Sea of Silver Light (10 page)

"All right. So he's dangerous. So now he's the little tin god of the Grail network. So what?" Renie pointed a trembling finger. "You and your selfish old friends, destroying children so you could live forever, so you could build yourself the most expensive toy in the history of the world. I hope your friend Dread
does
bring the whole thing down in flames, even if we go with it. It will be worth it, just to see the last of you."

Jongleur eyed her, then !Xabbu and Sam. The girl cursed under her breath and turned away, but !Xabbu held Jongleur's gaze with little expression until the older man turned back to Renie.

"Be silent and I will tell you something," he said. "I built myself a place. It does not matter what kind of place, but it was something I created for myself, separate from the Grail system. It was my respite when the stress and worry of this project became too much. A system completely removed from the Grail matrix—in fact, a dedicated system, if you know what that is."

"I know what that is," Renie said scornfully. "What's your point?"

"The point is that no one but me could access this virtual environment. Then one day, not long ago, I discovered that someone
had
accessed it, corrupted it, ruined what I had built there. I only realized after much consideration that the Other itself had penetrated that dedicated system—something it should not have been able to do."

He paused. Renie could make no sense out of what he was saying. "So?"

Jongleur shook his head in mock-sorrow. There was a glint in his eye; Renie realized that the monster was actually enjoying this in some strange way. "I have overestimated you again, I see. Very well, I will explain. The only way the Other could have reached into that environment is through my own system—by stealing or co-opting my own security procedures out of my house system. My
personal
system, not the Grail system. And now the Other is under the control of John Dread."

Renie's chill had returned. "So . . . so what you're saying is that the Other . . . isn't isolated on the Grail system anymore."

Jongleur's smile stretched his lips but went no farther. "That is correct. So while you consider where your loyalties lie, take this into your counsels. That far-from-ordinary-psychopath Dread not only has control of the most powerful and complex operating system ever developed, that system itself has already managed to reach out of its Grail Project bottle and into my house network. Which means that the Other—and Dread, as its controlling force—can reach anywhere on the global net."

He stepped out of the crevice and onto the path, turned toward the downhill slope, then paused.

"The damage Dread can do here is nothing compared to what he'll do when he discovers his new reach." Jongleur spread his hands wide. "Just imagine. The whole world will be at his fingertips—air traffic control, critical industries, stockpiles of biological weapons, nuclear launch facilities. And as you have already discovered, Johnny Dread is a very, very angry young man."

CHAPTER 2

NETFEED/NEWS: Sect Refuses Marker Gene for Messiah

(visual: Starry Wisdom headquarters, Quito, Ecuador)

VO: The religious sect Starry Wisdom has gone to court to gain an exemption from UN rules on marker genes in human clones. The religious group intends to clone a duplicate of their late leader, Leonardo Rivas Maldonado, but claims that the marker genes the UN mandates to separate clones from originals would compromise their religious rights.

(visual: Maria Rocafuerte, Starry Wisdom spokesperson)

Rocafuerte: "How can we create our loving master again in a body that is sullied by an incorrect gene? We are trying to remake the Vessel of the Living Wisdom to lead us in these final days, but the government wants us to change that vessel for the sake of obtrusive, antireligious regulations."

This is so bad, this is so bad,
was all Christabel could think.

The van bumped up over the sidewalk and slowed down at the opening, so the soldier who was driving could do something with a big metal box standing there. A woman wearing a bathing suit and a robe, pushing a baby in a stroller along the walkway beside the building, was trying to look in through the van's windows, but it didn't seem like she could see Christabel at all through the glass. After a few seconds the woman turned away. The van rolled down the ramp into darkness.

Christabel knew she must have made a noise, because her daddy leaned over and said "It's just a garage, honey. Don't be afraid. Just a garage for a hotel."

They had been driving for what seemed like a long time, driving out of the town and into a place where there were more hills than houses, so that she had seen the hotel coming for a long time—a big, wide, white building that stretched high up into the air, with flags flying in front. It looked like a nice place, but Christabel did not feel good about it.

The younger soldier sitting across from them looked at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something, maybe something kind, but then his mouth got tight and he looked away. Captain Ron, who was also sitting across from them, just looked unhappy, like his stomach hurt.

Where's Mommy?
she wondered.
Why did she drive away in our van? Why didn't she wait for us?

To keep Mister Sellars a secret,
Christabel suddenly knew. Just because her Daddy and Mommy—and this new person, Mr. Ramsey—all knew about him now didn't mean that everyone did.

Something she hadn't really thought about came to her as the van stopped.
That means Captain Ron doesn't know about Mister Sellars either—about how he came with us in our car, with that terrible boy, too. None of the army men know about it. That's why Daddy kept saying not to talk to anyone.

She had to hold her breath, because the being-scared suddenly felt so big. She hadn't understood. She had thought Daddy was angry at Captain Ron, angry because Ron didn't want him to take time off from work. Now she knew that he wasn't angry, he was keeping a secret. A secret she might have told one of the army men if they had asked her.

"Are you all right, honey?" her father asked. The van doors hissed open, and one of the soldiers stepped out. "Just take the man's hand when you get down."

Mr. Ramsey leaned close to her ear. "I'll be right behind you, Christabel. Your daddy and I will make sure everything's going to be okay."

But Christabel was beginning to learn a scary thing about grown-ups. Sometimes they said things would be all right, but they didn't
know
they'd be all right. They just said it. Bad things could happen, even to little kids.

Especially to little kids.

"Very slick," Captain Ron said as the door slid open in the garage wall, but he didn't sound happy. "Our own private elevator to the exec suite."

What kind of sweet? Christabel started to cry.
Exec.
She'd heard the word before. She didn't remember just what it meant, but she was pretty sure it must mean something about executions. She knew about them—she saw more things on the net than her parents knew about.
Execution sweet,
that was what Captain Ron was really saying. She wondered if it was a poison candy bar or something that they kept just for bad kids—maybe a poisoned apple, like in "Snow White."

Her father put his hand in her hair, touching the back of her head. "Honey, don't cry. Everything will be all right. Ron, does she have to come along? Can't we put this off until I can get hold of her mother or someone else to take her?"

Christabel grabbed her daddy's hand, hard. Captain Ron just shrugged, a big, heavy movement of his shoulders. "I got orders, Mike."

It was crowded and hot with all of them in the elevator—herself, her father, Mr. Ramsey, Captain Ron, and the two other soldiers—but Christabel didn't want the ride to end, didn't want to see what an execution sweet looked like. When the doors pinged and opened, she started crying again.

The room inside wasn't what she expected, which had been something like one of the terrible gray-painted prisons she'd seen on netshows, like the one Zelmo and Nedra had been in on
Hate My Life
. Captain Ron had kept calling it a hotel, and that's what it looked like, a big, big hotel room with a floor as big as their lawn at home, covered in pale blue carpet, with three couches and tables and a wallscreen that took up one huge wall, and a kitchen at the far end, and doors in the other walls. There was even a vase of flowers on one of the tables. The only thing that seemed as bad as she had expected was the really big man in dark glasses who stood in the doorway waiting for them. Another man who looked a lot like him was sitting on one of the couches, although now he stood up. They both were dressed in funny black suits, tight and a little shiny, and both had things strapped on their chests and hips that looked like guns or something even worse and more complicated and scarier.

"ID," said the man waiting at the door in a low slow voice.

"And just who the hell are you?" Captain Ron asked. For the first time his unhappiness seemed like something else—like he was angry, or maybe even scared.

"ID," the big man in the wraparound glasses said again, just the same, like he was one of the store window advertisements in Seawall Center. The soldiers with Captain Ron moved a little. Christabel saw one of them drop his hand to his side, near where his gun was. Christabel's heart began to go really, really fast.

"Hang on," her daddy said, "let's all just. . . ." One of the doors on the far side of the big room swung open. A man with a mustache and short gray hair walked out. Christabel could see a whole other big room behind him, with a bed and a desk and a big window with the curtains drawn. The man wore a bathrobe and striped pajamas. He was smoking a cigar. For a moment, Christabel thought she had seen him on the net because even in such funny clothes he looked so familiar.

"It's all right, Doyle," the man with the mustache said. "I know Captain Parkins. And Major Sorensen, too—oh, yes."

The big man in black walked back across the room to the nearest couch. He and the other shiny-suit man sat down together, not saying anything, but there was something about them that made Christabel think of a dog pretending to sleep at the end of a leash, just waiting until a kid got close enough to jump at.

"And I even remember
you
, darlin'." The man in the mustache smiled and leaned forward to pat Christabel on the head. She remembered him then, the tan-faced man in her daddy's office. "What are you doing here, little girl?" Her father's hand tightened on hers, so she didn't pull away from him, but she didn't say anything either.

The man straightened up, still smiling, but when he spoke again his voice was cold, like someone had just opened the freezer door and let the air puff out in Christabel's face. "What's this child doing here, Parkins?"

"I'm . . . I'm sorry, General." Captain Ron had sweat stains under his arms that had got bigger since they had left the elevator. "It was a difficult situation—the girl's mother was out shopping and couldn't be located, so since you said this was going to be informal. . . ."

The general laughed, a snort. "Oh, yes, informal. But I didn't say it was going to be a goddamn picnic, did I? What, are we going to have father-daughter sack races? Hmm? Captain Parkins, were you thinking we should have a picnic?"

"No, sir."

Mr. Ramsey cleared his throat. "General . . . Yacoubian?"

The man's eyes swiveled across to him. "And you know what?" the general said softly. "I
definitely
do not recognize you, citizen. So maybe you should just get back on the elevator and get the hell out of my suite."

"I'm a lawyer, General. Major Sorensen is my client."

"Really? This is the first time I've ever heard of a military officer bringing legal representation to a casual meeting with his commanding officer."

Now it was Ramsey who smiled, just a small one. "Clearly you have a broad definition of the word 'casual,' General."

"I'm a brigadier general, sonny. I think you'll find that things have a way of being what I say they are." He turned to Parkins. "All right, Captain, you've done your job. Take your men and get the hell back to whatever you're supposed to be doing. I'll take it from here."

"Sir?" Captain Parkins seemed confused. "But my men, sir . . . you said to bring a couple of MPs. . . ."

"You don't think Doyle and Pilger can handle anything that might come up?" The general shook his head. "Those boys are carrying more armament than a combat helicopter."

"Are they also US Army, General?" asked Ramsey loudly. "For the record?"

"Ask me no questions, lawyer, and I'll tell you no lies," chuckled the general.

Christabel's daddy's hand was trembling on her shoulder, which was making her almost more frightened than anything else that had happened today. Now he finally spoke. "General, there's really no need for either my daughter or Mr. Ramsey to be involved in this. . . ."