Realms of Light

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  There was also a red panel with white lettering that said “Emergency access—alarm will sound.”

  I considered that for a moment, and then decided I didn’t care about setting off any alarms. It would mean I wouldn’t have much time to explore before trouble showed up, and I might need to go ahead and get Dad out now instead of waiting, maybe make a run for it, but I was here, and I wanted to know if he was really in there. I slid the panel up, and found a single big red button behind it. I pressed it, hard, with my thumb.

  Sure enough, an alarm sounded—a sort of hooting. I ignored it, and watched as the door shook slightly; then the latch released and the door slid open.

  It had opened less than halfway when I slipped sideways past it into the tank farm.

  The alarms were hooting in here, too, and red lights were flashing, though the regular lights were on, too.

  “Please identify yourself,” something said.

  “Hu Xiao,” I said. “Officer of the court, on city business.” I was in a corridor, with rows of black panels set with video displays on either side—dreamtanks, I assumed. I had never seen one up close before.

  The hooting stopped, but the red flashes didn’t. “Please state the nature of your business.”

  “I’m investigating a reported kidnaping,” I lied, trotting down the corridor.

  At the first intersection I stopped and looked around for some indication of where I should go, and saw that the passage I was in was labeled T5, while the corridor crossing it was R1. I headed straight on.

  At the next intersection Corridor T5 crossed Corridor R2. I smiled; that seemed straightforward enough, and picked up the pace.

  “Please explain the nature of your investigation,” the voice said, startling me. It had been quiet for so long I thought it had given up.

  “Classified,” I told it.

  R3, R4...

  “Human personnel have been contacted, and are on their way to discuss the situation,” it said. “Please have your city ID ready.”

  “Of course,” I said, and I drew the HG-2.

  “Officer Hu, your appearance and voice do not match the information on file.”

  “Rejuve surgery,” I said as I got to the corner of R6 and hesitated. “I need to update that.” I picked a direction at random and turned right.

  Bad choice. The intersections were much farther apart in this direction, so by the time I spotted the red T6 on the wall above the corner tank I could hear footsteps in the distance.

  “Hello?” someone called. It sounded like a man, not a machine, but you can’t always tell. “Officer Hu?”

  “Over here,” I called. “Row Five.” I turned and hurried back down Row Six, hoping we wouldn’t cross the Tier 5 corridor at the same time.

  We didn’t. A moment later the voice was behind me, calling, “Officer Hu?”

  I was in Row 6, between the T4 and T5 corridors—did that put me in Tier 4? And which tank was Station 31? I didn’t see any numbers.

  “Officer Hu, if you don’t show yourself I’ll have to call Security.”

  “I’m over here,” I said, while I wondered who I was talking to. Wasn’t he Security? Did he mean he’d have to call for reinforcements? I stopped midway down the row and studied the nearest dreamtank’s display panel. It was blank. I tapped it with a fingernail.

  The word STANDBY appeared on the panel.

  “Status report,” I said.

  “Officer Hu?”

  “Right here,” I called, as the screen lit up.

  The red flashing lights were distracting, but I could read the screen. TIER 4, ROW 6, STATION 18, it said at the top. OHTA, AZRAEL—I took that to be the occupant’s name. A screenful of data appeared below that—medical data, a list of recently-played dreams, and more. Azrael Ohta’s blood glucose was 72 and his BP was 91 over 63, which both seemed a little low, but otherwise he appeared to be in good health, and he was eighty-three minutes into something called “Desert Encounter 306,” with thirty-one minutes to go.

  But he wasn’t my father. I turned around and looked at the opposite side of the corridor. A tap on that panel got me the STANDBY message.

  And then a paunchy guy in a purple turban and blue worksuit appeared at the corner of T5 and R6, looking at me.

  “You’re not Hu Xiao,” he said

  “Neither are you,” I said, hoping to confuse him.

  “I saw a picture,” he said. “You aren’t Officer Hu. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  I sighed, pressed the power button, and raised the HG-2. “I’m threatening you with a heavy-gravity handgun loaded with homing incendiaries,” I said. “That’s what I’m doing here. Now, are you going to cooperate, or is this going to get nasty?”

  Chapter Twelve

  He raised his hands slowly and stared at me. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m the person with the gun,” I told him, as I stepped away from the dreamtank and trained the HG-2 on his generously-sized belly. “That’s all you need to know right now.”

  “You’re trespassing.”

  “Oh, there’s a shock,” I said. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed?”

  “What do you want here? There’s nothing worth stealing.”

  “Is that why you aren’t armed?”

  “Why would I be armed? I’m just maintenance.”

  “Not security?”

  “No. Why would we have a human guard here? There’s nothing worth stealing!”

  “Security has been summoned,” the room said.

  “Tell them to stay back—there’s a hostage situation,” I said, keeping the gun pointed at the maintenance worker.

  “They won’t be here for twenty minutes anyway,” my hostage said. “Our security is the casino cops from the Ginza, and they’ll want to clear it with management before they come down here.”

  I considered that, then asked, “Why are you telling me?”

  “Hey, you’re pointing a gun at me. I don’t want you getting nervous because things aren’t going the way you expect them to.”

  That made sense. “Which of these is Station 31?” I asked, nodding toward the dreamtanks on my right. “Give me a hand, and I can be out of here before the casino cops ever show up. No danger of getting caught in the crossfire.”

  “Thirty-One?” He blinked, then pointed, keeping his hand high as he did. “Over there somewhere.” The hands drooped a little. “Is that what you’re after? One of these lose... I mean, one of our clients?”

  “That’s right. Can you get him out for me?”

  “You gonna kill him?”

  I grimaced. “No,” I said. Then a memory of what it had felt like when the three of us got the news that our parents were dumping us stirred in the back of my head somewhere, and I added, “Though he maybe deserves it.”

  “He owes you money?” He shook his head. “He can’t pay it. That’s part of the deal. The company takes control of all assets and all debts when the babies go in the bottle. They give up control of their own affairs. If he has any money left, he can’t touch it.”

  “I know that!” I snapped. “I’m not here to...never mind. Just open Station 31, will you? It’s none of your business what I want with him.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. No juice out of my system.” He lowered his hands and headed toward one of the tanks. He tapped the display and said, “Maintenance.”

  The screen lit up. He glanced at it and said, “Oops.” He moved two panels over and repeated his performance, except this time instead of “oops,” he said, “Got it.”

  I moved cautiously closer, keeping the gun ready and staying a couple of meters out of reach.

  TIER 4, ROW 6, STATION 31, the top line of the display read, and the second line said HSING, GUOHAN.

  That was him.

  “Huh,” the maintenance worker said. “Is that spelled right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Get him out.”

  “I mean, it’s usually Singh, S I N G H. That’s how I spell it. Maybe t
he H is in the wrong place.”

  I put that together with the guy’s turban. “He’s not a Sikh,” I said. “The name’s Chinese, with an archaic spelling. Now, get him out of there.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” the turbaned man—presumably Mis’ Singh—said.

  “Security is on its way,” the room reminded us. “Please do not take any hasty actions.”

  “Get him out,” I repeated.

  “He’s been in there a long time,” the maintenance worker warned me. “If I get him out he’s going to be pretty disoriented, and there’s probably been some muscle atrophy.”

  I hadn’t really thought that through. I knew he might not be feeling very cooperative after being snatched out of his mechanical womb, away from his pretty fantasies, but that was one reason I’d brought the gun. That he might not be able to walk could complicate matters.

  I couldn’t take the whole tank; it was too big, and built into the floor. It wasn’t designed to move. I had to get my father out, and if he couldn’t walk, that was a problem.

  Fortunately, I had a solution standing right there.

  “You may need to carry him for me, then,” I said. “Don’t worry, he’s not a big man.”

  “After all those years in there, I’ll bet he’s not.” He glanced around. “Carry him where?”

  “Anywhere I can get a cab.”

  He looked baffled. “You’re taking him away with you? Why? He’s a dreamer, nobody’s going to ransom him or anything.”

  “I know that.”

  “Does he know something you want? Are you planning to question him? Because there might be some memory loss...”

  “You ask a lot of questions for someone being held at gunpoint,” I said. “Just get him out.” I pressed a button on the HG-2, and it made a threatening whine, as if the targeting mechanism were adjusting.

  The real targeting mechanism was completely silent, of course; the button was just sound effects.

  The sound effects worked, though; Mis’ Singh, if that was his name, stopped asking questions and got busy with the panel on T4 R6 S31. A moment later there was a hiss, then a whir, and then Station 31 opened and a bed slid out.

  And there was my father, lying naked in the bed—not on it, but sunk down into it, surrounded by worn brown plastic. He was curled into foetal position, lying on his left side, but going by the wear on the plastic, and the condition of his skin, he had been turned every so often. Tubes ran into both arms, his mouth, nose, anus, and urethra; a visor covered his eyes, and a heavy-duty cable was plugged into the back of his skull and secured with a clamp around his throat. He was shriveled and shrunken, his skin dry and flaking, his hair long and ragged; the only part of him that still looked healthy and normal was the wire job on his neck and one side of his head.

  I hadn’t seen him in years, and when I did he hadn’t looked like this, he’d been healthy and alert, but all the same, I recognized him immediately. This was Guohan Hsing, all right. This was my father, genetically if not legally.

  “Get him out of there,” I said again. The maintenance guy tapped the control panel; the throat clamp released with a sharp click, and tubes started withdrawing. I decided I didn’t need to watch that, and focused my attention on the paunchy man’s face, but I could hear the tubes sliding from their places, which was almost as bad.

  “Do you want him awake?” Singh asked.

  “Waking Mis’ Hsing is a violation of his contract,” the room said. “Please wait for Security before taking further action.”

  “I just want him alive,” I said. “Awake or asleep doesn’t really matter right now.”

  “Waking Mis’ Hsing is a violation of his contract,” the voice repeated.

  “Can you shut that thing off?” I asked Singh. I gestured with the gun. “It’s annoying me.”

  “Not from here,” the maintenance worker said.

  “It’s not very bright.”

  “It doesn’t have to be, to watch over a bunch of dreamers.”

  The hiss and gurgle of retracting tubes stopped, and I heard the rasping as my father began breathing unassisted for the first time in years. I hesitated before looking at him, though; I wasn’t sure I really wanted to see him.

  “They didn’t give it much authority, did they?” I said, putting off the inevitable. “You didn’t need to do anything to override it.”

  “You just said it’s not very bright, Mis’. Would you trust it with anyone’s life?”

  Then Dad coughed, a harsh, choking cough, and I turned to help.

  So did the maintenance guy. Between us we got my father into a sitting position as he choked and gasped, his lungs struggling to work unaided. He coughed uncontrollably for what seemed like half an hour, but which my symbiote told me was only about twenty seconds, and when he was finally able to stop he was wide awake, sitting in his plastic bed. He raised one trembling hand and lifted off the visor, then looked up at us.

  He tried to talk, but all that came out was a wheeze, and that started him coughing again. I decided not to wait. “Pick him up,” I told Singh. I had lowered the gun while we moved my father; now I pointed it again.

  He hesitated, glancing at Dad. “What are you going to do with him?” he asked.

  “I’m going to get him off Epimetheus before sunrise,” I said. “Pick him up!”

  “Security will arrive in approximately eighty-five seconds,” the room said. “Please stand by.”

  “Off-planet? How?” Singh asked.

  “I have a ship,” I said. “It’s waiting at the port. Unless you want to get caught in the crossfire, I suggest you pick him up and get him out of here before those eighty-five seconds are up.”

  Singh took maybe half a second to think it over, then nodded. He bent down, tugged the loose clamp out of the way, unplugged the cable from the back of Dad’s neck, then slid his arms under shoulders and knees and picked my father up. Either the maintenance guy was stronger than he looked, or Dad weighed about as much as a cup of tea. He put up about as much resistance as a tea cup, too.

  “Which way?” Singh asked.

  “Out,” I said. “Wherever Security isn’t. You show me.”

  He nodded and began walking, and said, “What kind of ship?”

  “A yacht,” I said, following him. I had to trot to keep up. “Not mine.”

  “Room for another passenger?”

  I should have expected that. “If it won’t get me arrested, there might be.”

  “Hey, getting me out isn’t anywhere near as illegal as kidnaping this poor guy I’m carrying.”

  “Stop right there!” a new voice called.

  I turned, the HG-2 in my hand, but before I could say anything Singh called, “It’s okay, guys!”

  I didn’t point the gun at anyone after all; instead I just looked at the two cops who were coming down the aisle toward us. They had guns, too—nothing quite as big as the HG-2, but probably more than enough to kill me several times over. A floater was hanging just above and behind them, scanning the scene.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, trying to sound confused.

  “The surveillance system here reported a hostage situation,” the lead cop said, keeping his gun trained on me. The second cop, I noticed, was pointing his gun at Singh.

  Singh had been telling the truth about Seventh Heaven’s security; these two were in charcoal-gray suits with the Ginza logo on the breast and security badges on their sleeves. Casino cops—that was both good and bad. Good, because they didn’t really care about the law, only about what was good for business, and shooting potential customers was pretty much never good for business. Bad, because they not only didn’t care whether I was breaking the law, they didn’t care whether they were, either—they could play rough.

  “The surveillance system is an idiot,” Singh said. “There’s a maintenance problem, that’s all—I had to get this poor loser out before his tank poisoned him.”

  “Who are you?”

  Singh si
ghed. “I’m Minish Singh, second-shift maintenance.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Hu Xiao. She wanted me to check on this guy—he’s a potential witness. Good thing she did; he’d have been dead in an hour.”

  I thought that was pretty good improvisation; I wondered whether they’d buy it. I didn’t think I would have, but I’m not a casino cop. Casino cops don’t like trouble.

  “Surveillance, can you confirm?”

  “Minish Singh, confirmed. However, this person does not match city records of Hu Xiao.”

  “I told you, rejuve,” I said. “My files need updating.”

  “She’s Officer Hu,” Singh said.

  “She threatened Mis’ Singh with what she called a heavy-gravity handgun loaded with homing incendiaries,” the room said. I thought it sounded... miffed, maybe. Or pettish. One of those strange old words that shouldn’t apply to a half-witted piece of software.

  “Fine, my weapon isn’t standard issue,” I said. “Is that any of your concern?”

  “You threatened him?” the lead cop asked.

  “What?” I tried to look innocent. “No, I didn’t threaten him, I just told him to hurry.”

  The second cop spoke for the first time. “Who’s the corpse?” he asked.

  “I’m not...” Dad said. Then his voice gave out, and he coughed instead of finishing the sentence.

  “Guohan Hsing,” Singh said.

  “He’s a potential witness in a kidnap,” I said, trying to reconcile the story I’d given the room with the story Singh had made up.

  “I’m not dead,” Dad said. This time he got the whole thing out, but so quietly I’m not sure the cops heard him.

  They didn’t care, in any case. To them he was a body Seventh Heaven had been storing, and whether he was alive or dead was a technical detail that didn’t interest them.

  “His tank glitched,” Singh said.

  “Or was hacked,” I said.

  “Surveillance, who’s the hostage here?” the less-talkative cop asked.

  “The intruder calling herself Hu Xiao was holding Mis’ Singh at gunpoint.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “I was just trying to hurry him a little. Who wrote this piece of gritware, anyway? I’m sorry to drag you two down here, guys—I guess this surveillance system’s a little buggy.”