City of Golden Shadow (98 page)

At last, after a very long time, she felt the smooth plastic beneath her fingers. Sniffling, she got to her feet, then felt her way to the back of the car again. She held the thing away from her so it wouldn't be so scary, then pushed the button. The spark jumped and turned into fire. She took the end of the cloth-carefully, just like Mister Sellars had said-and touched it to the fire. The cloth began to burn, not a big fire, just a blue edge that smoked. She crammed her gloves into the opening to keep the license plate from swinging shut, then stretched the burning end of the cloth as far from the car as it would go before dropping it onto the floor. She walked out of the garage quickly, saying the last part of the rhyme to herself, partly to make sure she remembered, partly because she was really scared. Outside, she pushed the button on the wall and the garage door hissed down.

Now, with almost everything done, Christabel turned and ran up Redland as fast as she could. All the houses were dark, but now all the streetlamps were dark too, so she ran with only the light of the stars to show her the way. As she turned the corner and hurried down Stillwell, she threw the plastic flame-maker into some bushes. Then, when she reached her own front lawn, all the streetlamps suddenly started to shine again. She hurried to her front door.

Christabel had forgotten about the alarm. When she pushed the door open, speakers all over the house began to buzz, startling her so much she almost wet her pants. Over the horrible noise, she heard her father begin to shout. Terrified, she ran as fast as she could and got through her bedroom door just before the door to her parents' room banged open. She threw off her coat and shoes and clothes, praying that they wouldn't come in. She had just got her jammies on when her mother hurried in.

"Christabel? Are you okay? Don't be scared-it's the door alarm, but I think it went off by accident."

"It's some kind of power outage, I think," her father shouted from down the hall. "The wallscreens are all off, and my watch is almost an hour different than the kitchen clock. Must have triggered the alarm when it came back on."

Christabel had just been tucked back in bed by her mother, and was scrunching down beneath the covers, feeling her heart begin to slow, when the flame at last reached the gas tank in Mister Sellars' Cadillac. It made a noise like God himself clapping His hands together, rattling windows for miles and waking up almost everyone on the Base. Christabel screamed.

Her mother came back into the bedroom, and this time sat beside her in the dark, rubbing her neck and telling her it was all right, it was a gas line or something, it was a long way away. Christabel clung to her mother's stomach, feeling like she was so full of secrets that she might blow up, too. Light flickered in the treetops outside as the fire trucks hurried past going weeaaw, weeaaw, weeaaw. . . .

"Hey, Landogarner, you got sword-head house," Zunni commented.

Tiny yellow monkeys were busily rearranging the decor of Orlando's 'cot. Two of them were adding an exaggerated handlebar mustache to the severed head of the Black Elf Prince, and half-a-dozen others seemed to have changed the body of the Worm of Morsin Keep into a transparent chute; as Orlando watched, one little banana-colored simian was sliding on its belly through the innards of Thargor's prize beast.

"Sword-head? Oh, yeah. I used to spend a lot of time in the Middle Country. You know that?"

"Boring," pronounced Zunni. "Kill monster, find jewel, earn bonus points. Wibble-wobble-wubble."

Orlando couldn't really argue. He turned to watch another pair of monkeys altering the historical pictures of the Kara-gorum Tapestry into a procession of cartoon snails having sex. He scowled. It wasn't so much the exuberant vandalism that bothered him-he had gotten pretty sick of the old decor-as the seemingly effortless way the Wicked Tribe had penetrated his protected programming. It would have taken a team of engineers from some place like Indigo a whole afternoon to manage what these little lunatics had done in minutes. He suddenly understood how his parents must have felt when he tried to explain the things he did on the net.

Beezle appeared from a hole in the ceiling and was instantly swarmed by mini-apes. "If you don't get these things offa me," the agent warned, "I'm gonna drezz "em."

"Be my guest. I'd like to see you manage it"

Beezle knotted his legs tight to protect them from marauding monkeys. "Fredericks is requesting permission to enter."

Orlando felt something grow warmer inside him. "Yeah, sure. Let him . . . her . . . let him in." He would have to get this straightened out in his mind, it seemed. So, if Fredericks wanted to be treated like a guy, then she was a guy. Just like old times. Sort of.

Fredericks popped in and was immediately set upon by flying yellow creatures. As he waved his hands reflexively to clear his field of vision-he could have made them transparent if he had thought about it, since he knew the capacities of Orlando's 'cot almost as well as its creator did-Orlando looked him over. Fredericks' sim seemed a little less spectacularly muscle-bound than usual. Maybe after hearing about Orlando's disease, he thought that looking so healthy might be offensive.

"Los Monos Volandos!" shouted one of the Tribe, buzzing Fredericks' face. "We Supremo Bigdaddy culture club! Happy Flappy Trails!"

"Jesus, Orlando, this is fun," grumped Fredericks as he flicked away a tiny ape who had been swinging from his simulated earlobe. "I'm utterly glad I didn't miss this."

"Yeah. I'm glad you didn't miss it, too."

A moment of awkward silence-silence except for the chattering and aimless noisemaking of the Tribe-ended when Orlando clapped his hands. The yellow cloud split apart into simian particles which settled down on various virtual surfaces. "I wanted to ask you guys for a favor." He tried to look like the kind of person a flock of feral children should want to help. "I need help really badly."

"You cred us?" squealed some of the monkeys. "Spree-ky? Toyz-n-gear?" But Kaspar-Orlando was beginning to recognize a few of their voices-shushed them.

"What favor you need?"

"I'm trying to find somebody. The name is Melchior, and it's something to do with TreeHouse. He or she-or maybe it's more than one person-did some software work, some gear, for a Red Gryphon in the Middle Country simworld."

"Melchior?" said Zunni, rising to hover in the air like a particularly homely little fairy. "Easy! Dog, Dog, Dog!"

"And Doggie-friends!" said another monkey.

"Wait a minute. What do you mean?"

"This is like talking to breakfast cereal," said Fredericks. "Give it up, Orlando."

"Hang on. Zunni, is 'Dog' a person?"

The tiny ape spun. "No, no, not person-old! Million years!"

Kaspar shushed some of the younger Tribesfolk again. "He is old person. We call him 'Dog.' He lives in Cobweb Corner."

"Older than rocks!" shouted one of the monkeys.

"Older than Uncle Jingle!" giggled another. "O-O-Old."

Tortuously, Orlando managed to glean the information that some old person called something like "Blue Dog and Krite," or just "Dog," kept an elcot in Founder's Hill at TreeHouse, and along with some other people had once created gear under the name of Melchior.

"Made Blast-Up Button," Zunni remembered with pleasure. "Put it on someone head, push it-boooooom!"

Orlando hoped that she was talking about something that happened to sims, not real people. "Can you get us back into TreeHouse so we can talk to him?"

"Woof!" said Zunni. "Even better. You-view-he, he-view-you."

"We get him right now," Kasper explained. "Dog, he love Wicked Tribe. Always he says, 'Just what I need!' when we visit him for fun games."

The monkeys rose in a sudden yellow cyclone, spun so rapidly they seemed to smear like melting butter, then disappeared.

Orlando sat appreciating the silence. His head was beginning to throb, a slight feverish ache. Fredericks rose and glided to the vandalized pyramid of trophies, stopping in front of the Black Elf Prince. "Dieter Cabo would love this."

"Don't blame me, blame the Tarzan Memorial Art Appreciation Society."

Fredericks glided back. "So you think these micro-scannies are going to help you find something you see in your dreams? Orlando, do you ever listen to yourself any more?"

"I'll follow whatever lead I can get."

"Yeah, I noticed." His friend hesitated. "How are you feeling?"

"Don't start. I shouldn't have told you anything."

Fredericks sighed, but before he could say anything else, one of the 'cot walls went permeable and a blizzard of monkeys blew through it.

"Come on!" one shouted. "Come now fast-fast-fast!"

"What is it?" Orlando couldn't make any sense out of the Tribal din. "What?"

"Found Dog." Zunni's voice purred in his ear. She was hovering just above his left shoulder."He having big secret Strong-line, throughput plus, all kinds of colors! Come 'long!"

"Dog is doing something," elaborated Kaspar in his other ear, "Something he is trying to hide. Big secret, but no one fools the Wicked Tribe!"

Orlando could not help thinking of a cartoon he had once seen, a man with a devil hovering on one shoulder and an angel on the other, each trying to sway him to its own ends. But what if you had only voices of uncontrolled anarchy in both ears? "What are you talking about? What kind of secret? Throughput?"

"Big hole to somewhere. Come! We hook you up!" Zunni was buzzing at his ear like a bumblebee. "We surprise Dog! Laugh and shriek, laugh and shriek!"

"Wicked Tribe mejor net-riding Krew!" shouted another. "Kilohana! Fasten belts!"

"Slow down!" Orlando winced. The fever headache had suddenly gotten fierce, and he did not want to be rushed. But it was too late for any chance of consultation-the monkeys were in full-speed-ahead mode. Fredericks wavered and disappeared, sucked away to only the Wicked Tribe knew where. The entire 'cot began to swirl like several colors of paint poured down the drain.

"Damn it, wait a minute. . . !" Orlando shouted, but he was shouting into emptiness and a hiss like an empty signal as they took him, too.

Darkness washed over him. He was falling, flying, being pulled apart in several directions. The crackling in his ears grew louder until it roared like the jets of an interplanetary rocket.

"Hang on, 'Landogarner!" Zunni shouted happily above the noise, somewhere in the darkness. She sounded completely undisturbed; was this unsettling experience his alone, or were these mad children simply used to it? The sensation of being pulled grew stronger, as though he were being stretched thin and sucked through a straw. It was like being in some roller-coastering simulation, but surely they must be between simulations . . . Orlando could hardly think. He seemed to be going fester, ever faster. . . .

Then the universe collapsed.

Everything stopped, as though something had seized him with a giant hand. He heard distant shrieks, the thin voices of children, but not happy now. Faintly, as through a thick door, those children were screeching in terror. Something had them . . . and it had Orlando, too.

The void began to tighten around him, a squeezing fist of nothingness that froze his thoughts and heart. He was helpless, suspended in an arc of slow electricity. The part of him that could still think struggled, but could not free itself. The darkness had weight, and it was crushing him. He could feel himself flattened, pressed, until his last remaining piece of self fluttered helplessly and ever more slowly, like a bird caught beneath a thick blanket.

I don't want to die! It was a meaningless thought, because there was nothing he could think or do to change what was happening, but it echoed over and over through a mind that was running down. All the death-trip simulations in the world could not have prepared him for this. I don't want to die! I don't want . . . to die. . . .

Don't . . . want. . . .

Astonishingly, the darkness was not infinite.

A tiny spark drew him up out of the unspeakable emptiness. He rose toward it helplessly and without volition, as though he were a corpse being dragged from the depths of a river. The spark became a blur of light. After the killing blackness, it seemed an impossible gift.

As he floated closer, the light grew, shooting out at all angles, scratching bright marks on the endless slate of night. Lines became a square; the square gained depth and was a cube, which then became something so mundane that for a moment he could not believe it. Floating in the void, becoming larger every moment, was an office-a simple room with desk and chairs. Whether he rose to it or it descended to him he could not tell, but it spread and surrounded him, and he felt the freezing numbness inside him shift and loosen a little.

This is a dream. I'm having a dream. He was certain-he had fallen asleep wearing his jack before and knew the sensation. It's the pneumonia, must be-a fever dream. But why can't I wake up?

The room was something like a medical examining room, but everything in it was made of gray concrete. The vast desk looked like a stone sarcophagus, something from a tomb. Behind the desk sat a man-or at least Orlando thought it was a man: where the face should be hung a radiant emptiness.

"I'm dreaming. aren't I?" he asked.

The being behind the desk did not seem to hear the question. "Why is it you wish to come and work for us?" The voice was high but soothing.

Never in a million years could he have anticipated such a conversation. "I . . . don't want to work for anyone. I mean, I'm just a kid."

A door in the wall behind the desk slowly swung open, revealing swirling, smoky blue light. Something moved inside this brilliance, a shadow with no discernible shape that nevertheless filled him with horror.

"He wants you," said the shining personage. "He'll take anyone-he's bored, you see. But on our side we have slightly higher standards. Our margin is very slim. Nothing personal."

"I can't have a job yet. I'm still in school, see. . . ." This was a dream-it had to be. Or maybe it was something worse. Maybe he was dying, and his mind had cobbled together this last fantasy.