F. Paul Wilson - Crisscross

As he watched her bustle around the kitchen—she knew exactly what she needed and where everything was—and listened to her chatter, he felt his heart swell. Vicky was going to be a wonderful big sister to the new baby.

New baby… his appetite took a nose dive. He hadn't heard any bad news, so he gathered Gia had had a quiet night. He hoped so.

During breakfast Jack called Gia to get a progress report—and give one.

She'd had a good night but wouldn't be released until late afternoon, which meant Jack had to arrange to be home to meet Vicks when she returned from school.

No problemo.

Vicky talked to her mother for a few minutes, then it was time to run. He walked her to the bus and gave her his cell phone number, telling her to call if she needed anything— anything .

Then he showered, shaved, and headed across town to Tenth Avenue.

2

Pedestrians flowed around the sandwich board sign propped in the center of the sidewalk.

ERNIE'S ID

ALL KINDS

PASSPORT

TAXI

DRIVER'S LICENSE

No business at this hour, so Jack had Ernie all to himself.

"Hey, Jack," Ernie said from the rear of the tiny store. He stood maybe five-five, weighed a hundred pounds after a five-pound meal, had a droopy, hangdog face with perpetually sad eyes, and spoke at a hundred-and-twenty miles an hour. "How y'doin', how y'doin'. Do the thing with the door there, will ya?"

Jack locked it and flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED. On the way to the rear, next to the bootleg videos, he passed a display pole festooned with high-end handbags—Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada—none of them the real deal. Not with twenty-dollar price tags. Everything Ernie carried was a knockoff of one sort or another.

"Into women's accessories now?" Jack said as he reached the display case that served as the rear counter.

"What? Oh, yeah. Outta towners come in and buy three, four at a time. Can't hardly keep 'em in stock." He pulled a manila envelope from behind the counter. "Wait'll you see this, Jacko. Wait'll you see!"

He dumped the contents onto the scratched glass: a driver's license with Jack's photo and two credit cards—a Visa gold and a platinum AmEx.

"That's it?"

Jack couldn't see what all the excitement was about. Ernie furnished him with this sort of thing all the time.

"Checkitout, checkitout." He was literally vibrating with excitement. "Check the license."

Jack leaned over for a closer look, then picked it up. His picture, but the name was Jason Amurri, and the language was…

"French?"

"It's Swiss," Ernie said, "and it's perfect. And the credit cards are both exact duplicates of his, right down to the expiration date and the verification number. Just don't use 'em or you'll blow everything."

"And just who is Jason Amurri?"

Ernie grinned. "Lives in Vevey. That's on the Swiss Riviera—you know, Montreux, Lake Geneva, those kinda places. Celine Dion and Phil Collins and people like that got homes around there."

"Okay. He lives in a ritzy area in a foreign country. That's a good start. Give me the details."

"You're gonna be impressed."

Jack had set strict criteria for this set of ID. He hoped Ernie had come through.

"I'll decide that after you tell me."

Ernie told him.

And Jack was impressed.

"Nice work," he said, forking over Ernie's stiff fee. "You deserve every penny."

"I do." If he rubbed his hands together any faster his palms would catch fire. "I do, I do."

"Looks like I'm going to have to get a room at the Plaza," Jack said.

"Nah. Every nobody who thinks they're somebody stays at the Plaza. I mean, they got rooms for a couple hundred and change. You need better than that. You want someplace where the money that knows goes. The Ritz Carlton… now there's a hotel."

"If you say so."

Maybe Mrs. Rossi hadn't been so overly generous with her advance. This was turning out to be one expensive fix.

3

Instead of the bubbly Christy, the equally bubbly Jeanie was on duty at the Dormentalist temple's metal detector this morning. She checked her computer, made a call, then guided Jack through the detector.

"Your RT will be with you in a minute, Mr. Farrell."

"RT?"

"Sorry. Reveille Tech. Oh, here she comes now."

Jack saw a large frizzy blond woman waddling his way on legs like Doric pillars. Instead of the ubiquitous uniform, she wore a sleeveless yellow tunic that looked a size too small for her. Maybe two sizes. And of course she was grinning ear to ear.

In a high-pitched, lightly French-accented voice, she introduced herself as Aveline Lesueur and led him to the double elevator bank. When she called him "Jack" it sounded like "Jock."

In the elevator on the way up he noticed a sweaty odor about her. He was glad it was a short trip.

On the fourth floor she pointed out the Male RC Changing Room, explaining that RC meant Reveille Candidate and he should go in, pick out a locker, and change into the RC uniform he'd find there.

"Like yours?"

She shook her head. "I am afraid not. This is only for RTs, and only while we are conducting sessions."

"A gray one then?"

"Not until you qualify for FI—Fusion Initiate—status. Until then you must wear RC colors."

Although her English was good, she still hadn't mastered the "th" sound, resorting to a soft "z" instead.

In the Male RC Changing Room—he was surprised they didn't call it the MRCCR—Jack found a dozen lockers. Ten stood open, each containing a dark green jumpsuit, each with a key in its lock. He shucked his street clothes and slipped into the jumpsuit. It was too big for him but he wasn't going to bother searching for one that fit. He noticed it had no pockets—just a tiny pouch on the left breast big enough for the locker key and nothing else. He'd have to leave his wallet and effects in the locker.

Jack smiled. Perfect.

Back in the hall Aveline led him to a door labeled RF-3 . When he asked, she explained that the RF stood for Reveille Facility.

Jamie Grant's words from yesterday, when he'd asked her if the Reveille Sessions were just a series of questions, came back to him.

Oh, no. There's so much more to it than that …

Her smile when she'd said it still bothered him.

RF-3 turned out to be a windowless cubicle furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a white mouse. The mouse's wire cage sat on a pedestal to the right of the desk. Aveline indicated the chair before the desk for Jack. He sat and found himself facing a horizontal copper pipe fastened to the front panel of the desk by six-inch brackets at each end. A wire ran from the middle of the pipe to a black box the size of a loaf of bread on the desk; another wire ran from the box to the mouse cage.

He didn't have to fake a baffled look. "You're going to explain this to me, right?"

"But of course," she replied as she seated herself on the other side of the desk. "As I am sure you know, if you have read The Book ofHokano , the purpose of the Reveille Sessions is to awaken your Personal Xelton, the hemi-xelton asleep within you."

Jack kept glancing at the mouse.

"Right. But what—?"

She held up a hand. "To awaken it, you must explore your present life and your PX's past lives." She pulled a folder from the desk's top drawer. "We do this by asking you a series of questions. Some of them will seem very personal, but you must trust that none of what you say will ever leave this room."

Not according to Jamie Grant.

Jack leaned back and rubbed his temples, using the motion to cover a look at the grille over the ventilation duct. Between two of the slats he spotted something that looked like a tiny lens pointed his way. Somewhere in the building an AV feed of the goings-on here was being monitored and most likely recorded.