BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (e book reader txt) 📕

a pattern committed to memory on the invisible keypad, and thesquare mirror door bounced outward, revealing the contents of a safe hiddeninside the wall.

A silver cigarette lighter. A stack of master keycards. Hardcopies of important documents he stored on the Link; one could never be toocareful when it came to building an empire. Backups of backups were oftennecessary.

He pocketed the lighter inside his tuxedo jacket and turned away,swinging the safe shut with one hand and flipping off the light switch with theother. He ducked out into the study and righted the hardbound copy of Dr.Jekyll. The secret door eased shut behind him. His momentum carried him outof the study and across the hallway to a large room with comfortable chairsarranged in a semicircle facing an empty wall.

"Window," he said.

The wall dissolved into a pane of glass, and below, with everyfloor easily visible from this high vantage point, The Pearl radiated in allits splendor. There was the stage, with the SYN musicians playing their heartsout. There was the dance floor, moving with a life all its own. The tiers onevery side glittered with activity, waiters bringing orders, others taking awayempty glasses and plates, pairs of patrons moving toward thedance floor, others retreating to their tables for a breather. It looked like afull house tonight. Yet more patrons flooded inside, dropping off their coatsand umbrellas at the counter where a Sally worked tirelessly, smilingincessantly, inviting them to enjoy all that The Pearl had to offer.

A night to forget the cares of their polluted lives. To enjoy an unforgettable experience unlike anything they couldfind by plugging into the Link. This was real. They were human—most of them. They could celebrate it.

Lennox stood with his hands deep in the pockets of his crispslacks, his eyes panning left to right across the sparkling blur of activitybelow him. The Pearl was a rare gem. He had designed it as such. Patternedafter the nightclubs from well over two centuries ago, it was the only one ofits kind in NewCity. A classic singularity that celebrated simpler times. It was good for this town. It was good for itspeople. And it was good for Gavin Lennox.

Of course there had been other options all those years back whenLennox had first opened its doors, and many a naysayer said the public wouldn'tbe interested in antiquated music, passé drink specials, and long-forgottendance moves. But he sat tight. Even when his investors threatened to pull outand take their money to one of the zombie bars in HellTown, Lennox held hisground. He could be a patient man, when the situation called for it.

And not only had his patience paid off, but in less than a year,many critics on the Link were crediting Lennox and The Pearl with the culturalrevolution sweeping through every strata of NewCity's society. Some called itthe Revival, signifying a readoption of a more civilizedtime in history; others insisted it was just a fad, another case of popularculture digging up the styles of a former era in order to find its currentidentity. But whatever the case, The Pearl was the nucleus of it all.

Lennox turned away from the window and exhaled. Nota sigh of contentment.

"Wall," he muttered, and the glass returned to its formeropaqueness. To anyone in the club below, its mirrored appearance never changed.

He fell heavily into one of the well-padded recliners and droppedhis head back, staring at the ceiling. His fingers drummed restlessly acrossthe fabric on thearmrests. Then his right hand drifted upward, towardhis jacket's inside pocket. The silver cigarette lighter.

Lennox didn't smoke. He never had. But that wasn't what he usedthis lighter for. It was meant for something else entirely.

Here, he would someday be credited with the resurrection ofNewCity's civic spirit, whatever that meant. He would single-handedly do morefor this city than the politicians and bureaucrats ever could.HellTown would be bulldozed, and the undesirables would be swept into thegutters. Humans with expendable credit lines and SYNs looking for work would bedrawn by the hundreds. Life in NewCity would be the best it had ever been, andhe would be the one they thanked and praised for it all. In the process, he would triple his fortune.

Lennox knew this world too well. It bored him.

He flipped the cap off the lighter, and the flame leapt up togreet him. He stared into the flickering light. As its glow danced across thefeatures of his face, something changed. The air before him undulated, movinglike water, reflecting the light from the room in gentle ripples. He watchedthe aberration as one would a strange yet familiar sight. One that hadn'tceased to inspire wonder. One he didn't fully comprehend.

He grit his teeth and stood, bracing himself for the otherworldlycold as he stepped into the breach. Through the looking glass, as it were,crossing the membrane. The journey was instantaneous. Yet he remained in hispenthouse, in the same room as before. At first glance, he hadn't gone anywhere.

He capped the lighter, extinguishing the flame. Nothing specialabout that. The trigger was housed inside, activated by the flame's ignition.Negative energy channeled via nanotechnology. That much he understood.Somewhat.

"Window," he said, and the wall before him dissolved into a clear pane, justlike it had at The Pearl.

But this was not The Pearl.

A cursory glance at the dance floor below showed himthat much. This was its alternate, its opposite in many ways: The Pit. On thestage below, a blood metal band of six ground out the music craved by thetwitching zombies who littered the floor, writhing on top of each other,oblivious to anything but the pleasures simulated and stimulated by theirplugs. Sprawled out on couches across tiers on all sides of the stage, otherpatrons engaged in sexual and pharmaceutical activities, all legal within theconfines of The Pit—NewCity's most popular club. The only place thatmattered to the city's youth, day or night. Some ofthese zombies looked like they hadn't left in weeks. No doubt they smelled likeit too.

Lennox smiled. Everyone needed their guilty pleasures. The Pit washis. In this reality, he wasn't as much apublic figure as a man of raw, unadulterated power. The expectations