Masques IV
Page 10
This is absurd, he thought as he removed the cover from the woman’s typewriter. His mind fought to regain control but his hands searched for paper in the unlocked desk drawer. It took him only a few moments to insert a sheet into the strange machine and begin looking for the power switch. Within a minute or so he was typing words and phrases on the unfamiliar typewriter in all caps:
NIGHT MAYOR. RAINSTREAKER. DURRELL. HEAD-RIPPER. THOUGHTGAME. OILSLICK. VENUSIAN BLIND. SEE VENUS AND DIE. MATA MUA. TIME SLIDES DOWN. DURRELL. MUTILATED CLOWN. Without warning he was slipping into the dark folds of the chilling plot, typing “Durrell, the neutered by-product of three confused bondings and eight bewildering cohabitations, is asexual/heterosexual. A burn-out with diagonal burn streaks on the right side of his face, a dead eye—which his triangular one-ways conceal—and no nose. Having only a left nostril and half a nose is not a serious handicap for a tactile audile.” He was typing so furiously he didn’t hear the doctor come out of the office behind him.
“You all right?”
“Mmm.” He didn’t bother to shut off the typewriter though he knew he was sliding down.
“Are you doing all right?” The doctor was a pleasant man, hair covered, face masked, gloved; plas-net to the breathing mask. So really all you could see were the eyes, slightly myopic through the thick eyeshield, a triangular pair of framed lenses that meshed tightly against the hood, everything in institutional charcoal.
“Fine.” Half-five Alpha Durrell-Hurnan, known as Durrell, felt nothing. He waited for the tingling sensation of the probe and the sound of his dreamkey. Knowing now the real reason he was there.
“Atta boy,” the man said with his jovial workaday smile in place, preparing to look at Durrell’s brain.
The probe hit tentatively, professionally centered. He opened the front section of his thoughtshield as he heard the first three words of The Fleetwoods’ “Mr. Blue” sound familiarly in his ears.
On the word “STAR” he let the probe track and breathed deeply, smiling reflexively when he heard the doctor’s surprised intake of air.
“Holy GOD!” he heard, almost laughing, as “All Along the Watchtower” blew across the eighth pair of cranial nerves, transmitting Jimi Hendrix to the part of his brain not sheathed in thoughtshield.
In the flash of a microtick he dreamthemed an icy moonlet near the blue edge of Triton’s shadow, an ancient cornfield and the rusting tin sign “Funk’s Hybrid,” the whoreband of the same name, and a sidewalk mug joint on the Rue des Jasperjohns, a double-clenched shallop tethered to the balustrades and yawing gently in the petrotide. These were just “kneecaps,” involuntary jerks to the non-hostile probe, so he forgot them instantly.
“Nobody told me you were—”
“A braincop?” Durrell chuckled softly, his head in the padded, viselike maw of a NECAP. He couldn’t recall just that moment what the acronym represented; the fanciest new neuro-something, something-probe. The operating theatre was one of the finest and there was nothing to fear but the unknown. Nobody kills a galactic-class champion gamer, except maybe another gamer, so he was relaxed and totally at ease.
You die of a killer virus, a spontaneous act of random violence in isolated instances—and old age. Nothing can sneak up on you. No plan to injure you will succeed—because when the perp or perps reach that instant of crystallized thought, you share it with them. If a doctor was going to play games with your thoughtshield, the second he even contemplated a hostile mood you’d know it, too, and you could gangslam him braindead before his heart could beat again!
Mindscans were part of the deal, like the dental plan, the annual physical checkup. It paid to take advantage of Uni’s resources, the ultimate state of the art in dreamtech sciences; better safe than sorry.
The cartel used them like truth serum. And what the doctor had read off his screen in that flashing microtick when the cop relaxed his brainshield was something that he would have to pass up the chain of command. It fell under the primary dictum, “Report any unusual discrepancies.”
In the lightning bolt of electro-scan the machine had photographed a negative fault line cracking down through the braincop’s quadruple-thick mindset as he dreamed the probe in for a peek. It wasn’t anything major; just a jagged line that would end up on some controller’s desk back at Threat Directorate, probably in the Department of Sensorium Analysis—a misnomer if ever there was one.
The doctor did nothing to pass the report up the line. The NECAP unit was programmed to report any unusual discrepancies, and the small, jagged line instantly became spoonfeed.
Deep inside the labyrinth of Uni Central a woman sat watching a bank of consoles. One of them glowed blue. She watched the tiny, negative fault in Half-five Alpha Durrell-Hurnan become hard downlink.
The tech keyed Durrell-Hurnan, Vi5 Alpha, hit the Data Transfer, and got DENIED.
Hit a query and got DENIED.
Hit an explain-query denial and got DENIED. Turned it over to her supervisor who contacted her supervisor who asked for the same information in a different way and was told—
ACCESS DENIED.
Explain query denial to supervisor?
ACCESS DENIED.
It went on like this until they reached an Assistant Controller in TD-5 who had supersecret security clearance and his screen advised him—
ACCESS DENIED. SUBJECT/PROJECT/PROGRAM UMBRA/ PENUMBRA SENSITIVE.
An umbra/penumbra-cleared executive, who was at home with her family and not at all pleased by being disturbed for something so routine, had to call her boss and get him to open his supersecret document vault and trot out the codeword, which in machinespeak was §§§§§§§§§§§§ stroked-ampersand 10 ¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶ followed by the unit or cipher numbers and designations 1191-Y/E-4-91284-Y, and the crypto-brackets which were 7-place KER-prefix nymics, KERATIN/KERZEAL. The program in which Half-five Alpha
Durrell-Hurnan worked was locked tightly under the classification crypto KERVALE.
Armed with all of this, the long-suffering executrix accessed the interlink again and saw the following exchange:
CRYPTO
UNIT NUMBER
KERATIN
1191-Y
KERBATE
399910-E
KERBIZA
33880-EE
KERCINE
861515-Y
KERCHOY
91-E-4485
KERDART
81831-7Y-3
KERELAN
UTILITY-1Y7
KERFBAT
63518-E-7Y
KERGONE
FEED 7Y-E
KERJURA
66120E-Y
KERKIMO
718518-Y
KERLECH
442-E
KERMESS
101072-Y
KERMOTH
5123E-Y-9
KERNELS
UTILITY-LOCK-Y-2E77
KERNITE
99-99Y-5-3
KEROGEN
E-8245-Y
KERPLOP
E-FEED-1Y8154-E
KERSHAM
Y8117234-E
KERSTOP
6570-E-26
KERTREL
7E-1Y-399-0
KERVONA
588E-2222-Y
KERWAKE
2003-E
KERYGMA
7-E-7-Y-LOCK
KERZEAL
E-4-91284-Y
PROGRAM LOCATE: KERVALE
CLASSIFIED ULTRA MOST SENSITIVE TOP SECRET
UMBRA/PENUMBRA EYES ONLY MAXGRADE
UMBRA/PENUMBRA EYES ONLY MAXGRADE SEC/CLR
PROGRAM LOCATE: KERVALE
Entry?
(A) CODE STAR / 661-33 EDICT COMMCENT/ CLEAR/
PRIORITY 1 PLUS/ ACCESS
Access: KERVALE
MAXGRADE SEC/CLR EMPLOYEE HISTORY
Employee Name:
½ 5 Alpha Durrell-Hurnan
A/K/A:
Durrell
ER:
Access: PAYROLL [C
OALITION]
CODE:
Star/661-33
AUTH:
Edict CommCent
RANK:
Access: UNIWORLD CONTROL
OS:
Enforcement
SI:
491-3 8-408-689-UNI-A-(OP)
ASSND:
Freelance (GAMER)
DESK:
SSB/Action
PROJECT:
Access: CONTROLLER [COALITION]
CRYPTO:
KERVALE
Status:
Audit
N/C:
A1-30
ASMT:
4410, 5111, 5190-K, 6827, 9901, 9992 10725, 11186, 14833, 14994, 17665, 18322
Uniworld Credits:
Access: BANKING [COALITION]
Emergency Access:
VASTAR SYSTEM
Dreamtheme Keys:
Mr. Blue/All Along the Watchtower
Response Type:
Audile
Termination:
Audit
Languages:
English, Franco, Vorse, Mata, Seblenese
The executrix keyed TRANSFER AND CLEAR and washed her hands of it. Far away, on Santa Satana Breton, a senior controller examined the display and said, “Easy way to fix that. Put him to work.” He tapped the photo on his desk.
“You sure?” his colleague asked.
“I run Durrell. These two are perfect for each other.” He looked into the cold eyes of a beautiful killer mutant.
Back on the home base of Uni Central, the umbra/penumbra-cleared executrix killed power on the interlink unit and left the console, moving down the hallway to her privacy cubicle. She plugged into a thoudiola and instantly relaxed as the opening chords of “Salotenwjopra,” the Hotsteel rocker, slammed across the synapses. The second she crossfaded “Since I Fell for You” she heard:
You have accessed a Thought-HOlovid Uniworld Dreamtheme Disseminator. Alter reality at will.
And she was blissfully happy once again in the land of the midnight suns, where umbra and penumbra had far different meanings.
Renée was multilingual but she tended to think in Matamuan, so she appreciated the triple-entendre of stovepipe motif on yet another level. They were in front of some of her favorite mug joints along the oil canal and she told the gondolier to stop so she could admire the facades. She knew he would assume she was building a mindset, but Renée was merely admiring the witty facades of Hi Hat, Topper, and Nite Mayor, their three famous ’pipe hats soaring into the Venetian sky.[*]
The sky itself was a beautiful thought-xparency, which she knew was one-sided; but the Ub Iwerks Dreamtheme—stylized cartoon stars and ringed planets—was the perfect Olden Times backdrop for the clubs and fake painting operations along the canal. An anthropomorphic moon grinned down at her from what she knew to be the floor of the Oysla grav-wheel chamber.
Renée had fled here to the outlaw world of “Venice,” deep inside the anti-grav popularly called Oilslick. She could blend in and take her pleasures.
The pipes of Hi Hat and the others were as different as up and down: Hi Hat’s name only appeared across the very top of the stovepipe so you could identify it from a skyrocker or metro, but the facade was unmarked, a gently blinking figural of dyracolor thoughtwindows. Inside the fake painting operation it was all endless cake-out-in-the-rain graphics, after the wonderfully funny work of the rocker Ah-Ha. Topper, on the second level, sat above the face of a four-handed counter-clock, and the Mickey hand shot its middle digit in welcome. She pointed toward Nite Mayor and the gondola began to move quietly through the plastic pads.
They stopped against the formex and flexcal steps and she got out gracefully, entering the letter “O” on her eight-inch stiletto fetish heels. The “O” of Mayor was a fanged monster’s mouth, the monster’s stovepipe rising three levels above the mug-joint, and she walked seductively across the red carpeted tongue as “Schemer for Souls of Glass” roared from the dim recesses.
The sharp edge of Renée’s mind pulsated with excitement as she felt herself moistening to the provocative notion of being surrounded by easy, vulnerable targets.
Inside Renée the voice of Linda Logs screeched “Shit Pile Shuttle” and she wet her perfect lips and stepped into the wall of sound.
THIS FACILITY IS FOR ZETA-CLASS ONLY. UNIWORLD PROVIDES ADVANCED THOUGHTGAMERS WITH Z-CLONE THOUDD THOUGHTFONES. BRAINALONES PROMOTE SOCIAL SAFETY.
Renée laughed in hot anticipation.
On an alien star that was home base for the intelligence and enforcement directorates of the vast coalition owned by Uni world Petro, a tall, harlequin-masked man in a moderate stovepipe waited to be cleared to Public Information, the huge monolith that housed his employer’s headquarters.
Fewer than two day cycles ago he’d been on V-41, in a drugged-out jungle lab near New Orchid City. Now he was cooling his heels in a Pro Dex THT outside the PI building on Santa Satana Breton. It really was a small world.
“Here you are, sir,” the young security man said politely, and Durrell thanked him and clipped his breathprint I.D. on.
The pathway to the entrance was marked with the thought-balloon arrows that were the ubiquitous trademarks of a Uni operation. Durrell walked slowly towards the monolith, a tall man in black, face half red-lined in the manner of a half-rainstreaker mutant, black eye triangles over a rough-hewn countenance. He was early as usual.
All the way in he’d played Kenton and his wives: June Christy, Ann Richards, interpolated with backgrounds of Intermission Riff. Dyna-flow. Blues in Burlesque. Hallowed sounds from ancient purple discs called 78s, found and restructured for thoudiola. Olden goodes.
Now the ever-present thoudd blasted C-Slash Gamma Utrillo at him, and Durrell hummed along with their big hit, “000-111,” in a better mood now and glad to be back on his feet again. His metal-shod cop shoes rang out on the hard surface of the formex as he entered the massive structure. A thoudd lecture to other-worlder children pulled at him as he walked past INDOCTRINATION, and he smiled and thought, why not?—then stepped in to take an alcove and kill some time.
The famous voice of the announcer Free Bird crackled resonantly as Durrell took a comfort recliner and plugged in to the lecture.
“—time had elapsed since the fourth war, and in the parallel Milky Way galaxy, it was discovered that time ran both forward and backward, and spatial relationships varied from system to system and from star to star.
“Following the breakthroughs in neural communication and thought transmission, mankind learned to alter certain physical realities with a type of instantly-induced self-hypnosis or dreamtheme. Technological research and development provided industrial, medical, and military applications for these new abilities.
“After the Big War the top thoughtgamers were hired by Uniworld Petro, a multi-planet coalition for restratification, and by employing braincop tradecraft, the law enforcement and intelligence agency set out to restore order.
“Today freelance gamers are engaged to seek out and neutralize criminals and sociopaths who endanger social safety and subvert law and order.
“The most hazardous braincop jobs are those missions to the various satellites of Mata Mua, which means ‘In Olden Tymes,’ where the worst outlaw mutants gravitate. El-Ones, homicidal brainiacs, Brainfreak tax bandits, severely retarded ’Muans known as walking breadbrains, and other societal rejects populate the dark coreinverts, making such environments ideal camouflage for galactic-class thoughtgamers on the run.” You can say that again, Free Bird, Durrell thought to himself.
“Post-War societies are called straights and anti-gravs. The latter are those stars with artificial gravities. These systems allow repopulated worlds to double in size, one class on the surface or within, and one ‘gravitating’—up or down—to the reversed polarity. Core-inverts allow racial purification and promote social safety. Typically these environs utilize a petrochemical barrier that both divides the classes and houses the gravity brainwheels. The giant
wheels maintain magnetic polarity, axis rotation, inworld ecospherics, and surveillance mechanisms.”
Durrell tried to dream THE END, a trick he’d attempted before, but it only made the Free Bird narration louder.
“Matamuans and others often appear today in olden tyme regalia. Extremely tall stovepipe hats and rainstreak-motif bow-style ties are considered quite fashionable. Female role-players wear ancient ball gowns, or go nude and half-nude. Male and female roles are mentally, not physically, adaptive. And all three sexes wear triangular one-ways and foot-fetish shoes.” The audience laughed as, on screen, a player in high-heeled stilts towered over her dancing partner.
“Languages include English, Franco, Vorse, Mata, and Seblenese. Many coreworlds are thought-xparent, dimensional and real from the outlaw side, but with the dreamthemes transvisible to the obverse. This feature allows such stars to be converted into tourist attractions, and flourishing resorts enable straightworlders to view mutated or outlaw societies in safety and comfort.
“An example of these is the fugitive star Oysla, where such a colony is gravwheeled. Mutants known as ‘rainstreakers,’ because of their distinctive facial radiation burns, live in a classical Italian-style city of old world architecture and contemporary metroblock, the town built on a spherical plan of interlocking oil canals, and structured inside Oysla’s dreamtheme apparatus. The local nickname for the star is ‘Oilslick.’
“Rainstreakers work and play in a culture of thoughtgaming, relaxing in mug joint holotechs and turvyworlds constructed to dreamtheme great paintings or famous classical dioramas.
“When the Thought-HOlovid Uni world Dreamtheme Disseminators, THOUDDs—called ‘thoudiolas’ popularly—were invented, music was used to key the neural transmission states. Uniworld’s Museum of Popular Culture supplied all the two-step masters. Every gamer has his own dreamtheme key, unique to him in all the worlds—a combination of registered melodies recorded between the early 1900s and the Trimillenery. Mine are Time Slides Down’ by Calico Jack, and Lenny Skinny’s four-cycle version of Tree Bird!’” The audience applauded as the screen displayed the announcer’s baroque and audioscopic dreamtheme.