might not go through, but I needn’t have worried. There was a sound like a buried firecracker and a hiss as the Bom’s hollow shell flew across the lobby. A surprised expression bloomed on Michael’s face.
“Oh, shit, somebody get a goddamn paramedic,” Marena said, loudly but not shouting.
It usually takes a lot longer for someone to respond to sedation or poisoning than one thinks it should. Blood in any given capillary will return to the heart in about twenty-three seconds, but after that it still takes some time for whatever it is to get absorbed through the cell walls of the heart or lungs. So often there are two hundred or so beats of lag time. But the Bom did a good job of scattering its crystals through a wide range of levels and locations in Michael’s back, and in less than thirty beats the look of surprise turned to-well, I am not sure what the English word would be. Let us say it was a rich mixture of pain, fear, and rage. He wobbled and started to fall, but Ana held him up. I looked back at Lindsay. He was still thinking about pulling off his jacket.
“DO NOT MOVE,” I said again. “Seriously. If you pull too hard on that, it will fire on its own. It is not the tranquilizer shit it comes with in there.”
“Shut up,” the Big Guy said. He pushed my head down.
“There are enough neurotoxin crystals in there to kill a blue whale,” I said. As if to illustrate the point, I heard Ana easing Michael down onto the floor. He gurgled. Probably his heart had already seized up. “If you pull my arm back any farther I’m setting it off,” I said to the Big Guy. “Also, I have to enter a stay-of-execution code every two hundred and ten beats. Three minutes, rather. So, I want-”
“We make these things,” Lindsay interrupted. “There’s a way to get them off.”
“Go for it,” I said. I could hear the Big Guy mumbling into the air, asking for backup over his ear thing.
“Good deal,” Lindsay said. There was just a lot of confidence there. Even to me, he just seemed senior, the way 2 Jeweled Skull had. I suppose the equivalent in this era would be the way the school principal looks to a third-grader.
“I have said enough,” I said.
For about twenty beats, Lindsay seemed to be conferring with Ana and maybe Marena, although I couldn’t see them. Finally they seemed to have made a decision. Lindsay came over, crouched down-I could see the heels of shoes, which, maybe oddly, were black bowling shoes, rising off the floor-and must have signaled for the Big Guy to let my head up so that I could look at him.
“Come on, have them let me go,” I said. I gave him a little buzz and he froze. That was another well- designed thing about the system. It really felt like it was going to explode. “And do not walk away, I’ll blast you just like Fuckwad here.” I looked over at Michael for emphasis. A paraperson was already trying to give him mouth-to- mouth resuscitation.
“What do you want to talk about?” Lindsay asked.
“I am not negotiating,” I said. “I do not want to kill you, I just want to chat, but you know, if anything happens to me I do want to take you down with me. Also I have to keep punching this thing or it’ll go off by itself anyway. Do you understand?”
He didn’t answer.
“Anyway, the release code is thirteen digits long, and you will never get it out of me in time. Also, I promise I am not going to be asking for much. Could you get this guy to take it easy?”
“Doug, take it easy,” Lindsay said to the Big Guy. Doug’s grip relaxed and I could look up.
“Marena?” I asked. “Could you button Lindsay’s jacket for him? Including the top button.”
“What do you think?” Marena asked him.
“Fine, do it,” he said.
She did. It made Lindsay look turn-of-the-century. I mean, the century before the last one.
“Dump out your pockets and then put your hands in them,” I said. He started to but they were still sewn together. “Not your jacket pockets, your front pants pockets.”
He did. A couple of old coins bounced on the floor. Behind him the paramedic pulled away from Michael and came up with a mouthful of blood. I am glad I do not have that job, I thought. I looked back at Lindsay. He had not moved.
“Maybe you will kill me whatever happens,” he said.
“Nonsense,” I said, “if I wanted to do that I would have done it already. You think you are that hard to get to? I am just concerned about my role in your new administration. We are on the same side of the court on this.”
“All righty,” he said. “Except you’re not going to get out of here whether I want you to or not.”
“I know, but I still recommend you stall for time. Is not that the standard procedure?”
There was a kind of Woo standoff for seventy beats while Lindsay talked with Ana. Finally they let me up. Without looking away from my eyes, Lindsay cracked enough to raise a finger. Doug pried his hands off my arms.
Lindsay just darted his eyes toward the south wall and Doug and Ana fell instantly into line, leading Marena and me on a straight cut through the freaked crowd and along the long granite wall behind the dessert tables. Doug did not loosen his grip on my arm but he did talk into the air again, telling the backup security to hold back. Ana led us around a corner toward the bank of elevators. “Let’s go up to your office,” I said to Lindsay. “This is a bummer party anyway, I’ve never seen so many nobodies in my life.” Ana opened the door to a big blond-wood-paneled container by holding her palm over a little red laser.
“Not that one,” I said. “Let’s go up to the box.” I turned and walked to the end of the line, making them follow me, to the Elevator V, the one that led to the floor behind the VIP box. Lindsay signaled okay and Doug opened it.
“Could you move all the VIPs out of the VIP box?” I asked Lindsay. “Maybe send them on a tour of the locker room?”
He gave Ana the order. She sent it over her ear.
“You can let go of his arm,” Lindsay said. Doug did.
“Thanks,” I said. A Glorious Foodster slid past with his tray still in his hand and I grabbed a highball glass of what turned out to be upscale chocolate soda.
“The guards can’t come up,” I said.
“That’s impossible, they have to,” Lindsay said.
“No, I’m sticking on that issue,” I said. There was another pause, as tense as if we were waiting for the first ball to unravel its knot and drop onto the marker. I tossed off the soda and dropped the tumbler on the floor just to hear the sweet sound of breaking glass.
“Okay, fine,” Lindsay said, “Look, I can talk for twenty minutes. Then I have to go back down and check the guests. Or you’ll have to kill me.”
“That’s fine, that’s plenty,” I said, “thanks for taking the time, I know a lot of people want to get in to see you-”
“Oh, please,” he said. “Doug, you go up to twelve. Ana, you cover the fire exits.”
“Ten-four,” she said.
I stepped into the elevator. Marena followed and then Lindsay. The time on the panel said 3:21:02 P.M. Roughly two hours and eight minutes left before the Sweeper test. Better keep moving. Marena punched in the eight-digit code for the fourteenth floor. As the door started to close, Ana still was looking at me with her watchful eyes. We started up.
(111)
This time there was a long acceleration. I looked away from the security camera. There was an instant of equilibrium and then a slower deceleration and a D note on a nonexistent metalophone.
The door hissed open on a big would-be-classy waiting room. Three meters in front of us a single security dude was standing up behind a glass reception desk, holding a communicator to his ear, his mouth open. To the right a wide glass door led into Lindsay’s VIP box, with the last of the VIPs filing out of it into the Great Glass Elevator. We waited for a beat and as the elevator went down I led Lindsay and Marena past the puzzled desk guy. As the next set of glass doors opened themselves we heard the BONG of another elevator landing somewhere.
