by Tad Williams
She kicked it into the bushes beside the hotel pool, then rinsed her foot clean with some water from the pool because the sun was already making it sticky between her toes. It only took a few seconds, but when she looked up, her daddy was gone again and Mommy was looking at her funny. It made Christabel's stomach go flippy. She ran toward her mother.
"Christabel, never run by the pool," Mommy said, but her eyes were flicking back toward the hotel, and Christabel could tell she was hardly thinking about what she was saying.
"What's wrong?"
Her mother was putting things back in the big straw bag she'd carried down from the room. For a moment she didn't say anything. "I'm not sure," she said at last. "Your daddy said Mr. Sellars and Cho-Cho. . . ." She put both hands on her eyes, like she did when she got a bad headache. "They're not feeling well. I'm going to see if there's anything I can do to help. You can watch some net . . . Christabel?"
She hadn't waited for her mother to finish. She had known all day something bad was going to happen. She wasn't running, exactly, but she was going up the stairs from the pool as fast as she could, thinking of poor Mister Sellars and his hooty voice and how tired he looked. . . .
"Christabel!" Her mom sounded angry and scared. "Christabel! You come back here right now!"
"Christabel, what the hell are you doing in here?" her father growled as she crashed into the room. "Where's your mother?"
"She ran away from me, Mike," Mommy said, trying to hold on to the sunblock and other things she hadn't had time to put back in the bag. "She just. . . . Oh my God. What did you do to them?"
"I didn't do anything to either of them," her father said.
"Mister Ramsey, what happened?" Mommy asked.
Christabel could not stop staring. Mister Sellars looked horrible, propped up in a chair like one of the Mexican mummies she had seen on the net, his mouth open in an "o" like he was trying to whistle, his eyes half-shut. The frighteningly blank face blurred as her own eyes filled up with tears.
"Is he dead?"
"No, Christabel," Mister Ramsey said. "He's not dead. In fact, I just talked to him."
"You telling me he looks like that, and he talked to you?" said Christabel's daddy.
"He called me."
"What?"
While the grown-ups spoke in quiet but excited voices, Christabel reached out and touched Mister Sellars' face. The skin that had always looked like a melted candle was harder than she would have guessed, firm as the leather on her dress shoes. It was warm, though, and when she leaned close she could hear a little noise from deep in his throat.
"Don't die," she whispered close to his ear. "Don't die, Mister Sellars."
It was only when she turned away from him that she noticed Cho-Cho on the couch. Her heart thumped around in her chest like it was going to fall out. "Is he sick, too?"
The grown-ups were not listening to her. Mister Ramsey was trying to explain something to her parents, but they were interrupting him to ask questions. He looked tired and really, really worried. All the grown-ups looked that way.
"And I can't even call her," he was saying, talking about someone Christabel didn't know. "For some reason, I can't connect with her number. She must be going crazy!"
Staring down at Cho-Cho, Christabel thought he looked like a different kid than the one who had teased her, frightened her. His face wasn't hard when he was sleeping, not scary. He looked little. She could see the plastic thing behind his ear—his 'can, he had called it, when he bragged to her about it—and the rough skin around it that hadn't healed right.
"Are they going to die?" she asked. When the grownups still didn't answer, she felt something get hot inside her, hot and angry and eager to come out. She shouted, "I said, are they going to die?"
Mommy and Daddy and Mister Ramsey turned to her, surprised. She was a little surprised herself, not just because of the shouting, but because she was crying again. She felt upside-down.
"Christabel!" her mother said. "Honey, what. . . ?"
She stuck out her lip, trying to keep some of the crying inside. "Are they . . . are they going to die?"
"Ssshh, honey." Her mommy came over and gently lifted the little boy up from the couch, then sat down with him on her lap. "Come here," she said, then reached out and pulled Christabel toward her, too. Christabel didn't like the way the boy looked, not just normal asleep, but floppy, and she didn't want to touch him, but she squeezed up against her mother's side and let her put an arm around her.
"All right," Mommy said quietly. "It's going to be all right." She was stroking Christabel's hair, but when Christabel looked up, her mother was looking down at Cho-Cho and she seemed like she wanted to cry, too. "Everything will be all right."
It was Mister Ramsey who finally answered her question. "I don't think they're going to die, Christabel. They're not really sick—it's more like they're sleeping."
"Wake them up!"
Mister Ramsey kneeled down beside the couch. "We can't wake them up right now," he said. "Mister Sellars has to do it, but he's very busy right now. We just have to wait."
"Will he wake Cho-Cho up, too?" For some reason, she hoped it was true. She didn't know why. She would be happy for the boy to go away somewhere else in the world, but she didn't want him just to lie there all floppy forever, even if she wasn't around to see it. "You have to save him. He's really scared."
"Did he tell you that?" her mommy asked.
"Yes. No. But I could tell. I've never seen nobody so scared in my whole life."
The grown-ups went back to talking. After a while, Christabel slid out from under Mommy's arm and went to look for something warm. She wasn't strong enough to pull the cover off either of the beds, so she got two big towels out of the bathroom and wrapped one around Mister Sellars' narrow shoulders. She draped the other one over the little boy, pulling it up like a blanket to just below his chin, so it looked like he really was just having a nap on her mother's lap.
"Don't be scared," she whispered into his ear. She patted his arm, then leaned close again. "I'm here," she told him so quietly that even Mommy couldn't hear her. "So please don't be scared."
"Wrapped around a fibramic core which was one of the earliest uses of this hybrid material for a high-rise office building. The convoluted shell of custom-manufactured, low-emissivity glass, the shape of which has almost as many interpretations as interpreters, has been likened to everything from an upraised finger to a mountain or a black icicle. The resemblance to a human digit has spawned more than a few wry comments over the years, including one journalist's famous assertion that having secured everything he wanted from the pliant Louisiana legislature, J Corporation founder Felix Jongleur was offering one-half of the peace sign to the rest of us—in short, folks, he's flipping us off. . . ."
Olga paused the research file, freezing the bird's-eye view of the immense building in which she was now marooned. She was in full surround, but it was too much effort to change the viewpoint, and in any case she didn't know enough about buildings like this to be able to look for anything specific. What had Sellars said—there had to be another room with all the rest of the machinery? Without his guidance and protection, she didn't have a prayer of being able to locate it. Not without getting caught. And that was his interest, anyway, not hers. What could she learn about the voices that had drawn her here from investigating telecom equipment?
She sighed and surfaced from the wraparound long enough to make sure she was still alone in the vast storage room, then let the file—obtained from a specialty node about skyscrapers—play on.
"Topping out slightly under three hundred meters, not counting the radio mast and satellite arrays on the roof, the J Corporation tower has been surpassed by several newer buildings since its construction, most notably the five-hundred-meter Gulf Financial Services skyscraper, but it is still one of the tallest structures in Louisiana. Known primarily for the massive engineering work that went into creating the artificial island on which it stands—or which surrounds it,
since the building's foundations go down as deep as the island's—and its spectacular ten-story Egyptian-themed atrium, the tower is also reputed to be the residence of Jongleur himself, the corporation's reclusive founder, who is said to keep an extensive penthouse complex on the top of the great black edifice, from which he can look down on Lake Borgne, the Gulf, and most of southeastern Louisiana and no doubt think about how much of it belongs to him. . . ."
The view of the atrium had given way to a long shot across the lake, its waters turned burnt tangerine by the setting sun, with the black spike of the tower jutting above it—a view much like Olga's own first sighting of it. She closed the file and shut off the visual override, so that the storage room sprang up around her. She had kept her incoming call line open. Ramsey and Sellars had still not tried to get in touch with her.
Olga rose to her feet, disturbed by how much she had stiffened up.
You are old. What do you expect?
But it was more than that. It was hard enough to admit that she was on her own—that whatever must be done she would have to do herself. The physical weariness and the ache of her muscles, overtaxed by a full day's cleaning and then uncountable stairs climbed at Sellars' direction, made it all seem even more impossible. What could she hope to accomplish, anyway?
Animals, when they're trapped and can't do anything, after a while they just curl up. Go to sleep. She remembered reading that somewhere. That was her own best choice, it seemed certain: just stay here, wait, doze. Wait.
Wait for what?
Something. Because I can't do anything on my own.
But even in her own head, even with her own self telling her such a sensible thing, that made her angry. Had she come much of the way down the continent to huddle like a rat in a hole simply because this man Sellars had been distracted? She had not even heard of him when she had made her decision to come here—she had planned to do it alone from the first.
But what had she planned to do, exactly? Olga had to admit that she had been so daunted by the problem of getting into the heavily-guarded corporate headquarters that she had not thought much beyond that. Sellars' intervention had in that way been a blessing. Where did you go to search for missing voices, ghost children?
To the top, she thought suddenly. This man built this place. He owns Uncle Jingle. He is the one poisoning children's minds, somehow, making them sick. If he is up there, then at least I can let him know that someone knows he is doing wrong. If I can get up there. If the guards don't kill me. I'll tell him to his face, then whatever will happen will happen.
What else can I do?
Olga began to pack up her few possessions for the journey to the top of the mountain.
CHAPTER 31
Romany Fair
NETFEED/NEWS: Multibillionaire Offers to Buy Mars Project
(visual: Krellor in Monte Carlo news conference)
VO: After declaring bankruptcy only months earlier, former nanotechnology baron Uberto Krellor has come forward with a startling offer to buy the crippled Mars Base Construction Project, lock, stock, and minirobot barrel, providing the UN will give him long-term rights to Mars, including concessions on mining and real estate rights on terraformed environments. Krellor is rumored to be the front man for a shadow-group of financiers kept out of the MBC Project sweepstakes by earlier UN decisions to avoid complete privatization of Martian ventures.
KRELLOR: "Nobody wants to see governments throwing the people's money away over these things anymore. Let a businessman see what he can do, someone who is used to taking risks. If I succeed, all humankind will share the triumph. . . ."
Sam Fredericks had seen quite a few things since she had entered the network. After the bloody climax of the Trojan War, a battle between Egyptian gods and sphinxes, and an attack by giant carnivorous salad tongs, she should have been bored with miracles, but she was still a little impressed with the way they started out crossing one river and finished up crossing an entirely different one.
The river itself still seemed largely the same, the water inky beneath the dark sky, feathered with white where it splashed around stones. In happier conditions its breathy murmuring might have been charming, the stone bridge beneath their feet picturesque. Then, as the mists cleared mid-span, Sam saw that the meadowed bank visible from the foot of the bridge had now become the edge of a fogbound forest instead, with steep black mountains looming beyond the trees. She had to admit it was a very effective trick.
But she was sick to death of tricks.
"How?" she whispered to !Xabbu. Azador walked ahead of them, more sleepwalker than traveler. "How did he find this bridge? And how did you know he could do it? We went past this spot before! There utterly wasn't any bridge here."
"Because I suspect we were not here." Her friend was avidly surveying the breakfront of ancient trees—hoping, perhaps, to see another one of Renie's markers fluttering from a branch. "Not the here that has a bridge, I mean." He saw the look on her face and smiled. "It does not make much sense to me either, Sam, but I believe Azador is from this . . . Other's land to begin with, this place built by the operating system, and so things will happen for him that will not happen for us. That is my guess."
"So far, it's a pretty good guess," Sam had to admit.
Azador had already descended from the bridge and was making his way up the dark soil of the bank, apparently headed for the trees.
"We should stop," !Xabbu called after him. "It is getting dark!" Azador did not slow or even turn. "We will have to hurry to keep up with him," !Xabbu told Sam. "If we lose him in the trees we may never find him again."
The bridge sloped down to the bank, joining a road so overgrown with grass that they had not been able to see it from the river. The track, filled with ancient ruts and a few that looked more recent, curved away up into the woods. Sam looked back. Jongleur was still behind them, his slow stride that of a man walking into a dark and doomful place.
They caught up with Azador as he passed under the edge of the trees.
"I think it is time to stop," !Xabbu told him. "It is getting dark, and we are tired."
Azador turned to regard him with strangely mild eyes. "It's just ahead."
"What is just ahead?"
"There will be fires—many fires. The horses will be brushed, shiny. All the band will be wearing their finest clothes. And singing!" He seemed to be talking to someone else: his eyes had returned to the winding track between the trees. "Shoon! Listen! I can almost hear them!"
Sam, on the edge of a question, closed her mouth. She heard nothing but the velvety rubbing of the wind through countless branches.
Azador's face showed that he too was listening; after a moment, his gaze grew troubled. "No, I cannot. Perhaps we are not close enough yet."
Sam was footsore, exhausted. They had spent all of a long wearying day searching for the bridge, and now that they had crossed it she certainly did not want to want to spend the rest of the night following Azador through the wilderness as he searched for magic elves or forest musicians or whatever it was he was seeking. She was about to tell him so, but something in his eyes, a haunted but also hopeful look unlike anything she had seen in him so far, kept her quiet.
The forest was more real than anything since they had first reached the black mountain, the trees almost perfect, although where she could see their upper branches in the fading light the leaves were not sharp and individual, but seemed to blur into a cloudy mass. Still, there was recognizable grass underfoot, even if thicker and more like a lawn than what Sam guessed you would find in a real wild wood, and moss on the stones and tree trunks. The only thing that seemed distinctly wrong was the absence of wind or bird or cricket sounds. The woods were as silent as an empty church.
Azador led them on, lifting his hands before him wonderingly as though to touch the things he saw, lost in some kind of waking dream. Even Jongleur seemed struck by the strangeness of their forest journey, bringing up the back of the tiny procession in silence.
&n
bsp; "Where are we?" Sam whispered, but !Xabbu had stopped, wide-eyed. A piece of pale cloth dangled beside the path, rippling in the faint breeze, "Chizz—is it from Renie?"
!Xabbu's face fell, "It cannot be. The color is wrong, more yellow than what you and she are wearing, and there is too much of it."
But the strip of cloth seemed to mean something to Azador, who reached out and touched it carefully, then left the wide track and struck out across the woods. He was moving quickly now; Sam and !Xabbu had to hurry to keep up.
A piece of blood-red fabric dangled on a shrub; Azador turned left. A hundred paces later two white strips side by side marked one edge of a clearing. Azador turned his back on them and walked out the other side. They emerged from a screen of trees onto a hillside and found the woodland road again, or one much like it, torn with the passage of many wheels.
They followed this track down into a grove of tall trees with twisted gray trunks. Now Sam could smell smoke. Inside the dense ring of trees, hidden from anyone outside, stood the wagons.
At first Sam thought they had stumbled on some odd kind of circus. Even in the dying light the wagons were stunning, two dozen or more, painted with many colors in almost unbelievable combinations, striped and swirled and checked, festooned with feathers and tassels, brass fittings on the wheels and doors. So splendid was the sight that it took her a moment to realize something was wrong.
"But . . . where is everybody?"
Azador groaned, staring around wildly as he entered the clearing, as though the crowd of people and horses who brought the wagons to this place might be hiding behind a tree. Sam and !Xabbu followed him. Azador stopped and stiffened, then bolted across the open ground. A wavering line of smoke drifted up from behind one of the farthest wagons, a somber vehicle by comparison to the rest, painted in deep midnight blue and dotted with white stars.
A small fire burned in a circle of stones on the ground beside the wagon. A set of steps had been unfolded between the high wooden wheels. On the bottom step, smoking a pipe and wearing a bonnet, sat what Sam at first thought was an old woman; only as she got closer did she notice that the stranger was slightly transparent around the edges.
