Paradigms Lost (36 page)

Genshi suddenly held his arms up, and Paula, clearly a mother to the core despite her often-demanding profession, responded by picking him up. Genshi snuggled into her as though at home. “Nice lady!” he said.

She looked teary-eyed, but held back. “Well, he’s certainly a little charmer.”

Tai laughed. “He knows how to use the cute look, yep.”

“Will you be requiring a demonstration of my abilities as well, Paula?” Verne inquired.

She glanced over at him, still largely focused on the tailed little boy. “Um . . . not really necessary, I suppose. It would be silly of me to doubt the rest of the story with evidence sitting right here.”

“Will you be needing me anymore?” I asked. “Seems we’ve gotten over the potential shooting war, and I’d like to get home now if possible.”

Paula looked at Verne. “If you can provide me with transportation back to my hotel . . . ?”

“But of course. Go on, Jason. I have a feeling that we have started on a resolution to our problems.”

I headed out the door, relaxing finally. Judging by the way things were going, a little sympathy might be in order for the late Colonel’s pals; Paula MacLain, Kafan, and Verne were going to be a very dangerous team.

CHAPTER 50

Proposal

“How is it?”

I needn’t have asked; the blissful expression on Syl’s face told me that the food was everything she’d imagined. “God, Jason, the chef must be a wizard!”

The New York restaurant was famous for its Southwestern-grill menu. I’d brought Syl with me because of her fondness for New York, shopping, and grilled TexMex cooking. She needed the break, anyway; her visit with her friend, Samantha, hadn’t gone very well. The girl—Aurora Vanderdecken—had apparently disappeared
en route
to her home, no one had seen her since, and the police had no clues; even with Syl’s special talents (and those of Samantha, who Syl thought had similar abilities) they hadn’t found a trace. Syl had been there for her friend, but the visit hadn’t been cheerful.

So I wanted her to have a mini-vacation of her own, and it seemed to be working; the last couple days, she’d been more herself. Today, she’d gotten in plenty of shopping while I took care of business, and she was now temporarily lost to me as she immersed herself in the delights of cilantro, cumin, and cayenne.

This was ideal for my purposes, since it put her Talent at a definite disadvantage.

“Oops,” I said, bending over to pick up what I dropped. Then I went to one knee, opening the little box as I did so, and held it so her gaze fell upon it just as she finished swallowing and opened her eyes.

“Sylvia Rowena Stake,” I said, sounding far calmer than I felt, “would you marry me?”

For once—maybe the only time I ever would—I had completely surprised her. Not with the question, I’m sure, since both of us knew it would eventually happen, but she hadn’t had a clue that today would be the day. Why I was nervous, I didn’t know—it wasn’t like I could imagine her saying “no” any more than I could imagine asking anyone else to marry me. Maybe it was just that old fear of commitment making its last stand.

Her eyes widened until suddenly tears started rolling down her cheeks; she closed them and flung her arms around my neck. “Oh,
yes
, Jason, of course I will!”

The entire restaurant erupted into clapping, and camera flashes popped across the crowd. We both blushed, but neither of us could stop grinning as I slipped the glittering diamond ring on Sylvie’s finger.

The rest of the dinner was taken up by wedding plans. With the sale of the CryWolf devices, money was rolling in for me and I could afford anything, which I told her. Whatever kind of wedding she wanted, from a quick Justice of the Peace civil ceremony to an all-out extravaganza that would empty any six bank accounts, was all fine with me. “Just keep me from having to spend too much of my own time on it,” I said, honestly. “I don’t do the big fancy stuff well.”

She patted my cheek affectionately. “Jason, darling, don’t worry. The wedding’s still more for the girls than the guys, even in these enlightened times. You just have to show up and look respectable, and I don’t need to worry about you on those scores. The problem will be finding an appropriate person to perform the wedding. I’d ask Verne, he’s a priest, but somehow my parents would probably balk at the idea. They’re still rather Catholic, you know.”

“Yeah, I do.” I’d met Syl’s parents for the first time recently. They couldn’t complain about me as a potential son-in-law, and had done their best to make me feel welcome, but it was also pretty clear that they didn’t quite know what to make either of my profession, which seemed somewhat arcane and peculiar to people who weren’t computer-savvy, or their own daughter, who had departed the normal world quite some time ago. They often wore the bemused expressions of birds who, after sitting on an egg for months, had watched it hatch into a flying turtle. They loved their daughter dearly—that was obvious—but her religion and business were so utterly beyond the pale for them that they simply didn’t know how to deal with it. My parents had raised me so innocent of religion that all religions were roughly equal to me, but this made it awkward to deal with a family that joined hands to say grace, quite seriously, at every meal. Never having encountered that ritual before, I was a bit taken aback the first time. Now I saw it as an interesting and possibly heartening custom, but it was a clear departure from what I was used to—either in my own experience, or in Sylvie’s breezy approach to life, the universe, and everything.

Sylvie was right that asking Verne, a priest of an unknown (in this age) nature deity, to perform the ceremony would lead to antacid moments for her parents. Much better to find a flexible Catholic priest and write vows that reflected our real commitment. “I’m sure we can find someone who’ll fit the bill.”

“I’m not worried,” she said, taking another bite. “Mmmm. Since I
knew
we were going to be married, we obviously
will
find someone.”

I looked at her. “This destiny thing could become very annoying.”

She gave a roguish grin. “And it’s only just starting, Jasie.”

CHAPTER 51

An Evening in Bondage

I yawned, glancing at my watch as I went to my front door. Jeez. Another three a.m. morning after talking to Verne. At least I was getting a load of data, which hopefully I wouldn’t ever actually have to use. Oh, damn. I had to check on the tuxedo—I’d forgotten my appointment. Have to reschedule, and soon—I wanted the tux done long, long before the wedding, and the day was approaching like a runaway train.

I kept my head down, trying to keep the combination of sleet and rain from getting in my face. After a moment of fumbling, I unlocked the door and stopped just short of crossing the threshold. Maybe I was catching intuition from Syl, but somehow I just knew my house wasn’t empty. The last time this had happened was when Carmichael’s thugs had grabbed me. Since then, I’d added a few tricks, however. After making sure there was no one in immediate view, I nudged the wood above the doorway in just the right way, and a small liquid-crystal screen popped into view, cycling views of the rooms in my house from a CryWolf-fitted set of lowlight cameras, with a running status of the systems showing me what was going on, or not, in each room.

Nothing showed up in any view. Were I in an ordinary line of work, that would’ve been enough to satisfy my paranoia, but vampires don’t show on videotape, film, or anything else; while they have to be invited in, it wouldn’t be hard to have an accomplice be invited in on legitimate grounds and come back later to invite the vampire in. That’s why I studied the status carefully. The motion detectors were a bit different; they didn’t actually produce images and thus shouldn’t be covered by the magical prohibition against mechanical devices “seeing” a vampire. They just detected air movement within a given volume. None of the detectors showed anything out of the ordinary since I’d closed up shop, so I shrugged. I was getting jumpy.

So I think I could be excused for jumping backwards with a shout of “what the
hell
?” when I entered my living room to find a man sitting in one of the chairs, waiting for me.

“Sit down, Mr. Wood,” he said. He was older than me—forty-five to fifty, I guessed, with a tanned, lined complexion. His eyes were hard, cold blue, measuring me up like I was a piece of fabric waiting to be cut to fit. His hair was brown, sprinkled with gray. Standing, he was probably average height. His voice . . . level, slightly rough, and direct, reminding me of Clint Eastwood; in fact, there was a vaguely Dirty Harry look about him overall.

I didn’t like the whole setup, so I started to reach for my gun, and found myself suddenly looking down the barrel of what appeared to be a small cannon. After what seemed an eternity, my brain calmed down enough to recognize it as a .44—probably an AutoMag. Somewhat old-fashioned, but quite capable of blowing a pretty large hole through me. I couldn’t believe his speed. This guy hadn’t had anything in his hands just the moment before, and I hadn’t even seen him move. The only person I’d ever seen move that fast was Tai Lee Xiang.

“Don’t think about it,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt you. But I don’t like people pointing guns at me either.”

“Hey, it’s cool,” I answered, sitting down slowly. “Clearly, I am not going to be much of a threat to you. Now who the heck are you and what are you doing in my house? And how the hell are you sitting here without my security systems showing you?”

“Um, that would be my doing, actually,” said another, much younger voice.

Emerging from my bedroom, where he’d evidently gone to hide during my entrance, was a much younger man—in fact, I figured him for a couple years younger than me. He was slender, very tall, and very blond, and he wore a grin from ear to ear that somehow carried a faint air of apology even while it screamed out “I’m
soooo
good at this!”

Something clicked in my head. No picture had ever been printed, but to do what someone had just done to my security system . . . “The Jammer.”

His grin grew even wider and he gave an extravagant bow. “In the flesh!”

I looked across my coffee table at the other man. “Which would make you . . . the guy who strongarmed the Jammer into not blackmailing me.”

The weathered face acknowledged that with a hint of a smile. “Mr. Locke was forcibly employed by my organization, and when necessary we rein him in.” He made the gun disappear; I didn’t see where it had gone. “Mr. Wood, as time goes on it appears that you continue to become more involved in things that impinge upon some of my organization’s most sensitive operations. I would try to recruit you, but your operations here actually serve other purposes for us. It has, however, become necessary for us to meet and get to know each other well enough so that we can, when necessary, cooperate and avoid working at cross purposes. The secrecy of my organization at least equals that of our opposition—some of whom you have already encountered.”

I knew that Virigar had been a thorn in their side, but I felt that this guy was referring to something larger—at least in terms of his organization, anyway—and that didn’t leave me many possibilities. “Whoever sent over Ed Sommer and his pals.”

He nodded.

It clicked then. “Winthrope! She’s not NSA or any of the regular organizations, she’s with you!” I’d always had a nagging doubt about Jeri—which is why I’d avoided tagging her real employers with a particular set of letters; she’d seemed too open and flexible over certain things.

“Told you he already had it down,” the Jammer said.

The older man shrugged. “If he wasn’t that quick, he would’ve been dead already. Yes, Mr. Wood, Jeri is employed by us.”

“So you know pretty much everything.”

“Everything that you’ve told her or that she’s seen,” he said, correcting me. “I am quite certain there’s information you have never told her.”

“Okay.” I got up. “C’mon downstairs. I need some coffee; I’ve been up all day and was going to go to bed.”

They followed without comment. The older guy accepted a cup while the Jammer went for a Mountain Dew. I turned to the older man finally. “If we’re going to ‘get to know each other’ well enough, then let’s stop tapdancing. Who are you people?”

“My name is James Achernar,” he answered after a moment. “My particular task force is codenamed Project Pantheon, and is part of ISIS.”

“ISIS?” I repeated. “The name’s very, very vaguely familiar . . .”

“The International Security Investigation Section,” the Jammer put in.

Now
I remembered. It was an attempt (an abortive one, I had thought) to create a sort of multinational intelligence and espionage network for the United Nations, some years ago. Supposedly, it was going to recruit operatives from different nations to gather information, prevent international disputes, resolve conflicts, and in general be a truth-checking organization with enough teeth to allow the UN to (at least on occasion) be able to tell who was trying to hoodwink them and who wasn’t. There’d been some discussion, preliminary appropriations and so on, but I had been certain that ISIS had gone the way of many a good idea whose time will never come. “Now that’s interesting. I thought ISIS never really happened.”

Achernar gave a small, cold smile. “We prefer it that way. It nearly didn’t, in point of fact, but a number of countries—at the time, the US and USSR foremost—recognized that despite various competing agendas, we also needed an independent group that would try its best to defuse problems that could be caused by smaller countries, terrorist organizations, and even large corporations. The result was an intelligence organization operating out of a non-profit front sponsored by the UN, whose full scope of powers and operations wasn’t realized by anyone save the people who made it. All participating countries supplied authentic intelligence materials for their contributions—such as genuine IDs and so on—and were given certain controls to prevent their own contributions being used against them.

“Pantheon is a subdivision of ISIS, established shortly thereafter to deal with the most extreme and unusual intelligence situations.”