Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls Part 19

Now, I ignore the blue uniform stalking discontentedly behind me and pace the corridors, linger in the common rooms. Finally, in the dripping heat of the roof garden, I find what I have been seeking. In an ornamental pool by a stone fountain shaped like a leaping carp, I find Dylan.

Not Dylan, really, but a place where he went and where something of him still lingers just as my nurse remains in a favorite book or an artist in a painting.

The guard draws back to the shelter of a doorway within the climate control zone. Instantly, I understand why Dylan liked this place. He effectively could be alone.

Sitting on the edge of the fountain basin, I relax and let the random impressions form. The sweat beads under my wrap and rolls under my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but I do not move. Slowly, less substantial than my reflection in the rippling waters, something is taking form. I reach out to it, confused by its silence.

There are no words, but I do find something: pain. The man who sat here was fighting pain of body and spirit that intertwined like the vines in the jungle around us. Fearing what I will find, I reach deeper.

My throat burns and I cup water from the fountain to cool it. The basin remembers another who did this, sputtering and choking each time with force enough to still the insects in the shrubs from their strident clamor.

Pain. A throat burned speechless? Yes.

The thing has told me all it can, but now I have some information to work from.

When I return inside, I study the guard. Surely he knows the information I want to learn just as Jersey does, but will be equally bound not to tell. The very walls must have answers, but they will not have noticed, not unless Dylan put his mark on them.

I carry my frustration with me, through my meal in my cell, through restless pacing and tossing and turning. No answer comes and when I finally sleep, I dream of the Jungle and its web of lines and hammocks.

I awaken with a contradiction screaming at me. Maddeningly, I see neither Jersey nor either of the doctors, so there is no one to whom I can talk. Feeling truly mute for the first time in my life, I circle the complex restlessly, prompting a comment from my usually taciturn guard about her not being paid by the mile.

The only thing I learn from my wanderings is a confirmation that certain areas, among them what I suspect were Dylan's rooms, are off-limits to me.

When I am finally taken to Jersey's computer annex, I can barely keep from urging them to hook me in. Jersey seems concerned at this, but Dr. Haas is pleased.

Dr. Aldrich enters just as the hookup is completed.

"Sarah," he says, just before Dr. Haas hands me my beaker, "you must get this precisely right. A great deal depends on it."

I nod.

He shakes his index finger at me. "Precisely right."

Slurping down the liquid, I have only time to notice that the taste is somehow wrong. Then, without the comfortable sensation of drifting off to sleep, I feel myself being sucked out of my body. I am shifted and strained through something cold and impersonal, reduced to a strand of numbers, each screaming loudly for the others. When I see the grey-greens of Jersey's Van Gogh, I grab for them like a Cub grasping for a guideline.

My self begins to re-form, numbers becoming pulse and bone, skin, hair, eyes. Eyes that I open to find myself sprawled whole and gasping on the carpet of Jersey's sitting room.

He reaches down and helps me into a chair, offers me coffee.

I drink gratefully, notice that Betwixt and Between, staggering despite their four stocky legs, are nudging Athena to her feet. I pour them a pool of coffee to lap, not caring what it does to the table's finish. From under a lampshade, I find a moth that I feed to Athena.

Jersey watches curiously. "Feels like s.h.i.t, don't it, Sarey? But I wouldn't b.i.t.c.h to Dr. Haas even so. Y'see, I did it."

"You? What?" Words, I am learning, are not always a help.

"Babe, I've decided to come down on the side of the angels." He winks. "That's you. Look, the whole trick to this interface of mine-well, not the whole trick, but one of the big ones-is in that potion you slug down. Does funny things to brain waves that let a properly set up bit of equipment read 'em. In a sense, Sarey, this ain't a virtual reality; it's real reality 'cause you know it is, right down where you are. Get me?"

"Sort of." I rub my head. "You did that to me?"

"Yeah." Jersey looks shamed, but only for a moment. "You see, the problem with my 'potion' is that it really hurts to be broken down that way, even if you know you'll get built up again. Do it too much and it can drive you crazy. So I played around with some other things until I found a mixture that eased the transition without ruining the effectiveness of the first drug. One problem."

"What?"

"It screws up the internal organs and is addictive as h.e.l.l. Honey"-he looks me in the eyes-"when I perfected the telepathic interface, I really looked like you see me here. What you see out there is a result of the stuff I've been taking. Dr. Haas has been upping your dose-today, when she was distracted, I switched it for a more neutral one, but I didn't get the buffer quite right."

In the pain and confusion, I had almost forgotten my earlier suspicions. "She hates me. Why, Jersey?"

"Hates you?" Jersey looks puzzled. "I think she just wants the project to go down fine. I don't think she hates you."

"No," I flounder. "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. I mean, things just don't fit."

"Hey, relax, Sarey. What doesn't fit?"

"You told me that after Dylan died, the Inst.i.tute tried to find me, only to learn that I'd been discharged from the Home."

"Yeah, that's right. I remember Dr. Aldrich's cursing and swearing when he heard. For a while there, he thought we'd have to use the third sibling. I got the impression that he knew where to find her, but that she wasn't as good."

"Fine. But, Jersey, the doctor who insisted on discharging me from the Home was Dr. Haas."

"You sure?"

"Could I make a mistake on something like that?"

Jersey shakes his head. "No, I guess not."

An odd look comes over his face. "Time to work, Sarey."

He reached into a chest by his chair and pulls out a small rectangular box of black plastic.

"This is a key box," he says, handing it to me. "We have the box, but not the key. We want you to tell us what it is."

Accepting the key box, I feel it carefully, finding that the four corners each depress slightly; one bears an almost imperceptible dimple.

A faint sigh of antic.i.p.ation comes to me as I touch the corners. Glancing up at Jersey, I see his expression has not changed. The sigh then...I focus again on the black plastic box.

"There is an order in which these need to be pressed," I say, more to myself than to Jersey. "If I get it wrong..."

I stretch my senses; the feeling from the box is glee? And sorrow? Odd. Making as if I am about to press a sequence, I clearly mark the emotions, find them shaping into words.

"This is the end..." the box hums.

I remember Abalone and the safeguards on her tappety-tap.

"This thing destroys itself if the sequence is done wrong!"

"Yeah," Jersey says. "That's why we need to be kinda careful-it won't take any conventional tampering and the gal who knew the code series isn't exactly in a position to tell."

"Oh." I don't like the image that flickers into my mind. "Let me see if I can get it to tell me. There's one problem."

"What?"

"I think it kinda wants to blow up."

"A kamikaze key box? Give it up, Sarey."

"No, Jersey, things are are, but I read them in part because of their a.s.sociations. That's why some things are null to me."

"So if the person who a.s.sociated with this didn't give a s.h.i.t about dying, then this might not either?"

"Yeah." I bite my lip. "I never thought that much about it before, but that feels right."

"Do what you can"-he leans back-"and be careful."

Again, I concentrate, shutting out Jersey, the room, everything except the key box. This I hold in my left hand, positioned so that the dimple is in the upper left-hand corner. When I feel again the presence of the humming, I lower a finger toward the upper left corner. The humming does not change, even when I abort the move at the last second.

Disgruntled, I sit back. If it doesn't care, how can I fool it into telling me? Most inanimates do have an ego of sorts; this, though, doesn't seem to. Or does it? When I first tried, it did seem to react; therefore, this behavior now must be a feint.

Tossing it onto the coffee table, I grin at Jersey.

"Got it?" he asks excitedly.

"Nope"-I smile, trying to radiate indifference-"and I don't even care to try and find out."

Is it my imagination or do I hear a faint squeal of indignation from the box? Betwixt and Between tilt their heads, hearing it also. With an effort, I ignore the box, putting all my energy into projecting my view of our consensus universe, trying to force Jersey to see things the way I do.

When he rubs his eyes and stares up at where Athena is chasing a moth around a ceiling light fixture, I know I have won.

"What the h.e.l.l..." he mutters, then, "You're doing this, aren't you, Sarey? Why? Why aren't you working on deciphering the box?"

"I have my reasons." I smile. "Who cares about a silly code anyhow? Jersey, we can have anything here. Why are we sitting snacking in a living room?"

Jersey looks shocked and even Betwixt and Between look from the bowl of corn chips they are decimating. But the whine from the box is so clear that even Jersey hears it.

"You may have something," he says a bit stiffly, noticing apparently for the first time that the stocky blue dragon on the table is no longer inanimate rubber. "What do you want?"

"I want to go home," I reply, the longing in my voice stronger than I'd intended. "Look!"

I point dramatically overhead where a miracle has taken place. Gone is the ceiling, gone the light. Athena is sweeping up into the rope-webbed s.p.a.ces within curving grey metal walls. A rope ladder drops and swings slightly, alluringly, in front of us.

"It's the Jungle, Jersey," I say, "the best place I've ever lived. The Free People are away, I see, so it must be night. C'mon, let's go. If we anchor the ladder, the climb won't be so bad."

Jersey hesitates and I sense him trying to overcome my reordering of our reality, but he has no power over my homesick and guilt-torn heart. What had started as a ploy is becoming only too real and I can barely keep from climbing away.

I pick Betwixt and Between up, brushing chip crumbs from my shirt, feeling their claws anchoring them firmly to my side. Athena swoops and circles to my left shoulder. Jersey seems insubstantial, the Jungle more and more real by the moment.

"Coming?" I say, my foot on the ladder's first rung.

"Sarey, I..." Jersey is saying when a shrill voice from the table screams, "Up left! Down right! Again! Again! Again! Up right! Down left! Again! End."

I quickly repeat the code. Jersey grabs his computer pad and hammers in the instructions.

Then suddenly the world is torn away from me and I slump in the annex, crying wildly, my hands still curled to grasp the ladder and climb away.

Fifteen.

DR. H HAAS TRIES TO KILL ME THE NEXT MORNING. I I GO OUT TO GO OUT TO the fountain to sit with Dylan's too-silent presence as has become my custom. I am sitting there, trying yet again to make sense of why all I get from this spot is a sensation of pain, when I notice something sparkling among the pebbles on the fountain bottom. the fountain to sit with Dylan's too-silent presence as has become my custom. I am sitting there, trying yet again to make sense of why all I get from this spot is a sensation of pain, when I notice something sparkling among the pebbles on the fountain bottom.

Idly, I dip my fingers into the water to fish it out.

A strong, humming jolt comes from the water. My arm bones quiver as if suddenly the bone has been stripped away and only the marrow remains. Leaping back, I stumble, crashing into my guard, who has rushed from her customary place in the cooler doorway.

"Sarah, what's wrong!" she cries, catching me before I fall.

"He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword," I reply, cursing inwardly that I cannot be more precise.

"What?" she says, setting me on my feet and going to look at the water. "Something cut you? Hey, what's that?"

"No!" I grab her arm back from the water's edge and she stares at me as if recalling that I am mad.

"Easy, Sarah, take it easy. I just wanted to see what was shining down there in the water, that bright silver thing."

I continue shaking my head, refusing to release her arm. "I do not see the hanged man, fear death by water."

She wrinkles her brows. "You're saying the water's dangerous, amiga amiga? Not something in it?"

I nod. She is close enough to the truth and won't just dip her hand in. Still, I try to clarify.

"The fateful lightning," I repeat.

"Lightning?"

I nod eagerly and she puzzles for a moment.

"Lightning's in the water?"

"Bingo!" I cheer, trying to applaud, but finding my right hand still trembles deep within.

"Jesu Domine! You could have gotten electrocuted!" she exclaims, realization spreading across her square, dark features. "Me, too. Come on, You could have gotten electrocuted!" she exclaims, realization spreading across her square, dark features. "Me, too. Come on, amiga amiga. I'll make a call, then take you to see the infirmary and check that hand."

Dr. Aldrich himself tends me. Miraculously, there is no serious damage, but he decides that I should not go on the interchange that day.

"Take her to her room and make certain that she rests." He hands Margarita a paper envelope. "If she won't-or can't-give her these. Oh, and she'd better keep clear of that fountain. We don't want any other accidents."