Epilogue
Jay watched the rain from under a large table umbrella in the garden of one Charles Essop. The day was chilly and grey, sufficing just enough to worsen his mood and force him to seek solitude outside, away from the others. Four days they had hung around here, all of them under the same benefactor’s roof—Billy, Faraji, Nkiruka and Jess, the Kingstons and their entire pride—everyone but Blake and Rosie. The garden was large and lush, full of exotic flora, decorative stone statuettes, and surrounded on all sides by a high brick wall, which obscured everything outside the property except the very tops of nearby houses.
A warm artificial glow beckoned him ineffectually from the windows. To him, it seemed infected with an air of inapposite celebration, one he just couldn’t himself embrace. He knew that inside Billy and Faraji were probably playing while the others fussed over lunch or some such domestic thing. Alice, Rip and Mr. Essop could be sitting at the dining room table reminiscing about years ago, when they all lived and worked in the city. Graham and Ruby, no doubt, were trying to keep up with Ryan.
Mr. Essop was, according to Rip, a public servant now, nearly ready to retire after decades spent at various positions within the Ministry of Education. He was also none other than the man who had taken the Kingstons in when they had left the Old Man’s complex. Jay had been present for a conversation between the men in which Mr. Essop had admitted to meeting Odin once before, through the introduction of a man called Henry Tesla. But he also professed that he had never seen nor heard from Odin again until, that is, he received a phone call from him just a week and a half ago. Odin had said nothing of the situation, only that Rip and his family needed a place to stay, somewhere out of the way. At the time, Jay hadn’t said anything, hadn’t the bravery to broach the topic of the Old Man, or perhaps the more pertinent question, his maker, but had for the remainder of his time at Essop’s made it his prerogative to listen for every loose detail. On the second day, he’d gone to ask Nkiruka just how and why they had arrived at the library. After much polite but uncomfortable inquiry, she had said that it was because Gus had led them there and because they were being chased. Then she had sent him away.
The stories shared between Rip and Mr. Essop afforded little more than a way to pass the time, but he forced himself to listen to everything in case he might one day be able to construct them into something more cohesive. He learned that, at one time, decades ago, they both lived and worked in central London. From what Jay could gather they were both part of the same volatile group of people—friends maybe, people who shared the same ideals, or the same fiery sense of self-righteousness—he couldn’t quite tell. From what he could gather the two men had met a handful of times. Both had know the late Rufus, who according to Mr. Essop had introduced him to Henry, who was currently in prison for “information trafficking,” the official government title for mass peer to peer sharing.
In the meantime, they had all watched as the storming of Villa 6 combined with their own narratives, as each new detail broke against the Net, as people almost religiously began to follow each new feed of information, hunting disclosed files for every last details. A friend would find a friend’s name under the SEEDS file. Children would question parents. Foster parents sued Biomerge, Mollec Inc, or the government, sometimes in rage, sometimes in guilt. As new SEEDS cropped up all over the city, some anonymous angel had posted a complete firewall and human user interface on the Web, complete with instructions on how to install it. The programer signed only as T.
The Three Ogres, or so the media had popularized their names, had been found, and their condition only magnified the myth that had so ensconced itself around them. According to Hier Media, which was (quick to turn the story into a marketing campaign) the new “Bastion of Responsible Journalism,” a phone call had been placed to police from an untraceable source, stating the whereabout of the three creatures. Police had arrived at a reinforced room six levels beneath the underground in full tactical gear to find them already slaughtered. From the looks of it, whoever was responsible had killed them quickly; all three were still in the upright and sitting position, giving police a fright with their gargantuan stature, but upon closer inspection, a minute incision had been made into each of the Ogres’ brains. Police were unsure of whether they should commence a murder investigation or say private thanks that someone had done the job for them. So the mystery grew.
Neither Hurn nor Bellick had shown themselves since the storming of Villa 6, and Jay very much doubted that either would. Unless, that is, one managed to kill the other. Police had raided Bellick’s Villa apartment, his estate in Oxfordshire, and all his known assets had been frozen. Even in the face of all this, Bellick’s escape never seemed anything but certain to Jay. The man was a mastermind, a planner for each and every contingency. He must have planned for the world’s moral compass to eventually swing away from him. The more he thought about Bellick, the more he wondered about him: was he truly evil? Was he just the next step in human leadership? Was he a businessman or a mad social alchemist? A sociopath or utilitarian? Or perhaps a hedonist with a taste for control. He would never know. The man would forever be out of reach.
Jay had much the same convictions about Hurn, though his connection to Rosie made him more unstable, more likely to venture out, but also less of a danger.
Water pattered on the cement in melancholy sobs. He would have to tell Billy sooner or later about the email. Their brother was gone. The news had come in this morning and left him in a sad sort of relief.
After the night of the Villa celebration, they had all waited for Blake and Rosie’s triumphant return. They had hoped it would come quickly, thinking with near certainly that if the two could get into the building, they could also get out. Yet for three days since, he and Billy waited for their elder brother, becoming more worried with each passing day until this morning, when Jay had received an email from him. It had explained cryptically that he and Rosie had left London and England and gone to mainland Europe. There were few other details in it, except that Blake thought they should contact their mother, and that he didn’t know how long he would be away.
Their mother had sent him another email, corresponding eerily with Blake’s own. It seemed that finally their absence was now prolonged enough that she had begun to worry for their safety. Her distress, much in line with her rather frosty treatment of them since the divorce, manifested itself mainly in questions about their money. Were they okay? Could they afford cell phones? Just email and she could wire some money, she had said. It was clear that, unlike their father, she felt guilty at letting them slip away. And he knew in her own way she loved them. He looked at the garden around him with new eyes and made a mental note to call her sometime in the near future, after he’d had time to come up with an appropriate lie.
He left the security of the umbrella, wiped his shoes on the mat, and went inside the house. The living room had two large sofas and a large oak coffee table, a set of large windows ushered in the gloom from outside. Billy was asleep on the sofa, breathing in heavy drawls, face planted firmly on a cushion. Ever the loaf. What to do with him? For a moment Jay thought perhaps he might seek the company of the others and so went to the kitchen. Finding it empty and the rest of the house quiet, he went to the front door, borrowed a large green umbrella from the coat closet and left.
Maybe, he thought, this can be my return to nature. He laughed at himself wryly and water spilled off the umbrella as it shook with him, dousing his shoes. The road was empty then. No cars. No people. Though many houses lined the path on both sides, no one was venturing out on such a day as this, not for a stroll, not in this weather. Up past two cross streets he turned to walk up a hill. Rain pattered down. His shoes and the bottom of his pant legs were now soaked. He felt completely alone.
When he reached the hilltop he stopped walking and looked back from where he had come, seeing vaguely the color of Mr. Essop’s garden in the distance and thinking that maybe he should go back, wake up Billy and take stock of their situation. A car passed below at the base of the hill, moving slowly through the full stop and went on. He rolled up his trouser legs and took off his shoes and began carefully stepping down down the hill, away from Essop’s, feeling every small rock under his feet. For the first time in weeks his mind was pleasantly devoid of thought. At the bottom of the hill he folded up his umbrella and let the rain soak into his jacket, freezing him and making him shiver as he picked his way along.
A movement from just inside his vision. An old couple stared at him from their window. They were not looking at him in any particular way, but he instantly felt his cheeks redden in embarrassment. He felt compelled to stop, as if it would be dishonest to leave while they were watching him with such curiosity. The woman was regal in her age. She tilted her head inquiringly, her short grey hair, her wrinkles, and the manner with which her fingers interlaced with each other like intricate wefts, she seemed a work of art, a final scene etched in the window. Seeming so pointless, so beautiful, he watched himself watch her, standing there in the rain.