of what's been going on here…'
Jay Gridley came striding out of the dark-a lithe, intent-looking Thai-American man, in a business suit and tie. Right now, though, the intentness was mostly concentrated on his son. Mark was looking a little sheepish. 'Uh, hi, Dad,' he said, 'you see, Charlie came to me with a problem-'
'Excuse me,' said a quiet voice from out of the darkness behind them, 'but were you looking for me?'
They all turned. The Goddess of Virtue stood there looking at them, while lifting up a long pale veil that had covered her face and head. Astraea was astonishingly beautiful, a tall and slender woman all robed in Greek- classical white, and her expression was severe, intelligent, and a little sorrowful.
Jay Gridley smiled slightly. 'Uh, yes, ma'am. Routinely.'
'Yeah,' Nick said. 'Mostly to say, don't go… '
'But there is nowhere for me to stay,' she said sadly. 'My only dwelling is in the hearts of men, and all of mankind is wicked… '
They looked at one another. 'If you wait about two seconds,' Charlie said, 'not all… because a baby'll be born somewhere.'
She smiled at him. It was like the sun coming up. 'Thank you,' Astraea said. 'I think I'll stay.'
They were all quiet a moment. 'Which way to the Ninth Circle?' Nick said at last.
'There is none,' Astraea said. 'Or rather, this is it. This is Despair, after all. But after this… you go out the far side. That way.' She pointed, and suddenly there was a little light away off in the darkness, like an open door.
'Uh, thanks,' Mark said. He was a little bemused as he said it, for Astraea had draped her former veil around her neck like a scarf, and now she reached around behind her into the darkness and came out with a sword and a pair of scales.
'And now,' she said cheerfully, 'back to the day job. See you later… '
She vanished.
Mark looked up at his father. 'You know her, Dad?'
he said.
'You kidding?' said Jay Gridley softly, but with some amusement, as he looked at the distant light. 'She's one of my bosses.' Then he looked down at his son, and his face acquired a severity more like that of Justice's. 'Meanwhile… you and I need to talk. Briefly, because I have to get back to work. But later on we are going to have a long discussion… '
Mark arid his father vanished. Mark's expression was mostly unrepentant, despite his father's sternness. All Charlie thought it was wise to do was nod and grin just a little. When they were gone, Charlie started to turn toward Nick…
… and everything dissolved in a mist of light, back to a white plain and blue sky. A great voice came from the heavens and said to Charlie, 'Thank you for using Net Access. You have come to the end of your purchased access time for this session. Please see the customer representative for more time.. or inquire about one of our monthly billing accounts!'
And suddenly he was sitting in the implant chair again… and behind him, there was a little cchk! noise as the door of the suite unlocked itself and slid open.
Charlie was on his feet in about a second, and out into the hallway. There he stopped, openmouthed with surprise.
The place was full of uniformed police. Two of them, right then, along with a dark-suited woman in plain clothes wearing the inimitable Net Force ID, were escorting out someone in handbinders. She was of medium height, dark-haired with some gray sprinkled through it, a little pudgy, maybe about forty. She was a profoundly ordinary-looking person, one he would have passed in the street a hundred times and never noticed. She looked ordinary, like a mother… and she was wearing a soft, fuzzy white short-sleeved cotton sweater.
There he lost his train of thought, for two more Net Force ops, a man and a woman, came walking down the hall toward Charlie.
'Charlie Davis?' one of them said.
'Uh, yes.'
'Your father wants to see you,' said the woman op. 'Right now.'
Ooops.
He walked outside, past the shocked-looking counter guy, and saw his dad standing there. By a police car-his mother was just getting out of another. The street was full of people slowing down to rubberneck, or standing there watching and talking. It looked like a disaster area.
He was afraid the disaster was going to be his.
But Charlie couldn't say a word for the moment. The relief, and the fear, and a host of other emotions, had all come crashing down on him together as he walked out of that booth and saw her-the woman who was Shade, or Kalki, or both-being taken away from the next booth to the one he had been in. The next booth-! Charlie went over to his mother and father, and they closed in on him, and he grabbed them both and hugged them hard.
'We're going to talk about this later,' his father said, very low. 'A lot. But I want to hear all of your side first.'
'Thanks, Dad,' Charlie said.
'But I notice that someone else is wearing the handcuffs,' his mother said, 'so I guess we can assume that you've been doing something that's going to make us proud.'
Boy, I hope so, Charlie thought as they walked him away.
It was a long, long talk they had, and one that was going to take more than one evening to resolve. Charlie realized that when he was in bed that night, suffering from near-terminal embarrassment and upset, and at the same time, great pride… for word came down on the late news that evening that the cases of all the Deathworld 'suicides' were being reopened. Additionally, after a very belated session with his mother's hot and spicy ribs (most of the dressing-down he suffered had happened while they were all in the kitchen together, and she was cooking), the vidphone went off. His father went to get it and didn't come back for something like twenty minutes.
'Who was it, honey?' Charlie's mother said.
'Jay Gridley,' said Charlie's dad. He sat down and began to toy with one last rib he hadn't touched during dinner.
Charlie didn't say anything, though he very much wanted to-every word he had said, earlier, had seemed to trigger some new and interesting strain of the basic argument. 'He says,' Charlie's dad said, turning to Charlie, 'that you may have saved ten or twenty people's lives.'
Charlie swallowed.
'He also says you're to see James Winters tomorrow morning at eight,' said his dad. 'I assume that won't interfere with school?'
'Uh.. no.'
'Good. Let us know what happens… '
'Uh, I will.'
And that had been all. Charlie had gone to bed in a very subdued mood. But he had not been able to avoid seeing the look his mother and father exchanged as he'd gone upstairs. It had been worried, frightened, relieved… but not angry.
The next morning, having left his workspace and taken his seat in Winters's office, he wondered if being spared last night had simply left him mostly intact for a more thorough reaming-out today. Mark Gridley was there when Charlie got there, and he, too, was looking rather pale.
For a minute or two Winters just sat behind his desk, looking over documentation that was scrolling through the virtual window hanging nearby. Finally he shook his head and sat back, and looked at the two of them.
'Well,' he said. 'It's taken me the better part of last night and this morning, but I've finally finished reviewing the forensic and other information that our fast-response team went out to act on yesterday.' He sighed. 'Mark has already finished his debrief, but since he acted as 'enabler' for you on this, Charlie, I thought it might be wise to have him here to sketch in any details there necessary. Does that meet with your approval?'
'Uh, yes, sir.'
'With one note,' said Winters. 'The wild, I would say profligate, illegality of a lot of Mark's 'enabling' needs to be stressed here. I would have thought,' he said to Mark, 'that after the last time, I wouldn't need to have this discussion with you again. But I see that no human agency can possibly predict your actions. You, I'm just going to
