Eduard finished his meal in silence. This Phantom had stepped on other human beings right and left, just like Ob had. As he watched Artemis in his daily life, he wondered how much the man had accomplished in all those years. Without achievements, wasn't life empty—regardless of how long it was? “Did you ever stop to think that the people you've used might have been trying to do something worthwhile with their lives?”
Artemis just laughed with his silent clucking. “Whoa, don't be an idiot. Normal people are there to be used. What else d'you think they're for?”
Back at the warehouse bolt-hole, the two of them sat far into the night. Troubled, Eduard didn't speak much, but Artemis noticed no difference in his mood. He had uncorked an old bottle of brandy that had achieved an exquisite mellow taste by virtue of sitting around for decades.
“Everything gets better if you wait long enough.” Artemis swigged from his glass. “Let's have some music.” He selected a clamorous neosymphony, but before he could switch on the sonic enhancers, he froze, cocking his ear. “What's that?”
On the threadbare sofa, Eduard listened. He heard more than the methodical noises from machines going about their business. It sounded like someone moving around in the warehouse levels.
Artemis went to the false wall and slid aside the peephole cover. He placed an infrared filter over the glass and stared down into the dim warehouse. Suddenly overhead lights flicked on, dazzling him. Artemis drew back frantically, blinking. “I think we're caught.”
Eduard pulled away the peephole filter, squinting to accustom his eyes to the garish light. “No—just listen. The Beetles would have brought a whole team. That's just one person, and he's not even trying to be quiet.”
He and Artemis peered into the automated sections until they saw an inspec-tech moving from engine housing to inventory station down one of the robotic lines. He had an average build, brown hair, a neatly trimmed mustache. The inspec-tech punched notes into an electronic pad, adjusting the machinery.
“Whoa, never seen another human in here before.” Artemis's words were barely more than breaths touching Eduard's ear.
“I suppose someone has to do maintenance from time to time.”
Artemis grabbed his arm and grinned, flashing his teeth. “Can't pass up an opportunity like this, rabbit!”
Like an eel, he glided out of the trapdoor, blended into the shadows, and padded barefoot along a catwalk. From his pocket, Artemis withdrew a small spray nozzle connected to a tiny vial. Signaling Eduard, he held it up and waggled his eyebrows.
Artemis slithered down a thin-runged ladder, hugging the walls. The inspec-tech showed no concern that someone else might be in the place. He hummed to himself, fine-tuning magnetic conveyor belts, logging maintenance routines.
Eduard reached the metal ladder but hesitated, watching as the Phantom stalked the unsuspecting technician, a wolf in human form. Artemis crept along the hard floor on the row of machinery opposite the inspec-tech. He waited there in a crouch.
As the technician walked past a gap in the machinery, Artemis sprang out with a banshee yell. The hapless technician stumbled back, and Artemis dosed him in the face with his spray nozzle. When the drug mist struck, the technician reeled, turning in a slow pirouette until he finally sank to his knees. He shook his head groggily as if someone had whacked his skull with a thick board. Droplets glistened on his mustache.
Artemis gestured frantically. “Come on down now, rabbit. It's safe, but we gotta hurry. Need your help.” He set the spray-mister aside and took out a stun-pellet pistol.
Eduard stumbled down the ladder and trotted to where Artemis knelt by the disoriented man. “What did you do to him?”
“Ever seen Scramble work? It's the drug the BIE gives to convicts who have to swap into a crappy body before they're executed. Breaks down all your defenses, scrambles your thought patterns, makes it impossible to resist if someone wants to hopscotch with you.”
Artemis squatted over his victim like a vulture. “Soon as I swap with him, you stun my old body.” He slapped the pistol into Eduard's palm. “Once he and I switch, I'm gonna be the disoriented one. You'll have to act fast. After I hopscotch into this drugged-up body, I'll be just as vulnerable.” He touched the inspec-tech's face. “Ready?”
Eduard could almost see the transference of mind and personality. Artemis stood reeling and perplexed, unable to function in his new drugged body, the technician's body. Conversely, his familiar, average body sank down. Just as the inspec-tech grew aware of being inside a stranger, Eduard shot him with two short hiss-thumps of stun pellets. The tech crumpled to the floor. . . .
Later, after Artemis had recovered, he wiped a sleeve across his new mustache. “That drug really smells bad.” He looked over at Eduard, preening. He touched his upper lip. “I've been behind that other face for four years now. Thought it was time for a change.”
Uneasy, Eduard gave a faint shake of his head. He had done horrible things himself—beating up Rhys, killing Mordecai Ob—but those men had deserved it. This tech, though . . . he could see only totally selfish reasons for it.
Artemis synched his ID patch to switch over his identity code and erase any obvious trace of himself in his former body. “Puts an end to our nice hideout here, though. Good bolt-hole, but we gotta clean it up, erase all evidence.”
He dug in the pockets worn by his former body. The stunned technician didn't resist, arms and legs flopping. Artemis withdrew another chemical vial and slapped it into the spray nozzle. “Quick poison. It'll leave no traces.” He pointed the dispenser at the unconscious man's eyes.
“Wait! There's no need to kill him.”
“Whoa, of course there is. I got his body. Once he comes back to himself, he'll report it. Then BTL comes looking. Can't have that.”
Eduard thought of how he had unwittingly caused the death of the old man feeding bats in the park. “No. This isn't necessary. We're leaving anyway. Nobody'll find us. Change your appearance, leave the ID patches unsynched.”
“You're an idiot, rabbit. There's nothin' complicated about immortality. You just have to take it.”
Eduard glared hard at Artemis. “Since I need a new body anyway, let me take that one. Use that Scramble again, and he'll be left with this scrawny physique of mine. There's absolutely no connection to you. No problem. Nothing you need to worry about.”
Artemis stood up, miffed. “I can always find something to worry about. You think he has no proof of what he used to look like?”
“Sure, if anybody can find you again and match the appearance. Do they still put pictures in post offices? Are you being ridiculous?”
Artemis looked embarrassed. “Do what you want. And damn you to hell if they catch us because of it.”
When Eduard woke from the residual effects of the stun pellet inside Artemis's former body, he looked over to see the inspec-tech on the warehouse floor, now unconscious and inside the body Eduard had worn until recently. Not the most efficient way to do a three-way swap, he thought, shaking off the fading paralysis.
He hated to leave the poor tech in this weakling form, but the man was alive, and that was better than what Artemis had wanted. Eduard joined Artemis, looking around. “So what do we do? How do we clean up?”
The Phantom ran back to his secret bolt-hole and rifled through the cupboards, grabbing a few irreplaceable items and stuffing them into a pack. “Take anythin' you can carry.” He tossed a few entertainment loops at Eduard, reconsidered, grabbed one back, and threw it on the floor. “Tired of that one.”
When they had stuffed their packs, Artemis withdrew two gleaming silver balls from a small drawer. He depressed a red button on the top of each and tossed them to the ground. The balls sprouted whirling, grinding spines, like manic sea urchins. The little mobile jaws began to roll about the tiny room, chewing everything into mulch.
“They'll keep working for five hours. By that time there'll be nothin' left but ribbons.” Artemis dropped through the trapdoor. “You'll
want to get out of their way, rabbit.”
The two shredders crawled across the hidden room, picking up speed as they bounced against walls, ricocheting, taking new paths of destruction to chew away the surface and destroy the stolen furniture, obliterating every bit of evidence.
“Why not just use fire?” Eduard asked. “Seems a lot easier.”
“Because the automatic sensors would go off immediately, stupid. The authorities would be here in minutes. Don't you know anything?”
Fleeing the automated warehouse, the two men slipped into the night and walked at a brisk pace away from the warehouse district. Artemis seemed particularly happy, even while destroying one of his favorite homes. “Just remember, rabbit, everything's disposable.”
Eduard easily kept pace with the Phantom. His new body felt stronger, more energetic. But the very idea of what they had done made him sick at heart.
54
The studio had always felt like a womb, a warm and inviting place filled with inspiration and possibilities. Now Garth struggled with his materials, but nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed alive.
He stood in the middle of his half-completed project. APATHY. Though Garth felt he had a better technical mastery and sophistication than he'd ever shown before, after the lukewarm success of LOSS the critics were saying he had fallen into a rut. He could not figure out what else to add to APATHY, how to make it more exciting. He just didn't care—which, he supposed, was the point.
Juanita Cole's shooting-star success had surprised and disoriented him—not because of her amazing work, but because of what it showed him about himself. At first, she had seemed a threat to him and his position, but Garth eventually realized he was really angry at his own career misconceptions. The success and the accolades had become addictive, and he could see why Mordecai Ob had wanted so much to be a part of it. Now, he didn't want to see it trickle through his fingertips.
He stood in front of a glowing filmscreen, scrutinizing flat images of Juanita's new works, which Pashnak had surreptitiously clipped for him. PR holos showed a tattooed young woman in her studio, smiling as she immersed her hands in vibrant aerogel foams. He watched sound clips, heard her talk about the ideas bursting out of her, as if the world might not offer her enough time to accomplish everything she wanted to do.
Garth remembered exactly how that had felt, but he didn't know how to recapture that enthusiasm. He blanked the studio COM screen, turning back to his work in progress.
At Club Masquerade, Garth often wandered through the outer experience rooms, the imaginative decor of the Arabian Nights room, the Mars colony room, the safari room, the Titanic room. Standing under the towering faux sequoia trees, Garth recalled the first time he had entered Club Masquerade with Eduard and Teresa. The three of them had come through this very room, lost and amazed. They had been so young then. . . .
Standing in front of the swapportunities board, Garth realized it had been a long time since he had found a single item that managed to catch his attention. He would scan the flurry of hopscotch requests and let out a long, slow sigh. Even the most bizarre appeals had a monstrous sameness about them.
At one time, each fresh idea had been filled with possibilities and wonder. Garth had mined those overlapping lifetimes for his artwork. It had been a great ride. He'd been an explorer of the human landscape, pushing onward into new territory—and finally he had no place else to go.
His whole life had been built on having something to say, a point of view to express through artwork. But how could anyone be profound and moving every time, piece after piece after piece?
What does an artist do after he has already completed his masterpiece?
The cream swirled in his cup, mixing slowly. Garth usually drank his coffee black, but Pashnak insisted he needed to mellow out. At this point, he was ready to try just about anything.
The two of them sat in a cozy kitchen nook where sunlight streamed through the lattice windows. After his increasingly successful shows, Garth had recently bought an extravagant home, complete with security systems and privacy screens, and he still had more credits than he could spend.
Generous by nature, he gave Teresa more than enough money to get by so she could devote herself full time to her search. He even gave her the first drawing of her face from the portrait spectrum, the original features she had worn for most of her life. If he ever heard from Eduard again, he would offer his friend whatever he needed without the slightest hesitation.
Now Pashnak poured another cup of coffee. He powered on his schedule and called up the notes for the day, scanning appointments and upcoming events. “Don't forget, I set up a hopscotch opportunity for you this Thursday.”
Garth looked up with only feigned interest. “What is it?”
Day after day, the assistant sat with him, pointing to item after item on the ever-diminishing List. At last the few minor things left had seemed frivolous: blue eyes, brown eyes . . . black skin, freckled skin. In some bodies he had enjoyed the taste of broccoli, in others he found it offensive.
Did he really expect to learn anything new from that? Wasn't everybody the same, as long as the definition of “humanity” was broad enough? People were people, no matter how profound their external differences.
“It's a tough one,” Pashnak said with a smile of anticipation. “You'll be swapping with a young man who has little muscle control and suffers from seizures. He's weak, he can't walk, and his condition is degenerating.” He slid the schedule across the table so Garth could see the image of the sickly young man. “It'll give you a chance to feel out of control, at the mercy of external forces.”
Garth shook his head. “Cancel the contract. Helpless and out of control—the idea sounds too much like the way I already feel.”
The assistant was surprised. “But Garth, it'll be one more item to check off on your List. There aren't many left. Look—”
Garth took the datapad from him, scanned the few topics left on his List, and then deleted them, all at once. “There, I'm done.”
The assistant stared in horror at the blank, milky-white screen.
“No more List. All finished.”
But Garth experienced no sense of accomplishment or rush of victory. He just felt empty.
55
The streets were full of people, and Teresa knew that her original body could be anywhere out there—or nowhere at all.
She had scoured the huge COM databases for a body with her fingerprints, DNA, even scan-matches of her facial features. Nothing. Refusing to give up, Teresa had posted the image of her younger face Garth had drawn. “Have you seen this body?” So far, though, none of the responses had been even close.
Not even Daragon, with all the resources of the Bureau of Tracing and Locations, had managed to find any useful information, only a few false leads.
Now, she sat throwing pebbles into the bubbling geometric fountain where she and Arthur used to talk. She had no flowers left, no petals to float on the gentle waves. Teresa felt weary in her mind and in her bones, but at least Eduard's body had survived the Rush-X withdrawal. Physically, she grew stronger every day, no longer afraid of falling apart with each uncertain step.
But this still wasn't the place where Teresa belonged. She missed her home-body. It had been a long time since she'd been a woman. Had she lost that part of her identity, too? She seemed farther from her goal than ever before.
Wistfully, she thought about the monastery. As a curious teenager, even before she or her friends had learned how to hopscotch, Teresa had studied the changes puberty brought upon her flesh, her chemistry, her attitudes. She had explored her body and how it worked, making love to Eduard and Garth, and even Daragon, sharing warmth and caring. Her friendships were her world.
Teresa had felt whole then.
She trailed her fingers in the fountain. She pictured old Arthur's worn-leather face, thought of the things she had learned from him. You always told me I should welcome challenges.
Teresa brus
hed stray droplets from her hands and marched over to a public COM terminal. She would try again, and again if necessary. But if Daragon and the BTL couldn't find anything, how could she hope to be successful? She had already searched in every way she could imagine.
Nevertheless, she refused to stop looking.
As she stood in a sheltered alcove where a smoked-plastic panel shaded the COM filmscreen from sun glare, an image formed there. She hadn't even entered a command. But it was a face . . . a familiar face.
Soft Stone!
A superstitious thrill ran like a centipede down Teresa's spine. She recalled the dull day at her dead-end job when she had seen her teacher's image among the datanets. But the bald monk had vanished that time, leaving Teresa to convince herself it was only her imagination or wishful thinking. But not now.
Soft Stone appeared with crystal clarity, projected three-dimensionally on the filmscreen. “Hello, little Swan.” Her voice was so familiar, so rich.
Tears sprang to Teresa's eyes. “What are you doing here? How? Why—?”
“I've watched over you for a long time. You and Garth and Eduard. Even poor dedicated Daragon, though he would never dare to ask me for help. I've tried to help you, when I could.”
“You're inside COM?”
“I have many eyes and many thoughts. I helped save Garth from drowning in Hawaii. I sent Eduard a message to rescue you from the Sharetakers. And I continue to keep an eye on Eduard, when I can. He's very careful.”
Teresa took a deep breath. “Eduard's all right, then?”
“He's alive, and very clever. But then again, so is Daragon.”
Teresa moved closer to the wavering screen, as if she could reach out and embrace the virtual image. Soft Stone's pale lips curved in a smile. “I understand your quest, child, and your anguish—I offer what little assistance I can.”
“Do you know where my original body is?” Teresa trembled again, but this time it had nothing to do with Rush-X withdrawal pains. “Oh, how I want to be myself again.”
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