Eternal Life Inc. (19 page)

Harry glanced over at Diana, trying to gage how she was taking this. She sat ramrod straight, her face impassive, staring at the far wall of the truck stop interior without once glancing at the holo-screen. She reminded him of someone at a funeral.

“I was so blind. I didn’t even see the cracks in Rielly’s picture perfect world. I didn’t see the slaves. And they were everywhere. You couldn’t miss them unless you were blind and brain dead.” She grinned her hideous clowns grin. “That was me, blind and brain dead. I mean, how do you miss seeing all those people working the fields every day, riding grav-carts filled with sacks, serving me breakfast every morning.” She shook her head in disgust. “See what I mean?” She tapped the side of her head with her finger. “Brain dead.

“I was out riding one day. I loved riding those beautiful, streamlined horses. They could run like the wind and all you had to do was think a thought at them and they reacted. I rode out of the city on one of those ruler-straight avenues. Nobody tried to stop me. In those days I had the run of the country, famous scientist, working directly with the boss, sharing his bed. I didn’t
notice the looks of contempt behind my back.

“Lots I didn’t notice. Like those wolves that were everywhere following people…only they weren’t following people, people were following them, and it became pretty clear, pretty fast that there were more and more of them coming in every day, and I didn’t even ask where they were coming from!” She reached for the bottle again and shook her head and stopped. “Better not,” she said and waggled her finger at the bottle. “Gotta finish this first.”

“I’ve picked up a couple things from this rat bag inside me. His mind leaks like a sieve and most of the time you really don’t want to see what’s leaking out but every once in a while, you get something useful.

She raised a warning finger. “You don’t have to worry about him getting into my mind,” she said. “All he’s interested in is getting possession and riding his little, alien sex toy into the ground. Even if he did pick up something, no one would pay any attention. He’s one of the “lost ones” that didn’t fuse and take complete possession. Everyone knows they’re as mad as hatters. Hell, they all are, but even by their standards, this guy’s off the charts.

“Now listen, Di, this is important,” she said and sat up and looked straight into the camera. “They’ve got seers, like Jake, who have been left out on the astral plane for so long they’re as transparent as their kas and can see right through the twisted snarl of timeline futures, and they’re looking for us.

“They call us the dark twins, and they know about the King of the Dead. There’s someone else too. Someone called the Angel of Death. I don’t remember Jake ever talking about her. Whoever she is, she’s on our side…kinda, I think. The wolves don’t know who she is or who we are or who the King of the Dead is, but they know we exist. They call us the Trinity of Power. Their seers are telling them that together we might be able to close them down permanently, and they’re scared spitless and will do anything to
find us.

But mostly it’s like Jake said, it’s all about the King of the Dead. Without him we can do nothing, but without us he might still beat them. It’s just that without us the odds against him increase a thousand fold. The Anubis know this. That’s why they want to find him so badly, but that doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten us.

“I think that monogram I wrote turned their spotlight on me. I think I may have revealed more than I realized. I suspect one of those seers told Rielly to bring me in. Jake was right to separate us and hide the fact we were his twins. But they still suspect. I think I can keep this piece of shit inside me from finding out or saying anything, but be careful, Di.”

She leaned back. “I think that’s all,” she said, “except for one last thing. They’ve planted a Nano Tree, maybe more than one. It’s growing fifty miles north of here, feeding on the lightning it pulls in. Every once in a while I can feel the earth tremors here in Las Vegas. You know what that means, don’t you?”

She stood up with an air of sudden finality. “I’ll try to get this out to you somehow,” she said. “Now, I think I have to go powder my nose.” She patted her scorched clown’s face and giggled. She started to turn away and hesitated, looking back into the camera. “I’m sorry, Di,” she said. “I’m sorry for everything. Watch your back. I love you.”

The screen turned into a pixel haze and stayed that way for quite a while.

31

An Unwelcome Guest Comes Calling

Harry stared silently at the pixels until the screen finally dissolved back into the rain-streaked Ryoanji gardens. He had so many questions he didn’t know where to begin, but Diana forestalled them all by saying, “Two weeks ago Isis discovered that she was three months pregnant.

“Oh no!” Harry said. “I’m so sorry, Di.”

Diana eyed him curiously as if she hadn’t expected such spontaneous sympathy. She hooked one of the dark wings of raven hair behind her ear and said, “She knew she had to stop drinking, and she had to keep the mad Anubis sharing her body from finding out about the baby. She didn’t know what damage the alcohol had done already or what the Anubis would do to the fetus if he found out, and it was only a matter of time before he did. All she knew was, she had to get away fast.

“As she said, they weren’t watching her closely so she began making plans. Then she learned that the Nano tree was full grown, and the wolves were planning to use it to move the Nevada Quarantine prior to the buildup for an invasion of earth. Suddenly, she realized there was no time left.

“Just a minute!” Harry interrupted. “Move the Nevada Quarantine? Where? How?”

Both Jericho and Diana stared at him blankly. “Haven’t you heard?” Jericho said. “It’s been all over the news this morning.”

Harry shook his head and once again heard Chueh’s admonition. “You should follow the news better, Harry.”

“Sometime last night, the Nevada Quarantine vanished,” Jericho said. “Where it used to be is just a blank, gray wall of what looks like petrified fog. The latest reports say that ships sent into it reappear instantly on the opposite side of what was once
the border of the Nevada Quarantine as if there’s nothing in between.”

“That’s impossible!” Harry said.

Jericho shrugged. “It happened.”

“But moved it where?” Harry asked.

“When I found Isis,” Diana said, “she was raving about how she had to get out before they moved the Nevada Quarantine out of our universe, whatever that means.” She glanced at Jericho and quickly looked away.

Something else they’re not telling me, Harry thought, and filed it away for future reference.

“Once Isis learned the wolves were planning to move the Nevada Quarantine, she knew she had to act quickly,” Diana continued. “But even so, she was determined not to leave empty-handed and decided to steal an Anubis Pathfinder. She knew it was now or never, that the chance would never come again.”

“What’s a Pathfinder?” Harry interrupted.

Diana glanced at Jericho. The old man’s features remained pokerfaced noncommittal. It was her call. After a momentary hesitation she said, “The Pathfinder contains the most valuable, most closely guarded secret of the Anubis Empire, the location of their racial home world. Only Anubis high priests carry them. It allows them to cross the astral plane to any of their colony worlds and find their way home again, and just now, a large number of high priests, representing the various castes and crèches, chose to be in the Nevada Quarantine to oversee the invasion buildup.

“Somehow, Isis stole a Pathfinder from one of them. It was an insane, impossible, wonderful thing to do. Then, she stole a horse, started a diversion to cover her escape, and managed to get out of the Nevada Quarantine moments before it shifted out of our universe. After that, she used the vampire to call me.

“I homed in on the Vampire and found her in the jungle south of what had been the border of the Nevada Quarantine. Her
horse lay dead from exhaustion beside her, and she wasn’t in much better shape. She’d been fighting off possession from the wolf inside her for days. He kept breaking lose, trying to submerge her; and she kept fighting back, trying to protect the secret of her planned escape and her unborn child. In the end, she had to start drinking again.

“When I found her, she was too exhausted to defend herself, and the wolf inside found out everything; about me, Jake Lloyd, the dark twins, and the unborn baby, and he went over the top berserk, tearing at her mind, trying to take over and get this knowledge back to his race.

“I went…”She hesitated, changed her mind and said, “I had to stop him before he drove her insane or killed the baby. That’s when I got these,” she said, rubbing the sleeve of her blouse that covered the blistering marks of the wolf she wore on her arm. “I went into her mind with my ka and confronted him.”

“You could do that?” Harry asked, astonished.

She smiled sadly. “Valkyrie,” she said as if that explained everything. She shook her head. “I’ve never faced anything like that before,” she added, and Harry wondered just what she had faced before.

“On the other hand, that insane piece of garbage never faced anything like me,” she said with a streetwise, predatory grin. “I wanted him either dead, or out of Isis, preferably both; but his ka was so entwined with hers that I had to settle for hurting him enough to give Isis a fighting chance while he retreated to lick his wounds.

“I was determined to go back in later and finish the job but first, I had to get her to Doctor Jericho as fast as I could. His island was closest and better defended than the Imperial Palace. I was sure we would be safe there for the night. Unfortunately, I misjudged Rielly Laughing Wolf and the Anubis.”

“They broke through my defenses,” Jericho said. “Shut them down. They used that quantum back door I didn’t know about,”
he added sourly and glanced at Diana.

“I know I should have told you,” Diana said. “But it was a Church secret, and I was still bound by my vows as a Valkyrie.” She shook her head. “Another mistake,” she said bitterly.

“To make a long story short, they took her back,” Diana said. “They had a weirding woman with them and walked right through a hole in the wall of Jericho’s study. Rielly was the first one through. He wanted Isis. He had an Anubis high priest and one of his warriors with him. They wanted the Pathfinder.

“When we wouldn’t give it to him, the high priest tried to crack open our minds. Those priests are masters of telepathic mind control, but he didn’t know he was dealing with a trained Valkyrie and Jericho´s eidolon artificial intelligence. When he met a blank wall of resistance, he went mad with frustration and ordered his warrior to just kill us. It would have too if it hadn’t been for Jericho’s eidolon.”

“He and Diana killed the warrior,” Jericho said.

Diana shrugged. “It was careless, expecting an easy kill, just a woman and an old man. It was armed and could have just burned us down, but its predator nature wanted the taste of tooth and claw blood. Big mistake!”

“And Isis?” Harry asked.

Diana grimaced. “Rielly grabbed her and jumped back through the hole in the wall while her super Valkyrie sister was busy helping to kill an Anubis Warrior. Isn´t that a laugh?” Diana said. “It was my job to take care of her. She sure couldn’t take care of herself. She had to use all her strength to keep from being swamped by that thing inside her. When Rielly grabbed her, she had nothing left to resist with.

“By the time we killed the warrior, Rielly and Isis were gone, and the high priest hardly had time to get out before the hole closed behind him.” Diana stopped. She didn’t look at him but just stared straight ahead, watching a guilt-laden beast of burden march across the inner landscape of her mind.

Harry had said all he had to say about that. He had nothing to add. He could only try to divert her attention. “What happened to the Pathfinder?” he asked.

Diana turned her head slowly and looked at him. He could almost see her mind come back into focus. Then, she smiled, showing a lot of teeth. It wasn’t a pretty smile. “I’ve got it,” she said with an almost feral growl. “And I’m going to use it to get my sister back and make sure those sons of bitches never come back again, and you’re going to help me.”

It looked like his little diversion had worked, Harry thought. The irritating, self-reliant, pissed-off Valkyrie was back in the saddle again. “Why should I?” he asked.

“Because you’re already a part of this,” she said impatiently. “The wolves think you may be the King of the Dead. Jericho thinks so to. Personally, I have my doubts. There’s one other who might be more suitable.” She shrugged. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Harry said and gave her his crooked Harry Neuman blockbuster smile that was known to make woman melt like butter.

Diana didn’t melt. “My pleasure,” she said coolly.

Harry shrugged. You win some, you lose some. “How do you expect to get her back?” he asked. “You said yourself they moved the Nevada Quarantine out of our universe. How do you get back in?”

“The Pathfinder is the key. It’ll unlock the door to the Nevada Quarantine wherever it is,” she said. “I can’t tell you anymore. I’m leaving tomorrow morning. If you agree to come with me, I’ll tell you everything on the way. You should probably stay here tonight though.”

Harry shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he said. “‘I made a promise I cannot break / to walk through the inside of out / into the upside of down / my soul at stake…’”

Diana was unable to conceal a startled look of surprise. She
was still finding it difficult to make the Hollywood playboy image fit someone who could quote from an obscure, apocryphal proverb attributed to the Prophet General of “The Book of She”.

“Is there a problem?” Harry asked with a knowing smile.

Her eyes flared with momentary irritation and then, icy Valkyrie control took over again. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning early,” she said. “With or without you.”

“I’m sure Harry can make it by then,” Jericho said reasonably.

Harry didn’t think so. If he was going to make sure Susan got safely past the Seattle firewall and into the Canadian wilderness, he was going to have to follow her there. His conscience would allow nothing less. That meant the earliest he could be back was the day after tomorrow, probably later. “I can’t do it, Doc,” he said. “I’m sorry, but there’s something I promised to do, and it’s going to take a day or two.”

“Break the promise,” Jericho said.

Harry shook his head. “Can’t do it, Doc,” he said and turned to Diana. “If you could just give me a day or two,” he pleaded, “I’m sure…”

A soft musical chime indicated that someone was at the door. Harry looked questioningly at Jericho. The old man ignored him as he accessed the data-sphere in his glasses. Then he nodded and smiled to Diana. “Our last guest has arrived,” he said. “Better late than never.”

The door slid open and Roger Morely strode in, flushed and rumpled with his tie askew and his curly ginger hair in tousled disarray.

Harry jumped up. “What’s he doing here?” he asked, glaring at Roger and bracing himself for a vision of a black wolf snapping and snarling in his face.

“Take it easy, Harry,” Doc said calmly. “I asked Roger to come. He’s got some…”

“You asked Roger to come?” Harry cried in amazement. “Don’t you know what he…?” Harry stopped. He couldn’t betray
Susan’s confidence. Who knew what Roger would do if he found out what Susan had told him? If he suspected she was leaving…

“What?” Roger asked as he strode in. “Know what, Harry?” he asked with his usual good ol’ boy, used car salesman’s grin. “Come on, can’t we just let bygones be bygones?” he asked and offered his hand in a friendly handshake.

Harry saw the glint of gold from the heavy signet ring on his finger. He remembered the deep gash across Susan’s cheek where a ring had slashed open the soft flesh. “Screw you!” he said, his body shaking with rage, his hands balling into fists.

He turned to Doc. “Is he in on this?”

“Look, Harry if you’ll just calm down.”

“Well, is he?”

“If you mean have we been sharing information, the answer is yes. Roger is helping us…”

“Bullshit!” Harry shouted. “Doc you don’t know what this guy is, what he’s capable of.” Harry stopped in frustration. What could he say that wouldn’t expose Susan to Roger’s vengeance?

“What do you mean?” Roger asked, flushing brick red with anger. “What are you accusing me of, Harry? I know we’ve had our differences in the past, and god knows I’m no angel, but if you got something to say then just spit it out!”

Harry turned to Doc. “Don’t do this,” he begged. “For Diana’s safety, if not for your own. Think twice about letting Roger in on anymore of this.”

“I think I can take care of myself,” Diana suddenly broke in. “We’re not in one of your Hollywood extravaganzas, and I don’t need some big, strong, block-busting he-man to protect me, thank you very much!” She eyed him coldly. “I’ve discussed this thoroughly with Doctor Jericho and Mr. Morely and have every confidence in them.”

“But you can’t!” Harry said turning to Jericho in desperation. “Doc, don’t let her do it! You can’t trust Roger. There are things you don’t know.”

“What things?” Roger asked his voice low and dangerous. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

Harry ignored him. “Doc, give me a chance. Give me just one more day.”

Doc eyed him skeptically. “I don’t know, Harry,” he hesitated and looked at Diana. “We don’t have much time.”

Harry looked at Diana, but she refused to meet his gaze. “Just one day. Please, Doc, can’t you put off whatever you’re planning with Roger for just one more day.” He looked at his watch. “Just twenty-four hours that’s all.”

“If you know something, why can’t you tell us now?” Diana asked.

Harry turned to Doc. “Just twenty-four hours.”

Roger strode over and leaned across the table, pushing his fat, florid face into Harry’s. “I say put up or shut up!” he growled. “I’m through listening to your insinuations.”

Harry could smell Roger’s sickly sweet blend of breath mints, stale tobacco, and sweat stained cologne, and all the years of frustrated rage coalesced in an image of Susan’s battered face.

Doc saw that Harry was about to lose it and stood up and pushed between the two men. Roger stumbled back and Doc put a restraining hand on Harry’s chest. He could feel the muscles tensing beneath his grip. “Don’t, Harry!” he whispered. “Don’t do something you’ll regret. Listen, I’ll do what I can, twenty-four hours maybe. I can’t promise.”