The Machine's Child (Company) (45 page)

Monstrousness is in the eye of the beholder,
Edward retorted.

“I wish we could be sure about that—Joseph person,” said Mendoza at last. She lifted her ginger ale and held the cold glass against her cheek.

“Baby, I promise you, it’s okay,” Alec said. “The Captain checked it out. He’s just a rogue on his own. He’ll never find us again without a signal transmitter, and who knows? Maybe the Company’ll get him first.”

Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” Alec said, waving his credit disc at the waiter. “Let’s go find a botanical garden or something, yeah? Buy some souvenirs?”

As it happened, there was a pushcart not a block away, full of ti logs and splendidly phallic-looking plumeria cuttings. Alec insisted on selecting the very largest of the latter for her, with such broad mugging and double-entendres Mendoza was in stitches, her unhappiness seemingly dispelled at last. They sauntered on hand in hand, Mendoza clutching the bagged cutting, and looked for a place to buy Hawaiian shirts.

Three shopfronts on, however, they encountered the roaring mouth of an amusement arcade. Alec stopped, staring into the lurid gloom.

“Look at the old games!” he said.

They all seemed madly futuristic to Mendoza, but she looked politely and followed as he tugged her into the pandemonium. They wandered down an aisle between booths that pulsed with garish light, that shrieked and boomed, threatened and challenged. In every direction
were holographic globes full of things exploding, or crashing, or going to lightspeed. Nicholas had his hands over his ears, looking pained. Edward’s nostrils flared in disgust at the smell, a combination of mildewed carpet, shaved-ice syrup, hot popcorn, and machine oil.

Alec, however, was enchanted.

“COOL,” he shouted over the noise, pointing to a particular holographic game. “LOOK AT THAT! IT’S ONE OF THE ORIGINAL DEATH-DEALING DANS.”

“WHAT’S AN ORIGINAL DEATH-DEALING DAN?” Mendoza screamed.

“THEY’RE ILLEGAL NOW! I MEAN, IN THE FUTURE. BUT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THE BEST GAMES EVER DESIGNED,” Alec said. “I NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS THOUGHT I’D EVER GET TO PLAY ONE.”

“ISN’T TIME TRAVEL GREAT?” Mendoza screamed back. “WHY ARE THEY ILLEGAL, ALEC?”

“OH, BECAUSE . . .” Alec waved a hand vaguely. “THEY JUST WEREN’T VERY NICE, THAT’S ALL.”

In fact, Death-Dealing Dan had been prohibited due to the fairly graphic and straightforward object of the game, which was to kill as many assailants as bloodily as possible in the shortest possible time. As they stared at it, the game played itself in display mode. A succession of horrifying-looking thugs appeared within the holographic globe and brandished weapons of every description at them.

“I HAVE TO TRY,” Alec said, and pulling out a credit disc he paid for five games. Mendoza watched as he stepped up on the dais. She couldn’t help but shiver as the body frame closed into place around him, a steel exoskeleton, and the pointpistol came up into his hand. Suddenly Alec seemed very young, very vulnerable, within the machine. She fought back an irrational urge to throw herself snarling at the first opponent who materialized, a decidedly subhuman creature with a low forehead and a club.

“BANG,” yelled Alec, and its chest exploded outward in a bloody mass. At the top of the globe appeared the glowing words:
10 POINTS
!

This is Abomination!
said Nicholas, aghast.

It’s not real,
Alec explained distractedly, as another figure began to materialize out of the mess of the previous one.
It’s just pictures!
“BANG,” he yelled at a black-clad figure who attempted to karate-kick him, and its head blew off and blood fountained from its neck stump.
20 POINTS
!

Thou slaughterest for sport?
demanded Nicholas. He was furious. The blood-mist within the globe thinned and a soldier in uniform leaped upward, spraying out bullets from an automatic weapon. Alec dodged within the body frame, crying “BANG,” and his opponent’s right arm blew off, but a siren wailed and a brilliant spot of red light appeared on Alec’s left arm. Mendoza’s hands flew to her mouth.

Nick, shut up!
Alec snapped.
See what you made me do? I only got ten points on that one and the game scored ten.

Oh, don’t be stupid,
Edward said.
The game’s cheating for you, can’t you tell? You’re not even pulling the trigger.

Uh uh, man, it’s a brain game. The gun isn’t real. It’s just to focus you,
Alec growled, dropping within the frame to fire at his next assailant, some sort of costumed supervillain with a bow and arrow. “BANG.” The supervillain’s lower torso blew open. Intestines poured out. Mendoza flinched and Nicholas wrapped his unseen arms around her, glaring at Alec.
40 POINTS
!
The body frame reads your reflexes, see? And you sort of think your shots into the game’s computer.

Edward watched closely. The groaning supervillain faded and a shaven-headed Punk, massively muscled like no real Punk that had ever lived, came roaring toward Alec with a broken bottle.

“BANG,” shouted Alec in triumph, taking off the top of the shaven head, and the Punk blinked comically through streaming blood before it dropped.
50 POINTS!

Then, this is like pulling meals and clothing from thin air?
Edward speculated.
And cigars. Creating “virtual” things?

Right,
said Alec.
The old games really made you work for it—
He gasped as his next assailant emerged.

It was a naked girl, voluptuously endowed, smiling as she rose and lifted her hand in what might have been a beckoning gesture—

“Oh,” said Alec, and saw her gun just too late, for even as he dropped into a crouch and yelled “BANG,” the siren went off again and a red spot of light appeared between his eyes.
GAME OVER! YOU DIE! GAME OVER! YOU DIE!

“Damn,” Alec complained. Nicholas was shocked into silence. Mendoza, pale and shaking in his arms, said very quietly:

“Alec—please—”

He turned and looked at her, with red holographic blood moving slowly down his face until the game reset. “It’s okay,” he said, surprised by her reaction. “It’s just a game.”

And then she saw his face undergo that change as it often did, without altering a single feature and yet becoming another man’s: eyes cold and hooded, smile infinitely too experienced and a little weary.

“I simply hadn’t the measure yet, my dear,” he said. “I won’t die again, I assure you.”

He turned back within the steel exoskeleton, and took a firm grip on the pistol.

Here they came again, the garish and absurd parade of enemies, and he methodically blew their heads off as they appeared. He was no longer crying out “Bang” when he fired, and he was firing quickly.

10 POINTS! 20 POINTS! 30 POINTS! 40 POINTS! BONUS! BONUS! 100 POINTS!

He did not hesitate when the naked girl appeared, but shot her, too, and coolly blasted away the next eight opponents that followed her, two of whom were also female. His score rose dramatically, until:

GAME OVER! YOU WIN! REPLAY! GAME OVER! YOU WIN! REPLAY!

You’re
good, admitted Alec, from where he had been thrust to the sidelines.

Small wonder if he is,
said Nicholas tightly.

Edward did not reply. He was tensed, breathing hard, focused on the ball of light. As the game resumed, something strange happened.

The opponents began to go down, exploding in blood, even before they were quite in place; certainly before they had time to raise their assorted weapons. No sooner had the game begun than it was over, with the glowing letters announcing:

GAME OVER! EXPERT! REPLAY! GAME OVER! EXPERT! REPLAY!

None of the others spoke, watching in amazement. Edward had scored over a thousand points. He merely settled his feet more securely on the dais and fixed his attention on his target. The game began again.

It was as though a deck of cards were being riffled in midair, if cards
could bleed and scream, so swiftly did the opponents appear, so swiftly did each die and vanish into the next one. So swiftly, too, did the glowing numbers climb, as Edward’s score reached 5000.

A fanfare sounded and the letters above the globe flashed purple:

YOU HAVE REACHED THE SECOND LEVEL! HAIL, DEATH-DEALER! HAIL, DEATH-DEALER! HAIL, DEATH-DEALER!

And a new legion of enemies sped toward him out of the bloody ball, every human monster imaginable, guilty of all possible crimes and ugly as the crimes themselves, glimpsed for no more than a fleeting second before shredding to pieces. The game went on longer this time, but only because there were twice as many opponents. Edward was playing faster still.

The console housing the game began to hum faintly.

Edward scored 100,000 and the game began again without preamble. They were demons, now, hurling themselves at him and dissolving in blood-bursts of all colors, grotesques, and they came apart and surged back as the others had not, so that he was sometimes facing more than one opponent at a time. Though he was shifting now slightly from side to side within the body frame, his speed of kill diminished not one iota and his score rose inexorably toward 1,000,000. He wasn’t even sweating, though his face was pale and set.

The console, however, was now whining distinctly.

New game! Or so the others guessed, because bright letters appeared for a split second announcing something above Edward’s score as it passed one million and went on upward, and you couldn’t even see what he was shooting at now, it was nothing but a howling miasma of blood, and the score counters were flickering too fast to be read—

Everything in the arcade was flickering—

Blackout!

And for a second there was darkness and deafening silence, before disgruntled yells rose from other customers within the arcade. As the cloudy sunlight filtered in from the street door, Mendoza looked up at a towering backlit shadow and felt herself seized and thrust into a holocabinet. Edward’s laughing mouth was on hers, Edward’s hands were violent, tearing at her clothes, writhing out of his own, and she was lifted and forced back against a console. She surrendered and loved him, whatever he was, there in the dark.

In their passion they did further damage to the arcade’s property, tearing a steering wheel and seat from the booth they were in. It was only with tremendous effort that they kept themselves silent in the last moments of their paroxysm, as angry voices came past their refuge in the half-dark, and lights were beamed on the Death-Dealing Dan unit. Smoke was rising from its console, thin acrid vapor full of floating ash. There were muttered exclamations and a clank as something dropped from the ceiling: then very rude noises, as chemical foam spurted everywhere.

Mendoza shook with suppressed laughter and felt Edward shaking, too, before he hoisted her for one last nearly painful ecstasy. They hid there in the cabinet, gasping for breath while somebody stalked past threatening:

“Okay, who the hell did this? Who’s been fucking with Death-Dealing Dan, huh?”

Adjusting their clothes, they escaped into the alley behind the arcade before power could be restored and the surveillance cameras consulted.

“I’ve got it,” said Edward in triumph, grabbing Mendoza again and waltzing her round and round in the alley. “My love, my bride, my heart, I’VE GOT IT.”

“What?” she wanted to know, just as lightning cracked blue overhead. It began to rain, big hot drops spattering down through slanting sunlight and cloud, with the smell of wet concrete and tropical flowers rising all around. There was a dull
boom
from the arcade behind them, and a piece of console flew out through the doorway.

“Er—we’d better go now,” said Alec, asserting control. Mendoza grabbed his hand and they ran for their lives, but Edward laughed still.

Mendoza was falling out of her torn blouse before they had gone two blocks. Luckily the rain was dropping in blinding sheets by then, so Alec pulled off his shirt and she was able to wrap it around herself before anybody saw. They ducked into a shop. Alec was just paying for a new pair of Hawaiian shirts when the Captain sounded in his ear, louder than the summer thunder:

Bloody Hell, Alec, get back aboard straightaway. That damned arcade’s on fire!

Okay,
Alec said.
Was anybody hurt?

No,
the Captain said grimly,
but somebody’s likely to be.

Edward, smiling, said nothing. They splashed across Front Street and made their way to where the agboat was moored.

How did you do all that?
Alec asked Edward, as they cast off and headed back out to the ship.
You never played a brain game before, did you? They didn’t have anything even like ’em, when you were alive.

I
am
alive,
Edward told him gleefully.
Occidero, ergo sum!

Canst thou wonder, boy?
said Nicholas in disgust.
Murder was all his trade, when he lived; he is a murderer still.

I beg your pardon.
Edward leaned forward, a glint in his eyes.
Were you under the impression I was using the skills I learned in Her Majesty’s service? Not at all, I assure you. No wonder you’ve been able to do it so easily all these years, Alec!

At this point Mendoza, sitting up in the bow and peering back at Lahaina, noticed the black smoke gushing up from the arcade, and heard the sirens screaming through the downpour.

“Oh, my God, we set it on fire,” she said in awe. “How can anything burn in all this rain?”

Edward took control again and grinned at her, lounging at the tiller.

“The heat, my dear, was prodigious in there,” he drawled.

She giggled nervously, watching the smoke. Her face was pale.

They weighed anchor and sailed away from Maui, setting a course for Tahiti. Away from the islands, they passed well out of the storm and sailed on blue water, and it was easy to pretend the incident had never happened, in the sunlight and stiff breeze of a Pacific afternoon. Mendoza planted the jaunty little plumeria cutting and gave it a prominent location in the botany cabin, where it promptly shot up and opened in clouds of bloom. The Hawaiian shirts were hung up in the wardrobe, the torn clothes consigned to Smee’s care. The incident receded behind them like Maui itself, sinking into the horizon.