“You think the VR construct was a hint?”
“I think so, yeah. And you know what it really feels like? It feels personal. Like this guy knows me, wants to screw me up. And his stuff is like the stuff Keller used to do — he was always big on ambushes. He used to say if you are going to duel with somebody, shoot ’em in the back before they see you coming, it’ll save you a lot of grief. Their fault if they weren’t paying attention.”
“Huh,” she said.
“ ‘Huh?’ That’s the best you can do?”
“What do you want me to say? Yes, you must be right, you brilliant stud!”
He grinned. “That would be okay, I like the sound of that.”
She grinned back at him. “I bet.” She looked back at the beetle. “So, if this is true, how do you find out for sure? And then what?”
“Well, to start, I can dig deeper in public records, see if I can find Keller anywhere. Maybe I’m imagining it, maybe he’s got a job in Silicon Valley somewhere running some company and I missed him.”
“Maybe he changed his name,” she said.
“Why would he do that?”
“For all your smarts, you sometimes miss the easy stuff, Jay. What if he got into debt? Maybe some kind of white-collar crime? Needed a fresh start. Or just went bonkers and decided to start calling himself ‘Ra, God of the Sun.’ ”
Jay watched the bug in the glass case going about its business. It had found something in the sand and was digging it up. Jay halfway expected to see the insect unearth a tiny human skull. “I don’t think so. If he had, there’d be some record of it under his old name. First things I checked were criminal records, B&D stats, and Deja, and he was active on the net until about five years ago. After that, he’s just gone. You’d think somebody who was planning on leaving would say good-bye — he was on a lot of newsgroups and professional pub pages, then he stopped posting. I had a searchbot scan all his postings: There’s no mention of being in trouble with the law, or in debt, or wanting to change his name. One minute he was there, the next, he was gone.”
“Black helicopters got him?” she said.
Jay smiled. “Uh-huh. Don’t forget, I know where those guys hang out.”
The beetle came up with something that looked like a little ball made out of Tootsie Roll, and proceeded to roll it across the stand toward a far corner of the cage.
“All right, then,” she said. “Hunt him down and find out what he’s been up to.”
Jay nodded. Yes.
27
The ceremony was outside, a bright June afternoon. A sea of graduates in blue caps and gowns sat in folding chairs in front of a raised platform. On the stage, a speaker called out names, and students walked across the stand to collect their diplomas. Most of the students looked happy as they accepted their sheepskins and shook hands with the principal. A couple of the boys mugged and did silly waves. One boy flashed the crowd, showing off jockey undershorts. A typical high school graduation, “Pomp and Circumstance” playing in the background, the proud parents smiling, crying, fanning themselves with programs, watching their progeny morph from children to semi-adults.
Later, a tall blonde girl stood with her arms around two of her girlfriends while her parents, then the parents of her friends took pictures.
As the festivities wound down, students hugging each other, slapping each other on the back, punching shoulders, a father and son walked side by side toward the parking lot. The family resemblance was strong, the boy a younger copy of his father. The father stopped walking and said, “Here, son.”
The boy took a small plastic card from his father, looked at it, then back at his dad.
“Your first year of membership in CyberNation,” his father said. He was blinking back tears.
The son looked amazed. “But — but you think this is stupid!” He waved the card a little.
“Times change, son. People change, too — they have to, or they miss what’s important in life.”
The boy looked at the card.
“Your mother would have been so proud.”
Behind them, a woman — the spirit of the boy’s mother — shimmered and appeared ghostlike into view. The father and son looked at the spirit, who smiled at them.
With the spirit of the wife and mother watching, the boy and his father embraced.
“CyberNation,” said the deep voice. “It’s today, it’s tomorrow. It’s forever.”
A small graphic appeared under the father and son, and in small print the words CYBERNATION appeared.
Michaels pointed the remote at the television in disgust and clicked the set off. “Have you seen this? A three-hanky commercial for an Internet service.”
Toni came out of the bathroom with the electric toothbrush in her mouth. “What?”
Michaels waved at the television. “The CyberNation ad.”
She held up a hand, a “wait a second” gesture, then went back into the bathroom. A moment later, she was back. “Let me go check on the baby,” she said.
“Already did. He’s sleeping like a rock.”
She moved to the bed and sat. “You were saying something about the TV?”
“Yeah, the CyberNation tear-jerker commercial.”
“Which one? The old lady abandoned in the nursing home by her children? Or the young guy talking to his wife’s tombstone?”
“The high school graduation.”
“Oh, that one.”
“These guys put Coca-Cola, the phone and insurance companies into the minor leagues. Most manipulative thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Wait until you see the thirteen-year-old girl orphan on the street and the cop who comes to help her,” she said. “Equal parts of pathos and pedophilia.”
He shook his head. “Don’t they have any shame?”
“Not if they sell the product.”
He shook his head again.
“So, have you thought any more about what we talked about? Guru?”
“You really want to do this?”
She nodded. “Yes. She’s as much my grandma as anybody. Every day from the time I was thirteen until I went off to college, I spent two hours with her. Sometimes at her house, sometimes on the steps out front, sometimes in the park. Rain or shine, whatever else was going on, she was there for me. She gave me a skill that’s the core of who I am. Whatever else happened to me, I was always sure I could take care of myself if somebody wanted to put his hands on me and I didn’t want him to. It was the basis of making my way in the world. If all else failed, I could kick somebody’s butt. I didn’t have to be afraid.”
He smiled at her.
“She’s useful here. Little Alex loves her. I love her. And I owe her. For so much. She’s eighty-five, she won’t be around much longer.”
He chuckled. “She’ll probably outlive us all.”
“Alex—”
“Okay. If you really want this, then, yeah, okay. Ask her.”
“You sure?”
“What I’m sure of is that I want you to be happy. Whatever it is. If that means having a coffee-swilling deadly old nanny living in the guest bedroom, what the hell.”
He didn’t think he’d ever seen her smile any bigger. She hugged him, and once again he marveled at how good that made him feel, to make her smile.
What was it Jay’s girl Saji had said recently? Making somebody smile lightens your karmic burden? Well, if that was the case, he intended to be karmically clear on Toni’s grins alone, if he could.