He was divorced. He and his husband had adopted a girl from Romania, inspired by their first trip to the country, scouting locations for Hammerburg. The divorce papers citied “irreconcilable differences.” The daughter was at a boarding school in Connecticut.
When he was four years old, images of Chris Holberton appeared in the multi-player role-playing game that Jonah LeMarque, founder of New Eden Ministries, had designed. This was the same game that put LeMarque in jail. The same one whose civil suit bankrupted the church and precipitated the sale of all vN-related patents and API, excepting the failsafe.
Chris Holberton was Daniel Sarton’s cousin.
He was also Jonah LeMarque’s son.
“And I thought my in-laws were fucked-up,” Javier murmured.
Family secrets aside, Holberton seemed to be making the best of life. He had emancipated himself from his family, and then joined the class action suit against his father and the church for an unlicensed, obscene use of his image. It paid out handsomely. This was the seed money for his first company, Interiority. He ran it as an online store for the first year, then shelved it to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. He dropped out, moved to Las Vegas, and rebooted Interiority. He joined the European Graduate School, and wrote a thesis on the social implications of cinematic Bond villains’ secret lairs. This was also his first brush with theme park design: he sold the thesis to a consultancy in London.
Interiority was big in Las Vegas. Unlike the experience designers glutting his potential job market, Holberton focused exclusively on items that could be picked up and held. No interfaces. No menus. Nothing digital. Analog only.
His sole contribution to the digital realm was his work for his cousin, Daniel Sarton, on the Museum of the City of Seattle. He helped curate the layers of time visible within the exhibit. It was a favour between family members; Holberton charged only one dollar for the consultation.
With that kind of relationship in place, it made sense that Sarton would leave Holberton his legacy. The trick would be learning what Holberton had done with it. What he had done with Amy. Javier needed access to his files, and probably his house. He couldn’t just fuck Holberton, he had to seduce him. Start a relationship with him. Become part of his inner circle.
In order to bring Amy back, Javier had to attract and keep the attention of a notoriously private, habitually litigious designer who specialized solely in analog reproductions of reality. A man who hated New Eden, and probably all of New Eden’s works, and with good reason. Javier had to sleep with this man, and he had not slept with anyone in a year. Powell didn’t count. He had to keep reminding himself that Powell didn’t count.
He had to do better with Holberton than he’d done with Powell.
He would have to practise.
Buried deep in the core of the ship was the Winter Wonderland. Its nationality and temporality changed on four-hour shifts. Sometimes it was German. Sometimes English. Sometimes it was medieval, and sometimes Victorian. Sometimes it was Tokyo on Christmas Eve, with a spindly replica Tokyo Tower and a real working Ferris wheel. At least, that’s what the gilt-edged display worked into the heart of the glittering Door Into Winter ? said, as it slowly revealed images of the many options of Christmas, each more crisp than the last. The Door was shaped like a huge wardrobe. It stood out from the wall of Deck 4. Tiny crystals frosted its edges. As Javier watched, they replicated, etching the surface in new fractals.
“The rest of the world may have forgotten what a real winter feels like, but not us,” the Door said. “Step into our Winter Wonderland, and relive the glories of wintertimes long, long ago.”
Javier chose to visit the Wonderland during a shift in which the vN were leading a posada. He followed the couple, dressed as Joseph and Mary, as they walked through pine forests asking shopkeepers and homeowners for a place to stay. It reminded him briefly of his and Amy’s journey through the forests of Washington State. Then he made the memory go away, and focused on his target instead.
The target was ahead of him. He shuffled along through the snow, alone. He was a tad overweight, but not in any way that would hinder him sexually as far as mechanics were concerned. He was also Latino. Javier was already rusty; he wasn’t going to handicap himself trying to do this in English his first time out.
Javier’s first test of the target was how the target reacted to him personally. He made sure to cross the target’s sightline on two separate occasions while the crowd waited for the posada to start. Both times, the target made eye contact. Just one furtive look, then a look away. Maybe he was confused. Javier looked like the staff members, but he dressed like the loft suite: a charcoal wool suit with a crisp white shirt and an ice blue tie. It was looser than he would have chosen for looks, but if he needed to jump anywhere, he would need flexibility. For this reason, his shoes were slip-ons without socks.