by Bruce Bethke
Either they were faking it, or they recovered quickly. A second later Thing1 jumped to his feet and snapped to attention. “We’re quite short on time.”
Thing2 jumped up beside him. “But we know what to do.”
“So you just park your butt.”
“And we’ll get back to you.”
Then away ran those things, they ran away fast. But my part was to wait, so I sat on my—
Someone out in the hall ripped the closet door open with a violence that nearly tore it from its hinges. “Intruder!” a deep male voice bellowed, like Darth Vader with a thick Austrian accent. I sprang to my feet and turned to face the threat.
The guy in the hall was a monster. Seven feet tall if he was an inch; all bulging knotty muscles from his toes to his eyebrows. He was a veritable blond Viking giant, wearing nothing but a fur jockstrap, rawhide boots, and a pointed iron helmet with a set of cow’s horns on it—
Holy shit. Charles Murphy. Dressed to kill, or more accurately, to play Slaughter.
“Ach, stranger!” Charles said in that same thick, dumb Germanic accent as he rippled his bulging pecs at me. “The vay you dealt mit der security program vas most impressif!” He paused a moment, to give me a flash of his throbbing biceps and swollen veins.
His mistake. In that brief pause, a whole chain of loose ideas clicked together at once, and I suddenly understood Charles far better than I ever had before. MDE biomedical. Charles’ life-support chair. The way he waxed everyone else’s fannies in Slaughter. The way he gave himself physical aspects that defied the laws of virtual reality.
Murphy was an embryonic superuser, and he didn’t even know it.
He finished his bicep routine, rotated slightly to flex a deltoid at me, and then made sure I appreciated his lats and quads. You know, for a moment, I really felt for the guy. I mean, knowing what kind of body he was condemned to live in in real time, I could honestly see the joy he’d put into creating and using this ludicrously musclebound virtual aspect.
And then he had to go and spoil it all by talking.
“You are indeed a verthy opponent,” Charles said, as he brought his Mister Universe routine to a close in some kind of tense crouch. “But know zis: you haf invaded my domain, und ze penalty ist—death!” And then, with the dazzling speed of a striking tiger, he drew his broadsword, and in one beautifully powerful and well-choreographed move, he lunged!—to drive that gleaming razor-sharp steel through a whistling arc of death that no doubt would have split my little broken virtual body stem to stern like a bloody side of beef…
Had I not taken the opportunity when he telegraphed his move to go Cubist, and step around him in the fourth dimension.
Charles seemed puzzled. He was standing there, poking at my briefcase gingerly with the tip of his sword, and it never even occurred to him to check his back. I figured I’d better clue him in. I summoned a nice virtual carrot into existence, took a big crunchy bite of it, then looked over his shoulder and asked, “What’s up, dork?”
He turned in a whirling flash of steel that made me jump up to hit the ceiling tiles. I landed a good eight feet away.
“Most impressif,” Charles said, as he stepped out of the broom closet and squared off to face me in the open hallway. “But even zis will not save you!” He lunged again in that moment, feinting low but swinging high, with a blow that would have bobbitted me for sure if I’d tried another jump.
Instead, I stood my ground and caught the blade of his sword in my bare left hand. His astonishment at not lopping off my arm lasted barely a moment, then he grabbed the hilt of the sword with both hands and tried to wrestle it away from me.
I let him try for a while. When he braced a foot against my chest to get better leverage, though, I decided this was getting undignified, and grabbed his ankle and tossed him head-over-heels across the hall. While he was recovering from that, I took hold of his sword with both hands and bent it into the shape of a giant paperclip. (I would have done a plowshare, but I have no idea what a plowshare actually looks like.)
The expression on Murphy’s face was marvelous to see.
“Stranger,” he said slowly, “you are indeed powerful, und I vould love to learn your secrets.”
“I bet you would,” I said. “So here’s the first one: I don’t want to hurt you. Now why don’t you be a good little barbarian and beat it?”
Murphy nodded thoughtfully. “Ach. Therein lies da problem. For you see,” he whipped a BFG-2000 assault pistol out from under his loincloth (where did it fit?), “I do vant to hurt you.” I jumped aside as his first burst of fire ripped down the corridor, and six or eight gray-suited innocent bystanders collapsed in bullet-riddled heaps.
“Goodness, you’re fast,” he said, when he noticed he’d missed me. He swung the barrel in a wide stuttering arc the second time, and I had to jump up through the ceiling tiles to get out of the way. Several dozen more innocent bystanders tumbled dead out of their cubicles.
This time Murphy was waiting when I came down through the ceiling tiles behind him. He fired high. I fell faster. He fired low. I jumped. The bystander bodycount was getting out of hand. Like it or not, I realized I had to stop him.
“I tried to tell you,” I said as I flashed over to the far wall. The plaster exploded in a spatter of ricochets. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I dove to the floor and rolled behind him. He stitched a line of fire across the gray carpet after me. “But kid,” I popped to my feet behind him, tapped his right shoulder, and darted left as he pivoted right. “You just don’t take the hint.” He finally figured out where I was—on his left side, opposite the gun—and he swung the pistol around in a wide arc, his finger on the trigger and the muzzle blasting the entire way. Time went slow motion on me then, as innocent bystanders spurted blood and dropped like they were being filmed by Sam Peckinpah and my monomolecular switchblade sprang out of my sleeve and into my waiting hand. Time went really slow in the next moment, as I slashed out with that impossibly sharp blade and drove it through Murphy’s thick neck, slicing through meat, bone, veins, and sinew as if they were just so much overcooked prime rib.
Slowly, slowly, Murphy’s head slid away, arterial blood jetted like a pink fountain in the air, and for a few seconds more his beautiful virtual body didn’t even know it was dead yet. Then, like a calving glacier falling to the sea, it toppled over.
And that is when real time resumed, all the alarms went off, and all those gray and faceless users—well, the ones who had survived Murphy’s lousy aim, anyway—started pointing at me and howling just exactly like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 version).
“There he is!” a familiar voice shouted. I spun around, and saw Frank Dong charging down the hall toward me, pumping the action of a virtual shotgun. It wasn’t until he pointed the thing at me and started squeezing the trigger that I realized—
Shit. I’m the enemy.
I hit the floor. Frank’s shot went over my head. Scrabbling around quickly, I scooped up Murphy’s BFG-2000 and fired one careful burst that made a mess of the ceiling tiles but didn’t actually hit anyone.
It achieved the desired effect. Frank dove behind a cubicle wall, fired another wild shot that blew out a fluorescent light, and screamed, “He’s got me pinned down!” I jumped to my feet.
A third shotgun blast hit me in the back, shredding my gray pinstripe coat and almost scuffing my black leather jacket. “Fuck!” I heard Bubu scream behind me. “He’s armored!” Bubu wasted another shot peeling off the rest of my pinstripes before I popped a short burst over my shoulder at him and dove right, to crash through the virtual drywall and into a row of virtual filing cabinets beyond. Drawers clanged open and manila file folders exploded, spraying their contents everywhere. “I think that last one stung him,” Bubu shouted, somewhere off to my right. I took a quick moment to get my bearings, then crashed through another slab of drywall and came face-to-face with—
Oh, no. T’shombe.
She was armed, yes,
but I’d caught her flat-footed. Her gun was pointing in the wrong direction; by pure accident the muzzle of my BFG-2000 was pressed against the side of her left breast. We stared at each other for what seemed like ages; it almost seemed as if a faint glimmer of recognition flashed through her eyes. Her mouth dropped open. She started to form a word.
Time to see just how much control I had over my superuser strength. I lashed out with my left hand and hit her lightly on the left temple. She collapsed like a wet dishrag.
She didn’t randomize out of existence, which I took as a good sign. But then, neither had Charles, when I killed him.
I was still trying to deal with what I’d done when Thing2 came racing up the hallway, dragging a bulky file folder behind him. “Got it, boss!” Thing2 shouted. He tossed me the folder.
“Where’s Thing1?” I asked.
Thing2 nudged T’shombe’s unconscious form with his toe. “This chick splattered him.”
Balancing the folder and the gun together, I took a hasty flip through the file. It looked about right, I guessed. Glancing up from the folder, I noticed Thing2 was staring at me. “Will that be all, boss?” he asked.
“Yes.” I stuffed the file folder inside my leather jacket and zipped it shut.
“Then in that case,” Thing2 said as he took a step back and saluted me, “it has been a real slice. Good-bye, and good luck!” He saluted again and randomized himself out of existence. Which is what I’d programmed him to do when his mission was complete.
Still, I was actually going to miss the little monster—
“Where’s T’shombe?” I heard Frank shout, off to my left.
“Over here!” I heard Bubu shout, off to my right. He burst around the corner and leveled his shotgun at me.
I dropped the BFG-2000 and screamed, “BUGOUT!”
Fifteen milliseconds later I was back in reality. Peeling off my video goggles, I sank to my knees on the bare wooden floor and shuddered. LeMat was at my side in moments, pulling out fiber optics cables by the fistful. “You look pretty bad,” he said, meaning it. “How’d it go in there?”
I stripped off the datagloves and dropped them on the floor. “Grim,” I said, when I’d found my voice. I accepted the cup of coffee LeMat offered me and took a sip. “Did we get the files?”
“Yeah, we got the files.” LeMat looked at me with more genuine concern than I’d ever seen before, then gave me a squeeze on the shoulder. “You should see them. They’re just what Amber said you’d find. Names, dates, places, plans: rock-solid proof that MDE swindled your client. No offense, Jack, but you used to work for some real slimeballs.”
I took another sip of the coffee and held the steaming cup close for warmth, but said nothing.
LeMat gave me another squeeze on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Jack. Amber’s lawsuit is in the bag. You did good.”
I heard him say that, and I tried to believe it, but all I could think about were Charles and T’shombe. LeMat stepped away from me for a moment to return with a blanket. I looked up at him as he draped it around my shivering, bare shoulders.
18: DELIVERANCE
Monday Evening, 10:00 P.M. Local, 0300 UTC: I rolled my virtual Harley Ultraglide through the empty streets of ToxicTown, a virtual .45 tucked inside my waistband, a thick sheaf of stolen files tucked inside my jacket, and the ProctoProd tucked—never mind where. Now, as a superuser, I could smell ToxicTown. It reminded me of the South St. Paul stockyards on a hot, windless day in July.
I shifted nervously on the bike’s seat and kept my eyes peeled.
If you’d asked me then why I was so edgy, I couldn’t have told you. Sure, part of it was that after four days of use, the proctoprod was starting to become a major pain in the— never mind. And part of it was my basic fear of running into Eliza in the Net, although I thought I probably could handle her now.
A big part was fear of a double-cross. Irrational of course; so far, everything Amber told me had turned out to be true. Still, the idea was there, in an intellectual, if not visceral, way.
But the lion’s share of my fear, I think, came from the idea that this time I was truly flying solo. No backups; no EKG rig; no guardian angel watching my behind. I’d really wanted LeMat to fly tail-gunner for me on this run, just in case Amber had some last trick up her corset, but he’d begged off.
“Jack,” he’d said pompously, by way of excuse, “I would love to go with you, but I have heard a higher calling. Tonight, I am boldly going where no man has gone before!”
I just tapped my foot and glared at him.
“Out on a date with Inge.”
I rolled up to an intersection and slowed the bike just long enough to scan for landmarks. There, that disgusting glob of plastic resin off to my left: The Acme Rubber Dog Poop & Novelty Factory. I leaned the bike into a right turn, stepped the tranny down to second, and twisted the throttle open.
And resumed both my journey, and my mantra: Trust Amber. Trust Amber. Trust Amber.
I found Thorvold on the street corner, leaning against the lamppost, flipping and catching a large, silver coin with almost mechanical precision. “Hi, Max,” he said, without breaking rhythm. He gave me an appraising glance as I parked the bike and dismounted. “Nice suit. You got the files?”
The presence of the dwarf worried me, and pissed me off, and a few dozen other things besides. “I got an appointment with Amber, is what I got. Nobody said a word about you being here.”
“Relax,” Thorvold said as he caught the coin one last time and palmed it. “Don’t get your SNID in a twist. The boss bitch is in; she just put me out here to watch the door. Go on up. She’s expecting you.”
I started for the stairs.
“Hey, mister,” Thorvold said, “for a dollar, I make sure nothing bad happens to your bike.”
I dug into my virtual black leather pants pocket, came up with a quarter, and flipped it to him. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little—” I snickered “—short.”
Thorvold grumbled something I didn’t catch, but kept the quarter.
Amber was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. She was leaning against the open doorframe, silhouetted in soft yellow light from her apartment, her long black hair down and a long cigarette in an even longer ebony holder in her left hand. She was wearing a short, silky, pale green kimono thing with big swoopy sleeves—it was just barely long enough to cover her delicious tush—and apparently, given the way the kimono was almost transparent when backlit, she was wearing nothing else. Her arms were crossed just below her small, perky, breasts, and smoke drifted away from her in a slow, languid stream.
“Hello, darling,” she said.
That’s about the point when I realized I’d turned the corner at the landing, seen her, and stopped dead in my tracks. I groped around until I found my jaw, right where I’d dropped it on the stairs, and reattached it to my face.
“Hi, babe,” I said, feigning coolness.
“Did you get the files?”
I scratched my perfect five-day-stubble chin. “Impatient little minx, aren’t you?”
“You’re right.” She shifted to standing upright, moved the cigarette holder to her right hand, and beckoned for me to come closer. “There’s something important we need to do first.” Slowly, then with increasing confidence, I climbed the rest of the stairs and met her in the doorway.
She pounced then, throwing her gorgeous body against mine, wrapping her arms around my neck, and sending me to Paradise with a long, slow, passionate kiss. Her lips tasted like chocolate, and wine, and gourmet coffee, and fine tobacco, and everything delicious and sultry and slightly sinful in life. Even now, thinking about that kiss, I must confess I’d have died a happy man if I’d checked out in that moment.
Then she gave me another kiss that was even better.
And then she held me tight, and caressed me, and peppered my neck and earlobe with slow, soft kisses and gentle bites, and whispered in my ear, “So, darling. Did you get the files?”
“
Yes!”
I think, in that moment, if Amber had asked me to donate my brain for a monster she was stitching together in the basement, I would have said, “Yes!”
“Wonderful,” she whispered. She dragged me inside her apartment, slammed and locked the door behind us, and turned around to lean back against the door and hold me close to her. We kissed for a long, long time after that, and explored each other’s mouths and teeth with our lips and tongues. Tongue wrestling. She beat me three times out of four. I liked that. I ran my fingers through her long, luxuriant black hair, mapped the contours of her marvelous body with my hands, and found the loose knot in the sash that held her kimono closed.
I tugged at the knot. Green silk fell open, disclosing the glorious wonders within. My right hand went exploring.
She caught my wrist, pushed me back slightly, and came up for air. “Max?” she said gently.
“Yes, darling?” I murmured, as I nibbled her right earlobe.
“Before we go any further, there’s something you need to know.”
“If you’re going to tell me you’re really a guy in drag,” I whispered, as I nibbled my way down her neck, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Oh, no.” She grabbed me by the hair on the back of my head and steered me into another long, slow, passionate kiss. “Trust me on that, darling. I am one-hundred-percent woman, through and through.”
I tried to confirm that with my hands, but she detached herself from my face, led me over to the bed, and motioned for me to sit down on the edge of it. I did. She took a step or two back, and turned around to face me.
“Was it hard?” she asked. After a moment I realized she was talking about the job. Max Kool wanted to answer with something flippant and nonchalant, but Jack Burroughs broke through and answered instead.
“Yeah.” I shuddered.
Amber nodded and gave me a sad, sympathetic smile. “Did you have to kill some people?”
