River of Blue Fire

  “No.” Osiris had calmed. “Of course not.”

  “Then perhaps by the time of our next meeting, you could promise them some kind of report? With all respect to your very busy schedule, it would be a useful antidote to some of the overly emotional responses we have seen today.”

  The Old Man hesitated for only a moment. “Certainly. That is eminently fair. I will have something prepared.”

  “Something useful,” said Yacoubian, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The force of Jiun Bhao’s irritated stare, even through a virtual interface, was unsettling.

  “And,” the god of wisdom continued, now speaking to Wells, “perhaps our American comrade could have something similar prepared, detailing what he knows of the problems from his end?”

  “Certainly.” The yellow smile was ever so slightly smaller than it had been.

  “Excellent. Most kind.” Jiun Bhao sketched a bow—more a nod of the head—to both parties, and then spread his arms. “We have had a tiring day, and we have discussed many important things. Perhaps it is time to say farewell until our next gathering.”

  Neither Osiris nor any of the others demurred.

  Even as the Western Palace of the Old Man’s Egypt winked out, Yacoubian heard Bob Wells’ voice in his ear.

  “A word with you, Daniel.”

  The moment of darkness was followed by a flare of light as a vast, sunny room built itself in an instant, a high-ceilinged dining hall with a view through the massive windows to what Yacoubian guessed was the rocky Pacific coast. Despite the room’s dimensions, there was only one compact table. Wells sat on one side of it, his sim a replica of his actual body with detail that was just a tiny bit short of Grail-system perfection.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” the general asked as he joined him. “Wouldn’t you rather go somewhere in RL, like we did that other time?”

  “Except for your line and my line, this is a dedicated machine, Daniel,” said Wells. “And I’ll wipe the code after we’ve finished. Here, let me open it up.”

  The windows dissolved, leaving nothing but air between the table and the sea below the cliffs. The roar rose until it filled the room. Without moving, Wells scaled it back until it was only a quiet pulse. The smell of the water and the ozone-tang were suitably convincing. “Better than a restaurant, don’t you think?” the owner of Telemorphix asked. “Although if you’d like something to pretend with, a drink or something, let me know.”

  “I’ll just smoke,” said Yacoubian. “Since this is your place, I’m sure you can make sure the fumes don’t blow in your direction.” The general took out one of his Enaqueiros. He had spent rather a lot of money making sure the simulation performed properly; as he drew this one beneath his nose, savoring the aroma, he felt once again it had been money well spent. These techno-barons might be able to rebuild Babylon for you brick by brick, but try and get a decent virtual cigar. . . .

  After the general had patted his pockets without result for a few moments, Wells raised an eyebrow, then moved his finger. A box of matches appeared in front of his companion.

  “So why didn’t you jump on the Old Man?” Yacoubian demanded when he had got the cigar drawing nicely. “It’s not like you, Bob. He was on the defensive—a few more shots and he would have lost it entirely.”

  Wells turned from his survey of the ocean. His eyes, with their strange, antiqued-looking whites, were mild, almost empty. He didn’t speak for a long time. “I’m trying to think of a nice way to put this, Daniel,” he said finally. “But I can’t. You know, sometimes you are incredibly stupid.”

  Yacoubian belched out pseudo-smoke, which imitated the real thing very well, rising above his head in a billowing blue-gray cloud. When he had caught his breath again, he gasped, “What kind of bullshit is that? You can’t talk to me that way.”

  “Of course I can, Daniel. And, present irritation aside, I still think you’re smart enough to listen to me and learn something.” Wells fanned reflexively at the smoke, prim as a dowager. “Yes, if we had pushed the Old Man a bit farther, he probably would have said or done something that would have lost him the rest of the Brotherhood’s good will. Which is why I did nothing, and why I tried to give you some useful advice about doing the same, Daniel, which you ignored.”

  “Listen, Bob, I don’t care how rich or how old you are. People don’t talk to me that way.”

  “Maybe they should, Daniel. It can’t have escaped your notice how Jiun Bhao took control of the meeting there at the end. And what, thanks to you and that Dedoblanco bitch pushing too hard, is the result? We’re going to have to match reports on these system problems at the next meeting.”

  “So?” Yacoubian had the cigar burning fiercely now, jutting erect in his line of sight, obliterating Wells’ face in a red glow with each inhalation.

  “So, who do you think is going to judge whether either answer is acceptable? Gracefully, quietly, that Chinese bastard is going to make himself the unelected chairman, and he’ll show the rest of the group how to vote. If he hands the reins back to the Old Man, Jongleur will owe him. If he hands them to us, and pushes Jongleur onto the sideline, we’re in a de facto coalition with Jiun—but only so long as he finds us useful.”

  Yacoubian knew he was sulking, but was reluctant to give it up for something more useful. “I thought you wanted the Old Man out.”

  “No, Daniel, I wanted me in. There’s a difference. And don’t forget, Jongleur’s still holding a few cards of his own, like that goddamned operating system which no one else ever gets to touch—if we blunder into some three-way struggle with him and Jiun, it’s going to be very bloody. And I doubt we’ll win.”

  “Jesus.” Yacoubian sat back, still angry but now depressed, too. “You people.”

  “What does that mean, ‘you people’? You were the one who came to me in the first place about edging the Old Man out. ‘We don’t need him any more, Bob. He’s unstable. Foreign.’ Have you forgotten already?”

  “Enough, already.” Yacoubian acknowledged defeat with a wave of his hand. One thing he had learned in his career was that when the situation became untenable, it was a waste of time to dick around trying to save face. “So what do we do?”

  “I don’t know.” Wells sat forward. The noise of the sea dropped another notch, although beyond the windows it was still active as ever, throwing itself against the rocks like a jilted lover. “The fact is, Daniel, I’m worried. These spasms really are a problem. None of my people can make sense of them at all, but even our cloudiest projections don’t look good. And there are other things happening, too, as you know—some very bad results on the client nodes, the lease-properties and whatnot. That Kunohara fiasco.”

  “Tell me about it. But I figured it was just because of the system going online—you know, a one-shot thing. You’re saying it’s bad trouble, huh? Do you think it could be related to that guy who got away into the system, the Old Man’s prisoner? Is he some kind of saboteur?”

  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)

  * * *

  THE 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 h
ad 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.”