"Well, excuse me. Jeesh. . . ."
The thing was to get away from the seat and the bag, the whole area where people were likely to be moving. Beside the arm of the bench was a U.S. flag furled about a polished wooden staff that stood attached to the wall by a brass bracket. Beyond was what looked like the end of a wooden wall cabinet, ornamented with carvings and shell inlays. Kevin thought it might be possible to get up onto the cabinet by climbing the folds of the flag. He exchanged the blade for his other claw hand again, then set off, worming up behind the cushions to get to the top of the seat back. The fabric afforded easy holds on both sides. His biggest problem was with protuberances of the mec's body catching in the threads.
Kevin waited until Vanessa had her back to him again, blocking the man's view, and then raced along the top of the seat and leaped into a fold of the flag, kicking the prong-tipped feet into the weave and gripping blindly with the claws. The flag was made of flimsier material than the seat cover, with a harder, finer-woven thread more difficult to grasp. He steadied himself, then started climbing—or, more accurately, floundering—his way upward through a near-vertical billow of stationary surf, unable to avoid making tremors that he prayed wouldn't give him away. Taki, for once, seemed to appreciate his predicament and kept quiet. Eventually, Kevin reached the top part of the mast where the folds became tighter and easier to wedge into, and made the last few inches to the top of the cabinet by bridging across the angle between the end and the wall.
The man with Vanessa was asking about new theoretical work on neural dynamics.
"You stick to organizing the finances," Vanessa said. "That's what you're better at. Don't worry about the scientific side. Leave that to me."
"I was just curious."
"I think you might find this more interesting."
"What is it?"
"Open it and see. . . ."
At last, Kevin had reached his haven. The top surface of the cabinet stretched away before him safe and secure in shadow, high near the ceiling. Along its length were carved heads and figurines, ornamental pieces in copper and brass, decorative plates, and a couple of replica dueling pistols mounted on plaques. To Kevin they looked like an avenue of gigantic sculptures staring down over the void. He moved cautiously to the edge and settled in the darkness behind the base of one of the figurines to observe the surroundings fully at last.
He wasn't good at estimating the ages of people over about thirty but the man talking with Vanessa looked to be in the range that was usually selected for sports equipment and fast-car commercials. Certainly, he had the looks. His yellow hair was styled collar-length, covering the ears, eyes clear and candid, tanned features, fine and strong-lined. He stood loose-limbed and athletic, wearing a bright red short-sleeved shirt with white edging, and white, lightweight, casual slacks. He was scanning through the contents of the green folder and saying something about forecasts and percentages that Kevin didn't follow.
The room itself, as Kevin had registered vaguely but not had time to think more about until now, was low-ceilinged, with round-backed chairs and a bulging couch, sculptures and art works set on tables or mounted in backlit niches, and carpeting patterned in black, browns, and gold. A marble-topped bar with mirrors behind stood below a long window at the far end, and across from it, a glass-fronted cabinet exhibiting sculptures and crystal.
"What do you make of this place?" Kevin asked Taki.
"I'm not sure. A pretty nifty kind of house. . . ."
"It looks like it should have pointy arches and snake-charmer music, somehow." Then Kevin noticed that the window partly visible behind the half-closed drapes high on the wall opposite, through which he could see lights reflecting off water, was rounded at the corners.
"Wait," Taki's voice said. "What was that?—back to the right of where you're looking now."
"Where?" Kevin moved his gaze back to the right.
"Back a bit more. . . . There, on the end wall."
There were two doors in the end wall, the right-hand one closed, the other open to what appeared to be steps going down.
Mounted on the wall as a centerpiece between the doors was a carved wooden crest in the form of a composition of scrolls and ropework framing the inscription Princess Dolores.
"It's a boat," Taki said. "Didn't the guy say something about Bellevue? You must be up on Lake Washington somewhere."
"This is wonderful, Vanessa," the man in the red shirt was saying. "I hadn't realized it could be worth so much." He made a face, accompanied by an empty-handed gesture, and then smiled. "Will I still be able to afford you when you own all this?"
Vanessa moved close and pressed her head against his shoulder. "We'll own it." She looked up and murmured something close to his ear that didn't come through on the audio, and the man slid an arm around her. Kevin watched with rising discomfort. At least, it wasn't his natural mother, so he was spared having to deal with that. His strongest reaction was a feeling of indignation on behalf of Eric. Taki, discreetly, refrained from comment.
"Let's go out to the bar on the fantail," the man in the red shirt said to Vanessa. "I'll mix us a couple of drinks. Then we'll take a short drive. I think I know just the place." He slipped his arm from her waist and took her hand. They moved to the end of the cabin bearing the carved crest. The man opened the door to the right that had been closed, and showed Vanessa through.
"You could try getting the mec down," Taki suggested. "A bit of noise getting back into the bag won't matter now."
Kevin was thinking the same thing. Vanessa would find it later, of course. But she wouldn't even need to know that it had been out of the bag. It would just be a case of something belonging to the boys having inadvertently found its way into her luggage. He turned to go back the way he had come. . . .
And that was when he became aware of a freezing sensation in his back, almost painful. He had been too preoccupied with events to notice it building up.
He flipped on the system menu and selected status. The mec's charge was almost exhausted, pointer down in the red arc, which was pulsing. Almost certainly there wouldn't be enough to get back down to the seat, then have to either fight up the outside of the plastic bag or cut through into it. He deactivated, and all of a sudden was back at the house, sitting in a coupler in the downstairs lab.
"I don't think I'm going to be able to do it," he told Taki, who was perched on a stool by the bench alongside. "It hasn't got enough juice left. I think maybe we're just gonna have to write off another one."
Later, Kevin called Eric at the lab. His outrage had abated, and he had decided that adult business was something best left to adults. It wasn't as if Vanessa was related in any way that made it his problem to get involved in personally, anyway. Even if it were, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
"Dad," he said. "Would it be okay for Taki to stay over tonight? We really got the plane working properly today, and we're right in the middle of making the mods permanent. And Mom and Harriet have both left."
"Sure," Eric said. "In fact, it would work out better. We can take Taki with us to Hiroyuki's for the barbecue tomorrow, and it will save anyone having to pick him up tonight."
Kevin nodded, giving Taki a silent thumbs-up sign. "That's what we thought too."
"Oh, and Michelle was here at the lab again today," Eric said. "Apparently Ohira forgot to invite her. I thought that was a bit unforgivable since she's hardly a stranger to the family. So I said she could come along with us too. She'll be stopping by the house at about noon."
"Great," Kevin said. He frowned to himself. Had he imagined it, or was there just a hint of a swagger in Eric's voice? A note of feeling quite pleased with himself, in fact.
"Okay, I shouldn't be very much longer. Put three steaks and some veg on the timer for about eight. Then after dinner you can show me what you did on the plane."
"Sure. Will do. We'll see you later, then." Kevin hung up. "It's okay. You can drive back over with us tomorrow." He looked back at the
phone and contemplated it for a few seconds. "Good for you Dad," he muttered, then nodded approvingly.
CHAPTER NINE
It was late Friday evening in downtown Seattle. In her apartment on the Eastlake side of Lake Union, Michelle pushed herself back from the computer in the cluttered room that she used as a home office and stretched her arms back past the sides of the chair. In the dimmed lighting, the blue from the screen picked out her features, while the rest of the room reflected the subdued hues of city lights glowing on the far shore through the half-open drapes. Far to the left, the floodlit Space Needle stood as a backdrop, its flickering image mirrored on water.
New York had been a city of lights and water too, but there the water was a separate element, surrounding the city but as a thing apart, defining where a different existence began, like a dark, besieging force. Here, the water insinuated itself and mingled with the lights, was part of the city and its life.
The remains of a burrito-enchilada combination that she had called out for earlier in the evening lay in a foil tray with sauce cups, wrappings, crumpled napkins, and an empty Heineken can on the coffee table behind her chair. She'd had a dinner date with Tom tonight, but called and taken a raincheck on the pretext of an urgent case due on Monday that was going to take the whole weekend to prepare for. She didn't think he believed her, and she didn't really care that much. She just wasn't up to another evening of being subjected to a not-very-subtly-put line that a better life was waiting if only women would learn to loosen up a little more, like men; in other words, if she took the initiative and asked, he'd be agreeable. Instead, she had spent the time delving deeper into the matter that had taken up most of her afternoon.
The collation summarized on the screen was from an information search and retrieval service located in St. Louis, that she subscribed to—electronic news clipping. The volume of information generated by a modern society was simply too overwhelming to attempt tackling raw and undigested. Michelle had already read the items listed. They revealed more clearly than anything she had learned from Corfe the new upsurge of fears concerning DNC that seemed to be circulating among the technical community. In fact, she was probably already ahead of Corfe. Although it was he who had first alerted her, she didn't think he was aware of the full extent and the virulence of what was going on.
There was an article in another scientific journal dredging up all the old material from Microbotics again, plus making the totally spurious speculation that perhaps DNC was able to mimic the action of known chemical causes of neural malfunctioning—thus, by implication, linking DNC to a whole lexicon of mental disorders on the basis of no factual evidence whatever. An editorial in the same issue created horrific scenes of mass-demented children and teenagers if DNC were to be let loose in the Virtual Reality marketplace, while a suspiciously portentious letter in the Wall Street Journal called for a government-enforced moratorium. The subject had surfaced on three West-Coast TV channels, the tabloids had picked it up, and a lively exchange was already taking place on the Internet. And, certainly not coincidentally, over the last couple of days Neurodyne's normally robust stock had taken a three-point dive.
She had no doubt now that it was being orchestrated. Perhaps it was the image in her mind of envious scientists in collusion with money-running-scared mobilizing the media against one man with courage and an ability that outshone all of them that offended her. She picked through her thoughts, looking for a way of telling herself that it was simply her professional sense of injustice that was outraged, no more.
But there was more, something more personal. It was a disquiet that she felt toward Kevin and Eric because of what she perceived as their vulnerability—Kevin on account of his years and his circumstances; Eric because of his unbalanced stance toward the world—technically masterful, politically a rustic—that she had felt strongly for the first time that afternoon. She visualized the two of them again in her mind, heads bent intently over one of their creations in the lab, the one virtually an early copy of the other. Just the two. Why didn't she see Vanessa there too, in her mental picture?
That was it. She felt herself getting uncomfortably close to the root, now, of what was bothering her. She got up, moved to the window, and stood staring out at the bright tower dominating the night and the neon lights dancing on water.
Because Vanessa did nothing to make herself a place there. She had accepted the part but not the character. Vanessa would probably have scoffed and said they didn't need it; that Eric had his machines, and Kevin, his bugs. But Michelle didn't see things that way. To her, such preoccupation with the immediate meant that they needed someone to watch the longer term for them even more. What else had Doug Corfe been trying to tell her?
She felt frustration at not having made any more of an impression on Eric in her first attempt that afternoon than Doug had been able to. Now that she had more information to work with, she was impatient to try again. And if she was going with Eric and Kevin to Hiroyuki's barbecue tomorrow, maybe she wouldn't have to wait until after the weekend.
But before she tackled Eric again, there was one other person she needed to talk to, who might, conceivably, know more than anything she could gather from the kind of information that she had been collecting. She came back from the window, turned on the desk lamp, and found the number that Vanessa had given her. Then she called the Hebers' family lawyer, Phillip Garsten.
"Hello."
"Is this Phillip Garsten?"
"Yes, it is."
"Hello. My name is Michelle Lang of Prettis and Lang. We're the attorneys for Theme Worlds Inc., who are interested in a possible joint arrangement with Neurodyne in Tacoma. I understand that you represent the owners of Neurodyne."
"The Hebers. That's right, I do."
"Is this a good time to call?"
"As good as any. My team in the game here tonight are about ready for retirement. What can I do for you?"
"Well, I was planning to get in touch with you next week anyway to review the situation—Vanessa Heber has given me some of the background. But I'll be seeing Eric and some of the people connected with Theme Worlds again tomorrow, and there was something I wanted to check with you first."
"Well, Joe Skerrill is Neurodyne's corporate lawyer. You sure you shouldn't be talking to him?"
"Yes, I know. But this is about something that I think involves you more directly."
"Okay. Michelle . . . what was it, again?"
"Lang."
There was a short delay, presumably while Garsten wrote the name down. "Okay, what can I do for you?"
"It's about the DNC technology that they use. I'm sure you're aware that there have been allegations concerning adverse side effects."
"That's bullshit."
"Possibly—of course we'll have to go into it all at the appropriate time. But what I wanted to ask about was a man called Jack Anastole. I believe he was a partner of yours at one time."
Garsten's voice took on a cautious note. "Yes, he was. What about him?"
"It's all right, Mr. Garsten. I am aware of the recent unfortunate incident. But it's my understanding that he claimed at one time to be in possession of documented proof that the claims concerning harmful effects of DNC had been fabricated."
It all seemed straightforward and clear-cut. Michelle had reasoned that if Anastole had worked with Garsten, there was a chance that Garsten knew or might have access to whatever Jack had known. Garsten worked for Eric and Vanessa now, and Michelle represented interests that stood to benefit equally if the claims could be disproven. They were all on the same side. There was no reason for Garsten not to share what he knew—or at least to acknowledge that he was in a position to help, even if he chose not to go into details over the phone.
But it seemed that either Garsten knew nothing, or if he did, he had reasons for not seeing things the same way.
"I'm sorry Ms. Lang, but there's not a lot I can tell you," he replied. "Jack had a lot of dealings with Microbotics that he handled him
self. I don't know what he might have discovered."
Michelle frowned at the unexpected brusqueness. "Did he have any records that might still be available somewhere?"
"Not with us. He took everything when he moved east. I was as surprised as anyone when he showed up back here again."
"Did he bring anything with him, as far as you know?" A spur-of-the-moment question. It seemed a possibility if Anastole had come back on business that involved Microbotics.
"I've no idea. Whatever was in his hotel room, I guess. You'd have to talk to the Seattle Police Department about that."
Impasse. Michelle sought for a continuation, but there was nowhere to go from there. "Well . . . I guess we'll manage either way. Thanks for talking, anyhow. I'll let you get back to your game."
"Huh. Bunch of geriatrics, all of 'em. Not worth watching."
"We'll probably talk again next week."
"I look forward to that."
"Goodnight, then."
" 'Bye."
Michelle replaced the phone. Well, it had been worth the try, she told herself. And there was no harm done that she could see. No harm done; but there had been that evasiveness in Garsten's manner, and the instant apprehension at the mention of Jack Anastole's name—sensed rather than explicit in anything Garsten had said. Was Garsten involved in the conspiracy that she was now convinced existed? She stared at the screen, thinking. . . .
But there was nothing further to be done about it tonight. Lawyers needed to go on more than just hunches. She switched off the machine and her thoughts with it. Going through to the living room, she mixed herself a vodka with tonic, a splash of lime, and not too much ice, and settled down on the couch with the remote to find a good movie.
In his house in the Magnolia district on the west side of the city overlooking the Sound, Phillip Garsten sat pinching his mustache and staring at the phone for a long time. Finally, he picked it up again and called a private line, but there was no answer. He tried another number and raised Andrew Finnion, head of security for Microbotics Inc.
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