A picture of Collingsworth flashed on the screen.
“For,” the announcer lowered his voice to a grave pitch, “he is additionally sought in connection with the most ghastly murder in local police annals—that of Avery Collingsworth, consultant psychologist on Reactions’ staff.”
It was a full minute before I took another breath. The Operator had already gotten around to Avery!
The newscaster went on to describe the “stark brutality” of Dr. Collingsworth’s murder.
“Police,” he intoned emotionally, “called the death the most vicious mutilation ever committed. Dismembered fragments of the body—joints of fingers, forearms, ears—were found strewn about Collingsworth’s study. Each stump was, in turn, carefully cauterized to control loss of blood so that death would be forestalled during the barbarous torture.”
Appalled, I snapped off the video set. I tried to shake my head clear, but I could see only visions of Avery—helpless, terrified, knowing all the while that he couldn’t escape what was happening to him.
It hadn’t been a physical agent, a Contact Unit, who had done that. It had been the Operator Himself, using extra-physical means of torture. I could see Collingsworth screaming in agony while the terminal segment of his little finger was detached, as though severed by a knife; while a modified laserbeam appeared from nowhere to seal off the stub.
I rose, swearing in horror. I knew now that the Operator was a sadist. Perhaps, in that Higher Existence, everybody was.
I went back to the window, opened the curtains on the murky purple of late twilight and sat there gripping my rifle and waiting. For what? The police? The Contact Unit?
Briefly, it occurred to me that the Operator might not know where I was. But I rejected that possibility. He had probably already coupled himself with me since my arrival here. Oh, that was possible, all right—even likely. For I saw now that I had been aware of previous couplings only because He had wanted it that way—so He could savor my tortured reaction.
Outside, the dark deepened and a myriad stars, swept into and out of visibility by wind-tossed foliage, made the blackness seem like a lambent field of fireflies. Crickets chirruped their doleful accompaniment to the flickering night. In the distance, a bullfrog rounded out the score with an occasional bass note.
The illusion of reality was oh, so complete. Even the minor details had been meticulously provided. Up There, They had stinted on but few of Their simulectronic props. They had inadvertently allowed only minor, imperceptible inconsistencies.
I found myself looking into my star-spangled sky, trying to see through the universal illusion into absolute reality. But, then, that Real World was in no physical direction from my own. It was not in my universe, nor I in Its. At the same time, though, It was everywhere around me, hidden by an electronic veil.
I tried to imagine how Phil Ashton had felt when he had climbed up out of Fuller’s simulator. My thoughts wandered up a notch to the Higher Existence. What must it be like Up There? How vastly different from the pseudoreality I knew?
Then I understood that it couldn’t be very different at all. The world of Phil Ashton, sustained by the currents in Fuller’s simulator, had had to be, in effect, a replica of my own if the predictions we got from that analog creation were to have valid application up here.
Similarly, my world would have to track that Higher Existence. Most of the institutions would have to be the same. Our culture, our historical background, even our heritage and destiny would have to correspond.
And the Operator, and all the other people Up There, would have to be human beings, just like us, since our existence could be justified only as analogs of Them.
The darkness outside faded before a cast of intensifying illumination that was playing against the trees. Then I heard the swish of an air car as it followed its lights down.
I studded the door open and hurled myself outside, diving behind a hedge and bringing my rifle up before me.
The car cushioned down, extinguished its lights and cut its engine. Desperately, I squinted into the suddenly impenetrable night.
It wasn’t a police car. And there was only one occupant.
The door opened and the driver climbed halfway out.
I cut loose with the laserifle.
Secondary illumination from the broad crimson beam limned the features of—Jinx Fuller! And, in that same confusing moment, I watched her slump to the ground.
Shouting her name, I hurled the rifle aside and lunged into the clearing, boundlessly grateful that I had choked the weapon down to only stun intensity.
Long after midnight I was still pacing in the cabin, waiting for her to revive. But I knew she would be unconscious for some time, since her head had been included in the laser spraying. Nevertheless, she would suffer but few after-effects, thanks to the broad beam.
Innumerable times during the early morning hours I groped through the darkness to place cold towels on her head. But it wasn’t until dawn began filtering through the curtains that she moaned and brought a limp hand to her forehead.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “What happened?”
“I sprayed you, Jinx,” I said, contritely. “I didn’t mean to. I thought you were the Con—the police.”
I had caught myself just in time. I couldn’t complicate things further by re-exposing her to bits of forbidden knowledge.
She tried to sit up. I supported the effort with a hand behind her back.
“I—I heard about the trouble you were in,” she said. “I had to come.”
“You shouldn’t have! No telling what might happen. You’ve got to leave!”
Attempting to stand, she only fell back upon the couch. She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere for a while-not by herself.
“No, Doug,” she insisted. “I want to stay here with you. I came as soon as I found out.”
With my help she finally made it to her feet and clung to me, crying softly against my cheek. I held her as though she might be the only real thing in this entire illusive world. And I staggered under an overwhelming sense of loss. All my life I had wanted someone like Jinx. Finding her, however, had been but a hollow accomplishment. For there was no reality save the surge of biasing impulses in simulectronic circuits.
She backed off and stared compassionately into my face, then came forward again. She pressed her lips against mine, fiercely. It was almost as though she, too, knew what was going to happen.
While I kissed her I thought wistfully of what might have been. If only the Operator had succeeded in having Fuller’s simulator destroyed! If only I were still with Reactions, so I could do it myself! If only the Simulectronicist in that Upper Reality had reoriented me as he had reoriented Jinx!
“We’re going to stay together, Doug,” she whispered. “I’m never going to leave you, darling.”
“But you can’t!” I protested.
Hadn’t she realized how impossible everything was? On the basis of the threat posed by Siskin and his police, alone, there was no hope for me.
Then I drew back confused, forced once again to consider reasonable alternatives. Either her love for me was so limitless that nothing would stand in its way. Or she simply wasn’t aware of all the police charges against me. Certainly she hadn’t heard how Collingsworth had died, or she wouldn’t be here now.
“You know I’m wanted for the murder of your father, don’t you?” I said.
“You didn’t do it, darling.”
“And—Avery Collingsworth?”
She hesitated. “You didn’t—couldn’t have—done that.”
It was almost as though she were speaking from personal, absolute knowledge. Her loyalty, her love were that intense. I was only thankful now that They had successfully reoriented her, that she didn’t have to face the peril I was now facing.
She caught my hand and turned toward the door. “Maybe we can get away, Doug! We’ll find some place to hide!”
When I didn’t move, she relaxed her grip and my hand
fell from hers.
“No,” she told herself despondently, “there’s nowhere we can go. They’ll find us.”
She didn’t know how true that was. And I was infinitely relieved that she was altogether unaware of the ambiguity of the “they” she had used.
There was a noise outside and I seized my rifle. At the window, I parted the curtains, but saw only a doe thrashing through the hedge to get to the now-empty feeding bin.
Alertly, it lifted its head and looked toward the cabin. My fears allayed, I let the curtains fall back in place. Then I tensed. Rarely were there deer in the area at this time of the year. I turned back to the window. The animal headed toward Jinx’s car, stopped a short distance away and regarded the open door.
I tightened my grip on the laserifle. The deer in this lower world might be simple props, existing only as shadows cast against the illusive background to add to the appearance of reality. Exit, then again, they might enjoy as much pseudo-physiological validity, in a limited sense, as the ID units themselves.
If the latter were the case, there was no reason why a doe couldn’t be conveniently programmed to wander into a clearing before a lakeside cabin and, through empathy coupling, monitor what was going on in the vicinity!
The animal turned its head toward the cabin, ears perking at the still brightening sky and nose twitching.
“What is it?” Jinx asked.
“Nothing,” I said, concealing my anxiety. “If you feel up to it, you might dial us a couple of cups of coffee.”
I watched her stagger toward the kitchen, then eased the window open, just wide enough to accommodate the linear intensifier of the weapon. I choked down a bit on the spread.
Eventually the doe turned away, heading for the garage.
I hit the firing stud and sprayed the animal for a full ten seconds, concentrating on its head as it lay motionless.
At the hissing sound of the discharge, Jinx was back in the kitchen doorway. “Doug! It’s not—”
“No. Just a deer. I dropped it for a couple of hours. It was about to get into your car.”
We sipped coffee silently, across the bar from each other in the kitchen. Her face was drawn, stripped of its cosmetic propriety, tense. An errant tress of dark hair hung down to eclipse part of an eye. But her appearance could not be described as haggard. For in the absence of the sheen of sophistication, the charm of her youth came through, unpretentious, unspoiled.
She glanced at her watch, for the second time since accepting the cups from the slot, and reached across the bar to take both my hands. “What are we going to do, darling?”
I lied with profound intensity. “I only have to stay hidden for a day or two. Then everything will work itself out.” I paused to improvise further. “You see, Whitney can prove I didn’t kill Collingsworth. He’s probably doing that right now.”
She didn’t appear relieved. She only looked down at her watch again.
“That’s why you’re going to get in that car and cushion off just as soon as you feel strong enough,” I continued. “If you turn up missing too, that may double their chance of finding me. They might even think of looking out here.”
Stubbornly, she said, “I’m staying with you.”
Not feeling like arguing the point at the moment, I trusted in my ability to persuade her later on. “Hold down the fort. I’m going to shave while I still have the chance.”
When I had finished ten minutes later, I stepped back into the trophy room and found the front door open. Jinx was out there bending over the stunned doe. She glanced back at the cabin and continued casually across the clearing.
I watched her disappear into the forest, carrying herself with the graceful, flowing motions of a nymph. Even though I was determined she would leave as soon as possible, I was glad she had come.
Then a laserbeam of mocking realization exploded against my consciousness: How had she known I was at the cabin? I had never told her about this place.
I grabbed my rifle and started after her. Sprinting across the clearing, I plunged into the woods. Among the giant, swaying pines, I paused and strained for the sound of feet crunching on fallen needles to determine which way she had gone.
Then I heard what I was listening for and charged off in that direction. I broke through underbrush into a small clearing and pulled up—face to face with a startled ten-point buck.
Beyond, far beyond, I saw Jinx poised in a slanted shaft of early sunlight. But inconsistency sounded an alarm and I stared back at the buck. Though startled, it hadn’t bolted.
Abruptly, the instant, fierce pressures of faulty empathic coupling burst upon my senses. Stunned from the impact of roaring noise and vertiginous disorientation, I dropped my rifle.
Through the inner bedlam, I was again aware of what sounded like savage laughter flowing along the simulectronic bond that now joined all my faculties with those of the Operator.
Rearing up, the buck clawed air with its fore hoofs, then dropped back down. It lowered its head and charged.
I staggered under the ordeal of dissonant coupling, but managed to pull myself partly out of the way of the on-rushing deer.
An antler ripped my shirt sleeve and sliced through my forearm like a wire-thin laserbeam. And I imagined that, in response, the laughter of the Operator rose to an almost hysterical pitch.
Again the buck reared and I tried to twist out from under descending hoofs. I almost made it. But the full force of the animal’s weight pounded down upon my shoulder and sent me sprawling.
When I rolled over and came up again, however, it was with the rifle in my hand. I cut the deer down in the middle of its next charge. And, almost in the same moment, I was freed from coupling.
Up ahead, Jinx was still standing in the shaft of sunlight, unaware of what had happened behind her.
But even as I watched, she glanced upward expectantly, then vanished.
15
For an eternity, I stood frozen in the clearing, the stunned buck at my feet, my eyes locked on the spot where Jinx had disappeared.
Now I knew she was the Contact Unit. I had been so wrong in my interpretation of her actions. I had thought she had learned, as Fuller’s daughter, the details of his “basic discovery” but had been trying to hide them from me so that I wouldn’t be deprogrammed.
Upon her disappearance from her house, I had imagined she had been temporarily yanked in order to have the forbidden knowledge stricken from her circuits. I had been certain, later, that erasure of that data had allowed her love for me to find full expression.
But it hadn’t been that way at all.
She had acted odd, before her first disappearance, because she and the Simulectronicist Up There had been concerned. They were worried that I would learn Fuller’s secret.
Then Collingsworth, programmed to dissuade me from my forbidden convictions, succeeded in making me believe I had been suffering such an unlikely thing as “pseudoparanoia.” That belief was uppermost in my thoughts the night I had been empathy-coupled while in the restaurant with Jinx.
The Operator assumed then that I had been thrown off the track. And Jinx, as a Contact Unit, had begun playing the role of ardent lover in order to lure me further from my suspicions.
That was the way things had rocked along until yesterday, when the Operator had learned from Collingsworth that not only I, but Avery too, stubbornly doubted that our world was real.
And Jinx had come here last night for only one purpose: to keep me under her thumb until arrangements could be made for my “natural” death. Maybe she was going to “kill” me herself!
Eventually I was aware of warm blood from the wound dripping off my fingertips. I tore the shirt sleeve off and wrapped it tightly about my gored forearm. Then I started back for the cabin.
I tried again, but couldn’t budge the inconsistencies. For instance, how could Jinx—just disappear? None of the ID characters in Fuller’s simulator could do that, unless—
But, of course! Whenever I wi
thdrew after projecting myself down into Simulacron-3 on a direct surveillance circuit, I did just that!
Jinx, then, was neither a Contact Unit nor a reactional entity. She was a projection of some physical person in that Upper Reality!
But still there were inconsistencies. Why hadn’t I simply been reoriented, as had other ID units, to the alternate fact that Lynch had never existed?
Moreover, the Operator must have frequently coupled Himself empathically with Collingsworth in order to program him in the campaign to destroy Fuller’s simulator. Why, then, had He not learned from Avery, earlier than yesterday, that I could not be shaken from my convictions on the true nature of reality?
The swishing, crackling sound of a falling tree jolted me from my thoughts. Startled, I glanced up.
A huge pine was toppling right overhead!
I tried frantically to get out of the way, but it hit the ground with jarring impact, its upper foliage lashing out at me. Bowled over, I was hurled against another trunk.
Confounded, I rose and backed off, fingering the raw furrow one of the branches had raked in my cheek. Then suddenly my head was reverberating again with the derisive, sickening effects of faulty coupling.
I raced for the cabin, desperately trying to suppress the relentless pain of dissonant empathy. I reached the edge of the clearing, head pounding, vision dazed. And I drew up sharply.
A massive black bear was sniffing Jinx’s car. It sensed my presence and turned. But I wasn’t going to take any chances. I killed it with a pencil-thin laser beam.
That must have deprived the Operator of an eagerly anticipated bonus of sadistic appreciation. For, as the animal dropped, the bond of empathy broke and I was relieved of its fierce pressure.
But it was clear now that I had to get away from the forest. Here there were too many elements of nature that could be manipulated against me. If I had any chance at all, it would be back in the city, where the Operator might not be as free to program my counterfeit environment against me.
Counterfeit World Page 14
