The Shaktra (7 page)

Inside the building’s lobby, she found a receptionist and a blind man. The latter sat on a sofa near the front door, holding a long white cane. He was close to thirty, with dark wavy hair and sunglasses so thick she could not catch a glimpse of his eyes. He was extremely thin, incredibly pale—so white he could have been born on the moon.

The receptionist was on the phone, preoccupied, but the man turned his head in Ali’s direction as she came through the door. It was a curious sensation to feel his stare, and know that there was nothing behind it. But it did not remind her of the cold feeling of being watched she had experienced minutes ago. The man stared a few inches off to her left. It was obvious that he was completely blind.

“Are you the messenger boy?” he asked.

“No. I’m just. . . a girl.”

“Oh.”

She noticed his ID badge. “Do you work for Omega?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m a big fan of your games.”

The man was interested. “Which game is your favorite?”

“Overlord. My friends and I play it all the time.”

The man gave her a gentle smile. “I’m so glad. I helped design it. If you’ll permit me to brag a little, I’ll go so far as to admit that I came up with the idea for it.”

“Really? Are you a programmer or something?”

“I can program computers, but technically I’m called a systems analyst. I oversee a group of fifty programmers. Most of us worked on Overlord together.” He added, “It took us three years to design that game.”

“I’m not surprised. The game has great visuals and the plot is so complex.” She realized she was repeating Steve word for word. Stepping near the blind man, she said, “I’m doing a report for a summer school English class on your games. I came here to see if I could talk to someone who worked on Overlord. Would it be okay if I asked you a few questions?”

“Sure. But when the messenger comes, I’ll have to take the package he’s bringing to a few of my people in the back. It’s promotional material we’re working on for a new game—the sequel to Overlord.” The blind man added, “You might want to mention that in your paper.”

“What’s it called?”

“Armageddon.”

Ali rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Sounds wicked, I can’t wait. So it carries on the theme of the end of the world, and machines taking over, and all that?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. As you know from playing Overlord, the machines alone don’t really take over. It’s the hybrid of them, and humans—the cyborgs—that gain ultimate control. But in Armageddon we take it a step further. We introduce a third element.”

“What is it?” Ali asked.

The man smiled again. His lips were thin, a little dry, and he had the whitest teeth. “That’s a secret, I’m sorry. My boss would have my head if I talked about it.”

“Who’s your boss?”

“Sheri Smith. She’s an amazing woman. She started this company only seven years ago and built it into an industry leader. If I was in your shoes, I’d try to interview her for your paper. She’s very quotable. Would you believe she’s younger than me?”

“How old are you?” Ali asked.

He chuckled. “How old do I look?”

“Thirty.”

He nodded. “Thirty-two. You?”

“Thirteen.”

“You sound older.”

“I try,” Ali said.

“What’s your name by the way?”

“Lisa Morgan. Yours?”

He held out his hand. “Mike Havor. Pleased to meet you, Lisa.”

She shook his hand, he had a light grip. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Are you from around here?”

“I’m from Bale.” That was twenty miles south of Toule.

“I live here in town so I don’t have to drive to work.” He smiled at his own joke. “Actually, I’m able to walk to work. I live down the block.”

“May I ask a blunt question?”

He nodded. “You want to know how a blind person is able to work with a team of programmers designing a video game?”

“I would imagine it would be hard.”

“I wasn’t born blind. I lost my sight in an accident when I was young. So I know what stuff looks like, and I know what I want
the games to look like. But I admit I need constant input on how the game is coming to life. I don’t rely on just one person. I listen to a dozen people, then form a mental image. Ms. Smith helps me the most. We work together closely. Maybe you can use that fact in your paper. You see, Ms. Smith doesn’t come from a computer background, but a literary one. She’s published several children’s books under various pen names.”

Ali made a mental note to check out those books. “Isn’t it strange for someone to start a computer company and not be versed in computers?” she asked.

“It’s not as strange as you would think. Programmers can be hired and told what to do. It’s vision that’s crucial, and Ms. Smith has that in spades. I told you I came up with the concept for Overlord, but she was the one to see its potential. Before we met, I tried shopping it all over the country and got nowhere. I owe her a lot.”

“Is she in today?”

“She’s in a series of meetings. I’ve been trying to talk to her myself all day. But if you hang around, you might get five minutes with her. I can’t promise you anything, but I can put in a word for you.”

“That’s awfully nice of you, Mr. Havor.”

“Mike, please.”

“I notice you never call your boss Sheri.”

He chuckled. “Well, she is the boss, and she is a little less informal than most of us around here. Not to say she’s unpleasant, you understand, she’s always very polite. But she hates to waste time. If you do get to meet with her, ask your questions quickly. That way you’ll get the most out of her.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ali said.

A minute later the messenger boy arrived with the package Mike was waiting for. Mike signed for it and started for the
back, but he asked Ali if she wanted to have a look at the promotional materials and she said sure. So without really trying, she took one step deeper into the company.

As they were walking down a long hallway—Mike expertly waving his cane in front of him—they passed a painting of a beautiful woman with long blond hair and green eyes. The name at the bottom of the painting read: S
HERI
S
MITH
. Mike was right, she looked younger than he did, not more than thirty, perhaps a lot less. And the woman’s green eyes were so bright, Ali felt as if she were staring into a mirror.

Outside, in the park, Cindy licked a chocolate ice cream cone while Steve worked on a thick vanilla shake. The dessert—from a small shop on the main street—was better than any Steve had tasted before. Apparently they made their own ice cream fresh every morning. If there had been a similar shop in Breakwater, he thought, he would weigh two hundred pounds.

Despite the fantastic sugar fix, the two of them felt frustrated. They wanted to help Ali save the world, and they knew they could not help her because the world was too big and they were too human. When it came right down to it, he thought, they were no better than cheerleaders. Steve expressed his thoughts aloud to Cindy.

“True,” Cindy agreed. “There ain’t nothing a mere mortal can do to stop Lord Vak from bringing that freaky army back here again.”

“How do you think he’s going to do it without the Yanti?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know, but Ali sure thinks he can. And watching those two arguing on top of the mountain, I’d have to say that’s one elf king who’s used to getting his own way. I told you before, he
could have taken the Yanti from Ali if he’d wanted to. Her magic was not working so good on him.”

“I’ve never understood that. Why didn’t he take it?”

“He must have thought it didn’t matter.”

Steve got an idea. “Is it possible he wanted her to have it?”

“Who knows? But one thing’s for sure, he was not your warm-and-fuzzy kind of elf.”

A young girl came over to them, and reached for Cindy’s ice cream cone. She was small, maybe six years old, had short red hair and dull violet eyes. Her eyes were so flat, Steve was not sure if she was able to see out of them. Her expression was utterly blank, as well. Steve suspected she was mentally retarded, or worse. Yet her hair, although poorly kept, was as bright and shiny as Ali’s. Steve could not help noticing it was
exactly
the same color, and had
exactly
the same luster. It looked like a living flame.

The girl wore white pants and a torn yellow shirt. There were dark smudges on her right cheek and between her eyebrows. Her fingers—as they reached for Cindy’s cone—were dirty. She looked like an orphan.

“Want . . . want . . .” she said, the words badly slurred.

Cindy glanced at Steve. “What should I do?”

“Say no.”

“Steve! You see how she is.”

“Give it to her then, as long as you don’t want it back.”

Cindy looked around. “I wonder if she has a guardian or something.”

“Want . . . want . . . want . . .”

“She looks like she needs one,” he said.

Cindy handed over the cone, spoke kindly. “You can have it if you want, sweetie. But try not to spill it on your clothes. . . .”

Too late. The second the girl took the cone, she opened her mouth wide, tried to bite off the entire top, and a clump of the ice cream plopped onto her pants near her knee. The girl did not even notice; she kept digging into the cone. Within a minute her face was smeared with chocolate. They were not even sure if she was enjoying herself. She didn’t smile, that’s for sure. Maybe she did not know how.

“I think she’s hungry,” Steve said.

“She looks famished. Do you think we should find a cop, turn her over to him?”

“That’s an idea. What do you think of her hair?”

“It looks like Ali’s.”

“Think that’s a coincidence?”

Cindy paused. “What do you mean?”

Steve was not given a chance to reply. A middle-aged Latina woman suddenly appeared, carrying a grocery bag, and from the look on her face she appeared relieved to see the young girl.

“Nira, where did you get off to? You had me scared to death!” the woman cried, bending over to take the cone from the girl, wiping her face with a piece of tissue paper. The woman was dressed plainly in a long brown dress, had a thick accent, and more than a hint of gray in her hair.

“Sorry, we gave it to her,” Cindy said.

“She was begging for it,” Steve added.

The woman glanced at them, smiled. She had a broad face, and looked as if she’d had a hard life. For some reason, Steve immediately got the impression she’d come from a tiny village where people labored from sunup to sundown. She was big boned, and had heavy calluses on both hands. Yet, unlike the girl, her face was expressive. Clearly she was not dumb, although she had managed to lose the little girl for a time.

The woman nodded her head at their remarks. “You were just being friendly, which is more than I can say for most of the folks around here. What are your names?”

“I’m Cindy and this is Steve,” Cindy replied.

“I’m Rose. Nice to meet you both.” She did not offer her hand.

“Nice to meet you. Do you take care of this child?” Cindy asked.

“She is my responsibility. But she got away from me in the store. I don’t know how. She was there one second, gone the next.” Holding on to Nira’s hand, Rose took a weary breath and gestured to their bench. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Go right ahead,” Cindy said, moving closer to Steve as Rose sat down. It seemed Cindy could not take her eyes off the girl. “Her name’s Nira?”

“Nira Smith. Her mother’s president of that big company you see up there on the hill. She’s a busy woman, smart—an important person in the community. She hired me a year ago to take care of Nira, and that’s what I do.” Rose added, “I’m from Colombia.”

“Do you have family here?” Steve asked.

Rose lifted Nira onto her lap, continued to wipe at her face with the tissues, while Nira struggled to get her ice cream back.
“Want . . . Want . . . Want . . .”
It was not to be. The woman threw what was left of the cone in a nearby garbage can.

“Nira’s my family now,” Rose replied.

Steve hesitated. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s autistic.”

“Was she born that way?” Cindy asked.

“Her mother says no. But Nira got vaccinations when she was a year old and she had an allergic reaction. . . .” Rose shrugged. “The shots might have done it, who knows? She’s been this way since I met her.”

“Does she recognize you?” Cindy asked.

The woman smiled at the girl, touched her right ear. “She
knows
me. We’re best friends, aren’t we? Yeah, you’re my girl, the best girl in the whole world.” She glanced at them, tried to explain. “There’s lots of love inside her. She can’t express it but I feel it.”

“She has beautiful hair,” Steve said. “Does it come from her mother?”

“Her mother is blond, but their eyes are similar. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering,” Steve said.

“Thanks so much for finding her. I’m so embarrassed. She’s never gotten away from me before. For a minute there, I was in a total panic. I was imagining having to call Ms. Smith and tell her that I had lost her daughter.” Rose shuddered. “That would have been terrible.”

“How did you meet Nira’s mother?” Steve asked.

“In Colombia, through friends. She was there, shopping. They have the best emeralds in Colombia, and they go so well with Ms. Smith’s eyes. She has a beautiful collection of them.”

“They sound lovely. Do you miss home?” Cindy asked.

“This is my home now,” she said, partially repeating her earlier remark. As they spoke, the woman continued to stroke Nira’s hair, which seemed to make the girl forget about the ice cream cone. Nira just stared off into the distance, her face as empty as a prison wall.

It occurred to Steve he might be able to find out more about Omega Overtures from Rose than Ali could fumbling around inside the company’s headquarters. Anything to quit being a cheerleader . . .

“Ms. Smith’s company makes computer games, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes. They’re very successful.”

“I’ve played a few, they’re great,” Steve went on. “I’ve always been impressed that their company grew so quickly. Ms. Smith must be a genius.”