Hopscotch

by Kevin Anderson

  “Listen, Eduard,” he said, his whisper so low it was barely a kiss against the old man's ear. “It's my turn to do something for you. I'll give you the chance you need, and you have to promise me you'll take it.”

  Eduard's pain-filled eyes blinked, unable to focus on an object so close to him. “Garth, I don't have another chance. This body is already dying.”

  “Mine will last as long as you need it.” Garth smiled distantly. “You'd do the same for Teresa, or me. Take my home-body and all the unmarked credits you could possibly need. I've got so much money lying around that you could get away forever, go across the ocean, pay whatever bribes you need—make yourself completely invisible.”

  Eduard tried to lean back against the sofa pillows, averting his gaze. “Garth, don't be an ass.” His face crumpled into an expression of pain, and his chest heaved in an effort to hold back a rasping cough. “In case you haven't noticed, this body was already wrecked when I took it, and I've made things worse by running. Hemorrhaging, malfunctions, shutdowns. No matter how much money you have in your accounts, you won't be able to fix this. You won't find anyone willing to hopscotch with you.”

  Garth shook his head. “If I did, then another person would have to die. Any payment would only be blood money. This is my choice, and I won't let someone else pay the price for it.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Garth, but I can't accept. Sorry.”

  “You've got to accept, Eduard. I'm offering, as your friend. I've had a perfectly good life. Let me decide how I want to spend it.” Tears sparkled in his eyes.

  Eduard snorted. “Your art has spoken to more people, touched more lives than anything I could dream of. The only way I got famous was by killing someone.”

  Garth stared around at his ornate dwelling with its fine furniture and embellished library. “Eduard, shut up and listen. I've had everything, done everything. And my star has burned very, very bright.”

  “Garth, I don't have the energy to argue with you.”

  “Then stop arguing.”

  Eduard pressed his lips together to hold in the pain, and shook his head weakly. “I refuse. Get it through your head. If you swap with me, you'll die.”

  Garth wore a beatific expression. “If my art is good enough, I'll live forever, anyway.” He leaned closer, and Eduard ineffectually tried to slide away.

  “My art is my life, always has been. You've known that since we were kids. I spent everything in my soul to make people notice what I had to say. I poured out the emotions and the experiences I had. My career skyrocketed, and people wanted more and more, faster and faster. But Eduard . . .” He rested his hand on the dying man's bony chest. “What if I don't have anything left to say? I want to end my career at a high point, not become some pathetic has-been whose later work waters down his original output.”

  Eduard sipped more of the chamomile tea, sighed. “Look at everything you have, Garth. Don't expect me to feel sorry for you.”

  Garth tried a different approach. “All right, but I can last a little while in your body. Let me give you a respite, just like you did for Teresa after Rhys beat her up.”

  Eduard's eyes glimmered. “Have you heard from Teresa? How is she?”

  Garth smiled. “She just contacted me a few hours ago. She thinks she's found her original body—she's been looking for it a long time, you know.”

  Eduard tried to sit up. “Did she tell you where she is? I'd like to—”

  “Yes, I know exactly where she'll be first thing in the morning. Swap with me, go and see her while you can.” Garth began to talk in a rush. “I'll stay here and rest, and you take your last chance. Go, say goodbye to her—I know you need to.”

  Eduard thought of Teresa, how much he loved her, how much he missed her . . . how much he had ruined everything. “You mean it? This isn't permanent, you know. I'm not going to stick you with this . . . this old wreck. It's my problem.”

  “Eduard, you have enough problems to go around. Let me do this for you, now. It's my turn.”

  Eduard's pain-wracked eyes regarded him with suspicion. “Promise you'll wait for me here?”

  With a deprecating frown at the decrepit form lying on the sofa, Garth said, “Look at your body, Eduard—where am I going to go?”

  Before he hurried off, fit and healthy again, Eduard turned back. “Garth, you're not going to do anything stupid?”

  The artist lay trembling on the sofa, his body wracked with the pain of dying slowly. “No.” Behind Garth's bleary eyes, Eduard could see a surprising strength and confidence, a contentment that hadn't been there earlier that night. “Just go! But remember, it'll be dangerous for you.”

  Eduard crossed his arms over his broad chest and flashed a wry smile. “Garth . . . it's Teresa. What choice do I have?” Then he slipped out into the dawn.

  Pashnak returned with an armful of warm clothes, but all he saw was the old body sitting there, wheezing, and in pain. “Where's Garth? He shouldn't have left you alone.”

  “I'm here.”

  Pashnak looked at him in dawning horror. He dropped the clothes on the floor. “What have you done?” He advanced forward, reaching out but afraid to touch the old man. “Oh, Garth—what have you done?”

  “I did what I had to do. One last experience.”

  59

  Weary from the fruitless hunt and the disastrous night, Daragon slumped into the chair behind Ob's former desk. He swept his arm across the desktop, knocking stacked printouts to the floor. Angry. Frustrated. Unable to give up. Would it never end?

  Overhead, fish swam about, oblivious to the man below.

  His uniform smelled of sweat, smoke, and drying blood. After a lifetime of searching he had discovered his father at last, a Phantom . . . then the man had died in Daragon's arms.

  And Eduard had escaped again. Daragon had no one to blame but himself.

  His work as a BTL Inspector seemed the only stable thing he could grasp, but even the Bureau gave him no joy—not any longer. He rested his head on his crossed arms, feeling terribly alone. He had driven all of his friends away, but he didn't know what he'd done wrong.

  Back in the Falling Leaves, before the Bureau had taken him away, Daragon often felt uncertain and terrified. He knew something was deeply wrong with him, but Teresa had always comforted him in the dark. She would pull the blanket over his shoulders. His eyes flashed against hers in the shadows, straining to exercise his mind, attempting to swap with her. But he felt nothing stir, no sense of joining with her, or with anybody. He would finally squeeze his eyes shut, then bury his face in the hollow of Teresa's neck. She would shush him, tell him everything would be all right.

  How had he changed so much?

  The COM screen buzzed insistently, startling him. Jax had left a message for him. “Come see me.”

  Daragon sighed. The Data Hunter probably wanted company, maybe someone to read to him or chat with. He wiped the message from the screen, ignoring it—but words flashed back on in brighter, larger letters. “Come see me. You'll be glad you did.”

  Grumbling, he strode out of the office. He'd had enough screwups for one night, and he had no patience left. He marched down the undersea corridors and barged into the chamber with its mists and coolants, dim lights, and odd off-putting smells. His hands on his hips, he looked impatiently up at the harnesses where Data Hunters dangled from the ceiling, adrift in COM. He couldn't even tell which of the pasty blobs belonged to Jax. “All right, what do you want?”

  One of the pallid, soft-skinned forms lowered. Jax turned to him with a childlike smile and said in a taunting, singsong voice, “Guess what I found! Something you've been looking for.”

  Daragon's heart leapt. “Eduard? Where is he? Give me some good news.” He hesitated, still focused on the case. “Or did you find any of Chief Ob's three former caretakers?”

  Jax sounded petulant, as if Daragon had spoiled his fun. “The caretakers have utterly vanished, Daragon—their files permanently scoured, even to our experts. W
hich means, in my estimation, that those people are dead. Such a scandal for our former Bureau Chief, if that information were ever to be released. Naturally, that will never happen.”

  “Are you saying there's some doubt now? Could Eduard have been telling the truth?”

  “Your friend has been found guilty, regardless of any extenuating circumstances, and further details about Master Ob's possible bad habits will never be made available to the public. Higher up in the Bureau, it has been decided that such information would serve no positive purpose.”

  Daragon's face felt hot; he didn't want to hear such things, didn't want to know them. “Then why did you call me here?”

  “Unlike you, Daragon, I have other cases to follow.” The voice from Jax's speaker sounded like a huff. “I've found what your friend Teresa Swan was looking for.”

  Daragon was taken aback. Months ago, he had pleaded with Jax to recruit the help of the Data Hunters, even promising to read another book out loud, cover to cover . . . if they came up with something. Jax would probably choose a massive tome such as Nicholas Nickleby or David Copperfield. But if they managed to help Teresa, then at last she might forgive him. Maybe.

  “I can't explain why we didn't see it before.” Jax's voice came through the nearest speaker. “Somehow our most careful searches missed a critical nugget of data, until now. Here's where you can find her, a place called Precision Chaos.”

  Daragon stepped forward, raising his chin. “Thanks, Jax.”

  Finally, he could do something right again. At least he hoped so.

  60

  The place was called Precision Chaos, and it lived up to its name.

  Address in hand, Teresa found the factory not long after daybreak. It had been a long time, and she knew intellectually that her chances were slim, but her heart refused to give up hope. Perhaps soon she would have her own body back, go home, and be herself for the first time in years. She wondered what it would feel like. Despite her hardships and losses, her life had always contained a wellspring of hope. Always hope.

  In the city's high-tech manufacturing district, the buildings were less ornate, more functional. Even the wet freshness of the previous night's rain could not mask a sharp, sour odor of industrial processes that pushed the limits of the emissions regulations.

  Precision Chaos was a high-tech cottage industry, privately owned by a tightly knit group who had invested in their own equipment. They had been in business for only a few years, but seemed to be prospering.

  With the ever-increasing demand for services and capabilities, COM was constantly in need of additional resources to incorporate with the new brainpower. The computer/organic matrix redesigned itself, increased its speed and complexity as it adapted to fill the needs of society. Like similar independent groups, Jennika and her business partners cranked out expansion chips and memoryware for installation into the voraciously growing network.

  Still early, Teresa wandered into the facility and began looking around tentatively. Since she wore Eduard's recovered body, no one would recognize her, not even Jennika, if the runaway even remembered anything from her long-ago Sharetaker days.

  Precision Chaos was an open working environment; desks and COM terminals and lounge areas shared space with industrial machinery shielded by sound-dampening fields. The chill air smelled of burning metal, etching chemicals, packaging materials. Dozens of workers moved about operating machinery or manning conveyor lines and shipping outlets. Some spoke into COM screens, others logged productivity reports or sales manifests.

  Teresa used the awkward moment before anyone noticed her to glance around for her body: the auburn hair, the delicate face, the fascinated eyes. She wished she had brought along the framed sketch Garth had made. It had been so long since she'd seen her own face, her own form, she wondered if she would even recognize it. Most of the employees of Precision Chaos seemed to be women . . . but still not the right woman.

  A tall ebony-skinned worker spotted Teresa and approached, pulling red goggles from her eyes. She ran a gloved hand through a black brush of sweaty hair. “What can we do for you, sir?”

  Teresa looked at her, looked past her. “I'm trying to find . . . Oh, I hope you can help me. Does someone named Jennika work here?”

  The woman's deep, dark eyes bored into her, assessing her, trying to put a name to Eduard's face. “Yeah, I'm Jennika.” She offered no other help, waiting to learn what this visitor wanted.

  Teresa stared at the powerful black woman with high cheekbones and firm lips, and her heart sank. “Oh. You've changed bodies.”

  Eyebrows lifted. “We always change bodies. We do a lot of work around here, take shifts.”

  Teresa drew a deep breath. “No surprise, I suppose. I'm not in my home-body, either. Not anymore.”

  “You want a job?” Jennika narrowed her eyes, critiquing Eduard's form. “We could probably use you around here, if you're interested.”

  “No . . . no.” She fumbled for words. “I used to be with the Sharetakers—and so were you.”

  Jennika flinched as if she had swallowed a thistle whole. “The Sharetakers? Those assholes.”

  “You left the enclave—”

  “I got smart. Rhys was a parasite.”

  “I know,” Teresa said. “Do you remember me? Someone named Teresa?”

  “Teresa?” She pursed her lips. “I try not to think about those days. It's better for my digestion.” Jennika gestured with a gloved hand to the bustling factory. “The Sharetakers had the right theory about working together, but no clue about equitable implementation. Here, my partners and I forged a mutually supportive relationship. This is what the Sharetakers should have been like, if they'd really wanted to work together.”

  Teresa drew a deep breath, her heart pounding. “Jennika, when you left the enclave, on the day you went off . . . you, uh, you were wearing my original body.”

  Jennika let the red goggles dangle from her neck. “Could be. About the only thing I kept from those days is the habit of hopscotching more than most people. We use whatever physique is most appropriate for our assigned duties. Everybody does the work that's required, and we share in the profits. Believe me, Precision Chaos has seen plenty of profits already, and we're still growing.”

  Teresa would not allow her hope to flag, not when she was this close. “So, do you know where my home-body is now? I've been trying to locate it for a long time.”

  Jennika shrugged. “If I did come here in your body—and I honestly don't remember—then I've bounced out of it many times. It's been years.”

  “This is very important.” Teresa tried to control the pleading tone in her voice. “I need to find it. I need to have it back.”

  Jennika appraised her skeptically. “If that physique is healthy, we'd be happy to trade. We've mostly got female forms around here, and could do with an extra man—and not just for the work itself, if you know what I mean.”

  “Is my home-body here, then? Can we find it, do you think?”

  Jennika removed her thick gloves and tucked them into the wide pockets of her jumpsuit. “Come on, let's do some digging.” She marched to an unattended COM terminal and called up the company records. “Refresh my memory on what you looked like.”

  Teresa told her every detail she remembered. The ebony-skinned woman scrolled through image after image. “We keep careful track of the people, you understand, but the bodies are pretty much interchangeable.”

  “Not to me,” Teresa said. Finally, a familiar image flashed up on the screen, the face she had grown up seeing in the mirror. “There! That's the one!”

  Jennika accessed records, skimming words, then frowned. “Not good.” She double-checked, but got the same answer. “Licia was the last person inside your body.”

  “What?” Teresa tried to keep her heart from sinking. “Where is she now? What happened?”

  Jennika looked back into the industrial area full of machinery. “Some of our equipment is dangerous. Even with the required safety i
nterlocks, you can't get rid of all the risks. Licia was operating one of our high-speed pattern imprinters for memory-expansion manufacture, and a seal failed in the containment chamber. She got caught in a cloud of highly corrosive vapor.” Jennika set her face in a grim mask. “It wasn't pretty.”

  “She died? My body—” Teresa stood frozen, then her shoulders—Eduard's shoulders—slumped. She collapsed into the nearest chair.

  The other woman's voice grew stern. “Hey, I apologize, but we lost Licia in that accident—a valued coworker and our friend. Nobody paid much attention to what body she was in when she died. I'm sorry for you, but we lost more than you did.”

  Teresa heard no more of the woman's explanation. Surrounded by the industrial noises and smells of Precision Chaos, she sagged in the chair. Her senses grew numb, and the world blurred as tears flowed from her eyes.

  Everything Arthur had told her, everything that had rung so true, was now lost. Her original form was gone forever. Her soul could never return to its rightful place.

  61

  Sensing the crisis between Jennika and the stranger, several workers paused in their activities to watch. Questions and concern crossed their faces. Teresa sat listless, her face in her hands, in despair.

  The ebony-skinned woman touched her with a strong, sinewy hand. “Look, I'm sorry I ran off with your body from the Sharetakers, and I'm sorry we lost it. I didn't suspect it would mean so much to anyone.”

  “Not your fault.” Teresa tilted her head, staring back with puffy eyes. “Who else in the world would care?”

  Jennika bit her lip as she considered possibilities. “Here, why not take me instead?” The muscular woman held out both hands. “I had no right to leave the Sharetakers in anything other than my own body. I just didn't think, and that wasn't fair to you. This one is young and strong—and at least it's female.”

  Teresa would be sad to let go of the physical vestiges of Eduard. This body was all she had left of him, but at least being a woman was a better approximation of the body she'd been born with. One step closer to her now-unattainable goal. She'd have the right set of chromosomes, the chemical and hormonal cycles, the familiar bodily components, the same sexual sensations.