Alex poured himself a mug of coffee and went out onto the balcony. His unit was on a slope, and he gazed out over the rolling hills. It was a good life, all in all. He had done stupid things, risky things, and become many different men along the way. And all of those moments had brought him here, to this.
'Yes.' Alex said. He nosed at the coffee, but didn't sample it. It was still much too hot to drink. 'I'd like to say something. I can't prove it, but we both know you killed Sharon Crayne. I don't know whether I loved her or not. I don't know if it could have worked. But she was young, and lovely, and very alive, and now she's dead. And you killed her.'
Bishop made no denial, offered no affirmation. He merely waited, silently.
There weren't going to be any verbal games, then.
His left leg felt a little looser than his right. All right, then. Let's get it done.
Alex threw the scalding coffee at Bishop's left eye, then whipped a low sweeping kick into his right knee as he dodged.
But Bishop was rolling, under the coffee and over the kick. The man was as agile as a monkey, a tight springy rubber ball that bounced once, feinted left, and with eye-baffling speed slipped behind him.
Bishop pounced on Alex's back, hissing like a cat. His thumbs and fingers dug for Alex's windpipe, his carotid artery, gripped and tore at the muscles themselves. Griffin fell backward slammed to the ground, trying to smash the air from Bishop's lungs. Bishop squirmed from beneath him, and Alex lurched up, roaring.
Bishop had his arm in some kind of hold. Alex didn't have time to recognize it before Bishop spun and threw him. Alex felt as if his fingers, wrist, and elbows were all being torn apart. The pain made his whole body leap, and he spun through the air. He slapped the ground with his left arm, hard enough to make a bad breakfall against the carpet. Bishop was already jerking him up again, by the fingers this time. Alex's fingers were torqued into a sankyo wristlock, and in a moment, his head was going to be through the wall.
With a desperate surge of strength Alex went against the hold, wrenching his hand loose. He felt his index and second fingers snap under the unearthly torque.
Alex's mind went blank. He abandoned technique, smashing into Bishop shoulder-first, tackling him, carrying him back over the couch, sprawling on the floor with him, and crashing his elbow into Bishop's face: once, twice, thrice. Bishop's eyes were wide and wild, his face split, blood drooling in a mask from eyes to chin. He snapped forward and butted Alex in the mouth, mashing lips against teeth and driving his head back.
Bishop struck the exposed throat with the web between thumb and forefinger, and Alex retched. Bishop arched his back massively, heaving Alex up and into a table.
Bishop tried to regain control, to return to some kind of a balanced posture, but Alex drove back in with no concern for pain, or injury, or anything except the primal urge to finish what had begun.
They thundered against the wall, into the corner, upsetting another table. Bishop strove to get the distance to use his superior technique, to no avail. Griffin time and again took fearful abuse to ribs and face to hammer Bishop back. To hurt him, punish him, make him forget all of the carefully learned combat maneuvers and force him to react on the animal level. This wasn't a dojo ballet. This was two cats in a sack, and Griffin was beyond concern for life or limb or anything but smashing the man before him.
Alex's face was a mask of blood, but with head bowed he worked Bishop's body, left hooks and right elbows, grunting with the effort, broken fingers standing out at an angle, not thinking, not feeling, a perpetual-motion machine that went on and on and Bishop's nerve broke.
He screamed, forgetting his human skills, forgetting everything except the blind urge to get away from the maniacal thing that Alex Griffin had become.
Alex slammed a knee into Bishop's crotch, the hardest and most heartfelt blow of his life.
Bishop went limp, gagging. Alex stepped back with his left And his foot slipped on the coffee.
He fell, and Bishop twisted under him, sobbing with the effort, foot striking up and into Griffin's groin in a modified tomoenage stomach throw, arching up and back, throwing Griffin high Alex smashed through the patio glass, somersaulting out and over the balcony.
Bishop lurched to his feet, vomited, and almost choked on it. He managed to steady himself and focus his eyes.
He had only seconds, if that. He spun a chair into the center of the room and reached up to the ceiling next to the lighting fixture. There, hidden in a shadow, was a piece of white glue no bigger than a thumbnail. And upon it was a tiny beige plastic chip. His hand shook as he pried it loose.
With agony in every joint and muscle, blood oozing from his nose, Bishop managed to crawl over the balcony and drop to the ground five feet below.
Griffin lay at the bottom of the slope, his head twisted at an odd angle. Maybe the bastard's neck was broken. Bishop didn't have time to check. No time! He had to escape, to find a doctor, to get his precious data into the right hands before someone put a bullet in his brain.
Fingers clutching bruised ribs, Bishop limped into the shadows. Every step hurt. He made his way along a line of retreat secured far in advance. Within minutes he was in his car, had punched in an address and collapsed against the seat, tears of pain starting from his eyes. I'm alive, he thought. Alive and flying now, as the car began to rise. Flying away from Griffin, away from Dream Park. Away from the clamor of alarms and yapping dogs, the steady panicked cry of first two and then a dozen throats. As fast as the car could travel he flew, away from that one thing worse than an honorable defeat: a humiliating victory.
Epilogue: Part One
Tuesday, September 27, 2059
The house was a rambling, Spanish-style two-story dwelling with a red tile roof and enormous bay windows looking out over a cliff above the Malibu beach. It belonged to Millicent Summers, and although she had tried for years to get Alex Griffin out for a week, this was the first time he had accepted the invitation.
The sun was minutes above the horizon, swathed in orange clouds, so that Alex could look almost directly at it. Millicent and Tony seemed as torpid as he, lounging in wet swimsuits and dampening terrycloth robes, listening to the hard, steady roll of the waves below.
Alex felt exposed. There was a part of him that wanted to go back to Dream Park, to its safety and consistency. To be able to reach out and touch a button and change the image: now a beach; now a mountainscape; now the far side of the moon.
But you couldn't control the tides. You rode them, or avoided them, or they drowned you.
They were all pleasantly tired after a day of snorkeling and swimming and roaming in the hills. Smelling real air, chasing real birds. Running on a real beach. Watching the sun set on a real horizon.
He felt so small.
'I don't know,' Tony was saying. 'I know what I want to do. I know what Cass wants. I just don't know if I can give her a chance.'
'Then don't do it for her,' Millicent said. 'Do it for yourself. You have a chance to see whether there was ever anything there. If it doesn't work, fine, but let it be real this time.'
Do it for yourself, she thought. And if you don't know who you are? Then you'd better the hell find out. There's always someone ready and willing to fill an empty cup.
Alex donned a happy expression as Acacia Garcia came back from Millicent's house with a platter of margaritas. Alex tasted his, licked at the salt along the rim, and said, 'Compliments to the mixologist.'
Acacia dimpled. She was thinner, by maybe six pounds. She had lost some of the sass, and her cheekbones were a little too sharp. Her hair often looked a tad disarrayed, as if she had only fussed with it as an afterthought. Some of the carefully cultivated seduction ploys were still in evidence, but the frayed edges were showing. And often, she caught herself in mid-posture, mid-calculated sigh, mid-knowing wink and stopped.
Shorn of her artifice, there was something wistful about Acacia. She was still an exquisitely lovely woman, but she seemed… frailer somehow. And loud noises or sudden shadows made her flinch.
Tony took his drink, and her hand. She sat next to him on the lounge chair. They didn't speak; they hadn't spoken much around Alex or Millicent, but they had taken long walks together, and after four days at the beach house, Tony had moved into her room.
