"My workspace."
"From in here, not direct from your access." Mark picked up the Magic Jacket from where it had been draped over the chair behind his "desk" and threw it at Charlie. "He, she, or they won't expect that. My antitrace protocols outside this space will at least slow them down. And then we'll get into Deathworld. But on the way, you think we might pick up someone else who knows his way around there…?"
Charlie gulped, and began to see how it could go. And slowly he started to smile. It was still dangerous, and he was still scared. But this was exactly what he had been working toward. And he now had someone on his side.
"Nick," he said. "Yeah. It's worth a try. Come on, Mark, let's go…!"
Chapter 9
Charlie came out into the ashy darkness between the Lake. of Tears and the Dark Artificer's Keep, and stood looking around him for a second with Mark. Here and there in the darkness beyond the lake, the Damned ran by, pursued by the usual demons. Banies made their way toward the Keep, or into and out of it. There was no sign of any pursuit, but then he wasn't sure what pursuit would necessarily look like. It could wear a seeming as easily as he could, and didn't have to look like anyone he would recognize at the moment. And is it Kalki? Or Shade? Or someone else they've sent after me?
"One thing you've going for you," Mark said, "they'll be looking for one kid, not two."
"Great. That means they'll either pass me by, or find me and also try to trace and grab whoever's with me," Charlie said. "Why leave witnesses?"
This thought made Mark widen his eyes briefly. Then he grinned. "I don't think so somehow," Mark said. "I don't care who they are. They're not going to get into my workspace from my ID here. It's too well protected for that." He looked around them, though, with some concern. "But I don't think we should just be standing around. Where do we go?"
"For the moment," Charlie said, "safety in numbers. There are more people in the Keep than there are out here. Let's get inside."
They headed in through the front door. There were a fair number of Banies who used this spot as a gateway "access" while working on solving the Eighth Circle, and most of them were heading past Charlie and Mark toward the entryway that led to the Stairways to Nowhere. "We could lose ourselves pretty well in there, from the look of it," Mark said.
"Lose would be the word," Charlie said, nervous. "I don't know my way around in there real well-"
"Doesn't matter. Whoever's chasing you," Mark said, "we've just got to keep them in here, and occupied, until the Net Force people can get in and identify them."
Charlie swallowed. "Will they be able to do that in forty minutes?"
"More like thirty-five now," Mark said, not even having the grace to sound scared. "They'd better."
"But how are they going to find us?"
Mark tugged at the virtual "fabric" of the Magic Jacket's sleeve. "I left full details about this in the message to my dad," he said. "The tracking routine it uses is piping direct into his space. Anything you see or hear, he and Net Force will, too… and it's all archiving, storing virtual locations and addresses second by second. All we can do now is leave the tracking to him and his people, and get ourselves deep inside here… deep enough that anyone who comes after us is plainly doing it on purpose and not just as some kind of accident."
Charlie looked around him, looked at the entry to the stairways. "Okay," he said. "I guess we'd better-" "Manta!"
Charlie jumped. But it wasn't Kalki's voice, or Shade's.
Not that that means anything! He turned, half-furious, half terrified to see Nick hurrying toward them through the great doors. "Ohmygosh," Charlie said, grabbing Nick by the shoulders as he got close, "I'm gonna kill you! Do you know who I thought you were?"
"I can imagine. But I didn't want to yell your real name in the middle of all this. Who knew what could happen? Hey, nice jacket."
"Never mind the jacket. How did you know my handle?"
"I've been reading the message boards," Nick said. "I put some things together. Your message timings, for example. Look, can this wait? I got the message you left me about the people who're after you. Had to be the hero, didn't you?"
Charlie opened his mouth to make some angry retort, and then stopped himself, for Nick's tone wasn't angry or mocking. It was a compliment. "Uh-"
"Yeah. Well, there's something I've been wanting to try, and we'd better try it now, before somebody grabs us." He looked over at Mark. "Who's your friend?"
"Nick, this is Mark. Mark Winters, Nick Melchior. Mark's a virtwrangler, Nick. He's figured a way to track our progress in here." Charlie displayed the jacket. "Look, we have to give the bad guys a target, but one that's too tough to actually catch. That means we've got to get in deep enough that the people looking for me won't be able to find me. Help's coming, but we've gotta stall."
"Great. Come this way," Nick said, heading off to their right. "Nine be deep enough for you?"
"Nine?" Charlie swallowed. "Nick, one of them, the one who called himself Kalki, he said he'd been through the gates of Nine… "
"He's full of it," Nick said. "No one can come back after they get through the gates of Nine. There's a 'limited resume' in place after that. The designers implemented it to stop all the walk-throughs from blowing the final solution of the environment."
"When did you find that out?"
"Yesterday. From the Gate Guardian."
"You found the way down to Nine?"
Nick nodded. "But I put it off… I didn't want to go through until you were along. So now we'll give it a try."
"You don't know if it works or not?" Mark said, sounding alarmed.
"We're gonna find out real quick," said Nick. "Come on!"
There were nine tall gray doors opening out of the left-hand side of the huge entry hall, genuine old-fashioned doors with lever handles, looking like something out of the seventeenth century, with fancy scrollwork carved around the gray stone doorjambs. "Don't look like we're rushing or anything," Nick said, "just stroll." Charlie found this extremely difficult to do under the circumstances, but he forced himself to slow down and keep pace with Nick.
"A lot of people look at this at one point or another," Nick said softly, "but usually there isn't anything here. There's a trick to it, though… "
He went to the first of the five doors and stood by it, idly, listening. Then he shook his head.
"Nothing," Nick said, "but this is gonna be easier with three of us. Each of you, quick, go up to a door and listen. If you hear anything, open it right away. Don't look obvious about it, though. You don't want anyone noticing if you can help it!"
Mark headed for the next door up, and Charlie took a long breath, trying to calm himself, and went to the door after that. He stood by it… and then his eyes widened. A soft rumor and murmur of voices, like a crowd-
He pulled the door open a crack and peered in.
The sound didn't change, but Charlie looked in and saw that the dimly lit room was completely full of people, pushing, murmuring, moving together. It was in fact a vast dance floor, absolutely crammed with people in every kind of clothes, ancient and modern, and they were dancing hard to Joey Bane's music. Hanging up high from an almost invisible ceiling was, of all things, a mirrored "disco ball," and it shot glitters and spots of light all around the room as it turned, picking out here a jeweled headdress, there a studded white Elvis jacket, over there a slowglass jumpsuit. Charlie looked back around the door, signaled unobtrusively to Nick and Mark. They came over, and as they did, Charlie slipped in through the door. They came after him, and Nick shut the door behind him.
The instant he did, the sound came blasting up to fulclass="underline" the "flap mix" of "Don't Look Back," banging away with its wild 11/4 beat. Mark looked around him with admiration at the dancers. "They may be the Damned," he said, "but they've got rhythm."