Hopscotch

by Kevin J. Anderson

  He lurched forward, soaked from the chill drizzle. His joints ached, his mouth tasted of copper, and his lungs felt as if they were filled with powdered glass. Oddly placed pains reminded him of the incisions and repeated surgeries the old man must have suffered through.

  He looked up at the gables of Garth’s big house, saw warm lights burning behind the windows, a squarish studio building brilliantly lit. Of course Garth would be working, even at such a late hour.

  Ready to collapse, Eduard stepped up to the ornate security shell that surrounded the house. The outer gate remained locked, and dazzling security lights flashed on, warning of hazards that awaited any foolish curiosity seeker. After all Eduard had been through, though, it would take more than that to intimidate him. No problem. He just hoped Garth’s security systems didn’t automatically alert law-enforcement personnel.

  He found the summons buzzer camouflaged behind an oleander hedge. He parted the dark leaves and held down the signal, not worried about being obnoxious, waited a few moments as more voodoo needles of pain jabbed his body, then buzzed again. “Come on, Garth, I’m not selling anything.” He would not relent. Eduard could be as persistent as any man on Earth.

  Finally, a stone brick in the wall fuzzed and turned into a videoscreen as a camouflage hologram faded. Pashnak looked at him, hard as a statue.

  “I need to see Garth,” Eduard rasped.

  “I’m sorry, sir, it’s late. Mr. Swan isn’t seeing anyone.” Pashnak showed no interest in the visitor or his request. No doubt he had seen the same thing many times before. “If you want to know what he has to say, go see his artwork. That’s how he communicates with the world.”

  Eduard smeared drizzle from his face, blinking away a black haze of impending unconsciousness. The pain increased, spreading like fire through his tissues. “I know it’s late, too late. This is important.” After all his fleeing, all the paranoia Artemis had taught him, he was reluctant to give out his identity.

  “Mr. Swan doesn’t feel very well.”

  “Yeah, right—neither do I, dammit!”

  “Sir, please don’t force me to call private security.” Pashnak seemed to be going through a well-accustomed dialogue.

  Eduard grasped a rustling oleander branch, but the limp twigs gave him no support and he swayed on his feet. Gasping, coughing blood, he shouted at the videoscreen, “Dammit, Pashnak, didn’t Soft Stone teach you better than that? Trust me, Garth will want to see me.”

  Pashnak frowned at him, still skeptical, then his face filled with an expression of amazement. “Eduard? Is that you?” The security lights switched off, and the humming guardian fields ceased crackling in the ever-present drizzle. The locked gate swung open on pneumatic hinges. “Come in! Please, come in—get out of the rain.”

  Eduard stumbled down a walk of inlaid synthetic flagstones. The front door of the big house opened, and Pashnak hurried forward, dressed only in robe and slippers. He splashed through a puddle, but paid no attention. “Here, careful. Watch your step.”

  He led Eduard’s failing body up the slippery steps toward the door, ushering him into the warmth and the light. With slow steps they walked through the foyer into the sitting room. The sofa seemed like a whirlpool sucking at Eduard, and he slumped into the soft cushions. He had never felt anything so wonderful.

  Pashnak fussed over him, draping an afghan over his wet and rumpled clothes, then ran to the intercom. “Garth, come quickly! It’s Eduard! Eduard’s here!” Then he rushed off to the kitchen. “I’m going to make a fresh pot of coffee. You look like you could use some.” He hesitated, flustered. “Or maybe warm tea would be better. Chamomile?”

  Eduard clung to consciousness, willing himself not to let go. He couldn’t feel safe, not even here. He heard footsteps and raised his head, trying to focus his bleary eyes.

  Garth emerged from his studio and rushed down the hall. “Eduard? Eduard!” Standing over the sofa, he stared in dismay at the dying old man’s condition. Garth leaned down and gently embraced his friend, his clothes smelling of paints and solvents, his skin decorated with smudges of charcoal dust, dots of pigment, flecks of lubricants.

  He tucked the silkweave afghan around the shivering wreck, then used a tissue to wipe blood from Eduard’s cracked lips. As Pashnak clattered about, busying himself in the kitchen, the smell of brewing coffee wafted through the air like a gentle glove.

  With a pillow, Garth propped Eduard into a more comfortable sitting position. “Here, I did this a lot when I was pregnant.” He blinked his stinging eyes.

  “No problem,” Eduard said, and Garth’s heart went out to his friend. “That’s fine.”

  Pashnak finally brought coffee mugs, one filled with steaming water and a bobbing self-infuser of herbal tea. In quivering hands, Eduard held the cup; the aroma itself seemed to bring him back to life. Pashnak frowned in deep concern. “We should call a medical center, Garth.”

  “No,” Eduard said. “They’ll have an ID on this body already. As soon as the doctors could help me, Daragon and his killers would . . .”

  Pashnak’s eyes went wide as he realized what they had gotten into. “We’ve got to be very careful, Garth. He’s a fugitive, already convicted in absentia. You know what the stakes are—the Bureau could be here at any moment.”

  “This is Eduard.” Garth squared his shoulders and spoke forcefully. “We’ll do what we can for him here. Go find him some dry, comfortable clothes.” He looked at the opaqued window. “And make sure all the security systems are turned back on. That’ll buy us a little time at least.”

  With an audible gulp, Pashnak scurried off.

  “Eduard,” Garth sighed, “what are we going to do with you?”

  Haltingly, Eduard told the story of what had happened to him since they’d parted company so long ago in Club Masquerade. As Garth listened to the desperation and struggle, hanging on every hoarse word, he reprimanded himself for his own selfish depression. It was pathetic the way he had wallowed in self-pity—he, who had everything a person could want!—while Eduard struggled so hard just to survive. . . . No problem.

  Who was he to complain about his life, about his success? Ridiculously trivial concerns! He cursed his blindness and naïveté. Had he learned nothing from all the miserable people he had experienced on his List? Bored and uninspired—poor baby! He had to do something for Eduard. He had to.

  Long ago, during the BTL shootout in the flower market, Eduard had thrown himself into the line of fire for Teresa while Garth froze, unable to do anything but watch. Then, Eduard had gone alone to save Teresa from the Sharetakers while Garth went swimming in Hawaii. After Ob’s death, Teresa had given her waifish body for Eduard, taking his strung-out and drug-addicted form so that he could get away, while Garth had been unable to help because of his borrowed pregnant body.

  He had botched his chances over and over again . . . but not this time. He would have sacrificed much more than a handful of credits, done whatever was required of him. But he had somehow managed to miss the boat, every time. Perhaps now he could make up for it.

  He’d petulantly abandoned his List and called it done—but he had never managed to experience true heroism, a selfless and automatic love, the willingness to risk his life without thinking. That wasn’t something he could plan ahead of time, nothing Pashnak could arrange for him. It just had to happen.

  Garth scowled at himself. To hell with the List—he wasn’t doing this for the damned List!

  “Listen, Eduard,” he said, his whisper so low it was barely a kiss against the old man’s ear. “It’s my turn to do something for you. I’ll give you the chance you need, and you have to promise me you’ll take it.”

  Eduard’s pain-filled eyes blinked, unable to focus on an object so close to him. “Garth, I don’t have another chance. This body is already dying.”

  “Mine will last as long as you need it.” Garth smiled distantly. “You’d do the same for Teresa, or me. Take my home-body and all the unmarked credits you could
possibly need. I’ve got so much money lying around that you could get away forever, go across the ocean, pay whatever bribes you need—make yourself completely invisible.”

  Eduard tried to lean back against the sofa pillows, averting his gaze. “Garth, don’t be an ass.” His face crumpled into an expression of pain, and his chest heaved in an effort to hold back a rasping cough. “In case you haven’t noticed, this body was already wrecked when I took it, and I’ve made things worse by running. Hemorrhaging, malfunctions, shutdowns. No matter how much money you have in your accounts, you won’t be able to fix this. You won’t find anyone willing to hopscotch with you.”

  Garth shook his head. “If I did, then another person would have to die. Any payment would only be blood money. This is my choice, and I won’t let someone else pay the price for it.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Garth, but I can’t accept. Sorry.”

  “You’ve got to accept, Eduard. I’m offering, as your friend. I’ve had a perfectly good life. Let me decide how I want to spend it.” Tears sparkled in his eyes.

  Eduard snorted. “Your art has spoken to more people, touched more lives than anything I could dream of. The only way I got famous was by killing someone.”

  Garth stared around at his ornate dwelling with its fine furniture and embellished library. “Eduard, shut up and listen. I’ve had everything, done everything. And my star has burned very, very bright.”

  “Garth, I don’t have the energy to argue with you.”

  “Then stop arguing.”

  Eduard pressed his lips together to hold in the pain, and shook his head weakly. “I refuse. Get it through your head. If you swap with me, you’ll die.”

  Garth wore a beatific expression. “If my art is good enough, I’ll live forever, anyway.” He leaned closer, and Eduard ineffectually tried to slide away.

  “My art is my life, always has been. You’ve known that since we were kids. I spent everything in my soul to make people notice what I had to say. I poured out the emotions and the experiences I had. My career skyrocketed, and people wanted more and more, faster and faster. But Eduard . . .” He rested his hand on the dying man’s bony chest. “What if I don’t have anything left to say? I want to end my career at a high point, not become some pathetic has-been whose later work waters down his original output.”

  Eduard sipped more of the chamomile tea, sighed. “Look at everything you have, Garth. Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.”

  Garth tried a different approach. “All right, but I can last a little while in your body. Let me give you a respite, just like you did for Teresa after Rhys beat her up.”

  Eduard’s eyes glimmered. “Have you heard from Teresa? How is she?”

  Garth smiled. “She just contacted me a few hours ago. She thinks she’s found her original body—she’s been looking for it a long time, you know.”

  Eduard tried to sit up. “Did she tell you where she is? I’d like to—”

  “Yes, I know exactly where she’ll be first thing in the morning. Swap with me, go and see her while you can.” Garth began to talk in a rush. “I’ll stay here and rest, and you take your last chance. Go, say goodbye to her—I know you need to.”

  Eduard thought of Teresa, how much he loved her, how much he missed her . . . how much he had ruined everything. “You mean it? This isn’t permanent, you know. I’m not going to stick you with this . . . this old wreck. It’s my problem.”

  “Eduard, you have enough problems to go around. Let me do this for you, now. It’s my turn.”

  Eduard’s pain-wracked eyes regarded him with suspicion. “Promise you’ll wait for me here?”

  With a deprecating frown at the decrepit form lying on the sofa, Garth said, “Look at your body, Eduard—where am I going to go?”

  Before he hurried off, fit and healthy again, Eduard turned back. “Garth, you’re not going to do anything stupid?”

  The artist lay trembling on the sofa, his body wracked with the pain of dying slowly. “No.” Behind Garth’s bleary eyes, Eduard could see a surprising strength and confidence, a contentment that hadn’t been there earlier that night. “Just go! But remember, it’ll be dangerous for you.”

  Eduard crossed his arms over his broad chest and flashed a wry smile. “Garth . . . it’s Teresa. What choice do I have?” Then he slipped out into the dawn.

  Pashnak returned with an armful of warm clothes, but all he saw was the old body sitting there, wheezing, and in pain. “Where’s Garth? He shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “I’m here.”

  Pashnak looked at him in dawning horror. He dropped the clothes on the floor. “What have you done?” He advanced forward, reaching out but afraid to touch the old man. “Oh, Garth—what have you done?”

  “I did what I had to do. One last experience.”

  59

  Weary from the fruitless hunt and the disastrous night, Daragon slumped into the chair behind Ob’s former desk. He swept his arm across the desktop, knocking stacked printouts to the floor. Angry. Frustrated. Unable to give up. Would it never end?

  Overhead, fish swam about, oblivious to the man below.

  His uniform smelled of sweat, smoke, and drying blood. After a lifetime of searching he had discovered his father at last, a Phantom . . . then the man had died in Daragon’s arms.

  And Eduard had escaped again. Daragon had no one to blame but himself.

  His work as a BTL Inspector seemed the only stable thing he could grasp, but even the Bureau gave him no joy—not any longer. He rested his head on his crossed arms, feeling terribly alone. He had driven all of his friends away, but he didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

  Back in the Falling Leaves, before the Bureau had taken him away, Daragon often felt uncertain and terrified. He knew something was deeply wrong with him, but Teresa had always comforted him in the dark. She would pull the blanket over his shoulders. His eyes flashed against hers in the shadows, straining to exercise his mind, attempting to swap with her. But he felt nothing stir, no sense of joining with her, or with anybody. He would finally squeeze his eyes shut, then bury his face in the hollow of Teresa’s neck. She would shush him, tell him everything would be all right.

  How had he changed so much?

  The COM screen buzzed insistently, startling him. Jax had left a message for him. “Come see me.”

  Daragon sighed. The Data Hunter probably wanted company, maybe someone to read to him or chat with. He wiped the message from the screen, ignoring it—but words flashed back on in brighter, larger letters. “Come see me. You’ll be glad you did.”

  Grumbling, he strode out of the office. He’d had enough screwups for one night, and he had no patience left. He marched down the undersea corridors and barged into the chamber with its mists and coolants, dim lights, and odd off-putting smells. His hands on his hips, he looked impatiently up at the harnesses where Data Hunters dangled from the ceiling, adrift in COM. He couldn’t even tell which of the pasty blobs belonged to Jax. “All right, what do you want?”

  One of the pallid, soft-skinned forms lowered. Jax turned to him with a childlike smile and said in a taunting, singsong voice, “Guess what I found! Something you’ve been looking for.”

  Daragon’s heart leapt. “Eduard? Where is he? Give me some good news.” He hesitated, still focused on the case. “Or did you find any of Chief Ob’s three former caretakers?”

  Jax sounded petulant, as if Daragon had spoiled his fun. “The caretakers have utterly vanished, Daragon—their files permanently scoured, even to our experts. Which means, in my estimation, that those people are dead. Such a scandal for our former Bureau Chief, if that information were ever to be released. Naturally, that will never happen.”

  “Are you saying there’s some doubt now? Could Eduard have been telling the truth?”

  “Your friend has been found guilty, regardless of any extenuating circumstances, and further details about Master Ob’s possible bad habits will never be made available to the pub
lic. Higher up in the Bureau, it has been decided that such information would serve no positive purpose.”

  Daragon’s face felt hot; he didn’t want to hear such things, didn’t want to know them. “Then why did you call me here?”

  “Unlike you, Daragon, I have other cases to follow.” The voice from Jax’s speaker sounded like a huff. “I’ve found what your friend Teresa Swan was looking for.”

  Daragon was taken aback. Months ago, he had pleaded with Jax to recruit the help of the Data Hunters, even promising to read another book out loud, cover to cover . . . if they came up with something. Jax would probably choose a massive tome such as Nicholas Nickleby or David Copperfield. But if they managed to help Teresa, then at last she might forgive him. Maybe.

  “I can’t explain why we didn’t see it before.” Jax’s voice came through the nearest speaker. “Somehow our most careful searches missed a critical nugget of data, until now. Here’s where you can find her, a place called Precision Chaos.”

  Daragon stepped forward, raising his chin. “Thanks, Jax.”

  Finally, he could do something right again. At least he hoped so.

  60

  The place was called Precision Chaos, and it lived up to its name.

  Address in hand, Teresa found the factory not long after daybreak. It had been a long time, and she knew intellectually that her chances were slim, but her heart refused to give up hope. Perhaps soon she would have her own body back, go home, and be herself for the first time in years. She wondered what it would feel like. Despite her hardships and losses, her life had always contained a wellspring of hope. Always hope.

  In the city’s high-tech manufacturing district, the buildings were less ornate, more functional. Even the wet freshness of the previous night’s rain could not mask a sharp, sour odor of industrial processes that pushed the limits of the emissions regulations.