Rainbows End (28 page)

Robert made a point of taking the Stranger’s gadget through the front hallway bug trap. The small box triggered no alarms he could see. So betrayal was as simple as walking into the first-floor bathroom and setting the box down among the bags and aerosols and squeeze tubes that were already piled on the side counter. Modern bed and bath products were a bastion of old-style physical advertising. After all, even the most modern folks had to take off their clothes and their contacts somewhere. But Alice and Bob had no style. They bought the cheapest commodity products they could find. The devil box fit right in.

Robert took a long shower. It would be nice to feel clean. He heard no strange sounds, saw nothing strange through the frosted glass. But when he came out of the shower, he noticed that there was no mysterious gray box either. Even when he pawed around the counter, touching every object there — there was no sign of the intrusion. The bathroom door had been shut the whole time.

Someone knocked on the door, happily following the family rules about not snooping through bathroom walls. “Robert, are you okay?” It was Miri. “Alice says it’s dinnertime.”

 

Dinner was a nightmare.

It was always tense when the four of them ate together. Usually, Robert could avoid such get-togethers, but Alice seemed determined to see him with the whole family at least once a week. Robert knew what she was up to. She was recalibrating, deciding if now she could lower the boom on her father-in-law.

Tonight she was steelier than ever, and it didn’t help that Robert had serious things to hide. Maybe she had some special reason to be suspicious. He noticed that Bob and Miri were doing all the running back and forth to the kitchen. Usually Alice helped with that. Tonight she sat herself down in her usual place, and grilled Robert in her merciless, casual way: how was school going, what about the project with Juan. She even asked about his “old friends,” for God’s sake! And Robert explained and smiled and prayed he was passing the test.
The old Robert never had trouble stringing people along
!

Then Bob and Miri were sitting down to eat. Alice shifted her attention from her villainous father-in-law. She chatted with Miri in the same friendly, interested tones she had used with Robert. Miri replied with precision, a detailed summary of just who and what was good and bad at school.
For a while Robert almost relaxed. After all, they were here to eat. Surely that couldn’t give him away.

But something was up, and it wasn’t just his imagination. Bob and Alice got into a discussion of San Diego politics, a school-bond issue. But there was an edgy undercurrent; some couples really
argue
politics, but this was the first time Robert had ever heard that from these two. And every so often Alice’s clothing
flickered
. Around the house in the real world, Alice Gu wore a dumpy hausfrau dress that wouldn’t have been out of place in the 1950s. When she flickered, it was virtual imagery, nothing like Carlos’s old-fashioned smart T-shirts. The first time it happened, Robert almost didn’t notice — partly because neither Bob or Miri reacted. Half a minute later — as Alice gestured emphatically about some outstandingly trivial election issue — there was another flicker. For an instant she was dressed in something like naval whites, but the collar insignia said “PHS.”
PHS
? There were lots of different Google hits on the abbreviation. A minute or two passed, and she was briefly a USMC full colonel.
That
, Robert had seen before, since it was her true rank.

Bob said mildly, “You’re emoting, dear.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Alice said curtly. “You know that. The point is” — and she continued chewing on the school-bond issue. But her gaze wandered around the room, eventually riveting on Robert. It was not a friendly gaze, and even though her words were unrelated to Robert Gu there was a sharpness in her voice. Then, for almost two seconds, she was wearing a civilian business suit with an old-fashioned ID lanyard. The ID bore a familiar seal and the letters DHS. Robert knew what
that
meant. It was all he could do not to flinch back.
She can’t know everything
! He wondered if Alice and Bob were silently coordinating all the scary signs, conspiring to panic him into confession. Somehow, he didn’t think Bob was that adept.

So Robert just nodded and glanced casually around. Miri had been quieter than usual. She was staring off into the distance, and looked as bored as a thirteen-year-old can look when she’s trapped at home with her parents rattling on about Things Not Important. But this was Miri Gu, and this was not the twentieth century. Most likely she was surfing, though usually she disguised such absences when she was at the dinner table.

Alice slapped the table, and Robert’s eyes jerked back to her. She was glaring at him. “Don’t you agree, Robert?”

Even Louise Chumlig couldn’t glare more aggressively than that.
“Sorry. My mind wandered, Alice.”
She waved her hand abruptly. “It doesn’t matter.”

And then golden letters spread silently across the air. Miri — > Robert: Don’t worry. She’s not mad at you.

Miri was still gazing into nowhere. Her hands were in plain sight and motionless. She was that good with her clothes.
Okay, but what in hell is going on here
? That was the message he wanted to send back, but short of finger tapping, the best he could do was give her a quizzical look.

Alice rattled on, interrupted occasionally by Bob, but now Robert was not living in stark terror. He waited another three or four minutes, and then excused himself.

Bob looked a little relieved. “We don’t have to talk so much about the bond issue, Robert. There are other — “
“No, that’s okay. I’m the fellow with homework these days.” Robert pasted on a smile and retreated up the stairs. He felt Alice’s rifled gaze following him every step. If not for Miri’s silent message, he would have run up the stairs.

And so far, Alice hadn’t ventured near the front bathroom.

He did have homework. Juan came over and distracted him for almost half an hour with his explanations of immersive outlines. Robert was supposed to have such an outline ready for tomorrow’s progress report in Chumlig’s class. Juan went away pleased. So was Robert; he had made up for several days of inattention. He fooled around with Juan’s templates till he could implement everything.
By God, we should be getting an A for cross-support
. The kid’s prose had become almost serviceable — and this immersive
he
had constructed, it was beautiful. He was aware of Miri helping to clean up after dinner and then coming up to her room. Bob and Alice were just sitting in the living room. He set an activity alarm on the first floor, and for a while he forgot himself in the making of more and better refinements to his graphics.

Lord
! An hour had passed! He took a quick glance downstairs. Nobody had been to the front John. There was a pending message from Tommie Parker. The cabal wanted to know when or if he was going to come through with his contribution.

He looked downstairs again. Strange. He couldn’t see into the living room anymore. Normally that was on the house menu, but now it was as private as the bedrooms. He stood and walked over to the door, quietly eased it open half an inch, snooping the good old-fashioned way.

They were arguing! And Bob was white-hot. His voice grew louder and louder, finally breaking into enraged shouting. “I don’t give a fuck if they do need you! It’s always just one more time. But this time you’ve — “

Bob hesitated in midflame. Robert leaned forward, ear to the door. Nothing. Not even the mumble of circumspect speech. Son and daughter-in-law had taken their spat into ethereal realms. But Robert continued to listen. He could hear the two moving around. At one point, there was the sound of a hand slapping down like a pistol shot. Alice whacking the dinner table? There was half a minute of silence and then a door slammed.

Vision returned a second after that. Bob was alone in the living room, staring at the door of the ground-floor den. He stood there for a few moments, then circled the living room and dropped himself down in his favorite chair. He pulled a book off the coffee table. That was one of the three physical books downstairs — and even it was a just-in-time fake.

Robert Gu quietly shut his bedroom door and returned to his chair. He thought a moment, then tapped on his virtual keypad.

 

Robert — > Miri: What was that all about?

Miri was twenty feet down the hall. So why didn’t he just walk a few feet and knock on her door? Or present virtually? Maybe it was the habit of staying out of her way. Maybe it was easier to hide behind words.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one hiding. It was almost a minute before a reply floated back. Miri — > Robert: They’re not mad at you.
Robert — > Miri: Okay. But what is the problem?

Miri — > Robert: There is no problem. That was the whole message, but then Miri sent another.

 

Miri — > Robert: Alice is getting ready for some new job. That’s always hard on her. And then Bob gets mad. There was another pause.

 

Miri — > Robert: This is Corps business, Robert. I’m not supposed to know about it. You’re even more not. I’m sorry. EOR

EOR That was space cadet for “that’s all she wrote.” Robert waited; nothing more came. But this had been more real conversation with Miri than he’d had in two months. What did that little girl do with her secrets? They were surely more significant than he had ever guessed. She had better communications facilities than all of twentieth-century civilization, but her prissy standards kept her from sharing her pain.
Or maybe she has friends she can talk to
?

Robert Gu, Sr., didn’t have any friends, but he didn’t need any; tonight he had plenty of crisis and suspense to distract him. He kept an eye on the front bathroom, and another on the door to the den. Bob was still reading, every so often sliding a look of his own at the den.

“Is now a good time for us to talk, Professor?” The voice came from just behind his shoulder. The shock all but levitated Robert from his chair. He swung on the sound. “Jeez!”
It was Zulfikar Sharif.
Sharif backed away, startlement in his face.
“You could have knocked,” Robert said.
“I did, Professor.” Sharif sounded faintly hurt.

“Yes, yes.” Robert still hadn’t figured out all the quirks of Epiphany’s “circle of friends” feature. He gestured for Sharif to stay. “What’s on your mind?”

Sharif did a creditable job of sitting on a chair without sinking halfway through. “Well, I was hoping we could just talk.” He thought a moment. “I mean, we might continue with my questions about your
Secrets of the Ages”

Still no action downstairs. “… Very well. Ask.”
So who is this
? True-Sharif? Stranger-Sharif? SciFi-Sharif? Or some ungodly combination? Whatever, it was too much coincidence that he showed up just now. Robert sat back to watch and listen.

“um… I don’t know.” Miserably forgetful? But then Sharif abruptly perked up. “Ah! One thing I’m hoping to get at in my thesis is the balance of worth between the beauty of expression and the beauty of underlying truth. Are they separate?”

A question to be answered in cryptic depth
. Robert paused significantly and then launched into flimflam. “You should know by now, Zulfi, even if you can’t create poetry yourself, that the issues can’t be separated. Beauty captures truth. Read my essay in the
Carolingian
. …”
blah blahblah

Sharif nodded earnestly. “Then do you ever expect an end to one and therefore the other? Beauty and truth, I mean?”

Huh
? Now, that was sufficiently bizarre to derail him. Robert parsed and reparsed the stupidity.
Will you run out of beauty? And the answer for me is yes; I cant create beauty anymore
. So maybe this was just Stranger-Sharif jerking him around while they both waited for the little gray box to do its thing.

“I suppose… there could be an end.” And then he thought about the other half of the question. “Hell, Sharif, truth — new truth — ended long ago. We artists sit atop a midden ten thousand years deep. The diligent ones of us know everything of significance that’s ever been done. We churn and churn, and some of us do it brilliantly, but it’s just a glittering rehash.”
Did I just say that
?

“And if they’re linked, then beauty is gone too?” Sharif had leaned forward his elbows on his legs, his chin cupped in his hands. His eyes were large and serious.

 

Robert looked away. Finally, he choked out, “There is still beauty. I
will
bring it back.”
I will regain it
. Sharif smiled, mistaking Robert’s assertion for some general faith in humankind in the future? “That’s wonderful, Professor. This goes beyond your essay in the
Carolingian
.”

 

“Indeed.” Robert sat back, wondering just what in heaven’s name was going on. Sharif hesitated a moment, as if uncertain where to go next. “At the UCSD library, how has your project there progressed?”

 

Still no action downstairs. Robert said, “You see some connection between my art and… the Librareome?”

 

“Well, yes. I don’t want to intrude, but ultimately what you do at UCSD seems to be very much a statement about the position of art and literature in the modern world.”

Maybe this was SciFi-Sharif, trying to figure out what Stranger-Sharif was up to.
If only I could use one against the other
. He gave his visitor a judicious nod. “I’ll talk to my friends about this. Maybe we can arrange something.”

That seemed to satisfy whoever-it-was. They set a time for another chat, and then the visitor was gone. Robert turned off circle-of-friends access. No more surprise visitations tonight.

And downstairs, there was
still
no action. He watched through the walls for almost fifteen minutes. That was certainly a productive use of time.
Think about something else, damn it
.

He blew off the top of the house and looked across West Fallbrook. Un-enhanced, the place was very dark, more like an abandoned town than a living suburb. The real San Diego had less skyglow than he remembered from the 1970s. But behind that real view were unending alternatives, all the cyberspace fun Bob’s generation could have ever imagined. Hundreds of millions were playing out there tonight. Robert could feel — Epiphany could make him feel — the thrum of it, beckoning. Instead he tapped out a command Chumlig had mentioned; here and there across North County, tiny lights glowed. Those were the other students in his classes, at least the ones who were studying tonight and had any interest in what the others were doing. Twenty little lights. That was more than two-thirds of the class, a special kind of belief circle, one dedicated to pushing up their cooperation scores as far as possible. He hadn’t appreciated how hard these little third-raters were working.