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oOo
A
She stepped out into a building decimated by panic. Office furniture stood scattered around the main floor. Many of the shop windows were smashed. A metal desk stood wedged in the doorway of the Hallmark shop. A hapless employee had managed to hook an extension cord onto one of the chandeliers, and now clung to it, whimpering, thirty feet or more above the marble floor. “Hang on!” she shouted at him, “Help is coming.” Help, from where? Here and there, office people stood looking about themselves in dazed confusion. Her glance flitted to a home furnishings shop, Tolby’s. They featured the finest in biopoly upholstery. She darted to a group of people standing around the vacated security desk.
“Go in there and drag out as many cushions as you can,” she said, pointing at the shop. “Pile them under that man hanging from the chandelier, in case he falls. I’m calling the fire department.” They didn’t recognize her, but they seemed relieved to have somebody tell them what to do, and scampered off readily to carry out her instructions.
A
“Send everyone you have, immediately,” she told the receptionist, “and we’ll need an extension ladder or something, we’ve got a worker hanging from a chandelier about forty feet above the floor. There’s probably people stranded or injured all over the building.”
She hung up and turned to see a stream of office workers coming down the stairs to the mezzanine. Oh no, she thought, more panic-stricken employees, how am I going to handle them all by myself? But these people moved in an orderly fashion, and at their head was a figure she recognized. Hector Martin, looking a bit dishevelled, but whole and alive.
He spotted her and quickened his pace. “A
“I’m fine. What about you?”
“Fine.” He turned to a woman in a yellow suit at his left. “Janice, please go down to maintenance and see how things are. We’re going to need them to rescue people who’ve gotten stuck in crawl spaces or elevator shafts. Take some of your colleagues with you.” He turned to A
She nodded.
“Good. Call here to the security desk when you get there,” he told Janice.
“I called the fire department,” A
“Just now, but they’re coming right away.”
He turned to a tall, balding man, and said, “Take the rest of your people and search the mezzanine and balcony levels, identify anyone who’s injured, but don’t move them, just keep track of where they are for when the paramedics come.”
“Martin, what happened?” A
He nodded again. “My assistant, Colin Slatermeyer. I think - I know it sounds crazy but I think Graham sent someone to kill me. They got Colin instead.”
“After what’s happened here today, nothing sounds crazy anymore. I had the same idea myself, when I found him.”
“Have you seen Graham this morning?”
“No.” She shook her head. “You still haven’t told me what happened.”
“I will,” Martin said, holing out a hand in placation. “I’ll explain everything, but first we’ve go to make sure everyone is safe.”
It took several hours for the rescue crews to case the building. They pulled victims of the panic out of ventilation ducts and elevator shafts. The man hanging from the chandelier was brought down in a cherry picker. The number of building perso
When she wasn’t busy with the rescue efforts, A
With the press release issued and as many potential leaks stopped as possible, A
oOo
Chango crawled back through the window to find Helix resting in the tank, her head above the grow med. “You’re alright. What happened?”
“We won. The mind that was GeneSys has gone to sleep, and dreamed itself into something new. A corporation ruled by both economic and biological imperatives. An organization dedicated to its own survival and the prosperity of its members, both human and Lilim.”
“So what happens now?”
Helix shrugged. “For me, not much. We’ll have to figure out a way to enlarge this tank. Seal off this room and get the temperature and humidity up.” She cast a disparaging glance at the dust-black walls and roof.
“Maybe put in some skylights.”
“You’re staying.” Her heart sank.
Helix nodded. “I’m going to have my daughters, live out my life, and die, right here.”
Chango looked away. “Be
“You killed him?”
She nodded and pointed out the window. “I pushed him.”
“Come here.”
“I can’t. You’re covered with growth medium.”
“At least look at me.”
She turned, letting Helix see her tears.
“Oh Chango.”
“Just promise me one thing, now that you and your mother control GeneSys. Promise me you’ll do something for the vatdivers.”
Helix nodded. “I’ll try.”
oOo
Chango drove home through the little streets, the neglected concrete roadways used only by motorcars and pedestrians. She watched the buildings pass by. Some of them were sparkling and new, with polybond walls and gleaming coats of plaint. Others were crumbling brick, desolately awaiting demolition
— like her life; an edifice of memories, crumbling. Helix had got what she wanted, what she had always wanted. A vat - a simple thing that had nothing to do with her. Ada’s name was cleared, her murderer dead. What was left now, for Chango to do? Anything, she supposed, anything she wanted. She hauled on the steering wheel, guiding the car through a pitted intersection, and headed for Vattown. She went to Vonda’s apartment first, but she wasn’t home, so she tried Josa’s. Sure enough, Vonda was at the bar, nursing a draft. “Be