What good would registering a protest do you any more? The Corps were moving to set up their own private secret-service outfits and seize control of the artillery; not a month passed without the arrival of some new weapons law pretending to safeguard the public. Old-style demonstration politics were dead. You could get back at individual targets such as the Rev using underhanded means, but any kind of public action involving crowds and sign-waving and then storefront smashing would be shot off at the knees. Increasingly, everyone knew that.
He finished his SoYummie cone, fended off snub-nosed Marjorie, who wanted him to join a game of croquet and acted hurt when he said he was awkward with wooden balls, then meandered over to where Glenn was still sitting, staring at the chessboard. He’d set it up again and was playing against himself. “Who won?” Zeb asked.
“I almost did,” said Glenn. “She pulled a Grob’s Attack on me. It caught me off-guard.”
“What exactly does she do here?” Zeb asked. “Is she in charge of something?”
Glenn smiled. He liked knowing things Zeb didn’t know. “Mushrooms. Funguses. Mould. Want to play me?”
“Tomorrow,” said Zeb. “Ate too much, it’s dulling my brain.”
Glenn grinned up at him. “Chickenshit,” he said.
“Maybe just lazy. How come you know her?” said Zeb.
Glenn looked at him a little too long, a little too hard: green cat eyes. “I already said. She works with my dad. He’s on her team. Anyway, she’s in the chess club. Been playing her since I was five. She’s not too stupid.”
Which, in the high-praise area, was about as far as he went.
Vector
At the next Thursday barbecue, Glenn wasn’t there. Nor had he been in evidence for a couple of days. He hadn’t been mooching around the cafeteria, or asking Zeb to show him a few more hack moves on the computer. He’d become invisible.
Was he sick? Had he run away? Those were the only two possibilities that Zeb could think of, and he ruled out running away: the kid was surely too young for that, and it was too difficult to get out of HelthWyzer West without a pass. Though with Glenn’s newfound robinhooding cryptic skills he could probably fake one.
There was another possibility: the little smartass had been colouring outside the digital lines. He’d broken into some sacrosanct Corps database or other and helped himself, just for the heck of it, because he couldn’t possibly be into shady trading with the Chinese grey market, or worse – the Albanians, they were incandescent at the moment – and he’d got himself caught. In which case he’d be in a debriefing room somewhere having his brain pumped out. A person could come out of such affairs with nothing but a year-old dishrag north of the eyes. Would they do such a thing to a mere child? Yes. They would.
He really hoped it wasn’t that: if it was, he himself would feel very guilty, because it would mean he’d been a bad teacher. “Rule Number One,” he’d emphasized. “Don’t get caught.” But that was sometimes easier said than done. Had he been sloppy about the coding fretwork? Had he shown the kid a past-sell-by-date shortcut? Had he missed a few Detour signs, a few spoor marks that meant that he and Glenn were not the only ones on what he’d thought was his very own self-created poacher’s jungle trail?
Though he was more than concerned, Zeb didn’t want to start asking the teachers or even Glenn’s lax and neglectful parents about him. He needed to keep his profile low, not draw attention.
Zeb scanned the barbecue crowd again. Still no Glenn. But Pilar was there, over to the side, under a tree. She was sitting in front of a chessboard, which she appeared to be studying. He assumed his casual saunter and made his way over there, hoping he looked random.
“Up for a game?” he said.
Pilar glanced up. “Certainly,” she said with a smile. Zeb sat down.
“We’ll toss for White,” said Pilar.
“I like to play Black,” said Zeb.
“So I’ve been told,” said Pilar. “Very well.”
She opened with a standard queen’s pawn, and Zeb decided to opt for a queen’s Indian defence. “Where’s Glenn?” he asked.
“Things are not good,” she answered. “Concentrate on the game. Glenn’s father is dead. Glenn is naturally upset. The CorpSeCorps officers told him it was a suicide.”
“No shit,” said Zeb. “When did that happen?”
“Two days ago,” said Pilar, moving her queen’s knight. Zeb moved his bishop, pinning it down. Now she’d have a job developing her centre. “It’s not when, however, it’s how. He was pushed off an overpass.”
“By his wife?” Zeb asked, remembering Rhoda’s tit pressing against his back, and also the earlet concealed in her bedside lamp. It was a jokey kind of question – he should have been ashamed of himself. Sometimes that kind of thing shot out of his mouth like popcorn. But it was a serious question, as well: Glenn’s dad could have found out about Rhoda’s lunchtime interludes, they could have gone for a walk to discuss it, outside the walls of HelthWyzer for more privacy, and decided to stroll along the overpass, for the view of the oncoming traffic, and then they could have had a fight, and Glenn’s mother could have upended his dad over the railing, a move he’d been unable to defend himself against …
Pilar was looking at him. Waiting for him to come to his senses, most likely.