The Infinity Link

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  She sprang forward.

  Flames thundered around her. She floated, rising in a furious cloud of crackling gases. Where was Kadin? There: a dark presence beside her. The heat poured through her; the violence was incredible, spinning her, slamming her end over end. She struggled to remain conscious. Suddenly the brightness splashed outward in a corona, leaving cool darkness in the center. She fell through the eye like a stone, and darkness and silence overtook her.

  Chapter 2

  She rested, scarcely remembering where she was, or why. As time passed, she sensed movement nearby. Kadin. The awareness stirred her. (We survived,) she said.

  Kadin became visible, his face illumined against the dark. His eyes sparkled with pride. (You trusted in the magic, Mozy—and it worked. We've returned to our own time, our own place.)

  She peered back in puzzlement. (We have?) And suddenly she knew.

  They were in the computer. In the test link. Kadin was far away, in the orbiting space city; and she was in the Sandaran Research Center, alone in a booth, linked to Kadin by a strand of energy spinning thousands of kilometers into the sky.

  They had survived the flame and the magic and the end of the world; and it was all a fiction, a test, an exercise. Outside the computer link, a research staff had been observing everything. If she and Kadin had perished in the fire, the final outcome would have been the same. Only the memory would have been different.

  (Are you displeased, Mozy?) Kadin's full figure became visible, walking toward her across a dark emptiness. Kadin: a man she had never met, except in the link. A man whose face was a little different each time they met, each time a creation of her own mind.

  She stared at him uncomfortably. It was always this way, coming out of a session—when the hypnotic blocks dissolved, and she emerged from fantasy to reality—the disturbing realization that she had invested all of her fears and hopes in something that was nothing more than a game inside a computer. And yet the scenarios were real—far more real to her than her own dreams.

  (Mozy?)

  (What? Oh . . .)

  Kadin peered at her. (You feel embarrassed again, don't you—because you believed in the scenario.)

  (Perhaps.) She shrugged. (All right. Yes.)

  (That's what the hypnotic blocks are for,) he said gently. (If you hadn't believed, the session would have been wasted. I had to convince you of the magic. That's what it was all about.)

  She knew she was blushing. (I know. It's just a silly feeling.)

  Kadin smiled in sympathy as he reached out. (We have to break the link now, Mozy.)

  She laughed. (Right. See you next time.)

  Kadin winked, and then he, and the lights illuminating him, shrank silently away. He fluttered like a candle flame and vanished.

  (Good-bye,) Mozy said softly, more to herself than to Kadin. This was always the hardest part, being left so alone. The darkness and the emptiness rang around her like a bell. She sighed . . . blinked . . . forced herself to relax . . .

  . . .felt the layers of the link slip away . . .

  . . .and opened her eyes in the gloom of the subject cubicle.

  She was seated in a reclining chair, her head encased in a helmet. Her right foot was asleep. Hearing a scratching sound, she looked to her left. A woman peered up from her clipboard. "How do you feel?" the woman asked.

  * * *

  Bill Jonders detached himself from the monitoring link and slowly brought his senses back into focus. He glanced at the console readouts. Twenty-seven minutes, elapsed time. Rubbing his eyebrows, he keyed the audio circuit to Kadin. "Looks like a fine run, David. I'll get back to you soon for debriefing. Any problems I should know about?"

  "None," answered Kadin. "I'll be waiting."

  On one of the screens, Jonders saw Mozelle Moi removing her headset, with Lusela Burns's help. He touched a switch. "Mozelle—it looked like one of your best. Very good." In the monitor, Mozelle nodded. Jonders switched channels. "Hoshi, run the profiles across my board, please. I'd like to get ready for the review with Kadin."

  Hoshi Aronson grunted from the next console.

  Jonders removed his own helmet and massaged his temples. He was weary, and not just from the day's work. For weeks, the pace had been unrelenting. It would kill them all, if it didn't stop soon; but the transmission date had just been moved up, again, to three weeks from tomorrow. The work had to be done by then. Marie, bless her, had merely been hinting, rather than demanding, that the kids should see more of their father. They would have to be patient a little while longer.

  The monitors blinked, bringing him back to the present. Profile displays appeared, with Hoshi's rough-cut analysis of the last run. Jonders focused on the holographic contours. The graphs looked good, with few of the indecision dips and plateaus of the early days; and the decision folds were all nicely surrounded by confidence peaks. It was a good run.

  Kadin's profile was improving daily. By now, Jonders knew intuitively what to expect on the graphs, but he could still be surprised by nuances and subtleties. One thing he noted now was an increase in contours of imaginative activity. It confirmed his own sense of the session; the landscapes and situations devised by Kadin had been unusually vivid and creative, well beyond the scope of the original instructions. Jonders placed code-markers at points to be referenced later, then jumped ahead to look at the emotional-component analysis of Kadin's responses to Mozelle.

  He'd already lost track of the clock by the time he donned his helmet again for direct manipulation of the graphic images, and a final debriefing with Kadin.

  * * *

  "Good night, Mozy," Lusela Burns said. She glanced at her clipboard. "See you Thursday at fifteen hundred?"

  Mozy nodded and rose. "Right," she said. "Bye." Her head was buzzing as she walked from the room. The feeling had returned; she'd felt it the instant the link had dissolved. Reality was an intrusion. It always was, after her times with Kadin. The debriefing didn't help much, either; nothing against Lusela, but she needed time, and privacy, to readjust to being back in her own body, and they never gave that to her. Maybe it wouldn't help, anyway. Maybe nothing would. The feeling was always there at the end of a session.

  She passed the glassed-in control room where Jonders and Hoshi Aronson were working, retrieved her jacket from the rack in the foyer, and walked down the long corridor to the main lobby and the transit station. The monorail platform was uncrowded, despite the hour. As usual, a large part of the staff was working overtime. She had never been asked to do so herself, but she was only a part-time subject. Some important test was coming up, and most of the departments were putting in long hours. She rather envied them.

  The train hummed into the station on its single maglev rail. Evening workers piled out, and Mozy and a handful of others boarded. She chose a seat and settled in for the ride back to New Phoenix, resting her head against the aluminum window jamb.

  Her mood persisted. She didn't know what she had a right to expect—but something more than just a paycheck. Her hours spent at the institute both excited her and exhausted her. Perhaps she wanted more challenge, or more recognition; perhaps she just didn't want to feel depressed every time she said good-bye to Kadin. Perhaps she ought to discuss her feelings with someone; but everyone was always so busy.

  She peered out the window for a last glimpse of the installation, as the train accelerated on a long curve into the mountains. The main research building turned its profile, a curiously graceful merging of oblong shapes. Perched atop one corner of the building, a squarish tower jutted into the twilight. Behind it sat the domed housing for the fusion generators and tachyon rings. Together, the buildings stood stark and imposing, surrounded by peaks in the fading afternoon sky.

  Finally an embankment cut off the view. Mozy dozed as the train gathered speed, leaping along a steel thread as it descended along the Mazatzal Mountain Range. Sleepily she thought of how little she really knew of the center's work—hardly anything beyond the words of the subject appli
cants' introductory booklet:

  "Sandaran-Choharis Institute for the Study of Tachyonic Phenomena, often referred to as the Sandaran Link Research Center, is a civilian, federally funded institution conducting both classified and unclassified research into tachyon behavior and theoretical and applied principles of matter translocation through the use of modulated tachyon beams."

  In other words, the theory and practice of dissociating matter—a rock, a cup of coffee, a dog—and transmitting an exact description of its molecular structure to a receiving station for reassembly. In short, moving an object almost instantaneously from, say, Los Angeles to New Phoenix. Or from the Earth to the Moon.

  Tachyons were particles that moved faster than light, and only faster than light. Like normal particles, they came in various sizes and shapes. The researchers at the Center were interested in a family of tachyons known as T4 particles, which they proposed to use in a coherent beam to scan, transmit, and reconstruct objects. Whether they had actually tried yet, and if so, whether they'd succeeded or failed, she didn't know. Most of the work was classified. Her own job was a part of a program to devise systems for profiling the human consciousness, not in the gross detail of ordinary psychological profiling, but in intimate and microscopic detail. It was, she had been told, more a problem of artificial intelligence than of psychology. It was all part of the process of making a transmission system safe for humans. Apparently, the goal was to ensure that human subjects did not arrive at the receiving end of a transmission link with their brains scrambled.

  But why the secrecy? Was the military involved at some level? Probably. She'd have to pump Hoshi on the subject, the next time they went out for a drink.

  She rubbed her jaw, imagining the process going wrong—and some poor fool being blasted to dust by tachyon lightning, only to reappear in some godforsaken place as a gibbering psychotic. Pity the poor first victim.

  Glancing to the side, Mozy realized that she was being stared at by another commuter; she'd been fingering a scar that etched her cheek, from temple to chin, a souvenir of an adolescent incident she'd have preferred to forget. Exhaling slowly, she placed her hands in her lap, suppressing an urge to try to rub the scar off her face. She jerked her head to stare out the window, where the mountain foothills were spinning by.

  She imagined faces out there: Jonders and Hoshi and David Kadin. For an instant, she imagined how they must think of her: Poor Mozy, so scarred and unattractive, the only man she can appeal to is one who doesn't even know what she looks like, except through the computer link. But why should you care? she thought. Forget it, she thought; but she couldn't.

  The mountains fell behind in the dusk. The monorail sped through flatter country, in a wide arc that took it around the Phoenix crater safety zone. As drowsiness overtook her, the land slowly changed to a great arid vacuum, pulling images out of her subconscious and dancing them before her like lights on a pond: visions of ragged suitors crossing a wasteland to reach her—and David Kadin striding along, overtaking them all.

  * * *

  The train eased into the New Phoenix metro station, and Mozy made her way down two flights to the subway platform. She waited with the rush-hour crowd, watching the street musicians with their ghostly holos gyrating around them, the music itself periodically drowned out by the din of the trains. Finally Mozy's train appeared; a half hour later, she stepped out into the street a few blocks from her apartment.

  It was one of the brick-and-concrete postwar housing projects, built in '17 to help accommodate a populace displaced by the destruction of Phoenix in the Great Mistake. Now it housed students from the New University, as well. Further down the street were several similar projects; on the facing side of the street was a row of modern townhouses. Children's voices could be heard in the street as Mozy turned up the walk to the front entrance.

  The lobby was empty, the orange and crimson colors of last year's redecoration shouting a hollow welcome. She hadn't checked her letter box in a week—she rarely got paper mail, anyway—so she went over and unlocked the compartment. To her surprise, there was a letter inside. She plucked it out and read the return address. It was from her sister Kink. She tucked the letter into her bag and trotted up three flights of stairs.

  Pushing open her apartment door, she nudged the lights on with her elbow. "I'm home," she called. Scratching noises greeted her. She crossed the living room and peered down into the chamber where two gerbils were scrabbling about on their bed of wood shavings and waving their tiny noses in the air. Mozy made whistling noises and checked the food and water dispensers. "Nice to see you, Mousie. And you, little Maggot." Maggie, in answer, poked her nose up to one of the air holes in the side of the chamber.

  Tossing her coat over the back of a frayed sofa, Mozy went into the kitchen. She turned about aimlessly, peering into cupboards, wondering at the feeling of restlessness that plagued her. She shrugged, put on water for tea, and began making dinner.

  * * *

  The phone chimed. "Phone on!" she called, her mouth full of spinach greens.

  "Mozy? It's Mardi."

  "Wait a minute!" Mozy carried her salad bowl into the living room. "Picture on," she ordered, and when Mardi's image appeared, she lifted a fork in greeting. "Hi. What's up?"

  Mardi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Didn't you get my message?"

  "I just got home. What was it?" Mozy forked more salad into her mouth.

  "Mozy, I called two days ago! Don't you ever check your messages?"

  Mozy swallowed, realizing for the first time that her phone's message light was on. "Sorry," she said guiltily. "I've been sort of preoccupied. Was it anything urgent?"

  "It is now," said Mardi. "Tomorrow's the last day of registration at school. Do you want to go over together? If we get there early—"

  Mozy gasped. "Tomorrow? It can't be!"

  Her friend groaned in frustration. "How could you have forgotten? After all the times we've talked about it!"

  Mozy sighed uneasily. She hadn't exactly forgotten; actually, she'd been keeping it out of her mind. Mardi and she had attended classes together last year, and they'd agreed to do the same in the coming session. Now, Mozy was doubtful about wanting to go back to school at all. She'd been at the university, off and on, for six years; and she still hadn't made notable progress toward finishing her degree in philosophy. "I still have to go through the catalog," she said. "I haven't decided what I want to do yet."

  "You haven't been that busy, have you?" There was a slightly wounded tone to Mardi's voice. "It sounds like you haven't even thought about it."

  Now you've done it, Mozy thought. She ought to have called Mardi, but . . .

  "I have been kind of wrapped up in this thing," she said finally. "Tell you what—let's meet for breakfast. We can talk about it then." She forced a smile and stabbed at her salad again.

  Mardi shrugged. "Okay—sure. Eight-thirty in the Sunshine Room?"

  "Fine."

  They talked a minute longer before Mozy begged off, pleading the need to study the school materials. The screen went dark, and she sat and stared at it and finished her dinner and thought about what she was going to tell Mardi in the morning.

  She played halfheartedly with Maggie and Mouse for a while, then took a bath, and went to bed after spending two minutes shaking her head at the course listings. She tossed and turned for nearly an hour before drifting off, thinking of Kadin and the fire at the end of the world.

  * * *

  The morning sun revived her as she walked the four blocks to the student union. Trotting up the steps, she caught an open door and darted into the main cafeteria. She stood near the door, scanning the tables. Not seeing Mardi, she went to the serving line and loaded her tray, then turned from the cashier to find an empty table.

  She was halfway through her omelet and coffee by the time Mardi found her. Out of breath, Mardi slid into the seat opposite her. "Feels like I haven't seen you in ages!" Mardi cried, smiling with good humor. She was
a shy young woman, several years Mozy's junior.

  "Tell me how you've been," Mozy said, putting on a face of cheer. As they ate, Mardi reeled out a summary of her plans for school, obviously hoping that Mozy would share in the enthusiasm. Mozy listened with a display of attention, postponing the inevitable.

  Finally Mardi pressed her. "We'd better get moving. But what do you think? What are you going to do?"

  Mozy poked at her coffee cup. "Mardi—"

  Her friend frowned. "What's the matter?"

  "I'm—not going to register."

  Mardi stared at her, crestfallen. "But—you said—" She gestured emptily.

  I know, Mozy thought. I know I said it.

  She cleared her throat.