“Mrs. Logan,” Jim said, all formality in front of Dev’s dad, though under other circumstances he had been addressing Bella as “Dev’s Mom” for most of thirty years. “Doctor Logan—”
“How’s business?” Dev’s dad said, shaking Jim’s hand after Bella finished hugging him.
“Not too bad at all,” Jim said. He leaned over toward Dev and said, very softly, “One zero five two point two.”
“What?”
“One thousand fifty-two point two—”
Dev’s eyes widened. Jim burst out in a grin that looked like it might split his face. “The Nikkei and Hang Seng are going nuts,” he said. “But then they’ve had twelve hours to react to the Asian first-night sales figures. Between hard copy sales and downloads, we’ve shifted—are you ready?—almost eight hundred thousand hard units between midnight and now—”
With a whoop, Dev grabbed Jim and hugged him. “And in downloads, one point six million so far,” Jim said, with what breath remained in his lungs.
“And I don’t have to sell the car,” Dev said very low in Jim’s ear.
“Nope. Tell you, though, Dev, that was a real weird bump-up we got on the Nikkei, though. Much bigger than I expected, and the Hang Seng did the same thing right afterward . . .”
“Ask me if I care!” Dev let go of Jim, turned to his father. “We broke a thousand,” he said.
“Dubai and Moscow are about to open,” Jim said, pulling his tux back into order. “Gotta run—”
He headed off across the crowd. Dev’s mom gazed after him, and then got a sudden bemused look as past Jim she caught sight of a tall state governor who had once been a film star associated with sword-wielding heroes and unstoppable robots. “Is that—”
“Of course it is,” Dev said.
His mother patted his arm and headed off through the crowd, where within a matter of seconds she had latched onto the governor in question and was explaining to him that she was Dev Logan’s mother. Dev folded his arms and watched this display with considerable amusement. After a moment he glanced sideways to say something to his dad and found that he was standing and watching his wife in a pose almost identical to Dev’s own.
His dad’s expression was as resigned as Stroopwaffel’s had been before. After a moment he caught Dev’s glance, returned it, and then laughed one of those small down- the-nose laughs of his, nearly silent. “So,” he said. “You survived the week.”
Dev nodded. “You have any bets down that I wouldn’t? Sorry to have put you out of pocket . . .”
For a moment, just a moment, that scowl came back, and Dev started to inwardly curse himself. But then his father let the expression go, and once again laughed the near-silent laugh. “Why do we have to be doing this to each other all the time?” Dev’s dad said under his breath, swirling the ice cubes in the whiskey glass. He turned his gaze to Dev. “Why, Son?”
The sound of genuine incomprehension was something Dev wasn’t at all used to hearing from his father. What upset him now was that he was so short of answers to the question, plausible or otherwise. “I don’t know,” Dev said at last, “but I don’t mind stopping if you don’t.”
His dad’s smile was dry. “It’s not like I don’t absolutely believe you,” he said. “And believe in you. But it’s going to be more like quitting smoking than anything else. Habit’s a bitch, Dev. How many times have I quit now?”
Forty-six, Dev was about to say: but he restrained himself. “Habit,” he said after a moment, “is indeed a bitch.”
For a moment more they stood there together, watching Bella bend the governor’s ear. “I’d better get out there and rescue the poor man,” Dev’s dad said then, and touched Dev’s elbow lightly as he headed down from the dais. “In case I miss you in the madness—what time’s breakfast?”
“Usually six for Lolo,” Dev said. “Tomorrow, nine for us. Call and ask the concierge: he’ll let you know what’s going on.”
His dad nodded and made his way down to Bella. Dev stood there watching, while wondering at the sudden warmth that had just passed between him and his father. This is absolutely the week for amazing things, he thought. Who knows? With everything else that’s been going on, why not this too?
He let out a long breath and went to get himself a glass of mineral water.
The next part of the evening progressed as these events usually did. Dev had to make a speech toward the end of the formal part of it, and kept the speech short as much for his own sanity as that of those who had to stand there listening to him. Then he had to go do half an hour with the press, after which they were instructed that they could either leave him alone and enjoy the party along with everyone else, or be thrown into Castle Dev’s moat. As usual, one of the journalists tested the boundaries, at which point tuxedoed Omnitopia security moved in. Subsequent ablutions were administered by the ladies and gentlemen of the press themselves.
After that, Dev was at liberty to wander where he liked. His normal strategy at such events was to meander in cycles from the dance floor area to the buffet to the gaming bower, then have a mineral water and do it again, so he more or less automatically fell into that rhythm now. It was at the buffet, between the grill and the salad table, that Dev saw faces he’d had to look up earlier so that he’d be sure to recognize them: a smallish plump lady in a dark cocktail dress, and a tall broad-shouldered dark-haired man in a respectable Sears suit of the kind Mirabel used to buy him, along with two small sweat suit-clad boys who had all their attention bent on the short-order chef who was grilling their burgers.
“Arnulf?” Dev said in an undertone as he came up behind them. “And Angela?”
They turned. “Mr. Logan—” Angela said.
He put up his eyebrows as he shook her hand. “Oh, are we playing it formal, then? ‘Milady.’ ”
She laughed at him. “Don’t you start! But I have to say, you do smell a lot better.”
“Angela!” Rik said as he and Dev shook hands.
“Well, seriously, he does, didn’t you get a whiff of him back in Indigo? All right, it was a costume you were wearing, a virtual rig, but where did you get that smell?”
Dev shook his head, smiling somewhat ruefully at the memory. “Once upon a time, when I lived above the shop—”
“Like you don’t now?” Rik said.
“It was a much smaller shop,” Dev said. “Well, way back then, it was my job to take out the garbage. There was this back alley, and the building we lived in shared it with a bar and a pizzeria, and all our garbage cans stood out there together. And there was a little old guy who was there every day and went through the cans. A very cranky guy, he was. He had this overcoat that hadn’t been to the cleaners’ since World War Two, and the smell of it, ay yi yi . . .” Dev rolled his eyes. “That’s what I borrowed.”
Angela looked thoughtful. “What happened to him?” Angela said.
Dev shook his head sadly, as he always did when thinking of that dingy little alley. “He died, one day—right out there by the cans. They took him away, and found out that he had no relatives, and no will. But they probated his estate, and you know what? He was a millionaire a couple of times over.” He sighed. “He changed my life. I swore that if I ever got rich, I wasn’t going to keep it to myself. I was going to spread it around and make a difference in other people’s lives . . . because there are more ways than one to stink.”
Rik’s look was wry. “Dev,” he said. “One thing. It’s great to be here, and we want to thank you for having us. But what exactly did we do?”
Dev laughed. “It’s technical,” he said. “Your Microcosm popped a symptom that was turning up elsewhere in a lot of different forms. But your version of it was simple enough for us to get a handle on what was causing the problem . . . so we were able to keep a lot of other people’s dreams from going up in smoke. As a result, you’ll forgive me if I drop in on your ’cosm from time to time, in my own skin. Just to keep an eye on things.”
“But not as casual labor,”
Rik said.
“Um, no. Though I can find you a replacement assistant if you feel you need one.”
“It’s okay,” Rik said, exchanging a glance with Angela. “I think we can manage whatever might come up.”
“All right,” Dev said. “Anyway, you’ll find my fast-track e-mail in your box when you get home. If you find you need me for something, don’t hesitate.” He looked down at the boys. “And how’re you gentlemen doing? When you’re done with those, we’ve got one of those balloon-sculpture guys and a storyteller and some other entertainment over past the gaming bower. And my daughter’s there, with a bunch of her school friends. Maybe a little young for you, but the toys are pretty high-end.”
The elder of the boys paused in midburger and studied Dev critically. “Have you got PlayStations?”
“Mike!”
“It’s okay,” Dev said to the somewhat scandalized Rik. “As a matter of fact, we do. About twenty of them . . . not to mention the other major game boxes. This is a party, not a trade show.”
“Oh. That’s okay, then . . .”
“Rik, if we didn’t have them, I’d send out for one just for him,” Dev said. “He’s with you, and you’ve made a big difference to Omnitopia. I can’t tell you how big. So thanks for coming.”
The party, Dev knew, would go on till dawn—there were always diehards, Omnitopian and otherwise, who would refuse to leave a dance floor until it was disassembled underneath them—but Dev wasn’t required to stay there anything like that long. Around eleven he went about saying his first set of good nights to various personalities here and there, not hurrying, just enjoying the sense of being finished with a project that had been hanging over his head for so very long. At one point Dev paused a while by the dance floor along with many others to behold the spectacle of Giorgio and Darlene and the rest of the Princes of the Palace of Hell, now all dressed to the nines in tailcoats and long formals, going through a stomping and shouting performance that started out as a Maori triumphal haka and then dissolved without warning into synchronized boogiewoogie.
My people, Dev thought, are something else. But they’re also why I won’t have to sell my car . . . He ambled off among his guests again, and finally wound up wandering back over to the players’ bower under the big tree, having seen some movement over there that suggested one of the more persistent players was leaving.
The Queen of the Netherlands had just stood up and handed her little clutch-bag to one of her security people. Dev headed over to her, nodding at them, and meeting her smile with one of his own. “Did you have a pleasant evening, Majesty?” he asked.
“Very much so!” Stroopwaffel said. “Especially when your mother came back with little Lola. What a sweet child!” And she grinned a knowing grin. “I begin to suspect that she’s the real power behind the throne around here.”
“You have no idea,” said Dev.
The queen rose. “I hate to go,” she said, “but I have one of those tiresome political things to deal with in the morning, and homework to do for it before I go to bed. But thank you so much for inviting me, Dev! I’ve had a lovely time.”
“It’s the least I can do for one of our very first European players,” Dev said. “And thank you, Stroop. You’ve pushed the value of my stock up today.”
She looked at him quizzically. “I have? How? I checked Reuters Financial an hour or so ago and it looked like things were coming along nicely in that regard! You’d hardly need me to—”
Dev was confused for a moment; then he laughed. “No, no, not that! I meant my personal stock. My father considers me helpless in most forms of human endeavor, but political power he respects. And my mom’s been a closet monarchist since her grandma told her how they kicked poor Umberto the Second out of Italy.”
Stroopwaffel smiled that small demure smile of hers. “My pleasure to be of use,” she said. “But one thing before I go. You promised you were going to e-mail me the walkthrough for the Gloriana expansion. . . .”
Dev rubbed his face. “First thing in the morning, I promise.”
She grinned at him. “Make sure you do it. I wouldn’t like to have to blame you for an international incident.”
Dev rolled his eyes. “You always were a troublemaker,” he said. “Don’t think I don’t know who got those London stallholders to throw Doctor Dee in the Thames.”
The queen sighed. “There’s no hiding anything from the First Player, is there,” she said. “Oh, well.” She got up, glanced around at her security people: they gathered in around her preparatory to forming a flying wedge to get her through the crowd.
She offered Dev her hand: he took it and bowed over it in best Tau-style. “Have a good trip, Your Majesty,” he said.
“See you online, Dev,” said Stroopwaffel, and stepped out into the crowd, smiling, her security guards squiring her through the press and out of sight.
Dev continued his first good nights and finally escaped back up into Castle Dev, making his way up to the round conference room at the top of the southern castle tower. A lot of Omnitopian staff were lounging around up there, drinking beer or champagne and snacking on hors d’oeuvres while wandering over to the floor-to-ceiling windows every now and then to look down on what remained of the party. The Magnificent Seven were there, all of them, in various stages of dress or redress—all the female members having dumped their heels by now, and the males mostly having lost tuxedo jackets and bow ties, though Tau, as always, was still offensively perfectly dressed and glossy-looking even after so long a night.
Jim, knowing Dev’s habits at these functions, had kept a single bottle of champagne unopened on ice. Now he popped it and poured Dev a glass, and the rest of the Seven gathered around for refills.
Dev lifted the glass. “Omnitopia,” he said. “And all of you—who saved it for its players.”
“Omnitopia,” they all said, and drank.
Dev put the champagne aside after the single glass, and went looking for a beer. Conversation after that went as it normally did among the Seven when they were all together and not working—in all possible directions—though for the moment the party, the rollout, and the attack were the chief topics of discussion, with a lot of wonder being expressed that they’d survived at all. Dev had suspected earlier that there would be a lot of this, and had more or less decided to avoid talking about it any more than he had to. Yet somewhere in the middle of his second beer, he found himself standing next to Tau and looking out the window down into the courtyard, and found himself saying, “Tell me something—”
Tau looked at Dev quizzically.
“You hear any stories from our own people about strange RealFeel experiences during the ‘blackout?’ ” Dev said. “Funny imageries . . . stuff like that?”
Tau yawned and rubbed his eyes for a moment, then had a swig of beer. “Yeah,” he said, “there’ve been some strange stories making their way around the company intranet.”
“About what?”
Tau shrugged. “Mostly the system initiating conversations under strange circumstances. And sometimes in pretty peculiar modes. The control voice speaking very emotionally. Or sounding weird even when it seemed calm. One of my people told me that it sounded like somebody who was scared, but was trying to hide it . . .”
Dev looked away, then shook his head. “What’s your take on it?” he said.
Tau chuckled. “Stress,” he said. “What else could it be? There was enough stress washing around in this place for you to float a liner in.” He had another gulp of beer.
“Any of that happen after the attack?”
Tau shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard,” he said. “But then my people haven’t been talking about after the attack, except as work requires. What everybody wants to be sharing are battle stories. You’ll hear about fifteen thousand of those over the next few weeks, I’m guessing.”
Dev nodded and had a long few gulps of beer. “Just keep an eye open,” he said. “Any more of that kind of thing happens, I want to
look into it myself.”
“You always want to look into everything yourself,” Tau said, resigned. “Trouble with you is, you have no concept of how to delegate.”
Dev thumped Tau in the shoulder with one fist and headed over to Jim. To him, as they stood together by the window looking down into the courtyard, Dev said only one word. “Delia?” he said.
Jim shrugged. “It might work,” he said. “Playing this kind of double game is always dangerous.”
“This from the man who got me to jump off the garage roof with him when we were eleven?”
Jim smiled, then shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes. Phil—” He made a face. “No telling what’s going on inside that guy’s head at the best of times. And after this, when he’s plainly lost face—privately at least—and is about to lose market share, very publicly—who knows what he’ll be thinking in a week, or a month? But this way we may have a slightly better shot at figuring that out.”
Dev nodded. “Jim,” he said, “thanks again. For everything.”
Jim gave him a look that was amused, but soft around the edges with affection. “You mean, thanks for letting me have the most fun I can have without getting my head stuck in Lola’s dollhouse? You’re welcome.”
Dev gave him a one-armed hug and headed out. “See you in the morning, everybody,” he called to the rest of the Seven.
“Night, Dev!”
He made his way out of the Tower and strolled across into the Castle proper to get rid of his tux. This late in the proceedings, no one in their right mind would expect him to stay dressed—especially when a significant portion of his remaining party guests were probably heading for the fountain at the front entrance to get wet. In the suite, he made his way back to the closet space, dumped the tux jacket and the tie, and changed into a more casual white shirt, then headed out and made his way down to his office to glance at the desk and just on the off chance that something else needed his attention before calling it a day—
“Who do I think I’m kidding?” he murmured as he entered the office. The lighting was evening-dim. His desk was clean. The view window was showing the party. Nothing needed him here.