Virtually True (39 page)

She submerges her hands, reaches for him. “Want to come?” Licks salt off his lips.

True turns away. “I’ve seen two men melted in just hours and I have to finish this story. Later.”

He knows, although she pretends this is fine, it isn’t.

Eden stands and water cascades down. She pulls off her dress, wrings it out over True, flings it in the corner. One foot then the other out of the tub. “What can I do to help?”

“Can you measure the difference between the amount of power generated and the amount consumed in Tokyo?”

“They’ll be roughly the same.”

“I don’t think so. When you locate the largest users of electricity, let me know.”

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

True touches a Piña clamp-bruise on his wrist. “Just do it.”

She sashays out of the bathroom, as if to remind True what he’s missing.

True towels off, grabs the medical kit, and runs ultrasound treatments until he can breathe without wincing and walk without limping. Piña’s video-card was already viewed. He glances at Eden, who’s wrapped in work, and opens it. A hologram of Piña, a different, digital Piña, coalesces from pink mist. She’s elegant, a one-and-a-half-meter feminine icon in slinky designer wear, purring breasts, silky legs.

“Dear True. Forgive me. I love you. If you let me into your life, there is nothing we can’t accomplish. I can imbue you with strength and resilience. You can share your sensitivity and intellect. Together we dance among the stars. Alone I am inconsequential. I love you, True, truly.”

Piña’s sucked back into the envelope. True wonders what she traded for help in composing her sonnet. He studies a pink rose, de-thorned. Which’s unlike Piña as well, to alter nature.

Eden, with a thread of a smile, calls over. “I have that power data. You were right.”

“About?”

“Since the quake knocked out hundreds of thousands of buildings, consumption is only five percent what it was the same time last year.”

“But power output?”

“Is up. What do you think it means?”

“Can you knock out Tokyo’s power in one jolt at my command? Make it brownout so nothing vital goes out. Even just for a minute?”

Eden weighs. “Difficult; not impossible. Strictly speaking, not in one jolt but in trillions of electrical pulses, which would amount to the same. They wouldn’t expect it, that’s for sure. They usually guard against tappers, not someone trying to kamikaze the system at five percent capacity. I could probably block the access cells. It’ll automatically reroute trillions of times but I could hold it off for maybe thirty secs. Rerouting will intensify with each failure, so with the limited hardware I have here, that’s what I can do.”

“Set it up.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to finish what’s been planned for me.”

“Then?”

“I don’t know.” He swipes at a strand of loose hair. “Rush is going to be here any minute. When he buzzes, let him in.”

“How do you know Rush is coming?”

“If he doesn’t, I won’t be able to complete my computer destiny.”

*         *          *

Reiner’s transmitting from the Tokyo bureau, three dozen monitors behind her offering views of the city’s wards.

True tweaks the picture. “I like you better this way, without your broadcast icon.”

“You’re probably the only one. I coded a message to the WWTV board telling them the war poop was yours. I also said you were working on a story that would blow the ratings heaven-bound. They said they’d clear the boards on your cue.”

“Thanks. It’s almost ready. I hope.” Reiner knows not to ask about a scoop before air time. “Any word on Odessa?”

“Tracked down an antique obaasan who said she witnessed a gaijin matching O’s description disappear. Then again she swore the Emperor’s her lover, so there’s that. Still looking.”

True doesn’t say Odessa’s dead, like Maxi. Could be wrong, so shhhhh.

She: “Did you catch the promos Rush made for your obit? He scored a ratings coup with the Urban Survival footage. I sent word you’re alive so he has to post a worldwide retraction. He’ll be irate.”

First Aslam pulling his exclusive, now this. Rush’s road to anchor nirvana is strewn with potholes. Pounding on the door. Eden lets Rush in, who steams over. “Ailey. You are such an asshole.”

“Right on time,” True says.

“Told you he’d be pissed.” Reiner’s beatific icon, her defense, now substituting for her on screen.

Rush stomps his foot on the carpet. A mushy sound. “You’re not allowed to transmit footage without my OK. Those are the rules. You’re not even supposed to be alive.”

“What’s that mean?” Reiner cracks her neck.

Rush blisters. “I saw him picked apart and transmitted the footage internationally. I’ve been nuked twice this month. I’ll be filed under ‘gullible’ at the home office.”

“You should have checked with me. I’d have told you he wasn’t dead.”

“Reiner, shut up. Congratulations on your scoop. You’re lucky as fuck. An earthquake then a war while I’m stuck in this SE Asian toilet.”

“True’s the one who dug up the war scoop.”

True’s aware of distortions in some of Reiner’s monitors. “What’s happening?”

There’s rumbling, whirlpool dots and strands of light, buildings and people exploding silently, disappearing. The ground shakes as portions of Tokyo are sponged away. Pastel phantasmagorisms splashing eerie.

“Is that an aftershock?” Rush asks.

True, frantic. “Reiner, get out of there. Leave Tokyo immediately.”

More cosmic disturbance. “I’m staying, True.”

“You’ll die, Reiner.”

She switches off her icon and Rush’s eyes wiggle. He doesn’t know this Reiner, the one unable to parry time. “I’ve lived a long time.”

The bureau remains unfazed by the electronic squall, swirling, untangling pointillism. True says, “Even with provisions for low-tonnage weaponry, you know the risk you’re taking?”

“I’m staying.”

Another wrinkle in the cosmos. Reiner’s face dances from silvery old to gilded youth, then back. On one of the monitors: a shuffle of people disappear. Flash into air. On other monitors, too. “Aw, True. I’ve been sitting on the greatest scoop of the 21st century, and I missed it. Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, man. That really sucks. Sh—” Reiner spins into cottony fog.

Losing Reiner is no easier the second time. Worse, for this is real.

“What was the scoop?” Greed tinges Rush’s words.
What’s the digital equivalent to that
, True wonders,
what mix of 0’s and 1’s
? He rewinds, freezes Tokyo’s ghost, the metropolis.

“Where’s Reiner?” Rush lagging behind the brain curve.

“Reiner’s dead, though she wouldn’t be if you hadn’t killed Aslam.”

The brittle mask of a bad liar. “What are you talking about? Those psychotropic patterns pop a synapse in you brain or something?”

“You hated Aslam. He offered you an exclusive, then yanked it. I didn’t even notice you were gone, since most of our work is conducted over the link. For a while I assumed you never went. But I was wrong. You know why Aslam did that to you?”

Rush, wary. “Since you’re making this up as you go along... you tell me.”

“He tapped WWTV’s database with your wrist-top and codes. Then he had one of his commando hackers plant a message for me. I’m sure he sucked every piece of information he could out of there. Unfortunately, he probably found what I did: There’s nothing in WWTV’s database about Sato’s weapon. As for you, you’re lucky to be alive.”

Furious blinks. “You’re crazy.”

“As a jungle insurgent, Aslam was exposed to a variety of stomach ailments, two being bilharzia and giardia. Bilharzia’s new to Luzonia, giardia common in areas outside the city. Since you both suffered from these same afflictions, I assume you and he shared time and space.”

“I never said I had giardia.”

“Giardia’s signature is sulfur belches and farts. When you visited me in the hospital, you smelled like hell’s brimstone. Then I knew.”

Rush catches Eden’s eyes, holds, releases. He tunes in True again. “So what if I met that psychopath? What’s that have to do to with you blaming me for killing Reiner?”

“It must have been humiliating and horrifying. You must have been scared when you found out all they wanted was your wrist-top and access codes. You were expendable.”

“I thought I was going to die.”

“But—”

Rush is third-generation talk show trash but chooses to tuck these memories away, as if nothing happened. “I begged them to stop.”

“What did they do?”

Rush steals a glance at Eden, at True. Looks at his shoes.

“How long were you held?”

“I don’t know how long it went on, but I was in the jungle a total of a day. Aziz got me out, drove me to Nerula himself, dropped me on the outskirts.”

“It wasn’t Aslam’s fault.”

“If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been there.”

Rush right for a change. “ADC contacted you, offering a finder’s fee, one that would let you score a little revenge in the process. You jumped at it. Didn’t it seem like too much of a coincidence? Weren’t you suspicious?”

No answer, so no. True keeps on. “You subcontracted the deal to the Rajput, someone known for tackling jobs like this. You instructed her to find a girl to get close to Aslam. Why? ADC provided the plan. They knew Aslam’s vulnerabilities—after all, he worked for ADC, too, although he didn’t know it. The Rajput kept her end, and Aslam was blown to shit.”

Rush’s aqua velva eyes. Words from far away in his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What you didn’t count on is how sloppy reality is. First, you didn’t know I was Aslam’s friend and was with him when he died. So you had to get rid of me. ADC assured you all you needed to do was spike my water supply with FREEze and I’d be done for. After all, it worked before. ADC needed me to fall into virtual reality so I would go into the information net for them. But you didn’t know this, and didn’t want to take any chances. You hired Bong Bong to get me. Even after he couldn’t get the job done, you thought you were home free after the Ghetto Tourney. But meanwhile, the Rajput kept coming back for more money, threatening to implicate you in Aslam’s death. Bong Bong said he’d implicate you in
my
death. So you were being double-blackmailed. No doubt, the money ADC paid you doesn’t amount to much now.”

Rush calculating his next plodding move, his career floundering on cloudy denial. “No.”

“I went through your logs. Aslam inviting you to the jungle. You confirming. The Rajput’s calls, everything.” Eden’s hand disappears into the medkit. She’s nonchalant so Rush doesn’t see.

“I won’t let you do this to me.” Rush levels a laser pistol at True.

“Bong Bong’s dead. So’s the Rajput. You have nothing to fear from them.”

“Bong Bong, dead?” Palpable relief. Then, “I can’t afford a scandal. I’m this close”—thumb and forefinger brush—“to getting my own show.”