I touched my lacerated cheek, glanced down at my laser-sprayed legs. But she didn’t interpret the gesture in the same sarcastic vein I had intended it Instead she said:
“When I withdrew this morning, it was because I wanted to run a spot empathy check on you. I had to see just how much you did suspect. That was so I would know just where to start in on what I had to tell you.”
She laid her hand on my arm and, again, I shrank away.
“You’ve been almost completely wrong about me,” she continued defensively. “At first I was desperate as I watched you work toward the knowledge you weren’t supposed to have.”
“Knowledge forbidden all ID units?”
“Yes. I tried my best to keep it from you. Naturally, I destroyed the notes in Dr. Fuller’s study—physically. But that was a mistake. It only made you more suspicious. Instead, we should have removed the evidence through simulectronic reprogramming. But, at the time, we were too busy manipulating the reaction monitors to call their strike.”
She glanced down the lobby. “I even programmed a pollster to scare you off by warning you on the street that morning.”
“Collingsworth too? You made him try to talk me out of it?”
“No. The Operator was responsible for that strategy.”
Did she want me to believe she had had no part in Avery’s brutal murder?
“Oh, Doug! I tried so many ways to make you forget about Fuller’s death, about Lynch, about your suspicions. But that night when you took me to the restaurant I was ready to admit failure.”
“But I
told
you then that I was convinced it had all been merely my imagination.”
“Yes, I know. Only, I didn’t believe you. I thought you were just trying to trick me. But when I withdrew from direct projection later that night the Operator told me he had just checked you. He said you
were
finally sold on the idea of pseudoparanoia and that now we could concentrate on destroying Fuller’s simulator.
“Oh I learned, when I spoke with you over the videophone the next day, that you had come into the house after my withdrawal. But I passed it off lightly and you seemed to accept my explanation. At least you didn’t do anything afterward to make me suspicious.”
I squirmed away from her. “And you spread it on thick, hoping you would keep me off the track.”
She glanced down at her hands. “I suppose you have every right to look at it that way. But that isn’t true.”
She appeared to be wrestling with the choice of proving she hadn’t simply been manipulating me. But, instead, she said:
“Then, when everything started happening to you yesterday, I knew things had gone wrong. My first reaction was to rush out to where you were as soon as possible. But when I got there I realized I hadn’t acted wisely. I hadn’t foreseen how difficult it would be talking to you like this, without knowing how much you suspected, what you thought of me.
“So, the first chance I got, I withdrew again and cut in on you through a direct empathy circuit. Oh it wasn’t easy, Doug. The Operator had been in almost constant contact with you. I had to take a parallel circuit. I had to switch in with the greatest of care—so he wouldn’t realize what I was doing.
“But when I did, I saw everything—instantly, I hadn’t
dreamed—
—Oh, Doug, he’s so vicious, so inhuman!”
“The Operator?”
She lowered her head, as though embarrassed. “I knew he was something like that. But I didn’t realize how far he had gone. I didn’t know that, for the most part, he was just toying with you for the malicious pleasure he could get out of it.”
Once again she glanced down the lobby.
“What are you looking for?” I asked bluntly.
She turned back toward me. “The police. He may have programmed them to the fact that you returned to the city.”
Then I saw it all. Now I
knew
what her purpose was in sitting here and talking with me.
I grabbed for her purse, but she sprang from the chair. I struggled to my leaden feet and staggered after her. “No, no—Doug! You don’t understand!”
“I understand, all right!” I swore at my legs because they could hardly support my weight.
“You’re just trying to keep me pinned down until the Operator
can
steer the police to me!”
“No! That’s not true! You’ve got to believe me!”
I managed to maneuver her into a corner and started to close in.
But she drew the laser gun and sprayed my arms and chest. She narrowed its beam and raked my throat. She opened it to its widest dispersion and caught me lightly across the head.
I only stood there swaying like a drunk, eyes half closed, thoughts mired.
She put the gun away, took my limp arm and draped it about her neck. She supported me around the waist and struggled toward the elevator.
An elderly couple passed us and the man smiled at Jinx while the woman cast us a disparaging glance.
Jinx smiled back and said, “Oh, these conventions!”
On the fifteenth floor, she struggled under my almost dead weight to the first door on the left. Its lock responded to her biocapacitance and she walked me in.
“I got this room just before I woke you up in the lobby,” she explained. “I didn’t imagine this would be easy.”
She let me fall across the bed, then straightened and stared down at me. And I wondered what was behind the impassive expression that clung to her attractive features. Triumph? Pity? Uncertainty?
She drew the gun again, set it for a slightly narrower beam and aimed it at my head. “We don’t have to worry about the Operator for a while. Thank God he has to rest
some
time. And rest is what you need, too.”
Unwavering, she pressed the firing stud.
When I awoke, the darkness in the room was but a feeble barrier against the blazing lights of the city that poured in through the windows. I lay still, intent upon not letting her know I was conscious until I could determine where she was. Imperceptibly, I shifted an arm, then a leg. There was no suggestion of lingering pain. At least it had been a careful spraying, which had left few after-effects.
There was movement on the chair near the bed. If only I could turn my head unobtrusively in her direction, I might learn where the laser gun was.
But, as I lay there, I realized I had been asleep at least ten hours. And nothing had happened. Siskin’s police hadn’t come. The Operator hadn’t yanked me. And, more significantly, Jinx
hadn’t
given me a lethal spraying here in the seclusion of the hotel room, which certainly would have been the easiest way of obliterating me.
“You’re awake, aren’t you?” Her clear words cut into the room’s subdued light.
I turned over and sat up.
She rose, raised her hand into the capacitance-sensing range of the ceiling switch and the lights came on. She waved them to a soft intensity, then came over to the bed.
“Feel better now?”
I said nothing.
“I know how bewildered and frightened you must be.” She sat beside me. “I am too. That’s why we shouldn’t be working against each other.”
I scanned the room.
“The laser gun’s over there.” She indicated the arm of the chair. Then, as though to demonstrate her sincerity, she reached over and offered it to me.
Perhaps, after sleeping off my exhaustion, I was more inclined to trust her. But I could do that as well with the gun in my pocket as with it in her possession. I took it from her outstretched hand.
She walked over to the window and stared into the artificially illuminated night. “He’ll let you alone until morning.”
Standing uncertainly, I tested my legs. No numbness. There was no trace of the spraying, not even the dull headache that sometimes follows.
She turned toward me. “Hungry?”
I nodded.
She went over to the delivery slot and studded the door open. She brought the self-heating tray over and set it on a chair beside the bed.
I tried a few mouthfuls, then said, “Evidently you want me to believe you’re helping me.”
She closed her eyes hopelessly. “Yes. But there really isn’t much I can do.”
“Who are you?”
“Jinx. No, not Jinx Fuller. Another one. It doesn’t matter. Names aren’t important.”
“What happened to Jinx Fuller?”
“She never existed. Not until a few weeks ago.” She nodded cognizantly before I could protest. “Sure—you’ve known her for years. But that knowledge is just the effects of retro-programming. You see, two things happened at the same time. Dr. Fuller reasoned out the true nature of his world. And, up there, we recognized Fuller’s simulator as a complication that must be eliminated. So we decided to plant an observer down here to keep close watch on developments.”
“We? Meaning—who?”
She elevated her eyes briefly. “The simulectronic engineers. I was selected as the observer. Through retroprogramming, we created the further illusion that Fuller had had a daughter.”
“But I remember her as a child!”
“
Everybody—
—every relevant reactor—remembers her as a child. That was the only way we could justify my presence down here.”
I took some more food.
She glanced out the window. “It won’t be morning for a few hours yet. We’ll be safe until then.”
“Why?”
“Even the Operator can’t stay at it twenty-four hours a day. This world is on a time-equivalent basis with the real one.”
No matter how I reasoned it out, she
had
to be here for one of two purposes: to help the Operator destroy Fuller’s simulator, or to effect my own elimination. There was no other possibility. For I could imagine myself in an analogous capacity—descending into the counterfeit world of
Fuller’s
simulator. Down there, I would consider myself a projection of a real person, in contrast to the purely analog characters around me. And it would be impossible for me to become concerned with the insignificant affairs of any of those lower ID units.
“What
is
your purpose here?” I asked frankly.
“I want to be with you, darling.”
Darling?
How naive did she think I was? Was I supposed to believe a
real
person might actually be in love with a reactional unit—
a simulectronic shadow?
Apparently distraught, she placed tense fingers before her mouth. “Oh, Doug—you don’t know how savage the Operator is!”
“Yes I do,” I said bitterly.
“I didn’t realize what he was doing until I coupled myself with you yesterday. Then I saw what he had been up to. You see, he has absolute authority over his simulator, over this world. It’s sort of like being a god, I suppose. At least, he must have eventually begun looking at it that way.”
She paused and stared at the floor. “I guess he was sincere at first in trying to program the destruction of Fuller’s simulator. He had to be, because if Fuller’s machine succeeded, there wouldn’t be any room down here for our response-seeking system—the reaction monitors. He was also sincere, I imagine, about humanely doing away with any reactor who became aware of his simulectronic nature.
“When you stepped out of line, he tried to kill you—quickly, clinically. But something happened. I suppose he realized how much pleasure he was getting from putting you through your paces. And suddenly he didn’t
want
to do away with you—not too quickly, anyway.”
I broke in thoughtfully. “Collingsworth said he could understand how simulectronicists might think of themselves as gods.”
She stared intensely at me. “And, remember: when Collingsworth spoke with you, he had been programmed by the Operator to say just that.”
I took another few mouthfuls and shoved the tray aside.
“It wasn’t until yesterday,” she went on, “that I realized he could have solved his problem, as far as you were concerned, any time he wanted, simply by reorienting you. But no. There was too much perverted gratification to be had by letting you come close to Fuller’s secret, then pushing you away, steering you all the while toward some such fate as he arranged for Collingsworth.”
I stiffened. “You don’t think he’d try mutilating—”
“I don’t know. There’s no telling what he’ll do. That’s why I’ve got to stay down here with you.”
“What can
you
do?”
“Perhaps nothing. We can only wait and see.”
Anxiously, she put her arms around me. Did she expect me to think that, just because someone up there had singled me out for torture, she wanted to be with me in a spirit of compassion? Well, I could pull the pedistrip out from under her pretense easily enough.
“Jinx, you’re a—material person. I’m just a figment of somebody’s imagination. You
can’t
be in love with me!”
She stepped back, apparently hurt. “Oh, but I am, Doug! It’s—so difficult to explain.”
I had imagined it would be. She sat on the edge of the bed and faced me uncertainly. Her eyes were restless. Of course she was at a loss to explain how she could love me under the circumstances.
I ran my hand into my pocket and fingered the laser gun. I made certain its setting was for full spread. Then I whipped it out and turned suddenly on her.
Eyes widening, she started to rise. “No, Doug—don’t!”
I gave her a superficial spraying, focusing on her head, and she fell back unconscious across the bed. The short burst would hold her for at least an hour.
Meanwhile I could move around and think, free from the pressure of her presence. And almost immediately I saw what I should do next.
Considering the plan, I took my time washing, then using the lavatory’s autoshaver. At the personal dispenser, I dialed in my size and waited for the plastic-wrapped, throw-away shirt to appear.
Finally refreshed, I checked the time. It was well after midnight. I went back and looked down at Jinx. I placed the laser gun on the pillow and knelt beside the bed.
Her dark hair was satiny and lustrous as it flared out on the spread. I buried my hands in its soft depths, sending my fingers groping over her scalp. Finally I located the sagittal suture and explored back, pressing firmly in all the while, until I found the minute depression I was searching for.
Holding my finger over the spot, I set the laser gun at the required focus, then placed its intensifier exactly where my finger had been. I hit the stud briefly, then once again for good measure.
It struck me momentarily as being irrational, my performing a
physical
action on an intangible projection. But the illusion of reality was, had to be, so complete that all pseudo-physical causes were properly translated into analogous simulectronic effects. Projections were no exception.
I stepped back.
Now
let her try deception! With her volitional center well sprayed, I could believe anything she’d say, for the next several hours at least.
I bent over her. “Jinx, can you hear me?”
Without opening her eyes, she nodded. “You’re not to withdraw,” I ordered. “Do you understand? You’re not to withdraw until
I say so.
” She nodded again.
Fifteen minutes later, she began awakening.
I paced in front of her as she sat there on the bed, somewhat groggy from the latter laser treatment. Her eyes, though distant, were clear and steady.
“Up,” I said.
And she stood.
“Down.”
She sat obediently.
It was clear I had zeroed in on her volitional center.
I fired the first question. “How much of what you just told me is false?”
Her eyes remained focused on nothing. Her expression was frozen. “None of it.”
I started. There I was, stumped at the very beginning. But it
couldn’t
all have been true!
Thinking back to the first time I had seen her, I asked, “Do you remember the drawing of Achilles and the tortoise?”
“Yes.”
“But you denied later there
was
such a drawing.”
She said nothing. Then I knew why she was silent. I hadn’t asked a question or directed her to make a statement. “Did you later deny there was such a drawing?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was supposed to throw you off the track, block you from vital knowledge.”
“Because that was what the Operator wanted?”
“Only partly.”
“Why else?”
“Because I was falling in love with you and didn’t want to see you get involved in dangerous circumstances.”
Again I was stymied. For I knew it was as impossible for her to feel genuine affection toward me as it would be for me to become amorously involved with one of the ID units in Fuller’s simulator.
“What
did
happen to the drawing?”
“It was deprogrammed.”
“Right there on the spot?”
“Yes.”
“Explain how it was done.”
“We knew it was there. After the Operator arranged Dr. Fuller’s death, I spent a week monitoring his deactivated memory drums for any hints he may have left behind about his ‘discovery’. We—”
I broke in. “You must have seen then that he had passed the information on to Morton Lynch.”
She only stared ahead. That had been a statement.
“Didn’t you see then that he had passed the information on to Lynch?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you simply yank Lynch right away?”
“Because it would have called for reorientation of many reactors.”
“You had to reorient them anyway, when you finally decided to deprogram Lynch after all.” I waited, eventually realizing I had merely made another statement. I rephrased the thought: “Why didn’t you want to reorient this world to the alternate fact that Lynch had never existed?”
“Because it appeared he would keep silent on what Fuller had told him. We believed he would eventually convince himself he had only imagined Fuller’s saying his world was nothing.”
I paused to regroup my thoughts. “You were telling me how Fuller’s drawing had disappeared. Go on with your explanation.”
“By monitoring his deactivated drums, we found out about the sketch. When I went to Reactions to pick up his personal effects, I was to look for other clues we might have missed. The Operator decided to yank the drawing at that particular time so we could check on the efficiency of the deletion modulator.”
Again, I paced in front of her, satisfied that I was at last getting a full measure of truth. But I wanted to know everything. From what she told me I might learn whether there was anything I could do to escape the Operator’s sadistic intent.
“If you are a real person up there, how can you maintain a projection of your self down here?” That question had been prompted by the sudden realization that
I
couldn’t stay
indefinitely
in Fuller’s simulator on a direct surveillance circuit.
She answered mechanically, without a trace of emotion or interest. “Every night, instead of sleeping, I go back up there. During that part of the day when I can reasonably expect to be out of contact with reactors down here, I withdraw.”
That was logical. Time on a projection couch was equivalent to time spent asleep. Thus, the biological necessity of rest was fully provided. And, while she was withdrawn from this world, she could be tending to other physical needs.
I faced her suddenly with the critical question. “How do you explain being in love with me?”
Without feeling, she said, “You’re much like someone I once loved up there.”
“Who?”
“The Operator.”
Somehow I sensed the imminence of revelation. I remembered how, during the latter instances of empathic coupling with the Operator, I had gotten the odd impression of a certain indefinite similarity between us. That checked.
“Who is the Operator?”
“Douglas Hall.”
I fell back incredulously. “
Me?
”
“No.”
“But that’s what you just said!”
Silence—in response to a nondemanding assertion.
“How can the Operator
be
me and
not
be me at the same time?”