Hopscotch

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Congratulations, my friend,” he said quietly.

  Then he saw Eduard and Teresa standing near one of the exits, deep in conversation, both excited and moved. Noticing him, Teresa rushed forward to take his hand. “Oh, Daragon, come inside with us! Garth would be so happy to see you.”

  “He came with Mr. Ob,” Eduard pointed out.

  “I’ve already talked with him and seen the show. It’s better if I keep a low profile out here.” Daragon felt very self-conscious in his uniform. “I know how intimidating my presence can be.”

  Teresa let out a sparkling laugh. “You don’t intimidate us.”

  “I doubt the people who came to see Garth’s art would feel the same way. I don’t want to cast any shadow, not on this night of all nights.” He looked toward the doors. “But I had to be here.”

  From behind his shadowed eyes, Eduard forced a smile. “Just to keep an eye on your friends? Watching over us?”

  “To make sure nothing goes wrong. As always.”

  As quickly as he could, Daragon found an excuse to go. He walked away from the lights and music, leaving his friends behind.

  38

  Swapportunities!

  It was a cute word displayed on the big flickering board in Club Masquerade. The postings always changed, shifted in a fountain of possibilities, needs, and desires. Prime material for his List.

  Hands clasped behind his back in a Napoleonic stance, Garth stood before the Hopscotch Board and read listing after listing. People placed their requests here, some valid for that hour or day only; more unusual requests remained unanswered for months—including some of his own.

  Many of the postings were sexual invitations for instant flings and afternoon diversions. Hopefuls posted bounties for stolen bodies, rent requests for better physiques. A desperate few offered their own bodies for sale.

  Garth came here on his search, forever on the lookout. Sometimes he thought he would never finish his quest . . . though that might actually be a good thing. Life and learning should never be finished. After the huge success of the recent FRUSTRATION exhibit, Garth already wondered what to do next. Stradley insisted that the second success was even more important than the first.

  Munching on a cinnamon stim-stick, he settled in at a small table to watch the people, to take notes on his datapad. Dance music continued in the background, droning with primal rhythms. Though the Club was relatively quiet on a slow afternoon, pleasure-seekers did their best to re-create the chaos and color of peak business hours. From here, he could also keep an eye on the Hopscotch Board, in case anything new came up.

  On the tablescreen, the cybernetic bartender’s smiling face appeared. “Ah, Garth, at it again, I see.”

  “Always need new inspiration, Bernard.”

  Down at the main bar, Rovin’s arms buzzed about, each set making a different cocktail for a different customer. Though his mind was multiprocessing dozens of orders and hundreds of minor business details, Rovin seemed attentive to Garth alone. “I’ve read reviews of your art show. Sounds like you made quite a splash. An overnight success!”

  Garth smiled wryly down at the image. “An overnight success after years of working in total obscurity.”

  “You weren’t wasting your time. You were learning your craft.”

  Garth’s lambic beer appeared, and he took a refreshing sip. “All that time I spent studying people and places really paid off. Last week I lived two days as a dwarf, and it really changes your perspective. Nothing’s at the right height—not door controls, not COM terminals, not the transport systems. Quite a challenge just to climb up onto a barstool.”

  “Easy to fall off, though,” Rovin said with a grin. “So, are you finished with your List?”

  “Not by a long shot. I haven’t even had a baby yet. I could spend a lifetime just living other lives.”

  The music changed on the dance floor. Hovering platforms shuffled in the air, bringing groups closer together and allowing members to hop from one disk to another.

  “No matter how much swapping you manage, Garth, you could never experience as many things as I do every day.” At the bar, mechanical arms continued to mix and deliver drinks. Screens glowed at countless tables, where Rovin engaged in numerous conversations, independent of what he was saying to Garth.

  “What do you mean, Bernard? I’ve always felt sorry for you, trapped in here, never able to go outside and see the world. Unable to . . . go see my art exhibit, for instance.”

  “I’ve already seen the world, Garth. I had a lot of fun in my younger days, but I got swatted down with a terrorist bomb and a hovercar crash. In here, I’m safe and in control of it all. Through my different substations, I have everything I want. I can watch my customers, hear each conversation, participate in a thousand things at once. How can a single pair of arms and legs match that?”

  Garth pulled out his datapad and scanned the items on his List. “Thanks for giving me another item for my List, Bernard. Would you be willing to hopscotch with me today? Or should we wait awhile?”

  The screen flickered for a moment, and Garth watched the bartender’s expression shift. “Whoa, I didn’t mean it as an invitation.”

  “Why not? You’re right. You’ve got a kind of life I’ve never experienced before. Besides, you know what I’m after, why I’m doing this. How about . . . say, an hour? That’ll give me a good impression of what you’re all about, and you’ll have a chance to do a few things. Minimal risk, for either of us.”

  Rovin paused, decidedly uncomfortable. “But I’ve got the Club to run, Garth. I’d have to stay right beside you. Some of this gets very complicated. I’ll need to monitor what you’re doing, help you out every second—”

  “No you won’t,” Garth said, already starting toward the closed door to the central control chamber. “You are going to go for a walk.”

  Though it was his job to seek hopscotch opportunities for the artist, Pashnak fought his inner anxiety. He hated putting himself in front of strangers, making odd requests and negotiations. However, he was willing to do it for Garth.

  By now his employer had absorbed the easy things on his List, and Pashnak had to go far afield. In the lull after the frantic activity of the FRUSTRATION debut, he went out to scout candidates. At least the money derived from licensing the successful exhibition had given him sufficient funds to make decent offers on Garth’s behalf.

  Some things, though, made Pashnak feel very much out of his depth.

  Wearing a forced smile, he stood in front of a work crew of convicted criminals. The unfettered labor gang was composed of hirsute, muscular bodies, squat and ugly forms like the museum paintings of Neanderthals.

  As punishment for certain crimes, guilty parties were forced to hopscotch into undesirable bodies, enduring sentences in lumpy, unpleasant forms. The only way a felon could have his or her own physique back was to hope for parole. Rarely were the criminals desperate enough to flee in their stunted bodies. Ugliness itself was often sufficient deterrent.

  Such a tradition created a misshapen “criminal class,” a caste system within legal boundaries. The original owners of these hideous forms often made good lives for themselves as they swapped into the varying bodies of criminals awaiting the ends of their sentences. It was like a vacation.

  The crew boss clearly thought Pashnak was mad to make such a ridiculous request. Pashnak paced back and forth under the hot sun, looking at the crooked teeth and matted hair of the labor gang. Their musky perspiration smelled of animals, though their eyes held the fire of people who had once lived successful lives, but were now trapped in hideous shells.

  “These are your best candidates?” Pashnak asked the boss.

  The man was blocky and strong, with broad shoulders. “This lot has plenty at stake—enough that you can probably trust them to make your trade.” The boss obviously remained skeptical. “Still sounds like a fool’s errand to me.”

  “Regular people always have trouble understanding artists.” Pa
shnak turned his attention to the hairy, misshapen men on the labor gang. “You’ll get a day’s reprieve from your sentence, while my employer does your labor for you. He wants to sweat like you sweat. He wants to feel the eyes of the public loathing him, the way you experience it every day.”

  “And every night,” another ugly male snapped. “I’m testing the limits of my husband’s devotion to me.”

  Pashnak felt a lump in his stomach. What marriage could withstand that?

  “Well, your mate won’t get any benefit out of Garth’s body. You’ll still have to remain under tight security, in prison instead of out here on the labor gang. But you get a normal body again, healthy and strong and attractive—and a day to relax instead of work.” Pashnak looked at the repulsive band and raised his head high, trying to appear tough—or at least confident. “You know the terms, and the restrictions, and the pay. One day, that’s all. Any takers?”

  The crew boss rolled his eyes, but Pashnak had far more volunteers than Garth could ever use.

  Like a thief entering a forbidden temple, Garth slipped past the busy mechanical arms to the isolated central control chamber where Bernard Rovin lived. The metal doors unsealed, and Garth ducked inside. The barricade automatically closed before any curious customers could peer inside. This was a private matter between him and the bartender.

  Garth stood in a womblike chamber surrounded by videoscreens, microphone pickups, and display monitors. In the middle of it all sat the ruined lump of the bystander who had almost died in a hovercraft crash years earlier. The real Rovin was little more than a scarred head and part of a spinal column implanted in a network of pseudo-body parts that extended to all corners of Club Masquerade.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Rovin asked, his voice uncertain.

  Garth stared, more intrigued now than he had ever been. “Without a doubt.” He came close enough to touch the living flesh of Rovin’s head.

  “I haven’t done this in a long time.” The bartender’s real lips moved now, his skin pale. If he’d had a body to move, he probably would have fidgeted.

  “Hopscotching isn’t the sort of thing you forget how to do.” Garth touched the waxy, scarred skin. Rovin flinched.

  They swapped.

  Garth suddenly felt as if he were falling. He tried to catch himself with a thousand flailing hands. A dizzying snowstorm of images poured into his optic nerves, as if he were now looking through a fly’s compound eye.

  “Focus! Garth, focus!” a man called in a very familiar voice.

  Garth funneled his attention and noticed his blond-haired form standing in the control chamber. He centered on that image alone, and found himself looking at Bernard Rovin, now occupying his home-body.

  “Some things you do forget after all.” Rovin stared down at Garth’s broad hands, wiggling his fingers experimentally. Then he snapped his head up to look at where Garth now rested in the middle of his own sensations.

  “Okay, I’ve tried to prep plenty of things here for you. Don’t mess it up for me. I’ve set the secondary systems on autopilot. Your hypothalamus automatically regulates things like lights and temperature, the plumbing, the doors. The music selections are based on random patterns, so don’t worry about monitoring them.”

  Garth’s attention splintered into fragments, full of innumerable sensations pouring in from different directions. He wanted to explore and think and see everything from the bartender’s perspective. Despite the distractions, though, he also heard and understood everything Rovin said.

  “I take it you don’t need any instructions on how to use my body?” Garth asked. Simply finding his vocal cords posed a small challenge.

  “Not like that!” Rovin slapped his forehead. “You just broadcast to all the screens in the Club.” He hurried to adjust several controls. “There, that’ll help you select where to direct your conversations. Remember, you’re wired to do many different things at once.” Using Garth’s nimble hands, he fiddled with the monitors. He paused, sick and uncertain, sweating profusely. “Maybe this was a bad idea. We should just swap back.”

  “Not a chance, Bernard. Now get out of here, and come back in an hour.”

  Dubiously, Rovin left the central chamber. Wearing Garth’s body, he wandered around inside the Club, touching things, studying tiny details that were out of range of his optical sensors. He picked up small objects, holding them in front of his face, smelling and feeling.

  With his new optical sensors, Garth watched him move about, inspecting his beloved Club from a new perspective. As Rovin brushed his fingers against the smooth surface of an empty chair, Garth used his new equipment to eavesdrop on a nearby conversation.

  “Look, it’s that artist again. The FRUSTRATION guy.” A ginger-haired woman shook her head, bemused. “You gotta expect odd behavior from him.”

  Rovin showed no sign of ever intending to leave the Club. He seemed intimidated, preferred staying close to home. He moved meticulously, each step a conscious effort, as if afraid he might damage himself in some way.

  Finally, as Rovin passed an empty table, Garth used his new skills to illuminate the screen. His voice rang out, scolding. “Bernard, you’ve got places to go. You can see this old place anytime. Do I have to call security to remove you by force?”

  “All right, all right.” Rovin reluctantly headed for the nearest labyrinthine exit. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”

  Garth switched from one camera to another to another. Rovin chose to use the passage through the Titanic chamber, modeled to look like a large stateroom on the ancient ocean liner. Finally, he went out into the streets.

  Now Garth had Club Masquerade to himself.

  Though only moments had passed, he noted that customers were already clamoring for drinks, talking to screens and expecting answers. He had work to do here!

  Like a sentient centipede, Garth flexed his mechanical arms, then he tapped into the bartending database so he could program the requested drinks. So many variations! With a distracted corner of his mind, he discovered the actual contents of the slushy blue drink Eduard always requested; he wasn’t sure his friend would actually want to know the recipe.

  At first, Garth panicked, but he worked through it, feeling his extensions one at a time and figuring them out. Through this disjointed body, he experienced the cybernetic bartender’s extensions and connections. Inside the Club he was omnipresent, a hundred places at once. He could listen to overlapping conversations, take care of simultaneous requests for drinks—he could do it all.

  He was Club Masquerade, a biomechanical Wizard of Oz running a circus of tables and drinks, lights and music, conversations and secrets. He laughed, his chuckle ringing out simultaneously from all the substations in the bar.

  He maintained a conversation with twelve different groups of people at once. He found it confusing, but delightful and exhilarating. The customers didn’t seem to notice any change, more interested in hearing themselves talk than in his responses.

  So this was how Bernard Rovin experienced each day. The man’s body had been crippled, destroyed except for the control center in his brain. But these new and complex sensations made up for the difference.

  Garth learned how to multiprocess, how to trust his body’s enhancements. Mechanical arms delivered drinks without spilling a drop; credit recorders deducted appropriate amounts from customer accounts; music played and changed and kept the dancers happy. Acquaintances engaged in banal chitchat that required very little effort for Garth to uphold his end of the conversation.

  Using external cameras under the arched entrances, he spied on his own body as Rovin wandered around outside in the fresh air. The bartender stretched his legs, smelled the leaves on trees, stared up at the sun gleaming off polished windows of the skyscrapers. But he didn’t venture far. Rovin kept looking toward the sparkling Club, then checking the time.

  Well before the hour was up, Rovin hurried back, slipping past the surrounding rooms into the main bar. He practically
ran to the central control chamber and pounded on the sealed door. “Okay, come on, Garth. Come on!”

  “Are you bored out there already?” Garth asked, using parts of his mind to carry on four other conversations in various rooms, tables, and alcoves. “I was just starting to get the hang of this.”

  Rovin’s bright eyes carried an edge of fear. “I was afraid you might refuse to hopscotch back if you spent too much time as me.”

  Garth considered the absurdity of the comment. The bartender was a wreck of flesh, only fractionally human, trapped inside a single building for all of his life . . . and he was afraid that Garth wouldn’t give him his body back? The insight took him aback. Clearly, everyone had their own standards, their own needs—and Rovin had fashioned a life that satisfied him.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve learned what I need to,” Garth said. “It’s . . . strange, but oddly compelling. Let’s get back into our own shoes.”

  Once restored, Rovin took a deep breath, his disembodied head barely moving in its harness. His eyes took on a glassy look as he scanned the Club through remote eyes, as if afraid Garth had conspired to burn it down or let barbarians trash the place.

  His scarred head smiled at Garth, using his own eyes and mouth. The screens flickered, the views changed, and all of Club Masquerade seemed alive around them. Rovin took a few moments to settle into himself, to pick up his mechanical arms, to listen in on the conversations from tables around the bar. He cleaned a spilled drink and altered the tempo of the music to time it better with the throbbing lights.

  “Thanks for the experience, Bernard,” Garth said. “Now I need to jot down some notes.”

  The metal door to the control chamber unsealed itself. Offhandedly, the bartender chased Garth away, his voice somewhat embarrassed. “Go on, get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”