Kaleidocide (29 page)

He made sure that the glasses' path to the net was secure, taking two extra steps to ensure that even those who programmed them would not be able to trace or record what he did. Then purely for the sake of theatricality, he traveled to the location of the man he was calling by way of the Earth program used by the Chinese military. It started with an orbital view of North America, then zoomed in to California, and then further to the Napa Valley. As it continued to grow closer to his man, Sun reveled in the rich reds, golds, and greens of the vineyards, which almost exactly matched the colors surrounding him in the church. Finally, the program came to rest on one particular swath of gold vineyard, and Sun imagined the man lying prone inside one of the rows of dying grapevines, dressed head to toe in the same yellow color, and gripping a rifle that was also painted with it.

Then his view switched to the sniper's augmented eyes, and Sun could see the yellow barrel of his rifle propped on a yellow stand in front of his face, pointed toward a gap in the yellow leaves of the grapevine in which he was concealed. Through the gap Sun could see a hill in the distance.

“Some of the vines turn red at this time of year,” Sun said, “because the anthocyanins, which make tannin in wine, are trapped in the leaves and give them a burgundy color. But on others, like the ones in this vineyard, the petiole or leaf stem swells with the onset of colder and longer nights. This causes the palisade layers in the leaf to collapse and chlorophyll production to cease, turning the leaf yellow instead of green.”

“Yes, Sunzi.” The man said this very softly, but it was quite legible because he had audio implants as well. The suffix “zi” meant “master,” and Sun especially liked it because his role model, Sun-Tzu, was also sometimes called Sunzi.

“Why are you not looking through the gun sight?” Sun barked at the man. “The time is at hand.”

“I have a smaller window open in my eyes,” he answered. “Which is linked to the sight. I can watch the hill through the sight, but also see around me in case someone approaches. Your link connected with the one and not the other, but I can change that.”

The sniper spelled two words backward, and his cybernetic system responded by altering Sun's view so that he could also now see through the gun sight, which was fixed on a brown hill with five white stones protruding from it.

“They are late, Sunzi,” the man said. “It has now passed nine o'clock. Are you sure the intelligence is correct?”

“It is my own, that I have seen with my own eyes.”

Sun was bothered that the man would even ask this question, but his irritation was tempered by the knowledge of his impending victory, and the sacrifices this man was making to assure it. This “sleeper agent” had lived in the United States for over two years and had taken up this concealed position almost three days ago, subsisting without moving or eating any solid food for the entire time since then (he sipped liquid nutrients from the chinrest attached to his neck). When the sniper's work was done, he would spell a few more words backward and all of his cyber implants would self-destruct, burning his brain out along with them, so that BASS investigators would have nothing to trace and no one to question.

“Because you have the honor of assisting me in the
xing lu cai se,
” Sun said, “I will show you how I know they are coming.”

He manipulated his glasses to access a vidclip, which began to play in a subwindow that appeared in both his glasses and the sniper's eyes. It was a net interview broadcast about a year before, when Michael Ares first became the primary leader of BASS.

“Tell us more about your daughter Lynette,” said the woman conducting the interview, “how you plan to honor her memory.”

“Well, in addition to the trust fund established in her name for the Presidio School,” Sun's enemy said, “Lynn and I visit her grave every Sunday morning at nine o'clock, and talk about how great she was.” He flashed the charming smile that Sun so deeply resented, and added: “That's our church.”

The clip ended, and General Sun said, “They will be there. The
huáng
and
hóng sè
will fly with the power of the
ban lan
spirits, and will rain down the death of
xing lu cai se
on the enemy. I will wait with you to witness this, and then to discharge you with honor.”

He tilted his head back and sent one upturned hand out away from his body, to welcome the
ban lan
into him, while the fingers on his other hand found the tiny pill in his belt and dropped it into his mouth. He stared at the dark yellow leaves and gun as he recited the words again, until his eyes shut and his mouth opened wide at the rush he felt when the chemicals reached his bloodstream, and the spirits entered his soul.

 

27

GRAVESIDE

The unwanted thoughts that I had the day before—about the two women who were not my wife—turned into a dream, as they were prone to do, and lingered in my head even when I awoke in the morning. But as I lay in bed blinking the sleep out of my eye, something else scratched at the back of my mind … and then it hit me. It was Sunday morning!

I scrambled out of the bed and called Lynn from the netkit. She was fully dressed and sitting on the edge of our bed, obviously waiting for me to call.

“It's 9:07,” she said, perturbed. “I was about to go by myself.”

“I'm so sorry, honey. It's all this stuff going on. Just the circumstances. You know I would never forget Lynnie.”

She stood up, straightening her nice clothes with her hands, and said, “Well, get your clone and tell him to meet me by the pool. I'll try not to look at him.”

Then I realized that I could keep our weekly appointment if I rode with the double. Unlike me, Lynn had obviously thought this through ahead of time. It would have been even easier if she had an implant herself—then I could visit the graveside inside her. But like most educated people, she was very averse to that kind of “mind invasion,” especially since I had faced a threat like that when Lynette was killed.

I told her okay, signed off from her, and chose the link to the double. It didn't work, so I had to leave an urgent notification and wait a couple minutes. Then Jon received the call, and I was looking through his eyes at the bathroom mirror again.

“Sorry,” he said, toweling himself off. “I was taking a shower.”

“I wonder if we should have the triplets set it up so I can access you at any time,” I said.

“Is that necessary?”

I thought for a moment, then said, “I guess not. I don't see why you can't have a little privacy. But don't leave me waiting long.” I looked at his body in the mirror, and added, “You're even built like me.”

“They were glad to know that I work out regularly like you do. I guess it's hard to fake being in shape.”

“I suppose it would be,” I said, and then remembered my business. “Listen, I need you to meet Lynn by the pool and take a little walk with her. With me, too. It's something we do every week together, usually alone, but you'll have to join us this time.”

“Okay,” he said, now slipping his clothes on. “Does Terrey know?”

“We should let him know. It's not that private. Go by his room, or wherever he is, on the way up there.”

Jon did as I said, and we were soon face-to-face with my old army buddy, who was dressed in black again. I started to tell him what was going on through the double, but that was inconvenient, so he patched my netkit through to his earpiece and we were all able to hear each other.

“That's fine,” he said. “I told you how safe you are outside the house, though I wouldn't linger too long. In fact, this would be a good opportunity for that photo op I was talking about. Perfect, in fact! Would you mind if one of the
Trois
ran out and took your picture, so we can get it out on the media?”

“No, that would be okay. But give Lynn and me about ten minutes by ourselves first.”

“Ace!” Terrey said. “Just leave your line open so I can call you when she comes out.”

We made our way to the pool, where Lynn was waiting for us, and Jon put on the light jacket he had brought with him because of the slight chill in the autumn morning air. Lynn just started walking without taking Jon's hand, as she usually did with me, and true to her word she kept looking ahead and not sideways at him as we walked. The gravesite was on a smaller hill to the west, between our house and the one that was now occupied by Paul Rabin's widow and her three children. That house was built for Darien Anthony, but he couldn't use it now because his body lay in one of the five graves in the little cemetery, along with his young son, who had died with him and Lynette when his car was bombed. The other two graves belonged to Saul and Paul Rabin.

As Lynn and Jon walked silently along the unpaved path that led to the site, I watched Lynn through my doppelganger's eyes. He didn't look her up and down as much as he had before, probably because she had a modest coat on and there wasn't much to see. He did look a few times at her protruding belly, and many more times at her beautiful profile and the streaked blond hair that was blowing in the slight breeze. I found myself enjoying looking at her through these new eyes, literally and figuratively, and I was about to say something complimentary to her when the double beat me to the punch.

“You're very pretty,” he said, watching for her reaction.

“Which one of you is saying that?” she asked, still looking straight ahead.

“Both, I would think,” Jon said without hesitation. “Who wouldn't?”

“That's flattering,” she said. “But I would rather just hear from Michael while we're doing this.” Her notorious sensitivity to people's feelings then gave her pause, and she added, “You can practice talking for him, for when you go out in public.”

“No problem,” Jon said. “It's all yours, Michael number one.”

“Thanks,” I said in my room at the cottage.

“Thanks,” Jon said on the deserted hillside.

“No, I was saying that to you, Jon.”

“I know, I was just kidding.”

“What?” Lynn said, finally turning to Jon in bewilderment, because she couldn't hear what I was saying. “You were just kidding that I'm pretty?” Now her equally notorious sensitivity to what others thought of her was coming out.

“No,” Jon said. “You're very pretty. From now on I'll only say what Michael says.”

I didn't have anything to say at the moment, so we walked the rest of the way in silence, and finally reached the gravesite. Lynn approached Lynette's blank marker and placed a fresh flower there, next to the toys and holo pictures that always rested against the bottom of the stone. The double was reading the inscriptions on the other markers, so I told him to step over next to Lynn.

“I'd put my arm around you,” I said, and Jon repeated it, “but I wouldn't want you to freak out.”

“Thanks,” she said, cracking a little smile to go with the tears that were now trickling down both sides of her face. “She would have been six this Christmas.”

“She was so sweet,” I said, starting the long litany of descriptions and memories that I always repeated on these Sunday mornings at the grave, but then suddenly a shout from the netkit speakers broke my reverie and pierced my ears.

“Michael!” It was Terrey, from back at the base. I could almost feel Jon jump at the voice—he could hear it, too. But Lynn couldn't, and she was in front of him staring at the marker, so she didn't notice his reaction.

“Don't panic yet,” Terrey said, “but when I told the triplets what you were doing, they had a conniption and wanted to check the numbers on your location. Just in case, get ready to take cover, if I tell you to.”

“What's going on, Terrey?” I said.

“When we did the sniper sweep out to three thousand meters, we didn't know you would be walking out this far. I'm really sorry about this, it may be nothing—” He asked the triplets something, and then spoke to us again. “It's close enough that it might be best to head back to the house, just to be safe.”

“Jon,” I said, “tell Lynn that Terrey says we should go back, and that I'm sorry.”

“Terrey says we should head back, Lynn. I'm sorry.”

“What?” she said, and began to look around instinctively, which the double was also doing. We could all see the hills on three sides of us, and a nice view of the vineyards down in the valley to the west.

Jon reached out and gently grabbed Lynn's arm, to direct her back toward the house, but she shrugged his hand away and said, “What's going on?”

“Okay, the girls are done,” Terrey said in staccato, “and you could possibly be too far west. Better take cover till we can get there.” I noticed he was breathing hard from running through the hallways in the hill.

“There's no cover out there!” I said. “Jon, take Lynn down to the ground now, and cover her with your body, to the west!”

“Which way is west?” he said, and Lynn shouted “What?” again.

“The vineyards. Take her down, now!”

Jon dove into Lynn and pulled her toward the ground, and I heard through his ears the unmistakable sound of a bullet hissing by his head. Then I heard two more hit the gravestones near him, and even saw the chunks fly from one of them as his bouncing view pointed in that direction. Then I heard Lynn screaming something like, “Get off me!” and told Jon to ignore her protests and hold her tight.

“Is your body west of hers?” I yelled, because I couldn't tell from the shaky, chaotic images coming from his eyes.

“Yes!” he yelled back over her shouts and another bullet hiss.

“Turn on the body shield that Terrey gave you,” I yelled at him, remembering that from our meeting the day before.