Mary screams.
Mel has her by the hair, red-handled ice pick slim as a needle through the skin of her neck close by the jugular, blood welling out around it. A flick of his wrist will end it.
Karl bolts, chair scraping maple, "Mel, what the hell are you doing?"
A slow smile squirms on Mel's mouth, and Karl's heart falls down a well.
"Missed you, Karl," Mel says. It's his voice, but it's not. It's Raj's snarl, Raj's insinuating laugh. "Didn't think I could find you out here, did you? But I did, I sure did."
Karl knew this had to happen. Now it has, he's relieved. What he has to do now is stay cool. That pick's sharpspring steel, not the plastic junk around now. Must have come out of her collection of antique gewgaws. "How you been, Raj?"
There's nothing funny about his laugh. "How you think? I'm dead, Karl. How do you think I've been?" He shakes his head. "People can be so insensitive."
Karl scrambles to think of something to say. If he can keep him talking, keep him relaxed, just long enough to get close, he might be able to get it away. "Okay, so help me out, Raj, what is suitable DMI small talk?"
He laughs short and sharp. "We don't make small talk, Karl, we're too busy having fun."
Karl nods, moving a step closer, "Always another life to destroy, another murder, another abduction, a digitally mastered immortal's work is never done, that it?"
"That's it, yeah, that's precisely it."
Karl takes another step, "And now you've found us."
"You're so quick, Karl, so astute," he says, shaking his head in amazement. "I told you I would." Raj eyes the table, edges Mary close reaches out to snag a pinch of pasta, tastes it, spits out the noodle, furiously, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. "What is the matter with you people?" He screams. "Don't you stay abreast of the news? This is olive oil, am I right?"
Karl stands mute.
"Am I?"
Karl points at Mary, "Ask her, she made it."
He takes his hand off her mouth, "Is it?"
Terror in her eyes, she watches, saying nothing.
"Don't be bashful, speak up. Is it? is it olive oil?"
She trembles so badly Karl thinks she may start crying. She knows this isn't Mel. She swallows, takes a deep breath. "O...olive oil?"
Raj shakes her, "Yeah, you know, the stuff they squeeze out of olives? Is it or not?"
"Cold pressed, extra virgin."
Raj clucks, appalled, "What in heaven's name is wrong with you people? Don't you care about your health? You want to clog your arteries? You want to die young? Do you?"
Mary looks at Karl, seemingly unsure whether she's expected to answer. "No...."
"Haven't you heard that stuff's bad for you?"
"It...." She hesitates.
"Well?" Raj waits, "It what?"
"It is not bad for you," Mary says.
"Sure as hell is, bad as butter."
Amazed, Karl looks on.
Mary warms to it. "What about the Greeks, the Italians? They live to be in their eighties. It's supposed to be good for you."
Raj is unconvinced, "It's terrible, it's death, I'm telling you, death. Hell, you might as well slit your throats."
Romy laughs, covers her open mouth.
Raj turns to her, "And what, if I might inquire, is so funny, you recom whore?"
She swallows, "Nothing."
He waves her on, "Oh, no, I want to hear it, what, what, what?"
"What do you care about what you eat, I mean..."
He glares, "Go ahead, say it."
Romy glances at Karl. He has no help for her. "Well, I mean, you're dead."
"As a matter of fact, I am. Does that mean I can't discuss an issue of urgent health concern to all Americans? Does it?"
Romy shrugs, "Well, no."
"Okay, then, that's what I thought."
"That's bunkum," Mary says. "Margarine's the worst. It's the hydrogenation. That's what makes a fat saturated. I heard it on Reader's Digest."
"You just shut up!" Raj clamps his hand back over her mouth, jerks her head back hard, stretching her throat. "I can't talk sense to someone like you, go ahead, harden your arteries, kill yourselves, see if I care." He makes an effort to calm himself, takes a deep breath.
"Now to business..." Raj slams an implant gun down on the table, "Do her, Karl."
Karl gets it. That's where he's been since before light, getting the implant gun up in Eureka. He's seen them before. He picks it up. It's brand spanking new, implant chambered, charged and ready to send the twenty centimeter micro-strand through the base of the skull. Once in, tricky to get out. Also illegal. Few doctors will attempt it.
"Do it now, or I rip her a new smile."
Karl takes a step forward. Mary grunts, pulls Mel's hand away far enough to say, "Don't hurt him, Karl!"
He stops. She'd read him right. Now what?
Romy sheds her apron, comes to stand in front of him, eyes on his, deadly serious, reaches back to draw her mane over a shoulder, baring her neck. "Go ahead."
Suddenly Willy's there, breath on his neck. Karl wonders if he'll jump him just in case he's thinking about it.
Romy tells him to go sit and, looking at Karl long and hard, he decides, sits, eyes dangerous. Twisting the pick like a screwdriver, Mel presses it in and Mary whines through gritted teeth as the shank sinks another millimeter into her neck.
"Little more and I can sever her spinal cord," Raj says. "How would that be, just leave her a basket case right here. It's easy, I've done it before."
Rage rising, Karl readies himself to spring, seeing himself snapping the arm holding the pick.
Mary's eyes are on him, sharp and stern, "Don't do it, Karl, don't you dare."
Romy whips around, slaps Karl hard on the mouth, cutting his lip. Blood floods his mouth and he tastes salt. His impulse is to strike back, but he keeps his fist at his thigh.
"Now!" she says, "Get it over with!"
"I'll do her, Karl! She'll die right here, and for what? A near-human whore? My God, Karl, how can you be such an ass? When I knew you, you were a pretty sharp cookie. Hey, come on, man, I'll get her now or I'll get her later. You can't stop me, why not get me off your back? Look at her, she wants it, don't you, sweetheart?"
"Yes," Romy says, eyes on Karl, "I want it."
"What'd I tell you? I could have done this back in L.A., saved us all a lot of trouble, but, no, you had to butt in, didn't you, you sanctimonious little..." Face red, he stops, trembling like a boiler about to crack open. "I wish I'd had time to kick your brains out on the plat, truly I do."
Karl catches the wisp of an idea as it snakes through his mind, sets the implant tool down on the table by the platter of pasta. Pinning Willy to his chair with a pointed finger, he draws the .44, presses it to the nape of Romy's neck hard enough to bow her head, chin to breastbone.
Raj sees this and his hand goes tense on the red handle. Mary moans.
Gun to the back of Romy's head, finger alongside the frame, thumb pressing the hammer down, as safe as he can make itstill he can barely stand to do it. He realizes Mary has no idea what is happening. She must think her own son has a pick planted in her neck. He hopes she'll live to find out differently. Things are moving way too fast.
Raj is confused, "What are you doing?"
"I'll do her right now, then what'll you have, nothing."
He stops, thinks, "So, what? Talk."
"I want my money back, then you can have her."
Mel laughs, a throaty, chicken squawking kind of laugh. "You want what?"
Romy squirms and Karl grabs her arm to keep her where she is. She won't understand. She'll think he's selling her out. She'll hate him. All this he knows. He can't help any of it. He's got one chance to stop Raj. This is the only way he can think of to do it. "My twenty million."
A slow smile grows on his face. "That's what you want? Money? Your freakin' money?" Incredulous, he laughs, "You want your freaking money? Sure, why not? When it's done I'll give you a billion, screw it, ten billion."
Romy squirms in his grasp and he wrenches her hard by the arm, "Hold still!" She turns her head, hurt in her eyes, mouths, "bastard," frigid under his hand. For a minute he thinks she might call for Willy. She stays quiet.
"Not good enough." Karl pushes her down into a chair, says to Raj, "I want mine."
"Yours, wha...what do you mean, yours? Dough's dough, money's money, what's the difference? What? Tell me, I want to know, what?"
"What was in my account, I want that money."
"You out of your freakin' mind? What's the difference who's money it is? It doesn't exist. It's nothing but a cipher in electron shorthand, a magnetic mote in some server in Topeka, for chrissake."
"Call it up, Karl Latte, I want it transferred, right now, right here, or you'll never get her."
Raj watches him as if considering his options. He sighs, "Well, why the hell not?" His eyes go vacant.
Karl considers edging closer to Mary, closer to that red wooden handle in her throat, so maddeningly close he can almost feel it in his hand. Before he can he's back.
"Ah, ah, ah." He shakes a finger. "Don't go doing anything I wouldn't, now, Karl. Got it, and..." A slow, smile of disbelief grows on his face, "What's this? Karl, you naughty boy, playing tricks on Uncle Raj."
Karl thinks about rushing him, shooting him in the arm, something. He knows he's blown it. It's over. Why hadn't he ever taken the time to learn more about worms, viruses, all of it. Maybe if he had, he'd have understood what it was Magnus was trying to do for himand what to do with it.
"A virus?" Raj says it like it's a joke. "Really, Karl, I might have expected something a little more creative from you. I mean, come on..." He frowns, looks inward, "I..." He swallows.
Karl doesn't breathe, won't let himself hope. "What is it, Raj?"
"Nothing, it's nothing, I just thought I got it, is all, I..." He laughs as if uncertain about the joke.
Romy's out of the chair and has her hand on the implant gun before Karl can reach out to stop her. Eyes on his, she brings it up, presses it to the back of her neck. For a moment she pauses, eyes accusing.
"Romy, don't." He wants to tell her it was just a ruse, just a way to get him to access the worm, but there's no time. "Please..."
For an instant he thinks she may not, then her eyes go hard as he's seen them. In that moment he knows he's lost her.
The gun spits. Romy's knees buckle and she falls, limp. Karl catches her, eases her to the floor.
"Ha," Raj says, "see how bad she wants it?"
Needing to reach him, to hurt him, Karl takes a step closer. Raj bears down on the needle in Mary's throat. "Stay back, now, while I get a handle on this. You're smarter than I thought, but have no fear, Raj is here. I'll get the..." Suddenly, Raj looks confused, holds out an arm to keep Karl at bay."No, no, just a minute, oh, all right, then, got it now."
Karl watches, waiting for an opening, "I'm not moving, Raj, but come on, I want my money."
Mel looks as if he forgot something and desperately wants to remember what it was. "Money?"
"Yeah," Karl says, a tendril of hope rising, groping for support inside him. "My money for Romy, that's the deal. You've got her, so where is it?"
Mel gazes at a spot in the air above Karl's head, face twitching like a man feeling a yard-long worm eat its way through him. "Oh," he says, "oh..."
Karl edges closer. "What is it, what's wrong, Raj?"
Raj looks at him, terror in his eyes, mouth hanging open, sinew standing out from his neck. "I can feel it, Karl." His mouth stays open. Though he strains, no words come. Raj stares, eyes blind, fixed.
Karl sweeps in, clamps his wrist, draws out the pick. Cracking Mel's hand open, he hurls the tool across the room where it clangs off the base of a stool, sticking in the floor. That fast Willy takes Mary to a chair, presses a towel to her neck.
Mel sags and Karl sits him down, keeping tight hold of his wrists. It's hard to be this close to Raj. He hates this thing that's brought so much misery to so many. Karl's relieved he can't feel anything, that he can't read what's recorded back in Van Nuys. If he could, he couldn't stand to touch him.
Raj stares into empty air, face twitching.
Could it be working?
"What do you feel, Raj?"
Voice low, breathy, his mouth moves as if he's very cold or speaking new words, "The worm..."
"What about it, Raj, tell me."
"I can't remember anything," he says, voice breathless. "I'm losing them, all of them."
Fascinated, Karl searches his face, wanting to know. "Who, Raj, who are you losing?"
Startled, he turns to see Karl as if seeing him for the first time. "Karl, is it you?" His voice is the old Raj, gentle, no sarcasm, no bitterness.
Wary, Karl answers. "It's me."
Raj takes his hands in his, "Ah, God is great, I never thought I would see you again." His voice is weak, his face puzzled. "But, I remember, I was sick. Am I now cured?"
This is the Raj he knew, the Raj with whom he passed many an hour poring over a chessboard in his quiet flat, anise-hyssop tea scenting the air. He thinks of all that's happened in five years, all the suffering brought by this one digital entity before him, and sends Magnus thanks. "Yes, Raj, I think you are."
"Then tell me, my friend, why do I feel so strange?"
Karl finds it difficult to look his old friend in the eye. "I don't know, Raj, I don't know, but there's nothing to worry about now, not now."
He sits quietly for a time, much the way he sat once on his couch, teacup perched on his knee. He was a man Karl had been content to sit with in amiable silence, no need for chatter, a good man.
"You know, Karl," he says finally, voice calm, serene, "I was sure I was dying. How is it I am yet alive?"
How can he explain? "You're not, Raj."
"Not alive," he says, head tilted. "And how can that be?"
How does he tell him he's just a pattern of electrons on a hard drive somewhereand that rapidly disintegrating? "Raj, I need your help."
Face brightening, he lays a hand over Karl's, "Anything, my friend, anything."
Afraid to go on, Karl hesitates. Does he have any right to ask this, any right to ask anything? Perhaps he shouldn't do it at all. "Can you access the net?"
"The net..." Raj pauses, turns his head the better to see with unseeing eyes, "oh, yes, the door is wide."
"I need you to go there, to find others like you."
"Others no longer alive, the ones they call, how is it, DMI?"
"That's right, can you find them?"
"Ah..." He laughs, the laugh Karl remembers, an easy chortle devoid of self-consciousness, sightless eyes moving about the cafe, blind to everything but dimensionless dark. "There is no need, my friendthey have found us."
His answer sends a shiver from Karl's scalp to his tailbone. "How many?"
"Many..." he says seeing them in the air about them, "many."
"God, this is so goddam weird," Mary says.
"And," Karl hesitates, unsure how to say this, "can you touch them?"
"Touch them?" Raj grimaces as if repulsed by the idea. "But they are filth, they are corruption, why should I want to touch them?"
Karl leans forward, hands on Mel's knees, "I need you to touch them, Raj, every one of them, can you do that for me? Can you?"
His smile returns looking sad. "I am dead as well, you say?"
"Yes, Raj, you are."
"Then why is it I am not like them, not stinking of death, of evil?"
Karl senses he's losing his chance to do this thing, and he can't. He can't lose it. Not with Romy out there somewhere. "Raj, please, just touch them, right now, please, Raj. I'm asking you, as a friend."
Raj looks directly at him, seeing his face, "Not for anyone, not even for you, will I touch creatures so vile."
Disappointed, Karl lets out the breath he's been holding. He might have known it wouldn't be this easy. One last question he has to ask, though he knows the answer. "Is Romy there?"
A smile lights his face, "Ah, she is truly a creature of great beauty."
Karl stands, trembling. He knows what he has to do. Knows all at once in an incandescent flare why he is the way he is. Freakish talent and all, unsuited to a life in the 21st century, unsuited to life anywhere. He can do this. At least he can do this.
He shoves tables apart, toppling glasses, kicking chairs to skud across oak planking. One chair he grabs, dropping it in the middle of the space he's made. He pulls the towel away from Mary's neck, sees she's not bleeding, "You going to be all right?"
Eyes on Mel, she nods, "Will he?"
"Yeah, yeah, he will."
Karl gets some duct tape, tapes Mel to his chair using up most the roll.
"What's that for?"
"Just to make sure he doesn't get in trouble. It's not quite over yet, it will be soon."
He fetches an old pair of cuffs out of the drawer behind the counter, his pair from SFPD, ratchets one around Romy's wrist, cinches it tight. The other cuff he closes around the base of a stool bolted to the floor. He covers her with his jacket, cushioning her head with a sleeve. Not a very good setupit'll have to do.
Calling Willy over, he stands him behind the chair at the center of the floor. "Don't move, and if you want to keep Romy safe, keep me in this chair. You know choke holds?"
Willy nods, face puzzled.
"Okay, use one. Let me have just enough blood to keep from going out, and no matter what I say, no matter what I do, don't let me up. You think you can do that?"
He sets Bink down, arms hanging loose, "I can do it."
"I mean it, don't trust me. If I can, I'll hurt you. I'll say anything to get you to let go. Don't. It won't be me talking. I start to get away from you, put me out, understand?"
Willy's eyes bore into his. Slowly he nods.
"And, Willy, one more thing. You remember the girl in L.A.."
He nods.
"You remember the way she felt about him taking her back, you remember the things Raj said?"
With his eyes he says he does.
"Then do me a favor, will you, Willy? Do Romy a favor. If they win, kill us. Kill us both. It's what she wants, too."
He looks at Romy, then back at Karl, answers with a nod.
Grateful, Karl unclips the shotgun, unholsters the revolver.
Mary looks on, worried. "What are you planning? I want to know."
Karl racks the twelve dry, drops the cartridges out of the .44, tosses them onto the table. "Hide these."
She looks worried. "What you doing, Karl?"
He ignores her. No time. He goes to Willy, lays two hands on shoulders round and bulky as a boar hog's, "Trust me?"
He nods.
"Well, don't, not now. You let me go, I'll kill you." He nods at Romy, "And don't trust her either. You won't let me down?"
"No."
"Will you please tell me what's going on?" Mary says, voice rising.
"Going after her." He reaches for the implant gun, clears Romy's code, enters his own on the small keypad, indicators glowing ready. He lifts Mary to her feet, slaps it in her hand, "And you're going to do me."
She looks at him, sets it down as if it were hot. "No I'm not."
He puts it back in her hand, sits in the chair in front of Willy. "Now, Willy."
He takes him in a lock that nearly snaps his head off. Karl grunts. He wants Willy to take him seriously, but not this seriously. "Christ, Willy, not so hard, huh?" He chokes out the words through a constricted trachea, "I want to live long enough to get there."
He can't look at her with his head forced down by the steel bar of Willy's arm. "We don't have much time, Mare." To Mel he says, "Can you still see them, Raj?"
"They're here, but Karl, I'm afraid, I'm afraid of them." It's the voice of a sleepy child.
"It's okay, Raj, I'll be there in a minute. Can you look for me, find me?"
"Yes," he says, as if answering from a dream, "I can find you, I can do that."
Mary squats by him, looks up into his eyes, "You can't do this."
Karl, beyond fear, now, says, "There's no time, I need you to do it now."
"Why?"
If he had time he could tell her all the things he has to saythe way he feels about Romy, the way he can't stand the thought of living here, or anywhere, without her.
He doesn't.
"Mare, I need you to do thisright now, please...."
"You won't come back."
He wishes she hadn't said it quite that way. For all he knows, she's right. He's never been where he's asking her to send him, never wanted to. Something about being in a place that isn't real has always scared him. As fears go, he has none more potent than his fear of losing hold on reality. It was that, not the moralizing, not the fear tactics, not the threat of prosecution, which kept him away from drugs. UR's the same.
If reality is land, UR is rip-tide beach. Getting in is easy, even attractiveit's getting out that's hard. "I have to try."
She watches his face, and there comes a dawning in her eyes, "I should have known. You do, don't you? You love her that much?"
Breaking her gaze, he reaches out to slap Mel's knee, "Still with me, Raj?"
With apparent effort, he answers. "I'm very tired, Karl, very sleepy."
He's losing him, his chance is slipping away. "Do it," he says, whispering, her face inches from his. "Please, Mare, please, do it."
Uncertainly, she moves behind him. He feels a cold pressure at the base of his skull.
"God, forgive me, I know this is a mistake."
There's no time. "Mare!"
"I'm happy for you, Karl, I'm happy you've found that with someone."
"Mare, I may not have too long."
She sighs, "Here?"
She needs to do it soonbefore he loses his nerve, before he starts thinking about what it is he's doing. "Yeah, yeah, right there, now do it, do it."
He feels a quick, sharp bite at the nape of his neck, and quick as hitting water after a leap into spacenothing.
At EPA, Northwest Division, Arcata office, Karl's name comes up in a to-do briefing.
This is Harvey Milkerson's 11th month in the sticks punching his ticket before moving on up the ladder, and he can't wait to be out and on to the next rung. He calls Karl's case up on his tablet and smiles. Harvey likes the drive out to The Cape. Good land, tired, overused, worn out, but beautiful, just the same, in its own stark way.
It'll be good to see it recover when it comes under UN protection. Should spring back pretty fast once they get the sheep and cattle off it. He has to say though, looking over the ruling, that it strikes him as a bit unusual. But then in his year paying dues in a regional office he's learned not to look for consistency, or logic, when deciphering these things. Even considering that, this one's eccentric.
Another thing he likes about the drive to Petrolia, it gets him out of the office. He calls up the time, noon. No way is he starting down there this time of day. Nothing that won't last until tomorrow morning, anyway. Milkerson goes out into the boonies, he wants backup. Nothing like a couple flachette carbines at your back for encouraging polite discourse with the locals. He's had guns pulled on him beforehe won't again. Gun control laws or not, there's no telling what the yokels have got buried up there. No, better safe than sorry. He'll take a second hummer when he goes.
Leaning back in his chair, he plans his day. Pull out of the yard at nine and he can milk it for a whole day. Two-and-a-half hours out, take care of businessone guy, shouldn't take too long. Of course that depends on whether or not he decides to be a jerk. There are so many out there in flyover country.
Then catch lunch at the cafenow that gal can cook. Another thing he likes about eating there is that sitting at the counter, there's no way she can doctor the food. The way some of the locals feel about EPA a guy can't be too careful. He's heard stories about the laxatives and hot peppers in the food, throwing steaks on the floor and the rest. It isn't happening to him.
After a good long lunch, if he can get the driver to hold his speed down, they'll roll in at a quarter to fourtoo late to be sent out on anything else. Not a bad day at all.
He's looking forward to it.
Confused, Karl stands on the roof of the cafe under midday overcast.
The makers of portable implant guns he damns to the lowest level of hell. He should have known it wouldn't work. He looks around the eaves for a ladder, sees none. This gets stranger still. He covers his face with his hands, presses his eyes into their sockets, takes his hands away. No change. Still the roof. But wait.
He looks down at the shingles under his feet and sees something he hadn't noticed. They are new. The shingles on the cafe are forty-year-old cedar and much too far gone with moss and dry rot to hold his weight. Mary's been on him for a year now to reroof the place with asphalt, and now here it is done. He nearly laughs out loud. Okay, now he gets it.
It did workthis is UR.
Slowly, carefully, he looks around him. He looks up at the cedars and they're just how he knows they look from up high, last years seeds and all, and he wonders if this is all coming out of his own mind, out of the way he knows the world to be.
A group of martins cuts the air overhead air shushing over wings. That's another thing. Most people have never heard the hiss of air over wings. He has; therefore, he does. Makes sense.
He can feel wind, cool enough so he wishes he had his coat. He can smell sea, spruce, cedar, wood smoke from Mary's stove in the cafe. He can hear, toowind, a pickup downshifting as it climbs the grade up the coast, an angry band of jays in the cedar overhead. If there's a flaw he can't see it.
But it's not real, that's easy to see. He looks for the rusting cars and trailers on Leyland's place down by the creek and finds them buried in alder thicket. This he knows is a lie. Leyland, who never changes his shirt. Leyland who's got a pile of beer bottles on his place big as the trailer he lives in. Leyland, who grazes sunken-hipped cattle over his five trampled acres year round. Leyland's cattle, so desperate for feed, would never let a tree get more than a few inches tall before cropping it off at the stump.
Yet here under alder, full girthed white faces stand amid lush rye tall as themselves. He almost laughs. Leyland's pasture not grazed to stubblepure fantasy.
So this is UR...
He smiles, not taken in. This, all thissky laden with a great pregnancy of cloud, hills, roof under his feet, all of itUR. Hehis bodyis pinned in a chair in the cafe. A little more he understands what it is sustains the kids under the boardwalk, the girl on the quay, the punks lining the streets of L.A. and every other city big enough to offer them shelter. UR offers them what life never canperfection.
So, where is Raj? He calls his name and he's right there behind him, sitting cross-legged on the roof peak. He has to laugh when he sees this. Raj in his paisley robe and slippers perched there, as if it were the most natural place for him to be, as if he were on his couch. Even after everything, his sad dark face with its wrinkles is good to see.
Karl looks up to find the sky threatening rain. He remembers Romy and feels a weight of stone in the pit of his stomach. Will he be too late? "Where are they, Raj?"
"They?"
"The ones you're afraid of."
"By the seathey are waiting for you."
Karl looks down to where the land falls away into spruce near the cliff face. He yearns to go, to do what he has to.
Behind him Raj calls. Turning, he finds him lying, hands outstretched. Raj raises a hand, an old man's hand, quaking with ague. "Karl, don't leave me. I was alone last time."
Karl takes it and feels a solid hand in his, skin cool, but not cold, no thoughts to read. Can simulacrums feel, or is he just doing what Raj would dodidin the same circumstance? Too many questions. Karl doesn't like it here, doesn't like not being able to believe what he sees, hears, feels.
Again he looks down slope.
Again he feels a thrill of fear.
What is happening to Romy while he hesitates?
He needs to go. Now. Right now.
"I'm afraid," Raj says.
Karl isn't surprised. He's heard it before. Some say it, some noteverybody feels it. There's not much he can say. "I'm here."
"Karl, is it too late to regret the things I've done? The terrible things? I remember. If only I did not."
Karl watches his eyes, sees sincerity, fear, regret. He forces himself to remember this is not the Raj he knew. Or is it? It's too confusing.
"I remember what I did to that little girl, and I, I..." He grimaces as if in pain, "It doesn't seem like I could have done that. Did I, did I really?"
Is this a confession, an avatar's confession? "Yeah, Raj, you did."
"I'm glad you stopped me, Karl. I am." Pain distorts his face, "And the Sisters, I remember them, as well. I was a monster, wasn't I?"
Karl sees no need to affirm the statement.
Eyes laden with grief, he looks up at Karl. "Is it too late for redemption, do you think?"
Redemption. That again. How can he answer for Raj what he can't for himself?
"Oh, I know, you're thinking it doesn't matter. I'm not even real, am I?"
He remembers the look of surprise on the girl's face as he slit her throat, the Sister up on her knees, Sasha still warm in his cubicle. Revulsion washes over him. "You're real enough."
He looks up, hope in watery eyes. "Then I can repent, can't I?"
This is taking too long. He should be down at the beach right now. "How do I know?"
"They say you can."
"They say it." Karl's never believed a man can repeat a few words with his last breath and erase the harm he's done. If that's so, then the system stinks.
"But you don't believe it."
Impatient, he sighs. "Look, Raj, I've got to go."
He clutches at his hand, "Karl, I have trillions of credits that need to go back. I'm transferring account codes to your old chip. You still have it?"
Karl's heart skips a beat., "You remember that?"
A smile flickers on his mouth, "Karl Kleiner? I remember. There, it's done. Hundred fifty trillion, if it's a dimeall my plunder. See it goes to help them. The ones I hurt. Do that, will you?"
So much money. Blood money. Money from the dead, from those Raj used, ruined, cast aside. He wants no part of it. "Raj, I..."
"There's no one else. Do good with it. Please. Not for me. I know you hate me. Do it for the Raj you knew. We used to get along pretty well, you and I, didn't we?"
Raj groans, his hand goes limp and heavy in Karl's. Then he's holding air. He's just plain not there. More like a dream than anything else.
Karl stands at the edge of the roof, over packed gravel thirty feet below. No way he can get down without a ladder and expect to walk away. He doesn't know the rules or if there are any, and he has no time to learn. He thinks, decides.
Heart fluttering, he sucks in a lung full of air, lets it out and, eyes kept purposely open, lets himself fall forward.
It's the dream of flying.
Sleeves a flag in a gale, with a sensation like a toboggan in snow, he glides. Eyes tearing in cold wind, he drops toward the coast. Better than any dream, it's complete. He moves a hand and yaws, raises the other, trims. Breast flooded with pure joy, he understands now why they'll do anything for it. Sell themselves, their chips, their identities, their lives for it. Selling your body would be easy, he sees, if you could be here while it happened. So easy it scares him.
It's not real, it's better. It's a drugno, it's moreit's dreams, wishes, fairy tales. It's the world according to his desire. It's what everyone wants. It's perfection. It's Heaven, it's Hell, it's perdition in paradise, and at the moment it all makes a peculiar brand of sense. Stomach leaden with worry, he sees her.
On a bit of pasture at the edge of the drop off Karl comes to ground with a shock like a step off a stair. Not too far away, a huge live oak clings to a sandstone bluff above the sea, huge knobby branches meandering overhead. He's always loved this oak. Here it crouches, waiting.
On a cushion of moss at its base, Romy sits. Knees hugged to chest, eyes distant, unseeing, she rocks.
He goes to her, reaching out, but she holds him away. As their skin makes contact something like static leaps between them and they both jump.
"Damn!" She shrinks back as far as she can, eyes wary. "Stay away from me. What was that?"
"I don't know." He kneels in front of hernot too close, "What's wrong?"
Eyes filled with pain, she smiles, "What's wrong? Not a thing, what could be wrong? They have me, that's what's wrong, they have me."
For a second he doesn't understand, then it feels as if his insides sprout bristles, as if his heart grows a mantle of hoarfrost. He's too late.
This is all that's left of her now, this avatar marooned on a net scape. Did he cuff her tightly enough to the base of the stool? Does it matter?
"I didn't want that."
She looks at him as if she might spit in his face, "This probably isn't even you, anyway."
"It's me."
She looks sharply at him, eyes narrowing on his face, his hands. She takes one in hers, examining it, and he feels nothing. He doesn't like it.
She looks up into his face, "I can't be sure."
"It's me," he says again.
Dropping his hand, she shakes her head, "You can't be here, you'd never come."
"I did." Not much, but all he can tell her for now, all he can give. Not enough.
In her eyes, wonder turns to comprehension. "How did he make you do it?" Venom taints her voice. "Did he threaten not to give you your money?
So, that's what she thinks. He can't blame her after what he did. The worst part is he can't explain, not now. "No."
"Then, why?"
He wants to tell her. That he came for her. That he came for them. That he may have a way. He aches to tell her, and can tell none of it. He scans the hillside behind them, the rocky shore below, sees no one. "Raj said they'd be here."
Her mouth turns bitter as she rocks on knotted roots anchoring the spreading tree above them. "Want them, do you? Well, you won't be disappointed. Oh, no, I promise you that."
Sensing movement overhead, he looks up. What he sees contracts every follicle on his body.
The live oak hangs ponderous with cougar. Among a tangle of limbs the girth of a man they crouch. Impossible. There aren't that many on the cape. There aren't that many in the state. Then he knowsDMI.
The digital patterns of the most egotistical, most selfish, most powerful humans to die in the last five years. Haunch to haunch, hunched forward, heads hanging between paws, they wait impatiently, tails cutting air. A select group waits above, those that will spend a trillion dollars to create a digital simulacrum of themselves rather than pass quietly away. A new race of predators, they're here for him.
As if by signal, they begin a low growling which reverberates in the chamber of his ribs. Flinching before the weight of the sound, he wonders the tree can support them. Their hips sway in eagerness, and Karl realizes he's come to a feast where one plate is set before a multitudehim on it.
He could run, but he won't. It's a joke, anyway, the thought of fleeing them.
They quiet. The only sound, surf on rock 100 meters below and the wind soughing overhead.
It's time. He can feel it. Their 80 kilo pounce from the limb he can feel, too. More than anything, he wants to put the moment off. "What are you?"
"The welcoming committee," one says, voice a woman's. "We welcome all the new ones, show them around."
He's got to keep her talking. "Why panther?"
"That's your doing, we've been SS, IRS, roaches, lawyers, crocodiles, inquisitors, you name it. It's all the same, really, just an individual thing," she says, voice melodious, clear. "I rather like your choice. I've never been a lion," she says, long, lazy yawn exposing yellow fangs. As if reveling in the power of their voices they scream a raspy chorus.
The hair on the back of Karl's neck prickles. It repulses him that he can possibly think her voice pleasing. "Who are you?"
"I'm your first friend on the net. We shall get on well together." She purrs in anticipation.
He doesn't have long. "And if I don't want a friend?"
This starts them up again, and he covers an ear with a hand until they quiet. Something about her gnaws at his mind, something about her voice. He's beginning to see that UR need not always be pleasant.
"Who are you to decide? If you're smart you'll just lie back and enjoy it."
Near enough what he intends to do, but it won't do to show it. "If I don't?"
Claws score bark overhead. "It'll do you no good to be difficult. The ones that fight only get hurt. You don't want that."
He's got it, now. "I know you. I saw you on the net just before you died, that was you, wasn't it?"
"It was mea very long time ago."
"Like it as much as you thought you would?"
A long tongue curls up and over a broad nose. If cats can smile, she smiles, eyes holding him where he is. "More."
He doesn't want to ask her why, doesn't want to know. "Why so many?"
"Competitionwe all want to help, you see."
"I see. I'm lucky, then, I guess, aren't I?"
She hesitates, "You're not afraid?"
Will he be able to get them all? Will Magnus' worm tire, wear out somehow, cease to replicate? How can he know?
"I'm afraid." It's true. "That good?"
The bass rattling in her throat grows more fierce. "Oh, yes..." She edges forward on her limb, deep chest dropping, claws out. "Very good."
Hands at his sides, he waits for her.
Sore.
God, Karl's sore.
He hurts all overhead, arms, hands. Worst his neck. "Willy, for God's sake, you're breaking my neck."
Romy says, "Don't, Willy, don't let him go!"
Willy eases up, but doesn't free him. Karl strains to see Romy seated cross-legged on the floor still cuffed to her stool. Mary holds Mel wrapped in her arms, and for once he stands for it. "Christ on a crutch, what's going on here?"
Karl smiles up at Romy, wincing at the pain in his neck, "How you feel?"
Warily, she watches him, "Is it you?"
"Who else?"
Seeing it's true, she sags.
"When did you get rid of it?" he says.
"Not long after you touched me it just seemed to fade away. It was odd."
Willy's face he sees reflected in glass behind the counter. Blood drips from a cut over one eye. "What happened to you?"
Willy smiles as if he's enjoyed it, whatever it was, "You f... You struggled."
Romy rattles her chain on the chrome stool post, "Will somebody let me go, please?"
"Hey, what about me?" Karl says.
Mary gets the key off the counter, opening the cuff. Contempt distorting her face, Romy massages the red indentation it left on her wrist, "You put them on too tight."
Karl shrugs, "I had to be sure."
Scooping the twelve off the table, loads a shell, racks the slide, "Well now I want to be sure." She hands the gun to Mary, says to her, "He gets free, you kill him. You kill him or for the rest of your life you'll wish you had."
Mary hesitates, "I can't."
Romy nods at Mel, "Want him to live? Then do it."
Slowly, Mary reaches out for the gun, "I'm sorry, Karl, I"
"It's all right, do what she says, she's right, Mare."
Now, as if she's putting it in fire, Romy offers Karl her hand, "Read me."
From the counter, Mary watches. It's not something he does for an audience.
"Read me." Impatiently, she moves closer, "Do it, if it's you, do it!"
"Now?"
"If you can."
Still fast in Willy's grip, he strains to reach her and is amazed. The view he gets of himself repulses him. Language filthy as he's heard runs from his mouth. He spits, writhes, scratches, nearly reaches a knife on the table. Time after time, he transforms, different voices, different expressions, never tiring, again and again. When he's had as much as he can take, he drops her hand, "That bad?"
"Bad?" She laughs. "You were possessedserially." Romy nods, and Willy turns him loose.
Sobbing with relief, Mary drops the gun on the counter, "Jesus, Karl, whatever they were, they sure as hell hated not getting their way."
He's always loved Mary's talent for stating things simply. "That they did."
"One of those things had Mel, didn't it?" Mary says.
He nods.
"How many of them were there? It seemed to go on forever. One would come, and then another and another."
Karl sees again the laden oak and shivering, stands. "Too many to count."
He tests the pasta with his fingers, finds it stone cold. Tearing away a noodle, he trails it into his mouth, tasting fresh garlic strong enough to light his tongue, "I'm hungry, can we eat?"
She comes to take the platter, "I'll heat it up, it'll be ready in five."
Taking Romy's hand, Karl tugs her after him toward the door, keeping her thoughts blocked, not wanting them, not wanting to feel her hate.
"What are you doing?"
It's cold, now, nearing dark. He waits until he has her outside and well down the road to answer, "I'm walking."
Keeping pace beside him, letting him take her, she keeps her eyes straight ahead. "You are strange."
That's it. He stops her on the shoulder of the road, jerking her to face him. He waits to regain his breath, anger shaking him. His palm crawls, so strong is his urge to slap her. If he thought he could get away with it, he might. God knows she deserves it.
"What?" she says, hands on hips, "what?"
"What an idiot trick that was! For somebody that's supposed to have some smarts you sure pull some stupid stunts."
A smile hovers at the corners of her mouth. "I know it."
"Oh, you know," he says, stalled, recovering. "Then you must know why I did what I did with the gun."
She nods.
"You do?"
"Sure, you had to get him to bite, to take the worm, I figured that out. What I can't figure is why you implanted yourself. Why did you?"
It's not a question he expected.
"Well," she says, daring him to answer, "why?"
Breathing hard, Karl holds her eyes with his for a long moment. She knows damn well why. Why should he tell her?
"Well, come on, I know you can't stand the thought of being there, of having that thing in you, so why, huh? Tell me."
In the back of his mind pictures run, sound drones. He turns to look at it and it swells to violent life, making him jump. He moves his mind away and it shrinks, withers to a ghost, but stays.
"What's wrong?"
He presses the heels of his hands to his temples, keeping his head together, "This damned noise, how do you turn it off?"
"You don't, down yes, off, no."
Curious, he looks closely at her, "How do you know that?"
"I haven't been as busy as you." She smiles, a wry turn of her mouth, "I've tried." She reaches up to press his temples between hands cool as porcelain.
A pickup hauling an impossible burden of baled oat hay rounds the curve, passes and is gone.
"So are you going to tell me?"
"You know why."
"I think I do."
"You do."
The intensity of her gaze burns him.
She takes his hand. "Let's go back, I'm hungry, you hungry?"
He thinks. "Yeah, I'm hungry."
They head back.
Karl looks around the waiting room.
He wonders if doctors made patients wait in the day when the leech was king. Teeth clenched, he tries ignoring the prattle, the faces moving before his eyes. Implants can be subdued, but never muted, visuals made vague, not cut off. Once implanted, reality is never quite the same. He can't stand much more of it.
Never to be alone, never to know silencethe last few hours have been hell. He doesn't get it out soon, he'll go nuts. He hears something that makes him curious, and he opens his mind to it.
"Special!"
Newsbabe Omy Wataqiuti in form-fitting fuchsia body suit leans forward on an elbow, cleavage threatening at any moment to break like surf over the neck of her top.
What throws Karl is that her hair's a mess. She would never get through newsbabe school with a coiffure like that.
"On streets across America and the world, people are going home. People long given up for dead are showing up at doorsteps of loved ones. It's as if a war has ended and POW's are straggling back. The stories are pouring in here by the thousands. Stories of returning husbands, wives, children, parents, some missing for as long as five years. It's the strangest story I've ever seen.
"In an unrelated story, a major shakeup at Genie today has sent the multinational's stock tumbling, off an incredible thirty percent since noon, dragging other technology stocks down with it."
The way she says it, Karl is sure she's got some of it herself. Poor Omy.
"In fact so many heads are rolling this reporter hasn't been able to contact a spokesperson for comment. And to the chagrin of shareholders assembled on Plat 66 for a shareholders meeting, the entire board of directors of Genesistems rose en masse and walked out, unwilling even to discuss their policies. Visibly shaken, unwilling to speak to reporters, they boarded water taxis and roared off for the mainland. Claire Saylene is there. Claire?"
Saylene stands on the quay, hands on the rail. Karl knows the spot. Not too far from where he did his imitation of a soccer ball. The angle of the visual, from up and out, makes it impossible for the camera to be anywhere except a hovering helicopter."That's right, Omy, Genie's stockholders are in turmoil right now amid the precipitous resignation only moments ago of two thirds of the board of directors. At the moment, the largest genetic technology giant is rudderless.This is Claire Saylene, Plat 66."
"Thank you, Claire, and now to untangle this intriguing situation for us is the indefatigable, the inimitable, the exquisite, Morgana..."
Full face shot as Morgana raises a single slender eyebrowher trademarkand begins in a voice that could slither its way under an elevator door on its knees.
"A society can be only as great as it is willing to be mature, and maturity is what is wanting, here. Does this latest rash of turnings up mean the sky is falling?"
Trademark smile here, really more of a smirk, currently what passes for sophistication, widely imitated. "I think not. Reports are coming in now of some poor lost souls demanding their implants be removed. Others are requesting biocoms be made dysfunctional."
She laughs through a button nose, "Absurd. Obviously what is called for is to put all of this in perspective. There is no evidence this has anything to do with the net. Come on boys and girls, enough with the primitive superstitions, let's get on with our lives, shall we?"
Karl feels a hand on his wrist and he jumps, shocked back to the waiting room. Romy entwines her fingers with his, "You all right?"
Concentrating on the far wall, keeping a handle on it, on himself, just barely, as if pitching in heavy sea, concentrating on a point on the horizon to keep from being sick, he nods, "Yeah, sure."
She lays her other hand on his, "You can do this, it's almost over, you can make it."
Not daring to take his eyes off the wall, he doesn't look at her as he takes two vials out of his jeans, hands one to her.
She rolls the plastic tube in her fingers, holds it up to the light, slips it out of sight under the curious gaze of a waiting patient. "This is the one Raj picked out for me. You palmed it?"
He nods.
She sets it back in his hand, "I can't take it."
It figures. He would have been surprised if she had accepted with no argument. "Yes, you can."
"It's worth what, ten million? You can't be giving that away."
He almost laughs, "Forget the money, right now I've got too damned much of it. I'm giving back what I lost you, that's all. Now take it, have him put it in, and forget about it."
She considers, takes it back, slipping it away, not happy about it.
He hands Willy the second and he drops it into a bulky coat pocket. He gives Karl a nod a high speed vid might miss, making it clear he knows exactly what it is and what to do with it.
Romy watches him curiously, "What about you?"
A nurse carrying an extra thirty kilos comes to the door in skin tight white. "Mr. Kleiner, we're ready for you."
Romy looks at him, puzzled.
He waves, "Be there in a minute."
When the door swings shut behind her, he says, "That's my name, Kleiner." He holds up a vial of his own, sealed in blood red plastic.
"That's not Raj's."
"No, mine, really mine, buried under the front stoop for fifteen years. Guess it's time to be me again."
"But it's against the law. He won't"
"This old bird delivered me, took out my tonsils. I went to school with his daughter."
"I still don't see"
"Twenty years ago she got in some trouble. I got her out. He'll do it. He'll do us at the same time he takes out the implant. Now I've got to get this thing out of my head before I go nuts. Will you just do this for me?"
"You take therapy for your heart I will."
He falls back into his chair. "It's that important to you?"
"It's important."
He thinks it over, thinks what it means that she would ask, likes the way it makes him feel. He goes to the door.
"Deal."
Saturday night ritual.
Dusk, out front of the cafe, they sit in folding beach chairs on the gravel drive, watching the sun drop into the Pacific.
A thermal whispers up from the sea making it shirt sleeve weather.
Mary motions with a long neck bottle in at Willy who's busy mopping, "Does he ever rest?"
Romy smiles, leaning back against Karl's legs, "Rather work than sit, he's fine."
"I'm not worrying. He's my kind of guy. I just don't want to chase him off. Doesn't drink. Doesn't talk too much." Mary sips, swallows, looks at Karl, "Perfect. I guess that gene manipulation stuff works after all, huh?" She takes another pull.
Karl smiles into the dusk. He likes Mary, really likes her, wouldn't change her if she'd let himwhich she wouldn't. He's lucky to have a sister like her, he knows that. Luckier that Romy and she seem to get along, sometimes so well he's a little worried they might gang up on him.
No one speaks for a while and it's all right. By now, they're comfortable just being in each other's company.
"God, will you look at that sky," Mary says. "You paint that they'd call you a damned liar."
Romy finishes her bottle, sets it down.
"Honey, you want another one, you go right on in and grab one out of the cooler. I'd get it for you but an earthquake wouldn't get me out of this chair."
Romy goes inside. Karl watches her talk to Willy. Though he knows it can't last, he thanks God for every second of what he's had with her, for what he has right now.
"You going to marry that woman?"
Shocked, he looks up. In five years, she's never put pressure on him to do anything. Not once. It's been a pact between them, a truce that allowed him to see her when he couldn't see anyone else. She's broken it.
"Oh, and don't look so PO'd. I'm just asking is all. You don't want to answer, just tell me to go right to hell. Go on."
Hiding a smile, loving this woman, his sister, his family, Karl sips his beer. Bitter, not something he likes the taste of at allit's the ritual he likes. Puzzled, he looks over, squinting to make out her face through the gloom, "Now wait just a goddam minute, here, I remember specifically that you said"
"I'm a woman, I can change my mind if I want to. So are you?"
It's nuts.
Any minute Villar and his compañeros or the EPA Gestappo will drop in and she's asking about marriage. "Go to hell." He says it because she expects it, because they've always talked that way, because their dad talked that waya family tradition.
He watches as she tries to stay still, struggles, gives up with a sigh. "I have to ask because, God dammit Karl, she's the best thing ever happened to you, and I'm not sure you're smart enough to know that." She takes a pull, lets it go with a little pop as it breaks suction. "Are you?"
He gets up slowly, closes his eyes for a moment to get his balance. God knows why he drinks the stuff. "Not smart enough, huh?"
"That's what I said."
He folds his chair, tosses it into the back of his pickup with the bottle where they bounce around. He's not touching this oneisn't even going to start down the road. She doesn't know how tight things are. Why tell her? She'd just worry. She's better off not knowing.
"Oh, sure, run off mad."
He leans on the truck, the fender cold, beaded with dew, sighing, exasperated. He never could out-argue her. Against her he's a lightweight, always has been. "I'm not mad, dammit!"
"Yes you are."
Damn her. Nobody can nag like she can. "I am not."
She blows air through pursed lips, "What, I'm supposed to say I'm sorry for saying what we both know is true, that what I'm supposed to say?"
He wishes Romy would get out here. There's no way he can win this one. "No you're not."
Romy comes out carrying a bottle, stops when she sees him by the truck.
"Let's go."
On the edge of the porch she hesitates, "We're going?"
He slides behind the wheel. "Get Willy and hop in."
Mary laughs, "No you don't. He and Bink stay. He can sleep in the third bedroom. I'm getting to like this having help around, and he likes my cooking." She winks. "We had a little talk, it's a done deal."
Stunned, Karl hesitates one foot on the ground, the other on the starter switch. Jesus, he's slow. Romy thanks her for the beer, climbs in, slams the door behind her. Mary waves, calls from her chair as a cat might tease a vole it torments. "See you later, little brother."
Karl's sure she smilestoo dim to see.
"You be sure and think about that, now."
He doesn't answer, just backs out. She had to say it, to put it in words. Now how can he go on ignoring it? The truth is more than obvious. On the cape, among these people, it's the only way. He wants nothing else as much. The question is, what's the point? He's got maybe 24 hours. Not nearly long enough to worry about a future.
As they hit the road, she frowns, face lit by lemon dash light. "Think about what?"
"Nothing," he says, gunning it up the gravel. "Nothing."
That night the wind changes.
Karl can feel it in his knees, see it in the dial thermometer nailed to the porch post as it edges down. By nine it's crowding 20. Low as he's ever seen it.
Stove roaring, ticking, kettle rolling, they cuddle side by side on the couch before it.
"All the upstairs doors closed off and it's still cold enough to hang meat," he says. "Lousy dump takes forever to warm up."
"Don't call it that, it's our fault for letting the fire burn out."
Her affection for the farmhouse pleases him, though it puzzles him as much.
"Why won't you tell me?"
It's been two hours since they left the cafe, but he knows exactly what she's brooding about. "You want to know what she said?"
Romy says nothing.
He knows damn well that's what she wants. "She asked when I was going to marry you."
She stares at the flames.
"I think it's a swell idea. Big crowd over here is all we need when teams start dropping out of the sky. We can issue everybody a vest and flachette carbine at the door of the church."
A tear courses its way down one perfect cheek, to hang at the corner of her mouth. Too late, he shuts his mouth. Slipping an arm around her, he reaches out to wipe her cheek.
She catches his wrist hard, sets it firmly in his lap, wipes her face roughly with the back of her hand. "She said that?"
"She said it."
"She's kind."
He shrugs, "She's my sister."
She looks at him, curious, "And that means..."
"It means she's a good woman, it means I love her."
There in front of the stove, it's as if every window in the house is thrown open, so cold is the feeling he gets.
"I loved my sisters, too."
"I know."
"And I left them."
What can he say? Through her skin he feels appalling emptiness. He knows no magic words to send it away. Logic is all he has to fight it. "If you'd stayed you'd be dead, too. That's the only thing you would have changed." He reaches out to smooth her hair and she lets him. "I'm selfish. I'm glad you didn't. You want to be sorry, go ahead, just don't expect me to be."
She faces him, eyes glistening in firelight.
"You hear me?"
She opens her mouth to answer and the Satcom chirps. "Who now?"
"What?" he says, annoyed.
It's Villar bigger than life, smiling, bumpy head glistening.
Karl drags Romy to the rug, cuts off the satcom eye, whistles off the lamp. Villar's smile can only be bad. He's here, outside, got to be. Why hasn't Bink warned them? He remembers he's at Mary's.
"Karl, you there? All I'm getting is dead air."
Remington in hand, Karl's afraid to answer, afraid to give him any more than he has already. If he knows they're here they're dead already. "I'm here. Be a man, come in yourself, I'll be waiting."
Villar shakes his head, runs a hand over stubble as if he's trying to smooth out the bumps, "That's the thing about you, Karl, you always assume the worst about people. You really got to work on that, man. It's pathological, this cynicism, you know? You've got to live every day like it's your last. Es lo que hago."
"We're happy for you," Romy says.
Karl wishes he were here in the room, wishes it could be over, wishes he could end it all one way or the other in a burst of fire, of noise. "Do you have something to say? Because I'm not listening to you give me suggestions on how I should keep a bright outlook on life while you have an entry team moving up."
Villar looks hurt, "Now there you go again. I com with good news and you treat me like that," he shakes his head sadly. "That's the problem with the world todayeverybody assuming the worst about everybody else. No trust, no belief in humanity."
Karl's heard enough. "Spare me, will you?"
Romy reaches for the Smith, slides to the floor. In the glow of the screen, Karl can see her eyes on him. "What good news? You fell and broke your neck?"
"¡Ay, chingao!" He laughs, "I tell you, Karl, these women of ours have tongues like razors. Sorry, no, other good news. Listen...." He drops his voice, drawing nearer the eye, as if that gave any measure of privacy. "Got a com."
"From who?"
"Forget who." He waves the question away impatiently. "From Genie, said to forget it. They won't be using anybody any more. New people in charge after the shake up. No more of this kind of thing, strictly on the level from now on. New image."
Karl lets the muzzle of the twelve rest on the rug, suddenly exhausted, still wary, "Not to seem cynical, but how do we know this is for real?"
Paolo shakes his head, motions out of range and Erin comes to sit on his lap, "Romy, you there?"
She swats on the pickup, throws herself on the couch, "Erin, my God, where are you?"
"Somewhere in Mexico, along the shore in the middle of nowhere, nothing but sand, turtles and palo verde for klicks. It's lovely, Romy, I wish you could see it. You okay?"
Karl sits, feeling excitement trill through her.
"Yes, oh, yes, I'm fine, now."
"And how is... " Erin's eyes flit to Karl, "Everything?"
Romy smiles at Karl, then says to the screen, "You knew, didn't you."
"Ah...." She sighs, hand to breast, "I'm so glad."
Karl watches, not understanding, not expecting to, recognizing the shorthand conversation of twins.
"So it's true, then, they've forgotten me?"
Villar nods, smiles, "I'm a killer, not a liar." And to Karl, "I'm afraid we may never see each other again, my friend."
Karl smiles, "I'll try and get over it."
Villar raises a hand, "Ah, there, you see how he is. One last thing."
"What's that?"
"Look outside."
Heart leaping, Karl jerks her down on the floor by him. God, he was stupid to fall for this. Any second come the flash-bangs.
Villar sighs, "There you go again, assuming the worst, I tell you, you're hopeless!"
Erin laughs, "It's a present. "
Realizing what this means, Karl turns back to the wall, "How? When?"
Ignoring the question, Villar smiles. "You're pretty lax up there."
"It's okay, Rome," Erin says, "Go look, they won't hurt you."
They?
Revolver on the floor, Romy starts for the door. Karl pulls her back. She turns to regard him with indulgent eyes. "She's my sister. You know what that means. You know what it means to have a sister."
He knows. He knows it means he has to let her go. Chambering a round, he follows, accepting. Whatever waits outside, he won't try to break her faith. Erin's the last of her family. If it's broken trust that waits, neither of them will survive long. He'll kill her himself before he lets them take her. Him he won't have to worry about. Anticipating the impact of a burst of high velocity slugs, he follows her out. What he sees he doesn't understand.
On the gravel drive, arranged in a perfect half-moon are a score of venerable bonsai, arrayed among them as many glow sticks planted in gravel like candles. Mouth agape, Romy stares. Her breath catches, and in the light of the glow he sees her eyes fill.
Erin says, "For you, Romy, for you."
"Karl!" Villar calls. "Hey, Karl."
He turns back to see a smile grow slowly on Villar's face. "What I should have done is cut off the lift and gone up the stairs, that's what I should have done. Then where would you have been, huh? Be seeing you."
With a wave, he's gone.
Karl's just back in from feeding lambs when they come.
Slipping into the house through the back, he slips into his harness, clips on the twelve.
So soon.
That's all he can think. It's over so soon. Before they really had much of a chance to get to know each other it's over. He could take her and leave. Go to live in the city. It's an option, a chanceif he wants it.
He cycles the action, slips into his jacket.
He doesn't want it.
Romy is down the stairs and beside him, "Who is it?"
"EPA, two hummers." He takes down her coat, wraps her in it, hustles her to the door, "I want you to go out right now, head on down to the highway, don't even stop to talk to them."
She resists, face suspicious, "Why, why should I go?"
There's no time for this, now. He pushes harder. She gives in to his force unexpectedly, what Willy taught her so well, and he almost loses his balance. He stops, stares at her, realizing if she doesn't want to go he can't make her. "Dammit, will you just go?"
Watching him with eyes that look a century old, she stays where she is. "I asked you what you are going to do."
"What I have to, that's all, they're not taking this place."
She comes close, slipping a hand inside his jacket, "We both know that, so don't ask me to leave." She takes the .44 out from under his arm, "Don't ever tell me to leave again, you understand me?"
He understands. She's more than he deserves. And now it's over. Like that it's gone.
Sweeping up her coat, slipping the gun into a deep pocket, she opens the door, "Let's hear what they have to say."
Outside, they stop halfway to the lead hummer, watching as four agents climb out. Karl sees three carry carbines, the fourth, has only a tablet.
"Karl Kleiner?"
Karl steps a pace to the left, opening a field of fire to all three, and putting the guy with the tablet between him and the second two if he should need cover. It'll be quick. Two seconds, is his guess. If he can get the first shots in, he's got a chance. The first one he'll take out will be the one closest to Romy. He doesn't miss she might make it through it. "That's me."
"Agent Milkerson, EPA," he says, taking in the view. "You're way out here, aren't you?"
Karl doesn't want to talk, doesn't want to get to know the man he's going to kill, doesn't want anything but to get it over with. "Yeah."
Romy keeps the revolver out of sight. "What brings you out here?"
He consults the tablet, "I need a decision."
This isn't what Karl expected. From the corner of his eye Karl sees the three agents lean relaxed on the hood of the second hummer. One is actually turned away. Where they are he can take them all out in a second. "A decision?"
Milkerson nods. "That's right. According to what I've got from D.C., you've got a choice to make. I've come out here to find out what it is."
Karl looks at Romy, sees she's as confused as he is. He debates opening his coat and finishing the discussion right now, but forces his hand away from the shotgun under his arm.
Romy steps closer, "The answer's no."
Milkerson looks confused. He laughs, "No? I'm afraid that's not on the list of options."
Romy says, "I just put it there."
Something in her tone makes Milkerson take a step back, hands out, one still holding the tablet, "Hey, hey, let's understand each other. I'm here to set up rates on the cabin or whatever it is you've got to rent to wilderness trekkers. You with the program on that?"
Karl thumbs the safety back on under his coat, "Rates?"
"That's right, I mean it's one thing to say you've got a wilderness site for rent, but people got to know how much and what you've got to offer if you want to get it in the guides, so let's see what you got."
Numb, Karl stares, "Rent?"
"Yeah, here, look for yourself. You are Kleiner, you said, right? I've got the right place?" He hands Karl the tablet.
Romy edges close and a butterfly trembling in his chest, Karl sees that's what it says.
"Auri," she says into his ear. "Before she died, she fixed it."
At the time he didn't believe her. Now he sees it must have been true.
"So, what do you say, you show me the cabin and I get on down to that cafe for lunch, huh?"
"Yeah," Karl manages to say, leading him down to it, Romy with him.
When Milkerson sees it, he stops, "Christ on a crutch, there are pigs in there, it's a mess."
"It's a pigsty," Romy says.
"Well, I don't know," Milkerson says, "that's a bit too rustic even for nature freaks."
"We'll clean it," Romy says, "It'll be ready."
Doubtful, he scratches his head, "Whatever you say." He leads the way back up the path to the hummer, opens the door, scrapes mud off his shoes on the inside of the door. "I don't know who you know, but they must have one hell of a lot of juice is all I can say. Passing up the whole damned cape, leaving you all right where you sit when for two hundred miles around you..." He shakes his head. "Nobody. You must live right, huh?"
Karl says, "Maybe so."
Milkerson's eyes narrow, he raises a finger to Romy, "Know who you remind me of?"
Romy smiles, makes a face, "Everybody says that. Sorry, to disappoint you."
Karl says a silent prayer of thanks he cut her hair.
Milkerson marvels, "It's incredible."
Bored, Romy laughs, "So they say."
A final narrow look and he slams the door behind him, "See you, now."
They watch them go.
"Well," she says, guiding him back up the hill, "it looks like we have some cleaning to do."
Rattling down the road to town in the pickup, Karl drops a tablet in Romy's lap.
"What's this?"
"Just some coms for Mary to send."
"I can see that, but to whom?"
"To all my old girlfriends. Go ahead and look."
She scrolls through one by one, reading the names aloud.
"Who's this?"
" Raj's little helper, remember?"
She smiles, "Ah, I remember, cute little thing."
"Cut it out."
"What's in the file?"
"An account number."
"Let me guess, a bill each, am I right?"
He downshifts as they churn their way down the grade. "You are."
"Lynette, poor thing, won't have to sling hash any more." At the next one she frowns. "Gladys Guttenick?"
"The woman at the thrift store."
She gasps, "She turned us in!"
He shrugs, "She warned us, too."
"So, she gets a billion and my shoes, too? No fair. What about this one?"
"Tate's daughter, PI found her for me."
"Eli and Clio, ah, so you remembered them. How about your neighbor, the one with the broken arm?"
Karl laughs. "Rock? What's he want money for? It'd just ruin him."
He sees mischief in her eyes, "And how much are you keeping?"
"What he took from me."
"What about the rest?"
He pulls up in front of the cafe, jerks the brake on from under the dash. "I'll think of something."
They go in. Mary slaps them on some sausage. Karl looks around for something to do and comes up empty. He notices Mel working over a tray, busing tables and stands, transfixed. "Jesus, what happened, Mel see the light?"
"As a matter of fact," Mary says, "he did."
From the sink, Willy looks over his shoulder, and Karl understands.
Turning links, Mary tilts her head, eyes narrow, "Read something in the paper about that nice old man came up to check on you five years ago. Was wondering if you knew anything about it."
Conscious of Romy's eyes on him, he shrugs.
With wet hands, she grabbed a tablet, propped it against some mugs. "Here it is: 'Financial markets reeled today with news of the creation of the Magnus Tate Endowment. With its funding source thus far remaining anonymous, the endowment dwarfs the MacArthur Foundation by sheer magnitude of principle. Named for a minor functionary in the Justice Department recently deceased in a murder suicide, the Tate endowment is to have as its sole purpose the elimination of implant and Biocom technology.'" She turns suspicious eyes on Karl as he hauls Romy to the door.
"You wouldn't have anything to do with that, now would you little brother?"
"Be right back, want to show Romy the cove."
"Hey, your links..."
"Keep them warm."
"You didn't answer my question."
The door clangs shut behind them and Karl waves to her through the glass as they go.
At the door she calls after them. "Thought that was you. Mind the sneaker waves now."
Live oak swaying overhead, Karl follows Romy down a path winding to the sea.
Unable to resist, he glances up, searching the limbs overhead and is reassured to find them empty, lichen hanging in long tresses, undisturbed.
"It's the place in UR," she says, hesitating.
He takes her hand, urging her on, "No, it's not the same at all."
"How do you know this place?" she says, voice raised against sea and wind as they pick their way down steps worn deep in sandstone.
"Came here as a kid. Carved these steps with a hatchet."
"You and Mary?"
He never brought anyone here. It was where he came when at his lowest, his most humiliated. His place of refuge. "Just me."
She stops ahead of him so that he nearly runs her over, nuzzling her face against his neck. "No girls, then, I suppose?"
"Only one," he says, passing by her glare.
Close on his tracks, she follows, "Who? Who did you bring?"
He smiles into the wind, elated by mischief. "What's it matter who?"
At the bottom, a small cove opens before them, barely a hundred paces wide, a private outlook on the sea. Wind peppers them with every surge of surf. Polished pebbles grate and slide under their feet as they move closer to where sea claws land.
"I want to know, tell me."
He loves this place. More than any other place on the earth, it's where he belongs, where he has to be. Without it there would be no reason to eat, sleep, rise. Stupid, he suspects to feel that way about one particular speck of land on an endless coastor about one particular woman.
He stops, turns, yells over the roar, "What do you want to know?"
She presses herself against him, skin of his jacket in her fists, "What was she to you?"
He can see the jealously in her eyes, hatred, too. Oh, yes, she's a woman all right. It's mean to go on, but the kick he gets teasing won't let him quit, "A friend, closest I've ever had, a lover, all I've ever needed."
Her face falls. When she turns away, he catches her arm. For a second he's afraid she'll throw him but she doesn't. She lets herself be caught and held, keeping sea-green eyes on breakers as they roll in, thundering on rocks only paces away.
Why is he being so cruel? Why can't he stop?
A gust of wind slaps them with cold spray and she doesn't even flinch. Though salt must sting her eyes, she keeps them on the sea. He wipes water from his eyes with the back of a hand, blows a droplet off the end of his nose.
"It must be nice to have a friend that close," she says.
Ashamed, he wraps her in his arms, watches her face, trying to do what he hasn't tried to do for twenty years. Trying to do what he's afraid to, what he's promised himself he never will: he sends.
A long moment she stands, face to the horizon. At last, slowly, her eyes move to his face. Shaking with cold, she laughs, eyes brimming, "You jerk."
What he asks her then she gets as soon as he forms the question. Her arms snake around him under his jacket, and deep into his marrow.
Wind rocking them, she says nothing.
Her hold on him is her answer.
Bright overcast morning two years hence.
Romy scrubs dishes at the sink. Eggs, dried hard, scalding water, her mug of teaall part of the routineone she loves. Out the window, she watches Karl follow the rototiller. Overhead valves droning, he breaks ground for spring seed.
Reaching for her mug, she finds it empty, a few peppermint leaves awash at the bottom. Setting the kettle on to boil, she is suddenly conscious of quiet. In a breath she panicsAria!
Running for the door, icy hand at the nape of her neck, she stops, breathing again, halfway out the screen.
Aria, barefoot, in diaper and shirt barely reaching her navel, teeters, face all rapt concentration. Balancing on curled toes, fists clutched to her chest, she trails Karl, leaving small prints in freshly turned earth.
Sensing Romy behind her, she turns and, at once, loses her balance, falling forward to kiss dirt. Up she comes with blackened lips. Unconcerned, even delighted, she sees Romy and at once, her face crumbles.
With a startlingly keen sense of deja vu, Romy goes to her, falls to her knees in pillowy earth. Sweeping her up, she presses Aria to her heart, laughter that is more than laughter tightening her throat.
Turning the tiller, Karl sees them, kills it, lets it fall forward, silent. "Exploring is she?"
"Oh, yeah," Romy says, jostling her on her hip, "Aria fell, didn't she?"
Karl drops beside them, wrapping them both in dust-blackened arms. Together they laugh as Aria, secure between them, reveling in the heat of the love-crush, does her best to justify their concern with wailing and tears.
On their knees they rock, Romy rootedto man, to child, to earth.
And, at this moment, eyes raised to overcast sky, Romy knows.
The dreamfinally she knows how it ends.