Eden's Jester (9 page)

“Of course I’m sure, you idiot. And whoever did it, did it good. Nuclear material from the missiles has been blasted into the stratosphere. It’ll be raining down on who knows where for weeks. We can’t focus all our response to cleaning it up because we don’t know what’s coming next. Now, if you’ll excuse us . . . I have to put my whole domain on high alert, recall most of my muscle, and figure out who hit us so I can smash their testicles with a brick.”

Crap. I guess I blew up the wrong truck.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I remember the day I was created, or awoke, whichever flavor you prefer. We remember everything about that day. An awakening is a very private thing. It’s a moment of pure joy, as the mind fires up for the first time and begins to take in the surroundings. It begins to understand, to know. The first voice one hears sounds like the universe itself is speaking with you. At least it seemed that way to me.
 

It’s at that moment Engineers become aware of being a member of a Discipline. You know your name. You know where you fit, and you’re that way for life. You have identity, function, and purpose.
 

As I had told Rolic, I got zip, nothing. Well, I got five words. I got a name . . . and I got brief instructions. But there was no mention of any Discipline or where I was to fit into the Endeavor, and I’ve never understood the instructions. So I’ve made the best of it.
 

Unfortunately, my best is usually substandard according to popular opinion. The problem is that I get ideas. When I look at a situation, things occur to me that should be done, and I’m certain--dead certain--that they are the right and necessary things to do. So I do them. Later, when asked why I did them, the answer is invariably, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” I can’t explain it better than that. As you can imagine, stodgy types such as Aeson and Melanthios rarely see the merit of such an explanation. Like the time when I appeared in great glory to that guy in the desert--I saw him and it occurred to me that this guy had potential. But he was alone in the wilderness, with nowhere to go. What he needed was a mission. So I gave him one.
 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But I try. Sometimes there are unintended consequences, that’s all.
 

So now that Melanthios was busy I could focus on things that mattered. What I needed to do was speak with Death and find out what was going on in his macabre little mind. But one doesn’t find Death. He finds you. And he was keeping a low profile. He owed me big for this one. No, that was a dead end.
 

The only other person I knew was involved was Aeson. I’d have to go back to Hong Kong and speak with him. If he knew I was the one who destroyed Diomedes’ ship, I’d be in trouble. Hopefully Melanthios was keeping that under wraps.
 

Aeson was paranoid. I’ve watched him for a long time, so I believed I could gauge his reactions accurately. Maybe I could learn something from a harmless encounter.

I made my way to Hong Kong, where Aeson kept an estate. It was a large complex of bamboo buildings on the harbor, nestled between two thriving merchant communities.
 

Chinese junks filled the water and the sounds of the hustle and bustle of daily life came from everywhere. I liked the harbor here. It was a vast ecosystem of such variety and activity that you couldn’t help but admire the art of it. Aeson liked it too.

I approached the main building and went inside, where I was met by a young Chinese lady in traditional silk robes of yellow and red. There was no receptionist desk. This was more like a home than an office.
 

She opened the large ornate doors and greeted me with a warm, genuine smile. She obviously didn’t know her boss very well.

“Can I help you, sir?” She asked with a slight bow.

“I’m Mr. Elson. I would like to see Mr. Aeson. Please tell him it’s concerning a mutual friend who’s in jail.”
 

“Please come in.” She backed up, allowing me to come through the doorway, and gestured to a mat on the floor by a table. “Would you like some tea while you wait?”

“No, thanks. I’ll just wait.”

She hurried off, leaving me alone, which gave me some time to inspect the environment. I’d been here before, about fifty years ago, but things had changed. There was more ambient energy about. I could sense the presence of several enforcer types lurking about in either the astral or ethereal planes. Aeson was in a defensive posture.
 

I also sensed something else: a strange breeze in the ambient energy fields. An ethereal river ran through them and around them. I couldn’t place it, but there was a stale sense to it. “Grey” was the best way to describe the dusty smell--dull and void, but real and there at the same time. I didn’t like it, whatever it was.

The young lady returned before I could analyze it further.
 

“Mr. Aeson will see you now, sir,” she said with another bow. She took me down a hall and up some stairs to another level.
 

In a large room, Aeson was alone--except for about a dozen stuffed lions, tigers, and other large cats. If there were an Interior Designer Discipline, they’d have had an aneurism at this aesthetic travesty. The room was a mishmash of English antiques, southwestern pottery and furniture, stuffed animals, and Chinese art. The most unsettling thing, however, was the glass wall that constituted an entire side of the room. Behind the glass was a nature scene of tropical plants and rocks—and lots of spider webs. Something stirred within. I stepped over to get a closer look. Staring back at me from under a large leafy fern was the largest spider I had ever seen. It was as big as a large house cat, and it didn’t look like one of those fat, slow spiders, either.

“Nice place you have here, Aeson. Who’s your decorator?” I asked.

Aeson stood behind a desk made of a slice cut from what looked like a petrified Sequoia. He leaned forward, knuckles to wood, reading something. He didn’t look up from his work.
 

“No one you know, Elson. Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, if you please. I’m busy and you’re a pest. What do you want?”
 

Ah. He was grumpy. That meant things were not going according to plan, which meant that Aeson wasn’t staging this whole thing, probably.
 

“What’s with the pet?” I asked.

“Nostalgia, mostly. One of our best developments, I believe.”

“One of your best developments is the man-eating spider?” I asked.

He looked up from his work and was about to answer, but stopped and frowned. “Where on earth did you get that suit?” he asked.
 

“It was a gift,” I said.

With a wave of the hand he dismissed the issue and walked over to the wall. “Look at it. It is the perfect killing machine. By its very nature, it forces other creatures to be better, stronger--or they die and are replaced. The spider is one of the best innovations in evolution through competition.”

“Kind of direct, don’t you think?” I asked.

“Really? Do you know why people fear spiders, Elson? I’ll tell you. Because ages ago, deep in human pre-history, assets such as my friend there roamed most areas inhabited by people. Spiders were much larger then, capable of killing and eating a fully-grown human. Fear of them and competition with them forced man to overcome his weakness and to fight. After millennia of conflict, the humans won and the great spiders disappeared. It is a pity, but these marvelous creatures fulfilled their purpose. Now man is better for it, though some of the residual racial memories of the horror remain. So people fear their smaller brethren still.” He looked wistfully into the tank, obviously remembering the good old days of killer spiders and missing children.
 

Charming.
 

“You really believe that that kind of competition, that kind of horror, is a healthy means of evolution?” I asked.

“Certainly. Though, admittedly most of my company do not agree. Most believe that man competing with man and with his environment is a sufficient and more humane approach.
 

“But you should have seen it in the old days. The heights that true horror led men to . . . were far beyond what we achieve today. It was a golden age when men struggled to be on the top of the food chain instead of somewhere significantly lower. It led men down from the trees and into the cities. It brought us to where we are. But we have stalled, I think . . .” He trailed off into another wistful silence, gazing lovingly into all eight eyes of the spider.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Aeson, but the Discipline of Society doesn’t employ Engineers from Biology, or Creep-ology. So how’d you manage to develop said monsters?”

“You would be surprised, Elson, at how many in the Discipline of Biology were eager to experiment in that manner. In fact, their farms were full of possibilities in those days.”
 

Engineers in the Bio Disciplines called their labs “farms.” I guess it sounded more wholesome that way. They’re very secretive about them, and it’s difficult to get a tour. They’ve been criticized often over the eons for creating what they should not. You’d think this wouldn’t be hard to figure out. No one complained about things like oranges and grapefruit. But that poison ivy thing was a complete debacle. And don’t get me started about the poppy; like
that
was a good idea. In my book, giant man-eating anything fell into the category of “don’t-try-this-at-home.”

 
I decided to change the subject before I got sick, and moved away from Fluffy, Pet of Death, to sit on a strange chair made of what looked like a frozen cactus.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re not making any friends in North America, Aeson,” I said.

 
He spun to face me. “You are a bloody prophet, Elson. But friendship is not exactly my priority at the moment. I’m sure you’ve heard about my agents in North America. That was an act of war, not friendship.”

“Yeah. I heard about that. Pity.” I snapped a thorn off the chair and examined it. “Is this chair supposed to be comfortable?”

Aeson stepped toward me and looked ready to explode, or implode, or do something sudden.
 

“It’s a work of art, you idiot. It’s not supposed to be functional,” he growled. “Now, I am busy. So please, either tell me what you want or get out. I have things to do.”

“Right. Busy. I got that. I’m here to help.”

“Help? How?”

“I’m going to find out why someone is seriously pissed at you. As it seems that this is the case.”

His eyes narrowed. “Elson, what makes you think I want you snooping around in my affairs?”

I stood up to get away from the chair-thing. “Well, for starters I think you don’t have a clue.” I was pretty sure about that, since I knew that at least one mythical creature was involved. “And I think you need to know. You’re flying blind and it’s a bad time for that, I’m guessing.”
 

 
Aeson focused on me. I had gotten his attention. “And how will you do that?”

“I have contacts in key places who will help me figure out what’s going on. You know me. I can get into the nooks and crannies and ferret out the truth. Once I find out, I’ll tell you, and we can all be happy buddies again. No one will have to hold anyone hostage.”

“You’re referring to Diomedes, I presume,” he said. I wondered how many other hostages he had. His posture changed slightly. But it was enough to reveal that I didn’t really understand what was going on. He was becoming threatened. Not what I expected. “How did you know about that?” he asked.

“Like I said, I have contacts in key places. I’ll find out what’s at the bottom of it. Trust me. I’ll leave no stone unturned. You get the idea. I’ve already made inquiries with my sources inside of Thought.”
 

He considered that for a moment, then the ambient energy in the room went to just south of nil. Which meant I was trapped. Without access to ambient energy, I’d have to convert some form of mass into energy to do anything, and that would be tricky and dangerous. I still couldn’t manage it without catastrophic results. Typically, I was after catastrophic results, so that normally wasn’t a problem. But in this case, I couldn’t risk doing anything that might make it more difficult to find Diomedes in the future.
 

“Unfortunate for you, Elson,” he said. Several enforcers appeared instantly and surrounded me. “Secure that idiot,” Aeson said, pointing my way. There must have been other idiots about, and he wanted to avoid any confusion.

“Come on Aeson,” I said as I felt sticky tendrils entangling my soul. I was caught. “I really am here to help, man.”

Aeson touched something on his desk and a wall panel slide away, revealing an elevator. He stepped in and turned to face me. “Time to go, Elson. Come on.” He gestured for me to follow. Rough hands pushed me forward.

The elevator descended a few stories before opening into another large room. Art deco polished steel and light wood panels gave the room a futuristic-retro look that the rich seemed to like. It felt like a museum to me.
 

We exited the elevator and I became aware of more enforcers in the shadows.
 

There was only one other feature in the room, a large vault door that looked like it had been stolen from Fort Knox. It was perhaps twenty feet in diameter and round except for the flat side that held the massive hinges.