He got home at four in the morning and checked his situation with the artificial intelligence that managed his accounts. All his funds were in long-term investments and he’d take a whopping loss if he pulled out now.
He looked at the figures and couldn’t understand them.
There seemed to be a long, constant scream in Ric’s mind and nerves, a scream that echoed Marlene’s, the sound of someone who has just discovered what is real. His body was shaking and he couldn’t stop it.
Ric switched off his monitor and staggered to bed. Blood filled his dreams.
When he rose it was noon. There were people outside his gates, paparazzi with cameras. The phone had recorded a series of requests for an interview with the new, controversial vid star. Someone at the party had talked. Ric stumbled to his office and told the AI to sell.
The money in his pocket and a gun in his lap, he raced his car past the paparazzi, making them jump aside as he tried his best to run them down. He had to make the next suborbital shuttle out of Christchurch to Mysore, then head northwest to a hospital and to a new life. And somehow he’d have to try to cover his tracks. Possibly he’d buy some hair bleach, a false mustache. Pay only cash.
Getting away from Cartoon Messiah wouldn’t be hard. Shaking the paparazzi would take a lot of fast thinking.
Sweat made his grip on the wheel slippery.
As he approached Christchurch he saw a streak across the bright northeast sky, a shuttle burning its way across the Pacific from California.
He wondered if there were people on it that he knew.
In his mind, the screams went on.
The End
BOOKS BY WALTER JON WILLIAMS
Ambassador of Progress
Angel Station
Hardwired
Knight Moves
Voice of the Whirlwind
Days of Atonement
Aristoi
Metropolitan
City on Fire
The Rift (originally as by Walter J Williams)
Divertimenti
The Crown Jewels
Rock of Ages
Dread Empire’s Fall
The Praxis
The Sundering
Conventions of War
Investments (short novel)
Dagmar Shaw Thrillers
This Is Not a Game
Deep State
The Fourth Wall
Collections
Facets
The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories
Privateers & Gentlemen (historical novels, originally as by Jon Williams)
To Glory Arise (originally published as The Privateer)
The Tern Schooner (originally published as The Yankee)
Brig of War (originally published as The Raider)
The Macedonian
Cat Island