Demons (27 page)

What accent was that? Maybe Florida?
Stephen nodded approvingly over his meal. “Much better than I expect from a buffet.”

“You can’t taste the Dirvane 17, of course,” Crocker said casually, “but it’s there—you know, residual, from the feed the beef got. We wouldn’t test anything on the public we weren’t willing to digest our own selves, right, Steve?”

Stephen, chewing a mouthful of beef, glanced at Crocker and then at his plate. Reluctantly, he swallowed the stuff, almost choking.

Crocker exploded with laughter.

And Dale Winderson blinked back into the room, appearing seated in a chair at Crocker’s elbow, saying, “Don’t mind this chowderhead, Stephen.”

Crocker jumped, almost as startled as Stephen at Winderson’s magical arrival.

“Crocker’s having his little joke,” Winderson continued. “Of course we don’t eat Dirvane-contaminated food ourselves.”

“I suppose we run enough risk of exposure to organic compounds, just working in the business,” Glyneth remarked, as if she weren’t talking to a hologram.

“Hm? Yes, exactly.” The hologram of Winderson appeared to squint at Glyneth, as if to see her better, but it was looking a bit to the left of her.

“I was just havin’ some fun with the new guy,” Crocker said. “Food’s safe, Stevie, don’t worry about it. Pullin’ your leg.”

“Practical jokes seem to be popular around here,” Stephen said, trying to find the right smile and tone to convey what a good sport he was. “Maybe I should think up one or two of my own.”

“You do that,” Winderson’s hologram said with a wink. Then he seemed to look intently into nowhere—at something in the room where he actually was. “Jonquil! It’s all right, my dear. No great need for privacy here. Come into the projector field and say hello. You remember Stephen . . . and Dickinham. There, in that screen.”

Suddenly half a woman was there—the right half, split down the middle. A holographic projection of part of Jonquil. “Hi, Stephen. Hi, you guys!” she said, all the words said with half a mouth.

“You’re only half there, Jonquil,” Stephen said, his heart thudding. “I know the feeling. Great to see even half of you again.”

She chuckled and stepped farther into the field, the rest of her appearing. She looked as if she’d been poured into what might have been, on some other woman, a simple coatdress. Silver-gray and blue, conservatively cut, but on her the garment had the impact of lingerie—quite possibly it was a little too small for her. “Is that better? Am I all there yet?”

“As much as you’ll ever be!” Winderson said, the joke coming rather distractedly. He seemed to be staring at something else again that was out of hologram range.

Stephen tried to think of something to say, to keep her there. She was such a relief, after this bleak place, these mostly unrelatable people. Her blue eyes glimmered, even in a hologram. Her pearly smile seemed to beckon him, and she tossed her head a little as if the long wavy blond hair had gotten in her eyes, though it hadn’t. “I came to tell my uncle he’s expected for a business dinner with the second most powerful Japanese businessman in the world, and here he is trading jokes with you guys. That’s so typical. I don’t see how he makes any money, I really don’t.”

“The other corp heads just take pity on me, honey dear,” Winderson said. It seemed to Stephen that Winderson’s hand went behind her, as if to cup her shapely ass; and she stiffened, her smile strained. But that couldn’t be right—she was his niece. “Okay, muh dear, tell ‘em I’m rushing down there right now. I don’t want to keep Mr. Koto waiting a second longer than I have to.”

“Like he’ll believe that. But I’ll tell ‘im.” She turned to look approximately toward Stephen. “Good to see you.”

He wanted to think of something that would convey his eagerness to see her again without upsetting the social apple cart. But all that would come was, “Me, too.” He winced, thinking,
That was lame,
but then she was gone.

And Winderson put on his serious face. “Joking around is fine—even important sometimes—but never forget that our purpose here is serious. You are the vanguard of West Wind, all of you. We’re counting on a revolution in pest control and in marketing. That’s your cue, Fritz.”

“Yes, sir, you bet—”—

But Winderson blinked out again.

Stephen stared at the empty chair. “How does he project himself—his image—into a chair so . . . I mean, a standing image in the middle of the floor I can figure but sitting . . .”

“We have the best communications technology available,” Dickinham said proudly. “Projects him right where he wants to be—and how he wants to be.”

“I see.” Stephen remembered his discussion with Winderson about the so-called demonic invaders, and found himself wondering if this kind of holographic technology could have been used along with other devices—robotics?—to create the
illusion
of a demonic invasion. For a moment he wished he were back on that white-sand island, with its patchy communications, even its badly ventilated factory and its blissful ignorance of the whole hysterical, apocalyptic mess.

There was a moment of awkward silence in the cafeteria, broken by the murmurs from other tables, arcane discussions about chemical compounds, talk of stock options, and the distinctly annoying sound of Crocker chewing. Stephen found that he was uncomfortable—even afraid. He had no idea why. It wasn’t Winderson’s unseen presence, really. It was some other unseen presence.

He looked around. It seemed to him for a moment as if everyone were chewing in unison. Dickinham and Crocker both had their mouths open, chewing green vegetables with marchlike regularity.

Stephen looked away. Sipping cranberry juice, he glanced at Glyneth—and found she was looking at him. It wasn’t as if she were staring at him. It was as if, somehow, she were looking for something in his face. Watching and waiting.

A gust of wind rattled the window—like a distant, frustrated roar.

To relieve his unease, Stephen asked Dickinham, “Do you have a specific agenda for me here? Frankly, Dale was kind of vague about it.” He wondered how much they knew about psychonomics. Winderson had told him firmly that he wasn’t to discuss it with anyone.

Crocker put a lot of jeering into one syllable: “Dale?”

Stephen shrugged. “He asked me to call him Dale. Although it’s true I didn’t have the nerve to call him that to his face just now. Mr. Winderson, then.”

Crocker grunted and seemed about to say something else, then glanced at the chair beside him and thought better of it. Winderson might be listening.

Odd, Stephen reflected, knowing that Winderson could be watching them electronically, eavesdropping on them like a trickster god from mythology brooding over his minions.

Dickinham seemed to be pondering Stephen’s question. Then he put down his fork, made a tent out of his fingers, and said, “Okay, it’s like this. They’ve got you slated to do some kind of special work—some kind of experiment. They’re preparing for all that in some way—and meanwhile we’re supposed to get you ready by giving you experience in the field. Stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do. West Wind fieldwork.”

Crocker snorted. “Like a silver-spoon kid who has to do a little work on the assembly line before he gets to inherit.”

Dickinham shook his head. “No, there’s some other reason. I don’t know what it is, though.”

Stephen thought it might be good if he didn’t seem entirely out of the loop. “As far as I can work it out, from what you’re telling me and what . . . Mr. Winderson . . . has said, it’s probably about getting me ready to market Dirvane 17 and other West Wind products, and to get ideas for doing that I need to get out into the field, see the stuff doing its work firsthand. Like when we did that Petrochemicals Changing Lives campaign. Some of our copywriters went out to the oil rigs and got a sense of the way the oil comes right out of the ground. Then, in the commercial, we traced it all the way to the production of plastics used in a kid’s toy. From the guy programming the rig robotics to the kid playing with the plastic truck.”

Dickinham blinked at him. “Yeah. It could be. You know. Something like that.”

Portland, Oregon

“You could do it if you wanted to, Yanan,” Ira was saying. They stood in the chilly entryway of the old, rented Odd Fellows’ lodge hall where they’d held their meeting that evening: a little room of excessively lacquered wooden floors, mildewed walls, and a rack of rain-musty coats. “They were supposed to call me today—and they didn’t call at the fallback time. Both she and Nyerza have palm communicators. There should be a good satellite fix now.
But they didn’t call.
”—

Yanan nodded. His dark eyes were full of understanding, but they were also unyielding. “Yes, I see. There could be many reasons, eh? You are too soon panicking. I cannot call them any better than you can.”

Ira’s heart was pounding. It was a terrible thing to have to confront Yanan in this way. Yanan was a father figure to him, really. And he’d never known his own father.

“You
can
talk to Nyerza. You’re part of the circle. You can . . . you know . . .”

Yanan looked at him blankly. “No. I don’t know, hm?”

“The Conscious Circle. Like the other day in the café . . .”

“And what happened the other day in the café?”

“You . . .” Ira lowered his voice. “You contacted the Circle, telepathically or presciently.”

“Did I say to you I did such a thing?”

“Not exactly, but you closed your eyes, you went into a sort of trance, and you came out of it with information.”

“It was only a reverie. Perhaps—perhaps someone had told me something earlier in the day and I remembered it then, eh?”

Ira turned away, grabbed his coat, jerking it off the hook. He began to put it on, but in his angry confusion he couldn’t find the sleeve. He knew he shouldn’t make a decision in anger and fear, but the feelings had taken him, and he couldn’t stop now. He didn’t really want to stop.

“You are too lost in your anger, taken by it, you cannot even put on your coat, Ira.” Yanan helped him into the sleeve, showing not the least exasperation. There was no sense of tension about him to match Ira’s.

Ira turned toward him. “So you don’t trust me enough to speak plainly.”
Or perhaps,
Ira thought,
he’s taken a vow never to speak of such things outright—some adepts did.
“But you
know
you could help me find them.”

Yanan sighed gently and gazed into the middle distance. “Something . . . prevents me.”

“Some impulse prevents you? Meaning you don’t want to. Fine. But I’m going—I have some money put aside. I’m going to fly to Ashgabat.”

Yanan smiled. “You will find it difficult to find a direct flight to such a place from America. Perhaps in Turkey.”

“I’ll do what I have to,” Ira said flatly, again turning away.

Yanan laid a gently restraining hand on his arm. “No—I cannot allow this. You stay here and work with me. Have faith, hm?”

Ira struggled within himself. He felt he was about to be caught up in some powerful internal momentum; he was poised on the edge of a long, dark path into a trackless wasteland . . .

. . . And plunged down that path, making up his mind not to look back. He said, with finality, “I’ve lost touch with my wife and child. I’m going to find them.”

He turned and stalked out the door, hurrying to leave before Yanan could use the force of his personality, if that was the word, to stop him.

“Ira—wait now! This is not a good time for this!” Yanan called from the door, as Ira plunged into the cold, brittle, windless night.

Ira hurried to his little hydrogen-cell scooter, straddled and started it, then U-turned into the street. He felt some satisfaction—and shame at the satisfaction—hearing Yanan shouting after him to stop.

He decided to go right to the airport.
Long-term parking,
he thought,
very long-term.
He would call the professor about feeding the cats. He could buy clothes and supplies in Turkey.

It wasn’t till he was boarding a plane for New York that he remembered Yanan’s words:
Something . . . prevents me.

And he realized that he had probably mistaken Yanan’s meaning.

4

Turkmenistan

Melissa was the first on that cold, windy morning to see the Turkmen state security agents. The trucks quivered in the screen of the digital binoculars.