He was pretty sure he'd seen at least part of the police raid on the… had it been a clinic? Feel-good joint, yah. Jesus, and everybody thought he was crazy. He didn't have goddamn implants that were supposed to get you toxed without taking any drugs. What the hell was that, anyway-toxed without drugs. That wasn't right, that was crazy, that was stone-home unnatural was what it was.
Which made the deal Galen had swung for him unnatural, too, he thought uncomfortably. Except he wanted it so much. So what did that make him, another head-geek? It would be different, though, not just brain-buttons to push, but a better way to get the pictures he saw in his head out just the way he saw them, get them out and on video so everyone could see them the same way. Yah, that was different, real different, it wasn't like going to a feel-good joint at all.
He'd wished he could have had it done already while he was sitting in the limo watching the cops march the feel-good people into the van. One of the Beater's old tunes had been stuck in his head with the pictures running, and that had been some stone-home righteous video, running so hot he'd thought for a while that the Beater had been there with him. But he wasn't.
After the raid what had happened? Right, they'd sifted the hacker out from the rest of them, and there'd been a fast visit to somebody important's place. He thought maybe that had been in Bel-Aire because there'd been so many security gates to get through. Or maybe he was just remembering one gate with a stutter because of the way the music had been playing; the program director had been following the pictures and giving the music a house remix that the Beater would have wet his pants over. The old Beater would have, anyway.
He didn't remember much about the Bel-Aire place, except that there'd been hot-and-cold-running phone calls going on the whole time. There must have been about two dozen phone lines and even more terminals and screens-man, the information had been flying so thick and fast, he'd been afraid of getting hit in the head with it. The hacker had looked pretty wired, like he was afraid he was going to take a serious hit from all the shit flying back and forth.
Or maybe from Rivera. By that time he'd been stone-home positive Rivera knew the kid, the way the kid looked at him, like Rivera had a hand grenade with the pin between his teeth, ready to pull it. And meanwhile, they were all talking at the kid, not just talking, machine-gunning him with their voices, ya-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat, bang, bang, bang, ya-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat, bang, bang, bang. Enough to make you yell, Dive! Dive! except Rivera didn't have any sense of humor, that fuck.
The kid took quite a lot of that before he said the secret words: state's evidence. But the weirdest part was that Rivera looked even more relieved than the kid, and he flashed on the idea that the kid thought Rivera was going to solve all his problems when really what it was, was the kid had just solved Rivera's and didn't even know it.
So they'd given the kid a bunch of official-looking stuff to thumbprint and made him look into one of those retina-printing scopes. Some more talk, some more phone calls, and then, when he'd thought everything was all over and they could all go home, off they all went to night court. He hadn't really believed they were going there until they'd pulled up at the front steps, and he still hadn't believed it until they all started to climb them.
That was when the kid got balky. Something about copies? He couldn't remember. And then the courtroom-
He'd had a bad moment right then, just before they'd all gone in. He'd started thinking that he was going to run straight into Gina, busted at a hit-and-run or just toxed and disorderly or something. He'd see her, and she'd see him with Galen and Joslin, and boom, nuclear meltdown.
What she'd do when she found out about the deal he'd agreed to-fuck the meltdown, it would be stone-home apocalyptic. Jesus is coming after all, fucker, but just for you!
But they'd promised they'd bring her in on it, too, before they opened it up to everyone. She'd go with him, and it would be like it was theirs, together, and that would be good. But she was going to meltdown bad when she found out he'd kept stuff from her, she'd kick his ass just on general principle. In twenty years they hadn't kept any secrets from each other. Then again, he hadn't had any secrets to keep. And then again, he'd never been able to imagine having any to keep where Gina was concerned. Until now.
Sorry, Gina.
He wondered if he'd be able to get out even that poor little two-word apology before she nuked him.
Well, like the man had said they would, the times had definitely a-changed, and that made him feel sad beyond the usual morning-after funk.
No, two mornings after. Where did the second day go?
Oh, Christ, yes-they'd detoxed him the quick way. Rivera had taken him to a doctor in… no, the doctor had come here, to the penthouse, and she'd given him Purge. She hadn't called it Purge, but that was what it had been. He'd had Purge before, and once you'd had it, you didn't forget it. Purge always put a lot of miles on your odometer before it was through with you, and maybe it took a few years off your life and maybe it didn't, but it sure felt like it did. With Diversifications in the person of Rivera picking up the tab. A little trade-off, there- a good life, but a shorter one. Ars longa, vita fucking brevis.
Fuck it all. He'd just lie here now and watch the pictures. The video show that ran endlessly in his head was coming up to where he could see it better-that, or he was going down to where it was, it didn't matter to him one way or the other. Just as long as he could see it.
The lake, again; the lake with the stony shore. It showed up somewhere in all his videos now, and he didn't know what that meant, but he didn't question it. The pictures ran the way they would, and he was just the medium-
– synner-
– all right, synner, now he could believe in that word beyond its genesis as the Beater's PR device-it could have been worse, the Beater could have dragged out that old chestnut, cyberwhatsis, or whatever it was, he couldn't remember, and he didn't have to, because he was standing on the lake with the stony shore, a million-million stones worn smooth as eggs by the lapping of the water, and every stone a secret world to blossom at his touch.
Be careful.
A whisper that came through the music, but whether as part of it or something separate from somewhere else in his mind, he didn't know.
He could feel the stones hard against his bare feet as he made his way unsteadily along the arc of the shore. The sun was high overhead, falling hard on the water like a demand.
Be careful.
He was teetering on one foot, and the sun was demanding that the lake do something, allow something of it…
The stones shifted beneath him, and he felt himself twisting around as he lost his balance. Sky and ground seemed to nod and sway, and he went down, under the glaring demand of the sun.
Water touched his fingertips in a feather-kiss, and his hand closed around a stone.
Be careful. Can you cast this stone?
He brought the stone up close to his face. It was almost bone white, pockmarked and shot through with spidery veins of silver gray. The texture shifted in his sight, and the hard, demanding sun struck a tiny, white-hot spark in it. On the lake a ripple broke the mirror-smooth surface and sent an echoing spark, briefly blinding him. Or was it still the stone he was looking at, or both stone and lake at once…?