D. W. StJohn - Sisters of Glass

Sisters of Glass

Table of Contents

Author's Caveat

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

Sisters of Glass

D.W.St.John

This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to locations, organizations, or individuals, living or

dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication, except for brief excerpts for purpose of review, may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Poison Vine Books is an imprint of Elderberry Press, LLC

Elderberry Press, LLC

1393 Old Homestead Road Second Floor

Oakland, Oregon 97462—9506

www.elderberrypress.com

editor@elderberrypress.com

This and all Elderberry Press books are available 24/7 at

Book Clearinghouse: (800) 431.1579

Publisher's Catalog-in-Publication Data

Sisters of Glass / D.W.St.John.

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ISBN 0-9658407-2-7

1. Future——Fiction.

2. Crime——Fiction.

3. Romance——Fiction.

4. Virtual Reality——Fiction.

5. Recombinant DNA [rDNA]——Fiction.

I. Title

Distributed in the book trade by Elderberry Press.

To Valerie Renee,

for endurance on the long run.

With thanks to

Ray Bradbury for encouragement,

B. J. Dart for line editing,

Jack Vance for advice,

"Karl Latte, best man ever worked for me. Unconventional...."

Auri cocks an eyebrow, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Independent as hell. Born five centuries too late, sees himself as a knight in black ostrich hide. Used to

be a cop, but doesn't give a rat's hind end about law. Convince him you're the underdog, and he'll never

quit—not while he breathes."

"And you think you can sell him?"

"I can sell him."

"Why should I believe you this time?"

"He's saavy, tough, survival instincts of a mink."

She opens the door to go, "He's so damned good, why doesn't he work for you?"

Tate had hoped she wouldn't ask. "Something happened, he walked away."

"What?"

He says nothing.

With an exasperated laugh, she appraises him with a slow shake of her head, eyes industrial diamond.

"Little boys and their secrets. Okay, lets try this: Give me a reason to stay or I'm gone."

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Heart stone, Tate looks out over the waters of 2030 L.A.. Did Judas feel this way? "He reads minds,

that reason enough?"

She shuts the door, sits, leans forward, eager, "So, tell me."

Also by D.W.St.John

A Terrible Beauty

See Night Run

Author's Caveat

This is a story about decent people in difficult situations.

Although this book deals with adult topics, it does so while resorting neither to obscenity nor explicit

depictions of violence and intimacy. Nevertheless, it is always wise to preview material to which children

are granted access.

En las mentiras, verdad.... En la verdad, mentiras....

(In lies, truth.... In truth, lies....)

Fernando D'Ortega y Muñoz,

1932-1982

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor,

both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand...

so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark,

that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.

This calls for wisdom:

let he who has understanding

know the number of the beast,

for it is a human number...

Revelation 13.16

ONE

Magnus Tate watches Auri rise on long legs.

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With a look that leaves no doubt in his mind how long she will treasure the memory of their first

encounter, she wipes away the residue of lovemaking, "Well, what now?"

Tired, as close to throwing in the towel as he's ever been, he hauls himself erect with a groan. It's been

nearly twenty years since he's been this foolish, letting a client sucker him into compromising himself. His

age, slipping into her dress she looks half his sixty years. Still, there is something about her that turns men

to fools.

"Now? I'm going to send somebody else, that's what I'm going to do."

Hands on hips, she looks at him, appalled, "God, but you're hopeless! I thought you were competent!

Don't you get it? They're not cutting it! We're no closer now than we were a month ago."

He gets it.

Stepping into trousers, he pours himself a dose of scotch, offers her one. She waves it away. Oh, yes, he

gets it. If he doesn't do something right now, he might as well buy some razors and draw himself a good,

hot bath. Maybe he should anyway. He's never liked sending men and women to die. "They tried, and

they paid for their failure."

"You said they were good."

The pleasant burn of Chivas dulls the edge of panic. He thinks of the dead. For the hundredth time he

sees their faces. He won't have her dirtying them. The look he gives her is easy to understand. "They

were good."

"Then what good will another one do?" She grabs her bag, heading for the door and out of his life. "I'm

out of time."

Desperate, Tate watches her go, and with her his career, his agency. Fear burrows in his stomach. In

this instant he understands how a man will betray a friend. "There is someone...."

"Oh, don't bother." Hand on the door she hesitates, "You've had your chance, I'll try somewhere else."

Another second and she'll be gone. He can't let her go. God help him, he can't. Of course she knew he

would react this way. If she knows anything, she knows men. Half a century she's spent them like tokens.

"If anyone can do it, Karl can."

Bored, she sighs, "All right, who is he, and why haven't you mentioned him before?"

"He's been...out of circulation."

She sighs, annoyed. "Retirees, now?"

"He's forty, best man ever worked for me. Unconventional...."

She cocks an eyebrow, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Independent as hell. Born five centuries too late, is what I think. Sees himself as some kind of knight in

black ostrich hide. Used to be a cop, but doesn't care about the law. Only cares what's right. You

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convince him what you want done is to help the underdog, and he'll never quit—not while he's breathing,

anyway."

"And you think we can sell him?"

Magnus knows he can. Karl would be a sucker for it, he can feel it. "I can sell him."

She opens the door. "Why should I believe you this time?"

"He's smart, he's tough, survival instincts of a mink, thinks on his feet."

"If he's so damned good, why doesn't he work for you anymore?"

He'd hoped she wouldn't ask. "Something happened, he walked away."

"Something—what?"

Tate doesn't answer.

"Little boys and their secrets. Okay, let's try this: He walked away to do what?"

"Lives alone up in the hills by the sea in Anglo-Cali, raises cattle, sheep, grows his own vegetables, you

know, that kind of thing."

"Oh...." With an exasperated laugh, she appraises him with a slow shake of her head, eyes industrial

diamond. "A back-to-the-land has-been? You can do better than that."

Heart stone, he drains his glass, pours another. Is there anything he won't do to hold on to the agency,

anyone he won't betray? Disgusted with himself, with what he's about to do, he looks out over the waters

of 2030 L.A.. "He's the one we want, Auri. Don't ask me why, just trust me when I say he's the one.

"You know I trust no one."

He knows she won't buy it, tries anyway. "I gave my word."

Her eyes, implacable, stay on him. "Give me a reason to stay or I'm gone."

He has to stop her. She goes, it's all done, all over. He can tell her or he can draw his pension, join the

netpunks in their Ultimate Reality stupor.

Did Judas feel this way?

"He reads minds." He looks up to see her jaw drop. "That reason enough?"

She shuts the door, comes back to her perch on the couch. Slender legs splayed, elbows on knees, she

leans forward, eager, "So, tell me."

And he does.

God help him, he does.

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* * *

The smell of straw, of alfalfa, of molasses cob, of lanolin, of wool and dung hang heavy on the air of the

shed.

Karl pushes the piston on the tube clamped between the ewe's jaws, forcing the bolus down past where

she can spit it up. Its fear comes through his hands. The ewe is afraid, but in a dull, uninterested way.

Released, she runs bawling from the shed out onto wet grass as if it's all a game. Worming time. How he

hates it. Just one of life's little pains in the ass. Nothing any stupider than a lamb. Birth them, vet them,

feed them, and will they take a pill without fighting for their life? They won't. Got to be done, though. He's

heard lambs cough, seen them eat and eat, gaining nothing, livers swimming with ray-like flukes. Bad here

by the coast. Snails are the vector. Long wet winters and misty summers make it a constant fight.

Bink, a beagle no bigger than his shoe, rolls happily in dung at his feet. His only company, Bink may be a

freak—they have that much in common—but he knows how to have a good time. Found him barely

weaned, running down the centerline as if he knew where he was going and was in one damned big hurry

to get there. Sweeping alongside in his '53 Ford pickup, Karl scooped him up. On his lap, fleas

porpoising through short fur, what he read in Bink was longing for someone to love, a need so strong he

suspected that somehow he was reading himself reflected back.

Now, when he can help it, animals are all he touches. Bink is simple. A hunger for cats and jackrabbits

to chase. A consuming love for him and for hocks of the lambs Karl slaughters. No undercurrents of dark

guile, no greed, no envy, no resentment, no regrets—just love. He'll never find that in a woman, never.

He knows—he's tried.

Suddenly Bink springs to short legs, black eyes alert. A low rumble rising from his throat, he tears out of

the shed, kicking up straw as he goes. Karl steps up on a bale to look out under the roof, shapeless felt

hat pressed up against dusty tin. Churning its way up gravel to the house below is an aquamarine

Ranchero. Karl breathes, relaxing—only Mel.

Relieved, he groans, slapping his drooping hat against a thigh to dust it of cobwebs. No hurry. Digging a

pencil stub from the pocket of a worn Pendleton, he makes a note on a post which lambs he's yet to

dose. He wipes his hands on clean straw as Mel winds up the drive, Karl scans the sea a mile away

down slope.

Though he grew up here, for him Cape Mendocino never palls. Sea, sky, land and trees clap violently

together here as they do nowhere else on earth. Here they gnaw at each other, breaking off pieces and

carrying them away for their own. Here he feels more alive than he does anywhere else. Here he's home.

Now what can Mel want? Something, that's sure; he wouldn't bother driving up unless he did. With a

tired sigh, Karl heads down to meet him.

Mel parks, gets out, polishes the hood with a sleeve. Stands back, judges, nods approval. Under his

breath he says it, the incantation, the benediction. Though Karl is still too far away to hear, he knows

what he says: "Bitchin'."

It's about the only word his nephew uses now. Cynthia, the cute seventeen year old down the road is

bitchin'. So's the aboriginal music he listens to. Chimichangas are. The Net is. So's the fit of a tight pair of

jeans on the tourist chicks who stop at the cafe for a soda and directions every summer.

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Some things aren't, though. Helping Mary with the dishes isn't. Neither is studying, nor the price of gas,

nor his Uncle Karl, come to that. No, Karl muses as he heads down, Mel's much too old to think an

uncle is bitchin'. And if that uncle just happens to have spent the last fifteen years wrestling with you and

untangling your fishing line and teaching you to shoot when you didn't have a father around, well, that

doesn't count for much either—not to a sixteen year old.

Karl stumbles, catching the toe of his boot on a root, reaches down to rub a smarting knee. Mel spots

him, waits. Karl smiles as he comes, Bink running ahead. No, Mel won't run to meet him—hasn't for a

long time. He just stands, looking bored, piece of paper in one hand.

"Got a letter for you, Unk, came FedEx from L.A.." He holds it up to the sky, straining to make it out.

A chill washes over Karl as he jerks it out of his hand, "Thanks there, Neph."

Mel doesn't flinch. Used to it. They've had this war going so long neither thinks it even sounds funny,

now.

He shrugs,"Thought you might want it before next Saturday when you come down, so I brought it up."

Mel watches him expectantly, fingers on one hand grooming a pimply forehead, tee shirt with a picture of

a python gripping a baby in its mouth, half swallowed, legs splayed. A meaning there somewhere, a band

maybe. Karl's given up guessing and doesn't care enough to ask.

How can a kid change so much in only a few years?

"Going to open it, Unc?"

Karl glances at the envelope and despite the sun, slivers of ice slide down his backbone. So he guessed

right—it is from Magnus. He slips it into a pocket. "Not now, worming."

"Aw, come on." Mel trims a nail with his teeth, spits the sliver, "Let's see what it says."

"Later."

"Oh, you mean when I'm gone, huh?"

Karl smiles, sure of the risk he's taking, "You're that anxious, you can stay and help me dose the lambs.

Shouldn't take more than another hour. Then we'll open it together. You can read it to me."

Mel gathers a ponytail in his fist. "Okay, be that way."

Karl notices the tell-tale shaved patch and scab at the nape of his neck, and a knife spikes his heart.

Reaching out to clasp Mel's hair in a fist, he yanks his head around to see. It's there, all right: the bluish

puncture left by the implant gun—the stomata of the hive. A spider of revulsion feels its way up Karl's

neck.

Mel squirms in his grasp. "Hey, come on, let me go!"

Disgusted, Karl turns him loose. If the letter's bad, this is worse. Mel may be a smart ass, but he's blood,

his sister's son, the only kid he's ever cared about. Now he belongs to them. Karl wants to hit something,

somebody. If he thought it would help, he'd hit Mel. But it won't. Nothing will.

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Karl whips off his hat, slaps his thigh with it, "What the hell you need with an implant, Mel, will you tell

me that?"

Mel smiles, looking down at dirty sneakers, spattered with mud, grease, something green, maybe cow

shit. Mary keeps a steer out back of the store, and Mel takes it rolled corn, and a flake of alfalfa when

she can browbeat him into it.

Mel stands his ground,"Can't get into college without one, can't get a job either, don't you know that?

Don't you know anything, Unc?"

Karl feels sick. He didn't.

It's worse than he thought. Five years and it's much worse. There's nowhere to hide, nowhere the

sickness doesn't reach. Run—it follows. Hide—it finds you. What right does he have to judge? Mel's got

to live out there, got to function. Not like him. Mel needs the world. Wants it. Hungers for it. The way he

did once.

Mel waits, head bobbing to a beat Karl doesn't hear, eyes staring out to sea, blind, seeing, listening to

something beamed down from a satellite somewhere above an overcast sky. Still he makes no move to

go.

Karl hates to admit curiosity, but itches to know. "What you watching?"

"UR feed," Melvin says too loud for the quiet hill, only the breeze soughing through spruce, through

bunch grass. "Blue Green Algae concert live from Prince Albert in London. I can see them right in front

of me, hear them too. I can even smell the place."

The old terror grips Karl hard. The fear of slipping off the inverted bowl of reality and into the abyss,

into Auden's borough of the nightmare, has always scoured his soul raw with dread. For that reason

alone he's never seriously considered taking the dip into Ultimate Reality.

It revolts him, too, the thought of being somewhere yet not being there, of leaving your body behind, a

husk. Unnatural as corn smut, it defies the will of God. Ridiculously rudimentary, it seems to him—men

were not meant to do this. Puritanical though this thought seems, there is no doubt in his mind it is

so.Though he's left a fundamentalist upbringing thirty years in the past, something of it sticks yet.

There's something else Karl's always wanted to know."How do you drive?"

Melvin laughs to hear such ignorance, shakes his head, grinning. "No, Unk, no, you can turn it down

anytime you want, you don't have to take full feed." He frowns, searching for a way to describe the

miracles of modern technology to a three-toed sloth.

"It's like a memory, a daydream, sort of. You can control it, but anytime you want it, it's there. Get it?

Just hit the juice and look out, here it comes, bam, and you're there." He lifts an arm, no longer the arm of

a boy, beefy, muscular, and points into space. "There, some guys are toking." He breathes, long, deep, "I

can smell it, and there's ale spilled all over, and there must be a toilet stopped up, too, I'll bet." He laughs.

"And do you?"

"Do I what?"

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"Turn it off."

"Sure."

"Oh, yeah?" Karl doesn't believe him. "When?"

"All the time."

He won't let it lie. "When last?"

Mel frowns, "Don't know...forget...sometime."

Karl nods, repulsed by this kid he's watched grow up, mind linked to some global widow's web. He

sees him trailing invisible fibers linking him to low earth orbiting satelites, and thinks of a moth bound and

suspended, awaiting a spider.

Why doesn't he leave, what's he waiting for?

"Thanks for bringing this up, Mel," he says, leaning close to his ear, speaking loud enough so he'll be sure

and hear over whatever's happening inside his skull. "See you, thanks for the lesson."

"Don't have to yell," Mel says to his back, "Sure is a long way up here, and man is gas getting high."

Understanding, Karl says he'll transfer fifty next time he goes down to the store.

Mel smiles, "See ya," he says, running for his Ford, rolling slowly down the hill, cautious about chipping

the paint with flying gravel.

Karl watches him go—first visitor in a year, then lets his eyes rove the hills, spruce falling away to

pasture. Wind fresh from the sea rocks him, thermal bringing warmth in the dead of February. From

where? Tahiti, maybe.

Petrolia, westernmost town in the continental US. Misnamed for oil that never was. Home to a handful

of ranchers, most of whom have lived there for generations. Not an easy club to break into. One family,

moved to the cape before Karl was born, is still the new folks in the Walker place.

Though he'd spent fifteen years away, Karl, born into one of the original homestead families, was just

"The Kleiner boy." At forty, still a boy, coming home from the big city. They knew him, went to school

with him. Used to his ways, they let him be. And that's what it's all about, or so he thinks now—being left

alone.

Bink at his heels, Karl slogs slowly back up the hill to the waiting lambs. Absently, he feels in his jeans

pocket, counting five of the big pills. Enough to finish. Past bawling lambs, he walks, on up into the

spruce—the best place for him to think, the only place. He finds a thirty-year-old Sitka stump, sits, takes

out the envelope.

He doesn't have to open it, knows what's in it, knows he doesn't want to read it. He thinks about tearing

it up, forgetting it ever came, denying it if it comes to that. Five years is a long time to live alone, cut

off—from the world, from friends, from everything. Five long, wet winters Magnus has left him alone.

Now what?

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Tearing it open, he blows inside to separate thin reactive paper, gets a chemical whiff. Electronically

generated, never signed, never touched. He opens it, reads, finds no surprise.

One line is all. Just one:

K.

AUNT CELIA ILL. TICKET WAITING. WILL MEET.

M.

One line, but enough. Karl curses into the wind. Bink sits up, whining, nose working, eyes alert, making

sure he doesn't miss anything. The wind flutters the paper in his hand and he sees the cape through the

eyes of a man who may never see it again. Unbearably beautiful it seems now. No way around it. He'll

have to go. After everything, Tate's just about the only friend he has. If he needs him bad enough to send

this, after five years leaving him alone, he's got to go.

Stomach prickling, he thinks about the city. Okay, he misses it—part of him does anyway. But there is at

least as much dread in the constriction in his throat as anticipation. He can feel it from here: the festering

heat, the malignancy of L.A.

Rain spatters his hat, his jeans. A drop strikes the FAX in his hands, eats through as if it were sulfuric.

Karl smiles. Magnus and his caution. Of course he would use water reactive paper. Rising, he leaves it

on the stump and heads down to the shed.

He'll leave at dusk.

* * *

Karl lies back, enjoying first class.

First flight in five years and he's got room to stretch. Tate does have his good points. In the carrier on the

seat beside him, Bink sighs, nose pressed through mesh. Checking for stewards, Karl unhooks the door

and he pushes out, worming his way under his jacket. Karl latches the door and settles back, slipping on

the headset he bought on the way to the airport.

Slimmer, less bulky than his old one, it's not much more than a spaghetti thin hoop connecting earpieces

with the laser projectors at his temples. Outdated as it is he was lucky to find one at all and is relieved to

see that despite the thick layer of dust on the package, it powers up.

Karl's rusty. Hasn't had one on since he left. This one's better, faster, can do more—how much he's not

sure. He calls up news archives. So far so good. Each movement of his eyes takes him to another rush of

news casts. The arrow floats, a neon defect on a cornea. A flick, a blink, and it plays real time. Another

blink zips it forward one day per second. Not too bad. And that's good. Five years is a lot to review.

"The President," says a fawning blonde head with the voice of a blue vid queen, "is intent upon working

with the Chinese to foster human rights by a policy of engagement while at the same time insuring

continued trade by reaffirming MFN trading status...."

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D. W. StJohn - Sisters of Glass

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