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forthcoming because Michael John Jones would exist electronically &
What are you doing now? persisted Clare.
Will you shut up!
Jack called out, The pizza s ready. I m afraid I burnt it a bit.
Matt sat on the jungle sofa to eat, so that the gun could rest beside him. He
had made Clare and Jack sit in the glass-look chairs.
Please let me look, she begged again.
Mouth full of seafood pizza, Matt shook his head. He swallowed.
It s busy.
Is it aware
?
What a burden had lifted from Matt s shoulders. A bright light at the end of
the tunnel, even if he still had this pair of witnesses to bother with. They
mustn t see what he was up to. If they did see, his false identity wouldn t be
secure.
If it s aware, he said, maybe it s wise of it not to blab.
Maybe the Qua would only become fully self-aware as more and more information
and understanding accumulated & Sort of like a child maturing. He didn t know.
It didn t matter, compared to his own safety.
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Hard Questions
Now
, Clare said, if we die
We shall go to heaven. Sure. Personally, he in the identity of Michael
John Jones, a decently neutral name would be going to New Orleans as soon as
he could sort things out. With the Qua in the trunk of a brand-new Porsche;
stopping at good motels to recharge the refrigeration batteries. As a student
he had visited New Orleans. Liked that city a lot.
Jack looked as though he needed matchsticks for his eyes. Matt was a candidate
for matchsticks too.
He wasn t going to stray far from the Qua. He would sleep right here on this
sofa, upon jungle fronds and blooms between the jaguar and the Indian. His
guests could sleep in the kitchen, which looked out on a high fence thick with
ivy and vines. Two or three glassy chairs piled against the door, to alert him
if they tried to sneak out.
I know you re both tired, he said. You re going to go upstairs. You re
going to slide a mattress down here. You ll put it in the kitchen and sleep
on it.
Jack moaned, but Clare smiled radiantly. She too wanted to stay as close to
the Qua as she could.
85
A Cherokee Jeep pulled up beside a green-painted kerb opposite the house in
Pirate Place. The Jeep s lights carved long tunnels in a fog which was rising,
rolling up Telegraph Hill. Lights and engine died.
The gathering fog was a friend.
By the house was parked a Ford Taurus with California plates.
She s in there, Gabe said. He sniffed the air. Moist salt from the bay,
vegetation. I know she is.
Whose car s that, then? asked Jersey, in the driving seat.
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Gabe shrugged.
We ought to have carried on north, whined Billy from behind.
Gabe spoke as to a child. Oh Billy, we ll be going north soon, so soon.
Didn t I lead you out of Arizona?
Didn t the zombie lab get trashed?
They had heard on the radio of the stolen Jeep a report of the destructive
attack on QX. Details were
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[1/10/2005 1:11:13 AM]
Hard Questions scanty. What exactly had happened remained unclear, except that
it had been spectacular.
We lost such a lot, Gabe
Only in zombie terms! Zombies would have come to raid the Soul Shelter sooner
or later. Isn t that the truth?
You re determined to have this woman, complained Billy.
This one, yes! I foresee her spreading that terrible lie of salvation
through machines unless I can illuminate her. The lie will spread and
spread. The world will believe her because her lie s so much less taxing than
the truth. So much softer. I foresee this, Billy, because she s linked to me.
I knew this the moment I saw that story in the
Investigator
Was Gabe s inner voice about to take over?
I ll see if I can kick the door in, said Jersey. In case not, from under his
seat he pulled a revolver.
86
Matt woke on the jungle sofa and strained to hear what had woken him.
Screen-light faintly illuminated the study. The kitchen door was still shut,
those see-through chairs scarcely visible.
Something bumped out on the veranda. Someone was moving about.
More than one person out there. Shock chilled him. He felt for the gun on the
floor. Ah, here. He hoisted himself softly from the sofa.
Someone was trying the front door now.
Gwenda s people they d traced him. The Ford must have been followed after
all.
A shoulder heaved against the door. A boot thumped into it.
The door didn t fly open immediately.
Get to the computer. Threaten to shoot the Qua full of bullets, wreck it.
Burst the cooling system. Spill the liquid nitrogen into its guts unless they
did a deal.
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Hard Questions
I ll destroy it,
he rehearsed.
A single gunshot sounded, like a car backfiring, and the door did crash open.
Don t do it! Matt shouted. I m armed. I ll destroy the computer!
Into the study, slam the door.
Sometime during the night the laser printer had produced a page of names and
numbers. Couldn t read them easily by screen-light. These must be details of
his alternative identity as Michael John Jones.
Wonderful Qua. What use to him now?
Aglow on screen:
What do you wish now, Matthew?
He was a terrified child. Intruders were inside the house. He thought he heard
someone heading upstairs.
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What did he want? Escape, escape!
Gun in one hand, Matt typed:
Save us.
The words were like a prayer.
True stories of answered prayer
&
Escape, escape.
The terrified child who was Matt pressed the ESC key too. ESC for ESCAPE. To
exit from a program. To exit.
87
The water bed had quaked, awakening Clare and Jack, naked together under a
sheet. The security light from the house behind Angelo s radiated a pearly
fogged sheen through a gap in the curtains.
Clare sat bolt upright. Immediately she subsided as the water shifted under
her. As if the bed was something alien and terrible she heaved herself from
it. A gown lay on the floor. She clutched the robe to herself.
Jack, we weren t in this bed !
He too struggled from the bed as though unfamiliar with its ways.
We weren t here, Jack. We were in the kitchen on the mattress. Weren t we?
Weren t we?
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[1/10/2005 1:11:13 AM]
Hard Questions
Could the gourds mounted on the wall really be pans and ladles? Could the
peyote tapestry and the mandrake woodcut be herb charts?
We were, weren t we, Jack? There was hysteria in her voice.
A bath-towel lay near him. He gathered the towel up. Yes, we were in the
kitchen.
Thank God!
Mike Matt was sleeping on the sofa.
Yes, yes.
Now we re in Angelo s bedroom
How?
He was shivering. So was she. Were we & drugged?
You cooked the pizza! Didn t you cook a pizza, Jack?
Would they have to confirm everything with one another?
You didn t put some drug of Angelo s on it? Something to dope Matt? You d
have told me in the kitchen, wouldn t you?
It was just an ordinary commercial pizza in a cardboard box.
Jack, we shouldn t be here. Something s very wrong.
I know it is Wrapped in the towel, he approached her and clasped her to
him.
I think we re dead, she whispered, and this is afterwards.
I think Matt shot us both in our sleep. We wouldn t know, would we? This is
afterwards. Do you think we re dead, Jack?
Detaching himself gently, he found a lamp and rumbled for the switch.
Matt couldn t have shot us both at once, he pointed out. One of us would
have woken up. One of us would have known what was happening.
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