Free The Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker Page A

shrugged. “We’ve already had the eternal punishment thing, at the Bureau. So what have we got to lose?”
    “I don’t know that I haven’t got a great deal to lose,” said Hearst. “You haven’t shown me any proof yet.”
    “Hey, you want proof, and I don’t blame you one bit, friend. My group has managed to get hold of some of the Temporal Concordance. You know what that is, right?”
    “It’s the logbook of the Future,” said Hearst, “the Company’s record of everything that’s going to happen.”
    “Yeah. The one we’re never allowed to see, except a little at a time, so we can be where they want, when they want us to do their work for them. We found a section.” Joseph reached out with his index finger. “May I?”
    Helen snarled. Hearst closed his hands around her and blinked as Joseph set his fingertip between Hearst’s eyes. “Downloading—” said Joseph, and Hearst felt a shock wave, a sudden expansion of his memory. It was a sensation not unlike being hit in the head with a bundle of newspapers hot off the presses. Dates, events, names filled the place behind his eyes.
    “Oh—”
    “There you go,” said Joseph. “You feel a little dizzy, right? Don’t worry, that’ll pass. I only gave you a tiny bit but boy, have you got a scoop! You can beat all the other news services to the draw for the next three years. But you’llalso find private communications in there, between officers in the Company, stuff we weren’t meant to see. You can draw your own conclusions about it. I’ll be back in touch in a few years to see how you feel then, and whether or not you want to do business, okay?”
    He rose to his feet. Hearst put up a hand. “If you please,” he said. “I’d like to know how you got past my surveillance.”
    Joseph grinned. “Hell, Mr. Hearst, I’m over twenty thousand years old. Remember? I can get past a few cameras and motion sensors. Though I’d appreciate it if you’d take me off the record.” He gestured at the holocams that had been steadily observing him. “I’ll bet you can do that, huh, a clever film editor like you?”
    “Unnecessary. You have my word I won’t tell the Company you were here.”
    “I believe you, Mr. Hearst, honest, but you know what? They go through all your surveillance records routinely anyway,” said Joseph.
    “No, they don’t!” said Hearst.
    “Yeah, they do. You know Quintilius, your Company liaison? That’s part of his job. The Company doesn’t trust anybody, least of all its own people. The only reason some Company security officer isn’t hearing everything we say right now is because my datalink implant was disabled a long time ago.” Joseph tapped the bridge of his nose. “And they never installed one in you, I guess because you’re a special case. Or maybe they figured you have so much surveillance on yourself already, there was no point in spending more to duplicate it.”
    He stepped back and looked Hearst up and down in an admiring kind of way. “I have to tell you, I’m impressed with the job they did. You’re really unique, you know?”
    “You keep saying that I’m a
special case,”
said Hearst, rising to loom over Joseph. “What are you implying, exactly?”
    Joseph retreated another couple of paces, but smiled disarmingly. “Hey! You’ve been a stockholder for four centuries now, you know the Company product. You know they never, ever make adults immortal. They always start with little children. Except for you! You were the only exception there’s ever been to the rule. You’re smart enough to figure out there’s something fishy about the year 2355; you must have wondered about yourself, too, huh?”
    “I did ask about it,” said Hearst. “I was told I have an unusual genetic makeup.”
    Joseph’s smile got wider still. “Oh, yes, you could say that. They didn’t lie to you, Mr. Hearst, not about that.”
    “Why don’t you explain, then?” Hearst scowled down at him.
    “Next time,” said