Final Book

by Peter W Prellwitz

  The men who kept me in my room were almost my owners, but weren't really. They came and got me at the place where I woke up and started to want an owner, but they didn't want me to do anything with them.

  The chair let go of me, so I stood up. I wanted to take off my long shirt, but wasn't allowed to. So I stood up and ran around, trying to get so I would feel better, and be ready when my very first owner came to get me. My legs played tricks on me and I fell. So I got up and ran again and fell again. Then I got up and ran and didn't fall down. I was getting ready. Ready for my very first owner.

  A little light came on, and the door opened. I went next to the chair, away from the door like I'd been told. Three men came in. They had on nice clothes. Even though I could only remember some days since I woke up the very first time, something in me said they were nice clothes.

  They walked over to me, so I knew they were going to talk. I went on my hands and knees and looked at the floor, just like they trained me to do. They wanted me to, so I wanted to, too.

  "Is she ready?"

  "Yeah, I think so. Let me check."

  A man grabbed me hard on my shoulders and pulled me up. I kept looking at the floor. They said it was bad to look at them, but I didn't know why.

  "Hey, darling. Look at me." Happy to do what I was told, I looked into his big, pretty eyes. Was he going to be my owner?

  "Hi. Are you my owner? I hope you are." He let me go, so I hugged him, touching him on his nice clothes. "I want you to be my owner. I'll make you happy. I promise!"

  He grabbed me and threw me down. He was my owner! I giggled and tried to get up, but he hit me behind the head and I fell down again, feeling happy inside.

  "Damn it, Calhoun! Stop it! Geez! You put a mark on her and Deke will think we're giving him used goods!"

  "I - I couldn't help myself, Stozi! It was like she was messing with my head!" My owner, Calhoun, backed away from me, and I could see in his eyes he didn't like me. Maybe he wasn't my owner. "I wanted to ..."

  Stays snapped his fingers, so I looked up at him. He pointed to the floor. He had trained me, even though he wasn't my owner, so I wanted to do what he wanted. I went down on my knees and looked at the floor again. I heard him laugh not loud.

  "I know what you wanted to do, Berty boy. That's why we always come in here in twos or threes. She's got that effect on people. Both men and women, I been told."

  The man who hadn't talked started talking. "And you better believe what you've been told, Stozi. She looks like a standard issue pleasure ripe, lower executive, gamma model. But she's not. She's a Shiva class trigger, Harting Enterprise's latest little toy we give to our esteemed competition and our own deserving associates."

  "A trigger?" said Calhoun, who wasn't my owner. "What you mean, Cut? You mean, like a gun?"

  "Yeah, kinda. Only nothing so obvious. The lab boys mucked around in her head, trying for a special mix of pleasure ripe and time bomb. They turned all her nerve endings into, like, pleasure feelings, and changed the signals in her brain over so whatever gets done to her, she loves it. She's got the brains of a Dalmatian, but she sends out some kinda - I dunno - messages, making people lose control of themselves."

  "Messages? Like how?"

  "I said I dunno! Whadda I look like? Some puterfreak? They said like pheromones, and body language and even some mental psycho something. Hits you in the body, in the eyes, and screws up your head. She gets close to you, and before long she gets into you." Cut laughed. "She gets into you a lot deeper than you get into her! Anyway, it's fun at first. She's got a great body. She's younger'n she looks, but they pushed her a little. And she never argues with you. Best of all, she can't tell between getting loved and getting beaten. She'll do anything. And you can do anything to her, and she'll love you for it. Ain't that right, sweetheart?"

  "Can I?" I asked with my happy voice, clapping my hands. "Are you my owner? Are we going to play? I'll do what I'm told. I promise!" I started to get to my feet so I could get closer to him. Maybe he was going to be my first owner.

  "That's enough." He pointed at the floor, so I sat on my knees and looked at the floor some more, just like he wanted me to. So I wanted to, too.

  "You get this little trick for a present, and somebody wants you dead. They want you dead real bad. Only she don't kill you. You do that to yourself. She sucks you into her little world with all that crap she does with the girly chemicals and mind stuff, and pretty soon you start feeling sorry for her. Course, she don't know she's doin' it.

  "That's the first step, because she doesn't know she's garbage. All she knows is who her owner is, and that she loves him. Then you hate her cause she don't react to pity, and before you know it, you start beating her. Only she loves you even more because of that, and you get meaner, trying to break her. But she never breaks. Never. After awhile, she's all you can think about, all you can hate, all you can deal with. And bang! you're wrecked. Ain't too long and you put a blaster to your head, or access at level thirty, or shoot a NATech grunt. Anything to get away from her. So you kill yourself, and she's like the trigger onna gun you got at your head. And nobody ever knows you just been offed. Ain't she special, boys? A regular princess."

  I didn't really hear their words. A lot of them were big and anyway when they talked like that, I knew they didn't want to talk to me. That was good because I didn't like to talk, accept to talk pretty words to make my owner feel good. But I heard him call me special. I liked being called special. And a princess, but I didn't know what that was. Maybe he liked me. I wished I could help him like me.

  "And we're giving her to Deke? What did he do to rate this?"

  "Ain't my business, Berty. But I heard Deke's been sellin' more sniff than he's supposed to have, so he's either cuttin' it or picking up extra sniff somewheres."

  "You mean like that hov that sank into the Gulf without a trace?"

  "I mean like that. But I'm justa leaner. If the big guy says we wrap up the little princess here and give her to Deke, that's what we do." He grabbed my jaw and jerked my head up. I smiled at him and touched his strong hand. He pushed me back against the wall and snorted. "Deke's a dead man. I bet he don't make it to 2470."

  "You crazy, Cut? That's only eight month's! Deke's all man. I bet he makes it a year, easy."

  "Yeah? I got five hundred creds to back me up, Berty boy."

  "Five hundred?" said the man who trained me. I think his name was Stays, but I wasn't sure because I wasn't good with words. "I'll take some of that! She ain't that dangerous. Put me down for five hundred Deke goes twenty months. To 2471."

  They talked some more loud words, then Stays picked me up to my feet. He held me close, but I kept looking at the floor because he didn't say I could look at him. He put his mouth next to my ear and I got all tingly from his hot, wonderful breath when he talked.

  "Got good news for you, babe. You got you an owner. His name's Deke, and you get to love him with all your heart! First, though, we gotta get you prettied up."

  "Deke?" I asked, feeling very very very happy. I closed my eyes as he pulled me out of the room, and I said his name over and over, so I would remember. "Deke. Deke. Deke."

  I opened my eyes and smiled at Stays. "I'm going to go to my very first owner! His name is Deke!"

  "That's right, babe. Only look at the floor."

  I forgot.

  ***

  I was crying out as though the lost agonies and pain and terror of many years were suddenly pouring through me as we fell. The ghastly memories, buried and forgotten in these ragged fissures and hot, bleeding crevasses, crashed over my mind, threatening to tear it apart. Soul-wrenching sadness, never felt, never expressed, screamed and shrieked its way from my raw throat.

  Her hands were still around my throat, so it was up to me to stop our fall. Twisting my body, I jammed my hands and feet against the soft crevasse walls. Had this been real rock, it would have been quite impossible to stop. But in the mind, all of one's strength lay in the will. I willed us to
stop. And gradually, we did, with me clinging to the wall, and the terrified little girl clinging to me, her hands still crushing my throat.

  I looked up. Even in the vast darkness, where no light penetrated, I could see the top, so very, very, far away. No sense putting it off. I yanked my hand out of the cold fleshy goo of the wall, reached up, and plunged it back in, hoisting us up; we were now thirty centimeters closer.

  ***

  "You worthless bitch!" Deke yelled, hitting me in my broken jaw again. I cried and giggled, trying not to spill blood on the carpet. If I did, he might stop hitting me and make me clean it up. Some splashed on it anyway, but he was too angry to notice, which was good.

  "I'm sorry! What should I do? Tell me!" I cried, having a hard time talking right.

  "DO? You animal! Haven't ... haven't you done enough!" He started sobbing, so I crawled over to him to touch him and make him feel better.

  "Should I touch you some, Deke? Or do you want to hit me some more?" He stopped sobbing and stared at me.

  "It doesn't matter to you, does it?"

  "I like them both, Deke. I want what you want."

  He became very very mad. He stood up and started slapping me in the face.

  "What I WANT?" he yelled, slapping me again. My head started to feel dizzy and nice. There were pretty lights in my eyes. "I want my self-respect back! I want my friends back! I want my life back!"

  "I'm sorry! I don't know how to do that."

  "That's right, slut. You only know how to take them away, don't you?"

  "I - I - don't understand," I said. I didn't know how to do any of those things. I just knew how to do what I always knew.

  "Of course you don't, slut. You're an idiot. You don't understand anything. You don't know even how close you are to death right now."

  "I don't? Am I close?" I touched my jaw. "That's not going to make me die. I know that. And my tummy feels really good, and so do my arms, but not good enough to make me die."

  "No? How about this?" He opened his power knife and put it into my chest. My breath got all hot and felt good. I looked at him and giggled, then laughed when my mouth made bubbles from the blood that came up from inside me.

  "Thank you!" I groaned. "I've never felt that good, not with anything you've done to me before, Deke. Please! Do it again!"

  He must have been happy, then, because he did it some more times, until I got sleepy and went to sleep. I was a little sad that I had to die, because I couldn't make Deke happy anymore. But if he wanted me to die, then I wanted to, too.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the floor. I didn't know if I died or not, but I didn't think so, because it felt like Deke's floor.

  There were two men in the room, and I could see it was Stays and Cut.

  "October 28, Stozi. You owe me five hundred."

  "Yeah, yeah. I'll pay. I never figured Deke would go so fast, though. And look at his head! He musta put the thing on overload before pulling the trigger." Stays laughed. "NATech won't be getting anything from his dental records, huh, Cut?"

  "Geez, you're a real comedian, Stozi. Show some respect for the dead. Just hurry up and plant the sniff. NATech's been put on hold, but they'll be here in a hour."

  "Okay, gimme a minute. How about the girl?"

  "I dunno. I think she's dead." Cut walked close and kicked me in the ribs, making me all tingly. "Hey! You alive, princess?"

  I opened my eyes and smiled a little. The smile made my jawbone move around, so I smiled more. Cut liked me, because he smiled back.

  "You're a tough little trigger. Tougher than Deke." He jerked his head. "Your owner's dead, princess. Hey, Stozi! Finish up and help me haul this girl out to the hov!"

  "All finished. Deke's contract is in-val-id, Cut. NATech finds this sniff, and alla Deke's creds end up in with Harting in less than a week." Stays walked next to Cut and looked at me. He wasn't smiling. "She's still alive? Tough nut. Think she'll live if we carry her outta here?"

  Deke shrugged. "Maybe yeah, maybe no. She lives, we got a nice little trick to give away again. She dies, we dump her inna ditch, no loss. Here, you grab her arms."

  "Shouldn't we give her something for the pain? She's gotta be hurtin!"

  "Are you kidding, Stozi? She gets off on this. Now get her arms."

  They lifted me up and carried me away from my very first owner. But I didn't mind too much. Cut said Deke was dead, so I would need a new owner. And the way they carried me made me feel warm and pretty all over.

  ***

  I looked up and saw the edge only a half-meter above me. I yanked my freezing, aching feet out of the wall, then jammed them in again, the disgusting squish making my stomach retch. Bunched up, I now pulled out a hand and shot it toward the ledge. The girl still had her stranglehold on me, it never easing once during the endless climb.

  My hand slapped on the surface and my fingers scrabbled for a purchase. Another fissure had opened up in the air just beyond the ledge, so I grabbed it and pulled us both over and out of the crevasse mouth.

  I rolled onto my back and felt the grip on my neck ease as the girl released me. I felt her come close and lay beside me.

  "Thank you, Abby," she said. "I'm sorry for everything that I've done. I ..." I placed two fingers on her soft lips.

  "Shush, Princess," I whispered. The darkness was relenting, and I could make out a vague form, even while I saw her perfectly with the eyes inside me. "I forgive you. You cannot be responsible for what you were made for, but I forgive you."

  She smiled, and I saw tears of genuine happiness sparkle in her eyes.

  "I--I'm ready to join you, now."

  "And I'm ready to accept you. I ..." I choked, feeling the tears in my eyes. "I would be honored to have you as a part of me."

  She rose up on her knees and held out her hands, as did I. I looked at her in the early dawn light. She had always been beautiful. Now, with an inner peace, she was more than beautiful. She was real.

  We touched hands and I was alone. All around me, the fissures were closing ... no, healing ... as the light poured across the gently rolling landscape.

  I looked back at the fissure we had fallen into, watching it slowly mend its torn sides together, closing the wound. There at the end, I remembered that it was I, Abigail, who had been strangling the girl, not the other way around. We had in some way exchanged positions during our fall, and I had used the girl's body to climb out, with the girl in my body holding on. Looking at myself in the pinkish dawn light, I knew I was myself again. And now the girl was myself again, too. "I forgive you," I whispered. She was at peace now, and I was at peace with her.

  Her memories, which had kept me occupied as I climbed, were now a part of me. That meant that my mind was whole. I had survived. I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

  ***

  "Doctor Barrett!" I heard Kate's excited voice calling out.

  "What is it, Kate? Baby doing somersaults?"

  "No! It's Abby! She's awake!" Which wasn't entirely true. I was awake in Healer's Sleep. It felt nearly as odd as it always had before, but it also felt magnificently, gloriously, undeniably real. I heard Barrett's gruff, friendly voice beside my bed.

  "So it would seem. Welcome back, Abigail. We're going to take our time getting you out of Healer's Sleep. And we have plenty of time, because the reintegration was a complete success. So if you don't mind," he added with a dry tone, "please stay put and do not pull any midnight wanderings like the first time, okay?"

  I absently nodded my head in agreement, then lost the ability as soon as I realized. Kate gasped, and I heard Barrett chuckle.

  "That's about what I expected. You are something else, young lady. You really are something else."

  Maybe so. But best of all, I was no one else. I was me.

  Interlogue One

  The duck had had quite enough. As coffee tables went, it was one of the lighter ones, and it even had a very convenient drawer hidden away in its design. But the legs kept s
himmying and getting caught in the micro fissures and bumps and minor imperfections that made up the floor of the puterverse. Keeping it clean was a constant source of bother, too. The ion particles were always marring the crystalline tricode surface of the table, demanding to be dusted. And while watching a duck dust a coffee table was hilarious to observers and casual passersby, it was no fun for the duck.

  He flopped down from the now spotless tabletop and continued his journey, the soft harness tugging at his progress as the table groaned and shimmied behind him.

  Deciding on a change of waddle, the duck dipped his head and went down to level one access. Groucho had been spreading the joke around that he was pulling the coffee table because the thought of a duck pulling two end tables was ludicrous. After awhile, though, it wouldn't sound so ludicrous to Groucho, and it was only a matter of time before he - the duck - would be pulling around two end tables and the coffee table. Probably a whole living room ensemble. The weight was not a problem, but dusting would take hours. So to avoid the whole fiasco, the duck went to level one, where Groucho never went, eschewing it as steerage class, and therefore quite beneath him.

  The duck dove through a flooded tunnel filled with microfish, then reemerged at level one. The region was a wide-open, public region, called the Marketplace. Although hundreds of cubic kilometers in size, it was comfortably filled with people, none of whom had ever seen a duck access. The first to point him out was a young boy being tugged along by his mother.

  "Hey, Mom! Look! It's a duck! I thought you said only people could access!"

  The mother looked at the duck, who patiently stood still to be inspected, then pulled the boy away, not trying to explain to the child something she didn't understand, nor wished to. The duck quacked and moved on. The surface here was under constant access and was bumpier, making progress erratic.

  Many others passed by in the next few minutes, but all ignored him. The next person to stop was also a child. She was alone. She stepped up in front of him and knelt, a large smile brightening her already cheerful amber glow.