“You don’t have money?” A fly buzzed his pasta and Ellis waved it away, wondering if it, too, was part of the illusion, and if so, why it had been added. There was such a thing as taking realism too far. “How can you not have money? How do you get things you need?”
Ellis had hoped to pay for medicine, or surgery, or whatever he might end up needing with his grandmother’s earrings, but he began to doubt that would be possible. He was getting ahead of himself, he knew. There was no guarantee they could help him. The future might have eliminated death for them—for the genetically altered—but could they do anything for the sick? Was it possible that medicine was just as obsolete as money?
“I don’t—”
“Excuse me, Pax,” Alva interrupted.
“Alva, Ellis Rogers was speaking. You shouldn’t—”
“It’s an emergency.”
Pax looked worried. “Please tell me it’s not another murder.”
“It’s not. It’s a white code message.”
“White?” Pax appeared stunned. “What the core is a geomancer contacting me for?”
“Do you want to hear it or argue?”
“Play it.”
A new voice boomed over the open field that sounded just like Pax’s except with a more confident, more formal tone. “Pax. I directed my vox to contact you right away with this prerecorded message in the event that someone other than myself has stolen my identity and falsely entered my home. Please visit immediately and speak to my vox for more information. Abernathy will allow your portal. Two things you need to know: First, the thief who stole my identity is in my home at this very moment. Second, you should be careful, for this thief has already killed me. Geo-24.”
Chapter Six
Timing Is Everything
Technically this was Ellis’s second trip through a portal, but the first he was fully aware of. He asked to go with Pax, pretending it was because he was bored, and that he didn’t want to be left alone in the house with Vin. He also told himself he was interested in seeing more of the world and was curious about the message. All of that might have contributed—did contribute—and those were the answers Ellis would have given if anyone asked. But the real reason was strange, unlike him, and hard to imagine, especially given the circumstances. The fact was the trip sounded dangerous, and Pax didn’t strike him as a superhero. Ellis wasn’t a hero, either, but he had a pistol and the Y chromosome to use it.
Pax hesitated only a moment before nodding and taking out a small device. Ellis thought it might be a pocket watch, because it was gold and linked to a chain. Pax fussed with it for a few seconds; then a shimmering hole appeared.
Alva said, “Pax, be careful!”
The trip was instantaneous, no different from passing through a normal door separating two rooms. Looking back the way they had come, Ellis could see the Big Sky country and the picnic table, empty except for their abandoned plates. The portal closed, winking out like televisions used to when they had vacuum tubes.
Ellis and Pax stood in the center of a Zen-garden living room. A perfect square, the room contained two equal-length white couches on a white carpet. A square white coffee table stood in the exact middle, and on it were three stones of different types cut to form a pyramid. A narrow strip along the baseboards and one near the ceiling illuminated the room, but most of the light entered through glass doors of square latticework, beyond which lay a real Oriental garden. Only the bonsai tree gracing the little table provided the room with color. The temperature was cooler than Pax’s dining room, and Ellis felt a cough coming on.
“Excuse me! What are you doing barging into my home? Who are you, and how did you get in here?” The speaker entered from an archway at the far side of the room near the terrace doors. This one, like the first two he had seen, was naked except for a delicate necklace and looked identical to everyone else except for a scar on the left shoulder and two missing fingers on the right hand.
“I’m Pax-43246018, an arbitrator of the Tringent Sector. Who are you?”
Pax hadn’t moved since they stepped through the portal, so neither did Ellis. There wasn’t much space anyway. The living room was tiny compared to Pax’s social room. Geomancers apparently didn’t live as large as arbitrators and artists.
“Who am I? I’m Geo-24. Who else would I be? This is my home!”
“He’s the killer,” Ellis told Pax, staring at the missing fingers. “This is the one I saw in Greenfield Village.” His chest tightened. Breathing was harder.
Pax looked worried.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who—or what—is this with you?” Three-fingers asked Pax.
“This is Ellis Rogers,” Pax said without looking away. “Who is helping me investigate a murder that took place yesterday on the North American Plate. Now please, once again, I know you are not Geo-24, so who are you really?”
“I am Geo-24! How dare you!”
“Look at the right hand,” Ellis said, breathing slowly through his nose and trying to suppress the growing urge to cough. “This is the same three-fingered butcher who was cutting into the murder victim’s shoulder when I arrived.”
“Geo-24’s vox, can you hear me?” Pax asked.
“I can indeed.” The reply came from a decidedly male-sounding voice, a deep baritone with enough of a British accent to sound like Christopher Lee, and just as in Pax’s home the sound came from everywhere.
“Can you identify this person in front of me?”
“No, which is why I contacted you. Geo-24 left instructions that I was to ignore the identification chip and ask three questions of my own choosing that only Geo-24 could answer. When this person arrived bearing Geo-24’s identification, I asked the three questions. Incorrect answers were provided. Following the rest of my instructions, I forwarded the prerecorded message to you.”
“This is ridiculous,” the impostor said. “I have a malfunctioning vox. Have you declared me to be a fake to the whole of Hollow World, vox?”
“Please note, Pax-43246018, that Geo-24 had all the expected digits on both hands and that this impostor doesn’t even know my name.”
Off to the left, Ellis noticed another square table in the corner with something round on it. He might have ignored it in any other home, but this place was as spartan as a desert. A peanut on the floor would have screamed for attention. On the table was something much bigger and far more attention getting—a construction hard hat.
“I don’t wish to call you by name. You’ve upset me,” the three-fingered suspect defended. “Now answer my question.”
“Given that you are not Geo-24, I need not comply with your demands, but, nevertheless, I have only informed Pax-43246018 as per previous instructions.”
“I see,” the impostor growled. “Well, that’s something at least.”
Holding a hand over his mouth, breathing through his fingers, Ellis took the three steps needed to pick up the hat. Inside he found safety glasses and gloves. “Pax,” he managed to say. “Look at this.” He held up the glasses.
Pax nodded and looked about to cry.
“You killed Geo-24?” Pax said just above a whisper; a wavering tone of disbelief filled the accusation with a haunting quality. Pax’s expression was disturbingly familiar, as Ellis had lived with it for almost two decades. It was the look Peggy had worn each day after Isley’s death. “Are you going to tell me who you really are?”
“I don’t have—”
Pax lunged forward at that moment and tore the necklace from around the impostor’s neck. “I can’t let you leave just yet,” Pax said, quickly stepping back.
With barely checked anger, the impostor stared for a long moment, then, after a controlled breath, walked out of the room into the adjacent hall. Ellis took a step to pursue.
“Don’t!” Pax almost gasped.
“Isn’t there a door Three-fingers can escape out of or another one of those iPortal things in this house?”
The baseboard and ceiling illumination died. Only the falselight spilling through the glass wall allowed them to see.
“Pax? Pax? What’s going on?”