When the River Ran Dry

by Robert Davies

  Kirtland and Ross laughed loudly, each knowing the rest of the story, but Jamison seemed distant.

  “Well,” Ross continued, “it’s going to make for a wonderful advertising tool.”

  “Indeed,” Kirtland replied. “That single kill near the factory was most gratifying, I have to say, but it would’ve been better if this Mills person would’ve run across one of the females. We really do need to address that, at some point, Victor.”

  “He’s right,” Kirtland decided. “We should look into sending more women Chasers next time.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jamison replied at last, but his words were distant.

  Kirtland heard the change in Jamison’s tone.

  “Is something wrong, Victor? You seem distracted.”

  Jamison shook his head with a frown.

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. “It seemed odd to me, especially when we lost the audio feed for a moment or two there.”

  “Oh, that was probably a small glitch in the transmitter, Victor,” Ross said. “It came back up right away, but there were bound to be bugs in a new system.”

  “Perhaps,” Jamison replied, “but only a moment later, this fellow Mills suddenly moved back into the trees and found his way past the Chasers to catch them unaware; it just looked funny to me.”

  “Funny, how?”

  “It seemed strange to me he would make that conclusion out of thin air; Mills was heading straight into their ambush.”

  “Maybe he smelled a rat, Victor; he did a pretty good job eliminating that Chaser inside the Zone, didn’t he?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Let’s enjoy this moment, Victor; the ‘nets are going to pour royalties at us from the advertising revenue on the live feeds, and probably twice that amount in replays.”

  Jamison smiled and reached for his drink.

  “You’re probably right, Levi,” he said. “Here’s to the Walk!”

  Ricky opened his eyes, squinting at once against the harsh morning glare as the sun blasted through his tiny window. Disoriented confusion held him for a moment until he realized the doorbell’s warbling tone brought him from a deep sleep. He stumbled to unlock the latch, finding Doctor Cason standing before him. Ricky shook his head and tried to clear his vision.

  “If you have a moment, I’d like to remove the Zorich device now, Richard,” Cason said softly. “It will only take a moment.”

  Ricky looked up, bewildered and speechless.

  “I thought I was…”

  Cason leaned against the arm of a couch where Ricky sat, trying to make sense of what seemed impossible.

  “Dreaming? I’m afraid not. However, you’re safe now.”

  Ricky understood at last.

  “You were the voice warning me at Broadridge?”

  “Elden told me about your problem and I implanted a modified device before you started the Walk last night—it put a temporary block in the transmitter’s send-and-receive software and pointed it to one of my private frequencies.”

  “How did you break into their comm link?”

  “Never mind that now; I need to remove and destroy the Zorich.”

  “What for?”

  “If the organizers find and examine it, they will quickly see it was modified; that would be very bad for both of us.”

  Ricky saw quickly the risk and need to remove evidence, but still Cason’s actions were a mystery.

  “Why did you help me? I thought you…”

  “You thought I was with them? I’m not. They pay me well enough to implant these devices, and I don’t generally interfere because most of the people they send to make a Walk deserve it. You, on the other hand, did not. You did this to protect your sister and Elden knew it, so I stepped in this time.”

  Ricky tried to piece together Cason’s words.

  “I never told him about Litzi and Boris.”

  “It’s all right; an interested party alerted Elden.”

  “No one else knew!”

  “Well, somebody did. Elden described the conditions of your Walk and asked me to intervene. He and I are old friends, so I was happy to help this one time.”

  Ricky shook his head, still confused, but alive and with another chance never afforded others in his place.

  “What happens now?”

  “I expect the networks will be calling soon; your story is the big topic of discussion this morning and everyone who watched the program last night is buzzing about it today.”

  “I don’t want to talk to them,” Ricky muttered.

  “Well, you handle that as you see fit. In the meantime, I can tell you Boris Konstantinou has publicaly acknowledged your debt is now paid in-full, so you needn’t worry about him again. You can retrieve your sister from hiding, but there is one other thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “I would give serious consideration to the unfortunate circumstances that got you into this mess in the first place.”

  Ricky knew what he meant without the added embarrassment of a detailed description.

  “Starlight.”

  “Yes,” Cason replied. “I’ve seen a lot of people go down because of that damned simulation, Richard; you would do well to leave it in the past and make a clean break of it while you can, hmm?”

  “I know.”

  Cason motioned him toward the couch.

  “Lay facedown again; it won’t take long.”

  After Doctor Cason was gone, Ricky ran his hand across the tiny bandage on the back of his neck. It was otherwise smooth again, now relieved of the annoying bump made by the Zorich device. He slumped into the big recliner, unwilling to scroll through the hundred messages that waited inside his wrist comm. With the call alarm disabled, the incessant chirping stopped, bringing silence and privacy until a back-knuckled rap at his door shattered the quiet again.

  When he peered out from the little monitor, Bartel and Junkyard stood away from the door, waiting patiently as he always knew they would. With a flick of his wrist, the door opened.

  “Slider, you lucky bastard! You make it all the way through after all, eh?”

  “What do you want, Vaclav?”

  “Boris, he send us down to see how you keeping, that’s all; you been through the hell and back, so he just want us to tell you everything’s all square again, okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Sure, sure! All the money you owe, it’s cancelled ‘cause them networks, they pay the Boss up big, see? He says no hard feelings, and he made a special adjustment to your account so’s you can go down to Reese Street and see your little sim girlie whenever you like. You got the big star on you now, so Boris says he give you twenty hours for free, okay?”

  Ricky felt the churn suddenly, building in his stomach like a tempest. It was an odd sensation, but he fought a compulsion to vomit then and there. The images shot through in his mind; Neferure, smiling from the banks of the river where she waited for him, but somehow, it was different and not with the same desire that once pushed him willingly to her arms. Instead, he felt a powerful revulsion at the idea, the way people do after a night on the town doing the things they would regret the next morning. He saw Litzi’s face, cold and with disappointment in her eyes that tormented him still. Ricky wanted only to forget.

  “I don’t want them. Tell Boris thanks, but I’ll just stay on my own for a while.”

  Bartel frowned and shook his head.

  “It’s okay, Slider; you can go or not. I know what you been through, and you just need some time to rest. Maybe you take a walk down there later, eh?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Well, it’s up to you. And Boris, he says nobody gonna bother Litzi no more; he ain’t interested so much anyway. We gonna tell him how you doin’ now, but call me if you want to take them hours, okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Bartel tapped Junkyard’s shoulder and they turned to go, wandering up the alley unconcerned for the wreckage left behind in the tiny apartment. Ricky watched for a
moment and closed the door gently. He leaned his back against the wall in silence as the images from his Walk returned, tormenting him even in the safety of his home. Alone in the quiet apartment, Ricky Mills landed in a place of stark truths where a paradox waited and reality destroyed the comfort of illusion. In his solitude, he understood at last no amount of money or free hours in a Starlight theater could shield him from a misery so profound, ending it with a carefully aimed bullet seemed suddenly a reasonable option. Instead, he decided, there would be no return to Reese Street; Neferure would idle in ignorance until the program was erased.

  He eased himself into the old chair once more, taking a deep breath as he settled. It wasn’t surprising when the images returned, but he saw them differently now—clear, objective and without the single-minded passion that once spurred him. The past months, condensed into fleeting scenes and echoed voices played out like a dream, yet they seemed an oddly distant memory. Most prominent of them all, he saw the lone Chaser’s face, screwed up into a grimace as life ebbed. Ricky’s body ached, too—scratched and bruised from the struggle and plain evidence of a murder he committed without hesitation. He remembered gunning down the Chasers who waited in ambush, too, but the image was fleeting and surprisingly vague. A coping mechanism, he wondered? Was the act so savage and contrary to his natural spirit that his mind shunted it quickly to that place where all bad memories are kept safely out of sight?

  He thought of Neferure again, but now with an unexpected dissonance. On the one hand, she had been a focal point of all he did—artificial, perhaps, but dearer to him than most. In the silent, stark aftermath of a life and death struggle he knew would surely have been lost if not for Cason’s intervention, she appeared in the shape of a stranger; familiar, but held deliberately distant. Neferure hadn’t betrayed him—she couldn’t. But all she represented had and the fault was his. Ricky’s heart and mind began a slow, inevitable process that would soon define not the weak addict he had been, but the man he wanted to become.

  He smiled suddenly at the thought; old, irresistible urges to see her were faint and without purpose, replaced instead by a headache and the clear understanding his second chance had been given. As it is for others who find their way out from some depravity or other and back to the safety of a normal life, he cared nothing for the free hours at Reese Street Vaclav offered. Only a day before, he would already have been there, walking next to her across the cool, marble floors of Ma’at Palace, aiming perhaps for the boat dock and a leisurely ride along the river. He laughed to himself at the notion, but a need that drove him nearly to a lonely death on the outskirts of a mean and uncaring city had been transformed in the terrifying darkness of the Walk; this day, Ricky’s purpose lay elsewhere as he straightened himself to call Natty Gault.

  Litzi was in the kitchen, helping with the last dishes from breakfast when Ricky knocked gently at the door. Ganny opened it with a broad grin.

  “Jesus, Slider; you brought the hammer down on those Chaser assholes, no shit!”

  Before he could answer, Litzi rushed to envelop him in her arms. She said nothing, preferring instead simply to hold him as tightly as she could. When she released him, her eyes were filled with tears that seemed equal parts anger and desperate relief that he survived.

  “Damn it, Ricky; you didn’t tell me they were going to make you do a Walk!”

  “There was no other way,” he replied softly. “I couldn’t let that bastard get his hands on you.”

  Ganny stood close-by, patting Ricky’s shoulder.

  “Well, you made it; that bastard can’t hurt her now!”

  Ricky smiled at last as the moment rushed over him, pulling away the remnants of his fears.

  “You watched?” he asked as Litzi gathered her things.

  “I was on shift,” Natty answered, “but Frankie recorded it off Channel 9; you’re a big-shot now! The ‘nets have been running the replay all day and that shit you pulled right at the end is the most popular part; everyone wants to see you shootin’ those Chasers down.”

  Ricky thought again of the seconds before he opened fire, terrified and shaking where he hid beneath the edge of the long ravine. Like a cornered animal in the dark, he stood on the edge of a precipice—a fall into madness—made by the surety he would either shoot them and murder again, or die in a hail of their bullets. The rules of a civil society, thin at best in even the nicer parts of Novum, had been cast aside so that he could go on living. There were no considerations beyond survival and that truth made him hateful; the brutal reality placed before him like a corridor with one exit had given no place to hide and no other option but to kill the Chasers where they crouched in wait.

  It had not been as he imagined, taking the life of another. The adventure vids made it look effortless, and even his most heroic battles inside the Starlight program where foes fell before him neatly and without a mess on a parched, Egyptian desert were always won by default. But those visions were entertainment and fantasy; there was no real risk or danger to cloud his enjoyment. Still—and by Ricky’s own hand—the lone Chaser inside the Zone gasped out the last, sickening breath of his life, falling limp and gone forever. Moments later, his machine gun sawed through two more who waited to open fire, tearing into their bodies with ghastly and lethal effect. Were there three widows and orphaned children that very morning, held in a grip of misery and despair from what he had done, Ricky wondered? There were no re-set buttons and he closed his eyes in sadness, burdened under the weight of regret.

  The lone Chaser fought hard, but he would surely have killed Ricky without a second thought. Survive or die, they told him in the moments before he ran for the cover of the park. He watched the images in his mind, deciding at last the vids had gotten it wrong; they could never duplicate the churning inside his stomach, or the private horror of seeing a human being torn into shreds before him. Ricky watched them stumble and fall—he saw the agony in their faces as his bullets ripped through their bodies. Was the disturbing image only the last, fleeting wisps of his humanity leaving him? The act itself was justifiable, considering what the Chasers would’ve done to him otherwise, but another thought troubled Ricky in his silence. Had he become like them after all? Was he no better than a murderous, psychotic animal like Junkyard?

  He turned suddenly to Litzi, desperate to forget.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  She nodded and shouldered her bag as Ricky made his final thanks to Ganny. When they went slowly onto the lift moments later, he could hear the voices of strangers along the walkway above, pointing and smiling like tourists at a famous monument. They meant well, but Ricky wished desperately for a return to the nameless obscurity he left behind when Bartel delivered him to the Walk’s lonely start point. A momentary, reluctant celebrity, he floundered in a sea without hope of rescue. When he rounded the corner from Rademacher Way an hour later, he saw the sky vans where they crowded along the approach to his alley; the ‘nets sent reporters to interview Novum’s newest vid star.

  In the middle of a group of nearly twenty, Mrs. Abber held up her hands to quiet them, but still they yattered on, demanding to know when Ricky would arrive. At last, one of them noticed and rushed toward him. In seconds, the others abandoned Mrs. Abber and followed, their camera drones clunking into one another three meters above.

  Ricky slowed for a moment, but he continued quickly and purposely toward his door, elbowing through the crowd. Others—residents from the block—were gathered, craning for a better view of their now-famous neighbor. The questions were delivered with the loud, careless shouts that seemed customary to news people, all of them angling for a closer position and the hope he would turn to them with his account of a harrowing experience. Instead, Ricky said nothing, waiting for the door lock to release. Mrs. Abber did her best to shield him, nearly tumbling when the doorway went ajar and she slammed it firmly as Ricky turned, looking beyond her as if the shouting throng would burst through at any moment. When at last they relented and went slowly
up the alley, the quiet returned and she moved close to him.

  “I’m sorry, Richard; I tried to make them leave, but…”

  “It’s okay,” Ricky replied. “I should’ve stayed away a while longer.”

  With the public confirmation Ricky’s debt had been absolved, there had been nothing more to do. Litzi was safely returned to her apartment, but better still, she was free from Boris’ unwanted advances. A poorly-kept secret, the streets understood she was the real threat held like a sword over Ricky’s head. Advertising revenue Konstantinou received was staggering and far greater a reward than one or two weeks with a reluctant plaything, making it unlikely he would press her again. Ricky sat on the only chair in his kitchen, rubbing his face with both hands.

  “Those damned reporters!” Mrs. Abber said suddenly. “They said they’d be back later.”

  Ricky closed his eyes.

  “I know, and I’m sorry for the bother; you shouldn’t have to go through this, too.”

  “Nonsense.” she said; “you’re not just a tenant, Richard.”

  He looked with tired eyes and the blood-stained dressing encircling his scalp wound made her wince; she hadn’t seen the Walk program, or the terrifying moments that delighted millions who watched with morbid fascination on their vid screens, but there was little doubt Ricky endured a hellish ordeal.

  “Try to rest now, Richard. When those bastards come back, I’ll call MPE; I’m not going to stand for this.”

  Ricky smiled and nodded, holding onto the moment—and Mrs. Abber’s kindness—like an elusive lifeline. She wouldn’t be able to send the reporters away, he knew, but the thought was appreciated. As she went across the alley, Ricky looked beyond to where the mob had been. It hadn’t occurred to him, but his ordinary life in the shadowy, hidden corners of Novum was suddenly a more complicated affair.

  When the new day arrived, Ricky switched on the morning update shows, frowning at the image from a remote drone; a dozen reporters were gathering at the intersection of Rademacher and Stigler Road, waiting again to get their interviews. Mrs. Abber saw it and made her way across the alley once more.