It's like being that explorer, Renie thought as the elevator stopped noiselessly on the first level down, the one who discovered the Pharaoh's Lost Tomb. Her next thought, a disconcerting memory of a curse that had supposedly killed the discoverer, was interrupted but not banished by the hiss of the opening door.
It had been only a suite of offices, and was now empty of furniture except for a large conference table and some big file cabinets whose drawers gaped, fileless. Renie's heart sank. The place's bare-boned condition did not bode well. She and the others walked through all the rooms on the floor, making certain there was nothing more useful in any of them, then got back into the elevator.
Three more levels of similarly stripped offices did not improve her state of mind. There were enough large pieces of furniture to suggest that the decommissioning had ground to a halt at some point, but the empty warrens contained nothing of real value. There were a few eerie reminders that this place had once been a living environment—a couple of calendars almost two decades old still hanging on walls, antique announcements about this or that function or rules change yellowed on bulletin boards, even a photo taped to an office window of a woman and children, all dressed in tribal costumes as though for some ceremony—but they only made the place seem more deserted, more dead.
The floor below was full of stainless-steel counters that made Renie think uncomfortably of a pathologist's examining room until she realized that this had been the kitchen. A large empty room stacked high with folding tables confirmed the guess. The next two floors contained cubicles she guessed had been dormitories, empty now like the cells of a long-unused beehive.
"People lived here?" Jeremiah asked.
"Some probably did." Renie picked up her pad and sent the elevator down again. "Or they may have just had the facilities ready in case of war, but never used them. Martine said this place was some kind of special Air Force installation."
"This is the last floor," her father observed, somewhat needlessly, since the buttons on the elevator wall were easy to count. "And there isn't anything above where we came in but two more floors of parking lot, like I told you. I looked." He sounded almost cheerful.
Renie caught !Xabbu's eye. The little man's expression did not change, but he held her gaze as if to send her strength. He doesn't think there's anything here either. She felt a sense of unreality wash over her. Or maybe it was reality—what had they expected, after all? A complete, functioning high-tech military base left for them like some magical castle under a spell?
The elevator door pulled back. Renie didn't even need to look, and her father's words held no surprises.
"Just some more offices. Looks like some kind of big meeting room over there,"
She took a breath. "Let's walk through them anyway. It can't hurt."
Feeling more and more as if she were caught in a particularly tiresome and depressing dream, she led them out into the sectioned space. She stood staring as the others wandered off in separate directions. This first room had been stripped to the walls, everything taken except the ugly institutional-beige carpet. In her miserable state of mind, she could not help thinking about how hellish it must have been to work in this windowless place, breathing canned air, knowing you were sunk beneath a million tons of stone. She turned in disgust to head back to the elevator, too flatly miserable even to think about what they might do next.
"There is another elevator," !Xabbu called.
It took a moment to sink in. "What?"
"Another elevator. Here, in the far corner."
Renie and the others made their way through the labyrinth, then stood and gaped at the very ordinary-looking elevator as though it were a landed UFO.
"Is it another one down from the entrance?" Renie asked, not willing to reach out for hope again.
"There weren't any on this wall, girl," said Long Joseph.
"He's right." Jeremiah reached out and carefully touched the door.
Renie ran back to unhook her pad from the other elevator.
There were no buttons inside the matte-gray box, and at first the door would not even close again. She rehooked the pad to the inside hand-reader and keyed in Singh's code sequence; a moment later, the doors shut. The car traveled down for a surprisingly long time, then the doors pinged open.
"Oh, my Lord," said Jeremiah. "Look at this place."
Renie blinked. It was the Pharaoh's Tomb.
Long Joseph suddenly laughed. "I see it! They built this damn place first, then they built the rest of the damn thing on top of it! They couldn't get this stuff outta here without blowing up the damned mountain!"
!Xabbu had already stepped forward. Renie followed him.
The ceiling was five times as high as that of the garage, a great vault of natural stone hung with scores of boxy light fixtures, each the size of a double bed. These were slowly smoldering into a yellowish half-light, as though someone had turned them on to honor the visitors. The walls were ringed with several tiers of offices which appeared to have been cut into the living rock, fenced with catwalks. Renie and the others stood on the third up from the bottom of the cavern, looking down to the floor at least a dozen meters below.
Banks of equipment, many covered with plastic sheets, were arrayed all around the floor, although there were gaps where things were obviously missing. Cables hung like titan cobwebs from a grid of troughs. And at the center of the room, massive and strange as the sarcophagi of dead god-kings, lay twelve huge ceramic coffins.
CHAPTER 28
A Visit to Uncle
NETFEED/NEWS: UN Fears New Bukavu Strain
(visual: Ghanaian Bukavu victims stacked outside Accra hospital)
VO: UNMed field workers are reporting a possible new variant of the Bukavu virus. The new strain, already unofficially called "Bukavu 5," has a longer dormancy period, which enables carriers to spread the disease more widely than those infected with Bukavu 4, which kills in two to three days. . . .
(visual: UNMed Chief officer Injinye at news conference)
INJINYE: "These viruses are mutating very swiftly. We are fighting a series of epidemiological brushfires across Africa and the Indian subcontinent. So far, we have managed to keep these conflagrations under control, but without better resources, a larger breakout seems inevitable."
A man was being buried alive out in the courtyard, thumping frantically on the inside of his casket as dirt rained down on the lid. In the upper reaches of the vaulted ceiling a huge, shaggy, spiderlike creature was wrapping another customer in webbing that, judging by the shrieks of the victim, burned like acid. It was all very, very boring. Orlando thought even the house skeletons looked a little slow and tired. As he watched, the small squadron performing maneuvers on his tabletop failed in their attempt to shift the virtual sugar-bowl. It rolled over, crushing a dozen of then; into tiny, simulated bone fragments. Orlando didn't even smile.
Fredericks wasn't here. None of the other Last Chance Saloon regulars could remember seeing him since the last time the two of them had been in together.
Orlando moved on.
His friend wasn't in any of the other Terminal Row establishments either, although someone in The Living End said she thought she'd seen him recently, but since this particular witness was nicknamed Vaporhead, Orlando didn't put much store in the sighting. He was more than a little worried. He had left several messages over the last week, directly to Fredericks' account and with mutual friends, but Fredericks hadn't responded to any of them, or even picked any of them up. Orlando had assumed that Fredericks, like himself, had been tumbled out of TreeHouse at the end of their sojourn there and back into his normal life, that his friend was just being quiet because he was mad at Orlando for dragging him into this latest obsession. Now he was beginning to wonder if something more serious might be going on.
Orlando shifted again, this time to the Middle Country, but instead of The Garrote and Dirk in ancient Madrikhor's Thieves' Quarter, his usual entry point for new adventures, he found himself
on a vast stone staircase facing a massive pair of wooden doors decorated with a pair of titan scales.
Temple of the Table of Judgment, he thought. Wow. That was a quick deliberation.
The doors opened and the torch-flames leaped in the wall sconces. Orlando, now wearing his familiar Thargor sim, walked forward. Despite his current disaffection, it was hard not to respond to the gravity of the occasion. The high-ceilinged room was all in shadow but for a single column of light that angled down from the stained glass window. The window was also decorated with the Table of Judgment crest, and the light spilling through it perfectly illuminated the masked and robed figures sitting in a circle below. Even the stone walls looked convincingly old and impressive, smoothed by the passage of centuries. Despite having seen it all before, Orlando found himself admiring all the work that had gone into it. That was the reason he had always played the Middle Country exclusively: the people who built and owned it were gamers and artists, not slave-labor hired by a corporation. They wanted it right because they wanted to hang out in it themselves.
One of the figures rose and spoke in a firm, clear voice. "Thargor, your appeal has been considered. We are all aware of your history, and have admired your feats of daring. We also know you to be a competitor who does not lightly ask for the Table's intervention." There was a pause; all of the faces were turned toward him, unreadable beneath the cloth masks. "However, we cannot find merit in your appeal. Thargor, your death is ruled lawful."
"Can I get access to the records you used in your deliberation?" Orlando asked, but the masked figure did not even pause. After a moment, Orlando realized that the entire judgment was recorded.
". . . We are sure that with your skills, you will return to the Middle Country in another guise, and make a new name famous throughout the land. But those who revere the history of the Middle Country will never forget Thargor. Good luck.
"You have heard the decision of the Table of Judgment."
The Temple vanished before Orlando could say anything; an instant later he was in the Fitting Room, the place where new characters purchased attributes and, literally, built themselves before entering the Middle Country. He stood, staring around him, but not really seeing. He felt some pain, but surprisingly little. Thargor was definitely dead. After all the time he had spent being Thargor, it should have meant more than it did.
"Oh, it's you, Gardiner," said the attendant priest. "Heard about Thargor getting toasted. Really sorry, but we all gotta go sometime, I guess. What are you going to do now, another warrior-type or maybe something different? A wizard?"
Orlando snorted in disgust."Listen, can you find out if Pithlit the thief has been in lately?"
The priest shook his head."I'm not allowed to do that. Can't you leave him a message?"
"I've tried." Orlando sighed, "Doesn't matter. See you around."
"Huh? Aren't you going to refit yourself? Man, people are out there jockeying for your spot at the top, Gardiner. Dieter Cabo's already put out an open challenge to all comers. He just needs a few points to jump into your old place."
With only the smallest twinge of remorse, Orlando left the Middle Country.
He looked around his 'cot with disaffection. It was fine in its way, but it was so . . . young. The trophies in particular, which had meant so much when he acquired them, now seemed faintly embarrassing. And a simworld-window full of dinosaurs—dinosaurs! They were such a kid thing. Even the MBC window now seemed pathetic, souvenir of an obsession with an idea that only nostalgics and a few wareheads even cared about any more. Human beings weren't ever going out into space—it was too expensive and too complicated. Taxpayers in a country that had to turn its sports coliseums into tent cities and house its excess prison population on barges weren't going to pay billions of dollars to send a few people to another star system, and the idea of making a nearer planet like Mars habitable was already beginning to fade. And even if everything changed, and humans suddenly decided once more that space was the place, Orlando Gardiner would certainly never get there.
"Beezle," he said. "Come here."
His agent squeezed through a crack in the wall, legs flailing, and skittered toward him. "I'm all ears, boss."
"Anything on Fredericks?"
"Not a whisper. I'm monitoring, but there hasn't been any sign of activity."
Orlando stared at the pyramid of trophy cases and wondered what it would feel like simply to throw them away—to have them cleared right out of his system memory. Experimentally, he hid them. The corner of the virtual room suddenly looked naked.
"Find me his parents' home number. Fredericks, in West Virginia. Somewhere in the hills."
Beezle beetled a wobbly single eyebrow. "Ya can't narrow it down any? Preliminary says there's more than two hundred listings under the name Fredericks in West Virginia."
Orlando sighed. "I don't know. We never talk about stuff like that. I don't think he has any brothers or sisters. Parents work for the government. I think they have a dog." He thought hard. "He must have registered some of this information in the Middle Country when he first signed up."
"Doesn't mean it's available to the public," said Beezle darkly. "I'll see what I can find." He disappeared through a hole in the floor.
"Hey, Beezle!" Orlando shouted. "Bug! Come back!"
The agent crawled out from beneath the virtual couch, dragging his legs in a self-pitying way. "Yes, boss. I live to serve you, boss. What is it now, boss?"
"Do you think this room is stupid?"
Beezle sat motionless, looking for all the world like the discarded head of a mop. For a moment Orlando thought he had gone past the bounds of the agent's gear. "Do you think it's stupid?" Beezle asked at last.
"Don't mirror back what I say." Orlando was exasperated. That was the cheapest kind of artificial-life programming trick—when in doubt, answer a question with the same question. "Just tell me—in your opinion, is it stupid or not?"
Beezle froze again. Orlando had a sudden pang of worry. What if he had pushed it too hard? It was only software, after all. And why was he asking a piece of gear something like this, anyway? If Fredericks were around he would be telling Orlando just how utterly he scanned.
"I don't know what 'stupid' means in this context, boss," said Beezle finally.
Orlando was embarrassed. It was like forcing someone to admit in public that they were illiterate. "Yeah, you're right. Go see if you can find that phone number."
Beezle obligingly dropped out of sight once more.
Orlando settled back to think of something to do to occupy the time while Beezle did his work. It was about four in the afternoon, which meant he only had a little while until Vivien and Conrad came home and he had to surface, so he couldn't afford to get into anything too complicated, like gaming. Not that he had any particular urge to get involved in any games at present. The golden city, and the several layers of mystery that surrounded it, had made chasing monsters in the Middle Country seem a bit of a waste of time.
He created a screen in the middle of his room and began flicking through net nodes. He browsed for a while in Lambda Mall, but the idea of actually buying anything made him feel depressed, and nothing looked very interesting anyway. He jumped through the entertainment channels, watching a few minutes here and there of various shows and flicks and straight commercial presentations, letting the noises and effects wash over him like water. He scanned some news headlines, but nothing sounded worth watching. At last he vanished the elcot, went full surround, and wandered into the interactive sections. After specifying view-only, he watched almost half-an-hour's worth of a program on living at the bottom of the sea until he got bored with floating around like a fish while people demonstrated underwater farming, then began to flick through some of the specialized children's entertainment.
As the nodes flipped by, a familiar, exaggerated smile caught his attention.
"I don't know why they stole my handkerchief," said Uncle Jingle. "All I know is . . . snot fair!"
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All the children on the show—the Jingle Jungle laughed and clapped their hands.
Uncle Jingle! Orlando, just about to shift again, paused, dismissed the Who Are You? query that popped up at the ten second mark—he was way too old to sign on, and anyway, I didn't particularly want any attention at the present. Still, Orlando continued to watch, fascinated. He hadn't seen Uncle Jingle for years.
"Snot fair"—man, the scanny things you watch when you're a little kid.
"Well," continued Uncle, bobbing his tiny head, "whatever the reason, I'm going to track that handkerchief down, and when I find it, I think I'm going to teach Pantalona and old Mister Daddywhiner a lesson. Who wants to help me?" Several of the participating kids, promoted out of the daily audience of millions by some arcane selection process, jumped up and down and shouted.
Orlando stared, fascinated. He had forgotten how weird Uncle Jingle was, with his huge toothy smile and tiny black button eyes. He looked like a two-legged shark or something.
"Let's sing a song, okay?" said the host "That'll make the trip go faster. If you don't know the words, touch my hand!"
Orlando did not touch Uncle's hand, and was thus spared the additional indignity of local-language subtitles, but was still forced to listen to dozens of happy childish voices singing about the sins of Jingle's arch-nemesis, Pantalona.
". . . She simply loves to be unfair That vixen with the corkscrew hair, She doesn't wash her underwear! Pantalona Peachpit, "She tosses stones at little birds She loves to shout out naughty words She even eats the doggy's . . . food Pantalona Peachpit. . . !"
Orlando grimaced. He decided that, after a childhood spent in the opposite camp, his sympathies were beginning to shift to Pantalona, the Red-Headed Renegade.
Uncle Jingle and his entourage were now dancing and singing down the street past The Graffiti Wall, headed for a rendezvous with the lost handkerchief and vengeance against Uncle's enemies, Orlando, nostalgia more than satisfied, was just about to shift to something else when a slogan on the simulated wall caught his attention—painted letters that read Wicked Tribe—Rooling Tribe. Orlando leaned forward. He had thought that with his one Indigo favor called in, he was out of connections to TreeHouse, and through TreeHouse to the mystery of the gryphon and whatever light that might shed on the radiant, magical city. But here, here of all places, was a familiar name—a name that, properly followed, might get him back into TreeHouse.