by Tad Williams
They've left us, she realized. Now we don't matter anymore. They do.
But as she stood in the near-dark, surrounded by the sound of her companions breathing, a few even sobbing, she suddenly thought of her own father—her complaining, irritating father, who had nevertheless given her everything he knew how to give.
Or maybe we'll meet them again someday, she thought, and was surprised to discover she was crying again. Out there, somewhere, some time. And maybe they'll remember us.
Maybe they'll even remember us kindly.
Fifth:
INHERITORS
"Here is a fairy tale founded upon the wonders of
electricity and written for children of this generation.
Yet when my readers shall have become men and
women my story may not seem to their children like
a fairy tale at all.
"Perhaps one, perhaps two-perhaps several of the
Demon's devices will be, by that time, in popular use.
"Who knows?"
-L. Frank Baum,
The Master Key
CHAPTER 50
No Promises
* * *
NETFEED/NEWS: President Anford Given Clean Bill of Health
(visual: Anford waving as he leaves Bethesda Naval Hospital)
VO: For the first time during his term of office, US President Rex Anford has declared himself healthy and fit, and his doctors back him up. Anford, who has long suffered from a mystery illness, which has inspired rumors about secret drinking and drug problems or incurable cancer, has spent most of his term in seclusion, allowing his vice president to handle much of the public work of governing. Now Anford declares that he is well and that things will change,
(visual: Anford in Rose Garden news conference.)
ANFORD: "I'm well. I'm healed. I haven't felt this good in years. I have a lot left I want to do, and, thank God, some time left in which to do it!"
* * *
"I'm scared," the little boy told her. There was no light in the room, and she didn't like it either, but she didn't want to say it.
"I'm scared of the dark," he said.
"When I'm scared, I hug Prince Pikapik," she said. "He's a toy—he's a talking otter. Sometimes I get under the blankets and I pretend the light is on, but it's just dark because I'm under the blanket."
"The blanket is over everything," the little boy told her.
"Sometimes I tell myself a story, like about the three bears, except that when I'm scared, Goldilocks and the bears have to be friends at the end."
"I don't have any stories left," the little boy told her. "I knew one, but I can't remember it anymore."
She didn't know why it was still so dark. She didn't remember why she was there or why this little boy was there with her. She thought she remembered a river made of sparkly light, but she wasn't sure. She also remembered another boy, a boy with a missing tooth, but he had gone somewhere. Cho-Cho. That was his name. But right now it was only her and this sad, scared boy—this little stranger.
"When I'm really, really frightened, I call my mommy," she said. "She comes in and kisses me and asks me if I had a bad dream. Then I don't feel so bad."
"I'm scared to meet my mommy," the little boy told her. "What if she doesn't like me? What if she thinks I'm bad?"
She didn't know what to say to that. "And sometimes, when I'm really scared of the dark, I sing a song."
For a while the little boy was quiet. Then he said, "I remember a song." And he began to sing in a funny, cracked voice.
"An angel touched me, an angel touched me,
the river washed me and now I am clean. . . ."
After a while she knew what words would come next and she helped him sing.
"I feel a little better," he said when they had finished. "I think I can go and meet my mommy now."
"Okay," she said, but she was wondering how he was going to go and if she could go too, because she didn't like being in the dark. " 'Bye, I guess."
" 'Bye." He was quiet again, but she knew he was still there in the darkness, not gone yet. "Are you . . . are you an angel?"
"I don't think so," she said.
"I think you are," he said, then he was gone, really gone.
And then she woke up.
At first she was scared, because it was still dark, even though she could hear her mommy's voice and her daddy's voice in the other room. Mommy was crying loud, and Daddy was saying something, but he sounded funny, too. She reached up and touched her face and found out she wasn't wearing the Storybook Sunglasses anymore, the lights were just out in the room. There was a little light coming under the door and there was broken glass on the carpet, but before Christabel could think about that she saw that someone was looking at her over the edge of the bed and for a second she was really scared.
"Hey, weenit," said Cho-Cho. "The 'lectricity's off."
There was just enough light coming under the door for her to see him. His hair was sticking up and he was making a funny face—not mean, not happy, not anything except surprised, like he was a little baby horse she had seen on the net getting born, staggering around in a field wondering what kind of animal it was and what it was supposed to do about it.
"I saw you in that place," he said, very quiet. "How come you came to that place?"
"You're awake." She was surprised. "What place? Mister Sellars said I had to help him, but then I fell asleep." She sat up, excited because she had an idea. "Is Mister Sellars awake, too?"
The boy shook his head. "Nah. But he say to tell you he okay. He. . . ."
But then her mother came through the door of the room, saying her name over and over really loud and really fast, and yanked her off the bed and squeezed her until Christabel almost thought she was going to spit up. Her father came in too, carrying a flashlight, and he was crying, so Christabel got scared all over again because she hadn't seen that before. But then he took her from her mother and kissed her on her face and he was so happy that she guessed things might really be all right.
Her mommy was kissing Cho-Cho now. Cho-Cho didn't know what to do.
She saw that Mister Ramsey was in the doorway with a big box flashlight, watching them all with his eyes wide and his face sort of worried but happy just like her daddy's, and she wanted to tell him to go wait with Mister Sellars in case the old man woke up and was scared, but her mommy was hugging her some more and telling her never never never go away like that again which was silly because she hadn't gone anywhere, she'd just been napping and having a dream, and so she didn't get to tell Mister Ramsey anything.
"Where am I?" His throat hurt and it was hard to talk. Long Joseph looked at the hanging curtains on either side of his bed, then back at the dark-skinned young man in the funny uniform. There was a strong smell of new plastic and alcohol. "What place is this?"
"Field hospital." The man had a university voice like Del Ray, but there was still a trace of the townships in it. "Back of a military ambulance, to be exact. Now lie down while I check your stitches."
"What happened?" He tried to sit up, but the young man only pushed him back down. "Where is Jeremiah?" He felt a sting up his arm as the bandage was pulled back, but nothing more than that. He looked down curiously at the long lines of translucent knots over pale, red-edged flesh. "What in hell happen to my arm?"
"A dog bit you," the young man said. "You nearly got your head chewed off, too. Try not to bend your neck."
"I have to get up." Joseph tried to sit up. He was remembering things now—lots of things. "Where are my friends? Where is Jeremiah? Del Ray?"
The young man pushed him back again. "Do that again and I call for the guards. You are under arrest, but you're not going anywhere, even to prison, until I decide you're ready."
"Arrest?" Joseph shook his head, which—he suddenly realized—hurt like sin. It felt like he had been drinking for days, then stopped. It is never the drinking that is the problem, he thought, it is the stopping. "Why arrest? Where a
re. . . ." A sudden cold ran through him. "Where is Renie? Oh my God, where is my daughter?"
The young man frowned at him. "Daughter? Are you saying there was someone else in there with the three of you and those other men?" He stood and leaned out of the curtain to say something to someone. Joseph took the opportunity to try to get up again, but discovered his legs were shackled to the rolling stretcher.
"I told you to lie down," the young man said. "If your daughter's in there, they'll find her."
"No, they won't. She in a big tank. And her friend, too. He is one of the Small People, you know that? Do you know the Small People?"
The man looked at him doubtfully. "In a . . . tank."
Joseph shook his head. It was hard to explain and it hurt him to talk. His neck felt like it had been squeezed in a vise. Another thought struck him. "Why am I arrested? Where you people come from?"
The doctor, if that was what he was, looked at Joseph even more doubtfully. "You have been caught trespassing on a military base. There are some people who are going to want to talk to you about that—and about the armed men who were chasing you." He showed Joseph a small, tight smile. "Since I don't think any of those gentlemen are going to be talking."
"What about my friends?"
"They're alive. The young man—Chiume, is that his name? He lost some fingers to a dog bite. And the older man had a bullet wound in his leg. You all have other injuries as well, but nothing life-threatening."
"I want to talk to them."
"Until the captain says you can, you don't talk to anyone. Well, perhaps an attorney." The young doctor shook his head. "What were you playing at?"
"We were not playing," Joseph said sullenly. He wanted to sleep again, but could not—not yet. "You tell them my daughter and her friend are still down in that basement, in those tanks full of electric jelly. You tell them to be very careful when they take her out. And tell them not to look—she have no clothes on."
The doctor's expression said quite clearly that he thought Joseph was out of his mind, but he went and told someone anyway.
She woke up to see Stan Chan sitting at the other end of a long tunnel. She thought it was a tunnel, but she also thought it might just be that the room was dark and he was sitting under a small light.
She wasn't quite sure where she was. She made a noise and Stan saw her, jumped up, and came over. He was harder to see when he was standing next to her than when he was far away. She asked him for water because her throat was dry and it was hard to talk, but for some reason he only shook his head.
"You should have taken me with you, Calliope," he said quietly. "I called back, but you were already gone."
It was more than hard to talk, it hurt like hell. There was some kind of pipe in the corner of her mouth which kept her from closing her jaw. "Didn't . . . want . . . spoil . . . your . . . weekend," she told him as best she could.
He didn't make a joke in return, which struck her as odd. As she slid back into sleep she suddenly realized he had called her by her first name. That frightened her. That meant there was a very good chance she wasn't going to make it.
"You look okay, Skouros. Not too tan and a little thin, but you had enough of both to burn."
"Yeah. Those are beautiful flowers. Thanks."
"I've been here every day. You think I'm still bringing you flowers? Those are from your waitress friend."
"Elisabetta?"
"How many waitresses you know well enough to send you flowers and a Sherlock Holmes teddy bear?" He shook his head. "Teddy bears. I'm not sure about that one, Skouros."
"I guess I'm going to live, eh?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"Because you're calling me by my last name again," She fumbled some ice into her mouth, wincing at the pain of moving her arm. The stitching on her back went layers deep—sometimes she thought she could feel it all the way to her breastbone—and she felt fragile as spun sugar. She wondered if she'd ever feel normal again. "You've been stonewalling me, Stan. Tell me what happened. He got away, didn't he?"
He looked surprised. "Johnny Dread? No, he didn't. We've got him and we've got his files. He's the Real Killer, Calliope. Why do you think I've been sitting here every day? Just because I'm your partner and I love you?"
"It wasn't because you love me?"
"Well, maybe. But every tabnet reporter in New South Wales is trying to get in here. No, every reporter in Oz. Somebody even snuck a camera-drone in under the cover of your fruit cup. You were sleeping, so you didn't hear me chasing the damn thing around until I could swat it with a magazine."
"I heard it." She could not hold down the growing sense of joy—stitches, punctured lung, breathing tube be damned! "We got him?"
"Bang to rights. You know how the Real Killer kept blanking the surveillance cameras? Well, he didn't—not exactly. Somehow he rerouted the images to his own system. Damn smart. We still don't know how he did it. And he saved all of them—his own little Hall of Fame." Stan shook his head. "Sick bastard played games with the images, too—added music to them, even edited in his mother's old booking photo at the end of one of the murders. Guess which one."
"Which murder? Merapanui."
"In one."
"But we've got him, right? And we've got good evidence." When she laughed it felt like someone was twisting a sharp stick into her back muscles but she didn't care. "That's wonderful, Stan."
"Yeah." There was something in his face she didn't like. "If he ever comes out of it, he's clocked, docked, and locked."
"Comes . . . out of it? What are you talking about?"
Stan rested his chin on his steepled fingers. "He's catatonic. Doesn't move, doesn't talk. Kind of an open-eyed coma. The unit that responded to your emergency call found him that way."
"What?" Her exhilaration had turned into something quite different. She felt a breath almost of terror, a cold tingling at her neck. "It's not true, Stan—he's faking. I swear he is. I know that bastard now."
"He's been examined by doctors. He's not faking. Anyway, he's under top security until the boys and girls upstairs decide what to do with him. Twenty-four-hour guard. Strapped to a schizo-ward restraint bed." Stan Chan stood and brushed the wrinkles out of his pants—even micro-weaves could be depressed by being in a hospital, it seemed. "He was online when they found him. They think it might be some kind of serious charge damage, one of those new China Sea blasters or something, but gone badly wrong," He saw the look on her face. "Honestly, Skouros, don't worry. He's not faking it, but even if he is, he wouldn't be going anywhere. He's the biggest arrest in years." A smile flickered across his face. "You're a bit of a hero, Skouros. That why you didn't take me with you?"
"Yeah." She tried to follow his mood, but she wasn't really feeling it. "Yeah, I said, 'If I can just stiff my partner, get stabbed in the lung and almost die, then call in an ambulance while I'm puking my blood out on the floor, I'll be famous.' "
"I was joking. Calliope."
"So was I, believe it or not." She reached for another piece of ice. "What about the American woman?"
"Touch and go, but she's still alive. Bad spinal injuries, lost a lot of blood. She should have been wearing a flakkie. Like you, Skouros."
"Like me." She smiled to show him they were still friends. "If you're going, who's keeping out the tabnet flacks?" But it was not reporters she was thinking about.
"Couple of street blues just outside. Worry not."
When he was gone she tried to watch the wallscreen. There was mention of the case on many of the information nodes, spy-camera footage on the comatose killer, even once a shot of her—the picture was an old one, and she felt a bump of despair at how chunky she looked—but she could not concentrate and eventually she flicked it off. Instead she watched the narrow wedge of light at the bottom of the door, wondering what she would do if the door swung open and he was standing there, the shadow with a knife, the devil-devil man, grinning at her.
"So this is it," Orlando said softly.
&n
bsp; Sam was scared and angry, but she didn't quite know why. "It's not it, scanbox. I just have to go offline. I have to see my parents."
"Yeah." He nodded, but she could hear what he was thinking as if he'd said it loud. Some of us don't get to go offline.
"I'll come see you every day!" She turned to Sellars. One by one the others had left the network, taking their leave with tears and promises; beside herself and Orlando, only Hideki Kunohara remained with Sellars in the shadowy cavern. "I can come back here, can't I? You can fix that."
"Not here, Sam."
Something clutched at her guts. "What do you mean?"
He smiled. It was such a strange face, almost frightening. That may he how he really looks, she couldn't help thinking, but why doesn't he choose something else? "Don't worry, Sam. I just mean that I won't hold together this particular part of the Other's central simulation, since the Other and . . . the rest are gone. We're short on processing power, so I'm consolidating some things, closing down others."
She was distracted by a thought. "All the fairy-tale children. . . ?"
"I'm only shutting down this particular part—the Well. Those who survived will be returned to their original environments," he said. "They all have a right to existence, at least existence here in the network."
"We should be able to reconstitute the ones who died, if you can call it that," said Kunohara with the air of someone considering a minor but interesting chess problem. "I am betting there are records of them somewhere—snapshot recordings, or even better, the original code. . . ."
