Players at the Game of People

by John Brunner

  The wardrobe, naturally, was empty. He had nothing to put on except what he had taken off: stylish, lightweight, uncomfortable, designed for a single wearing. In particular the shoes hurt his feet.

  But he had to dress.

  Reluctantly he did so, and slipped out of his room like a cautious burglar. TV noise came from below, but there was nobody in sight. He made it to the street, though afraid the nausea churning in his belly might provoke a fit of vomiting . . . if there was anything to vomit.

  Just as he was drawing the front door shut behind him, he noticed the Urraco and remembered with a shock that he had been compelled to park it here instead of at his usual garage. But he had no time to worry about it at present. It looked all right -- hadn't been splashed with paint or acid, or broken into, or had its tires slashed -- and that would have to do for the time being. He turned the other way.

  At precisely that moment another car which he had not spotted, or at any rate not paid attention to, pulled to a halt a couple of yards ahead of him and a man with a brown mustache, wearing an old-fashioned khaki raincoat, emerged from it and confronted him. Simultaneously another man, younger, in a blue sweater and jeans, got out by the rear door and warily approached, while the driver muttered something into a hand-held microphone.

  "Chief Inspector Roadstone," the man in the raincoat said, flashing a warrant card. "I have reason to believe your name is Godfrey Harper and that car there, the Lamborghini, belongs to you. I want to ask you a few questions."

  For a moment Godwin was at a total loss. His head swam. Of all the times for something like this to happen . . . ! And it had been so long since the last occasion, too, that he had half forgotten the knack of dealing with such problems.

  Except he hadn't. Seconds later the flex came back to him, the technique which he had learned from Ambrose Farr longer ago than he could recall. Experience had taught him to avoid it, for it was invariably tiring, but now it seemed he had no alternative. He was out on the open street, and -- the message about the intrusion of police having spread like magic -- being stared at by half a hundred people, some on the pavement, some leaning out of windows. Besides, insofar as such a person existed at all, he was indeed Godfrey Harper; it was convenient to have an alias when it came to such things as registering a car on which no taxes had ever been paid.

  The question stood, though: was he strong enough in his present state to work the flex?

  Sweating, trembling, he concluded he must find out the hard way.

  Summoning all his remaining resources, fighting the nausea which threatened to overwhelm him at any moment, focusing his attention on all three of the policemen but unable to cope with the bystanders and obliged to leave them to chance, he said in a peculiarly soft, wheedling tone, "There is no such person as Godfrey Harper. I am not Godfrey Harper. Nobody is Godfrey Harper. That car is mine. It belongs to me. It is legitimately mine. You have come here on a wild-goose chase. There was no point in coming here. When you get back to your police station you will enter these facts in your official report. You will go back to the police station right away and report that it was a false alarm that brought you here and it was all a waste of time. You will make an entry in PNC to ensure that in future nobody will waste time checking Godfrey Harper because Godfrey Harper does not exist."

  His voice was on the edge of breaking, so intense was his concentration, but he recognized the working of the flex: the three men were relaxing, nodding to one another, beginning to smile.

  Eventually Roadstone said with a shrug, "Sorry to have wasted your time, sir. But I'm sure you realize we get these malicious calls occasionally, and we have to investigate. We'll head straight back to the Yard and make sure no one else bothers you unnecessarily."

  "That's quite all right -- I understand."

  "Good morning!"

  "Good morning to you ."

  He forced an affable smile and stood watching while they returned to the car and drove away. Then, and only then, he let go a colossal gasp of relief. His nausea had vanished with the successful deployment of the flex, but now he was so hungry he felt afraid of fainting; also he craved great mugfuls of that sweet and scalding tea he had previously only thought wistfully about. Now it had become like an obsession, and the nearest place he could be sure of finding it was a squalid little caff, stinking of burned fat, within two or three minutes' fast walk of here. He was poised to take the first step . . .

  When he realized that watching him from shadow beside what had been the handsome front porch of a house on the far side of the street and was now boarded in to make more or less weatherproof accommodation for stray children the landlord had taken pity on, stood the blond woman he had seen talking to the commissionaire outside the Global Hotel.

  The one he thought he recognized against all odds.

  The one he was certain had recognized him.

  For a frozen second they stared at one another. But this encounter made no more sense than the other. She remained as still as though he had exercised the flex on her. But he had not, and very definitely he now could not; he had squandered all his energy on the three policemen.

  Godwin realized with sick horror that he must do something he had not done for ages.

  Trust to luck.

  Though the sky was bright and the sun was shining, the air today was chill. With violent abruptness he turned up his jacket collar and strode off toward the sanctuary of the caff, not looking back to see what the woman did.

  As he went he found he was shivering more fiercely than the edge on the wind could explain.

  In the entrance of the caff a one-legged man in a greasy black overcoat was standing guard. He had two crutches: with one he kept his balance; with the other -- and a volley of curses -- he kept at bay the usual horde of lousy and shivering urchins. Now and then he also drove away an adult, if he or she looked particularly dirty, shabby, or sick. He seemed for a moment minded to challenge Godwin, but by the standards of this area he was finely dressed, and despite his unshaven face with dark rings under the eyes he looked in exceptionally good health. Such a one was certain to have enough money to pay for what he ordered, though naturally it was a mystery what he was doing here.

  Relieved, Godwin stepped over the threshold into relative warmth, only to realize with a wrenching shock as he took his place in line at the counter that in fact he did not have any money, or at any rate no cash. He had grown accustomed to tossing change at beggars to disperse them, and his pockets were empty except for his wallet.

  But there were credit-card stickers on the electronic cash register which was the only new and smart thing about the place, and his heart ceased to pound. He ordered the sausage-and-bacon sandwich which he had been craving, and the mug of tea, and proffered his cards like a poker hand, noticing with vague interest that the indicated limit on each had risen to a thousand pounds. He scrawled a signature that more or less matched the one on the card which the weary-faced proprietress selected, and turned away with his laden tray in search of somewhere to sit down.

  The clientele of the caff was divided into four recognizably separate groups. Nearest the door, where they were most easily got rid of if occasion arose, there were ill-clad elderly men and women with greasy lank gray hair, doing their utmost to make one mug of tea last all day, not speaking among themselves but occasionally passing a precious cigarette. Behind them, sharing a mound of steak-and-kidney pies, sat six or seven flash young street people doubtless blowing the proceeds of a successful dip or mugging, since they could not possibly have afforded so much meat otherwise. Beyond them again were a cluster of respectable clerkly men and women, mostly in early middle age, with the dull look of disillusionment on their faces which characterized out-of-work computer programmers and the like, pretending that it was no more than sensible economy which persuaded them to lunch here off a wedge of cheese, a bread roll, and a glass of water. Two or three had, on cheekbones or wrists, the long-lasting subcutaneous hemorrhages indicative of scurvy.
/>   The atmosphere of the place, quite apart from the stench of overused frying oil which pervaded it, came close to making Godwin turn back to the counter and ask for his food and drink to be transferred into takeaway packs. But there was a kind of buffer zone at the rear of the caff, beyond the clerkly ones, where a whole rank of vacant seats divided the mere customers from the permanent occupants: all men, all prosperous-looking, one of them presumably the husband of the tired and snappish woman at the counter, smoking cigars and passing an illegal bottle of whisky -- this place hadd no liquor license. They exuded the calm security of people in control. One of them, recognizing the expensive cut of Godwin's clothes, deigned to give a curt nod toward the vacant row, according him permission to sit there, as though because from him at least it was improbable he and his companions would contract fleas.

  Grateful, though at a loss, Godwin complied and wolfed down his meal. The men nearby said nothing he could hear, yet it was plain there was communication going on. They appeared to be waiting for something to happen, but in no hurry for it.

  After a while, as the food made a hot mass in his belly, his sluggish mind revived. Little by little he realized with dismay that he had inadvertently done something he had long guarded against. To the best of his belief, now that the flex had taken care of the three policemen, the blond woman across the street was the only person in the world, apart from such as Gorse -- about whom, naturally, he had no need to worry -- who had reason to connect him with the place where he lived. The neighbors and transients who infested his home street did not count, for that or anything.

  But . . .

  It was absolutely and completely impossible, he was sure, that he could have recognized her. Yet the congruence between her mature, adult face and the face he so clearly recalled from the setting of the Blitz (the crump of explosions, the rumble of collapsing buildings, the hiss and crackle of flames, the dust so thick in the nostrils of memory it threatened to make him sneeze) was incredibly perfect! Had he seen her somewhere, long ago, and stored up an image which the reward drew from his subconscious to make the experience seem that much more real?

  That explanation was plausible, but it did not feel true.

  Was his remembered experience real in some halfway sense? It could not be objectively so -- Bill Harvey had demolished all hope of him being able to pretend that it was, but in any case he had always been content to enjoy the benefit of his rewards without inquiring too deeply into the way they were created -- yet perhaps it had taken place at some kind of skew-wiff angle between the main line of reality and the diffuse worlds of simple fantasy.

  He trembled. He was unused to thinking in these terms. He had done so when he first began to live the life he had chosen, but gradually the habit of enjoying what he had offered himself took over. He had endured unquestioningly for . . .

  No, it was not to be thought about, even now. How the hell could Bill bear to count his birthdays? He gulped the rest of his tea and reverted to a simpler but more pressing matter. There was no doubt at all why it was wrong to let somebody know both who he was and where he was living. All this was explicable on the plain human level. There were things like taxes, justifying your expenditure, keeping medical records, entering data in computers, applying for passports, driving cars, and more and ever more interlocking networks of information between the interstices of which he must continue to keep slithering. All this was automatic -- or had been. Suddenly, dismayingly, he was faced with the need to take even more action than just using the flex. Until he had done so, he knew he would continue to feel . . . would the right term be uncomfortable?

  Maybe that was why his attempt to enjoy a reward chosen at random had failed. Maybe it was because he had been less-than-consciously aware of the risk he was running from the moment he saw the blond woman talking to the commissionaire and nonetheless drove the Urraco out of the car-park in full sight of where they were standing. Now there were so few cars in London, the mere possession of one was a marker. Having chosen such a rare model compounded the difficulty.

  Simultaneously he felt relief and renewed dismay: the former, because he had reasoned out his predicament and decided to take action, even though as yet he did not know what kind; the latter, because as he rose and headed for the exit -- where the one-legged man was leaning on both crutches and extending a hand for the tip which was his due for saving the customers from being importuned by beggars -- something reported from his stomach the need to visit Luke. Scarcely surprising. Hygiene here was rudimentary. Flies swarmed on sugar bowls; food was handed to purchasers with unwashed hands; cups and dishes were rinsed in cold and often greasy water because of the cost of fuel; the display of sandwiches and salads remained until someone was fool enough to buy because it was prohibitively costly to throw away anything remotely edible.

  Why the hell had he come here, anyway? Already memory of the state he had been in when he rose had receded to the same blur as those other memories, masked and blanketed and overlaid, which he was so determined to hide from himself, the reasons why he would never take the least sip of alcohol except in the security of his home.

  He was suffused with a pang of gratitude for the good care that was being taken of him. But he had no money to tip the door guard.

  Oh, never mind! He had just realized he knew where to go from here. Not directly to Luke, because underused though they were, his body's immune reactions and other defenses were in fine fettle, thanks to Irma's regular attention, so for a while he could afford to disregard that particular impulse.

  No. He must visit Hamish.

  The decision clicked in his mind and he strode past the guard as though the man did not exist, nor anybody else who could not contribute to making their encounter more immediate.

  Dense and stinking fog that made the eyes water -- a real London pea-souper -- closed in around Godwin as he approached the home-cum-office of Hamish Kemp. Here and there gas lights glimmered, though it was midafternoon, creating fragile bubbles of luminance lost almost as soon as sighted through the murk. The air resounded with the clatter of hooves, the rattle of iron-tired cab wheels over cobblestones, the continuing tintinnabulation of bicycle bells madly rung by errand boys terrified of punishment were they late with a single delivery. Now and then there was an accident, invisibly far away; old ladies screamed and cats yowled and shouts were raised to find the nearest chemist's shop for the injured. Small wonder. Godwin could literally not see his own hand at arm's length.

  Fortunately his feet remembered better than his head, and at no worse cost than a sense of clammy chill due to fog droplets penetrating his unsuitable clothes and being half blinded with tears owing to the sulfurous reek of a million coal fires, he attained Hamish Kemp's door. It opened to his touch . . . naturally.

  The air inside was crystal clear. He stepped onto deep-piled Persian rugs; on either side enormous overstuffed chairs with leather or tapestry upholstery stood ready to welcome visitors, grouped around low tables set with tantaluses and wire-encaged refillable soda syphons. Paintings by Landseer and -- daringly -- Alma-Tadema hung on walls papered with designs by William Morris. Here stood a whatnot with the indefinable stamp of Mackintosh of Edinburgh, on which reposed a humidor containing fine Havana cigars; there, a radiant electric heater with five elements -- each containing a twisted red-glowing wire within an evacuated glass envelope like an oversize and misshapen banana -- shed welcome warmth across a tiled hearth innocent of ashes. A glass-fronted cabinet, with locked doors, stood against one wall, containing an Afghan jezail, a Snyder, a pair of dueling pistols with ivory-inlaid handles, a snaphaunce flintlock, and a blunderbuss. More practical weapons were stored, of course, out of sight.

  There appeared to be no one in the gas-lit room. Godwin, whose meal was now more and more insistently announcing that it was about to disagree with him and who consequently was more and more driven to leave at once and go consult Luke, lost patience and shouted at the top of his voice.

  " Hamish!"
r />   Panels at the far end of the room folded back to reveal a white-walled, stark, chrome-and-stainless-steel-and-glass laboratory where Hamish, clad in a green surgical gown and mask, was rising from a revolving chair before a complex instrument board, beset with TV screens, switches, buttons, scales, analogue dials, warning lights, and digital counters. He was a portly man with a somewhat florid face, sporting muttonchop whiskers. When he doffed his gown it was to reveal a striped-on-white flannel shirt minus its collar and studs, the trousers of a brown tweed suit, and brown boots.

  Sighing, he said, "Yes, God. I deduced you or somebody was about to bother me. It had better be urgent or else -- "

  A shrill noise interrupted him, which came from the far end of the lab. Both men reflexively glanced that way. A section of wall had slid aside, revealing clear black sky beyond . . . or its image. Across the velvet-dark oblong a bright disc wavered, for all the world like a paper plate tossed Frisbee-fashion. Suddenly it plunged toward them. The shrill noise ceased. A deep-toned bell chimed once. The wall closed again. There was a succession of loud clicks, which Hamish, head on one side, counted in anxious fashion.