Yes, Nathans thought, but you don’t know how fast that Servant can move! With his knuckles Nathans rapped the key that blanked the screen. He clenched his teeth and stared through the murky window again.
Damn! Now that he really needed the skills of a good Interface to organize all the different things taking place at the same time, Supervisor had blanked out, failed him right when he needed her.
Interfaces could become lost in The Net, leaving their bodies behind and unable to find the way back to their own minds. It happened sometimes. And no one could determine whether these Net burnouts were accidents or suicides.
In such a case, one could do nothing except put the comatose bodies in tanks and force feed them for the next few decades. Nathans recalled the introverted scientist, Ferdinand, one of the original team who had developed the resurrection process: for his chosen reward Ferdinand had asked to become an Interface and spend the rest of his natural life swimming free in The Net.
Nathans shook his head at the waste, but Ferdinand had been happy.
Supervisor had no such excuse, though—she had simply failed to appear at work for several days. Nathans sent two reluctant Enforcers into her darkened den; there, surrounded by unpleasantly warm, stale air and burned-out incense, they found her emaciated, uninhabited body.
Not relishing his next communication, Nathans drummed his fingertips on the side of the keyboard before entering the proper sequence. In a moment the face of the false Vincent Van Ryman appeared. The imposter’s dark square-cut hair was in disarray; he looked agitated and very old, but with a young man’s face.
Nathans placed a reassuring smile on his lips and spoke. “It worked.”
The imposter’s expression filled with relief. “And? What’s our next step? What happened?”
Nathans hesitated a moment. “Unfortunately, he got away.”
“What!”
“The trigger was more dramatic than we had anticipated. He broke loose and moved with such blinding speed it was amazing! He killed my double and then fled. On his way out, he also killed one of my technicians. An Enforcer shot him in the shoulder, but he escaped into the streets, where he seems to have started a sizable riot.”
The false Van Ryman tugged at his hair, squeezing his eyes shut. “How could you let him get away!”
“I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Now be quiet and listen.”
But the imposter frantically continued. “What if he comes back here? If he remembers things, then he’ll know what we’re trying to do! What if he tries to kill me?” The imposter suddenly looked over his shoulder. “I’m turning on the Intruder Defense Systems and they’re staying on, so don’t try to come and see me.”
“Calm down!” Nathans barked. “I don’t think he remembers anything specific—he hasn’t got it all back yet. He’s seen only me, and there’s nothing else from his past that he could blunder into.”
“Well, what about all the details around here? What about all this time he’s been in his old house? Looking at me? All that must have been sparking something—I could tell.”
“Yes, yes. But that was a gradual pressure, building up, preparing him. When he saw my double, he got a severe mental jolt. He has to get another jolt like that to regain everything. All he’s got now are some of his emotions, vague responses. We’ll be safe for the moment.”
“Once you find him,” the imposter muttered.
“We’ll find him. Don’t worry.”
Looking angry and very distressed, the false Van Ryman signed off without acknowledging. Nathans let out a lungful of air, whistling between his teeth, and sat back down to concentrate. He flung off his tousled brown hairpiece and used his fingertips to massage his scalp where the thin surgical scars still itched.
20
As Danal plodded back to consciousness, he saw the concerned face of the matronly nurse/tech staring down at him. Reality returned with the force of a released bowstring. But still nothing made sense.
Danal realized how much stronger he felt, renewed. He turned his head to see that the wound on his shoulder had been covered with flesh-colored plaskin; after an hour or so, the synthetic melanin in the plaskin would adjust itself to the exact color of the pale, dead skin it was supposed to match.
The nurse/tech regarded him with a hardened and calculating gaze that looked alien on her heavily made-up face. “You were muttering while you were unconscious. You were having a nightmare.” She watched him closely as she spoke. “Servants aren’t supposed to have… nightmares.”
He looked around the room and saw that he and the nurse/tech were alone. Her brow creased as if contemplating a difficult decision. “Should I go notify your Master? Maybe he can explain why you were having nightmares.”
“No!” Danal burst out. He hoped he could restrain his own strength this time, that he could merely knock her unconscious and out of the way. He would have to flee again. The thoughts and the decision charged through him instantly as he leaped to his feet. He reached out with his arm, intending to strike her on the back of the neck, to knock her aside.
But the heavyset nurse/tech moved with equally blinding speed and impossible strength as she blocked his blow and grabbed his arm in an unbreakable grip like a steel hinge. Her rubber-gloved hand shook slightly as he strained against it with all his might, but then she turned him and forced him to sit back down on the padded table. Danal’s eyes grew wide, and he stopped resisting.
“Now,” the nurse/tech said firmly as she peeled off one of her gloves to reveal the pallid, bloodless skin of her hand. A Servant’s skin! “Tell me. Truthfully. Do you remember anything of your first life?”
He had met Julia under one of his pseudonyms.
Even after taking the High Priest’s mantle of the neo-Satanists, Vincent had continued to pursue his alternate lives on The Net, the identities under which he carried on business and correspondence.
Using the name of Randolph Carter, Vincent kept up a long running dialog through chat groups with a woman named Julia. For weeks they exchanged rhetoric back and forth, with Randolph Carter arguing for one basis of religion, basically repeating the earlier discussions between Francois Nathans and himself, and Julia responded with the same logic, but interpreted through a different point of view, reaching very different conclusions.
Vincent quickly grew to respect the mind behind those discussions and proposed to meet her in person.
They sat down together in a worn plastic booth at a bustling cafeteria. The clatter of an automatic dishwasher came from the end of a conveyor belt; listless cafeteria patrons piled their dirty dishes and trays on the belt and didn’t stop to watch as the dishes traveled into the back rooms filled with hissing water and chaotic sounds. Multicolored section barriers broke up the large room; forced-air currents made an invisible corral around the small smoking area. The buzz of conversation rose and fell.
Julia leaned across the nicked and stained tabletop and smiled at him. “We can be more alone in a place like this. And we can discuss anything we want.”
Julia was thin, of medium height, and wore her long blond hair simply, parted in the middle and hanging down behind her shoulders. Her eyes were bright, and Vincent thought he could see dozens of thoughts behind them, waiting to be brought to the surface. Her high cheekbones and delicate face made her seem fragile, but she argued vehemently and intelligently, in a no-nonsense way that quickly dispelled any impression of helplessness.