War Games (18 page)

“Where were you going?”

“I have a trigee racer hidden in the forest a hundred kilometers west.”

That interested me. I needed to know more. Mobility was always good to have. I’d been wondering how I was going to get off of Titan.

“Will you tell me where the tunnel is to be found?”

“Why not? It won’t do you any good, though. There’s no escape for a mindrider.”

“Tell me anyway.”

She did. I memorized the directions.

“I want to see you again,” I said. I think I actually meant it.

“You will. In another mindgame.”

“In real time.”

“That doesn’t happen with mindriders. Jry wouldn’t allow it. My handler is quite possessive. Jain Maure wouldn’t like you seeing me, either.”

“You know Jain Maure?”

“Every mindrider has heard of Dr. Pepper.”

“I do as I please.”

“Then you’re fooling yourself, if you think that. You do what Dr. Pepper tells you to do. You’ll realize that eventually. Mindriders are slaves to the pimp that feeds their head with peptides. You don’t want to see me as I really am. You won’t like it. Besides, it’s better in the dreamtime. Then we can be as we once were—a way we’ll never be again. You’ll discover that, too.”

“Tell me where you stay, anyway.”

“I dare not. I’m afraid of him.”

She didn’t have to tell me, I was the Inquisitor, remember. The interrogation helmet and computer and my other trappings of office were just for show. I mean, it was all in a game I constructed in my head. She was in my dream. I could slip unnoticed into her head. I did. I glimpsed the location in her mind. I didn’t have time to peep any deeper. If only I had glimpsed the truth then. Things would have been considerably easier later on. But she didn’t know the truth.

Our minds were pulled apart. The game ended. The dream was finished. I had the momentary urge not to go back, to stay in cortical crystal and keep Grychn with me. I could have. I had the power. But I still had my ambitions. I hadn’t given up yet.

I let myself be pulled into a void, then felt my body forming around my mind.

I sat up on my couch and looked around. Jain Maure stood behind me. She removed the helmet from my head.

Other mindriders were sitting up also, removing their helmets. One of them was Grychn. Which one? She hadn’t said anything about a body switch, so she must be in her own body. Then I recognized her handler, the same one that had been with her before. So she was still in her own body. Almost. I scarcely recognized her, even knowing who she was. She looked haggard and worn. Her breasts hung like flaps of skin on a chest with the ribs showing through. She was skin and bone everywhere. Her eyes were sunken into her skull. How could she have changed so much since I last saw her? Peptides had taken their toll. But it couldn’t have been that long ago.

She looked at me. Recognition did not show in her eyes. Yet she knew what I looked like now—I’d shown her in the dreamgame. Then she finally recognized me. She glanced at her handler, Jry. He was looking elsewhere. She let a little smile tug at her lips. Why had it taken her so long?

Her manager snapped a chain to the gold collar around her neck and led her off. She looked back once and smiled. Apologetically again.

Jain Maure leaned over and whispered in my ear: “How do you like her? Not quite what you had in mind, eh?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Your old girl friend. That strumpet.” She nodded toward Grychn being led naked on a leash.

“What do you know about her?”

“Do you think you can keep any secrets from me? I know all about your childhood sweetheart. But you can have her in your dreams. As long as you keep winning for me. You can fuck her in your mind. I have your body. You’ll be mine as long as I want you.” Something snapped in her hand.

Then Jain led me away by a chain attached to a collar around my neck. When had that happened? I didn’t remember. I wondered what else I’d forgotten.

We left the Underground.

We climbed into Jain’s skimmer. She snapped my chain to a hook inside.

Chronus was a dying city. Elf-fire blazed each night.

More and more beams made it through the force-field. Once-elegant mansions had become charred ruins. Rubble littered the street. Ghost dancers roamed as mobs, breaking windows, looting, burning buildings. Drowned bodies were found in swimming pools each morning. Other bodies lay beside craters in lawns.

Yet the illusion of life went on. Parties still lasted until dawn. Polo ponies still pounded on turf. Tennis matches were still held. Fox and grouse were still hunted. A damn inconvenience to have to fish a body out of your pool before you could swim your daily laps. Maybe if you ignored the bombardment, it would go away. Each day we were told the fleet would be here soon to lift the siege.

Jain Maure and I still lived in her house atop Mt. Erubus. So far the beams had missed us. The wooded slopes were charred black, though, and pocked with craters. Dead trees stood like skinny skeletons.

When we got home, I was still bothered by Grychn’s failure to recognize me at first. I’d begun to suspect a grim reality. I looked at myself in a holomirror. A stranger stood before me. A typical pephead. What had happened to the splendid creature I had once been? Now I looked like a famine victim—thin and wasted. My skin was splotched and mottled. My nose had become a sharp beak. How long had I been ravaged by peptide? I tried to remember. Days had become weeks. How many? I wasn’t sure. Too long. I had to find Nels quickly now. Before I became too wasted to continue the search.

Jain was in one of her talkative moods that night. She only gave me enough endorphine to give me a gentle buzz. We lay together watching pulsar detonations play overhead.

“How is your search going? Have you found her yet?”

“What?” I had told Jain nothing about what I was doing. Or about Nels.

“Come on, I know what pattern your dreamgames are taking. The other mindriders call you the Inquisitor.”

“It’s just a way to play the game.”

“Did your little girl friend tell you anything?”

“Like I said, it’s just a way to play. Nothing else.”

“You’re looking for someone. Go ahead. You won’t be able to do anything about it when you find her. Unless I let you. Don’t forget, l own you now.”

“It’s just my way of playing. A way to win. You like winning, don’t you?”

“A shrewd tactic. A smart way to play.” Green eyes peered into mine. “Let me know when you find whom you seek. You may as well. You’ll save yourself a lot of discomfort.” Her eyes blinked. There was something wrong about them. She leaned over me, letting her breasts brush across my face. A wet tongue touched the top of my head. Endiazepam flowed into my brain like warm summer rain. I went to sleep.

The dream came.

A voice asked me questions, making me repeat the answers over and over. I told the voice all about Grychn, all about Nels. It seemed to know about them, anyway. I said I hadn’t found Nels, that I was still looking. Finally the voice stopped bothering me ... I was on my hands and knees. Someone penetrated me from behind. I felt the thrusts deep inside. A body pressed against my back; full breasts pushed on my shoulder blades. I turned my head. Jain smiled, green eyes flashed. She quickened her thrusts, slapping against my buttocks. Her hand found my penis and began stroking it, synchronizing the jerks of her hand with her pelvic undulations. As my penis squirted over her fingers, I felt her ejaculate hot in my bowels. Then her tongue touched my head. Sleep numbed my limbs. The dream faded to oblivion.

When I woke, Jain lay beside me. What I remembered of the dream bothered me. My hand stroked the inside of her legs, finding the warm place between them. Her moist vault opened for my finger. Nothing wrong there. Why the dream, then?

Something tickled between my legs. I felt wetness with my finger. I touched it to my lips, tasting the saltiness of blood.

Why the dream?

THE NEXT DAY,
while
Jain made her rounds at the hospital, I went to the Underground by myself. But not to play a dreamgame. There was one final preparation to be made, while I still had the strength.

First I went to a storage garage I’d rented some time ago. I retrieved two heavy cases. I carried both to the portal of the Underground. The vark on duty there barely glanced up at me.

The corridors beneath Chronus were nearly deserted at this hour—its denizens had retreated to their holes. I followed the directions Grychn had given me, winding a labyrinthine path through the old mine tunnels, unused by the current inhabitants of Chronus. Eventually I came to an air lock—on the other side would be swirling hydrocarbons at a hundred below. And freedom.

I hid the cases nearby, in a blind tunnel, burying them beneath loose rubble.

Everything was ready now.

If I could only find Nels and the timestone.

* * *

My mind grew weaker.

Each dreamgame became harder to manage. I started pulling back personas, maintaining only those absolutely necessary. Subtleties were dropped for raw brutality in my interrogations. I began to deserve my sobriquet. But before long, even violence would fail.

But I saw Grychn several more times. In a dreamgame. Each time was better than the last. When we made love, we truly made love—we became one gestalt being. We shared all the pain and joy that had happened to each of us during the last ten years apart. I held only one thing back—I never told her that I had been the combrid who had captured her for Kramr. What she held back I didn’t find out until later.

And each time, it was harder to go back to bodies ravaged by peptide addiction. More and more, I had the urge to keep her with me in the casino’s cortical crystal. Without minds, our bodies would die. Our minds would only survive for a few hours of real time in the crystal. But it would seem forever in dreamtime. We could be who we had not been for a long time. Didn’t the perception of an event make it so? If we perceived an eternity of happiness, wouldn’t it then be? The notion was very tempting. But each time I resisted, my will to do so was less.

I knew also that when the time came for me to make my escape, it would be hard to leave her behind. But I couldn’t take along any excess baggage.

My strange night dreams kept coming back to haunt me. The same voice talked to me, low and persistent, making me tell everything that had happened during my interrogations. And I kept flashing to images of Jain Maure with a penis, engaging in disturbing bisexuality.

I decided I had become mad.

But my interrogations continued.

* * *

My hawks were the only constant in an equation of variables. Each day they waited for me to feed them. They would come both morning and evening, to wheel in the air outside the balcony.

That day, I forgot to feed them in the morning. I’d slept through the day, drugged with both peptides and accumulating fatigue. It was almost dark when I finally roused myself from bed. They had waited patiently. Their shrieks and whistles greeted me as I came out on the balcony with a bowl of meat.

Already, elf-fire raged overhead.

I threw bloody chunks high. The hawks grabbed them in midair with their talons. Then they came to roost on the railing and tore at the meat with their beaks. I went inside for another bowl.

As I was coming back, a flash of light blinded me. An instant later a thunderclap knocked me sprawling. My ears rang from the detonation. My nostrils stung with ozone fumes. And I smelled something else.

I crawled out to the balcony. A section of railing was missing. The balcony was littered with feathers and a few still fluttered down. I found one body. Its bright eyes were already dimming. I smoothed its feathers as best I could, then flung it into the air, watching it fall to the park below. I sat on the balcony in ebbing light and cried. I hadn’t cried for a long time. But I’d lost my only friends.

A little while later, peptide withdrawal started.

I pulled my legs against my chest, resting my chin on my knees. A rigor shook me. My teeth chattered. Sweat began beading on my skin. Rats played tag with each other inside me.

Pulsar beams stabbed out of the sky like linear lightning. But no more came close. The one that had hit earlier had been a random thing, a brief weakening in the field overhead. But I wanted another to follow. I wanted to be released from the pain.

Jain Maure was late coming home. My habit was such that I needed peptide before the mindgame. She knew that. Sometimes she let me suffer a little. But I was remembering each indignity. Her time would come.

Now the rats decided to start digging.

I heard footsteps inside. It was about time she got home. I waited on the balcony. I wasn’t going to crawl to her.

The footsteps came closer, pausing at the door to the balcony. I sat still, huddled next to the wall. A figure stepped out.

“Ah, there you are.” I knew the voice.

Black formal boots stepped into my view. I gradually raised my eyes, seeing first gray trousers bloused around the boots, then a trim tunic without insignia, then a smiling black face. A red beret with a silver skull sat at the proper tilt on his head. Eyes as cold as Wyoming jade met mine.

“So good to see you.” He stuck out his hand. I ignored it. “You remember me?” he asked. “Colonel Kramr. Corps Intelligence.” He laughed apologetically. “People always say we spooks all look alike.”

I said nothing. But I remembered Kramr. I’d wondered how long it would take for him to look me up again.

“I thought I might stop by and ask you a few more questions. We’ve been having quite a time finding that girl friend of yours.” He peered brightly at me. Elf-fire glowed like emeralds in his eyes. “But we think we’ve located her now. In the Underground.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But we’re having the hardest time getting someone down there to verify the information. I understand you’ve been going to the mindcasinos. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her?”

I stared ahead, showing nothing on my face. I should have guessed he knew where Grychn was. There could only be one reason he’d let her stay there. That meant he knew about Nels. But not where the timestone could be found. If he knew that, there’d be no reason to come to me. I chilled again. A rat crawled up my throat. I opened my legs and vomited between them. The rat scurried away, hiding behind Kramr.

“You’re not well,” he said. “Pardon me for bothering you. You should have mentioned you were ill.”

Two more rats clawed their way out through my mouth.

“Maybe I can help?” Kramr pulled a vial out of his pocket. He unscrewed the lid and withdrew a dropper filled with blue liquid. He leaned over me, holding the dropper straight up and down. I felt a drop hit the top of my head. Warmth sent my muscles quivering. Another drop splashed atop my head. Embers fanned to flame. Another drop landed, as hot as molten bismuth. Heat consumed my brain. Consciousness lapsed. A dream cycled out of hippocampal gray.

I hid beneath the gnarled roots of a cypress tree. My heart pounded in my chest. I was playing Hide and Seek with my brothers in the woods of our estate. Henri was looking for me. I heard the snap of a twig, then the rustle of leaves. I held still. Silence. I held my breath. Blood roared in my ears. Suddenly, fingers grasped my neck. “I see, I see!” Henri shouted gleefully. He pulled me out from the hollow like a rabbit from its hole, and pushed me along in front of him. He had already caught Robrt, who stood beneath an overhanging tree limb with a noose tight around his neck. He had to stand on tiptoe to keep from being choked. Henri tied a rope around my legs and hoisted me up in the air to hang beside Robrt. “Now we can have some fun,” said Henri. “I am the winner. The spoils are mine.” He pulled down Robrt’s pants and then his own. He stood behind him, pressing his penis between Robrt’s buttocks. I saw it slip inside. His thrusts lifted Robrt off the ground. I knew what would happen next. I’d played the game before. Henri stood before me. My head hung at the level of his groin. His penis was still stiff. It was streaked with brown. He pressed it against my lips. “Take it,” he said. I kept my mouth closed tightly. He held my nose. I vowed to pass out before I opened my mouth to breathe. I did. But when I regained consciousness, his penis was in my mouth. I began sucking. There was nothing else to do. My mouth soon filled with warmth.

I awoke. The dream started fading.

I lay naked on wombskin. The room was dark, except for flashes of elf-fire. I saw Jain Maure sitting across the room, outlined by stroboscopic bursts. I sat up. Kramr was gone.

“Is it time to go yet?” I asked.

“Past time. You were sleeping when I came home. My poor baby is tired. Let’s stay home tonight. Just the two of us. We can have some fun.” She crossed the room to stand in front of me. She was naked. Her pubic hair brushed my face; my tongue darted out to lick. She mounted the bed and stood over me. I put my hands behind me for support and tilted my head. She settled her crotch into my face. I nibbled at her labia, then buried my tongue deep. Elf-fire gleamed from her breasts. Her eyes shone with emotion. She lowered herself until she kneeled over me. I felt her tongue touch my head. Madness swirled like a cancer growing.

I remembered something she had once said.

“What happens at a Temple of the Dead?” I asked. “You said you were once a neophyte at one.”

“Nothing important.”

“But what is the ritual?”

“You have to go through it to know. There’s a vow of silence as well. Why? Are you thinking of attending a service?”

“Maybe. Tell me what to expect.”

Her tongue touched me again. “You lie on an altar. A priest connects you to some medical equipment—the old kind that actually pierces flesh. Then they inject some potassium directly into your heart, making it stop. They let you go for just under four minutes, then revive you. During that four minutes while you are dead, your soul is supposed to glimpse the afterlife.”

“Does it?” Voices whispered in my ear, telling me to do things. Terrible things.
Do it! Do it! Do it!
“Can you glimpse anything?”

She laughed. “Who knows? I suppose a dying mind sees some image. Who knows if it’s real or not?”

“What images did you see?” Her tongue was warm and wet on my skull. A tornado swirled in my mind. Madness rose, pushing aside reason. But there was one more question to ask. “Do you know what awaits us in the cold empty?” I found myself fastening sonic clasps to her ankles and wrists, then binding her to the bed of wombskin. She strained against her bonds. Pulsar detonations froze her in stop-motion. Muscles rippled under mahogany skin. Her nipples traced circles in the air. Black hair fanned out. Vermillion fire gleamed from her eyes. “What meaning hides in the time matrix?” I opened a steel case. Instruments glittered. I removed a dermatome. “Do you know? Did you see?” I began tracing lines of blood in her skin.

“Yes,” she said as she writhed in pain. “I know. How well I know.”

“When will I see the truth?”

“Soon,” she answered. “It’s almost time.”

My mind became totally psychotic. What happened afterward, it refused to remember.

That morning, no hawks roused me from sleep.

The game must go on.

* * *

I had found Nels.

An alarm light flashed from my computer console. For a moment, I was too startled to do anything. Then I got busy.

I had my guards kill the other prisoners—I didn’t want to waste energy watching after them. Then I pulled in all my personas. I simplified my dreamworld, disolving it all into one chamber.

There was just Nels and me.

I had been waiting a long time to get to talk to him. Did I say him? Force of habit. I meant
her.
Nels was a woman. I smiled. I understood now what Grychn had meant about letting her have her little joke.

She sat in a padded chair. Wrists and ankles were held by sonic straps. A spotlight glared from above.

I always did have a flair for the dramatic.

“So you found me,” Nels said. “I suppose you want the same thing as the others.” Her hair was short, her face burned chocolate by too much sun.

“How did you know I was looking for you?”

“You were looking for someone. All the other mindriders knew that.” She smiled. The skin wrinkled around her eyes. “Besides, the stone told me
you
would come eventually. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“Others have sought you?”

“I think so. They wanted the .same thing you do.”

“Which is?”

“The place where I hid the stone.”

“Did you tell anyone else?”

“Of course not. No one else is supposed to know except you and me.”

I relaxed a little. That meant Kramr couldn’t force the information out of her. I would be the only one to know. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Maybe.” She smiled, “Do we have to be so formal?” She glanced down at the straps.

“I suppose not.” The straps and chair were gone. Nels stood before me. “Is that better?”

“A little.” She came close, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Why don’t you make things more comfortable for us? The story is rather long.” Her fingers began loosening my cape. She kissed me, “Be nice to me first. It’s lonely being a mindrider.”