by Ben Elton
Then the holograms suddenly faded and strange visions began to appear. There was a sudden wash of colour, mainly deep red but with some purple in it, which seemed to fill the whole of Max’s helmet. Max felt as if it almost filled his head. Half-formed images appeared and started to swirl about inside the colour. Max could vaguely make out a woman’s face and a little boy running, then a house. There were many much less clearly defined shapes. Max thought they might have been people, or perhaps animals … he could not make out for sure because all the time flashes of the harsh red and purple kept intruding on the vision. Max felt a great compulsion to understand the shapes, almost, he thought, to remember them but he could not … the red kept getting in the way. A red which, although it filled Max’s whole helmet, still managed to give the impression of being somehow jagged.
‘Cool,’ Max murmured to himself, appreciative of the way the game makers had programmed such an intense and innovative graphics package with which to end the first part of the game.
The red wash began to throb. Max wondered if it was throbbing to the beat of his pulse, it rather felt that way. It was a sort of undulation, a very intense one, also very uncomfortable but none the less extremely compelling. The jagged quality of the colour intensified as the woman and the other figures began to fade away. Max was sorry to see the shapes go. Although he had not understood them, they had felt very warm, nostalgic even. Max felt sad, he wanted to see them again. He knew that he could do this by simply re-starting the programme. And yet, somehow he felt that he couldn’t, that the shapes or memories had gone for ever, far beyond recall. As they faded away completely, Max felt an irrational sense of loss. Something was coming to an end. He knew, of course, that it was just the graphic programme, but it felt like something much greater than that. Then, suddenly and with shocking violence, the face of Plastic Tolstoy burst into the helmet, the image one of blinding clarity. That is not to say that the face which filled Max’s helmet and mind was a perfect likeness of Tolstoy, it just was Plastic Tolstoy. For a moment, the helmet almost seemed to be Plastic Tolstoy. But only for a moment the face disappeared as quickly as it had come, but while it had remained there had been a palpable sense of outrage inside the helmet. The Tolstoy face wasn’t outraged itself, it was more that it was surrounded by outrage and suffused by it. Tolstoy and outrage seemed to be part of the same thought. Max felt the outrage inside himself, deeply and personally, also a sudden surge of furious anger. Then immediately after that, so quickly, in fact, as to be almost at the same time, the sadness returned, a kind of desperate, hopeless sadness that brought tears to Max’s eyes, which he hoped would not short-circuit the helmet.
The red throbbing returned, but now it was faded and slow. It went from crimson to pink and then, on a moment, it was gone altogether, although as it went Max felt again the face of the woman that he had seen when the display began. After that he knew that it was over.
‘Intense, man. That was weird,’ said Max out loud.
He sat back in his chair and waited for the next combat situation which was scheduled to be machine-guns in a cityscape, although he doubted that anything could beat the display which he had just seen. Nothing more appeared, however, and the helmet informed Max that his opponent had wimped out and was now disconnected, hence Max was the champion.
With a whoop and a holler Max dragged off his helmet and let his eyes readjust to the mundane reality of the room. Nathan was not in his chair. Max presumed he must be in the lavatory or something. He called out but received no answer. Then he realised that he could smell gunsmoke. He had smelt it inside the helmet and thought it was part of the sensual graphics package. But it was still there.
Then he saw Nathan’s foot, it was poking out from behind the chair. He jumped up and ran across the room. There behind the easy chair lay Nathan, face down in a pool of blood. Almost exactly as the hologram Nathan had been.
‘Shit! I killed him,’ Max whispered, desperately trying to unfuddle his brain. Max could see an exit wound at Nathan’s shoulder and an entry wound in the back of his neck. Nathan had clearly been knocked over the chair by a bullet in the chest and had been trying to crawl away when the second bullet in the neck had killed him.
Actual reality.
Max sat for a while thinking. Sobering up and thinking. He had not killed Nathan, Virtual Reality was not actual reality. Nathan had been alive when he had put the VR helmet on and he was dead now. Max had not moved from his chair in that whole time. At first he was tortured with vague fears that somehow, in the heat of the game, he had in some way managed to get hold of a real gun and had instinctively fired it. But there was no gun, and besides, Max had certainly not pursued Nathan across the room and shot him in the neck.
Max knew that there was only one explanation. Nathan had been murdered whilst playing the VR game. The murderer, or murderers, had entered the house whilst Max and Nathan were preoccupied inside their helmets, and Nathan had been killed without ever removing his. He had not seen the murderers. He had died not knowing who had killed him, or why.
Max could remember the way the hologram had writhed and shuddered. That must have been the computer attempting to transmit an image of the thoughts Nathan was having whilst being shot and propelled backwards over the couch. Then the holographic figure of Nathan had jerked and slumped, which was clearly the computer’s mind picture of Nathan being shot a second time whilst blindly and desperately crawling away. It was then that Max had made his hologram fire imaginary shots into Nathan’s hologram to finish the game.
After that had come the visions. Those were the thoughts that Nathan’s helmet had been transmitting, and which Max’s helmet had attempted to visualise, after Nathan had been shot in the neck. At that point, the killers, whoever they were, must have known that Nathan was breathing his last.
Max had actually watched a computer graphic representation of Nathan’s mind as he had died.
Chapter Eighteen
Reading a dead man’s mind
New recruit.
Rosalie sat looking at Judy. They were in the cellar of a Mother Earth safe house on the outskirts of Dublin.
‘So how do I know you’re not an FBI plant?’ she inquired.
‘Do I look like an FBI agent?’ replied Judy, who was quite capable of using his nerdyness to his advantage, if it suited him. One of the few genuine perks of being a member of an oppressed minority is that you can choose when and when not to play the card. One minute, objecting to being defined by one’s religion, race or whichever orifice you choose to take it up. Then the next minute, claiming special debating rights at dinner parties on the very same grounds. Sometimes this trick can actually be pulled off in the space of a single sentence.
‘As a Bhuddist cat-shagger, I deeply resent the way you seem to constantly categorise people by their religion or sexuality.’
Hence Judy, who had spent his life challenging the idea that weedy looking people are crap, was now attempting to turn this prejudice to his advantage. Unfortunately for Judy, Rosalie did not suffer from quite such knee-jerk prejudices as most of his colleagues.
‘You got me away from the airport,’ she remarked. ‘Awfully impressive, I thought. Maybe you really do turn into Superman when you get in a phone-box.’
‘Look, I’ve told you, I’m a clerk with the Bureau, I have been for fifteen years. I do the green stuff … Other clerks cover commies and God-botherers, I do green. I’m the guy who writes your diary. I know about everything Mother Earth ever did, and why you do it. Like, how about this? You remember the guy you knew as Shackleton? You cut a transmitter out of his arm in the middle of Death Valley before you hit DigiMac? I briefed him. All the environmental stuff he knew? I told him.’
Rosalie sat silent. She was in two minds about this fellow. Not so her colleague Saunders, who was pacing about behind Judy. He wanted none of this inconvenient little American.
‘Look, I don’t know why we’re even talking to this bloke, right?’
Saund
ers was a tough Liverpudlian who wore a bag over his head after having lost his face through radiation exposure. Saunders claimed that the exposure had been so bad that he could not have his face replaced, due to the need for constant treatment. There was, however, some suspicion amongst other Mother Earth activists who knew Saunders well, that he had rather got to like carrying such gruesome battle-scars.
‘He might be straight, he might be a plant, right?’ the scouser stated. ‘Either way we’ll never be sure, so let’s dump him now.’
‘If you dump me I’ll get picked up in hours and I’ll do fifteen years minimum for saving your team boss here from twenty-five to thirty in a US jail,’ Judy said angrily. ‘Listen, I didn’t plan this, I just did it. They sent me over here with the actual agent to ensure Rosalie Connolly’s identification. Like I say, I’m the expert on you guys. Well, I’ve been thinking about changing sides for years . . . For Christ’s sake, I know more about how close we are to Eco-Armageddon than even you people do.’
Judy paused to consider the reaction he was provoking. Saunders was openly hostile, Judy could not tell about Rosalie. One thing was certain, though. Like Max before him, Judy would be very glad when those fierce green eyes were drilling holes in somebody else.
He persevered.
‘You can’t look at what’s happening to the planet every day like I have to without being affected. Eventually, you get to thinking that maybe you’re on the wrong side … Ever since I heard they were going to pull Ms Connolly here in for the DigiMac hit, I’d been kind of feeling bad about it, and when they put me on the assignment… Well, I didn’t know what I’d do, but in the end what I did was drug the agent stupid in his hotel and pick you up myself. And that’s it, I’m a criminal now. I can’t go back and I don’t want to. I want to join you, I’m switching sides and I reckon I’ve earned a place in your team.
‘Earned a place!’ Saunders shouted, his big fists clenched in anger. ‘Earned a place! Jesus Christ, you don’t earn a place with us typing letters for the FBI. I’ll show you how you earn a place with us, mate!’ And with that, Saunders whipped the bag off his head to reveal his complete absence of face. The man’s eyes bulged out of the livid pink flesh, his teeth stood forward, stark within the lipless hole that had been a mouth.
Judy would have liked to have greeted this sudden revelation with a cool and steady stare. He nearly pulled it off. Apart from being instantly and hugely sick, he showed almost no emotion whatever. It wasn’t that Judy was particularly squeamish, he had seen many shocking things in his time as an agent, it was just the shock. Judy had presumed that Saunders was wearing a mask for security reasons and to be suddenly presented with what was to all intents and purposes a living skull was something of a surprise.
‘Ha! Wants to fight with us!’ Saunders sneered. ‘The man’s been sick on his shirt.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Saunders!’ said Rosalie. ‘You really are the giddy limit sometimes. Now put your bag back over your head and shut up, or I’ll have you counting dead seabirds in the Shetland Isles.’
Saunders, although a decent enough chap at heart, was a colossal embarrassment to Rosalie and indeed her whole unit. He seemed to see the entire environmental destruction of the Earth as nothing more than global justification for him to stamp about the place, proving how tough he was. It was very difficult to sack a person, though, who had given their face for the cause. Besides which, Saunders was a dedicated and brave fighter, and that had to be respected. Still, Judy was not going to be over-concerned when he got himself shot, as he inevitably would sooner or later, being such a complete lunatic. y
‘Look,’ said Judy, after he had cleaned up the sick a bit. ‘I know one hell of a lot about your organisation. I also know plenty about the FBI and its attitude to you. I think I can be of use. Besides which, as I say, I rescued you, Ms Connolly.’
Rosalie studied Judy for a long time. Judy thought to himself that just because she could go for ages without blinking, it did not intimidate him, but this was not true.
Finally she said, ‘If you’re lying to me, I shall find out and I shall definitely kill you.’
‘And I’ll kill you as well,’ said Saunders, which completely ruined the effect.
Telephone voice.
The phone rang, jerking Max out of his reverie. He had been sitting deep in thought for a long time. All the bourbon was gone, but Max could not remember finishing it.
Nathan’s Ansafone clicked into action. Max listened briefly to the voice of the dead writer. Ansafones had been around since before anybody still alive had been born, and yet people still felt the need to offer the age-old instruction ‘nobody’s in, leave a message’, etc. Max had never realised quite how English Nathan sounded, except, of course, that this was just his telephone manner. The English always adopted a telephone manner, Max thought. As it happened, so did Max, except that instead of effecting a more ‘proper’ voice, like Nathan, he instinctively tried to appear laid back. His own Ansafone message was a low growly drawl, sounding as if nothing really mattered and life was something of a drag anyway.
‘Ugh… Hi, yeah. . . OK, it’s the machine, right? But you knew that. Listen, uhm … leave a message, don’t leave a message … live, die, it’s all the same dream, right?… Bye’ and you can’t get much more telephone-mannered than that.
It was a woman on the phone. Her voice followed Nathan’s recording. It was another English voice, but lighter and more relaxed than Nathan’s rather stilted message.
‘Nat,’ the voice said. ‘Nat, it’s me.’
And Max knew that he was listening to Nathan’s gorgeous and unobtainable Flossie.
‘Look… I don’t know, I think we should talk. I got all your letters, but I haven’t rung before because I’ve been thinking a lot… You know, about us… something happened today, it was just so weird, anyway I want to… Oh hell, look I’m not going to discuss it with your bloody machine … but phone me… soon… I really do think we should talk. Bye.’ There was a pause and then, softly … ‘I love you, Nat. Glad you still love me.’
Well, irony did not get much more painful than that. If the poor dead bastard behind the chair could have just stayed alive another hour he would have got his girl back. On the other hand, Max reflected, three months from now he’d probably have been just as annoyed about the knickers on the bathroom floor as he’d ever been.
Chasing girls.
Max decided to leave. He was very sorry for Nathan, but there was nothing he could do for him now. It was best to get out. With the exception of the murderers, who were unlikely to come forward, Max was the only person who knew that anyone besides Nathan had been at the house that evening. Max would just walk away. He had no desire to get caught up in the police investigation. Besides which, he was going back to Ireland. He had something to tell Rosalie.
Max had decided that Plastic Tolstoy had ordered Nathan’s murder. His reasoning was clear. Nothing had been stolen, and Max, who had been in the room when the attack happened, had been spared. Whoever it was, wanted to kill Nathan Hoddy and Nathan Hoddy alone. No complications, like dead movie stars, just an unknown, unattached British writer, dead, a long way from home. They knew what they wanted to do, they had done it and left. But who had sent them? It had to be Tolstoy. Nathan had only moved into the house the previous day, no one even knew he was there. All he had done since returning to Hollywood was pitch his idea to the great man.
His idea! That had to be the key. Nathan must have stumbled upon the truth! It was the only explanation for his swift, clinical despatch. Max pondered the story that Nathan had forced upon him only a few hours earlier. He had not really listened very hard, because writers telling you their ideas is generally a pretty dull experience. He remembered the basic point, though… it was such a wild idea he could scarcely forget it. The idea that the Claustrosphere Corporation was funding green terrorism. This was the thesis which Nathan had pitched to Plastic Tolstoy and which Tolstoy clearly did not wish to see devel
oped. This was the thesis which, Max believed, had killed Nathan.
Max knew that he was not the first person to draw this conclusion either. In his final mortal moment, Nathan had instinctively guessed at the identity of the man who had ordered his death. It was Plastic Tolstoy’s image which had come in fury into Nathan’s mind and which had from there found its way into Max’s helmet. Outrage at Tolstoy had been Nathan’s last thought on Earth, excepting for perhaps a fleeting sadness, when Flossie had re-entered his mind at the point of extinction.
There was only one conclusion to be drawn from this. Nathan’s idea was more than fantasy. Max could not imagine why, but the Claustrosphere Corporation was funding Mother Earth. Rosalie was in Tolstoy’s pay.
Max wished he had not drunk so much. His head was spinning with the size of his suspicions. It was madness. Even Max, who had little time for current affairs, knew that if Mother Earth could close down every Claustrosphere in the world then they would do it in an instant. They would blow them all to bits, and kill the people who made and sold them. For Claustrosphere to fund Mother Earth was like the chickens feeding the fox.
Max was suddenly filled with a sense of purpose, which was a strange sensation for him. A point seemed to have arisen in what was becoming an increasingly pointless life. The old drunk, silly, dilettante Max was being replaced by a new Max, a Max who wanted to know what Tolstoy and Claustrosphere were up to and why Nathan had had to die. A Max who, more than ever wanted to talk to Rosalie. He had been looking for a reason to see her again, now he had one. How would she react to his suspicions? Could she possibly know already? Of course not, she hated Claustrospheres more than anything, all Mother Earth people did.