Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

  John, so he went along. Gorshin remained behind. Along the way John spotted several of the shyer Faery folk who had moved into his slump. He'd seen so little of them that he couldn't tell how they were taking his return. He tried to stop and talk to the shellycoat who laired in the utility space under the first flight of stairway, but the bogies started to drag him up the stairs. Struggling against them hurt his back, so he went along. He could talk to the shellycoat later.

  Having escorted him to his room, the bogies vanished. John shrugged off his coat. He was ready to collapse, but before he could, the bogies were back, each bearing a first-aid kit. Kesh's burden still flaked wallboard from the mounting he had torn from the wall. Despite the chaotic nature of their debate about who knew best how to deal with John's injury,they seemed to understand the use of the medical supplies. Metch demonstrated surprising gentleness in cleansing John's scabbed-over back. John let the bogies fuss over him, their deferential attention reminding him of some of the better parts of his stay in the otherworld. He'd been getting used to such attentiveness. Somewhere in the middle of the bogies' ministrations, he dozed off.

  When he awoke it was still dark, though it wouldn't be for long. He was still bone tired, so he couldn't have slept the clock around. Still, he wasn't ready to sleep more, and he wouldn't be until he had a better handle on where things stood.

  He dug the disk case out of his coat pocket. The first item on his agenda was determining if the disk was as false as the one who had given it to him. He got up, padded over to his perscomp, and hit the start. And got nothing. A glance out the window assured him that the area hadn't been hit with an outage. The failure was closer to home. He tried the light switch. Nothing. So it wasn't just the comp, power was gone too. He went out to the feeder conduit to check it out. His hacks into the nets had been chopped, leaving the wires dangling and useless.

  Without leeches and limpets |o nick into the utility company's lines, his tabletop hardware was just so much scrap.

  He'd have to score new taps before he could connect again. Normally, to avoid just that hassle, he would have removed the taps before the proles from NEUCO came through on their maintenance sweeps, but it seemed he had been in the otherworld long enough to miss one. When he'd left, the next one had been three months away.

  Climbing back up to his bedroom, he worried at the passage of time. Apparently three months or more. Bennett had said that time would be different in the otherworld. John had spent a long while among those treacherous vipers, long enough for them to have gulled him into believing that they were his friends. But how long had it been? Hell, his time sense was shot. Could three months have passed here?

  No, that didn't match with the weather. It was autumn out there. He knew that. His mother would have said that he was feeling it in his bones. His elven tutors would have attributed the knowledge to shai awareness. Three months would have put Providence into winter.

  Maybe NEUCO had changed its policy. Maybe they had done an unscheduled sweep. Other things had changed around here, why not that? Sitting in his slump, without a tap to the nets, he had no way of knowing. It was too near dawn and he was too tired and sore to go hunting new taps, but he had an idea.

  "Kesh, how long has it been since you saw Dr. Spae?"

  The bogie shrugged. "She only came a couple of times after you left. Gorshin doesn't like anyone here when you're not here."

  "We don't either," Metch said.

  "Dr. Spae is nice, though," Lep said.

  "You just like her because she's foolish enough to talk to you," Metch said.

  Lep started to bluster, signaling an imminent outbreak of disputes. John cut it off. "Kesh, I want you to take a message to Dr. Spae."

  Kesh gave John a "why me?" look.

  "I'll do it," Lep volunteered.

  "Ixp is better at sneaking about," Kesh said in a rare display of honesty.

  John recognized motivated self-interest when confronted with it, even if he didn't understand the motivation. "All right, Lep. You can go. Give me a minute to write out the message, then you're off. I want it delivered straight, no side trips."

  Lep nodded solemnly.

  John started to look for something to write with. Metch had a scrap of paper ready for him by the time he found a pen. John wrote his note and handed it to Ixp. "If you can't get it to her directly, leave it where she'll find it soon."

  Ixp scampered off. John didn't see that there was much else he could do just yet. It was nearly morning, and he couldn't go outside in the light looking like an elf. He thought about sending one of the other bogies with a note to Spillway Sue, but he knew the Faery folk made her nervous. besides, he didn't know if she could read. He'd see her soon, soon as he found out what was on the disk. If he'd been away for a while, a few more hours wouldn't hurt. Feeling tired and sore and more than a little depressed, he went back to bed.

  It was late afternoon when Metch whispered in his ear that Dr. Spae was coming. He dragged himself out of bed, brushing away the bogies who wanted to change his bandage. His hack felt a lot better. Scrounging up a T-shirt, he pulled it on and went to the window. Dr. Spae had come alone, as he had asked. He went downstairs to meet her but didn't bother going to the door; she knew how to get in.

  Because he knew she had dealt with elves, he decided that caution was in order. Although she knew that he was Bennett's son, she had never seen his elf face. He wanted to give her a chance to get it set in her mind that he was not an impostor. He waited in the shadows for her, cloaking himself in the same spell Faye had once used to hide him from assassins. She walked right by him.

  "Thanks for coming, Doctor," he said, stopping her in her tracks. "I appreciate your promptness."

  "I had begun to think that you weren't coming back," she said, turning toward his voice. She looked puzzled not to see him. "John?"

  "Didn't I say I'd be back?"

  "Yes, you did," she said guardedly. She was searching the darkness for him. Apparently her mage sight was not a match for his spell. "John, is there something wrong?"

  Yes, but nothing to do with you. "I'm fine."

  "Why are you hiding?"

  "I wanted you to have a chance to assure yourself that it really was me."

  He dropped his spell and stepped out of the shadow. She gasped in surprise when she saw him, but recovered quickly.

  "I see you got the disguise spells lifted." She nodded, eyes wide. "The resemblance to Bennett is uncanny."

  She didn't have to insult him. "Seen one elf, seen them all, eh? Did you bring a machine?"

  Her mouth twitched a little. Annoyance? She patted her shoulder bag. "I brought my old Romer™. I don't use it much anymore. It's a bit out-of-date. You're going to have to show me how you learned to hide from mage sight."

  "I've learned a lot recently, Doctor. Some of which I'd be happy to share with you, but right now I'm not very interested in magic. If the comp's battery is good, it'll do what I want." The disk casing was a bit out-of-date, too. A Sony-mac Romer would be just about the right vintage. He held out his hand. "I'd like to get started."

  "I see manners weren't in the curriculum you were studying," she said gruffly, but she did hand over the comp.

  Marianne Reddy hadn't raised him to be rude. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I've had a lot dumped on me lately, and I haven't gotten much sleep. I'm pretty tired."

  "You're not the only one. You're lucky I came. I half thought that your note on my desk was some kind of decoy. If I hadn't spotted Lep leaving ... Never mind the alterna-lives. I'll be honest with you, John, I'm not in the mood for a new mystery. I've had my fill of them lately. I'll feel a lot better if you tell me what this is about."

  Why not? She had trusted him. "I've been given a disk. It's supposed to have information about my mother."

  "Your real mother or your foster one?"

  Real? Real had been raising and caring for him, not pumping him out and dumping him on somebody else's doorstep. "Marianne Reddy."

  "I thoug
ht you said Bennett wanted to keep you from finding out what happened to her?"

  "I didn't get this from Bennett."

  "You're trying to make a mystery out of this."

  "Sorry." Talking about it made him uncomfortable. Dr. Spae had been his teacher, not his friend. Some things you just didn't talk to teachers about. "Maybe we should just see what's on the disk."

  That seemed to satisfy her. With her help, John didn't have to waste any time figuring out the Romer's protocols. When it was time to slot the disk, John hesitated. Was this going to be another hoax? Only one way to find out. He slipped the disk into the Romer. Icons appeared on the screen. The disk wasn't empty, as he had feared it might be. There were Mitsutomo surveillance reports and clippings files that dated back to his disappearance and alleged death. There was a relocation-of-residence order, also Mitsutomo, more recent surveillance files, and even medical records, showing Marianne Reddy to be in good health. Most interesting to John was the termination-of-surveillance order. It would seem that Mitsutomo had lost interest in Marianne Reddy's doings. There was other stuff, too. A lot of material, too much to just skim through. The worth of the data remained to be seen.

  There was another thing he needed to know. He set the comp to display the dates on the files. They had last been updated six months after he'd left. In the spring. He didn't like what he was thinking.

  "Doctor, I wonder if you could tell me how long I've been gone."

  "Don't you know?"

  "There aren't a lot of clocks or calendars in the other-world."

  "No, I suppose there aren't." Her eyes searched his face; presumably she was trying to find something in his elven features to clue her in on a tack to take. She bit her lip, then tentatively said, "Just about a year."

  He closed his eyes, felt his shoulders sag. Bear had told him never to trust an elf. Time passes differently. He should have known better. "A year and a day, maybe?"

  Dr. Spae smiled, worried and sympathetic. "I'm afraid I don't remember the exact date of your departure."

  "The date doesn't really matter," he assured her. Scammed again, and left overdrawn at the promise bank. What had he done to Bennett to be jerked around this way?

  "A lot has happened while you were away, John."

  He could say the same thing. Fraoch's laugh echoed in his ears. Yeah, a lot had happened, but he wasn't going to talk about it.

  Dr. Spae, however, had something she wanted to talk about. She told him about a killer "thing" that seemed to be haunting New England. For reasons that weren't entirely clear to John, she believed that the thing was related to Quetzal, but even the hint of a connection chilled him. She didn't have a clear connection that she could point to between this Wisteria killer and Quetzal because, she said, her investigations had been frustrated. "They've got me running after a thousand stupid little outbreaks from the otherworld," she told him. "Every time I try to get focused on this whatever-it-is, something else weird comes up, and they send me off to investigate it, pointing out, all too reasonably, that there may only be one opportunity to look into these other things. I can't seem to make them understand how important this threat may be."

  "What am / supposed to do, Doctor? I don't even know what you're talking about."

  She looked at him as if she wasn't sure what she wanted from him. After a bit, she said, "John, I could use your help."

  "I'm not interested in helping you hunt down any monsters. We did that once before, and nearly got ourselves killed. I've got a hunt of my own to take care of, one I've put off for far too long."

  "You're still not ready to do that. You haven't verified the data yet." She paused a moment before offering him some bait. "At the firm we have good computer access. You could run cross-checks."

  He sensed a hook in that offer. "I have my life to rebuild. I know it's not as nice as yours, but it's what I have."

  She wasn't ready to give up. "I could get you put on retainer. Money would help your search."

  Sure, money would help, but the firm would want to record it ail, and that would mean that John would be back in the datanet where he could be spotted by cruising cyber cowboys. Covered by an alias or not, he would be making trails that could lead someone to him. He doubted that Dr. Spae's firm had the resources, or the desire, to mask everything that belonged to him. Certainly they couldn't cover him against a megacorp like Mitsutomo. While everything indicated that Mitsutomo's interest in him had faded, he wanted to be sure before he crawled out of the woodwork.

  "I appreciate the offer, but I don't think I can accept." So she wouldn't be too put off, he added, "Just yet."

  "Think about the future, John. You could make a difference."

  "There are a few more things I'd like to get settled before I look to the future."

  She sighed, shook her head in resignation. "You've got the Romer now. The communications package has a direct line to my system. Use it if you wise up."

  He was impressed that she didn't try any of the levers she might have used on him, knowing what she did. "I'll be in touch, Doctor."

  "Try not to get burned," she said as she left.

  He would do his best. He'd already been burned enough.

  Holger left the city not by leaving the city, but by leaving himself. The solution, once he thought of it, was so simple, so elegant, that he had seized upon it at once. Holger Kun, agent of Department M, put down all those things that marked him. Everything he had so carefully scavenged from (he Department's car, everything he had carried with him to that fateful rendezvous with a certain specialist, he dumped in an abandoned warehouse on the West Side. He shed even l he clothes he wore, replacing them with items bought in a secondhand store on Wickenden Street. Everything but what they had put inside him. He couldn't leave those things behind—not that he wouldn't have if he could have, but some things were beyond his power.

  Evolve or die, Mannheim had said. It wasn't the sort of thing Mannheim usually said. Holger had always thought it must be a quote. It fit now.

  His world had changed. Again. Changed so that he wasn't a part of it anymore, not in any way that he understood. All because of a specialist, a person who could touch the magic. He hated magic. The magic leaking into the world was at the heart of the problems. Again. Magic had killed the old world and left chaotic nonsense in its place. As long as magic remained, the world would be nonsense. Magic trapped him in this city and it would kill him if he let it.

  Evolve. Or die.

  He'd never much cared for the thought of dying.

  He would sacrifice himself if needed.

  Once, yes. Now, he didn't think so. Who, after all, defined what was needed?

  He knew for certain something that he needed. He needed to stop hearing the voices. They didn't belong in his head, but they were there nonetheless, a part of him, apart from him. An accommodation was necessary.

  He was learning ways to deal with them. Already he knew better than to go near the place where she worked. Just like he knew better than to think of her name. The voices were quieter when he didn't think in certain ways. By not thinking of her name, he didn't have to listen to their lectures, didn't have to reach their conclusions.

  But avoidance had its limits.

  "Wake up! We cannot avoid responsibility forever," the poster said as he passed.

  He kept walking, getting out of its sensor range. He'd listened to the whole message the first time he'd triggered it, intrigued by the deep, compelling voice. He liked the message too. The green, growing world in the visual was beautiful. He agreed that the world needed to be looked after. Humankind had been given the world in trust and had betrayed that trust. Humankind had to face its responsibility, to step up to the challenge of saving the world, to do something, though the poster voice was vague on actual details. A stirring message. The Pend Foundation had chosen their spokesman well. The speaker's voice made Holger want to listen, but in the end he knew that the message wasn't for him. How could he save the world if he couldn't save h
imself?

  Time was passing and that was good. Each day was a new day, a day in which no one found him. Not the hunters from the Department that he knew were out there, not the things from the otherworld that lurked about hunting whatever they could, not the police, not even her. They were looking, he knew, looking for the old Holger. The new Holger was camouflaged, invisible, a part of the city, not apart from it. A day in which he called no attention to his presence was the best of days.

  Evolution, one day at a time.

  His memories were jumbled and it seemed that the more he searched them, sifting for truth, the more he became contused as to what was truth and what was not. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he got out and walked around the East Side. He'd made the Hill his home turf because he liked its liveliness, and because he couldn't imagine the craziness taking hold anywhere near the great university that dominated the East Side.

  He favored a neighborhood just north of the old courthouse, near the design school. It was a neighborhood that didn't know if it was on its way up or down, and it had two lives, one for the day and another for the night. That fit him, since he had two parts to his new life. By day he wandered on the streets, anonymous among those with whom he walked. Sometimes he panhandled—-to keep the image up; he wasn't yet reduced to relying on it for his simple needs— but mostly he just watched the people and the locale, relishing his nearness to the ordinary, everyday lives around him. By night things were different. A different sort of life emerged after dark, a rougher, less friendly, but no less ordinary life. Sometimes, though, he caught hints of the extraordinary—and when that happened he retreated. At those times, impelled by some atavistic instinct, he climbed up into the bones of the great structure growing on the edge of his chosen ground.

  That building was going to be enormous when it was finished. Its girders already touched the sky and its foundation sprawled over several city blocks. It was not a well-liked place by some. On most days defeated preservationists still protested its construction, skirmishing against it with placards and with stickers slapped against the construction fence. That fence surrounded the construction site like the curtain wall of a castle. He liked that. By night, the unfinished building was his haven, his castle keep, the only good place.