by Tad Williams
"We are not children, like most of your so-called volunteers." Nandi shook his head. "And we kept no secrets from our soldiers. We will not be convinced by high-minded talk, or by mystification."
"Good," replied Sellars. After a moment, he laughed wearily. "Would anyone else like to shout at me?"
"We're listening," said Sam. The conversation between Sellars and Nandi made her nervous, although she wasn't quite sure she understood the argument. Why would someone want to shut the network down, especially if it was safe now? It was huge and expensive and unlike anything else ever made. Besides, don't . . . scientists have to study it? she wondered. People like that?
"But I still don't understand," said Orlando. "Why did the Other fight so long, then just give up? If it made all this out of its own thoughts and worked so hard to keep the children safe here, why didn't it fight a little longer? And why did it make such a big deal out of the children when it was the one that stole them in the first place?"
"Some of the answer I have given you already," Sellars told him. "The Other had been tormented so long that he had finally fallen to despair." He found his smile again. "But the rest is part of your earlier question—the part I told you I wouldn't explain until we reached the bottom,"
"Jeez," Orlando said. "Then how long are we going to have to wait?"
"Enough." It was Martine. "Enough of this. This prattle." She did not look up. Her voice was ash, the remains of something burned. "You argue and you question and none of it matters. A good man is dead. Paul Jonas is dead." Now she raised her head. Sam thought there was something unusual in the way she turned her face toward Sellars. "Who brought him to life in this nightmare without his understanding or even permission? You. Will all this bring him back? No. Yet you can hardly contain yourself. You are pleased that everything has gone so well. Meanwhile we trudge down, down, down into this gray hell with no bottom. Just let us go home, Sellars. Let us crawl back to our holes and lick our wounds."
A new expression flickered across the old man's scarred face, both surprised and saddened. "I meant no disrespect to Paul Jonas, Ms. Desroubins. We still need to mourn him properly and fittingly, you are right. But I assure you. this is not a journey I bring you on lightly." He turned to the others. "And there is a bottom. But I have been properly reminded of something that the confusion of our situation made me forget. There is no need for you to . . . trudge."
"What does that mean?" asked Florimel.
"This." And suddenly, most startlingly, Sam felt herself lifted as though by a perfect agreement of air molecules, with no uneven pressure in any one spot, and swung out over the deep, dark canyon. The others hung beside her in various states of flailing startlement.
"Down!" shouted T4b, struggling wildly, "Back!"
"Before, this place did not . . . connect with the place we are going. Now it is all relatively simple, relatively . . . real." Sellars nodded. "My error was in forgetting what I could do—the ability I have gained to manipulate the network. I have made you tire yourselves unnecessarily. My apologies."
Suddenly Sam was dropping—not like a stone, but not like a feather either. T4b let out a string of very inventive street curses as he too plunged down through the darkness. Sam saw bodies on all sides of her, her companions, all dropping at the same rate. Tiny yellow monkeys tried to fly out from her hair and shoulders, but although they could hover, they could not fly back upward against the forces that pulled them all.
I'm tired of all this scannity, she thought, I just want to go home. I want to see my mom and dad. . . .
"Like the Resurrection in reverse." Florimel sounded both annoyed and nervous.
"Just hold onto your seat cushion," Orlando said cheerfully. "They always come in handy. That's why they tell you about them."
Yeah, and don't you think Orlando wishes he could go home, too? It was a painful thought.
"Save me, Jesus!" shouted T4b.
Two minutes falling, five—it was hard to tell. Despite the sensation of speed, they did not slow; when they reached the bottom they simply stopped, and found themselves standing on a smooth bed of stone. The walls stretched only above them now, an immense vista tunneling upward to the circle of night sky. But the place where they stood had a light of its own.
"Here," Sellars said, wheelchair still comfortably adrift above the ground. He led them toward a vast crack in the wall that spilled warm, pink-orange light.
"I bet we do have to kill something," Orlando whispered. He tapped his sword against the stone wall at the edge of the crevice. It rang flatly.
Sam stepped through and found herself in a great blazing chamber, a honeycomb of light. Three figures waited at the center of the vast space. Sam squinted, already hoping, but wanting to be sure.
"Renie?" she called. "!Xabbu?"
They turned in surprise as she sprinted toward them. The third figure, which was clutching something against its chest, did not move. Sellars glided up beside her, his runneled face even more surreal in the bright, almost directionless light.
"Stop, Sam," he said, an unusual note in his voice. "Wait."
She slowed. Sellars moved a little ahead of her, then paused and hovered. He seemed to pay no attention to Renie or !Xabbu, but instead addressed the third figure. "Who are you?"
Doesn't he recognize that Klement guy? Sam wondered. He knows everything else.
"Just wait," Orlando said quietly beside her. He had come up as silently as a cat. When he touched her arm she could feel the trembling strength in his big hand. "I bet that's the one we have to kill."
"He's Ricardo Klement," Renie explained to Sellars, although she looked stunned herself. "One of the Grail Brotherhood. He traveled with us for a while."
"No." The man paused a long time before shaking his head, as though he had to remember the movement. Sam could see what he was holding now, but could make no sense of the weird, semihuman bundle. "No, I am not Ricardo Klement. I wear the . . . body . . . that was meant for that one. For a length of time, at first, I think . . . thought . . . I was Ricardo Klement. Because it disorients, this body-living. It makes thinking . . . strange. But I am not that one.
"My name is Nemesis."
CHAPTER 49
The Next
* * *
NETFEED/NEWS: Middle East Unified At Last
(visual: Jews and Arabs demonstrating at Western Wall)
VO: Palestinians and Israelis, enemies for so long, have at last found common ground-in hatred of the UN's management of the Jerusalem Protectorship.
(visual: Professor Yoram Vul, Brookings Institute)
VUL: "The only thing that could bring these people together, it seems, was someone trying to stop them from killing each other. It would be ironic if it were not so sad, but now we have eleven more UN peacekeepers dead in the Hashomaim Tunnel bombing, and the most common thing you hear is, 'What do you expect-it's the Middle East!' "
* * *
Renie could only stare helplessly, first at the thing she had thought of as Ricardo Klement, then at her long-lost companions. She had never expected to see them again, yet here they were—but like Renie and !Xabbu they only stood, frozen and confused, and where there should have been rejoicing there was only more mystery. And fear, she realized. I'm frightened again, but I don't even know why.
"What . . . what's a Nemesis?" Renie asked.
"It is a machine—a piece of code." She had never heard Martine Desroubins sound so flatly miserable. "It was sent to find Paul Jonas, I think. I met it when I was Dread's prisoner. In all the confusion after that, I don't believe I ever told you." Martine turned to the inhuman, handsome face that the real Ricardo Klement had intended to wear for eternity. "And what do you want now?" she said bitterly. "Jonas is dead. That should make you happy—as happy as something like you can be."
"Oh, no!" Renie raised her hand to her mouth. "Not Paul."
"Yes, Paul," said Martine.
"But how did it turn into that Grail guy?" asked Sam Fredericks. "We saw him co
me alive . . . at that Ceremony thing."
"And what's with the ugly blue monkey?" With his feet on the ground, T4b had regained a little of his confidence.
"I saw it take another's form before," Martine said, "It imitated a corpse. One of Dread's victims. It did something similar with Klement, I imagine—perhaps it merely took Klement's empty virtual body before the Ceremony even began."
Renie could not bear to hear her friend sound so helpless. She wanted to go and put her arms around her—around all of them, Sam, Florimel, even T4b—but could not ignore the feeling in the air, a cloud of anxiety like an impending storm. She was almost afraid to move.
As she looked over the familiar and unfamiliar faces, she suddenly recognized the tall young man with the whipcord muscles.
"Oh, my God," she whispered to !Xabbu. "Isn't that . . . Orlando?"
The long-haired youth heard her, even from some distance away, and gave them a quick, light smile. "Hello, Renie. Hi, !Xabbu."
"But you were . . . dead, weren't you?"
He shrugged, "It's been a pretty interesting day."
The man in the wheelchair had not moved. He hovered a few paces from the Klement-thing, his eyes narrowed. "You are Nemesis, then. You heard what was said and I think you understood—Paul Jonas is dead. What do you want with the rest of us?"
Sellars. Even after all this time, Renie recognized his voice. How strange, that he should look like that. If he looked like that. She suddenly felt a fierce homesickness for the real world, for things that felt and looked the way they were supposed to, that didn't change from second to second.
The thing cocked its head at Sellars, then slowly wheeled to survey the others. "Nothing," it said at last. "I am here because I was . . . called. Were you not called, too?"
"Called?" Renie asked. "Called to what?"
The thing in Ricardo Klement's body did not answer, only turned its flat stare back to the rows of glowing cells.
The others, cautiously at first, then with increasing confidence as Nemesis showed no signs of hostility or even interest, moved past the thing toward Renie and !Xabbu. As Sam Fredericks reached her, Renie found her eyes filling with tears again.
"I haven't cried like this since I was a baby," she said, laughing as she hugged Sam. "I can't believe we're all here—all together again."
"Oh, Renie! Look!" Sam turned back to grab Orlando and pull him toward them. The barbarian sim looked embarrassed, as though his resurrection from death had been some prank that he now regretted. "He's alive! Can you believe it?" Sam giggled wildly. "And you are, too! We looked for you—everywhere! But you were just utterly gone."
For long moments it was chaos, but a happy chaos, despite the weirdness of the setting. Even T4b came forward and allowed Renie to put her arms around him.
"Chizz you're not dead," he allowed, stiff and embarrassed in her embrace. "And the little bushy man, too."
After more hugs and tears and even a couple of introductions, accompanied by a flurry of questions and half-answers, most of which left Renie feeling even more confused about what had happened—the Other had destroyed itself, it seemed, and had taken Jongleur and maybe even Dread with it—she made her way to Martine, who had hung back from the general gathering. Renie wrapped her arms around her friend, but was dismayed by the woman's passive resistance.
"It's been bad for you," she said. "Oh, Martine, at least we're alive. That's something."
"It is a great deal," the other said quietly. "I am sorry, Renie. I am very happy to see you well—happy for you, and for !Xabbu, too. Pay no attention to me. I . . . I am crippled. The end was . . . very bad."
"It was bad for !Xabbu, too," Renie said. "I thought I'd lost him."
Martine nodded and straightened; for the first time in a while Renie thought she saw in the woman's posture something of the companion she knew. Martine gently broke free, squeezed Renie's arm, then walked past her to !Xabbu. A moment later they were in whispered conversation.
That's a step forward, Renie thought, pleased to see some animation in Martine's face. She could not think of a better ear for a heartsick person to find.
"Just a moment." Florimel's voice cut across the other voices, loud and sudden. "I am as glad as anyone to have this reunion, but we were promised answers." She pointed at Sellars, who had been watching the gathering with a gentle, avuncular smile. "Well? I want to get out of this . . . false universe. I want to be with my daughter. If, as you say, her condition will not improve, at least I can see her, touch her. Why are we still here? What do you want to tell us?"
It took Renie a moment to understand what Florimel meant about her daughter, then a spasm of nausea gripped her. Stephen—does that mean he won't get better either? She couldn't bear to think about it. After all this time, all that they had suffered . . . it wouldn't be fair. "No," she said aloud. "That can't be."
"I did not say that," Sellars declared. "I have no idea what will happen to the children in comas. All I said was that I could not promise they would get better. But the reason for the coma is gone."
"Because the Other is dead." Florimel's brisk, hard tone could not hide the anxiety beneath.
"Yes."
"But the system is still functioning," said the man who had introduced himself to Renie as Nandi something-complicated-with-a-P—the man from the Circle, as she thought of him for convenience. The one who had helped Orlando and Sam get out of the Egypt-world. "Thus it must still be . . . using those poor children. Sucking their lives like a vampire. That is why it must be destroyed."
"Please wait until you understand everything,'" Sellars told him. "Florimel is right. The time has come for the rest of the explanation." He let his chair float a little higher in the air so that all could see him. "First off, I told you that there is a new operating system, one created with the help of TreeHouse technicians and others—a much more conventional operating system. The network no longer requires a linked network of human brains to function. Of course, it is not quite so dramatically realistic either, but that may improve. . . ."
"So because the last survivors of the concentration camp are soon to be free or dead, should the camp itself remain open?" Nandi was scornful. "Become a holiday retreat, perhaps?"
"It is a more difficult question than that," Sellars replied. "Children's brains were being used to run this system, but the ones victimized are not those we sought. The brains used to supplement and expand the processing power of the Other were those of the unborn—of fetuses, or perhaps even cloned brains. I have not discovered the whole truth yet, but I will. There is a near-infinity of information to sift, much of it hidden or deceitful. The Brotherhood did their best to hide their tracks,"
"What exactly are you saying?" Renie asked. "Do you mean that my brother Stephen isn't part of the system? Or just that he isn't . . . in the system? That he isn't one of the children in the simulations, for instance."
"He was never part of the system, not in the way we thought. Nor was Florimel's daughter or T4b's friend."
"Fenfen!" snapped T4b. "Heard Matti, me. Heard 'im like he was standing there."
"But all the signs pointed here, to this network!" Florimel said angrily. "What are you trying to tell us? That we were deluded? That we have suffered all this, watched friends die . . . for a coincidence?"
"Not at all." He let his chair drift a little closer to her. Behind him, Ricardo Klement—No, Nemesis, Renie reminded herself, whatever the hell it is—settled himself . . . itself . . . on the floor, gazing intently up at the gleaming walls as though in some fabulous art gallery. "The network," Sellars went on, "—or more specifically, the Other—was certainly to blame for their comas. But only in the same way that the Other convinced all of you that you couldn't leave the network without suffering terrible pain. As I explained, the poor, lost creature we called the Other was a freakishly powerful telepath. Mind-reader, mind-controller—he was something of both. The mind-reading—the actual remote connection to a human brain—was the freakish part. Bu
t once contact could be made directly into the nervous system, everything else was probably relatively easy. After all, that is how I managed to control the boy Cho-Cho's speech centers and talk to you."
"Talk, talk, that's all you do—but what are the answers?" growled Florimel. "Why is my daughter in a coma?"
"Let me explain, please. It is not a simple story, even the little of it I have discovered.
"Despite his arrogance and megalomania, I had wondered all along whether even Felix Jongleur would take the risk of exposure that would come from putting thousands of children into comas to complete his machine. And in fact, he did not. He and his minions were not satisfied with the Other—it was too powerful, too untrustworthy. So even while they built their system around it, while they told the rest of the Grail Brotherhood that everything was working perfectly, they were looking for possible substitutes, other telepaths and wild talents that might be able to replace the Other. They concentrated on children, both because they would be easier to mold to the system, and because they would physically last longer. One such discovery was the man you knew as Dread, although Jongleur found a very different use for him.
"They had many different programs in place to sift through children and test them, private schools and clinics like the Pestalozzi Institute, which they also used to educate the Other, if such a term can be used for such an inhuman practice. And there were places like the virtual club called Mister J's—the spot where I first met Renie and !Xabbu—which were a sort of preliminary screening device, meant to sift out the few interesting prospects from the millions of ordinary children. Two of Jongleur's lieutenants were in charge of this project, although Jongleur himself carefully watched over everything."
"Finney and Mudd," Martine said. "The men who chased Paul."
"Yes, although I doubt those were their real names. From what I have seen, they seem to have had a very unsavory background." Sellars frowned for a moment.
