Find your own truth s-3

by Robert N. Charrette

  Janice looked at them and felt her stomach growl. The hunger grew with each day. Had it been an ordinary hunger, the pangs would have stopped days ago. When a human starves to death, hunger dies within his empty belly long before his body surrenders to death. Meat she had had, but not real nourishment. The steady diet of small furred things Ghost was providing kept her alive, but failed to sate the hunger.

  How many more nights until she could stand it no longer?

  She was tired, worn from her struggle. She lay back, feeling as though she might sleep. She had fought off the urge all day, through her normal sleeping time, just to avoid the dreams. She had lain restless within the darkness of the basement of the house where she and Ghost hid, waiting for her brother to come up with a solution. A slim hope, at best. And didn't she know better than to hope? There had been no word from him for days and he was probably dead. So why did she wait?

  She was tired, but sleep brought the nightmares. She didn't want to sleep, but somehow she fell into its embrace.

  In sleep, they waited for her. They waited, the facesj. all as one and one as all. She slipped deeper into the dark realms, past the places of rest. She hung at the doors of the precincts of restoration and looked through the locked panels wistfully. Satiating the hunger was the only restorative for her now. A small voice whispered of another way, but she didn't believe what it said. The voice belonged to a man, and all men were liars. They proved their perfidy when they pounced.

  She laughed with joy when his arms went around her. He held her close, slipping easily into the compass of her great, brawny arms. For all his elven slim-ness, her Hugh was strong. He reminded her of Dan Shiroi, but that was impossible, because she hadn't met Dan yet. Hugh laughed at her confusion. But his eyes didn't laugh. How could they? Those golden orbs did not belong to Hugh, but to the evil one who had brought the change.

  She tore herself from the grasp of the golden-eyed

  Hugh and ran, but she could not escape the eyes. They bore down upon her and pinned her to a table. Cold steel pressed against her naked back and straps bound her wrists, ankles, waist, and brow to the hard metal.

  Empty white coats drifted around her in a dance of scientific enquiry. The eyes had their own questions.

  " She had questions too. Why? Why? And why?

  The terrible gold eyes stared through her as though she didn't exist. The man who owned them didn't an 198

  Robert N. Charrette swer her questions. He ignored her pleas and asked the questions that were his and not his. She tried to answer, but he was always disappointed in her. Why should he be any different from other men? She wanted to answer him, he deserved her answers. He was authority, and her life was his to redeem or cast away. She knew that was true because he told her so.

  She remembered him leaning close to her ear and whispering his name. She knew this was a real memory, just as she knew what had seemed a nightmare at the time was real. He was so very real, even if his eyes were not. His identity had made her tremble, for it meant the end of the world as she had come to know it. He had spoken his name and laughed, telling her that the drugs would take it away and leave her only with the memory of having known it once. She had screamed at him for mercy until she cried, but he had seemed to think her reaction all the finer a jest. She had been human then. She hadn't known real pain. He had taught her. Or rather, the white coats had. "Not the solution," they said, in a ghostly chorus of disembodied voices, when they had finished. "She has told all and tells nothing."

  "Unacceptable," Gold Eyes said in her brother's voice.

  "She cannot be restored," the coat chorus pronounced.

  "Unacceptable." Always the same judgment.

  The biggest of the white coats moved to Gold Eyes' side. "An experiment that will at once provide data and dispose of the problem. Data. The BioDynamics formula. Data. Metamorphosis. Data. Paradynamic perturbations in the Kano actualization curve. Data. Data for all." Gold Eyes looked at her, sliding along her legs, past her crotch and over her breasts. When' she stared into those eyes, he spoke. "Proceed." Unacceptable!

  Needles! Too many needles! But Hugh was there to comfort her, and the awful table was gone. They lay on the scratchy, vermin-infested bed they had called home on Yomi. In thunder and lightning they made love, and he filled and drained her simultaneously. She loved him and pledged him her life again, as she had on Yomi. He caressed her breast and fur sprouted after the passage of his hand; he smoothed her hair and her sandy blond tresses thickened and turned a frigid white. His kiss lingered on her lips. His tongue flickered into her mouth, only to draw away and pull her canines into fangs.

  She cried with the pain and he laughed. They all laughed until the sound became a wail of mourning.

  Janice Verner was dead. Betrayed and murdered. Her dreams were ashes.

  Her mother's eyes were filled with tears and her father's eyes glistened. He was too much a man to shed tears. She ran toward them, wanting to bury herself in their arms. She passed through their outstretched arms like a ghost. But it was they who were ghosts, not she. She could not yet join them.

  Why should she want to? They had not been there for her when Gold Eyes had given her to the white coats, or Ken had spurned her, or the boat had carried her to Yomi. They had not been there for her since that awful night when they had left her with Sam. Sam, the strong older brother who had carried her away and taken her to the embrace of dear old Renraku. Sam, the protector who had left her with Gold Eyes. Sam, the defender who had let them ship her to Yomi. Sam, the slayer of the only true lover she had known.

  Her stomach growled with hunger. Righteous hunger. She was awake.

  Dodger slammed his fist into the telecom's keyboard. The soft flesh of his hand protested the treatment, promising to bruise for days as a reminder of its limitations. What did it matter? It was only meat. Confining, restrictive meat.

  How could they do this? How could they dare?

  It was bad enough that they had the temerity to rip him from the Matrix. But to steal his cyberdeck! Even the telecom was disconnected from thq Matrix and locked into a house-only circuit. He was not a child anymore. This time the old punishment wouldn't stop him.

  Though no longer surrounded by the glories of cy-berspace, he knew where he was. He knew it too well. How he had gotten here was a mystery, but it was a mystery of the flesh and that wasn't important.

  He had to get back into the Matrix.

  How long had he been gone? Her time was not meat time. Did she miss him? Or was he a fading memory, like last year's news, or last century's? Away from the Matrix, he was not part of her existence. Was it already too late?

  They might try to lock him out of the Matrix and into this finely furnished cell, but he was the Dodger. He could never be confined.

  He didn't bother to check the lock before prying open the control plate. Having lived in comfort too long, they had forgotten what could be done with ordinary things. In less than ten seconds he had scrambled the security circuits enough to open the lock. He was reasonably sure that he hadn't set off an alarm, either.

  He felt light-headed. The exhilaration, he supposed. The hall floor was cold against his bare feet, and the speed of his motion made a cool breeze across his naked flesh. Ills of the flesh. Unimportant. As unimportant as his nakedness.

  Naked. How appropriate. Soon it would be more so. As soon as he reached his goal. He knew the mansion well.

  He padded down the back stairs. Two full flights, and three steps of the next flight. He reached down to the floorboard, steadying himself against the railing as' his fragile flesh threatened to betray him. His fingers found the latch and lifted it. A panel rose, revealing a hollow in the wall.

  It was there, just as he remembered: a monitor station. A few keystrokes brought him the message that the connections were all active. He smiled. Fumbling open the storage compartment, he drew forth the da-tacord. His fingers were clumsy nothing but weak flesh things but he got one end of the cord into his datajack
and the other into the port on the station.

  He curled the fingers of his left hand into his palm and gave his wrist the fast double-cock needed to release the prongs. Three tapering cylinders of silver slid from the ectomyelin sheaths in his forearm.

  You can take the decker away from the cyberdeck, but you can't take the Dodger away from his key to the Matrix.

  Naked he would go forth to find her. They said it was too dangerous to enter cyberspace without the buffer of a cyberdeck. They were right, of course; it was dangerous. But he had done it before. Decker slang called it "jacking in naked" when only the decker's organic brain stood as defense against the dangers of 1C and the navigational peculiarities of the Matrix. An organic brain was a fragile thing to stand between the crystalline fury of ice and the darkness of death.

  But what matter danger? A threat to the organic existence was no threat at all, for she was not part of organic existence. She was waiting for him in cyber-space, and Dodger would go to meet her.

  He slid the prongs into the station's data ports, and the infinite glories of the Matrix exploded in his head, filling his soul with their wonder. He saw her in the distance, waiting.

  "Morgan," he called, using the name she had chosen for herself. "I'm coming."

  He flew to her side.

  Sato inspected his arm. To all appearances, it was a normal human arm. The doctors had done their job well. He lifted the gown's sleeve to seek the join. The scar was already fading under the influence of fast-healing drugs and skin-regenerative implants. Very well, indeed.

  "Akabo."

  The enhanced soldier who served as his bodyguard rose smoothly to his feet and crossed the small room. He was still wearing the tight-fitting leathers he preferred for street work.

  "Any word from Masamba?"

  A slight shake of the head. "Mage is still looking. Matrix team is still hunting as well."

  "Then it will be some time before your special talents are needed. I suggest that you pay a visit to the medical team and express my thanks for their work. The usual payment."

  Smiling grimly, Akabo nodded. "What about Sori-yama? He assembled the team."

  "Leave him alive. The good doctor is too valuable. Though a brilliant man, he is not impractical, as are so many scientists. He will understand the warning."

  "Yeah. And he's a bit too tight with Grandmother."

  Akabo flinched back at Sato's reaction. Sato held down the impulse to take his bodyguard by the throat and drain him dry. Let the threat of his anger be enough for now. Akabo would not be so bold as to mention the subject again. Intimidation was enough for now. The killer was himself too valuable to lose. For the moment.

  Howling Coyote cut off the song in mid-note and put the flute down. "Why am I bothering?"

  "Because you promised to teach me," Sam said.

  "Hey hey, Dog boy, wasn't talking to you. Don't need you to tell me the answer. I already know it."

  "Then why never mind." Sam was tired. He had been working all morning at perfecting the shuffling steps the shaman had shown him, but obviously not hard enough for Howling Coyote. In spite of the simplicity of the dance, Sam continued to lose the pattern after only a few minutes. It was as though he couldn't match the rhythm of the music for more than a short period. Though the music didn't seem to change, Sam continued to end up out of step.

  It was all so simple. So why couldn't he get it right?

  He wiped a sweaty forearm across a sweatier brow, then held his arm there to shade his eyes as he looked at the sky. No wonder the old man was exasperated. The sun was low in the sky, and Sam had not managed to keep the dance going for more than half an hour. The history chips said that the Ghost Dancers had performed their ritual for days on end, fresh dancers taking the place of the exhausted, without ever a break in the pattern. The power Sam needed to help Janice wouldn't require that level of performance, but Sam knew he was still not going strong enough or long enough.

  "Are you going to play some more?" Howling Coyote shrugged, then spat. "Ain't what I want to do at issue here."

  "You're the teacher," Sam objected. "I'm here to learn lessons from the master. Seems to me you're not doing your job very well. You promised to teach me." The old man's eyes narrowed, and he stood. "Ya want a lesson, I'll give ya a lesson. Ya gotta strip yourself clean before ya can do the big magics." The laman's hand snaked out and grabbed the pendant nat swung from a thong around Sam's neck. He waved in front of Sam's eyes, then let it drop heavily against Sam's chest. "What's that, Dog boy? What's that thing ou wear around your neck?" "A fossil tooth that I use as a power focus." "Uh-huh. And those things ya got tied onto your aeket?"

  "Fetishes. They help with the magic." "Uh-huh. Got all ya started with?" "Of coarse not. I lost a lot of them when Urdli H^ttMed me through the Weapons World window."

  "Ti-huh. What's the tooth and the fetishes ya got:: iave in common? Where'd ya get them?" ' 'I found the tooth in the badlands, just before I met ~›og for the first time. I thought it was a dragon tooth the time. Dragons are magical beasts, so I made it into something to help me with my magic. That's what -e fetishes are, magical tools I made to help me." "What about the other stuff?"

  P"What other stuff?" "The pictures in the inside pocket, left front." Sam didn't bother to ask how Howling Coyote knew? out that. "They're just pictures. They're not magi-al."

  "They show your sister, your brother, and your par-its, right? What's more magical than family? It's real aportant to you, Dog b'oy. Leastways, that's what ya told Urdli. Ya telling me connections ain't important to magic?"

  Sam wasn't sure what answer the shaman wanted.

  "Ya don't have to answer that. Answer this, though. WhatVe they all got in common?"

  Nothing. Everything. Sam didn't know. What was the old man driving at? All he could do was guess. "They're all connected to my magic."

  "Think up that answer by yourself?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "Just yourself?"

  Exasperated, Sam snapped, "Yes, just myself."

  "Exactly." The old man sat down, took off his reservation hat, and laid it on the ground beside him. From his pouch he took a comb, then he began to braid his hair. The gray strands glinted like metal in the sunset. "Now build a fire."

  It took Sam better than an hour to arrange the wood to the shaman's satisfaction. Following Howling Coyote's directions, Sam gathered herbs from the jars on the shelf in the kiva and brought them to the shaman, who scattered some over the wood and some into the air. The rest he made into a little pile atop the small bundle of plant fiber and kindling. Then he directed Sam to bring a coal from the kiva's firepit to light the fire.

  The fire caught at once, and Sam was glad. Chilled by the early evening breeze, he craved the warmth of the fire. He wanted to sit by it and relax, but Howling Coyote had other plans.

  "Follow me," the shaman ordered. "Do the steps as I do. Listen to the chant. Sing it when you know it."

  Howling Coyote began a shuffling, stomping dance around the perimeter of the fire. His voice was low and gravelly as he sang the chant. He beat time with a rattle made from a hollow gourd. The song grew in

  206 Robert N. Charrette strength until it throbbed with power. It was a calling song:

  He comes, in fire and smoke. He comes, opening the way. He comes, with lies and truth. Tlirning to beauty, he comes.

  Sam followed in the dance, moving in perfect rhythm to the song. Smoke washed across his body and filled his nostrils with the rick, resinous odor of burning pine. The chant filled his mind and he joined the song, his voice blending with the old man's. They danced the moon into the sky.

  The smoke that had seemed to reach out and enfold Sam pulled back. It hung low over the fire, in defiance of the leaping flames. The smoke gathered into a roiling cloud that obscured the shaman dancing on the opposite side of the firepit. A shape began to coalesce within the cloud. It stretched, arms reaching for the sky. Though human from waist to neck, the smoke image had the head of
a coyote. Its pointed snout split wide in a canine grin, then snapped shut. Head raised, it howled soundlessly at the moon. The snout came down and the ghostly image turned its dark, knowing eyes of emptiness on Sam. The jaws opened again, pausing briefly in that grin before yawning wider and engulfing him.

  Sam's consciousness swirled in the magic. Enfolded in its embrace, he was at harmony with the world and with himself. He was not afraid.

  He sensed that he was whole now, all he was and all he had ever been. At first he let himself float, riding the mana stream, letting it take him deeper into the otherworld, into himself, and into the unbridled realm of magic. For magic was the root and he needed to see the beginning, the seeds of his trials and triumphs.

  When had it begun? When had magic first touched his life?

  He thought about his first meeting with Dog, but immediately realized that as potent and outlandish as that experience had been, the magic had touched him even before that. According to Professor Laverty, Sam had used magic to protect himself from an attacker's spell long before meeting his totem. Sam remembered the glade and the fireball that had blasted him, burning his clothes and nearly killing him. He hadn't even known what he was doing at the time, but he had deflected the mana force of the spell. Would that have been the first time magic had affected his life? It was the first personal, tangible effect he could remember. His earlier contacts had been simply as an observer when someone else had used a spell. Surely that had to be it.

  He cast his mind back, willing the magic to let him relive his first magical experience. Surely there was something to be learned now that he understood magic better. This must be what Howling Coyote intended by arranging this dream flight. Howling Coyote had hinted that it would be a key to his life and Janice's. If that were true, Sam would use that key to unlock the chains that bound her.

  The magic embraced him and swirled him away. Time slipped from the present to the past, merging the two. Then became now and he was as he was then, except that memories of things yet to happen also wrapped his perceptions. Twist the shaman coexisted with Sam Verner, mundane.