Double Vision

by Tricia Sullivan

  Then Hendricks barks, 'Hey! Beans are ready.'

  Everybody jumps because she sounds just like Serge, who is gone.

  The others watch Gonzalez eat. She makes faces and pleasure noises.

  'It sure is nice to see somebody enjoying the cuisine out here in the field,' says Klaski. She looks at her own bowl. 'I wish this was pizza.'

  'The interesting thing,' Lewis says, 'is how there are no carnivores in the Grid. The ecology is all based on the Grid itself.'

  'I've noticed that,' Hendricks put in. 'Gossamer here feeds directly off the Grid, and it doesn't seem to mind. Nothing actually kills each other.'

  'No, it only kills us.'

  'Machine Front will finish that up,' Lewis says confidently. 'The Third Wave is already coming in, and once the new MFeels are here there won't be need for any personnel. So no killing. The effort can become purely scientific.'

  Gonzalez breaks off eating, suppressing a belch.

  'That depends what you mean by killing. The ecology of this planet extends to its electrical fields and its mineral substrate. Take the logic bullets. Structured metals.'

  'But what is a structured metal?' Hendricks asks.

  'Something you could make smartbombs from, apparently,' Lewis answers. 'Logic bullets. Fight the Grid with its own language. Something you could use in computers. Ask Klaski. She got into MIT.'

  'Jo? What are logic bullets?'

  'Something too high-tech for Cosmo,' says Klaski, looking annoyed. 'They're a way of encoding information. Kind of like a computer disk. But you can't stick it in your computer. Machine Front have been developing the interface and looking for ways to decode the information recorded in the planet's insides.The logic bullets are the result of a distillation of the Grid's whole way of processing information. Plug them into the right hardware and we should be able to predict certain things about the Grid.'

  'I didn't know you knew all this,' says Hendricks. Klaski gives a wan smile. 'What things could you predict?'

  Klaski shakes her head. 'Electrical behavior. Placement of branch arms. How the scent-language works. All the things that make it impossible for us to move effectively through the Grid, or over it, with machines.'

  Gonzalez is chuckling. 'ls that what they teach you in school?' she murmurs, shaking her head.

  'Do you know something I don't?'

  'Logic bullets are going to be used back on Earth, to make our computers run faster and better, to solve problems we can't solve, to make the guys who get hold of them a whole lot of money.'

  Lewis shrugs. 'Military technology always filters down for civilian use.'

  'Maybe,' says Gonzalez. 'But I don't trust Machine Front anymore. I think they're in over their heads – actually, I think they're in over our heads.'

  Lewis says, 'Maybe, but as long as my Swatch tells me the stuff I need to survive, I'm not trading it in, you know what I'm talking about?'

  'That's OK,' says Hendricks airily. 'We don't got to talk politics. I'm thinking about doing my hair in cornrows. When I get back, I mean. This frizz is driving me nuts.'

  'You should,' Lewis puts in with her mouth full. 'You'd look good with long hair.' Klaski looks bothered.

  'But, Doctor Gonzalez, everybody at N-Ridge—'

  Lewis kicks her. 'Leave the doctor alone, Klaski.'

  Klaski starts to pout, but Hendricks tries to smooth things over.

  'We're eating. She doesn't want to talk about that stuff now.'

  'It's OK,' purrs Gonzalez, and smiles at Klaski. 'What do you want to know?'

  'I was just wondering how you survived all this time without Machine Front? How did you escape the golems?'

  Gonzalez blows on her beans. 'They never seemed interested in me. Sheer luck, I guess. Maybe it was my perfume . . .'

  Lewis casts you a lot of sidelong glances.

  You are their best hope. Only you know where you really are – or would know, if you could just get into the open air. Only you have a silent link with MF – again, if you could get a signal. Lewis studies your torn wing whenever Gonzalez's turned back presents her with the opportunity. She's doing it now; but she must be aware that Klaski is taking the conversation too close to personal questions about Gonzalez and the Grid, and Serge.

  Abruptly, Lewis says, 'Did you know that they do brain surgery without anesthesia?'

  'No way. That's disgusting,' said Hendricks.

  'They do. Your brain doesn't have any nerves. It can't feel pain.'

  'I don't believe you.'

  'It's true, scout's honor.'

  'Yeah? Then that means a brain surgeon could operate on himself, right?' says Klaski. Her stomach is filling up and her confidence is coming back. Too soon, to your thinking. 'That's what I'd say before they could get me under the knife. "Hey, doc," I'd say. "Let's see you do it on yourself before you go doing it on me.'"

  General ha-has.

  mr. potato head

  I had to stop there, because at 9 p.m. sharp I was to meet Miles in the parking lot of Dykes Lumber on Route 17. Actually, I was a little early. The asphalt shone darkly under a patina of oil, transmission fluid, and rain. Even at this hour, the passing of truck traffic beat the air like huge wings, and did some kind of synesthestic boogie in my head so that I swore I could hear the susurrus of tires on wet pavement even though I had my walkman playing Air Supply at Volume 8. I was doing this to drown out my fear and it wasn't working.

  Miles loves to take charge of a situation: that's why he's a Dungeonmaster and not a player. On his precise instructions, I had brought a small flashlight, some blank cassettes and a steno notebook. Thank God I took shorthand in high school. I knew that Gloria hid the keys to the filing cabinet under the African violet on her desk, so I had no problem there.

  A shadow moved in the corner of my eye and I startled like a cat. Miles was tapping on the window with one knuckle. I turned off the Walkman and rolled down the window, my ears ringing.

  'Are we doing this or what?' he demanded, breathing minty toothpaste into the car. I nodded.

  'I'm driving,' he said. 'You sure you can handle this?'

  'No,' I said. 'But I'll try'

  I locked the Rabbit and we got in Miles's car. An air of ordered serenity surrounded me; when it comes to his car, Miles is nothing if not tidy.

  'Remember,' he said. 'If anyone catches you, refer them to me. Say, "You have to talk to Dr. Miles," and leave it at that.'

  I looked out the window and rolled my eyes. Miles was going to pretend to be a Polish psychiatrist working with me on some new form of behavior-modification therapy, and I was supposed to just play potato and go along with him. I didn't trust this plan but I knew that Miles would only help me if he was allowed to do so on his own terms, and I didn't want to go it alone.

  I fished for Tic Tacs and studied the highway. A grotesquerie of industrial buildings with their neon signs threw a stain of ambient light into the clouds. Red and white SALE banners flapped from gray concrete warehousely edifices. Blah blah blah. It's all the same, my world, and I can't see how any of it is justified.

  Not far away from this place, immaculate Colonials with perfect gardens marched in decorous order down tree-lined streets, the smell of Rice-A-Roni and roast chicken drifting through doors and the muted studio-audience laughter of Cheers faintly penetrated the picture windows with the flicker of 21-inch TVs, and Golden Retrievers barked when you came within fifty yards of their five-hundred-dollar doghouses. Backyards with swingsets and jungle gyms, in-ground pools, two-car garages with the teenager's ageing Camero parked in the driveway. Everything so convenient. So easy. Who wouldn't want to be taken in by it?

  But I just feel sure that it's all there to turn us into Pillsbury Dough Boys. I ought to know. I've eaten more than my fair share of cookies you bake from a tube.

  We parked next to the nursery's fleet of white pickups with Kroemer's stenciled on the doors. So far it was all going to plan. The Supersweep Office Cleaner van was parked in the loading zone at the en
d of the building. Lights were on in the programming wing.

  We waited. I wanted to put the music back on but Miles would object, so I sat staring at beads of rain on the windshield. Ever since I'd read Serge's account of being in the well, and then experiencing Gossamer's take on the same thing, I'd been noticing the elastic properties of time. Lately it was not unusual for me to fall into a reverie for several minutes without even realizing it.

  'OK,' said Miles suddenly. 'This is it.'

  The lights in the programming wing had gone down. I got out of the car and ran, bent over, across the parking lot and into the shadow of the building. I could hear the traffic on the Parkway nearly overhead. I could hear Def Leppard playing on a boom box in the lobby. I peeked through the plate-glass windows and saw that the lobby was clear. There was a floor-polishing machine parked near the reception desk. All the other activity had moved into the Marketing wing.

  I dashed down the dark hall and into Gloria's work area. Got the keys out of her desk. Opened Gunther's door. Shut it quietly behind me. And opened the filing cabinet next to Gunther's desk.

  There wasn't enough light filtering in from outside to read by, so I had to use my special flashlight. Under Orbach, Karen, there was a package full of cassettes from recent debriefings. I carefully copied out the notations on the labels onto my blank cassettes and substituted them for the sessions recorded immediately before Goss was shot down. I had to hope nobody would notice the difference between my handwriting and Gloria's and investigate further. It was a pretty safe gamble that nobody would actually listen to these in the next forty-eight hours, after which I could find some excuse to visit Gloria and replace them. I didn't dare take the paper files themselves, but I could make notes in shorthand, couldn't I?

  I hadn't gotten past my initial medical reports and job application before I heard someone outside, near Gloria's desk.

  There was nowhere to hide. I slid the packet of tapes into the back waistband of my sweatpants and closed the drawer. I clicked off the flashlight with my thumb and dropped it in the pocket of my sweatshirt just as the door swung open and a round industrial vaccuum cleaner came into Gunther's office, followed by a small blonde. She turned on the light, saw me, and gave a hoarse cry. My hand flew to my mouth. I was at least as surprised as she was, but not for the same reason.

  I knew her.

  It was Clarissa Delgado, one of several girls I'd known and hated in high school because her sole mission in life had been to insult and humiliate me at every opportunity. Clarissa was pretty but not too bright, and she wasn't above snickering at my tennis serve or making nasty remarks in the locker room during gym (the only class we shared because, like I said, she was not top bright).

  What she was doing up here in Woodcliff Lake was anybody's guess. She looked six or seven months pregnant, and shoving the vacuum cleaner around probably wasn't a lot of fun. That ought to have given me some satisfaction, but I was freaked out to see her again. She sank against the wall, staring at me, and brushed her feathered hair away from her eyes, which were heavily lined in purple and shadowed with pale blue powder.

  'Clarissa,' I said as neutrally as I could. I was conscious of the fact that my voice sounded like a bassoon. I can't see anything wrong with a woman having a deep voice, but people like Clarissa always make me feel like I have six legs.

  Her eyes narrowed. 'I know you,’ she said. 'You went to East Rutherford, didn't you?'

  Experience had softened my accent and exaggerated hers. I snorted softly, then checked myself because I could tell that I remembered her a lot better than she remembered me.

  'You work here or you breaking in?' she said sharply.

  'I work here.'

  'Working late, huh?' That sneering voice. Hadn't changed. She could read from a driver's ed manual and make it sound sarcastic.

  'I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for Gunther,’ I said. 'You just woke me up, now.'

  She nodded. She tilted her head quizzically.

  'So that's why the light was off.' She read the plate on the door. 'Gunther Stengel. He your boss?'

  'Sort of. He's a colleague.' I wanted her to think I was on a par with Gunther, even though under the circumstances that would be pushing things in a stupid way.

  'Where's your office?'

  'I uh, don't have one.'

  'You always come to work in a black jogging outfit? You jog, Cookie?'

  She grinned. She had remembered my name.

  'Fridays we dress down,’ I said, clinging to the shreds of my sense of dignity.

  'Uh-huh.' She tossed the handle of the vaccuum into the corner and let the door close behind her.

  'I guess your job pays pretty good, then, right?'

  I shrugged. I wasn't sure how to play this. Clarisssa must be hard up if she was working as a night cleaner. I probably shouldn't rub her nose in it. 'Can't complain.'

  'Because this is the kind of thing I got to tell my supervisor about.'

  'Oh,’ I said, grokking. 'You don't have to bother him – or her – with that.'

  'No?' She raised her eyebrows. I dug in my purse, thinking Thank God I didn't listen to Miles and leave it behind.

  'Do you ever find spilled change when you're cleaning?' I said in a conversational tone.

  'Yeah, but we got to report it.'

  'Oh.' I held up a fifty.

  'Two of those and I'll let you out the fire exit.'

  We went down the dark corridor to the back of the building, she like a little pregnant elf and me like a big troll. My money had vanished into her bra. The envelope in my pants made me feel like I was wearing a diaper. It made shushing noises when I moved.

  'See ya, walrus!' Claarissa called after me. 'Coo-coo ka-choo!'

  Her laughter followed me across the parking lot and into the rhododendrons, where I crouched for several minutes before I worked up the nerve to make my way back to Miles's car.

  'Any problems?' he said, looking up from a Thomas Wolfe paperback.

  I shook my head.

  'Where's the evidence?'

  'I'm sitting on it.'

  I kept sitting on it, too, for several days, much to Miles's frustration. At the dojo, everybody was getting psyched up for the big tournament. It was scheduled for a Sunday, and on Saturday there was going to be a big test for new color belts and black belts. The Okinawan masters of the Budokokutai, our new organization, were arriving on Thursday and the exams would be conducted by Master Hideki and his younger brother, Masunobu, and the other senior members of their group who were flying over. Shihan Norman had been collecting money from us all year to pay for their trip, and everyone was excited because Okinawa is the island where karate originated and the masters from there are the best in the world. Shihan Norman's teacher, Shihan Ingenito, was coming in from California and Sensei Price was coming down from Buffalo, so our dojo was going to be hosting a lot of important masters and their students.

  This meant extra cleaning, extra training, lessons on karate history and etiquette, Japanese vocabulary – you name it. Shihan Norman fluttered around like a big chubby chicken, his chinless mouth endlessly wagging and the light flashing off his thick glasses as he constantly scanned the dojo, seeking imperfections to point out.

  Miss Cooper didn't have as much time for me, but I didn't mind. I was going full-throttle on straight exercise: weight lifting, jogging, stuff like that. I watched from the weight room as the black belts had special classes and lectures. Miss Cooper was being brought out to demonstrate all kinds of stuff. Evidently the Okinawans didn't allow their women to train at all, and Shihan wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be criticized over Miss Cooper. So she had to get even stronger, even more proficient, and she had to learn to keep her eyes down, apparently. She practically moved into the dojo, there was so much for her to do.

  Miles called me several times a day and after a while I started letting the machine get it. Miles wasn't very happy with me. After my little adventure with Clarissa Delgado, I insisted on keepi
ng the files to myself so that I could listen to them privately. He didn't like that. Miles liked to be in control. And he liked it even less when I didn't immediately tear into the information.

  But I didn't like being pushed.

  I just wanted a little time to not think about it. I was feeling uneasy and there was some kind of battle going on in my head. I didn't want to deal with things. I didn't want to do the things I knew I had to do. I was feeling sorry for myself, and when I wasn't at the dojo I spent a lot of time wandering around supermarkets with an empty shopping cart, looking for something I dared buy and eat without being sick. I hung out in the cereal aisle, hoping to catch a glimpse of somebody buying Cookie Starfishes, as if this would give me some self-insight, or some reification. I never saw it happen. People tended to buy a lot of Cheerios, though, which told me nothing.

  No matter what I did, I felt like I couldn't get a break. Quark was the closest thing I had to recreation, and it wasn't even Quark. It was Cookie's Hell Planet.

  'Nobody is going to tell me that what I'm seeing is just some stupid marketing shit,' I told Nebbie. 'Nobody. I don't know what's going on around here, but this is important and it's real and I'm going to find out more.'

  Still, I felt queasy when I put the first tape in my stereo. This was a cross between reading someone's diary, and seeing dirty magazines for the first time, and the folded test paper that comes back to you and you have to open it and see the F written in huge red letters at the top. I was all nervous and miserable and eager and guilty and thrilled.

  But the first half-hour was just me droning on about what I'd seen. It was old stuff from several months ago. Once the novelty of hearing my voice on tape had worn off, I got bored and skipped ahead.

  A man I didn't know was talking.

  Unknown Man: 'Dr. Stengel, what do you make of the references on Session C?'

  Gunther: 'Our lexical-analysis programs picked up Apocalypse Now, Snoopy, and Blade Runner. I have no idea what Cookie was looking at. You know this is a double-blind test.'