Absorption (26 page)

Brett sighed. “I didn’t intend to. I just did.”

Ariel took his hand and squeezed it. “I forgot how difficult it is for most people. It’s just that you have the perfect personality for it. You can identify with something larger than yourself, but don’t go along with the crowd. But if you don’t want to do it, you don’t.”

“I want to. I have to.”

“Something deep inside you doesn’t right now. But maybe you’ll feel differently in a few months.”

“We don’t have time for months of doing nothing.”

Neither of them mentioned his total reversal from a few minutes ago. Ariel shook her head. If the moment had been less serious, Brett would have enjoyed watching the strands of hair fly about. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for the actions of either government involved. Would it be different if you tried again?”

Brett sensed she was avoiding something. Still connected to Oceania, it took only a moment to find out how else he could circumvent the roadblock before him.

“So I need treatment for this ‘phobia.’ Given the time constraints it will have to be a series C.”

“Brett, that’s not safe. You’ve been worrying about the overmind, but this danger is from your own mind, and it’s quite real. I won’t help you.”

Brett felt touched by her refusal, but he couldn’t let himself feel relieved. She could not absolve him. He couldn’t force her to help him, but surely someone else would, given that the invitation came from Oceania. Brett remembered Napoleon, the bossy dwarf who had berated Michael on Herbirthday, and encouraged Brett to take the first steps in becoming part of Oceania. He didn’t know Brett well enough to feel emotionally involved.

Brett thoughtmailed Napoleon.

Had Ariel suspected he couldn’t do this, only wanted him to show that he was willing to try? After all that happened she had been surprisingly quick to give up.

Brett squeezed her hand. He told her, “I love you Ariel.”

That truth hadn’t been evident to him until this moment.

Brett glanced around the sterile white room. In front of him lay an oval glass tank, somewhat bigger than a coffin, about three quarters full of saline solution. Straps gripped the bottom of the tank. A few steps offered a path over the side.

On a little table stood a mouthpiece for breathing and a special porous helmet. Brett’s skullcap wouldn’t function underwater.

Brett wore black swimming trunks. Beside him stood Napoleon, whom he had last seen at the Herbirthday celebration in Ulayn, which now seemed so long ago. The man wasn’t as short as Brett recalled – memory had created a caricature. A light tan covered his wrinkled face, and thin white hair fell neatly into place.

Why had Napoleon dressed completely in black today? Preparing for Brett’s funeral? He shook his head to dismiss the macabre thought.

His companion misunderstood the shake. “Changed your mind?”

“No, give me a minute.”

One passed, then another. Though Napoleon showed no sign of impatience, Brett cast about for something to say while he stalled.

“How will this make it easier for me to participate in the supermind?”

A silly question, since Brett wouldn’t have come without studying the risks and benefits first. Napoleon politely pretended to take it at face value. He said patiently, “You’ll have a symbolic confrontation with your own fears. Therapy would have the same chance of success, but this works on the time scale you say you have. It’s up to you, but this is rarely done because of the risks involved.”

“Who picks the symbols?”

“They come from your brain,” Napoleon replied.

“Why are we both acting like my fear is an irrational phobia that needs curing?”

“You wanted to do this. Myself I’m not sure it’s such a great idea. Your people will blame us if it goes wrong. Want to get dressed and discuss it over a drink instead?”

They both knew if Brett did that he probably wouldn’t come back. Napoleon offered him a chance to back out.

“No, let’s go.”

He put on the breathing gear and the porous helmet. Strange to think his inward struggles would be so violent his brain would need external liquid cooling. He climbed up the steps and put his feet in the clear liquid. It felt cool, and he knew it could be chilled further quickly.

As he lay down in the coffin-shaped tank he felt goose bumps, although it wasn’t that cold. Buoyancy and nervousness kept his head above the surface of the fluid. Napoleon rolled up his sleeves, but he still waited until Brett closed his eyes and forced out, “What are you waiting for?”

Then Napoleon helped strap Brett under the surface of the liquid. With his eyes shut, Brett could only tell the lid had closed when it became suddenly darker, and from the little vibration he felt. After that he waited in silent darkness, wishing they would get it over with.

The darkness remained, but Brett no longer felt chilly. Even at night the cracked concrete buckling asphalt reradiated heat from the scorching summer day.

Huh? But it was true. Fortunately his feet remembered every crack in the broken sidewalk.

The people walking with him kept quiet, but Brett could hear them breathing. He wondered how to get away from them inconspicuously. This place smelled of pollution and garbage, and reminded him of Burnton, the slum he had never hoped to see again. Not a good neighborhood to meet strangers in the dark.

Someone spoke, only a few feet ahead of him. “We slam the sweetso, easy.”

Obsequious noises came from around him, but Brett kept quiet. That slang came from Burnton, all right, and Brett hadn’t heard it since he was fourteen years old. Why would the C series send him back here? If Jarvis still led them the murder lay in the future – and the indelible memory of that made a mockery of surrendering individual responsibility to a group.

The first voice took on a sharper, derisive edge. “You quiet, Bookie. Turned chicken?”

Reflexively Brett placated it. You didn’t cross Jarvis, ever. “We slam the sweetso. You the top.”

The old slang snapped Brett into the mind of the fourteen year old body he wore. Brett’s nickname had been Bookie since Jervis caught him at the one vice he hid, not gambling but reading.

Young Brett liked this plan as much as any of them. He vaguely wished he knew a way to live besides robbery. But the woman behind the register would be terrified, which was good, since Jarvis wouldn’t see a need to hurt anyone. They had masks, but everyone in the neighborhood knew to keep their mouths shut if the visiting Lords were recognized, because the Lords had long memories. Policemen didn’t visit this neighborhood at night, so nobody would come even if someone silly screamed.

Almost as one, they came to a stop in the hot humid darkness. Brett’s body knew they had arrived even if his mind didn’t. A little light came through smudged glass, illuminating the unimpressive display of the tired little candy store. A stirring of memory made Brett uneasy, but no time remained for that now. He pulled the mask over his face and followed the others in, but one thought remained. How could anyone be stupid enough to stay open this late in this neighborhood?

A tired young woman stood behind the old cash register. Jarvis told her, “Open the register and stand there.”

The rope in his hands made it clear she would be tied up if she complied. The consequences if she disobeyed were left unstated. The expression on her face didn’t show blank shock or abject terror. If Jarvis noticed at all, he must have thought her a fool. Brett experienced unease but, from long habit, he let Jarvis do the thinking.

He breathed a sigh of relief when she complied silently. As leader, Jarvis scooped the money out of the register and divided it up. Nobody protested either his math skills or his greed – you could follow Jarvis, run away from him, or fight him to the death.

The door to the candy shop opened again. Did someone not realize what was in progress? Or did they just not realize it was the Lords, and want to play hero?

Then Brett saw the red razor blades tattooed on their cheeks. These frightened him much more than their lack of fear, and the hard looks on their faces.

The smaller one said, “Give that back and apologize if you want to live.”

Brett stopped breathing. His life didn’t flash before his eyes, so apparently you could die without that. Despite their name, the Razors had plenty of guns. Sometimes they even outgunned the police. They occasionally found the Lords useful or amusing, so they wouldn’t kill the teen criminals on sight.

The only problem was Jarvis. He knew the Razors and their relationship to the Lords, but he feared nothing and never backed down to a threat. That was why nobody messed with him, that was why the other Lords followed him without question, that was who he had spent his whole life becoming.

When Jarvis mouthed off they would all die for it. Perhaps an instant remained for Brett to try and disown him, but he could not overcome habit and twisted loyalty in that instant.

Time seemed to slow down for his last moment of life, and Brett had an insight. The candy store operated as a front for Razor drug dealing, of course. Only it didn’t matter now.

Then Jarvis muttered, “Sorry about that.”

He placed the money in his hands back in the till, then collected more from the stunned Lords and did the same with it. Then he glared round at the other Lords. “C’mon, we’re not wanted here.”

They filed out the door behind him, heads down, not looking at the smirking Razors or even each other.

When they were finally a few blocks away, moving through the night, Brett tried to congratulate Jarvis on his common sense.

“We knew you were top slammer. You top smart too.”

Jarvis almost hissed at him. “Shut up ‘for I slam you. I’m not afraid of nobody.”

The others edged away from the target of Jarvis’s wrath.

Of course they did. It had all happened before, Brett remembered. Odd how easily he slid into his younger persona, desperately hoping for things that hadn’t happened and never would. A little scary how much control of his brain he had voluntarily given away, at least temporarily. That must be why he kept thinking as if this were actually happening, as if something might change. Although a hallucination didn’t have to be true to the original memory.

The others walked in sullen silence, giving Brett plenty of time to think, and wonder why he was here. Today certainly didn’t explain Brett’s resistance to becoming part of the hive mind, even if there really was an irrational component to that fear. Why should the C series send him here? It had been a couple of hours already, mostly spent walking to and from the scene of the crime. His real body would be getting hungry soon, and surely would have been differently equipped if a long ordeal had been anticipated. He would need to go to the bathroom.

Except the temporal lobe could be involved. He might seem to live through a period of days or weeks in a relatively short time. Brett frowned to himself. Time certainly seemed to pass in a normal manner, not like a dream. Had he really done a couple of hours worth of walking and thinking?

A knot was forming in the pit of Brett’s stomach. In real life, nothing had happened for weeks. Surely he wouldn’t be here for weeks – even if it only seemed that long. Would he really go back to the lair, pretend to be a teenage boy living among teenage boys? And why should he? Nobody had told him he needed to cooperate, play along with any hallucination he might have. Brett was almost a black belt, he could explain some things to Jarvis, kick his ass if necessary. It felt strange to think he no longer needed to fear Jarvis, had no special reason to admire him either, and could certainly protect himself even in this neighborhood without help from Jarvis.

Rain started to fall, and that didn’t really improve anyone’s mood. Just another thing they weren’t prepared for.

Strange to see the lair as an adult. Their ‘hideout’ was an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, left to squatters when the neighborhood had gone from bad to horrible. At the trial Brett had finally realized that they were not strutting kings but cheap and disposable young thugs. Yet he had not seen the house since then, and somehow memory had never been updated. The younger part of his brain had expected a palace.

And that part of his brain could dominate him unaware. The gang split up as soon as they entered the house. His feet knew where his room was, so he didn’t make himself conspicuous by searching. They had been careless, but now the others had gotten more upset than they needed to. Jarvis had actually passed the test of survival, even if he didn’t see it that way. They still had plenty of money. Brett could easily buy a girl tomorrow if he didn’t fancy any volunteers. The Razors found them useful for errands occasionally, and they were more likely to kill out of hand then hold a grudge, so that part was OK.

Brett flipped on the light to strip for bed, and the spell broke. What a pigpen. A frightened girl came in to clean twice a week, and the Lords knew just enough not to touch or harass her. Even so, Brett had wondered once in awhile why she came here. Now his adult mind understood. The Lords didn’t know what clean meant.

When was the last time these sheets had been washed?

He shrugged. If he didn’t think about it his younger mind probably wouldn’t notice it. Would he really be here for another couple of weeks? Could that much time be condensed into his brain before his real body became hungry or tired? He hated to think about the killing, but it had changed his life, taught him to take responsibility for his choices. He couldn’t imagine being here now for any other reason. It didn’t really make sense though. How could the event that had taught him to be an individual help make it easier to become part of a group mind?