Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves (30 page)

She closed the door. He heard a lock click, sealing him in the room. Curiously, though, he felt better almost as soon as the door closed. His mind felt clearer, less fuzzed than it had for—how long?—too long. He sat in the chair, listening to the buzz of ultrasonics in the walls, and waited.

His seat was positioned in the exact center of the room. A calculated position, most likely. The placement focused him on the desk and the door behind it. A psychological power thing, or something more sinister?

He didn't get time to puzzle it out. The door beyond the desk opened, revealing a stocky, bearded man. The man walked into the room and took the seat at the desk. To all appearances, this was the man Holger had seen on the video screen. But this was no man. There was no heat to this man. I le might have been made of dreams, all air and thoughts and memories and desires.

"You're not real," Holger said to him.

The false man's eyes slid a fraction to one side like a news anchor looking off screen when he didn't believe what his TelePrompTer told him. When his gaze returned to Holger, he said, "You are speaking to a telepresence projection."

"I don't want to speak to a telepresence projection. I want to see the real man. Why are you doing this?"

"A precaution. I'm sure you can understand. Just whom are you looking for?"

"You."

"You don't sound very sure."

He wasn't. Had he made a mistake coming here? "The man I knew wouldn't hide behind a dummy."

"Are you sure of that, Mr. Kun?"

They knew who he was.
Had
he made a mistake? The projection looked like the man he sought, but projections could be synthesized. What could be digitized could be manipulated. Who really controlled the image? "The man I knew wasn't afraid to look another man in the eye."

"The man you knew didn't understand the century in which he found himself."

The image vanished. The door opened again and the man entered the office again. To all outward appearances he was identical to the first—but this one burned with the fire of life. This was the real man.

Another man followed, shorter, stockier, and more heavily bearded. Holger started to reach for the weapon he wasn't carrying. He aborted the futile motion. Old reflexes, and, on a closer look, triggered inappropriately. He had never seen this man before.

"Very jumpy," the short man said. "Still working for Department M, Mr. Kun?"

Maybe his reaction
hadn't
been inappropriate.

"I believe he thought you were someone else, Wilson. Someone I myself would have considered shooting on sight." Bear turned his attention to Holger. "What brings you here, Mr. Kun?"

Holger was looking at the answer. "You."

Bear folded his arms, wrinkling the fine fabric of his business suit. "You were more polite the last time you sought me out."

"Things are different now." Very different. He had come here hoping that they could be more different still.

"You certainly look different," Bear observed. "And the circumstances are different. We don't have any commandos creeping about with mayhem on their minds."

Holger didn't like remembering the place, the strange elf place that was as much museum as palace, but he remembered the commandos who had assaulted the place and tried to kill them. He remembered fighting the men in black. Bear had fought them too. They had won, then the elf had come back and nearly stolen their victory. Holger didn't like remembering that. Bear had saved them. With the sword. The elf wouldn't face Bear when he had the sword in his hands. Holger smiled at the memory.

"Who says he doesn't have mayhem in mind?" Wilson asked. He waved a hand at Holger. "Looks to me like good camouflage for an urban hunt."

"Camouflage for the hunted," Holger said. He wanted Bear to understand.

"Hunted?" Wilson didn't sound as if he believed. "By whom?"

It was hard to say. "The Department."

"You want us to believe that you've left them? Hard to believe that they'd let you go, considering how much they obviously have invested in you." Wilson scratched at his beard. "Artos, he's more likely a stalking horse—if not the hunter himself. They're still looking for you."

Holger looked to Bear. "They don't believe in you. Only Spae believed, and she isn't with them anymore either. They want her, too, more than they do you. They don't believe that you are who you are, but I believe. I saw you with the sword. I remember."

"He's babbling," Wilson said.

"They did things to me. I don't know what. I didn't ask for it. I didn't. They broke the contract. They sent me after Spae. They told me she was a traitor, but they are the real traitors. They broke the contract." He knew that he said more, told them about the attempt against Spae, about his flight, about the voices. He knew he was prejudicing them, because to them, he must sound like a madman.

"I think that sedation might be in order," Wilson whispered to Bear.

"No needles!"

Holger kicked the chair away as he regained his feet.

Wilson crouched, protective of Bear. Bear himself didn't flinch. He just watched Holger, eyes calm, assured. Holger saw the strength there, strength that he needed, assurance that he needed.

"No one here is going to hurt you, Mr. Kun," Bear said.

Holger took the promise as truth.

"Put down your weapon," Bear said.

Weapon? Holger
was
holding something. He looked down. He didn't remember ripping the arm from the chair. He dropped it.

"You know, Mr. Kun, I think I have some idea of what you are going through." Holger saw understanding in Bear's eyes, sympathy without pity. "We warriors have to look out for each other."

"I showed you how to fire an H&K Viper," Holger said.

"Short bursts," Bear said with a smile. "I kept forgetting. Still, what you taught me saved my life. I have not yet had the honor of returning that gift."

"The sword," Holger said to remind him. "I saw you use it. I remember."

"I wasn't fighting for you."

Holger remembered. "You fight for us all."

"Don't confuse the legend with the man. There was no King Arthur of Camelot, no Round Table of noble knights in shining armor. It's all legends and stories and lies."

Not lies, not when there was truth at the heart. "Not all. You're real."

"Real, yes, but no fairy-tale hero."

"Heroes are for kids." And desperate men.

"If I believed that you believed that..." Bear shook his head. "I am a man, Mr. Kun, not a hero. A man, just like you. Don't shake your head at me. You may not believe it now, but you will."

"You're better than me."

"We're both men. Men are fallible, and they make mis-
takes,
but real men own up to and fix their mistakes. Some die trying. What mistakes are you trying to fix, Mr. Kun?"

"I —" He didn't have a clear answer. "You—" I can't fix your mistakes for you, but I can give you a chance to find them and fix them yourself. A chance, Mr. Kun. That's all you really want, isn't it?"

Holger's knees felt weak. He let them go. The carpet was • ill and thick where he knelt. He looked up at the man who knew his heart so well. "I will be your man, of life and of limb—"

Fealty is a bit after my time."

I lolger blinked, confused. "You'll not take my oath?"

"I didn't say that." Bear's smile was radiant with the warmth of absolution. "But not just yet. There are a few details yet to settle. Wilson, help Mr. Kun get cleaned up. I believe that he will be joining us in our fight."

John wasn't surprised to find that the rezcom where Marianne Reddy was supposed to be living belonged to a member of the Mitsutomo Keiretsu. Once upon a time, he would have been pleased to see how well the corporation was taking care of its dependents. But "once upon a time" was a part of his past, along with other childish fairy-tale stuff like living happily ever after.

The Dupree rezcom sat in a pocket of rural Massachusetts, in the middle of a deadsville triangle of three sleepy little towns off the main highways. The public tranz from the nearest rail was the rezcom mall's courtesy bus, and that was only a twelve-seater.

John took a walk through the property to scout it out. The Dupree rezcom was a lot smaller than any of the Benjamin Harrison Town Project rezcoms, and had a lot lower security. The mall entrances were wide open; property safeguards were left to the individual shops, as shown by the decals for a dozen different rentacop operations. John saw secured access points only at the entrances to the residential area, and those were minimal—nothing more than keypad doors, and half of them were propped open. As far as he could see, there were no cameras and no guards. Even the main entrance foyer was unattended. If Mitsutomo was doing surveillance on this place, they were being deeply subtle about it. Such subtlety would have flattered John, if he'd believed in it; watching this place on the chance that he might show up couldn't be high enough among their priorities to rate such expensive attention.

So he was free to do what he had come here to do.

He walked around the mall again, telling himself that he was just making sure that he wouldn't encounter any unexplained problems, but knowing he was really putting off doing what he had come here to do. He'd been less scared when he and Dr. Spae had been chasing Quetzal. Back then, he hadn't had time to think about what he'd been doing.

It was nearly Halloween, the time of year when the spirit world was close and the dead rose to walk again, and the mall stores were ready for it, where they weren't laying out Christmas decorations. Skeletons and ghosts and gravestones and vampires abounded in festive, commercial gaiety. It seemed that everywhere he looked, giant pumpkins grinned at him with lopsided smiles. Hollow smiles, they were, ignorant smiles; all flashy advertising style and forgotten substance. There was grim, hard truth behind those symbols, a truth that had been lost somewhere along the line while the otherworld was farther off than it was these days.
The lights are on in there, Mr. Jack O'Lantern, but is anybody home? Do you know what your duty is, O Great Orange Guardian of the Home?

Home.

He'd been wanting to go home for—how long? Now here he was, on the threshold and hesitating. She wasn't going to come out looking for him. He had to go to her. No one else would tell her that one of her dead was coming home.

The residential area was quiet and empty. He walked through the corridors constantly expecting to meet someone, but he never did. At last he stood before the door and the uameplate confirmed what Shahotain's disk had told him. Marianne Reddy lived here. He pressed the bell.

The woman who answered the door was his mother. She looked older and more worn, but he had no trouble recognizing her. She opened the door wide, with all the assurance of the protected. Knowing how easily he'd entered, John felt a little queasy about her lack of caution, but he smiled. Squinting at him curiously, she spoke first.

"Do I know you?"

"Yes." Her blank look told him that she didn't recognize him.
It's okay. It really is. No surprise.
He'd known that instant recognition wasn't likely. He dragged off the wool cap that hid his hair and ears. "It's been a while. I've changed quite a bit."

"I know your voice." Now she looked puzzled, and a little disturbed. "But your face isn't at all familiar. Are you made up for some reason? Of course, it's almost Halloween, isn't it? If you're doing some kind of promotion, I ought to tell you that I do all my buying on-line."

"Still watching
Happy Lifestyles
^EM
?"

She blinked in confusion. "Why, yes. How did you know that? Are you from the network? Are you doing a survey?"

"No, no survey either. I'm John."

"That was my son's name."

"It still is."

Her friendliness vanished. Looking at him suspiciously, she solemnly said, "My son is dead."

"No, he's not."
I'm not.

"I don't think I want to talk to you."

She started to close the door. He slapped his hand up onto it and held it fast. She struggled for a moment to shove the door closed. It wasn't a contest. Her strength apparently exhausted, she staggered back away from the door. The panel flew wide. John entered.

"Wait. I'm not going to hurt you," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. To validate his words, he stayed near the doorway, afraid that going any deeper into the apartment would alarm her further. It was time for the alternate approach that he had hoped he wouldn't need. He should have known better. He'd had it easy with Dr. Spae and Sue; they had both already known that John was really a changeling elf. "I've got some papers here you need to see."

She backed away, putting a table between them.

Really, Mrs. Reddy." He was surprised at how much it hurt to address her formally, but it seemed necessary. He had in go one step at a time. John produced a printout. "This is a i opy of the public records report filed on the Armory incident. It includes a bio on John Reddy. Look it over. Espe-i tally the physical data. The man who died in the museum was five inches shorter than your son."