The Children of the Company (42 page)

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Authors: Kage Baker

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #C429, #Extratorrents, #Kat

BOOK: The Children of the Company
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She didn’t tell us about the other things we had to fear. But that would have been cruel, really, wouldn’t it? We’d learn the rest of the truth soon enough.
I ordered another dessert, a torte rich in Theobromos. Pleasure is at its best when one proceeds at a deliberate pace, I find. I ate slowly, and emptied my mind of any considerations save what I was doing and what I was about to do. Presently I walked out into the night.
It was cold, damp under the stars, with a thin sea-fog lying at ground level that made haloes around the streetlights. Over the crowd assembling around the Nationaal Monument, there hung a steamy cloud of exhaled vapor. People festooned with little electronic lights were dancing. I walked away into
darkness, having no interest in that particular aspect of the mortal carnival, but I hadn’t far to go. Amsterdam is quite a conveniently arranged city.
I found what I wanted near the Oz Achterburgwal.
A long quiet street along a still canal, pleasantly shadowed, no lamps to cast unwanted glare on the faces of passersby. Quite unnecessary, when all the windows afforded such illumination. Just visible, along the street, pacing slowly and staring, were the dark figures in overcoats like mine; but who could spare a glance or a thought for anything but the windows?
Uncurtained and wide, each displayed its occupant in her own particular pose or ambiance. Some were straightforward and traditional, with scarlet lighting, with black lace and classically provocative poses. There were the fantasies: a window that glowed with blue flickering light, La Sirene in green sequins reclining in a languid pose on her undersea couch. A girl with mime’s training in a bare window under harsh white lights, made up in dead flesh tones, the perfect motionless image of a smiling display mannequin. A girl in the habit of a nun, her face innocent of paint, kneeling rapt before a photographer’s backdrop of a rose window.
Some windows were dark, with a small apologetic electronic crawl at eye level:
Presently engaged. Will reopen shortly. All currencies accepted. Free certification available on premises. Presently engaged …
Some places clearly catered to a sense of sin; there one looked into a garishly lit hell where the occupant was doing her best to convey the idea of pleasures cheap and degrading. In others there were promises of delights for the most eclectic, not to say criminal, tastes.
No. No. And no again, not for me … I generally preferred more Nature and less Art.
I found her at last in a window that glowed with amber light, radiated heat like summer.
So little artifice, and such charm. Quite without clothing save for a loincloth of white linen. She sat perched on a metal folding chair, in an ordinary sitting room. The only hint of a theme was a poster on one wall depicting some North African city. A music system on a shelf was playing a dance song with a quick beat, Reggae Nouveau perhaps. I could hear the music, but to most passersby she rocked silently in her chair as she regarded the evening, supremely unconcerned.
Her hair was superb, heavy as an Egyptian wig in its complex corn-row beading, and the bright beads-blue faience, copper, and brass-swung as she rocked, and tapped out a rhythm on the back of her chair. As I watched she parted her full lips and began to whistle out a counterpoint to the music. She had the slightest of gaps between her front teeth. Skin like midnight.
She noticed me at last and arched an eyebrow in cheerful inquiry. I nodded and climbed the steps to her door.
“Good evening, dear, may I see your credit ID please?” she greeted me, extending a pink-palmed hand. “Thank you.”
She led me into the house, pausing only to key in the light control that dimmed her window and set its crawl message going. She named a price. I agreed to it.
“Coffee while I run your check? Little glass of gin?” she inquired, waving me to a comfortable chair. I declined. She patted my cheek and went off to her terminal to verify that I was healthy, sane, law-abiding, and could pay.
It was a Company-issued credit ID and of course pronounced me a worthy client, whether or not I was in fact healthy, sane, or law-abiding. But I could certainly pay. She came back smiling, led me deeper into the house, waved me into a small lavatory.
“Pre-prophylaxis, eh? You’re a big boy, you know what to do. When you come out, turn to the right. I’ll be waiting in there.” She indicated a beaded doorway, all darkness beyond it.
I went in. It was furnished as most chambers for that purpose are. Concealed within a smoke detector was a tiny closed-circuit camera lens. I scanned: no gentlemen accomplices lurking anywhere in the house. She herself watched me, from a curtained booth on the other side of the wall where she was preparing for the encounter.
Having mutually assured ourselves that no murder was intended, we proceeded to the business at hand.
“What a charming conceit,” I remarked, stepping through the curtain. Each bead was a touch of ice on my skin. The contrast with the warm air was a shivering pleasure. “I haven’t seen a beaded curtain in ages. Was it your idea?”
Her voice came out of the darkness, amused. “Yes, thank you. But no personal details, eh? Less effort for you and they’ll only spoil your fun, dear. For
the sake of your pleasant and guilt-free experience, I will be only your desire personified. Not a person.”
“I’m not a person either,” I replied, and walked forward into the mystery.
As I left, something small and bright blue caught my eye by the door; I bent to pick it up. It was a toy rabbit, a tiny figure from a block set. I turned to offer it to my hostess.
“You have a child?”
“I might,” she replied, accepting it. “Another personal detail you don’t want to think about, you see? Not sexy at all. Thank you for your patronage, sir. Good night and happy New Year!”
I walked back past the crowd of mortals on the Dam. There were more of them now, still whooping and celebrating. Vendors sold hot drinks, sausages, parade horns, gnome hats, dance-lights. Wire screens, vast as city blocks, were mounted on the sides of buildings and displayed New Year’s jollity from other cities as though they were occurring simultaneously, creating a sense of worldwide party.
I found an all-night coffeehouse some blocks away and edged into a booth at the back. It was dark and quiet there. I ordered coffee and pastry and watched from the darkness as the New Year came upon us, the bright child in his banner emblazoned HAPPY 2093!
Celebrate while you can.
Hendrick got his shots on January 2. On the fifth of January he started kindergarten.
I took him to school. Anna and Geert were dismayed by the crowd of kameramen in the street, didn’t know what to do, what to say. But what were Doss and Waters paying me for, after all? I shrugged into my overcoat, took Hendrick by the hand, and escorted him down the steps.
He looked pale and frightened, but he went without question. Children endure so much, so steadfastly, once they learn to abandon hope. He stared unsmiling into the blank avid eyes of the kameramen and let them See him for a moment before following me as I pushed through the mortals.
And there the gunman was, as I’d known he’d be, the heavy-set young
man in the green shirt, holding up the bag with the Amsterdam Wire logo, stepping suddenly too close. As I reached out to break his wrist, before the shouting started, I heard Hendrick saying quietly: “That one’s not a kameraman. See his eyes? Here it comes. Good-bye—”
But the gun went off, in accordance with recorded history, pointed up and away from Hendrick. It broke a window in a villa across the street, and I knew without bothering to look up the unnerving pattern the shattered glass had formed, like a six-pointed star, for this too was in accordance with recorded history. I heard the scream, as much in frustration as pain, of the would-be assassin. I heard the whirring of the kameramen as they ran close to frame our struggle (no attempt to help me!) except for the one who turned his devouring face up to the broken window, catching that unforgettable image. And, at last, here were a few police.
And Labienus, to manage statements, so that I was permitted to walk on at last towing Hendrick after me, down the quiet street toward the waiting car. I bowed my head, striding along, feeling Hendrick’s hand twist in mine as he looked back.
So I too entered recorded history, of course with my face well hidden: that dark overcoat flowing back from those striding legs, the stiff arm extended to the boy who turned to peer over his shoulder so somberly into the cameras. By that evening a billion mortals had seen the image.
They were waiting for us at the school with tremulous applause, for of course Labienus made certain that word of what had happened preceded our arrival. That was where the reaction set in. I was trembling, sweating, and really in no mood to shake all the tiny hands extended to me; but I had saved Hendrick’s life, and the more enlightened citizens of Amsterdam wanted to thank me. I was given flowers. Toddlers were put into my arms and told to kiss me. The teachers kissed me. I disengaged as politely as I could and retreated to an empty office, to mop my perspiring face and endure, until it should be time to take Hendrick home, being the hero of the hour.
And what a brief hour it was.
Oh, we had waves of positive publicity from the murder attempt. The gunman had been acting alone, but was associated with the Church of God-A, a cult calling for more than zero population growth. They resolutely denied
they had any intention of bringing this about by violence, though they admitted they were opposed to Hendrick’s existence on principle.
There was a great deal of self-congratulation within Amsterdam. Once again its good citizens had shown themselves tolerant, humane, and enlightened! Hendrick got on well with his playmates. Anne Frank was invoked again, wan smiling ghost to give her blessing on another little outsider.
On his third day at school Hendrick developed a slight fever, a mild headache. I escorted him home. Anna was furious, positive his illness was a reaction to the unnecessary vaccinations. Geert wrung his hands. Before nightfall, however, the boy’s splendid superior engineered antibodies had clearly done their trick. His fever fell, his headache went away, he was fine.
Not so his classmates.
Three children showed up at the school on the fourth day. The rest were at home, violently ill. By nightfall most of them had died.
Most of the teachers were dead by the following morning, and all the children had died. The illness spread through their families. Their families died. Drastically enforced quarantine measures seemed to contain the outbreak, though it was also possible that the plague killed its hosts so quickly that it was unable to spread effectively after a certain point.
The Wire coverage was heartbreaking: images, from happier days, of the smiling little faces. There were around-the-clock broadcasts as people cowered in their homes. Ratings soared. Rumors spread quickly as only the electronic media could spread them, especially with a captive audience.
Once it had started, it didn’t take long.
The Amsterdam Center for Disease Control assaulted the question immediately. The obvious conclusion to be drawn was that the outbreak was somehow associated with Hendrick, since he had survived it and none of the other children had. From the moment that theory was widely known, the public had decided.
Useless for Anna and Geert to protest via voicelink that Hendrick had come into contact with plenty of people from the day of his birth, without harming anyone; we couldn’t get any of the other doctors who’d worked with them to come forward and make a statement in their support. Useless to point out that Hendrick had been ill, too, and that undoubtedly only his
unique antibody system had enabled him to recover. Anna and Geert were not professional entertainers, they spoke poorly, without stage presence or vocal training. Though Labienus repeated their statements an hour later, the first stammering denials were the ones that had the most impact.
Moreover a biologist, who spoke well and who
did
have stage presence, was interviewed immediately afterward. He put forward his opinion that Hendrick’s much-touted immune system might be responsible. Perhaps, somehow, it had perceived his little classmates with their ordinary coughs and colds as dangers to his survival, and manufactured a toxin to eliminate them.
This was immediately accepted as a glaringly obvious fact.
The truth came far too late, as we were being evacuated; and no one listened, I think, but Hendrick and I.
Labienus was hurrying Anna and Geert through their packing. Hendrick was already packed. I was buttoning him into his coat in the flickering light of the Wire images, for it had been deemed unsafe to turn on any of the other household lights, and in truth we only dared keep the Wire on because we needed the constant flow of information.
Abruptly a grim-faced commentator broke in over the latest “news” (endless recapitulation of everything that had already been shown) to announce that investigators had uncovered a possibly significant fact that might prove Hendrick wasn’t responsible for the plague after all. The first instance of illness had occurred at the school
before
he had ever arrived. He had got there late the first morning, due to the attempt on his life. During the time we were making statements to the police, as his future classmates waited for Hendrick’s appearance, one of the children had been taken ill and sent home, escorted by a teacher because her mother was too ill to come for her. She had never returned. The teacher who had escorted her home was the first to die.

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