It took Matt a moment to realize that she was talking about the original project, the production of a mammoth/elephant hybrid, the job she had been hired to do. So much, so very much had happened since then; that project was ancient history, supplanted with the arrival of two live mammoths and a supply of fresh egg cells and sperm from the rest of the herd and from Big Daddy.
"I grew up in the circus. I love elephants, I loved training them, I felt I was doing some good keeping the species alive. There aren't many left alive in the wild and I felt—still do feel—that zoos and circuses were doing valuable work breeding, preserving the gene pool. I know a lot of people disagree, but that's what I felt."
"But you've changed your mind."
"Partly. Things happen." She was rubbing her thigh, not seeming to be aware she was doing it, and he wondered if it was just because it was sore from the hike. "Go on."
"I guess there's really no way to do this but to just come out and say it. I'm going to steal Fuzzy.
I'm going to do it tonight. Do you want to help?" There were so many things Matt might have said.
You're going to steal the most famous and valuable animal on the planet.
The animal belongs to a billionaire, one of the most powerful men on the planet, and one who is not always too fussy about his methods.
Fuzzy is rather... large. Why not steal the Golden Gate Bridge while you're at it?
There were just about as many questions he could have asked:
How will you hide him?
Where are you going to take hint?
What will you do with him?
Are you crazy?
And simply, Why?
But what he said was, "Yes."
24
IT was far and away the most amazing show Matt had ever seen.
He was familiar with the magic that could be done with computer-generated imagery. But he had never been to a major theme park, or a big stage show in Las Vegas or Broadway. He was not prepared for the hyperreality that could be created by live performers, clever lighting, smoke, mirrors, and thundering sound. When the giant mammoths strode over his head on the giant screens above him, he felt like an ant. He almost dropped his popcorn.
He had what he figured was one of the best seats in the house. In a football stadium he would be sitting on about the forty-yard line, five rows up from the field. Some would say the skyboxes were better but Matt couldn't believe it. They were way up there at the top of the stadium, right above the cheapest seats. That position would distort the perspective of the overhead screens, like sitting in the front row of a movie theater, and it was as far as you could get from the action on the floor. He supposed it was a status thing, sitting on a comfortable sofa with servants catering to you, surrounded by your rich and beautiful friends, eating fancy food. But why would you come here to eat French five-star cuisine? It was the circus, for crying out loud! A digitized, computer-controlled, steroid-pumped, and amphetamine-boosted version of the circus, but a circus all the same.
This circus was everything he remembered, to the tenth power, with the sole exception of the cotton candy. They didn't sell it. Probably too hard to clean up the mess from the deeply padded, rocking seats. He crunched down on another mouthful of something called Karamel Kettle Korn that was too sweet but close enough for rock and roll, and made a mental note to speak to Susan about the criminal lack of Kotton Kandy.
Then he remembered this would be her last day here, one way or the other. And he didn't figure they'd be serving a lot of circus snacks in jail.
Now cut that out, he told himself. Think positive.
His seat was one of the perks of Susan's job. She had a block of five seats for every performance. She said the practice was called "ice," and it was a long showbiz tradition which she had known from her earlier circus days, though she had never qualified for it. The headliners all demanded a certain amount of ice, and the number of seats you got was a measure of your importance, so they fought for it fiercely, like movie stars measuring the length of each other's Winnebagos. Up to twelve hours before a show she could give or sell them to anyone she chose. After that they went back into the lottery pool and she got the money, which was a nice piece of cash every night since she hardly ever had anyone she wanted to give them to.
Susan's other four seats had gone to a young couple who obviously could hardly believe their luck, not only winning the daily seating lottery but getting some of the best seats in the house. They had a boy named Dwight who was five or six, and a girl, Brittney, around nine years old. Matt couldn't help noting their reactions. They liked the movie on the tent ceiling but it was obvious they had seen things like that before. The children shivered and giggled when the cold air came blasting in. They liked the meteor shower and gasped when the arena shook in the simulated earthquake.
Then came the elephants, and Big Mama. Matt noticed the huge pachyderm's front legs were chained together and she tended to just stand there until prodded by metal-tipped sticks carried by her handlers. This stick, called an ankus, was a traditional tool of mahouts in Asia. Susan said it could cause damage by an unskilled trainer, but was an absolute necessity with even the gentlest, most socialized captive elephant to remind her who was the boss. The key was to apply it sparingly, lightly, and judiciously, and never, never, never think that it would protect you if the elephant really decided to do you damage.
Dwight was beside himself with delight when Big Mama appeared, and seemed awed by the girls in their gaudy costumes. Brittney smiled and watched it all with interest, but it was clear what she was waiting for. She was wearing a Fuzzy T-shirt and a Fuzzy hat with a fuzzy trunk sticking out in front and little woolly mammoth ears flapping at the sides, and waving a Fuzzy pennant.
There were a dozen of them now, all full-blooded Columbians, all the product of Big Daddy's semen and the egg cells harvested from the bodies of the slaughtered herd of cows, born to Indian elephant host mothers. The oldest of them were three years old now, "toddlers" tipping the scales at twenty-five hundred pounds. These came out first, followed in order by smaller and smaller and smaller youngsters, until the final pair, year-old infant twins weighing no more than nine hundred.
"It's Me-tu and U-tu!" Dwight shouted, and Matt realized that superstar Fuzzy had at least some competition in the hearts of the world's children. He knew that many if not most of the kids here could name all twelve of these animals.
Matt found himself on the edge of his seat, almost as agog as the children all around him, as the moment arrived for Fuzzy's appearance. The music swelled and quickened and reached a volume that was almost stunning, but was not loud enough to drown out the shriek from Brittney that almost broke Matt's eardrum.
Fuzzy entered in a typical elephantine lumbering gait, not as fast as he could go but fast enough so that Susan had to trot at a pretty good pace to stay beside him. Matt remembered Susan telling him that elephants—and now mammoths—were the only mammals that could neither run nor jump. Susan's limp was barely perceptible; if you weren't looking for it you'd never notice.
Fuzzy got to the center of the arena and stopped, turning in a circle to acknowledge the thunderous applause. He seemed absolutely calm, totally unimpressed by all the lights and noise. And why shouldn't he be? He was a veteran of show business; he had been performing since his first birthday in the previous incarnation of this big, permanent home: the Ringling Brothers traveling show, booked into the biggest stadiums and indoors arenas throughout the United States.
He towered over his retinue of youngsters. Susan had told Matt that Fuzzy had recently passed the two-ton mark, and was seven feet tall.