Joe Haldeman

by The Coming

  She took an elevator to the top floor and went into Lab 3 and locked the door behind her.

  “Gabby? You’re early.” A bald man looked up from a machine.

  “Forgot to take the gel home. Afternoon, Louis.”

  “Hi, Gab.” A young man lounged by the window, naked, scanning a magazine about popular music.

  There was nothing unusual about him except for the length and breadth of his penis.

  Gabrielle stepped into a small bathroom, where she hung up her dress and put her shoes and underclothes on a shelf. She urinated and tried to break wind, and the medical student in her wondered for the dozenth time what perversity of psychology and anatomy made it impossible for her to do it now and almost imperative later, horizontal and public.

  Obeying state law, she didn’t flush the toilet. She checked her makeup, carefully blotting the slight shine of sweat from her face and between her breasts. She tried to smile at her reflection and then left the bathroom and walked toward the table.

  “Panty lines,” the bald man said.

  “Harry. I knew the gel would take fifteen minutes to set, so I allowed myself the exquisite luxury of underwear, okay?”

  “All right. I guess they’ll be gone.”

  “Maybe your customers like panty lines.” She mounted the table with a gymnast’s slow grace, her ankles landing precisely in the stirrups. “I bet you never asked.”

  “Artistic convention,” he said with a straight face.

  “Right.” She picked up the large syringe next to the table and applied a liberal amount of lubricant to the nozzle, and then some to herself. She inserted the nozzle carefully, grimacing, and slowly injected the clear gel. If you did it too fast you left air bubbles in the vagina, which would be edited out later, but why make work for your boss? Even if he is a pig.

  The gel provided a medium with the proper index of refraction. It smelled and tasted like diesel fuel and was about as hard to get rid of as a coastal oil spill. Fortunately, Gabrielle didn’t have any lovers who might complain about it, just an uncritical fellow medical student with whom she shared occasional spasms.

  She leaned back. “Louis, would you get me that pillow?” She took off her long black wig and smoothed on a cap of metal mesh, then put the wig back on. Louis was already wearing his neural inductor cap.

  He brought over a firm cylindrical pillow and she put it under her neck and gave him a playful tug.

  He was semierect. “You see the stuff on cube about the aliens?”

  “Yeah, I was watching it.” He ran a finger lightly down her thigh. ” Que maravillosa.”

  “Hey,” said the bald guy from behind the machine. “You come too soon and neither one of you gets paid.”

  They exchanged professional smiles. “I’ll try to control myself, Harry.”

  “I’ll try to keep my hands off him. What did you think?”

  “Gonna be a long couple of months. Can’t wait.”

  She nodded at the ceiling. “Anything could happen.” She dipped a finger into the softening gel and spread it around her external genitalia. “You ever have Professor Bell?”

  “No, I never took astronomy. I had her husband.”

  “I had her intro course some years back. Before medical school, of course.” She circled her clitoris lightly.

  “Good teacher?”

  “Oh, yeah. A little nervous, but really sincere. Really wanted you to love the stuff. Too much math for me, though.”

  “Doctors just need to know how to add,” he said.

  “You have that right. How’s her husband?”

  “Kind of sweet. He starts out tough, but it’s all an act.”

  “Big class?”

  “No, a quartet. Six-week phrasing workshop a couple of summers ago.”

  Harry came over with a thing that looked like a cross between a snake and a telescope. “Take a reading.” Gabrielle pressed both thighs with her palms and spread wide. He inserted the tube a few inches into her.

  “Ow!” She jumped. “Easy on that thing. It’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “Yeah yeah.” He peered into the tube and turned a knob. “Squeeze.” She did, grunting. “Again.” He nodded and pulled the thing out with a little sucking sound. “Okay. Get it up.”

  Gabrielle grabbed the nearest projection and pulled Louis closer. She cradled his scrotum with the other hand. “So what’s phrasing?”

  “Basically timing.”

  “You’re good at that.”

  “Thanks. It’s … ” He gasped and paused a moment as she took him into her mouth. “It’s how you put your own interpretation on a piece of music. Of course, with a quartet, you have to all agree.”

  “Sounds difficult.” She stroked him slowly, studying his progress. “This is the only instrument I ever learned how to play. Skin flute.”

  ” ‘Duet for skin flute and honey pot.’ “

  “Honey pot, yeah. Marry me and take me away from all this.”

  Harry rolled the lights and holo cameras in around them.

  Harry explained the narrative, such as it was. They were in a rowboat near the shore of a small lake.

  Nine minutes into the sequence, another boat was going to approach. They’d try to get down and hide, but would keep fucking, and be caught at the last minute.

  He turned on a flatscreen that showed what the actors on the actual boat were doing, so they could mimic the postures and timing. They didn’t have to be too precise. The actors on the boat wore skinspray that conducted the feeling of rough wood and water splash. The somatic input from Gab and Louis would be edited in, combined into the main male and female tracks.

  “Gabby, get on your knees and back up here.” He unmounted the stirrups and pushed a button that lowered the platform a foot.

  “Oh, goodie,” she said, rolling over. “Arf, arf.”

  “We still have a little panty line.”

  “Oh, bullshit, Harry,” Louis said. “You can make this look like we’re in the middle of a rowboat, and you can’t edit out a little panty line?”

  “Just extra work. Take a couple of dips before we put the harness on.”

  They worked together well. Louis stood still behind her and let her control how deep, how fast. The external cameras caught it in every detail. He slid out of her and was so erect his penis slapped against his abdomen.

  “Good, we got that,” Harry said, and handed him the harness. Louis rolled it over his organ, a loose transparent condom covered with tiny wires. He tightened a collar at the base of his penis and pulled the lower part of the arrangement over his testicles. Harry lubricated a pair of sensors and Louis eased one into his own anus and one into Gab.

  She sighed. “Well, let’s move it.” Louis inserted his decorated dick and they proceeded.

  The virtual-reality recording equipment had been bought as part of a legitimate grant for the study of orgasmic dysfunction. Harry was not a scientist, of course; he was an artiste. The scientist whose department owned the equipment was willing to let it be used for artistic purposes twice a week, for an amount of money roughly equal to his IISR salary, before taxes.

  Gab and Louis had the talent of being able to make their bodies ignore all the hardware. The customers on the receiving end were not so encumbered, of course; they just wore the neural inductor hats.

  A lot of customers went to the same feelie twice, male and female, to see how the other half felt.

  Gab had tried it once, fucking herself, but partway through she took off the cap and left the theater, anxious and confused. That had been the semester she first did cadaver dissection, and although she hadn’t been too squeamish about the woman’s body, cutting it up didn’t put her in much of a mood to look inside her own.

  This was going to be a 2X deep feelie: two orgasms and the internal sensors. With only two climaxes, it might even have a plot, though the audience wasn’t demanding. It would be called Love Boat II.

  A commercial feelie wasn’t exactly like “being there,
” perfect virtual reality, which was dangerous and illegal because of the drugs involved. People participating in Love Boat II would taste and smell and feel a simulacrum of what the four actors did, and some of them would experience orgasms along with Gab and Louis. The “deep” feelie part enhanced that; they could see what was going on inside the vagina, and for most people that made it work better. Other people went to the regular feelies, which were less anatomical but had more dialogue.

  There was a countdown clock on the flatscreen that told them how many seconds to orgasm. Gab was looking at it in a mirror; they were facing each other now, lying in the bottom of the boat. At sixty seconds she squeezed his shoulder hard and gasped for Christ’s sake slow down, and concentrated furiously on the names of the facial nerves and the cost of the textbooks this embarrassment was financing. When the clock allowed her to, she let go and quite enjoyed it, as usual. If she’d enjoyed it much more she would have pulled Louis off the platform, which would have been okay if he could manage to stay inside her.

  Harry monitored the ejaculation on a small holo cube, and applauded lightly. “Excellent. Louis, pull out suddenly at minus twelve seconds.” On the flatscreen, a rowboat with an elderly couple came alongside and overacted. The couple in the bottom of the boat sprang apart the same time as Gab and Louis. She laughed, out of breath. “My God; he’s even bigger than you.”

  “Trick photography,” Louis said, panting.

  Harry brought them a couple of large towels.

  Gab dried off and went back into the bathroom and used the bidet. Then she douched with a solvent and used the bidet again, as hot as she could stand it. She inserted a special tampon and dressed.

  Harry gave her a check for two thousand dollars. She said goodbye to the men and left. A fairly busy whore could make that in one night, she thought; four tricks. She’d given herself to a million men and women for that. But her cheapest text this semester had cost four hundred dollars. This took a lot less time than waiting on tables or typing.

  Besides, a doctor ought to be objective about her body. “Temple of the Lord,” her mother always had called it. If Mom knew how many people had worshiped at this particular temple, she’d have a heart attack and die.

  She put on her broad-brimmed hat and went out into the sunlight. If a million people go to this feelie and half of them ejaculate twice, how much sperm is that? Half a million times five cc’s times two … five million cc’s. Five thousand liters. She visualized a quart jar full of sperm and tried to multiply that by five thousand. A roomful, anyhow.

  A greasy ugly man leered at her and she looked away, suddenly nauseated.

  Ybor Lopez

  Dios, Ybor thought, that beautiful creature has just now had sex, still radiating pheremones and sweat. He turned to watch her walk away, a little unsteady but still linda, dark skin visible under the white dress, white underwear accentuating the curve of her buttocks. He started to get an erection but the pain at the injection site wilted him. He would remember the sight and smell of her later, though, and put it to good use.

  He went into Building 16 and stood for a moment in the air-conditioning, using his floppy hat to mop the sweat from his face and neck. Concentrate, now. Have to be quick and careful. Download the data and erase all links. He started reviewing the process in his mind as he hurried up the steps.

  No one in the office. Lock the door or not? It would be a little suspicious, but the extra couple of seconds while the secretary rattled away would give him time to change what’s on the screen. But the secretary wouldn’t have any reason to be curious about what he was working on, and no one else was likely to come in except Dr. Whittier, his partner in crime. He left it unlocked.

  He put a data cube in the desk niche and said, “Commence Minotauro.” A blur of numbers and words scrolled up the wall. He took a keyboard out of the drawer and waited. A couple of times a minute, the scrolling stopped and a query blinked. He typed a quick word or number and the scrolling continued.

  After about ten minutes, the wall made a sound like a tree frog and went blank. Mission accomplished. He put his thumb over the “off” button and said, “Review data, Aurora Bell.”

  Blocks of statistics, paragraphs of biography. “Faster, one hundred percent,” Ybor said. He could read very fast with the drug’s help.

  Whittier was going to be disappointed. Dr. Bell either covered her tracks well or didn’t have much of a past. Parking tickets and one for speeding. Now, this bit about her husband might be useful …

  The door made a faint tick sound and Ybor thumbed the display off. He half turned toward the door.

  It wasn’t Whittier; it was Malachi Barrett, the chancellor. He stepped away from the door and said,

  “Here.” A uniformed policeman swiveled in with gun drawn; aimed, and fired.

  Sergeant Rabin

  It was a good clean shot, right into the biceps. The man was able to pull the dart out, but that didn’t make any difference. He got partway out of the chair and then fell back, dazed.

  “You are under arrest. Anything you say may be used as evidence. A copy of this proceeding will be provided for your defense attorney.

  “Let it be noted that the drug 71 Tikan has been administered. Your testimony will be reviewed in that light.

  “Ybor Lopez, you are charged with information theft and unauthorized decryptation. Do you wish to deny the validity of these charges?”

  Ybor tried to look up at him but his head slumped. Then his whole body sagged forward and he fell out of the chair.

  Rabin kneeled down and turned him over. His eyes had rolled back so that only the whites were visible. He felt for a pulse under the jaw.

  “What’s happening?” the chancellor asked. “Does this usually happen?”

  “No, sir. I think it’s a drug interaction. Seventy-one Tikan is psychotropic, and if the offender has taken some other psychotropic drug … shit. There goes his pulse.” He chinned a microphone switch.

  “Dispatch, this is Rabin in 16-dash-304. We have a code nine here, need help fast. Heart stopped.” After a few seconds a female voice said they were on their way. Rabin had already begun cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

  After a minute of rhythmic shoving on the man’s chest, alternating with breathing into his mouth, he asked Barrett, “Sir, can you do CPR?”

  “Uh, no. I’m afraid not.” He made an ineffectual gesture with both hands. “I’ve been meaning to take the course … “

  Another minute. “Find someone who can. I may need help.” It was hard work, and Rabin was out of shape. He’d heard of people having heart attacks themselves while administering CPR. He didn’t want to be part of an ironic newspaper story.

  Barrett didn’t go straight out the door, but first stepped over both of them to take something off the desk. Then he went out into the corridor and started knocking on doors and shouting at people.

  “Code nine” meant that a suspect needed immediate medical attention. Sometimes the rescue unit dragged their feet a bit, since suspects were usually guilty, and a dead suspect meant less work all around.

  Rabin was starting to have chest pains, which he knew were psychosomatic, when a middle-aged black man kneeled down next to him. “Need help?” Rabin nodded and rolled away, gasping.

  He leaned back against the desk and watched his replacement: slower, but pretty good, considering that he’d probably never done it on a live person before. Of course this person was only somewhat alive.

  Not armed, at least not obviously. So why had he been ordered to dart him on sight? If he was dangerous, why risk sending the chancellor along to identify him?

  Could the dart have been switched—did he inadvertently fire a killer dart rather than a talker? No, he’d loaded the weapon himself when the call came in.

  The dart was on the floor. He leaned over slowly, still hyperventilated, and picked it up. The charge cartridge was green-blue-green, 71 Tikan. He got a plastic bag out of his utility kit and dropped the cartridge in and
put it in his pocket.

  Other evidence. He stood up slowly and checked the desk. A keyboard, but nothing up on the wall.

  No crystal or cube in the readers. A notepad and stylus. He pushed the “previous message” corner of the notepad and got a crude drawing of a naked woman and a neatly printed phone number.

  He wrote the number down in his notebook. Ma’am, you’re being investigated in conjunction with a serious information crime. No, don’t bother getting dressed. I’ll just handcuff you to this bed here.

  Chancellor Barrett stepped into the office. “Sir, what was it you took from the desk here?”

  “Desk? Oh, nothing. Nothing … I was just checking the notepad there.”

  “But I—”

  “Nothing, Sergeant Rabin.”

  “Yes, sir.” The old bastard, it must have been a cube or crystal from the reader. Whatever this guy was working on.

  It put Rabin in an interesting situation. Under oath, or drugs, he would have to testify that he’d seen the chancellor take something from the desk. Did the chancellor realize that? Was the chancellor corrupt enough to threaten his job? His life?

  “I was mistaken, sir. I thought I saw … it was a confusing moment.” The older man put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, wordlessly.

  The rescue unit, two men and a woman, came crowding in. They relieved the black man, ripped open the suspect’s shirt, applied two inductor pads to his chest, and cranked his heart. He flopped around and coughed and retched. They had to repeat it twice before his heartbeat stablilized.

  The woman stood up. “Should we take him to the cardiac ward or the secure ward?”

  “Secure ward,” Rabin said. “Have them find out what drug he’s on. This was a 71 Tikan reaction.”

  “Probably a DD,” she said. She made a gesture and her two helpers rolled the man onto a stretcher.

  They rushed him out the door.

  The chancellor thanked the black man, Professor Pak, and ushered him out.

  “Sir, if you don’t need me, I’d better follow the ambulance.”

  “Of course, Sergeant. Thank you.”