Jericho Iteration (12 page)

Unlike nearly everyone else at the reception, they were inordinately quiet, seeming somewhat ill at ease even though all three wore the blue badges that I had already recognized as designating Tiptree employees. Their apparent nervousness caught my attention; they appeared to be in terse, quiet conversation, occasionally shutting up and glancing furtively over their shoulders when someone happened to pass by.

I zoomed in on one of them, a distinguished-looking guy in his mid-fifties, tall and rail-thin, with a trim gray Vandyke beard and a receding hairline. Although his back was turned toward me, it was apparent that the two other people were deferring to him. When he looked over his shoulder again, I snapped his picture, more out of impulse than anything else.

Then, in the next instant, he shuffled out of the way, for the first time clearly revealing the shorter person who had been standing opposite him …

A middle-aged black woman in a powder blue business suit and white blouse, not particularly distinguishable from anyone else in the crowd—except I recognized the shock of gray in her hair and the stern expression on her face.

No question about it. She was the very same lady I had encountered in the park last night.

Fumbling with the lens-control buttons, I zoomed in on the woman as much as the camera would allow. The Nikon’s varioptic lens did wonders; now it was as if I were standing three feet in front of her. I could clearly read what was printed on her name badge:
BERYL HINCKLEY
, Senior Research Associate.

As if she were telepathic, her eyes flitted in my direction when I snapped her picture. I lowered the camera and smiled at her.

She recognized me. Her face registered surprise, and for a moment I thought she was going to come over to speak to me.

“Ladies, gentlemen, if I could have your attention please … we’re about to get started here.”

The amplified voice came through hidden speakers near the ceiling. A young executive was standing at a podium below the videowall. The drone of conversation began to fade as everyone quieted down.

The exec smiled at them. “We’ve been told that the shuttle has come off its prelaunch countdown hold and will be lifting off in just a few minutes,” he went on, “but before that, I’d like to introduce someone who has a few remarks to share with you …”

I glanced across the room again, only to find that Beryl Hinckley had vanished from where I had last seen her. I looked around, trying to spot her again; I caught a brief glimpse of her back as she disappeared into the crowd, heading in the direction of a side exit. She had a true knack for making her escape.

“… Our chief executive officer, Cale McLaughlin. Mr. McLaughlin …?”

A smattering of applause, led by the exec, as he stepped away from the podium to make way for McLaughlin. Tiptree’s CEO was an older gentleman: tall, whip thin, and white haired, with wire-rimmed glasses and the focused look of a man who started his career as a lower-echelon salesman and clawed his way up to the top of the company.

Probably a pretty good golfer, too, but that didn’t mean I was more interested in him than any other corporate honcho I had seen before. I zoomed back in on the conversation circle, only to find that the two men who had been talking with the mystery lady had also faded into the background.

“I’ll keep things brief, because it’s hard to compete with a shuttle launch.” Some laughter from the audience, which had otherwise gone respectfully quiet. McLaughlin’s voice held a soft Texas accent, muted somewhat by the careful diction of a well-educated gentleman. “The Tiptree Corporation is pleased to have been part of the Sentinel program since the very beginning. Hundreds of people have been involved with this project over the last few years, and we believe that it is an important asset to the national security of the United States …”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So was the B-2 bomber. I was too busy wondering why this Hinckley woman needed to take a powder every time she saw my face.

I was about to wade into the crowd in hopes of finding her again when a soft voice I had never expected, nor hoped, to hear again spoke from behind me.

“Mr. Rosen, I presume …”

I turned around to find, not unlike the devil himself, Paul Huygens standing at my shoulder.

Not much can surprise me, but in that moment I nearly dropped Jah’s expensive camera on the polished floor. If Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa had appeared to announce that they were married and were now living in a nudist colony on Tierra del Fuego and that Marie de Allegro was their love child, I couldn’t have been more shocked. I might even have made note of a certain family resemblance.

The only thing that Paul Huygens bore a resemblance to was something you might find when you pick up a rock and look underneath. He was a squat, greasy little toad of a guy, the sort of person who wears five-hundred-dollar Armani suits and still manages to look like a cheap hustler. Imagine the Emperor Nero as a lounge lizard and you’ve got the general idea.

“Why, hello, Paul,” I said quietly. I tried to disguise my disconcertment by coughing into my hand. “Long time, no see …”

Behind us, Cale McLaughlin continued his short, brief, bah-bah woof-woof about how wonderful
Sentinel 1
was to the future of all mankind. Huygens nodded slightly. “A couple of years at least,” he replied. As before, his voice was almost girlishly high pitched: a little startling, since one rather expected a deep-throated, froggy tenor. “Still up to your old tricks, I see.”

“Hmm? Oh, this …” I glanced down at the camera. “Sort of a new gig. I’m working for the
Big Muddy Inquirer
now. Switched over to photojournalism.”

“Uh-huh. I see.” He frowned and made a show of looking closely at my badge. “You must have changed your name, too … or does Craig Bailey write columns under your byline?”

I felt my face grow warm. He grinned at me. I had made a big lie and he had caught me in it. I made a sheepish, well-shucky-darn kind of shrug and changed the subject. “So … how’s everything in Massachusetts these days?”

Huygens looked me straight in the eye. “I wouldn’t know, Gerry,” he said. “I quit CybeServe and moved to St. Louis about six months ago.”

“Oh, really?”

“Oh, really.” He nodded his head. “I’m working for Tiptree now. Director of public relations.” The grin became a taut, humorless smile. “Remember what I told you? We’re from the same hometown.”

More surprises, and just a little less pleasant than the first one. Yeah, Huygens had told me that, two years ago when I had first spoken to him on the phone, back when he had held the same job for CybeServe Electronics in Framingham and I had been a staffer for an alternative paper in Boston. Back then, of course, I hadn’t known what sort of eel I was dealing with, or how he’d eventually try to destroy my career. Damn near succeeded, too.

“Well, well,” I said. “Like a bad penny …”

The smile disappeared altogether. Huygens cocked his head sideways as he peered closely at me. “Excuse me? I didn’t quite get that—”

“Never mind. Just a passing thought.” I coughed into my hand again. “So … what high school did you go to?”

It’s an old St. Louis line, akin to asking a New Englander about the weather, but Huygens didn’t bite. Over his shoulder, I spotted John halfway across the room, making his way through the crowd with a drink in his hand. Probably a ginger ale, which was unfortunate; I could have used a shot of straight whiskey right then. He caught my eye, gave me a one-finger high sign, and started toward us.

“Hmm.” Huygens’s thick lips pursed together. “Y’know, Gerry, to be quite honest, if I had wanted you to be here, I would have sent you an invitation—”

“Things were tight at the office,” I began. “Craig was sort of busy, so I—”

“Covered for him, right.” He pretended to rub a dust mote out of his left eye. I recognized the gesture; it was something he always did just before he asked you to bend over and drop your britches. “Well, I might have overlooked it, us being old acquaintances and all, but you see … well, I just received a complaint from one of our guests.”

“Oh?” John was still making his serpentine way through the mob; the cavalry was taking forever to get here. “From whom?”

“Steve Estes. He said …” He shrugged. “Well, you know these politicians. They don’t like to be photographed without prior permission. That’s what brought me over here in the first place.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Of course not. After all, if just anyone was able to take their picture, they might actually be accountable to the public.”

Huygens nodded agreeably. “Well, yes, there’s that … but nonetheless, Mr. Estes is an invited guest and you’re not …”

I shrugged off-handedly. “Sure, I understand, but Steve shouldn’t worry about the shot I took of him. It probably won’t come out anyway.”

Huygens blessed me with a blank, mildly bewildered look. “After all,” I continued, “old Transylvanian legends claim that vampires can’t be photographed.”

Assholes are always the best straight men: they don’t have a good sense of humor. As his expression turned cold a few moments before John arrived at my side, I raised the camera to my face. “Let’s test that,” I said, focusing on Huygens’s wattled chin. “Say cheese …”

Applause from the audience as McLaughlin wrapped up his speech. It could have been an appreciation for my jab. Now it was Huygens’s turn to make like a boiled lobster.

The gag didn’t last long. The picture I took was of him reaching into his breast pocket to pull out his PT and tap in the codes that negated the electronic passwords embedded in our smartbadges. John walked right into the middle of the whole scene.

“Hey, Gerry,” he said. “Did you get something to eat?”

“The crow’s good,” I murmured as I lowered the camera. “Just ask my friend here.”

Huygens simply stared at me. A moment later, two plainclothes security guards materialized behind John and me; they must have been hovering nearby, waiting for Huygens’s signal. They were on us before I had a chance to compliment Huygens on his choice of catering service.

“Get ’em out of here,” Huygens said to the large gentlemen who had descended upon us. “See you around, Gerry.”

He didn’t even bother to look at me before he turned his back on us and waddled back into the crowd.

John looked confused as a pair of massive hands clamped onto his shoulders. “Excuse me, but is there a problem?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the mutts said. “You are.” No one at the reception noticed our sudden departure. They were too busy applauding the videowall as the
Endeavour,
spewing smoke and fire, rose from its launch pad into a perfect blue Floridian sky.

T
IPTREE’S RENT-A-GOONS
escorted us out the front door, where they confiscated our smartbadges and pointed the way to the road. John and I didn’t say anything to each other until we reached his car and had driven out of the company parking lot. When we had passed through the front gate and were heading back down Clayton Road toward the highway, though, the first thing John wanted from me wasn’t an apology.

“Okay, what was that all about?” he asked. “I thought you were just talking to that guy.”

He wasn’t pissed off so much as he was bewildered. I felt a headache coming on, so I lowered my seat-back to a prone position and gently rubbed my eyes with my knuckles.

“He said it was because I had taken a picture of Steve Estes,” I said, “but he was just looking for an excuse. I could have complained about the catering and he would have tossed me out just the same.” I let out my breath. “He had no problem with you. You just happened to be with me, and that made you an accessory. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

“Hmm … well, don’t worry about it. What’s done is done.” He stopped to let a mini-cat rumble across the road in front of us; the machine was carrying a load of broken cinderblocks away from a collapsed convenience store. The flagman waved us on, and John stepped on the pedal again. “So you think he did that just to get rid of us? I don’t—”

“For the record,” I went on, “the jerk’s name is Paul Huygens.” I hesitated. “He used to work for CybeServe, maker of the fine line of CybeServe home VR products … specifically, the VidMaxx Dataroom. Ring any bells with you?” John’s face was blank for a moment, then Big Ben tolled the midnight hour. He cast a sharp look at me. “I’ll be darned,” he said slowly. “Is that the guy who got you canned at the
Clarion?
”

“One and the same, dude.” I gazed out the window at the ruins of a collapsed subdivision, remembering an unsigned note that had been faxed to me only a few years ago. “One and the same …”

Time for another history lesson. Today’s lecture is how Gerry Rosen, ace investigative reporter, once again tried to get a good story and, not incidentally, save a few lives, but instead ended up losing his job. Take notes; there will be a quiz on this at the end of the postmodern era.

Three years before, I was working as a staff writer for another weekly alternative newspaper, this one the
Back Bay Clarion,
a muckraking little rag published in Boston. I had been assigned by my editor to follow up on a number of complaints against a medium-size electronics company based in Framingham, a Boston suburb that has been the heart of the East Coast computer industry since the early eighties. As you may have guessed, this was CybeServe.

CybeServe was one of many corporations that had cashed in on the virtual-reality boom by manufacturing home VR systems for the consumer market. It had previously lost tons of money on the cheap-shit domestic robots it had attempted to sell through department stores, so its VidMaxx line of VR equipment had been one of the few products that were keeping the company afloat. All well and good, but the problem lay in their top-of-the-line product, the VidMaxx Dataroom 310.

The Dataroom 310 was much like its competitors: the unit could transform any vacant household room into a virtual-reality environment, transporting the customer into any world that could be interfaced by the CPU—the sort of thing for which Jah now wanted to write programs. Want to see exactly what the NASA probes on Mars are doing right now? Experience a role-playing game set in a medieval fantasy world? Go shopping in the Galleria Virtual? If you had all the right hardware and enough money to blow on on-line linkage with the various nets, the Dataroom 310 would take you there toot sweet.