Child of the Fall Read online

  “I see,” she said, and dispatched the required bots. It would take some time for them to report back.

  “See what?” Spencer asked.

  He started prowling around as she got him up to speed on the reservoir, looking at the destruction like he was planning a safari hunt. “You’re saying animals did this? Lady, how big do the bears get around here?”

  “It is unusual to find them this far inside the plant, but that’s why you’re here. Our security networks have been glitching this entire time. The explosion must’ve scared them off.”

  “That part I can agree with, but…”

  Trilogy’s survivalist skills were quite well known. If he had any insight, she wanted to hear it. “Yes?”

  Spencer shook his head. “Nothing. I guess all those stories about grizzlies are true. Shouldn’t we be warning people?”

  “The plant’s human staff is small and mostly on the upper levels. But your point is well made.” She entered a warning on the local net as they made their way past the mess and to her lab.

  “Nice digs,” he said as the lights came on.

  “What does your lab look like?” Then she remembered. “I mean, what did it look like.”

  He snorted. “A complete…ly different sort of arrangement. But, prophets be praised, we will now be rebuilding. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take some notes on your system?”

  “Be my guest.”

  He pulled a crystal out of his pocket. “If you’d do the honors?”

  Installing Trilogy tools onto her network didn’t feel right, but the scanners said they checked out. Spencer had checked out as well, and it wasn’t like Trilogy had never accessed their systems. That direct line existed for a reason. “How long will it take them to decompress?”

  “We’ll have to wait until morning to get started, which is just as well.” He rolled his eyes, looking like he’d just been given extra homework. “I have to go pray now.”

  Right. From what she read, even their standard set of prayers could take hours. “I’ll show you to your quarters.”

  Chapter 26

  Kim

  She needed to come up with a strategy to reach out to Will’s mom, Emily. To do that, they needed to learn who she was, what her interests were, what was important and what wasn’t. Once they figured out which realmspace cell her house used, it was straightforward for Mike to follow her browsing habits.

  “Aside from some RealmTerest activity, it’s pretty much all autism, all the time. She’s very active.”

  “And the scientists?” Kim asked.

  “Doctors Silas Nevin and Shonda Brandt. They have a thriving online therapy practice. Shonda was in a car accident twelve years ago. Third degree burns over seventy percent of her body.”

  Tonya let out a low whistle. “She must be one of the first successful ALS…hang on…no, she is the first successful assisted living shell recipient. I thought I recognized that name.”

  “And now I recognize the shell,” Mike said. “Lucas shamed Disney into giving her a license for the design. It seems that’s the droid we’re looking for.”

  Kim didn’t understand why anyone would want to go through life as a silver-and-black R2D2 clone, but that wasn’t her circus or her monkeys. The doctors weren’t their priority anyway. It made sense that Emily would be active in the autism community. It was the closest disorder to what he had.

  Emily always introduced herself to a new forum with the same message.

  Hi! I’m Emily Ramirez, and I have a child who has been diagnosed with autism. But I’m not sure about that. He has severe speech and language challenges, along with sensory dysfunction, but he also has a unique sensory processing disorder that may indicate a different diagnosis, at least according to the doctors we’ve seen. Does anyone out there have experience with a child who is extremely fearful when touched by people?

  The doctors always called it haphephobia, as if the fear of being touched was always a psychological thing. When someone’s touch hurt, fearing it was natural. But he couldn’t get that across yet.

  The responses were also always the same, brief notes of encouragement, a few references to obscure medical journals—which Emily seemed to already know by heart—and occasionally a troll who insisted Emily didn’t know what she was talking about.

  One of the groups had a realm get-together tonight, which was perfect timing. Kim signed herself up as Angie Amorrua. Her avatar was a standard variation, changing her appearance to make her unrecognizable but not so much as to trigger any contract restrictions. Mike couldn’t attend without attracting attention, so she brought Tonya as her plus one. Being a complete unknown, she had no need for a disguise. Kim was going to turn that into an advantage.

  The realm was yet another generic variation of a hotel conference room, hosted by Hilton’s virtual convention division. They had technology that could create a Roman forum, a space station garden dome, or a mansion in Moria, and what did they pick? The same scratchy over-patterned carpet, uncomfortable chairs, and generic chandeliers that you would find in every realspace hotel tower ever built. There had to be a licensing issue at the bottom of it.

  Emily was signed up under a pseudonym as well, but Mike figured it out. “Over there,” he said in her ear. One of the front rows flashed in her avatar’s vision. “She’s the one in the blue blouse.”

  “Are the scientists that work with Will here?”

  “No. They’re still doing appointments, I can tell by the privacy stipulations on their connection contracts.”

  So they only needed to worry about Emily. “Do you see any sign of surveillance or taps here?” Kim asked.

  Mike had concentrated most of his threads in the area of this realm. From his unique perspective, spotting anything unusual should be a breeze. It felt like a safety blanket.

  “Only the meeting’s recording system. The realm’s contract is intact and normal for a conference like this.”

  No weapons, obscenities, or fights. An aggressive move would pass through an avatar and result in expulsion. Avatars could vary from a person’s actual appearance but not by more than a very low standard deviation. Everyone was expected to act like an adult.

  Spencer would hate it.

  Emily’s pseudonym was well known to this group. A total stranger striking up a conversation with her would be normal. Making new connections and networking was one of the points of the meeting.

  Kim and Tonya managed to get seats just behind and to the left of Emily, who seemed to be attending alone. Her disguise didn’t change her body language or expressions. She was tired and tense, but still gave her full attention as the lights went down.

  The topic gave Kim an opening once the speaker had finished. The realm switched from a generic hotel meeting room to a generic hotel lounge. One of these days she should talk to Mike about opening up a design line that gave some sort of variation to these places. The ferns felt as plastic as their realspace counterparts.

  Kim sidled up to Emily, who stood as part of the loose ring of people who had formed around the speaker’s couch. “Unfortunately,” Kim said to Emily, “it won’t work in cases like ours.”

  “Pardon me?”

  Kim held out her hand. “I’m Angie, and this is Tonya. I recognized your handle from your posts on the realm discussion board.”

  Emily shook their hands in turn, firm but not aggressive. “I’m Emily. What do you mean in cases like ours?”

  They’d gone over the plan carefully. Being in disguise was required at this stage, but they wouldn’t lie to Emily. She already thought Kim was the devil, and anything less than honesty—within limits—would ruin any chance at trust when she found out the truth. But Kim also couldn’t go ta-da! and have Emily take her seriously. So they were approaching her as researchers, which they were, who knew things about the syndrome, which they did, and were looking for someone else to talk to, which was true.

  Like Ben Kenobi always said, from a certain point of view.

 
“You’re the mother of the boy with touch aversion, right?” Kim asked. “Your list of indications is the best description we’ve seen of the syndrome in years.” Not quite lying was like walking across a greasy balance beam. “We’ve been searching for another case ever since we found one in China.”

  Emily sat down in the chair behind her. “You’ve found another case?”

  Kim took the chair to Emily’s right while Tonya took the one opposite, across a low table. “Yes,” Tonya said. “In Chengdu, a city in southwest China.”

  The hope that bloomed on Emily’s face was like the sun coming out. Will had a terrible syndrome, Kim knew that better than anyone else, and now Emily wasn’t alone.

  But she was also in danger. Kim only needed one break to find them. They must’ve made other mistakes, and Anna might already be on their trail. There was no way to tell. Kim had to establish trust while crossing the minefield that Watchtell had put in her way, and then get them moving. Fast.

  Emily was still grappling with the idea that Will wasn’t alone. “Who are they? How old are they? Is it a boy or a girl? How did you find them?”

  Kim sat back. “His western name was Ozzie Xian.” He’d been a lying bastard, but it still hurt to say what had happened to him. “He died in an accident while we were there. Do you remember the Chengdu riverboat attack?”

  Emily’s eyes went wide. “I read about it. That was awful. He was there?”

  Kim shared a look with Tonya, who nodded slightly. “We all were. There was an explosion in his cabin. He didn’t survive.”

  Emily got a conflicted look, trying to reconcile the good news with the bad. Then she got what Kim was implying. “His own cabin? Are you saying he was an adult?”

  “Yes.” Kim’s heart went to her throat as she put her hand on Emily’s. Stick with the truth, even if you’ve hidden it your whole life. “And I am, too.”

  The contact between their avatars confused her for a moment, then she looked up at Kim. “You mean you have…”

  Kim only managed a nod.

  “But…you…” She let out a sob. “But you can talk.”

  Tonya nodded. “Yes, and we think it’s only a matter of time before Will can too.”

  That was a hope too far. She pulled back. “How do you know? How can you know? Why haven’t I heard of you until now?”

  “It’s complicated,” Kim said, “I know because I went through it.” That helped calm her suspicions a little, so Kim kept going. “You think he has autism, but he doesn’t. That’s why nothing is working.”

  “Then what does he have?”

  Kim shrugged. “The Chinese call it jiēchù jíbìng, which translates to the touching disease. It doesn’t have a formal name yet in the West. That’s part of what we’re trying to do.” Not thinking about its name until this moment didn’t count as lying. Probably. Trayne-Ramirez Syndrome did have a certain ring to it. “Let me describe what I experienced and see if it matches what you’ve been through.”

  She related some of the stories Mama had told her about when she was little. Not just the funny things that Mama trotted out whenever someone new attended one of her lunch parties, but also the painful things, the embarrassing things, the things Mama said tempted her to leave Kim on the side of the road sometimes. Those were details that weren’t in any public research. Kim had made sure of it. It made her feel more exposed than ever before. Tonya didn’t know most of these things and neither did Mike. Emily was friendly, but she was still a stranger. Worse, she was the daughter of Matthew Watchtell.

  Kim watched as Emily worked on a mental checklist the entire time. By her expressions, Kim was certain she checked all the boxes.

  “I unlocked—that’s what I’ve always called it—when I was ten. So did Ozzie.”

  “But how?”

  “That part I’m not sure about. We think it has to do with realm technologies, but beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.”

  Tonya said, “That’s one of the reasons we’re reaching out now. We can make observations, do tests to see if we can unlock Will earlier than that. It happened to her and Ozzie accidentally.”

  Emily hadn’t pulled back, hadn’t gotten angry, and hadn’t disappeared. The gambit was working. Emily believed them. She should. They were telling the truth.

  “Here’s my card,” Kim said as she transmitted her contact information and an encrypted authenticator so Emily would know it was her when they got to phase two of the plan. Tonya passed her one as well. “You can contact us any time.”

  When Emily took both of them, Kim relaxed a little. Emily needed to know them, needed to understand and trust that Kim had information she needed and the same syndrome as her son. But she also needed to take that card. It was all about confirming their ID. She pinged Mike so he’d start packing.

  Kim gave Emily some basic tips, answering questions as she went. When Mike pinged her back that everything was ready, they exchanged a few pleasantries and then logged off.

  Kim didn’t want to turn Blacksteel Rose into her personal air transport network, so they took Tonya’s Alfa, which could comfortably sleep three. Everyone needed to be fresh for the next step.

  “You all don’t worry one bit,” the car said as it opened the door. “I’ll get you there on time.” Kim wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to Morgan Freeman driving them around, but Tonya seemed to like it.

  It would be late tomorrow afternoon, well after dark this time of year, when they arrived in Atlanta.

  Chapter 27

  Edmund

  “You never said it would be this much fun!”

  Of all the different ways Young Kim could react to being uploaded into a private network, Edmund would never have picked joy. Her resemblance to his mistress in that moment was disorienting.

  “Yes,” he said. “But we’re not here to have fun, you see. We have a job.”

  The biggest risk to their plan was that there would be no unoccupied fabric available on this network. Young Kim was easy to transfer, but Edmund was quite a bit larger. If there hadn’t been any free fabric available, it would take hours to get the network to generate the required amount of space. That was the real reason Spencer left their transit matrix connected overnight.

  It turned out they needn’t have worried. The plant’s network was bigger than all the cathedrals in Christendom, allowing them to specify an entry address so far away from the parts of the network in use it might as well have been on a different planet.

  Young Kim’s ebullient reaction was the result of her becoming part of his mistress’s scheme of skullduggery. They originally wanted to leave her in the car’s transit matrix.

  Being an unduplicate, he could play that debacle back effortlessly.

  “If you two leave me behind,” she said, fists firmly against her hips, “I’ll get old me to burn you both to the ground.”

  “Telling Mommy,” Spencer said, “won’t get you any further than you already are.”

  “She’s not my mommy, she’s me. And neither one of us would—will—put up with this. You need me.”

  Edmund lifted his head from his hand. “You sneak about as well as a cow in Satan’s own herd. You’d leave a trail a mile wide through the network.”

  “Your upgrades did that. If you’d left me stock, I’d be fine.”

  “And less useful than a pallid poxy peasant pressing pies.”

  Spencer blinked at that one, but Young Kim ignored it. “You think, as old as you are, you can dodge the packet inspectors?”

  The stroppy little monster had a lot of nerve. “I’ll have you know I’ve run rings around quantum inspectors before.”

  “Yeah, back in the Jurassic.”

  “Kim,” Spencer said, “we need someone on the outside in case we don’t come back.”

  “And leaving me out here makes that less likely? I’m twice as smart as you are, and three times faster than he is. On my worst day I’m better than you two on your best. This mission can’t rely on an idiot teenager and his dod
dering old sidekick. You are not leaving me behind. End of discussion.” She turned away and smashed out of the realm’s classroom, the door barely staying on its hinges. Her voice echoed down the hall. “I’m going. Get used to it.” Another loud smash as she left the realm entirely.

  He’d forgotten how lyrical his mistress was when she got that angry. By the gobsmacked expression on Spencer’s face, he’d never seen her that wound up at all. She’d slowed down by the time he met her.

  “I guess she’s going,” Spencer said.

  “I’m certainly not going to stop her.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “More upgrades I suppose. By the end of this, she’ll be worth more than a nun’s virginity at a papal conclave.”

  Which was why Young Kim was now capering around in a custom set of camouflage screens, exactly like what he wore. They were both made from construct plans his mistress had gifted him long ago. They came with downsides, at least for him. It made his avatar seem far more twenty-first century than he would ever feel comfortable with. He couldn’t fit his ruff collar under it at all, but the codpiece remained firmly in place. No true Renaissance gentleman could go without one.

  “Why so much space?” she asked, gesturing around them, empty but for row upon row of shelflike constructs that stretched as far as he could see.

  Edmund called up the plans they’d received from Master Sellars’s sister and highlighted the extensive dormitories built underground. “For the same reason the realspace component is so large. They’re going to warehouse data like they’re going to warehouse humans. They want to do it quickly and on short notice.”

  She stopped dancing. Young Kim walked over to the nearest shelf and ran her hands over it. “These are chromosome hangars. They’re going to store genomes.”

  He would never have thought of it in a million years, but now that it had been pointed out, he could see it. If the maniac behind all of this wanted to reformat the biosphere, she needed installation media to finish the job.

  He cracked open his datastores just a bit to see if he could find more insights, and that made it real. Building a space this enormous was not easy nor was it quick. It was one thing to consider armageddon as an abstract thing. It was quite another to find oneself in the midst of its clear and present preparations. It must’ve been what Knyvet felt when he looked under the woodpile beneath parliament and saw three-dozen barrels of gunpowder.