Port Casper

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Maud growled to herself as she stepped off the walker pad. Her virtual walks on Mars usually relaxed her. Now, with Hopper on everyone's lips, the sights of Mars offered no comfort. She kept wondering if the red planet would be the place of her exile, rather than her opportunity.

No, she thought. She was still in control. She had found the breach and isolated her original files. Donner had only introduced a few permutations into ITB's network. She could fix that with time.

A smile played across her lips. Donner was paying for that. She would be finishing the initial phase of modification about now. Soon Red Fox's best would be reduced to a mechflesh freak. That young face scarred with the cicatrix network of plastic and metarm, her arms threaded with grabbers and hydro drills, and a grafty hard-coded with a routine that routed scrambled sensory readings to her short-term memory. She'd never get any sleep without heavy tranquilizers.

She glanced at her ptenda. Get it over with, she thought. You said you'd message me. Do it.

She was just about to get back on the walker pad when the ptenda bleeped: LIFT 4R. DO NOT GET OUT.

There it was. Only twice before had she been summoned to Varghese's sanctuary. The first time was shortly after he had assumed both the chairman and CEO roles of ITB. The second time was only three months ago, when rumors of the liquid computer surfaced in Port Casper.

Maud walked over to her desk. It was customary to go unarmed in the building, but she wanted a gun on her hip today. She pulled open the bottom drawer and removed her holstered phasewave. She pressed it to her side, and the metarm clamps of her body suit and the holster met and engaged.

She quickly surveyed her office. Would she be coming back here? Would she even make it back down from the penthouse? She let her right hand brush against the phasewave. Yes, she thought, I'll at least make it back down.

Maud walked from the office and turned right. Lift 4R was at the very end of the hallway. There were five people waiting for the lift. She thought again of her phasewave. Please don't talk to me. I cannot be held responsible for my actions.

She stopped in front of the lift and nodded to the others, clasping her hands behind her back, relieved to see that the lift was heading up. Maud hoped the phasewave might discourage fellow travelers, but when the lift opened, everybody stepped inside. She moved to a rear corner and fingered her ptenda for the top floor.

Four passengers got off midway.

At the top floor, the remaining man motioned for Maud to exit first. She shook her head and he stepped off.

She waited.

Two women approached the lift. She held up a hand and they stopped.

The door closed and the lift continued up.

Her ptenda pinged: EXIT THE LIFT.

The doors opened and she stepped into sunlight. She stopped and waited for her eyes to adjust. The lift doors closed.

Maud looked around. Where was he? The garden was in full bloom now, much different than her last visit, when the roof was barely green. Now, the lawn popped with wildflowers and the wet stone pavers had bright green moss in their cracks. The trees, brown skeletons before, now shimmered with leaves in the gentle breeze.

Maud heard the fountain beyond the dwarf maple. She walked around it, her hand on her phasewave, and there he was. Varghese sat under the grape arbor that encircled the pond. He was in a lotus position at the water's edge, his arms extended along his thighs. His eyes were closed, his head upright.