—10—
Another weekend, Garth went to the artists’ bazaar with more artwork and undiminished optimism.
The side of a nearby building carried an up-to-the-minute COMnews screen as a public service. On the broadcast, guards from the Bureau of Incarceration and Executions led a decrepit and shuddering old man to his death. At the bottom of the screen, the BIE logo shone like a red bug.
Garth got the attention of a pottery-artist who molded wet clay, which she would fire into small terra-cotta wind chimes. “What’s going on?”
She gestured at the screen with a muddy hand. “One of those idiot anti-COM terrorists from two years ago. The main deputy, I think.”
Garth drew a deep breath. “The ones who blew up the substation down by the flower market?”
A beignet chef dusted with white powdered sugar said, “That’s almost the last one. The instigator of the whole mess is still at large. Robertha something-or-other. Now she’s hiding under a rock.”
Garth closed his eyes. He knew far more than any of these others, but he did not want to admit it, did not like to remember that day.
Soft Stone stood inside the monastery doorway, blocking their exit. “I’m going to give the three of you some credits. Go out and buy flowers so we can brighten up the monastery. I’m sure you can handle that without an escort. In fact, you may want to pay the flower seller a little extra for whatever you purchase today—correct, Eduard?” Her voice was hard, devastating.
“Uh, no problem.” Eduard looked deeply embarrassed. Garth and Teresa looked at him, neither of them understanding.
“By rights, this task should fall to Daragon, as well, but he is so far behind in his mental exercises, I’ve asked him to stay here.” The bald woman opened the heavy door, and a flood of daylight poured in. “Be safe,” she said, sincere now.
Garth and Eduard each folded one of Teresa’s arms in their own, flanking her as they hurried away from the Falling Leaves. When they reached the flower market, they walked among the bouquets, the gaudy stalks, the ferns. Kiosk workers arranged clumps of neon daisies, altered scents and grafted-on petals, added ribbons, audio greeting buttons, or mirrored ornaments.
As soon as they were far enough from the monastery, Eduard had told them in excited whispers about sneaking out with Daragon, finding the flower market, escaping from the terrorist explosion. “Look, that’s where the hovercar crashed. You can see where the pavement’s been wrecked.”
Garth stared at the site with appropriate respect. The side of a building had been scarred with black flames and smoke. A blossom of windows had shattered around the midpoint of the blast. A crowd gathered behind barricade tape to watch crews cleaning up the sidewalks. Mag-lock scaffolding hung on the sides of the skyscraper, while workers sliced off shards of mirrored glass.
Eduard lowered his eyes when he saw the vendor from whom he had snatched Teresa’s bouquet. “We, uh, better buy from him.” The man added an extra stalk of magenta humming gladiolas to round out the purchase. Teresa’s arms were filled with a richness of flowers, and she laughed.
Eduard whispered, wearing an impish grin, “Did you hear about the woman who tried to hopscotch with her dog? She was all alone, had the pet for years, and she wanted to give him a chance to be human for a little while.”
Garth groaned. “I know where this is going.…”
“She ended up nothing more than an empty body. Neighbors found her only because the starving dog kept barking and barking.”
Teresa looked at him, astonished. “Do you think it was the slippage disease? She got detached and couldn’t find her way back to her body?”
“No, it’s because she was stupid enough to try hopscotching with a dog.” Eduard laughed at his story; Teresa seemed reluctant to believe him.
Garth looked up at the apartment buildings—and was the first to see the gunmetal-gray BTL chopter cruise into position midway up one skyscraper not far from the flower market. “Look up there. Something’s going on.”
The ominous craft maneuvered against the mirrored glass. A rubber-lipped transfer tube sealed against the window. Even from far below, Garth could hear cutting sounds, grinding like saw-powered sharks’ teeth.
“The Beetles found someone,” Eduard said. “Maybe it’s the bombers.”
Muffled by distance, Garth heard a few faint projectile shots, but he couldn’t tell if the weapons fire came from fugitives inside the domicile, or from the Beetles themselves. Suddenly one of the windows adjacent to the besieged apartment shattered, spraying shards to the streets below. Pedestrians took cover under overhangs, kiosks, and tables.
Four people sprang out of the smashed window, all of them wearing olive-green jumpsuits. For a moment, Garth thought they were leaping to their deaths—until he saw that they had secured themselves with snakelike cords anchored inside the room. The four escapees rappelled down, magnetic pulleys humming as they plummeted toward the street below.
Above them, the BTL gunship opened fire with a cloud of stun projectiles, shattering other windows. One of the escaping fugitives slammed against the skyscraper wall, leaving a splash of blood on the mirrorglass. Arms and legs hanging limp, he spun down, slowed by the automatic pulley-brakes.
Another window cracked; more gunfire erupted. The fugitives were using lethal armaments, and the Beetles rapidly switched from stun projectiles to seeker bullets.
The other three anti-COM terrorists continued down, bouncing off the sides of the building, picking up speed. They hit the sidewalks with bent legs and snapped off their elastic ropes. Released, the cables spun back upward like angry cobras. Moving with well-practiced confidence, the fugitives tore off their olive jumpsuits, revealing bland street clothes underneath. Dodging weapons fire, they threw the tattered garments into the crowd and quickly blended in.
Pedestrians ran about knocking over flower stands, rushing for shelter inside buildings. As the Beetles came toward them, Garth watched in fascination as the terrorists scattered in a drunkard’s-walk of changing directions to keep their moves from being predictable.
One of the three, a redheaded woman, spotted a person in the crowd hiding under one of the vendor stands. The man raised his hand in a signal. The redhead rushed to him and bent down. Beneath the kiosk, the two clasped each other’s temples, quickly locking eyes … swapping. Even at a distance, Garth noticed with a shock that neither had ID patches on their hands, only a small squarish scar. Seconds later, the redhead got up and ran in another direction, while the man quietly sauntered into one of the buildings and disappeared.
Garth couldn’t believe what he had just seen. “They hopscotched, the two of them! She had a contact in the crowd, and she got away.”
Eduard chuckled. “Bait and switch! I bet she makes a clean break.”
Another fugitive ran like a bull through the flower stands, knocking over buckets of long-stemmed roses, upending pots of marigolds. Teresa stood alone, still encumbered with the bouquets. The fugitive hissed in her face so forcefully that spittle flecked her cheeks. “Hopscotch with me! Now!”
She looked up at the flushed man. “I … I can’t. I’m not old enough.”
Beetles ran toward them, shooting into the air and making a fearsome racket. The fugitive let out a snarl of despair and anger, then grabbed Teresa.
Though Garth’s mind raced for a way to save her, he couldn’t move. He wanted to help, but he froze, completely helpless.
But Eduard didn’t stop to think about his own safety. Lowering his shoulder, he plowed into Teresa with enough force to rip her out of the fugitive’s grasp. While the man cried out in surprise, Eduard bore Teresa down to the pavement, covering her with his body. The flowers flew around them in a blizzard of color, petals, and scents.
The Beetles targeted the lone fugitive as he whirled, empty-handed, searching for another escape. The enforcers opened fire with a mixture of stun projectiles and deadly bullets. The terrorist flew backward, skidding across the ground. Blood poured from holes in his bland street shirt. Potent stunner-darts poked out like bristles from his shoulders, sides, face.
The Beetles marched to him, elbowing people away. They grabbed the dying man’s collar, dragged him into a sitting position. “Where’s Robertha Chambers?”
“She’s not me.” The man smiled in triumph with blood-flecked lips.
“Who is she? Where is she?”
Snapping out of his shock, Garth rushed to help Eduard pull Teresa to her feet, and she clung to him. “She’s all right.” Eduard cut off further conversation, already moving. “All of us are fine. Let’s get out of here!” For now, the Beetles were too intent on their victim to question the crowd, but that wouldn’t divert them for long.
The three ducked into an office building, rode a lifter up four levels, and hurried across a promenade. From there, a moving walkway took them to where they could zigzag through a galleria filled with lights and music. Eduard kept glancing over his shoulder. “Walk slowly, casually. Don’t draw any attention to yourself. We can’t look like we’re on the run.”
“Why are we running?” Teresa asked. “We didn’t do anything.”
Garth understood immediately. “That man touched you, Teresa. They might think he swapped with you. That’s how the redhead escaped.”
Teresa looked at her ID patch as if it offered proof. “But I’m still me.”
Eduard shook his head, worried about her. “Do you want your mind peeled just so the Beetles can prove your identity? It’s what they do, you know.” Teresa shuddered.
It was only when they reached the monastery that Garth realized they had not, after all, brought back the flowers Soft Stone had requested.
Now, in the artists’ bazaar, the beignet vendor went back to his pans, dropping globs of dough into hot oil. He shook his head at the COM screen showing the terrorist about to be executed. “Stupid people. As if anybody would really be able to knock out COM. We’d go back to the Dark Ages.”
On screen, the decrepit prisoner could barely hold his head upright in the upload chair. Before the scheduled execution, some ailing old man had bought the condemned terrorist’s body so he could be healthy and fit again. In another chair next to the condemned man, the man’s original, healthy physique, was now inhabited by the lucky bidder; the restraints automatically loosened.
Garth set his sketch aside and stared at the screen in morbid fascination. Execution attendants finished applying electrodes and upload cables to the now-palsied terrorist. He raised liver-spotted hands to fend them off, but his muscles were too weak.
After stripping away all personality and independent thought, the justice system uploaded a condemned person’s mind into COM to add to its engram processing power. The living matrix supposedly grew stronger, more flexible each time. The announcer’s description of COM as a “sweatshop of souls” alarmed Garth. If that was the case, what of Soft Stone? What of all the other Splinters who had voluntarily hopscotched into the matrix?
When the on-screen execution countdown ended, the victim trembled, jerked once, then fell slack like an empty suit of clothes. Beside him, in the other restraint chair, the healthy body watched. Now that his role as a propaganda tool had been fulfilled, he was eager to get away and begin his new youthful life.
The artists in the bazaar cheered or made catcalls. Garth blinked and tried to understand.
Without further ceremony, the execution attendants disconnected the empty body and hauled it away. Then the news-screen moved on to another breaking news story, this time about a colorful kite festival being held in the Rocky Mountains.
Deeply moved, Garth looked at the charcoal and chalk dust on his fingers. He always understood the world better if he inhaled it, rolled it around inside, gave himself time to digest it … then put it forth as artwork.
The daily flutter of activity swirled around him. Merchants and customers went about their business, the execution already forgotten.