“Walking around?”
“That’s what we called it back in Raleigh. He worked odd jobs to help with the rent but he didn’t usually have any money of his own, so I used to give him a little cash on Saturdays so he could walk down to the store and buy something, or maybe go to the municipal pool or get himself lunch at McDonald’s. He didn’t like to be away from home without money in his pocket.” Ariel stopped pacing and shook her head. “I gave him forty dollars to keep him happy. I didn’t think he’d take it and run. What’s forty dollars in a city like this? After lunch we went back to the room to wait for you two. Then he says, Ariel, I’m going to the lobby and get change for the Coke machine. I said I would give him coins. He said no, I already gave him money, he wanted to change a bill. Twenty minutes and he’s not back, so I went to look for him. He wasn’t down at the soda machine and when I went to the lobby he wasn’t there, either. The clerk told me he saw Orrin waiting for a city bus at the highway stop.”
“Going which direction?” Bose asked.
“You’ll have to ask the clerk.”
“Was Orrin alone or was he with somebody?”
“Clerk didn’t say anything about anybody else.”
Sandra waited until Bose had wrung out of Ariel all the information she was capable of giving. Then she said, “I have a couple of questions, if it’s all right.”
Bose seemed surprised. Ariel sighed impatiently but nodded.
“Last time we talked you said Orrin was gentle, that he would never hurt anyone. Do you remember that?”
Ariel’s lips went taut. “Of course I remember.”
“But when he tried to leave State he fought with the orderly who tried to restrain him.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It may be, but the orderly was wearing a bandage the next day. He claims Orrin bit him.”
“I wouldn’t take anything those people say seriously. I thought you mentioned you quit that job?”
“I did. I don’t work there anymore. I just want to get clear on this.”
Ariel paced a few moments more. Then she said, “Nobody’s perfect, Dr. Cole. I told you Orrin’s gentle, and that’s the truth. Maybe I exaggerated last time we talked, but you were working for the people who locked him up —I didn’t want to say anything to make it worse.”
“Exaggerated how?”
“Orrin had a few encounters when he was growing up. He’s slow to anger, Dr. Cole, and he hates fights, but that doesn’t mean he never got in one. The neighbor children used to bother him. Called him names and all that. Mostly Orrin would run away, but every once in a while he’d lose his patience.”
Sandra and Bose exchanged glances. Bose said, “How often did this happen, Ariel?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe once or twice a year when he was younger.”
“Was it ever serious? Did he get hurt, did he hurt anyone else?”
“No…”
“Whatever you can tell us might help us find him.”
“I don’t see how.” Pause. “Well. Once he hit the Lewisson boy hard enough he had to get stitches over his eye. Other times it was just scuffles. Maybe a black eye or two. Sometimes Orrin got the worst of it. Sometimes not.” She added, “He always felt bad about it afterward.”
“Okay, thank you,” Bose said. “Anything else Orrin talked about this morning that you can recall? Anything at all, even if it seems unimportant.”
“No. Just the weather, like I said. He was interested in the weather report coming over the radio in the coffee shop. They’re calling for heavy rain tonight. That excited him. ‘I guess it’s tonight,’ he said. ‘Tonight’s the night.’”
“Any idea what he meant by that?”
“Well, he always did like storms. You know. The thunder and all.”
Bose convinced Ariel to stay in her room, “otherwise I’ll end up looking for the both of you.” And Ariel had calmed down enough to see the sense in it.
“You’ll call me, though, right? Soon as you know anything?”
“I’ll call you whether we know anything or not.”
Back in the motel lobby, Bose talked to the desk clerk for a few minutes. Orrin had been waiting for the downtown bus, the clerk said. No, he hadn’t actually seen Orrin get on. Just noticed him waiting out there. Skinny guy in torn jeans and a yellow T-shirt standing in the sun by the side of the road. “Begging for heat stroke in this weather, if you ask me. Those buses only come along every forty-five minutes.”
“So what do we do?” Sandra asked when Bose had finished.
“Depends. Maybe you want to stay here with Ariel?”
“Or maybe I don’t.”
“I can think of a couple of places we might look.”
“You’re saying you know where he went?”
“I have an idea or two,” Bose said.
Chapter Twenty-two
Allison’s Story
Isaac Dvali explained how he’d turned off the Network surveillance. Turk sat warily still, watching Isaac, watching me.
“It’s true,” I said when Isaac finished, and I told him the rest of it: that I’d talked to Isaac days ago, that Isaac knew about our plan, and that (at least for the moment) the Network couldn’t hear a word we said.
I wasn’t sure he believed me until he stood up and came across the room and we looked at each other, our first honest look since we had begun planning our escape. Then we were in each other’s arms, trying to say all the things we wanted to say and managing only a happy-sad incoherency. But words didn’t matter. It was enough to be able to hold him without making a lie of it. Then my hand touched the node at the back of his neck: a patch of papery skin, a fleshy bump. He flinched, and we drew apart.
He turned to Isaac. “Thank you for doing this—”
“You’re welcome.”
“—but it’s a little confusing. I knew Isaac Dvali back in the Equatorian desert. You look like him, allowing for what happened, and I know they rebuilt you from Isaac’s body. But a lot of you must be pure Vox. And to be honest, you don’t sound much like the Isaac I knew.”
“I’m
Turk was looking at him with Networked attention, reading the invisible signs. “What I’m saying is, I don’t understand why you’re here. I don’t know what you want.”
Isaac’s smile disappeared and a cold light came into his eyes, a light even I could see. “It doesn’t matter what I
I said, “How do you know that?”
“I can’t talk to the Hypotheticals—I’m not what Oscar thinks I am—but I can hear them ticking out in the dark. Not their thoughts—their
