by Kage Baker
“I see.” Victor smoothed his mustache uneasily.
Nan’s voice sharpened as she went on: “Then there are operatives who disappear simply because they were associated with operatives who also disappeared.” She let go of his arm and turned to face him abruptly. “They go to numbered sites too, Victor. Why? What did they witness? Do you know?”
Victor caught his breath at her fury, at her perfect lips drawn back from her white teeth. He raised his hands in a palms-up shrug, aware that the gloves made the gesture outrageously theatrical.
“I’m only a Facilitator, Nan. But we’re both old enough to know the Company has its ugly little secrets. Dr. Zeus may have found it convenient to lose some of us.”
“How can it just lose us?” Nan demanded. “I remember being told that I might sink under the polar ice, or be buried in an ocean of sand, and the Company would still be able to rescue me.”
Victor took her arm again. She let him. “If you never incur the wrath of all-seeing Zeus, you’ll be rescued. But certain persons . . . certain persons, madame, may have been careless.”
She looked at him without speaking, and for a moment he thought she was going to strike him. His pulse quickened, but she turned away. The little mortal behind them looked from one to the other and frowned.
“Forgive me,” said Victor.
Nan shook her head. “You were only telling the truth.”
“Not always a prudent thing to do.”
“And we mustn’t be imprudent, must we?” Her voice shook slightly. “It’s a mortal weakness.”
At the word weakness Victor thought of Kalugin. Nan, gazing out across Rue Atlas, was thinking of something else . . .
“No, that would be weak. I wouldn’t ever fall in love with anybody,” eight-year-old Mendoza had announced, chinning herself on the bar. She pulled herself along and dropped into the swing next to Nan’s. “Look at the stupid things mortals do when they’re in love.” She rolled her eyes to heaven and clasped her hands. “Ooh, darling, I can’t live without you! I burn for your kiss! I die!” She threw herself backward recklessly, almost falling out of the swing. Catching herself at the last moment, she added, “Would you ever want your life to depend on somebody else’s?”
“If I was really in love with somebody, it would be worth it,” Nan had insisted. “People need other people. I bet you start singing a different tune when we hit puberty.”
“Yuck! I bet I won’t,” Mendoza said, swinging faster now, punc the next arc, hurtling into open air with outstretched arms.
Why take the risk? thought Nan bitterly. She turned now to regard Victor, standing beside her with eyes downcast, lost in equally bitter memories.
“Will you do something for me, Victor dear?”
He looked up, startled, and his gloved hands flew to his heart. “Anything, madame! What may I do?”
“Do you know the Facilitator Joseph?”
She watched as his face changed, became cautious and closed. The mortal child watched too, and decided it was time to set down the SoundBox. He stepped between them, shaking a tiny fist, and angrily told the white man he’d better not insult the refine noir.
The SoundBox wailed on:
How can I tell my mother of our love?
How can we hide from my father and my brothers?
The world has a thousand eyes to spy on us!
Oh, why did the Almighty make me a teenager in love?
Mexico
ON HIS LUNCH HOUR, Joseph strolled between the street vendors’ carts of Little Kobe, looking up between the carved and gilded beams where the fish banners flew. It was a tourist trap, but a great place to get a fast bowl of rice. There was the beef bowl home-style, gray ribbons of beef on brown rice with julienned carrots, or the beef bowl Mazatlän-style, brown shreds of beef on orange rice with cubed carrots. The taste depended on what sauce you poured over it.
His present posting was unobjectionable. He was a departmental supervisor in a civic office that granted permits to archaeologists, and all the Company needed him to do was ensure that certain permit requests were granted and others refused. He was allowed to keep the weekly salary he earned (another benefit of gradual retirement), which enabled him to live in a very nice little box in a high-rise not two blocks from his office. Sticking up twenty stories, the building looked like a soda straw by comparison with the surrounding adobes. The Japanese developers couldn’t seem to break themselves of the habit of conserving space, even in a country of sprawling deserts. The view from his one tiny window was fabulous, though.
Joseph finished his rice and dropped the paper bowl into a conveniently placed fusion hopper, where it vanished with a whoosh. Consulting an internal chronometer, he decided he had time to check his mail before going back for the afternoon shift. He wandered up to the nearest public terminal and stood in line, waiting patiently for his turn. Then he stepped up to the keyboard and tapped in his communication code.
Yes, he had mail. Water bill, a public service announcement about Park Beautification Week, and a letter from Morocco. Well, well.
It was encrypted, like most personal correspondence. He shunted it into his tertiary consciousness undecrypted, paid his water bill, and stepped away, relinquishing the terminal to a harried-looking little abuela with a string bag full of groceries. Hands in his coat pockets, he wandered back to his office.
At his desk he was able to decrypt the message as he busied himself with inputting a monthly report. The letter was brief:
Victor would prefer to speak with you privately. He feels that
Regent’s Park in London is a suitable location. His
communication code is VdV@24Q83/09.
Very best wishes,
Nan D’Araignée
Joseph finished his report and leaned back from his keyboard, rubbing his neck. He closed his eyes and concentrated on draining the blood from his face, giving himself an unsightly pallor. A little careful work turned the skin under his eyes dark. He checked his reflection in a pocket mirror and hastily revised a little; he wanted to look sick, not dead. Then he got up and tottered into the manager’s department to explain that he’d apparently eaten a bad tuna roll and needed to go home early.
His color returned to normal as he hurried down the street to his building. In his room he paused only long enough to pack an overnight bag. Back out on Calle Nakamura, he found an unoccupied public terminal. There he purchased a ticket to London for a tenth of what he’d spent the last time he went there, and sent a message to a certain bookstore in Gower Street.
Stepping away from the terminal to let two small members of a soccer team log on, Joseph spotted an electric tram trundling toward its stop. He sprinted to catch the tram, and rode standing as it took him out to the airport. He made his suborbital with ten minutes to spare, settling back in his seat as the flight attendant offered him a chlorilar pouch of green tea.
London
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES later Joseph stepped through the exit at London City Airport, having satisfied the customs officials that he was not a URL terrorist with a concealed explosive device. He boarded the Tube and exited at Gower Street, after shaking off the attentions of three desperates who wanted his overnight bag.
“What the hell have things come to in this country when a man has to fight for three pair of cotton socks and a shaving kit?” he growled as he strode into the small dark shop, redolent of moldy paper, where Lewis sat behind a counter.
“Oh, I’ll bet there are pajamas in there, too,” Lewis said. “You have no idea what flannel pajamas go for over here.”
“So, hi.” Joseph set down his bag. “Long time no see. I’m in town on business, and I thought I’d bunk at your place, okay?” And I can bring you up to speed on what I’ve found out lately.
“I’d love the company, though I’m afraid this isn’t nearly as nice as where I was last time,” Lewis said brightly. I have rather a lot to tell you, too.
“Hey, how bad can it be?” Joseph said, waving hi
s hand dismissively.
“A rathole,” he remarked fifteen minutes later, in Lewis’s garret. “But spacious.”
“Artistic and airy, too,” suggested Lewis. “All I need are a few half-finished canvases and a bong.”
“This is the kind of place the Company puts you up in nowadays?” Joseph set down his bag, looking worried.
“I’ve lived in worse,” Lewis said, wrestling a bulky object out of a cupboard. He set it on the floor, yanked a lever, and staggered back as an air mattress self-inflated with a roar. “There, you see? I can even accommodate a guest. And we’ve plenty of gin. Let the good times roll.”
No security techs snooping around? No fallout from that trip to Yorkshire? Joseph asked, poking doubtfully at the air mattress with his foot. It gulped in air in a last hissing spasm, like a dragon with gas, and lay quiet.
Techs? No, nothing like that. A few bad dreams now and then. Lewis reached deeper into the cupboard and pulled out a sleeping bag, which he unrolled on the mattress with a flourish. It lay there sullenly exuding a smell of British army surplus shop.
This was how it began sometimes, Joseph thought uneasily, postings that got worse and worse, jobs that got more and more pointless. Never any official acknowledgment of Dr. Zeus’s displeasure, but over the great span of years the Company had to play with you, an ever-increasing number of opportunities to hang yourself, and lots of rope.
“The worst time was during the Blitz,” Lewis mused. He folded back the slatted screen that closed off his bathroom, displaying the dingy porcelain delights beyond. “Those poor mortals. At least the bombs don’t generally fall from the sky anymore. And look, all the hot water your heart desires, and no shillings needed. It’s a vast improvement on the old days, let me tell you.”
“Gin, huh?” Joseph rubbed his hands together. “Are the bootleggers any good?”
“Oh, the best,” Lewis assured him. “It’s all brought across the border from Scotland. Though if you’d like a cider or beer, they’re still legal. There’s a sandwich shop on the corner with a nice selection. I can’t afford to eat there myself, but—”
“My treat,” said Joseph, suppressing an urge to wring his hands. “Come on, let’s go down there.”
The place was small, dark, and overheated, but Lewis seemed to revel in the atmosphere.
“Gosh, this is like the old days,” he said happily. In the dim light his face looked gaunt. Joseph staved off feelings of guilt by remembering that Lewis looked like a tragic poet at the best of times. He ordered most of the menu.
“You gentlemen aren’t driving or operating machinery after this, I hope,” said the barmaid sternly, bringing their beers.
“No fear!” Lewis toasted her, grinning. She seemed about to respond with a reluctant pleasantry when she gasped and dived for the floor, just as the sound of some heavy vehicle roaring by outside filled the room.
“Down!” Lewis yelled, and Joseph needed no urging. He found himself crouching in the darkness under the table as shots chattered in the street. There were a few screams and a lot of curses. He heard the distinctive ping and rattle of a bullet coming through a windowpane.
“Don’t worry,” Lewis said, sipping his beer, which he had brought under the table with him. “It’s all safety glass in these places.”
“Great,” Joseph muttered. Three more shots followed in quick succession and broke another window, the lamp over the bar, and the holo-pinball machine in the corner. The machine didn’t die quietly; it began to short out in great gouts of sparks and flame, to say nothing of low-level microwaves. The barmaid shrieked and scrambled on her hands and knees for a fire extinguisher. Joseph, who knew an opportunity when he saw one, reached into his coat pocket and switched on a tidy little device Suleyman had given him. He felt a click and a slight chill. So did Lewis, who lowered his beer and looked questioningly at Joseph.
The vehicle roared on, and now one could hear sirens screaming in pursuit. The barmaid got up and doused the fire. Grumbling, she went behind the bar for a potholder, with which she unplugged the defunct machine.
“I knew this bloody thing wasn’t safe,” she said. “Edwin! Get the tape, please.”
A slender youth emerged from the kitchen and proceeded to tape brown paper over the broken windows. This seemed to be the signal for the other diners to emerge from under their tables. Within five minutes the glass had been swept up, candles had been lit at the bar, and conversation resumed as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Actually, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, except to the two immortals at the table near the door.
“I gather you’ve finally perfected that little device you were working on?” Lewis said, taking another sip of beer.
“Sort of,” Joseph replied. “We can talk for about six hours.”
“Good,” Lewis said. He set down his beer. “Any new clues in our mystery?”
“I’m still following up leads.” Joseph lifted his beer and drank, after scanning it cautiously for broken glass.
“I’ve continued sleuthing too,” said Lewis. “You remember our friend Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax?”
Joseph grimaced and set down his beer. “That guy. Lewis, he’s even deader now than he was when you found his picture. What’s the point of investigating him?”
“I’ve learned several positively fascinating things,” said Lewis. At this point the barmaid brought their orders: chips and beans, vegemite sandwiches, and spaghetti carbonara made with SoyHam bits.
“I’m not really interested in him, Lewis,” Joseph said, looking around vainly for salt for his chips. He settled for vinegar.
“He’s part of a bigger picture. Tell me, wouldn’t you be interested in finding out how Edward—after being as good as court-martialed—gained entrance to one of the more exclusive clubs in London? And to an even more exclusive secret society whose origins are lost in the mists of time?”
“You’re going to tell me he was a Freemason, right?” Joseph said, splashing vinegar all over his plate.
“Ever hear of the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society?”
Joseph shoveled in a mouthful of chips. “Sounds like something that meets at a grange hall.”
Lewis pointed with his fork. “Nowadays they call themselves the Kronos Diversified Stock Company.”
Joseph choked slightly. “That’s a Company DBA,” he said when he had his breath back.
“Precisely,” Lewis said. “And it means that the Company doesn’t begin in 2318, as we’ve always been told, but much earlier. When that bunch of twenty-fourth-century technocrats get together and incorporate under the Dr. Zeus logo, they’ll just be taking a new name. I’m beginning to suspect they’re not even responsible for the technology that created us.”
“They will invent pineal tribrantine three, though,” Joseph said. “I’ve talked to the guy who came up with that. An idiot savant mortal by the name of Bugleg.”
“Really? Well, I’m positive they didn’t invent the time transcendence field on their own. Almost the first thing the Company did was guarantee its own existence by setting up a temporal paradox and stationing operatives throughout time in this one secret society. It’s been based in Britain, almost from the beginning; though there’s some indication that it was relocated before recorded history began from what is now Egypt. Tell me, did you ever go by the name Imhotep?”
Joseph jumped as though he’d been shot.
“Ha! Well, somebody using that name passed a few Company secrets to a progressive-minded group of priests, and carefully guided what use they made of the material. You might have been part of it without even being aware. And Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax was closely connected with the Victorian group, the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society.” Lewis pushed aside the empty plate that had contained the spaghetti and started on the beans and chips.
Joseph gulped down half his beer. “I guess you have proof.”
“This time a month ago I had nothing more than inferences and conjectures—a few susp
icious coincidences, one or two blatant clues. Evidence that the Company had closely monitored the progress through life of our friend the young naval officer, but no reason why.” Lewis speared three chips on his fork and nibbled them delicately. “Ah, but then!”
“What?”
“I was able to break into the files of a long-defunct department of the British Foreign Office.” Lewis grinned at him. “Doing semipublic business as the Imperial Export Company of London.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Like in the James Bond books? Lewis—”
“No, no, that was Universal Export. You really ought to read something besides Raymond Chandler, you know. Anyway, need I tell you that the gentlemen involved in Imperial Export were all members of the same London club and the same secret fraternity? And that one of them was a retired naval officer by the name of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax?” Lewis leaned across the table and spoke in a lower voice. “I found his dossier, Joseph. You wouldn’t believe the things he did for Queen and country.”
“I’ll bet I would.”
“A lot of them weren’t very nice,” Lewis admitted. “But he was awfully good at his job. Something of a problem solver, you see? Until he disappeared on his last job, in California, in 1863.”
Joseph put down his sandwich. “Does this place sell hot chocolate?”
“Yes, but you’re going to want to hear this first.”
“I don’t want to hear what he did to Mendoza.”
“Listen, Joseph. There was a full-scale expedition to California, supposedly under the auspices of the Foreign Office but spearheaded by the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society. The object was to secure Santa Catalina Island for Great Britain.”
Joseph stared. “The place the chewing-gum guy owned? With the Avalon Ballroom? And the hotel where—”
“Where you thought you saw Mendoza, yes.” Lewis leaned back and steepled his fingers like Sherlock Holmes. “And oh, Joseph, the things I’ve found out about Santa Catalina Island! Were you aware the Company maintains a steady presence there, in fact has quite a few research facilities and other involvements? And do you know why the Company remains interested in the place?”
