by Tad Williams
"I . . . I don't know." She stopped and closed her eyes. "Help me! My friend! I need you now!"
In the silence that followed Paul could hear the sounds of pursuit—not just Mudd's voice now but several others too, shouting back and forth through the trees—along with the alarmed shrieks and whistles of birds. The first security team must have arrived, he decided, and were even now fanning out through the artificial forest behind him.
"He's . . . he's not answering me," Ava said miserably. "Sometimes he doesn't come right away. . . ."
Now I know why they wanted to hire someone like me, who didn't have one of those implanted jacks, Paul thought bitterly. I thought it was because it looked too modem, but they just didn't want anyone who could communicate freely with the outside world.
"Where is he?" The sharp, high-pitched voice echoing through the trees was Finney's. Jongleur's dogs were all out now, in full cry. Paul considered sitting down and waiting for the inevitable.
"Help me!" Ava cried to the air.
"Forget it." He felt little more than anger now—anger at himself, at this foolish, deluded girl, even at Niles and his upper-class contacts. "It's over."
"No." Ava pulled her arm from beneath his hand and dashed away into the trees. "We'll go beyond the forest—there has to be a way out!"
"There is no way out!" Paul shouted, but she was already crashing through the thick vegetation. His legs as heavy as in a nightmare, he stumbled after her.
All around him the hunters were closing in, narrowing the angle, hemming their escape. Ava was plunging ahead as though the forest would truly come to an end, as though they might burst from the trees to see hills and meadows and freedom stretching before them.
"Come back!" he shouted, but she was not listening. Her billowing nightgown snagged on trailing branches, but she still moved much more swiftly than he could, an elusive phantom. He struggled after her, trying to remember what was ahead of them. Another elevator? No, not on this side. But wasn't there a fire escape? Hadn't Mudd or Finney said something about that the first day?
Yes. "You'd better hope you never have to use it, Jonas," Mudd had told him, grinning. "Because the window's sealed. Mr. Jongleur doesn't like the government telling him how to run his own house."
Sealed. But sealed how? Smacked and poked by branches, stumbling over the bumpy, artificial forest floor, he could scarcely think. Ava was a dozen meters ahead now, calling for him to hurry. He also heard the pursuers clearly, clipped voices passing information to each other, efficient as robots.
"Don't be stupid, Jonas!" Finney sounded only steps behind. "Stop now before you get hurt."
The hell with you, mate, he thought.
"Paul, I can see the end of the trees. . . !" Her voice was full of hope. A moment later she cried out, an animal howl of pain and misery. Paul's heart lurched. He crashed through the last of the branches to find Ava frozen and stupefied at the end of the natural earth, staring at an empty white wall. Seamless, without openings or features of any kind, the wall stretched straight up for ten meters before curving up to roof the entire floor and display the artificial sky. The space between forest and wall also bent away to either side, hidden within a few paces by the tangling trees.
"It's . . . it's. . . ." Ava was stunned.
"I know." Paul's heart was beating so fast he was dizzy. The bland curve of the outside wall gave no hint of what to do. Their pursuers were crashing toward them, only moments away. He had to pick a direction. He had no idea where to find the fire escape. Opposite the elevator—but where would that be? They had run through the forest in a zigzag track and might be a hundred meters from it or more.
Left, he decided, his thoughts flickering like agitated fish. Coin-flip. Fifty percent, and it probably won't matter anyway. He grabbed Ava—she seemed light as a small child, almost hollow-boned—and pulled her along, the curve of the wall.
Some of the tree branches snaked out beyond the bounds of the artificial forest. They scraped at Paul's face as he tugged the girl forward, forcing him to put a hand in front of his eyes. He could barely see, and did not notice at first when the branches stopped touching him. Something cool and smooth pressed against his other side, something more slippery than the wall.
Paul stopped and uncovered his eyes. The sweep of the entire island stretched below him on one side, although the view was strangely distorted, the colors blurry and prismatic. The window ran from a few feet above his head down to knee level, perhaps five by five meters. Beneath their feet lay only smooth parquet—the artificial woodland curved away from the wall and its inset window here, broadening the walkway, forming a space between glass and forest wide enough to park a couple of trucks.
Mudd was shouting in the trees, bellowing like a bull as he hurried closer. It sounded like he was knocking the trunks down with his bare hands.
"He's here!" Ava said in a strangled voice.
"I know." Paul wished he had another rock—it would be a great pleasure to try to smash the fat man's ugly teeth. Or put out one of Finney's little snake eyes.
"No, I mean my friend—he's here!"
Paul looked around, half expecting to see a spectral figure, but of course there was nothing. His eye flicked down to the weird view through the window, the buildings far below bent crazily up toward him as though reflected in the bowl of a spoon. The glass is energized somehow, he thought. Some kind of electrical charge running through it—probably one of those hyperglass things, meant to keep anyone from firing a missile through it and blowing up Jongleur and this madhouse of his. . . .
"Tell him to turn off the window," Paul said. "The power, the electrical power—it has to be turned off or we can't reach the fire escape stairs."
"I don't understand," said Ava, but apparently something did. The window abruptly changed, the view leaping out clear and unwarped, the sky gray, the air full of drizzle, the buildings beneath them now as sharp-edged as some kind of expressionist sculpture.
The wall began to flicker around the window. For a split-instant Paul thought, wildly, that it too might dissolve, everything illusion, leaving them standing naked to the elements. Instead the angry, hawklike face of Felix Jongleur appeared ten meters high along the wall, first twinned on either side of the window, then multiplying outward all the way along the curve.
"WHO SET OFF THE ALARMS?" It was the face of an angry god, a voice like a controlled explosion. Paul shrank back, fighting not to drop reflexively to his knees. "AVIALLE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Father!" she cried. "They are trying to kill us!"
A group of security guards dove out of the bushes onto the walkway and rolled to a crouch, leveling an ugly variety of guns that Paul had not dreamed existed outside of net dramas. The effect of frightening, fatal efficiency was undercut slightly as the guards saw the massive face of Felix Jongleur—one of them even let out a cry of startled surprise. All stared with their mouths open. Finney strode out of the trees just a few meters from Paul, his expensive suit snagged in several places, covered with leaves and dirt.
"WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?" Jongleur roared.
Ava wept, sagging against Paul. "I love him!"
"It's under control, sir," declared Finney, but he looked nervous. Twenty meters down the curve of the wall, on the other side of Paul and Ava, Mudd smashed out of the forest like an angry rhinoceros, followed by a half-dozen more guards.
"There you are, you little Limey bastard," grunted Mudd. He had tried to wipe the blood from his face but had only managed to smear it into a warpaint mask. "Somebody shoot him."
"Shut up," Finney snapped.
"No!" Ava swung herself in front of Paul. "Don't hurt him—Father, don't let them hurt him!"
The nightmare had swung far out of control. Whatever the girl believed, Paul did not think for a second that Jongleur would spare him—they just didn't want it to happen in front of her. He took a quick glance over his shoulder, then flung himself backward and turned to scramble toward the lever at the edge of the
window frame. For a moment he had it in his hand, could even look down and see the black metal rail of the fire escape outside the window, then one of the guards' guns went off in a series of explosive pops. The bullets stitched past him, blowing fist-size pieces of construction foam out of the wall and spiderwebbing the heavy glass above his head.
"ARE YOU MAD?" Jongleur bellowed, his face replicated all along the wall like the masks of an enraged god. Colorful birds, startled by the gunshots, had abandoned the trees and now filled the air, squawking and fluttering. "YOU COULD HAVE HIT MY DAUGHTER!"
"No more firing, you idiots!" shrilled Finney.
Paul lay on the ground below the sill, strengthless, almost numb. He had lost. The window was still closed. A huge hand tightened on his collar and yanked him to his feet.
"You little shit." Mudd leaned close. "You can't even imagine the trouble you're in."
Finney had grabbed Ava and was pulling her back toward the forest. "Father!" she cried, struggling hard. "Father, do something!"
"SEDATE HER," Jongleur said. "THIS WAS A MISTAKE AND SOMEONE WILL PAY."
Finney stopped. "But, sir. . . !"
"AND PUT THE TUTOR SOMEWHERE, TOO. WE'LL DEAL WITH HIM LATER."
Mudd shoved Paul toward the guards. One of them stepped forward as if to catch him, but instead raised a fist and smashed it into the side of Paul's head. He dropped, his skull bursting with fireworks and flapping birds.
"No!" shrieked Ava, then she had pulled free of Finney and was running toward Paul.
"STOP HER, DAMN IT!" thundered Jongleur.
Finney snatched at her nightgown, which held for a heartbeat, then tore. One of the other guards threw himself at her feet, and tripped her, sending her staggering backward toward the window. Some of the birds that had settled on the sill fluttered up in panic; she snatched at them wildly, hopelessly, as she struck the glass.
The bullet-pocked window splintered in a thousand jagged cracks and for a single quantum instant she hung there, suspended against emptiness as if frozen in flight, surrounded with radiating lines like a stained glass angel. Then the window collapsed outward in a sparkle of broken crystal and she was gone into the gray air.
A dull clung as she hit the rail of the fire escape. An endless second before Paul heard her scream begin, then an eternity before it whistled away and faded. It might have been a wordless yowl of terror. It might have been his name.
Everything was silent then—Finney, Mudd, the guards, even the giant, astonished masks of Felix Jongleur, a curving hall of petrified images. Suddenly a cloud of colors, of sparks, of something Paul could not at first understand, swirled out of the trees and darted out through the shattered window.
The birds.
Wings beating, whirring, a murmur of questioning calls finally rising to a many-voiced screech of triumph, the birds escaped their long prisoning, sprang out into the rain-misted sky and then scattered, bright feathers shimmering like the shards of a broken rainbow.
In the stillness that followed, a single gleam of blue-green drifted down through the space between the trees and the shockingly empty window, riding the air in broad loops until it settled at last on the floor between Paul's hands.
CHAPTER 40
The Third Head of Cerberus
NETFEED/CHILDREN'S INTERACTIVES: HN, Hr. 2.0 (Eu, NAm)—"Pippa's Potato Patch"
(visual: Pippa and Purdy looking for Cracky Hoe)
VO: Pippa wants to plant flowers, but Rascal Rabbit has other ideas and hides her tools. Also featuring a short episode of Magic Counting Box and when the wind blows the cradle will rock when the bough breaks the cradle will fall and down will come baby down will come baby down will come baby down will come baby. . . .
Just stay put," Catur Ramsey told her. "I don't think there will be enough smoke to make it all the way up to your storeroom, but you might keep a wet cloth handy to put over your mouth, just in case."
"By these calculations, it'll fill up the basement pretty good," Beezle said. "More than fill it up."
"Sellars wanted enough that no one could get down there right away and find out how much of a fire there was—especially since there won't really be a fire."
Olga looked at the vents high on the wall of the storeroom. "You are sure I won't be suffocated up here? Or in one of the elevators?"
"Trust me, lady," Beezle grunted.
"Trust you?" Olga was tired and nervy. She had been up and down so many elevators in the last forty-eight hours that she was starting to look for numbers every time she walked through a door. The idea of being caught inside one with smoke billowing in through the air ducts was terrifying. "Why should I trust you? Where did you come from—and who are you, anyway?"
"He's a friend," Ramsey said hurriedly. "He's. . . ."
"I'm an agent, lady. Didn't you know?"
"What?" Olga tried to sort it out. "A theatrical agent? A secret agent? What kind of agent?"
His noise of disgust was as vivid as a cartoon fart. "A software agent—I'm gear. An Infosect virtual assistant, manufactured by Funsmart Entertainment. Jeez, Ramsey, you didn't tell her?"
"I . . . I didn't . . . we were in such a hurry. . . ."
"Hold on, please. You . . . you have turned all this over to an imaginary person?" Something tickled her memory. "An Infosect? That is a child's toy! We sold it on Uncle Jingle. Years ago!"
"Hey, lady, I'm not the newest gear out of the box but I'm still the best."
"Mr. Ramsey, I cannot believe you would do this to me." It felt like betrayal. For the first time in many days of stress and danger tears sprang to her eyes. "My safety—a toy!"
"Ms. Pirofsky . . . Olga." Ramsey sounded like a boy caught stealing, almost stammering with contrition. "I'm sorry, really sorry. You're right, I should have told you. I would have told you, but things have been happening so fast. Beezle isn't just kiddie gear—he's been upgraded a lot. And I've been working with him for a while now. . . ."
"He's a child's plaything, Mr. Ramsey! We sold the damn things on my show. My God, he came in a box with a picture on it of a little boy saying 'Wow! My new best friend!' If you had a client on trial for his life would you get a Judge Jingle Courtroom Playset to do your research? I do not think so. But you're asking me to put my life in the hands of this . . . jack-in-the-box?"
"Yeah, it's nice to meet you, too, lady."
"Look, it's not like that, Olga, honestly." Ramsey sounded panicked now and it undercut a little of her anger. He was trying so hard. Foolish, maybe, but a nice young man, that was what he was, still at an age where he thought life could be argued into doing the right things.
But life doesn't argue back, she thought. It just rolls over you like the tide, over and over, taking away a little bit each time.
"Who am I fooling?" she said aloud, and almost laughed. "I came here because there were voices in my head, ghost-children talking to me. I'm sneaking around like a spy. We are going to burn down the richest man in the world's building—if only by accident. Why shouldn't a child's toy run the operation? Let's do it."
"I told you, Olga, I'm sorry." Ramsey had misread the swing in her mood, had taken the doomed amusement for pure sarcasm. "I can help you, but only with Beezle to. . . ."
"I just said we'll go on, Mr. Ramsey. Why not?" She did laugh now. It almost felt good. "Better to risk breaking your neck than never to look up at the sky, as my father used to say."
There was a moment of silence. "You know, lady," Beezle said admiringly, "you got a certain style."
"And that is all I have, at this point. But thank you."
"So . . . so we're okay to go ahead?" Ramsey still sounded as though he were a few streets behind. "Set off the . . . the smoke device?"
"The bomb. Yes. Why not?"
"We'll be careful, Olga. We've got the ventilation diagrams—we'll keep a close eye on everything. . . ."
"Please, Mr. Ramsey. Catur. Just do it before I lose my nerve."
"Right. Right." He took a breath. "Make it work, Be
ezle."
"Okay, here goes. Three, two, one—bingo!" He fell silent as though watching something. Olga could not help wondering what a software agent saw—shapes? Colors? Or did it just read raw data, letting it flow past and through like a sea anemone sifting the ocean currents? "Yep. We have ignition!" the agent said cheerfully. Olga closed her eyes and waited.
"Shouldn't I have been in one of the elevators already?" she asked as the door closed behind her. "To save time?"
"We got smoke on three levels now, boss," Beezle reported. "Moving up fast, too. Since they were marked on the diagrams, I disabled a couple of the seal-off valves."
"Too risky," Ramsey said, answering Olga's question. "That's also why we're starting you from close to the top. We don't want anyone paying any more attention than necessary, so we're waiting until we know the guards have already started the fire procedures. Any alarms yet, Beezle?"
"Yeah, a bunch. Sellars prepared some virals to confuse things, though—change the outgoing codes on the alarms and send 'em to the wrong authority or make 'em give the wrong location information. They haven't even gotten word to their own firefighters down on the military base yet. It'll take at least a quarter of an hour before anyone off the island figures out what's happening, maybe longer."
A blatting noise began to pulse through the walls, a sequenced honking of robotic terror as though the building itself had smelled the smoke and taken fright.
"Here we go," Ramsey said. "Key the floor number, Olga, and let's see if the changes to your badge work."
She did, then clapped her hands over her ears. The alarm had jumped a notch in volume. "I can hardly hear you!" She imagined the sound shaking the walls as smoke billowed through the lower levels, the weekend employees running in terror, the few remaining cleaners, janitors—poor, slow Jerome. . . ! "What's going to happen to the people down there?" she asked in sudden dismay. "You said it wasn't toxic, but how will they breathe if it fills up?"
