“Portalien presence registered on Webmistress’s distributed undernet,” Thoth said to his wife, as he watched a simulation of data flowing across the globe in the moments before the phones were silenced. “And then Department 4B disables the world’s telephone systems. All in all, I think I have every reason to believe your supposition was correct.”
“You needed more than one?” Bast asked, bumping the side of her husband’s high-backed chair with her hip.
“Independent verification, my love,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist. “That I take steps to confirm your intuitions is a sign of how highly I value them.”
“And I assume you’ve already followed the P’alien signal to its source,” Bast said.
The pair were out of costume, in the underground lab that Thoth had inherited. They wore black bodysuits which were comfortable and flexible and which formed the undermost layer of their working gear when they needed to suit up.
Bast was the daughter of an Sudanese businessman and an American diplomat. Her features were a blend of upper Mediterranean and north African that recalled the days of the Ptolemies. Thoth was Egyptian, of a lineage that guarded its bloodline slightly less rigorously than the pharaohs of old had, but his face still looked as though it could have served as the model for one of their burial masks. He had been trained from birth towards a purpose he never learned before his home was destroyed and his tutors killed or scattered. She had grown up in luxury, an international jet-setter… sent to all the best schools but more self-educated than anything else.
“Technically, the ’source’ is the various hives scattered across the world,” Thoth said. “It is the destination that…” Bast swatted the headrest of his seat with a gloved hand. “But I do know what you meant… I am attempting to analyze the flow of data now. I have never been able to track the strands of Webmistress’s web before because there was no difference between a packet of data or a blip of sound being routed for her and the rest of the traffic around it, but the Portalien chatter… it stands out like a radioactive dye in the bloodstream.”
“So you will be able to find her, then,” Bast said.
“Possibly, given time,” Thoth said. “There is only so much data to work with. If the transfer had not been interrupted so soon, I might be getting further.”
“This is important,” Bast said.
“Naturally,” Thoth said. “Rhyme is one of the most dangerous women on the planet, and Webmistress is effectively a nuclear superpower hiding somewhere beneath the United States. But you weren’t talking about either of them, were you?”
“We have children,” Bast said. “How can you ignore this?”
“Jane is not a child.”
“She’s somebody’s child,” Bast said. “I look at her and I see our daughter.”
“Tira is not going to end up a henchwoman,” Thoth said. “Whatever she may become, she is not a follower.”
“Yeah… she makes her own path,” Bast said. “She makes her own choices. Everybody does, I guess, but she’s so independent, how can we say for sure what she will or won’t do with her life?”
“I worry about our daughter, too,” Thoth said. “But saving Spinnerette from herself isn’t going to make a difference in how she turns out.”
« « 36: Love Is… 38: Making Time » »
Note: I'm trying out a new comment system. It's new and subject to jiggerypokery. It's moderated. Detailed guidelines to come but follow the general rule: be excellent to each other.
If you enjoy reading, please consider a financial contribution.
« « 36: Love Is… 38: Making Time » »