I screamed. My eyes opened wide—unseeing for several moments—moist… It had been a dream, but it had been more than a dream. It was something that had really happened. It was how my parents had died. It was—
There was a star-shaped hole in the windshield and we were drifting gently to the right. My real-life truck was in the process of doing the same thing that had happened… nine years ago… though there was no storm, no deep arroyo near the road. A cornfield invited me to wallow amid its green ranks…
I catapulted myself into the driver's seat, this time locating the switch for manual operation quickly, having intentionally noted its placement in the wiring scheme that last time I'd coiled through the onboard computer.
I twisted almost savagely into the computer again, simultaneous with turning the wheel and pulling back onto the highway. The sideview showed the truck behind me dropping back. The one ahead pulled forward. The dance without the dancer…
There were other holes—they had to be bullet-holes—which I could see now had stitched the truck's body, forward and to the left. Little whistling noises filled the cab. A greater, thrumming noise moved through the air overhead.
My coil-scan showed me that the computer had been damaged. I had to keep it on manual if I wanted to keep it on the road.
The thrumming sound grew louder, and the shadow of the helicopter passed—something like a piece of the night.
Then I saw it, and I heard the gunfire. I felt the impacts as the slugs tore into my truck. I smelled hot oil.
I was out of the truck's computer by then and reaching, reaching… Up, high… Trying to feel the computer that ran the 'copter's autopilot…
I felt stupid. I had thought I'd done such a clever thing in altering the track's identification code. I had been tired, I had been wrapped up in the joy of self-discovery over the new aspect of my power, but still—
I had stupidly thought to hide myself by that single change of code. If anything, it had made me more vulnerable. I was probably part of a convoy—I hadn't even bothered to check—with maybe a couple of dozen of us all headed for Memphis from the same warehouse or factory somewhere in the East. Mine—whatever its number in line—might as well have had a red X painted on its roof. I should have checked first and then altered the descriptions of the whole lot of us. Barbeau hadn't even needed Ann's efforts against me. Without any special skills, he had beaten me at my own game. I should have foreseen it I should have…
Up, reaching… I felt it now, the autopilot's brain. I coiled into it and began a rapid scan of its systems as the pilot circled to come at me again. In the meantime, I smelled smoke and my engine was starting to make funny noises; there were intermittent hesitations…
The 'copter swooped in, and I seized the autopilot controls and activated them, trying to drive it off course to the right…
The helicopter jerked just as a gun began to flash, forward. The firing stopped immediately. The shots went wide.
The 'copter commenced a little dance. Wisps of smoke were now drifting past me, there in the driver's seat. I felt a warmth near my right foot. My engine coughed. The truck stalled and pulled out of it, stalled and pulled out of it…
Overhead, the 'copter veered to the right, corrected and then was gone as I flashed by beneath it. I could feel the pilot struggling with the controls, fighting the automatic system which had come awake to oppose him. I continued my efforts, striving to sweep the vehicle away, downward…
The thrumming faded, grew again. I watched the road's shoulder, unable to see my attacker. It came into sight on my far left. The fact that its pilot was trying to kill me had only gradually sunk to the gut level where fear, hate and all of the survival instincts are stored. My heart was pounding. I began to cough as the smoke thickened within the cab. We were past the cornfields now and into an area of rolling terrain. I reasserted the autopilot's program for sweeping off to my right, sinking.
The sounds of its engine laboring, the 'copter began to do just that. I could feel the force of the struggle quite clearly—machine against man, me on the side of the former. Gun forgotten, the pilot was fighting with his controls now. I countered his every move. The 'copter heeled over and plunged toward the earth.
I didn't really see it happen. I think I was more than partway past when it hit, and the smoke had continued to thicken within the cab. By the time that I got the window open there were flames inside with me. It was a peculiar feeling, though… Whoever had piloted the thing was just a faceless abstraction to me, someone wishing me ill, not that I was eager to see anyone dead… But the computer—
I had been inside it. I had just gotten acquainted. And then I had forced it to operate to its own destruction. I had been inside of it at the crash, also, when its systems went wild and then stopped. I felt a small twinge of guilt then, even though there was no true sentience involved. When is a thing not a thing?
I began to go off the road once more. I turned the steering wheel again and it did not respond. I hit the brakes. They weren't working either.
The truck kept right on going, off of the road, down a slope, headed toward a large outcropping of stone toward the center of the field. Was I irrational at that point? Probably somewhat. I coiled into my truck's computer and it was dead, save for a couple of maintenance systems which were in maximum trouble. I had a feeling that this was it, with Ann not even there to enjoy my passing. Though maybe she wouldn't have… I wasn't certain. Once she had liked me, I was sure of that now. We had actually meant something to each other, it seemed, somewhere along the line…
Just in case, Ann … I thought then, with special emphasis. Just in case … this is it… and I think it is… I know that The Boss got me here from the machines, not from you . . . Smell your flowers . . . If you hear me now, it's not the way I want to go—if I have to—but I know this one isn't yours … I won't go cursing you, for just keeping me company awhile—despite your Grade B illusions… I wish I remembered more, though… You're the only one who might… hear me now… and I'll give you a good-bye on that. You could have done better than Barbeau, though. Smell your damn flowers, lady…
… And then the engine sounds grew louder and louder and louder—until I realized that they were not all my engine sounds. I felt the presence of other functioning computer systems nearby. Then came the shadows. And the jolt
I was sweating and choking and full of panic, but as the shadows paced me and the first one made contact I understood.
Two other trucks had left the highway, pursued me, caught up with me, were pacing me. The one to the right had just made contact, with a grinding sound. Now I felt the impact of the one on the left. Metal screeched and buckled and fragments of my dream shot like meteors through my head, trailing fear in their wake.
A change of perspective… Flames heavy now… But I was no longer headed downhill. I was being turned. Like a pair of elephants helping a wounded comrade, the two trucks were redirecting my course, turning me away from the crash that waited at the hill's foot.
It gave me a few moments more, but it was still no good. The flames were going to get me very soon. I was going to have to get out. That meant jumping, and I knew that jumping at this speed would kill me.
I looked to my left. The truck on that side was no longer in contact. The one on the right was pushing, herding me now. Only a meter and a half, perhaps, separated me from the vehicle to the left. Its door had even sprung when it had ground against my truck. It was partway open, perhaps wedged in that position.
A leap across. If I could make it… I had to make it. It was the only way open to me, the only chance to go on living.
I swung my door open, holding it against the wind, edging myself around on the seat, facing outward. At the rush of air, flames leaped at my back, singed my garments. I looked downward and that was a mistake. I tore my gaze away to stare once again at the racing sanctuary, so near. What was I waiting for? Just to let the fear eat away at my resolve? There was really no choice. I made up my m
ind exactly where I would grab hold.
I leaped.
* * *
… Pouring rain. The grating noise that passed beneath me as we nosed downward… My mother's scream… The thunder and the crash… Blackness that went on and on and on and would not go away—oh, no!—forever…
Blackness.
Silence.
Blackness and silence.
And in the midst of these, pain. My head…
The pain lessened at intervals and my mind floated—a kind of drunken, disengaged feeling. Not unpleasant, for anything which kept thinking at arms' length was welcome.
I seemed to be lying on my back somewhere, though I could not be absolutely certain. I possessed no particular sensations save for the pain and that feeling of position. Later, though, it felt as if my head were resting upon a pillow.
I tried to cry out. I heard nothing.
A sense of profound wrongness had been with me for a long while.
How long?
Days? Weeks? I had no idea, save that it was no short interval.
My thoughts drifted back to the crash, over and over again. Was this death—consciousness drifting in a dark, silent void, still bearing the pains of its passing? There were times when I believed this. Other times, I felt something like an unseen hand upon my brow.
See?
Could it be that I had been blinded? Deafened, too, possibly? The thoughts made me want to scream. If I did, it was like that tree falling in the forest for me.
Blackness and silence.
Gradually, the pain subsided. By then, I had been through periods of panic and nightmare irrationality, of despondency, lethargy, despair. There were times when I could not draw the line between waking and sleeping. I knew who I was, but I did not know where or when I was.
What changed all of this was the food. Why should a disembodied spirit want or need food? My mouth was opened gently, and a bit of broth—from a squeeze-bottle, it seemed—came into it. I gagged. I choked for a while, but finally I got some down.
That moment marked my certainty that I was in a hospital bed—blind, deaf and paralyzed. It is strange that such a horrible realization should be, however briefly, accompanied by a feeling of relief. But at least I knew where I was, and that I was being cared for. All of my dark metaphysical speculations fled. I was alive and being treated. I could now begin hoping for recovery…
I marked the passage of time by my feedings. I put off thinking about the accident for as long as I could. But eventually I came to dwell upon it.
Were my parents alive or dead? Were we in beds but a short distance apart, or… If they were alive, were their conditions anything like my own? I thought about the car's plunge again and again. I might have done better than they did by virtue of having occupied the back seat. Or, the car might have done a complete flip, leaving me the worst off.
Pure morbidity, when I had no way of checking on these matters. But I couldn't help it. I sought after other things to occupy my mind. I thought about school, about the exams I would doubtless miss—had probably already missed. I ran through a typical day on campus, trying to recall everyone I knew there. I tried to remember the placement of everything in my room. I recalled some of the better lectures I had heard, books I had read…
I made up mental games and played them. I got so that I could visualize a chessboard pretty well, but it was no fun with no real opponent…
And whenever I paused, my ingenuity exhausted the sleep still far away, I eventually began wondering whether I might not be better off dead. If I lacked much in the way of bodily sensations I had probably suffered some damage to my brain or spinal cord. I knew that this was not good at all if I didn't begin recovering some feelings soon. Those head pains had been fierce. I missed the don't-give-a-damn feeling the narcotics had induced earlier. And there were times when I wondered whether I might be going crazy—or might not already have done so.
I tried speaking. Whether I could hear it or not was immaterial, if someone else could. I tried saying, "My head hurts" over and over again. It didn't, really, anymore. But someone must have heard and given me a shot of something to take away my pain. I drifted again.
I tried it frequently after that, but it only worked a few more times. They must have caught on. But it gave me an idea.
The next time that I felt a hand on my forehead, I tried to say, "Wait. Am I in a hospital? Press once if I am, twice if I'm not."
The fingertips pressed once.
"My parents," I said. "Are they alive?"
There was a hesitation. I knew what that meant even before I felt the answer that finally came.
I went into some sort of withdrawal after that. Maybe I did go crazy for a while.
Later—days later, possibly—I came around. I tried again.
When I felt the hand, ignored so often now, I asked, "Is my spinal cord severed?"
Two touches.
"Is it damaged?"
One touch.
"Will I get better?"
Nothing. Wrong phrasing, I guessed.
"Is there a chance I'll get better?"
Hesitation. One touch.
Not too promising.
"Are my eyes damaged?"
Two touches.
"Is it my brain?"
One touch.
"Can it be remedied?"
No touches.
"Would surgery help?"
No touches. Had my respondent left? Wait—
"Have I already had surgery?"
One touch.
"How soon till we know whether it was effective?"
No touches.
"Shit," I said, and I withdrew again. I couldn't think of anything else to ask. Those were all of the things that mattered to me. I felt the hand very many times again, but I just didn't know what else to say.
There followed long intervals during which I must have been psychotic, times full of weird dream-like sequences that were not dreams, just mental wanderings. In between, there were some lucid spells. During one of the later ones I decided to try to preserve my sanity. Why, I am not certain. Maybe the decision was a mad act in itself. It could be that I'd be better off if I lost all touch with reason, abandoned any sense of self. Yet, I decided to try holding myself together against the chaos.
I began by telling myself my life story. Broad and sketchy at first, I began delving for more and more detail. I went back as far as I could. I worked my way slowly forward, many times. I conjured up the faces of my classmates in elementary school, searching for names for each of them. I remembered tablecloths and rugs and pictures on walls that I hadn't thought of in years. Every relative, every friend… The clothing I had worn at different times… My first fight, my first crush… Every injury. I thought of Christmases and Thanksgivings and birthdays, seating arrangements at dinners, presents given and received, marriages, births, deaths… My parents' business… It occupied me for a long while. I was surprised at all the things which lay just out of sight in memory…
My parents' business?
I remembered the computers and the games that I used to play with them. I thought about each one that I had known, many of them personified, just as I had thought about my classmates.
I even remembered the time when I thought that I had somehow seen into the workings of that one…
I found myself wishing that I had a computer to talk with again.
And I thought once more about that strange feeling, forgotten all these years.
Click. Click. Click. Derick. Yes. Like that. And then…
… It was rows and rows of lights and spinning hoops of fire. I followed a bright spiral through a crackling, clicking wonderland…
It was like going back. This was the feeling. Only this was not the same machine, resurrected in memory. It was a real, nearby computer that I was looking into. I was certain. How, or exactly where, I could not for a moment tell. But I sensed the transactions of data about me, the messages coming clearer and clearer as I regarded the phenomeno
n…
I had somehow made contact with the hospital's computer. I was into its workings, a silent partner, observing. Suddenly, I was no longer alone.
Every day then, upon awakening, I fled, coiled, into that wonderful machine. It became my friend. There were data, data and more data to hold my interest. I dismissed any shadowy desire to communicate further with those who fed, bathed and medicated me. I knew all their names now—who was on duty, who off—and something of their life-histories, from their personnel files. I read all of the menus in advance. I reviewed all of the other patients' records—as well as my own. I was in bad shape, with a totally pessimistic prognosis. I discovered that anything I did not understand in the way of medical terminology could be learned via the linkage with the medical library computer. I knew where all of my bedsores were located, even though I could not feel them. I was depressed at my findings as to my own case. Still, I had this much which I had not had before, a window onto the world.
And as entries were dated, I became aware of the passage of time once again. Days and weeks fled, turned into months. My window grew in size, became a vast, panoramic screen…
The hospital computer was connected to a police computer, the medical library computer was connected to a university computer, the university computer was connected to a military computer, the military computer was connected to a meteorological computer—like the man said about bones. And along the way, there were bank computers, think tank computers, private computers, linkages to foreign computers…
I could range the world. I could keep posted on the news. I could read books, locate facts in an instant, spectate at all manner of games and real-life situations…
I learned to ride the flux. Clickaderick.
Of course it mattered that my body lay numb and useless. But at least I was a part of the world again. I had structures to cling to, fascinating things to observe. I could lose myself for days at a time following business or political or military manipulations of people and things and monies… I watched corporate takeovers, economic sanctions in tricky political situations, negotiations for a major league player trade, the restructuring of a university from a liberal arts to a technical institution. I predicted a suicide, I foresaw an oceanographic concern's rise to prominence, I witnessed the recovery of a lost satellite. I was no longer lonely. I wanted my body back again, functioning properly, but at least I no longer felt the dissolving touch of madness…
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