Twenty-two
The little machine that led the way climbed stairs
gracefully, more like a well-coordinated animal than a machine. It
pointed the way down a splendid hallway with a three-fingered hand. Evie
went on ahead and opened the enormous double doors. She stood in awe of
what lay inside.
The shack she had lived in most of her life would
have fit inside. It was a bedroom painted in a hundred shades of pink.
Dressers and an assortment of other antique furniture filled the room,
including a large canopied bed and a fireplace that crackled quietly to
itself in cheerful flames. A lead crystal chandelier illuminated
everything in sparkling rainbows of color.
Evie explored and discovered that the more modern
conveniences were kept out of sight, including a stereo system that played
soft music from hidden speakers everywhere. The stereo controls and a
large television screen were mounted flush with a side wall. The attached
bathroom contained a sunken tub, although most of the fixtures, including
a bidet, the purpose of which she was uncertain, only pretended to be
antique.
There were clothes in the dressers, clothes for
winter, spring, summer, and fall, clothes in a wild assortment of
fashions, and they were all her size. Three years ago on the day they had
first met, Billy had mentioned the wealth of his family as casually as he
had mentioned the disadvantages of a high level of intelligence. “Then
why me?” she had asked.
He had smiled. “Money and smarts have nothing to do
with you and me. We’re perfect together, don’t you think?”
And so they were. They thought so much alike. She
knew what Billy was feeling most of the time. They had spent entire
afternoons touching and smiling and communicating with one another without
needing to speak a word. Evie knew how to make him happy, and when to
slip away and give him room to fret. They had fun together. Like now.
Like this, the most marvelous day of her life.
“Billy, I love it!”
His wealth had meant nothing to her, because she had
never imagined what it might mean. Now, her joy overpowered her. Wealth
meant indulging even this outrageous fantasy. She danced in circles,
screaming in joy, and diving across the canopied bed and its cover of
royal blue satin.
He called her to dinner that evening. She showered
rather than bathed and found an evening dress of lace and satin to wear
for the meal, though they only ate in his control room on folding chairs
and table.
“We’ve even got servants,” he said when his little
machines brought in trays of what she suspected to be warmed frozen
gourmet dinners of some kind. It was still better food by far than
anything she had ever eaten. They ate on paper plates with plastic
silverware, and when they finished, Billy served wine in plastic cups.
They chattered for twenty minutes or so, bringing back old memories of
happier times. And then Billy solemnly excused himself.
“I’ve got to keep an eye on things. We’ve got so
much going.”
She wasn’t ready to be dismissed so casually, “Corin
must be of help to you.”
The comment was a calculated plea for more
information. The more she saw of the mansion, the less likely it seemed
that Billy could have been responsible for more than a small part of it.
He stared at her in misery. “I couldn’t have done
any of this without him.”
His secretive behavior unsettled her. “You’re mad at
him because he talked to me.”
“He overstepped himself.”
“I will meet him, won’t I?”
“That’s unavoidable.” He chuckled nervously. “We’re
close, Corin and I.”
“He mentioned that. Am I going to come between you
two in some way?”
“I can’t see how anything could come between us.”
“He’s someone you met since the accident?”
“Someone I met in the hospital.”
It was time for a few more tears. Memories of the
accident were still too vivid to suppress. The sadness and tragedy kept
returning to haunt her. “It was like you vanished from the face of the
earth,” she said. “The ambulances came, one for me and one to take you to
Boston. When I got out, I spent all the money I had saved away on phone
calls, trying to find out where you had gone. I almost ran away. I was
going to hitchhike to Boston and just walk from hospital to hospital
looking for you.”
“My mother would have made it difficult for you,”
Billy said. “She never considered Silver Ridge part of the civilized
world. I’m not certain if she considers anyone below the social status of
the Trevors entirely human.”
“She didn’t like me.”
“She liked you well enough. You were just
irrelevant. She was overprotective of her only son. At that time, she
thought I should get to know the real world better. She regretted her
leniency after the accident and sort of adopted a reverse philosophy.”
“Did she blame me for what happened?”
“We didn’t know about your brothers at the time. She
does now.”
“Then she must really be upset that you came back.”
“She knows I have problems to resolve if I’m ever
going to regain my health, physical and otherwise.” Billy backed suddenly
from the table. “Well, I’ve got things to do, maybe a few of those
problems to attend to.”
“I’ll be in my room.” Evie said it primly, with a
smile. “Is there anything I’ve ever wanted that you didn’t think of?”
He spread his hands to indicate his paralysis. “Just
this, not exactly what either one of us planned on.”
She let him go, not knowing what to say, but knowing
too many tears, or too much pity, would do more harm than good. She
passed through the magnificence of the silent mansion as if in a dream,
hoping Billy would find a way to put himself back together as effectively
as he had put together his fortress with its army of little soldiers.
She was used to being alone. She suspected at times
she was at her strongest when by herself. She searched closets and
drawers for lingerie and a light robe and shut herself in the bathroom for
the rest of the evening. She stripped as the oversized tub filled with
steaming, soapy water, then climbed in with a moan of pleasure, submerging
herself in the crackling bubbles.
She should have drifted to sleep in an instant. Her
head swam with fatigue. She hadn’t slept for more than a few hours in the
past two days. Instead, her thoughts kept returning to Billy.
What was he doing back in Silver Ridge? He hadn’t
returned just for her. A tendril of fear raced through her thoughts each
time she thought of his little machines and the way he was paralyzed and
the mystery of the unseen Corin. Everything that was happening was so
strange and inexplicable.
She dozed unexpectedly. She dreamed of a dark place
lurking beneath her old bedroom. Lazarus reached for her up through the
rotting floorboards and touched her shoulder.
She jerked awake and opened her eyes to a visitor
standing alongside the bathtub. The robot was larger than the smaller
drones, standing two or three feet high with two rather than one lens. It
had skeletal arms and hands of delicate metal parts, although it was on
treads rather than mechanical legs. Other, smaller machines accompanied
it, all standing about with their lenses pointed up at her, absently
swinging their variety of little appendages about with a display of
nervous fidgeting.
Evie slipped further down into the opaque clouds of
soap suds. “You’re not Billy,” she said. Billy would never have
approached her in this manner. “You’re Corin.”
The machine spoke in Billy’s voice, but she was
certain her initial impression was the correct one. “I apologize for the
intrusion. I know it’s not proper, but it was my only opportunity.”
“Okay. So?”
“Evie, there are outsiders about town.”
She knew that for herself. Abe had been on edge for
the weeks. Whenever she questioned him about his behavior, he would say
that he was taking risks to free them from a life of poverty and
hopelessness. She knew there were large amounts of money involved, but he
had refused her request for a washing machine. “Give me a year, Evie,” he
had told her. “We’ll move away from Silver Ridge. We’ll change our names
and buy a house as big as the Trevor mansion. I’ll buy you a washer and a
dryer and a whole new kitchen to match.”
“Billy would have knocked before entering my
bathroom,” she told the machine, still upset by the intrusion.
“When you know me better, you’ll forgive me my lack
of convention.”
“We haven’t been properly introduced. Billy seems
reluctant to do so.”
“He fears I will upset you. And he distrusts me,
which is why I have spoken with you without Billy’s consent or knowledge,
to pave the way for a better understanding between us. It will be
difficult for either Billy or myself to fully explain who I am and why I
am here.”
“Okay,” she said, growing increasingly uncomfortable
in the presence of the machine and its vague ramblings. It was hard to
visualize Corin as a human being. It was easier to imagine him as some
kind of machine intelligence fantasy that Billy had created for himself.
“Do I sense reservations?” he said.
“I’d like to meet you in person. You’re not a
machine, are you?”
“We will meet again soon. Face to face. I promise.”
The machine fell silent. It was staring at her, and
it had her only escape route blocked. “You said there were strangers in
town,” Evie said, hoping small talk would bore him and make him leave.
“Me and Ella May think they may be running drugs.”
“That has been our guess as well.”
A sudden thought occurred to her. “Are you a police
officer of some kind? Is Billy helping you stake out Silver Ridge?”
“It would stretch your definition of the word,
although I suppose I am, to some extent.”
The bathroom had taken on a chill. Evie shivered,
wondering why the man behind the machine, if one existed, could not detect
her discomfort.
“I’m sorry,” it said finally. “I’m sorry to have
intervened in your lives. There’s no way to compensate for the hardship
you must endure.”
The machine turned and left the room. The smaller
machines seemed to have their own niches in the walls. They vanished like
hordes of scurrying mice.
Evie shot to her feet in a roar of cascading water.
She grabbed for a towel on the way out and whipped it about her waist,
tying the ends in a knot. The hallway outside her room was empty, but,
night or day, every light in the mansion burned. She raced on bare feet
downstairs, then down the crude cement stairs off the kitchen to the
garage, hoping to catch up with the robot and follow it to the television
room.
Halfway down the cement stairs to the garage, she
heard scrapings below. She stopped on the cold stone to listen, then
peeked around the corner.
Billy Trevor was standing near the remote-controlled
car. His wheelchair was nowhere in sight. Hordes of little machines were
dragging sacks of clothes across the concrete floor. For a stubborn
moment, her mind refused to register the objects as anything more.
They were sacks of clothes with arms and legs.
And faces.
One was Jake Estevez, another, Frank Boker, two
horrible men she had seen about Silver Ridge for as long as she could
remember. The third body was the largest of the three by far. There was
no room for it in the back seat with the others. Its head and arms
dangled over the edge of the trunk briefly. Noah Darker’s glazed eyes
stared peacefully at her until a metallic claw lifted an arm, and then her
brother’s face rolled away from her and disappeared from sight.
Evie’s knees buckled. She was unconscious by the
time she struck the cold concrete.
