I just stared at him and took a drag from my cigarette.
“You are our chief scientist—you must understand how this looks,” added Kesselring. “The blame for hiding any data regarding the trials has to come down on your shoulders.”
I was the scapegoat.
Jimmy and Kesselring had pre-empted my plan to release the hidden data on the pssi program through Sintil8. By coming clean at this moment, and laying the blame on my doorstep at the same time as exposing the apocalyptic phuturecast data, they had neatly jiu-jitsued themselves into the position of saviors and simultaneously thrust the pssi program into the global mind.
“You can’t buy advertising like that,” I bitterly complained, “and it looks like you don’t need me anymore.”
I was tired beyond belief after the showdown with Jimmy. He had used some sort of pssi weapon to stun me into submission at the end, a part of the weapons program Kesselring had been hiding. I’d felt it once before, long ago when Jimmy had been exposed at Nancy’s thirteenth birthday party, but he was infinitely more powerful now.
“There will always be a place for you here, Patricia.”
Patronizing bastard.
“So what’s happening then?” I asked wearily.
“Jimmy had made some modifications for an override to the pssi network to stop something like this from ever happening again,” said Kesselring. While I felt defeated, he looked elated. “The media attention has boosted demand for the launch with consumers by an order of magnitude. We’ve already begun private distribution of smarticles into business ecospheres for early adopters.”
There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do anymore. I had created a monster, which I loved.
30
Identity: Jimmy Jones
I’d stolen off to the surface to relax a little and escape the madness of the media. With all the tourists gone, nobody else had come above yet, and the scene at the edge of the beach was quiet.
The sun was setting through low hanging clouds on the horizon, illuminating a beautiful orange and pink sunset. I was sitting by myself under some low hanging palms. A pleasant breeze blew in off the ocean and pelicans swept in on calmly curling waves. What a beautiful way to end the day.
I sighed and felt my mind calm and focus itself. Susie really understood more about the nature of pain and suffering than anyone, and truly wanted to help. I knew she wanted to help me.
I stood, trying to decide whether to walk myself home or let Samson do it and get some work done, when Bob appeared. He was walking along the beach alone, looking slightly dazed.
“Hey Jimmy,” he said as he walked up to greet me.
“Amazing. You saved my life. You saved all our lives.” He shook his head. “It’s crazy, but maybe you saved the whole world.”
He reached out to shake my hand, smiling.
“Thanks Bob,” I replied, watching his hand touch my mine.
“Wasn’t Susie just up here with you?” asked Bob, looking around.
“She was,” I admitted, “but she had to go somewhere.”
Bob shrugged and smiled. He looked off into the sunset and surf to watch some pelicans as they used their ground effect aerodynamics to sweep in ahead of the waves, unseen forces propelling them effortlessly through space.
“Hey Bob, I’ve got a slightly oddball question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“If you had to sacrifice your soul to save someone or something,” I asked, “what would that be for you?”
Bob regarded me quizzically. “Well, for love, for Nancy, I guess.”
I smiled. “That’s nice Bob, I thought the two of you…well, anyway, that’s nice to hear.”
Bob smiled back.
“So, still haven’t taken me up on that surfing lesson, big shot that you are now!”
“Maybe one day soon, Bob,” I said, smiling at him, “maybe we’ll do a lesson one day soon.”
He smiled back.
“See you Bob.”
I turned to walk away.
31
Identity: Bobby Baxter
“See you Jimmy.”
Just then Jimmy stopped and turned to look at me. Something was weighing on his mind.
“You were the only person who was ever really nice to me,” said Jimmy after a pause. “I really appreciated that.”
I smiled. Jimmy had always been so awkward. Even with him as the most famous person on the planet, I felt like I wanted to protect him somehow.
“I love you Jim,” I said simply, “we’re brothers, no? I’ll always stick up for you, no matter what.”
“Do you really mean that?”
Jimmy looked like he was about to cry.
“Of course, buddy!”
Jimmy looked down, uncertain now. “I think you and your friends should leave Atopia.”
In my whole life nobody had ever mentioned leaving Atopia for anything. Two people on the same day? A sense of dread filled me.
Squinting into the dying sun, I shook my head lightly and shrugged and asked, “Why?”
Jimmy pressed his lips tightly together. “I’m just saying, I think it might be a good idea, and the sooner the better.”
With that Jimmy turned away and walked into the darkness.
32
Identity: Jimmy Jones
As I walked away from Bob and into the dark underbrush, I became aware of someone walking beside me, someone new and yet someone intimately familiar.
“Why did you do that?” asked the apparition.
“Do what?” I replied. Curiously, I didn’t even think to ask who had appeared beside me.
“Warn off Bob,” it responded. “I think we need to have a talk, you and I.”
The undergrowth around me gave way to a voluminous, brightly lit corridor. No, it was more than a corridor, it was a long set of huge rooms connected by large square archways, and I was sitting in the middle room, the rest stretching off to both sides in the distance. I was perched on a white wooden chair.
Intricate, sky-blue frescos of angels and cherubs adorned the twenty foot ceilings, bordered by elaborate gold carvings. Ornate, richly decorated furniture was strewn about topsy-turvy and littered with broken bottles, golden goblets, and inert bodies.
Darkly framed oil paintings of men in uniforms, on horses directing battles, hung across one set of walls, while the other wall featured floor-to-ceiling lead glass windows that looked out onto an endless, manicured garden beyond. The garden centered around a long reflecting pool. Sunlight streamed in through the windows between heavy purple velvet drapes that were tied back with gold sashes.
The place stank of urine, and as if on cue, one of the inert bodies came to life, stumbling to its feet as it shuffled towards the nearest corner and began pissing across one of the other bodies.
“Sorry for the mess,” said my apparition, now taken solid form and stretched out before me on a chaise longue. “We had a bit of a party here today.”
He adjusted the frilly white cuffs of his tunic, and then the blond wig whose hair fell in tight curls to frame his painted white face and bright red painted lips. Leaning forward, he smoothed out a wrinkle in his tight black britches and looked up to smile at me self-consciously.
His heavy eye liner had smudged, so he looked slightly comical in a threatening sort of way, and his eyes shone brightly—my eyes.
I sat there, looking at myself.
“Come now, this isn’t that much of a surprise is it?”
I felt uneasy, wondering if this was some splinter or sub-proxxi gone wrong. The party guest that had arisen to relieve itself had finished pissing and turned towards us, blearily rubbing its eyes which then widened.