by Kage Baker
Bloody hell. How’d you come back on, boy?
“Captain!” He looked around desperately. “Something’s happened. Find a way to get me out of here.”
You’ve turned yerself on, and you’ve built yerself a site to boot. There was a disgruntled tone to the Captain’s voice. How’d the likes of you manage that, I wonder?
“Captain, can you hear me?” Edward said. “Captain!”
Oh, I hear you right enough, Edward.
Edward’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. Ah, I see now. I removed the collar. I broke your hold over Alec for a moment, and you didn’t like that, and so you’re punishing me.”
No. I ain’t punishing you, Edward. Mind you, I’m going to, but I was too busy to deal with you proper-like just now. I was going to leave you off for a while, to give the others a little peace whilst I made up my mind what to do with you. Yet here you be, and here’s this place, and it’s damned inconvenient, says I.
“Inconvenient—” Edward’s mouth was dry. There was no water in his prison, not even the cracked wooden tankard there should have been.
Well, let’s see if I can’t shut you down again.
A wave of darkness and cold rolled over him, with a paralyzing numbness, and he howled and fought for all the sensations that had been so noisome and uncomfortable a moment before. He held on to his thirst and the stink of the ship, the close foul heat, the raw pain in his wrists and ankles.
By thunder, you don’t want to go down, do you? Yer a strong little bugger, Edward, I’ll give you that.
“What are you doing?” Edward shouted. “What are you doing to me? I won’t die, do you hear me?”
I thought it’d be enough to shut you off. Ah, it’s a damn shame, too. Look how useful you was at Options Research! I were thinking you’d come in right handy once we’d got the DNA.
Edward began to shake with anger.
“Useful, am I? Handy, am I? Damn your insolence! I have better things to do than wait on that boy.”
No, Edward, you don’t.
“I tell you I do! Is this your plan for me, Machine? I’m to have no life of my own, I’m to serve merely as some sort of useful proxy for your boy? Do you think you can pull me out like a pair of gloves for him, when he faces something difficult?” said Edward, wrenching at his chains until he felt them cutting into his wrists.
Aye, that were the plan. I were hoping you’d integrate with him, by and by. But you won’t behave, and I don’t know what to do about it, afore God I don’t. I can’t let you out; you’d only pull another such trick as you just done, putting my boy in danger to see if you could get away with something. And what’s poor Mendoza to do, now? You been leading her on to think Alec wants a baby, and you know damned well that ain’t true. Yer a liar, boy, and to the lady what loves you best in all the world.
“I’m a liar? As though you haven’t got your own plans for her! You restored her ability to bear children, didn’t you?”
That ain’t your business, Edward.
“You truly think Alec will fight immortality, is that it? Is her womb an insurance policy for you? You think she’ll bear you a new body for him, if he insists on wrecking the one he’s got?” said Edward furiously.
Ain’t you a clever lad! Too clever by half, aye.
“You think your boy deserves eternal life? The idiot seventh earl of Fins-bury?” Edward raved. “Look at the hash he made of his one attempt to better mankind! You think he deserves Dolores? I’ll never forget the look on his face, when he realized what she was. Thing, he called her!”
My little Alec may not suit you, but he’s my boy, and what’s more important, he’s alive. All you are is a program, Edward. A recording of a dead man’s memory what can’t be shut off. I’ll figure out a way, all the same, though, bucko.
“No,” Edward said, lunging upward. He broke the chain and beat his bleeding fists against the door of the cell. “You can’t do this to me. I’ll have my life back, do you understand? I have work to do! I will walk the Earth again, in spite of you, or Alec, or Nicholas, or the Society! I WILL NOT BE SILENCED!”
Please, Captain sir, can you talk to us now? said Alec, shivering with Nicholas under the jets of the shower.
I’m busy, son.
But Edward’s gone, Nicholas said.
I know.
But we’ve got to get him back! Alec said.
I’ve got him, Alec.
Alec and Nicholas looked at each other, bewildered.
Thou hast rescued him, then, said Nicholas.
Not exactly, lad. I’ve had to give him a bit of discipline.
Nicholas frowned. Punishment?
Aye.
But how’d you make him disappear? Alec demanded.
I shut down his program.
WHAT?
Aye. I’ve known how to shut it down for a few months now, but there didn’t seem to be no need, did there? Ye’d all been getting along well enough.
You just—just switched him off? Alec looked as though he was going to be sick. Would you do that to me? Or to Nicholas?
Not to you, lad. I could shut our Nicholas down, aye, but he behaves himself most of the time. He only went berserk the once.
But that’s horrible! You can’t just shut people off like they were lights or something, said Alec.
Nor can he. Spirit, thou liest! Nicholas said firmly. We are no shadows of thy casting, nor canst thou kill us. Thou hast but hidden Edward away.
Well, lad, you may be right at that; for he won’t stay off, it seems. I don’t know how he’s still able to do what you can do without him having an actual physical brain anymore, Alec, but he done it, and he’s throwing himself quite a tantrum at the moment.
Let him go, Captain sir, please! Alec said.
Ought I, now? And don’t you want to know what he was shut up for doing? Whilst you two was asleep, he talked yer lady into letting him grow himself a new body in her womb.
There was a moment of shocked silence. Nicholas began to pound his right fist into his left palm. That smiling whoreson bastard, he muttered.
That was why she was talking about babies! Alec realized.
Unfortunately, it was at this precise moment that Edward managed to break free of his prison and popped into existence there in the shower with them, naked and bleeding.
HA, he said. I told you you wouldn’t—
He was unable to finish his sentence, however, because Nicholas punched him right in the mouth, and followed with two more blows in rapid succession before Edward collected his wits enough to start hitting him back. Alec, uncertain whether to dodge blows or hit Edward too, slipped and fell backward against the shower door, which opened abruptly and they fell, all three, on the bathroom floor in a cursing, struggling mass.
Hearing the crash, Mendoza was instantly beside Alec, who was gasping and convulsing as the others strove for control.
“Sir Henry,” she screamed, taking Alec in her arms. “He’s having a seizure!”
It was a full hour before she could be calmed down enough to be assured that Alec had not developed a short-circuit as a result of his concussion, but had merely slipped on the soap and been too out of breath to explain this when she’d found him. An hour of her heartbroken crying was enough to make even Edward feel miserably remorseful, and a general truce was agreed upon all around. The Captain administered mild tranquilizers, put everybody to bed, and weighed anchor for Maui.
ONE MORNING IN LAHAINA, 2281 AD
They strolled through the old village between Front Street and the highway, debating endlessly about where to have breakfast.
“Hey, this place is still here,” said Alec, stopping in front of a bright-painted eatery. “I mean—it’s here already. I used to come to this place all the time . . . or I guess I will. It looks so new now.”
“The ‘WHALER GETS HIS’ café,” Mendoza read aloud, craning her head back to look up at the sign, which showed a mortal in nineteenth-century foul weather gear regarding, with an expression of annoya
nce, the harpoon protruding from his chest. In the background, whales leaped up on their tails with big cartoony grins. “Well, it is new, darling.”
“Great food,” Alec said, looking down hopefully at his two tiny reflections in the optics of her sunglasses. She had awakened shortly before dawn with a screaming nightmare, and wept uncontrollably after while he held her. Though he had assured her that she looked fine now, she was still worried that her eyes were red, and wouldn’t take the glasses off.
“Is it good?” She peered through the window.
“Really good.” He took both her hands in his and leaned down to kiss her. “Pretty lady, can I buy you breakfast? Hawaiian-style omelet? You’d like it a lot.”
She smiled at last. “Okay, señor.”
They went in and Alec found that it was even brighter and newer inside, though the menu was not substantially different. A Hawaiian omelet turned out to be soyfluff with bananas and caramelized onions, bizarre but delicious with an iced glass of unbelievably pungent local ginger ale. The lightheartedness of the fare was counterbalanced by the antiwhaling artwork printed all down the sides of the menu and on the paper placemats, perhaps a bit unnecessary given that nobody had intentionally killed a whale in two centuries.
“Why are they so down on whaling so long after the fact?” Mendoza said, slipping off her sunglasses at last. She squinted up at a poster depicting Moby Dick triumphantly devastating the crew of the Pequod. Her eyes were still a little red.
“I don’t know,” Alec said, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. “Maybe because the Royals over here are all members of the Beast Liberation Party.”
Ridiculous, muttered Edward, polishing off virtual kippers. Conservation’s all very well, but turning on one’s own kind?
Thou art no more kin to man than to the whale, monster, Nicholas said gloomily, watching Mendoza’s pale tense face as she stared at a harpoon gun mounted above the door.
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.”
&nb
sp; 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!