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"And he used this . . . power . . . on your behalf?"
"Only incidentally. Even when he had learned to focus it, to fully harness his latent abilities, it was still capable of only small miracles—things that in most circumstances could be achieved by more mundane methods. He himself has found it useful for subverting surveillance equipment. But I discovered he had other, more practical skills as well. He is completely ruthless and he is clever. He made an extremely useful tool. Until recently."
!Xabbu waited a while before speaking. "And . . . the operating system? The thing some call the Other?"
Jongleur narrowed his eyes. "It is of no consequence. Dread controls it, and thus controls the network."
"But he does not control this part of the network, whatever it is." !Xabbu gestured to the surreal, shadowy forest. "Or he would have found us here, would he not?"
The old man shrugged. "Perhaps. I still do not know where 'here' is. But our true enemy is John Dread."
!Xabbu frowned. "I think that if this man Dread controls the network through the operating system, then knowing more of the operating system might be important—how it works, how Dread is forcing it to work for him."
"Nevertheless, I have said all I will say."
!Xabbu stared hard. "If Renie were here, I think she would know what questions to ask. But she is not." His eyes wandered for a moment. "She is not."
"So we're just impacted, then?" Sam was trying to keep her temper and not entirely succeeding. The memory of Orlando, staggering bravely through his final hours while this crusty old monster sat in his golden house, pla
!Xabbu watched her for a moment, eyes serious and remote. "You frightened away i
For a moment it seemed the old man might lose his temper again. The lines around his mouth grew tight. "I have said I was wrong. Do you wish me to crawl? I will not. I never will do that."
!Xabbu sighed. "Never since I first left the delta has it been so clear to me that speaking the same tongue does not mean understanding. We do not care about apologies. The things you have done to us and people we care for can never be made better by apologies. We are as . . . practical . . . as you are. What can you do for us? Why should we trust you?"
Jongleur was silent for a long time. "I have underestimated you again," he said at last. "I should have remembered from my time in Africa that there are many hard-headed bargainers among the dark peoples. Very well." He spread his hands as if to show his unweaponed harmlessness. "I swear that I will help you to get out of this place, and that I will not hurt you even if given the chance. Even if I will not willingly give you all my information—and what else do I have to bargain with?—I still know much that you do not. You need me. I would be in great danger alone, so I need you, too. What do you say?"
"!Xabbu, don't," Sam said. "He's a liar. You can't trust him."
"Then if you won't bargain, what will you do?" Jongleur demanded. "Kill me? I think not. I will simply follow you, deriving some benefit of safety from your presence while you gain none from mine."
!Xabbu looked to Sam, troubled. "Renie wished us to work with him."
"But Renie's not here. Doesn't it matter what I want?"
"Of course."
Frustrated, she whirled on Jongleur. "Where are we going, anyway? How are you going to help? Like, strangle all the little forest animals until they tell us what we want to know?"
He scowled. "It was a mistake. I have already said so."
"If he comes with us, we're going to take turns sleeping." Sam said. "Like we were in enemy territory. Because I don't trust him not to kill us in our sleep."
"You have not answered her other question," !Xabbu pointed out. "Where are we going?"
"In. To the heart of this place, I suppose. To find . . . what did they call it, those pathetic creatures? To find the One."
"You said knowing about the operating system would do us no good."
"I said I had told you all I wished to tell. And in truth there is nothing much we can do as long as Dread controls it. But if the operating system built this world, then there must be a direct co
"And then what?" !Xabbu suddenly seemed very weary. "Then what?"
"I do not know." Jongleur too had run out of strength. "But otherwise we wander here like ghosts, until our bodies die the real death."
"I just want to go home," said Sam quietly.
"A long way." For a moment Jongleur almost sounded human. "A very long way."
CHAPTER 15
Confessional
NETFEED/FASHION: A New Direction for Mbinda?
(visual: models wearing designer's troubled Chutes line)
VO: After a disastrous year, many designers would rethink their fashion ideas. Hussein Mbinda has done more than that. Yesterday he a
(visual: Mbinda backstage at Milan show)
MBINDA: "I had a dream that everyone was naked. I was in a place where clothes didn't matter, because everyone was young and beautiful forever. I realized it must be heaven, and that what I was seeing was people's souls. God sent this vision just to me, seen? And so I wanted to find a way to show everyone that fashion and money and all that—it doesn't matter. . . ."
VO: Mbinda's spiritual insight has provided his latest direction: latex sprays, but not in the usual fashion shades. Every one of Mbinda's new sprays is a human flesh tone, so that the wearers can be naked even when they're dressed. Despite the religious inspiration, they're apparently going to be quite expensive, too. . . ."
He had stared at his pad long enough. He had performed every other undone task he could remember, and had improvised a few new ones. There was really no acceptable reason for putting off the call any longer. He spoke the code phrase Sellars had given him, the one that the strange man had promised would give him an untraceable co
In the past several days Catur Ramsey had come to believe in several impossible things—that a worldwide conspiracy existed to sacrifice children for the immortality of a few incredibly rich people, that an entire virtual universe had been created almost without any public notice, and even that the minuscule hope for its defeat rested in the crippled hands of a man who had been living in an abandoned tu
Somehow, though, this felt like the most difficult thing yet.
On the tenth ring the answering service clicked on. Disgusted by his own relief, he began to leave his message. Then Orlando's mother picked up the call.
"Ramsey," she said, nodding in an oddly deliberate ma