Walter Jon Williams

by Videostar

  Coldness touched Ric's spine. There could be a lot of blood spilled in here, and the plastic would keep it from getting on anything. Computer consoles and vid sets gave off quiet hums. Cables snaked over the floor, held down with duct tape. On a table was a half-kilo white paper packet. Captain Islam and Two-Fisted Jesus sat beside it, tapping into a console. Jesus looked up.

  "Just in time," he said, "for the movies."

  He was a skinny boy, about eighteen, his identity obscured by the obsessive mutilations of Urban Surgery. He wore a T-shirt featuring a picture of a muscular, bearded man in tights, with cape and halo. Here in this place, the hotel room he had hung with plastic and filled with electronics, he moved and spoke with an assurance the others hadn't absorbed, the kind of malevolent grace displayed by those who gave law and style to others, unfettered by conscience. Ric could appreciate Jesus' moves. He'd had them once himself.

  Ric walked to the paper packet and hefted it. He tore open a corner, saw a row of little white envelopes, each labeled Genesios Three with the pharmaceutical company sigil in the corner. He didn't know a test for B-44 so he just stuffed the envelope in his pocket.

  "This is gonna be great," Super Virgin said. She came up behind him and handed him a highball glass half-filled with whiskey. "You got time to watch the flick? We went in packing cameras. We're gonna cut a documentary of the whole thing and sell it to a station in Nogales. They'll write some scenes around it and use it on an episode of _VidWar_." She giggled. "The Mexicans don't care how many gringo hospitals get taken off. They'll put some kind of plot around it. A dumb love story or something. But it's the highest rated program, 'cause people know it's real. Except for _Australian Rules Firefight Football_, and that's real, too."

  Ric looked around and found a chair. It seemed as if these people planned to let him live. He reached into his pocket and fired a round of nasal mist up each nostril. "Sure. I'll watch," he sniffed. "I got time."

  "This is a rough cut only, okay?" Captain Islam's voice. "So bear with us."

  There was a giant-sized liquid-crystal vid display set up on the black plastic on the wall. A picture sizzled into existence. The hospital, a vast concrete fortress set in an aureole of halogen light. Ric felt his tongue go dry. He swallowed with difficulty.

  The image moved, jolting. Whoever was carrying the camera was walking, fast, across the parking lot. Two-Fisted Jesus tapped the keys of his computer. The image grew smooth. "We're using a lot of computer enhancement on the vid, see?" Super Virgin said. "We can smooth out the jitters from the moving camera. Except for select bits to enhance the ver -- the versi -- "

  "Verisimilitude," said Captain Islam.

  "Right. Just to let everyone know this is the real thing. And we're gonna change everyone's appearance electronically, so no one can recognize us."

  Cut to someone moving into the hospital's front door, moving right past the metal detectors. Ric saw a tall girl, blond, dressed in pink shorts and a tube top. White sandal straps coiled about her ankles.

  "A mercenary," Virgin said. "We hired her for this. The slut."

  Captain Islam laughed. "She's an actress," he explained. "Trying for a career south of the border. Wants the publicity."

  The girl stepped up to a guard. Ric recognized Lysaght. She was asking directions, pointing. Lysaght was gazing at her breasts as he replied. She smiled and nodded and walked past. He looked after her, chewed his cigar, hiked up his gunbelt. Ric grinned. As long as guards like Lysaght were around, nothing was safe.

  The point of view changed abruptly, a subjective shot, someone moving down a hospital corridor. Patients in ordinary clothes moving past, smiling.

  "We had a camera in this necklace she was wearing. A gold owl, about an inch long, with 3D vidcams behind the eyes. Antenna in the chain, receiver in her bag. We pasted it to her chest so it would always be looking straight forward and wouldn't get turned around or anything. Easy stuff."

  "We gotta do some pickups, here," Jesus said. "Get a picture of the girl moving down a corridor. Then we tell the computer to put all the stripes on the walls. It'll be worth more when we sell it."

  Subjective shot of someone moving into a woman's toilet, stepping into a stall, reaching into handbag for a pair of coveralls.

  "Another pickup shot," Jesus muttered. "Gotta get her putting on her coveralls." He made a note on a pad.

  The point of view lurched upward, around, out of the stall. Centered on a small ventilator intake high on a wall. Hands came into the picture, holding a screwdriver.

  "Methanethiol," Super Virgin said. "That stuff's gonna be real useful from now on. How'd you know how to make it?"

  "Elementary chemistry," Ric said. He'd used it to clear out political meetings of which the Cadillacs didn't approve.

  The screen was off the ventilator. Hands were reaching into the bag, taking out a small glass bottle. Carefully loosening the screw top. The hands placed the bottle upright in the ventilator. Then the point of view dipped, a hand reached down to pick up the ventilator screen. Then the ventilator screen was shoved violently into the hole, knocking the bottle over.

  Airborne methanethiol gave off a horrible, nauseating smell at one-fiftieth of a part per billion. The psychology wing of the hospital was going to get a dose considerably in excess of that.

  The subjective camera was moving with great rapidity down hospital corridors. To a stairwell, then down.

  Cut to Super Virgin in a phone booth. She had a small voice recorder in her hand, and was punching buttons.

  "Freeze that," said Two-Fisted Jesus. Virgin's image turned to ice.

  Jesus began tapping keys.

  The tattooing shifted, dissolved to a different pattern. Super Virgin laughed. Her hair shortened, turned darker. The black insets over her eyes vanished. Brown eyes appeared, then they turned a startling pale blue.

  "Leave the teeth," she said.

  "Nah. I have an idea." Two-Fisted Jesus sat tapping keys for about thirty seconds. He pressed the Enter button and the metal teeth disappeared completely. He moved the picture forward a second, then back. Virgin's tongue moved readily behind her tattooed lips. The interior of the mouth was pink, a lot of gum, no teeth at all. She clapped her hands.

  "That's strange, man," she said. "I like that."

  "The Mexicans will probably replace her image with some vidstar, anyway," Captain Islam said. "Urban Surgery is too much for them, right now."

  "Okay. I want to see this in three dimensions," Jesus said. Super Virgin's image detached itself from the background and began rotating. He stopped it every so often and made small adjustments.

  "Make me taller," Super Virgin said. "And skinnier. And give me smaller tits. I hate my tits."

  "We do that every time," Jesus said. "People are gonna start to twig."

  "Chrome tits. Leather tits. Anything."

  Captain Islam laughed. Two-Fisted Jesus made minor adjustments and ignored Super Virgin's complaints.

  "Here we go. Say your line."

  The image began moving. Virgin's new green eyes sparkled as she held the recorder up to the mouthpiece of the telephone.

  "This is Royal Flag." It was the name of one of Arizona's more ideological kid gangs. The voice had been electronically altered and sounded flat. "We've just planted a poison gas bomb in your psychology wing. All the head cases are gonna see Jesus. The world's gene pool will be much healthier from now on. Have yourself a pleasant day."

  Super Virgin was laughing. "Wait'll you see the crowd scenes. Stellar stuff, believe me."

  "I believe," said Ric.

  14

  The video was full of drifting smoke. Vague figures moved through it. Jesus froze the picture and tried to enhance the images, without any success.

  "Shit," he said. "More pickups."

  Ric had watched the action as members of Cartoon Messiah in Folger Security uniforms had hammered their way into a hospital back door. They had moved faultlessly through the corridors to the vault and blasted their way in
with champagne-bottle-shaped charges. The blasts had set off tremblor alarms in the vault and the Folger people realized they were being hit. Now the raiders were in the corridor before the vault, retracing their steps at a run.

  "Okay," Super Virgin said. "The moment of truth, coming up."

  The corridor was full of billowing tear gas. Crouched figures moved through it. Commands were yammering down the monitored Folger channels. Then, coming through the smoke, another figure. A tall woman in a helmet, her hand pressed to her ear, trying to hear the radio. There was a gun in her hand. She raised the gun.

  Thuds on the sound track. Tear-gas canisters, fired at short range. One of them struck the woman in her armored chest and bounced off. It hadn't flown far enough to arm itself and it just rolled down the corridor. The woman fell flat.

  "Just knocked the wind out of her." Captain Islam was grinning. "How about that for keeping our deal, huh?" Somebody ran forward and kicked the gun out of her hand. The camera caught a glimpse of her lying on the floor, her mouth open, trying to breathe. There were dots of sweat on her nose. Her eye makeup looked like butterfly wings.

  "Now that's what I call poignant," Jesus said. "Human interest stuff.

  You know?"

  The kids ran away across the parking lot, onto their fuelcell tricycles, and away, bouncing across the parking lot and the railroad tracks beyond.

  "We're gonna spice this up a bit," Jesus said. "Cut in some shots of guards shooting at us, that kind of thing. Steal some suspenseful music. Make the whole thing more exciting. What do you think?"

  "I like it," said Ric. He put down his untasted whiskey. Jacob and his neurotoxin had made him cautious. "Do I get any royalties? Being scriptwriter and all?"

  "The next deal you set up for us. Maybe."

  Ric shrugged. "How are you gonna move the Thunder?"

  "Small pieces, probably."

  "Let me give you some advice," Ric said. "The longer you hang on to it, the bigger the chance Folger will find out you have it and start cramping your action. I have an idea. Can you handle a large increase of capital?"

  15

  "Is this the stuff? Great." Marlene swept in the motel room door, grinning, with her overnight bag. She gave Ric a brief hug, then went to the table of the kitchenette. She picked up the white packet, hefted it in her hand.

  "Light," she said.

  "Yeah."

  "I can't believe people kill each other over this."

  "They could kill _us_," Ric said. "Don't forget that."

  Marlene licked her lips and peeled the packet. She took one of the small white envelopes and tore it open, spilling dark powder into her cupped palm. She cocked her head.

  "Doesn't look like much. How do you take it?"

  Ric remembered the flood of well-being in his body, the way the world had suddenly tasted better. No, he thought. He wasn't going to get hung up on Thunder. "Intravenous, mostly," he said. "Or they could put it in capsules."

  Marlene sniffed at it. "Doesn't smell like anything. What's the dose?"

  "I don't know. I wasn't planning on taking any."

  She began licking in her palm. Ric watched her little pink tongue lapping at the powder. He turned his eyes away.

  "Take it easy," he said.

  "Tastes funny. Kind of like green pepper sauce, with a touch of kerosene."

  "A touch of stupidity," he said. "A touch of..." He moved around the room, hands in his pockets. "A touch of craziness. People who are around Black Thunder get crazy."

  Marlene finished licking her palm and kicked off her shoes. "Craziness sounds good," she said. She stepped up behind him and put her arms around him.

  "How crazy do you think we can get tonight?"

  "I don't know." He thought for a minute. "Maybe I could show you our movie."

  16

  Ric faced the window in the motel room, watching, his mind humming. The window had been dialed to polarize completely and he could see himself, Marlene behind him on the untidy bed, the plundered packet of Thunder on the table. It had been eight days since the hospital had been robbed. Marlene had taken the bus to Phoenix every evening.

  "You should try some of our product," Marlene said. "The stuff's just

  ... when I use it, I can feel my mind just start to click. Move faster, smoother. Thoughts come out of nowhere."

  "Right," Ric said. "Nowhere."

  Ric saw Marlene's reflection look up at his own dark plateglass ghost.

  "Do I detect sarcasm, here?"

  "No. Preoccupation, that's all."

  "Half the stuff's mine, right? I can eat it, burn it, drop it out the window. Drop it on your head, if I want to. Right?"

  "That is correct," said Ric.

  "Things are getting dull," Marlene said. "You're spending your evenings off drinking with Captain Islam and Super Virgin and Krishna Commando ... I get to stay here and watch the vid."

  "Those people I'm drinking with," Ric said. "There's a good chance they could die because of what we're going to do. They're _our_ victims. Would you like to have a few drinks with them? A few smokes?" He turned from the window and looked at her. "Knowing they may die because of you?"

  Marlene frowned up at him. "Are you scared of them?" she asked. "Is that why you're talking like this?"

  Ric gave a short laugh. Marlene ran her fingers through her almost-blond hair. Ric watched her in the mirror.

  "You don't have to involve yourself in this part, Marlene," Ric said.

  "I can do it by myself, I think."

  She was looking at the darkened vid screen. Her eyes were bright. A smile tugged at her lips.

  "I'm ready," she said. "Let's do it."

  "I've got to get some things ready first."

  "Hurry up. I don't want to waste this feeling I've got."

  Ric closed his eyes. He didn't want to see his reflection anymore.

  "What feeling is that?" he asked.

  "The feeling that my time is coming. To try something new."

  "Yeah," Ric said. His eyes were still closed. "That's what I thought."

  17

  Ric, wearing leather gardener's gloves, smoothed the earth over the plastic-wrapped explosive device he had just buried under a pyrocantha bush.

  He was crouched in the shadow of a vacation cabin. Drizzle rattled off his collar. His knees were growing wet. He took the aerial for the radio detonator and pulled it carefully along one of the stems of the bush.

  Marlene stood next to him in red plastic boots. She was standing guard, snuffling in the cold. Ric could hear the sound of her lips as she chewed gum.

  White shafts of light tracked over their heads, filtered by juniper scrub that stood between the cabins and the expressway heading north out of Flagstaff. Ric froze. His form, caught among pyrocantha barbs, cast a stark moving shadow on the peeling white wall.

  "Flashlight," he said, when the car had passed. Moving between the light and any onlookers, Marlene flicked it on. Ric carefully smoothed the soil, spread old leaves. He thought the thorns on the pyrocantha would keep most people away, but he didn't want disturbed soil attracting anyone.

  Rain danced down in the yellow light. "Thanks," he said. Marlene popped a bubble. Ric stood up, brushing muck from his knees. There were more bundles to bury, and it was going to be a long, wet night.

  18

  "They're going to take you off if they can," Ric said. "They're from California and they know this is a one-shot deal, so they don't care if they offend you or leave you dead. But they think it's going to happen in Phoenix, see." Ric, Super Virgin, and Two-Fisted Jesus stood in front of the juniper by the alloy road, looking down at the cluster of cabins. "They may hire people from the Cold Wires or whoever, so that they can have people who know the terrain. So the idea is, we move the meet at the last minute. Up here, north of Flag."

  "We don't know the terrain, either," Jesus said. He looked uncomfortable here, his face a monochrome blotch in the unaccustomed sun.

  Ric took a squeeze bottle of n
asal mist from his pocket and squeezed it once up each nostril. He sniffed. "You can learn it between now and then. Rent all the cabins, put soldiers in the nearest ones. Lay in your commo gear." Ric pointed up at the ridge above where they stood. "Put some people with long guns up there, some IR goggles and scopes. Anyone comes in, you'll know about it."

  "I don't know, Marat. I like Phoenix. I know the way that city thinks."

  Jesus shook his head in disbelief. "Fucking tourist cabins."

  "They're better than hotel rooms. Tourist cabins have back doors."

  "Hey." Super Virgin was grinning, metal teeth winking in the sun as she tugged on Jesus' sleeve. "Expand your horizons. This is the _great outdoors_."

  Jesus shook his head. "I'll think about it."

  19

  Marlene was wearing war paint and dancing in the middle of her condeco living room. The furniture was pushed back to the walls, the music was loud enough to rattle the crystal on the kitchen shelves.

  "You've got to decide, Marlene," Ric said. He was sitting behind the pushed-back table, and the paper packets of Thunder were laid out in front of him. "How much of this do you want to sell?"

  "I'll decide later."

  "Now. Now, Marlene."

  "Maybe I'll keep it all."

  Ric looked at her. She shook sweat out of her eyes and laughed.

  "Just a joke, Ric."

  He said nothing.

  "It's just happiness," she said, dancing. "Happiness in paper envelopes. Better than money. You ought to use some. It'll make you less tense." Sweat was streaking her war paint. "What'll you use the money for, anyway? Move to Zanzibar and buy yourself a safe condeco and a bunch of safe investments? Sounds boring to me, Ric. Why'n't you use it to create some excitement?"

  He could not, Ric thought, afford much in the way of regret. But still a sadness came over him, drifting through his body on slow opiate time.

  Another few days, he thought, and he wouldn't have to use people anymore.

  Which was good, because he was losing his taste for it.