Hopscotch

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The troops closed in on him, covering every inch of the rooftop. As Eduard fumbled with the latches, prepping the mag-lock harness, two Beetles prowled out ahead, holding scanning equipment. They stared down at tiny palm-held screens. A tracker! They turned toward the far exit doorway.

  Eduard could make out the vague form of Artemis crouched at the stairwell, fumbling with the lock on the escape door. The trackers closed in on the other man, weapons ready to fire, but they hadn’t spotted him yet. Artemis looked up at them, terrified.

  More gunfire blazed into the night, striking nothing. Not stun pellets this time. Eduard wondered if it was just intimidation. He gripped the mag-lock harness, saw bloodthirsty apprehension troops knocking over plants, rustling the cornstalks.

  He swallowed hard and gripped a spare fastener. It would make a loud ringing sound, clear above the pell-mell activity. As hard as he could, he flung the metal fastener like a tiny disk, away from both Artemis and himself. The piece struck a pole supporting a plastic awning and bounced off with a loud clang. It caromed off the syncrete rooftop to reverberate against the roof ledge.

  The brittle metallic sound was unmistakable in the night. The Beetles turned from their tracking screens. One officer instinctively opened fire.

  Artemis chose that moment to bolt away from the stairwell where they had been converging, running toward Eduard. A BTL tracker saw the movement and swung his blazing light to expose the Phantom. “There he is!”

  Artemis froze, then flailed his arms. “No! Not me! Eduard’s over—”

  Eduard secured the mag-lock harness over his shoulders, pulled the attachments to the front of his chest, and swung over the lip of the roof. The nearby Beetles arrowed toward Artemis like dark moths, giving Eduard the moment he needed.

  “Hold your fire!” Daragon screamed.

  Nobody listened. Weapons blazed as Eduard dropped off into space, skidding down the tall building. . . .

  Daragon ran forward, shoving officers aside. Much too late, one of the lieutenants bellowed, “Secure your weapons. The suspect is apprehended.”

  Daragon whirled, looking at the crew. “I ordered no shooting! Damn you, this is worse than the last botch-job! I am in charge of this operation.” He glared at them, uniformed officers all. “I intend to get all of your ID numbers, find every discharged weapon, and put each one of you on report.” He fumed. “I hear the Data Hunters are looking for new recruits.”

  While the other BTL officers quailed at the threat, a scanning specialist trotted up, holding out his probe. The blip on the screen gleamed bright. “Yeah, that’s the tracer. We’ve got our man.”

  Daragon bent over, touching the chest of what had been the inspec-tech’s body. But though they had followed the implanted homing device, he could see with his own eyes that the flickering persona still clinging to a last moment of life inside this body did not belong to Eduard. Not Eduard at all.

  He slapped away the scanning apparatus. The probe slipped out of the specialist’s hands and clattered across the rooftop.

  Overpowering nausea welled up within him as he stared at the blood soaking into this body-snatcher’s clothes, clotting in the trim mustache. The wounds were not from stun pellets.

  The apprehension team reacted instantly. “If there’s another person here, we’ve got to find him.”

  The BTL men spread out again, sounding off by numbers and setting up a grid search pattern. Below on the streets, reinforcements ran toward the building. Troops scoured the apartments from floor to floor before Eduard could get too far away.

  Convulsively, Artemis reached toward Daragon with a grasping hand. “Please,” he said, his voice wet from the blood filling his lungs. “Can’t die like this. Not after so long. Won’t somebody hopscotch with me?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.” Daragon wondered how he could apologize to the dying man. But as he stared into the dimming persona, he sensed some connection, something familiar. Nothing he had ever seen before, and yet it still belonged . . . to him.

  Artemis croaked a wheezing sound that might have been laughter, but remained as quiet as faint wind. “Lived more than two hundred years . . . and now I gotta die because I’m shot by mistake? Not even for crimes that I did?”

  “There’s a tracer in your body, sir,” Daragon said. “The technician had a locator.”

  Artemis moaned and closed his eyes. “Knew we shoulda killed him . . . then no one would’ve known. Eduard wouldn’t let me.”

  Daragon leaned closer, still puzzled at the odd familiarity of the persona. He didn’t understand what the connection could be. Then he jerked upright as recognition flooded through him. Of course! Just like when he had met his mother. He sensed parallel patterns, similarities, a recognizable biological link. When he’d tracked down his mother in Club Masquerade, she had said that his father was a Phantom. He saw traces of himself in the dying man’s persona.

  “You’re my father.” He knelt closer, touched the man’s shoulder, stroked his cheek. “My name is Daragon. I’m your son. You’ve never met me before.”

  Artemis clasped his hand and opened his eyes to slits, while his other hand fumbled for something in a pocket. He didn’t question Daragon’s confession, but his eyes held an icy calculation.

  “My son? Won’t you please swap with me? Do that for your father.” He took a long breath. “Save me if you can.” His hand slid out of his pocket, holding some sort of spray vial.

  “I can’t.” Daragon grabbed the man’s wrist and deftly twisted it so that the Scramble fell to the rooftop. This was his father, and the man didn’t even know his son’s greatest failing. “I don’t know how to hopscotch.”

  In the mag-lock harness, Eduard skimmed down the side of the building, dropping floor after floor in a blur. On the streets below, he saw lights and armored men at every exit. Chopters circled all levels like carrion birds as they scanned higher and higher.

  Even if he reached the street, Eduard knew he couldn’t get away. Not in this body. He had watched the Beetles tracing a mere blip. Perhaps they had managed to tag him somehow. They were hunting this body, this ID patch—if he couldn’t switch, and immediately, he would never survive this night.

  The safety-configured controls on the harness slowed him. He peered into windows as he dropped past, seeing families, couples, empty quarters. He had no way of barging in, and he refused to threaten an innocent family. Eduard had none of the Scramble that Artemis had used to force an unwilling person to hopscotch. He was out of options.

  As he dropped down another floor, he spotted a reflection in the glass, an old man lying in bed surrounded by dim lights. In front of his dull eyes, an entertainment system played a videoloop on low. Eduard hovered, noticing the man’s frail arms, his skeletal face and sunken chest, the tubes and monitoring devices attached to his body.

  Here, Eduard thought. A grim chance, but better than nothing.

  As he hung in the harness, he withdrew his laser cutter. With its blazing tip, he sketched a rectangle in the main window. The Beetles would already be closing off the building. He nudged the glass inward and slipped into the room, then disconnected the harness, and hauled it inside with him.

  The old man woke up, gasping and wheezing. He looked fearful and completely helpless on his monitoring bed. “You . . . you don’t scare me.”

  “Old man, I need to hopscotch with you. I’ll give you this body. It’s healthy and strong, but I need yours now or I’m dead.”

  The old man blinked, his eyes watery and disbelieving. “Trust me, kid, you don’t want to be me. Not even for a little while.”

  “Mister, I can’t tell you how much I need it right now. This is no joke.”

  The old man coughed, and Eduard could hear the diagnostic devices monitoring the change of metabolism as excitement kicked in. His bleary eyes grew brighter. “Then I’m not one to argue, kid. You’re really giving me a second chance?”

  “Yeah, and you’re doing the same for me,” Eduard said in a rush. �
��You can at least walk, can’t you? You can move?”

  “If you’re willing to put up with a lot of pain.”

  “I’ve put up with pain before.” Eduard crouched by the bedside, touched the old man’s forehead. “No problem.”

  When they hopscotched, Eduard found himself twirling, falling, on the edge of unconsciousness. His heart pounded in his aching chest like the wings of a trapped bird. His muscles were disintegrating. He sat up so quickly on the monitoring bed that he retched.

  “Careful,” the old man said, standing in Eduard’s former body, the one Artemis had worn for years. His eyes were filled with wonder. He reached for Eduard’s hand.

  “No. No synching. Keep the ID patch. That’s my only price for this swap.” Eduard hoped it might give him a few extra hours.

  He forced his thoughts to clarity again and yanked out needles, disconnected monitors, and swung off the side of the bed. He felt like a broken marionette, strings cut, puppeteer absent.

  “Clothes,” he croaked. “I need clothes.”

  The man bounced and hopped, delighted with his new prize as he gathered the things Eduard needed. “Here, take these. Keep yourself warm.” He held up a small pill bottle. “This will dull the pain.”

  Shabbily dressed, walking on his own two feet, Eduard swallowed three of the pain tablets the man handed him. He knew it would be a long time before the litany of hurt subsided, even for a while. Pain. He had plenty of experience with pain. No problem. He slipped the pill bottle into his pocket. He had given up absolutely everything to flee in this decrepit body.

  At least now he could get out of the building, though.

  He caught a lifter down to street level, dizzy, taking one step at a time and forcing his vision to focus. He could already feel himself dying, but he had to get away. As he lurched toward the exit, something tore inside of him with a sickening liquid pop, as if dark blood were leaking into his internal organs.

  Eduard walked into a wall, disoriented. His legs were an agony of arthritis and brittle bones. But he made it through the doorway, past two Beetle guards who looked sourly at him, checked his ID patch, then sent him on his way. “You don’t look well, old man. Should get to a medical center.”

  “Where the hell do you think I’m going?” Eduard snapped, then wheezed. “I’d get there faster if it wasn’t for your damned delays.”

  The Beetles let him pass, and he stumbled into drizzly darkness, trying not to stare at the garish reflections of colored lights on the rain-slick streets. He could feel the black shroud of imminent death at the back of his head.

  He had never felt so mortal before, so close to dying. If he remained in this body for more than a few days, he would not survive.

  But without it, he wouldn’t live another hour.

  Eduard could not risk going to a medical facility. Before long, the Beetles would discover how he had broken into the old man’s room; they would interrogate the old man, get a physical identification at whatever cost, and send out a COM bulletin for the ailing body. A medical center would peg him right away.

  With no other chance, and very little time, he stumbled into the streets—going exactly where he had to. He would find Garth and Teresa. Dying, he doubted they could help him, but Eduard needed to see them again.

  One last time.

  57

  With all of its expensive furniture and prestigious paintings, Garth’s new large house loomed around him. Every light was on in every room, but the world still felt too big and too dark.

  Musing, he stood in the carpeted corridor leading to the master suite, thinking of the hardcopy books in the library, the fancy foods in the kitchen, and the pseudo-antique furnishings. Every item sent a proud signal of his success, but Garth no longer felt it inside.

  He wanted to do a project bigger and better, more spectacular, more meaningful—yet the canvas of his imagination remained blank. He needed inspiration, not this moody creative block. He began to realize why a failed aspiring artist like Mordecai Ob might have turned to Rush-X. . . .

  That thought made his mind stray to Eduard, still lost and on the run, and Garth felt the gloom even heavier around him.

  Though it was late at night, he smelled fresh coffee brewing downstairs, and he smiled wistfully. Pashnak’s faith in the artist’s work and his assuredly bright future remained undaunted—a blind faith. The assistant puttered around the mansion, serving without question. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” Garth muttered to himself.

  After being raised by the Splinter monks, he’d always had meager personal requirements. In truth, he had bought this over-the-top mansion more for his assistant than for himself. Pashnak deserved it. Years ago, the gaunt young man had gambled everything on Garth’s potential, keeping him on track . . . whatever that track might be.

  Pashnak had no other passions, and he enjoyed basking in the glow of Garth’s success. He managed the business affairs, taking care of all the social duties that Garth hated, while forcing him to meet his commitments and not become sidetracked by other priorities. Pashnak could easily have been a successful accountant or executive secretary, but he’d devoted everything to Garth’s artistic career.

  The COM signal startled him like a bolt of lightning, even at such a late hour. After a moment, Pashnak called from the kitchen. “Garth! It’s Teresa on the screen. She wants to talk to you.”

  Garth smiled warmly at her image on the filmscreen, though it still startled him to see her wearing Eduard’s face instead of one of the familiar female forms in the portrait spectrum. “Oh, Garth! I’ve got good news.” She looked much healthier now, happier, with a fire in her eyes that made him briefly envious.

  “Something amazing happened, and I finally have a lead. Jennika, the woman who took my original body, works at a place called Precision Chaos, an expansion-chip manufacturing facility.” Breathless, she hesitated, as if afraid to say more. “I think . . . I think it was Soft Stone inside COM who guided me.”

  Though he had never really understood why finding her old body was so important, Garth knew how much it meant to her. “Are you going there now? Do you want me to come with you?”

  “They’re closed, Garth. It’s three in the morning.”

  “I don’t think I’ve looked out a window all day.”

  She chuckled. “You work too hard, Garth, don’t you think? I’m going first thing in the morning.”

  Garth didn’t want to tell her that he longed to feel the fresh drive Teresa had found, the meaning she’d rediscovered in her life. “Best of luck. Come and visit me anytime, no matter what body you happen to be in.” After she signed off, he felt a flicker of rejuvenation just from talking with his friend. He walked down the hall toward the studio.

  Closing the door behind him, Garth stared at his nearly completed work, ANGER. His new experiential piece was meaningful, showing the nuances of one of humanity’s most powerful and destructive emotions, the pettiness and nastiness, the damage it caused, the blindness it inflicted. ANGER.

  Standing inside the arrangement, he touched the images, tweaked sound loops. Hawkishly, he looked for gaps, weaknesses. He tried to imagine other directions or connections that could tap into the viewer’s emotions. Anger . . . he had to be angry. People should be livid when they emerged from this exhibition, and ashamed at their own susceptibility to such violent emotions. They should feel chastised and penitent.

  In his heart, though, he knew that ANGER would be even less popular than APATHY (which had lived up to its name, if the audience response numbers were to be believed). Critics would complain that Garth Swan no longer gave the audiences what they wanted. Stradley would have a fit, would probably write off his client altogether.

  All his life Garth had had sharp eyes, a huge heart, a wealth of compassion—too much compassion, some might have said. But he’d never tried to rationalize his actions. He just stumbled along, curious, learning, searching. And now he had lost that feeling. Had all of his success been a fluke—a timely ac
cident, forced into place by the pressure and funding of Mordecai Ob, an abusive drug addict who had doomed Garth’s friend Eduard?

  Now, in the studio, he worked as hard as he had ever worked, but his output no longer seemed vibrant and new, just a pale repetition of techniques and experiences. Maybe something was wrong with him; maybe it was too easy to pin it on the fickle tastes of a public whose attention span was too short.

  Surrounded by ANGER in the silent studio, he found that he couldn’t experience the rage, couldn’t tap in to the powerful emotions. Garth had already reached the pinnacle of success and could not go any higher.

  Flash in the pan, now get off the stage and let someone else have a try.

  58

  Late in the rainy darkness, Eduard staggered toward Garth’s large house. In this decrepit and ailing form, he couldn’t trade down any further. He had nothing of value to offer, and he would die in this body within days if he kept overexerting himself. If Daragon didn’t catch him first.

  Still, he needed to see Garth, if only to spend his last hours beside a friend, rather than be gunned down by bloodthirsty Beetles. At least that way he would save Daragon the anguished conscience—if he still had a conscience—of having to kill him.

  Eduard had been on the run since before Garth moved into his new dwelling, but he’d had no difficulty tracking down the successful artist’s extravagant residence. Months ago, while on the run but before meeting Artemis, he had sauntered down this exclusive tree-lined street, snatching a quick sidelong glance as he hurried past. With a secret, mischievous smile he had thought about ringing the signal buzzer and then running, a silly prank like he had often done as a boy in the Falling Leaves. Now, though, those carefree times were long past. . . .