Mercy (12 page)

Flanders pushed away from the terminal. "Who's to say it will?" he asked. "I mean, if VR is so realistic that you feel, see, and sense a n experience, who's to say it didn't happen?"

"Oh, Jesus," Rod said under his breath. "Three beers and he's Aristotle."

"No, I'm serious. If I think I walked through that hospital and left a graffiti mural, who can prove I didn't?"

"When they build the hospital," Rod yawned, "your artwork won't be there."

"That's the ticket," Jamie said. "For something to be real, it has to have a n impact on the outside world. If you create a program that lets you think y ou've robbed a bank, it won't matter what you remember about it, because you didn't come away with hard cash, and you didn't hurt anyone else in the pro cess."

Rod leaned back in his chair. "All right. But what if you commit a virtual act that--even in the real world--wouldn't leave a visible mark? All you've got to go on is the memory of carrying it out." He grinned. "And what if s omeone's hooked up with you to a system? Then you both have the-same experi ence of participation. Proof positive."

Jamie arched a brow. "What act wouldn't leave any kind of mark?" Rod smirked. "Adultery. Good old computer sex. You're at one terminal, she'

s at another. You'd swear on your grandmother's grave that you can feel her skin and smell her. Shit, with a good bodysuit you could even come. And sh e feels it all on her end, too. Can you prove that it didn't really happen?"

"No exchange of bodily fluids," Flanders said primly.

"Yeah, but in this case, there wouldn't be a perceptible impact in the exter nal world, so all the evidence would lie in the memory of the two people--wh ether they had sex in a real bed, or at a terminal." Rod hooted with pleasur e. "Go ahead, Jamie. Shoot holes in that one."

Jamie shook his head and started picking up the empties. "If a tree falls in th e woods and no one's around . . ." he said, letting his words trail off.

"C'mon. You're telling me that even in a highly sensitive system, you'd be abl e to tell real sex from virtual sex?"

"You boys wouldn't understand," Jamie said, grinning. 81

"Oh, the old married man," Rod sang.

"That's right. There's nothing that could fool me into believing virtual time spent with Maggie would be anything like the real thing."

"Tell us, Confucius," Flanders said.

But Jamie went around slowly and deliberately switching off the hardware a nd then the lights. You could not explain to someone who had not been ther e that to join with a woman in cyberspace, all you needed was a savvy prog ram and a certain degree of skill--no roll of your soul, no heart. You cou ld not explain to someone who had not loved as well and as strongly as he had that being with Maggie let him walk in a world he could never create o n his own.

li JT'm checked into the Wheelock Inn at a reduced long-term Z VJL room rat e. It was the tiniest room in the little two-story hotel, tucked next to a broom closet in the west corner. It had its own bathroom, and a claw-footed tub with a curtain drawn round for a shower. There was a tiny kitchenette. The bed was covered with a tartan blanket just like the one she'd used at Cam's house, and a small dresser was topped with a chipped blue ewer and wa shstand.

She tossed her duffel bag on the bed and carefully set her knapsack down on a tipsy table. When she unzipped it, Kafka bounded free, happy to be uncon fined. If she was careful about a litter box, the pinched clerk downstairs would never know she had a cat.

She took the bonsai tree she'd been carrying in her other hand and began to u nwrap it from its protective gauze layers. It was the one she'd shown Allie y esterday in order to get a job; a fig tree with exposed roots, twenty-eight y ears old, just like Mia. Of course she'd started to work with it some time ag o, but it was still quite an achievement. Twenty-eight years, and thriving in this tiny terracotta plate. Mia ran her finger over its twisted, exposed roo ts, its whispering dime-size leaves. "Hello," she said softly, setting it in a place where it could begin to turn an unfamiliar room into a home. She had taken a room at the Inn because she did not want to see Cameron M

acDonald again. She knew this was unlikely in a town of less than two tho usand people, especially since she was

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working with his wife, but that did not keep her from setting her distance. She stood in front of the dresser, peering into the antique mirror. Her face seemed bronzed and foggy; and her mouth was wide and straight, the way it a lways was. Her lips no longer looked swollen, as they had after Cam had drop ped her off at the flower shop. When she discovered that Allie had gone out, Mia locked the front door and stood in front of the bathroom mirror in the back of the shop, holding her fingertips to her mouth as if she could keep t he sensitivity at a peak.

She began to rummage through the drawers of the nightstand and the dresser

, not so much because she expected to find anything but simply because it was what one always did when settling into a stock hotel room. There was a votive candle in the bottom drawer of the dresser that smelled heavily of peaches, and a King James Bible--King James of Scotland, she now knew--in the nightstand to the left of the double bed.

Under the Bible was a stack of paper imprinted with the town seal, and a sma ll, chewed-off pencil. Mia lit the votive candle, then took the paper and pe ncil and sat down on the bed, using the Bible as a lap desk. Cameron, she wrote, because she liked the length of his name, 1 have been t hinking of you. She thought of the fairness of his skin, and the way the su n brought to life the rich autumn colors in his hair. She remembered how, w hen he thought he had frightened her with the gun, he had gathered her clos e so that her head was pressed against his chest. She had listened to the r hythm of his heart, so remarkably strong that Mia believed her head was bei ng pushed fractionally away with every beat.

Mia picked up the pencil again and crossed out what she had written. Cameron

, she began again, / have been thinking of nothing but you. Then she stood u p and fed the paper to the flame of the votive candle, watching the traces o f her folly fall to ash.

Allie closed the flower shop early and drove to Angus's house, which stood beside a cornfield that belonged to Darby Mac. He was the only farmer in Wh eelock, nearly as old as Angus himself, and had been called Darby Mac all h is adult life, in an effort to

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keep at bay the jokes about Old MacDonald's farm. In late September, the co rn was quite high, almost hiding Angus's house from view. Allie glanced out the window at the field, and then slowed as she noticed the high color spo tting the stalks. A bright red Mylar balloon emblazoned with Congratulation s! bobbed in the light breeze. There were ordinary balloons too, pink and w hite and yellow, and a silver string of letters that spelled Happy Annivers ary stretched the length of the front row of corn.

Angus opened his front door before she knocked. "How festive," she said, sti ll looking over her shoulder at the corn.

"Aye, well, Darby Mac says it'll keep off the crows." Somehow, Allie felt disappointed. For maybe the slightest moment she had i magined there was a celebration under way, a party just inside Angus's doo r.

"Lassie," Angus said, "are ye going to be stayin' out or in?" Allie turned and stepped inside. "Is Jamie ready?" Angus's house could politely be described as Spartan. With the exception of a hearth rug Allie herself had braided for him and a wing chair he'd had sen t from the Great House at Carrymuir, there was little decorative furniture. He had a kitchen table, but no chairs, insisting he did not want to linger o ver dinner when the only person to hold a conversation with was himself. The mantel over the fireplace was empty, and the conspicuous absence of picture s on the walls only called more attention to the tiny brass frame on the sid e table that held a postcard of the mountains and rolling glen he'd always c alled home.

"Jamie's as ready as he'll ever be," Angus said. He picked up an umbrella fro m a stand by the door and rapped it against the ceiling. "Jamie, lad," he yel led. "It's Allie come to see ye."

Jamie came down the narrow stairs quietly, twisting a coat that must have b een Angus's in his hands. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he said brusq uely.

Allie smiled at him. "You're going to have to get out sooner or later," she reminded him. "Where's that MacDonald pride I've heard about all these years

?"

Jamie shrugged himself into the coat, a shapeless tweedy brown jacket that was inches too short at the sleeves. Allie turned to Angus. "You're sure yo u don't want to come?"

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Angus snorted. "To a lecture about hell?" He shook his head. "I'm old enou gh. Why tempt fate?"

Allie kissed him on the cheek and walked out the door. She was settled in th e car, adjusting her seat belt, when she realized that Jamie was still stand ing outside, his fingers clutching the handle of the passenger-side door. Sh e unrolled the window. "You don't want to be late," she said, and then she s aw the direction he was gazing.

She watched a breath of wind stir the rainbow of balloons. "I've never seen a nything like this," Jamie said.

Allie turned the ignition. "Darby Mac says it works." Jamie sat down and pulled the door shut. He stared straight out the window

. "You know, when I got to Angus's house yesterday, the farmer only had th at one balloon. The Congratulations! one." He smirked. "I thought it was f or me."

Allie pressed her foot on the brake to slow the car, and turned to stare at J

amie. "Well," she said, "you never know." The arraignment of James MacDonald had created such a stir in the sleepy li ttle town that anyone who might have attended Verona MacBean's reading from her book on the nature of hell completely forgot it had been scheduled. Co nsequently, the Friends of the Library had judiciously postponed the readin g until today, asking Allie to keep the three centerpieces in her cooler ov ernight. And because she'd agreed to do so without any additional charge, V

erona herself had given Allie two tickets to the event.

They were small black rectangles, printed with gold lettering. "Wheelock's Daughter, Verona MacBean," they said. "Reading from her critically acclaime d book, Damnation in the '90s: To Hell and Back." Allie had, of course, off ered Cam a ticket, but he had politely declined. Even if he had the time to go, he wouldn't need more than a smile to gain admission; it was one of th e perks of being Chief of Police. "Maybe I'll meet you there," he had said, pulling on his socks that morning. "I wouldn't mind seeing how Verona turn ed out."

"Then I'll just find another date. There are plenty of men in this town who'd l ike to escort me to a lecture on hell."

Cam laughed. "You've already asked Angus?"

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Allie tossed her head. "Who says it has to be Angus? Maybe I'll take Jamie." At her words, Cam had gone still. He'd glanced up at her, his eyes dark. Sh e thought he would become angry, or flat out forbid her to go, but instead he simply nodded. "Maybe you should," he'd agreed. Allie pulled up to the library and parked in a spot at the curb. She walked in and handed her ticket to the lady at the front of the conference room, turning to ask Jamie where he wanted to sit. He was standing awkwardly in f ront of the woman, who had started to walk away.

"Excuse me," Allie said, grabbing the ticket from Jamie and ripping it in h alf and then dragging him into the room. She tapped the woman's back. "Is t here a problem?"

The woman glanced at Jamie and then looked away. "I don't think it's entirel y proper for him to be here," she said, loud enough to make others turn thei r heads.

"My cousin has not been convicted by a court of law. He's a guest of this to wn."

"That doesn't mean we have to like it." Allie whirled around to find Jock Far quhason, a thin, reedy bank teller, staring her down.

"Let's go." Jamie started to tug at the sleeve of Allie s sweater.

"Absolutely not," she hissed. She led Jamie to a table at the front of the ro om. It became crowded in a matter of minutes, and although some people nodded to Jamie as they passed, no one else came to sit beside them--those unwillin g to cast the first stones didn't want their lot thrown in with a mercy kille r, either.

Allie did not realize that Cam had seen the whole thing. He was standing i n the back of the room, more comfortable with his shoulders against the ce ment-block wall than he would be sitting beside Jamie MacDonald with all o f Wheelock watching. He could have said something to that asshole Farquhas on, but he didn't have the heart or the inclination. If Jamie MacDonald wa s planning to win, he'd have to play by the same rules as anyone else. When the lights dimmed and Verona MacBean stepped onto the stage in all he r glory, Cam could not suppress a smile. The woman in the severe black sui t with her hair braided tight against her head was a far cry from the hot little number who used to go

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down on him after-hours in the boys' locker room. He tried to undress her wi th his eyes, picturing the creamy skin and swelling curves that had kept him in a permanent state of semierection in high school, but Verona's face and form kept giving way to the image of Mia's frightened eyes, the fragile bone s of her spine.

He turned and left before Verona even started speaking.

A 1994 Gallup poll, Verona began, found that sixty percent of Americans beli eve in hell. That was up from fifty-four percent in 1965. Hell, she said, ha d developed in religion out of the sense that some people were getting away with sin in this life, and deserved punishment in the next one. She stood in front of a small podium someone had transported from the elem entary school auditorium. "Jews had Gehenna," she said, "named for a dump near Jerusalem where animal carcasses were thrown into bonfires. The New T

estament mentioned a lake of fire, an outer darkness." She paused and smil ed at the crowd. "And in 1990, a tabloid ran a story about a Soviet drilli ng fleet who found hell when looking for oil. They had it closed off after smelling the ashes and smoke, hearing the shrieks of the inhabitants." Any schoolchild could describe a laughing, teeth-gnashing Devil, a pit of fire and brimstone. But, Verona said, the latest theology on the matter postulates t hat although hell exists, it isn't in a literal space.