by Rusty Coats
Monk chuckled. “Like him?”
I was walking into Avalon as a man who fancied himself a high-seas admiral. Suited in dress sailor blacks, I had a breast of medals and a mane as silver as a mirror.
I scowled into Monk's laughing face. "Yo, ho, ho."
Monk stood behind the arc of antique Mensas, threw the switch and the suit came alive. The bubbles inflated and warmed; the visor flashed streams of code.
Tactile: Up.
Gravity: Up.
And so on, scanning twelve-hundred subprograms until each passed muster. A mild current went through the suit like an electric breeze. And then it was ready.
"Here we go," he said. "I'm gonna touch you down at Central Station. After that, you're on your own."
"I think I still know my way around."
"A lot has changed, Jack. If ya get lost --"
"Use the Location subprogram," I said. "And if I get into trouble, I'll use the emergency disconnect."
His face twisted. "Maybe an extra day --"
"No. Tonight." By tomorrow, I'll have time to change my mind. "It has to be now."
"All right."
He eased the throttle forward and the visor filled with light. The last thing I heard before the roar hit my ears was Monk, whispering, "Welcome home, Jack."
AVALON XII: Hardhat
The United Nations should have let us finish it.
It would have been pointless, sure. In the end, from what I saw on newsreels and ROM postcards, everyone knew it was over. The Neuromantics had only two seats in the International Congress, but their voice was deafening as they pounded the podium with medical reports and death projections. The rest of the world was reeling from the fatalities -- not just WPA rats but normal folks, suburban nobodies who guinea-pigged our virtual city, dead. Dead in a town where the girders jutted out of the matrix like the bones of a lost city exhumed by erosion.
They should have let us finish it. Or done a better job destroying it. It would have been less painful to see the city scraped off the memory buffers until nothing remained but a lake of black glass.
I stepped into the bustling Plaza of Light, ping-ponged by people on their way to a dance, orgy or brawl. My eyes swept past them, barely noticing their chiseled faces and silken threads, staring at the buildings. The marvelous buildings. Expectations mingled with sepia-toned regret, and every skyscraper seemed to wear three skins -- the dream, the still-life of unfinished Construction and the garish tart it had become.
The Plaza of Light stood at the easternmost point of Avalon’s wheel. The fountain marked the intersection between the Avenue of Power and the Avenue of Intellectual Pioneers. I.P. contained the city, the end of the Construction zone and the Avenue of Power was the protractor's foot that anchored the main gate.
I saw the Labor Hall, its stark white skin stretching over its zeppelin-like frame, but the skin had leprosy. Offices stood exposed to the turquoise sky, with decorative furniture and a choice of views, everything in place but the last patches of skin. And it wasn't the Labor Hall anymore. Labor-sociologists wouldn't meet to discuss the shifting global economy. Now it was Kitten Kaboodle, a bondage club.
"Get your kitty! Sweet, sweet kitty! Just ask Max, one of last night's customers!"
"You're not kidding, Chaz! Last night that hellcat sank her claws into my --"
I stared at it, feeling Avalon soak into me, because Monk was right: You didn't walk in Avalon. You wore it. And the symbiotic relationship we'd strived for now worked against us. Avalon was cheap and base. And since the city was part of your body, it didn't take a genius to figure out that the town rubbed off on you.
Past the Labor Hall stood the International Trade Center, a stark skyscraper of anodized-blue metal that rose like a comb over the Avenue of Commerce. Its teeth were cantilevered ledges -- rooms with a view for free-trade theorists -- and it curved at the top with a glittering brass wing. But the 28th International Amendment left it stranded, too. Its ledges connected to nothing, defying gravity, balconies hovering like metallic magic carpets. The sheer, lapis face was only sketched in, its pixel-strokes showing just how far Turnquist got before the datacops physically removed him from Avalon, scuba suit wires ripping away from the Mensa like dried spaghetti ripped from wallpaper.
It was a gay bathhouse now.
"Jaxom takes the edge off a hard day with some suds and buds." The billboard showed men laughing as they massaged neon oils into each other's backs. "We're always looking for more friends at Jaxom. Maybe you're just our type."
In the distance I saw the dull black rock of the Hall of Nations, where Van Meter and the other Digerati ruled, African parakeets and all. To the right, I saw a row of teleportation booths, their crowns like six glass discs punched over a raygun toothpick, pointed at the unchanging sky. As I gawked, a woman in a yellow jumpsuit walked in, spoke a few words and instantly dematerialized, her digital body shot across the city.
"Your artificial intelligence agent awaits your request for a tour of Avalon's new, improved features," the booth's speakers said. "For a small fee, our A.I. will escort you through Avalon's spectacular sights, appearing in your choice of body forms...."
I craned my neck to see the rooftops. Vertical plum-lines stood naked, begging for the WPA hardhats to pour flesh around their neon spines. Walls stood without floors, floors without foundations, ledges hovering midair. In the distance, where parts of the University stood, you could walk beneath the Literature building, because while its upper seven floors were complete, its lower two were absent.
"Visit the Tarot Club, Danny Marrs' fabulous spectacle, where Mardi Gras meets digital occult. Madame Sax sees the future in the bitstream flowing beneath your feet. Creole bands nightly. Page Tarot-7 for reservations."
And as my eyes fell into the open pits of unfinished Construction, I tried to remember the place as it was. Back when the Plaza of Light didn't have a masturbating woman in the middle of the fountain. When the obsidian streets didn't reflect a lack of underwear. When the jangle of some language other than loneliness filled the city.
I stared at Turnquist’s bold designs, remembering our ambition. And as my fingers closed around the forcefield pole -- nothing fancy, just a Tesla bulb shooting sparks to its spouse -- the city fell out of focus. Part of my brain still registered that my body was in a scuba suit dangling from a beaker cable and that my hand was feeling the pole through a series of dioxide bubbles in my dataglove. I squeezed, knowing it was an illusion, knowing the entire city was the same as this pole: Drawn by an illustrator, uploaded to Design for placement, given pitch by the Audio boys, programmed for touch by the Braille readers in Tactile, crunched by Compression and fired across the divide to join Merlin, thanks to a continuity program written by the Sysops.
Here was Avalon, beyond the decay and whorehouse facade. She was chrome and hard, and she was here because, once upon a time, thousands of WPA hardhats dreamed her up and made her real.
"Get your puny ass to Sparta and we'll see who bloodies the mat."
I didn't know where to start looking for clues about Adam McFee or the dragon or whatever Van Meter was up to. So I crossed the Plaza of Light and the onanist fountain and started down the Avenue of Power, toward the center. Toward the Avalon Library.
It was a geodesic heart beside a jutting spire, both the color of pearls. It had survived without accumulating splashes of neon paint. But inside, I knew it had been gutted; Wrecking Ball had gobbled its immersion footage from Aqaba to Zion.
My heels scuffed the glassy pavement as partiers dashed toward a conga line, the sphere like a winter sun. That was where my parents took the long walk eight years ago, while I watched snow pound the Eastern Sierra, listening to some Sons of David missionary named Levi talk of how Prohibition meant parole for his brothers. I was in jail and Gretchen had run away with a psychedelic circus and the world was crashing down. Monk saw them enter; he was running through Avalon, a black Paul Revere with two thoroughbred legs, warning the hardhats that
the Ball was coming. No one saw them leave. And somewhere between waving goodbye to Monk and being peeled out of their scuba suits, my parents turned their bravest creation into a crypt. And I walked toward it, because some nights I dreamed of their alabaster bodies, frozen in the ROM of Merlin's subconscious, in the middle of a Jurassic rainforest. Or bouncing in the chalk outside the Apollo lunar module. I liked to think they froze together, with neither left behind.
But halfway down the block I saw the entrance for the Avalon Opera House, its marquis rising over the street like a flamingo tail. But the sign had gone native.
Delilah's.
Tonight Only: Magdi Does Hoover!
Raw! Raw! Raw!
I glanced at the Library, then back at the marquis, inviting me as it had McFee. Time hadn't touched the Library, but it had pounded the Opera House into the head of Medusa. McFee had turned to stone, but his trail wasn't cold yet. My parents were ice.
I turned toward Delilah's throbbing foyer, deciding that the dead could wait.
"Welcome to Delilah's, Mr. Mandelbaum," said the stripper in the blue boa. As her ribcage heaved hello, the Status screen popped up, telling me that the meter was running. Crossing the threshold meant agreeing to Van Meter's fees.
"Since this is your first time, maybe you'd like me to show you a few tricks of the castle." Her stiletto heel cruised the curve of her calf. She looked like fresh-baked sin.
I pulled up Mandelbaum's bio to know thyself. The Admiral was quite an explorer, but preferred ports where boys were plentiful -- Arabian Knights and Orphan Andy's. He occasionally went for a little violence at Sparta and did his dancing at The Palms.
"No thanks," I said, smiling at the stripper, even though Mandelbaum had no lips. "I prefer to feel my way around, if you get me."
She purred. Avalon had its own language. It didn't take a linguist to figure it out.
I stepped into the foyer and saw remnants of its former life. The entryway was three stories tall, the sheer walls covered with digitized oil prints, capped by a crystal chandelier. Marble stairs led to box seats where world leaders once sat to watch our first virtual opera -- Peri's "Dafne." Gone was the opera-glass booth in the foyer, where you could buy a better view by telling Merlin to zoom your P.O.V., replaced by tools of the new trade. "Hummers," the sign said.
“Magdi working tonight?” I asked the goggle girl.
She gave me an eye-roll that must have taken weeks to program to achieve the perfect blend of disgust and apathy. “Magdi works every night, Captain.”
I tipped my hat and started toward the curtain, meaning to slip through to watch Magdi and maybe ask her a few questions. It would help to see it as McFee saw it, to get into his head. Good cops lived on their beats, and Magdi's face was the first door to mine. But a gang of horny men stood in my way.
"All right! After Delilah's, we're goin' to Paroxysms!" a linebacker yelled. He was surrounded by five other beefcakes beside the mezzanine curtain. Their bodies were smeared with digital greasepaint from seven brothels: souvenir hickies. A busy night.
"Gonna git some! Gonna git some! GIT GIT GIT!!"
Other customers walked around them, trying to avoid the splash of testosterone. Second only to junkies, Avalon attracted packs of boys, who came to lose their virginity in a place where they'd be sure to find it again.
"Paulie! Let's crack a China girl like a wishbone!"
Avalon attracted the best clientele these days.
But as I approached, the linebackers watched me, stifling a laugh that trembled through their steroid-fantasy bodies. The one called Paulie stepped between me and the door, his chest like a rain barrel.
"How's the sea tonight, Popeye?" Paulie's voice was a six-tone block, an off-the-shelf model. He probably spent hours picking out the right prick, but only six minutes on everything else. "Porkin' any mermaids?"
"Yeah," said one with arms that looked like cannons. "Shiverin' any timbers?"
The boys found themselves so hilarious they took a break to laugh. I scowled, but realized Mandelbaum hadn't paid for lips, which made me scowl even harder.
Paulie's sidekick jabbed at my chest. "S'matter? You moot or somethin'?"
The boys had surrounded me now. So much for a quiet night on the town.
"It's mute, not moot,” I said. “Mute means unable to speak. Moot means to be without significance, which would best describe your night in Avalon, boys."
Paulie's redheaded pal shook an anvil-sized fist. "We ain't boys and you ain't smart." He turned to his pals. "Let's show the captain how to swab the deck."
The others agreed.
As they reached for me, I called up the Options screen by keying the infrared toggle -- a quick sideways glance followed by a double-blink. The boys whooped as I chose Gravity from the screen and let my eyes slide down the bar until I leveled off at thirty percent gravity, confirmed the choice and uploaded it, hoping the Digerati hadn't tinkered with Merlin's subprograms. If they had, I was going to get pounded by boys who spent sixteen megs in Avalon's best brothels but still couldn't manage to get laid.
Paulie reached for my collar. And I sprung.
I flew two-and-a-half stories as the lobby floor and the linebackers Dopplered away from me. The customers watched me rocket upward, faces round and wide. The velocity rippled my trousers as the paintings flicked past in a vertical slideshow.
And then the chandelier slammed into my head.
I fell like wet potatoes and the boys wasted no time. I felt the impact on my ribs as each fist hit, felt each kick to my kidneys. The suit delivered the blows with pitiless clarity, the dioxide bubbles exploding against my skin.
My Status window popped up, about a half-minute into the beating. "Damage: Nominal." Then: "Damage: Marginal." Along with the running log, it showed a diagram of my body, mapping damage. The impact sites lit up red. My body resembled a leopard.
Then: "Damage: Critical."
If it lasted much longer, Merlin would kick me out. I didn't blame him. Getting beaten up is a waste of everyone's time. In the bloodsport arenas, referees bypassed the suit diagnostics, so the matches lasted longer. On the streets, suits registered damage and sent you home if it computed that you'd been beaten to death. Stolen from old-school immersion games, it was the WPA's safeguard against lawsuits.
One of them held my arms, providing an easier target. So I kicked, but in the confusion, I'd forgotten that I'd keyed my gravity to thirty percent. So when I kicked, my suit read it as a launch, and I flew backward, along with the linebacker holding my arms.
The flight took us both by surprise.
Paulie and the boys gawked as the linebacker and I scooted across the floor. The guests applauded our show and the noise drew performers into the lobby. I saw Magdi peek through the curtain and I smiled; hers was the only familiar face in Avalon.
The linebacker's head hit the wall and his arms instantly turned me loose. The crowd's applause was deafening. We were the best show in town.
I stood up slowly. The linebacker did not. In fact, as I stared down at him, he became sheathed in bright light. His eyes fluttered and then -- as he grunted "Whuffo" -- Merlin yanked him out of Delilah's and closed his account for the night while the rest of us were left staring at an empty corner.
The crowd cheered. Paulie and his pals ran at me like rioting skinheads.
My Status screen flashed a warning. The poor skipper was clinging to life by six percentage points. If I so much as stubbed my toe, Merlin would toss me out of the pool.
The boys were almost on me and the crowd cheered "Go! Go!" in the loving stupor of a Roman lion-feed when my eyes snagged on the portrait of Gilgamesh at the top of the stairs. A remnant memory peeped in my brain.
Gilgamesh. Oh, yeah.
I leaped over the customers, over their frozen smiles and flat, perfect eyes, soaring over the Hummer booth. I began to descend near the foot of the stairs and realized I wouldn't have time to spring again before Paulie's boys were on me, so I tucked into a
tight ball, somersaulted twice and then shot my arms out like arrows. It was an old trick we'd used out at the unfinished Parthenon, back when we'd bet on who could stay aloft the longest on the heaviest gravity. And it still worked.
The jolt carried me over the statue of Wagner on the second landing. Paulie's boys were in hot pursuit, heels clacking marble. I caught another glimpse of Magdi's dark face and then, as Gilgamesh came closer, spread my arms to slow my fall.
"Git that sailor boy!" Paulie screamed, taking steps three at a time. "Now!"
I grabbed the frame, my eyes locked on the portrait's embattled brow, and I leaned close to whisper: "Hardhat Four-Oh-Two-Five-Eight Delta. Run."
And Gilgamesh, scowling across twenty-six centuries, turned transparent, as if he were painted on air. Paulie's goon squad hit the landing and leapt, screaming: "Yah!"
And I jumped through the image of the man who first sought eternal life, into the secret tunnel, into safety.
Hardhat Four-Oh-Two-Five-Eight Delta. Run.
Avalon's engineers knew they had a good thing. Avalon came fresh from the Flux with no environmental ordinances or imminent-domain hassles. No one worried about how to truck in the supplies or where to bury the toxins. And before SDS and CNI, no one feared on-the-job hazards; if you fell off a skyscraper, Merlin popped you out; five minutes later, you were back, trading jokes about the wet spot you made on the asphalt.
The only rule was that hardhats had to obey was the laws of physics, even though none applied. The sociologists were firm: Physics is comforting. This sent the hardhats into a lather. They logged billions of virtual kilometers a week, and no amount of lobbying could convince Administration to change.
But the hardhats were crafty: They started digging gopher holes.
They hid the portals throughout the city. Once you spoke the key, walls became doors and air became slipstream. The tunnels saved billions of hours, allowing workers to jaunt between sites without the pods. Some workers kept tunnel maps in their user profiles. Most relied on memory.
