Death Dream

by Ben Bova

  At least Dan had set up her computer. while she and Angela had started the unpacking he had sat himself in a corner of the kitchen and put her computer system together. Some husbands watched football that weekend; Dan Santorini sat in front of his wife's computer screen Sunday afternoon and most of the night, fiddling with the programs for hours on end.

  "Angie's got to get to school, too," Susan called to her husband's retreating back.

  "I know," he said with a heavy sigh.

  "Don't they have a school bus?" Angie asked. "I always took the school bus back home."

  "This is our home now, Angel," Dan told his daughter as he brushed past her and returned to the kitchen.

  Susan said, "I'm sure they have a school bus, Angela. We just don't know what time it comes. In a day or so we'll get it all settled, you'll see."

  Angela gave her mother an accusing stare. She had cried for four straight days when her parents had told her they were moving to Florida. Susan knew Angie would adjust to the move faster than any of them, but at age twelve with new braces on her teeth the tears came easily and in flood. Now she just looked angry: You've ruined my life, her stare said. You've taken me away from my home and all my friends. I'll never love you again, ever. Ever, ever.

  "You'll get to school, you'll see," Susan said.

  "Sure."

  "In the meantime, you can unpack the dishes in the kitchen. Okay?"

  Angela's pout deepened, but she said, "I guess so."

  Trying to ignore her daughter's silent accusation and her own fears, Susan finished diapering the baby and got to her feet. Before she could start for the kitchen the front doorbell rang.

  Now what? she wondered.

  She squeezed through the packing crates and reached for the doorknob just as the bell chimed again. Susan pulled the door open. Kyle Muncrief stood there in the dazzling Florida heat, a broad welcoming smile on his tanned face, looking cool and at ease in an open-necked sport shirt and whipcord slacks.

  "Hello, Susan. Thought I'd drop by to see how you guys are getting along."

  Muncrief was not quite handsome, but he knew how to wear clothes well and he could be elegantly charming. He was tall, wide in the shoulders, but starting to look soft in his midsection. His hands always seemed to be in motion, reaching for some invisible object, emphasizing points he wanted to make, brushing back the shock of unruly hair that constantly tumbled across his forehead. His hair was still thick and dark, but touches of silver showed at the temples. He wore it long, down to his collar. There was something restless in his hazel eyes: something urgent, demanding. His eyes did not match the charming, easygoing smile.

  "Mr. Muncrief," Susan muttered.

  "Kyle. Just call me Kyle." His voice was a soft light tenor.

  "Uh—come on in."

  As Muncrief stepped into the chaos of the living room, Dan yelled form the kitchen, "Who was at the door?"

  "Mr. Muncrief, dear," answered Susan. "Kyle's here."

  Kyle Muncrief was the founder, president, and chief executive officer of ParaReality, Inc. He had personally flown to Ohio and offered Damon Santorini three times the salary that the government was paying him to lure him away from the laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and come to work for ParaReality in the Orlando region of central Florida.

  Dan popped out of the kitchen doorway like a buck private summoned by his general. "I couldn't get the car started and I don't know any gas stations to call for a jump—"

  Muncrief laughed and waved Dan to silence. "I figured you'd have your hands full this morning."

  "I'm sorry I'll be late."

  "Not to worry. Looks like you've got plenty to keep you busy right here."

  "I hate being late."

  "It's not a problem," Muncrief said easily. "Why don't you just stay home this morning and get yourself organized a bit. Drop in at the office after lunch, okay? My personnel chief'll want to run you through the orientation routine, that's all. I'll tell her you'll be coming in this afternoon."

  "And Angela's got to get to school as soon as you get the car started," said Susan.

  Muncrief's eyes shifted to the twelve-year-old. She was almost as tall as her mother. "Hello, Angela. Remember me? I came to visit you back in Dayton, remember?"

  Angela shied away and stood close to her mother, lips clamped tight.

  "You don't have to hide from me," Muncrief said. "I'll drive you to school, if you'll let me."

  "Would you?" Susan beamed at him.

  "Sure. No problem."

  "That would be a big help."

  "It's right on the way to the office. Lord, I've been there as often as I've been at my own desk. ParaReality's put more money into that school than the county has, with all the VR teaching systems I've given them."

  "I certainly appreciate your help, Mr. Muncrief," said Dan.

  "Kyle," he repeated. "No need to be so formal. Just call me Kyle." Pointing his finger like a pistol at Angela he said, "Come on, Angie. I'll drive you to school. You ever been in a convertible? I've got the top down."

  "It's all right, honey," Susan told her daughter. "Go wash your face and Mr. Muncrief—Kyle—will drive you to school."

  "All the other kids will wonder who your boyfriend is," Muncrief joked.

  Angela headed reluctantly toward the bathroom.

  "Nice kid," said Muncrief.

  Dan was biting his lip again. "I've got to find a gas station."

  "I've got jumper cables in the trunk," Muncrief said. "I can get you started. Come on. If you need to, you rent a car for a day or two. The company'll cover it."

  Uncertainly, Dan said, "Well, if the damned battery will hold a charge long enough I can drive Angie and get to the office."

  Muncrief waved a hand at him. "Don't worry about it. You stay home this morning and help get things sorted out here. It's okay."

  Susan wanted to tell Dan to go on to the office and get out of her way. She knew her husband would be much happier going to his new job than helping to straighten out the mess of their new home. But she didn't think it could be right to spurn Mr. Muncrief's offer.

  Dan muttered, "Okay . . . thanks."

  "Come on, let's get your car started."

  The two men went outside.

  Angela came back, actually smiling despite her braces. "It's a brand-new car, Mommy! I saw it through the bathroom window. It's all shiny and its top is down."

  Susan realized that there were no curtains on either of the bathroom windows yet. She shook her head and took a deep breath. So much to do.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dan's old Honda was growling and rattling on the driveway as Muncrief and Angela waved from his Jaguar XJS convertible. It was forest green, Susan saw from the living room window. Dan came back inside.

  "Kyle's a thoroughly nice man," Susan said.

  "Yeah. Looks that way."

  "I've got to feed the baby. You want to start unpacking the stuff in here? Most of it goes in the bedrooms."

  "Okay," he said absently.

  "You look worried."

  Dan's dark brows knit together. "Well, Jace is expecting me this morning."

  "Oh, Jace!" she said. "He can wait a few hours. It won't kill him."

  "I guess not."

  "You could phone him and tell him you'll be in after lunch."

  "Nah. He never answers the phone."

  "Then he'll just have to wait for you, for a change."

  Dan nodded unhappily.

  Susan picked up the wicker basket with Philip in it and headed for the kitchen, knowing that it would be better if she weren't in the same room with her husband for a while.

  On the broad sunny boulevard heading toward the school, Kyle Muncrief identified the different kinds of palm trees lining the streets for Angela's benefit.

  "Those over there are royal palms. See how tall and straight they are?"

  "They all look the same to me," Angela said.

  "Oh no, palm trees are as different as people. You'll get to r
ecognize the differences in a little while."

  "It's awful hot here in Florida."

  "I think it's very nice here," Muncrief said. "It's just that you've been living in a place that's a lot colder. You'll get used to the weather here. You'll love it, you wait and see."

  "I guess."

  "You can swim all year 'round."

  "I don't know how to swim."

  "Don't know how to swim? Well, I bet by the time the school term's finished you'll be swimming like a little dolphin."

  Angela said nothing.

  Muncrief glanced down at her. "Do you like to play games. Angie?"

  "Some."

  "I know some terrific games for good little girls. I bet you'd love to play the games I can show you."

  CHAPTER 3

  Dan felt a twinge of surprise as he pulled his rattling old dark blue Honda—with its new battery—onto the parking lot in front of the ParaReality building at half-past one in the afternoon.

  For a company that's going to put Disney out of business the place did not look like much. Just a single-story cinderblock building, painted a faded yellow. And the lot was almost empty. It's not a holiday, he told himself. He recognized Muncrief's Jag sitting in the slot closest to the front entrance but there were only eight other cars in sight, all big four-door sedans, several of them bearing the stickers of rental or leased autos. Dan noted that Muncrief's parking space was covered by a thin roof of corrugated metal and the top of his convertible was still down. The other cars were out in the blazing sunshine.

  Thinking that rank has its privileges, Dan eased his Honda into the slot next to the empty place for the handicapped, wondering where all the other ParaReality employees were. They can't all be out at lunch. Maybe—

  "How do!" called a voice from the shade of the front doorway. Dan saw a burly man in a blue security uniform limping toward him. "Ye moughtn't be Dr. Damon Santorini, moughtn't ye?"

  "Mr. Santorini," said Dan as he got out of his car. "Dan."

  "How do," the security officer repeated. He had only one arm. His face was round, apple-cheeked. The cap atop his thick mop of sandy hair did not fit well; it perched up there like a kid on a haystack. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. He put out his left hand, the only one he had.

  "Ol' Jace tole me you was comin' today. Been lookin' out fer ye all mornin'."

  Feeling inhumanly awkward, Dan took the guard's left hand in his own right. "I had a problem with my car," he mumbled.

  "Joe Rucker's the name," said the guard, grinning good-naturedly. "And any friend o' Jace's is a friend o' mine."

  Jason Lowrey had been Dan's partner, team-mate, almost his brother when they had both worked for the Air Force in Dayton. Jace was the genius, the man with the flair for dramatic new ideas and stunning breakthroughs in the field of virtual reality. Dan was the quiet steady guy in the background, the one who made Jace's brilliant ideas work. Jace did not make friends easily, Dan knew, yet this hillbilly guard seemed think the world of him. or maybe it was just the kid's manner.

  "C'mon," said Joe Rucker, "I'll escort ye in."

  It was barely twenty paces to the front door and Dan could have made it faster without the limping kid at his side. But he pulled his jacket from the backrest, carefully locked the Honda, and went with Rucker. "You and Jace are pals?" Dan asked.

  "Shoot, if 'tweren't fer Jace I wouldn't even be here." He pronounced it heah. "Who's gonna hire a North Carolina redneck that's lost an arm an' a leg?"

  "Jace got you this job?"

  "He shorely did, bless his heart."

  "How did you . . . get hurt?"

  "Motorsickle. Some ol' grandmaw in a big camper ran rat over me. Purty near died. I only got one lung." They had reached the smoked glass double doors of the front entrance. It looked cool and quiet inside.

  "Well, thanks a lot, Joe," said Dan as he put on his navy blue blazer.

  The guard plucked at Dan's sleeve. "One thang ye better know: all the folks workin' here hafta park their cars out back."

  "Oh! I didn't know."

  Before Dan could turn back toward his car, Joe said, "Dontcha worry none. I'll watch yer car for ye. T'morrow, though, ye'd best park it out back." He smiled broadly.

  "Well, thanks again, Joe."

  "Nothin' to it, Dr. Dan. Anythin' ye need, ye just ax me. Any friend o' Jace's is a friend o' mine."

  Marveling that Jace would even say hello to a self-admitted redneck who obviously had no education, Dan hesitated a fraction of a second to check his reflection in the dark glass door. Tie straight, hair combed. Jacket looks all right. Can't see how badly the shirt's wrinkled with the jacket over it. Okay. He took a deep breath, then pushed through the tinted glass door and stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the ParaReality lobby.

  A couple of men were sitting on the couches along one side of the lobby. Salesmen, from the look of their suits. One of them was leafing through a brochure; the other puffed tensely on a cigarette even though there were no ashtrays in sight and a red No Smoking sign on the wall. The receptionist behind the curved walnut desk smiled up at him. She was a plump grandmotherly type: gray hair, skin the color of mocha, plain dress of dark purple accented only by a thin silver necklace. Dan saw that she was sitting in a wheelchair. Muncrief hires the handicapped, he guessed. "I'm Dan Santorini—"

  "Oh yes, Mr. Santorini. Vickie Kessel is expecting you." Dan knew that Victoria Kessel was the head of ParaReality's personnel department. He had spoken to her a dozen times on the telephone; she had even helped them to find the house they had bought, long-distance. But he had never met her. The receptionist pointed him through the double doors behind her desk. "Vickie's office is the first door on the left-hand side of the corridor."

  Muttering his thanks, Dan pushed through the double doors. It felt odd just walking into the place without a security escort or a badge or any of the precautions that had been a way of life at the air force lab in Dayton. The receptionist had not asked for any identification; she had not even bothered to phone Ms. Kessel to tell her that he was on his way to see her. What if she's not in her office?

  The first door on his left was wide open. The room inside made Dan wonder if he had heard the receptionist correctly. It was small but plush and furnished more like a sitting room than a business office. There was no desk, no filing cabinet in sight. Beneath an oriental painting of two birds on a tree branch stood a comfortable chintz-covered wing chair. To one side of it was a small sofa, delicately curved and upholstered in some slightly fuzzy material the color of burgundy wine. An expensive-looking carpet covered the floor: Persian or Indian or something like that, Dan thought, glancing at its intricate patterns of vivid color.

  Beside the armchair was a small table that bore a simple gray keypad. There were no windows in this interior room, but a big display screen covered one of the walls, featureless smooth gray like the giant television screens that saloons put up to show sports events for their customers.

  "Damon Santorini?"

  Dan turned in the doorway to see a woman striding smartly down the corridor toward him. Victoria Kessel looked as if she had just stepped out of a magazine advertisement. She was wearing a stylish suit of mustard yellow, the long jacket curving around her hips almost down to the hem of her miniskirt, the color complementing her deep Florida tan. Plenty of jewelry: big earrings, several gold necklaces and clattering bracelets.

  She stuck out her hand and smiled brightly. "I'm Vickie Kessel and you're Damon Santorini, right?"

  "Dan," he said, shaking her hand. Her grip was firm, the kind that took practice.

  "It's good to meet you in the flesh after all our telephone conversations. Come on into my boudoir," Vickie said, gesturing toward her office door.

  He stepped back and let her go in first. Vickie settled herself in the armchair, kicking off her high-heeled shoes and tucking her legs under her. Good legs, Dan noticed. She was not what he would call pretty, her features were too sharp and intense
for his taste, her voice a little too cutting, but her face was strong and expressive and her dark hair was clipped short and curled in the latest fashion. He wondered how old she was; older than Sue, he was pretty sure.

  "Kyle told me you had some problems with your car. I'm glad you could make it in this afternoon."

  Her accent said New York to Dan, and he understood her high-voltage appearance. Vickie was the take-charge type, the kind who parleyed smarts and hustle and style into an upwardly-mobile career. She pulled her keyboard over and called up Dan's personnel file. On the oversized display screen the words looked enormous, like a bigger-than-life statue of some hero. Maybe she's nearsighted, Dan thought. Vickie asked Dan to check the file over, make any corrections or additions he felt necessary. He added Philip's Social Security number to the data.

  She smiled slightly. "Thinking of getting him a job soon?"

  "He's only six months old."

  "So I see."

  "They make you get a Social Security number right away."

  "I know," she said. "I was only joking."

  She wormed her feet back into her shoes and got up from the chair. Dan followed her down the corridor to the security office, where a guy in the same blue uniform as Joe Rucker took his photograph and a few minutes later presented Dan with a laminated badge. Dan remembered the old joke about ID badges from his earliest days as an Air Force employee in Dayton. The photos on the badges were called holy pictures because whenever somebody looked at one he would say, "Jesus Christ, is that you?"

  But he said nothing as he accepted the badge from the security officer's hand and solemnly clipped it to the breast pocket of his blazer. This is more like it, he thought. For the next half-hour Vickie toured Dan through the building. Mostly business offices up front, all occupied by quietly aggressive men and women, making telephone calls, poring over computer screens, talking earnestly into phones or to one another. A few good-looking young men. but most of the business staff seemed to be women. Vickie introduced him to several of the department heads—all male. Dan forgot their names as soon as he heard them.