But the roll that had begun was accelerating. The ship’s ballast had shifted decisively. It rolled onto its side, sending the flame shooting hundreds of feet into the air.
Now at last the remaining residents of the Doll House panicked.
The inside of Benjaminia was a slaughterhouse—dead marines, many more dead villagers, hung from bloody catwalks. The sphere turned on its axis, and floors became walls. Bodies fell through the air.
Like the turning drum of a dryer, the sphere rolled on and now people clinging to desperate handholds fell screaming and crashed into the painted mural of the Great Souls.
Water rushed in through the opened segments.
The blowtorch submerged but burned on and turned the water to steam as the Doll Ship sank, and settled on the harbor floor.
There was a knock at the door. Bug Man knew who it was. His message had been delivered.
He set his platooned nanobots on their course, out of the president’s eye, racing away down her cheek. Then he detached from the twitcher gear and went to the door.
Five people stood there: the strange girl with the creepy eye tattoo, a serious-looking boy with startling blue eyes, a pretty but angry girl with light freckles on her cheeks. And—supported by an auburnhaired woman—a young man with dark hair and an intense brow and eyes that stared straight past Bug Man.
“They’re out of her,” Bug Man said.
They all stepped inside.
“I guess, given who we are and what we do, we don’t shake hands,”
Bug Man said. Then he looked at Vincent and laughed softly. “Poor bastard’s still not right, is he? And he kicked my ass anyway. Well.” “We could kill you,” the blue-eyed boy said.
Bug Man looked sharply at him. “That accent’s not from around here.”
“Not quite as posh as yours,” Keats said.
“There are five of you. You could kill me, but what would be the point? I’m out of Morales. The Twins will kill me if they ever get a chance. The game is over for me.”
“Proof?” Plath snapped.
Bug Man nodded toward his twitcher station. Wilkes went over and put on the glove.
“I burned it all down myself,” Bug Man said. “I had everything. I beat Kerouac. I beat Vincent. Plenty of money. I had a girl . . .” He shrugged. “But I guess it didn’t mean much, eh? Just a game, right?”
Keats swung his fist with every ounce of rage he could muster. Bug Man went down on his butt, blood pouring from his nose. Then Keats buried the toe of his shoe in Bug Man’s rib cage. No one moved to stop him.
“Kerouac is my brother,” Keats said. “That was for him. And now, you have something of ours.”
Bug Man prudently said nothing as Keats stuck his finger in his eye and held it there as the biots left Bug Man.
Sitting at the twitcher station Wilkes suddenly jerked sharply. “His nanobots are out. But look at the news!”
A small TV monitor beside Bug Man’s main screen was showing a CNN feed.
Wilkes tapped the keyboard and the news feed opened much larger on the main screen.
“What is it?” Plath asked.
“She’s lost it,” Wilkes said.
“I first met Monte when we were . . .” she began.
The autocue went on with the usual story, the story they had both told for a long time. It was an amusing and touching story. But it wasn’t the truth.
They had met when Monte Morales, driving a bit drunk, ran her off the road. She’d been on a bike. When she fell off she rolled into a ditch. Monte had come running, yelling, “No, no, no!” and she had risen from that ditch covered in mud and spitting a stream of obscenities that turned the air blue.
The bike was ruined so he let her drive his car. She left him standing by the side of the road yelling, “Hey! I said you could drive it not steal it!”
The next day she had found him from the information on the car’s registration. He had apologized, she had not. She’d told him her only regret was not running him over. He’d said . . .
“I think your greater regret was in not kissing me.”
The audience gasped.
She had spoken it out loud, all of it.
It had always seemed like an important secret, and now …Well …
There were so many worse secrets now.
Gastrell got the news on her iPhone. Massive explosion Hong
Kong. Likely terrorist. Threat condition Orange.
The president had begun her eulogy. And it wasn’t going well. The Secret Service had obviously been advised as well. The lead
agent was already moving toward the president, protocol be damned,
Condition Orange came with orders to immediately secure the
POTUS.
“I loved him,” the president said. “And now …How . . .?” She stared at the Secret Service agent stepping briskly to her and
said, “Are you arresting me?”
The agent froze. The audience stopped breathing.
Cameras zoomed in close on her face and what looked like a
single tear rolled from her eye. It seemed dark, for a tear, almost as
if she was weeping blood. Even with high definition cameras it was
impossible to make out that the dark tear was a rush of platooned
nanobots.
“Madam President, I’m—” the agent said.
The president stepped to him and suddenly shoved him back.
He stumbled, tripped backward, and landed hard. Morales squatted
beside him and reached inside his jacket.
Two other agents were rushing now, not knowing what was happening, just that something sure as hell wasn’t right.