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290
GREG BEAR
dent's cordon. Mary hears them discuss bringing Dr. Burke into the building at
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any entry point; the sheriff shakes his head, and the discussion continues,
getting more and more heated.
Martin turns to Mary. "They want me to look for evidence inside the building.
A laboratory, a research center."
"What sort of research?"
"Creating super-enzymes or pathogenic organisms capable of blocking implants,
therapy monitors."
Mary rubs her wrist; the red spots have become prominent bumps. She can feel
welts itching on her thighs and hips. "Not just mental therapy implants,"
she says.
Martin shakes his head. "I suppose not. A few days ago, I would have thought
no private group could ever do such things. What's the point?"
"Tearing down a society and culture you don't like," Mary suggests. "Getting
back at history."
"To what end? Were they planning to hide out in their tombs until... ?"
He doesn't finish his question.
Mary sees that Torres and the sheriff have finished their discussion, and the
sheriff is reluctantly giving in. Daniels urges Martin forward, then looks at
Choy.
"I suppose this is your case, too," he says.
Mary nods, her face drawn. She tries to smile but can't. Literally. She feels
faintly ill, but she can still walk, can still carry out her duties. "Maybe
it's become personal."
"Yeah," Daniels says. "Nathan Rashid isn't here yet. I'll leave instructions
for them to let him in, too, if he gets here in time."
The take them the restless crowds the deputies through cold, surrounding
destroyed garage entrance. The door has been buckled and melted away. Scraps
of metal and plastic and fiexfuller litter the concrete. Torres and Daniels
kneel to examine the scraps. They rise a few seconds later and join Burke a
few yards from the ruined, gaping door.
"Do you hear buzzing?" Martin asks.
"What?" Daniels responds.
"Buzzing. Like bees."
Torres takes out a flashlight and shines its intense beam into the shadows.
He makes several sweeps before the beam illuminates a few specks flitting
around the holes. He lowers the beam to the snow drifting over the blackened
and debris-cluttered concrete apron before the door. More specks have fallen
there and do not move. Black and yellow, slowed down or killed by the cold,
but unmistakable.
"Wasps," Martin says.
They approach and Martin asks for Torres's flashlight. He shines it into one
of the larger holes in the door and backs away with a quick little skip. A
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SLANT 291
air is too much for them, however, and they quickly slow and spin down to the
snow.
"The inside's thick with them," Martin says, brushing the sleeves and
shoulders of his coat. "We should try another way, go around front."
"It's all sealed up," the sheriff says. "Sirens chased all the tourists out
this afternoon and then the security doors came down. It would take a small
army to get in there. There are no other openings I know of."
"What about the fire department?" Torres asks. "Isn't anybody responsible for
safety inspections?"
"We don't have that kind of licensing here," the president says, a simple
statement of fact.
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"Where can we get insecticide?" Mary asks the sheriff.
The sheriff grins wickedly. "You've come to the right place, ma'am. I'll get
someone down to a hardware store. We have any sort of bug spray you can think
of."
23
A long, gently curving corridor, walls covered with old paintings, like a
museum gallery, leads them to the center of the building. Hale runs to catch
up.
He doesn't want to be alone. He is subdued, uncomplaining; he seems willing to
let Giffey run the show. "I saw her," he tells Jenner, Jonathan, anyone who
will listen. "My Hally." He shakes his head. "My God."
Jonathan walks with heavy steps, half-asleep, his exhaustion catching up with
him. Giffey suddenly moves closer and tells Hale to replace Jonathan and carry
the unconscious Marcus. Hale does so without protest. Marcus's head lolls.
Giffey and Jonathan fall back a few steps.
"He was recruiting you, wasn't he?" Giffey asks him.
Jonathan nods. He is too far gone, too empty to hold anything back. That
feeling is familiar now; he associates it with being around Marcus, part of
Marcus's universe, and does not really blame Giffey. Stockholm syndrome, he
tells himself. With a twist. He keeps looking at the paintings, stored wealth,
prestige: They can't all be originals, he tells himself, but they look very
convincing.
"What did he promise?" Giffey persists. "Life everlasting, resurrection at the
end of time?"
Jonathan shakes his head. They come upon security partitions that remain open;
nothing has closed off, nothing has been sealed. The whole thing is crazy;
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"He must have offered something to all of you."
"Escape," Jonathan says.
Giffey at least pretends that this answers his question. "To give my friend
something to live for," he confides, pointing to Hale, "I'd like to hear
there's treasure stored up downstairs."
"I don't know," Jonathan says. "I doubt it." He waves his hand loosely at the
paintings. "These look valuable."
Giffey smiles grimly. "Not to us. No dead people, no live people--just empty
cells, like a honeycomb waiting to be filled. Did you pay for a reservation?''
Jonathan doesn't feel any need to answer.
"No money? No exchange of assets? You must be a prime player, then.
Maybe you bring in special abilities. I thought I saw you not being too
surprised when our warbeiters showed up. You're in some sort of nano industry,
aren't you?"
Jonathan looks squarely at Giffey but doesn't answer this one, either.
"You work on the security here?"
"No," Jonathan says. He does not want to be the target of Giffey's intense
concentration. He wants the man to ignore him.
"Know anything about it?"
"No," Jonathan says. "I don't think Marcus does, either. He seems disappointed
that you haven't all been killed by now."
"Yeah. Your old friend has had his share of shocks this afternoon, ibout as
many as he's handed out. But--he seems to have some sort of importance to
Omphalos."
Jonathan nods. That much is true. He looks ahead at Marcus, hanging limp
I
at an awkward angle in the arms of Hale and Jenner, face gray with pain; and
then back to Giffey, alert, fit; stretched and puzzled-looking, no surprise
there, but really enjoying himself.
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