“Then why are you telling me all this? I didn’t want to know it. I didn’t ask.”
Nathans’s response came back at him like an electric shock. “Because you are the newest member of the Elite Guard, Mr. Jones. Welcome to the Club.”
Jones blinked in astonishment. He felt yanked in a completely different direction, leaving him disoriented. “But what if I don’t—”
“You have nothing to lose, Jones. Come log on, see for yourself.”
Haltingly Jones went to the large semicircular desk and bent closely over the Net terminal. He punched in his logon name and his password and got to the first-level menu. “Now what?”
“Check your user status. It’ll take the Net accounting people a month or so to delete your old password.”
Bafffled, Jones requested a biographical update. His fingers shook, and he made several errors before finally entering the right command. He stared as the pixels formed themselves into his own obituary.
ENFORCER, CLASS 2.
KILLED IN MOB UPRISING WHILE PURSUING REBEL SERVANT
OUTSIDE RESURRECTION, INC.
SECONDARY NOTATION FOR DISTINGUISHED
SPECIAL SERVICE TO THE GUILD
ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY.
Jones saw the date and continued to stare, unable to move. Nathans blanked the screen. “It’s a trick,” Jones whispered.
“Yes, and a very good one. But you can try it on any terminal in the Metroplex. Once The Net’s been fooled, you may as well be dead anyway. Welcome to the Elite Guard.”
His head spinning, Jones walked back to the chair and sat down, almost missing the cushion. He didn’t have the capacity for anger in him—he still didn’t quite grasp what had happened.
“Mind you, Jones, this is a singular honor. Very few people are chosen for this. Congratulations.”
Jones wondered if he should feel proud of himself. He had never dreamed of becoming an Elite Guard. A slow, tentative feeling of amazement began to replace his sick terror. An Elite Guard? Had he done a good job after all?
“Does that mean you captured the rebel Servant, then? The one who caused all this? The one I was trying to chase?”
Nathans soured and turned his back angrily, looking out the wide windows. Jones saw the man’s back stiffen as he kept clenching his hands. “No. He escaped. He is dead.”
“I thought you wanted him alive.”
“I did! But he somehow got the help of a nurse/tech—they both killed themselves by jumping into a KEEP OFF THE GRASS patch. They even took another Enforcer with them! In full view of dozens of people! Now there aren’t even any damned atoms of him left!” Nathans abruptly stopped shouting. “I had a lot at stake with that Servant, and now it’s all gone.”
But Jones frowned, distracted, and pursed his lips as he sat back in the chair. The Servant had jumped into a KEEP OFF THE GRASS patch? This bothered him, nagged him even after everything else that had happened.
Nathans saw the expression and stopped abruptly. “What is it, Jones?”
The black man looked up, afraid again. “Nothing,” he mumbled.
Nathans rose to his feet and strode closer. His eyes looked at Jones intensely. “You look like you just thought of something.” His voice became warm and smooth. “I’m your superior now, Jones. I’m interested in any fresh ideas you have. Show me I didn’t choose wrong to pick you for the Elite Guard.”
Jones’s head spun, and he reluctantly answered in a low voice. “You probably don’t remember the reason I was sent to be an escort at Resurrection, Inc., Mr. Nathans. In my previous assignment I was trying to stop another rebel Servant”—he looked carefully at Nathans—“and she escaped by jumping into a KEEP OFF THE GRASS patch, too. As if she knew something about it the rest of us don’t know.”
He heard Nathans’s sharp intake of breath. The other man turned toward him, and Jones could see his eyes glistening with surprise and fascination. “That’s… very… interesting.”
28
Danal jumped down from the thin crosswalk, perfectly coordinated, and landed with barely a sound on Gregor’s enclosed platform. Under the harsh light of the sunlamps the leader looked up, rubbing his fingers along the pages of his book. He slid a yarn bookmark in place and snapped the cover shut.
Gregor waited in silence, holding his squarish chin between the thumb and forefinger of one hand. Danal finally spoke in an abrupt burst of words. “I’ve spent the last day with your Wakers—”
“Your Wakers, too,” Gregor interrupted smoothly.
“The Wakers.” Danal paused, considering a tactful way to proceed. He saw a pile of neatly folded clothing in the corner, as well as an assortment of hats, wigs, false facial hair, and various flesh-colored creams and pigments. “I’m impressed with the organization, the brotherhood, you’ve put together. The Wakers seem to be a very close-knit group.”
“They are.”
“But—” He paused, troubled. Waiting, Gregor drifted back and forth on the hammock and motioned for his guest to sit. Danal squatted on his heels. “But what are you… doing? You’re all living from day to day down here, but it’s just hiding. You have the power to take some action. Why don’t you flex your muscles?” Danal focused his gaze on the leader’s face. “You strike me as too conscientious a man to sit back and do nothing.”
Gregor let out a long sigh, and Danal watched him. “I’m glad you think that way. We should be doing more than just sitting around and patting ourselves on the back. But we just don’t know enough. I’m wrestling with ambivalence—that’s the main snag.”
“Ambivalence? How can you possibly be ambivalent?”
“Think about it. We are Servants who have regained our memories. Now, do all Servants have the same potential to awaken, like we did? Or are they really just mindless machines, just another use for a discarded body like Resurrection, Inc. would have us believe? Are Wakers a fluke in the resurrection process?”
Danal gave no indication of whether he agreed or disagreed. Off in the shadowy distance someone was singing a low melody in a foreign-sounding language.
“That’s not what I believe,” Gregor continued. “And mind you, this is only my intuition. We’re too small a group to be a valid statistical sample. But I suspect all Servants do have the potential for reawakening those old memories. If they want to.”
Gregor folded his hands and bent closer to Danal. “What do you remember in between? Between life and death and life again?”
“Nothing,” Danal said, wondering why Gregor had changed the subject. He sifted through his memories, but the answer remained the same. “It’s just a blank. I told Laina, like a smooth, hard barrier.”
Gregor smiled. “Then let me show you how to penetrate it.”
From a wooden crate underneath his hammock he removed three candles and set them on the floor of the platform. He lit each one, then dropped the still burning match over the side. It fell down into the dark water far below.
“I believe the resurrection process snatched me away from a world of light, from a greater place—Heaven, for lack of a better word.” Gregor spoke in a quiet voice, tinged with a respectful awe. “I can’t remember exact details, though I do occasionally get glimpses—like my first flashbacks, only more maddening because these are visions of a higher reality, not just a past that fits into the world I can see around me.”
Gregor reached up, switching off the sunlamp with his fingertips. “Now, sit in a comfortable position.”
Danal hunkered down and adjusted his feet. He ignored the rough boards against his legs.