I had about an hour until I needed to be on the road. As quickly as possible, I jacked two of the headsets together and set about copying selected portions of Dylan's chip. With only one headset, Dylan hadn't been able to duplicate chips, and as long as the bad guys didn't know how many headsets I had, they wouldn't be expecting me to do it, either.
Once I had a master copy, I could make two at a time, one on each recorder. I set my wife to making as many as possible, recording them on top of old running chips that had accumulated in my study and never made their way back to the office. Meanwhile, I dashed to the corner market for a tube of Superglue.
En route, I called Dylan.
He answered on the second ring.
“I'm sorry, Coach,” he began before I could speak. “All I meant to do was to show the headset to a couple of friends. Then we got thinking about all the cool things you could do with it. Morgan took it skydiving, and Chris used it with his girlfriend, then someone suggested it was a nice way to make a bit of money. I didn't think—"
“—that you were being really stupid.” I said, wishing yet again that someone had been tougher on him, all the way back in high school. “But for now, I only want to know one thing. How many guys?"
“Two. Why?"
I ignored the question. “Describe them."
“One was tall and fat, but looked strong. The other was shorter, with a beer belly. But he was also pretty big. He was getting old—maybe your age—and was nearly bald. Why?"
Again I ignored the question. “You're sure?"
“They never mentioned anyone else. I think they were from Cheyenne. One of my friends found some folks there who'd pay $200 apiece just to view the chip, then a few days later these guys showed up and started offering $500 for special recordings."
Next, I woke up Derrick, who gave a very similar description of his “government types"—minus the bit about being “old.” Derrick lives 300 miles away, which is close enough that the thugs could visit him in the afternoon and still get back here in time for Dylan's ill-fated drive, but far enough that they'd have probably sent an associate if they had one. And if they really were from Cheyenne, they were probably small-timers, because anywhere but in Wyoming, Cheyenne would be viewed as a small town.
I hoped I was right. If there were more than two, I was dead for sure.
* * * *
By the time I finished with the glue, time was running out. While I'd been busy, my wife had managed to make an impressive stack of duplicate chips. Now, I handed her the original and one of the players.
“Take these, and go somewhere,” I said. “Breakfast, a drive, anywhere. Make sure you have your cell phone. If you've not heard from me in"—I glanced at my watch—"two hours, take it all to the police. Then call Lauren"—our daughter—"and find a way to disappear.” That way the real feds probably would get the headset, but there wasn't much I could do about that. If I hadn't called by that time, Dylan's clients would be well on their way to flooding the underground market with the things, and humane interrogation would be the least of everyone's worries.
* * * *
At the best of times, Fremont Park isn't the type of place you go to unless you really want to get mugged. At 6:30 A.M., it was as deserted as I feared it would be. I suspected that my life expectancy could be measured in minutes.
My callers must have been watching, because a moment later a blue sedan arrived and two beefy guys climbed out. Football-player types, gone to seed. Exactly as described, but also just the type to underestimate folks like me. They were supremely confident, having done nothing to disguise their car or themselves. In their eyes, I was already dead.
“Here's what you want,” I said, taking the initiative as though I were naïve enough to see this as an ordinary transaction. “But I don't know which is the chip you're after. Dylan gave me one last night but I just tossed it in a drawer with the old ones."
The bigger man stared at the handful of chips I was offering. There were eighteen of them, and I suspected these guys weren't long on patience.
“You have no idea which it is?"
I shook my head.
“Crap.” He looked at his buddy. “At least there's two headsets.” He opened the trunk of his car and for a bad moment I thought he was going to lock me in it. Instead, he pulled out a thick roll of gray tape.
“Duct tape,” he said, grinning wickedly. “Never leave home without it. Hands behind your back."
I nearly abandoned the plan and bolted. But the park was crisscrossed with roads and there was nowhere to go where they couldn't chase me in the car. Not to mention that even if I got away, they could still get at me through Dylan and his teammates. At least Lauren was safe.
He wrapped my wrists—tightly enough, despite the football-player mentality that underestimates us skinny types—then opened the back door of his car and shoved me in. He slammed the door, pushed a button on his key chain, and something went snick.
I didn't really want to get out yet, but I knew I was expected to react, so I squirmed around until I could reach the door handle with my fingers. I pulled on it, and nothing happened. I've always hated those child-safety interlocks. Now they had me trapped as effectively as the duct tape.
My captors laughed and I tried to act like a man beginning to realize he's made a big mistake. That produced another laugh, and by this time, the acting was easy because everything depended on timing and there were a lot of little variables that could get me killed. But at least they now had me sufficiently incapacitated that they would be confident about not having to keep an eye on me.
They spent a few moments studying the chips, presumably hoping to find one labeled with something more useful than a scratched-out date from its original use. Then, the bigger guy started examining one of the headsets, turning it over and over in his hands. He looked puzzled, and for a moment, I truly panicked, wondering how many times he'd seen Dylan's and if he knew something was wrong. The differences were subtle, and I was counting on him not spotting them.
As it turned out, he'd apparently not used Dylan's often at all. He turned to the bald guy and asked a question I couldn't hear, after which his companion theatrically pushed a chip into its slot and pointed to the start/stop button.
The big guy sat on a bench only a few yards from my window, put on the headset, and pushed the button. His face went slack, his eyes acquired a thousand-yard stare, and I knew he was in another world.
His companion shrugged, gave me a final glance to make sure I was behaving myself, and donned the other headset. A moment later, he too was in another world—the same one as his companion, actually, because all the chips were identical. Right now, he was Dylan, running. Normally, he'd be taking off the headset, disgusted, or clicking straight to the next track. But these were the variable-gain headsets, and I'd turned the gain controls all the way up before using the Superglue to make sure they didn't get jostled out of position. At that level, even I would have found it difficult to break the enhanced-reality's spell.
There was only about six minutes’ material on each chip, but that's a long time when you're waiting for someone to die. The running was simply an introduction—something benign, because they were looking for the death scene and just might be sufficiently on guard to wrench themselves out of it, even on high gain, if it was the first thing they encountered. That was followed by several minutes of sex, just to make sure that if one was slow to put on his headset, nothing unpleasant would be happening to his friend. Then came the accident.
I have no idea what virtual death is like at high gain. Making the master recording, I'd been forced to play it at low gain, just to make sure I got the entire thing, and it had been bad enough that I'd felt my own heart lurch when the driver's gave its last beat. At higher gain, the pain and terror would be overwhelming, and everything else, I hoped, magnified beyond the body's ability to endure.
The bigger guy was the first to encounter the accident. During the running sequence, his thousand-yar
d stare had never faded, but as the chip pulled him more deeply into its reality, his legs and arms began to twitch, his breathing increased, and sweat appeared on his forehead. When he reached the sex scenes, the sweat and heavy breathing increased and a thin stream of drool ran down the corner of his mouth. Pretty disgusting, especially for a non-voyeur like myself.
Then he hit the accident sequence. His whole body tensed, as though trying to brace against the car's rolls and flips. His eyes were wide. The drool turned to froth, his body began thrashing with convulsions that had not been in the recording, and the froth became flecked with red bubbles.
I waited until both men were done thrashing before trying to figure out how to get out of my prison. Then I tried to wriggle over the front seat, but the headrests were too high. Remembering how often vandals break car door windows, however, I braced myself as best I could, got my back and glutes into it, and kick-shoved for all I was worth. It was tougher than I expected, but the window wasn't all that tightly rolled up, and at the cost of bruised heels, my third attempt produced a gratifying shatter of glass.
With my hands behind my back, getting out the window without landing on my head would still have been a difficult trick, but luckily, I didn't need to try. Now that the glass was gone, I could roll onto my back, stick my head and shoulders out the window, and use the extra maneuvering room to contort myself enough to get my hands below my ankles and then, blessedly, out from behind me. Now it was easy to slither out the window, and moments later I was in the street, ripping the duct tape off with my teeth.
The two extortionists lay where their final spasms had thrown them. They looked dead, but it was hard not to believe they were simply awaiting the opportunity to spring to their feet and pummel me.
With some trepidation, I checked both for pulse. I even pinched the bald guy's nostrils and counted to a hundred, waiting to see if he'd breathe through his mouth. He didn't, and if that's not dead, I don't know what is.
I should have felt at least a touch of remorse. If they'd been alive, I could have bound them with duct tape and called the police. But what I felt was relief. Explaining to the police wasn't something I wanted to do.
Chips were scattered across the parking lot, which was still miraculously deserted. Feeling that I was stretching my luck, I collected them and the headsets, climbed into my car, and drove away.
That's when the enormity of what I'd done finally began to soak in. Derrick had been afraid his wondrous invention would be used for torture. Dylan had discovered porn and cheap thrills. But I'd done them one better: I'd turned it into a weapon. Not just a weapon, but an assassin's tool, with which I'd carefully laid a trap and executed two men.
Once I was safely out of the park, I pulled my cell phone from the glove box, where I'd stashed it for safekeeping, and phoned my wife. Then I crushed the headsets with the car and threw the pieces down sewers in three parts of town.
I'd always seen myself as a nice guy—a pacifist at heart. Now, I knew otherwise. True, I'd seen no alternative, but I'd been just as cold-blooded and ruthless as Dylan's extortionists. When it comes to that anti-miracle stuff, it really is true. None of us is immune.
I had to buy a hammer to crush the chips. Smashing them should have felt satisfying, but it didn't. The chips were just a symbol. What I really wanted to smash was something internal, human, and more universal than I'd ever wanted to believe.
Copyright © 2006 Richard A. Lovett
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* * *
Preemption
by Charlie Rosenkranz
Intelligent beings need to plan ahead—but it can be hard to recognize all the relevant variables.
One brilliant April morning, the red-eye flight of a Boeing 757 was on its final approach to Houston International from Las Vegas when a portion of its underbelly disintegrated. The resultant shock wave and missing hull section caused it to make prepunctual contact with the Earth's unforgiving surface, just short of the runway.
Three miles south-southwest, a local who was barely finished coughing into his cell phone at his boss, feigning the flu, was driving two buddies and his dog, Spartacus, to a Monster Truck Pull Rally when his SUV was vaporized. In the front, only the radiator and items forward of it remained. In the rear, only a foot and a half section of glossy red metal and sparkling chrome survived, along with one third of the gas tank. The remaining gasoline erupted as it was blown backwards, setting fire to a barbershop and incinerating a smiling cardboard cutout of the mayor—an indisputably self-described man of the people, who was locked in a vicious bid for re-election.
Just to the north, a traveling circus—currently not in the act of traveling—lost one of its larger trailers as an eight-foot spherical section of its center magically disappeared. The two ends of the trailer were blown in opposite directions, destroying a couple of valuable midway tents, but in this instance no fires materialized.
In the center of town, a pet psychic was in the process of describing the profound sense of loss and self-loathing associated with a case of overly compulsive scratching (and preparing to collect her fee) when she and her divination vacated the Earthly plane. The eight-foot spherical zone of sublimation—where solids transformed instantly into gas—also made a casualty of the neighbor's chandelier in the apartment below. Though nearby windows were blown out, the majority of the heat and force of the disintegration inexplicably vanished along with the seer.
Panic erupted as hundreds of similar incidents occurred throughout the greater Houston area in rapid succession. But the panic was not limited to Houston, or to the great state of Texas, for that matter. This was also happening in every other state—and in every nation on Earth.
* * * *
The men on either arm were half carrying Andrew Harrison as they flew through the tunnels. Eventually they made it to the end. Over the sound of the internal pile driver hammering blood past his ears, he heard the steel door thud into place, felt the vibration underfoot.
“You nearly pulled my arm out of its socket,” he said with a scowl to the one on his left.
“I'm sorry, Mr. President. I'll be more careful next time."
“Next time? Write yourself a directive: there will never be a next time.” He looked around. The bunker was spacious but nonetheless felt cramped, as if he had just been banished to a hovel in someone's back yard next to their garage. Never had accommodations costing so many taxpayers so much felt so subhuman, so second-class. He marched over to another Secret Service man, this one seated at the conference table in front of a computer, pecking at the keyboard with his right hand while talking into his left sleeve.
“What the hell's going on?"
“We don't know, Mr. President. Some type of high tech assault. Explosions or disintegrations or ... we don't know what they are, but they're happening all across the country."
“What are you talking about, ‘all across the country?’”
“Everywhere, sir. Thousands of them. So many we can't even count. Reports coming in from every city in the U.S."
“My God.” His knees, like a pair of garden hoses with their water source cut off, were useless. He slumped into a chair. In the last few minutes of chaos he had only been told of unexplained explosions in D.C., including one on the sidewalk in front of the White House.
“Who's doing it?"
“We don't have a clue, sir."
“Get Swick down here immediately. And locate the directors of the CIA and FBI.” He switched seats and grabbed a phone. “This is Harrison. Get me McNab. Now."
The Secretary of Defense came on the line. “Andy, are you okay?"
“What's going on?” he demanded, ignoring pleasantries. “Who's attacking us?"
The first reply he received was silence.
The second reply he received was, “We have absolutely no idea."
“What? Is that the best you can do?"
“Andy, look. We've got several thousand people on this. And people from every othe
r agency that might be of any help. So far ... zip. People and buildings everywhere are being destroyed, and there's not the slightest sign as to how or why."
“Unacceptable. I want answers. Who has the capability to do something like this?"
Again, silence.
“No one. This is far in advance of anything we ever thought possible."
Harrison's hands felt cold even as his neck grew hotter. He felt the impulse growing to insult his long-term friend—to start yelling to relieve the pain choking his thoughts. But he didn't get the chance.
“Wait a minute, Andy. We're getting some data. Hold on."
When Secretary of Defense McNab came back on the line, his voice was shaky. “Mr. President,” he began. Formal. That wasn't good. “NASA and Air Defense both confirm the appearance of a number of unidentified objects encircling the Earth."
Realizing the incomprehensible must now somehow be comprehended, Harrison slumped forward, a frozen image of pure helplessness. The facts trickled in: Estimated altitude of enemy vessels, 800 miles; seventeen located so far; out of range for retaliatory action; destruction occurring with spherical areas being vaporized; diameters of kill zones estimated from eight to fifty feet; similar reports from other nations; methodology unknown; attacks already suspected to be in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions; no pattern or reasoning evident; cites, towns, and communities everywhere in chaos.
The phone seemed to increase in mass, becoming a burden to hold. His strength had been sucked away along with his ability to think. His impulse never to give in, never to back down from a fight, was annihilated. Through a numb stupor, he envisioned the end of his own life, the end of his family, and that of humanity. His Defense Secretary, dismayed and helpless, asked if he had any suggestions—again not what he wanted to hear.
Analog SFF, June 2006 Page 11
