Authors: Gene; John; Wolfe Cramer
'Now, Shadow,' David said, turning to the telephone instrument on the table, 'it's about time a smart guy like you started getting a real education. Come over here. You're going to learn how to dial the operator.'
Vickie squirmed against the ropes once more. Her arms and legs were tied securely to the straight-backed wooden armchair and there was a rubber gag in her mouth. She was very frightened.
For most of the past week the Mandrake person, always wearing the ski mask, had come to her little room to ask her questions. He had been pleasant and professional, and she almost liked him. Then this morning he had come in with the large man. He was carrying a little black case. He had put the case on the table beside the bed and opened it. Inside was a hypodermic syringe.
The large man had held her arms, and Mandrake had explained that his employers had ordered the use of neurophagin. Vickie had begun to scream at them. The big man had silenced her with a foul-tasting rubber gag. It had been like an obscene rubber tongue intruding into her mouth. Mandrake had expertly filled the syringe and approached her.
When she had judged the moment was right, she had kicked him in the knee, then the crotch, then struck hard against the hand holding the syringe. The plastic tube had crashed hard against the wall and broken open, leaking amber fluid on the floor. Mandrake had collapsed to his knees and remained there for a minute or so. Finally he had risen, apparently still in pain, and had struck her hard in the face twice. He was very angry. That was the last of their neurophagin supply, he raged, and it would take half a day to get more. They had tied her to this chair, gagged and helpless. Mandrake had collected the broken syringe parts in the black bag and the two had left, locking the door behind them.
Now
her mind kept endlessly cycling over the same ground, looking for a tool, a gimmick, a way out.
Rash sat at the teakwood desk by the big deck window, a book in his lap, waiting for David's Macintosh III to decrypt another Megalith document. He looked out the broad window across the Lake Washington Ship Canal at the towers, peaked rooftops, and squat rectangles of the university in the distance. He wondered where Vickie was now and what was happening to her. He was really worried. For the past five days he had been using David's Flat-Mac to decrypt a large number of the Megalith files that he had brought with him. David's machine, a small briefcase unit with a hi-res color flat screen built into its lid, had ten times the memory of Vickie's Mac and a much faster CPU. But this was still slow going because the decryption algorithm took lots of CPU time, and there were so many of Pierce's communications to sort through.
The degree of corporate ruthlessness the files revealed was very disturbing, painting a picture of a high-tech rogue corporation that routinely used theft, fraud, and violence to achieve its goals. And they had Sis . . .
At the end of each day Flash had made hard copies of the previous day's decrypted files with David's laser printer. Then he'd taken the number 9 bus to the Broadway post office and mailed them to the Seattle office of the FBI. That was his insurance in case he was nabbed by the kidnappers before he was finished. When the decrypting and printing of all the files was complete, he planned to take them personally to FBI headquarters and confess his recent hacking of Megalith. He was very worried about his sister, but he couldn't think of a better scheme to help her.
The program signaled completion and Flash studied the newly decrypted document. It indicated that the day after David and the children had disappeared, Pierce had
arranged
for Megalith to very indirectly lease a house in Laurelhurst for $4,500 per month. There was an inventory of furniture and even a boat. It sounded quite fancy.
Why would Pierce do that, Flash wondered. Could they be holding Vickie there? Perhaps he should go out and phone in an anonymous tip to the police . . . Couldn't do it on David's phone or they'd backtrack him. He looked at the little time display in the upper right corner of the Mac's display. A little after eleven. In maybe an hour he'd make another trip to the post office and use a pay phone at the same time.
Rash started the program decrypting another of Pierce's files and turned back to the book in his lap. In the three days he'd been here, while he was waiting for the computer to complete decryptions, he'd read through a good chunk of David's collection of hard science fiction hardbacks. He'd done one Niven, a couple of Benfords, a Brin, two Bears, and a Hogan. Now he was working on
Shadow of the Torturer
, the first volume of Wolfe's
The Book of the New Sun.
Nice stuff. He couldn't understand why some people thought it was a fantasy, though.
There was a sound from the bedroom, then another. Flash crept across the carpet and peered through the door, his head low in the door frame. A small brown animal stood on the walnut dresser next to the telephone. It had four legs and two arms, like a miniature centaur. A voice that sounded like David's said, 'Shadow, pick up the receiver.' The creature responded by lifting the telephone receiver and placing it carefully on the dresser, mouthpiece up. The dial tone from the receiver made it back away. Distracted, it walked across the dresser and sniffed at the bottle of after shave standing there. 'No, Shadow, come back,' said the voice, 'back to the telephone.' The creature stood for a moment, then walked back across the dresser to the telephone instrument. It still seemed wary of the dial-tone sound. 'That's right, Shadow,' said the voice, 'push the "0" button. Push it
now.
That's a good fellow. Go on, push it now . . . '
Almost reflexively, Flash called out, 'David, is that you?' The little animal jumped off the dresser, scrambled behind it, and peered up from underneath with large violet eyes. Flash noticed that now it looked the same gray color as the bedroom carpet.
A dim sphere that was hanging in midair near the creature moved toward him and flickered. 'Flash!' said David's voice. 'What the Hell are you doing in my apartment?'
Flash told him.
23
Tuesday Noon, October 26
David was exhausted. He had been running through the forest for nearly an hour. It had been quite strange to walk over the waters of Union Bay and along Lake Washington with dry feet like some Biblical figure. He stopped again to take a bearing. Holding the twistor unit at eye level, he pressed the PEEK button. A black sphere formed in the coil cup at the end of the device. Nothing could be seen within it. He was below ground level here.
He switched off the twistor unit and shoved its long cylindrical body through a loop of his belt. The silvery flashlight barrel projected behind him almost like a short sword, he noticed, and the cup at the other end was like a rounded handguard. He stepped across the brightly colored line surrounding a nearby tree and began to climb its broad trunk, using the large upthrust bark scales for hand and footholds. The green treebird higher in the tree squawked a threat down at him but did not approach.
Shadow scampered up the tree ahead of David. He seemed amused at his companion's lack of native climbing ability. When David was about four meters off the ground he paused and PEEKED again. He'd been traveling parallel to the Laurelhurst lakeshore. In the scene visible through the field sphere, he was just above the lake level and opposite a boat dock. A fast-looking motorboat was tied at the dock, and a house number was nailed to the edge of the pier. It was the address he'd been looking for. He descended and climbed uphill toward the place where, in another universe, a large house had been built on the shore.
The
house, David was relieved to find, was on about the same level as the forest floor. Seattle is built on many hills, and this universe had sizable hills of its own, but the topography had rarely corresponded during David's journey here. If the house had been at a level much higher or lower than that of the forest, reaching it could have presented a serious problem.
He walked 'into' the house, pressing the PEEK button and watching as he passed through an outer wall and into the kitchen. Empty. He pressed TALK and put his ear near the sphere, listening through the low hum of the cycling twistor field. His ear felt cool as a flow of air passed from his universe to the other, caused by the pressure difference that he'd noticed before. Male voices came to him through the hum. He chose a direction that should take him through one of the kitchen's interior walls, walked a short distance, and PEEKED.
Two men were seated in the living room. David recognized them as two of the three 'movers' who had invaded his lab. The balding man, the one who had done all the talking, sat in a large armchair. There was a brightly colored ski mask on the armrest beside him. The large ugly man sat opposite him on a sofa. He was the one who'd pointed the gun, and now David noted that the man's right hand was missing, the stump covered by a sort of tan sock.
David walked to a corner above their heads and just behind them, well out of their field of view. He pressed TALK again, and listened.
The large man was feeling impatient. 'When'll they be back?' He looked across at his boss.
'In maybe forty-five minutes, an hour,' replied the balding man. 'We used up most of the neurophagin on the old guy, and the bitch trashed the rest. So I sent 'em over to Harborview for more. The docs there are using it for tests on some loonie cases. The DOD supplies the junk
and
pays for the research. One of the duty nurses there's a junkie and a friend of mine. She works the psycho ward and gets me some real good junk for this kind of work. They watch the hard drugs pretty close there, but who'd want to steal neurophagin? Its side effects are supposed to be a secret, but all the nurses know it's bad shit. Causes permanent brain damage.' He smiled.
'Then we juice the chickie?' the big man asked.
'Then we do the girl,' the other answered. 'Ya know, she's got a good kick.'
'How're the old family jewels doin'?' the big man asked. 'She whammed you a good 'un.' He chuckled appreciatively.
The balding man looked annoyed. 'I wasn't expecting it,' he said. 'She'd seemed so cooperative. I should've remembered what she did to you when you guys snatched her.'
The big man scowled. 'When do I get her?' he asked finally, looking wolfish.
'Soon,' said the balding man. 'After we use the neurophagin it'll take maybe a day or two more of questioning. Then, if Broadsword says it's OK, you can have her for a while. Guess we'll have to use the boat to sink both of 'em pretty soon anyhow.'
The big man smiled in anticipation, then frowned. 'Hey, there's a draft in here,' he said looking around. 'And do you smell somethin' funny?' He thought he saw something flicker at the edge of his vision, but when he turned toward the corner nothing was there.
The balding man sniffed. 'Just fresh air,' he said. 'Smells like cedar trees or somethin'.'
The big man frowned, recalling the strong cedar smell in that room at the university and the weird happenings when he'd lost his hand. It'd been a shock, losing the hand. He'd decided that he was going to get a sharp hook, like a pirate's, to replace it. In his kind of work a hook like that'd be a definite asset. And it would have
other
interesting uses, too. The cedar smell came again. 'I don't like this old place,' he said. 'It's kinda spooky.' He put his left hand in his pocket to rub the rabbit's foot that he always carried.
'Funny you should say that,' said the balding man. 'When the real-estate broad at the Scott office gave me the keys, the guy at the next desk asked, kinda jokin', if this house was the haunted one. I asked what the hell he meant. The lady told him to shut up, but he said they already had the lease money so there was no harm in telling.
'He said that a rich old lumber guy had owned this house, and one morning he shot his wife and daughter and grandkids and then hung himself in a tree out in the yard. S'pose to be their spooks, still here, is why they're rentin' now instead of sellin'. They wanna let the rumors die down first. It's sure a creepy old place all right, but I haven't seen any spooks.' He paused. 'Hell, I need a brew,' he said, getting up and moving toward the kitchen.
As soon as the balding man had left the room, the big man felt a cold wind near his ear. He looked around suspiciously but saw nothing. Then, very close by, he was startled by a crazy-sounding voice that whispered to him. 'We're coming for you,' the voice said. 'We are. We'll make you one of us. You'll be part of our house . . . always.'
The big man screamed, jumping up from the sofa and looking around. Nothing was there. He was sweating and his heart pounded. The other man came back into the room at a dead run. 'What th' Hell?' he demanded. 'Why'd you yell?'
The big man turned slowly. He couldn't tell his boss. 'Nothin',' he muttered. 'I just bit my tongue, and it hurt.' He grinned sheepishly.
The other man looked disgusted. He turned without a word and stalked back toward the kitchen.
The
big man stood up and paced. He'd heard it. It couldn't have been his imagination. He rubbed his rabbit's foot again. The old stories came flooding back, the ones his grandma would tell to scare him when he'd been bad. And the nightmares that had followed. In the stories the guys never had the sense to leave, to run, and the horrors always got 'em. He felt the wind again, and looked around. Nothing. Then the voice came again. 'We'll eat off your other hand,' it said, 'and then your balls, and then your nose, and then your eyes . . . ' He repressed the scream this time, but ran to the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and leaned against it, trembling.
There was a terrible shit-smell. He'd fouled his pants, he realized. Shaking, he cleaned himself as best he could. Then he vomited his breakfast. He was scared, shaking. He wasn't ever going to leave the bathroom, to go out there.
Then the cold wind came again. He hadn't locked them out. The crazy voice said, 'We are very very hungry. We need your flesh. Give it to us . . . ' There was a sharp pain in the fleshy part at the edge of his left, his remaining hand. When he looked down, a circular wound was there, like a bite.