T= They Ate the Truth part 20

I look him in the eyes. They could be anyone's. They are a sort of
nut brown, around the iris, but it doesn't seem like the man I knew,
the man who got Lorrie into this whole mess.

Why are his eyeballs here?

I have to move the gun into my other hand, as my palm is slick with
sweat and I have to wipe it on my trousers. Not that having the gun is
doing me a lot of good - the only person I want to shoot is Johann, and
if I shoot him, the jar breaks and all of us die. I was planning on
walking out of this with at least Bill.

Johann says, "They were quite difficult to get out. I used teaspoons in
the end, ran them under the warm tap. Then a pair of nail-scissors. But
you don't need to hear about that. "

He's right.

Lorrie is looking at the box, she looks fierce and I can't help
noticing that she isn't having problems with gripping the gun. She
actually looks like she might shoot somebody with it, and I can hardly
blame her.

"Why did you take his eyes out?"

"My dear girl, " says Johann, talking to her as if he's twenty years
older than her, "This would have been so much easier if I hadn't
arranged for your memory to be wiped before leaving you. So much
explaining to do. "

She points the gun at his crotch, "Then start explaining, darling.
"

He knows that she isn't going to shoot. Or at least, I hope so. But
nonetheless, the idea of being shot there does concentrate the
mind.

"I'll do this quickly, " he says, "I had to get you to take the Queen
bug, because I had buyers who wanted it, Chesterton locked my access
out of his lab because he didn't trust me. You took the Queen for me
and put her in the vault at this lab, nice and safe. I'm the only
person who can get in, because of the retinal scan security lock.
"

This is starting to make some sort of sense.

"Except, " he says, "That it turns out that when I thought I'd turned
you and you were with me against Chesterton, I was wrong. You put the
Queen in the vault here because that was what Chesterton wanted you to
do. The bastard had the scan changed. My eyes don't open it anymore,
and my valuable Queen is slowly starving to death in there. "

I throw Bill a look, in the vain hope that he will signal with his eyes
that he has thought of something, but he hasn't. It isn't a good idea
to look at him, as it is far too clear on his face that being kept
hostage has not been good for him, all those fears he has of being
locked up, and I've put him in exactly that position.

Johann says, "Of course, I didn't realise this until after you'd been
wiped and I set you loose. I came along to get the Queen out and take
her to Lafferty, and found I couldn't open the door. I worked out that
Chesterton had shafted me, and probably you too, but when I pieced
through the data the Gentle Bug had removed from you, there wasn't
anything to say whose retinal image would open the door. "

"So you went to Chesterton ? " she says, and her voice is icy.

"It seemed like a good idea, " he says, "Too hard to bring him here,
but I didn't need all of him. Just enough of him to fit in a little
box. But his eyes don't open it either. So I had a think, and I did
some reconstruction of the data my bugs took out of him as they were
killing him. And guess what, it turns out it was your eyes all along.
But by then, you were on the run with this moron. "

"Hey, " I say, tetchily, but to be honest it is nice that he's
remembered I'm here. I am beginning to feel like a spare part.

"If he hadn't involved his friend, I would never have been able to find
him. Chesterton told me all about Bill, and then I had a contact point
and a lever."

He pronounces it leather. Oddly, I start to think about rice. I've
eaten lots of rice in my time and I've seen paddy-fields, but I have no
idea what a rice plant itself is like - are there just grains floating
in the water, or are they like seeds in a sort of gourd, or are they
like corn, husks that are then stripped down to individual grains. To
keep myself from fainting, I start to name to myself all the kinds of
rice I can think of.

Johann says, "I still have your memories, you know. The bug you saw
destroyed was a decoy. The old you is intact. I can put all those
memories back, make you yourself again. "

"Maybe I like the new me better, " she snaps, but I can see that the
offer interests her.

Basmati. American long-grain.

"You'll never know unless you try, " he says, and he uses a tone of
voice that I'm sure he used when they were lovers, it is almost a
coo.

Thai sticky.

"Just open the door, and I'll give you back the Gentle Bug. You leave,
this man in the wheelchair leaves, your new boyfriend leaves. Everyone
wins. "

"And if not? " she says.

"I still have a teaspoon, " he says.

Risotto rice, arborio. Rice pudding rice.

He throws the jar up into the air and catches it, not more than a few
inches, but it makes everyone in the room flinch and brace themselves.
As though that would do any good. No time to repent or pray for
forgiveness. If you've got Guilt, you're dead, before the sound of
breaking glass even reached your ears.

"What about you ?" I ask, thinking of something that isn't connected
with rice, thank the lord, "You've done some bad stuff - killing
Chesterton for one. If they eat us, they'll eat you too. "

"Not quite so dumb, " he says, grinning at me, "But I designed these
insects, remember ? Their sequences are all built by me. And believe
me, it took some work - which is why the Queen is so important to me
and my buyers. They won't come for me, because I built them that way. I
had to be sure I was always going to be safe around them. "

Damn. And I'm out of varieties of rice, too.

This doesn't seem too bad a deal. I don't know what he's going to do
with the Queen once he opens the vault, and I don't much care. He
doesn't love Lorrie, he doesn't want her back and she doesn't seem to
be in love with him. She wants to be my Lorrie, not his Lorrie - right
down to the memories she has. It isn't my job to save the world, even
if it needs saving.

My friend Crabtree always gets the words wrong to songs, she'll sing
them lustily on car journeys and wonder why everyone laughs. The one of
hers I'm thinking of right now is Billy Bragg.

I don't wanna save the world, I'm not looking for a New England, just
looking for another girl.

Lorrie turns to me and points the gun at me. She is crying.

"This is your fault, " she says and there is so much more that she
should say but that does the job.

"How could you bring me here? Sell me out?"

All good questions, to which I don't really have answers.

"I didn't know about the eyes, " I tell her.

"But you knew Chesterton was dead? That he killed him?"

I nod.

She points the gun at me much more seriously. I look at Johann and he
seems to be enjoying the spectacle very much - I suppose if we kill
each other, he won't have to break his precious jar. He can just get
busy with his teaspoon and open up the vault afterwards.

There's something in her face. It isn't anger, or hate. It is
resignation, determination. She moves her head back slightly, very
slightly and I have the feeling that she wants me to point my gun at
her. I do this and I see it is the right thing, that this is what she
wants.

We stand there, both aiming at each other. She says, "I really loved
you, you know. "

"I know. "

She lowers her gun a little, showing Johann that she's given up. And
then she winks at me, first her left eye and then her right. Very very
deliberately.

And I know what she wants me to do.

And I do it.

At the end, it isn't my choice to make. She decides whether she wants
to help her husband open the vault and sell the Queen to people who are
going to do who knows what with her. She decides whether to walk away
and live with the consequences or whether to make a stand.

I fire two shots. She isn't standing very far away, so my aim doesn't
have to be good. I know that at first, Johann is smiling, his work done
for him. But I also know that he is about to realise where those
bullets went.

It's an expression with shooting, isn't it? Hit them right between the
eyes. My bullets didn't go right between Lorrie's eyes. Quite the
reverse.

Nobody is opening that damn vault.