Achilles choice

Donny shrugged. “The rumor is about an old man. The Council is waiting for him to die. He can’t last much longer, they say. He’s behind all of this. You want to blame someone, find him.” He pulled his robe tight, and turned away from her. “Leave me alone, Shomer. I don’t want to know about any of this. I don’t care what happens to you. Just… leave me to hell alone.”

“You were the dream,” she said contemptuously, stepping back away from him.

“I have to tell them we talked, dear heart. They’ll know already, or they might. If they’ve been listening, you’re dead. They don’t need you, and if you’re right about the nations… you’re just dead.” He shivered. “Goddamn you for telling me that.”

“Donny Crawford.” She spoke the name almost reverently. “I guess everyone dies in the Olympiad, huh, Donny?” She turned away abruptly.

“Goddamn you!”

But she was already dropping down the staircase, quick but quiet, in a fellrunner’s controlled descent.

Chapter 14

Her body flamed with tension. Her instinct was to work it off.

She walked for half an hour, wanting to run but not wanting to be conspicuous, until chance brought her to the gymnasts’ stadium.

The guards didn’t stop her. The few workmen ignored her. She tried running, sprinting over and over around the indoor track until her legs and lungs burned and she was dizzy and nauseous with fatigue. From there she went to yoga, feeling the twists and turns clicking her spine into position effortlessly, handstanding, and bending herself into knots. She found a set of parallel bars, kipped up and spun into a series of free-form exercises that would have won a perfect ten only forty years ago. She was laughing, and crying.

Her body was perfect.

Her body was dying.

She was sweat-soaked and steaming when she left. An orange dawn caught her by surprise.

She was ravenous.

She found a restaurant just as it was opening. The waiter was smitten; she enjoyed that. She was the only customer. She ordered like an army battalion, and watched the waiter’s jaw sag.

For all of this time she was wondering how she would die.

The Council would know of her conversation with Donny. They might know now… or not; they couldn’t monitor every conversation on planet Earth. But because they might know, Donny would tell them.

They couldn’t afford to allow her to live.

Someone would come for her. Or a car would crash. Or botulism would develop in her food. My God, have I really eaten that much? She was pleasantly full, with just room for more coffee. And she might as well enjoy herself, because it seemed she was out of answers.

If she could tell the people..

But They controlled the media. No message would get out.

Beverly’s last message. It is theoretically possible for a single human being to control fifty-four percent of world economic activity, fortyeight percent of political activity..

But Beverly had been talking about the Old Bastard. Any Council member would control much less.

The media could not be perfectly controlled.

Close enough, though, probably. (They hadn’t used the botulism yet. She felt wonderful. She was even getting used to Greek coffee.) What would she have to do to get a message out? Hijack a video station?

A family of six drifted in. Could these… no. The four boys were suspiciously well behaved, but still too young to be professional assassins.

— Hijack a spacecraft. She could use it to control a relay satellite and really blanket the world with her story.

The restaurant wasn’t hers anymore, so she left. She ran two miles along the strand, on wet sand, sprinting backward, passing other runners as if they were jogging through quicksand.

— Murder Mary Ling. That’d get media attention!

Beginning to puff now, she passed a lean runner and grinned back at him. He took it as an invitation and chased her. He was good, she was beginning to tire, and she faced forward and put some effort into it. She led him into a subway entrance, where he gave up.

She took the subway back to her hotel.

She stretched out on the bed and wondered if she would sleep. Or wake up.

— The vicious little rock-throwing bitch hadn’t trained as a fighter. Strangle her in public! Surrender immediately, then talk to anyone and everyone, tell every secret, announce always that the Council is bound to have Jillian Shomer murdered. When it finally happens, it’ll confirm everything.

Actually, it might work.

That was disturbing.

Jillian had been raised Episcopal; her faith had never flagged. She had considered tracking and killing her mother’s murderer… but her mother had been killed by a social pattern. Vengeance required breaking the pattern. But not murder! Surely her conscience would never tempt her to so great a sin.

Or to suicide; but last night she’d been close.