In the quiet of her office she reviewed her speech a final time, making one or two notes in the margin with her green gel pen. She had arrived at six this morning, still trying to reach Memo, frustrated at the time difference on the east coast. The hospital had no news for her on Echo's condition, on his prospects, on anything. She had only been able to leave a message on the neurologist's answering machine, asking him to please call her as early as possible, leaving her cell number, repeating it twice. Drexler was AWOL as well, and she read the messages Carla had taken from him; there was no logic to them, no sense. Of all days for this to happen, she thought, of all the days.

She opened her folder to the agenda for the day and drew a line through the teleconference with the lab, she had intended for Echo and Memo's report to set the table for the announcement. Instead the audience would see the 8 minute video that had been prepared for the dog-and-pony show for the VCs, for the investors, for potential clients. There was no time to edit the narration, no time to delete the financial projections. Fortunately the charts and graphs were at the end, they would simply show the first six minutes -- the technical capacities, the design, a computer rendered fly-by of the full-scale version of the Cat high above the Pacific, loaded with cargo containers, and then the shots of the prototype -- the scale version of the Cat that hovered over her moorings a few hundred yards away -- soaring in the California sunset. And fortunately they could replace the narration with a music track for today's audience.

The video was adequate; it competently illustrated the capabilities and potential of the system they had designed, but she hated it. Anything gets old when you've seen it a thousand times. She smiled at the thought that the showing this morning would be the last she would have to watch.

She left her office. On her way to the main tent she gave Carla the agenda to revise and distribute.

Spider watched the little blue lights. They stopped their twinkling and settled down to steady glows. The copy was complete, the ZDI backup drives were mirrored to both the Blades, that part of his job was done. He went behind the rack and disconnected the cables, the power line, unjacking them from both ends. His moist hands trembling in the darkness, but the weight of the money still felt good in his pocket.

He nestled both the Blades into their styrofoam cradles and slid them into their boxes. Spider didn't particularly like Dell's, he thought they were unreliable. Clearly Dice's people didn't either, otherwise they wouldn't need two of them. He taped the boxes closed and peeled the brown paper from the back of the UPS labels and stuck them down, covering the inbound labels. He noticed that the boxes were going to different addresses, neither of them Dice's. The shipper receipt copies of the labels had been removed from their packets.

Spider set them carefully into the cart and pushed it across the floor, the little wheels clicking on the joints in the tile. There was a railing and a little ramp that led down to the door from his lab and he went slowly, his knuckles white gripping the handle. He navigated the ramp and squeezed past the cart to open the door. He looked both ways before turning his back to the door and reaching in for the cart. It ticked the door frame as he spun it out into the hall and he felt his heart squeeze at the noise. He checked behind him and there was no-one there. Spider pushed the cart down the vinyl floor of the corridor. He tried not to hurry.

It was early, the shipping room was empty. Spider pushed the cart through the double doors to the loading dock. Off to his right the tents were set up; white pyramids on the tarmac, white pennants flying with the blue ZDI logo on them. There were two speaker towers at the rear of the main tent, guys with orange flags were parking the trucks and cars. The satellite trucks were extending the masts of their antennas, the cable wrapped around them, Spider noticed, the modern version of the caduceus, a snake coiled on a stick -- Moses held one up in the desert for healing; today CNN provides our salvation but the symbol remains the same. Spider's lips were bent as he lifted the boxes from the cart and laid them flat next to each other on the edge of the loading dock, label side up.

Drexler slowly came awake. His head hurt like a sonofabitch. He studied the edge of a carpet and the wood floor beneath it. His right shoulder throbbed in knotted pain, bringing him to full awareness. He rolled over onto his back. He did not recognize the ceiling, could not remember ever seeing a light fixture like the one that looked down at him. He sniffed and recognized the faint smell of powder. He squeezed his eyes closed, gathering his mind, and blinked them open, full awake, ears keen. Memo's place. There was no sound but the sound of his breathing, he held his breath...dead quiet.

He stood up, his left hand on the wall, his knees felt thin and reedy. Softly he made his way back to the living room; the mess was there but the man in black leather was gone. Thin morning light reflected from the building across the street, a blonde wedge. Still leaning on the wall he rubbed his eyes with the ball of his hand, his fingers in his hair, and squeezed at the tightness in his shoulder. He reached for his cell phone; it wasn't in the pouch on his hip, not in his pocket; he backtracked his steps, looked in the kitchen, on the floor in the hall, pushed the broken lamp aside with his foot...nowhere. He felt for his wallet and his fingers came up empty. Fuck.

Drexler went down the hall to Memo's bathroom, raised the seat and fumbled with his zipper. He stood slowly swaying, letting it go. When he was done he flushed the toilet, zipped up and turned to leave the room. He paused, then turned back and lowered the seat.

Dice took his place at the podium and looked at the crowd. He counted nine microphones on the lectern in front of him. He looked to the hanger to his right, pausing for effect, arching his eyebrows. This was going to be fun.

« bridge | trinity »