Half the Day Is Night

by Maureen F. Mchugh

  “It all looks system generated,” the woman said.

  It was easy to pick out the five users, once he knew there were five; besides the one-eyed woman and the American blond there was a tall, saturnine-looking fellow with an earring and an alligator tattoo on his arm, a woman with silk-white hair like fine egret feathers, and a fey-looking young man with copper hair and green eyes who probably spent too much time playing wizard adventure games. The copper-haired young man was looking at him. “He’s not phantom,” Copper Hair said.

  “Sure he is,” the one-eyed woman said.

  “No he’s not,” Copper Hair said. “You’re not, are you? You want to play?”

  David shrugged. “I do not know the games, and I only have forty more minutes left.”

  “How the fuck you do that, Monode!” Alligator Tattoo said.

  “He don’t act like a phantom,” Copper Hair said. “Phantoms don’t stand still when you look at them, they have to do something.”

  “I’ll pay for some extra time,” One-Eyed Woman said.

  “I got change, too,” Alligator Tattoo said.

  “It is not a problem,” David said, “I can pay. What do I say to get out?”

  “System,” said Alligator Tattoo and flickered out of existence. In a second he was back. “‘Recommencer’ will bring you right back to here.”

  “System,” David said, and the world went black. He lifted the visor and went back out to the counter and bought two more hours. The five were still waiting when he came back.

  They were in a virtual adventure league and they were playing a war-game simulation called Zone of Fire. Somebody hadn’t shown up and if they hadn’t found a sixth they’d have had to forfeit. “You don’t have to do nothing, I mean, unless you want to,” said Alligator Tattoo. Alligator Tattoo was clearly much younger than his persona. They all called him Chaco, except for the copper-haired boy, who called him Santos.

  The portal opened and they stepped into an arid landscape, a field of dry grass. Almost, but not quite, the landscape of the Transvaal. The light was bright and hard and under it he felt himself expand. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Argentina,” the one-eyed woman said.

  Behind them were hills, in front of them was the long flat expanse of wheat he supposed was the pampas. The wind bent down the grass but he couldn’t feel it. The light! The light was so wonderful. He blinked, his eyes watering. Driving out the darkness, the dimness of Caribe. He could sleep in a light such as this, he could live in a light such as this.

  “Base camp is there,” the blond said. In the strong sunlight David could see that the blond was cyborged with a delicate tracery of chip at the temples, like a vid character in bad American science fiction. What was it supposed to do, make him faster? Make him see in the dark?

  He thought of the look he had chosen and smiled to himself, he really did look plain.

  The base camp was not what he had expected. There was a tent, a tank, a collapsed glider and enormous amounts of ordinance. No mess, nothing for living. It wasn’t at all real. People knew what they were doing; the blond American clambered into the tank—he must have been sitting at a console rather than using a treadmill—and Alligator Tattoo started handing out rifles. The rifles looked familiar enough, AP30s, cousins to the rifle he had carried in Anzania. When he took the rifle the glove tried to simulate weight by locking up and contracting. It didn’t really feel as if the rifle weighed anything. David wondered how he was supposed to shoot and keep one hand on the handlebars. He tried to shoot the bolt, but the action wasn’t smooth.

  Alligator Tattoo—what was his name? Santos?—said, “What are you doing?”

  “Checking the,” how did you say it? “ah, the barrel.” He shrugged. “Just trying to do something.” He turned it over and looked at the clip. “How much ammunition?”

  “I don’t know,” Santos said. “You don’t have to reload.”

  “Ah,” David said, “that is convenient.”

  “You ever shoot one before?”

  “An AP30, only a couple of times. I have shot an AP15.”

  “Yeah?” Strange but the look, the tattoos, the body language and voice and expressions all fit a man older than David but Santos sounded young, maybe eighteen or nineteen. “Were you in Brasil?”

  “No,” David said.

  Santos didn’t know what to say. The one-eyed woman was looking at them, and the copper haired boy.

  “I was in Anzania,” David said into the silence. He didn’t know if they would believe him or not, he couldn’t remember any Central or South American troops in Anzania. This was a mistake. He should not have done this. He was aware of standing on the treadmill, his knee was starting to ache a little.

  On the other hand, these people didn’t know who he was. There was no way they could ever find out what he looked liked. He was free to relax, to tell them the truth as long as he didn’t tell them his real name. “I am Lezard,” he said. “You are Santos?”

  Alligator Tattoo frowned, “Santos or Chaco. My call name here is Chaco. That’s Monode—”

  “Cobre,” the boy corrected.

  “Si, Cobre or Monode, whichever. The chico who drives the tank is Jack Stomper, the sarge is Amazon Lil,” the woman with the eyepatch, “and that is Gin.” Gin shook back her egret hair and smiled.

  There was a crunch and the landscape around them shook, although the feeling was not translated into sensation. “Ay, cabrón!” the blond said and yanked the hatch down. The one-eyed woman clicked on a communications port and called coordinates. The tank pivoted, treads reversing and churning up grass—that was a nice touch, David thought—and moving out.

  “Lezard!” Santos shouted, “come with me! Touch that Kessler!”

  David obediently touched the big Kessler gun and it rumbled to life.

  “Follow me!” Santos said.

  Santos’ Kessler was following him like a big dog. As David followed, “his” Kessler trundled docilely behind him. He couldn’t help it, he started to laugh.

  Santos glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Do like this,” he tapped his headset—where had he gotten a headset? David reached up and lo and behold, he was wearing a headset. When he tapped it suddenly he heard Amazon Lil talking in his ear, “Santos, you and Lezard head up around 14.5 and see if you can get a little mortar action on that ridge.” Talking like a movie, he thought. Around him he could see red digital readouts, like looking through a heads-up display.

  This was nothing like a real battle, he thought. Thank goodness.

  * * *

  David called his Kessler “Fido.” Fido was behind him while he and Santos planned what kind of fire to lay down. They were “lying” behind cover. It didn’t feel as if they were lying because he was still standing on the treadmill and his knee was aching enough that he couldn’t forget it was there. Still, he was having a very good time.

  “They are there, I think,” he told Santos. He didn’t really know, but Amazon Lil thought that a team like him and Santos would be there. He picked over the land. He could make decisions about where they might be if this were real, but the restraints on the system made different things work.

  “We’ll lay down fire,” Santos said.

  “Okay, you want we should elephant walk the shells?”

  “¿Qué?” Santos said.

  “It is a pattern, better than just a grid, because it forces your enemy to fall back behind the fire. You lay a diagonal line of fire, and then another line behind it, and then another line behind it. See, they will go back, away from the line up towards 13.4, 13.3,” he pointed to the coordinates. “Then after they learn our pattern, say five, six rounds, we fire on their position, where we think they have run, where we gave them to run. Then if we have enough shells, we can do again.”

  Santos nodded. “Okay. Okay. This, this is what they do in real war, right?”

  “Yes,” David said. Of course, in a real battle he would probably prefer to set the gun emplacement an
d fall back, so when the firing started they would not be targeted. But that wouldn’t work if Fido was going to follow him around. Santos told him that if they got up, the Kesslers would stop firing and follow them.

  Santos showed him how to set the guns and key in the pattern.

  “Once we shoot, they will shoot back at us, no?” David said.

  “Si, they’ll have our position.”

  It was only a game. It didn’t matter. Still, it made him uncomfortable, knowing he was going to be exposed. Maybe they would get lucky, take out the other team’s guns. “Okay, Fido,” he said, “it’s time.”

  The sound from the Kesslers was startlingly loud. The sound deafened him and he closed his eyes, feeling the handlebars, the treadmill, the visor resting on his forehead. “Fuck,” he said to nothing in particular.

  The krump krump krump krump of the mortars across the grassland was pretty realistic, too, he thought. But now the others had their range. His only hope was that they were too busy running to stop and fire. Krump krump krump krump. Krump krump krump krump. Elephant walking. He’d seen the fucking elephant, like the Australians said when someone got wounded or killed.

  It was nice not to have to worry about ammunition.

  Krump krump krump krump. And then the pattern changed to angle the other way, to catch a team in retreat. Krump krump krump KRA-THUM-krump.

  “We got a Kessler!” Santos shouted. “Come on! Vamos!”

  “One more walk,” David said. Krump KRA-THUM-krump, the sound of the exploding gun swallowing the motor sounds.

  “Two of them! Slap, man! Now we split so they can only get one of us! Down the hill and watch for the glider!”

  Down the hill. It didn’t feel like down the hill, the treadmill didn’t tilt, the ground wasn’t uneven. David just walked, pushing the handlebars to indicate speed, but he and the Kessler zoomed downhill, it bobbing and swaying as if traveling fast over uneven ground. In his headset he heard Santos reporting, “Two Kesslers, Sarge!”

  “Clear,” Amazon Lil said. “Fallback Al.”

  Fallback Al? What did that mean?

  “Ah, fuck!” Santos said. “Lezard! I didn’t tell you the fallback patterns!”

  “Ears on the line! Com clear!” Amazon Lil said sharply. Vid army talk that said the channel wasn’t secure and the enemy was listening.

  “I just keep my nose clean then,” David said.

  All he needed to do was hide. Although that was hard to do with the Kessler rumbling along behind him. He tried to keep close to the ridge, on the flat grassland the Kessler would stand out like an oil derrick. Camouflage nets would help, heat reflecting nets. Break up the signature of the Kessler. He should ask Santos if they could get any.

  The grass swished around him, he wished he could feel the wind. Still, the sunlight was so nice. And he was sweating from excitement. He was, he had to admit, having a hell of a time.

  Were there mines?

  Nothing to do if there were, he couldn’t get the Kessler to go in front of him. He should have asked more about the rules. Next time.

  Too late he caught a glimpse of something and looked up. “Watch for the glider,” Santos had said. Although what he was supposed to do when he saw it—

  “Glider above me at 15.4,” he said, just as a woman with a banner of black hair leaned over the side and dropped something. He tried to push the handlebars out to go faster and there was this tremendous noise, the world went red, then black—

  And he was in the playground. His ears were ringing. Around him stood phantoms, talking and laughing. He caught his reflection, a tall black man in a green sweater looking back out of the curving chrome of the pillar. He laughed a shaky laugh.

  The playground was darker than the simulation, like being inside rather than like being in strong sunlight. Like being in Caribe.

  Of course. When you died you went to Caribe.

  * * *

  The day was half gone, time eaten up by the game. That was something, it was even fun. He stood on the treadmill, absently rubbing his knee, wondering what he should do next.

  He should leave a message for somebody. He put the visor back on and went back to the playground. If one of them got killed while he was leaving the message then he’d run into them. He didn’t want to do that. He didn’t know why, but it just seemed easier to just leave a message and get off the system, not say anything about getting killed in the game.

  He told the system he wanted to leave a message for Santos.

  The system didn’t recognize the name.

  Shit. What was the other name they had called him? Something like chico. Chaco. Leave a message for Chaco?

  The system pulled up a phantom of Chaco and it was Santos, alligator tattoo and all.

  “Okay,” David said. “Thanks, ah, tell everyone thanks. It was very interesting. Ah, and I have a good time. Sorry I get killed and all, I hope you win. Fin.”

  David pulled the visor and was back on the treadmill. Stupid message. He could never leave very good messages. And he knew his English had been bad. He thought about going back and changing it, but every moment he was in the playground increased the likelihood that one of the others would pop out.

  Enough. It had been a nice time.

  Now all he had to do was remember how to get back to his room. And maybe pick up something to eat. He was kind of hungry.

  * * *

  David didn’t plan to go back, it just used some of his money and he should be saving. He didn’t know what he was saving for, he was pretty sure he didn’t have enough for a passport and every day he was here he spent a little on the room, and on food for him and Meph. Bleeding to death a drop at a time.

  “I should get a job,” he told Meph. A job would be nice, pass the time, bring a little money in instead of the money all going out. But he would have to have identification.

  Maybe he should sell something? Make something? What could he possibly sell or make? If he didn’t do something, sitting in this room was going to drive him crazy.

  Meph was sitting on the windowsill, ignoring him. Meph wanted to go out. Every time he opened the door he was afraid Meph would get out, if the kitten got away he thought he would never see him again.

  When he stood up Meph mewed, hopeful. “No,” he said. “I am just going for a walk. You stay here.”

  Sure, just going for a walk. Well, he would just see if Santos had left an answer to his message, see if they had won.

  He didn’t have to go back to the Plazoleta D’Imagen, but he didn’t know of any others, so he went that way. The square was full of peddlers, but there were no children playing in front of the peep show, so the butterfly girl had no audience to activate her. He was careful not to walk near.

  People still stared at him. How was he supposed to hide? Maybe he could get surgery? Change his face? He didn’t even know who to ask to find a doctor who would do it. And he didn’t want to change his face. He wanted to goddamn well go home.

  Maybe if he cut his hair he would look more like these people. Not many people wore their hair down to their shoulders anymore. He would do that, see if it helped.

  He shoulders ached from tension by the time he got to the Reality Parlor. At least it was the same girl. He paid for an hour. Just an hour. If he met anyone he could always pay for more.

  There was a message for Lezard, the system told him as soon as he hooked in.

  Santos, of course. David felt himself smiling, Santos’ way of talking was so boyish, so completely at odds with the sinister-looking revolutionary persona he wore. “Hey, Lezard, you should have waited around! We won, five to four. You were the only person to get killed, but that was my fault because I didn’t tell you where it is we fallback. And I did not tell you how to hide the Kessler. The thing you did, elephant walking the mortars, that was great!

  “Anyway,” Santos went on, “We play again on Saturday. Zanaza is supposed to be here on Saturday, so we have the six, but maybe you can show up and if someone else can’t com
e then you can play, you know?”

  No, he really shouldn’t. He couldn’t. It was a waste of money, playing games when he should be planning what to do, figuring out a way out of this country.

  But where was he going to start finding a way unless he talked to people? Through the system he could talk to people and they would never be able to tell anyone who he was, never be able to betray him to the blue and whites.

  So he might, after all.

  But maybe he should look more like the others? In a way, he was more obvious than if he were somehow, how could he describe it? Flashy.

  He asked for the catalogue again, called up the doctor. What could he do, strange-colored eyes? He tried blue eyes. No. Green eyes. Eh. Not so much difference unless he made them really green, and that felt foolish. Red, orange, yellow, purple, metallic, stone and other. He couldn’t even imagine trying purple eyes, metallic gave him the obvious choices (with or without pupil). Featureless bronze eyes seemed very distracting and rude and when he looked at his own image they made him uncomfortable. He looked, he thought, dead. Other was very strange. Pupils shaped like hourglasses, hearts, circles like snakes, shattered eyes, tiger eyes, goat eyes, lizard eyes (which was kind of funny), eyes that were hollow as if there was nothing in there except darkness, and to take that further, empty eyes that were like windows on galaxies.

  He wiped that as quickly as he could.

  One of the options for yellow eyes was a dark amber, almost like brown eyes but not quite. He liked that. It was a little different, but not something anybody would notice unless they looked close.

  Then he changed clothes. Something a little stranger, maybe like a commando would wear? Sweater with a shoulder patch to rest a rifle butt, boots.

  It looked a little foolish. He almost switched back. No, save now, he thought, before you change your mind.

  He saved and then wandered into the playground. He stood at the list of games trying to decide what to play. He could go to Tokyo, go diving, be a spy, be lost on a space-ship … but nothing would take him to Paris. It would have been nice, even if it was a synthetic Paris.