Solitaire, page 11
“Oh, great,” Tiger said when she got back. “The grid must be on another floor.”
“What do we do?”
“Did he say what kind of secondary lift system they use?”
She wished the damn emergency whoops would stop so she could think. “Rack and pinion? Does that sound right?”
He stared speculatively up into the camera, so that it seemed he looked right into her eyes. “Can you read Chinese Traditional characters?”
“Some.” Not very well, but she didn't tell him that. If she was the web's best hope of action right now, she wouldn't undermine their confidence in her.
“Maybe some is all we need. Okay, tell me what you see on the screen right now.”
She began to recite the commands, pausing to describe the characters she didn't recognize so that he could translate.
“Right. Go back to the place that says ‘Engage backup system.’ Touch that.”
“Hang on.” She peered at the screen: the resolution was grainy and it was hard to keep track of all the characters. If we get out of this okay, I'll never drink again, I promise, she heard a voice say somewhere in the back of her head, like a prayer. She searched, searched: there, that one. She put a finger on it. Tiger was saying, “You should get some kind of prompt—” and then there was a horrendous triple screech and thud. The sound cut off. Jackal saw in the monitors all the people jerk and stumble over each other. Tiger's head came up. Mist wrapped her arms around herself. Bear closed his eyes.
There was a moment of perfect stillness; and then, one by one, the displays began to flicker through their numbers as the elevators dropped like glass beads running off a wire.
Oh, and it was so quiet, this falling death, god no no no, she sees that they are screaming but she hears only silence so how can the screams be real, because this is not the way it ends, not possible, not in a million years, not for the web, what did I do, see how they fly and there is Mist beating against the glass as if breaking through it could save her, and Jackal cannot reach them, I didn't mean to, and she slaps her hands against the screen and screams for them no no no, but they do not hear her, not even Tiger who is pressed face against the glass flying for these last few moments and she wonders how it feels and she is holding her breath and she will never move again, she is afraid to blink because there is no time.
Then Tiger throws his head back. His eyes meet hers. She sees him. And then she sees black; and she does not need the distant explosive sounds to know that they are gone.
PART II
AFTER THE FALL
7
An on-line greeting card to BERT from SCULLY!
Hope the New Year
Brings You Joy and Happiness!
Dear Bert—
I know you won't like the card, but I was just thinking of you. And there's nothing wrong with joy and happiness.
Love,
Scully
Dear Bert—
So far the new year is pretty much like the old one. The new paint job is almost finished. Someone has already thrown a grilled cheese sandwich against the wall and made a stain. I haven't decided whether to leave it or not. Maybe I should. The stain on our society or something. Do I really want to repaint every time this happens? I make a lot of grilled cheese.
There's a watcher been coming by who calls himself Razorboy. Nice kid, stupid name. He offered to install a new viewscreen and a program box in exchange for letting him hang around. I didn't ask where the equipment came from, just said sure and told him not to hassle the regulars. So now everyone's watching the coverage on the big case coming up soon in Earth Court. You've probably heard something about it even in Outer East Jesus or wherever you are—Ren Segura, one of those Hopes everyone's making a fuss over, although of course she didn't get to go to their big new year party.
Very busy at the moment. More tourists lately, probably because of the latest with the Lady Butcher. I wrote you about it. The other two should be getting out of the hospital sometime next week. I've told LB it would be nice if she could tone down her response to these things, and she just smiles and asks me how business is lately. What can I say to that?
She and Crichton are the only ones I ever have a real conversation with. It would be nice to find a new friend.
Love,
Scully
Dear Bert—
Between the Segura pre-trial coverage and the stalled hearings on the renewed independence of Hong Kong, I'm hardly selling any grilled cheese. Everyone here is glued to the link. This poor kid, really, B. First a bunch of elevators going down the hard way to the tune of four hundred thirty-seven people (in situ or by debris, bunch of stupids who didn't duck fast enough), and one of the riders was the Chinese Senator to Earth Congress. That got EarthGov and the media ravens going. Madame senator was in Hong Kong on a so-called goodwill trip before the start of independence hearings. Now she and two of her aides are minced beef, so much for goodwill. The hearings were immediately suspended, no surprise. I'll bet Hong Kong is very nervous.
And the very next day, Sheila Donaghue—you remember Sheila?—turned up on the net to claim responsibility on behalf of Steel Breeze for what she called the assassination of the senator. That made everybody jump around even more and take a much closer look at the whole incident. And what they came up with was Segura, who had just watched a couple dozen of her pack mates, or whatever they're called, drop a half mile and mash themselves into jelly.
Did she do it? How should I know? Maybe Donaghue just knows a slick photo op when she sees it. She's always been good at press relations, Breeze was lucky to get her. And Segura's a Hope. Maybe she'll even get away with it. Who cares, I—
Sorry about that. Had an absent moment, fell down and cut myself. It's okay. It never hurts any worse than it did the last time.
Goodnight, Bert. Wish you were here.
S.
Dear Bert—
LB informs me that Steel Breeze is the best thing to come down the wire since grilled cheese sandwiches. The party line these days is that Steel Breeze is an international cooperative of organizations whose association is based on mutual goals of separatism and cultural preservation in the face of the growing acceptance of world governance and trade principles. She said it all in one breath, straight-faced. And I thought they were just terrorists.
It's hard to picture Segura that way. All the channels here are running profiles of her. Some of them are just those silly canned biographies with lots of publicity stills and dim-witted voice-overs, but a couple have dug deeper than that. She seems like your average young sheltered celebrity person, maybe dumb about most of the world, but nice enough. Certainly not my notion of a global conspirator.
Today they showed Segura's mother on the link facilitating media conferences for Ko Corporation. Now there's a woman who looks like she needs about a half a ton of barbiturate just to get through the day. Seems like Ko is putting as much distance as possible between themselves and Ren Segura, and making best friends with everyone to protect Ko's status during the Hong Kong/China talks. Wouldn't suit Ko at all to find their perpetual lease suddenly revoked by the nice folks on the mainland. And it isn't too hard to figure out that the best way to hold hands with HK and China right now is to find the highest tree for Ren Segura. It's hard to watch.
S.
That's it, B. Stang Karlsson just signed an Earth Congress emergency resolution revoking Segura's Hope status. That's it for her. No hope at all.
8
AND IT SEEMED THAT SHE ONLY BLINKED, THAT SHE closed her eyes for a fraction of a moment, and when she opened them again they were all dead and she was to blame, and she wasn't a Hope anymore, and she was in terrible, terrible trouble.
They kept her in a cold square room with no windows and a barred iron door. Bright lights shone behind white opaque plastic strips across the ceiling. There were more lights in the room across from hers, and in the other cells to the left and right, and in the hallway that ran between them from one distant end of the holding facility to the other. The lights were always on, and hallway monitors showed newslink programs and nature documentaries continuously; it made it hard to sleep, and seemed cruel until she thought about the alternative of darkness and silence in this place.
The sounds and smells of Earth Court jail were sterile and cruel, like the light. Ammonia and moans; those were her days and nights. And the more subtle odors of fear, the smaller latehour sounds of despair. They were all around her, and she was swallowed up. She was too thin. Her hands trembled. Her stomach hurt all the time. She felt swollen with grief. She slept little, and moved slowly, almost lazily, with little thought from one moment to the next. And that wasn't right; she ought to be afraid.
She was allowed to see no one except her family and her Ko-sponsored defense counsel. Her parents came once and went away quickly, full of grief and a veil of guilt that she could not pierce: she did not understand why her mother looked so ashamed until she saw Donatella on the link. Her lawyers came when necessary and stayed no longer than they had to. They always brought bad news. No one could verify her version of the incident. The security audio record feed had inexplicably failed in the control room and in the elevators, but the control room video clearly showed her dismissing one of the attendants, commandeering the console, and activating the “Disengage backup system” command. One of elevator attendants had been found dead; the other, not at all.
She waited seven weeks to come to trial, assured all the while by the attorneys that everything was moving extraordinarily fast, too fast for her own good. But it seemed interminable. She was so lonely that sometimes she thought she must die of it. She had a note delivered every day from Snow, each one full of an intense, raddled conviction that the stars would all reverse their courses and somehow everything would be all right. The messages, and knowing Snow was so frightened, only made it worse. The lawyers would not allow her to write back.
And finally she came into the light of the immense courtroom with its vaulted roof and ornate moldings and reinforced, bullet-proof windows, blinking like an underground creature rooted from its burrow; and the whole world was there. There were rows upon rows of people, all with spectator passes or media badges, surrounded by a small army of security. The first day, she could not focus on the audience. There were too many of them, and their faces blurred during the two times she was able to force herself to turn around. Mostly, she sat at the oversized table with her three attorneys, looking at her hands folded in front of her, or at the spiral galaxies of the wood grain. Then the next day, returning from the lunch recess for another round of jury interviews, she locked onto Snow's face in the crowd, and she felt as if she had looked up to see a freight train bearing down on her; the breathlessness, the momentary terror of it before the calm and the acceptance. Of course Snow was here. Jackal cried, seeing her, and Snow wept too and reached out as though she could touch Jackal from a hundred feet away.
And that was what finally made it real for her: Snow's face. Suddenly she felt the wheel of the juggernaut, its edge brushing her skin in the microsecond before the crushing weight rolled over her. Snow's face all alone in a row of strangers, without anyone from Ko or the web or their families, told Jackal that she was doomed.
Five days into the prosecution's case, Jackal's lead attorney came to her cell early in the morning. With him was a short woman in a close-woven black suit that made her white skin look bloodless. Her heavy forearms reminded Jackal of Snow's uncle who drove Ko trucks in Italy. The woman was followed by a young Japanese man carrying both of their briefcases.
Jackal's attorney sat next to her on the edge of the cot, leaving the others to stand. “We need to talk,” he said. He took a deep breath. “This is Ms. Arsenault. She represents Ko.”
Jackal could not remember how people with manners handled these awkward moments; should she stand up, or offer this grim woman her hand? It terrified her that Ko was here in the person of this Arsenault. She twisted her fingers in the loose folds of her trousers. It seemed to her that she should speak, that she should muster some dignity and say, ‘Please, tell me what I can do for my company.’ But her throat was dry, and Arsenault did not wait.
“Ms. Segura, I'm the Director of Special Projects for the Ko Executive Council.” Arsenault's voice filled the room, although she was speaking conversationally. Without looking back, she held her hand out behind her, and the young Japanese man placed a file in her fingers within a half-second; not a palmtop, but a paper document. Jackal swallowed.
“Ko has been very concerned since the unfortunate incident in Kowloon,” Arsenault went on. “As I'm sure you can imagine. The allegations of your association with Steel Breeze are particularly troubling.” She looked expectantly at Jackal.
“Yes,” Jackal agreed. She wished someone would tell her what to do next.
“You are aware that the corporation is sponsoring your defense.”
“Yes.”
“We'd all like to see a win-win here, wouldn't we?”
Jackal twisted her fingers harder into her trousers, until she thought the fabric might tear. “What are you talking about, please?”
Arsenault chewed on the inside of her right cheek for five seconds before she answered, and her words were directed to Jackal's attorney. “Jesus Christ, Rafael, I didn't realize how young she was.”
“Her age is listed in her records.”
“I wasn't referring to her date of birth.” She turned back to Jackal and her voice became more clipped. “Ms. Segura, let's get this over with. After reviewing your situation, it is the opinion of the Executive Council that you will be found guilty. You may want to check that with your counsel.”
Jackal turned to him and he nodded. “We're all going to give it our best shot, but my professional judgment is that you will not walk away from this.”
Arsenault continued, “There's been more than enough bad publicity. We're prepared to offer you several incentives to end this quickly and quietly.”
Everyone looked at Jackal. All she could think about was the way the lawyer had said you won't walk away from this, as if what was happening to her was a prolonged, messy transit accident. She felt herself turning, rolling, endlessly.
Arsenault went on. “Ms. Segura, it has come to the corporation's attention that your status as a Hope was fraudulently obtained. Your birth occurred sometime after twelve-oh-six in the morning, not in the first second after midnight.”
Jackal closed her eyes.
“The corporation was shocked to learn that your parents and the obstetrician conspired to alter the delivery record in order to secure Hope status for you.”
Jackal opened her eyes and said like a little girl, “The company knew.”
“There's no evidence of that. There is nothing to demonstrate that Ko was aware of any irregular activity. There are, however, indications that you as well as your parents were aware that your status was improper. Certain of your training and advisory records from the last few months are particularly damaging in that respect, although no specific mention of your status is made. Much of the content could be used to demonstrate probable awareness.”
“Those are my records! You can't use those, they're private. Rafe, aren't they?”
“Those are Ko corporation records, Ren,” he replied. “They're only as private as Ko wants them to be.”
Jackal's heartbeat skittered and then settled into a steady, panicked pounding. “What are you saying to me?” she said to Arsenault, and the other woman's eyes pinched for a moment before her face settled back into the professional mask.
“You've already lost your Hope status,” Arsenault said. “There's no reason to bring this particular matter up in open court unless the trial proceeds and the prosecutor begins to explore possible motives.”
“Do they know about this?”
Rafael answered, “Ko has not yet chosen to bring this information to the attention of the prosecution. But they will, Jackal, if we continue.”
“So what, Rafe? What if they do? I'm already not a Hope anymore, it's not like they can take it away from me again.”
“No, they can't. But they can implicate your parents.”
Jackal went still.
Arsenault said, “It would probably go badly for them, Ms. Segura.” She did not seem to be enjoying herself, but she sounded official, implacable. “At best, their employment contracts would be terminated and they would be denied jobs, residency, or benefits at any Ko facility. At worst…well, the company has enough evidence to file criminal charges.”
Everything turned to ice inside Jackal. The skin went cold on her arms, her chest, the tops of her thighs. Her guts gurgled, and then cramped viciously, so that she was afraid for a moment of shitting on the floor in front of them all. She wasn't aware that she had started to shake until Rafe put his arm around her tightly.
