The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

Shaw hated that he had to give her an answer. This answer. “The same way a doctor would know. They used the Lattice and checked for conception.”

“But
why
? What reporter cares about whether I’m pregnant enough to go poking around in my fallopian tubes? Why would someone even bother going in to check?”

“I don’t know.” Shaw blew into the air, trying to empty his lungs. “Because of me? Because I’m your famous husband who stopped the Lattice from being destroyed and now everyone’s jumping into every second of our lives. Christ, I brought this on us.”

“Don’t you start that, Byron!” Ellie lashed back. “I don’t have the energy to make you feel better right now!”

“I was hoping you’d
blame
me, not—”

“No, stop. I’m sorry. I’m angry. Not at you. This is
not
your fault.” Ellie sniffed.She was quiet again. “Ugh. I’m all over the map. I don’t know how to feel. I want to tell the world … this is what I’ve been waiting for. For so long, I’ve wanted this. But the world already knows. Everyone I love is going to know in the next ninety seconds, if they don’t already. Do you know what my mother’s going to say? And Marianne!”

“Call them. See if you can tell them yourself. Call me back when you’re finished.”

“OK. I will. … We’re going to have a baby, By.”

“I know.” He held up his hand, reaching for the avatar’s cheek.

Ellie ended the call and Shaw looked across the room to Yang. “Ellie didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“Oh fuck … Excuse me, sir. Is she all right?”

Shaw nodded. “She’s angry, but she’s all right. I think once it’s really settled in that she’s pregnant she won’t care as much about how she found out. But just because she can cope with it, doesn’t mean she should have to.”

“It’s just … I mean, why? Why would they check?”

Shaw felt his muscles tense, his whole body constricting, coiling, wanting to spring out. “It’s not ‘they.’ We keep saying ‘they’ but that’s not right. It’s a person. An individual. Probably a
he
.”

Yang was silent. “I think I’m missing the point, sir.”

“The news feeds didn’t find out by accident. Someone checked. Someone told them. And that can be tracked in the Lattice. I’m going to fucking kill him for what he’s taken from Ellie.”

“Sir …”

“What if it was one of the raiders? Have you thought about that? Trying to get back at me for stopping their plans.”

“Or maybe it was just on a whim, sir. A … a prank some idiot thought would be funny. Or a reporter doing his job.”

“His
job
. That’s a laugh.” Shaw shook his head. “I need to get some air,” he said.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. I need to be on my own.”

Shaw stepped out into the cool air, glad Yang had enough sense not to keep pestering to follow him. Shaw aimed toward the lake, following the directions on his wrap back to their hotel. It was a long walk back, but he needed the time.

He’d meant what he said. He wanted to find and kill the person who had jumped into Ellie’s body and watched that sperm and egg come together. This man had taken something from them. A couple more days and Shaw would have been home.

What was that person thinking? Was he a raider? Was he someone who knew Shaw from his past and didn’t like him? Or was it just some reporter with nothing better to do than to search through the lives and bodies of famous people?

Shaw wanted to find him. Badly. He wanted to punish him.

But following through on it would mean years in prison, away from his soon-to-be larger family. And spending time with them was the only thing he wanted to do more than get revenge. He felt himself begin to cool off.

He put his hands in his pockets, feeling the chill in the air on them. The white gold ring on his left hand, the rhodium ring on his right. Feeling it there, he thought of Altair and his brief conversation with Grace Williams. What had she told him?
Just because someone else jumps into your life, doesn’t mean you have to jump into theirs.

A lesson probably learned from a situation just like this one. But Shaw wasn’t in the mood for received wisdom.

Ellie called again.

“Mom didn’t know. Thank God. She was so happy for us.”

“And your sister?”

“Of course Marianne had already heard. I think she was all set to be angry she had to hear it from the news until she realized she knew before I did.” Ellie barked a laugh out. “And once we got that out of the way, she burst into tears and was ready to schedule the first shower. She was just as bad as Mom. Over the moon.”

“I’m glad. And for the record, I am too. Notwithstanding all the other stuff.”

“I’m angry, but you know what. Screw them all, because I’m
pregnant
.”

“I know,” Shaw smiled. “I can’t believe it.”

“I’ve told everyone here at work. So much for the old ‘wait twelve days rule,’ huh?”

Shaw laughed. “No one ever lasts that long anyway. There’s no such thing as a secret anymore.”

“I suppose not. What about your parents? Or Sagan? Do you want to call them?”

“They’ll know by now. Dad’s got one of those damn lenses with his feeds on it, and he would have told Mom. I’m surprised she hasn’t called to find out why I didn’t tell her first.”

“If he’s that connected he’ll understand. The feeds here are already reporting that we didn’t know.”

Shaw scoffed, shaking his head. “I can’t keep up anymore.”

“You’re keeping up just fine.”

They were together in their silence. Shaw kept walking, Ellie’s avatar was walking along aside of him, as if they were out for a stroll. He wished others could see it. To see them as a couple. Together, strong, defiant against this craziness.

“I wish I could be with you,” Shaw said, “but we’re staying in Geneva through tomorrow at least. Something interesting has turned up here, but I don’t think we’ll be too much longer. Still no sign of the masterminds behind everything. I expect we’ll head for Boston the day after tomorrow. We’ll hit up MIT and Harvard, and then assuming it’s the same story as it’s been over here, I’ll get home right after that. So sometime in the next few days I’ll be home. It’ll be hard, but I want to try.”

“Don’t go rushing the job just to come home. You know I want to see you, but we’re going to need you to keep working a bit longer.”

“Like eighteen years?”

“Hardly.”

“I want to quit right now so I can spend every second with you and the baby. But at the same time I also want to work eighteen-hour days for the next ten years because I’m terrified that we’re going to run out of money and live on the street. Does that make sense?”

“As much sense as any expectant father probably makes.” Ellie laughed softly. “Come home as soon as you can, By. There will be two of us waiting for you.”

Ellie ended the call and Shaw kept walking, thinking.

Eventually he crossed the Rhone and found himself at the lake. The lights were flickering over the darkness. A fountain in the distance sprayed mist into the air. It wasn’t so bad this way. Ellie seemed to have managed it—better than he had, at least. He was the one who wanted to go punish someone. Was he just being protective?

Maybe Grace Williams was right. Maybe he could let this one go. He could send Yang or one of his favorite CEOs to check and see if the tipster was tied with the raiders. If so, great! They’d caught him. If not, Shaw didn’t have to know anything else about him.

He turned away from the lake and headed back to his hotel. A doorman held open the door of the hotel, and Shaw gave him a smile. He almost wanted to go find Yang again, this time to celebrate, but he decided he was too tired. After all the shuttles and trains and slingshots, he was looking forward to a real bed again.

The historic hotel didn’t have an elevator, and Shaw took three flights of stairs to get to his room. He imagined taking Ellie and his son to Geneva in eight or nine years and telling the story of how he’d learned he was going to be a father. By then, this would be a great story. “You were international news when you were born, did you know that?”

Shaw swiped his hand over the door lock and the hotel room door opened for him.

He stepped inside and flipped on the light switch. All those feelings of fatherhood were wiped clean by the lights of the room.

“Fuck.”

He wished it away. He wished this were not his room, that he had never come to Geneva, that he did not have to go through this right now. That after the anger, the joy, the parental terror his mind had just gone through, it did not have to deal with this … this …

This black glass sphere.

It had been waiting for him. Innocent as a paperweight on the hotel stationery. If only it were that simple an object.

Shaw circled the desk.

Glowing blue text greeted him, scribbled from the other side of somewhere with a finger.

TIME FOR A CHAT, BYRON?

Shaw stared at the sphere, watching the message fade into blackness. Another message appeared.

ALSO NO CALLS

CALL SOMEONE

AND WE TAKE BACK THE SPHERE

The text faded to black.

Shaw sat down at the desk and held out his hand. His heartbeat was clear in his fingertips. He was almost afraid to touch it. Finally he scribbled, WHO ARE YOU? onto the cool dark surface, watching the blue text form under the heat of his finger and eventually fade.

WE ARE WATCHING THE ROOM

NO NEED FOR YOU TO WRITE

JUST SPEAK

“Who are you?”

HUMANITY’S LAST HOPE

THE LATTICE MUST BE DESTROYED

“Why?”

HUMANITY WAS NOT BUILT FOR MINDREADING

WE WERE NOT PREPARED

THE COSTS ARE TOO GREAT

“But it’s already here. The Lattice is part of our lives. You can’t close Pandora’s box.”

WATCH US

A call came in, and Shaw said, “Identify.” It was Braybrook. “Deny.”

THANK YOU

“I figure he’ll understand when he finds out what I’m doing.”

HE KNOWS

HE’S CALLING TO TELL YOU TO STOP

“He knows?”

HE’S WORRIED

“Why?”

PEOPLE ARE WATCHING

“Who’s watching?”

EVERYONE

THE WORLD IS WATCHING

Shaw looked around. The hotel room suddenly felt very small.

WE CHOSE YOU BECAUSE OF ELLIE’S NEWS

(CONGRATULATIONS BY THE WAY) Shaw snorted.

WE WANTED TO SPEAK TO THE WORLD

PEOPLE ARE WATCHING YOU

SO NOW EVERYONE KNOWS

EVERYONE IS LISTENING

Braybrook called again, and Shaw denied it. “Hold all calls.”

“What do you want to say to the world?”

WE WANT THEM TO UNDERSTAND

WHY THE LATTICE MUST BE DESTROYED

“No one’s going to understand. The Lattice has changed people’s lives. So many new experiences have opened up. People love it.”

THEY ARE ADDICTED TO IT

THAT’S NOT LOVE

“I’ve seen what true Lattice addiction looks like at Ellie’s clinic. It’s a rare few who are addicted.”

WHY DO YOU ARGUE?

YOU WORRY ABOUT BEING ADDICTED TOO

Shaw drummed his fingers on the desk. “For people trying to take out the Lattice you don’t seem to have any qualms about using it.”

WE WILL USE THE LATTICE AGAINST ITSELF

UNTIL IT’S GONE

THEN PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE HUMAN

“People can simply choose not to use the Lattice, you know. I met someone just today who had never jumped.”

PROFESSOR CHAVEL?

“Right.”

A GOOD MAN.

DID YOU KNOW HE’S A EUNUCH?

“What?”

VOLUNTARILY NO LESS.

HE HAD SURGERY AT 25

“Why are you telling me this!”

HE WAS IN A CULT

NOW HE REGRETS IT

HE WISHES HE HADN’T ACTED RASHLY

“Stop it!”

YOU SAID WE CAN CHOOSE TO USE THE LATTICE

BUT WHAT CHOICE DID HE HAVE?

HIS LIFE IS NOT HIS OWN

NO ONE HAS A CHOICE

THE REASON YOU ARE ANGRY

IS BECAUSE YOU KNOW WE’RE RIGHT

YOU KNOW IT’S WRONG TO EXPOSE

THE INNER DEMONS OF AN OLD MAN

“I call bullshit. You talk all high and mighty, but I don’t think you give a damn about what it means to be human. You just exposed Chavel’s life to the world to make some silly point. You think that will get you sympathy with everyone watching?”

FORGET ALL OF THEM WATCHING

WE THOUGHT YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND

Shaw snorted again. “You’ve got to be kidding. I owe my life to the Lattice.”

THAT IS OLD NEWS

TODAY—HERE AND NOW

IT’S TAKEN FAR MORE FROM YOU

PEOPLE WATCHED YOU AND ELLIE

IN YOUR MOST INTIMATE MOMENTS

AND THEN BROADCAST THE RESULTS TO THE WORLD

YOU THINK YOU HAD A CHOICE?

THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD

PEOPLE THINK THE LATTICE HAS FREED US

IT ENSLAVES US

“You sound like one of those crazy Christian cults who think the Lattice is the work of the Devil.”

WE ARE MEN AND WOMEN OF SCIENCE

BUT JUST BECAUSE CRAZY PEOPLE AGREE WITH US

DOESN’T MAKE US WRONG

Despite himself, Shaw laughed.

WE ARE NOT CRAZY

WE ARE NOT TRYING TO DESTROY THE WORLD

WE ARE TRYING TO RESTORE IT

“Even if it means taking out the global economy and destroying billions of jobs?”

ECONOMIES REBUILD

NEW JOBS OPEN

LIFE WILL MOVE ON

FINALLY

“And the lives it cost? The pilot? Ono? Do those mean nothing to you?”

HAD WE SUCCEEDED THEY WOULD NOT HAVE DIED

“I’m not sure I believe that. But had you succeeded, I would have died by Ono’s nanoshock. Did you forget about that?”

WE REGRET ANY LOSS OF LIFE

WE WANT TO SAVE HUMANITY

BUT SOMETIMES THERE IS NO OTHER WAY

Shaw stared at the sphere, looking at his warped reflection on the surface.

“Why did you tell Pelier to confess?”

NO MATTER

“It
does
matter.”

YANG IS COMING TO STOP YOU

WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME

“You haven’t convinced me.”

WE KNOW

BUT WE HAVE PLANTED DOUBTS WITH MILLIONS