Silhouette (20 page)

Very fat,
I thought with a another smile of my own, and I exited the Cyber Hole.

I sat back down next to Paul and his bandanna, leaned into his ear, and told him, “Four to six, at least.”

He told me that this would be the last time we could talk about this, that I should find my way back to the castle on my own, that I should show up at the summit later on, stay cool, then wait in my office for a call sometime after 4:00
A.M.

“Get some sleep, if you can,” he said as he walked away from me. “You don't look too good.” I waved at him, and realized that I didn't feel too well, either. I added up the hours I had slept in the last two nights, and I could count them on one hand. But I noticed on a nearby clock (the only readable thing around) that it was only an hour before I needed to be at the summit.

I headed to the surface to catch a taxi, and only stumbled twice on the way. The escalators were moving a little too fast for me.

 

17

Saul Rabin was driving the taxi and Lynette was being led along the sidewalk beside me by her mother—until I realized what was happening.

My body had relaxed just enough, after taking a seat in the back of the cab, to spiral into a somnambulant, mildly hallucinatory state. I had experienced similar trips, induced by fatigue and stress, after long stints of training in the insertion coffin during the Taiwan crisis. I had never thought it would happen to me again—but even though this was a different kind of war, it was a war nonetheless.

In an attempt to keep myself awake and alert, I put on the glasses and called Lynn at home, on her cell, and in her car. All of them gave me a recorded message, so I left my own on each one, asking her to please call me and give us a chance to work this out together. As I did this, I had a horrible feeling, as real as a blow to the face, that I would never see her again. The feeling sent my adrenaline coursing again, and revived my anger at the old man. But I remembered Paul's warning about the summit, and how I could ruin our chance to confront him if I didn't control myself during the meeting.

I slipped into the dream state once more before the taxi arrived at the castle and jarred me back to reality. In the dream, I was in the big meeting room where the important people were coming to meet with the Mayor. We were all standing around in formal wear, sipping drinks and eating hors d'oeuvres, and I was scanning the crowd, trying to recognize somebody. One minute I was in my right mind, and the next I was walking like a robot to a fake plant, where I found a hidden disk bomb, like the one I had used twice in the last three days.

You must also destroy the chip in your head,
the old man's crackling voice said inside my brain, so I armed the disk, stuffed it inside my mouth, and walked toward the center of the room.…

Before I could experience my own atomization, the scene shifted to D's house on the night of the murder.

I had just finished looking over the smoldering wreckage of the car, smelling the unmistakable aroma of what was left of its occupants, and already I wished from the bottom of my soul that I could undo what I had just done. I stared down at the right hand, which had thrown the bomb, opening and closing it repeatedly while I prayed for a pill that would make me forget. Half conscious, I felt my mind trying to make the drug appear in the dream, but my hand remained empty until I awoke.

*   *   *

I reached the plush waiting room, high up in the castle, a few minutes before ten, and splashed some cold water on my face in its bathroom. When I came out, Paul was in the room, greeting me with a look that contained a mixture of sympathy and warning. He had traded his black-on-black, beard, and bandanna for an inauspicious blue business suit.

“You'll have to leave the boas here, of course,” he said as a small storage compartment slid out from the wall in response to his touch. “And your glasses.”

I reluctantly removed my jacket and the gun belt, placing them in the drawer and watching it disappear when Paul touched it again. I felt naked, and realized then that I was definitely not dressed appropriately for the most significant meeting that I had ever attended.

“Don't worry about your clothes,” Paul said, sensing my discomfort. “They'll assume you intended to dress that way. They all have their own style, and they don't follow any rules.”

I suppose that's what it means to be powerful,
I thought.

“It's past ten, isn't it?” I asked.

“Each party waits in one of these rooms until everyone has arrived. They're all scanned thoroughly while they wait, and when the last one arrives, they have to be scanned, too. We always start late.”

“Who will be here?” I said.

“No one knows until we're in there,” he answered. “Safer that way.”

After a few quiet minutes, the door slid open and we walked into the big Parthenon Room. Other figures were stepping out of doors along the two walls to my left, but I didn't look toward them, not wanting to act like a newbie. Instead, I observed the room ahead of me. In its middle was a huge table with numerous extensions reaching out to the thick chairs around it. It was cleverly engineered to make each of its occupants feel that he was sitting together on the same board, while still retaining a sense of individuality.

Paul gestured at a chair to the left of the one he was taking, and as I sat down in it, I noticed for the first time that Saul was already seated to Paul's right, with the massive bodyguard standing silently behind him. Not wanting to meet the old man's eyes, I resumed my study of the room, taking in the two far walls in front of me, which were made of transteel and afforded an impressive view of the city's lights.

The transteel was punctuated by a series of ornate pillars, which extended all the way from the floor to the high-vaulted ceiling. The pillars also lined the two opaque inside walls, combining with the proliferation of marble surfaces to make the room fit its name. They also served a utilitarian purpose, because inside each one were components of the most sophisticated communications-jamming system ever developed. In surveillance terms, the system rendered this room one of the most quiet and invisible places on the planet.

“Welcome, men,” Saul said after everyone was seated, and I briefly glanced around to see that the colorful group was indeed entirely male. I wondered if this was the case only this time, or if the old man refused to invite women leaders to these summits. I looked at him, feeling a cold sweat start to break out across my skin, because my quick look had given me the impression that most of the guests were looking at me. Perhaps it was just my imagination, however, because Saul went on as if I weren't there, diving straight into business without any pleasantries whatsoever.

He announced that there were two new innovations from the Sabon technology that he wanted to demonstrate for them, and the first was our recent combat test of the bugs during the tunnel assault. For a moment, I thought he might refer to me at this point, but he merely introduced a holographic report on the bugs' performance, which appeared suspended above the center of the table and was quite impressive in its production values. I did notice, however, that the producers conveniently left out the part about our casualties and the hidden compartments the bugs had failed to find on their first pass.

I already knew about what the holo was depicting, and I knew that the guests would be watching it intently. So I took the opportunity to survey these men who exercised singular authority in their respective realms, since the age of the global net had elevated corporations to the level of nations and turned nations into corporations with very little pretense of democracy. They were all watching the holo with appropriate interest, and none of them wore the proud look one would expect from a man who ruled millions.

The trip to the castle had a way of humbling them, as the old man had told me once. They came in by helicopter or ground car, as the aero technology they
did not have
swirled all around them. And the castle itself filled their vision with a reminder that Saul Rabin exercised a degree of control over his small kingdom that they would probably never enjoy in their big ones. Money talks, also, and each of these guests was paying an astronomical fee to BASS for the privilege of attending this one meeting.

The first individual visitor who drew my attention was by far the most important. General Zhang Sun (pronounced “soon”) sat almost directly across the table from me, but I could see him under the bottom of the holo. The heads of the two thick bodyguards standing behind him were obscured by the holo, but I could tell that they were creations similar to Min, though not as big. Their presence spoke of the importance of the Chinese leader, because all the other guests had been required to leave their bodyguards in the waiting rooms. It also implied the prowess of Min, because the old man would certainly not have left himself at a disadvantage in protection. Apparently the combination of Cyber Hole and Silicon Valley artistry had made our machine-man a match for at least two of theirs.

Sun sat upright, his back not touching the chair. He wore a dark three-piece suit with a white shirt and tie—a style that had been in vogue a generation earlier. This was strangely symbolic of the “sleeping giant” quality that had left China playing catch-up with the West for a long time. Although the current premier of the Chinese Empire was a woman (a symbol that they had begun to catch up), those in the know were aware that she was merely a figurehead compared to this man, who exercised the real power.

While I was studying him, the Chinese general slowly rotated his head toward me and met my eyes. And though his stone face remained utterly expressionless, I felt an almost extrasensory impression that he was directing aggression toward me, or even hatred. It may have been my imagination, again, or a form of paranoia, brought on by my fears in the current situation. But he did hold my gaze for what seemed an abnormally long time, before his head swung unhurriedly back to its former position.

To my left was Oscar Otero, the CEO of Macrosoft. He stole my attention away from Sun when he hoisted a pair of cowboy boots up to the edge of the table in front of him and rested them there, while he reclined farther in his big chair. Above the boots were a pair of well-worn blue jeans, and above the jeans was a new and ridiculously expensive Hanprin shirt, stretched over his muscular but aging torso. I didn't know too much about him, but I remembered that he had once been a soldier like me, with real combat experience.

To his left was Stanford Glenn, considered by many the most influential leader in the American Confederation. America was similar to China in that its president was a woman, but it was said that the buck stopped with this man. His black skin seemed even darker in contrast with his bright white sweater with a high collar, and the whites of his eyes. He had been a professional athlete, like D, and I think they had known each other fairly well. Also, like my dead friend, Glenn was tall and built well, even into his fifties. His official title was Foreign Statesman, a combination of the old offices of Secretary of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs. And in that office lay his power, because in the global economy of “spaceship earth,” the survival and prosperity of nations depended on their relationship with the rest of the world. This was especially true of the AC, ever since the semi-decentralization of the government and the loss of big resources like the Bay Area, plus the rise of China and a consolidated Europe. I also remembered hearing that Stan Glenn's position was crucial to retaining Mexico as a part of the confederation and keeping its people from causing the problems they had before their assimilation.

The next guest I studied was C. T. Tamois, who looked androgynous as usual in his multicolored robe. This Frenchman had been raised in Geneva, the capital of the European Confederacy (or Europia, as it was more commonly known). It occurred to me that the countries of the Continent didn't have to worry about electing leadership to represent both sexes—Tamois did this himself.

Between Tamois and Sun sat a tiny Japanese man with a big head who looked like some kind of dwarf (perhaps as a result of Japan's renowned genetic experimentation). He wore eyeglasses, which had to be the old kind with no hardware, and he was listening to the holo through a translation program projected from the table that slightly distorted the air in front of him. This was peculiar, because the rest of the guests were not making use of theirs; obviously they all spoke Western quite well. Paul must have noticed my puzzled look, because he leaned over to me.

“Reality G,” he whispered. “They call him a vice president, but he's the son of the guy who started the company. Nakamura is his name.”

“He doesn't speak English?” I asked.

“I'm sure he does,” Paul answered. “It's probably just an eccentricity, or a way to get some attention. He and the Brit are slightly out of their league here.” He leaned away, and as he did, I saw “the Brit” for the first time, and gagged on my next breath.

To Saul's right was the last guest, and I knew instantly that he was here for my benefit (or my detriment, to be more precise). Howard Carter was merely the defense minister of England, a position that gave him less power than the prime minister, and
much
less than the king.

And there was no way that anyone in my former country could possibly have rated this kind of tryst. It was true that since returning political authority to the monarchy, Noel I had used his personal charisma and NATO connections to form the King's Alliance with threatened nations like Australia, India, Egypt, Canada, and finally Taiwan. But even this miraculous revival of the old British Empire did not place England on the map with the others in this room. No, the only reason Carter could possibly be here was to incite me in some way—because we hated each other with a bloody passion. So much so that he was one of the primary reasons I had left my home country almost ten years earlier.