“Uniworld controls every step of thought-holovid gaming from first generation production to management seminars, offering safe applications of the latest dreamtech to major manufacturers such as Visa-Rama, Universal Control Systems, Imaginex, DreamCorp, and others. The Diorama Mark IV, Uni-9000 Dreamscanners, DreamCorp Interworld’s Xparenlator, and NeuroPathic Viewscape machines are just a few examples.”
Durrell unplugged and got out of the recliner as Free Bird’s dreamtheme dissolved from the screen, and he heard the special track telling other audiles like himself that
THOUGHT-HOLOVID UNI-9000s ARE COMPATIBLE WITH VORSE, MATA, OR SEBLENESE BRAINSHIELD APPARATUS AND CAN BE EXPANDED TO STORE UP TO A VEZILLION ANTI-GRAVS.
Durrell had more time to think on the long walk to the Coalition Controller’s office, a small room in an out-of-the-way alcove marked only with an unobtrusively-rendered black infinity sign. He could have ridden the moving walkways, but he preferred to walk and peer into the huge, open rooms. It was immense, the Public Information monolith.
He stopped in front of a room that appeared to have no walls—a room anyone would be afraid to step into—and Carmel Pucker hammered from the thoudiola inside. Durrell examined it for a moment until he assimilated the data: the room’s walls were like matte paintings, but you could see through them infinitely and he heard, YOU HAVE ACCESSED A THOUGHT-XPARENCY. UNIWORLD DREAMTHEMES ARE MAINTAINED FOR YOUR PLEASURE. PLEASE REPORT ANY UNUSUAL DISCREPANCIES. He glanced at the sign on the doorway. “Journey to the Heart of the Brain.” He hurried down the hall, thinking that was the last place he wanted to go.
He saw again the small black infinity sign that always brought a slight pain to his chest, then he walked through the outer alcove.
YOU HAVE ENTERED A UNIWORLD PETRO UNAUTHORIZED AREA. DO NOT MOVE. REMAIN IN YOUR PRESENT POSITION AND YOU WILL BE REPROGRAMMED. FOR YOUR SAFETY DO NOT MOVE. He flashed I.D. and kept moving past the thoudiola.
Inside the Controller’s office it was blazing high noon on the Western Matamuan desert.
“Nice,” Durrell gestured admiringly.
“You like that?”
“I like.”
“Thanks. Sit.”
“Sure.” He took a seat and adjusted the position for his height. “You look fit,” the Controller said.
“Feeling fine.” Durrell knew the man across from him had scanned his field meticulously. There were few secrets left unprobed. “So far as I know.”
“Mindset-wise, I mean.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m just asking if you want to do a piece of work.”
“You mean will I be enthused about it?” Durrell laughed as the man in the bow tie and one-ways glowered at him. “Listen, what I want and what I have to have are two different things.”
“At least two,” the Controller said wryly; “maybe three.”
“Right. Sure, boss.” They were speaking conversationally, which Durrell found tedious in the extreme; but this man was not one to forego the polite social amenities. Durrell realized he’d scanned a grav-sign as he looked into the reflection of the man’s mirrored eye triangles. He flashed on it and his boss caught the take.
“You’re seeing those signs because of the target. Might as well get you started thinking top-side up right away.” He reached for reprogramming and the western desert dimensional dissolved into a full scale cutaway of an anti-grav. “This is Oysla; Oilslick, remember?”
“From the first time.” Durrell didn’t mention his refresher course taken on the way down the long hall. The realistic cutaway was POV-specific, moving eastward through the oil pole to the gravity brain-wheels. It stopped at the Sector Zeta delineation and began to refocus on the oil canal ring and its Venice Rainstreak Colony coreworld.
“I thought you might. You pulled one of the 5100 numbers in there—right? Well, this ain’t no tame duck, kid.” A beautiful, flawless face supered over the legend VENUS. “This is a Matamuan calling itself Renée MeXXico. Wanted for Lobotocide One. Alive and well inside the rainstreak colony.”
“Nice mouth,” Durrell grunted.
“That’s an ARIZONA CLASS 12, sonny boy! It’s hiding in there with a bunch of the Zeta clones and if you go in after her, you better keep your shit screwed down tight or that mean Matamuan will have you braindead and floating under the plastic lily pads in the fucking oil canal!”
“Nice. Pasadena, eh? I’ll give this one a wave.”
“Up to you, Durrell. There’s a trey on it.”
“Please?”
“30,000 urt-keys, ace—30,000 Uniworld Tax Credits. Lordy, Durrell! Let’s see . . . that’s roughly 90,000 in tax-free UP scrip! You say you’ll pass, huh?”
“Did I say that?”
“I guess not,” and they both laughed. “So. You want this whore?”
“She know a braincop is coming?”
“Count on it.”
Durrell looked at the screen full of history below the mug shot. Nationality: Matamuan. SI: R140 something. A 12-rated Arizona Class killer android! Man, he must love money even more than he thought. “Infiltration?”
“Thought-resistant Corvallis Galileo. Nighttime insertion. You could go right through the East Pole oil lock like you did before.”
“Why me? Not that I’m looking a trey in the mouth, but—”
“You’re part rainstreaker. You were there and you came out alive, didn’t you?”
“Barely.”
“Okay.” The Controller shrugged, leveled. “You’re also the craziest brainman we’ve got. If that won’t make you 101% thoughtproof against a galactic-class freak like little Renée, I don’t know what the hell will.”
Durrell said no more.
At 02503050 they stood on the blastpad, the Controller’s briefing at its end.
“Remember, you want to start retraining your senses for Venice.” He didn’t mean it in the literal sense. He was an audile like Durrell. “When you go into reversal-inversion your bloodflow will regulate the autonomies, but orbitlag becomes a factor. Now, you only have twenty hours in the day cycle, and at least five of them go dark as you rotate. Oysla itself is on a twelve-day cycle week, Aurelius system—and remember, when you’re in Venice, time moves counter-clockwise.”
“What are the surveillance parameters?”
“The usual shit, turrets and gondolas.” Durrell headed toward the metro but the Controller added, “Renée likes to play lame duck, then gangslam you braindead before you can think a shield, so keep a strong thought jacket up.”
“Yeah. So long.”
“If you drop your field you’ve got serious pain.”
“Just deposit the trey,” Durrell called back over his shoulder.
The metroliner was an old type, one of the dependable Lindbergh shooters, the U.S.S. George Melies.
But the in-flight braincop loopner was some silly garbage about dreamtheme brainmanuals. Durrell wiped it in disgust and played Dyna Borzoi all the way to Osyla.
The Melies landed on a tri-D blastpad with a hologram of the weeping eye moon logo. “Q Phone Suicide Renaissance” by Botz blasted from the thoudiola and he plugged in, heard: PREPARE TO BRAINTRAIN INWORLD. CORE-INVERTS PROTECT ECOSPHERICS AND PROMOTE SOCIAL SAFETY.
Durrell nodded, passed through a security thought-field, and instantly felt the old memories of Oilslick wash over him. It was one of the only counterpops within metro shot that still displayed all the old “down is up” stuff. Uniworld Petro, UP on the interstar xchange, owned the satellite which had gone fugitive right at the end of the war. But afterward they kept it for tourist rights and concessions, allowing the renegade in-core to self-regulate. At one time the corporate slogan had been “On Oysla down is up—and if UP ever goes down, down goes under!”
Oilslick’s surface was a beehive of industry. Here the huge cogs that powered the master gravity wheels intermeshed in perpetual motion. Uni’s C.O.N.T.R.O.L. offices were here.
The Coalition of Nationalities and Technocracies for Repopulation of th
e Outer Locales, originally responsible for restructuring the satellites of Mata Mua with cogwheel races, was headquartered on the surface, and used the rainstreak colony as a kind of lab and working model.
Venice specialized in exploded heads, walking breadbrains, brain-dead, longneckers, and Flemish runners. Rainstreaked outlaws could blend in to this multi-faceted mutant community and leave no trace.
Rainstreakers hated other-worlders and would have loathed them all the more had they realized they were a tourist zoo regularly surveilled from the surface of Oilslick itself. “Recherche” was one of the olden tyme words you heard a lot now, here. Outlaw viewing was chic again.
Durrell was bemused by the stream of skyrockers and streetrockers zooming hither and yon, and the intrepid holo-happy tourists everywhere one turned, tripping out to endless dreamthemes of “Un Viage a la Luna” and “Timeslide.” The constant din of the cogwheels and the oiling mechanisms was an incessant background hum against the back beat of Antique Hard Rocque, also. Everywhere on Oysla the petrochemical stench was overpowering. Durrell’s half-nose wrinkled in disgust; he thanked the stars he was an audile.
As soon as he’d obtained clearances he climbed into the Corvallis Galileo, a nifty sub-mariner model, and spent the rest of the day cycle brain-flying and practicing converting the craft to air bathtub.
At precisely 2000:00:00:00 Hawkins Mean he was standing in the industrial oil lock chamber, the large egress area between Tourist Surveillance and Population, looking down through the “sky” xparency. When the timer hit, Durrell climbed into the sleek CG and plugged in.
POLARITY REVERSAL IS IN EFFECT. TIME MOVES COUNTER-CLOCKWISE. ADJUST YOUR MINDSET TO THE 20-HOUR DAY CYCLE AND REVERSAL-INVERSION. PROTECT YOURSELF AT ALL TIMES.
Durrell took her straight in, figuring the egress lock would be under the canals like before; but it was an old “breakfront” type, and when the CG hit something solid he knew he was in a spot of trouble.
By the time the next sun cycle broke, Durrell found himself in somebody’s scum tree and a good five to ten el-exes from the oil canal. He waited a few hours, then came up properly, his scope between two plastic lily pads.
Now to find Renée. Don’t walk away, Renée, he hummed as he began his search.
For nearly a week Durrell worked to penetrate the rainstreaker night scene. He managed to befriend maybe a tenth of the Zeta bandit crowd; Ozz, Zebra, Azure, Insane Zane, Zulu. But nobody had seen anyone who looked even remotely like Renée MeXXico. And you didn’t blunder around showing somebody’s picture in renegade mug joints or mutant mumbo-jumbos unless you were a braincop or somebody very stupid, or both. Durrell knew word would get around.
He paid special attention to the mug joints playing PXL 5Rem stuff. “Mutilated Clown” was Renée’s dream-trigger. The words laid an icy finger on him every time he heard—
ROLLER COAST KILLER DWARF,
CARNY THRILLER MESOMORPH,
GHOULIE-RAMA, ULTRA-SLIME,
HEAVY DUTY COUNTERTIME.
DON’T BE SHY NOW STEP RIGHT DOWN,
AND SEE THE MUTILATED CLOWN.
One night cycle he heard about “this girl who’s trying to pass.” A Z-clone sneered, “The bitch is Matamuan, I’d bet my six on it.” And that night Durrell dreamed of a dark gondola archway, number 1872, and an air tub capsized by a mighty oilcruiser, the U.S.S. 1872; and he was in the tub, going down, his lungs bursting; and he screamed “help!” but the thought transposed itself so that the letters became numerals: 1-8-7-2; and then he woke up drenched in the heat of a waking dreamtheme, his mind wrenching itself free of the impending slam.
He found her in a fake-painting operation called 1872—no surprise-after Claude Monet’s stolen Impression: Sunrise, the most famous holo on Oilslick. It was a murky, single-sun operation, painted in shades of tan, pinkish gray, dark blue-green, and sleitch. Female gondoliers and a nude brainwhore band shook the immense room with noise while Zep’s Stairway blasted.
They did a slow touch and took a break, a thoudd booming an invitation to “See El Mirador & Punkster Funkster starting next week at Snotto’s, Brighton Canal at 28th!” And Acillatem’s Heavy Water Band smashed out of the thoudiola, rocking “Half Red,” the half-rainstreaker anthem.
Durrell sauntered across the floor, scanning, singing along with the band. A nude gondolier asked him if he wanted to order but he ignored it, focusing his concentration into the chilly depths of a galactic class thoughtfreak:
Renée MeXXico, wearing cosmetic streaks across half her beautiful kisser, a nipple-clinging silver sweater—and nothing but Last-tan from the plexus down.
Durrell was forming the first thought when her automatic probe hit. He’d forgotten what it was like to get broadbrained like that. It hit like an involuntary dreamtheme, and she almost slipped inside before he could block. It was clever. The sort of brain gangslam that swallows you like a thousand vezillion simultaneous migraines and he thought himself going—
“Faut-il croire a une evolution of mankind presentaient des temps?”
“Mais, suivant desMalakei Elyon Mitteilugen fuer juedischevarno sakra d’aujourd’hui—(funny you don’t LOOK Jewish!)—quifaveur chez nous des le oder das schaedliche welches ces lointaines cette diffusion dessuffisent a expliquer?”Much as you might ask “Pardon me, but would you happen to—?” but so clever and quick you think you’re listening to a thought; reacting; assimilating; preparing normal response; but you’re only dreamtheming gibberish camouflage over a probe.
(l/50th of a microtick, the thing hits; 2/50th, she tries to turn him into a chess piece she can PLAY; 3/50th nearly brainsplits Durrell’s halves; and in the DOWN quarter of 3/50th she braingames him with a fucking joke of a half-masked Zorro icon and a snake’s head.
(At the instant of 4/50th, going for an inverted thought balloon, she tries to think his arms flexcal, and he reaches toward her and smashes it with his own thought, ballooning her back into the snake twist as hard and fast as he can. Everything he has is in it—flat out, foot to the floorboard, plunging into the darkness at Mach 100, afraid of nothing—try or die!)
Renée was the fastest galactic-class Matamuan still surviving, certainly the most formidable Arizona Class 12 he’d ever come down against. His counter made her so ferocious she almost penetrated his thoughtshield.
For the full mini-micro of 5/50th Durrell felt himself ballooning as she tried her damndest to gangslam him into a pig. It was all he could do to force-feed her a column of scan digits from the ’droid’s own central compu-rig. He was too old for this work; the trey waiting for him back on Breton suddenly looked like urtkeys he’d never spend.
And she was fighting with everything she had! She made him see heads on spikes, disembodied organs, balloon brains baking in bloodbroth. She crucified his image with the window, and hung his shadow upside down in his head; attacked him with a windmill razorman and tried to make his hands and feet decoagulate the way a mutant kid will when it’s backed into a corner.
“Sorry, Renée,” he thought to her—“I’m a headripper!”
And the full power of his mind rainstreaked her for real right before he carried her twitching body past the Z-clones.
She might have weighed 85 pounds tops.
Durrell buried the remains under the brown mountains of chocolate Sierra Merde, leaving the killer mutant braindead, streaked, and cooling in a cheap thoughtcoffin with the black infinity sign. By the time he’d worked his way back to the little Corvallis Galileo he’d dreamthemed away the trey maybe eight times and he was drag-ass, dead dog tired.
The gangslam hit Durrell when he was going through the oil lock—hit him so hard he was braindead before the CG popped through the surface. Oddly, he’d never dreamthemed himself as a liability and the moment he felt it coming, and he understood, it just laid him right out . . .
There was only one way to slam a thoughtgamer the likes of 1/2 5 Alpha Durell-Hurnan. You let him wear himself down and hit him when he completely dropped his thoughtja
cket. When he knew he was out of danger.
Durrell just had time to see himself reversing his mindset to Aurelius System, moving away from the little Corvallis Galileo and heading for the brown mounds of Sierra Merde, when he went out altogether. The Coalition stopped him at the thoughtcoffin, naturally. They buried him in the same box with Renée MeXXico, both of them braindead, dreamless, and six feet over.
One of his most painful deaths.
With a sigh of relief he typed, THIS DREAMTHEME IS TERMINATED, so thankful that, at last, he had pulled out of another one. He’d been typing so furiously he had not even heard the doctor come out of the office behind him.
“You all right?” he heard the doctor say. He recalled the name “Kervale” from the dream. His forthcoming novel, Lured, an easy to decode transposition of the name Durel(l). His preoccupation with death, an obvious dream trigger.
“Mmm,” he said, noticing his fingers on a typewriter keyboard. The keys felt oddly-placed; unfamiliar. On the paper inserted into the machine someone had typed in caps:
UNTITLED STILL LIFE WITH INFINITY PERSPECTIVE.
The thing tugged at him again, mercilessly. His mind fought to regain control but his hands hovered over the keyboard and his fingers began pecking out the words.
NIGHT MAYOR. RAINSTREAKER. Without warning, he was slipping back down into the dark folds of the same plot.
“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.
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