by Duncan Long
Nothing. Way too easy — that should have sounded my alarm bells. But I was exhausted and ready to get things over, so I reached through the edge of the antique window frame with the cheap pocketknife I’d “borrowed” from a young thug outside the airport, and slipped open the lock. Easing the window up, I entered the dark house.
The burglar in me drooled. I crouched in what seemed almost a palace, even in the dim light. Wide oak doors graced the foyer and faint rainbows cast by the outside streetlight spanned out from the beveled glass in the front door. There was antique wooden — not plastic — furniture. Original oils graced the walls. Much as I hated to admit it, Huntington had good taste.
I crossed the room and paused in front of a door. Light shown below its lower edge, illuminating the soles of my boots. I grasped the knob of the door and eased it open, peeping into the room beyond. There sat Huntington gazing at a computer screen displayed in the air.
I took a step toward him. His motorized wheelchair hummed, turning him to face me. “Been expecting you.”
“So you’re psychic as well as psychotic.”
He laughed. “I only know water seeks its own level. You’re the first of the trainees to approach my capabilities, and the first to set foot in my home. I figured it was only a matter of time before one of us killed the other in a game, or you dropped by for a visit to head me off at the pass. Won’t you have a seat?”
I started to reject his proposal, preferring to remain on my feet in case he had a manservant with a butcher knife waiting in the wings. But the moment I opened my mouth to say, “No,” only bird chirping flowed from my lips. No words, just chirps.
A cushioned chair scuttled over, walking on its own four legs to stop behind me. An invisible hand shoved me into it.
I prepared to die.
Chapter 28
Ralph Crocker
“I can see you’re puzzled by my powers,” Huntington said, a wicked smile on his lips. “And, no, you’re not dreaming. To be honest I was puzzled by my new abilities at first, too. Thinking back, I realized I acquired them with my exposure to the new version of jet I’d concocted for gaming in the SupeR-Gs. I soon discovered that the drug not only alters the gaming rules somewhat, it also modifies the brain. From there I found that reality is actually bent along with my own perceptions as well as the perceptions of those around me, whether they were in a SupeR-G or in real life. For me, actuality and imagination have become almost the same thing.”
“I think your condition is called insanity.”
“It borders on that sometimes. But it isn’t based on delusions. For years researchers have known that reality is different from our perception of it. Our brains fill in gaps, and sometimes alter things, even time, ever so slightly. My abilities simply expand on these. Watch.” He closed his eye and a standing version of him appeared next to his wheelchair-bound self.
“Now,” the standing version said, “which is more real? This version of me or the former?”
“Trick question, right?”
Huntington’s duplicate laughed. Then he stepped toward me and slapped my face. “Did that feel real?”
“Of course,” I replied, determined to return the favor when I had the chance.
“I hate to hurt you,” the image said. “But it seems to be the only way I can make a lasting impression on you.”
“You can quit then because I’m duly impressed.”
“I hope so.”
“The dreams?” I prompted. “How real are they?”
“Oh, yes. Another side effect. They are their own realities, I believe. Brief jumps into alternate universes, and something I’m hoping we’ll eventually be able to control. Recently I’ve found I can also enter computer feeds of various types as well. Reality ultimately becomes a perception of the mind.”
“But helicopters in malls and dragons flying the Kansas plains — that’s madness.”
“No more so than a nuclear bomb in the hands of a terrorist. Or napalm dropped on innocents during war. Show me the world’s commonplace and I’ll show you true madness. Now, since you and that girl — “
“Alice?”
“Yes. You and Alice seem to have become an integral part of my dreams and games and I have become intertwined with your dreams and games as well. Both of your powers are growing — judging from my own experience, I suspect you’ll be amazed at the abilities you’ll acquire before long.”
Huntington number two stood at an end table where he removed a cigarette from an ornate silver box. He glanced my way to be sure I was observing, then snapped his fingers, producing a flame that floated for a moment as he touched the tip of his cigarette to it, puffing it to life. “No doubt such feats might be duplicated by cheap parlor magic. But you don’t have to go to all the work to create the machinery for the illusion. With what you will soon have, all you’ll need is enough self-discipline to master your potential.”
“I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”
“Yes, there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there. But my fear is that once you and Alice master your abilities, you’ll gang up on me. There isn’t room in Heaven for more than one God — if you catch my drift.”
“How about a pantheon?”
Huntington laughed, but I could see by his eyes that he meant business. I closed my eyes and concentrated. A moment later the restraints on the chair melted away. I stood, rubbing my wrists.
“Very well done,” Huntington said, both of him clapping their hands. “But I think you’ll have to do better than that if you want to survive.” He clicked his fingers and the cigarette in his hand transformed itself into a flamethrower.
Whose flame remained unlit.
Hoping his mentally produced flamethrower functioned the same as the real thing, I knew it should take an extra moment to light the flame before it could be fired. In the instant before Huntington could activate his weapon, I created a loaded pistol that I aimed not at the standing Huntington, but instead at the head of the seated original. I placed the muzzle against his temple. “You can flame me,” I told his Doppelgänger, “but burning, while painful, isn’t a quick death. I am betting I can put a bullet through the brain of the real you before I die. And I’m also betting a bullet through the head will work wonders at curbing your abilities.”
The standing Huntington turned white as a sheet and took a step back. “No need for that,” he said, lowering his weapon. “Tell me, did you ever wonder if the constructs in a SupeR-G game could think. Or if they might imagine they were alive since the game lasted?”
“Constucts are just code. Nothing more.”
“Yet, as you’ve seen, it’s possible to get to the point where imagination and reality are one and the same. Right now,” the standing Huntington said, “I’m a construct. Yet I feel totally real, as real as my original self. And better in some ways. I have two eyes — and could grow two more if I wished. I can walk, think, speak. I can breed children or create a flock of birds with a snap of my finger.”
“But you’re afraid you wouldn’t survive a bullet through the brain of your creator,” I said, keeping my pistol pointed at the original Huntington’s head.
“Suppose you were a construct? An artificial man who thought he was real. Who had memories that seem oh, so real, yet are only so much code in a computer somewhere, or the twinkle in my synapses.”
For a terrible moment, my faith in myself was shaken. And then my confidence returned. “An interesting metaphysical thought, but one I can’t buy since I’m inside my head and know I’m real.”
“Are you?”
Abruptly I was standing on the other side of the room, looking at the me with a gun pointed at the Huntington in the wheelchair. I looked down and saw I wore the rusty armor of the White Knight.
“Now, which one is the real you?” Huntington asked. “Tell me. Do you feel real? Do you still have memories of the past?”
“I don’t know how you’re pulling off these stunts, but I know they’re all illusion. My memories are real.”
<
br /> That’s what I told him. But deep down inside, I wasn’t so sure. It’s one thing to know something, another to see yourself standing where you were a moment before while having your mind in a second, identical body. Was I real or imaginary? Reality had turned wrong side in.
“Put the bullet through his head,” I ordered my other self who remained standing with the pistol. “Do it now.”
My duplicate did nothing. Perhaps he was only an illusion created to confuse me. Perhaps I really do only think I’m a real boy, like some Pinocchio created by the mad Geppetto sitting in front of me.
But one thing I did know: If this continued much longer, Huntington was going to take advantage of my confusion and kill whichever was the real me.
So I drew my sword and threw it at the Huntington in the wheelchair. The tip of the blade headed unerringly for his heart. Then the sword abruptly stopped two feet from his chest, trapped by a shimmering veil of light. Then it turned and Huntington grasped its hilt.
“Almost had me.” He flexed the blade, testing it with practice strokes through the air. “So this is the Vorpal blade? Looks like it is made of sub-molecular steel. Did you know this type of metal is super-sharp and cuts like a hot knife through butter when it comes to armor. Or so I’m told.”
I backed away.
And discovered a wall behind me where the entrance to the room had been.
“Can’t have you running away.” Huntington flipped his wrist and the blade sang through the air.
I attempted to jump away, but halfway through the arch of my leap, a searing pain climbed up my body. I fell to the floor, discovering I now had only one leg. Blood gushed from the stump.
“It’s sharpness is impressive, isn’t it?” Huntington said. “If I give it a little thought, I bet I can make your wound quit bleeding. There, you see?”
And sure enough, the wound had stopped bleeding.
“Did you ever consider what makes you who you are?” Huntington said as I tried to crawl away from him. “If I cut off your leg. No, let’s make that both your legs —” The sword slashed again and I felt a chilling pain in my remaining leg. I looked down to see both legs missing. This time no blood came from the stump.
“Yes,” Huntington continued. “That’s more like it. Won’t be running off now, will you?” He kicked at my legs which were twisting about on the floor as if they had a life of their own. “You’re just full of life today. Maybe this will help.”
For the next few minutes he hacked my disconnected legs into pieces. While he was distracted with his new pastime, I tried to pull what was left of me to safety.
But before I could escape, Huntington turned his attention back toward me. “Not going away, are you?” he asked, stepping to block my path. “I have a philosophical problem for you. If we cut off your legs, suddenly they’re just so much cast-off flesh. Yet the rest of you is still you, even without your legs. Odd, isn’t it? Or if we graft them back on — please note the “if” — do you become more than you were before without your legs? Can you be less Ralph or more Ralph? There’s more to this experiment. I wonder…”
He slashed and I saw my left arm with its armor go clanging across the floor. With my remaining arm, I dragged my head and torso away from Huntington, wondering how long it would be before I died, or simply passed out from the pain.
“Hold still, will you?” Huntington demanded. “How do you expect me to conduct my experiment. One arm — and you’re still you. How very odd indeed.”
I continued my crude attempt at escape.
Another searing pain announced the cut.
“There, totally disarmed, as it were.” Huntington laughed. “Now I need to do some more hacking, otherwise I can see that your parts are going to try to rejoin you. That’s always a problem in our new world of thought. Nothing ever stays quite in place if you don’t make sure to keep it in place.”
I watched helplessly as he hacked each of my arms apart. Then he turned back to what was left of me. “Any last words?”
I remained silent, fighting back the pain and fear.
He raised the sword. “Farewell, then.”
There was a violent pain through my neck, and then I felt my head rolling across the floor. I opened my eyes.
“What?” Huntington said in mock disbelief. “Still alive? Let’s see what happens if I disintegrate you.” He grasped my head, and lifted what was left of me from the floor. Crossing to the window, he tossed me, into the pool.
I sank downward into the black water, into the silence of the depths. And then felt myself ripped apart, disintegrating into a collection of cells that was no longer aware enough to be considered an individual.
Chapter 29
Alice Liddell
Dear Diary:
I got that terrible feeling again. The OEK has done something bad to Ralph. Something really, really bad. I don’t think I can help Ralph, but I’m going to try. I’ve created this place — I don’t know what it is. (Mom if you’re reading this — and you shouldn’t be, shame on you — and one night I go up to my bedroom and just vanish, know that I’m probably in this secret place.)
It’s sort of a dream place. Well dreamlike. But as real as sitting here typing into the computer. Just that it isn’t real. Or not in real time —time doesn’t seem to flow in it and so far the OEK hasn’t found it. I can’t put it (the place, not the OEK) into words and won’t try anymore because I’m in a hurry.
Anyway, I’m going there and I’m hoping maybe I can concentrate and somehow help Ralph.
Ralph Crocker
Imagine a colony of primordial animals, all telepathic, all intent on mating at once. That’s basically the “feel” that extended among the various cells I had become. Tiny organisms swam, dancing a complex waltz of life.
As they united, I returned to a state of semi-awareness. As if knit together in a womb where time moved at incredible speed, the gestalt that had been me struggled to reassemble the sum of my parts. Cells rejoined, tissue rebuilt, organs spasmodically positioned themselves. Fingers and limbs wriggled.
I was reborn.
My face broke through the surface of the organic soup in which I lay, and new lungs gasped for a first breath of the crisp air.
“There you are, White Knight,” a familiar voice called.
Hands that were again a part of me reached up and stroked the water from my eyes.
“You’d better get out of the water before you catch your death of pneumonia.”
I looked about for Alice and only discovered a glowing fairy zipping around my head.
I waded ashore onto the sandy beach, faintly lit by the light radiating from the creature that stood only six inches tall, not counting her gossamer wings. A blue will-’o-the-wisp with light emanating from skin and wings. I stared at her beautiful perfection a moment, then double-checked my body to be sure I was properly reassembled.
Satisfied I was in one piece and all was right, I finally spoke, “Alice?”
“In all my pint-sized glory,” the fairy replied, rising into the air so she floated at my eye level.
“I suppose I have you to thank for getting me back together.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean — reassembling me. Getting all the bloody little chunks of me back into one piece. Not even a stitch shows.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alice said, orbiting me like a hungry hummingbird eyeing a large flower. “I’ve never seen you any less together than you are right now. In fact it’s hard to imagine you being any less together than you normally are.”
“Joke all you want. But I still owe you.”
“Is this some sort of come-on?”
I laughed. “No. I’m serious. Huntington hacked me apart and tossed my head into his swimming pool. Somehow I got back together and I just figured you had — You really did reassemble me, didn’t you?”
“You must have done it yourself.”
“Seriously.”
“I
had nothing to do with it.”
“Then who…” I wondered where that left me.
“You underestimate yourself all too often. I had nothing to do with it and if he went to all the work of trying to destroy you, I’m certain Huntington didn’t, either.”
“Maybe he did and he’s somewhere waiting to torment us some more.”
“I would sense him if he were near. He’s not. He’ll never find us here. This is our private place.”
“I was dying. Or at least I should have been.” For a moment the memory of pieces joining together and rising up out of the dark water returned. I shivered at the thought.
“You really will catch your death of pneumonia if you don’t get out of that dank armor. Come on. Let’s get your wet things off.”
“You have something in mind?” I asked with an upraised eyebrow.
“In your dreams,” Alice said, fluttering in front of my face. “You think someone six inches tall would risk sex with a beast your size? What a disgusting, terrifying thought.” Alice put her hands on either side of her face with an expression of mock horror.
I laughed as she zipped away through the air. She circled through the trees, her light darting in and out of the shadows. Then she raced back toward me, stopping inches from my face. “Besides,” she added, “I’m not that kind of girl. If I were, I’d be portraying the Birth of Venus or something equally classical yet provocative instead of being a wee little slip of a fairy. So quit your sophomoric daydreaming and remove your armor before you rust and I have to chisel you out with my two tiny hands.”
“All right already.”
“ While you’re doing that, I’ll build the fire.”
Her job went more quickly than I thought it would. A fireball fell from the sky, striking a pile of driftwood that burst into a bright bonfire.
“Remind me not to cross you,” I said. Then I took a cue from her, closed my eyes, and the armor vanished from my body. I approached the warm fire, letting it drive the chill from my bones.
We sat together there by the fire, and I told her all I knew about Huntington and what had happened. She perched on my shoulder and then we said nothing for a long time, simply watching the flames dance on the logs. As we sat by the fire, Alice slowly grew to full size, her form changing to her true self. She was no longer Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s English schoolgirl, but rather a grown and very shapely young woman.