Hopscotch

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Teresa . . . I can’t—” He still refused to meet her eyes.

  “Is it because I look like Eduard now?” She waited a beat. “This is important to me, Daragon.”

  He looked at her, wishing he could see the real Teresa again, the woman he had touched and loved in a wistful younger way. This might partially heal the breach between them, though he realized nothing would make her forgive him. She had always been more devoted to Eduard. “All right. Give me whatever information you have, any leads I can use. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  It might be as easy as running a simple COM trace, but he doubted he’d get an answer with so little effort. It could take a long time. Teresa would continue her quest, wandering the city, talking to people, retracing her footsteps.

  In the meantime, Daragon had his own quarry to catch.

  53

  Having thrown in his lot with a Phantom, Eduard accompanied Artemis to the carefully hidden and well-provisioned bolt-holes he’d established throughout the metropolis. A Phantom always kept a wide range of hiding places.

  “You’ll need plenty of alternatives if you want to live forever, rabbit. Gotta be willin’ to drop everything and run. Nothing matters as much as staying alive. No possessions, no home, no friends. Stay mobile and quiet.”

  They climbed a metal staircase outside a rib-walled automated distribution facility. The buildings were occupied primarily by COM robotic systems that did the tedious, repetitive work of inventory and shipping.

  “One of my favorite hideouts.” Artemis punched numbers on a recessed keypad. “In a week or two, I’ll give you the code number. If I think you’re worth keepin’ around.” He flashed a humorless grin. “If not, I’ll just let ’em catch you.”

  Eduard followed, not surprised that the man still didn’t trust him. Artemis had intercepted Eduard in some weird gratitude for killing Ob, supposedly to keep him from exposing other Phantoms. But at times, he realized that Artemis must have been lonely, too.

  Closing the door behind them, Artemis used another code on an internal readerpad, paused until he heard a high-pitched buzz, then strode inside. “Safe now. I’ve added my own infiltrator to the security systems.”

  Inside the cavernous building, conveyors and articulated arms stacked and sorted crates of materials, components, and consumer items. Machine-readable inventory codes marked the boxes with gibberish. Subdued lights dangled above like garish fireflies, and the ventilation system was set cold to protect the electronics and the mechanical devices. This place wasn’t made to be inhabited—which was exactly why Artemis enjoyed living here.

  They crossed a catwalk to a false wall where the Phantom had constructed an apartment for himself. He showed Eduard how to release the bottom latch so they could pull themselves up into the hiding place. Artemis had cobbled together furnishings, a stove, and food-prep equipment; entertainment disks lay piled around, mostly out-of-date classics.

  Eduard was reminded of the small attic room in the Falling Leaves where he and Daragon had hidden when they were kids. Daragon.

  The Phantom always remained on the alert for anyone watching him, hunting him. “What are you so afraid of all the time?” Eduard asked. “I’m the one who’s on the run.”

  Artemis flashed him a toothy grin. “Rabbit, you don’t live two centuries on the fringe without bein’ forced to break the law plenty often. It’s safe to say I’ve done enough to get me uploaded to COM. More than you, I’ll bet.”

  Artemis seemed glad to have a confidant to whom he could tell tall tales. He told Eduard how he’d once impersonated a BTL Inspector during a stakeout for him, how he had avoided pursuit at a crowded fair by forcing a swap with a scheduled speaker and giving an impromptu lecture about politics in a changing world of hopscotches. He bragged about how he had left several wives and husbands, how he had fathered at least three children, all unknown to him now.

  Eduard lounged on the threadbare sofa while the Phantom heated soup. He closed his eyes and drew a long breath, relieved to find a bit of peace. As he listened to Artemis recount decades’ worth of adventures, he didn’t know how much to believe. The other man had lived a long enough life to have experienced such perils—and he also had plenty of solitude in which to concoct preposterous stories.

  Using their warehouse as a base of operations, they changed clothes frequently, wearing different guises every time they went out onto the streets. Artemis taught him to become invisible, and Eduard learned how to walk between people, avoid glances, and become inconsequential in the eyes of the masses. Like a lesson from a text—How to Be a Phantom.

  They frequented crowded shops and storefronts, mingling with groups of no fewer than three. Artemis pointed out a few undercover Beetles dressed as common workers. Though Eduard didn’t know for sure, he feared they were searching for him; similarly, Artemis believed he was their target.

  “So we’ll both have to be careful,” Eduard said.

  “Whoa, not to worry. We’re smarter than they are. The Beetles have a few tricks, but they’re always the same ones. Once you know the routine, you can spot ’em, easy.”

  Today they planned to spend unmarked credits stolen from a battered vending machine. Artemis reached over to touch Eduard’s scrawny arm. “You’ve been in this body for ages, rabbit, and it’s not worth much. I suggest you pick somebody new. Not good to keep the same appearance for too long.”

  Eduard tried to remember all the shapes he’d worn during his long run, then he thought of Teresa, who had been stuck with his strung-out, drug-addicted home-body. “Right. But I don’t have any money. No resources. Nothing I can offer someone to swap with me.”

  Artemis gave him a scornful look. “Don’t worry about it. That sort of thing is never a problem for a Phantom.”

  Sitting at a central table, nestled among other diners in a crowded cafeteria, Artemis told Eduard about his many loves, the women and the men, depending on what gender he’d worn at the time, not that it mattered all that much. “Sure, I grew close to some of them, for a time, but in the end I always moved on.”

  “So you dumped them. People you loved?”

  Artemis shrugged. “It got old and boring. Nothin’ ever lasts. Anyway, their lives are too short—normal lives, I mean.”

  Eduard covered his disturbed expression by wiping his mouth with a napkin. “If you’re immortal, what does a normal human life span matter? Why not just stay with someone who loves you? There’s always time.”

  “Time for them, or time for me? I’ve got other things to do.” He didn’t say what, though.

  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, d
azzling 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 figu
re 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.