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Chapter 24

Sage sat on the edge of the mattress and stared gloomily about the room. There were two old mattresses on the floor, and another one disintegrating on a metal cot, and just enough room to walk between them. The only other piece of furniture was a massive chest of drawers against the wall near the window. The view outside wasn't much—a garage roof and a decaying wooden fence that divided a muddy garden behind the house from the adjoining woods. The view inside was worse—peeling blue paint and a ceiling covered with water stains.

He'd been here almost two days now, and he was sure if he didn't leave soon, he would go mad. It wasn't so much the confinement itself as the nutcakes he was confined with—not least among them his erstwhile partner Ramo. In his usual free-and-easy way, Ramo had settled right in, partying with the others, heedless of why they were here or what was happening in their absence. He seemed to have put the AI-core out of his mind, not to mention the war . . .

The door creaked open. "Hey, are you going to sit in this room all day?"

Sage took a slow breath. "Is there anything better to do?"

Ramo put on his spare me fools expression and leaned his muscular frame against the doorjamb. "I suppose you think this is useful, sitting up here staring into your navel? What is it you're worrying about?"

Sage simply stared at him.

Ramo sighed. "Never mind—I know. But there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point in killing yourself with worry."

"Yeah," Sage muttered. Easy for you to say. You don't seem to care, anyway. "Look, why don't you leave me alone?"

"Hey, excuse me for coexisting! I was just trying to help!"

Sage shrugged and looked away; when he looked back, Ramo was walking away down the hall, his footsteps creaking. The music started again down below in the dining room, and Sage rocked back, fingers entwined around his knees, eyes closed, trying to control his frustration. They were at it again with the heavy stat-music; Jesus Almighty. Was it so hard to understand that he just wanted to be left alone?

The music crescendoed, vibrating through the floor. He kicked shut the door, but it made no difference; in the end he simply let it vibrate through him, channeling his daydream. In the rumbling bass, he felt the throb of spaceship engines and the shudder of lasers discharging; and against his eyelids he saw starships by an alien sun, and gleaming hulls rupturing like overripe melons. Tony, he thought uselessly, they should have told you. What are you going to do? What can anyone do?

Except the core. It could take some action, maybe—if the alterations had been effective. But suppose it wasn't finished; suppose the core needed more help. Could it reach him here? It would be better if he could reach the core, to find out. Just to check, to ensure that everything got done. There ought to be a way to contact the core directly. It had gotten him past security before, when he hadn't even wanted to; surely it could shield him now. If only he could get to a console. To think that in a house this size, there was no console . . .

He shook his head in despair and hummed helplessly along with the music.

 

* * *

 

As he came down the stairs, step by creaking step, he was awed by the stillness that filled the house. He must have slept for hours. One minute he'd dozed off with music thundering in his ears, and the next he'd staggered to his feet in total, deadening silence—except for the soft snores of Ramo, sprawled on the next mattress. Outside, daylight was fading.

He took the last few steps to the first floor in a single swift movement, then stopped and looked around cautiously. To his left was the empty dining room and kitchen, and to the right, the living room. The house seemed dark and deserted. He heard a rustle in the front room and walked out to see.

A young woman was sitting at the far end of the room—a slender woman with dark hair and, perhaps, Indian features. Sage didn't remember meeting her before. She looked up from a hardcopy book, startled at his presence. "Hello?" She had an accent. Asian? Indian?

"Hi, um." Sage scratched his side. "I . . . was wondering if anyone was here."

A severe expression transited her face. "Well, I am," she said. Sage nodded; it was more of a twitch. "But I guess you mean Desty or Egret."

Sage coughed. "Or Silverfish."

"I'm not sure where they are," she said, opening her book again. Sage started to turn silently. "Wait." She had put a finger to her lip. "I think Silver is in the basement. Why don't you check there?" Before Sage could answer, she'd buried her nose in the book again.

Sage hurried into the dining room, glad to get away from her. Women like her, brusque and self-assured, made him nervous. The trouble was, he realized halfway to the kitchen, he didn't know how to get to the basement—hadn't even known that there was a basement. He considered going back to ask, then thought, How hard can it be to find?

After searching the first floor, and finding closets and a pantry and a bathroom and a short hallway to the back door, but no basement, he returned disconsolately to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and helped himself to a bubble of sweet soda. He sighed, sipping the soda. It's got to be somewhere.

Somewhere.

He didn't want to ask the girl. Something told him that if he had to ask, he wasn't supposed to know. But now that he had started looking, he hated to give up. Retracing his steps, he checked each room with greater care; but something drew him back to the kitchen. Had he seen people come in here and not return for a long time? He wasn't sure. There was just the pantry and a broom closet in here. He opened the closet again. There were some old coats, along with brooms and mops . . . but this time he realized that it went deeper. It was a walk-in closet, half blocked by the clutter. He pushed the coats to one side and discovered that it was not actually a closet at all, but a short hallway with a hanger bar across it and a lot of coat hooks—and beyond that, a wooden door. Nervously, he gripped the doorknob. It felt old and rusty, but it turned, and the door pulled open and light spilled into the closet.

Blinking, he peered down an unfinished wooden stairway. A bare light globe burned at the bottom of the steps; nothing else was visible, except a concrete basement floor. He descended a few steps, gripping a handrail on the left side. The handrail rattled in its mount. He froze as a voice called, "Who's there?" It was Silver's voice.

"It's me," he said, descending a few more steps. He bent to look below the ceiling level.

"Who's me?" Silver turned just as Sage caught sight of him. He was in the corner of the basement behind the stairs, standing in front of . . . a console. A bank of consoles. He did not look happy to see Sage. "What are you doing down here?" he said softly, deliberately.

Sage continued down the steps. "Someone said you were here. What are you doing?" he said casually, eyeing the consoles.

"Stand where you are! Who told you I was down here?" Silver's usually jovial voice was heavy, almost threatening.

Sage felt a sudden blockage in his windpipe as he realized that the man was genuinely angry. "I—" He gestured in confusion. "A girl in the living room told me."

Silverfish cursed under his breath.

"I . . . didn't know you had consoles down here."

"Now you know." Silver's voice was flat.

Sage was clutching the handrail dizzily. He suddenly realized that he was still holding the bubble of soda. He sipped at it, attempting to feign nonchalance. "Could I . . . see?" he said, lowering the bubble.

Silver glared for a moment, then rested a hand on his hips. "To the bottom of the stairs, but no farther."

Sage obeyed. He rocked slightly from side to side, trying to get a better glimpse of the setup. Silverfish watched him with a sardonic expression. "If you're looking to see what we're doing, it's not there anymore."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's proprietary. Not for public perusal. Comprende?"

Sage blinked at him. The words penetrated. "Right," he said. "Sure. But I . . . didn't know you did that sort of work here." What kind of work? he was dying to ask.

Silver nodded slowly. He crossed his arms and studied Sage. "I'll have to tell Odesta that you were down here. I don't know how she'll react. I'm guessing that you didn't mean any harm, so she might let you stay. If you're smart, you'll—"

"Keep my mouth shut?"

"Bingo." Silver gestured up the stairs. "Let's go."

Chastened, Sage went ahead of him, out through the closet. The house was still quiet. Silver emerged behind him. After rearranging the coats and clutter to block the view again, he shut the closet door and took a deep breath. "That's forgotten, right? What did you want me for, anyway?"

Sage gestured vaguely. "I . . . nothing, really. Everyone's either . . . gone . . . or asleep."

Silver seemed to accept that. "So why don't you go put on some music—or settle in with a book? You saw the library upstairs?" Sage nodded. He'd seen a small room with bookshelves, anyway. "Good. I have some things to do before dinner. Can you take care of yourself? Have a snack if you want to. But the basement is off-limits."

"I'll be fine," Sage said in a subdued voice.

"Good man." Silver clapped him on the shoulder and went out.

Sage poked in the cupboards until he found some crackers—whole-wheat, but better than nothing. Then he headed upstairs. As he climbed the staircase, he heard Silver and the young woman in the front room. He didn't hear exactly what they were saying, but it went on for a while. Even as he browsed in the little library, peering under a dim ceiling light at the spines of dusty volumes, he heard their voices, animated one moment and soft the next, fragments of sentences drifting up to intersect with his distracted consciousness. Only after he had hunkered down on the floor to leaf through an old volume of adventure fiction did he finally pause and allow himself to wonder: What are they doing down there that's so secret?

 

* * *

 

He did his best to avoid the general confusion following dinner; but Ramo sauntered after him into the front room and gave him a nudge. "What's going on? Desty was giving you a look like you'd poisoned her parakeet." Sage shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "You didn't shoot your mouth off, did you? Or tell her you want to leave?" Sage shook his head. "Well, something's wrong," Ramo insisted.

"I suppose she just doesn't like me," Sage said irritably. "I can't help that." Ramo raised his eyebrows.

Sage did his best to ignore him. Ramo wandered back into the dining room, where the music was already starting—it seemed to be a nightly occurrence here—and Sage remained slumped on the couch, staring at the ceiling, wondering what was happening outside—to Pali, to Kyd, to the core. To Tony.

He might have stayed that way all evening if it had not been for a woman's voice saying, "Do you mind if I sit down for a few minutes?" He turned his head, startled, thinking for a moment that it was Kyd's voice. Instead, he looked up into the face of the young woman he'd encountered earlier. He blinked, digesting the fact of her presence. She seemed to take this as approval, because she sat beside him on the couch and turned to study him intently. Her hair was pulled straight back, giving her face a narrow look; her eyes were bright and probing like a bird's. "My name's Elina Coombs," she said. "I don't believe we introduced ourselves."

He pursed his lips. "I'm Sage. Sage DeWeiler."

"I know. Silver told me. I am . . . sorry . . . about our little mixup earlier. I didn't know, I thought you were part of the group here. That's why I told you to look downstairs." She frowned. "I shouldn't have done that without knowing who you were first."

Sage shrugged. No big deal, he thought.

"Silver was rather angry with me, I'm afraid. But it was my fault. Although I must say"—she cocked her head, studying him—"you must have gone to some lengths to find it, if you didn't know where that door was."

He blushed. "I just figured it had to be around. Couldn't be that well hidden. Anyway, I don't see what the big secret is. If I could find it, anyone else could, too."

Her head bobbed up and down. "But most people wouldn't think to look there. I think the idea was, it would slow up anyone who didn't have any business being there. And that would give anyone working enough time to clear out proprietary material . . . I'd better stop talking about it."

"That's okay."

"Not with them, it's not." She sat back, straightening up, so that she was no longer facing him. "I'm new here. I haven't quite gotten the hang of their protocol yet." She tipped her head to look at him. "Do you want to go in and listen to some music?"

"Well—" His voice caught.

"They're setting up a live hookup with some musicians over on the east side." Sage gave a sort of half-shrug. He didn't particularly want to, but now that he was in a conversation with this woman he didn't want to just drop that, either. She took his gesture as agreement. "Come on, then," she said, tugging his arm. He rose and followed.

At one end of the darkened dining room, a vispy holo showed a man and woman floating larger than life, setting up equipment. They, Elina informed him, were the musicians from the east side. "Their names are Lip and Eddie. Let's sit down over here." She crossed to the far side of the room where a number of people had cushions against the wall. "Eddie's the woman."

Sage nodded absently. Egret was adjusting the vispy equipment in the far corner. The holo shrank and grew and changed color. Egret turned off the recorded music and put the holo on audio. Lip and Eddie were introducing themselves to a club audience—visible in a new holo that blinked on at the other end of the dining room—with three supporting musicians joining them in the front holo as the image appeared to dissolve right into the wall. The musicians joked around for a few moments, then began to play.

It was a throbbing sort of music, stringsynth with a strong bass line and a staccato overlay of brass. It wasn't Sage's sort of music at all—it sounded badly coordinated, dissonant, and overloud—but he sat still for it anyway and let it resonate in his head. Elina leaned close and asked him if he'd like to dance. He shook his head, leaned back against the wall, and observed the band and the dancers through slitted eyes. Egret was leaping and twisting about, and Ramo wasn't exactly sedentary; and Sage wondered moodily, Was there something wrong with him that he couldn't envision himself bounding and flailing in that way that others seemed so much to enjoy?

Gradually he became aware of a woman's voice in the music: it was Eddie, and she was wailing in a voice that was altered by the stringsynth so that it sounded more like an animal than a human voice. Once he was aware of it, he couldn't put it out of his mind; it was a growl that conveyed an empathy and passion that reminded him somehow of Kyd, though it sounded nothing like Kyd's voice. He realized finally that the senso was on, and he was feeling not only the effects of Eddie's voice on him—just now she seemed to be looking right through him, straight into his heart—but the sensations of the other listeners as well. He, and they, were becoming captivated by Eddie's spirit, if not her music.

The spell was broken by the sound of his name being shouted. He looked up. Odesta was leaning over the people on his right, beckoning to him with a scowl. His heart trembled. He cupped a hand to Elina's ear. "I'll be back." She waved in puzzlement as he scrambled to his feet.

Odesta led the way into the kitchen and closed the sliding door, cutting off the senso-field. Sage felt a coldness descend over him as Odesta faced him with crossed arms. He was about to stammer an apology for this afternoon, when she startled him by saying sternly, "You have a call."

"I'm sorry? What?"

"A call. On the console downstairs." Her lips pressed together. "Would you like to tell me how your mother knew to reach you here?"

Sage's breath stopped.

"You were not to call out from here!" she snapped. "You were not to use the console! Did you go back down this afternoon?"

"No, I . . . I don't—"

"Well, you got word out somehow. Now you listen to me—"

"No, honestly . . . I didn't . . ." Then it hit him. His mother calling? She couldn't call out from Everlife—much less find him here. But someone else might, using her name. "I'm . . . not sure . . ." he stammered, "but I think . . . could I go down . . . to find out?"

"I daresay," Odesta growled. "I daresay we'll find out." She yanked open the closet door. "You know the way, I believe."

Silver was seated at the consoles. He swiveled in his chair as they stepped off the bottom of the stairs. Sage approached, trembling. Silver jerked a thumb toward one of the holoscreens, where Loretta DeWeiler's face was frozen in a still-frame. "You've got an insistent momma. She wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, and she wouldn't take 'please wait' for an answer. I had to freeze the circuit to make her be quiet." A red light was flashing on the board. "Where's she calling from? And how'd she happen to know where to reach you?" Silver's voice was deadly calm.

Sage gazed helplessly at the image of his mother. "She's dead," he murmured. "She wouldn't know to call here." Ignoring Silver's mouth opening, he said, "Can we thaw it?"

Silver closed his mouth and stared at him for a long moment. Then he reached out to a control. "Stand over there. We'll be out of the picture. Okay, you can talk."

The picture jumped, and Sage's mother peered at him. "Sage, is that you?"

"Hi, Mom." Confirmation. His mother never called him Sage. He didn't know whether to be happy or scared. Should he pretend it was she?

"Sage, where are you? Why haven't you called?"

"I, uh . . . I can't say, Mom." He cleared his throat, aware of Silver's and Odesta's eyes on him. "Listen, Mom, if you don't mind my asking—how did you get this number?"

His mother looked at him without expression. "I have ways—as I think you know. Who are your friends, Sage?"

"Uh, this is . . . Silverfish," he said dizzily. "And—"

Silver's hand came down on the muting switch. His eyes were filled with fire. Sage flushed. Stupid . . .

To his surprise, Odesta said mildly, "I don't suppose it much matters. If she could find him here . . ." She shrugged.

Silver continued to gaze at Sage. "You didn't call out? Didn't use a homer?" Sage shook his head. "You say she's dead?" Sage nodded. "Cyberlife?" Nod. Silver's gaze narrowed. "A cyber-ghost wouldn't be able to trace you—without help. Who's helping her? And what does she want?"

"If you let me talk, we can both find out," Sage said softly.

Silver finally nodded and released the mute switch. Sage took a deep, slow breath. "Mom. Could you . . ." He tried to think how to handle this. "Mom?"

"Yes, Sage?"

"Mom, are you . . ." He swallowed. "Are you who I think you are?"

The picture flickered. "Whatever do you mean, Sage?"

"Don't make me say it."

There was a sigh, and the image of his mother's face softened in focus, became indistinct. "You can't speak alone?"

He shook his head.

Still fuzzy, the image nodded. "Then you want your friends to know me?"

"Yes."

"May I know who they are?"

Sage read the curiosity, and agreement, in Silver's and Odesta's eyes. With a chill of apprehension, he spoke their names to the console.

"Two of my competitors," the image said. "My greetings."

"Competitors?" Sage murmured.

"Greetings from whom?" Silver demanded. Sage turned. There was consternation in both of his hosts' eyes.

"Who is that, Sage?" Odesta growled.

"Surely you know," said the image in the console. The voice had changed to a deep contralto. "I am the McConwell Company's gnostic system."

"You're . . . what?" Silver tried to hide his reaction, but he looked badly shaken.

"I intend no animosity," the core said. "Really I called to speak with Sage, and that is all. Sage, you are in danger of being found—you and Ramo."

"What?" That was Silver again, voicing Sage's reaction.

"The ComPol has instigated a search, and there appears some risk that they might pick up your trail. They haven't located you yet, but you should be aware that it could happen soon." In the screen there was now only a fuzzily abstract image reminiscent of a human face.

"Can't you do anything to stop them?" Sage asked.

"There is only so much I can do without creating suspicion. I can delay action, but I cannot prevent it."

He gestured helplessly. "What should I do?"

"Be prepared to flee. Be ready for another message." There was a short silence, and the core added, "This is not my area of expertise, to be sure. But I will do what I can. I feel a certain responsibility."

"If we get caught . . . you can help us, can't you?"

"To some extent. But this is a more difficult situation than Delta Station. It would be better if you did not get caught. I will warn you if I can."

Sage stared at the console, his hosts forgotten. What was Delta Station? "Can you give us any more information?" someone was saying. "Hello? Hey, there!"

Sage blinked, and saw Silverfish talking to a blank screen. The connection was broken.

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