by Tom Clancy
"Hey," Mark said.
Charlie looked up.
Mark leaned back a little, let out a breath, looked the jacket up and down one more time. "Not that it's not a good idea. But are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this?"
Charlie walked around slowly and waved his arms around a little in the jacket, getting the feel of it. There was a faint fizzing sensation associated with it, something like the sensation that came with a mouthful of soft drink before you swallowed it. "Yeah," he said. "It's partly that I know I can pull this off, solve this problem, without having to run to 'the grown-ups' for help. But there's also the time problem. If I waited to do this the way my folks or Winters would rather have me do it, it could get to be too late." He shook his head. "So I don't see that I have a choice. There are things more important than just 'being careful.' "
"Yeah." Mark let out a long breath.
Charlie sighed as he came back and leaned against the Rolls. "Besides, for Winters at least, I'm going to need more solid evidence than I've currently got. What I'm sitting on right now won't stand up."
"Well," Mark said, "you'll have some solid stuff pretty soon, if you're right." He leaned back on the Rolls's hood. "But if you insist that it's not going to be enough just to have proof that someone tried to hack into your workspace…"
"It's going to have to go a little further than that," Charlie said. Meaning that I am going to have to stake myself out as bait, not just virtually… but physically. The prospect still made him nervous enough, though, that he was unwilling to say it out loud, even to Mark.
"I could see where it might," Mark said. "But the implementation's gonna be tricky. How's your research been coming?"
"Oh, fine," Charlie said. "There's tons of stuff available on the subject on the Net." He smiled, but the expression was grim. Suicide, even in these affluent times, was not something that was showing any tendency to go away. "I get depressed sometimes just reading it."
"That might be a good thing, under the circumstances. If one of the people you're interested in finding actually comes across you, you'll look more like you're really likely to do something about it."
"Don't even joke about it." Charlie had spent the last couple of evenings, when he wasn't busy with other things, studying the symptoms of impending suicide as carefully as if he was about to have a test on them… which, in a way, he was. If there was anything he knew about himself at the moment, it was that he wasn't in the slightest suicidal, but the descriptions of the feelings of those who were filled Charlie with pity. And the idea of such people being ruthlessly taken advantage of by someone with another agenda besides pity, a deadly one, left him furious.
Mark's expression was somber. "I wasn't joking… not really. But look… the minute you decide it's enough, that you have the data you need…"
"I'll call."
"Call a minute early," Mark said, "just to be safe. I won't be far from my workspace anytime I'm not in school."
Charlie got up, dusted the jacket down again. "Cut it out!" Mark said. "It's not like it can get dirty, or wrinkled."
"One less thing to worry about," Charlie sighed. He looked up at the faraway ceiling of the VAB. A couple of buzzards peered down at him from the tops of their metal cliffs. "You get it to rain again?"
Mark shook his head. "You can't hurry nature," he said, with a wry look. "Besides, I'm still analyzing the phe- nomenon… There are some weird things about the humidity that have to be resolved… When are you going to go in and try that out?"
"Tonight," Charlie said. "My folks are going out. I won't be disturbed. And then again early in the morning, and late tomorrow night again, and early in the morning after that… " He slid down off the hood of the Rolls. "Until we get a result."
"Assuming you do," Mark said. "Well, just be careful. I'll be keeping an eye on the jacket's link to my space tonight, and whenever I'm in from now on. Yell if you need anything."
"Believe me, I will." Charlie headed toward the door back into his workspace. "I'll call you as soon as I go in, so you can check the link. Let me know if you find out you're going to be elsewhere, though."
"No chance of that tonight," said Mark, "or in the next few. At least not till I can get this thing's armor to stop going away without warning… " He tapped the Skoda's hood. It lifted itself smoothly up. A moment later Mark was half under it, nothing showing but his neodenimed legs. Charlie took in this view, smiled slightly, and headed back to his space.
No one looked twice at the lone kid, small, kind of young looking, dressed in worn slicktites and a floppy striped "sagdown" shirt several years out of style, as he wandered around in the ash and darkness of the Eighth Circle. Banies came in all ages and sizes, and could look any way they pleased if they felt like going to the trouble of adopting a seeming, or could show themselves "as they were"- though if this was how this kid really looked, there were doubtless those who would have found him a little strange. His sense of style needed work, and the weary look on his face alone was enough to suggest that he probably was as depressing as a Joey Bane lyric himself.
He had been here for a while now, looking around him like someone feeling slightly lost. Anyone interested enough to notice would have seen that he tended to avoid the other Banies in the area, by and large, though he spoke politely enough to them when they approached him. Almost always, after a little while, they went off and left him where he was, and he found himself alone again.
And soon enough-though perhaps not soon enough for him-someone noticed.
The boy was kicking through the ash of the outer reaches with his back to Mount Glede, while in the area through which he walked, nothing could be heard but one song, over and over again, repeating at his request to the environment: the final chorus from the Seattle concert version of "Cut the Strings," with the six-minute instrument destruction sequence ending in the demolition of the venerable old King Dome, scheduled to be blown up anyway that year after the Quake of '22. For about the fifteenth time in a two-hour period, that vast crash and shriek of destruction filled the air, but the images accompanying it were being suppressed, and only darkness surrounded the boy who was listening, standing there, staring at the ash around his feet, like a dark statue…
When the girl approached him, seemingly melting out of the storm of black ash that was falling at the moment, the look he gave her was less than interested.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," the boy said, looking her over dully. Long dark coat, short purple skirt, black vee-neck top, purple hair, pale skin-she was taller than he was, maybe a year older, and she looked faintly annoyed. "What?" he said then, for she was staring at him.
"Are you lost?" she said.
"No." He turned away.
"Well, you look lost," she said after a moment. "In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone more lost-looking than you in the last couple months."
"That's nice," he said, glowering. "I don't recall asking you for your opinion."
He walked away from her… then stopped suddenly, staring down at the crevasse which had just opened up at his feet.
"There's a lot of that going around," the girl said, sounding slightly amused. "Get very far on your own?"
"Not really," the boy muttered. "This place is an exercise in frustration."
"Life stinks… " she said.
"Tell me something I don't know."
"That you're not going to get very close to the Keep without a guide," she said. "Even the walk-throughs mention that. Unless you've got one of the newer ones… "
He backed away from the crevasse, angling a little away from the girl. "Maybe I don't want a guide," he said.
"Maybe you should have brought a chair," she said, "because you're gonna be stuck here a good long while without someone to go 'pathfinder' for you."
He started away from her, and almost as if the environment had heard her, another crevasse came tearing along the ground and passed right in front of him. There it stopped, while black ash snowed do
wn from the edges of it into the fiery depths, glittering in the hot light.
He stared down into the crevasse, and his shoulders slumped. "It's never gonna stop doing that, is it?" he said.
"Nope," she said. "But some of us get the hang of 'anticipating it."
She tilted her head a little to one side, watching him. After a moment he turned, slow and reluctant. "All right," he said. "What would you suggest?"
"Telling me your name, for one thing," she said. "Ch-Manta," he said.
"Manta. I'm Shade," she said. "You're pretty new around here, huh?"
"Yeah. Well, no. I've been here awhile… but I don't know the place real well as yet… " He breathed out, then, turning again to look past the crevasses, across the dark plain toward Mount Glede. "I don't know if I'm going to," he said.
"You got problems?" Shade said, sitting down beside him.
"Huh?" Manta said, looking shocked. "Oh, no… everything's fine."
"I'm not so sure," Shade said. "You look sad."
"How can I look sad?" Manta said. "See, I'm smiling." He produced a smile that even in the darkness was not terribly convincing.
Shade laughed softly. It managed, somehow, to be a sorrowful laugh. "Yeah," she said, "I see that. I know that smile… I've worn it, sometimes."
"Have you been here a long time?" Manta said.
"A couple of years," said Shade, "in and out. I know the place pretty well."
"What're you doing here, then?" Manta said, studying the ground. "If you've been here that long, you should have solved the place by now… "
"Oh, there's more to Deathworld than just solving it," said Shade, pulling her feet up under her to sit cross-legged. "It's about people as much as anything else… "
"Seeing them get punished," Manta said bitterly, "yeah. That's worth something."
"It'd be pretty dull around here without the Damned," said Shade, glancing around her as a few of them ran by a few hundred meters away, pursued by demons. A couple of the Damned pitched straight down into a crevasse that opened before them, and the demons stood on the air above them and peered down, watching them fall. "Sounds like you're enjoying it, though."
"Like to see it really happening," said Manta softly.
"How much more real does it have to get?" said Shade. She gave him a thoughtful look. "Or is there somebody you'd particularly like to see it happening to?" Her voice was almost playful.
"Wouldn't be much point in that," Manta said. "It wouldn't make any difference." He shuffled his feet in the ash. "Nothing will, really."
He turned. "Look, forget it. I gotta go."
"Manta, wait," Shade said, walking around in front of him. "Look, you can't just turn away from people when they're trying to help you."
"Watch me," Manta said, his voice bitter. "I'm not worth helping. Let me alone for long enough, and it won't be an issue."
Shade gave him a look. "You know," she said, "if you weren't such a Banie, you'd be a waste of time. Look, how'd you ever get down this far with an attitude like that?"
"When you hear it from all the people around you all the time," Manta said, "you learn to get things done anyway. But I'm tired of it now." He turned and looked at Mount Glede again. "I just want to do this one thing… and then it's going to be all over with. I'm going to cut the strings… "
Shade looked at him in silence for a moment. "That's not something to joke about," she said.
"You think I'm joking, too, huh?" Manta said, giving her a cold look. "Get your laughing done now, then. A week or so and you won't have another chance to do it while I'm around."
The look Shade gave him was odd. "Manta," she said, "you wouldn't really-"
"I see what happened to the earlier ones," Manta said, sitting down on a rock and looking at Mount Glede. "Whatever else their families thought, down here they have some honor, anyway. They're the Angels of the Pit. Maybe people down here are a little crazy… but at least someone notices whether they're here or not. Not like others-" He broke off.
"You don't have a lot of friends, do you… " Shade said.
"I don't have any friends," Manta said. "And I don't want any. They just pretend to care about what's happening to you, and then they dump you when they realize what you're really like. I don't need any more of that-" He choked off, as if holding back tears.
"It's not like that," Shade said. "We're Banies. We have to look after each other, because no one else will… I want you to meet someone I know… He's felt the same way you have."
"If you think you're going to talk me out of how I feel," Manta said, "you're wasting your time."
Shade glowered at him. "It's my time. I can waste it if I like. Right now, though, I want you to give me a virtmail address for you, so we can meet down here again, and you can talk to my friend Kalki. He's a Banie, too. In fact, he's a more serious Banie than almost anyone else you're likely to run into down here. He's got the biggest `lift' collection I've ever seen. Thing is, he was about ready to cut the strings once, too. But it's a mistake to do that while there's still music in them, Manta. He was there. He knows. You need to talk to him."
Manta studied the ash falling around them, and into the nearest crevasse. After several long moments he said, "I don't see why not. It's not going to make any difference." He raised his head and gave Shade a long, cool look. "If I do decide to cut the strings… there's nothing you can do to stop me. You, or anyone else."
"Of course not," Shade said. "But you have to be sure, first… otherwise Joey wouldn't like it."
"Like he'd care."
"You'd be surprised," Shade said. "Manta… give yourself a break."
"Nobody else has," he said. But he watched her as he said it.
Shade shook her head and held out her hand. "I'm not everybody else," she said. "Let me have an address for you, and later on, in a day or two maybe, you can talk to Kalki."
Manta looked at her doubtfully. But at last he held out his hand to her, and there was a little white envelope in it, the icon for a virtmail address. Shade reached out and took it from him, and tucked it away in one of the pockets of her coat.
"Meantime," she said, "let's see if we can't at least get you in the front door of the Keep. Come on!" Shade looked right and left. "It's narrower over there," she said. She held out a hand.
Manta hesitated… then took it. Together they made their way down along the length of the crevasse, stepped across it, and vanished into the darkness.
Some hours later, just after six the next morning, Charlie blinked his implant off and got up, stiffly, to walk around the den. His muscles ached more than usual, and once more he resolved to have a look at the implant chair's muscle management routines. They weren't as effective as usual. Or I'm spending a lot more time in "the great never-never" than usual..
Probably the latter. Charlie stretched, then wandered downstairs to the kitchen. He glanced around and saw nothing of his mother's on the table. She was already on her way to work, possibly having another in-service today and so having to do her change-of-shift report with the night nurses on her floor earlier than usual. Charlie sighed and rooted around in the fridge for the milk, poured himself a glass, and downed it. Then he poured another and glugged that straight down, too.
His father came in and headed for the coffeepot. "Morning," Charlie said as he went by
"Thank you for not saying 'good," " his father muttered. He was already in his whites. He got busy pouring himself a cup of coffee the size of a small birdbath in a big brown cup Charlie's mother had brought back from a nursing conference in Germany.
"Early seminar this morning?" Charlie said.
"Yup. Backbones again," said his father, and slurped the coffee. "Ow, hot…" He took the milk carton that Charlie handed him and poured milk into his coffee until it turned a very unassertive shade of beige. "Better… It's just today and tomorrow, anyway, then life goes more or less back to normal." His father sighed. "Though I wish the school wouldn't run all these fellowship-program events at the sa
me time that the accreditation team comes through."
"Maybe they do it on purpose. To show how a good teaching hospital runs under pressure."
His father looked at him with resignation over the cup. "That thought's crossed my mind. Nasty idea. In any case, there's nothing I can do about it. Meanwhile, you were up late again. I passed you when I came in. Third night in a row now."
"I'm doing research for a project," Charlie said. Let him think it's for school. _ _
"What on?"
"Suicide."
His father sighed. "Still thinking about those kids, huh? Your mother mentioned. Sad situation."
"Yeah," Charlie said. "It's pretty depressing."
His father chugged the much-milked coffee straight down. "Tell me about it. Well, ask your Mom if you need any more help… I've gotta get out of here." He rinsed out the coffee cup, upended it by the sink, and headed for the door, pausing only to hug Charlie in passing. "I feel guilty," he said. "The absentee parent."
"It's not a problem, Dad."
"I want a rematch on that chess game. You promised me best two out of three."
"You tell me when," Charlie said. "Gonna stomp you." "Don't be so sure. See you later… "
The front door shut. Charlie stood looking out into the back garden, where the first rays of sun were beginning to fall. I have been spending too much time "down there," he thought. Good old normal sunlight is beginning to look strange.
But it was in a good cause, and Charlie thought he was beginning to make some headway. Shade… There was definitely something odd about her, a sense of her watching him closely for some reaction. Just hope the one I've found is the right one…
He slowly made his way upstairs with one more glass of milk. The information which Nick had given him was turning out to be very useful, both the 'walk-through' and the other info, the stuff about the kids he'd run into, Khasm and Spile. The rumor, confirmed to the two most recent suicides' parents, that drugs had been involved-and the information that this news was possibly being suppressed-all fit in very neatly with Charlie's suspicions. Especially the idea that they weren't genuinely suicidal. Someone met them, probably in Deathworld, managed to get close enough to them, physically, to get sco-bro into them and then set up their suicides…