by Eikeltje
watched by thousands who approve, the stars are overjoyed that this communion
is taking place under their sphere. No strain, no adverse judgment,
no criticism; sneaking off as teenagers with all the neuronal flushes in flood,
and finding that all fmilies involved have arranged it this way, full cultural
and social approval, celebrating joy, all instincts confirmed, there will be a
party after.
Blank.
Ice, broken glass.
Discontinuity////like a skip in the feed.
A curious face confronts her from the edge of the parapet. The adolescent.
The floor of the pavilion is covered with thick black dirt, steam rising from
the dark heat of fermentation.
"Are you Alice Grale?" the adolescent asks. "Did.you visit Terence Crest
just before he died?"
Alice feels a tug and parts from Minstrel.
"Please tell me," the adolescent says. "I must be sure."
"Yes," Alice says, completely off guard and confused that this should be in
ake's demo.
"I apologize, but this is my DUTY."
With that large, brief word, the pavilion collapses into a thatch of misplaced
scans and slipping overlays of color. All of Alice's senses skew. Melting becomes
incineration, acceptance becomes angry condemnation. She is guilty beyond
redemption; the crowd loathes her, the stars turn away.
Minstrel's hands reach through the sliding, rippling fragments of the Yox.
"Grab me!" he yells. "Something's wrong!" Alice hears Minstrel scream.
The air smells of sulfur and vinegar, She feels her skin burn away and her
muscles pop their tendons free from her bones. She jerks.
It seems forever. The crowd is shrieking abuse, she is a little girl stripped
of all protection, everything she does, even taking a breath, is condemned. She
cries out for sympathy, to regain that approval so sharply cut loose. Minstrel's
hands float before her but she can't touch them, she has her own desperate
concerns.
And then something rips loose from her spine. She catches slices of Tim
/
SLANT
205
That is Jake.
The techs are yelling about a scrambled signal.
"Come on," Tim tells Alice, leaning down over her. "Don't go to sleep.
Stay awake. Don't sleep."
But Alice can't help herself. Sleep is the only escape, besides death, and that
would be even better, if she had enough strength to make the arrangements.
And then there is pain beyond belief, tail to tete and in her soul. It will
never end; Alice knows that in fact she has died and, without an instant's
pause, she has gone straight to hell.
The medicals are human and seem professional. They connect her and diagnose
her and whisper to each other like professionals.
Tim is telling her something.
She can still see Minstrel's hands, limned in purple and frozen like the
afterimage from a brilliant flash.
She is back in the autumn room with the falling leaves.
Jake is trying to tell her something.
"The whole house net is a shambles. Something broke the firewalls. Do you
think they did it? Some sort of sabotage? Who employed them last?"
That's Jake speaking.
"You need to stay aw.ake and let your nerves throw off the--"
The burn is inescapable. Disapproval is her burn. Always and everywhere
she has feared the disapproval of men and lovers and larger society.
"Come on, Alice."
"I don't want to." That's me speaking.
"Where is Minstrel?" she asks.
She is sitting in a chair in the autumn room drinking a glass of water while
the medicals sit one on each side and a third, an arbeiter, rises before her. They
apply patch after patch to balance her monoamines and transmitters. The burn
will not go away.
"Shifuh muh ick," she babbles. She feels her face and arms twitching
"She's lost it, she's a fucking wreck, and what the fuck is wrong with him?" Jake is talking, angry and scared.
"She kicked it all down. I know she did it, she's a fucking wreck."
Jake again. Tim is talking quietly. "Shut up, Jake. How in hell could she
have done anything it's your machines."
The leaves fall. Alice watches them with zombie dedication. Tim is saying
something important. He's saying that Minstrel is dead.
"Oh," Alice says. Minstrel's hands fade. It is time now to hang on to those
things that are most basic; it is time to. gurvive and maybe she can work to
206
GREG BEAR
"That's Seattle PD. The cops are coming already--the medicals called them.
Christ, he's dead. A stupid Yox can't kill somebody."
That's Jake again.
"Someone tried to kill me," she tells them.
They stare at her in silence. All of them, a circle of faces. Silence is the same
as incendiary disapproval. Alice's head is on fire.
"Call her. Please."
"All right. I'll send a touch."
And that, ar the last, is Tim.
The party has died as well. Only two or three friends of Jake's remain. The
medicals have done all they can and two Eastside PD officers and a forensic-pathology
arbeiter have arranged a cooling frame around Minstrel's body in
the middle of the ballroom.
Alice sits in a corner, still hooked to the medical arbeiter, listening to her
own heartbeat and inner voices, all saying it's time for her to give it up. But
she knows she's tough enough to survive this one, too. The burn is out of
control; her self is a scorched wasteland, but this is still much better than what
went before--desert heat compared to a wall of blowtorches.
She knows that everyone in the room thinks of her as human garbage; she
must be responsible for what happened, and for Minstrel being dead.
Tim left ten minutes ago, when the PD arrived. Clearly he could not stand
to look at her. Jake has left the room, too. The techs who arranged the Yox
beta are still being questioned, and a PD Comm specialist turns from them
4and walks over to Alice's corner, pad in hand.
"How are you?" the young man asks. Alice can hardly bear to look at him.
"Better," she says.
"Yeah," he says, shaking his head. "I believe that. Do you know what a
hellcrown is?"
"Yes," Alice says. "Torture."
"Do you know the secret of a hellcrown?"
"No."
"It creates a loop between parts of your brain and other parts, parts that
don't belong together. It takes any weakness or doubt and magnifies it, and it
magnifies guilt and even physical pain--all very simple. People don't realize
how easy it is to make a hellcrown. But it is not easy to convert a Yox into a
hellcrown, even with this full spinal interface. You've asked for another PD
officer to come here. Fourth Rank Mary Choy. She's working homicide. Do
you think someone tried to kill you?"
"Yes," Alice says, cringing at his tone.
"Okay, we'll leave it there for now. You were subjected to about twenty
/ SLANT 207
"He had twenty-five seconds. That extra five seconds is what killed him.
Autonomic limbic signals were fed directly into his cerebral cortex. Do you
understand any of this, Miz Grale?"
"No," Al
ice says. She cringes again, terrified that she is unable to be more
cooperative. "I saw who tried to do it. A young man. He said his name was
Roddy."
"He was here, at the party?"
"He was in the Yox, too. He..." It sounds so ridiculous she has to steel
herself just to keep talking. She is ridiculous enough just sitting where she is,
under this officer's gaze.
"Go on."
"He was standing in dirt. He replaced a sim celeb, I mean--his image. And
he appeared in the Yox."
"Could you give an artist a clear description?"
"I suppose so."
"I'm sorry you're in pain, Miz Grale. The medicals recommend a course of
full therapy and deep balancing, just as if you had been subjected to a hell-
crown, but we can't make you do that. I just wanted to remind you--"
"When is she coming?"
Alice looks up at the sound of footsteps. It's the woman with the mahogany
skin. She's wearing casual PD garb, pants and utility jacket, and is carrying a
satchel.
Mary Choy kneels beside Alice. "I'm very sorry about your friend," she says,
touching Alice's face and then holding her hand. Alice does not draw back;
this is the person she wants. The touch feels as good as anything can feel now.
"Someone tried to kill me."
"I know. All right." Mary pats her hand, stands, and speaks to the Eastside Comm officer in a low voice. Alice does not want to hear what she is saying;
she does not want to hear anything about Minstrel.
But she catches the response of the Eastside officer: "We'll link it, then.
Keep us informed."
Mary assures him she will.
"Alice, I'd like you to come with me. If you want, I can protect you."
"I want to be protected," Alice says. "I want to talk to you. I want you to
like me, I really do."
"I like you," Mary says. "Don't worry about that. It's just the pain talking.
It'll go away. You are not a suspect in this or any other case. Though you
might be a material witness. If you wish to contact any personal representative,
an advocate--"
"My agency needs to know. God, if they dump me--they might dump
me."
208
GREG BEAR
"Will you sign my pad and give me permission to put you under my
protection?"
"Yes," Alice says, and signs the pad with a shaky hand.
"Your agency hasn't treated you very well, Alice. If you want to contact an
outside advocate, let's do that now. Then you'll come with me."
Alice stands on shaky legs. "Minstrel is so sweet," she tells Alice, as if
confiding a secret. "He has never been anything bur the sweetest friend. Roddy
killed him just because he was with me. Can you believe that?"
"Who's Roddy?" Mary asks.
In the PD car, Alice tells Mary what little she knows.
Mary listens closely as the car takes them to her home. None of it makes
sense. This is the work of an amateur, a cruel and immensely powerful amateur,
but still ...
A child.
It's absurd, but at least now the problem is assuming a form, and it has a
name.
RESULTS
OF
THIRD
SEARCH
ACCESS TO MULTIWAY WORLD FEED OPEN
Budget: Extended
SEARCH FILTERS
KEYWORDS?>
Ties, Bonds, Family (REPEAT)
EXTENDED FILTER: Correction
WARNING: PLEASE CORRECT ERROR>
TEXT ONLY! NO VID OR YOX
>THIS IS A HF-V/ FLOW PROVIDER
FOR FIBE ACCESS > > PREMIUM
INTERACTION RATES MUST BE
ASSUMED.
THE
COOL, ALL-SEEING I
Alas! Money is not the root of all evil. Money is just a symbol. It is
the greed for symbols that debases us; money buys other symbols that
represent all our lacks and deficits, while not filling any real voids. We are
encouraged to accept this exchange by the faux heroes and heroines on the
vid and Yox, images of accomplishment as inhuman as any prosthetute, and
not a whit as sympathetic.
They feel sawdust sadness, tinsel gladness.
Kiss of X, Alive Contains a Lie
Chloe has been moved to a recovery room (the chart on the door informs him;
the doctor is not available), and has been talking with a specialty therapist and
placed under constant monoamines level check. It is eleven in the morning
and Jonathan has spent exactly two hours at the Nutrim tower workplace and
one hour at home, trying to catch up on essentials; but he is still way behind.
He can't sleep.
He enters Chloe's private room. She sits by the window, wearing a hospital
gown and her own robe, sent to her by Penelope, and Yox glasses. Hospitals
do not allow patients in Chloe's category to access fullband Yox.
The room is simple and attractive, soothing creams and browns and pale
greens. It is a vast improvement over the blue-curtained emergency and diagnostic
center.
"I'm here," Jonathan says. He does not come any closer: something about
her position in the chair, the tension visible in her cheeks, the slow movement
of her lips. "Hello, Chloe." Slowly, Chloe removes her glasses and swivels her
chair to face him. She stares at him steadily.
"Did you know that neutral is neural with a T?" she asks. Then she looks
away and smiles, shaking her head as if she has been all too clever. "Hello,
Jonathan."
"Feeling better?"
"Much different, thank you." Her face wrinkles as if she is suppressing
something. "I'm still angry, if that's what you mean. But better.., more sure
of myself. Yes."
"Dr. Stringer tells me it might be some time before you're feeling okay."
212 GREG BEAR
"Penelope and Hiram have been waiting to see you. They're at school now,
"I don't want to see them with you. They're my kids, I love them, but I
don't want you here."
Jonathan feels once more the sensation of being reduced to a husk.
"Wasn't I clear enough last time?" she asks. With an effort, her head canted
to one side, Chloe tries to control a flow of random words filling the back of
her throat. Jonathan catches only ugly fragments, spat at him like little rocks: uck, shi, er, head, miss, dog, muh. She straightens her head and composes her
features. "I am so... fucking angry and disappointed I can hardly see straight.
It won't get any better."
Again the canting of her head, the tension in her hands, the sounds.
"I hate this," she says. "Leave me alone."
Jonathan stares at her, silent.
"It's over. I thought I told you that already."
He jerks and twists his mouth as he looks to one side. "I don't believe it.
I've made my life around you and the children."
"Then you should have treated me with more respect. It's been years since
I cared about you. Now I'm sick of the sight of you. You've never known how
to treat me. I don't trust you. Thank you for coming, Jonathan. Now get the
FUCK out of here." Her face peaks at full-blown rage as she spews that word.
"This is just the illness," Jonathan says weakly.
"This is the way I am. I've come to my senses. I'm hiring an advocate...
as soon as this.., place gives me back my
rights to take action. Nothing's
going to change. Get the fuck out of here." Milder, used to it. But again the
4contortion, the fragments: Uh, Muh, Ick, Uck, Shi. God, nuh, am, shi.
She turns away and puts the glasses back on. Her cheeks tense.
You knew better than to come again, but you did. She told you this last time, in
different words.
He doesn't want these defenses, his intellect knows what this is all about
and can handle it, thank you; she will get better. But instinct says no. He
cannot cancel that impression. He turns and walks out of the room.
The hospital feels cold and the walls echo and the air outside is so cold
it seems to weaken him. To counter the cold, he banks the heat of his own
anger.
On the autobus, he places a message to Penelope's sig and tells her he's set
the house to make dinner and he's going to be late. He has no idea where he
will be then; perhaps at Marcus's house. He is on automatic. He is doing things
without thinking, his limbs moved by deeper rhythms, and the rage and fear
curled up inside are like a fire.
The old Jonathan is crisp to the touch, ready to flake away.