Realtime Interrupt

by James P. Hogan

  "I don't know how you stand that woman the way you do," Sherri said. "She's so gross with her `I've got this' and `I've got that' all the time. But you can just stand there and say `that's nice' like you do. You'll have to teach me how to do it."

  Corrigan smiled wryly. "Oh, that's an old Irish story," he said. "You'd have no problem if you knew it."

  "Well, tell me, then," Sherri invited.

  Corrigan glanced around. There were no customers looking for attention just at the moment. As a rule he didn't bother telling jokes these days. People no longer understood them. Oh, what the hell, he told himself. Give it a try.

  "It's like this," he said. "Two women are sharing a hospital room in Dublin, you see. One is from Foxrock. That's south of the city, where all the money is—she'd be one of your Delias. The other's the complete opposite: bottom end of the social spectrum—what we'd call a roight auld slag."

  "You mean like parts of the South Bronx?"

  "Maybe. Anyway, Delia wants to make sure there's no mistake about who she is, see. So she says to other . . ." Corrigan mimicked a prim tone: " `Ah, I hope you don't imagine that I am accustomed to sharing like this. Usually, I go to the private wing.' "

  He changed to a shrill, coarser accent. " `Oh, yiss?' says the other, who we'll say was Mary. `Dat's noice.'

  " `I'll have you know,' says Delia, `that my husband is an extremely successful man and takes very good care of me. The last time I was a patient, he took me on a Caribbean cruise to recuperate.'

  " `Dat's noice.'

  " `And on the occasion before that, he bought me a diamond pendant to compensate for the discomfort.' . . ." Corrigan nodded an invitation at Sherri to supply the response.

  "That's nice," she obliged.

  "Ah, no," he said. "You have to do it with the proper accent. Come on, now: `Dat's noice.' "

  "Dat's noice."

  "Perfect. And then your Delia says, `Out of curiosity, does your husband show such consideration when you are confined?'

  " `Oh, yiss, o' course 'e does,' says Mary. `When we 'ad our last one, 'e sent me fer elocution and etiquette lessons.' "

  Sherri chuckled, and Corrigan continued, "Naturally, Delia's astounded. `What!' she exclaims. `Elocution? How would somebody like you even know what the word means?'

  " ` 'E did, too,' Mary tells her. `See, at one time, whenever oi 'eard people tellin' me a load o' bullshit, oi used to tell 'em ter fuck orf. Now oi just smiles at 'em all proper, like, and oi say . . .' " Corrigan paused expectantly. Anyone should see it now. But Sherri's eyes were still blank, waiting. He completed, " `Dat's noice.' "

  There was a barely perceptible delay, and then she laughed. But the laugh wasn't real. She had missed the point. Corrigan had seen the same thing too many times before. He turned to restocking the mixers shelf. What was it about the modern world that had changed people? he wondered. Sarah Bewley tried to tell him that nothing had changed, that it was his idea of humor that had been distorted. But the story he'd told Sherri was from his student days in Ireland, and everyone back then had found it funny. Or had nothing in those years happened the way he remembered it at all?

  A knot of people appeared in the doorway, clustered about a squat, rotund figure whose name Corrigan couldn't bring to mind instantly—some kind of city official, who worried all the time about his public visibility. The last time they were in, the talk had been about sending political messages through the communications chips that some people were having put in their heads. One of the aides couldn't seem to comprehend why Corrigan was cool toward the idea. "Why would anyone choose to stay out of touch?" he had wanted to know.

  Then a man with shoulders like a blockhouse came in and stopped, obviously checking the place. Moments later, a commotion of voices came from the hall outside the lounge. The Dree fans leaped to their feet with a clamor of squeals and shouts as the idol himself swept in ahead of an entourage of photographers and starlets, resplendent in a white glitter suit and red shirt, blond hair falling to his shoulders, arms held high to acknowledge the accolades.

  The funny thing was that although Dree featured in commercials everywhere and appeared at all kinds of public events, he didn't sing, dance, play, act, tell stories, or entertain in any way that was traditionally recognizable. As far as Corrigan was aware, he didn't actually do anything. He was the ultimate celebrity: well known for no other reason than being well known.

  Even Sherri was standing enraptured as the circus moved in and took over the bar. "You call this having a good time?" Dree yelled to the general delight: his standard catchphrase.

  "You ain't seen nothing yet!" they chorused back. All the way from Jolson. Sherri joined in; so did Delia, Wilbur, and the girls talking to the pink fedoras. The party dispersed to a corner, and an aide came across to the bar to give their order. Corrigan turned to set out the glasses, and as he did so he noticed a woman looking in through the doorway. She was tall, with long dark hair, wearing a suede coat over a satiny black dress. The noise and antics inside made her start to turn away; but then she caught sight of Corrigan, seemed to change her mind, and came in.

  She had been in about a week before, he recalled. They had talked on and off about nothing in particular through much of the evening, and she had left alone. She was from California, liked Gershwin, the theater, old movies, and dogs, had been curious about Ireland, and seemed to know something about computers. Her name, he remembered moments before she sat down on a barstool with a quick smile of recognition, was Lilly.

  Chapter Six

  Lilly made a living of sorts at a shoe-finishing shop—shoes were imported plain and unadorned from factories in Asia, then colored and trimmed locally to reflect the current buying patterns before tastes had time to change. That in itself seemed odd to Corrigan, for she displayed all the qualities that he would have thought equipped her for something more challenging and rewarding.

  Her eyes, which were dark and depthless, studied the world with a reflective awareness that Corrigan hadn't seen in a half-dozen people during as many years. She had the kind of intelligence that was intelligent enough not to flaunt itself; the quiet self-assurance that doesn't mistake misapplied assertiveness for confidence. In short, she exuded style of a quality that was very rare; and that was also very puzzling, for it didn't add up to the kind of woman who would show any interest in bartenders. Yet for some reason, Lilly seemed to be very curious about Corrigan indeed.

  "Do you live in the city, Joe?" She asked when the workload eased and he sauntered back to the end of the bar where she was sitting.

  "In a flat in Oakland, the East End."

  "Are you married, or what?"

  "I was until this morning."

  "What happened?"

  "She left last night for the weekend. But then the house computer told me that it's for keeps and played a billetdoux."

  Lilly's eyes searched his face for a moment. She had shifted her stool so that her back was to the body of the room, where everybody else seemed determined to prove that they were potential celebrity material too. "What's called for, commiserations or congratulations?" she asked.

  Most people would have spouted a set line from a soap—with no thought that it might or might not be appropriate, let alone the notion of trying to find out. But Lilly didn't. She thought; she asked; she listened. That was how she had struck Corrigan the last time she was here.

  "I'm not breaking my heart over it," Corrigan replied. "Sometimes these things happen a long time before, and are just waiting to be acted out." She understood, nodded. There was no pointless interrogation. No more needed to be said. "How about yourself?" Corrigan asked.

  Sherri deposited another tray of empty glasses and bottles on the bar before Lilly could answer. She was looking worn. "Another round of everything for Dree's people. Four beers for the tab on table three. One gin and tonic, one scotch on the rocks, two white coolers."

  "They're working you hard tonight, Sherri," Lilly said.

  Sherri exhaled a sigh
. "You can say that again." She looked at Corrigan. "When the guy gave me the big order I told him, `That's nice.' Did I get it right?"

  Corrigan stared down at the glasses as he poured, not knowing what to say. How did you explain inappropriateness to somebody who just didn't have the wiring to feel it intuitively? This wanting to know why he thought something funny was another thing that he found all the time with people—and the main reason why he had stopped telling jokes. He was unable to understand why something that they obviously didn't share should be so important to them. He could see why Sarah Bewley would be interested: trying to understand him was her job. But why would anyone else care about his peculiarities when he was the odd person out?

  "Hey, bar," the Merlyn Dree aide in charge of ordering called from across the room. "Back up on that order there. Make it another one for everybody!" He looked around. "When we drink, everyone drinks. Right, guys?" The room yelled its approval.

  Then another group arrived, and things got hectic. Corrigan worked nonstop until they finally closed things down around 3:00 A.M., in all of which time Lilly never did get a chance to answer his question. In one brief lull, however, they did agree to going for a coffee somewhere, afterward.

  * * *

  "I pretty much keep myself to myself," Lilly said. They had come out into the night air and were turning off Fourth into a passage that connected through to the late-night lights around Market Place. There was a moment's hesitation, as if she were unsure about confiding something. "I guess I don't really relate much to most of the people you meet these days. Things seem to change faster and faster. Not a lot of it makes sense anymore."

  Her words mirrored his own situation perfectly. Was that what she had somehow recognized, and why she was showing such interest in a bartender? "I know what you mean," he said.

  "Yes, I think you do. I don't feel that with people very often." She glanced sideways at him as they walked. There was more than idle curiosity at work. "You must meet all kinds in a job like yours."

  "You saw a few of them yourself tonight."

  "But you don't just see them," Lilly said. "You seem to see into them, as well. I was watching."

  "I know you were," Corrigan answered. "So that makes you a bit of the same yourself, doesn't it?" Lilly conceded with the quick smile of somebody being caught out, at the same time managing to convey that it was because she was not used to it. Compared to the empty stares and clumsy gropings to extract meaning that he saw every day, it felt like communication bordering on mind reading.

  A promotional scouting robot spotted them as they came out into Market Place and rolled across to intercept them, flashing colored lights and logos of nearby places that were open late. "Hello, there! Enjoying the city late tonight?" it greeted jovially. "For your further entertainment we have Jermyn's cabaret bar less than half a block from here, still open for drinks, dancing, and shows until dawn. Getting hungry? The Lilac Slipper offers the best in contemporary and traditional Cantonese cuisine, ten-percent discount for Pirates. Or, for more erotic tastes, ho-ho . . ."

  Lilly sighed. "Maybe I could pass on having that coffee out. I'll fix you one at home. How does that sound?"

  "Sounds good," Corrigan said. "How far is it?"

  "Over the river, north. We'll need a cab. Do you have a compad? I'm not carrying one."

  "I hardly ever use them." Corrigan looked at the robot. "Can you call us a cab?"

  "Sorry, I just make reservations. But why do you want to leave? It's Saturday night. You want to be part of the scene, right?"

  "Wrong." Corrigan steered Lilly away to search for a pay booth. The robot pursued them, babbling tenaciously, until a mixed group of people appeared on the far side of the street, and one of them called it away.

  "Aren't you into being part of the scene?" Lilly said it in a light, mocking tone that combined several wavelengths—phrasing it as a question, but simultaneously telling him that she already knew and understood his answer because they both recognized and laughed at the same absurdities.

  "Guilty," Corrigan replied.

  "You don't need to find yourself?"

  "I wasn't aware that I ever lost myself."

  "But that's terrible."

  "Now you know the worst."

  They both laughed. She slipped her arm loosely through his.

  There was a gift store, with various curios and Pittsburgh mementos in the window. Suddenly Corrigan stopped and stared in at them. "What is it?" Lilly asked.

  He pointed to a figure of an Irish leprechaun, identical, as far as he could judge, to the one in his hallway back at the flat. "That's Mick. He keeps popping up wherever I go. Do you know, I've one the same as that at home. It was a wedding present."

  "Was that to the wife who left yesterday?"

  "No, there was one other before—a while back, now."

  "Maybe he's haunting you," Lilly said. "Can you have leprechaun ghosts?"

  "Well, if it's a crock of gold that he's after, he's wasting his time haunting me," Corrigan said.

  They resumed walking. "So, when you see into people, what things do you see?" Lilly asked, getting serious again and picking up their earlier subject.

  Corrigan thought back to Wilbur, Oliver, and Delia. "Oh, the strange ways they go about trying to get what they want," he replied.

  "Such as?"

  "Well, if you asked them, I suppose most of them would say that what they want is to be happy, wouldn't you think?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "A young fella was in earlier. He's pinned everything on a job that he's after, and if you want my opinion it's a scoundrel he'll be working for." Corrigan made a brief, emptyhanded gesture. "You see these people chasing after money and success and the like, because those are the things that they think will make them happy. But they're making their happiness depend on what others have the power to give or take away. So don't they become slaves to the people who control those things? And can people who are not free be happy? They cannot. So have such people obtained what they set out for? They have not. They're looking in the wrong places."

  They found a pay booth. Corrigan called a local cab company, giving his name and their location. "I see you're not listed with us," the synthesized voice commented. "We have an introductory discount for opening an account tonight."

  "No, thanks."

  "Can I register you for our bonus-mileage club?"

  "No."

  "How about the all-in-the-family group scheme? Brand new."

  "We'd just like to go home. Is that all right?"

  A baffled pause, then, "A cab will be there in five minutes." Corrigan shook his head as the call cleared.

  "Are you free, then, Joe?" Lilly asked.

  "I'd say so, yes," he replied.

  "And why's that?"

  He shrugged and gave her a quick, easy grin. "I'm what you might call a self-unmade man. I didn't always do what I do now, you know. It took a lot of effort to work my way down to it. But now I'm free to live according to the things I believe in, and nobody can compel me to think or believe anything I choose not to. So the things I do value, nobody can take away."

  "Are all the Irish like that?" Lilly asked. She sounded fascinated.

  "Oh, God, not at all. You've never met such a crowd of rogues and villains in your life."

  "So how come you're different?"

  "Ah, well, I went through some bad experiences a few years back. Maybe that changed some things, if you know what I mean."

  Lilly hesitated, obviously wanting to be tactful. But for some reason it seemed important to her. "Things?" she repeated. "What kind of things? Do you mean psychologically?"

  Corrigan spotted the cab approaching and stepped forward, raising an arm. "Exactly," he said over his shoulder. "The pieces are coming back together again, but they don't seem to function the way that most people's do."

  They climbed in, and Lilly gave the address on North Side. As soon as the door closed, a screen in the rear compartment began running commercials. Co
rrigan paid an extra dollar to shut it off.

  "Being different might not be such a bad thing," Lilly said. "You said you used to work in computers, but you sound more like a philosopher. What kind of a society lets its philosophers end up working in bars?"

  "Believe me, there's no better place to learn the subject," Corrigan assured her as the cab pulled away.

  Chapter Seven

  Lilly lived in a two-bedroom unit in a complex north of the Allegheny Center. It was clean and comfortable, feminine but not cute and lacy, casual without being a mess: all about what Corrigan would have expected. She produced a liter of Californian Chablis to go with the steak sandwiches that they had stopped for on the way.

  Now Corrigan was able to give her his full attention for the first time. She was attractive not just physically but in the rarer, more appealing way that comes with the feeling of two minds being in tune. He hoped that his coming back here with her wasn't going to be interpreted as going along with anything more intimate that she might have in mind. The day had been emotionally fatiguing, and he had worked a hectic shift through to the early hours. Enough was enough. If ever there had been a time when a rain check was in order, this was it.

  But such fears proved groundless. Lilly was more interested in hearing about his years in computing and the "bad experiences" that he had mentioned which put an end to them. For anyone to ask was a novel experience in itself. So, although the hour had surpassed ungodliness, he refilled the glasses and settled himself back to regard her across the empty plates on the table.

  "Is it stuffy in here after the food?" Lilly asked suddenly. "I can't tell. I've got a sinus problem that stops me smelling things."

  "It's okay," Corrigan said. "I used to be with one of the big companies here: Cybernetic Logic Corporation—I worked at their corporate research center out at Blawnox. They were big in Artificial Intelligence-based systems. Still are, for that matter. The aim of the AI field had always been true, human-level intelligence, one day. But around the turn of the century, the technology was plateauing out. After some progress and mixed results, there didn't seem to be any obvious way to advance things further."