Heaven is a Place on Earth
Page 27
He looked a little shifty. “All of that was real. All of it.”
“But not when I thought I'd woken up in Canberra and we went to the Parliament worldlet.”
He shook his head. “I'm sorry. That got... out of hand.”
Ginny felt a bitter amusement at her own gullibility. “I turned you down and you put me through that charade in a fit of pique, didn't you?”
He fidgeted and seemed irritated at having to defend himself. “I wanted to show you just how much I could control reality if I wanted to, how easily I could fool you, or anyone. I just let it play out too long. I didn't know you were so determined to be a hero.”
I should have known, she told herself. When Tonia agreed to help, I should have known. When Rafe was so brave. When everything unfolded the way I wanted it to. Except for the ending. Cal had let his simulated Dover Richards shoot her. Because Cal was angry? Because he'd seen enough?
“You should go now,” she said.
He nodded. “I'll keep an eye on you.”
“What, like you're Superman to my Lois Lane?”
He gave a wan smile. “Something like that.”
“Don't bother. I can look after myself.”
He regarded her with sad eyes for a long time. Eventually, he said, “I still love you, Gi – ”
“Oh for God's sake, just go!”
He blinked out of existence before she'd finished the sentence. She grabbed up the rolling pin from the floor and threw it at where he'd been, screaming in anger and frustration, tears dripping from her chin. It crashed into the wall in the lounge room and left a dent in the plaster. She was trembling all over. She sat down on the kitchen floor with her back to the counter and wept into her hands.
After a while, the doctor that Della had arranged called to set up an appointment. She told it to go screw itself and the AI politely went away. Later, Della called but Ginny had set her phone to 'busy'.
-oOo-
It was a long time before she got up again. From the light, she judged it to be late afternoon. She was tired and flat and felt hollowed out by her crying. She'd spent a lot of time trying to piece together all that had happened, who the various players had acted for, who had known what and when. It seemed to her that there had been times when the Consortium had acted according to its own agenda, not Cal's. For a moment she actually worried whether Cal was in danger. Then she wondered why the hell she should care. If there was ever someone who had played with matches, it was Cal. But perhaps he had found ways to continue to be useful to the various factions behind the curtain. He'd had ten years to plan this, after all.
She went to the window and looked out. It was showing a peaceful ocean view of white sands framed by pandanus trees. She felt an urge to be there and promised herself a vacation at the seaside, up the coast maybe, where it was warm and secluded, but somewhere with great restaurants for the evenings. She imagined meeting a tall, suntanned guy and having carefree sex in a beachfront cabin with the waves pounding and the cicadas singing. She let the fantasy absorb her for a long, long time while the sun went down and the light grew dim.
There was only Della left in the world she could talk to about what had happened – and Cal, of course. She decided right there that she would never tell Della what she knew, that it would be wrong to burden her friend with an understanding of how their world had changed. It scared her how alone she would be with the knowledge she had. It would forever seal her off from everyone she might meet. My own virtual curtain, she thought. With only me inside and everyone else outside. The thought started her crying again.
Ages later, she ate a pizza from the food printer, thinking, What the hell, it's just a machine. She found a bottle of beer in the fridge and drank it with her meal. On impulse, she checked her bank balance and found, as she knew she would, an astonishing amount of money had been deposited there. So her bank manager had not wanted to talk about her overdraft after all. He probably just wanted to tell her what a valued customer she was, and to sell her a financial services package. It felt strange to know that the expensive vacation she had imagined could be real, that she could turn down the ACO commission if she pleased and still spend the rest of her life writing music. Never working again was a perfectly feasible option. What's more, she suspected that if she blew the money in a Gold Coast casino, or gave it all to charity, the next day she would find her account had magically topped itself up again. And it would keep happening until Cal grew bored with her, or became sick of the sight of her screwing tanned strangers at tropical resorts. She laughed at the idea that she had become a kept woman, like a courtesan from pre-liberation times, only she didn't want it and her benefactor got nothing for his troubles. Not the way she had expected her life to go.
The up-side was that she would never need to deal with those little pricks at UnReality ever again. In fact, she probably had more than enough to buy up the company and sack them both, just for the fun of it. She smiled at the idea as she imagined their faces when she broke the news.
She stood up quickly and took two steps across the room in agitation, her smile wiped away in an instant by the realisation that her little fantasy was exactly the same as Cal's and his colleagues', the exercise of power over other people for personal gratification. It was sobering and frightening. Within minutes of discovering all that money at her disposal, she had begun thinking about hurting people with it. Was corruption so easy? So insidious? Was she no better than Cal and the rest?
She grappled with it as the evening wore into night, hating herself, hating Cal, hating all the selfish, grasping people that made the world so bad when it could easily be so good. She woke up at three AM, curled up on the sofa, uncomfortable and cold, surprised that she could have fallen asleep. She stumbled to her bed and climbed in but slept only fitfully after that until the morning came.
With the new day came a new resolve. She ate eggs benedict from the printer, something she'd never tried before. The she called Bernard Recszyk.
“What if you don't like my stuff?” she asked, without preamble.
The ACO Director was fluster for a moment before regaining his professional smoothness. “Better minds than mine have judged your talent, Virginia. I have no doubt you deserved your win.”
“But what if I'm crap?”
His compassionate smile was one he must have used on many a great artist who had succumbed to self-doubt. Part of his job must be to keep these sensitive souls on the rails. “Why don't we let the audiences decide that, Virginia? I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.”
“If I don't accept the grant, does someone else get a go?”
His face fell. He looked genuinely worried. “You're not considering refusing the grant are you?”
“Just supposing?”
He swallowed. “It's a stipulation that if any of the nominated candidates turn down the grant, the whole of it is voided. This would be a huge boost to your career, Virginia. Massive exposure. The orchestra too. We'd...” He stopped, realising he was saying too much.
Ginny nodded. “I understand. In that case, count me in. When would you like to meet?”
They made the arrangement and hung up.
Ginny went straight to the tank and opened it. It smelled like a new car inside and its surfaces and displays gleamed like Christmas lights. She jumped in, connected her catheters and went to her studio worldlet. There she looked at her low-quality equipment and the low-quality view. Her first order of business was to upgrade everything to the best she could afford – and that probably meant the best there was. Then she'd go and see Della and try to put her mind at rest. She'd tell her about the ACO grant, of course, but nothing else.
The future wouldn't be so bad. She'd stop watching the news feeds, naturally. There wouldn't be much point. If it wasn't mandatory in Australia, she'd stop voting too, but her vote wouldn't matter. Otherwise things would be much the same as ever. She'd take the Rice Consortium commission and she'd do her uttermost to write something that was as good as
she was capable of. Cal was right. An opportunity should be grasped with both hands, no matter where it came from. This was hers and she would give it everything she had. Then, whatever came after, good or bad, she would own it, with as much right as anyone ever had to the lucky breaks they got.
And so what if the world was run by crooks and arseholes? Cal was right about that too. It was all just a matter of degree. The more things change, the more they stay the same. She'd have to put that on a T-shirt. If Cal really was watching, he'd probably get a giggle out of it.
About the Author
Graham Storrs is a science fiction writer living in Queensland, Australia. A former research scientist, IT consultant and award-winning software designer, he now lives and writes in a quiet corner of the Australian bush with his wife, Christine, an Airedale terrier called Bertie, and a Tonkinese cat called Minsky. His writing credits include three children's science books, and a great many magazine articles, academic papers and book chapters. Since turning his attention to writing fiction he has had short stories published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. Heaven is a Place on Earth is his third novel.
The Timesplash Series
Graham's début novel, Timesplash, a near-future, time travel thriller, was a Kindle best-seller (in both the science fiction and the techno-thriller categories). It is now published by Pan Macmillan (Momentum), as is the sequel, True Path.
Contact the Author
Graham is always happy to hear from readers, so don't be shy. And if you enjoyed this book, a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or your own blog would be greatly appreciated.
Follow Graham Storrs on his blog: http://grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com and on Twitter: http://twitter.com/graywave
For details of all Graham's novels and short stories, visit http://www.grahamstorrs.com/
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part 3
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part 4
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author