Behind her, Bob Recent struggled to his feet just as a drone swept down over him and sprayed him with gas. He fell again, paralysed, confused, as the drone stated his rights in a clear voice and repeated them in a dozen languages. He could see Savina walking away, and he tried to point, but he couldn’t move his arm and his voice was the croak of a frog.
She walked into the distance, out of sight.
16. PSYCHOPATH
Vicky had elected to spend the night at Saul’s house. Since Saul had problems enough with one woman, he was not invited to bed with the two of them. Saul and Vicky didn’t even really like each other, and having sex with her, especially failing in sex with her, would be more humiliation than he could stand. It was bad enough that she was sleeping with his wife. Saul ended up spending the night on the reclining chair on the back porch huddled in blankets.
Morning broke, and with relief Saul found it stable and whole. Reality was back and the night was gone. The night had been terrible.
There had been no refuge; the lights savagely attacked him and the dark hid enormous threats. Inside the house he could hardly breathe, outside there was too much air. The silence of the house roared at him and on the porch the ocean would growl – it was horrible, horrible. The world pulsated, his imagination taking over and every whim of his subconscious taking matter and form, appearing in front of him and lurking behind him. When he fell asleep there was no respite – vivid and overwhelming nightmares plagued him, waking him up but not stopping, continuing on as he clutched at his head, his knees tucked up against his chest, his breath rasping and shuddering.
Now it was over. The sun was shining and the surf sounded friendly. Saul crawled out of the blankets and stood on the porch, stretching. He found he had slept in his clothes.
I need a nice warm dip in the pool, he thought. Then he remembered about Vicky, that she and Mirro were in the bedroom where the pool was. His bedroom. Oh, hell, he thought. I ought to go in there if they want me or not. If I interrupt something it’s their problem …
Then he thought: Vicky’s son is in jail. She’s upset, and I have to make allowances.
Christ! It wasn’t fair. He had to suffer, him, just because some jerk kid went and raped a girl then was stupid enough to turn himself in. Not only did Saul have to put up with Vicky openly replacing him in the bedroom, but now he couldn’t even go into his own bedroom to use his own pool. And, he thought, I’m the one who decided to buy this house because of that pool!
From deep inside came a terrible thought: he envied Vicky. He envied her because she was able to satisfy Mirro, and he envied her because her kid was locked away, gone, out of her life.
Shuddering and feeling ashamed, he suppressed the revolting thought and pretended it wasn’t there. He settled for taking a shower in the west-wing bathroom, the one in which he’d nearly scalded himself the night before, but after the shower Saul still needed to get into the bedroom for a fresh change of clothes.
Resigned, he knocked on the closed door and waited. Mirro answered, putting her finger to her lips. She was naked.
“How’s Vicky doing?” Saul whispered.
“Fine. She’s sleeping.” Mirro held the door wide open; Saul could see Vicky’s head and bare shoulders protruding from a pile of wrinkled sheets. She was on Saul’s side of the bed. “Come on in,” Mirro whispered, “just be quiet.”
Saul tip-toed around, gathering clothes. Mirro then followed him into the bathroom and stood with him as he slipped out of his old underwear and put on a fresh pair, then began dressing.
“Saul,” she said, “I’m really proud of you for how you’re accepting all this.”
Saul shrugged. “Tell Vicky not to bother coming into work today. I can spare her. But I’m going to need her tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. She’d better get her things with her lawyer done fast. We’ve got this Jesus thing coming up and I’m going to need her.”
“Saul, are you sure there’s nothing to that?”
“To what?”
“The Jesus thing.”
“No, there’s nothing at all to that. It’s a stunt, a fraud.”
Saul laughed, pulling up his pants. “Even if the Savior was returning to Earth, if this was really happening, I’d still have my job to do.”
Mirro smiled. She picked up his slip-over scarf-tie and put it over his head. Then her arms slithered around him and she was kissing him, using her tongue and the rest of her body, pressing herself up against him the way she used to do – the way she hadn’t done in years. Saul felt – with elation! – his penis growing erect. Mirro felt it too, and redoubled her passion.
A long, terrible scream sounded, echoing throughout the house, jarring both of them and waking Vicky. It’s the baby, Saul thought bitterly. His daughter using her usual bad timing. His erection was gone, and after a sorrowful few moments he and his wife drew apart.
Saul finished dressing and left for work.
At the Telcron Systems building there was company security people standing around looking pissed off and eyeing everybody with suspicion. Saul had arrived late because he’d allowed himself the luxury of a quiet breakfast at an out-of-the-way coffee shop.
Also, in case the Mataphin problem got out of hand, he’d stopped off at a pharmacy near the office and picked up a package of DeTox, a multi-spectrum neutralizer. One of the security men found it and looked it over inside and out as Saul was being frisked inside the front door. They were searching everyone coming and going.
“What’s going on?” Saul asked as the security man handed him back his DeTox along with his Mataphin dispenser and a few other objects.
“Security has been tightened.”
“No shit,” Saul said. “I want to know why and who ordered it.”
“Lisa Schemandle ordered it. There was a security breach last night.”
“Security breach?”
The man nodded and began frisking the next person through the door. Saul stood there a moment, wanting to know more, but he was being pointedly ignored. He turned and headed toward the elevators, thinking that he probably didn’t want to know about it anyway. Probably a shootout between network spies. The elevator came and carried him upwards, and he exited on his floor, looking to and fro in case Lisa was waiting for him. She was nowhere in sight.
Saul entered his spacious office and there she was, brooding over her coffee at his desk. His terminal was on; she’d been going through all his files again. “Saul,” she said. “You’re late.”
“I know. Good morning to you too.”
“I heard about your assistant. You give her some time off?”
“Yes.”
Lisa nodded. She was heavy-set, short black hair and had a rough, wind-burnt face from years of riding a motorcycle. Her eyes were small, perpetually red, but were very, very sharp. “Her son is up for seventeen years in an undersea prison. The parents of the girl are pressing for maximum penalties.”
“It’s a shame.”
“I think the little prick should be castrated, but that’s just me. I feel sorry for Vicky. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here, Saul.”
“I know.”
“You’ve done a great job raising the AHL, but goddamn it to hell, Kalman, we’re still losing viewers. You know what those JTV
bastards just did to us? They broke in here and stole copies of our top animators, our best AIs! Then they tried to kill off our backup copies.”
“Our backups?” Saul felt all the strength in his arms and legs suddenly vanish. He almost fainted.
“Saul! Are you okay?”
“They killed our backups?” He sank to a chair, all the color drained from his face.
“No, they tried, but they didn’t get them all. We’ve got copies in New York that are on a one-way data line, they couldn’t touch them. Updated last night, didn’t miss more than a few hours.”
Some of the color began seeping back into Saul’s face. He sighed. “Thank God,” he said. He had a massive headache now, and his fingers were itching for his Mataphin dispenser.
“My guess is that they’re going to use our AIs, our fucking artificial intelligence programs, to make their descent-from-heaven scene.”
Saul heard the rest of their entire conversation before it actually happened. It was so predictable. “You want me to intensify the AHL even more?”
“Yes! Exactly! Dammit, we gotta glue their fucking eyes to the screen. I want ‘em to be dying of starvation because they’re so wrapped up in Travels they forget to eat. We’ve got to keep ‘em! Hold them down by their fucking short hairs!”