his hands, artist's hands, with delicate and clever fingers for creating images that had made the world pay attention. With wistful admiration, he thought of what Garth had done with his panoramic experiences. For so long, he had endured the unpleasant aspects of human experience to understand everything about life—and share it with his audience. Garth had truly made a difference, forced people to understand things they may not have wanted to think about.
Teresa too had given openly and selflessly of herself. She had devoted days, years of searching and contemplation. She had fought to pry explanations from the universe and from her own heart. She had made herself a better person because of it.
Eduard, o
n the other hand, had botched everything.
“Please, Eduard . . .” the old woman said from the restraint chair beside him. Her words came out in a husky whisper, as if she didn't want the guards to hear what she was saying.
Frowning, he turned to her. In a moment he would be forced to inhabit this parasite's body, just before the executioners drained his mind, his consciousness, his “soul” into the computer/organic matrix.
She gave him a tentative smile, as if trying desperately to communicate with him. He refused to offer her the comfort of a response.
The technicians applied electrodes to the thinning gray hair on Madame Ruxton's scalp and temples. From there, Eduard would be sucked through conduits into COM. Hopscotching into eternity.
“Eduard, please listen to me. . . .” He realized how strange her expression was, how unexpected. He had expected Ruxton to gloat. He couldn't fathom what she was thinking.
Then the guards wrapped her fragile body with a stun mesh as well, to prevent him from making any violent outburst immediately after the swap and before they could upload him. A firm band bound each outer wrist to the chairs, leaving their adjacent arms free so they could touch during the actual hopscotching. Eduard began to regret his promise of cooperation. Maybe a dose of Scramble would feel just fine right now.
The technicians left the room, sealed the doors behind them. Bright lights reflected off the dull metal walls. Beyond the broad observation window, the spectators watched, eager for the show. It would only be a few moments, now.
Ruxton whispered in a voice she knew the wall sensors would not pick up. “Eduard—it's me. Garth! I've come to die in your place.”
She reached over to touch him so they could hopscotch.
73
Time had run out. Teresa knew there would be only a few seconds before her sabotage in the control room was detected.
Sprayed with stolen Scramble, the execution techs wouldn't come to their senses anytime soon. One sat dazed and oblivious, staring at the screens in front of him; the second babbled incoherent sounds, swaying from side to side in his chair. The rest of the upload schedule ran like clockwork.
Hopscotch Page 38
