Slant

  “I’m going to let it make the first move,” Giffey says. It’s a gamble with high stakes, but the initial response is so light that he’s betting Omphalos’s defenses are not up to full strength. Jenner looks like he needs a little reassurance, however, and he’s no dummy; all of his concerns are justified. “We’re being sized up. It’s looking for our weaknesses. We just make sure we don’t show any.”

  “Assuming these folks are important enough not to risk killing;” Pickwenn says softly.

  Giffey inclines; that is the assumption.

  The door closes and the elevator rises smoothly.

  Giffey catches Jonathan’s eye and gives him a wink. Jonathan wonders if the man is out of his head. Jonathan knows the building does not have to meet any federal or even normal state standards; there could be anything from a simple alarm system alerting republic police—which would be almost useless—to a full-fledged open-market military response, more warbeiters, even human troops, though he doubts that.

  He can’t stay silent. “It’s murder,” Jonathan says. “I have a wife and children. It’s murder to put us into a crossfire or use us as shields.”

  “You wanted to see what this place is about,” Jenner says contemptuously. A fleck of spit lands in Jonathan’s eye and he blinks rapidly, reaches up to wipe it. Jenner realizes he has sprayed, and his face flushes. Flustered, he knocks Jonathan’s hand aside with the flight guide of his pistol.

  “Leave me alone,” Jonathan demands. Jenner lowers the weapon.

  Giffey senses something is, in fact, going wrong. Jenner is especially twitchy, and Pickwenn seems distracted, as if listening to a voice nobody else can hear. And in Giffey’s own head—

  “Jonathan’s right,” Marcus says. “The rest of the world may have gone soft, but they hang murderers here.”

  “Doesn’t sound like there’ll be anything left to hang,” Giffey says dryly. The elevator reaches its mid-point, a floor labeled Disembarkation and Routing. The door opens.

  The room beyond is surgical white and glacier blue, a broad cylinder with nine man-sized, circular vault-like hatches mounted in the curving wall. Each door is marked by a number in large black letters, 10 through 18. The Hammer does not need to be told to leave the elevator first it steps forward, pushing between Hale and Giffey, and surveys the area. Baker, the second flexer/controller, follows. The room is quiet.

  “There are hidden eyes and other sensors in this area,” Baker announces. “They are active. We are being watched.”

  Giffey pushes past Jonathan and Jenner and walks slowly to the center of the room. The room remains quiet and cool. Air is flowing freely. Giffey is beginning to wonder if the security system is completely constrained from shutting off air or power.

  Maybe they’re just not in the right place yet for a full response. He visualizes the rough layout of the ground floor and pulls up his pad. The map shows this elevator shaft to be some way toward the rear wedge of the Omphalos.

  The hatches are arranged in such a way that they could lead to corridors about fifty to sixty feet long.

  “We could have hibernacula on this level,” he tells Hale. “All the floors below, down to the ground level, could have them; as well.” He shows Hale the map on the pad; the fit with what they have seen so far has been pretty good. The information is sound.

  “What about above?”

  “The map says it could be a medical center and more support—cryogenics, mostly, I’d guess.”

  “What in the hell are you looking for? You want to rob the dead?” Marcus asks, incredulous. “My God, you are the cheapest, stupidest bunch of simpletons. Who pushed you into doing this?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Hale responds. He gives Giffey another grin, quick, confident.

  “You’re not going to get out of here alive,” Marcus growls. “Maybe we won’t, either, but that will be a small price to pay.”

  “Bravely put,” Hale says, his patience with the old man wearing thin. “I don’t believe it for a moment.”

  “I’ll show you how confident I am,” Marcus says. “I get the impression you think we have a lot of corpsicles here waiting to be resuscitated. Maybe they’re stored along with all their assets. You’ve swallowed that bit of misinformation whole, right?”

  Hale nods amiably.

  “Where’s your cubbyhole?” Jenner asks Marcus. “We’ll slip you in and turn on the refrigerator if anything goes wrong.”

  Marcus ignores him. “There are no dead here, no bodies,” he says, focusing on Giffey again. This irritates Hale. “Omphalos isn’t a goddamned tomb. You’ve jumped in way over your head, Mr. Giffey.”

  Giffey hears Jenner muttering, trying to control a spastic motion of his lips. His left arm jerks. Pickwenn nudges Jenner with his elbow.

  Jenner can’t stop. “Muh, fuh, shi, muh, shi.”

  “Something’s wrong with your colleague,” Marcus observes contemptuously. The old man steps forward and faces Jenner. “Ever had a little mental tune-up? You look pretty sad to me—maybe you need some help just to keep up.” Marcus turns and glares at Hale, Pickwenn, then Giffey, his eyes popped like an angry monkey. “Fugitives from some army training center, taking a few hot weapons with you. Come to Green Idaho to perform a little caper, rob the dead. I pity you. Especially I pity you,” he spits, out at Giffey.

  Jenner tries to shove forward and grab Marcus, but Hale and Giffey hold him. Hale nods to Pickwenn, who takes Marcus’s arm with some strength and pushes him back beside Jonathan. Giffey decides they’d better get something done before the strain pushes young Jenner over the edge. That’s the simplest explanation for his behavior: excitement and stress.

  But then there’s the voice in his own head, a quiet, not-yet-urgent whisper: You are not what you play. For a moment, Giffey wonders if the old man is right, and there’s some unexpected defense here, quiet and subtle. A nerve gas or energy field that disrupts thinking. That would explain a few things… Including the subdued response from Omphalos.

  “Let’s go down a few levels, bust some doors, and see what happens,” Giffey says. “Maybe we’ll spill out some truth.”

  “Good idea,” Jenner says. He swats the air and shakes his head as if trying to shoo flies.

  13

  At Seattle-Tacoma Air and Space, Mary carries her own small briefcase and pad and nothing else through passenger exam. Four impassive-looking men stand beside a rank of security arbeiters arrayed in rows behind the automated check-in facades.

  She comes to the head of her line and places the briefcase and pad under the patient gaze of a Universal Mitsu-Shin security arbeiter. “Are you carrying any contraband software or other intellectual property?”

  “No,” she says.

  “All of your pad’s routines are registered to you personally, or to your employer, which is—” A pause. “Seattle Public Defense?”

  “They are.”

  “You have checked all officially licensed weapons with the proper aircraft security agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are carrying no other weapons or devices which could cause harm to humans or essential machinery, or could be used to coerce illicit compliance from humans or machines?”

  “No other weapons,” Mary says.

  “Are you carrying, or have you carried in the past six months, on your person, any materials related to nanotechnology, either nanotechnological substances or their supporting substances, other than items and substances officially registered for household or personal use?”

  “No,” Mary answers.

  “Please walk between the detectors, and thank you for your time.”

  Mary passes through the dense but shallow forest of poles and plaques and sniffers and emerges with the back of her hand ID-encoded with a simple dattoo for entry to a passenger aircraft.

  In the waiting area, Mary observes swans and other aircraft and spacecraft taxiing and being shuttled along their ramps and loadways. She is approached by a man and a
woman wearing Federal beige jackets and cockaded berets.

  “Fourth Mary Choy?” the woman asks.

  “Yes.” She’s half expected this.

  “Please join us, Ms. Choy.” The woman smiles and holds out her hand. “I’m Helena Daniels, and this is Federico Torres. We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Data and Biological.”

  Mary shakes her hand. “Pardon me, but how do you mean, join you?”

  “You’ve been assigned to help us,” Daniels explains. “By a…” She refers to her pad.

  “Nussbaum,” Torres finishes for her.

  “Nussbaum,” Daniels confirms.

  “We have three others traveling with us, all out of Seattle,” Torres explains as they go to a side area reserved for special boarding. “Do you know Dr. Martin Burke?”

  Mary knows the name very well, though she has never met him. “Not personally,” she says.

  “We’ll introduce you. This is a matter of some sensitivity. Can we rely on Seattle PD’s discretion?”

  “I hope so,” Mary says. “Can we rely on yours?”

  Torres grins, but Daniels seems dedicated to stiff half-familiarities and no humor.

  “Our flight is in ten minutes,” Daniels says. “That gives us just enough time to get acquainted and see if we can work together.”

  “Oh, good,” Mary says dubiously.

  14

  Jonathan’s fear has become gelid, palpable, but isolated, allowing his mind to function with clarity. The colors of the people in the elevator are muted but their lines and silhouettes are edgy. He is particularly interested by the blond young man with the active scalp, who mutters the same syllables that Chloe could not restrain herself from saying.

  Marcus seems to know something about that. How?

  The man named Giffey is focused on the immediate tasks at hand and pays Jonathan almost no attention. The warbeiters in the elevator are as still as if they have been turned off. Jonathan wonders if the military contractors who programmed the nano and assemblers that formed these warbeiters used nutrients from his company. Very likely they did.

  The elevator doors slide apart. The display says they are on the third level within Omphalos, still above ground. The label announces that this level contains a reception area, a chapel, and a library dedicated to the lives of the occupants.

  Pickwenn pushes Marcus and Jonathan out into the empty lobby. Dark green frosted glass rises from walls of faux malachite, surrounding the lobby. The effect, contrasted with the velvety gold and green carpet, is dark and extremely elegant.

  Marcus, pale and moist, stands in the reception area like a gnome. He does not know what to do with his hands. He settles on clasping them before him.

  Pickwenn, Jenner, Giffey, and Hale follow after a reasonable interval. Baker makes a circuit of the enclosed lobby. Doors are not apparent, though through the dark glass, lights and walls are visible as if through the depths of a murky sea.

  “This area is under active surveillance,” Baker says, and freezes in its curled, horizontal position.

  Hale waves his hand. “Hall-oooo!” he says, smiling up toward imagined cameras.

  Jonathan contrasts Giffey and Hale. Giffey is by far the smarter of the two, and since he controls the warbeiters, he is the more powerful and important; but Hale considers himself the leader. Marcus has them judged just about right, Jonathan decides.

  Jenner pretends to wipe his mouth, but his hand in fact pushes against his lips to still the ghostly syllables. Muh fuh shih kih.

  Marcus levels a gaze of fascination and contempt on Jenner.

  “Baker, is there a door?” Giffey asks.

  “Active mechanisms for a door are in the ceiling.” Baker uncurls and crawls forward to point out an area opposite the elevator. “They use electromagnetic motors and have power.”

  “Can you get through this wall?”

  The flexer/controller lifts its head and raps its feet sharply against the faux malachite, and then rises higher and raps them against the dark green frosted glass.

  “These walls are concrete and are not heavily reinforced. The glass is two inches thick and may be reinforced. Baker can’t break through this but the Hammer can.”

  Giffey whispers something to Hale and gets into the elevator. The door closes.

  Marcus looks down at the carpet. “I can open this door for you,” he says.

  Jenner sputters, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  Marcus shakes his head in pity. “Let me in,” he says to the door. Micro-seams form in the glass and in the wall, and the sections slide to one side. Beyond lie a number of armored hatches, as on the floor above, and two doors, one marked Library, the other Chapel.

  Marcus gestures to the men as if inviting them in. They do not move. Jenner and Pickwenn look at Hale.

  “We’ll wait,” Hale says.

  “May I go in and sit down?” Marcus says. “There are benches on the other side of the wall. Might as well be comfortable.”

  “We’ll wait,” Hale says.

  Marcus defiantly walks toward the opening.

  Pickwenn blocks him. “You are getting on my nerves,” Pickwenn tells Marcus.

  “A fucking good way to escape,” Jenner observes, waving his pistol at the door. “The door closes, and out you go.” His scalp shivers. Jonathan suppresses a strong urge to reach out and slap the man around the crown of his head, just to make him be still. He feels as if he’s lost in a freak show: gnomes and giant insects and atavistic young men.

  Marcus seems to feel particular animosity toward Jenner. “You don’t understand. I’m going to give you all a tour. When your real boss gets back with his… toy… I’ll show you everything you want to see. It doesn’t matter what you see: or what you learn.”

  He has come within a step of Jenner. Hale holds out his arm.

  “Muh, shi,” Jenner says in an undertone.

  Marcus’s glare is pure poisoned delight. “Wonderful,” he says. “Wonderful example.”

  Jenner pushes past Hale’s arm and shoves his pistol into Marcus’s face. Jonathan hears the crunch of Marcus’s nose against the flight guide and Marcus cries out. Jenner slams Marcus against the green wall beside the opening. “You muh shi—” His head shakes. “You fuh fuh muh shi—” He can’t make the words come out. This infuriates him and he hits Marcus on the side of the head with the pistol. Hale and Pickwenn pull him off, having held back just long enough to let Jenner vent their own aggravation.

  Marcus falls into a crouch, hands against his nose and the side of his head. Jonathan kneels beside him. “Let me see,” he says. Marcus opens his eyes and glares at him through his splayed fingers. Slowly, he pulls the hand back. Marcus’s nose is bleeding profusely. “Crazy bastard,” he says thickly.

  Jonathan looks back at the others, sees no sympathy there, did not expect any but must gauge the situation carefully. “Lean back,” he tells Marcus, father to child. “Lie down and keep your head back.”

  Marcus complies. The blow to his head does not seem to be serious, though there will soon be a bruise. Marcus spreads out on the floor and Jonathan is struck by the indignity, by the weakness. Marcus is not a strong man.

  “Don’t provoke them,” Jonathan says.

  “They’re already dead,” Marcus murmurs.

  Jonathan shushes him. Marcus closes his eyes, takes Jonathan’s handkerchief to stanch the flow from his nose. He wipes his lips and jaw, leaving smears of bright blood, all the more vivid against the dark walls and carpet. “Giffey’s the one,” Marcus adds in a whisper. “What do you think? Puppet master.”

  Pickwenn pulls Jonathan back, off-balance, and he lurches to a stand.

  The elevator door opens and Giffey steps out first, followed by the graceful bulk of the Hammer. He sees Marcus on the floor and his face reddens. He turns on the others, examines their faces, and focuses on Jenner.

  Jenner recognizes Giffey’s fury and slowly begins to raise the pistol.

  “He’s
an old man,” Giffey says. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Jenner shakes his head. He mutters.

  “You have lost it, haven’t you?” Giffey says, pulling back his anger, his tone almost wheedling. He slowly moves toward Jenner. “Tell me.”

  “I c-can’t help it,” Jenner says, shaking his head. “My brain is filling with shit, I don’t know where it’s coming from. I can’t stop saying the words. He knows what’s wrong with me!” Jenner points his pistol away from Giffey, toward Marcus.

  “I’ll tell you everything about this place,” Marcus says coolly. “Mr. Giffey, tell them to put their guns away. They’re useless.”

  “I’m the one in charge,” Hale says, glancing uncertainly at Giffey.

  Giffey pushes Jenner’s pistol with the palm of his open hand, looks in Jenner’s face, and slowly tugs the barrel down. “He’s getting on all our nerves. Can you still work?”

  Jenner nods. “I think so, but I, I don’t know how much longer. There’s other stuff… muf shih kih kih fuh… Old stuff. He’s making fun of me, he knows something! I’ve been therapied and it’s coming back.”

  “Therapied for what?” Giffey asks softly, watching the young man’s eyes and scalp.

  Jenner seems embarrassed, but he holds back the random sounds long enough to say, “Some kind of d-dopamine balance disorder.”

  “Schizophrenia?”

  “Seeing things. Acting weird. Genetic. Muh, fuh.”

  “Not Tourette?”

  “What?”

  “Tourette syndrome.”

  “No, sir,” Jenner says. “I was just a kid. They never mentioned that.”

  Hale shakes his head in disgust. “Can you still work?” he asks Jenner.

  “I’m trying. I think so.”

  Jonathan sees a peculiar look of satisfaction on Marcus’s face.

  Giffey sees it, too. “Have we been contaminated?” he asks, kneeling beside Marcus. “Just curious. You seem so cocky, and look where it’s getting you.”

  Marcus rises to his knees, resting on one hand. Giffey helps him to his feet. Hale seems increasingly frustrated by the reduction of his importance. Jonathan knows that his survival might depend on their social dynamic, on whether or not they can stand up to the games Marcus—and perhaps Omphalos—is playing with them.