The Veil (12 page)

Such his is pace he has trouble stopping, stumbling to a halt before the woman, arms flailing. Toor’s expression seems quite distant and unresponsive. Her body sways a little, the resulting reflex action to steady herself seemingly surfacing her mind. Her eyes find Robert. A warm smile for him.

“Bob…I feel most odd. Am I dreaming? Is this a dream?”

Lucy arrives.

“Commander Toor. What are you doing here?”

Toor beams, her manner somewhat drunk.

“Lucy!
Oh my!
”

“What’s the matter with her?” Lucy whispers to Robert.

But he already has his suspicions, passing his hand through her body.

“It’s just a projection.”

Toor’s hazy demeanor abruptly evaporates to be replaced by a deeply troubled look, some inner turmoil boiling away inside her—

“You must not enter the Emerald City.”

Robert is reluctant to engage with more of Ril’s fakery, but cannot help himself.

“What do you mean? This is the Emerald City. We’re inside the dome.”

“All is not as it seems,” Toor says. “You must leave this place.”

Whatever the turmoil is, it boils over, snapping Toor to a fully lucid state. She reels at the sight of the world around her. Desperate eyes find Robert once more, her hands grabbing his in an instant. He recoils at the solid touch from what just a moment ago was not real.

“They let me see my niece,” Toor says hurriedly. “I forgive you—”

And then she is vanished, as if never there at all, Robert’s outstretched hands shaking, a flood of emotion surging through him.

THE EMERALD CITY

A scatter of picnic plates, cutlery, and food depict the Olympus Mons caldera, with its six collapse craters.

“We’re about halfway across,” Robert says, tapping a plate. “But we can’t see more than a few miles with this topography. I want to see what they put here.”

He stabs at a round Danish pastry in the southern sector of the caldera.

“But everything we have seen is just countryside,” Lucy says.

“You’re forgetting the Nexus.”

“You think there is another to the south?”

“I’ll bet your bottom dollar there’s something.”

“What about Commander Toor’s warning?”

“It was just a projection, Lucy. And some more of Ril’s parlor tricks. We must be careful—and keep our wits about us.”

* * *

They take their time in packing up the picnic, reserving most of what remains as emergency rations. A few furtive glances from Lucy catch Robert scanning the wheat field all the while.

There is only one road, making the way clear. Nevertheless Robert takes it slow, allowing Lucy to take in every detail, and map the terrain. Just as elsewhere there is considerable variation, each hillock and every bend revealing some form of change—from open grassland to wooded vales, but without any repetition.

Twenty minutes’ driving finds them traveling along another woodland road, a little denser and slightly darker than any encountered previously, despite the sun at high noon. With no reason to stop they continue on, passing by an unseen track leading into the woods.

The distinctive gurgle of an American V8 precedes the emergence of a Ford Mustang, just as the Aston Martin rounds a bend to disappear out of sight. The muscle car creeps out onto the road to follow—a model from the twenty-tens made as new, finished in a metallic bronze livery.

* * *

The woodland becomes parkland, the road winding through it in a pronounced manner. Specimen trees and shrubs adorn expanses of neatly mown grass dotted with benches and rocky outcrops. A place made for people, without people. It might be a beautiful spring day in a deserted—

“Bloody hell!” Robert brings the car to an abrupt halt, his wide eyes transfixed on the city now revealed before them, the Empire State Building being the most prominent feature from their current perspective.

“A replica of Manhattan?” Lucy asks.

“More like
The Emerald City
,” muses Robert.

* * *

What is undoubtedly Fifth Avenue is in a better state of repair than the traffic-worn original. Like everything in the dome it is made new. Despite the lack of vehicles and people the traffic lights and crosswalk signals are operational, and all set to permit passage. Shops have window displays and merchandise, and office lobbies have furniture. Robert finds himself reassessing the likelihood of Ril and Ramani’s shopping trip.

He brings the car to a stop so that they can take it all in. For him it is another mind-boggling sight, for Lucy it is just another day.

“Do you suppose it to be a completely accurate replica?” she asks.

“Well, it isn’t current, that’s for sure,” Robert observes. “Looks like some old, some new, putting aside the fact it was all built ten years or more ago.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“
Oh—
good question. Wait here.”

Robert is unbuckled and away from the car in an instant, leaving Lucy to dutifully await his return, and with nothing to do, the curse of her newly acquired corporeal existence being unable to retreat into a simulation of her choosing. She has already scanned and stored everything there is in line of sight, assessing it all for subjects worthy of immediate investigation, of which she deems there to be none. Besides, she’s seen New York City before, though the fact that this one was built by extraterrestrials inside a giant dome on the planet Mars is entirely lost on her.

All she has to amuse herself is to trill her lips, a vocal exercise as she understands it, so determined from her library of articles and other such publications collated on all matters pertaining to the human condition. To the returning Robert the sight would normally be interpreted as that of a profoundly bored teenager, but today is not any normal day.

A take-out tray holding two coffees is thrust at Lucy, which she takes as Robert clambers back in to the driver’s seat.

“It’s pretty accurate,” he says.

“You were served these?”

“The coffee machine was up and running. I’ll bet that in every coffee shop across the city it’s the same.”

Robert grabs one of the cups, taking a sip through its lid. Lucy observes and does likewise with the remaining cup, before noticing that hers is marked.

“Decaf?” she enquires.

“Probably best.”

“Yours isn’t decaf,” she observes.

Lucy’s indignant response is swept aside by the presentation of a paper bag, whipped into view and snapped open with a single motion.

“You’ll like them.”

Lucy peers in with big eyes, the bag being then quickly snatched from Robert’s light grasp and the two profiteroles within stuffed into her mouth. It’s all Robert can do to look at the churning mess of cream and chocolate framed by her broadest grin yet.

“We’d better make a move,” Robert says, starting the car.

“Can I finish my coffee? It’s nice.”

“Check this out,” he says, tapping the dashboard.

Two cup holders slide out from invisible recesses.

“
That’s really neat!!!
”

An elegant solution to a pressing problem never fails to delight Lucy.

* * *

Times Square is unsurprisingly empty, Robert being reminded of a certain movie scene as he looks all about, having wandered a little distance from the car, and with Lucy instructed to remain. Their journey from Fifth Avenue had yielded no additional insight into the purpose of the city. Thus far it was a true depiction of Manhattan, with the same block layout and the more established structures being present—those that had stood the test of time, iconic or not, were here, while those that had not were absent, among them the Cantor Satori tower, the center of Robert’s empire and nowhere to be seen.

The route, not being direct, had taken them past the Chrysler Building, the Empire State and Grand Central Station. Lucy had been keen to enter those taller buildings offering potential vantage points from which to survey the greater metropolitan area, but a lengthy debate around relying on elevators in a deserted city had kept the notion repressed for the time being.

“Robert—
look!
”

He follows her pointing arm to look up at the central building—
One, Times Square
. All the usual neon-soaked digital billboards around the square were lifeless, but high up on that slender façade one display was now active, streaming a live video feed—a perspective looking back down to show Robert and Lucy looking back up.

“How about that.”
An Englishman in New York
. It wasn’t the first time Robert’s image had been on display in this place.

* * *

Adjusting spatial position in the lower dimensions was a most tiresome prospect—everything was such a muddle. Nevertheless this particular area afforded as many vantage points as the Nexus tunnels when it came to direct observation, with brothers and sisters having taken up stations all around.

The troublesome
familiars
had been dealt with, and despite the pathetic attempt at intervention the two subjects had proceeded in the desired manner. Even so, the male and female would insist on moving about
so
, and doubtless the creatures will soon move
yet again
. But the normal remote sensory methods of observation were entirely inadequate for the discovery of a jewel—especially such a one as was suspected here—so the Veil engineers had little choice.

A sister suggests that they have arrived at a suitable moment.

The brothers concur.

* * *

Robert catches some movement in the corner of his eye, whirling round to seek it out. A car door slams shut out of sight, the location obscured by the buildings. Robert steps in the direction of his best guess. A V8 bursts into life. It’s not the Aston. A deafening squeal of rubber and the Mustang surges out of a side street, heading straight for him.

The Ford tears past, Robert giving chase on foot for a good twenty yards or so, but to no avail. As soon as he staggers to a halt the Aston pulls alongside, Lucy at the wheel. An instant and he’s in, Lucy flooring the accelerator.

The Ford has some distance on them, but the streets are holding it back. It powers around a turn into Sixth Avenue. Lucy guns the accelerator and whips the wheel round to power slide through the same turn—

A truck bears down on them, horn blaring.

“
Jesus Christ!!
”

Lucy just manages to dodge it, but now there are many more vehicles—cabs, cars, trucks—all heading up Sixth Avenue, forcing her to weave between them at high speed.

“
Lucy! They’re not real. They’re just projections.
”

The passenger side wing mirror is clipped off by an otherwise near miss.

“Oh shit.”

Ahead the Mustang is in the same situation, also dodging traffic, but not quite as fast. Lucy is gaining on it, vehicles flashing by, the Aston’s engine whining under the strain being placed upon it, her fingers flicking away at the paddle shifts on the steering wheel. It’s all Robert can do to hang on as the twists and turns fling him about. A quick glance at Lucy reveals a placid face—no strain, no emotion.

The vehicles are joined by pedestrians, seemingly stepping out of the shadows. As the two cars race by, they look on without reaction—projection people. It’s all somehow real but not real.

“
Get on the driver’s side
,” Robert shouts over the noise.

Lucy swings to the right of the Ford.

“
The other driver’s side
.”

She swings over to the left side, the Ford abruptly dodging an oncoming cab, now heading straight for them, forcing Lucy to the far side of the carriage way—but a clear path. She edges alongside the Mustang.

Through the darkened glass an outline of the driver can be discerned. The figure tilts its head for a furtive glance in the wing mirror, before surging the Mustang forward once more, and immediately peeling off into another street. Lucy barely manages to follow it around.

No traffic, no pedestrians. Both cars have a clear run and Lucy has lost a lot of ground. She red-lines the engine to gain it back, the Aston leaving the road briefly as she crosses an intersection.

Another sharp turn and they are in a service street—a dead end, the Ford heading for an opening in a building at the far end. It’s straight in to a halt, shutters lowering behind it, Lucy breaking hard to stop them just short.

The shutters clunk shut.

Robert is out of the car and legging it to the entrance, slamming his palm down on a large green button to one side.

The shutters rise in their own time to reveal a parking garage within. It is empty, the floor now a featureless shaft.

“Looks like a Nexus elevator,” Robert says. “Must go down to the substructure.”

Lucy stands right at the very edge to peer down.

“No way down, no elevator controls,” she observes. “We’ve lost them.”

“Did you make out the driver?” Robert asks. “Didn’t look like Ril or Ramani.”

“I didn’t see.”

Robert sweeps his hand over his head to calm himself, stepping back out onto the street.

“Now what?” Lucy asks.

Robert looks up at the building’s façade.

* * *

Though not one of the tallest buildings, it does promise a view of sorts, with Robert and Lucy chancing the elevator to the top floor. They find an executive suite—boardroom, secretarial desks, and an office worthy of an up-and-coming CEO. Except that it’s all dated. No air screens here. No projectors. Just flat panels, keyboards, and desk phones.

Robert joins the dots.

The car, his house—they had just seemed like random choices plucked from his past. But with this office it all makes sense, and come to think of it, the coffee shop had seemed a bit retro. The city was from the late twenty-tens, when Robert was—

“—just a young man.”

“Were you in New York?” Lucy asks.

“No. No, I was not. I was somewhere altogether different.”

Robert tries the desk equipment—all in working order, but the network simply serves up a bland landing page announcing the service to be currently unavailable. It’s a similar story with the phones and TV. Even so, there is no way all this equipment could have been procured on Earth—such outdated models haven’t been manufactured for decades, and unlike ovens and potato peelers there is no current fashion for a retro look in the workplace. Unless, of course, this building is the only one so equipped—after all, they were led here.