Too, Too Solid Flesh

by Nick O'Donohoe

  “It’s nice.” Hamlet looked at the archaic cleaning supplies next to bottles of SaniBac and BioKleen. There were mops and brooms, but there were also self-run mechanical floorwalkers, presumably for cleaning life sterile labs. “Do you need all these?”

  “Sure.” Freddy gestured at the mops. “Some of the labs, you can’t use biocleaners or even mechanicals on them. I’m the only man in the city still uses some of these things,” he said with morose pride.

  “No wonder it’s a tough job.” Hamlet glanced up at a hanging sheet of paper with ruler lines across it and numbers carefully blocked in between the lines. “Do you need all these Access codes?”

  “Sure.” Freddy looked at it automatically. “Some of them open hall doors. Some of them run carts.” He pointed to one in the middle, a short one: four-five-three-one-two. “This one doesn’t do anything, but I can’t throw it away till I remember what it’s supposed to be.”

  “Why not just have one code, and leave it at that?”

  Freddy shook his head. “I can tell you’ve spent your life on-stage. See behind me, on the shelf? There’s two fifty-foot extension cords, two speaker panels, a mobile acoustic control unit, ten Thibodeaux neurobank support pods, and five replacement light panels. And if I left this place unlocked once, all of it would grow legs and walk.”

  “But only staff can get in—”

  “Staff’s lights burn out too, man. Don’t look shocked; everybody does it. I don’t, much, ’cause it’s so easy to get caught. And it’s wrong,” he added nobly.

  “There must be true wealth behind the hidden doors down the hall.” He pointed where he thought the rooms were.

  “You serious? All they keep behind those is secrets. The one under the first exit arrow has paper files, a flash-copier, a flash-burner, and super-level Access. One night in there gives you every record in the place.”

  “If you knew the password.”

  “Hey, there’s ways to learn that stuff, take it from me. Nobody ever makes words as random as numbers.” He pointed to the list. “That’s why I had to write them down.”

  “Couldn’t they use voiceprints, or fingerprints, or retinal scans to unlock doors?”

  Freddy said with heavy irony, “Like nobody’s ever reproduced a body in here, right?”

  “Oh.” Hamlet sounded foolish, crushed. “Right.”

  Freddy laughed and slapped his shoulder. “No, they need that combo-lock, or they can’t keep anything private.”

  “What’s so private here?”

  Freddy scratched his head, frowned, and said, “You know, records. Stuff. The straight crap on all this.”

  “But they let you in there.”

  “Get real. Oh, hey, sorry.”

  “They don’t let you in there?”

  “Not once. I seen it a couple times, when the hall simulas were off, but that’s all.” He shrugged. “Hey, how’d you like the chips I got you?”

  “Wonderful, Freddy.” Hamlet was sincere. “The sonnets were beautiful. Of course, I knew the plays—”

  “I figured. I was surprised you wanted them.”

  “It’s nice to have your own copy.” Hamlet stood up. “I’d better get going; I don’t mean to interfere with your work.” He gestured at the coffee cup.

  Freddy laughed. “Anytime, man.”

  Hamlet thanked him and went out.

  When the door closed behind him, he walked to the first exit arrow. He looked back to be sure that Freddy wasn’t coming out, then stuck his hand into the wall.

  His hand passed through the simula. Hamlet ran his fingers over the hidden door, several inches recessed from the wall. There was a doorjamb, but no lock or receiver.

  Knowing he was being scanned, knowing that it was highly dangerous, Hamlet said, “Four five three one two.”

  It didn’t open. He felt the door again, finding no pressure pads. He stepped back and looked, then smiled.

  He counted the end-points and center of the X in “EXIT,” starting at the top left, then pressed the bottom left, bottom right, center, top left, and top right.

  Each point moved under his fingers. He heard a door move. He looked both ways quickly and stepped inside.

  It was a former storeroom. There were shelves, a polished coral counter, and glowworm safety lights around the switches. A sign in glow-letters warned that the lights were not automatic. It would never have been very dark while Accessing. The entire rear wall was a screen.

  Hamlet said “Theater Access.” Nothing happened. He waved a hand in front of it in a gesture he had seen the Teks use. He waved his left hand, a mirror of the first. Still nothing. He used both gestures at once. The room suddenly lit from the wallscreen.

  The screen said,

  “ENTER PASSWORD,”

  and the speaker panels to either side said solemnly, “Enter your password.” The voice, image-phased, came from six feet above the floor.

  Hamlet said thoughtfully, “There were giants in the earth in those days.” He added loudly, “Globe.”

  The Globe appeared before him, in high resolution. The voice said, “Add a second-level password.”

  He said easily, “Fortinbras.”

  The screen showed an overhead shot of a single driven man—the twin, not surprisingly, of the company’s Fortinbras, his sword flailing about him. The system added sound here: the clang of sword and axe, the cries of the wounded, oaths and orders. At its top, the screen said in black:

  “FORTINBRAS. SECURED RECORDS OF THE GLOBE.”

  Hamlet murmured, “What do they study here besides theater?” He said more tentatively, “Access exec system.”

  The battle disappeared, apparently just before Fortinbras’s hard-won victory. “Give the password,” the screen announced neutrally.

  Hamlet tensed. He had sat for some time with Shakespeare’s complete works, seeking passwords. He knew that a password from Hamlet wasn’t secure enough for any great secret in this building. He also knew and had been forced to accept that there were gaps in his knowledge. Freddy had helped fill those gaps.

  But he had found a password that, if his guesses about the exec thinkware were right, was too apt for any security designer to pass up using. It was long, obscure, and would make the designer feel clever. It was from a sonnet that was missing from Hamlet’s memory and from Theater Access.

  He stood at attention before the wallscreen, and said quietly, “‘Whoever hath her wish—’”

  * * * * *

  The wall turned into a second room, more real than anything Hamlet had seen inside a simulator and, strangely, more real than the former storeroom in front of it.

  The books had cracks in the leather bindings near the top, the open folios showed uneven and thick pages, and the wisps of dust that old books are never free of lay settled but waiting for a breath of air.

  The oak table at the far wall matched the beamed ceiling. A portrait of a fair-skinned woman in shadow had flames around the edges to symbolize passion. The candles burned unevenly; the one nearest the open casement, of leaded glass with multiple diamond panes, was guttered.

  The man at the desk had dark graying hair falling to his shoulders. He wore a wool shirt and breeches; his cape was thrown over the back of the chair. Beside him lay a fresh quill, behind him a broken one. In his hand a new quill traveled across the page evenly, rose to the inkwell, fell to the page, traveled again.

  From time to time, he drank from a pewter goblet at his left. The pen traveled lightly during his drinking.

  Hamlet waited for a pause, afraid of what might be lost if he interrupted. Finally he coughed.

  The man said, not looking up:

  “Time will cure sickness better than you wish,

  Time will heal sorrow as it nurses grief;

  How will you deal with death when your belief

  Takes death no doctor, but a devilish

  Disease of Life? But death could bring you peace—”

  He never stopped writing, and he never scratched o
ut a word.

  He turned around.

  Hamlet had expected the balding forehead to be larger. He had expected the beard, but not the stray tugged-on hairs. The eyes were deep and conscious, but they were heavy-lidded and weary. The man said, “Speak. What’s your will?” His accent was rural English.

  Hamlet fought the urge to kneel. “You are my Will.”

  “And Will enough, and Will in cyberplus. Turn me off; thy Will be done. Who are—” He stared and stopped. Away from his writing he looked quite ordinary, but under that stare Hamlet felt weak, foolish, in need of improvement.

  Will Shakespeare smiled. “As poor Ben Jonson said of his dead child, you are my best piece of poetry.”

  “I am, my lord.” Hamlet bit his lip, then bowed.

  Will bowed back. “You honor me. A cat may look at kings but kings don’t bow to cats—though you, Prince, are only king for a few moments as I remember.”

  Hamlet thought of the play’s end: Claudius and Gertrude dead, himself dying. “I never looked at it that way.”

  “You should. You are Denmark, and Denmark dies. I’d thought you’d be more vocal.”

  Hamlet smiled weakly. “The cat that looked at me took my tongue. Write me another.”

  “‘Nay, A’ won’t, for if you were put out with me, might you put out your tongue? I’ll not put out for you, and your wit’s candle—’” He licked his fingers, standing by the guttering taper. “‘Shall be put out.” He extinguished it. The shadows settled lower.

  “Now that was language.”

  “It’s still here. It’s still rich.”

  Will shook his head. “To talk like a poor man or a tyrant, you must admit that he’s there, and God forbid you talk like a poor woman or a woman tyrant. Language admits existence.” Shakespeare stood. “What do you want of me?”

  Hamlet said, “You want to know what I’m doing here? I want to know what you’re doing here and what I am.”

  Will looked over the sheets of foolscap on the table. “I could talk you out of asking, you know.”

  “I know. But even you might find it hard.”

  “Still your old proud self. You never resist a challenge or a task. It’s what will kill you.”

  He thought of the ghost and of the play’s call for revenge. “Every night.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of the play.” Will drained the goblet, refilling it from a bottle under the table.

  “You wrote me long ago, but built me recently—”

  “And you discovered that, or Chandra told you.”

  “He and Mulvaney slipped. When I learned that exec thinkware built major characters, I knew you were on Access. Are you only available in this room?”

  “I can be ordered to respond to Access rings—but only by command from this room. Well done.”

  Hamlet burst out, “What are you made for?”

  “What are we all made for? To work, suffer, and rest.” His eyes looked heavier and more pained. “How much I wrote about sleep, for all the little I ever got.”

  “Alas, poor human.”

  “Sarcasm, to me?”

  “Yes. Don’t hide in self-pity. How were you made?”

  Will tidied his papers. “They scanned my works and some biographies. Then they scanned an Elizabethan vocabulary, then added the even better: they entered a list of words I might have learned between then and now.”

  “That last seems unnecessary.”

  “Does it? You’ve heard how they talk.”

  Hamlet asked, “What do they ask of you? What have you done?”

  “Exactly. What have I done?” The eyes looked heavier. “I made you and gave you life. ‘Better I had broken my staff, buried it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, have drowned my book.’”

  The words echoed strangely in Hamlet’s mind. “I know those lines. Something I’ve read…”

  “Yes. But you must not know them, and you will not, nor can I help you learn them.” Will looked sad.

  Hamlet said tentatively, “Are they your words?”

  Will drew himself up, put on his cloak, and thundered, ‘Am I some spirit summoned forth by you, product of man-fat and the mandrake root, which some call seed-o-gallows? Or did you stalk in graveyards widdershins, muttering backward services and prayers, ‘Amen’ back to ‘Our Father,’ till I leaped, unwilling and unclean, upon the earth?’”

  Hamlet applauded silently and sarcastically. Will leaned against the table. “I was an actor, once. Now I’m a director. I point to a word and say ‘be’ and it is; I point to a man and say ‘do’ and he does; I point to the heavens—but that won’t be tested. There’s no Heaven.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I didn’t, once. ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods.’ I wrote that, and I wept on still-wet ink. Now we are wanton gods.”

  Hamlet said slowly, “You quoted King Lear just now. Why do I know that and not—”

  “I really couldn’t say.” Will made another quick note on paper. It was five lines long and took no time at all.

  “May I ask another question?”

  “Yes—but fearful questions have dreadful answers.”

  “All right.” He thought of Horatio. “Two questions. What should I do from here?”

  “Everything you want, which is nothing you should.”

  “Could you clarify that?”

  “It was clear; you simply didn’t understand it. And your other question?”

  “What are you writing?”

  Shakespeare heard Hamlet’s hunger. He held the manuscript sideways, smiling. “Words, words, words,” he said—And tore it in half. Hamlet watched as Will fed sheet after sheet, unread, into the candle-flame. Hamlet didn’t turn off the screen until the last scrap was gone.

  25

  Along the way a pronghorn antelope, a Rockies import, leaped across Horatio’s path and threw him off stride. He, in turn, startled a flock of sleeping geese, and he stumbled to avoid them. His clothes were grass- and mud-stained. He wiped his face on his cape in the elevator.

  Newzak said cheerily that an Atlantic tropical depression was worth watching. A Senate debate on visa bans for Lefties had ended in a shouting match. Newzak said it all soothingly, but the tone didn’t calm Horatio.

  He pounded Billy’s door. “Let me in! It’s important.”

  A tired man in a blue deadcloth suit opened the door. “What’s your name?” He touched his badge to record.

  “Horatio. Is Billy—”

  “Last name?”

  “No last name. I’m with the Globe Hamlet Troupe.”

  “One of those,” he said without interest or disgust. “And you came to see Billy. Did you come here often?”

  “Once or twice. Is he all right?”

  “What makes you think he wouldn’t be?”

  A voice behind him said, “You did, Frank.” Another blue-suited figure moved into the doorway. “Androids are just thinkware; they say what they’re told to say.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Frank said, but added to Horatio, “Come on in.”

  Two of the walls had scrawled X’s on them. The plant pots were shattered; dirt and leaves lay everywhere. The livewood bentwood was broken, the sideboard gouged. The oak chair sat in the middle of the room, dark arid unharmed.

  Billy’s apartment cleaner, an archaic robot rather than a DNAltered scavenger, was penned behind an overturned table in the corner; the police hadn’t been able to find the off switch. Horatio saw what they were protecting from cleanup: the hand-sized remainder of a red stain.

  Horatio ducked around Frank and into the hall. Behind him he heard a shout: “Sag. He’s coming.”

  He stepped over the smashed picture of Ulysses, now frozen as Ulysses was untied. He grabbed the bathroom doorjamb to stop. Billy was kneeling by the bathroom pool, washing his face. The water was pink.

  Behind him Horatio heard the other policeman. Horatio said quickly to Billy, “Are you all right?”
r />   Billy looked up. “I’ve felt better.” His nose was completely smashed, and he could see only out of one eye. A finger-sized gouge in one cheek was a runnel of blood.

  The other cop stuck something in Horatio’s back. “It’s all right, Mister Sagamore,” Billy said quickly. He spoke thickly. “Horatio is harmless. Have you met? Mister Sagamore, Horatio; Horatio, Mister Sagamore. I’m sorry. I really don’t remember your rank.” He looked embarrassed.

  “Sergeant. Frank’s a detective. Mister is fine.” He said to Horatio, “Don’t move. Is this Billy Doppler?”

  “Yes.” Horatio stared at Billy’s ravaged face and quoted, “‘If thou beest he, but oh, how fallen, how changed—’”

  Billy smiled, and the splits in his puffy lips opened. “Paradise Lost: Beelzebub to Lucifer.” He quoted back, “‘What though the field be lost? All is not lost.’”

  Horatio touched Billy’s cheek. At a poke from Sagamore he pulled back. “You look like you lost.”

  “I feel like I did.” But Billy’s voice had calm wonder in it. He said as clearly as he could manage, “I won.”

  “Against Eric?” Horatio couldn’t help himself.

  Billy said almost happily, “Isn’t it amazing?”

  Sagamore said, “Android or not, you’d better see something.” He called out, “Frank, set the portajet up.”

  “I just took it down.” In the living room, Frank pulled a small unit with spiderlike legs—for a moment Horatio thought they actually were spider or crab legs—from his briefcase. Two light-beams explored the walls and aligned with the X’s.

  “It’s a police scanscreen,” Sagamore explained. “Not as sophisticated as your theater jobs, but more honest.”

  Horatio jumped as Eric stared up from the carpet in surprise and rage. His face was almost completely unmarked, in contrast to Billy’s ruined features. The bloody prop dagger was in his right hand. His left hand was clapped to his temple. Blood seeped from under it.

  Horatio said, “Is this something that really happened?”

  Frank grunted. “These are special units: read only, never edit. Sealed and tamperproof. If this thing shows it, it happened. Valid data.”

  Horatio sat in the deadoak chair and stared unbelievingly. “He’s Eric Valentin.”