the tolerance wars - 28
the man who sold the world
every week
until it’s done
begin at the beginning—chapter 1
the tolerance wars
28.
the man who sold the world
“i have to talk to somebody.” limner locked the wistful door behind us. motioned us all towards the stage entrance. at the bottom of the stairs he did it again. like tony. took in every one of us.
“marcus?” rachel. still angry. hadn’t looked at buddy yet.
“i’ll get to him.”
she waited for more. didn’t get it. “deiner.” whatever that meant. wasn’t a question.
“then marcus.” he looked at buddy. i wondered what limner called him. “i’ll meet you at the car.” held the look for a beat, then clearly had a thought. “don’t take off. i need you here.”
i noticed archer was doing science. there’s a little twitch. she looks up at limner. “good faith.”
no twitch. “something like that.” he looks at me. “go do whatever you were going to do.” i noticed he didn’t tell rachel. competences. i felt like the amateur in the room. then, to archer, “do you need a medic?”
she shook her head. “i don’t think so.”
“check her over and make sure. then get her cleaned up.” to rachel. one professional to another. one more look at all of us. “good faith.” then he headed off in the direction of the kitchen stairs.
i didn’t know what to do. my guitar case was still leaning against the wall. like nothing had happened. i could hear the sound of the hall upstairs. i must’ve gone a little tunnel vision. the next thing i knew i was being hugged. archer. must’ve passed the physical.
“you okay?” i heard her voice from somewhere in my chest. i didn’t know how to answer that. i held her closer. breathe.
we’d pretty much loaded everything into cars thank god for hatchbacks before we saw limner again. sparechange and i had just lit up.
“i need you to talk to someone.” limner’s looking at me. i give this a second to register. i take a drag. pass it to archer. who doesn’t smoke. maybe tonight’s an exception. she looks at it and nods. takes a healthy hit. then he says, “and you.” he’s looking at her, “please.” she thinks about it. takes another drag. throws the butt at the can by the front porch where we’re standing. hits it perfect. has done this before.
“alright.” she says. like she’s done with the experiments. got the data. “let’s go.”
i have no idea.
limner set off up the porch steps. i let the smart one lead. followed behind, over the width of the porch, through the main door. beside the coatcheck, a short hallway. hadn’t seen that before. door. closed. he opens it.
“i’ll be glad to be done with all of this.” mister done is not talking to either of the guys standing at the door. or me.
limner picks it up. “every deal has its moments.”
hardwood floors. over there a desk. up against the wall but big enough to be intimidating if was out and you were on the wrong side of it. sure was enough room to have it like that. pretty much the entire half of the main floor of the house. a few chairs. big windows, blinds everywhere. light falling in views. somebody’d thought about this. wasn’t anybody else in the room. maybe same height as me, looked like he’d thought about it. and had somebody make it happen. moved like he owned things.
i remembered limner telling me not to be a pain in the ass. wondered if he’d had anybody in mind.
“i just want there to be an understanding.”
“have you guys met?” limner looked between dude and me and archer.
“this is my place.” like we’d obviously know who he was. i had no idea. what was it that rachel had said?
“deiner’s got something for you.”
dude nodded toward the desk. didn’t move. a small suitcase. archer went over.
“what’s inside. i understand it’s yours.”
archer looked over at limner. who nodded. “thank you.” she said. way more solid than i would’ve managed.
“i don’t think it’s worth the fuss.”
“clearly not everyone agreed.” limner seemed to remind him.
fuss. i felt myself twist a little. heard the sound of a wooden drawer. nobody had moved. did my best to stay present. archer came back and stood beside me. then she said, “he was very angry.”
the smallest of sighs from deiner. “there’s nothing i can condone in any of what he did.”
“he was encouraged.” limner. not quite ready to let it go.
“he did us no favours.” which didn’t seem like an answer.
“nothing on behalf of the organization?”
“certainly not. and we’ve already agreed. there is no organization.”
“what’s that in the big hall, all those people?”
“a marketplace. of ideas.”
“someone made it happen.”
“just a need expressing itself.” deiner had clearly had this conversation before. “there is no organization. there are no meetings. there are no minutes. no group names. no banners.” then he looked pleased with himself, “the network is more important than the organization.” maybe it was a new thought, “as you will have been taught by now. do you do classes?”
limner sighed. also done this before. “independent study.”
if it’s not a system they can’t game it. i heard the thought in the voice of sparechange. the night of the popes. apparently part of deiner’s world too. no idea what that told me. i guess i dropped out for a few beats.
“change will come. we have no control over that.”
“through the marketplace. of ideas.”
deiner didn’t disagree, inclined his head toward the case archer was holding. “science is our ally.” like he still owned it. “and we don’t steal things.”
“you have her notes.”
a twitch of a smile. “of course. and i know people who will want to recreate the work. i think it’s a waste of energy. if you’re looking to win the hearts of the people. why would you use a device?” he made the word sound like something out of history. old. and useless. “have them do it themselves. in the privacy of their own minds.”
the people. like there’s only one of them. with the same mind. rising out of the sea of random thoughts. like a rogue wave, ten stories high. a massive force, with no malevolence, but an unerring sense of natural justice. surely not something to mess with, i thought, if it even was a thing. i wondered if deiner felt like it was something. that he could own. waves of force. with an unerring sense of natural justice.
in the privacy of their own minds. which made no sense. get right inside people’s heads. how would you get to them? you gonna call them up, individually. and invite them to enlightenment. be a helluva phone bill. and not everybody would pickup. though maybe. enough of them.
i must’ve said it out loud.
“there will always be those,” deiner smiled, “who will always disagree.”
“how do you deal with them?” i thought it. limner said it.
“ignore them. they will be dealt with by history.”
“meaning someone else will deal with them.”
“what other people do can be none of my business.”
“even if they owe their training and improved ability to you?”
there was quiet in the room. deiner waited. man who sold the world. held it for a long time. i heard one of the guys at the door shift his weight. finally, “you are close to accusing me of something. my goodwill only extends so far.”
“the deal is the same. you do anything illegal, you will be shut down.”
“we will have our world back.”
“yeah i’m not being paid enough to listen to that. are we done here?” for some reason limner was looking at me. no idea why. waiting.
“we’re done.” deiner motioned to the door. one of his guys opened it. “you’ve got what you came for.”
limner didn’t move. “not quite.”
“out.”
limner looked at archer’s suitcase. then at me. then deiner. “we have a deal.”
deiner looked like he was weighing up the value of something. that he didn’t own. yet. arrived at an answer. “we have a deal.”
which seemed good enough for limner. whatever it was. he motioned archer and me to head out. then followed behind. when we got to the coatcheck he headed for the front door. we followed. i was trying to unpack what’d just happened. got to the front steps and still had nothing. limner stopped at the foot of the steps and waited for us.
“you won’t have any more trouble.” to archer. “from that direction.”
“you made a deal.” didn’t look like she approved.
“he suggested someone had done him a favour.” a shrug. “i helped him walk that over to a more useful place.”
“does he know what happened?”
“he doesn’t want to know. but a whole lot of bad things will no longer be traced back to him. he knows that.”
“bad things?”
limner said, “the hospital.” uncle alex. i thought about the stairs. before the whacking. had he been chasing somebody? “the shooting before that, a similar vehicle. then i got the plate at the hospital.” i looked over at the black pickup. remembered the last drive home from here.
“been nursing a bad shoulder lately?” it was just a guess. limner nodded.
archer still wasn’t happy. “so the deal?”
“no more trouble.” i figured he meant for the scientist. but he was looking at me.
“trouble?”
“and they answer to him.”
owns the world. protected. maybe i should’ve felt happy.
i felt sick.
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