She winks out and winks back in, recognizably Joy, yet not the Joy they all know.
“Joy. Look at me.”
Her wailing becomes more annoying than the breach alarm, and she looks set to flee in all directions at once.
Emergency procedures… emergency procedures…
Meanwhile Eddie Eight is going, “Whoop, whoop, whoop.”
Cisco tries to remember. What are you supposed to do if the mall is really and truly breached? Automatic measures include increasing the air pressure inside the corridors and, even more, inside the apartments. Outside, meanwhile, nozzles should be releasing sealant to supplement the self‐healing foglet assembly. But what can a mallster do? Cisco knows how to handle things in the Worlds, but this is mondoland.
“Where are you going to run to?” Eddie Eight jeers. “Where is there to go?”
Joy is bawling, looking wildly all around. Her apartment isn't visible in the tank. Then she starts wailing again, winding it up to a shriek. Her telep begins to blur. It disintegrates, the dusty residue tossed and scattered, as though by a draft, as the space where Joy was—the wet Joy—implodes.
“Wow,” Eddie Eight says. “I believe that was the real thing, my friends. Reality TV.”
Just like that. Joy's gone.
Cisco pushes the shock and sadness to arm's length. He knows it's there, but for now it doesn't hurt. Not too much, anyway. He'd always thought Joy's incessant rap about getting dissed was silly. And now look.
•
“Holy shit! What a kill‐Joy. Know what I'm saying? That leaves… How many does that leave, my friends?” Eddie Eight's having a ball. “All worried you're going to get offed. But now you're going to be outed. Exciting, eh? Climb aboard the Reality Express, now leaving the cognitive badlands for the real shit.” Eddie Eight makes a noise like he's found a roach in his gargle.
Where that image has come from Cisco has no idea, but this time he's pretty sure Eddie Eight is laughing. Eddie Eight, laughing. Dread clutches at him. He feels enclosed, trapped. He's exploding. Imploding and exploding. Then the whole mall implodes. Mondoland draws in on him, threatening his extinction. At the same time he's exploding, scattering into bits. But he shows no sign of this.
“We're all going to be outed, the way things are now. We're looking at one big communal goodbye‐ass‐kissing time, folks.”
“Give it a rest,” Cisco says.
“Here,” Eddie Eight replies. “Look at this.”
But Cisco's ready for him this time. He doesn't look. Instead he looks at Smoke, who sits, motionless and silent, at the door to the outer corridor.
“No, no. Really. Look what I'm doing.”
Smoke is gazing at the tank. Despite himself, Cisco also looks.
“You guys can wait around to die if you want to,” says Eddie. “But not me. This, my friends, is what you call a radical psychoneurotherapeutic procedure.” He holds up a big knife with a wavy blade. “It simplifies things.” He puts it to his neck and starts sawing back and forth. The knife is a kris, according to Cisco's WalkAbout HIID. It calms Cisco to consult his HIID in this matter; it affords a certain distance on proceedings.
“Eddie Eight!” Sissie sounds distraught. Even more so than usual.
“Might as well get it over with.” Eddie Eight gurgles, but this time only because of the blood. Then he screams and he screams. Never slowing the methodical slicing off of his own head.
Cisco wants to believe this is merely one of Eddie Eight's practical jokes.
“You're just a fuckwit,” Sissie tells Eddie Eight. But she looks uncertain.
Cisco doesn't know what to make of this latest exhibition. Is it possible to saw your own head off? Even if you could, where would you get the knife?
Chronicle
Here's something from my quote collection. From Sky's recommended reading list.
Scratch the least sentence. No “Sky.” Scratch that sentence too, okay? And this one. Now my inline editor tells me I've “entered an infinite regress.” If that was my only problem, I'd be laughing. Anyway, just read this, okay?
Diversion rules, OK! Addicted to surface change, to color and mere movement, we are the society of Last Men. Zoomers one and all, we sedate ourselves with material acquisition and divert ourselves with change. And the combination of zoomerism and magifacturing make crack cocaine look like broccoli. But is it enough? Without an effective integrative center, persons begin to disintegrate. And MPD/DID is pandemic.
On the one hand, victims evoke extra personalities to protect themselves from the reality of their situation. Alternatively, personalities disassociate into component personae to test, sometimes engineer, a range of disparate realities.
But now, given the commercial generated realities, popularly known as the Worlds, and with both primary wets and wet alters projecting telep avatars, it's time to rewrite the book on MPD/DID. We're getting interactions between alters that no one could have even imagined in times past.
Harlan Bertz, Loaves and Fishes and Selves (NY: Abracademe Books, 2032)
We started getting massive doses of this multiple personality stuff back in the twentieth century, around the same time we saw all this new interest in our selves. Self‐empowerment, self‐expression, self‐realization, self‐satisfaction. Self‐friggin' esteem. I ask you. Self, self, self. Meanwhile everybody was falling apart. You got multiple personality disorder as the psychiatric flavor of the month, what used to be “dissociative identity disorder” for a while, but what we now call “fragging,” and half of us don't know our own selves from our elbows. Don't even know how many of 'em we've got. Chances are nobody knows for sure who's doing all the whining, not even the friggin' whiners.
Never mind. Soon there'll be nobody to do the whining and nothing to whine about anyway. But that's no big deal, the way things are. Can't even get a steak worth the eating, or a glass of real bourbon.
Worldsday
Boon Doc's is empty of customers except for Leary and Brian and a couple of ebees, what Leary calls wallpaper. The girls, as lifelike as first‐generation ebees, are slumped around in attitudes of despair. Big Toy, sitting at the cash, gives the impression she can hardly raise the shot glass of tequila to her lips. In fact, everything is much like it was in the old days.
“You're both welcome,” says Brian. “As long as you bring those cubes. But what are we doing for transport?”
“I can get the Kid as far as ESSEA.”
“You can, eh? I'm impressed. You do that, and I'll get you both the rest of the way.”
“Good enough.” Leary pushes away from the bar. “Adios till then.”
“Whoa! C'mon, old buddy. Stick around for another drink. We can wake the ladies up with a co‐la or two. Hell, come upstairs and watch me enjoy a threesome with Keeow and Boom.”
“I'm going. The next time you see me, if you see me again, it'll be face2face.” There's menace in Leary's tone.
As there is in Brian's when he replies, “Sure, sure. Just bring the cubes. And come unarmed.”
Chronicle
Look at this.
Clouds of things like giant beach balls are darting around way up there, golden‐orange and bright against a black sky.
And over there—we've got more of 'em skimming along over the sea in formations of a dozen or more. This is something new. That's if you believe this is all for real. It's anybody's guess what they might be; anybody's guess who or what is directing them. They're coming across the sea and across the gray wastelands and exploding against ESSEA's shield in a long splatter of bright flashes. If it weren't for the automatic filters, I'd be blind right now. You can hear the impacts, the sizzle and whine of meltdown. You can smell the stink of burning electronic components and something else. The smells could be in my mind, I guess, ghosts of war and rotten things burning. The mall is supposed to be insulated against this kind of thing.
Would you look at that? The sky's on fire, and we're still getting fresh mushroom clouds. I should blank the w
indow. Real or not, there's not much I can do right now about things out there. And I'm scaring myself half to death; I guess it's okay to admit that.
Now I'm getting the smells again. And the sounds. Some funny tinkling. This stuff can't be real. Not with the apartment sealed up the way it is. Gosh. Listen to me; I sound like the Kid. He's always hearing things. Says he can hear the foglet assembly maintaining the mall structure. Maybe. But if so, he's the only one who can. I swear, sometimes he's as bad as Joy. The way she was. Young Joy, with her “dreaming malls” line of natter.
Sky told me that the Kid was going to be here by now. I'll have to trust her on that. The tank's out of commission, the cradle too. Whatever. We sure can't wait here any longer. We'll just have to hope that he's okay. To hope that Sky's looking after him.
And if I'm being saved for something, I wonder how far they'll go with this business of keeping me alive. I guess I'll find that out soon enough. What's the worst that could happen? I get dissed. Big deal. The worms are going to get me soon enough anyway. Same‐same. Supposing there are any worms left. This is a long shot, no question. And I don't think Sky believes for one minute that Cisco has any chance of surviving this mission. Neither do I, come to that. Not if I'm going to be realistic. But the stakes are so high; we have to give this our best shot. What if we fail? No big deal. That's only the end of humanity. And if we don't try? That's the end of humanity too. So let's bring it on.
Look out there. It's like Hell has boiled over. And we've got a tsunami, it looks to be a mile high, rushing right at us. That's in case the shock waves and radiation don't finish the job first. We've never seen this before, Rexy, old boy. So what do you think? Is it for real? Whoever or whatever's running the show doesn't appear to care any more whether we know it's all been flim‐flam. Will you look out there? We've got more mushroom clouds to the east, way larger than life. Everybody's favorite nightmare a hundred years ago. Little did we know back then what other things lay just over the horizon.
Anyway, I guess I should record this last bit of history, if that's what it is. Hard to say who's going to read it. Most likely no one. I'm coming to believe there aren't too many of us left. There's me, for one. But I reckon I might be the last living soul in all of ESSEA. The Kid, over in ESUSA, he's real. And Brian, wherever he is. Who else? It's hard to say. Sky, maybe. That's it, I guess. Gosh. I hope the Kid's okay.
Whatever. In here or out there, time's up. What do you say, Rexy? One way or the other, for better or for worse, we're going Outside.
Monday
His tank is dead.
The Doll is responding, but refuses him even a cup of coffee. The screen, meanwhile, has begun shrilling. “
Breach… breach… breach… Sterilization procedures underway. Remain calm.”
This injunction has anything but a calming effect; never before has MOM asked them to stay calm during an alert.
And now, never mind Dolls don't initiate conversations, Cisco's Doll is talking to him. “It's time to go,” it says.
Even more alarming are the sounds from outside the apartment. Muffled thuds and screeches Cisco has no way of interpreting. And the smell. Aside from what the Doll serves up and, sometimes, his own body, his apartment has no odors. Yet he smells something burning.
The ambient noise is growing more pronounced. He neutralizes the holo and sees that, unlike the tank, his window is functioning after a fashion. It flashes a succession of scenic views and then goes transparent. Cisco gets a quick view of big golden balls sailing in to explode against the forcefield shell. On the ground all along the perimeter, phalanxes of slowjoes stand in ranks of four, column after column of them as far as Cisco can see. They waver and sway and morph and multiply. Then they vaporize, whole swathes of them, as satrays begin to play back and forth across the landscape.
There. That was no trick of the ear. A crash. And a shudder. Then: “Cisco. We have to get out. Yes. We must leave naow.” Smoke says, sounding like a cat speaking English. She has never spoken before, at least not within Cisco's hearing. First the Doll, and now Smoke. The pet comes over to lean hard up against Cisco's leg, something else she has never done before. Just then the tank reactivates itself and Sky bubbles up. Sky! In the tank. “Cisco. Go with Smoke. Yes. Do not worry. We will take care of you.”
“What? Are we going to meet?” Absurdly, Cisco's heart pounds, not with dread but with joy at the prospect of a wet encounter with Sky.
Sky is behind this. Some of it, anyway. Cisco isn't too surprised. He's mostly excited at the thought of finally meeting her. Her living and breathing wet master. The real McCoy, as Leary might say. Never mind that all hell is breaking loose inside the mall and out, Cisco is surprised to find himself filled with a sense of adventure.
“Come, Cisco! Hurrrry!” Smoke sounds like Sky would if she were a cat.
“Wait,” Cisco says. “What about Sissie?”
“Never mind. She is okay.”
“And Eddie Eight?”
“No time. Do not worrrry. Follow me.”
Cisco doesn't see much choice. He re‐establishes the necessary distance as he watches Smoke utter a code that opens the apartment door to Outside.
He's finally going to meet Sky. To see her wet master.
Monday
Leary's duffle is packed and ready to go.
He's supplementing nutritabs with ersatz beef jerky, uncooked brown rice, cubes of “vegetable” stock, and real‐ish dehydrated ham steaks. Leary doesn't know what it's really like Outside, so there are Hylar space blankets, canteens of water, and purification tablets. And a good old‐fashioned first‐aid kit to supplement the medibots, plus a recorder for his chronicle. The solid cooking fuel took hard negotiating; at first his Doll figured it for a scam, a plan to brew white lightning.
Rexy paces back and forth a couple of times before sitting to face the door, motionless but for his tail, which twitches.
“Okay,” Leary says. “Let's see what happens.” He hoists the pack up his shoulders and squares off beside Rexy. “Ex, ex, ex,” he says. “Wai, wai, wai. Oh, oh, oh. Two.” He waits, kind of relieved when nothing happens. But he tries again: “Ex, ex, ex. Wai, wai, wai. Oh, oh, oh. Two.”
Nothing.
According to Sky, this classified key‐code should unlock the apartment from the inside. Leary has another code, one that Brian passed him. “To be used only in emergencies,” Leary tells Rexy. “Brian's so full of it, as a rule; this could be his idea of a joke.” And given Brian's sense of humor, if it did work Leary could find himself dissed as soon as he opened the door. So he's using Sky's code out of preference. Whichever. His days are numbered anyhow.
“Ex, ex, ex. Wai, wai, wai. Oh, oh, oh. Two.”
Nothing.
“Zero, zero, zero,” Rexy says. “What?” Leary is nonplused.
“Try zero, zero, zero,” Rexy says again, in a growly voice. “Not 'oh, oh, oh.'”
“Darn it, boy. You're talking!”
Outside
One door leads to a World of endless bliss, the other leads to the real world. Your choice.
—Brian Finister
Outside
A low‐rez slowjoe assembles itself, emerging with incredible speed from where blur dust has drifted up against a force field wall one cell away from Cisco's apartment.
Smoke has already opened the gate to the neighboring cell, and she's going, “Move, move, move.”
Cisco moves.
It's in and out in seven seconds, maximum, or they're vaporized. He enters in a single leap before the gate lenses shut. This field matrix, an invisible force‐field maze, is a relic of GameBoy days. The dust is something new; it wasn't here last cycle. So these recent breaches are for real.
Smoke, doubtless for good reason, doubles back to the cell where the slowjoe manifestation has already subsided back into a pile. “Okay,” she says, as the gate opens. “Super‐fassst!” She's already accessing the cell beyond as Cisco enters this one, lunging across past the dust pile, w
hich rises like ectoplasm, substantiating even as it does so. The slowjoe, just too late, is left behind, pressed up flat against the field, its “face” featureless and smooth. Smoke is already feeding code to the next gate, and they're through well short of their deadline. Two cells behind them, now, the slowjoe decides to disassemble again. But its time is up; it disappears in a flash. “Move,” says Smoke, her voice evoking thoughts of Sky. But there's no time to ponder any of this; Cisco has only to trust and, awash in adrenaline, keep moving.
Which door leads to which apartment; which of his friends live where? The corridor walls are almost featureless. There's no sign of where his own apartment lies, beyond a luminous ID code flush with the foglet surface: ZEZQ112. Then he sees ZEZQ121. Dee Zu's apartment. So how did he get in to kill her? He can't remember, and he quickly establishes his distance; no need to go that way right now.
Smoke leads from cell to cell, uttering the codes. Each cell entry yields the next lead number or letter in the series for the next cell, depending on which way you decide to go next. Smoke sounds a lot like Sky. At the same time Cisco likes the way Smoke sounds like a cat. The way he imagines a cat would sound if a cat talked.
“Smoke?” Cisco says, wanting to hear the voice again. There's no response; the 'pet is preoccupied with her codes.
The corridor is lined with featureless gray RokBot panels that rise into the dim recesses above. Vast and claustrophobic at the same time. The corridors, nearly every space outside the apartments, are full of force‐field baffles. You need passcodes to navigate from cell to cell; a mild electric shock warns you before you get far enough to trigger the lasers. Grave security threats demand drastic responses, and mistakes are not forgiven. You need an initial code and a key to generate subsequent numbers. And you've got seven seconds before the relevant force‐field walls wink off long enough for high‐energy lasers to sterilize the cell.
Somewhere behind them there's another flash. Cisco looks back the way they've come. He catches a glimpse of something else in one of the cells, too far away to see. Forgetting that this isn't a World, he tries to telescope the view. But out here in mondoland his powers are limited. He's doing his best to stay oriented. They've been moving mostly northwards. Basically, however, he's just following Smoke. He looks back again, and, once again, spots something a couple of cells behind them. Cisco stops and watches, but sees nothing more. Forgetting that this is mondoland, he tries upping both illumination and rez, and is surprised when the dimness persists. Anyway, he thinks maybe he only imagined the shaggy little creature waddling along looking much the same, as Leary might say, both fore and aft. Surely it couldn't have been Toot. And the shape Cisco glimpsed earlier had been larger.
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