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Nuhope’s winding series of art gallery rooms on the first floor had become a haven for me. The more I knew about what Nuhope was doing to warp people’s minds, and the more enraged I became, the more I needed the gallery’s solitude and beauty when one of my days of investigation around Nuhope drew to a close. The serenity was even more relieving now, as the anniversary party started to crescendo with some speeches.
Little did the party-goers know that the evening’s grand finale would come from my Theseus cell. In preparation, I’d spent the last several hours resetting various controls in Nuhope’s transmission system on the upper floors. Then I’d tinkered with its dreamisode messaging, all the while keeping in close contact with Luko, who was moving into position down the street. In about 45 minutes, I’d be jumping into his car, speeding away from one helluva catastrophe.
# # #
HALF AN HOUR BEFORE making it to the gallery, I’d met Venice and Ajit in the Parrot Giraffe souvenir shop across the street. I’d learned from past experiences that the bored store clerk of Japanese heritage never bothered to check the surveillance cameras, so it was the perfect place for a little unobserved activity.
“Bravo!” I murmured at the sight of them. Ajit had left his loud wardrobe behind and actually looked like he could be an Elite advertising executive. He had a clipped mustache, a conservative tux, and yellow cummerbund.
“I was going to wear a pince-nez, but someone thought it was overkill,” he said.
Venice raised an eyebrow. “Overkill? More like a way to get killed. Dead-giveaway theatrics.” She sniffed like a prissy Elite woman in her later years—which was precisely how she’d dressed. A belt full of stuffing gave her more girth under a classic black gown, and her makeup and pink hairstyle added to her puffy look. None of the various Senators who were her dominatrix clients could have possibly recognized her.
“Where are your cameras?” I asked. Ajit motioned to his cummerbund, and Venice to a lacy black shawl around her shoulders. Their mission was to infiltrate the party and capture footage of everything that happened. That would come in handy if the “official” news stories spun events out of proportion. We’d have the unvarnished truth in our possession.
The clerk was playing Stump the Warthog on her air screen, as usual, so I waved myself into transparency. “Okay, hold out your hands,” I said. As Venice and Ajit did so, I grabbed the two of them and gave them a thrill by making them invisible as well. We walked across the street, carefully eluding the infrared beams monitoring the guests at Nuhope’s entrance. The security guards didn’t have a clue we were skirting past them and entering the building’s packed atrium. I led my friends along the periphery of the crowd to a secluded alcove behind one of the tall pillars, then brought them back to visibility.
Venice checked out the crowd. “I can’t wait to wrap my fingers around a stiff martini.”
“Just stay on mission,” I said softly.
“Likewise,” she replied. I knew that she wanted to add: “Stay the fuck invisible. And keep Luko safe as well.”
“See you in a few hours,” I said. We took off in different directions.
The two Charismites riveted my attention. They were in separate areas of the hall—two suns orbited by clusters of well-dressed, attractive admirers. I hadn’t seen the girl in over a week. As I drew closer, her effect was like liquid energy in my veins. She hadn’t just recovered but was exuding extraordinary health. Her face was ethereal, as if illuminated from inside by some heavenly force.
A man came toward her with two flutes of champagne. He looked oddly like a bullfrog stuffed in a suit. Her eyes lit up at the sight of him. “Oh, sugar cubes! You must forgive me,” she told the other men in a fun, sultry voice that was much more urbane than the way she spoke privately. “There’s someone I absolutely have to speak with.”
They fell away with a combination of reluctance and jealousy as her eyes bathed the strange little man with radiance. It was clear that the cooling controls in the fabric covering his round belly weren’t working well; his face was so pink and moist. Yet there was a sense of sharp intelligence about him, a kind of knowingness, like he accepted that his body was a disaster.
“Encroyable!” the man said. “They say your name is Lush, and yet you have no glass in your hand?”
“You are my savior!”
As she took a flute, she brushed his fingers. The man’s eyelids drooped with the sensual pleasure. “Timoté Sutz,” he said.
“Oh, yes. I know. I’ve so wanted to meet you.”
“Really. Have I been researched?”
“It’s just that I am such a fan of Trois Frères chocolates. You make them so addictive,” she said. “But you’re a very naughty man.”
“In what way?” Sutz tried to huff, but he was thoroughly under her spell.
“How could you give Nuhope’s sales department such a hard time?”
A movement from above caught my attention. Rico Reingold was staring down at Luscious from a second-floor railing overlooking the floor. The Charismite must have been tasked with charming Sutz, who was apparently a potential advertising client with an obstinate streak. It seemed so beneath her, in a way, given the effect of the Riggle’s commercial—like asking a master mathematician to solve a simple algebra problem. But at least this didn’t make her disgustingly ill.
Luscious’s flirtation was so consuming that I didn’t see an approaching guest, and the woman passed directly through me. My slurp was barely audible, given all the noise in the hall. But the Charismite grew alert. She looked past Sutz’s shoulder, smiling at my invisible form as if silently saying, “Show yourself. Talk to me. I won’t hurt you.”
Her playful gaze was beyond breathtaking—like surfing a tsunami or blasting down a steep mountain on a bicycle without brakes. Most people wouldn’t realize that she was controlling her eyes. But I knew that their golden tone wasn’t just a natural result of the light’s reflection. She had turned them on me quite deliberately.
I managed to rip away. Within seconds, I made it to the gallery and slipped past the guards.
# # #
THE ROOMS SHOWCASED some 300 extraordinary masterpieces that dated back to the Renaissance, a collection that Stewart Silverman had grown considerably over the last decade.
The outgoing CEO’s faint voice could be heard faintly. He was delivering his swan-song speech. Before long, a woman addressed the crowd with a flowery vulnerability that belied her power: Petra Cardinale, the newly anointed president and CEO. There were still a few minutes before Zinder would speak.
It was a mystery why the female Charismite could discern me. I still didn’t think she had Count Down or Shanoza’s sharp sense of smell. Maybe it was because I had been around her so frequently that she could spot my “tells” more easily than other people. Or perhaps she was just more keenly observant.
No matter what, I had to stop attracting her attention. It was too dangerous to give my presence away to anyone, let alone her. Others would probably catch on eventually if I kept walking through objects and making that ridiculous sound.
“Don’t cock things up!” I could imagine Thom saying. “Finally, somebody figures out how to go invisible—that would be me—something humans have been dreaming about since the dawn of their existence. And now the only bloody bastard alive with my tech gives himself away again and again ‘cause he can’t figure out how to control it.”
“I’m working on it, you blimey bastard. Couldn’t just give me a few clues, could you?”
“If you can’t figure out how to stop the special audio effects, just walk through open doors. And don’t let people pass through you.”
“Yeah. I intend to whenever I can.”
I could imagine him growing serious then. “Luscious Melada and Dove Brown. What do you intend to do about them?”
“Nothing right away.”
“I thought as much.” How he was challenging me from the dead, to destroy them.
“There are things I want to learn about them before I do anything.” Thom wouldn’t agree. My imaginary conversation with him faded as I contemplated my weaknesses.
Killing people wasn’t something I’d ever done, or ever intended to do. And killing the female Charismite? That would require immense mental stamina. I didn’t know if I could find it. At least not yet. The obsession I had for her was like deep, almost violent red if emotions could be equated to colors. In comparison, my feelings for every woman I’d ever desired in the past were like pale apricot.
I only had a few minutes to gaze at the precious artwork. After tonight, I wasn’t sure I’d be back in that building for a long while. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I’d live until the morning.
I needed a breather. Living in ghost mode always sapped me. So I swiped the air and became visible again, for just a few minutes. There was no fear that I’d be detected. Earlier that evening, I’d slipped into the gallery’s control room to disable its infrared beams, as I had so many times before. All the surveillance cameras showed empty rooms. The guards who were watching the monitors would see that the gallery was devoid of any human activity, but they were just looking at a recording.
I gazed at a marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin called “The Kiss”—the milky smooth lovers, tender and aflame. What a shame the Tate Gallery had sold it to Nuhope. My mother had taken me to see it as a child. We’d also visited the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to see the large painting off to the right of the sculpture. It was none other than “Family Reunion,” by Fédéric Bazille.
If only I could show it to Jewles—all the aunts and uncles arranged in a 19th-century setting, with the artist himself off to the far left. If only Mama Neeta and the other kids could see it too.
The hair on my arms prickled up. I suddenly felt the Charismite’s presence, which was at once delicate as a floral perfume and powerfully magnetic. I swiveled around. I felt so overly exposed as she appeared in the doorway, seeing my physical body for the first time. The sensation was almost like being buck naked.
Her expression was magnificently fierce. “I wondered what you look like. Funny thing is, when I told the security guard that I wanted to use the lady’s room inside the gallery, he thought he was turning off the security system for me. Whatever you did to hack it is completely fooling everyone.”
“Everyone but you.”
“Why are you here? To steal?”
“To look.”
She laughed. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just drop by when the gallery’s open?”
Drip, drip. It was the start of many questions she wanted to ask, I had no doubt. How to deflect her? Maybe with some truth that was far to the side of what she probably was after. “Sometimes, I feel like there’s hardly a place on Earth where I belong, except in front of this painting.”
She studied “Family Reunion” curiously. “Why would you think that?”
“The way they look, all the people in it. See how they’re staring directly out at us? I always feel like they’re looking at someone who’s terribly out of place.”
The Charismite considered this for a moment, so I continued on. “Don’t you think all those prim people look like they’ve got something stuck up their back end? Some black sheep of the family must have just walked into the room.”
She quirked a lopsided smiled at that. “Maybe someone’s just dropped a china teacup.”
“Someone like that. Somebody like you and me.”
She flared at that. “There’s nothing about you and me that is remotely the same.”
“You really don’t think so?”
“I never go invisible, Mister ...”
A daring rush of honesty came over me. “Call me Jarat.”
“I don’t stalk around someone’s dressing room like a lewd old man.”
I laughed. It wasn’t worth quibbling with her on the lewd bit; I had never seen any of the space tumblers unclothed. “True, you don’t stalk,” I said. “But you are a Charismite. And that does involve a similar kind of subterfuge, like what you just did to that poor man Timoté Sutz.”
She blushed prettily. “What did you just call me? Charis-what?”
“Charismite. What you turned into when your pal Rico started giving you all that Juice.”
“Juice?”
A BEEP sounded in my ear, an alarm from my mobile that the Charismite couldn’t hear. Time to get moving. In the atrium, Zinder was speaking now. It was almost “showtime” for Theseus’s big surprise, but I still had a minute. This conversation with the Charismite was unexpected, but I was going to use it.
“What do you mean, Juice?” she asked again.
“All the chemicals you’re shooting up. The ones you hide in that little compartment in your purse.”
That ticked her off. She started to call security with one swipe of her air screen, but I grabbed her arm. The touch sent a rush of energy coursing through me. She jerked away.
BEEP. More urgent now. Just a few more seconds with her. “Rico Reingold stole the chemicals that you use,” I went on. “He figured out how to reproduce the formula and turned you and Dove Brown into Charismites.”
Horror clicked into place on her face. “How do you know this? Why should I believe you?”
“I know the person that Rico attacked to get it. The person who really made you what you are. He was my friend.”
Her incredulous expression froze. The BEEPS grew fast and staccato.
BAM. A gigantic explosion. She looked around wildly, but everything in the gallery was the same. Silence for a few seconds, then distant shrieks from the atrium.
I swiped the air, went into invisible mode, and raced away. The Charismite was faster, whishing past the lines and lines of artwork on her air slippers. She pushed through the gallery’s front door and into the wild crowd. I was right behind her.
POW. Another explosion. A freaked-out man smacked directly into the Charismite, throwing her off balance. She twisted an ankle as she fell. The man was at once captivated by her and terrified by the explosions. He let out a high squeal as he ran away.
The Charismite was in an enraged heap on the floor. “Fuck a goddamned duck!”
“Interesting language choice,” I said. So crude and provincial.
That pissed her off even more. “What in freaking hell have you done?”
How could someone so enraged sound so sweet? I pulled her up into my arms, absorbing a terrific jolt of excitement. She fought me at first but then went still when she realized that the force of my touch had made her invisible.
“Wowza!” she breathed as we passed directly through several shrieking people who were rushing out the exits.
It was chaos outside. I spotted Ajit and Venice, discreetly recording it all from different vantage points. A security team formed a human cocoon around Ralph Zinder and pushed through the mob toward his limo. Terrified Elites babbled amongst themselves, confused that the deafening explosions hadn’t destroyed anything. The building was completely intact, as were its surroundings. The audio effects were just my way of getting them to leave the building before the real show began.
I looked around for a place to put down the Charismite away from everyone. There was a bench across the street, just a few paces from the Victory Star building. Cars zoomed above the pavement between the curb where I was standing and the bench.
As I charted a path through them, a car hurtled directly into us. There was an all-too-familiar sucking sound as we came out the other side unharmed. Then another and another car flew through us. It happened so quickly the pain of moving through the metal hardly registered with me and didn’t seem to affect her very much. All she said was, “Wo! That’s amaz!”
I put her down gently on the bench when no one was looking in our direction. She re-materialized as I let her go. “Okay. You’re on your own,” I said.
There was no time to spare. I walked quickly up Broadway. Luko was waiting for me a few blocks away in the car that we’d rebuilt over the last month. It could easily fly off the grid and monitor satellite feeds of what was about to happen at Nuhope.
“Oh, come on! You can’t leave me now!” the Charismite called after me. It was so hard not to look back at her. I rounded a corner onto Pearl Street and broke into a run.
# # #
WITHIN 20 MINUTES, Luko and I were desperately trying to fight our way out of disaster. Our Ford racing demon was on fire, high above the city. It had been sideswiped by missiles but was still flying. There wasn’t much time to escape. My powers of invisibility had made my bike disappear in the past, But they didn’t work on the getaway car; it was too large and heavy. The Homeland and Nuhope aircraft were on us, no matter how fast we dodged them.
Luko was driving in manual mode, off the navigational grid. A missile slammed through the back of the car’s frame, and we began losing altitude. I held out an invisible hand to him. “Let’s go!”
“No, no, man. I can pull us out of this!” Luko yelled. His desperation had turned into something close to insanity. I grabbed him. With Luko invisible now, I jumped through the fiery debris, holding him tightly with one arm and using the other to pull the ripcord on my parachute.
It was only then that I realized Luko had been hit. It must have happened a split second before he went into ghost mode. I could feel the heat of the invisible fire, which seemed to be eating his left side. As city buildings loomed closer and closer, we were frantic, trying to smother the flames that we couldn’t see. But it was no use. Luko pushed away from me, suddenly visible again, screaming as he hurtled toward the ground in a blazing freefall.
Three aircraft shot him into mutilated pieces of blackened meat.
Sickened shock overwhelmed me as my invisible body and parachute drifted into Central Park. I landed on a wide gravel path.
Silence.
At another time, it would have been beautiful: the 360° halo of lights from distant buildings lit up a small reservoir, rippling with a soft black, surrounded by trees. My heart sobbed in the quiet darkness.
Then aircraft battered the air overhead, louder and louder. The parachute became visible as I threw it in the water, then piled some rocks on it as quickly as possible. The death machines drew closer, scanning every nook and cranny with piercing searchlights and infrared sensor beams. They could distinguish the body heat of humans, rats, roaches—any life form—including me.
I raced away. The parachute would be found; there was no doubt. But probably not right away. How long would it take them to recover all of Luko’s charred pieces? My gut wrenched up, imagining this.
The battering grew so loud I thought it might split an eardrum. The light of an infrared beam swept the ground around me, sending a nest of squirrels racing across the path before me. Wssssh! A soundless DirecWep beam swept the ground as it chased them, tearing into my left leg. It took all my will power not to give myself away with a scream. I rolled away into a bush, then crawled down an embankment into wooded darkness.