Ellis and Pax stood in the center of a Zen-garden living room. A perfect square, the room contained two equal-length white couches on a white carpet. A square white coffee table stood in the exact middle, and on it were three stones of different types cut to form a pyramid. A narrow strip along the baseboards and one near the ceiling illuminated the room, but most of the light entered through glass doors of square latticework, beyond which lay a real Oriental garden. Only the bonsai tree gracing the little table provided the room with color. The temperature was cooler than Pax’s dining room, and Ellis felt a cough coming on.
“Excuse me! What are you doing barging into my home? Who are you, and how did you get in here?” The speaker entered from an archway at the far side of the room near the terrace doors. This one, like the first two he had seen, was naked except for a delicate necklace and looked identical to everyone else except for a scar on the left shoulder and two missing fingers on the right hand.
“I’m Pax-43246018, an arbitrator of the Tringent Sector. Who are you?”
Pax hadn’t moved since they stepped through the portal, so neither did Ellis. There wasn’t much space anyway. The living room was tiny compared to Pax’s social room. Geomancers apparently didn’t live as large as arbitrators and artists.
“Who am I? I’m Geo-24. Who else would I be? This is my home!”
“He’s the killer,” Ellis told Pax, staring at the missing fingers. “This is the one I saw in Greenfield Village.” His chest tightened. Breathing was harder.
Pax looked worried.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who—or what—is this with you?” Three-fingers asked Pax.
“This is Ellis Rogers,” Pax said without looking away. “Who is helping me investigate a murder that took place yesterday on the North American Plate. Now please, once again, I know you are not Geo-24, so who are you really?”
“I amGeo-24! How dare you!”
“Look at the right hand,” Ellis said, breathing slowly through his nose and trying to suppress the growing urge to cough. “This is the same three-fingered butcher who was cutting into the murder victim’s shoulder when I arrived.”
“Geo-24’s vox, can you hear me?” Pax asked.
“I can indeed.”The reply came from a decidedly male-sounding voice, a deep baritone with enough of a British accent to sound like Christopher Lee, and just as in Pax’s home the sound came from everywhere.
“Can you identify this person in front of me?”
“No, which is why I contacted you. Geo-24 left instructions that I was to ignore the identification chip and ask three questions of my own choosing that only Geo-24 could answer. When this person arrived bearing Geo-24’s identification, I asked the three questions. Incorrect answers were provided. Following the rest of my instructions, I forwarded the prerecorded message to you.”
“This is ridiculous,” the impostor said. “I have a malfunctioning vox. Have you declared me to be a fake to the whole of Hollow World, vox?”
“Please note, Pax-43246018, that Geo-24 had all the expected digits on both hands and that this impostor doesn’t even know my name.”
Off to the left, Ellis noticed another square table in the corner with something round on it. He might have ignored it in any other home, but this place was as spartan as a desert. A peanut on the floor would have screamed for attention. On the table was something much bigger and far more attention getting—a construction hard hat.
“I don’t wish to call you by name. You’ve upset me,” the three-fingered suspect defended. “Now answer my question.”
“Given that you are not Geo-24, I need not comply with your demands, but, nevertheless, I have only informed Pax-43246018 as per previous instructions.”
“I see,” the impostor growled. “Well, that’s something at least.”
Holding a hand over his mouth, breathing through his fingers, Ellis took the three steps needed to pick up the hat. Inside he found safety glasses and gloves. “Pax,” he managed to say. “Look at this.” He held up the glasses.
Pax nodded and looked about to cry.
“You killed Geo-24?” Pax said just above a whisper; a wavering tone of disbelief filled the accusation with a haunting quality. Pax’s expression was disturbingly familiar, as Ellis had lived with it for almost two decades. It was the look Peggy had worn each day after Isley’s death. “Are you going to tell me who you really are?”
“I don’t have—”
Pax lunged forward at that moment and tore the necklace from around the impostor’s neck. “I can’t let you leave just yet,” Pax said, quickly stepping back.
With barely checked anger, the impostor stared for a long moment, then, after a controlled breath, walked out of the room into the adjacent hall. Ellis took a step to pursue.
“Don’t!” Pax almost gasped.
“Isn’t there a door Three-fingers can escape out of or another one of those iPortal things in this house?”
The baseboard and ceiling illumination died. Only the falselight spilling through the glass wall allowed them to see.
“Pax? Pax? What’s going on?”
“We’re in trouble,” Pax managed. “I don’t think—”
The muffled sound of bare feet on carpeting grew louder as the killer returned, all three fingers wrapped around what looked to be a butcher knife.
At the same time, Ellis began to cough. The chest-ripping whoop felt as if it were scraping his insides from his stomach to his tongue. He bent over as one cough became a cascade of harsh body-shaking eruptions.
No one else in the room noticed.
“No—don’t!” Pax cried as Three-fingers advanced. “Here! Here! Take it!” Pax took a step back and threw the little iPortal device so that it bounced off Three-fingers’ chest.
“Too late for that,” Three-fingers said.
Ellis was trying to grit his teeth, demanding that his body obey, even as it drove him to his knees as if a demon were trapped in his chest and determined to get out. He could only watch through blurry eyes as Three-fingers closed on Pax.
Their faces might have been created from the same sequence of genes, but looking at them, Ellis saw two distinctly different people. Three-fingers grinned with an eager malevolence, closing the distance between the two like a shark after a drowning swimmer.
No aggression my ass.
Like a caricature in a horror film trying to find the key to a car, Pax retreated around the table, struggling to pull out the pocket-watch-style portal device. Catching the edge of the table, Pax fell backward.
Three-fingers skirted the coffee table to where Pax lay.
The coughing fit reduced to a sputter. Ellis drew his pistol. “Stop!” he managed to croak. He had both hands holding the gun, his thumbs lining up like puzzle pieces, arms extended but not locked, just as he was taught. “Don’t you fucking move!”
A portal appeared to Ellis’s left. “Go, Ellis Rogers! Get away!”
Three-fingers only hesitated a second, quickly dismissing Ellis.
Guns. They don’t understand guns!
Ellis didn’t have time to explain. He held his breath just as they had told him at the gun range—he had to stop coughing—and squeezed the trigger gently.
Shit!The safety was on.
Pax screamed, warding off the attack with raised palms as the knife came down.
Ellis flicked the lever and pulled the trigger. At such a short distance it was impossible to miss.
The gun was a lot louder without the earmuffs. In the seconds afterward, he couldn’t hear a thing. He smelled smoke and gunpowder, which made him cough again. His ears rang, hands vibrating from the aftershock. The barrel went up, shoving his arms with it. He hacked, eyes closed. Blood was in his mouth again, he could taste it, and when he opened his eyes he could see it.
The white wall and part of the glass door were splattered red.
Pax was on the floor, crying in a ball. Three-fingers had come within inches, but lay still. A dark puddle of blood grew, spreading out, seeping through the white carpeting that acted like a giant sponge. Three-fingers wasn’t moving.