Levels: The Host

by Peter Emshwiller

  The dead end was piled high with garbage, mostly placene and lumps of powdery cemeld. A few coils of dented cable leaned into the dark walls. No cat hole here, Watly thought. There were no working daylites in the alley. What light there was crisscrossed in long beams from windows way up above, reflecting dimly in surrounding puddles. Watly saw Alysess pull back her hood. Her eyes shone in the darkness, rising and lowering with each breath. She was still at the front of the truck, holding on to the pole as if it would protect them.

  The cop was casually approaching, walking as if he were out for a stroll, his right arm extended straight out with the gun. He stopped about five yards away. A long shaft of light sliced across the officer’s face, showing it clearly.

  It was Akral. Watly could see that now. Good old Akral.

  “Mr. Caiper. Doctor.” Akral nodded to each of them. He too was short of breath. “Hoo-girl. Okay, now. I’m going to have to kill you now. Regulations. At this point I’ve got to. Sorry, sir. Sorry, ma’am.” He aimed the gun at Watly.

  “Akral—remember when I pornoed you off?” Alysess jumped in, desperation in her voice, her heavy breathing getting in the way of her words.

  “Yes, ma’am, and thank you again. I’m afraid it has no bearing on all this, though. The community’s in danger with you folks running around like this, and capturing you-all hasn’t exactly worked. So it has to be this way.” Akral aimed the gun again.

  Watly realized he wasn’t kidding. Akral wasn’t going to be talked out of this. He was a good cop and he was going to do his job. And his job right now was to kill them. No more running, no more chasing. Just a quick kill. “Does it have to be a nerve gun, Akral?” Watly asked. “Do you have a chip pistol or something—anything?” There was no ulterior motive to the question—no tricks. It was an honest question. Motivated by an honest fear of pain. I am going to die now, he thought, but at least let’s not have any more pain. “A knife? Do you have a knife?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. The haver’s all I’ve got. I’ll go for your head, so it should be pretty instant.”

  “What about Alysess, Akral? Please, Akral—can’t you at least let—”

  “No more talking now, sir,” Akral interrupted. “Sorry. It has to be this way.”

  Watly could see the gun was now pointed directly at a place between his eyes. The barrel was no longer visible to him—just the hole at its end.

  This is not fair, Watly thought. This death is not fair. None of this is fair. This whole life is not fair. Second Level is not fair. Hosting is not fair. Purebreds over plurites is not fair. Not letting anyone get to Second is not fair. The C-raping-V is not fair. The lie of the Level Lottery. Antiprophies are not fair. Making motherhood so difficult is not fair. P-pajer was right. Caring is selfish/good. Caring is good/selfish. This world is not fair to me. It’s not fair to my friends—to children I might have. Things are wrong, and I’ve done nothing. And now I’m dying. And death is the greatest unfairness of all.

  Akral made a slight gentle expression of apology with his eyebrows—just between the executioner and his victim—and then Watly knew it was about to happen. Death.

  CHAPTER 34

  The reason for having children, Watly thought, the reason for wanting a child is that then it’s okay to die. It is all right to die if you have a child. The child grows. You’ve left something. A part of you remains. Dying now—in this way, without being a mother yet—was wrong. A mother can die. A mother has left a mark on the world. There is someone, however different from you, someone left to carry on. The pass-along.

  With children one would not be immortal, but death would be so much easier to bear. For eventually, all we finally become is a memory, and the memory of mother is strongest. So, in your offspring, your memory would live well. Memory of mommy.

  “Is he a nerve gun?” The naked old man had stepped into the light. He stopped between Akral and Watly—Just off to the side. Some of the blood on his chest had dried and caked but there were still fresh shiny rivers of dark red running down his stomach and dripping off the end of his penis. Hundreds of small cuts and lacerations crisscrossed his torso as if he’d been sliced at over and over. He was smiling. The only thing on his small wrinkled body was the hosting cuff—big letters F and O on its side. He pointed. “That gun there—is he a nerve gun? He looks like a nerve gun.”

  Akral glanced briefly at the old man over his extended arm. “Please go away, sir. Thus is official business.”

  “He’s a nerve gun, isn’t he?” the old man said, laughing. Watly noticed the old guy—or at least the donor—was getting physically excited by all this. The bloody penis started to rise. It was reflected blurrily in the shiny metal of the hosting cuff. The cuff on the wrinkled arm looked funny. Odd. Not at all like Watly’s had been. The huge FO... big yellow letters: FO. Fade-out. This was a fade-out host.

  A final host.

  “Stand back, please,” Akral said quietly. He was going ahead, interruption or not. On with the kill.

  Again his eyebrows formed a look of apology. He sprang the bolt and—as Watly looked down the barrel—the officer pulled the trigger.

  This was it.

  Time slowed to a crawl.

  A burst of blinding light exploded from the gun and flashed straight toward Watly’s head. Simultaneously, the bloodied old man shrieked gleefully and—like some young child playing— dove out with hand extended to grab for the flying bolt as if it were a ball in a game. He snatched at its tail and made contact just as it zipped by him.

  Watly closed his eyes. Now I die.

  But the bolt never reached his face. It had found nerves already in the fade-out host’s fingers.

  The old man was on the ground now, shrieking at an ear-shattering volume with what seemed both agony and laughter. His right hand was glowing—on fire from within—as the bolt climbed up his nerves toward the spine. His left hand pulled frantically at the bloody erection. “I die! I die now! Yes. Yes! Pain so bad!”

  The screams got louder. Akral stood frozen in place, his jaw slack.

  Watly was walking to the prone figure. He found himself speaking rapidly—loudly—without thought beforehand. “I am thinking of the host. I am thinking of the one inside. I share your pain, old man. You do not die invisible. I know you’re in there. You are mourned. Your pain—your pain is not secret.”

  “I die! I die! Yes. Yes! The hurt so good!” the donor yelled, splashing from side to side in a muddy puddle.

  “Akral!” Watly shouted to the dazed officer. “Akral—shoot him in the head!”

  Akral did not move. The bolt’s glow was now at the old man’s elbow, eating its way slowly up the nerves of the arm.

  “Dammit! Shoot him in the head, Akral!”

  Akral blinked twice and lowered the gun to the old man’s face.

  “Yes! Yes!” the donor groaned.

  Alysess had come up beside Watly. “Do it, Akral. Quickly,” she said with a doctor’s quiet authority. Her features were clenched in horror at the scene.

  Akral inhaled sharply and let loose the bolt. The old man’s penis erupted in a white fountain of orgasm just as the fire enveloped his head. A final “Yes!” and he was gone. Just an empty body, the head glowing from within. No donor, no host.

  Watly closed his eyes, his empty stomach spasming. “I hope the bolehole donor had a good time.”

  Akral still held the gun downward, his body trembling. He made a feeble attempt at the required police victory salute but stopped halfway. He too looked nauseous. Have you never killed someone before, Mr. Policeperson? Watly was thinking. Oh, it’s not such a big deal. Happens all the time.

  Watly looked around him. A crowd had gathered. A familiar crowd. A crowd like the one he had run into once before—what seemed like long ago. They were of indeterminate gender, their faces painted ornately with bright designs, the eyes dark. Their costumes shreds of t
orn rags. Alysess and Watly stepped closer together and stood side by side, shoulders touching. Akral was still staring down at the body.

  “You killed our cuffer!” one of the painted creatures said angrily to the officer. “You killed our fade-out cuffer!”

  “I...” Akral couldn’t stop looking at the withered bloody flesh still glowing below him. “I...”

  “You’ve taken the kill from us. This is not nice. You’ve stolen the evening.”

  Watly noticed lights approaching from the end of the alleyway. Akral’s backup was here at last. More cops.

  “Fair is fair, peace man. Fair is fair.” The one speaking stepped in closer. “Gonna kill these two, were you? Let us have ‘em and we’ll be even.” A dozen or so knives were drawn and held up in a gesture of both salutation and threat.

  Akral glanced around, looking dazed. “What?” he said groggily.

  The talkative one began pushing Akral out of the circle. The officer tripped on a piece of placene as he was shoved backwards. “You go with your buddies at the end of the alley. All you cops there. You hold them there. Give us an hour with these two. Then we’ll be even. Fair is fair. Dice ‘em up nicely and then, when they’re real dead, they’ll be yours. You took our fade-out.”

  Akral tried to resist briefly but the creature pushing him was firm. “It’s the way of the streets, you know. Take our kill and we take yours. Both of ‘em. Fair is fair. You can have the bodies after. We want no credit.” The creature took a breath. “We want an evening.”

  Akral went. He walked toward the mouth of the alley, waving back the other officers. Fair was fair, and Akral was one of the fairest.

  “You have one hour,” he yelled over his shoulder. There was relief in his voice. He seemed happy enough to relinquish the kill. One bad kill had shaken him up enough. This way the cops could still share all the reward—without having to deal with the dirty stuff. Leave the dirty stuff to the ones who like it. Fair is fair.

  Watly looked to Alysess and then at the circle of vivid, wild faces that surrounded them. Out of the fire into a bigger fire, he thought to himself. How many times must I die? How many times must we die? He turned to her again. There was fear in Alysess’s face but there was strength as well. There was that pride—that look of poise and nobility that never left her. It gave Watly courage. It told him she hadn’t given up, so he shouldn’t either. Watly lifted the corner of his lips in a tiny smile. Alysess returned it. That woman has eggs.

  The talkative one—he or she—returned to the center of the circle. “Well, well, well. Let’s all take a little piece of these ones, shall we, boys and girls? Just one little slice each to start.”

  There was laughter. The circle drew in closer. Watly stared at the dark brown eyes of the one who spoke and saw something familiar in them. Something he’d seen before.

  The leader circled Watly and Alysess, slowly pulling a knife from beneath tattered rags. The knife too was familiar to Watly. The shape of its handle and the delicate arch of its tarnished blade. I know that blade, he thought. I’ve seen it. The plastic handle...

  “You can’t cut me, Tavis.” Watly said quietly.

  The leader faltered. “What did you say?”

  “If you cut me the Ragman will be angry, Tavis.”

  Suddenly a hush swept the group. No one moved. The brown eyes before Watly opened wide. “How do you know the Ragman?”

  Watly smiled with false confidence. “The Ragman is my friend. The Ragman does not want us hurt.”

  The brown eyes looked bewildered and turned to Alysess. “And this is true?”

  “Oh, yes, absolutely. Very true,” Alysess chimed in—perhaps a bit to quickly.

  “How do you know him? How do you know Ragman?”

  Watly smiled again. “Oh, we go way back, Ragman and I. He’d be most pleased if you’d take us to him, safely and unhurt, and all.”

  “You lie,” the leader said, turning.

  “Do not.”

  There was a pause. The painted faces whispered among themselves. The central creature seemed confused, consulting the others. Faces frowned and heads shook. The whispering continued, finally ending in laughter.

  “I’ll take you, and if you’re lying, Ragman himself will kill you.”

  Watly swallowed dryly. “Hey, that’s fair.”

  “We’ll take you now.”

  “What about the cops?” Alysess asked.

  Watly looked off to the lights and the crowd of police officer waiting down at the end of the alley.

  The leader slipped the blade back beneath the tattered rags “We’re not leaving that way.”

  Watly glanced around. “What other way is there?” he asked. Another raping cat hole?

  “If you know the Ragman as you say, then you can know of the way. If you don’t, then the secret will die with you.”

  Watly tried to smile again but it wasn’t easy now. “Okay by me. You have a secret passage?”

  The brown eyes glanced around the circle of faces as if looking for approval from each one before speaking. Each head nodded once before the leader spoke again.

  “We go down, Friend-you-say-of-Ragman. We go down to the subs. Down to the subway.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The journey to meet the Ragman was a long one, starting at the end of that dark alley.

  The painted, sexless creature led the group to the far left corner of the dead end and, with the bodies of the other painted creatures blocking the view of the distant police officers, Tavis knelt there in the oil and puddles. There below was a pile of powdery cemeld with a tangle of rusty cable sticking out of it. At least, that’s what it appeared to be. Tavis touched a few of the cable strands in quick succession—“Yes, boys and girls, yes”—and the whole mound of cemeld slid silently and smoothly to the side to reveal a dark hole.

  It was pitch black down there.

  “You first, Friend-you-say-of-Ragman.”

  Watly looked down in the darkness. All his life he had heard stories about the subs—horrible stories. “Be good or the Subkeeper will get you!” The part of Watly that was still ten years old, that still believed, didn’t want to move. This was wrong. This was a bad place. “My arm—my arm is hurt and I can’t use it. I can’t climb,” he said firmly. It was true. The arm felt dead, hanging limply from his shoulder. The only indication that it still belonged to Watly at all was the constant throbbing that radiated outward from the slug hole.

  “Two legs is all you need for steps, Friend-you-say-of-Ragman.”

  Watly squinted, trying to see the steps. There were stairs down there? Watly stepped forward and dangled a sore right leg into the hole, feeling around for a step. There. He looked at Alysess. She gave a little shrug and touched his shoulder.

  And so, slowly—slowly and gingerly—Watly Caiper and Alysess Tollnismer descended into the darkness. Down and down a steep metal stairway, the clanking sound of the others right behind them. After a few moments the opening way above slid shut and all was dark. Dead dark. Dark enough so Watly wasn’t sure if his eyes were closed or not. Dark enough so that things began to dance before him like they had in that air tube what felt like years ago. First hairy amoebas, then toothy monsters, then real things. Real things. A young cop with a scalpel deep in her eyesocket. A gentle old dreamer with his stomach blown apart. A naked fade-out host dying in agony during his donor’s orgasm. A fat police officer whose skull is crushed with a pipe cutter. A business-woman who is sliced to pieces as she screams for help. Death and more death. Death all around. Death and darkness.

  No more death. Let’s have life instead. Think life, Watly. New life to replace deaths. Life. Birth. Babies. Little babies. The beauty of babies. The soft hair. The plump cheeks. Babies that smile so wide they make you feel all soft inside. Babies with hands and feet that can’t be real—that seem some joke of nature. “You see? Little fin
gers just like real ones! With nails and everything!” And little minds. Starting from scratch. Little minds waiting to be filled. Clean slates. Children. Children growing every day. Children left to carry on....

  There were no more steps. Watly’s foot touched a flat surface of some kind—a floor or a platform—and he stood fully on it, waiting for Alysess. She came down and they held each other in the blackness. The touch was comforting. More bodies joined them from above. Tavis’s voice echoed.

  “Sure is dark down here. Why don’t somebody hit the lights?”

  Somebody hit the lights.

  Searing white exploded all around. Watly was blinded. Blinded by a tiny pinlight a few feet over his head. After a moment his eyes adjusted some. They were in a small square chamber, the walls rusty black and the floor wet and sticky. Watly reached for Alysess’s hand and held it tight. She gave him a sympathetic look that seemed to say, Everything will be okay, W.C.

  Aside from Tavis, only five of the others had come along. Their painted faces glowed under the one pin. They looked inhuman—almost monstrous. Splashes of color with eyes and lips and teeth. Just across from the foot of the stairs was a small doorway, sealed tight. Tavis approached it and pulled out the curved blade again. The tip of the blade fit neatly into a tiny slot beside the door. There was a mechanical hum. Tavis turned the blade twice like it was a key, and the door seals suddenly popped.

  “Here we are, Friends-you-say-of-Ragman. Welcome to the subs.”

  And Watly was pushed through the now open door. Into the subs.

  It wasn’t until he became aware of Alysess beside him—gripping his elbow a little too near the wound—that he realized he’d just been standing with his mouth half open. Staring at the subs. Staring at the world below First Level.

  Bright and clean and beautiful. Fuckable to the Nth degree. Watly and Alysess stood on a pure white platform. The walls around them were plated with deep red placene tiles that curved inward near the ceiling. Clear pinlights hung low from above, clustered into little constellations and nebulas. Below the platform, running off into the distance in either direction, were two gleaming metal tracks, brightly lit, running on and on into infinity, curving off along the center of the shiny red tunnels. There was not a speck of dirt or dust or dampness anywhere. Watly could even see himself and Alysess reflected in the red-tiled wall across the tracks.