Sea of Silver Light (139 page)

"What . . . what's a Nemesis?" Renie asked.

"It is a machine—a piece of code." She had never heard Martine Desroubins sound so flatly miserable. "It was sent to find Paul Jonas, I think. I met it when I was Dread's prisoner. In all the confusion after that, I don't believe I ever told you." Martine turned to the inhuman, handsome face that the real Ricardo Klement had intended to wear for eternity. "And what do you want now?" she said bitterly. "Jonas is dead. That should make you happy—as happy as something like you can be."

"Oh, no!" Renie raised her hand to her mouth. "Not Paul."

"Yes, Paul," said Martine.

"But how did it turn into that Grail guy?" asked Sam Fredericks. "We saw him come alive . . . at that Ceremony thing."

"And what's with the ugly blue monkey?" With his feet on the ground, T4b had regained a little of his confidence.

"I saw it take another's form before," Martine said, "It imitated a corpse. One of Dread's victims. It did something similar with Klement, I imagine—perhaps it merely took Klement's empty virtual body before the Ceremony even began."

Renie could not bear to hear her friend sound so helpless. She wanted to go and put her arms around her—around all of them, Sam, Florimel, even T4b—but could not ignore the feeling in the air, a cloud of anxiety like an impending storm. She was almost afraid to move.

As she looked over the familiar and unfamiliar faces, she suddenly recognized the tall young man with the whipcord muscles.

"Oh, my God," she whispered to !Xabbu. "Isn't that . . . Orlando?"

The long-haired youth heard her, even from some distance away, and gave them a quick, light smile. "Hello, Renie. Hi, !Xabbu."

"But you were . . . dead, weren't you?"

He shrugged, "It's been a pretty interesting day."

The man in the wheelchair had not moved. He hovered a few paces from the Klement-thing, his eyes narrowed. "You are Nemesis, then. You heard what was said and I think you understood—Paul Jonas is dead. What do you want with the rest of us?"

Sellars.
Even after all this time, Renie recognized his voice. How strange, that he should look like that.
If
he looked like that. She suddenly felt a fierce homesickness for the real world, for things that felt and looked the way they were supposed to, that didn't change from second to second.

The thing cocked its head at Sellars, then slowly wheeled to survey the others. "Nothing," it said at last. "I am here because I was . . . called. Were you not called, too?"

"Called?" Renie asked. "Called to what?"

The thing in Ricardo Klement's body did not answer, only turned its flat stare back to the rows of glowing cells.

The others, cautiously at first, then with increasing confidence as Nemesis showed no signs of hostility or even interest, moved past the thing toward Renie and !Xabbu. As Sam Fredericks reached her, Renie found her eyes filling with tears again.

"I haven't cried like this since I was a baby," she said, laughing as she hugged Sam. "I can't believe we're all here—all together again."

"Oh, Renie! Look!" Sam turned back to grab Orlando and pull him toward them. The barbarian sim looked embarrassed, as though his resurrection from death had been some prank that he now regretted. "He's alive! Can you believe it?" Sam giggled wildly. "And you are, too! We looked for you—everywhere! But you were just utterly gone."

For long moments it was chaos, but a happy chaos, despite the weirdness of the setting. Even T4b came forward and allowed Renie to put her arms around him.

"Chizz you're not dead," he allowed, stiff and embarrassed in her embrace. "And the little bushy man, too."

After more hugs and tears and even a couple of introductions, accompanied by a flurry of questions and half-answers, most of which left Renie feeling even more confused about what had happened—the Other had destroyed itself, it seemed, and had taken Jongleur and maybe even Dread with it—she made her way to Martine, who had hung back from the general gathering. Renie wrapped her arms around her friend, but was dismayed by the woman's passive resistance.

"It's been bad for you," she said. "Oh, Martine, at least we're alive. That's something."

"It is a great deal," the other said quietly. "I am sorry, Renie. I am very happy to see you well—happy for you, and for !Xabbu, too. Pay no attention to me. I . . . I am crippled. The end was . . . very bad."

"It was bad for !Xabbu, too," Renie said. "I thought I'd lost him."

Martine nodded and straightened; for the first time in a while Renie thought she saw in the woman's posture something of the companion she knew. Martine gently broke free, squeezed Renie's arm, then walked past her to !Xabbu. A moment later they were in whispered conversation.

That's a step forward,
Renie thought, pleased to see some animation in Martine's face. She could not think of a better ear for a heartsick person to find.

"Just a moment." Florimel's voice cut across the other voices, loud and sudden. "I am as glad as anyone to have this reunion, but we were promised answers." She pointed at Sellars, who had been watching the gathering with a gentle, avuncular smile. "Well? I want to get out of this . . . false universe. I want to be with my daughter. If, as you say, her condition will not improve, at least I can see her, touch her. Why are we still here? What do you want to tell us?"

It took Renie a moment to understand what Florimel meant about her daughter, then a spasm of nausea gripped her.
Stephen—does that mean he won't get better either?
She couldn't bear to think about it. After all this time, all that they had suffered . . . it wouldn't be fair. "No," she said aloud. "That can't be."

"I did not say that," Sellars declared. "I have no idea what will happen to the children in comas. All I said was that I could not promise they would get better. But the reason for the coma is gone."

"Because the Other is dead." Florimel's brisk, hard tone could not hide the anxiety beneath.

"Yes."

"But the system is still functioning," said the man who had introduced himself to Renie as Nandi something-complicated-with-a-P—
the man from the Circle,
as she thought of him for convenience. The one who had helped Orlando and Sam get out of the Egypt-world. "Thus it must still be . . . using those poor children. Sucking their lives like a vampire. That is why it must be destroyed."

"Please wait until you understand everything,'" Sellars told him. "Florimel is right. The time has come for the rest of the explanation." He let his chair float a little higher in the air so that all could see him. "First off, I told you that there is a new operating system, one created with the help of TreeHouse technicians and others—a much more conventional operating system. The network no longer requires a linked network of human brains to function. Of course, it is not quite so dramatically realistic either, but that may improve. . . ."

"So because the last survivors of the concentration camp are soon to be free or dead, should the camp itself remain open?" Nandi was scornful. "Become a holiday retreat, perhaps?"

"It is a more difficult question than that," Sellars replied. "Children's brains were being used to run this system, but the ones victimized are not those we sought. The brains used to supplement and expand the processing power of the Other were those of the unborn—of fetuses, or perhaps even cloned brains. I have not discovered the whole truth yet, but I will. There is a near-infinity of information to sift, much of it hidden or deceitful. The Brotherhood did their best to hide their tracks,"

"What exactly are you saying?" Renie asked. "Do you mean that my brother Stephen
isn't
part of the system? Or just that he isn't . . .
in
the system? That he isn't one of the children in the simulations, for instance."

"He was never part of the system, not in the way we thought. Nor was Florimel's daughter or T4b's friend."

"Fenfen!"
snapped T4b. "Heard Matti, me. Heard 'im like he was standing there."

"But all the signs pointed here, to this network!" Florimel said angrily. "What are you trying to tell us? That we were deluded? That we have suffered all this, watched friends die . . . for a coincidence?"

"Not at all." He let his chair drift a little closer to her. Behind him, Ricardo Klement—
No, Nemesis,
Renie reminded herself,
whatever the hell it is
—settled himself . . . itself . . . on the floor, gazing intently up at the gleaming walls as though in some fabulous art gallery. "The network," Sellars went on, "—or more specifically, the Other—was certainly to blame for their comas. But only in the same way that the Other convinced all of you that you couldn't leave the network without suffering terrible pain. As I explained, the poor, lost creature we called the Other was a freakishly powerful telepath. Mind-reader, mind-controller—he was something of both. The
mind-reading
—the actual remote connection to a human brain—was the freakish part. But once contact could be made directly into the nervous system, everything else was probably relatively easy. After all, that is how I managed to control the boy Cho-Cho's speech centers and talk to you."

"Talk, talk, that's all you do—but what are the answers?" growled Florimel. "Why is my daughter in a coma?"

"Let me explain, please. It is not a simple story, even the little of it I have discovered.

"Despite his arrogance and megalomania, I had wondered all along whether even Felix Jongleur would take the risk of exposure that would come from putting thousands of children into comas to complete his machine. And in fact, he did not. He and his minions were not satisfied with the Other—it was too powerful, too untrustworthy. So even while they built their system around it, while they told the rest of the Grail Brotherhood that everything was working perfectly, they were looking for possible substitutes, other telepaths and wild talents that might be able to replace the Other. They concentrated on children, both because they would be easier to mold to the system, and because they would physically last longer. One such discovery was the man you knew as Dread, although Jongleur found a very different use for him.

"They had many different programs in place to sift through children and test them, private schools and clinics like the Pestalozzi Institute, which they also used to educate the Other, if such a term can be used for such an inhuman practice. And there were places like the virtual club called Mister J's—the spot where I first met Renie and !Xabbu—which were a sort of preliminary screening device, meant to sift out the few interesting prospects from the millions of ordinary children. Two of Jongleur's lieutenants were in charge of this project, although Jongleur himself carefully watched over everything."

"Finney and Mudd," Martine said. "The men who chased Paul."

"Yes, although I doubt those were their real names. From what I have seen, they seem to have had a very unsavory background." Sellars frowned for a moment.

"But those children—my brother!" Renie said. "Why are they in comas?"

"Because Jongleur underestimated the Other. His own body stolen, the Other was given the whole of a fantastically complicated network to be his new body—but Jongleur and his minions did not understand the Other's ambition. More importantly, they did not understand his humanity . . . and his loneliness.

"He discovered his power could be extended through electronic communications over a distance. Part of that power was a hypnotic effect—something the Other himself probably never understood, any more than the rest of us spend much energy considering our own vision or sense of balance. You all being trapped here is a perfect example. He wanted all of you to stay in the network. He was fascinated with you, for some reason—I watched him watching you, almost following you. . . ."

"It was because of a story," Martine said in a raw voice. "About a boy in a well."

"Ah. Well, I hope you will explain that to me later." For the second time in an hour, Sellars appeared startled. "But I should finish this story first.

"The Other was interfacing with your minds directly, without you even realizing it. And at some level his wish to keep you, to hold onto you, translated into a direct plea planted in your subconscious. You could not go offline. Whether by pain or by the apparent disappearance of your neurocannular connections, you believed yourselves prevented, and it was so."

"But that Other thing truly sixed now, right?" T4b asked anxiously. "We could go now. To our caves—home, like?"

"Yes. But after I finish this explanation there is something very important I need from you—now, with you all gathered together."

"Yeah? Thinkin' about it," T4b said. "Keep talkin', you."

"So you're saying that the children like my brother were held here the same way?" Renie asked.

"No. They were never truly
here,
not like we are. Instead, they were . . . and are, for all I know . . . in comas simply because the Other made it happen—perhaps even by accident.

"I am guessing here, but I imagine that when the Other finally discovered how to move beyond the constraints of the Grail network, he reached out through Jongleur's own information web, then discovered Jongleur's ongoing search for suitable child-talents and infiltrated that as well, extending his powers all the way out into places like Mister J's. When the Other reached through that machinery and discovered the children on the other end—perhaps the first children he had been exposed to since the Pestalozzi Institute experiments, decades earlier—he must have been very excited. He tried to . . . examine these children, perhaps tried to communicate with them. I'm sure they resisted. You have all encountered the Other. He could not help the way he was, but that did not make him any less terrible, less frightening."

Like a huge thing in the depths of the ocean, and me swimming, helpless,
Renie thought.
Like a killing frost. Like Satan himself, banished and lonely. . . .
"Yes," she said. "Oh, God, yes, we remember."