Part 19 (1/2)

Now, I ignore the blue uniform stalking discontentedly behind me and pace the corridors, linger in the common rooms. Finally, in the dripping heat of the roof garden, I find what I have been seeking. In an ornamental pool by a stone fountain shaped like a leaping carp, I find Dylan.

Not Dylan, really, but a place where he went and where something of him still lingers just as my nurse remains in a favorite book or an artist in a painting.

The guard draws back to the shelter of a doorway within the climate control zone. Instantly, I understand why Dylan liked this place. He effectively could be alone.

Sitting on the edge of the fountain basin, I relax and let the random impressions form. The sweat beads under my wrap and rolls under my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but I do not move. Slowly, less substantial than my reflection in the rippling waters, something is taking form. I reach out to it, confused by its silence.

There are no words, but I do find something: pain. The man who sat here was fighting pain of body and spirit that intertwined like the vines in the jungle around us. Fearing what I will find, I reach deeper.

My throat burns and I cup water from the fountain to cool it. The basin remembers another who did this, sputtering and choking each time with force enough to still the insects in the shrubs from their strident clamor.

Pain. A throat burned speechless? Yes.

The thing has told me all it can, but now I have some information to work from.

When I return inside, I study the guard. Surely he knows the information I want to learn just as Jersey does, but will be equally bound not to tell. The very walls must have answers, but they will not have noticed, not unless Dylan put his mark on them.

I carry my frustration with me, through my meal in my cell, through restless pacing and tossing and turning. No answer comes and when I finally sleep, I dream of the Jungle and its web of lines and hammocks.

I awaken with a contradiction screaming at me. Maddeningly, I see neither Jersey nor either of the doctors, so there is no one to whom I can talk. Feeling truly mute for the first time in my life, I circle the complex restlessly, prompting a comment from my usually taciturn guard about her not being paid by the mile.

The only thing I learn from my wanderings is a confirmation that certain areas, among them what I suspect were Dylan's rooms, are off-limits to me.

When I am finally taken to Jersey's computer annex, I can barely keep from urging them to hook me in. Jersey seems concerned at this, but Dr. Haas is pleased.

Dr. Aldrich enters just as the hookup is completed.

”Sarah,” he says, just before Dr. Haas hands me my beaker, ”you must get this precisely right. A great deal depends on it.”

I nod.

He shakes his index finger at me. ”Precisely right.”

Slurping down the liquid, I have only time to notice that the taste is somehow wrong. Then, without the comfortable sensation of drifting off to sleep, I feel myself being sucked out of my body. I am s.h.i.+fted and strained through something cold and impersonal, reduced to a strand of numbers, each screaming loudly for the others. When I see the grey-greens of Jersey's Van Gogh, I grab for them like a Cub grasping for a guideline.

My self begins to re-form, numbers becoming pulse and bone, skin, hair, eyes. Eyes that I open to find myself sprawled whole and gasping on the carpet of Jersey's sitting room.

He reaches down and helps me into a chair, offers me coffee.

I drink gratefully, notice that Betwixt and Between, staggering despite their four stocky legs, are nudging Athena to her feet. I pour them a pool of coffee to lap, not caring what it does to the table's finish. From under a lampshade, I find a moth that I feed to Athena.

Jersey watches curiously. ”Feels like s.h.i.+t, don't it, Sarey? But I wouldn't b.i.t.c.h to Dr. Haas even so. Y'see, I did it.”

”You? What?” Words, I am learning, are not always a help.

”Babe, I've decided to come down on the side of the angels.” He winks. ”That's you. Look, the whole trick to this interface of mine-well, not the whole trick, but one of the big ones-is in that potion you slug down. Does funny things to brain waves that let a properly set up bit of equipment read 'em. In a sense, Sarey, this ain't a virtual reality; it's real reality 'cause you know it is, right down where you are. Get me?”

”Sort of.” I rub my head. ”You did that to me?”

”Yeah.” Jersey looks shamed, but only for a moment. ”You see, the problem with my 'potion' is that it really hurts to be broken down that way, even if you know you'll get built up again. Do it too much and it can drive you crazy. So I played around with some other things until I found a mixture that eased the transition without ruining the effectiveness of the first drug. One problem.”

”What?”

”It screws up the internal organs and is addictive as h.e.l.l. Honey”-he looks me in the eyes-”when I perfected the telepathic interface, I really looked like you see me here. What you see out there is a result of the stuff I've been taking. Dr. Haas has been upping your dose-today, when she was distracted, I switched it for a more neutral one, but I didn't get the buffer quite right.”

In the pain and confusion, I had almost forgotten my earlier suspicions. ”She hates me. Why, Jersey?”

”Hates you?” Jersey looks puzzled. ”I think she just wants the project to go down fine. I don't think she hates you.”

”No,” I flounder. ”Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. I mean, things just don't fit.”

”Hey, relax, Sarey. What doesn't fit?”

”You told me that after Dylan died, the Inst.i.tute tried to find me, only to learn that I'd been discharged from the Home.”

”Yeah, that's right. I remember Dr. Aldrich's cursing and swearing when he heard. For a while there, he thought we'd have to use the third sibling. I got the impression that he knew where to find her, but that she wasn't as good.”

”Fine. But, Jersey, the doctor who insisted on discharging me from the Home was Dr. Haas.”

”You sure?”

”Could I make a mistake on something like that?”

Jersey shakes his head. ”No, I guess not.”

An odd look comes over his face. ”Time to work, Sarey.”

He reached into a chest by his chair and pulls out a small rectangular box of black plastic.

”This is a key box,” he says, handing it to me. ”We have the box, but not the key. We want you to tell us what it is.”

Accepting the key box, I feel it carefully, finding that the four corners each depress slightly; one bears an almost imperceptible dimple.

A faint sigh of antic.i.p.ation comes to me as I touch the corners. Glancing up at Jersey, I see his expression has not changed. The sigh then...I focus again on the black plastic box.

”There is an order in which these need to be pressed,” I say, more to myself than to Jersey. ”If I get it wrong...”

I stretch my senses; the feeling from the box is glee? And sorrow? Odd. Making as if I am about to press a sequence, I clearly mark the emotions, find them shaping into words.

”This is the end...” the box hums.

I remember Abalone and the safeguards on her tappety-tap.

”This thing destroys itself if the sequence is done wrong!”

”Yeah,” Jersey says. ”That's why we need to be kinda careful-it won't take any conventional tampering and the gal who knew the code series isn't exactly in a position to tell.”