Slant (38 page)

/ S L A N T 235

sig. On the return, the analysis gives a best-fit signature of Camden, New Jersey."

"My God," Nathan says. "The same as Roddy?"

"I do not think either of them are in Camden," Jill says.

"Neither do I," Nathan says. "Give me the sig for Cipher Snow. I'll take a

chance and send a personal touch."

"What will you say?"

"I'll say hello and ask what she's working on. Fairly innocuous, no?"

"I assume it will not be regarded as anything but innocent friendship," Jill says.

"I was the only friend she had here, for a while," Nathan says softly. "She made a real mess of things."

THEOPHOROS

You can have it now, the ultimate FIBE CONNECTION. You can tap into the universal dataflow! With THEOpHOROS you feel the touch of the Almighty him/her/itself .m&& *O)

(WE HAVE INTERCEPTED THIS $PAM; >>DELETE, TRACE, REPORT?)

>D

From the back of the warehouse, through a garage-door partition in the middle of the building, emerges a long slate-gray limo. The pack of tomb-robbers stands in the front of the warehouse, watching the vehicle roll to a stop on its big rainbow-hued security tires.

Ken Jenner has stayed in the back of the warehouse as Gifiby ordered, guarding the supplies. Jenner opens the trunk and together, Jenner and Giffey load the packages and canisters above the fuel cell compartment. They barely fit.

Jenner smiles and his scalp wrinkles as they survey the loaded trunk. "Enough stuff here to blow the whole town to the moon," he says.

"That's more than I care to do today," Giffey says. The boy smiles. Not only does his scalp wrigglt, but his lips seem to have a life of their own. Giffey catches himself looking at!enner when his back is turned, puzzled. He wonders if Jenner has some sort of cbngenital defect, not traced in Green Idaho; there's

36 GEG 8EA

fuzz yellow hair. Odd that the Army didn't reject him--but the Army has

never required genetic tests or high naturals, relying instead on its early

twenty-first century tests to weed out undesirables. Jenner came highly rec ommended...

Hale and Preston do not seem to share his interest in Jenner's oddity. Hale

is nervous, though hiding it well. Preston seems calm to the point of oblivion.

Giffey has seen both reactions from men and women going into combat; neither

concerns him much for now.

The rented limo is about ten years old, black, a little worn but still ser viceable. It can be driven by a human or by processor or INDA. Moneyed

tourists and businessmen from outside the republic often feel safer supplying

their own guidance systems, human or otherwise. The driver's compartment

is dusty. Jenner will drive. He takes a rag and flops it around the compartment,

raising a small cloud.

In the heated office, they change their clothes. Preston has supplied longsuits

' tailored to fit them all. She dresses behind a curtain. When they're finished,

il she looks them over critically, then makes a few fussy adjustments.

"Some of you dress like chimpanzees," she murmurs, paying particular at tention to Jenner. Jenner smiles loosely and glances at Giffey.

Hale uses a pad to check on their appointment. The Omphalos visitors'

center confirms that they are to be given their tour at three in the afternoon.

They will join another group flying in from Seattle.

"Private swan, big spenders," Hale says. "We'll be rubbing elbows with

71 some real pharaohs."

:

the swan sits idling on the asphalt runway. The landing was sweet and smooth

and Jonathan still feels hopeful, he feels good about things. He can arrange a

'" break with the past--they have enough assets that he can supply Chloe and

the kids and still contribute to Omphalos. This good feeling is unstable, elec tric and fragile, but it's the only positive he's had in his life in two days. That's

how long it has been--just two days, and his old life is over, bring in the new!

The small terminal sits in the middle of two runways, a mile away, white

and brilliant green in the afternoon sun. Snow from the night before lies in

dirty scooped piles beside the runway. A small automated plow sits idle on a

short sidetrack, low and squat like a steel cockroach.

Marcus is silent. He stares forward at the bulkhead. Cadey and Burdick are

talking in low tones about investments; Calhoun appears to be taking a nap.

Ten minutes after landing, the swanjet is cleared to approach the terminal.

Typical of the republic, Jonathan thinks; some flight controller and some of ficial have probably delayed them just to show them who's in charge in this

part of the world.

"Finally," Marcus says, rising from his lethargy. Calhoun opens her eyes

/ SLANT 237

woman carries some aspect of Chloe. This will have to stop; I have to become an independent man again.

After the final rehearsal, they eat a small lunch. Giffey chews on his sandwich, keeping his thoughts to himself.

Hale is poring over the whiteboard diagrams, somewhat obsessively, Giffey thinks. Pickwenn and Pent play a game of cards with a worn paper deck Pent has found in a cabinet in the back of the warehouse. Pickwenn, pale and ascetic-looking, and the large, bull-necked Pent, do not resemble high comb managers, in Giffey's opinion.

Jenner sits on the worn couch in the middle of the piles of airplane parts, studying a programming manual on Giffey's pad.

Preston sits in the limo, staring at her own pad, absorbed in some recorded vid. In her longsuit, she presents some semblance of class. Giffey finds her intelligence and coolness attractive. He hopes she doesn't get hurt and have to be fed to the nano.

Hale gives a deep, perhaps reluctant sigh. "All right," he says, pulling himself away from the board. "Let's do it."

They climb into the limo. Jenner slips into the driver's seat, smiling broadly, and his scalp wrinkles. He runs his hand over his yellow hair. He seems to think everything is just a hoot.

The limo pulls out of the warehouse. The door swings shut behind them, and they head north on Guaranteed Rights Road, past the county sheriff's blocky cement headquarters. Giffey makes out a few shell-holes in one side of the headquarters, left unrepaired. Pride in local history.

Hale is self-absorbed. Pent and Pickwenn continue to play cards. Preston holds her pad but looks out the window at the scruffy, ill-kept buildings. Everybody does it differently. Giffey is neither calm nor nervous; he's in an in-between state, what he calls his snooze-or-snuff-it frame of mind. He'll take whatever he gets.

There it is, white and gold, like a giant wedge of lemon meringue pie.

Preston says, "It's like a big Claes Oldenburg sculpture. You know, like a big slice of pie."

Giffey smiles. He doesn't know who Claes Oldenburg is but clearly he's found the one on the team he always hopes for, looks for, the partner with whom he can be in sync. A sign has been given and he feels good about the whole thing.

He just hopes he can keep up strong relationship with Jenner and Hale as well. He still has his doubts about Hale, and something nags him about Jenner.

The limo takes a new white concrete private road to the east of Omphalos. Jenner opens the chauffeur's partition window.

238 GREG BEAR

"That I did," Giffey says, eyes peering up from under the window frame at the massive white and gold structure. The area around Omphalos has been cleared for a hundred yards; there's nothing but patches of snow on gently rolling, beautifully landscaped, evergreen lawn.

"My father opposed him in Hispaniola. U.S. Army advisors. I wanted to be like my father."

Giffey raises his eyebrows and looks forward to the driver's compartment. Colonel Sir. When did I stop working for Colonel Sir? Family man all the way--

Jenner swings the wheel on a gentle turn in the road and grins back at him. "And?" Giffey prompts.

"Got trained, got out," Jenner says. "I am not like my father. I was smart, I learned fast, but I could not suffer fools. They gave me an honorable and

made me promise not to ever use anything I know."

Hale chuckles. "That's Army."

"You were never in the Army, were you, Mr. Hale?" Giffey asks.

"No, I wasn't," Hale admits.

Army. Family man. Back in the USA after all these years.

The voice fades slowly but it scares Giffey. Someone or something is missing a jw links in all these preparations, and it might be me.

The old slate-gray limo does not meet Marcus's expectations. A young man in black livery stands expectantly beside the open door, but he's disappointed. Marcus has brought his own driving processor.

Jonathan enters the limo door behind Calhoun; Burdick and Cadey follow, 4tting facing them. Marcus takes a middle seat, blocking Jonathan's view of

adey. Marcus removes a processor from his briefcase and slides it into the

limo's space. "We were supposed to have our own vehicles by now," he complains. The processor takes command and the limo slides away from the small parking space. Jonathan catches a glimpse of the disappointed chauffeur; apparently he'll have to hoof it home.

The countryside around the airport is bland enough, prairie grass and low mounds of earth excavated for no obvious reason; then there are clusters of rusty logging and farm machinery, arranged as if by giant children on overgrown playgrounds.

Moscow itself is a dreary, depleted-looking city. Marcus says little as they drive through the gray streets. Even spots of cold sunshine do little to enliven the unkempt buildings. This kind of freedom comes at a price, apparently: urban malaise pointing to listless, discouraged boredom.

"It's a pity," Cadey says. Calhoun nods. Jonathan senses no real sympathy. Omphalos is armored, separate; responsibility toward the citizens is simply not an issue. They have chosen their own fate, after all.

Marcus and Cadey point to Omphalos, their faces brightening. "There it

/ SLANT 239

painted houses and apartments lining Constitution. The wedge of white and gold rises like a Wagnerian fortress. The limo turns left and they slide down a wide, long boulevard which Jonathan does not catch the name o, but whose small retail strip malls frame Omphalos with stunning contrast.

Jonathan looks away. He's feeling more electric and fragile than enthused; the tide is turning again, and he does not like this ebb and flow. The strip malls consist of second-hand stores, small groceries, a brothel ("NOT A PROS-THETUTE IN THIS REPUBLIC--REAL REAL REAL," a sign announces) and several small casinos. The older-model automobiles and trucks passing by--some twenty years old and clearly powered by methane or alcohol engines--often have panels of clear fiexfuller mounted on the side windows.

"A real Western town," Calhoun remarks for Jonathan's benefit. "Rough-and-tumble," he responds.

"Howdy, partner," Burdick says, smiling at Calhoun.

"There is a fine resort ranch not far from here," Cadey says. "My family spent a week there three years ago. Not very dangerous at all; but we had our own guards."

Hiram once expressed an interest in biking through Green Idaho once he graduated from university. Green Idaho has the mixed distinction of being a rite of passage. It's taken the place of the Third World as a destination of challenge and adventure for wealthy young Americans.

Jenner stops the limo at a thick green translucent barricade, ten or twelve yards from the east side of Omphalos. The building towers over them; they lie in its afternoon shadow.

"The building's talking to us. I've given it our appointment sig."

"Do what it says," Hale suggests dryly.

Giffey feels as if they're already in, already swallowed. Jenner looks through the window to him for some suggestion of mood. He gives the boy a small grin and a thumbs-up. Jenner returns the gesture and seems a lot happier. They're all equal in this now. Preston reaches forward and clasps Hale's hand.

The barricade, green and deep as the sea, drops into the ground and a door to the garage opens in the wall. The door is about twenty feet wide and smoothly ascends to a height of ten feet. The limo moves forward under Jenner's guidance.

It takes just fifteen seconds. /

Jonathan taps his fingers against the window glass as their limo stops at a dark green translucent barricade. After a brief pause, the barricade slowly sinks into the concrete and a door opens in the white wall beyond. The limo rolls through the door and joins a second, identical limo in a small holding area.

240 GREG BEAR

through the windows at each other across the two meters separating them. Someone waves from the other car, a woman Jonathan thinks, though it's hard to be sure through the semi-silvered windows. "Who are they?" Burdick asks with social curiosity. He's the kind of man eager to establish contacts; meeting other rich folks could be very useful. "I don't know," Marcus says. "I assume they made arrangements through LA or Tokyo." Cadey seems concerned. "Investors for freezing down, right?" "I presume that's all they know," Marcus says. "We'll separate in the briefing area. They'll get their tour, and we'll get ours." Marcus glances at Jonathan. "Not my decision," he says. Jonathan's feeling of separation grows more intense. The sight of Omphalos does not affect him the way it does the others. It looks graceless and overblown, like an Albert Speer monument. He struggles to keep himself on an even course. Marcus is very sensitive to what others are thinking. Jonathan does not want to appear out of sync.

"Our colleagues," Hale says in the passenger compartment, his voice slick with contempt. Giffey doesn't feel one way or the other about the folks in the other limo everybody has to make their way in the world. Greedy rich folks have a right to their little conceits; after all, without them, there wouldn't be Omphalos. He just hopes they're flexible in their expectations. "Let's not act like a bunch of thugs," Preston warns. "Try to be a little classy. Upper classy." "Right," Pent says, and his face goes unconcerned, formally flat, like an all- ontrolling in vid. His voice little and his shifts. manager deepens a a accent "How am I doing?" Preston smirks and turns away. Pickwenn sobers also. Jenner should just continue playing the driver, Giffey thinks. Hale appears pale and out of sorts. Ahead, a green panel light comes on and a second door opens in the wall. "They're letting both of us through," Jenner says, a little surprised. "Beyond here, the armor's very light," Giffey says. "Shit, as if three feet of fiexfuller isn't enough," Pent says. "Language, gentlemen," Preston warns.