“You didn’t tell me Damon was there,” Diana said, far less frostily than Madoc had anticipated. “What did he want?”
Madoc realized that her anger had been deflected by a false assumption. She assumed that Damon had sought out Madoc in order to talk about her. She must be hopeful that he had been consumed by regret and wanted Madoc to act as an intermediary in arranging a reconciliation. Madoc had already divined from the rambling odysseys of complaint he’d been forced to endure that what she wanted above all else was for Damon to “see sense” and realize that life without her was hardly worth living. Unfortunately, Madoc’s opinion was that Damon had been perfectly sensible in realizing that life without her was worth living. He considered lying about Damon’s real purpose in visiting the fight scene, but figured that the web of deceit would probably grow so fast that it would end up strangling him. “He didn’t actually come over to watch the fight, Lenny,” he said, judiciously addressing the boy rather than Diana. “He doesn’t do a lot of that kind of work anymore. He’s busy with other things—customized VEs, mostly. You know the kind of thing—for phones, games, cable shows. . . .”
“Pornotapes,” Diana cut in acidly.
“Yeah . . . well, it was just business.”
“What kind of business?” Diana wanted to know. Now her resentment was building, as much because Madoc was avoiding her eye as because the news wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Madoc could see that the boy was curious too, but Diana’s curiosity was much sharper and it wasn’t going to be easy to fob her off. He felt obliged to try, though, if only for form’s sake.
He turned back to the boy and said: “How d’you feel now? The pain control working all right?”
“Oh sure,” Lenny assured him. “It was never bad. I felt a little spaced out after the fight—floating, you know. Soon as I got here they shot me up with something real good. Don’t even feel dreamy now. Sharp as a tack.”
“What kind of business?” Diana repeated frostily.
“Come on, Di,” Madoc said. “We’re here to see Lenny. The boy took an awkward cut. We can talk about our own things later.”
“No,” said Lenny helpfully. “You go ahead. You can talk about Damon all you want—I got all his tapes, you know.”
Of course I know, you stupid little shit, Madoc thought. Aloud, he said: “He just wanted me to ask around about some things. We’re still friends—we do little favors for one another occasionally. It’s . . .” He stopped himself saying a personal thing, because he knew that Diana would misinterpret it. She misinterpreted it anyhow.
“Little favors,” she repeated. “Little favors of the kind that you weren’t supposed to mention to me.”
“No, Di,” Madoc said with a contrived sigh. “Actually, it’s not to do with you. Something’s happened to one of his foster fathers, that’s all. The Eliminators may be involved, although it seems to be a kidnap rather than a murder. He just asked me to ask around, see if anyone knew who might have made the snatch or why.”
Madoc could see that Diana was having trouble remembering whether she’d ever been told who Damon’s foster parents were, but Lenny Garon had no such difficulty. Lenny was a fan, and fans liked to know everything that could be known about their heroes.
“There’s no public record of Damon’s foster parents,” the boy piped up. “I checked . . . a while ago.”
“That’s because he didn’t like to talk about them,” Diana said, her wrath dying back into icy frustration. “Madoc is his friend, though. It’s only natural that Madoc knows who they were.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Madoc said, because he felt obliged to try. “This stuff is confidential, okay?”
“It’s not okay,” Diana said. “You’re supposed to be my friend right now, and I don’t like the idea of your going behind my back like this—seeing Damon and not even telling me. They were biotech people, weren’t they? Damon’s foster parents, that is. He fell out with them because they wanted him to go into the same line of work.”
“That’s right,” Madoc said. “But it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care what happens to them. I just have to make some inquiries, see what I can find out.”
“Can I help?” Lenny wanted to know.
“No,” said Madoc. “Nor can you, Diana. It’s best if I handle it myself.”
“Just because I fell out with him,” Diana was quick to retort, with manifest sarcasm, “it doesn’t mean that I don’t care what happens to him. He’s in some kind of trouble, isn’t he?”
“No,” Madoc said automatically.
“Is he?” Lenny asked curiously. It was obvious to Madoc that his blunt denial had been read as a tacit admission, even by the boy.
“Not exactly,” Madoc said, immediately retreating to what he hoped was a tenable position. “It’s just Eliminator shit. It means nothing. It’s not even Damon they’re after. Look, can we just let it drop, for now? Damon wouldn’t want me to talk about it here. Hospital walls have more eyes and ears than most.”
That argument was sufficient to make Lenny Garon back off, but it had the opposite effect on Diana.
“I want to know what’s going on,” she said ominously. “I have a right to know. You were the one who saved the news until we were here.”
“If you hadn’t walked out when you did,” Madoc told her waspishly, “you would know what’s going on. You’d still have been there when the cops came to call.”
“All the more reason why you should have told me,” she said. “All the more reason why you should tell me now.”
Madoc raised his eyes to heaven. “Not here,” he said. “Lenny, I’m really sorry about all this. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“You just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t about to quit on you when he realized how dangerous your little games can be,” Diana came back maliciously. “You have to be careful choosing your so-called friends, Lenny. Some of them only want to jerk your strings. People die in those backstreets, you know—far more than Eliminators ever kill. Whatever kind of trouble Damon thinks he’s in is nothing compared to the trouble you’re in. Always remember—Damon got out of your line of work and took up making pornypops and phone link frippery. That’s the example to bear in mind.”
“She’s right, Lenny,” Madoc said, having been given ample time to replan his strategy while the vitriol was pouring out. “Damon got out, and you should aim to get out too—but Damon didn’t get out until he’d made his mark. He went out a winner, not a quitter. You can be a winner too, Lenny, if you stick at it.”
“I know that,” the boy in the bed assured him. “I know I can.”
“Let’s get out of here,” said Diana disgustedly. “You’ve checked your investment, and it seems to be in working order. They’ll let him go home tonight, if he insists.”
“I’m sorry, Lenny,” Madoc said. “Diana’s under a lot of strain just now. I shouldn’t have brought her with me.” Maybe I shouldn’t have let her through the door, he added beneath his breath, and maybe I shouldn’t let her in again—except that she might be more of a nuisance out of my sight than she will be where I can keep an eye on her. He followed her out of the room and along the corridor to the elevator.
Diana didn’t say a word until they were back in the car, but she didn’t waste any time thereafter. When he took the controls himself she actually lifted his hands from the keypad and switched on the AP, instructing it to take them home.
“What’s going on?” she wanted to know.
“Damon got a visit from the cops after you left,” he said. “Interpol, not his old friends from the LAPD. They wanted to know if he knew anything that could help them find his foster father. He didn’t so he asked me if I could use my contacts to find out anything. I’m trying to do that. That’s all.”
“Where do the Eliminators come in? They don’t do kidnappings.”
“They may have done this one. About the time the foster father went missing some crazy posted a notice about Damon�
�s biological father.”
“I didn’t know that Damon knew who his biological father was, or that he cared. I don’t even know the name of mine—do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do know my biological father’s name, although it was never a matter of great interest to me. Damon’s case is different—but he didn’t like to talk about it. I guess he wanted to keep all that stuff from cluttering up his relationship with you.”
“I guess he did,” she said bitterly. “If he hadn’t been so determined to keep his stupid secrets, maybe . . . .”
“Maybe nothing,” Madoc said wearily. “It’s over—let it go.”
“It’s over when it’s over,” she told him, trading cliché for cliché. “So tell me—who was Damon’s biological father? I can find out on my own, you know—I’m no Webwalker, but it has to be a matter of record, if only someone can be bothered to look hard enough. Interpol must have made the connection.”
“It’s not exactly a matter of public record,” said Madoc unhappily. He knew, though, that even a rank amateur like Diana could probably turn up the information eventually, if she had motive enough to try. Damon’s change of name wasn’t likely to confuse her for long. Anything Interpol could find out, anyone could find out—given a reason to make the effort.
“I have friends too,” she said firmly. “You know Webwalkers, I know Webwalkers. I bet you’ve asked that mad cow Tithonia to help out—but who needs her? Suppose Damon’s fans were to find out that there’s a mystery which needs solving?”
“One of them already did, thanks to you,” Madoc pointed out.
“So tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help you—but I can only do that if you let me in.”
“I already let you in,” Madoc muttered. “When I opened the door, I didn’t know all this was going to blow up, or . . . well, given that it has blown up and that I did let you in . . . Damon’s original name was Helier. His father was Conrad Helier.”
Diana thought about that for a full minute. “The Conrad Helier who invented the artificial womb?” she said eventually. “The one who made it possible for us all to be born? The man who saved the human race from extinction?”
“The very same. Except that he didn’t exactly invent the artificial womb—he just perfected it. It isn’t as if the sterility transformers would have put an end to the human race if Helier hadn’t been around. One way or another, we’d all have been born. Given the urgency of the demand, someone else was bound to have come up with the answer within a matter of months. Some say that Helier was just the guy who beat the others in the race to the patent office, like Bell with the telephone. A guy named Surinder Nahal reckoned that he should have been there first, and I dare say he wasn’t the only one.”
“But Conrad Helier did get there first,” said Diana, who was far from slow when it came to certain kinds of calculation. “Which means that he must have got rich as well as famous. Damon is his biological son—and knows that he’s his biological son.”
“That’s right,” said Madoc shortly—although he knew that it was useless to try to stop now.
“And he’s your friend,” Diana went on inexorably. “Just like that poor kid lying in the hospital. And he’s still your friend, even though he doesn’t even doctor tapes for you anymore.”
“I do have friends!” Madoc protested. “Real friends. People who know they’ll always be let in if they come knocking on my door.”
The barbed comment didn’t bother her at all. “You’ve already started digging, haven’t you?” she said. “You must have been high as a kite when he asked you to do it. You think there’s a game to be won here—a rich game.”
“You don’t know me at all, do you?” Madoc retorted bitterly. “You think I’m just a hustler, incapable of genuine loyalty—but you’re wrong. Damon knows me better than that.”
“Damon doesn’t even know what day it is if there isn’t someone there to remind him,” she sneered. “Without me, he’s just an innocent abroad. If I’d only known that he was about to get into trouble. . . .”
If you’d only known that he had millions stashed away, Madoc thought—but he didn’t dare say it aloud, and he knew that it would have been unfair. The fact that Diana hadn’t known, and still felt bad about the split, proved that she loved him for himself, not his fortune. The fortune just added insult to injury.
“Damon knows I can be trusted,” Madoc said. “He’s known me a long time. He told me who he really was way back at the beginning. It never affected our friendship. I’ve always respected his privacy and his wishes. I never expected anything like this to come up, but now that it has I intend to play it straight. I’ll do everything I can to find out what Damon wants to know, and I would have done the best I could even if he hadn’t put up the money. So would the Old Lady, who isn’t mad and isn’t a cow. You don’t understand this, Di. Just let me get on with it in my own way, will you?”
“I’ve known you longer than Damon has,” she pointed out. “I probably know you better than you know yourself. I want to help. I’m entitled to help. I still have Damon’s best interests at heart, you know. Just because he’s a pigheaded fool who’s impossible to live with, it doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
Before Madoc had a chance to respond to this catalogue of half-truths the car came to an abrupt stop. When he looked around he saw that all the emergency lights in the street had come on, and that they were all blazing red. They were only a couple of hundred meters from home, and the foul-up wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to sort out—a quarter of an hour if the crash was a really big one—but it somehow seemed like the very last straw.
“Oh shit,” Madoc groaned, with feeling, “not again.”
“It’s probably friends of yours,” Diana opined, not needing sarcasm to ram home the irony of it. “Maybe even fans.”
Eight
S
ilas Arnett dreamed that he was in a lab somewhere: a strange, dilapidated place full of obsolete equipment. He was hunched over a screen, squinting at meaningless data which scrolled by too fast to allow his eyes to keep up. He was working under pressure, desperately thirsty, with a head full of cotton wool, wishing that he were able to concentrate, and wishing also that he could remember what problem he had been put here to solve and why it was so urgent. . . .
At first, when he realized that he was dreaming, he was relieved.
He was relieved because he felt that he could relax, because the problem—whatever it was—was unreal.
Unfortunately, he was wrong. The consciousness into which he descended by slow degrees was a more complex web of discomforts and restraints than the dream he had fled.
His internal technology was dulling all the nastiest sensations, but there was an awkward tangibility about its anesthetic efforts, as if the nanomachines were working under undue pressure with inadequate reserves of strength and ingenuity. He wondered whether it might be his IT that had been keeping him unconscious—there was only so much the most benevolent nanotech could do without suppressing awareness itself—and why, if so, it had released him to wakefulness now. If the nanomachines had done their work properly, he ought to have been feeling far better than he was and he ought to have been lying down in a comfortable bed.
Without opening his eyes he attempted to take census of the bad news.
His wrists and ankles were pinned by two pairs of plastic sheaths, each at least three centimeters broad, which clasped him more tightly when he struggled against them. There was another sheath lightly gripping the head of his prick and some kind of catheter stuck up his backside. He was in a sitting position but his head wasn’t lolling to one side: it was held upright by some device which gently but firmly enfolded his entire skull.
There was light beyond his closed eyelids, but he knew that the device clasping his head had to be a VE hood. When he opened his eyes he would not be looking out upon the world, but into a counterfeit space synthesized from bits of digitized film and computer-generated images.
He put out his tongue to test the limits of the thing enclosing his head, and found—as he had half expected—a pair of teats. He tested the left-hand one with his lips, then seized it in his teeth and teased cold liquid out of it. The thirst afflicting him in his dream had been real, and the orange-flavored juice, slightly syrupy with dissolved glucose, was very welcome.
When he finally consented to open his eyes Silas found himself looking out upon a courtroom. It was an impressionistic image, a mere cartoon rather than a sophisticated product of mimetic videosynthesis. The twelve jurors who were positioned to his left were barely sketched in, and the prosecuting attorney whose position was to the right had little more in the way of features than they did. Directly in front of him was a black-robed judge whose image was more detailed, although he didn’t look any more real. The judge’s face had simply been more carefully drawn, presumably in order to allow for more effective animation.
The judge’s platform was about a meter above the level of the dock whose caricaturish steel spikes rose in front of Arnett’s viewpoint. This allowed its occupant to look down at the prisoner, mingling contempt with hostility.
Silas guessed that he and the “judge” were quite alone within the hypothetical space of the virtual environment. He could not believe that an actual prosecutor and a human jury were going to hook into the shared illusion at some later time. He knew that it must have required a conspiracy of at least four persons—perhaps including sweet, seemingly innocent Catherine—to arrange his abduction, but a real mock trial would require four times as many. There was no shortage of crazy people to be found in the meshes of the Web, but wherever a dozen forgathered in innerspace you could bet your last dose that two would be corpspies and three others potential beanspillers.
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