Viewschool

by Rajnar Vajra

  "Hello?” I said.

  "It's just me,” Duke stated. “We'll be shutting the repeaters down soon and from then on we'll have to speak by phone until you've found the boy. Where are you?"

  "Eddie, where are we?"

  "Another minute and we'll hit East Jefferson."

  "My driver says East Jefferson in a minute."

  I glanced ahead at the city. Signs of urban renewal were everywhere. Detroit's depressed lower east side was cheering up but I wasn't; maybe it was my imagination, but I thought Daniel's breathing was getting erratic.

  "Dr. Phillips, I won't be talking unless you have a question, but I'll be staying on the line. When your ViewNet feed ends, start listening for clicks."

  "I'll do that. And pray.” As I said “pray,” my students vanished along with my OSP. For a moment, I felt almost as dizzy as when the system cuts in, but maybe that was just Sorenson's driving.

  He barely slowed as we hit the warren of Detroit's eastern streets. It may have been rude since my driver was still yapping, but I stuffed my fingers in my ears. I even closed my eyes, wanting to concentrate exclusively on my sense of hearing, ready to pounce on the faintest click, tick, or snap. I started to get carsick but didn't dare open my eyes.

  When it came, the click jarred my teeth. I'd badly underestimated the technicians at Enhancement.

  "Eddie, I got a click!"

  Sorenson hit the brakes hard enough for us to skid a dozen yards and then pulled over to one side of the road. He turned off the sirens and radioed in the news. Our lights were still flashing; I could see the reflections in nearby surfaces. Faces, mostly black, peered at us out of recently replaced windows.

  "What are we doing, Eddie?"

  "Waiting. Be quiet for just one minute, can't you? I gotta listen for orders."

  The radio squawked and a barely comprehensible voice told Sorenson to locate the exact place where I'd heard the click and stop there. Sirens running again, he backed up fast and spun around, but then drove slower than my grandmother on her eightieth birthday.

  "Here, Eddie, right here!” I said after we'd gone a quarter block. We pulled over again, lost the sirens again, and I had to fight an urge to jump out of the car and start looking. But this neighborhood was jammed with apartment buildings and I had no clue which direction to look in. I pounded a palm with a fist as Sorenson talked with the dispatcher.

  When he was done, he turned to face me. “Settle down, Doc. We lucked out in getting a hit so soon. The sergeant is getting the word to the other search teams, so they'll be in the area before you know it. Once your helpers get their own hits, we'll have your boy pinned down."

  Every few seconds, my skull twinged from another “hit.” Rain pelted the windshield from time to time. “How about getting an ambulance here?"

  He rubbed his chin. “Bound to be one on the way—probably headed for the best intersection for reaching every nearby street. But I'll check if it makes you feel easier."

  "Please do."

  Yes, an ambulance was on its way and for the moment, all I could do was sit and chew my lips. Then I remembered that I wasn't the only one waiting.

  "Jack?” I spoke into my phone.

  "Right here."

  "I should call Daniel's grandparents. Can I put you on hold?"

  "Hmm. I've already got their names and number; I'll have someone on my staff fill them in. I think it's best if we don't lose touch, even briefly."

  "You're the security expert. After you've arranged that call, I want to tell you about something I learned from the Madeline Broms. As you thought, you've definitely got a problem with one of your employees."

  * * * *

  Another fifteen minutes passed before they had Daniel located and my head finally stopped ringing. The dying boy was only a block away, but Sorenson and I were forced to take a half-mile detour to reach the one-way street that was our target. On the way, my students reappeared but since I didn't press the ready button, my OSP stayed down.

  By the time we pulled up to the right building, Q-Ball and Cher were exiting their cruisers aided by their uniformed chaperones. To me, Cher appeared as Sherlock Holmes, but I let it stand. An ambulance was pulled partway onto the sidewalk and two white paramedics were standing outside, waiting. They were staying close enough to their vehicle to hug it and their medical gear was still packed away. I could see why.

  The street was one of the few in the area immune to urban renewal. The filthy and crumbling brickwork, peeling plaster, and cracked or missing windows brought back some hard memories from my childhood. The building we were concerned with looked overripe for the wrecking ball, but it was obviously bulging with families.

  At least twenty teenagers, all males and all black except for one Hispanic type who was partly black, were lounging in front of the tenement. Most were slouched on the crumbling concrete steps, partly shielded from the drizzle by a sagging upper balcony. Meanwhile, neighbors were emerging from adjacent buildings to see what the fuss was about. In moments, we were the focus of interest for a crowd of over a hundred people. No one seemed pleased to see us. The air was toxic with cheap perfume, even cheaper aftershave, cigarettes, dope, sweat, and fumes from the idling cars. Our three white cops stepped forward, but I waved them back and they took my point.

  I gave Q-Ball a look and the two of us hurried to talk to the doorkeepers.

  "What you biz here?” demanded a large kid with three “sidestripes,” shaved stripes running diagonally across his skull.

  Q-Ball answered before I could even interpret the question. Unlike me, he could speak their language. “I'm Q-Ball. Got me a blo-cam OD shadin’ in you hang. Gotta touch him quick.” A “blo-cam” I guessed was a comrade, a blood brother, and “shadin” was “hiding."

  "A bro?"

  "Jew boy."

  "No Jew in my hang.” A ton of contempt on the word “Jew."

  I could see Q-Ball struggling with his temper, but he won. “He be here fo sho. We got it on radar."

  "Yeah? And we give you sez-me and those five-oh hose how many bros?"

  Sorenson must have crept up behind me. “What's he saying?” he whispered.

  I'd gotten the gist. “The boss punk,” I whispered back, “doesn't want police inside. He's thinking you'll make arrests."

  "Not now."

  "Our five-oh be tame this fine day,” Q-Ball said. “We not here to hump a primp, jus’ save my cam's life."

  Sidestripes wiped his nose with one sleeve. “Shit. I think maybe you sincere. Give props and I let you and you Unc T in. No way five-oh. And no whites, period.” More contempt on “Unc T,” which probably meant Uncle Tom and certainly meant me. I was suddenly too aware of my tailored jacket and custom shoes.

  "Danny will be in the basement,” Cher called out from behind us. I'd come to that conclusion myself—where else could he hide? I glanced at her. Beneath her proxy, I thought she looked surprisingly small and pale as a corpse. Her hair was slicked down from rain.

  Q-Ball turned to me. “You understand ‘props'?"

  "Used to mean ‘respect.’”

  "Still does, only it comes in green or peach."

  "Oh.” I took out my wallet and opened it so that Sidestripes could see inside. “All I have is three twenties and a ten."

  "That do. Show the way, Curl. Be polite."

  The guardians parted to give us climbing room while a small kid with a shaved head and a missing ear leaped up and opened the door for us. “This way, sirs,” he said, bowing.

  Sorenson grabbed my shoulder before I could take a step and handed over a small flashlight. “Might need this."

  "Thanks, Eddie."

  The stink of mildew almost knocked me over as we entered the long hallway. Only one of the light fixtures held a bulb and that one was sheathed in a heavy wire cage further wrapped in barbed wire. Grateful to Sorenson for his foresight, I flipped on the flashlight and tried to ignore the dark stains on the walls, the hanging curls of paint, and the rat droppings and crush
ed roaches on the rotting carpet. How, I wondered, had Daniel gotten here and why had he come to this particular place to kill himself?

  The basement door had a heavy broken padlock that was furry with mold. Curl pointed to the door then backed away as if he wanted nothing more to do with it.

  The hinges screamed more than squeaked as I pulled the knob and gagged at the smell of a hundred kinds of garbage capped by raw sewage. Bare wires, live for all I knew, showed where a wall-switch had once resided, not that I would've expected a working basement light. The wooden stairs were cracked and warped. They looked slippery and the handrail had long rotted away.

  "Danny?” I shouted down. “Danny?” Nothing.

  "Me first,” I told Q-Ball, “then I'll shine the light for you."

  "Step careful."

  Trying to breathe only through my mouth without thinking about what I was pulling into my lungs, I got down to the basement floor after a dozen close calls. The “floor” was an uneven pool of muck deep enough to fill my shoes.

  "Danny?” I wished that I dared send Q-Ball outside to get his own flashlight, but he might have a problem getting back in. “Q-Ball,” I called up. “I changed my mind. You stay up there unless I need help."

  "Whatever you say."

  Feet making sucking sounds with every stride, I began to explore this unlisted circle of hell. Aside from my light, the only illumination was from the crack in a tiny boarded up window on a distant wall. I started working my way around the huge piles of trash and rusting appliances, terrified that I'd never be able to find the boy in time.

  In the dimness, my students were vivid as they kept pace with me without moving. Only Q-Ball's proxy was missing.

  "I'm in a basement,” I told them, “it's big and filled with junk and dark as a c—cave.” I'd almost said “coffin.” “Could take hours to search this place. Anyone have any ideas?"

  Kepiki waved three arms. “See any light at all?"

  "Natural light? Just a dribble from what used to be a window."

  "If it was me, I'd have headed toward that window."

  "I'll try that."

  "Mr. Phillips,” Buddha said, “I'm online at Enhancement's website."

  "And?"

  "Says right here that when two clients are inside of a hundred feet from each other, their implants talk back and forth. ‘Linking’ they call it."

  I pushed aside what might've once been a stuffed chair. “That's for aligning e-cons with the real bodies."

  "Maybe Night's implants can tell yours where they are."

  "I doubt it. I don't see how linking can help us right now."

  "I do,” Jack Duke said. “I'm back on your circuit, Doctor. Give me just two minutes."

  Afraid to strike out in the wrong direction and wind up in some cul-de-sac in this stinking maze, I stood still. “Danny? If you can hear me, try to make a noise.” All I heard were creaks from the floor above, a faint dripping, and muted street sounds.

  Suddenly, a silvery light blossomed in one corner of the basement and I squelched off in that direction as fast as I could.

  "What did you do, Jack?” I asked on the way.

  "Switched his e-con with the first incandescent one I could find."

  An angel was lying on the wreckage of an old furnace, one wing beneath him and the other wrapped around like a blanket. I put my ear on his chest and heard a heartbeat. Slow and faint. My hand brushed against something small next to him and it dropped into the slime. A box of matches, I think. When I picked the boy up, he seemed to weigh nothing.

  "Jack, it worked. I found him. But you've got to turn off his e-con, I can't see anything but him. I can't even see to adjust my controller."

  "Mahalo,” Kepiki whispered like a prayer. Or a blessing.

  I started retracing my steps, guided by memory. Awkward, trying to aim the flashlight while carrying the boy in my arms, but I couldn't stand the thought of slinging him across my shoulders like baggage. It didn't matter. For a minute, I was too dazzled to see the beam even when the angelic light died.

  By the time I'd navigated the pit, my eyes had recovered. Carefully, carefully, I carried Daniel up the staircase.

  * * * *

  Last time I'd been in Detroit, they were talking about shutting Mercy Hospital down again. Now the place was freshly painted, refurbished, and buzzing with medicos. In the chair next to me, Q-Ball sat with one arm around Cher, who was still crying and repeating, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” I'd blocked her proxy from my view. The doctors were rating Daniel's chances at fifty-fifty.

  All my students were subdued. Buddha and Kekipi were chatting quietly with each other in the alternate reality of ViewNet and Maddie kept her eyes on me. I hadn't felt up to the ordeal of rebooting my OSP so I couldn't see anyone's real face, but I knew what everyone was feeling. When the doctors had begun pumping his stomach, I'd disabled Daniel's ViewNet connection because the effects on his proxy were so grotesque.

  I planned on having a talk with Buddha soon. I doubted that the “voices” someone with incipient schizophrenia might hear could be cut off by mere jaw-clamping. And in all other ways, Buddha seemed quite sane. Certainly, he needed some audiological tests and might even need psychological attention, but I could assure him he wasn't about to be put away for life. Unless he started obeying his voices.

  Daniel's grandparents were somewhere nearby, waiting in an area designated for family members of patients in critical condition. Doctors had been working on the boy for an hour now. He'd swallowed four kinds of pills....

  Various hospital personnel subscribed to ViewNet services, so with my class still in session, I'd seen some disconcerting things while we'd been waiting. One nurse appeared as a giant cat, which seemed unsanitary in this context. One doctor had wings on his ankles and if I focused on his proxy, he appeared to flit from place to place several inches off the ground.

  When a man big enough and tall enough to be an NBA center stepped into our waiting area, I figured it was just another Enhancement trick. Then the giant walked over to me and offered a hand, a dying custom among ViewNet clients because physical contact tends to puncture illusions.

  "I'm Jack Duke,” he said. “I wanted to be here with you."

  I was shocked when his hand felt as big as it looked.

  "Thanks, Jack. You've been terrific. Invaluable."

  "Least I could do, Doctor."

  "Just Bill."

  He nodded. “Is the staff here putting you in the loop, Bill?"

  "They've been great, especially considering that we're not related to the patient. I bet you had something to do with that.” I looked around. Cher's tears were slowing. She and Q-Ball didn't need me at the moment. I pulled out my controller and shut off my vocal channel but left the audio open in case any student had a problem.

  "Jack, can I speak with you for a moment? Alone?"

  "Sure. Anyplace special?"

  "Just a bit down the hall will do.” I turned to my left. “Sit tight, kids. I'll be back in a minute.” Q-Ball smiled at me, tentatively, but I'd never seen him smile before. Watching him comfort Cher eased my sore heart.

  I'm six-three and change and not many people make me feel petite, but Duke sure did. When he and I were reasonably isolated, I kept my voice low. “I don't know exactly when you hooked into my audio circuit."

  He met my eyes. “You're asking if I overheard Madeline Broms's nightmare."

  "I guess that answers the question. So you already knew about Cher's tricks before I told you?"

  "Yeah. Didn't exactly make my day. I'll find her accomplice. Count on it. I assume she kept some semen as physical evidence of her rape and was using that for a lever. Which implies that her rapist has much to lose. Hell, that girl probably has a system all set up to deliver the evidence to the police if anything happens to her. Which reminds me, you'll have the complete files on your students ASAP. Elaine Carpenter is a bright one, Bill. I called up copies of the truncated reports you received. She left just enough honest inform
ation to keep you thinking you'd gotten it all."

  "She's worth saving—they're all worth saving. Jack, I know it's a lot to ask considering the way she abused everyone including your company, but I don't want Cher prosecuted or even hassled over what she did. She went too far and—well, look at her leaning on Q-Ball. She's not faking a breakthrough; I think this has really gotten to her."

  He glanced down the hall. “I don't understand her motives. Why was she torturing Danny in the first place?"

  "Buddha too; I think she would've attacked more classmates except that would've made her role too overt. As to why, you heard that she was sexually abused as a child."

  "That's what Maddie said."

  "I don't doubt it. Different personalities react to traumas in different ways. My sense is that Cher feels helpless and scared unless she can make the people around her feel helpless and scared."

  "She has to be in control to feel safe?"

  "Right, and abused people tend to abuse people. But I think she's just learned that her kind of control has pitfalls."

  He studied Cher for a long moment. “I'll trust your judgment, Bill. Terry Laudy thinks the world of you and I'm starting to see why."

  "The feeling's mutual."

  "It's settled then. Cher won't get any grief from Enhancement and we'll try to work out a bargain if any agencies go after her. If she's willing to give up the name of her rapist and her evidence against him, odds are we can buy her immunity. I'll do what I can, but she'll probably have to appear in court."

  "Let's hope she'll be willing."

  "Of course, she may also have a civil suit to deal with. The Greenburgs may not want to let this go."

  I sighed. “I know. If Danny pulls through, I'll try to smooth things over."

  "Good enough. Anything else on your mind?"

  "I'm afraid so. Remember that idea I had about using ViewNet to trigger a gag reflex? Add that concept to what happened to Maddie and how easily someone at Enhancement messed up my class."