Drift pattern, p.25
Drift Pattern, page 25
The room suddenly feels stuffy and too warm to her. “You could stay here on the sofa tonight, and we catch them in the act when they come back and we find out what this is.”
Ish is slow to respond, too slow for comfort. “Well, I kind of—”
She nervously wipes the remaining particles of sticky food from her hand onto the side of her pants leg. “Oh my gosh, I never even asked if you had a family. Do you have someone at home?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’ve never oathed.”
She’s prying now, but she can’t stop herself. “Is there a reason that you’ve never oathed anyone here in Relicus City or at the Grange?”
His hazel eyes don’t blink. “It’s a very serious thing, not to be taken lightly. I just want to be sure it’s right, with the right person. They are the most sacred words two people may say to one another, a very private and intimate thing.”
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, and I shouldn’t have asked you to stay.”
“No, it’s alright.” His eyes shift to the floor. “It’s not that, it’s just I have to meet someone for . . . there’s this thing that I’m kind of doing tonight, but I can stay tomorrow if you—”
Luci cuts him off, hoping for a speedy end to all of this. “It was a stupid thing to ask of you. There’s probably one of those splash forum things where the splasher people knock down painted blocks or whatever that you want to attend with someone.” Nervously running her fingers through her hair, she dismisses the request. “The note guy probably won’t even be back again tonight anyway. There was a two-day gap between the deliveries of the last two of them.”
He corrects her, “Three days between them—it’s been three days.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, right. Three days.” She never got things like this wrong. “Yeah, so three days, so I’m probably alright with whatever this is,” she says, trying to convince herself.
Ish looks at the note again. Luci suspects that his sudden rekindled interest in re-examining it is due to tension in the air.
There’s a sound at the door, and Ish places himself between the unseen entrance and Luci’s body. “Who’s there?” he shouts in a booming voice noticeably lower than his normal speaking one.
“Special delivery,” Macer announces as he and Royse enter from around the side of the kitchen. The big man follows a few steps behind, carrying a colossal roll of butcher-block paper on his shoulder with ease.
Luci’s eyes freeze on the note in Ish’s hand in front of her. She mouths the words to him, “Please, Ish.”
There’s a flash of torment in his eyes as he turns to her, but he slowly slides the message into his pocket.
Macer is full of life as he announces, “Sorry, there aren’t any more flat sheets, so you’ll just have to tear it off the roll.” He gestures for Royse to set it down, and the bodyguard leans it against the sidewall of the kitchen pod. Macer turns in a semicircle, surveying the markings filling the sheets in the area. He concludes with a several sharp snaps of his fingers. “From the looks of things, it appears that we’re just in time.”
Luci cringes, noticing that Ish’s hand is still in his pocket on the intruder’s note. If he tells Macer or Royse, it could change everything. Her stomach tightens at the thought of being confined in a small, windowless room somewhere in the bowels of the city indefinitely.
“So, where are we?” Macer asks in an oddly peppy voice. “Are all of these writings an indicator that you two are getting close?”
Praying that Ish will remain quiet about the notes, Luci steps from behind him to control the conversation. Speaking quickly, she informs Macer, “Actually, we did have a breakthrough this morning.” She takes a deep breath and exhales it as she says, “For the last few days, we’ve been searching for commonalities between the destroyed leap-skip intervals at their outermost termination points utilizing Bine Shadow originator STMO corridors of zero sum approximation of where—and more importantly when—we are here in Relicus City.” She’s nervously rambling, but she can’t stop herself. “Instead of allowing the data to inform us, we had been working to overlay a presupposed conclusion with the initial leap-skip originator for the XgM chronal point arrays. Of course, this results in a contaminated calculation bias and can’t tell us anything, so now that we’ve realized what we were doing wrong, we can modulate the stream cores accurately to reveal the EMG ratios.”
Everyone is silent.
Macer pivots to Royse and then slowly to Ish.
Finally, he looks back to Luci and shakes his head, confounded. With furrowed eyebrows, his tone is exasperated. “What?”
Luci moves over to the roll over paper and tears off a scrap. “Here, let me show you.” She grabs the charcoal pencil from her pocket, presses the paper against the half-wall of the kitchen, and begins to scribble out random directions. When she’s finished, Luci hands it to Royse and places the pencil behind her ear. “Here, follow these steps.” She hopes the exercise will distract them long enough for her to get the note back from Ish.
Royse looks it over before shoving it back to her. “I can’t read any of this. It’s old-world script.”
Ish hurries over to take the scrap. “I think I know what she’s doing.” He takes his place next to Macer. “Your Excellency, if you please . . .”
Macer nods but frowns. “Only if it will help make sense of what she said.”
“I think you’ll see that it will, sir,” Ish says with a confidence that Luci hasn’t seen him demonstrate in the chancellor’s presence before. “So, Dr. Gaudiano has written directions for us to follow with these numbers and arrows. This says to take two steps forward and turn to the left, take one step backward, turn to the right twice, and finally three steps. If you do that, sir, you’ll arrive at a specific location in the room.”
“If you will, sir,” Ish says, urging Macer. The older man begrudgingly follows in Ish’s overly dramatic footsteps as he reads the commands a second time.
Royse whispers to Luci, “The chancellor doesn’t have time for your silly games.”
She ignores the rebuke, concentrating on Ish’s pocket with the note in it. She says softly, “I need to ask you something.”
“No more talk about seizures,” Royse responds curtly.
She peels her eyes away from Ish. “No, nothing like that. It’s a security question.”
This gets his attention. “Humph. Really? What?”
Ish and Macer have completed the instructions and ended up on the other side of the room.
In a loud voice, Ish tells Macer, “So now, if we were to follow the same steps she’s written from here, let’s see what happens.”
Maintaining a whisper, Luci asks Royse, “Is there a security log of who enters this guest house?”
When he ignores her, Luci presses, “Is there a log or not?”
Royse does his best to keep from moving his lips when he answers, showing his reluctance to the question. “Normally, there would be one, but it’s been deactivated. Also, the cybo video log is disabled because the feeds from both would show ‘a special guest’ from another interval was staying here, and that wouldn’t be very smart.”
Ish leads Macer around the area again. The chancellor looks even less happy about another round of it, but he plays along.
Luci fidgets, wondering if Ish will break and alert Macer to the break-ins. She continues in a soft voice, “Is there any way that someone could subvert the security protocols?”
Royse faces her with an incredulous scowl on his face as if she’s insulted his mother. “Impossible. Only someone granted access can go through that doorway. Need I remind you of what happened when you tried to pass through to go to the Grange? We’ve programed in everyone’s Viatorio who’s been granted access to the guesthouse while you’re here: me, the chancellor, Security Minister Cavazos, and your helper friend over there.”
Something about the statement is off, but she can’t puzzle it out right now. She’s too busy making sure that Ish doesn’t betray the revelation of the note.
Royse adds, “You’re safe here and have nothing to be concerned about, Doctor.”
It’s so tempting for her to tell him of their secret if only just to see the smug expression on his face disappear at the news that someone has figured out a way to beat Cavazos’s security measures.
“I get it now!” Macer exclaims across the room to her. “A different starting point leads to a different conclusion and vice versa. Why didn’t you simply say that?” The politician’s cheeriness has returned to him. “The mistake was made by assuming Relicus City would be Gicul’s starting point. I count it as nothing more than the learning curve that you had to work through. This is actually great news. You two will be able to determine where Cyphor Gicul is hiding soon.”
She answers cautiously, careful to deliver reasonable expectations. “We’re fairly confident that we’ll at least be able to tell where his been operating from, whether or not he’s still—”
Macer cuts her off, “It’ll take a while to work backward from the skip point junctures to likely origin points. I imagine it’s similar to descending a ladder that’s a million miles long one rung at a time, but now we know how to look for the enemy. You’ll find him, I’m sure of it!” He snatches up Ish’s hand and lifts it victoriously. “This is a great day for the future of Relicus City. With Gicul and his accomplices in L’inversione brought to justice, we will usher in a new age. There will be no more fear of terrorists, and we’ll be able to rule unencumbered.”
Before she knows it, Royse has mimicked Macer’s gesture and has her hand lifted in his.
She manages to pull away. “Don’t do that.” She remembers him drugging her back in her interval in Baltimore.
Royse frowns. “What’s your problem?”
“Just don’t touch me, alright?” she says, backing a few steps away.
“Is there anything else that you two require?” Macer asks her, moving from Ish in her direction.
“No,” she says. “The paper you brought is helpful.”
Macer nods. “Okay.” He turns to Royse. “Mr. Timmons, let’s leave the doctor and her colleague to their work.”
“Oh, there is one thing that I’d like,” she says.
“Anything,” Macer says, turning to face her and brandishing his politician’s smile.
“I’d like to take a stroll outside. I’m beginning to feel a little cooped up in here. It’d do me good to get some of the sea air in my lungs and feel the sun on my skin even if only for a few minutes or so each day.”
Macer looks over to Royse, who cracks his knuckles and shakes his head.
“Hmmm, that’s a little different request than I expected.” Macer folds his arms. “For obvious reasons, we can’t jeopardize your safety, especially in light of your recent discovery.” Pointing at Royse, he says, “I can allow it if he goes out with you and you conceal yourself so as not to be identified by any illegal long-distance drone cameras.”
Luci breathes out an exasperated sigh. “The whole point is to relax a few minutes in private. I’d rather do it surrounded by a trio of cybos than to stroll with Royse here.”
“That can be arranged,” Royse bites back sarcastically.
Macer raises his hand to curtail the bickering. “We’re all on the same side here. I’m sorry, Luci, but as a consolation, it appears that we’re very close to ending all of this, and you’ll be returned home. And thankfully, there have not been any more attacks for over a week.”
“How can that be? I thought Minister Cavazos reported that the Poland 1952 juncture was destroyed.”
Macer nods. “That’s true. It was obliterated seven days ago on March 20th, two days before your arrival.”
She tries to reconcile this new data. “So, what does that mean? Has Gicul and L’inversione stopped?”
“For the moment, it would appear so, though we don’t know why.”
A knot forms in her stomach. “Has he stopped because he knows that I’m here?”
Macer shrugs, and the air becomes thick with tension. Of all the faux expressions that Luci has seen this politician wear, the current one gives her a chill. There’s a genuine look of dread in his eyes. He hesitates to speak, as if uttering the words aloud will conjure up an irrevocable consequence.
“What is it?” Luci probes, uncertain she truly wants the answer.
“Let’s focus on the positive, shall we?” The politician’s mask is back and firmly in place. “We should capitalize on your recent discovery, use that momentum to—”
“Why have the attacks stopped, Enos?” Luci cuts him off. “Please tell us what’s going on here. Knowing may help us in some way.”
Macer massages his temples, slowly informing her, “Pol Cavazos believes . . .” He sighs. “The security minister believes that the attacks may have stopped because . . .” He stops and looks to Royse, who offers a feeble shrug.
“Just tell us,” Luci says, encouraging the older man. “We should know. We need to know.”
Finally, he relents. “We believe that Gicul and L’inversione are preparing for a final assault against Relicus City.”
Nothing more is said as the two men turn to exit through the doorway.
~ Eight ~
Luci’s appetite is gone, but she knows her body requires food in order to perform the day’s calculations. She returns to the food printer and makes her third request of the day from it. Maybe she’ll get to finish this meal. “You want anything?” she asks Ish.
“A number fourteen, please,” he answers, stretching the rubber WIBs around his fingers and clicking his Viatorio.
Luci sets the meal processer’s program. “Hey, thanks for your help with that, showing the chancellor what we found. I’ve spent so much time working with you, I must have forgotten what it’s like to try to speak with laypeople about limit theorems for Betti numbers of random simplicial complexes and Coboundary expanders.”
When the printer chimes that the meal is complete, she removes the plate to make room for Ish’s pending request. “And thanks, you know, for not telling Macer or Royse about the note.”
She bites her knuckle in frustration. “Ugh, Luci G.”
Ish stops his air-typing to look at her. “What is it?”
“I wanted to ask him about yesterday’s attack from New Australia.”
He shifts his weight on the barstool. “There’s a pull basin post stating that there were four marauders from New Australia who were trying to gain access to the city’s western side—three men and a woman eliminated by a squad of cybos with churkas.
She chews a mouthful of breakfast. “How many cybos are in a squad?”
“I don’t know.”
The machine behind her sounds out again. She slides the plate across the bar to Ish. Handing him an eating utensil, she says, “I don’t get why the attackers wouldn’t be captured and interrogated. That and Royse told me the other day that cybos are often ‘made’ from enemies of the city. Why would they shoot these people instead?”
“That’s a good point. No one really knows much about the cybo process—government secrets and all, I guess.”
She thinks about the creature stationed outside the door. “Your society has too many secrets if you ask me.” Luci forces in another bite and wipes her mouth. “May I see the note again?”
Ish leans back in the barstool away from the counter. “Why? What for?”
She sighs. “Just let me see it, please.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re not going to destroy it, are you?”
She retrieves the original note about being lied to from her pocket and puts it on the counter between them. With hand on hip, she says, “I want to compare the penmanship.”
“The what?” Ish asks.
Luci mumbles to herself, “Of course you don’t have that word in your vocabulary. Why would you?” She turns the note around to face him and taps it with her index finger. “I want to look at them side by side, at the way the letter characters are formed to try and determine if we’re dealing with more than one intruder.”
Ish takes the most recent note from his pocket. He unfolds it but doesn’t put it on the counter. “I want this back.”
“Why?” Luci asks as she leans in and tugs slightly on it.
“Because I haven’t decided what to do yet,” he says, tightening his grip.
“Well, the notes were left for me, not you.”
He frowns. “Just don’t destroy them. We may need them later for something.”
“I promise I won’t,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “Now give.”
He yields, loosening his hold and she takes it from him.
“Thanks,” she says. “I promise to give it back.”
Luci turns the notes to face her. It doesn’t take long to determine that both are by the same hand. As a gesture of good faith, she scoots them to Ish, who anxiously regards her. “I want you to keep these for us.” She doesn’t comment on the look of embarrassed relief on his face. Instead, she says, “The same person wrote both of these.”
Ish holds them both up for examination. “How can you be so certain of this?”
The light shines through one of the paper scraps, and Luci sees something she missed before. “Wait . . . let me see that one again!”
Ish is taken aback by the force of the command but then hands them to her.
Luci’s interest is only in the second note as she holds it above her head to the light. She reads the “ghost letters” shining through the paper stock and exclaims, “Strathmore!”
“What’s a strathmore?” Ish asks, leaning in for a closer look.
“It’s a paper company from my time . . . from my interval. They produce fine papers for letterheads, resumes, and whatnot.” She comes from around the counter and angles the scrap above his head. “This has a watermark. See how, when the light shines through it, you can see the paper bond name?”
Ish squints and asks uncertainly, “So, what does Strathmore mean to us?”
She tilts her head back for a second look. “It means that we can narrow down that the intruder or intruders who’s been leaving these are from the late twentieth century to the mid-twenty-first century.”
