River of Blue Fire (85 page)

“The pain in my head seemed like the beginnings of a stroke, and I was just about to give up when I saw something—the tiniest, tiniest flash of imagery, as though someone had projected a single microsecond of visual input onto the end of my optic nerve. Yes, I saw it—
saw
. The image was bizarre—a distorted, not-quite-human shape silhouetted against gray nothingness—but even in that sub-instant, it was more vivid to me than the remembered sights which compose the things I see in dreams. I have not seen that way for decades, and for a moment I believed it
was
a stroke, an illusion born out of collapse—that in my straining concentration I had burst a blood vessel in my brain—but I clutched at it anyway. Then I heard a voice, whisperfaint, as though a fluke of acoustics wafted it across miles of distance on a clear night. It was Renie's voice—Renie's voice!—and it said, ‘. . . 
find them? Can they
. . . ?'

“Stunned, I cried out, ‘Renie?'

“The others must have been certain I was going mad. One of my companions pulled at my arm again. ‘Martine, someone's out there!' Quan Li wailed. ‘I think it's William—I think he's coming after us!'

“I shook her off, desperate to maintain the contact. The silhouetted shape danced before me, but it was tenuous beyond belief, vanishing into fractal fuzziness at the edges, and the more I concentrated on it, the blurrier it became. The weird gray sky behind the moving shape was the only light piercing my inner darkness, so I reached out toward it, tunneling through the hole in the information, trying to touch whatever was on the far side. ‘Renie,' I implored, ‘!Xabbu, if you can hear me, it's Martine. We need your help. Can you feel me?'

“The gray sky grew larger and more brilliant, until its pale light made the emptiness behind my eyes as bright as the moment of a camera flash. Through my ears I heard my companions shouting in alarm, but I could not listen to them. One of them screamed out that William was coming, and the warning rose to a scream, but I was utterly absorbed in reaching through that impossible pinhole, that single black speck in endless whiteness. I struggled until I thought my head would burst to make my thoughts thin enough to pass through, stitching two sides of the universe together with a thread fragile as cloudsilk, as delicate as imagination itself.

“Something touched me then—touched the inner me. Something unfolded in the information like a budding flower opening into an entire galaxy. I reached out my real hand for my companions, to bring them through with me. The radiance grew until I could perceive nothing else.

“But as we flung ourselves through the light, a shadow came with us  . . .”

CHAPTER 32

Feather of Truth

NETFEED/PEOPLE: Barnes' Legacy Of Scary Fun

(
visual: Barnes' face over Fire Tunnel sequence from Demon Playground
)

VO: Elihu McKittrick Barnes, who died from heart failure yesterday at age 54, will be remembered by most for the high-speed, thrill-a-second gameworlds he authored, such as the bestselling Demon Playground and Crunchy, but he was also one of the world's leading collectors of Wizard of Oz memorabilia
.

(
visual: file footage
—
characters from W. of Oz on Yellow Brick Road
)

The 20th century film is still popular over a hundred years after its creation, and royalty and other celebrities have had memorabilia from the film in their collection. Barnes was only the most recent to own a pair of sequined shoes known as the Ruby Slippers, worn by one of the characters in the film, but he considered them to be the gem of his collection. Barnes died alone and without heirs, so it seems certain to be a while before the Ruby Slippers find a new owner
.

(
visual: Daneen Brill, CEO of The Gear Lab
)

BRILL: “He lived like a programmer, he died like a programmer. It's lucky the cleaners were handprinted for the door, or we still might not know
 . . .
”

S
TAGGERING through the red desert, Orlando came to understand beyond any doubt why the ancient Egyptians had made the sun their lord. The white blaze of its eye saw everything, and its fiery touch was equally inescapable. The sun's heat surrounded them, squeezed them; when they stumbled in the red dunes, it was a mighty weight on their backs which tried to prevent them from rising again. The Egyptian sun was a god, beyond question—a god to be propitiated, to be worshiped, and most especially to be feared. Every time he inhaled, Orlando could feel its avid presence lean close and send its searing breath down his throat. Every time he exhaled, he could feel the same entity sucking the moisture up from his lungs, leaving the tissues dry and cracked as old leather.

The whole experience was curiously intimate. He and Fredericks had been singled out for extraordinary attention, and just as a victim of torture begins after a while to feel a deep, indescribable relationship with the torturer, so Orlando had come to feel a curious connection to the very elemental force that was killing him.

After all, he realized, there was a kind of honor in being murdered by a god.

All this wisdom came in only a half a day. With the sun still high overhead, they admitted defeat, and dragged themselves down the bank to soak in the shallowest part of the Nile, heedless of the danger from crocodiles, until their temperatures came down and something like sanity returned. Afterward they sat sharing the thin line of shadow from the area's lone palm tree. Although the river water had evaporated from his skin seconds after he had returned to the bank, Orlando was shivering, so overheated he was beginning to feel chilly.

“If we only had some . . . I don't know, some shelter,” Fredericks murmured listlessly. “A tent or something.”

“If we only had an air-conditioned jet,” Orlando said through clenched teeth, “we could fly to Cairo eating little bags of peanuts.”

His friend gave him a hurt look. “Chizz, then. I'll just shut up.”

“I'm sorry. I don't feel so good.”

Fredericks nodded miserably. “It's just so hard to wait. I mean, it'll be hours until it's dark again. I just wish we could lie down.” He examined his ragged Pithlit-robes, which had lost a wide strip near the bottom to make a sort of
keffiyeh
for Orlando's head. “No, all I really wish is that I had more cloth we could use for things. And your sword back to cut it with.” Fredericks frowned. “I mean, that seems more fair than wishing for a jet.”

Orlando's laugh hurt, like part of him had gone rusty. “Yeah, Frederico, I guess so.” He looked down at his tanned, muscular legs. If he were in his old battle-garbed Thargor sim, the one he was used to, he would at least have his skin covered.

Yeah, in black leather
, he reminded himself.
That would be a treat, wouldn't it
?

Fredericks had fallen silent beside him. The heat haze warped the monotonous red landscape and flat blue sky, as though they sat in an isolation booth made of antique glass. It
was
odd about the clothes, Orlando reflected. He still didn't have any idea why he was wearing a sim of the young Thargor, rather than the mature warrior of Orlando's later years in the Middle Country. It seemed so—arbitrary. It would have made sense if the Otherland network had disallowed Thargor entirely and replaced him with some other sim, but to find an earlier version of Thargor and substitute that instead? What the hell was
that
about? And how could it happen? If the Otherland people could do something as fine-detail as finding his old Thargor records, either by hacking into Orlando's own system, or into the Middle Country, why would they bother to do so and change his sim accordingly, but then leave him loose inside the network?

The thought was vague, and the crushing heat made it hard to think. For a moment the whole idea threatened to spin away and disintegrate, like one of the dust devils that sprang up from time to time in the sands, but Orlando fought to retain it.

It's as though someone's watching us
, he realized at last.
Taking an interest, somehow. But is it a good interest, or a bad one? Are they trying to help . . . or are they just playing some kind of really cruel game with us
? He found it quite easy to imagine the Grail Brotherhood, or his own cartoonish mental version of them, sitting around a corporate boardroom and thinking of ways to torture Orlando and his friends—a bunch of monstrous old men laughing uproariously and slapping each other on the back every time some new twist of agony made itself felt. He decided not to share this new suspicion with Fredericks.

His friend was surveying the river, face slack with exhaustion. From where they sat in the single palm tree's lengthening shadow, there was nothing to see between the slow-flowing Nile water and the mountains on either side except endless, uncaring sands.

“How far do you think it is to a city?” Fredericks asked. “I mean, it can't be that far, can it? If our real bodies are in hospitals, we're not going to die of thirst or starve, so we just have to reach someplace with a roof.” He frowned. “I wish I'd paid more attention in the class when we did Ancient Egypt.”

“I don't think this has much to do with what you would have learned in school,” Orlando said grimly. “I think you could have studied for years, gone off to college and studied there, and it still wouldn't tell you anything about how to deal with this place.”

“Come on, Gardiner.” His friend was fighting irritation without much success. “There have to be cities! That's what Oom-Pa-Pa the Wolf Boy said, remember? That Osiris lived in a big city.”

“Yeah, but this isn't historical Egypt,” Orlando pointed out. “I mean, just seeing Upaut should have made that utterly locking clear, right? This is some weird mythological Egypt, you know, gods and magic
and fenfen
like that—if the people who made this decided to put twenty thousand miles of desert into it, they could. A loop-program would do the job pretty well, don't you think? It wouldn't be anything really tricky to design—'Add one thousand miles sand. Add one thousand miles sand. Add one thousand miles sand.' A chimp could do it.” He scowled.

Fredericks sighed in despair and collapsed backward, then pivoted to get his head back in the single stripe of shade, where the air temperature was a minute fraction farther below the boiling point. “You're probably right, Orlando. But if we're going to die here, do you have to keep pointing it out to me?”

Orlando almost laughed again. “Guess not, Frederico. As long as you're clear on the concept.”

“We're doomed, right?” Fredericks rolled his eyes melodramatically, as though his friend had made the whole desert thing up just to be irritating. “Utterly?”

Now Orlando did smile a little. “Right. Utterly.”

“Okay, then.
Doomed
. Got it. Wake me up when it's dark.” Fredericks draped his forearm across his eyes and fell silent. The brief moment of cheer had ended.

Orlando felt himself drifting in a kind of half-sleep. The shadow of the palm tree had expanded, somehow, so that even though the sky was still a powdery blue and the sun still blazed above, the land itself had turned dark and the tree was now only a silhouette. Something moved in the branches, a shadowy something with many legs.

“
Boss
?” The fronds rustled. “
Boss, you hear me
?”

He could not remember the name, but he recognized a friend. “I . . . I hear you.”

“
Okay. Don't get your skinware in a bundle, just listen. There's a guy who says he wants to help you. He says he's the lawyer for Fredericks' parents
—
his name is Ramsey. He wants access to your files, if we'll let him. I told him I'd ask you
.”

Beezle. The thing was named Beezle. Orlando worried a little about Beezle's well-being—the wind was starting to blow, riffling the fronds. But wait—how could that be? The day was hot, wasn't it?

Hot and without any wind at all . . . ? “I'm sorry,” he said slowly. “Fredericks. . . ?”

“
This guy says he's the lawyer for Fredericks' parents
.” For gear, Beezle could do a good imitation of impatience. “
I've checked him out, and there is such a guy, and he does work for Fredericks' folks. We could swap some information, him and me, but I need your say-so. The files are all under name-security, which means no one hut me and you can see ‘em unless you spring ‘em
.”

The sky was losing its color, and even the sun was beginning to darken as a shadow spread quickly across the scalding white face of the disk. “Whatever you think is best.” Orlando was finding it difficult to follow the conversation. If something was happening to the sky, didn't he need to wake Fredericks?

“
Look, I know you think you're dreaming, Boss. This is really tough. If you want me to help the guy, tell me ‘Ramsey can see files.' Just say that, unless you really don't want me to share anything. But I've pretty much run outta ideas, myself This might be our last chance
.”

The sun was passing into full eclipse: only a sliver of brightness showed along one rim. The palm tree had begun to sway as a wind rose and flew across the darkening desert. Orlando hesitated. He wasn't sure what exactly was happening, but didn't he have enemies? Could they be tricking him somehow?

“
Boss? I'm gonna lose you in a second. Tell me what to do
.”

Orlando watched the small dark thing moving frantically in the crotch of the palm tree. It seemed easier not to do anything. The clouds would come soon and cover everything over, and it would all mean nothing. . . .

“
Say ‘yes
‘,” a new voice told him. It came from nowhere, but it was as clear as Beezle's—a woman's voice, one he recognized, although he could not say from where. “
Say ‘yes
‘,” it urged again. “
Ask for help. Before the chance passes
.”

The woman's words touched him all the way through the mists of dream, which seemed to be covering him over now, swirling, obscuring all, blanketing him in darkness. She sounded kind. She sounded sad and frightened, too.

He forced himself to concentrate. “What . . . what do you want me to say, Beezle?”

“
You gotta tell me, ‘Ramsey can see files,' okay
?” Beezle's voice was getting harder to make out, but the urgency was clear. “
Please, boss
. . . .!”

“Okay, Ramsey can see files.” The wind was so loud he almost could not hear himself. “
Ramsey can see files
!” he shouted, but he could not tell if it had made any difference. The many-legged shape in the palm branches was gone. A cloud had obscured the sky, and now was filtering down atop him, covering the tree, covering Orlando, covering everything.

He caught a brief glimpse of a woman's form—a quick, shining moment like the kindling of a flame. She held something in her hand, as though she were offering it to him. Then the clouds blew in and covered her, too.

“Jeez, Gardiner, wake
up
!” Fredericks was shaking him, his voice faint, as though it came from a distance. “It's a sandstorm. Come on, wake up!”

Orlando could barely see his friend. They were in the midst of what seemed a visualization of pure white noise. Sand seemed to be flying at him horizontally, from every direction, spraying into his eyes and nose and mouth. Orlando spit wet grit and shouted: “We have to find some cover! Down to the river!”