River of Blue Fire (65 page)

Wells shook his head. “I can't imagine how even an expert could hack the system from inside—not as far inside as he is, anyway. And it strikes me as something much larger than that. It's a chaotic perturbation. Don't give me that look, Daniel, I know you're not stupid. When a complicated system starts to go wrong, it can start small, but if it keeps on . . .”

“Jesus.” Yacoubian had the sudden urge to hit something. “You mean, all this political shit aside, the whole thing might really go south on us? After all these years of work, all this money?”

Wells frowned. “I don't believe it will actually collapse, Daniel. But we're in
terra incognita
here, almost literally.” He put his bony hands on the table and looked at them, examining the tight-stretched skin as though he had never seen it before. “There are some very strange things happening. Speaking of the Old Man's prisoner, you remember that tracking agent that we sent out looking for him—the Nemesis device?”

“Please don't tell me it blew up or something.”

“No, no, nothing like that. It's still out there, still pursuing its task. But . . . and I don't quite know how to express this . . . it's not all there.”

“Huh?” Yacoubian looked for somewhere to put out his cigar, but Wells was distracted and no ashtray appeared. The general balanced it on the edge of the table. “I'm not following you.”

“I'm not sure what's going on myself. The whole Jericho Team is combing the data, but one thing's clear—Nemesis is working far under capacity. Like part of it had been coopted for other tasks. But we can't tell why, or how, or even what exactly is going on.”

“It's just a piece of gear. Can't you send another one?”

Wells shook his head. “Complicated. For one thing, we'd like to study this one without confusing the issue. Maybe it will help us figure out what's causing the system spasms—just figuring out what the system spasms actually
are
would be a step forward. Also, because of the way the Nemesis code looks for patterns . . . well, it would be like having so many undercover cops on the same investigation that they started arresting each other.”

Yacoubian pushed his chair back from the table, dislodging the cigar which tumbled off the edge; it vanished before it hit the ground. “Jesus H. Christ, I hope you're happy, Wells. You've ruined my day. I think I'm going to go home and shoot myself.”

“Don't do that, Daniel. But I do hope you'll check with me before you do anything too drastic at the next meeting. Things are going to be delicate for a while.”

The general glowered, but that battle had already been lost. “Yeah, whatever.” He patted his pocket again, then remembered. “By the way, Bob, could you give me a gate out of here?”

“Something wrong with your system, Daniel?”

“Yeah. My team's messing around with it. Just a minor problem.”

“Certainly. Are you ready to go?”

“I guess so. One other thing—just curious, you understand. Have you . . . has anything turned up missing from your system?”

“Missing?” Wells' pale eyes narrowed.

“You know. Small things. Bits of gear, things like that. Virtual objects.”

“I don't think I understand, Daniel. Do you mean there are virtual objects missing from your own system? You . . . mislaid something?”

Yacoubian hesitated for a moment. “Yeah. Just my lighter. Must have left it in one of the domains. I guess that if the simulation's complex enough you can lose something just like you can in RL, right?”

Wells nodded. “I suppose. So you haven't lost anything important, then? Whatever it is, you can just duplicate it.”

“Of course! Yeah, it was just a lighter. I'll take the gate now, Bob.”

“Thank you for hearing me out. I hope I wasn't too rude.”

“Tact isn't your strong suit, Bob, but I think I'll live.”

“That's nice to hear, Daniel. Good-bye.”

The dining room, the open windows, and the unceasing toil of the Pacific Ocean all vanished in an instant.

CHAPTER 24

The Most Beautiful Street in the World

NETFEED/SITCOM-LIVE: Travels With Invisible Dog “Sprootie”!

(visual: Wengweng Cho's living room)

CHO: Oh, no! Someone has ruined my report for the district governor! It is torn to pieces! But this room has been locked all day!

SHUO: (whispers) Sprootie! You are a bad dog! I should cut off your little invisible stones!

(audio over: laughter)

CHO: I will be executed for this! My family will not even receive my death insurance. Oh, this is terrible
!

SHUO: I will think of something to help you, Respected Cho. (whispers) But clever Sprootie will surely make things difficult all over again!

(audio over: laughter and applause)

T
HE blue neon haze faded. The sparks flickered and died. Flat on his back beneath a starless night sky, Paul tried to make sense of it all—Nandi's revelations, the sudden attack, the escape from the Khan's warriors, the whole incomprehensible mess. And now the River had taken him up once more, carried him yet again from one reality to another, from Xanadu to. . . ?

From where he lay, stretched full-length in the bottom of the boat, he could see only the fat, full white moon, reassuringly ordinary—as if that meant anything. What miserable new place would this turn out to be? An Amazon River full of crocodiles? The siege of Khartoum? Or something even stranger, something he could not guess at, the spawn of a rich old devil's fever dream? An overwhelming sense of homesickness spread through him.

And it's Felix Jongleur who's done this to me
.

The name, the last thing Nandi had told him, rang strangely in his mind. He had heard it before, he felt sure—perhaps some mention had been made by the man calling himself Professor Bagwalter on that
Boy's Own
version of Mars. But there was more to it, somehow, a resonance that went deeper and brought with it strangely disassociated images—a cauldron, a window, a room full of birds. The images were as fleeting as they were vague; when he tried to hold them, to form them into something that made sense, they fell apart, leaving only a dull pain not much different than the homesickness.

Jongleur
. It was something, though—a name to work with, both inside his own head, and outside, in these strung-together worlds. A tool, perhaps even a compass. Something he could use to begin to find his way.

But this new simulation isn't one of Jongleur's. That's what Nandi said
.

The thought gave him the strength to draw himself up, elbows on the gunwale, and look around. The air was cool on his cheeks, the night brisk but not uncomfortable. He seemed to be warmly dressed (the Arabian Nights garb had apparently been left in the Xanadu simulation) but he was far more interested in what lay before him: for some reason it was hard to see clearly, but there was definitely a scatter of lights along the bank—a modest profusion, but enough.

At least I'm not lost in the wilderness
, he told himself,
in the middle of nowhere
. . . . Even if he were to pass through the most cheerful, populous virtual city imaginable, however, “nowhere” was still exactly where he would be. In an electronic illusion. Up to the eyeballs in code. Nevertheless, the idea of tasting the more civilized side of virtuality had its appeal. After the Ice Age and the Martian invasion, he was tired of sleeping rough.

The lights seemed to be getting farther away; Paul realized he was drifting. As he felt for the paddle, his boat floated out of the fog bank he had not even known was there, and the city lights abruptly blazed up before him like God's own chandelier.

It was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen.

As he stared in amazement, the paddle dangling uselessly above the water, dark shapes began to move past him through the thinning fog, shadows drawn across the array of lights like the track of a brush dipped in ink. As the first boat slid by, too distant for him to make out details before it vanished, he thought he heard a murmur of laughter across the water. Within seconds, half a dozen more had appeared, as if formed directly from the mist. Lanterns swung on their curving prows, and even after the shadowy craft had slipped past him and returned to the fog, he could still see their swaying lamps, like fireflies.

A smaller boat with no lights at all suddenly knifed across his bow, so close Paul could almost have reached out his paddle and touched the shiny black hull. He had a glimpse of monstrous and distorted faces at the rail, and for a moment his heart plummeted: It seemed he had been dropped onto the waterways of another alien planet, Mars again, or worse. Someone shouted at him in what sounded like drunken surprise, then the black boat was absorbed into the mist, speeding toward the city lights. It was only when it had vanished completely, and he was alone with the fog in his gently rocking boat, that he realized that they had all been wearing masks.

The lights were closer now, looming above him like a mountain range made entirely of jewels, but these gems were beginning to change into things more prosaic but no less delightful—torches, streetlamps, windows lit from behind, all smiling at him through the darkness. There were lights on the far side of the water too, just as bright despite the distance, and just as cheerful. The pleasure craft entirely surrounded him now, full of masked revelers, voices raised as they laughed or called to nearby boats. Music floated on the night air, plucked strings and voices, skirling flutes, not always in tune. He believed there was something distinctly old-fashioned in the snatches of sound he heard, but concentration was difficult when one was floating through a dream.

A much larger boat, a barge covered with canopies and lit by dozens of hanging lanterns, floated before him now, tied to a vast dock along the bank. He heard a snatch of raucous singing, and paddled close enough to it that he could see a trio of figures in white masks standing along the railing.

“I'm lost,” he shouted up to them. “Where am I?”

The revelers took some moments to locate the source of the voice, down in the darkness beside the barge's hull. “Near the arsenal,” one of them finally called back.

“Arsenal?” For a moment Paul thought he had been flung into yet another warped version of London.

“Of course, the arsenal. Are you a Turk?” another asked. “A spy?” He turned and said, “He's a Turk,” to the third, silent mask.

Paul thought the man was joking, but he wasn't certain. “I'm not a Turk. Near the arsenal
where?
Like I said, I'm lost.”

“If you're looking for the Dalmatian Bank, you're almost there.” As he spoke, something fell from the first man's hand and splashed into the water near Paul's boat. “Whoops,” he said. “Dropped the bottle.”

“Idiot,” said the second. “Hey, there. Be a good Turk and toss it back to us, will you?”

“Is it really a Turk?” the third mask asked suddenly. He sounded even more drunk than the first two.

“
No
,” Paul said forcefully, since they didn't seem to like Turks, then decided to gamble. “I'm an Englishman.”

“English!” The first laughed. “But you speak like a real Venetian. I thought English couldn't speak anything but that log-sawing tongue of theirs.”

“You said the promenade is just ahead?” he called as he pushed himself back from the vast hull. His thoughts were fizzing. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“Hey, English!” one of them shouted as Paul paddled away. “Where's our bottle?”

The Dalmatian Bank was a great quay thronged with hundreds of boats of all sizes, moored so closely together that their sides scraped. This night, at least, the bankside was blindingly ablaze with torches and lanterns; the tall, many-arched facades of the buildings seemed lit for some extravagant film premiere. Paul tied his small boat to a mooring post at the shadowy end of one of the piers. It was a poor thing in comparison to the boats bumping against the dock all around it. He doubted anyone would bother to steal it.

So it's Venice
, he thought as he made his way through the jostling crowds, a fabulous array of masks and swirling robes in full drunken celebration. He was pleased. His art historian background would actually be of some use.
Can't tell when exactly, especially with everyone in costume, but it looks Renaissance-ish
, he decided.
La Serenissima, didn't they
call it?
—
the Most Serene Republic
.

He was himself dressed in dark hose and something he dimly remembered was called a doublet—neither of best quality, but not embarrassingly ragged either. Across his shoulders lay a cape heavy as an overcoat, whose hem swept just above the muddy ground. A slender, scabbarded sword with a fairly simple basket-hilt rattled by his side, which should have completed the ensemble, but something was bumping at the back of his neck as well. When he tugged the object around so he could see it properly, he found it was a mask, an expressionless face with a cool finish like porcelain, its chief feature a huge beak of a nose. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if he should recognize the character it portrayed, then—remembering that he seemed to have more than a few enemies in this still-strange virtual life of his—he pulled it over his own features and retied it at the back of his head. He immediately felt less conspicuous, and moved forward with no immediate plan except to be part of the crowd for at least a little while.

A woman in a dress whose bodice revealed most of her breasts stumbled and snatched at his arm for support; he held her steady until she had her feet beneath her. She, too, wore a mask, a face of exaggerated maidenhood with pink cheeks and red, full lips. Her male consort tugged her away roughly, but as she turned she brushed her front against Paul's and gave him a wink through the eyehole of her mask, a feathery, slow-motion bat of the lashes, as subtle as a failing piano. Despite the smell of slightly sour wine that lingered after her, he found himself suddenly aroused, a reflex that terror and confusion had for a long time almost completely subsumed.

But what is she?
he thought suddenly.
A Puppet, chances are good. And what would that be like?

He had seen an inflatable sex doll once, part of a twentieth century cultural exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He and Niles and the others had laughed at the crudeness of the thing, at the sad emptiness of putting it to its intended purpose, of being face-to-face with that astonished stare and lamprey mouth. But how would making love to an imaginary Venetian party girl be any different, really?

“Look here, Signor, hey, look here.” He glanced down to see a small, unmasked boy tugging at his cloak. “You looking for women? I can take you to a nice house, a beautiful house, only the finest flesh. Cypriots? Or maybe you like yellow-hairs from the Danube, huh?” The boy, despite being no more than seven or eight and very dirty around the edges, had the hard professional smile of an estate agent. “Black girls? Arab boys?”

“No.” Paul was about to ask the urchin where he could find a place to sit down and have a drink, but realized if he did he would be hiring a guide for the rest of the evening, whether he wanted one or not, and he didn't even know yet if he had any money in his pockets. “No,” he repeated, a little louder this time, and dislodged the boy's hand from his cloak. “I don't want any. Be a good lad, go away.”

The boy regarded him judiciously for a moment, then kicked him in the shins and slipped into the crowd. A moment later, Paul could hear his piping voice as he doorstepped another potential client.

Paul was solicited by several more small boys, of varying degrees of griminess and determination, by a few men, and by a dozen or so women, the oldest of whom, despite her bare shoulders and rouged cleavage, reminded Paul uncomfortably of his own Grammer Jonas. But rather than depressing him, the parade of those who would separate him from his ducats (he discovered he had a few, in a purse on his belt) merely added to the spectacle, part of the same show as the jugglers, fire-eaters and acrobats, the potion-peddling mountebanks, the musicians in grades from dismal to sublime (who nevertheless still muddled each other into a general din), the flags, the wavering lights, and the Venetian citizens themselves out for a good time, a never-ending swarm of masked figures in gowns of glittering, jewel-dotted brocade or multicolored velvets.

He had made his way down the length of the Dalmatian Bank—named, he vaguely remembered, for the ships from the Adriatic that docked there—and was just about to cross the famous
Ponte della Paglia
, the Straw Bridge, when he again felt someone plucking at his sleeve.

“Looking for a nice place, Signor?” asked a small dark figure who had just appeared at Paul's side. “Women?”

Paul scarcely looked at him—he had learned that it was a waste of time even to respond—but as a quartet of wine-addled soldiers stumbled down the bridge and Paul was pushed to one side, he felt something tugging at his purse. He turned and flung his hand down to his side, imprisoning the boy's wrist with his own arm. The would-be pickpocket struggled, but Paul caught at his other arm as well; having learned from his earlier lesson, he held the thrashing boy just out of shin-kicking range.