Levels: The Host

by Peter Emshwiller

  As it was, Watly was too preoccupied to fixate on this as much as he felt like doing right now. He was preoccupied with the passing time, preoccupied with getting to Second level, and preoccupied—once he stepped out of the Hosting Building and onto the street—with the sensation of being watched, of being followed.

  There was a feeling of a person—or of people—being always just outside of his line of sight, just beyond the outer edges of his vision. Maybe behind him. Maybe in front. All along the shiny First Level streets toward the tubestop. Watly felt it. Passing the sleeping tenters it was there. Was it just paranoia? Or was there really someone out there? Who? If Sentiva had brought help along, surely they would have come to her rescue long ago. Then who? Had someone followed Sentiva to get to Watly?

  12:25—Watly’s buzbelt clicked off the time. He had to hurry. He had fifty minutes left.

  Again the Subkeeper’s expertly made cards did their job in the tube and Watly was on Second in no time, trotting along in the cool night air. Breathing in the freshness of Second Level, he felt quite at home in his jumpsuit and workervest. “Just like the old days.” He laughed to himself.

  A few people passed by, glancing at Watly with studied indifference. He kept his head lowered, wishing he had time to slow down and enjoy the richness of the air. Wishing he had time to think about the cleaning man. He didn’t. He had to get back to the upper floors of the Alvedine Building—on Second Level called the Alvedine Donor Building—fast. Then, if all went smoothly, he’d break quietly into a donor room and get to work. As soon as he started “sending,” Alysess would see his location, hook up his cable, and grab his signal. She’d be all ready by then. It shouldn’t take her more than twenty minutes to insert the creosan wafers in Sentiva and to set up the hosting machine.

  The Subkeeper had shown her how to prepare a hosting without a cuff, and he’d provided the proper override equipment: a two-pronged rod like Sentiva herself had used.

  “Equipment and planning we will assist in,” the Subkeeper had said to them. “But again, I cannot give you my people. I will not risk them for your little escapade. They are not expendable. They are for the Revy. You do this on your own. But...” the man had paused, “I wish you luck. Much luck, my children.”

  And so they were on their own. But so far, so good.

  And if all continued smoothly Watly would shortly have the five to seven “donor hours” to make things right. His first and only stop once he “was” Sentiva would, of course, be the police. For a confession. To exonerate a certain Watly Caiper.

  12:30, the buzbelt clicked. Alysess was probably almost done with the implant operation by now. Watly had to keep his part of the plan moving. He was on Second Level’s Fifty-seventh Street, and there ahead was the Alvedine Donor Building, looming up larger than anything around it and garishly lit by surrounding buildings. It was a spectacular sight. Strange to think he had just left Alysess downstairs in this very same structure. The place was enormous.

  As he neared, Watly’s hopes fell. They fell hard. Rape. Cops. All over the place. The front of the building was swarming with them. Ten or fifteen of them easily. Maybe more. It looked as though they liked to hang out there, sitting on the brightly lit steps making conversation between shifts.

  There was no way Watly was going to make it past them. No way to slip by. No bluff would get him around them for seven hours. The whole thing was sunk.

  Watly turned slowly, trying to look confident, casual. He walked back around to the east corner, looking for another entrance. There was none. Just beautiful yellow brick, solid and smooth. Not even a window until three stories higher. The building was sealed up tight—no way in except the front door.

  12:35

  Well, that did it. It was over now. It Watly didn’t get back down to Alysess fast, she’d just stand there waiting for a donor signal that would never arrive until Sentiva woke up. And Sentiva was not bound to wake up in a good mood. Alysess would have her hands full. Watly turned up Third Avenue back toward the tubestop.

  It was finished. The whole raping mess. All this for nothing. The one decent plan they’d had, and here it goes falling apart right from the start. No confession, no baby, no future, no nothing. Watly was angry. Why the hell hadn’t they taken this into account? Why the hell hadn’t the Subkeeper come up with a way around this possibility? He was prepared for all kinds of mechanical obstacles: locked and sealed doors, alarms, booby traps, anxiety fields—he had a bagful of gadgets—but he wasn’t prepared for human beings. They hadn’t counted on that. Why did it have to be a cop hangout? Human beings. Why hadn’t Watly himself thought of it? Shit. So close, yet so far. Somewhere down below, all prepped and ready a host was waiting to host. Sentiva Alvedine. A captive host needing only a donor. And here was Watly: the donor. But you can’t be a donor if you can’t get to a damn donor room. Damn again!

  Watly was nearly back at the tube when the obvious answer finally hit him. It hit him almost like a physical blow, so powerfully he wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him earlier. Yes. It was the alternative—the backup plan he sought. He had his solution. There was still a chance. If he was lucky, very lucky, and everything was still in place—if Sentiva had thought removing certain cables from her house would attract more attention and cause more suspicion than just leaving them be—then Watly did have a place to go. He had a donor room. He could turn the tables more exactly than he’d planned.

  12:40, the buzbelt clicked.

  The question was, did he have the time?

  Did he have the time?

  He started walking fast—a little too fast for Second Level standards. But he had to. He had to get to Seventy-second street between Park and Madison. He had to get to the Alvedine residence.

  He was no longer aware of the sensation of being watched. He ignored the tickle at the back of his neck that warned of a follower. He blocked out the shiver of fear. He was too busy walking. Too busy trying to make good time.

  CHAPTER 45

  The buzbelt clicked 1:00 as Watly neared the two dark shapes of Sentiva’s birdwing banisters. He was out of breath but happy that he’d made it this far and still had some time. The building was silent and ghostly; the only light Watly had to go by was a pale glow streaming in from the street outside. The door had been no problem, and the anxiety field combination was now easy to remember, although there was a brief moment as Watly first stepped down the hall when he wondered if it was really off. But it was off. That was just fear he was feeling. Pure, natural, nonsynthetic fear again. The place was creepy. The wicker furniture was now dark hulking lumps that watched him from the sides. Every shadow seemed ready to come alive and pounce. Any moment all the gray shapes around him would form monstrosities and attack. The place felt evil. Tainted.

  Watly climbed the steps.

  1:05

  Watly stood in the doorway of Sentiva Alvedine’s bedroom. The last time he’d been there she’d been lying naked before him on the enormous bed. And he... he had not been himself. Not at all. Now there was no one in the room but Watly. The tall windows were wide open and the lacy white curtains billowed ghostlike in the wind. In the dim light the pale canopied bed looked much the same as before, piled high with pillows at the head.

  Watly stepped in. After a careful search he located a sealed metal box bolted to the wall just under the right side of the bed. Watly went at it with some of the Subkeeper’s tools, working mostly by feel. It wasn’t long before he had opened the seal, exposing a series of shiny ringlets within.

  The donor controls. It was all still here.

  The buzbelt clicked 1:10, the click sounding too loud in the darkness.

  Alysess would be preparing for the hosting now. Just about ready. Perhaps Sentiva was even groaning a bit, coming slowly out of it as the doctor pulled the cables out and pressed the plates against her new implants. The timing, Watly was thinking, couldn’t be bette
r.

  He pulled all the ringlets in the sequence given to him by Alysess, one after the other, hoping that he understood the machine’s operation correctly. When he flipped out the final one, he sat fully on the bed, feeling around in the pillows for Sentiva’s hidden donor plates. They had to be there somewhere. Perhaps they were hidden deeper than—

  “If you’d tell me what you’re looking for,” a voice came from the doorway, “maybe I’d help you find it.”

  Watly froze. The voice was familiar. It was Fenlocki. Sergeant Ogiv Fenlocki, cop extraordinaire. Watly did not turn to took. He did not move.

  “I’m looking,” Watly said very slowly, his words measured, “for a set of donor plates. Sentiva did the hosting from this bed. She is your murderer.”

  “A long-distance donor, huh?” The sergeant coughed. “I suspect”—his voice had that familiar tinge of humor—“that you are looking for money.”

  “Money?” Watly almost laughed. He was still facing away from the sergeant.

  “How do you think I found you, my slippery fellow? Someone reports seeing a Second Level woman like Sentiva Alvedine traveling down to First and I wonder, what’s up? You lured her down somehow, Caiper. I could figure that much. I follow her and I wait and what do I see? Watly Caiper, of all people, leaving the same building. Where does he go? Up to Sentiva’s house. What does he do? Rummage here in the dark. No doubt he forced her to tell where she kept money—am I right? Maybe roughed her up a bit back there on First. I’ll send someone over to have a look later. If you’ve killed her, that’s too bad. But then, you can only be executed once for murder.”

  “Look in the pillows yourself if you don’t believe me.” Watly spoke without emotion.

  “Why the sudden need for cash, Watly? Thought you could buy your way out of this mess if you had enough? Thought you could bribe your way out of the country, maybe? Head for mythical Europe, somehow? The outer countries? Too bad. You know, wherever you were hiding, you were doing quite well. You should’ve stayed. I sure couldn’t find you. But here we are, then. Reunited at last.”

  The buzbelt clicked 1:15.

  It was time. Alysess would be waiting, searching for the donor signal. Watly flexed his right fingers. His hand was still in the pillows—nowhere near the chip pistol. What should he do? Fenlocki was not willing to hear the truth. He had all his answers already. Watly’s only hope was still the plan.

  The plan. In order to complete it, he’d have to try to kill Fenlocki right now—not just hurt him, but kill him. Watly needed to be undisturbed for the donor hours and then he’d have to get back to First. All secretly, no witnesses. With Fenlocki alive and knowing Watly was here, the plan was lost. But with Fenlocki dead... it could still work. And no one would know Watly killed him. A dead cop is discovered in Sentiva Alvedine’s house. They’d figure it was her doing. Especially after she confessed to the Corber murder. And all the other crap.

  “You’ve put up one helluva chase, Watly Caiper,” Fenlocki was saying. “One helluva fine chase.”

  In the darkness, Watly eased his hand slowly out of the pillows, inching toward his gun. “Are you going to kill me or bring me in?” he asked.

  Fenlocki chuckled. There was the click of a haver nerve gun bolt sliding into place. “What would you do if you were me, huh?”

  Watly pulled his hand closer in, feeling the cold pistol grip with surprising suddenness. He had it now. He gripped the gun firmly. Funny how guns now felt comfortable in his hand. He had grown used to them.

  “I’d kill me,” Watly answered. “And I’d kill me fast. With a minimum of talking. And no fanfare. I wouldn’t even let me turn around.”

  Watly pulled the pistol up slightly, so it was free of the bedspread.

  “Good advice, my slippery captive. Good advice,” the sergeant said respectfully. “But, in fairness to you and to my sense of decency, I’d prefer you did turn. I need to kill a person, Watly Caiper. I can’t kill the back of a person.” Watly started to swivel toward Fenlocki. “Sorry for the nerve gun, Caiper. They issue the damn things—”

  Watly dove foreword on the bed and fired even before he realized there were two of them. Two police! Not just Fenlocki! His slug missed them both, sparking loudly into the upper doorjamb as Fenlocki and Akral jumped to either side. Watly rolled and dropped off the far side of the bed. Without waiting he fired the unaimed gun behind him. Again the report echoed in the small room. There were scrambling sounds as the two officers found cover. Two cops! Damn!

  “You all right, Akral?” Fenlocki shouted.

  “Fine, sir.”

  Shit shit shit. Watly now had to kill them both to make this work. Two cops. The plan was getting less and less likely.

  The room lit up with the flash of a nerve bolt that streaked by inches above Watly’s head. He spun and fired back over the edge. There was a dull thud as his slug hit wood.

  Another bolt was fired, streaking into the corner of the bedspread, glowing and then dying quickly. Watly heard more movement. One of them was crawling around to the far side of the bed. Watly fired wildly again, hoping to scare them back.

  Another bolt came—this one from the doorway—bursting across the room and landing right next to where Watly crouched. He rolled to the other side, trying to confuse them both. Two against one. Nerve guns against a lowly chip pistol. Unfair, already.

  Another bolt flashed across and the whole place lit up as it looked for nerve in the pillows next to Watly’s head. Watly leaned forward to fire again as a bolt streaked in and hit his gun barrel with a ping, lighting it up and making the gun almost too hot to hold. It climbed up the barrel seeking nerve, the ping still resonating through the handle. Watly almost dropped the pistol but the glow died fast before reaching his hand.

  He stuck his head up again, adjusting his grip on the pistol. It was hard to see. There was nothing to shoot at. He pointed the weapon randomly and suddenly a dark shadow was flying toward him, sailing over the bed with gun extended. It was Akral, diving toward him. Akral fired forward as he leapt and the glowing bolt sprang directly at Watly. He ducked, dodging it by millimeters, feeling the rush of burning air as it passed his cheek.

  Akral was upon him now. He hit hard with all his weight. Both guns were pointed wrong, over each other’s heads. They struggled. Watly felt his bad arm giving out. A covering shot came from the sergeant and burned brightly on the window frame behind them for a moment.

  Watly found the officer’s collar and they both rolled back as one, crashing into the far wall. Akral’s gun fired upward, the bolt lighting up the whole ceiling for a second. The cop was strong, his grip impossible. Watly felt his own hold weakening. His bad arm was no help at all, almost useless. The cop slammed into him again and again, wrestling for position, for leverage. Akral had him by the throat with one hand now. He was pressing against Watly’s Adam’s apple, just where it was most painful. Again Watly was choking. Like before with Sentiva. The blackness around got darker. He was losing peripheral vision, passing out.

  Watly curled his feet up under him as they rolled, and kicked out with everything he had. Everything he had left. Up and out. Hard! There was a resounding thump as Akral’s head hit the wall. The officer slumped over on top of Watly, unconscious.

  1:20, the buzbelt clicked.

  It was too late. Alysess would be giving up. Sentiva might have woken up by now. She might have even—

  “Akral?” Fenlocki whispered in the darkness. His voice came from the doorway.

  Watly let his voice drop low, calm. He slowed his breathing. “Yes, sir.” He carefully pulled his way out from under Akral’s limp body. “I’m fine, sir. Just the leg,” he said softly, imitating the cop’s polite tones as best he could. Brooklyn tones. Orange tones.

  “And Watly?” The sergeant sounded nervous, out of breath.

  “He’s out cold, sir.” Watly answered, moving back to the edge
of the bed and peering out. “Unconscious, I think.”

  Fenlocki stepped forward into the shifting blue light that came from between the blowing curtains. His gun was down at his side, his body relaxed. The glow of sweat reflected on his forehead.

  “We’ve finally done it, my friend.” Fenlocki’s voice sounded human, relieved. “We’ve got the killer.”

  With that Watly sprang up onto the bed, his gun out straight. Fenlocki reeled back in shock—his weapon was still pointed to the floor. Watly aimed at the sergeant’s face—just a few feet away. He could see the dampness on it, the twitch of the cheek, the wide eyes shining moistly in the darkness.

  Now, Watly thought. Kill him now.

  Now.

  Pull the trigger and kill Sergeant Ogiv Fenlocki. And then shoot the unconscious Akral in the head. Kill them both. It’s for the plan. To buy the five hours. For Watly’s life, Watly’s future. Selfish/good? Good?

  Fenlocki stood still, looking up at Watly. Waiting for him to fire. His eyes, unless Watly was mistaken, were understanding. Resigned. Forgiving, even.

  Now. Kill them both.

  Now.

  Watly did nothing.

  Fenlocki’s hand was moving now, very slowly coming up with the nerve gun.

  Get him before he gets you. Watly. Kill yet another human being. One more. What’s one more? What’s the big deal? You’ve killed before. Kill this person... this cop... this officer. One of the good guys. Two. Ogiv and Akral. Cops trying to catch a killer. Protecting society. From a murderer. Kill the man, Watly.

  Shoot him in the face.

  Selfish—what? Selfish/good?

  Fenlocki’s nerve gun was almost up now. His eyes showed amazement that Watly had not fired yet. The sergeant was confused.

  Watly trembled. He found himself lowering the chip pistol. Slowly pointing it to the floor. It was no good. It was all no good. I have no right to hurt another person, 1 see that now. No right. P-pajer was right.