Death Dream

by Ben Bova

  "And where do I fit in?" Vickie asked.

  "You can be my link with the science guys, like Jace. You can be the right hand of the most important person in the White House."

  "That would be nice," she said, thinking, It can't be that simple. There must be more to it than that. you don't just walk into the White House with a VR system and take over the place.

  But Smith was smiling pleasantly and asking, "Any other little problems I can help you with?"

  Vickie arched an eyebrow at him. Why not see how powerful he really is? "You can scare off a private detective," she said, "but how good are you at scaring off the Japs?"

  "What do you mean?"

  She hesitated long enough to let him know that she was debating inwardly over how much to tell him. Then she said, "The Japanese are trying to take over ParaReality."

  "Oh?"

  "I don't want this spread around, obviously. But one of Kyle's backers is Hideki Toshimura. Maybe you've heard of him?"

  Smith's mind began racing. She needs my help. And I can be a hero in Washington by stopping a Jap takeover of a vital American technology. I love it! The president himself will talk to me about this one; he's always yakking about preventing American technology from being taken overseas. And Vickie will have to depend on me for this as much as I have to depend on her for the VR stuff in the first place. That's what makes politics work: two people who owe favors to each other.

  He smiled and leaned back in his chair, twirling his wine glass in one hand. "Tell me all about it, Vic," he said.

  As Dan drove the family home from the restaurant Susan worried about Philip's upchuck.

  "It might be an allergic reaction,, she said. "Maybe we should call a doctor and get him checked out."

  Dan glanced at his wife as he drove homeward. Philip seemed happy enough in his car seat.

  "He probably tossed his dinner out of excitement," he said to Susan. "Or maybe he's coming down with a cold. There's nothing wrong with the boy."

  Looking doubtful, Susan said, "I'll take his temperature when we get home."

  Angela looked worried, Dan thought. "You okay, Angel?"

  He saw her bob her head up and down in the rear view mirror.

  "Feeling all right?"

  "Yes, Daddy."

  "Can you make a smile?"

  She grinned.

  "Bigger?"

  Angela hooked her finger in the corners of her mouth, pulled her lips wide, and stuck out her tongue. Even the baby laughed.

  When they finally got home the phone's message light was blinking. Dan picked it up and heard Dr Appleton's recorded voice:

  "Dan, it looks like Ralph's taken a turn for the worse. He's failing. The doctors don't expect him to last the weekend. Thought you'd want to know."

  Susan was taking the kids to their bedrooms, but she saw the expression on her husband's face. "What is it?"

  "Ralph. He's dying."

  A strange expression flickered over Susan's face: sorrow, a hint of fear, maybe anger.

  Despite her, Dan said to the phone, "Dr William Appleton."

  Susan turned her back to him, shooed Angela down the hall and carried Philip toward his room. The phone's computer tried Appleton's office line, then was shunted to his home number.

  Doc sounded somber as he repeated the news about Ralph Martinez.

  "He's our only link to what really happened in that simulation," Dan said.

  "He's dying," Doc repeated.

  "If only there was some way we could get inside his mind and find out just what happened to him."

  "He can't even speak, Dan."

  "Yeah, I know." Dan was surprised at how cold-brooded he was being. "Does he understand what's going on around him? When people talk to him, does he know what they're saying?"

  "I think so. But I don't really know. He can hardly move, hardly blink his one good eye."

  "Can he type?" The question popped out of Dan's mind before he even realized he had thought of it.

  "Type?"

  "He can move one hand, can't he? He knew how to type. Maybe we can ask him some questions and have him type the answers on a keyboard."

  "Dan, he's dying!" Doc's voice sounded agonized. "He's only got a day or so left."

  The whole idea came into focus in Dan's mind. But Doc won't be able to do it, he told himself. Doc's too damned emotionally involved. I'll have to do it myself.

  "Doc, can you get a plane here to pick me up tomorrow morning?"

  "I suppose so."

  "Okay. We've only got this one last chance to get any information out of Ralph. We've got to act fast."

  "But—"

  "Doc," he said sternly, "Ralph's going to die no matter what we do, right? We've got to take this last shot while he's still alive."

  Doc reluctantly agreed. "I'll have to talk Narlikar into letting us do it. He's not going to like it."

  "Neither do I. But it's got to be done."

  Dan hung up, then saw that Susan was watching him.

  "You're going back to Dayton tomorrow?"

  "As soon as Doc can get a plane here for me."

  "And what about checking those alternate games back at the office?"

  Dan consciously kept himself from gnawing his lip.

  "That'll have to wait."

  "If you wait he'll have time to change the alternates, erase them altogether," Susan said.

  "Maybe."

  "Ralph Martinez is more important than your daughter?"

  "Ralph's dying."

  "And Angie? Kyle's fucking her mind, Dan!"

  Dan stared at his wife for a long, silent moment; saw the anger there and, behind it, the fear.

  "Listen," he said. "Whatever Muncrief's doing, he couldn't do it by himself. Somebody had to set up those alternate programs for him—if he's really doing what you think he is."

  "If?" Susan's whole body went rigid with fury.

  "It's not Kyle!" Dan snapped. "Not by himself, at any rate. He'd need somebody to rig the games for him. The same guy who's screwed around with the flight simulation so much that it's killing people."

  He saw understanding dawn in her eyes. "Jace?"

  "Who else could it be?"

  "Jace is . . . killing people? Hurting my Angie?"

  "That's what I'm going to Wright-Patt to find out," said Dan. "I want proof, and I think I can get it out of Ralph Martinez. If he doesn't die first."

  Kyle Muncrief spent the rest of Thanksgiving day in his office, too shaken to leave. They almost caught me, he kept repeating to himself. He saw the fury in Susan Santorini's eyes, but what frightened him more than that was the deadly flat calm of Dan's voice. He wasn't emotional, he wasn't raving or threatening or even worried. He was like a robot, a machine. He's going to check it all out and when he's convinced that he knows what's going on he's going to come in here and beat my brains out.

  I've got to erase the alternate games. No, that won't work. I told them that the alternates are just back-ups. If I erase them they'll know I was lying. Got to change the alternates so that they really are nothing but back-ups. But how? When? Get Jace to do it. Now. Tonight. Before Dan gets back here tomorrow morning.

  Muncrief pushed himself up from behind his desk and bustled through the building toward Jace's laboratory, hardly noticing that it was fully dark outside.

  Sure enough, Jace was still there, tinkering with one of the VR helmets. He had it clamped in a vise on the workbench, its inner lining removed and hair-thin optical fibers trailing from it like a jumbled network of nerves.

  "I've got to talk to you," Muncrief blurted.

  "Not now," said Jace, without looking up.

  "Now!"

  Jace ignored him.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Muncrief asked, striding up to peer over Jace's shoulder.

  "Brain surgery." Jace had the pencil-sized probe of a volt meter in one hand, a pistol-like laser welding gun in the other.

  "Listen, I need—"

  "Hang in there," Jace said
. "Gimme a minute or two."

  Muncrief fumed impatiently, strode the length of the laboratory. It looked like a disorganized electronics junkyard to him. Reaching the end of the long narrow room, he turned back. Jace was still bent over the workbench. Smith was nowhere in sight.

  "Where's Smith?" Muncrief demanded.

  "I dunno. Went out to dinner I guess."

  Muncrief remembered Smith saying he was going to stick as close to Jace as a tapeworm. Some tapeworm.

  But it's a good thing he's not here, Muncrief told himself. Now I don't have to pry Jace loose from him.

  He saw the flash of the laser and heard Jace mutter.

  "Damn!"

  "Hey, you're supposed to wear protective goggles when you use that thing," Muncrief called, hurrying back toward Jace.

  "I got contacts."

  "Contacts! Who on earth ever heard of protective contacts?"

  "Don't get close unless you've got goggles, man," Jace warned.

  God, Muncrief said to himself. If anybody sees him working like this my insurance rates'll triple.

  "O-kay," Jace said slowly, straightening up to his full height. He put the tools down and stretched his arms over his head. "Whew."

  "What the hell was that all about?" Muncrief demanded.

  "Rewiring a helmet. For Smitty's program. Got to remember to ask him the president's head size."

  "Since when do you do menial work like rewiring? I don't pay you to waste your time—"

  Jace cut him off with a sly grin. "You don't want anybody else doing this work, boss. I can get my hands dirty when I have to. I know what I'm doing."

  Muncrief huffed. "I thought you were the theoretical genius and guys like Dan did the manual labor."

  "I can do whatever needs to be done. Dan and the others help out, sure, but I don't really need them—except to save time," he added before Muncrief could get a word in.

  "I'll have this program for Smitty by February," Jace went on, "and Dan can put all his time into the stuttering job so the baseball game'll be ready for April first. Everything is coming up roses, huh?"

  "For God's sake, will you stop patting yourself on your blasted back and listen to me?" Muncrief shouted. His voice echoed off the lab's bare cinderblock walls.

  Jace gave him a crooked grin, then planted both elbows against the workbench and leaned back. "Okay," he said casually. "I'm listening."

  Muncrief stared at him. Jace seemed completely relaxed, happily at work, as if everything was going along as smooth as chocolate pudding, a messy scarecrow in blue jeans and a tee shirt that announced King Kong Died for Our Sins.

  "You gotta learn to relax, buddy," Jace was saying, with an easy smile. "You look like you're gonna pop your cork, all red in the face like that."

  "You've got to erase the special games," Muncrief said. "Not erase them, really. Change them so they're nothing more than duplicates of the regular games."

  Jake's beady eyes became suspicious. "Susan's getting wise, huh?"

  "How do you know?"

  "She popped in here today looking for me. I made like it was nothing special but I can tell when somebody's pissed off."

  "She found out that there are special versions of the games. I told her they were just back-ups."

  "Okay. No sweat. Just get rid of the program disks. I'll make copies of the regular games on some blank disks—"

  Muncrief blinked at him. "Then I can keep the special games?"

  "Sure, why not? No sense throwing them away."

  Muncrief felt a rush of relief. But then, "They're not working," he mumbled, so low that Jace hardly heard him.

  "What's not working?"

  "Every time the kid sees me in a game she gets scared—"

  Jace made an I told you so face. "You're coming on to her too strong, I guess."

  "No I'm not! Not anymore. She just doesn't want me in her games. She told me to get out, for God's sake!"

  Jace pulled up one of the stools by the workbench and lowered himself onto it like a construction crane lowering a load of girders.

  "She doesn't have to know it's you," he said. "You can play the handsome prince for her, or whatever the hero of any particular game might be. You don't have to show yourself."

  "But that's the whole point of it!" Muncrief insisted. "I want her to know it's me! I want her to like me. Me! Not some imaginary prince. Me myself!"

  Shaking his head, Jace said, "That's tough. Maybe if you hadn't scared her so much that first time out she wouldn't be so cranked up about you."

  Muncrief was breathing heavily. It made him angry to think that Angela didn't like him. It made him even angrier to see the cool amusement in Jace's narrow eyes.

  "You can't force her to like you," Jace said.

  Muncrief growled, "Why not?"

  CHAPTER 35

  Dorothy was there.

  It was the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year. Santa Claus had paraded into countless towns and cities all across the United States. Stores were thronged. The airwaves were filled with advertisements for holiday sales and jokes about turkey leftovers.

  And in the intensive care ward of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base hospital, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Martinez was dying.

  Dorothy was sitting by her husband's bed, already dressed in a black sheath. Dan could see that her eyes were red and filled with tears when he was ushered into the cubicle by a very reluctant Dr Chandra Narlikar.

  Appleton was right behind Dan, who clutched a notebook computer in one hand, scarcely bigger than a schoolboy's tablet.

  Martinez had wasted noticeably since Dan had seen him last, less than a week earlier. His face was still horribly contorted but the burning fury in his one open eye was gone, faded into pale hopelessness by the pain that was conquering his body. Tubes ran from one nostril and both arms into the machines that hummed and buzzed behind his bed. Small display screens played out his life story: heartbeat, blood pressure, breathing rate, electrical activity in the brain.

  Dan stopped at the foot of the bed. "Hello Dorothy," he whispered.

  She got up from the white straight-back hospital chair but did not move toward him. "Hello Dan."

  "I'm sorry as hell."

  "It's not your fault," she said, her voice trembling on the verge of tears.

  "Even if it's not I'm still sorry that it had to happen."

  She nodded, not trusting herself to say more.

  Dr Appleton pushed past Dan in the suddenly crowded cubicle. "Dorothy," he said, his face grave, "we want to try to get a statement from Ralph. If we can."

  Her dark wide eyes went from Appleton's face to Dan's and then to the even darker liquid eyes of Dr Narlikar.

  "I am not in favor of it," Narlikar said. "Not at all. He should be allowed to rest."

  "He's dying," Appleton said, his voice so low that Dan barely heard the words.

  "Still . . ." Narlikar made an uncertain gesture with one hand.

  "We need to find out what he experienced in the simulation," said Appleton. "If we can."

  "It could push him beyond his limits," Narlikar warned.

  Dan watched Dorothy's face. She knows he's as good as dead already. She knows that even if he doesn't die he'll be a helpless cripple. But he could not open his mouth to say a word to her. How the hell can I ask her to let us do this to her husband? It might be the final straw that kills him. I've already done this to him. If he dies it'll be my fault.

  Appleton's voice seemed to gain strength. "It's our only chance to find out what realty happened to him."

  Dan stared at his former boss, then turned his gaze to Dorothy. She seemed awash in conflicting emotions.

  "I know Ralph," Appleton said, steady and insistent. "He always pushed himself to the limit. He wants to tell us what he knows and we've got the means to allow him to do it."

  Narlikar shifted uneasily.

  "You've got to let us do this, Dorothy," Doc went on, pitiless, unswerving. "You owe it to Ralph to let u
s help him tell us what we need to know."

  Leave her alone! Dan wanted to scream. But he said nothing, his body paralyzed as Doc ground down Dorothy's resistance. Doc's made his choice, Dan realized. He's not giving up. He's going to push on this to the bitter end. Dan wanted to reach out to Dorothy, to tell her not to listen to Doc, to do what her heart told her was best.

  But he could not. Doc was fighting to save his own life, Dan knew, and he could not go against the man who had been so much of a father to him.

  "It's your decision, Dorothy," Doc said, his voice low but edged with steel.

  She nodded so slightly that Dan was not sure until she whispered, "I understand. Go ahead."

  "Do you want to leave, take a break?" Appleton asked.

  "No. I want to be with him."

  With trembling hands Dan popped open the little computer and moved to the right side of the bed. Narlikar sighed like a man who wished he were someplace else.

  Appleton stayed beside Dorothy.

  Bending over Ralph's madly contorted face, Dan said softly, "Ralph, can you hear me? It's Dan Santorini."

  Martinez mumbled something unintelligible. Dan winced at his odor. Beneath the hospital antiseptics and the crisp smell of freshly bleached sheets was the cloying stench of death.

  "I've got a computer here," Dan said, putting the notebook machine on the bed. "You know how to use a keyboard, don't you?"

  Martinez might have tried to nod. His right eye seemed to focus on Dan's face.

  "We need to know what happened in the simulator, Ralph. You're the only one who can tell us what happened to you."

  Another mumble. This one ended in a gargling cough.

  "He should be resting!" Narlikar hissed.

  Ignoring the physician, Dan took Ralph's right hand and placed the fingers on the keyboard. The colonel's hand felt cold, lifeless.

  "You're on the keyboard, Ralph. can you feel the keys? Type a "yes" for me if you can." For agonizing moments the hand did not move. Then slowly, as if with enormous effort, his index finger moved across the keys:

  UES

  Dan glanced up at Appleton and Dorothy, across the bed. "Close enough," he said. Looking down at Martinez again he said, "Good, Ralph. Good."

  The finger typed, LOV YOU DOR she fell to her knees and put her face next to her husband's. "I love you too, querido. I love you!"