Sea of Silver Light (70 page)

As if reading her mind, Ramsey had told her, "Hold on—it's going to get weirder." And when she saw the person Sorensen was lifting out of the van, Olga had to admit he had been right.

They had spent an hour talking while traffic rumbled past just on the other side of the trees, but Olga could remember little of it now. The shriveled man Sellars had spoken so quietly and carefully that at first Olga had taken offense a little, thinking she was being given the gentle treatment reserved for the pathetically unbalanced. After a while she came to realize it was just his way, and that this achingly thin man with runneled skin could not have taken a deep enough breath to speak loudly even if he had wanted to. And when she actually heard what he had to say, it kindled a spark of something like joyful relief inside her. She had not realized until then just how lonely she had become.

"I'm still not certain why you have experienced these things, Ms. Pirofsky," he had told her, "but whatever the cause, they are real. If I had all day, I could not tell you of all the strangeness I have encountered since I first began studying these matters. Whatever the source of your voices, it couldn't be a coincidence that you have been drawn to Jongleur's tower. We only wish to combine forces with you—to give you the best chance of getting answers safely, answers that we may need ourselves to put an end to a terrible, criminal conspiracy."

The conspiracy itself, at least in Sellars' hurried explanation, had quite boggled her. And other than the fact that he was some kind of military security specialist, she had never quite managed to understand the major's place in this tiny resistance movement—bizarrely, he had even mentioned a wife and children waiting at some motel. She was also still a little unsure how much Ramsey was involved, whether he had known any of these things when he had first interviewed her, but the mere fact that instead of receiving patronizing looks she was finally getting answers had made up for any residual confusion.

Sorensen, in a gruff but careful way that reminded her of her own long-dead father, had inspected the tiny store of possessions she planned to take to the island, and added one more item—a small silver ring with a single clear stone. The sparkling stone was not a gem at all, he had explained, but a lens with a tiny transponder hidden behind it. A camera ring.

"With this, we will see what you see, Ms. Pirofsky," Sellars told her.

Returned to companionable humanity after what she realized had been weeks of self-absorption and voluntary exile, a solitude made even more fierce when the voices of the children deserted her, Olga would have gladly stayed longer with Ramsey and the others, but Sellars had told her that time was running short. In his gentle way, he had pushed her to begin her incursion as quickly as possible, and since he had promised to find her a way in, using his unspecified talents to somehow get her onto the island legitimately, she had no desire to argue. And he had been as good as his word.

Once she was on the hovercraft, out in the hot, damp breeze of the foredeck with all the others, Olga could no longer avoid staring at the black tower. From the far shore it had looked something like a medieval cathedral, a jutting spire looming above more human-sized dwellings, but as it grew into the sunset-streaked sky before her it seemed more like the mountain of her dreams, a weird monolith of black stone, parts of its facade tortured and twisted in the modernist style, as intricately grooved as Sellars' odd face.

It seems like it's been waiting for me a long time—my whole life. But how could that be, when I only heard the voices for the first time a few weeks ago?
Still, she could not shake off the feeling that she was on the brink of some long-sought revelation.

It's what I thought before—it's like catching fire with some religion. You just know things, you're sure of things, it doesn't matter how or why or what anyone says.

But most religions promised salvation. She expected nothing so cheerful from the black spire.

They docked in at another huge warehouse building, so close to the tower that half the sky seemed to be black. It was not that the thing was so staggeringly tall—although she could not believe it was less than a thousand feet—but that its size and solidity were so overwhelming. Seeing it in the far distance or through the bayou mists had not prepared her for its disconcerting presence.

It's not an office, it's a fortress,
she realized.
Whoever made this was at war, or planned to be. Maybe not against armies, but against something.

She could not help remembering the architectural remains that had sparked so many lectures from her father as the circus troupe crisscrossed Europe—the remains of this or that triumphalist regime, communist or fascist, unboundedly capitalist or unashamedly imperial. Those buildings too had screamed their importance, but there had been something different in all of them, some quality of publicness that the J Corporation tower lacked. Despite the difference in size, the only thing she could think of that came close were some of the Renaissance tower-houses of Italy, fortified islands in the middle of cities, designed for defense over glamour.

I've never seen a multibillion dollar office building that so clearly said, "Go away,"
she thought.
And I am ignoring the warning—like whistling past the sign that says, "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." What are you doing, Olga?

But she already knew the answer.

Esther found her standing quietly in a corner, trying to work up the courage to follow the rest of the chattering workers into the massive outbuilding that housed the entrances to the skyscraper's service corridors and elevators. "C'mon, sweetie," she said, patting Olga's arm and making her jump, "they started the countdown when your badge went through that door back there, coming off the boat. More than ten minutes to get to our station and you lose half an hour's pay."

Olga mumbled an apology and fell into step behind Esther. She was feeling extraordinarily reluctant to enter the huge black edifice, its polished surfaces gleaming with reflected sunset.

"Oh, no, why you got that backpack?"

Olga tried to look surprised. "What's wrong?"

"You're not supposed to bring nothing like that over here," Esther said. "I guess 'cause they think we might steal or something." She made an amused expression of disgust. "But they are real strict about that. Oh, sweetie, you should have asked me, I would have told you to leave it in your locker back on the esplanade."

"I didn't know. It's just my lunch and some medicine I'm taking."

"They have a regulation box you bring lunch in, they run them all through some x-ray or something when the boat comes in," Esther frowned. "Well, we'll find some place to leave it. You don't want to get in trouble your first day."

Olga shook her head. No, she certainly didn't want to get in trouble her first day, but she didn't plan to be separated from her bag, either. Under quick inspection the contents looked innocent enough, but anything more thorough and she would be attracting a lot more attention than the average custodial employee.

Her bag safely stowed in one of the cubbyholes provided for the custodians to stash rainwear and other items impractical to carry around the offices, Olga was introduced to her first day (and last, she fervently hoped) as a J Corporation cleaner. Esther, Olga, and a team of six other women were given B Level by the on-site supervisor, two floors below the street. It was mildly disturbing to think that they were working in a big tube down below the surface of the lake, but any tendency to dwell on that, or on the much more immediately dangerous things she planned, was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work. Stepping carefully over the hubcap-sized vacuuming robots, they moved from office to office dumping wastebaskets, cleaning surfaces, and tidying the common areas. The bathrooms took special attention, all fixtures to be scrubbed. As the newest worker on-shift, Olga was gifted with the least pleasant tasks, which of course included cleaning the toilets and urinals with a brush and a spray bottle of some enzymatic cleaner whose floral overtones could not cover up the more disturbing chemical whiff underneath. Esther warned her sternly about not spilling any. What she had thought was an admonition to thrift became clearer when she dripped some on the back of her hand and felt her skin burn.

B Level was wider than the aboveground tower and held hundreds of offices. As the night crept by in a cloud of fumes, underscored by the off-key singing of a couple of the other women and the constant sucking and chewing noises of the gray vacuum-bots, Olga realized how lucky she had been that her little fantasy of actually doing such a job for a living had not been true.

How can they stand it?
she wondered.
With the supervisors watching so closely, like strict teachers, and some of them won't even let you talk except in whispers. I always thought that in a job like this you'd at least get to chat and joke with fellow employees, but there hasn't been much of that since we got off the boat. Is the company really that stingy, frightened that these women are going to waste a few minutes' worth of their wages?

Her answer came when she paused for a moment to lean on a desk near one of the restrooms and the wallscreen beside it leaped into fife, activated by her touch. The screen displayed only a scene of someone's children sitting in a sailboat, a personal photo used as wallpaper, but within moments one of the on-site supervisors, a fat man named Leo with an unpleasant wheeze, was standing next to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. I . . . I just leaned on the desk. I didn't mean to. . . ."

"Well, don't. Where's your badge?"

She showed it to him. He squinted, frowning as if angry at being forced to do what was presumably his job.

"First day, is it?" he said. He did not sound much mollified. "Then you learn a lesson, and learn it good. You don't touch
anything
except what you're cleaning. You want to keep this job, you pay attention. There are plenty more would be happy to make good money. Don't touch anything. Repeat that back."

Stung, furious at this petty, rude man, Olga fought to keep an outward aspect of frightened subservience. "I don't touch anything."

"Right. Damn right." He turned and waddled off, a pudgy protector of the laws of private property and corporate inviolability.

It was not until she was nearing the end of the shift, when luckier employees in the upper levels might be glimpsing a bit of dawn's light at the edges of the blackout-curtained windows, that Olga found a chance to be alone. With Esther's permission, she made her way to one of the rest-rooms they had not yet cleaned and seated herself in the farthest stall. Positive that there were eyes and perhaps ears following her every move, she lowered her pants and underwear before sitting on the toilet for the sake of appearances, and said a silent prayer of gratitude that she did not have to talk out loud. She subvocalized the code word Ramsey had given her. A moment later, she heard his voice in her ear.

"Are you okay? We've been worrying about you."

She tried not to laugh.
Just working like most normal people have to do,
she thought, but said only, "I'm fine. There hasn't been a chance to call before now."

"I'm connected to this node all the time, so don't hesitate if anything comes up. Really, Olga, whenever you need me." There was a note of beseeching guilt in his voice she hadn't heard before, as if he thought he had shoved her into danger, when she herself had in fact been rushing toward it.

"Why?" she asked, half-teasing. Once you got the knack of subvocalizing it was quite easy, she decided, as long as something didn't startle you into speaking aloud. "If I get in bad trouble, are you people going to come get me out of it?"

Ramsey's pause was painful. "Sellars has been waiting to talk to you," he said at last. "But don't go off when he's done—I want another word."

The old man's breathy voice was unexpectedly soothing. Whatever else he might be, this Sellars person was clearly no stranger to such unusual situations. "Hello, Ms. Pirofsky," he said. "We're all very glad to hear from you."

"I think you should probably call me Olga. Since I'm sitting here with my pants around my ankles, pretending to go to the bathroom, 'Ms. Pirofsky' seems a bit formal."

She could hear the smile in his voice. "Very well, Olga. It's a pleasure to talk to you again, whatever the circumstances. Did you have any problems with the hiring interview?"

"I don't think so. It all went very smoothly. How did you arrange all that?"

"We'd better save the details. Were you able to get your bag in with you?"

"Yes. I don't have it right this moment, but I can get it again, I'm pretty sure."

"Call me when the shift's over, and when you have it. We'd better not keep you in there too long, so I'll save the rest of what I have to say until then. Oh, except for one very important thing. Can you hold your badge up near the jack on your neck? Just uncover it for a moment—if you think you're being watched, try to make it look like you're cleaning the spot under the bandage. I think I can pick up the encoding that way." When she had done it to his satisfaction, he said, "Good. Thanks. Now Mr. Ramsey wants to talk to you."

A second later Ramsey's voice was in her ear again. "Olga? I just wanted to say, be careful, okay?"

Now she did laugh, but there was real pleasure in it. "All right, sonny. And you dress warmly and eat your vegetables."

"I'm sorry—Olga, what exactly. . . ?" he was saying as she rang off, still grinning.

She was more physically tired than she had been in months when the shift came to an end, staggering after ten hours on her feet. Friday night had crept round to Saturday morning, although only the chronometers on the wall testified to that, sunk as she was in the sunless depths of the building. She could almost sense the massive mountain of plasteel and fibramic above her, separating her from the day's light, as though she were lost in some underground cavern or dungeon.