The Facilitator Read online

  “He is…of concern to our security division.”

  Williams frowned. “I believe you have received all his paperwork for review, as usual? We weren’t informed of any issues that might prevent us acquiring him.”

  “Yes.” The president paused again. “We are investigating all possibilities. There will be an alert placed next to his name, and he will be watched closely at all times. His federal background is not something to be taken lightly at this stage of our operation.”

  Williams grunted. “Oh come now, President Chan. I don’t believe it’s likely that he could be anything other than what he appears. Our vetting procedures are much too thorough to let just anyone slip under our net and into our facility.”

  “And others have procedures just as thorough, Director.” Chan’s eyebrows moved together, indicating the gravity of the situation. “Never underestimate anyone, especially federal organizations. These days, we cannot be too careful. And now? More than ever we must be vigilant.”

  “I understand.” Williams gave a little bow. Nothing to lose by humoring the man, even though he was probably just enjoying a few moments playing with his overdeveloped corporate hobby—paranoia.

  “He is already engaging in sexual intercourse with Martine TwoSeven, and that may prove problematical.”

  “He is?” Williams managed to keep his jaw from dropping. “That was quick. How did you…?”

  “We remain ever vigilant, Director, as I stated before. I suggest you do the same.”

  On that slightly reprimanding note, the communication ceased abruptly, leaving the director of Eternal Tranquility wondering if he’d made a huge mistake acquiring Johann Eleven, and also astounded that the man had managed to get Martine TwoSeven into bed within hours of meeting her.

  He shook his head as he reached for the comm screen to alert security. Damn. Any man who could get into a woman’s pants that fast deserved to be watched. He obviously possessed a secret a lot of men would kill to learn.

  With a chuckle to himself, Williams activated the system and realized his day was off to a busy start. He never spared a thought for the fact that yet again nobody on Earth would see the sun rise.

  Chapter Six

  The days and weeks fell into a pattern for Martine—and to some extent, Johann.

  Most days they would see each other, some nights they would spend together, and they became clearly identified as a couple by the Eternal Tranquility staff. There were the usual jealous rumblings by one disappointed person or another, but overall the romantic development was welcomed, since anything new or different was always an interesting topic for discussion in the rec room.

  Finally it became just another part of everyone’s day, and that was exactly how Martine wanted it. Nothing out of the ordinary anymore. Nobody paying close attention or watching them.

  Of course, whether somebody was watching them…well, she didn’t know. But trusting her instincts, she remained true to her private nature. While she might touch Johann’s hand now and again, spend time with him, smile at him a lot and make it clear they were an item, she was not—and never had been—an overtly demonstrative person. There were no passionate, lingering kisses in doorways, or brief groping moments when they were alone during the day. Instead they would simply talk, as lovers do, often discussing the book he’d given her and her impressions of the strangely appealing story.

  They saved all the physical interactions for Martine’s apartment at night, where the kisses alternated between fierce and sensual, hungry and sated. Where the groping was mutual, the eager coupling a shared and overwhelming need, and the comfort of a loving embrace was the perfect conclusion to their day.

  Martine knew him better now, this man with two names. She knew Johann, her coworker, quiet and charming, friends with so many at Eternal Tranquility now that he’d found his feet in his new environment. And she knew John, intense and passionate lover, man with secrets he shared and, she suspected, many more he didn’t.

  They met in the occasional dream, but it seemed that the more they loved physically, the less they drifted together in an alternate reality. Martine didn’t mind much. She had him, in her bed, in her arms…no matter what his name was, she knew she was committing herself to him on a level she’d never attained before.

  Their work continued, facilitations were completed, and nothing untoward occurred to upset the delicate balance, or remind Martine of the Taber incident. Johann had not spoken at all of it—their guts told them both that unguarded conversation was unwise. And dream-John seemed not to want to discuss the business.

  So Martine let it go, content to love and be loved, to explore new sexual adventures with a special man, to experience the pleasure of a fulfilling affair.

  She learned that he was as talented as she was in the matter of facilitation. Just how talented was made clear on the day he met her outside her patient’s room with a suggestion.

  “Mrs. Alder loves her great-granddaughter. She wants to see her in Venice.” He watched Martine’s face.

  “Hmm.” She blinked at him. “Okay. I can go with that. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because the little girl hasn’t turned three yet. She wants to see her grown up with her own life before she dies. She wants to see her with her own husband.”

  “Very traditional.”

  “Mrs. Alder is a hundred and nineteen. I think she’s entitled.”

  Martine smiled. “Can’t argue with that.”

  “So here’s my suggestion. Let’s facilitate her together.”

  “Really? Together? Double-team her?” Martine knew her eyes were probably popping out of her head at the unusual suggestion. “Is that even possible?”

  “Theoretically, I think so. Yes.” His gaze was steady, his face expressionless. “I spent some time with R&D last week, talking over this very scenario. They’ve adapted some of the equipment for a dual interface. There’s no logical reason why it won’t work.”

  Martine considered the idea. “Interesting.”

  “We’d be charting new territory, Martine. But I reckon it would let us open up a crowd scenario. Right now, you know we can’t really handle more than a couple of people in the neural interface. It’s just too complex for one brain to manage. But here’s a chance to see if we can expand our horizons a bit. And R&D are drooling at the thought of all the data they’ll have to play with.”

  “Mrs. Alder’s family’s on board?”

  He nodded and passed her the small tablet with all the relevant information on it. She scanned it quickly, noting the approval checks scattered all over the electronic data. “Okay then. I’m good with trying this.”

  “Excellent.” He touched her shoulder briefly. “I’ll let the nurses’ station know, drop this off at the facilitation desk and meet you back here in ten minutes or so?”

  “Yessir.” She gave him a mock salute and a cocky grin. “Just enough time for a quick energy bar.”

  He winked and moved away as she turned for the rec room and the vending machines. An energy bar wasn’t a bad idea before a facilitation, if it was going to be straightforward.

  This was a new experience, but she didn’t expect it to be an unpleasant one. Johann was right. Most of her facilitations involved just her and the patient. The setting wasn’t difficult—extracted from various memory cells where images were stored in precise detail. Things like temperature, scents, colors—all nicely compartmentalized in the human brain, just waiting for the right knock on the door to come out and play.

  Her own image within the facilitation was also dictated by the patient, more or less. She was always female, of course. But her hair color, body type and so on…these were all at the whim of the customer.

  Where it got tricky was if somebody, like Mrs. Alder, wanted to spend their last moments in the middle of a crowd. Usually, they were persuaded to find another cherished memory and use that instead. It was just too much of a challenge for the facilitator’s brain and the facilitation equipment to genera
te a large number of people as well as create a unique setting.

  And, up until now, most departing patients seemed to prefer those last moments to be quiet, beautiful and shared by only two spirits…theirs and their facilitator’s. Martine figured the psych geeks were having themselves a field day writing unintelligible but profound papers on the tendency of humans to prefer such an ending to their lives.

  For her part, it made things much simpler. She could concentrate on so many of the details that filled out the neural interface, and made her patient, the person on whom she was completely focused, feel wonderfully at home. And ready to say goodbye.

  By the time she’d finished her snack and had returned to the patient’s room, she was ready for Johann and this new experiment. It could be interesting, challenging and unlike anything she’d done before. All good, all in the interests of a successful facilitation, and to be perfectly honest, she had no qualms about spending more time with Johann.

  A win-win situation all around.

  He came up behind her, rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You ready to try this?”

  She nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Martine couldn’t help gasping as her world shimmered into another, and she found herself standing in the middle of a large square surrounded by people.

  “The Piazza San Marco, dear.” An elderly voice sounded from beside her, and she looked down to see a woman in a wheelchair smiling up at her.

  “It’s so lovely. I can’t believe the architecture.” She gazed around her, trying to absorb the domes, the intricate carvings and the endless arches gracing the buildings around the piazza. And then there were the pigeons—and the people.

  “Having a good time, Great-grandmother?” Johann was there, bending over the wheelchair solicitously.

  “It’s wonderful, dear child. Just wonderful.” She reached out a thin hand to Martine. “And having you both here—well, it’s just what I’d hoped for.”

  “I’m so glad. It’s a special moment for all of us.” She jumped and then laughed as a bird swooped surprisingly close to her hair. She tossed back a short sandy-brown curl and felt her skirts teased by the wind. It was hot, the sun shining down from a clear blue sky.

  All the colors were sharp, the details perfect and the throngs of people astounding. Martine flashed Johann a quick glance and saw him watching her, smiling as she tried to take it all in.

  “I knew you’d like this. I saw a video of it once. Never got here myself, but I never forgot those scenes.” Mrs. Alder sighed. “To be able to share it with you, to know you’ll grow up to be a lovely happy woman…well, there isn’t much more I can ask of this life.”

  They stayed together, one on either side of Mrs. Alder’s wheelchair, just looking this way and that, soaking up the atmosphere, the air and the sounds of a city which would never look like this again in any of their lifetimes.

  Finally, the old woman tipped her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sun pour over her in a warm cascade of light. “I think I’m ready now.”

  Johann took her other hand and clasped it in his. “You will be missed, Great-grandmother.”

  “Safe journey, dear Great-grandmother.” Martine knelt and lightly kissed the wrinkled cheek. She felt the characteristic sensation of energy beginning to flow gently through her neural interface and the fading of whatever it was that made a human being human.

  But then, at the very instant she expected to shimmer back into the Eternal Tranquility room, everything stilled.

  The people around them stopped, like a video paused by a massive remote control. Birds remained aloft, shadows froze beneath the buildings—silence fell on her like a blanket.

  “What the…?”

  “Ssh.” Johann took her hand and moved her away from the wheelchair. “I hoped this would happen.”

  “What?” Martine stared at him. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing, really.” He pulled her against him. “An experiment. Close your eyes and open your thoughts, your interface. Forget the routine here. Stay open—to me.”

  Trusting him enough to do as he bid, Martine closed her eyes and focused on her interface, letting images of energy flowing through it enter her mind. She’d done this before, sought various strands of brilliance, but now she could feel as much as see a new ribbon beginning to twine through her neural channels. It was silvery blue, cool, fresh and in many ways familiar. It was him.

  “That’s it, honey.” His arms tightened and then…then…

  She was no longer Martine.

  Soaring high into a darkness that seemed endless, the energy that was Martine struggled to comprehend the impossible.

  Beside her was Johann, or John as she knew his incorporeal self. There were no bodies, no limbs, no smiles or bald scalps. No distinction that these were male and female energies.

  There were no words handy to describe where she was or who she was with. All these things, she just knew.

  Just as she knew John was speaking to her.

  “It’s working. Come with me. Think your way beside me.”

  She obeyed, finding that a simple command to follow. The darkness became a tunnel, lights flickered and passed, colors flashed by, the sensation of motion very strong even though she had no substance to feel a breeze or eyes to blink at the brilliance.

  Together they passed through a vortex and emerged into something that was not dissimilar to the data-storage system.

  “We’re in some kind of cortex, aren’t we? The server cortex somewhere.”

  “Yes.” It was John’s voice, intertwined through her own energies. Separate beings, one presence. Mega weird. “I need you to see something.”

  Images began to flicker, not those of a video presentation but almost like memories half-glimpsed, incomplete and insubstantial. Until one froze in front of them and the being that had been Martine lost its breath.

  It was Taber.

  “Oh God.” She absorbed the image of him.

  Tall and proud in his uniform, Taber was a shining example of the best the world could offer to its fighting forces. His eyes were steady, his uniform impossibly perfect in every detail. It was the sort of image that parents proudly imprinted on the sides of their transportation vehicles and grandmothers had transferred to their quilts.

  Then the image shifted—and once more it was Taber, this time laughing and drinking with his unit. Then another image, Taber in action, followed rapidly by Taber being debriefed and deployed elsewhere. There were quick flashes of conferences, people in dark suits, shadowed images of nighttime streets…it was as if his entire life history was being played out in this hidden cyberworld.

  Then, suddenly, Martine was seeing herself and Taber’s last moments. The blood, her hands on him, the anguish on her face… Had she been able to, she would have sobbed. She remembered the agony she’d felt, she vividly recalled her helplessness to stop it, the only thing that prevented her from screaming silently in horror was the sensation of John in and around her consciousness.

  The truth began to dawn, a realization that chilled whatever physical presence she had at that moment.

  “He wasn’t sick, was he?” Trembling words barely whispered.

  “No.” Serious, sober. “No, he’d never been sick a day in his life.”

  “I killed him.” Flat, precise.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “No you didn’t. You couldn’t. You were used, Martine. You were just a tool.”

  She shivered, the gathering of energy around her becoming icy even as she mentally turned to John for comfort. He was there, encompassing her, shielding her as he guided them back into the vortex of light. “Hold on.”

  She felt a falling sensation and gasped aloud, seeing the Piazza San Marco flash past before they both shimmered back into Eternal Tranquility and the late Mrs. Alder’s room.

  Slumping, Martine released the old woman’s cooling hand, tried to stan
d and swayed, catching herself on the end of the bed as her neural interface connections snapped sharply apart.

  “Easy.” Johann was holding her with one hand and steadying himself with the other. “I should have known that a joint facilitation might make us both dizzy the first time.” His words sounded strange in her ears, but then she picked up his silent signal. Say nothing.

  “You’re right.” She nodded and gripped him hard for a second or two, indicating her assent. “I need to get my balance back.”

  The monitoring nurse rushed in, face full of concern. “Oh my. Are you two all right?” There were two techs right behind her.

  “Yeah,” said Johann. “We’re good. A bit disoriented, but overall I’d say the joint experiment worked.” He glanced at the techs. “You should have enough data there to confirm. We got crowd completion and total immersion.”

  Martine swallowed and added her mite. “It was pretty amazing. Seemed like hundreds of people to me, but it probably wasn’t. There was a shitload of birds, though. Much more detailed than usual and no ill effects until we returned. And I’m pretty much okay now. Just a quick stab of nausea. It’s gone already.” She straightened.

  “Debriefing in fifteen minutes?” One of the techs stared at them eagerly.

  “Sure,” Johann agreed.

  “Yeah, that would be fine,” Martine concurred.

  She lied. It was anything but fine. However, for right now she’d have to keep everything churning inside her from erupting. At least until she could get some private time with Johann.

  And ask him the thousand and one questions fighting each other for supremacy in her mind.

  Trouble was, she had a strong feeling she was going to seriously hate the answers.

  Leaving Mrs. Alder to the tender ministrations of the Eternal Tranquility staff, Martine and Johann walked away together, on the surface looking like just another couple of facilitators who’d earned their pay for the day.

  Martine found herself gripping Johann’s hand as they strolled. He squeezed back, but other than that there was silence between them.