Coils

by Roger Zelazny

  I wondered—of course I wondered—as to the nature of my bond with the machines. I'd never heard or read of anything like it. It seemed like a bizarre form of telepathy—human to machine. I tried on a number of occasions to read the minds of the people who moved about me, and I was totally unsuccessful. It appeared that my ability was very specialized. I realized that I must have been born with some small aptitude along these lines, and that it might never have developed further but for the unique set of circumstances into which I had been thrust.

  Whatever its genesis and method, I could not but be grateful. Other patients, in better shape, might have television sets in their rooms. I had a connection with much of the world right there in my head.

  … And more time passed. The records showed that my condition was static. I remained underweight, catheterized, my bowels stimulated electrically. I occasionally required hookup to an IV, I received regular medication, I was manipulated and turned, but I still suffered from bedsores. Further surgery was not indicated. It was implied by one neurologist that I was probably totally psychotic by then, anyhow. From all indications, I was, and would remain, a vegetable for the rest of my days.

  I tried to resign myself to this, but naturally it haunted my dreams and some intervals of wakefulness. I researched my condition, of course, but could find nothing too encouraging.

  I continued to seek my diversion within the data-net, always alert for any medical breakthroughs which might bear upon my condition.

  I do not know at exactly what point it was that I became vaguely apprehensive. Not about my condition. Nothing in my records indicated imminent death or a sudden downturn. No. While I had not exactly become stoical or in any way resigned to my fate, I nurtured some small hope of recovery, possessed some bit of wishful thinking that that medical breakthrough would come along and work my eventual recovery. I needed that much. The feeling is more difficult to explain. As I ranged through the data-net, I occasionally had the impression that someone was looking over my shoulder. At first, it was only a casual, intermittent thing, but later it came to me with greater and greater frequency. I dismissed it for a time as a form of paranoia. After all, my condition had certainly unbalanced me for a long while, and now my only form of recreation was of a highly unusual character. Being haunted by a ghost in the machine might well be a reaction—possibly even a healthy one, signifying that I was now turning my attention, actually seeking, for things beyond the ego-filled universe I had inhabited for so long. But it persisted, grew stronger and became for a time my constant companion. It seems that eventually I reached some accommodation with the feeling. I was not about to give up my pastimes. A certain haziness covers that period, however, a thing possibly connected with the events which followed.

  I woke up one morning with some sensation in my left thigh. I could not move the leg, or anything that complicated, but the area—about the size of the palm of my hand—tingled; it burned. It became very uncomfortable and totally distracting. I could not coil away, I could not do anything but think about it—for hours, I guess. Strangely, it did not occur to me at first that this might be an encouraging sign. I simply looked upon it as a new torment. The next time that I awoke, I felt it in the toes of my left foot, also, with intermittent flashes of sensitivity in the calf; also, the area upon my thigh had grown larger. It struck me about then that something good might be happening.

  The rest is a jumble, a montage—and it took place over a period of many weeks. I remember the terrible buzzing in my ears which went on for days and days before it resolved itself into discrete sounds and, later, words. I was barely aware of the faint light until I had been seeing it for more than a day. My right leg, my abdomen and my arms caught the fire and the itching, and finally I felt the pain of the bedsores. I forget at exactly what point it was that a nurse became aware of the change in my condition. Doctors came and went in great numbers, and I got to see and talk with that neurologist who'd thought I must have gone crazy. Needless to say, I did not tell him—or anyone else—about the Coil Effect, as I'd come to think of my pastimes, for fear of confirming him in the opinion.

  It was a long time and much physiotherapy before I could walk again, but it was sufficient during the interval to be wheeled about the corridors and later to wheel myself, to be able to look out of windows at the grounds or the traffic, to talk with other patients. It was good to be able to feed myself. And I decided not to start smoking again, having gotten a complete, free withdrawal out of my former condition.

  While my parents' deaths still pained me, and I knew that one of my first acts upon release would be to visit their graves, I had lived with the knowledge for a long while and it was no longer constantly on my mind.

  The medical breakthrough I had awaited had not occurred. My body, with the passage of time, had fortunately been able to manage the remission on its own.

  … And as I rested, I coiled, for now the computer connection had become a part of my life, was a phenomenon for which I felt a great affection. I was grateful that the ability had not left me, being somehow displaced by the return of my other faculties. I still ranged the data-net as I lay in bed in the evenings. But somehow it was no longer exactly the same.

  Click.

  * * *

  I lay there, gasping, on the front seat of the truck which had come to my rescue. Already, it had slowed, dropped back and pulled away from my burning vehicle and the other rescuer, which had also taken fire. We were swinging back toward the road, climbing the slope now.

  My back still felt hot. I reeked of smoke, mixed with the smell of singed hair and cloth. I tasted the smoke in my mouth. I coughed and drew deep breaths of this cleaner air. The partway opened door creaked as we hit a rut. Its window was cracked but not broken.

  I elbowed myself upward and drew the sprung door more tightly closed. As I did, I saw my original transport and the other truck collide with the rocky outcrop at the field's center. A pair of explosions followed and the fires danced rings around the scene of carnage. The cracks in the glass flashed like lightning bolts as it happened.

  Chapter 11

  The other vehicles in the automated lane made room for us, and soon we were a part of the traffic flow once again. It was, of course, too good to last. We had broken the pattern of the traffic control computer's programming routine and must even now be showing up as an oddity. While I might have gotten away with reprogramming a long line of vehicles earlier, I was fairly certain that it wouldn't work now. There had to be some sort of alert in effect after the results of my last alteration had become known. And the vehicle I rode would even be easy to spot physically, with the damage it had sustained.

  A quick coil, a quick search, showed me that I was in eastern Tennessee. I caused the truck to pull over onto the shoulder, and I ran it along there for nearly a mile before I stopped it and got out. Off in the distance, across open fields and better-groomed grounds, appeared what could be the line of a railroad track. Reaching out, I could feel the data-flow along the fiber-optic cables which followed it.

  I stood beside the truck for a moment. Looking back, I could see the dark, wind-twisted streamers of smoke which rose from the wreckage of my original truck and its companion. I hoped that Barbeau would assume I had been killed in it, at least for a sufficient while to give me something of a headstart.

  I instructed my rescuing vehicle to return to the automated lane and continue on its way. Obediently, the gears ground and it moved off, the other trucks immediately adjusting their spacing to accommodate its presence.

  I checked the skies. There were no more 'copters in sight. I did, however, hear the sound of a distant siren. I commenced hiking across the green and hilly countryside, heading in the direction of the park-like expanse. There were a number of buildings in that area, though not a great deal of activity. I guessed, as I walked among reedy grasses over the red clodded earth, that it was probably a campus that I was approaching.

  Rick. Click. Terick. Yes. There was a computer
there, a list of grades within it. Summer session stuff.

  Far away, the siren died. I believed that it had stopped in the area of the burning trucks. It would be some time, I decided, before they could really go through that smouldering wreckage. But I increased my pace through the midday heat. It would be pleasant to pass into the shade up ahead. I certainly looked presentable enough for a campus.

  I found my way to a path which widened and acquired gravel as I progressed. I smelled magnolias and recently mown grass. Real smells—I could see the trees and the place where the lawn had been cut—not preface to some imaginary horrors.

  Several guys and gals were tossing a Frisbee in an open area to my right and ahead. They paid me no special attention. Passing them and approaching the buildings, I caught the smell of food and my stomach immediately began sending signals.

  A flight of concrete stairs with a pipe railing led down to an opened door. Behind it was a small cafeteria-style lounge. I stood beside the doorway as if looking for someone. I noted that people were paying cash to the boy at the register, who was reading a paperback between customers. I saw no flashing of ID cards.

  So I went in and passed along the line, buying two hot dogs, a bag of chips and a large Coke. I took them back outside with me to a secluded bench I had noted beneath a large old tree.

  It was a peculiar feeling, sitting there and eating, watching students pass. It made me think of my own days in school. I was about to reach out for the computer again—just for company, I guess—when a girl in white shorts, a lime jersey and tennis shoes passed, a racquet in her hand. She descended the stairs into the eatery. About Ann's height and build. Same color hair.

  … And she came walking through my memory, as she had that day on campus, wearing a white silk blouse and dark blue skirt, carrying a small purse. I was standing in the doorway of the Student Union, out of the wind. She looked right at me, as if she already knew who I was and smiled and named me. I nodded.

  "… And you are Ann Strong," I said.

  "Yes," she replied. "I'd like to take you to lunch."

  "All right."

  I started to turn.

  "Not in there," she said. "Someplace a bit more civilized, and quiet"

  "Okay."

  She had a car. She drove us to an off-campus place, the dining room at her venerable hotel, where the food was excellent and the napkins heavy cloth.

  I had been back at school for over three months. It had been a little over twice that time between my recovery and my entering the university again. I had thrown myself into my studies as if they were occupational therapy, and I expected to do very well on my finals in a few weeks.

  Our talk on the way over had been general, directed toward getting us acquainted. Nor did she rush into anything as we ate. I actually forgot briefly that she was a recruiter for Angra Energy, so pleasant was the conversation. She seemed to hit, as if by chance, upon nearly everything in which I was currently interested, even a couple of books which I had recently enjoyed or was just then reading.

  Finally, as we sat drinking coffee, she asked me, "What sort of plans have you made for the future?"

  "Oh, something having to do with computers," I replied.

  "Would you consider going East?"

  I shrugged.

  "I hadn't really thought about it," I said. "If I liked a job I'd go wherever it took me."

  "Well, you've come to my attention as a possibility for recruitment by Angra."

  "That puzzles me," I replied. "I thought that you were only hiring graduating seniors and grad students. I'm not there yet."

  She took a sip of coffee.

  "I am here to look for talent," she said, "not for pieces of paper with fancy writing on them."

  I smiled.

  "But of course you want that, too."

  "Not necessarily," she stated. "Not in special cases."

  The waiter came by and refilled our cups. As I raised mine, Ann reached out and touched the rosebud in the cut glass vase between us.

  "I am flattered by what I think you are saying," I finally answered, "but I doubt that I've been back in school long enough to provide much of a record for you to go on."

  "I've seen your earlier records," she said, "and of course we are also influenced by current professors' recommendations."

  "You know about the accident?"

  "Yes."

  "To be practical about it—from your point of view—it could have left me unbalanced. Would it not be more prudent to watch such a person for a longer period of time?"

  She nodded.

  "That is one of the arguments for personal contact. May I watch you?"

  "Of course."

  "Are you unbalanced?"

  I laughed.

  "Stable as a rock," I said.

  "In that case, Angra's generous expense account will include dinners. Would you be free Friday evening?"

  "Yes."

  "There is a play opening that night, which I would like to see."

  "I like plays," I answered. "But I don't want to string you along under false pretenses. I really think that I want to finish school before I take a job."

  She put her hand on my arm.

  "We can talk about such matters another time," she replied. "But I should mention that Angra does provide opportunities for the continuing education of its employees. More importantly right now, I need justification to use the expense account myself. I'll pick you up at your place at six, on Friday."

  "That'll be nice," I said.

  And it was. She was going to be in town for an indeterminate period of time—at least several weeks, she told me—and there were lots of good things to see and do, if one had money and a car and wanted to get to know someone real well.

  Even though we became lovers during the weeks which followed, I refused to leave school to take a job with Angra at the end of the mid-year semester. I was determined to complete the academic year and start work that summer. That way, I decided, if I did not like the job I would be able to quit and return in the fall without missing any time. It sounded, I suppose, presumptuous for an undergraduate offered a good position with a major company to dictate terms that way, but I was already beginning to suspect that my case involved something special. The fact that they agreed to my terms only seemed to confirm it.

  And Ann was in and out of town constantly. That following semester I was seeing her just about every weekend. It was almost as if she were keeping some sort of watch over me. I even asked:

  "You certainly make it through here a lot. Are they afraid some other company's going to steal me?"

  She looked hurt.

  "I juggle my schedule for you," she replied. "Would you go elsewhere if you suddenly had another offer?"

  "I haven't had any," I told her. "But no, I said that I'd try it at Angra and I will."

  "Then let us enjoy this bonus my travel permits."

  It seemed almost ungracious to pursue matters beyond that. Yet, I realized that I was only one of many bright kids across the country. I had even asked around a bit among my classmates—some of them very talented—and learned that outside of a standard interview and a we'll-let-you-know, she hadn't offered any of the others employment, not even seniors and grad students. While vanity may be the sustaining shadow of every self, I knew that I was not so much better than everyone else that I warranted that much extra consideration.

  … Unless, of course, the personal liking she had taken to me had caused Ann to build me up as some sort of Da Vinci to her employers. In which case, I knew that I would be very uncomfortable at Angra. I did not want an unfair advantage, and I did not want to be anyone's pet.

  But Ann anticipated this reaction as she had so many others. The logic of it was compelling, and there was only one real way to handle it. The time had come for the truth.

  It was a lovely day in late April, sunny and cool and crystal clear. The fresh green of spring still frothed across the land and the smells of the damp earth were heavy with life.
I was again drinking coffee with Ann, only this time I had managed by judicious class-cutting to provide us with a three-day weekend together and we were taking coffee on the terrace of a place in the mountains which she had rented or Angra had owned or a friend had lent—I was never clear which—and I was wearing a maroon silk robe many sizes too small for me, with a golden, pop-eyed dragon coiling about itself upon the left breast, and I was peeling an orange and wondering how I was going to tell her that I didn't want the job just because she had taken a fancy to me, and if that wasn't it, what was?

  "I suppose that we must discuss it sooner or later," she said before I gave voice to what I was thinking. "It is not your academically acquired abilities with computers in which Angra is most interested."

  "Could you be more specific?" I said, still studying the orange peels.

  "You have a unique mental rapport with computers."

  "And if I do," I said, "how might you know of it?"

  "My unique mental ability involves other people's minds."

  "Telepathy? You can tell what I'm thinking?"

  "Yes."

  Oh, I tested her on a few strings of numbers and lines of poetry, but I believed her before she proved it. I guess it is not overly difficult for the possessor of a paranormal ability to believe that there might be others around.

  "I didn't think it could be my sweet personality."

  "But I am very fond of you," she responded, perhaps a trifle too quickly.

  "Why is Angra hiring paranormals?" I asked. "And are there many others?"

  "None like you," she said. "Any company with a group such as ours would have a terrific edge over the competition."

  "It sounds somewhat like an unethical edge, even without hearing the particulars of what I'd be doing."