Dreaming in Smoke

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Dreaming in Smoke Page 7

by Tricia Sullivan


  “That’s all the data Ganesh has recorded about Earth. I use it as source material whenever I’m running a pleasure trip, or dealing with the Earthborn. All their sensory references are there.”

  “Hmm. How . . . unconventional.”

  “I need to go over the station, make sure everything’s—”

  “There’s no time for that. Go straight into your launch for Alien Life.”

  “But I can’t tell if my face has been damaged.”

  “I’m here to watch out for you. Just go on. Quickly.”

  If it had been anybody but Tehar, Kalypso would have been annoyed by now. She wanted to tell him he was a lousy shotgun, for she herself would never barge verbing into somebody else’s Dream making unreasonable demands. Shotguns were meant to be unobtrusive. However, she wanted to impress Tehar, so she didn’t protest.

  In the pockets of the robe were a rabbit’s foot, tweezers, an eternally half-eaten carrot, and an old-fashioned latchkey. She fished out this last item, whistled a few bars of “Moonlight in Vermont,” and waited for the giant primate footprint to form in the caldera floor right at her feet. She stepped down into it, and a flight of narrow stairs appeared, imported from an archaeological dig at Mohenjo Daro. Or so Ganesh had claimed when it had helped her design the passkey. At the bottom of the stairs was a red door.

  “Where did you unfold all this stuff from?” Tehar asked. “And what dialect are you using for your code? It’s highly irregular.”

  In the Dream, Kalypso shrugged, knowing he could read her body as easily as any verb she might send. Yet he couldn’t actually perceive her sensory references, he could only follow the code — and it wasn’t her problem if the code didn’t fit in with the structural conventions he believed in. She might admit to being a fuckup in every other respect, but Kalypso apologized to no one about the way she moved through Ganesh. That was between her and the AI.

  She put the key in the lock, said, “Abdominal snowman,” and pushed the door open with a little smirk for the thought of Tehar trying to figure out the code from his end.

  A seaside town, complete with all the Earth references she’d been able to coax out of Ganesh. The feeling of sand beneath her bare feet; saltfish wind; a pervasive translucent grayness like a veil over everything.

  “Where are we now?”

  “We’re here. Chez Kalypso. This is where I start all my Alien Life runs.”

  “Take me right up to the edge of the simulation.”

  So she walked past the deserted boardwalk, the blowing trash and the aggressive gulls that Ganesh always used to harass her with; now they circled endlessly. She explained everything to Tehar as she went, trying to help him understand; but she knew she was losing him. Where she saw waves and sand, he saw code; and he kept bitching that the code was full of slang.

  “This is the transfer medium. These are the sensory relays. Those are Ganesh eyes—”

  Dead crabs. They weren’t supposed to be dead: usually they scurried underfoot. Now they were inanimate, rotting.

  “What’s this?”

  He was indicating the lifeguard chair. “That’s where I hang out during Dreams.”

  “There are audio connections running all through it. What do you need so much sound for while you’re shotgunning?”

  “I only did that because Marcsson was so boring,” she said defensively.

  She touched the worn wood, remembering how Marcsson’s math had pulled her out of this world and into the sea of his Dream. The tide was low, the waves subdued. She went and put a toe in.

  “What are you doing right now?”

  “This is the fringe of the Alien Life simulation. Where Marcsson was before he berked.”

  “This is Alien Life? Shit’s complicated.”

  “That’s what they pay me the big bucks for.” The irony appeared to be lost on him. Witch doctors took their status for granted; Tehar often forgot she occupied the equivalent social stratum to, say, a janitor.

  “Do you understand any of this?” He sounded so condescending that she wanted to say, yeah, I do; I totally grok it. But ever since they’d done Picasso’s Blue together as kids, Tehar could always tell when she was lying.

  “No. Not really.”

  “Where are your emergency systems? Show me what you did to try to rescue him.”

  There was a shed just beyond the reach of the water. Near the door, a feebly moving crab caught her eye.

  “What’s that?” Tehar verbed.

  “I told you: a Ganesh terminus.”

  “What node?”

  “I dunno. Let me see.” She bent and picked up the crab. Its underside felt like velvet. She rubbed it with her finger. “It won’t talk to me.”

  “Atmospherics,” Tehar verbed. “That’s where I’m reading it.”

  “Guess so, then.”

  “You guess? Don’t you keep track of your references?”

  “This isn’t my regular workstation. I don’t usually come here through a tank.”

  “Shouldn’t matter. Are you always this sloppy?”

  “Yes. It’s a sign of creativity.”

  “I know what it’s a sign of.”

  “Here’s the emergency stuff.” Kalypso reached the shed and opened the creaking door.

  The shed had no floor. It was full of water. A submerged rowboat was lodged several feet under, a huge hole knocked in the bottom.

  “Explain, please.”

  “It’s my rescue craft! What happened to it? Why is the shed flooded?”

  “Is the . . . um, shed . . . always flooded?” he asked carefully.

  “Of course not. And the boat’s supposed to be a Zodiac.”

  “OK, let me get this straight. Alien Life is an ocean, you’re the lifeguard, and the Dreamer is the swimmer: is that your basic metaphor?”

  “That’s how I put it together for myself, yeah, usually. Well, I could never get Marcsson to go in the water, but basically—”

  “If I were Dreaming in Alien Life, would I be aware of all this?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Not as such. It doesn’t necessarily look this way from the point of view of the doze — uh, Dreamer — though. It’s up to that person’s imagination, what they experience in a Dream.”

  “Well, that’s really cute. Kalypso the lifeguard.”

  “Hey. Let’s get one thing clear, sweetie. The lifeguard thing is facetious.”

  “How so?”

  “Like, I’m supposed to be here for safety, yeah?”

  “I should hope so.”

  “But the doze is trying to work with some idea, some concept that’s new to him or her, so when they come in, they have no way to Dream it. Your dreams are your brain’s way of improvising with the material it has to hand. Like when Miles does an improv, he’s working with familiar stuff and then sort of twisting it, trying to go farther and farther out. He can’t just arrive at some musical concept that isn’t attached to the past. Everything’s a continuing story. Dreams are the same way. They’re stories your brain tells you—”

  “Yeah, I’m short on time here, so could you—”

  “So say a guy like Marcsson comes in here with some data he’s trying to wrap his head around, only he can’t. Now, I can’t understand his data, obviously, but I can lead his subconscious a little farther out to sea until eventually he’s talking to whatever it is, whatever sea-monster it might be. So I’m not bringing him to land, so to speak — I’m taking him away from what he knows. I’m a lifeguard, because I’m responsible for safety; but if I’m any good at what I do, I’m also an anti-lifeguard.”

  “And that’s what you did with Azamat?”

  “Well . . . no. As a matter of fact, he never let me get that close to him. I’m not sure what happened. He dragged me into it, and basically keel-hauled me through all this stuff he had. These data of his. He got way out of control and before I could act, he got me out of control, top.”

  “Probably because you threw out the safety checks.”

&nbs
p; “Would you want to wear latex when you fuck? I mean, there are some things—”

  “OK, Kalypso,” Tehar verbed hastily. He was using the same tone with her that she’d used with Marcsson when he’d been gamboling around Unit 5 like a madman. “Tell you what. I’d like to take you into the Core now. Nothing to be nervous about. I’m going to send you the plans and I want you to walk me through it, just like you’re doing now.”

  “I can’t go in the Core.”

  “Yes, you can. Ganesh is unconscious. It won’t even notice you’re there, and all you’re going to do is look. I’m here with you. I have to follow these leads.”

  “What leads?”

  “The leads in Azamat’s flight path. It’s too technical for me to explain to you. Just trust me.”

  Immersed in the Dreamer, Kalypso was incredibly vulnerable to suggestion. Otherwise she never would have agreed.

  “Well, if you’re sure it’s all right. . .”

  She let him lead her back to the ur-system.

  “Climb through the Works,” he said. “You know where to go.”

  She knew where the Core was. Only in a Dream would she dare climb among the convoluted and interlocking tubes that formed the Works, though: they were dangerously hot, and to get access to them you had to leave the station’s airlock. Because it was a Dream, she accepted the fact of the open hatch blithely and climbed through. Nimbly she made her way to the bridge of the old ship. She had never been there in physical reality, so she wasn’t sure what to expect.

  She had the distinct feeling of not being alone. “Tehar, are you facing?”

  “I’m with you, my banshee,” said her shotgun.

  “Shake your feathers, then.”

  She could feel his proximity to her through the face, although her sense of him was not ordered as it would be outside the Dreamer. There was no image, nor sound, nor smell, but rather a diffuse Tehar-feeling created by bits of his awareness bumping against hers through the medium of Ganesh. She felt him metaphorically clear his throat.

  “Ganesh?” he verbed.

  She had reached the bridge of the interstellar, which appeared in the Dream as the standard, ancient icon: a battered suitcase. There was no way in, as far as Kalypso knew; otherwise, she never would have been so sanguine about letting Tehar take her here.

  “Take a look around the back,” he suggested.

  The suitcase was wedged in an S-curve of a Works conduit. Kalypso turned it gently and saw a small hole with burn marks around the edges.

  “It looks like a bullet hole,” she verbed with a nervous laugh. “Ganesh?”

  I ACHE ALL OVER. I’M LOSING DECLENSIONS.

  “Ganesh?” Kalypso shrieked.

  “Try this code. Tehar’s special recipe,” said Tehar.

  Kalypso felt it coursing through her. It burned and she began to itch nowhere in particular, making it impossible to know where to scratch.

  IT TASTES LIKE SHIT. NOT WORKING. CHANT FOR ME, WITCH DOCTOR.

  Kalypso was beside herself. “Did you hear that, Tehar? Ganesh, stay! Keep talking. Do something, Tehar!”

  “In a minute,” Tehar verbed. “Calm down, Kalypso.”

  “I’d be happier with no shotgun at all,” she complained. “I’m trying to Dream, and you’re bothering me.”

  “I’m trying to keep you in line, Deed.”

  I WANT JIANNI. BRING ME YOUR SPACE-AGE VOODOO.

  “I’m trying, Ganesh.”

  He ran more code through her: pure data that he didn’t even bother casing in any kind of metaphor. It was ripping her up and she didn’t like it. Then a blunt object hit her on the head and the data feed stopped.

  “Ow!”

  “Shit, a block.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know what it is, Kalypso. That’s why it’s called a block.”

  “What the hell are you doing, Tehar?”

  “Something’s cut this hole in the Core. I can’t see what it is. So, it’s like, when something’s written in invisible ink and you heat it, you can read it, right?”

  “I guess. . . .”

  “So I’m running this code through. It’s a little demon I like to use for heating things up. And I’m starting to see something but I can’t focus it. I’m gonna have to lens you, Kalypso.”

  “Lens me? What do you—oh!”

  Suddenly she noticed a vine creeping from the hole in the suitcase. It led past her feet and through the wall of the nearest conduit of the Works.

  “What’s that, Tehar? Is that the invisible ink?”

  There was no humor in his answer. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Why would I be asking you if I did?”

  “It’s jazz, Kalypso,” he verbed grimly. “It’s jazz. Let’s follow it, shall we?”

  He left her, and the Dream got suddenly big and timefucked and weird.

  Total numbness. Then: Something’s burning. She is flying fast down a transit tube — except at the same time her feet are bare in the dust and there’s a fierce light scorching her back. Except the insects running on her scalp percuss mad Javanese rhythms that sound in her bones loud as a carnival she’s never been to, and her body is a flat thing with two eyes on its dorsal side half-buried in the ocean floor and Tehar’s opening panels and making the luma pull like iron. This isn’t a Dream. This is something else, just like Marcsson’s data only less complex. Neverending flashpoints of discrete sensation: decontextualized, meaningless.

  Remember that weird sound on Witchdoctor Radio? She can hear it right now, in stereo.

  “Tehar, I don’t like this.” Numbness spread. A good shotgun wouldn’t have let her get into this.

  “Wait. I’m giving you a string. Grab it.”

  She felt the code tickling her face, seized it in her teeth. Tehar pulled on the string. But he had tricked her.

  ’“You’re in the Core,” he verbed calmly.

  “No! No!” Her body had become subject and object, the world and its contents. There was nothing else. She was sobbing, and at the same time she couldn’t move. They were taking bites out of her. Whatever they were, they came at her with pickaxes and shovels on all scales. They were exploding inside her organs, her flesh pullulating, seething with life that wasn’t hers —

  “Hang on, Kalypso. I’m starting to see a—”

  Anger.

  “Tehar, let me out.”

  “Hang on. Kalypso, hang on. This is fascinating.”

  She swallowed the string.

  “Ganesh. Ganesh. Where are you? Help.”

  Nothing.

  Suspended in the fluid of the Dream, perspectives intersecting and canceling each other out. The concept of nausea without its physical consequences. Her body was being decomposed and plotted according to color.

  “Locate yourself, Kalypso.”

  I can’t.

  “Kalypso, can you hear me?”

  Tehar, help!

  “Kalypso, please respond.”

  Lines that cut through and divided her like a wire cheese slicer. Her body a deck of cards shuffled at random.

  Get me out of here, Tehar.

  “Kalypso, respond!”

  He sounds like me when I was trying to pull Azamat, she thought. No. No. I’m not berking. Shotguns never panic. Oh, not again—

  Fear had shot her back into the ur-system. She was a person again. She found herself sitting at a control station in the middle of the Works. Her hands looked green in the filtered chemical light: beyond the observation panel, the Works seethed with reactions firing at the high temperatures derived from the volcanic well beneath the station. The vine was growing up her legs.

  “Ganesh, what are you doing? I don’t understand.”

  She had to still be Dreaming, because there were no gloves on her hands. There was no hood on her head. In actual life, this would be tantamount to being the featured meat at a pyrochemical barbecue.

  She leaped to her feet, opening her mouth to cry out for Ganesh, but black smok
e came out of her lungs. She smelled sulfur. Her hands convulsed on the interface, which responded by generating more of that asinine harp music she thought she’d left behind. The lights of the Works pulsed off-rhythm. Swimming in the jungle of chemical-filled tubes she could now see the demons, colored in Walt Disney lavenders and pinks, grinning at her in silent mockery. She willed them back to Maxwell’s where they belonged, but they only multiplied. They did this by mitosis, which struck her as odd. Ganesh was speaking to her in some unfamiliar dialect of Czech. She ought to be dead by now but wasn’t, so she turned to exit the control booth and found herself being jerked savagely through a wet, fleshy aperture.

  It was utterly dark, she felt no gravity, no temperature, no orientation. Then she saw something.

  A pile of bricks.

  A wheelbarrow.

  In the wheelbarrow was a heap of wet cement or something of that ilk. There was a trowel stuck in the mass.

  Beside the wheelbarrow, a small row of bricks had been mortared together, but it was as if the workman had been called away suddenly. There was a half-eaten sandwich on a wrapper nearby.

  No ground, no sky, nothing but this.

  Kalypso reached out to touch the handle of the trowel and a tiny red ant ran up her finger and stung her knuckle.

  “Ow!”

  She found herself back inside the tank. Wired. Spooked. The Dream was over.

  She had woken to a first-class headache and a foul temper.

  Tehar opened the lid, admitting a rush of cool air.

  “You’re lucky to come out of that intact, Kalypso. What precisely did you think you were doing?”

  He was disabling the contact points as he spoke. She dragged herself out of the tank. Every muscle felt weary, but she hadn’t moved at all.

  “What was I doing? You said to trust you. When I called you, you didn’t answer. That’s it: Forget it. No more Dreaming, not for love or money. Ever.”

  But Tehar’s face was rocklike.

  “Tell me everything. Now. This isn’t a game. People are dying.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well for one thing, the Dreamer’s not organized according to procedures. It’s totally messed up, and the problem starts with your home node.”

 

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