Death Dream

by Ben Bova

  "You know that's all a lie," said Dan, desperately stalling for time, hoping to find a way out of this endless cycle of killing.

  "Prove it," Jace taunted. "Get the best friggin' lawyers in the world and they won't be able to prove it. Perry Mason couldn't pin a thing on me, pal! And besides, I've got the White House to protect me. Nobody's gonna lay a finger on me, Danno. I'll dance on your grave, buddy."

  Before Dan could reply, the darkness began to shift. Grays and milky whites flowed softly before his eyes, slowly turning to colors, shifting, melding, blending into a wide billowing ocean. Dan felt a jolt of surprise; he had expected the western town, the OK Corral gunfight. But he found himself bobbing up and down in the middle of an endless sea, nothing but surging deep blue waves no matter where he looked. No land, no ships, no birds in the air, an empty horizon beneath a cloudless sky of purest azure with a brazen hot sun blazing down.

  Terrified, Dan tread water, flailing his arms and legs. His feet could not feel the bottom. His clothes sagged and pulled at him. Salt water splashed his face, stinging his eyes, sloshing into his gasping mouth.

  I can't swim! I don't even know if I can float for long.

  "This is my version of Neptune's Kingdom, pal," said Jace's voice out of nowhere.

  Something touched Dan's leg. He twitched in sudden fear and thrashed about clumsily, swallowing more salt water, coughing, sputtering, desperately struggling to keep his head above water.

  "Down you go, pal."

  A tentacle wrapped itself around Dan's leg and pulled him under. He wanted to scream. It wasn't an octopus but a gigantic squid, platter-sized round eyes staring. Dan tried to hold his breath, flailing and straining against the tentacle's strong grip, bubbles gurgling in his ears as the squid dragged him deeper and deeper.

  Can't breathe! and then it let go. The squid simply disappeared. Dan felt as if his lungs were bursting. Can't breathe! The sunlit surface of the ocean was miles above.

  Sharks! Sleek, voracious killing machines gliding swiftly toward him. Three, five, a dozen, each of them huge and deadly, slicing through the water with terrifying ease. He wanted to scream. He wanted to get up into the air where he could breathe. Thrashing arms and legs pitifully he tried to get away from the sharks. But they were circling, circling, drawing closer while the pain seared Dan's chest and the fear thundered in his ears so loudly he thought his heart would explode.

  One of the sharks nudged him with its snout. He flailed out at it. Then he saw another rushing at him like a torpedo, its huge mouth opening wide, thousands of sharp white teeth like the gateway to hell rushing at him. Dan screamed as the shark bit him almost in two. Salt water filled his mouth, filled his lungs as the ocean reddened with his blood while the shark tugged and waggled back and forth, tearing off a chunk of meat, of Dan's body. Then the next shark hit.

  And the next.

  Dan felt every tooth, every shuddering jerking motion as they tore his bloody body to shreds. He died, he knew he was dead, yet he still existed. Disembodied, disemboweled, deep beneath the surface of the ocean, he watched the sharks' frenzied feeding.

  "I'm not dead," he marveled. He could feel nothing, but he was still alive, still conscious.

  "Guess that wasn't painful enough," Jace muttered, sounding disappointed. "The body's first reaction is shock; that suppresses the pain."

  Before Dan could reply the undersea world disappeared and he was on solid ground again. Chained firmly to a stake with a pile of faggots heaped around his bare feet.

  Jace stood before him in a brown monk's robe, the hood pulled up over his head, a blazing torch held high in his left hand.

  "You have been found guilty of heresy, my son," Jace intoned sorrowfully. "The penance your body is about to suffer will be the salvation of your immortal soul."

  Jesus Christ, he's going to burn me alive! Dan watched, terrified, as Jace touched the torch's flame to the kindling at his feet. Flames crackled all around him. It's only a simulation, he told himself. The pain may be real but this isn't really happening, it isn't really—

  The flames roasted his feet and ran up the legs of his baggy trousers. Dan felt his flesh blistering, roasting. "It's not real! not real!" He screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Through the flames and smoke he could see Jace watching him, face wavering in the heat, peering at him intently from beneath the hood of his brown robe, studying him with narrowed eyes.

  Somewhere in a far corner of his deepest being, Dan felt a hatred, a raging fury as hot as the flames that were consuming him. You bastard, Dan thought. you sadistic maniac. You want to kill me, torture me to death. I won't let you. I won't give in. Never! Never!

  The pain crescendoed in flaming agony as Dan screamed and cursed and finally lost consciousness.

  "I should've mapped out your brain," he heard Jace grumbling, as if from a far, far distance. I don't know where the exact pain centers are. Got to guess at it."

  I'm still alive, Dan thought, the breath shuddering in his throat. I'm still alive. Barely. He realized he was flat on his back, helmet still on and visor still down over his eyes. But he had survived. Every muscle in his body was shuddering, every nerve raw. How much more can I take? he asked himself.

  A cold wind tore through him as he clung to the rocky face of the cliff. He was thousands of feet above the floor of the rocky gorge, the cliffs crest still far above him, lost in swirls of snow and cloud. He clung to the bare rock, tried to press his body against it while the whipping wind howled and tried to rip him away from his precarious perch.

  I've got to climb all the way up there, he told himself. The top of the cliff seemed miles away, its face as sheer and smooth as a block of ice. Got to get up there, Dan grunted silently as he reached up for a fresh handhold. The wind drove needles of ice into him, clawed at his pain-racked body, stung his face raw. One bleeding hand at a time, one booted foot searching for a fraction of an inch to grip, he edged his way higher.

  It seemed like hours. Only once did he dare to look down, and the long drop made his senses reel.

  Primal fears, he realized. Jace is playing on the primal fears. Drowning, sharks, fire—and now this. The fear of falling. It's wired deep down in our guts. It haunts our nightmares.

  He could feel his strength draining away. His arms ached, his back was afire, his legs going numb from exertion. But he kept climbing, inch by agonizing inch. He forced himself to keep moving, keep clawing toward the top while the bitter wind stung his face and tried to pull him off the cliff.

  "I'll beat you, Jace," he said to the shrieking wind. "I'll beat you."

  "Guess again, Danno."

  And the thin ledge beneath Dan's left boot crumbled away. His right foot slipped from its perch and he was dangling by his hands, the wind whipping around him, scrambling madly for another foothold. But his aching raw bleeding hands were too weak. His fingers were slipping from the smooth cold rock. He was going to fall, plunge all the way down to the sharp jutting rocks so far below.

  "Are we having fun yet?" Jace's laconic voice called.

  Hardly thinking about it, Dan planted both his hands against the rock face, let go with his hands, and pushed as hard as he could with his legs. He tumbled into the empty air, free of everything except gravity.

  No sense of falling. No sensation at all except the wind fluttering at him and an exhilaration he had never felt before. Dan was soaring free, arms and legs outstretched, sailing through the air like an eagle.

  He looked up at the regal blue sky and laughed. "I did it myself," He yelled in the wind. "I made the decision, Jace. Not you."

  No response.

  Dan pinwheeled through the empty air, laughing. "I've always wanted to try skydiving. Never had the nerve before."

  Suddenly everything went black once more. Dan could feel a solid floor beneath his feet. He sensed that he was back in the VR chamber.

  "What's next, Jace," he asked. "How much imagination do you have left?"

  "Dan, can you hear m
e? It's Gary Chan."

  "Keep your hands off the controls, Charlie!" Jace's voice roared. "Don't touch anything!"

  Chan seemed to ignore Jace's warning. "Dan, I think I can figure out how to get you out of there. But it's going to take a little time to bypass—"

  "Don't touch a friggin' thing!" Jace howled. "I'll zap him if you try it!"

  "Gary," said Dan, holding his arms out in front of him like a blind man. "Leave everything alone. This is between him and me. Stay out of it until I tell you it's okay."

  "Until you tell him?" Jace sounded scornful.

  Dan's legs felt shaky, his chest raw. But he answered, "That's right Jace. You can't kill me. I'll take whatever you can throw at me. I know this is just a sim. I'm not going to have a stroke. I've got a reason to survive, to get through all this."

  The visor was still over his eyes, effectively blindfolding him. Dan felt as if he could move his arms now and take his helmet off. But he did not want to. Not now.

  "What reason?" Jace growled.

  "I'm going to beat you," said Dan. "I'm going to beat you at your own game. In your own world, Jace. You think you're the top dog, king of the hill. You think you're God? You're nothing but a scared kid who's never grown up. And I'm better than you are, Jace. Better and stronger."

  "But Dan," said Dr Appleton. "You don't really feel that way, do you?"

  Appleton stood before Dan, gray and rumpled in a tweed sports jacket, his everlasting pipe in his left hand.

  "I mean, Dan," the Doc said softly," you know that Jace has the most creative mind we've ever seen. You're his right-hand man, that's true, but you're not as good as Jace is. We both know that."

  Appleton was walking slowly toward Dan, speaking earnestly, gesturing with his slim-stemmed pipe.

  "After all," he went on, "I only hired you because Jace needed an assistant. And Muncrief only hired you because Jace liked having you around."

  They were face to face, hardly a foot separating them. Dan caught a glint of light and saw that Doc's pipe had turned into a knife. Doc lunged, but Dan grabbed his wrist and held it. Doc's face melted, shifted. It was Dan's father now, angry and accusing.

  "If you spent more time outside in the air you wouldn't get these goddamned asthma attacks!"

  "It won't work, Jace. I'm not an impressionable twelve-year-old. All you're doing is making me madder than hell at you."

  And he twisted Jace's wrist until he yelped and dropped the knife. Then Dan let go and pushed Jace away.

  "Two mistakes, Jace." Dan told him. "Doc's right-handed. And when you mentioned Muncrief you reminded me that he hired me because of Angie. All you're doing is pumping up my adrenaline. That's no way to induce asthma attack, genius."

  "Dan, Dan, come back to me."

  He turned and saw Dorothy, wearing nothing but a filmy clinging negligee, smiling at him.

  "We can be together now, Dan. Always. There's nothing to stop us; you can have me forever." Dorothy slipped the negligee's thin straps off her shoulders, let it fall to her hips, to the ground.

  "I love you, Dan. I've always loved you."

  "You're not real." Dan said to her. "I guess you never were."

  "I can be as real as you want me to be," Dorothy pleaded. "I need you, Dan. Don't turn away from me."

  But he did turn away. To find himself in strange, narrow corridor of utterly blank walls that stretched off to infinity.

  "I'm coming after you, Jace. You can't hide from me."

  "Try and find me, Tonto!"

  Dan swung a fist against the wall and it shattered like a mirror. He stepped through into an even narrower corridor, dark and shadowy.

  "What is this, the inside of your mind?"

  "You'll find out."

  Dan plodded forward. He tracked the length of the narrowing, twisting corridor which turned into a dark cobblestoned street that slanted weirdly while a cold fog misted the night air and turned the tilting streetlamps into feeble glows of yellowish light hanging disembodied and then it was a sewer knee-deep in fetid water, dark and foul, with the skittering screeching red-eyed rats hovering in the darkness.

  "I'll find you, Jace, no matter where you try to hide. No matter how long it takes. You'll run out of these monie scenarios sooner or later and I'll still be here, coming at you."

  A monster rose up out of the filthy water, its scarred face green with putrefaction, looming over Dan, stretching out its powerful arms toward him.

  "I saw this movie when I was a kid, Jace." Dan made himself laugh. The monster reached out for him but Dan kicked it in its shins and it yowled and hopped and disappeared.

  "You can't scare me, Jace. I'm past all that. Cut the crap and let's get this over with."

  "You'll never find me!"

  And they were in a hall of mirrors, a hundred Jaces reflecting off the faceted glass, a hundred lean angular scarecrow figures capering and yowling at him.

  Methodically Dan began smashing the mirrors. One by one he kicked them into shards of glass, punched them with his balled fists. "I'm coming for you, Jace," he called out. His fists were bloody but Dan felt no pain at all. He smashed mirror after mirror until at last there was only one Jace standing before him, looking furious and frightened at the same time.

  "All right," Jace said, his voice murderously low. "You think you're better than me? Prove it."

  And the scene before Dan's eyes shifted again. Brilliant sunlight stabbed down at him, making him squint. It was the cartoon-like western town. It was what Dan had expected all along. Jace stood about a dozen paces in front of him, lean and lanky in his black gunfighter's outfit, a nasty scowl on his long face, a broad-brimmed black Stetson pulled low over his red-rimmed eyes.

  "Is this the best you can do?" Dan taunted. "Are you all out of ideas, Jace?"

  "This is all I need," Jace said. "This time I'm going to blow you away."

  Despite himself, Dan felt a current of fear race along his nerves. But he fought it down and let the rage that smoldered inside drive him. Going to kill me are you? Like hell you are!

  "I'll give you a fair chance, sheriff," Jace drawled. "You go for your gun first."

  Wordlessly, stoking his fury, Dan stepped toward Jace. Toward the man who had exposed his daughter to Muncrief. Toward the man who wanted to kill him. Toward the man who had ruined his career, his life, his dreams of using his knowledge to make the world better. Toward this friend who had turned into a murderous enemy.

  "Hey." Jace said, backing off uneasily. "You're getting too close—"

  Dan lunged at him and Jace pulled his gun at the same instant. Dan barged into Jace, knocking he gun to one side and driving the two of them into the dusty ground. The gun went off but Dan barely heard it, he had one knee on Jace's thin chest and the other on his gun arm. He punched Jace's face with both fists"

  "Going to kill me, huh" Going to help that sonofabitch rape my daughter? You asshole piece of shit!"

  Jace tried to twist away, tried to protect himself with his thin arms but Dan held him pinned to the ground and pounded and pounded while his whole world went blood red with rage.

  And suddenly other arms were pulling him off Jace and everything went black and all he could feel was searing pain in both his hands and Susan calling, half-sobbing, "Dan! Dan! Dan!"

  CHAPTER 50

  When he woke up Dan found himself in a hospital bed, both his hands wrapped in bandages and an angry buzz in his ears. His eyes felt gummy; it took a few minutes to focus them.

  Susan was sitting by the bed, half asleep.

  "What time is it?"

  Her eyes flicked wide, then she smiled at her husband. "How do you feel?"

  Dan shook his head tentatively. The room swayed. "Like I've got a hangover," he muttered.

  "It must be the painkillers. You broke several knuckles punching Jace's helmet."

  Dan looked down at his hands. The bandages were clean and white. They felt stiff but he did not try to flex is fingers to test them.

  "They'll be
okay, the doctors said. It'll take a month or two, but they'll be all right."

  "How long . . . ?"

  Susan glanced at her wristwatch. "It's almost noon."

  He thought a moment. "Tuesday?"

  "Yes." Susan smiled at him. "They brought you here about three o'clock this morning. Gary Chan terminated the simulation after you knocked Jace unconscious."

  Dan blinked, remembering. "Christ, I wanted to kill him."

  Susan got up from her chair and came over to him. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  "You saved Angie," she said.

  "You found her."

  "But you stopped Muncrief."

  "Is he really dead?"

  "Yes."

  "It's a mess, isn't it?" he said.

  "That doesn't matter. It's not important, Dan."

  He reached up with his bandaged hands and pulled her to him. She kissed him, then broke into sobs. "I thought Jace was going to kill you!"

  He held her tightly and patted her red hair gently. "It's all right, honey. I'm okay. Jace couldn't kill me."

  "You beat him. We heard everything the two of you said. You told him you were going to beat him and you did."

  Susan pulled away slightly and dabbed at her eyes and Dan saw a new-found admiration in her face. And the embers of stark fear.

  "We heard Jace say he was going to kill you. I was so scared!"

  Dan nodded. "Jace couldn't kill me. Even when he thought he wanted to, he couldn't go through with it.

  "He just wanted to scare me. Cow me. Show me that he was better than me, stronger, smarter."

  "But he's not," Susan said. "You're better than he is. You've always been."

  "Maybe so." Dan sighed. "Maybe so." But I would've killed Jace, right there and then, he knew. I was mad enough to beat him to death."

  Leaning on his elbows, Dan forced himself up to a sitting position. Susan cranked the bed up for him. He saw that they were in a private room.