robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain (13 page)

"I think not," Wilson said.

"Why not let her go, Wilson? She's not part of whatever Bear sent you here for."

"Tall Jack's tight." Sue chimed in. "I got no interest here."

"Young woman, I am here as an escort for Jack. By being here, you are involved. Your presence has complicated the matter by jeopardizing security."

"I'm sooo sorry."

"As am I, young woman. I intend to complete this mission with minimal trouble. There is no threat to those who are no threat."

"'What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you should now move on out to the dock."

He gestured with his gun. Spillway Sue looked unhappy as she moved to comply, but she did move. John was relieved. She might have been here on some unspecified mission to do him ill, but he didn't want to see her gratuitously maimed. He followed her toward the glaring light. He could hear the soft scuff of Wilson's shoes behind him.

As she stepped onto the deck, Sue asked, "Gonna leave the wet stuff ta yer partners, Shorty?"

"Just proceed on down the stairs," Wilson said.

There were two vehicles in the yard. One was a high-bellied off-road truck, the other a long, low-slung limousine. The limousine's back door opened, revealing a softly lit interior.

Bear wasn't waiting there. In fact, no one was there. John looked at the vehicles. No one stood next to either, and both vehicles had opaqued windows; their interiors and any riders were screened. For all John could see, Wilson was alone.

The light that had heralded Wilson's arrival was on the roof of the truck's cab. As they started down the stairs, the lamp went dark. The sudden change in illumination almost made John stumble. Spillway Sue missed a step and fell to the ground. Her head swiveled around as she got back to her feet.

"I don't see anyone backing ya, Shorty."

John didn't either.

"The tower," Faye whispered.

That had to be the Lantham Building; it was the tallest structure nearby. The loading dock would be visible from there. John ran his eyes up the spire. Most of the windows were dark pocks in the surface of the building. From one of those dark pits near the top, something looking very much like a long-barreled sniper rifle protruded. He felt confident that someone sat hunched behind the weapon: a sniper. Spillway Sue followed his gaze. John didn't know if she saw the sniper, but she stopped objecting and stepped toward the car. John followed.

As he neared the vehicle, John whispered, "Stay out of this, Faye."

"John—"

"No arguments," he said as he bent over to get into the car.

"That would be a good choice, fairy," Wilson said.

John froze halfway into the car. He stared at Wilson. "You know about her?"

"I know about a lot of things. Arthur's waiting and we're wasting time. If you want your questions answered, you'd better get in the car."

John did want his questions answered. He slipped into the soft seat. Spillway Sue had slid all the way across and was fiddling with the controls in the armrest, with no visible results. Wilson closed the door on them. A moment later John felt the limousine shift as a new weight was added on the passenger side. A second later they were rolling.

It was only then that John remembered: Bear's real friends didn't call him Arthur.

CHAPTER

6

The bed they'd had prepared for him was supple, covered in a smooth fabric that felt cool and soft on his dry skin. The coverings were of the same lightweight fabric. Something hummed beneath the mattress, something that provided heat to warm him. That was good; it allowed him to use his resources for more important purposes than maintaining the heat of his blood.

The pillow was good too, fluffy and soft, although it smelled like nothing he knew. It was not stuffed with down or cotton wool; he knew those smells. Whatever cushioned his head so comfortably had never been alive, so far as he could tell. It was too soft to be mineral, its character too yielding. A wonder of this new age, no doubt. Like the lamps that smelled of lightning. An age of wonders, for truth.

Joel Lee relayed his orders, and he listened carefully to the words that his new slave used, learning. He noticed that those to whom Joel Lee spoke looked to another before fulfilling the slave's orders. Normally he would have been incensed by such presumption, but he was not yet normal; he was a spirit locked in a body stiffened by the passage of time, not yet limbered by the rush of fresh energy. When his strength permit-

ted, he turned his head to observe this other, this source of authority.

Two stood where the servants had looked. A man, an Asian, dark of hair and solemn of mien, and a woman of Latin blood, dark also but in a different way and grim of demeanor. She had something of the beauty of the finest of the New World primitives who had hailed him as king and god. He could feel that one of them was the one with the sign, the one who had come to end the long sleep, but his perceptions were still weak and so clouded that he could not tell which.

So, he had not dreamed that a follower of the Path had come to him. This place was so foreign and barren that he had l eared—no, fear was too strong—
conjectured
that the disturbance of his sleep had been some sort of mistake. He was pleased to see that his memory of the sign had not been a fragment of dream, a hopeful imagining. Here was vindication. The followers had been true, biding in the passing world until the time of the awakening had come, and arriving at last to wake the sleeper.

Had his mind not been so muddied by the ages of sleep, he would have known at once which of the two was the follower. He studied them, observing the subtle play of expression and stance and gesture. He could see which was the superior: the man. As was appropriate.

The power need not be squandered when the mind would serve.

But some squandering could be excused. Strength at the first. It would be best that they not think he was as weak as he was. Though his strength was still wanting, that was no longer of such concern as it had been; Joel Lee assured him that there were more to feed his hunger. The followers would provide. A show of strength then. He reached out, kindling the fire in the sign.

The Asian jumped.

Had not his body been so locked in the deep sleep, he would have laughed. Had not the Asian known he could do that? How could a follower not know? How much had they lost? He had Joel Lee call the Asian forward and ask his name and degree.

"Ryota Nakaguchi, Venerated One." The Asian spoke the honorific in the secret tongue. Perhaps they had not lost so much. "Fifth degree."

Fifth? And yet he knew so little of the link between the sign and the sleeper. The followers may have persevered, but they were not all they should be. He would see that changed!

But not in his current condition.

Nakaguchi interrupted his thoughts. "Venerated One, how may I address you that I not dishonor you?"

It was a question that ritual demanded he answer personally. He focused his sparse strength, forcing his first word in centuries. It was appropriate that the word be his name.

"Quetzal," he said.

"Not Quetzoucoatl?" Nakaguchi sounded upset.

Fool.

"The Awaited One, the Lord of Change," he had Joel Lee say, feeding him the ancient words.

Nakaguchi's eyes widened, his aura flaring with respect. The man bowed deeply, a pointless gesture. Joel Lee issued Quetzal's demand for sustenance. Nakaguchi bowed again and saw to it. Nakaguchi's servants brought an old man before Quetzal. Not the woman? He was disappointed; she would have been tasty.

The room was lit only by the backflash of the data windows open on the wallscreen and the glow of the half-dozen screens and submonitors on the C-shaped console. Pamela stood for a moment after closing the door behind her, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The room's occupant gave no sign that she knew Pamela had arrived, but Pamela knew her entrance could not have gone unnoticed. As Pamela became used to the dim light, she made out the form of the woman seated in a Console Queen™ office lounger in the center of the console board that filled the room. Sheila Rearden, her flabby flesh supported and confined by the CQ chair, was still save for her fluttering hands. Her flexing fingers hit the keys of a virtual keyboard and her rotating hands tapped and twisted controls that only existed within the computer's world. Rearden was a technomancer, a wizard within the context of the machine; that was why Pamela employed her.

Pamela couldn't remember the last occasion she had seen Rearden standing upright on her own two feet; the decker rarely stirred from her office, and Pamela had yet to see Rearden in the corridors of the building. But it wasn't Rearden's athletic prowess or command of etiquette that Pamela found interesting. Rearden got results.

"Have you anything for me?" she asked the supine form.

"Maybe." Rearden remained focused on the wallscreen, refusing to look in Pamela's direction. The console cowgirl wore virtuality goggles, but Pamela didn't have to see her face to read Rearden's anxiety; she could recognize the tension in the decker's body and hear it as she said, "I think I can get in, but he's got his stuff under a personal access code with a front office protection chop. Ruffle big bird's feathers if we go after this stuff and get caught with our hands in the cookie jar. You sure this is important enough?"

"It may be vital."

The writhing fingers stilled. "It's my ass gonna be fried if his deckers trace my footprints."

"Just don't leave any footprints."

"Not like I want to, Ms. M. I got a real attachment to my

ass."

"It's not just yours on the line."

"Yeah?" She turned slowly in her chair until the mirrored surfaces of the virtuality goggles pointed at Pamela. "This really big enough to chance pissing off the sama-san?"

"I believe so," Pamela said firmly.

"And you ain't gonna cut me loose if they come hunting heads? I know how easy it is for a suit—no offense to you personally, Ms. M, you're okay—to blame it on us anarchist decker types."

Pamela leaned over the nearest console and touched her portacomp to the input panel. A new window opened, bearing her personal seal and showing a standard-format approval file in the transfer box. She touched the screen and initiated the release to Rearden's databank. "My own codes to authorize your actions."

"Sub zero." Rearden smiled. "You're radiating all kinds of positive waves. Like with that kind of attitude, maybe we can't lose."

"I don't intend to lose."
Or take the blame.
Anarchist decker types were notorious for stealing authorization codes to lend legitimacy to their actions. Pamela had already logged a report of suspicious activity in her database; that would support her denial of Rearden's decking should it become necessary.

Rearden swiveled her chair back to face the wallscreen. Flickering fingers danced in the air as Rearden did her magic, but Rearden's mystic passes were purely technological magic. Pamela waited.

"In." The console cowgirl's body shuddered with released tension. "All quiet."

Pamela breathed a sigh of relief. They'd opened the door without setting off an alarm. Rearden was earning her pay.

"Bringing up his inventory on screens three and four."

"Which?"

"Sorry." Two of the windows on the wall changed color. "Yellow screens."

Pamela scanned the titles and codes of the files displayed. Most were standard company files, a familiar format; some few suggested interesting possibilities; but nothing appeared to be what she sought. It would be foolish of him to label his vulnerabilities. Which among all of these things concealed what she needed to bring Nakaguchi down?

Pamela leaned over the console and tapped in commands. A facsimile of her own databanks appeared on the center window. "Run a gross comparison using this stuff as a baseline. Bring up anything with anomalous storage parameters. I'm especially interested in anything with private access windows."

"Righteo!"

The wallscreen dissolved into a chaotic jumble of shifting windows mutating through an avalanche of sizes, colors, and scroll speeds. Pamela assumed Rearden was keeping track of it all somehow, but she was lost. Computer expertise was why she employed Rearden; Pamela let the expert work. Finally, the turmoil slowed, as did Rearden's flashing fingers. The decker grinned and folded her hands, smiling in a self-satisfied way. Screens three and four returned to their saffron steadiness, with an inventory sparser by far. Pamela scanned tlie file and database names. She was not surprised to see the charybdis Project databank as one of the suspect units. She used a laser pointer to highlight it.

"We'll start here."

Rearden made no move to unfold her hands. "He's got locks."

"Open them."

"They're complex."

"You like to say you're the best at what you do. Can you get into his system or not?"

"The run's been pretty clean so far, but I'm deep into it now. It's getting a lot more complex. He's got himself a pretty good cowboy, too. Nice work, real slick."