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chosen to ignore it. He could sense it now. How was he supposed to find
anything that fit the description spelled out in the ancient words, anything
that held that taint, when everything was the same? How the hell else had
creatures like Pinpin Dan survived for so long? Jack was as guilty as the rest
of them, filled with a grudging tolerance, but at the same time fully aware of
everything that went on. It was just too easy to let everything happen, to let
events slide past him without doing anything about it, merely coasting along.
His abilities had made him lazy. His luck shouldn t make him lose his
humanity, but here, somehow, insidiously, that was what it was doing.
So what about Billie? Was she any different? Of course she was. She d just
been stained by it all. That was a part of living no, make that existing here.
You couldn t call it living, really. You got touched by the taint.
God, he really was getting maudlin too many patches, not enough sleep, blind
alleys one after the other. It all added up, but he couldn t afford to let the
mood overtake him. There was work to do. Maybe he could put some of the pieces
together before embarking on a voyage out to the edges of the system. That
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would put him out of circulation for too long. He had to find some clue to
Billie s presence before that happened. Somehow the shapes on the wall in
front of him held his key. He grunted at the irony. Here he was trying to
unlock a key. It made about as much sense as everything else.
His thoughts flitted back to the last dream he d had. The tree diagram had
been as clear as day. Ten circles. Ten names. But what he had on the wall had
more than that. Perhaps he had too many. And why was Pinpin in the primary
place at the top of the tree? Was Pinpin the key? No, it didn t make sense. He
might be integral to the connections that had been drawn, but there was no way
a dead guy could be the key to the current problem.
Okay, he had a separate circle forDaman and one for Pablo. They were both
kids from Old, so completely linked; he needed only one spot for both of them.
He could get rid of Pablo s name altogether. On a whim, he removed Louis Ng s
name as well. That felt right. So now he was left with eleven circles
containing eleven names.
It still didn t work. One too many names, and besides, the picture was
unbalanced. Normally he wouldn t worry about it, but the dream image had been
so insistent. The pattern was an icon in his subconscious that was trying to
tell him something. Sitra Akhar. A clue but what? He looked at the left-hand
names again. Warburg, Gleeson, Ronschke. The White-Haired Man was on the
left-hand side too. That made sense. But Gleeson? Ronschke? Any of them could
be the key that would unlock this puzzle. He just didn t have enough to go on.
He let his gaze become unfocused and stared at the wall. After a while he
shook his head. It wasn t going to come this time. There was no epiphany, no
revelation to spring from the depths of his sensitivity into his conscious
mind.
He stood, stretched, and started walking. Sometimes pacing helped him think.
As he walked he let his fingers trail over the back of the couch, along the
edges of the shelves, the edge of the chair. Around and around the room he
drifted, passing the names over and over in his head, trying to draw the
links. Seek the left. Look for the corruption. He spied the small blue bottle
Gleeson had given him and crossed to retrieve it. He stretched out to snag it
from the shelf and . . .
Anastasia Van der Stegen. His fingers had barely brushed the glass. He spun,
staring at the chart. He knew what was wrong. The names. They were in the
wrong boxes. Gleeson was on the wrong side. His name belonged under Van der
Stegen. It was Anastasia who belonged under Warburg. And where Gleeson went,
Ronschke had to follow. That was it! He didn t know why yet, but that was the
way it should be. He spoke the command to rearrange it.
Stupid, Jack. Taken in by how things seemed. Things were never really as they
seemed. And if those connections made sense. . . yes! Gleeson worked for
Joshua Van der Stegen he had to. He was some sort of plant inside Warburg s
organization. That would explain the easy convenience of his presence, the way
he had fed the information to Jack. So that left Anastasia Van der Stegen.
What was her connection to Warburg? He stared at the new configuration. Seek
the left. Everything that tied these energies together belonged on the left.
The two at Pinpin s were a minor part of the configuration, compared to some
of the others. The only other major player, at least in his dreams, was the
White-Haired Man. There had to be another link there.
Then he saw it. The White-Haired Man belonged beneath Anastasia Van der
Stegen and on the left-hand side. Somehow they were connected too. Or were
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they? It could just as easily be the pair at Pinpin s apartment. For the
moment the two were interchangeable, but if the dream clues were pointing him
in the right direction, then it made more sense for it to be the White-Haired
Man. Whatever the case, one of those two named boxes was surplus to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]