The Graveyard Game (26 page)

Gasping for breath, he disabled the alarm and forced the boarding door. He focused on the passing terrain and, timing it to the split second, hurled first his suitcase and then himself out into the darkness.

Being an immortal, he landed lightly on his feet and pitched forward to lie flat on the embankment until the train had roared past. Then he got up, dusted himself off, found his suitcase, and walked back along the tracks to Neufchatel.

There, on a quiet residential street, he stole an agcar. He felt rather badly about it. He hadn’t stolen anything from a mortal since that briefcase of Ernest Hemingway’s, three centuries past. He drove all night, through Normandy, through Maine, through Anjou and Poitou, where once he had been a troubadour.

At daybreak he abandoned the car in a field and walked into Bordeaux, where he caught a train that took him across the border into Biarritz, and there he checked into a very nice hotel. Having showered, shaved, and put on a fresh suit, he went down to the hotel’s restaurant and ordered lunch. His hands were still shaking.

While waiting for the regional specialty to arrive, Lewis fortified himself with a glass of real wine (France and its neighbors to the south had refused to have anything to do with the ban on alcoholic drinks, thank God) and set up his Buke. He keyed in the communication code to the Hotel Elissamburu and confirmed that a Joseph Denham was registered there. He left a message indicating he would be interested in purchasing the sofa and love seat and would call at the hotel to discuss it that afternoon. He sent the message, holding his breath; to his relief it went through, and the hotel confirmed reception.

Leaning back in his seat, he took another swallow of wine and peered cautiously at his right hand. Full sensation now; in fact, it hurt. It looked badly bruised, purpling under the surface of the skin.

He set down the wine and leaned forward again over his keyboard, spinning the story like a cloak, wrapping the words around to comfort himself.

“I will regret having defeated you, Commander Bell-Fairfax,” sneered Diego Luna. “For I assure you, only in you have I ever found an opponent worthy of my steel!”

Edward looked along his cutlass at the wily Portuguese.

“You may find,” he drawled, “that I’m a rather difficult man to kill.”

J
OSEPH SAT IN THE
hotel garden, all suited up as a tourist on vacation. He wore a brilliantly colored sweater emblazoned with the logo of the local pelote team, black beret, and terrorist pants. He wasn’t wearing espadrilles only because it was March. He was in a strange mood.

There were several reasons why. He hadn’t been back to what was now Inún del Mar in twenty thousand years, give or take a few centuries, and the degree to which things had changed (and hadn’t changed) was profoundly unsettling to him.

He’d also been speaking Euskaran for the last week, which was enough to bend reality on its own.

Then too, he’d just received a cryptic mailing from Lewis, which probably meant that Lewis had news of some kind. It might be good news, or it might be some further tidbit about the life and exploits of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, of whom Joseph was sick of hearing. Mostly, though, he was bemused by a local phenomenon he had observed, and didn’t quite know how he felt about it.

He waved cheerily enough, though, as Lewis, looking even more gaunt than usual, came to the garden gate. “Hi,” said Joseph.

“What have you been doing, blowing up Spanish peers?” Lewis asked, regarding Joseph’s ensemble in horror. He sat down at the table.

“I’ve been trying to summon a sense of ethnic identity,” Joseph said.

“Is it working?” Lewis signaled to a waiter.

“No,” Joseph admitted. “But check this out.” He pointed at the transport trundling slowly down the street. It was a double-decker, and the upper deck was filled with some kind of sporting team, cheering rowdily and waving little pennants.

Lewis looked at them, and his mouth fell open. “Great Caesar’s ghost,” he said. “You’ve been cloned!”

“Weird, isn’t it?” said Joseph. And in fact, every person on the bus could have been Joseph or a near relation. Short and stocky to a man and woman, same black button eyes, same ironic mouth. Lewis stared at them until the waiter came, and as he looked at the mortal to order a gin martini, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Joseph appeared to be in two places at once, a very badly dressed Joseph seated at his left and a Joseph in a white apron standing deferentially to his right, waiting with a little order plaquette.

Lewis changed his mind. “Hot chocolate, please,” he said. Joseph repeated the order in Euskaran, the waiter keyed in his order and went away, and Lewis sagged backward in his chair.

“You know what’s
really
weird?” said Joseph. “Nobody notices.”

“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any stranger, I was proven wrong.” Lewis began to giggle helplessly.

“You don’t look good,” Joseph observed, frowning at him.

“I don’t suppose I do. I’ve had a difficult couple of days, and I’m a little short on sleep.”

“What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”

Lewis went into gales of high-pitched laughter. Passersby on the sidewalk turned toward him and frowned just like Joseph, which didn’t help. Joseph looked around uncertainly and finally reached for his water glass, preparing to dash the contents into Lewis’s face, but Lewis sobered abruptly. “Don’t. This suit is Bond Street linen,” he snapped. “And it’s my best silk tie. I’m sorry. I’m running, if you must know.”

“Christ! Somebody blow your cover?” Joseph set down the water glass.

“Yes. It was very strange. A vile-looking little idiot savant named Fancod walked into my office, modified an archives terminal with paper clips, and proceeded to break into the Company’s database,” Lewis said. “When his keepers came to take him away, he publicly identified me as a cyborg. They didn’t believe him, of course, but he’d done it all the same. Then he threw orange peel all over the floor on his way out.”

“Fancod?” Joseph stared.

“I cleaned up what I could, including the orange peel, you know procedure, and I ran.” The waiter brought Lewis’s hot chocolate, and Lewis reached for it desperately. “Oh, my, look at this, real whipped cream.”

“Bad break, but it doesn’t sound like it’s your fault.” Joseph waved his credit disk, indicating to the waiter that he was paying. “I don’t see how that could get you in trouble.”

“Mm.” Lewis gulped hot chocolate.
Then on the boat two more vile-looking little idiot savants attempted to abduct me. They had some kind of disrupter pistols. I shook them off at customs and got on the train, and two
more
popped out of the woodwork. We had quite a little chat. I got away from them too, but not before they managed to do this
. He held up his right hand for Joseph to see the bruise there.
This happened seventeen hours ago
.

Joseph’s eyes widened. He leaned forward and examined the bruise, which ought to have vanished within an hour of Lewis’s injury.

There’s worse, I’m afraid. I’ve found out more than I ever ought to have known—and I remembered exactly what happened to me in Ireland—and I’m sorry to go to pieces like this, but I think the Company is out to make me disappear
. Lewis drained the last of the chocolate and slumped in exhaustion.

Joseph looked around.
Okay. I was confused before. Now I’m scared and confused. We need to talk somewhere
. “I wouldn’t worry,”
he said out loud. “You’ve always done your job. Look, you need to relax. I was just about to go catch some People’s Shakespeare. Why don’t you come along? Ever seen Shakespeare in Euskaran?”

“I can’t say that I have.” Lewis opened his eyes, remembering in amazement that he had thought everything would return to normal if he could just contact Joseph.

“Neither have I, so this ought to be interesting.” Joseph pushed back his chair and got up. “Come on.”

They walked down a few streets to a park, where a big flatbed freight hauler had been parked to make an impromptu stage. Several dozen Joseph clones stood or sat around watching the performance, which was being given by a group of young people, also Joseph clones, in worker’s clothes. The front of the truck was draped in red banners and Marxist slogans.

“They’re Communists?” Lewis asked.

“It takes a while for ideas to reach this country,” Joseph explained, embarrassed.

Lewis nodded in mute acceptance as a stalwart maiden in work boots strode to the front of the stage and held up the tree branch, decorated with a star and crescent moon cut of sheet metal, that signified this was the Wood near Athens.

Readers will have to use their imaginations to picture what Euskaran (a language that renders “I take the glass from the waitress” as “Glass the waitress the from in the act of taking I have it from her”) would do to
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. The performance took eight hours without counting intermissions. Plenty of time for Lewis to explain what a long strange trip he’d had and why, as he and Joseph relaxed on a park bench and fairies fought over a mortal boy.

It was almost dark by the time Lewis finished. Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed were leading Bottom away in chains of flowers.

Joseph was silent a long moment, nodding thoughtfully.
These little morons, do you think they’re human? Some branch of the
mortal race who became troglodytes? And with inbreeding or whatever, autistic genius became a dominant genetic trait?

And lack of fashion sense
, added Lewis, shuddering.

But, you know something? I don’t think this is the Company’s doing. If the Company wanted to get you, they’d have done it by now
.

You think so? But the alternative is even more frightening, Joseph. It means that the Company has an enemy out there with comparative technology, and they know about us. Me, anyway. What’s more, they have a way to disable us
.

Joseph moved to one side as a stage manager climbed on the bench to hang a probe light from a tree branch.
I’ll bet the Company knows a lot more about what happened toyou in Ireland than they’ve let you know. I’ll bet that’s why it took ten years to get you back online. They must have been studying what the little creeps did to you so they could work up a defense. Wouldn’t you think? I’d be really surprised if every operative recruited after that time hasn’t got some kind of protection built in. Hell, I remember being called in for an upgrade around 600 A.D.! I bet we’ve all got it now, you included
.

What about this?
Lewis flexed his right hand.

It’s healing, isn’t it? Whereas when they got you the first time, they fried your biomechanicals, from the sound of it. You weren’t in as much danger this time as you thought
.

I’d certainly prefer to believe that
.

You know what you’ve got to do now, of course: make a full report to the Company
. Joseph looked hard at him.
Tell them everything that happened, or it will look funny. Worse! If these people have come up with some new improved way of getting to us, or you at least, the Company needs to know so they can take countermeasures. They’ll cream the little bastards. Hell, if a Literature Specialist could outguess them, think what a team of security techs could do
.

I resent that
, Lewis said, glaring at the stage.

No offense, pal. But you weren’t designed for cloak-and-dagger stuff, were you? You were made to traffic in manuscripts and first editions, not dirty tricks. It’s time to step back and let the professionals
take over
. Joseph leaned across and patted him on the shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but this is getting real old. What do you say we go get some dinner?”

As they walked back to the hotel, Joseph transmitted:
The only thing that doesn’t fit is this Fancod guy. Who the hell is he? You said he’s working for the Company? He’s got access codes? And yet he’s one of these little creepy people?

Yes! As much like the others as—as you’re like all these Basques. That was why I thought it was a Company double cross at first. What is the Company doing employing one of them?

Maybe he was a spy
, Joseph speculated.
Posing in an adult care facility as an autistic genius so he could hack into Company files
.

You think so?

Maybe. I don’t know. But it makes a good story, and if I were you, I’d tell the Company that’s what
you
think he was. And I’ll bet they give you a pat on the back for being so smart, and that’s the last you’ll hear of the business, except for maybe an update later on, telling you they’ve caught the guy and everything’s been taken care of
. They turned in at the garden entrance and crossed the courtyard to the indoor dining room. Joseph stopped in the lighted doorway to look seriously at Lewis.

Sounds peachy
, Lewis replied bitterly. A waiter appeared—not quite so much of a clone this time, more like an elderly uncle of Joseph’s—and led them to a cozy dark booth.
I don’t suppose you’ve had any leads on your friend since last we met?

Only negative ones. One of the bunkers is up here. I got inside it two days ago. Lots of missing people, lots of Enforcers, but not him. So we can rule this one out
.

I’m glad you’ve been doing something, at least
—

“Hi, guys, sorry I’m late,” said an immortal, sliding into the booth beside Lewis. “Security Tech Chilon. Literature Specialist Lewis? You okay? What the hell’s been going on?”

“About time one of you people showed up,” said Joseph. “My friend here’s had quite a run. Waiter?” He flagged down the elderly
mortal, and they had a brief but infinitely convoluted conversation in Euskaran.

“A lot has happened,” Lewis said.

“Your transmission’s been broken or intermittent since you got on the boat at Newhaven,” Chilon informed him.

“That’s nothing.” Lewis stuck out his right hand. “Look at this.”

“What?” Chilon peered at it in the dim light.