"Don't be scared," she whispered into his ear. She patted his arm, then leaned close again. "I'm here," she told him so quietly that even Mommy couldn't hear her. "So please don't be scared."

"Wrapped around a fibramic core which was one of the earliest uses of this hybrid material for a high-rise office building. The convoluted shell of custom-manufactured, low-emissivity glass, the shape of which has almost as many interpretations as interpreters, has been likened to everything from an upraised finger to a mountain or a black icicle. The resemblance to a human digit has spawned more than a few wry comments over the years, including one journalist's famous assertion that having secured everything he wanted from the pliant Louisiana legislature, J Corporation founder Felix Jongleur was offering one-half of the peace sign to the rest of us—in short, folks, he's flipping us off. . . ."

Olga paused the research file, freezing the bird's-eye view of the immense building in which she was now marooned. She was in full surround, but it was too much effort to change the viewpoint, and in any case she didn't know enough about buildings like this to be able to look for anything specific. What had Sellars said—there had to be another room with all the rest of the machinery? Without his guidance and protection, she didn't have a prayer of being able to locate it. Not without getting caught. And that was his interest, anyway, not hers. What could she learn about the voices that had drawn her here from investigating telecom equipment?

She sighed and surfaced from the wraparound long enough to make sure she was still alone in the vast storage room, then let the file—obtained from a specialty node about skyscrapers—play on.

"Topping out slightly under three hundred meters, not counting the radio mast and satellite arrays on the roof, the J Corporation tower has been surpassed by several newer buildings since its construction, most notably the five-hundred-meter Gulf Financial Services skyscraper, but it is still one of the tallest structures in Louisiana. Known primarily for the massive engineering work that went into creating the artificial island on which it stands—or which surrounds it, since the building's foundations go down as deep as the island's—and its spectacular ten-story Egyptian-themed atrium, the tower is also reputed to be the residence of Jongleur himself, the corporation's reclusive founder, who is said to keep an extensive penthouse complex on the top of the great black edifice, from which he can look down on Lake Borgne, the Gulf, and most of southeastern Louisiana and no doubt think about how much of it belongs to him. . . ."

The view of the atrium had given way to a long shot across the lake, its waters turned burnt tangerine by the setting sun, with the black spike of the tower jutting above it—a view much like Olga's own first sighting of it. She closed the file and shut off the visual override, so that the storage room sprang up around her. She had kept her incoming call line open. Ramsey and Sellars had still not tried to get in touch with her.

Olga rose to her feet, disturbed by how much she had stiffened up.

You are old. What do you expect?

But it was more than that. It was hard enough to admit that she was on her own—that whatever must be done she would have to do herself. The physical weariness and the ache of her muscles, overtaxed by a full day's cleaning and then uncountable stairs climbed at Sellars' direction, made it all seem even more impossible. What could she hope to accomplish, anyway?

Animals, when they're trapped and can't do anything, after a while they just curl up. Go to sleep. She remembered reading that somewhere. That was her own best choice, it seemed certain: just stay here, wait, doze. Wait.

Wait for what?

Something. Because I can't do anything on my own.

But even in her own head, even with her own self telling her such a sensible thing, that made her angry. Had she come much of the way down the continent to huddle like a rat in a hole simply because this man Sellars had been distracted? She had not even heard of him when she had made her decision to come here—she had planned to do it alone from the first.

But what had she planned to do, exactly? Olga had to admit that she had been so daunted by the problem of getting into the heavily-guarded corporate headquarters that she had not thought much beyond that. Sellars' intervention had in that way been a blessing. Where did you go to search for missing voices, ghost children?

To the top, she thought suddenly. This man built this place. He owns Uncle Jingle. He is the one poisoning children's minds, somehow, making them sick. If he is up there, then at least I can let him know that someone knows he is doing wrong. If I can get up there. If the guards don't kill me. I'll tell him to his face, then whatever will happen will happen.

What else can I do?

Olga began to pack up her few possessions for the journey to the top of the mountain.

NETFEED/NEWS: Multibillionaire Offers to Buy Mars Project

(visual: Krellor in Monte Carlo news conference)

VO: After declaring bankruptcy only months earlier, former nanotechnology baron Uberto Krellor has come forward with a startling offer to buy the crippled Mars Base Construction Project, lock, stock, and minirobot barrel, providing the UN will give him long-term rights to Mars, including concessions on mining and real estate rights on terraformed environments. Krellor is rumored to be the front man for a shadow-group of financiers kept out of the MBC Project sweepstakes by earlier UN decisions to avoid complete privatization of Martian ventures.

KRELLOR: "Nobody wants to see governments throwing the people's money away over these things anymore. Let a businessman see what he can do, someone who is used to taking risks. If I succeed, all humankind will share the triumph. . . ."

Sam Fredericks had seen quite a few things since she had entered the network. After the bloody climax of the Trojan War, a battle between Egyptian gods and sphinxes, and an attack by giant carnivorous salad tongs, she should have been bored with miracles, but she was still a little impressed with the way they started out crossing one river and finished up crossing an entirely different one.

The river itself still seemed largely the same, the water inky beneath the dark sky, feathered with white where it splashed around stones. In happier conditions its breathy murmuring might have been charming, the stone bridge beneath their feet picturesque. Then, as the mists cleared mid-span, Sam saw that the meadowed bank visible from the foot of the bridge had now become the edge of a fogbound forest instead, with steep black mountains looming beyond the trees. She had to admit it was a very effective trick.

But she was sick to death of tricks.

"How?" she whispered to !Xabbu. Azador walked ahead of them, more sleepwalker than traveler. "How did he find this bridge? And how did you know he could do it? We went past this spot before! There utterly wasn't any bridge here."

"Because I suspect we were not here." Her friend was avidly surveying the breakfront of ancient trees—hoping, perhaps, to see another one of Renie's markers fluttering from a branch. "Not the here that has a bridge, I mean." He saw the look on her face and smiled. "It does not make much sense to me either, Sam, but I believe Azador is from this . . . Other's land to begin with, this place built by the operating system, and so things will happen for him that will not happen for us. That is my guess."