Fujiwara met his eyes at last, and looked very grave as he said, "They would have gotten very big, my friend. And I didn't understand everything about them, but if they'd been allowed to develop fully and mature, it seemed like they were going to have some powerful attributes. Gifts. A range of psi abilities."
"You say another dimension. So you didn't design these life forms from scratch."
"I was given a very unusual DNA sample, and some very unusual information on a chip. They called this chip the Genomicon. I was told the DNA was from an extradimensional life form, but not from any dimension the Earth Colonies have had interaction with, to my knowledge. I don't know if the Kalians bought it on the sly from a Theta researcher, or what. And they sure as hell weren't about to tell me that much. Anyway, the DNA was degraded-prehistoric, actually-and I had to sort of extrapolate. Patch it back together."
"Is Dai-oo-ika the same kind of life form you were growing for the Kalians?"
"Oh no, but related. Another extrapolation. I consulted the Genomicon in making him, too. No, the creatures for the Kalians weren't as anthropomorphic, though they had some similarities, of course. The Spawn, as they called them, had gills like sharks and just two forelegs, and they were a dark purple color, though like Dai-oo-ika they were eyeless, with only sensory organs like tentacles for a face-a little bit like the eyes of Tikkihottos, I suppose, but I think these were also the creatures' psi organs."
Stake turned toward Fukuda with deliberate slowness. "Again, nice pet for your sweet young daughter. You should have made a plague, too, and put it in a locket for her."
Before Fukuda could say anything, Fujiwara continued, while beginning to nervously twist one end of his mustache around and around his finger. "Look, Mr. Stake, you've got to be discreet with this information, okay? The cultists that didn't die in the earthquake got themselves assassinated by a rival group called the Children of the Elders, who want to make sure this apocalypse never happens. I don't want these Children coming after me, too, thinking I'm part of the Ugghiutu cult."
"Mum's the word. I just want to find this doll, this Dai-oo-ika, for your boss here. Did he tell you my suspicions? That Dai-oo-ika might have harmed the girl who stole him, and ventured off on his own power?"
Fujiwara began pacing, twisting and twisting his mustache. "I thought I'd inhibited his growth. And limited his intelligence."
"He's a precocious child."
The bio-designer made a little groaning sound. "How do you think he harmed her?"
"One of the monsters at Alvine Products consumed a rescue worker like an amoeba would. Could Dai-oo-ika do that?"
"Dai-oo-ika has light harvesting complexes, for photosynthesis."
"I'm asking you, do you think he could do what that Alvine monster did?"
"How should I know? I didn't even know they could do that, let alone Dai-oo-ika!"
"Scientists," Stake said.
"The best thing you can do, in my opinion?" Fujiwara looked up at Fukuda while he paced. "When you find our friend Dai-oo-ika, you should destroy him. If you're still able."
Stake and Fukuda looked at each other grimly. Fujiwara himself had just echoed Stake's earlier sentiment. Would that be enough to make Fukuda listen?
Stake returned his gaze to the bio-designer. "Maybe you ought to destroy that Genomicon, too."
Fukuda spoke up. "It's in my possession now,"he said. "And I'll consider it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
pleasant conversations
What had earned Ron Bistro his status as the "Punktown Prince of Porn" was no doubt his very ordinariness, which made it easier for the men who watched his vids to identify with him. It made them less intimidated by the proceedings, made them feel they too might frolic with the likes of a Simone Pattycakes or the belly-dancing twins, Ufuk and Ulku Istanbul. Well, at least through Ron Bistro his fans could do so vicariously. He had come into fame when, on the set of a picture he was shooting back when he was a mere camera operator, the scripted action had developed into an all-out orgy and Ron had been dragged by one actress out from behind the camera. His inept enthusiasm had endeared him to his future audience. Now, ten years later, he was less inept in front of the camera, though time had made him all the more ordinary looking.
Today wasn't the first day he had personally dropped off his daughter Caren at the Arbury School, nor the first time he had applied his charms to his daughter's schoolmate, Yuki Fukuda. But Yuki had not watched any of his vids and didn't find him any more charming than the fathers of her other schoolmates (in fact, there were quite a few who she found much more worthy of a crush), and as for his wealth-well, again, every Arbury girl's father had a wallet that bulged more in the back than anything Bistro had up front. So Yuki merely smiled and nodded politely as Caren's dad tried to make small talk with her, in front of the school before the first bell had sounded.
"So are you in any of Caren's classes?" he asked her, beaming. He had obviously forgotten that he'd asked her this on earlier occasions. She figured he was confusing her with other Asian students with whom he had flirted.
"Yes, a couple," she answered. She glanced toward the parking lot. She still saw the vehicle that had brought her to school waiting there in the student drop-off zone, a Fukuda Bioforms security man by the name of Nelson Soto behind the console, keeping an eye on her until she was safely inside. Soto was a quiet, serious young man who Yuki found very worthy of a crush, though he didn't seem receptive to the idea, himself. She couldn't make out his expression from here, but she picked up the distant vibe that he wasn't pleased with this older man's nearness to her.
Caren had distanced herself from her father, standing in a knot of friends, each with a kawaii-doll poking up inquisitively from their backpack and with a Ouija phone pressed to their ear. Bistro gestured toward them with one hand, the other resting against Yuki's back to direct her attention. "Do you play with those creepy things, too, Yoshi?" he asked her.
Yuki watched Caren's squinting face as she strained to listen to whatever it was she was hearing.
"I used to," Yuki said distractedly, still staring at Caren, "but my father took it away from me. He said it was morbid."
"Aw, he's got to loosen up, huh?" Bistro rubbed his hand up and down her blazer-covered back as if to console her. "It's just a little bit of fun, right? No harm in that."
Yuki heard a car door slam, glanced around to see Nelson Soto leaning against their vehicle with his arms folded, wearing dark glasses and a frown. She couldn't help but smile a little at this, as if his concern for her were of a personal rather than professional nature, but she turned back to Bistro and said, "Let's go over and see what they're doing." She knew Caren hated her, having been friends with Krimson Tableau, but she counted on the girl behaving herself in the presence of her father.
Bistro started to protest, preferring their more personal conversation, but kept up with Yuki as she moved toward the little cadre of teenagers. "Hi, Caren," she said brightly. "I've been chatting with your dad. Pick up anything interesting today?" She pointed to the tiny phone.
Caren's eyes were molten when they shifted her way, and she was ready to growl something nasty for having been disturbed-and by this girl, no less-when she saw her father ambling along behind Yuki with that big goofy grin he wore when approaching an actress on camera. So with strained politeness she said, "Shh. I'm trying to hear her, okay?"
"It's Krimson, isn't it?" Yuki said.
Eyes on Yuki but with her ear focused elsewhere, Caren only nodded.