Chrysalis

63

Jeremy Logan entered the hotel lobby and paused, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the subdued light. It reminded him of the “snug” of an old English pub, only more elegant and on a larger scale. To the right, past a carven archway, was the front desk, discreet and pleasantly spare. He took three steps down into the lobby proper. It was a long and relatively narrow space, with a coffered macassar ceiling and plush, hand-knotted Persian carpets over the onyx floor. Small tables — the perfect size to hold drinks or cards for a game of bridge — were artfully placed along both sides of the room, each surrounded by deep wing chairs. Here and there along the walls, tall ferns rose from oriental vases, and oil paintings hung on the walls, illuminated by sconces and small brass chandeliers set close to the ceiling. To one side, halfway down the lobby, a fireplace with an oversize marble mantel was set into the ornate woodwork. The low, narrow design of the place practically oozed a cozy, sub-rosa sensibility, assuring the sounds of conversation would remain low and the passersby — other than waiters — infrequent. It seemed as if the space itself had been artfully planned to yield up, from time to time, new discoveries: a small, recessed bookcase here; a shadowbox of Tiffany glass yielding onto some objet d’art there.

Only a few of the dozen or so tables were occupied, and Logan quickly saw the party he was here to meet: sitting in one of the few banquettes, in the rear by the copper-fronted elevators. As he approached, they rose to greet him: Orris Peyton; Roz Madrigal; Virgil Snow — and Matthew Wrigley. They all looked more or less as he remembered them, save for Roz. It took him a moment to realize this was because he’d only seen her in her work garb of faded jeans, never a dress. And yet, come to think of it, though their faces were familiar, there was nevertheless something slightly exotic about the company as a whole: perhaps it was the unfamiliar setting, formally dressed around a table in an elegant lobby. Logan decided not to analyze. This had been their invitation; he’d accepted it; and as he looked from face to face, he absorbed the slight blows to the memory each brought back.

In the end, seven clients died from anaphylactic shock or other fatal conditions brought on by toxic drug interactions. BioCertain had dealt with these quietly, with generous compensations on an individual basis, and nobody — no ambulance-chasing lawyer or story-hungry journalist — had put it together… or, if they had, Logan had not been told. The fact was, until this invitation he’d heard very little from Chrysalis. He’d learned of the deaths only through inference and his own investigation: the dosing process had been accelerating as he left the cage, and perhaps there were a few others he knew nothing about. The Voyager rollout itself, however, had been a success — a rather spectacular one, in fact — and now Wrigley’s pet project was the darling of the tech world and social media, its initial bugs quickly squashed and new iterations pushed out to clients on an almost weekly basis. Rival tech companies had been left trying to explain why they’d been caught so flat-footed, while the big, high-end retail chains had lined up, fighting for an opportunity to establish a “shopfront” in Wrigley’s virtual, persistent environment. But Logan had learned all this from what he’d read in the papers, or online via his Voyager: already growing quickly obsolete, though his guardian angel Grace, through the magic of software updates, remained forever young.

“Sorry,” Peyton said, indicating the glasses in front of everyone, “but we already ordered.” There was an open bottle of Pol Roger, and another on ice in the wine chiller standing tableside. A waiter dressed in black and white came up, slipped a fresh champagne glass in front of Logan, bowed at an ever-so-proper angle, then vanished again.

Sitting closest to him, Snow picked up the bottle and drained it into Logan’s glass. The atmosphere felt closer to that of a reunion than a postgame analysis, and Logan decided to let his hosts take the lead. He picked up the glass, noticing how the stem was already growing cold from the beverage; how the tiny bubbles rose to the surface in remarkably straight lines, only rarely colliding in a temporary, helix-shaped swirl.

He carefully tucked the word “helix” into the back of his mind and took a sip. Very dry. Very good indeed.

At this, everybody else raised their glasses in unison. “To the man of the hour,” said Wrigley.

“And the day,” Roz added. “And the week. And the month.” A light laugh circled around the table, and the waiter glided up to remove the empty bottle, twist the wire cage and remove the cork from the fresh one, and refill people’s glasses.

“Congratulations on your runaway success,” Logan said, turning to Wrigley. “It’s the same old story: I should have invested in Infinium back when I could.”

“Don’t worry,” Wrigley said. “Your compensation should make up for that oversight.”

Logan smiled politely. His fee had been handsome, though not quite at that level.

Something caught the group’s eyes and he saw them looking away from him. Logan followed their glances and saw Claire Asperton walking slowly toward them, a glossy black cane gripped tightly in one hand.

Logan had seen his share of ghosts and he instinctively caught his breath, allowing the shock to wash over him. She was significantly thinner, and there was a long scar running up one side of her neck that spoke of skillful but extensive surgery. But she was smiling, and other than the cane and the slow gait, the loss of weight conferred a more youthful appearance.

“Jeremy!” she said, hugging him. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Surprise is an understatement,” Logan said. “I thought…”

“What? That I was dead?” Asperton slid into the far side of the booth. “Many others thought the same — even the EMTs, for a while. Luckily, there’s a first-class emergency center in the Torus. I… I only wish we could have saved more.”

A brief silence fell over the table. Logan, taking another sip, thought of Dafna, and Purchase, and the others, including the Chrysalis clients whose lives had been so needlessly lost. Then he thought of the others who’d died — the ones who carried out or enabled the dreadful plan. Clearly, the organization who’d backed them had retreated into the darkness from which they’d emerged: Wrigley, Roz, Peyton, and the rest would not be gathered here otherwise.

It seemed his job to break the silence. “It’s so nice to see all of you. I don’t often get a chance to see clients once an assignment is finished.”

“It’s not quite finished,” said Asperton. “There are two items still outstanding. Here’s one.” She reached into her bag, withdrew an envelope, and pushed it across the table.

Logan held it for a second, admiring despite himself the thickness of its paper, its pleasant toothiness — as a printer might say — against his fingertips. Then he opened it. Inside was a nonitemized remittance sheet and a check. He glanced at the check twice — to make sure he’d counted the number of zeroes correctly — and then, before the moment became gauche, slipped it into his jacket.

“I’ve already been paid,” he said.

“We thought you deserved something extra,” Snow said. “We were all going to chip in our bonuses… until John Christie got wind of it and wrote the check himself.”

“Thank you,” Logan said, surprised and moved.

“I think I speak for the table,” Claire said, “when I say we wouldn’t be here if not for you. And I mean that literally, figuratively — and virtually.”

Once again, glasses were raised; toasts were made; vintage brut consumed. “This is a beautiful hotel,” Logan remarked. “I had no idea it existed. May I ask why you chose such a place for this reunion?”

“We heard you liked hotel lobbies,” Roz said.

Logan raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“It was in Vanity Fair last year,” Snow added. “That interview you gave. They wondered where, since you’d traveled so widely, you’d choose to spend the rest of your life. You said something about an elegant, discreet, dimly lit hotel bar, where the staff were all familiar and the patrons few.”

“I think,” Peyton added, “you also said something about ‘an air of habitual restraint.’ ”

“Right. I’d forgotten about that interview.” Logan looked around. “Well, whoever chose this did a good job. It’s exactly what I had in mind.”

“I read that you’d taken a vacation,” Asperton said. “From breaking ghosts and solving enigmas, I mean. You’d gone back to teaching at Yale.”

“For the semester that just finished up, true,” Logan said. “But I’ve deferred the rest of my teaching schedule until next year.”

“Is that a fact?” Roz asked. “So you’ve taken on some new assignment?”

“No,” Logan said.

“Yes,” the rest of the table countered in almost perfect chorus.

“You mentioned two items of outstanding business,” Logan said, changing the subject without bothering about subtlety. “This was one — thank you again.” He patted his jacket pocket. “May I ask what the other is?”

“That’s more Matthew’s department than mine,” Claire said. She drained her glass. “Matthew, care to do the honors?”

“Sure.” Wrigley stood up, his owl-like glasses shining in the light of the chandeliers. “Jeremy, mind coming with me?”

As Logan stood as well, he caught the others at the table exchanging glances. Roz Madrigal’s eyes met his. She blushed, then looked down.

As Wrigley led the way back through the lobby, Logan caught the strains of “That Same Old Song and Dance” coming from a grand piano in a distant corner of the bar. Odd he hadn’t noticed it before. “What’s up with Mossby?” he asked. “Any fresh warrants issued for him lately?”

Wrigley laughed. “He’s in the Torus, back working for me. If there was ever a coding geek with no life beyond the digital domain, that’s him. He asked me to give you the finger for him. And that he’ll see you around.”

“Hardly likely.”

“You’d be surprised.”

They ascended the steps and reached the maître d’s stand near the front of the lobby. Beyond this spot, Logan had not ventured. But now Wrigley took his elbow and led him onward, through the revolving doors of the hotel and into the cool whiteness beyond.

Outside was the echoing gallery of an elegant shopping mall, replete with canned classical music and shoppers laden with bags. Everything was immaculate. Logan looked around, taking in the upscale names of the surrounding shopfronts: Williams-Sonoma, Saks, Crate & Barrel, Gucci. Then he noticed the large brass nameplate on the front of the hotel itself. It was unmarked.

“Why isn’t there a name?” he asked.

Wrigley turned. “Sorry?”

“The hotel. Why isn’t there a name?”

“I don’t know. What should it be?”

“What—” Logan began. “I don’t know what to say.”

Wrigley shrugged. “Why not say hello to Brenda?”

Logan frowned. Then he looked over Wrigley’s shoulder, toward the posh entrance to Neiman Marcus across the plaza. The woman who had helped him try on shoes — Brenda, the woman who existed only in the VR demo Roz and Wrigley had given him — was standing beside it. She had a shoebox under one elbow, and she was waving.

“Hello, Dr. Logan!” she called over the bustle. “I’ve got new oxblood Ballys in your size — 12EEE — if you ever need more!”

Instinctively, Logan raised his hand — stopped himself — then, a little self-consciously, waved back.

“You’re one of her favorite customers,” Wrigley said, with another laugh.

“My God.” Logan turned back to him. “This is it. Phase three.”

Wrigley nodded. “Getting Voyager pushed out and into production was the logjam. Since then, we’ve moved like lightning. Thirty retailers have partnered with us, and… well, that NDA you signed only extends so far. But I can tell you that all of this, including the first fifteen stores, goes live in a month. But this place” — he waved a hand toward the hotel entrance — “this is yours alone. It’s Omega’s gift to you, along with our sincere gratitude. Ten million virtual shoppers a day might pass it by. They can peer in the windows all they want. But unless you invite them in, it’s your private world. But you need to name it.”

Logan, almost overwhelmed, didn’t answer at first.

“Just please not the Bates Motel.”

Logan barely heard. “The Tabard.”

Wrigley frowned. “If you wish. But why that?”

“Because that’s where Chaucer’s characters began their pilgrimage.”

“Good enough for me. I’ll talk to Mossby about making the global change. And now, I’ve got to go. Sorry: late for a meeting.” And he held out his hand. “Goodbye, Jeremy. As Claire said: if not for you, we’d have lost all this — and so much more yet to come.”

Logan, still struggling to take everything in, shook the proffered hand mechanically. But then, when he glanced up, Wrigley had vanished. Brenda was still waving at him from the entrance to Neiman Marcus. And then she turned and walked back into the store.

A little woodenly, Logan made his way into the hotel, where he was greeted with familiar graciousness. He stepped down into the lobby proper. A few guests relaxed here and there at the tables they’d occupied before, but the banquette that had housed the Chrysalis staff was empty, its table clean and gleaming.

“Another glass of champagne, Dr. Logan?” The waiter was at his side, linen-wrapped bottle in his hands.

“Why not?” And Logan slid into the banquette, marveling anew at the crackling of the smoothly worn leather seat; the rustle of the cocktail napkin as it was placed on the table before him; the glass of champagne that was carefully set upon it in turn, its surface reflecting the glow of the chandeliers. He shook his head wonderingly, then took a sip, recalling fragments of the recent conversation. We wouldn’t be here if not for you. And I mean that literally, figuratively — and virtually. And his own words: Whoever chose this did a good job. It’s exactly what I had in mind.

He thought of how his eyes had met those of Roz Madrigal; how she’d blushed and looked down, as if guilty of something. Exactly what I had in mind…

On the table, the cocktail napkin shivered slightly, as if losing focus for a moment. When it came into focus again, it bore a logo in elegant script: The Tabard.

Logan looked up, and — sitting at the bar near the entrance to the lobby — he saw Kit, his wife. Or Kit as she’d looked ten years earlier, when she was still in the full bloom of health. She caught his eye; smiled.

At least, he thought she did. His own eyes seemed to be growing unaccountably misty.

This was too much — too much. Raising his hand to his right ear, he unseated the Omega device.

Immediately, he was back in the living room of his sprawling house off Compo Beach Road in Westport: evening coming on, surf crashing faintly in the distance. The transition from virtual to real had grown nearly seamless — but, as Logan had just learned, that was the least of Chrysalis’s recent miracles.

He glanced at the open gift box on the table before him. It had arrived by messenger, hand delivery only. The gift card had read simply: Hotel lobby, 5 p.m.

Now he looked at what had been inside the box: the bluish-green device cradled in his right hand, stamped omega velocity, proprietary and trade secret. It was larger than his Voyager device, but only a little.

Too much? That’s what he had thought a moment before. Now he wondered if he’d been right.

This place is yours alone. Your private world.

He turned the Velocity device thoughtfully over in his hands: once, twice. And then, he effortlessly refitted it around his ear.

“Hello, Jeremy,” he heard Grace say. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” he replied, his eyes shifting out the bay window toward Long Island Sound. “I’d like to visit the Tabard, please.”

“My pleasure.” And even as the words were uttered, his view of the Sound vanished.