by Tad Williams
“Great.” Beezle was the second person in an hour—second thing, anyway—to tell him that he was making the mistake of judging matters by face value. The network was seductive that way—so much time and money spent to make the worlds seem like real places. Reminded, he looked at his virtual wrist (his Tharagorn wrist since he was in Rivendell) at the virtual friendship bracelet he now wore on it. It seemed like a real bracelet, but it wasn’t; it hadn’t ever been real, but it meant as much as or more than any actual pieces of shaped metal, because the friendship it represented was real.
Chizz, hold on … he thought. There was the core of an idea there, something that he needed to think about, but he was distracted as the living cat-carpet abruptly swirled up into a spinning cloud of miniature felines, then vanished back into Beezle’s hat with a loud pop. “Hey, boss, I forgot to tell you. They need you back in that P. G. Wodehouse simulation—someone left a note in your box at the club.”
“But the next meeting’s not for weeks.”
“Emergency get-together of the steering committee, and you’re in the rotation.”
“I don’t have time. Send an excuse for me.”
“Actually, you might want to go. They’re trying to get rid of whatsisname, de Limoux, the chairman.”
“What for?”
“Seems a couple of the women members are going to have babies and they say ol’ Sir Reggie’s the daddy.”
“I had nothing to do with it!” Sir Reginald was almost white with anger. “With either of them! I scarcely even know Edwina Hayes, and I despise that Macapan woman. Everyone knows that.”
Orlando himself only barely recognized the first name: Mrs. Hayes was a quiet, colorless woman who seemed to owe her sim existence to some early equipment tests by one of the Grail Project’s female engineers. The second was a shadow of Ymona Dedoblanco, a gorgon who had been the only woman in the Grail Brotherhood’s inner circle. The real woman could fairly be termed a monster, but Maisie Macapan merely seemed to incorporate some of her less murderous, albeit still irritating, faults, namely self-absorption almost to the point of megalomania. Like her template, she also had a full measure of ambition, which was why she and the Jongleur-shadow, Sir Reginald, often found themselves at cross-purposes.
“Why aren’t the two women here?” Orlando asked. “Shouldn’t de Limoux have a chance to confront his accusers?”
“Bless you, Roland, you are an honorable man,” said Sir Reginald. “Yes, where are they? Why this star-chamber inquisition, based on accusations that are ridiculous on their face? Everyone knows I am a happily married man, with a wife and family in Third Republic Paris.”
“Happily married men may stray,” suggested a mustached traveler named Renzi whom Orlando suspected of being the shadow of another of the network’s early engineers, or possibly even a much-degraded version of his friend Paul Jonas.
“But not with the Macapan!” De Limoux seemed more offended by that idea than by the accusation itself. “I would sooner throw myself into a cage with a hungry lioness.”
“The women are both unwell, Mr. Roland,” Renzi explained to Orlando, “and their stories, it must be admitted, are a bit confusing. But they both swear that their charges are accurate, and although Miss Macapan is known to bear Sir Reginald some ill feeling, Mrs. Hayes does not seem like the type to invent such a thing.”
“Unless the Macapan bitch bribed her,” snarled de Limoux. “She would do anything to steal the chairmanship away.”
“If she could bribe one, she could bribe two,” Orlando said. “If she’s only trying to ruin your reputation, Sir Reginald, it seems strange she should make herself one of the victims, since everyone knows she has a grudge or two against you.”
“Surely you are not suggesting you believe this twaddle, Mr. Roland?”
“I’m not saying I believe or disbelieve anything, Sir Reginald. I don’t have enough information. I’m just thinking out loud.”
After that he let the others talk while the idea began to form. Even in its earliest shape, it was a very strange one.
Orlando had the travel records of the Worldwalkers Society members in hard copy form—leather-bound books handwritten in ink, in keeping with the simulation—spread all over the wooden table that served as his desk in Rivendell. A year earlier, Orlando himself had covertly lobbied for and helped to push through the particular Society rule that mandated all members keep diaries of their travels and make them available in the Society library inside the Drones Club, and just now he was glad that he’d done it.
Orlando had noticed something very interesting about de Limoux and his two accusers and had constructed a small chart to try to make sense out of their comings and goings. He had just confirmed his suspicion and was staring at the chart, chewing the end of his pencil in something like astonishment, when he heard his agent speaking in his ear.
“Boss?”
“Let me guess, Beezle. You’ve got some news for me. There’s another pregnancy at the Society and another denial of responsibility.”
After a moment’s pause, the agent said: “Hey, that’s pretty good, boss. How did you know about the Society thing?”
“I’m just starting to get a few ideas.”
“Do you want to know who’s involved?”
“If the ideas I’m starting to get are right, it doesn’t really matter. Let me go back to what I’m doing, Beezle. I’ll let you know when I need you, and I’ll probably need you soon.”
“Boss?”
“Beezle, I’m really trying to concentrate here. Thanks for bringing me the information, now get lost, okay?”
“It’s important, boss.”
Orlando sighed. “What is it?”
“Well, it’s about Little Cats N42 and N45—two of my subagents, remember? I think you might want to see about getting them a little treat—a year’s supply of fish heads or something.”
“Fish heads … ? Beezle, you are making me crazy. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just as a reward, maybe. Because they found your girlfriend.”
“They …” He sat up. “Are you sure?”
“Avialle-shadow, dark, curly hair, visibly pregnant. Yeah, pretty much.”
“Fish heads for everyone. No, give ’em the whole fish! Where?”
“Living in an apartment in Old Chicago, of all places. We don’t think she’s been there long. I’ve sent you the address, but it’s easy to find. It’s over a club on 37th Street at Giles.”
“I’m there.”
And he was, a subvocalized command taking him to the heart of the simworld more swiftly and certainly than any magic carpet. Sometimes it was okay being a sort of god.
37th Street was loud and lively. There were no Al-Capone-type gangsters in sight, which was what Orlando usually associated with Old Chicago, but the sidewalks were crowded with quite a lot of ordinary people of a wide array of skin-colors. Everybody seemed to be dressed up to go somewhere important, all the men in ties and the women in dresses. The apartment was above a club called Toothy’s Free-For-All, which had a buzzing neon mouth grinning above the door. A half-dozen black men in handsome, big-shouldered suits stood underneath the overhang, smoking and talking and looking up at the overcast sky, and coincidentally blocking the apartment building’s stairway next to the club’s front door. Orlando wondered if the men might be gangsters. He wasn’t even sure if they had African-American gangsters back in those days, but he didn’t want to waste time on trouble. Unfortunately, he was wearing his only prepared sim for the Chicago world, which was inarguably Caucasian and, although reasonably tall and strong, meant more to be inconspicuous than to scare people into leaving him alone. But the men in front of the doorway seemed much more interested in the cigarette they were sharing, and hardly looked at him as he angled through and started up the narrow staircase.
“Looks like Missy got a gentleman caller,” one said to Orlando’s retreating back.
“He ain’t the first caller for that little gi
rl,” said another and the men laughed quietly.
The corridor smelled faintly of mildew, and the hall carpets were so dark with years of dirt that Orlando couldn’t make out the pattern, although he was pretty sure there was one. He knocked on the door with the number on it that Beezle had given him.
She opened it on the chain. Her eyes widened. She let him in, but almost as if she were sleepwalking: she was clearly frightened and confused. She wore a quilted, pale blue housecoat and her hair was unbound, spilling over her shoulders.
“Who are you?” she asked.
If she was confused, he was even more so. “Who are you?” But he knew who she was, she was an Avialle Jongleur shadow—the dark curly hair, the big eyes, and especially the voice had removed all doubt. And, as Beezle had noticed, she was quite visibly pregnant. The problem was, she wasn’t his Avialle Jongleur shadow, and the differences weren’t subtle. Other than a similarity in the hair and eyes, this was a completely different woman.
“My … my name is Violet Jergens.” She seemed on the verge of tears. “What do you want? You look familiar.”
He had no other ideas, so he went for broke. “I’m Orlando Gardiner.”
For a moment her face almost seemed to light up, a child’s Christmas-morning face of wonder and joy, then her smile faltered and was replaced by bafflement and anxiety once more. “I’ve … I’ve dreamed of the day Orlando would come back to me, when we would be a family. But I’ve never seen you before.” She backed away, raising her hands. “Please, whoever you are, don’t hurt me.”
Orlando shook his head. He had been working on a theory that seemed very promising, but now he was confused again. “I’m sorry. I mean you no harm.” Perhaps his original idea could still make sense. He decided to ask her the same question he would have put to Livia Bard. “Just tell me one thing. What does Orlando Gardiner look like?”
The question seemed to anger her, but after a moment her face changed. “I … it has been such a hard time for me, lately. It is all … I would … ”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
She was crying now. “I haven’t been well.”
He saw a chance to add another piece of information. “You’re going to have to trust me now. May I … may I feel your stomach?”
“What?”
“I swear I won’t harm you or the baby, Miss Jergens. Please. I promise I’ll be gentle.”
She didn’t assent, but she did not back away as he moved closer. He slowly extended his hand and put it on the curve of her belly where it made her housecoat swell like a wind-filled sail. The bump was firm and, as far as he could tell, warmly alive.
He was not at all surprised this time when Violet Jergens abruptly disappeared from her own apartment like a soap bubble popping. He did not bother looking for her on 37th Street or anywhere else. He didn’t need to find her, he was beginning to feel certain, because the chances were he’d be seeing her again, and others just like her.
Kunohara, he thought, you owe me an apology.
“I don’t get it,” Sam said. “So now another of those Avialles thinks you’re the father of her child?” She was talking to him on the phone because she was in the middle of finals and couldn’t leave her studying very long. It was kind of nice, Orlando decided, just talking face to face from different places. It was a bit like being back in the real world, except Sam Fredericks was in West Virginia and he, at the moment, was in Atlantis, or rather hovering above its watery grave, tidying up a wave-motion problem before the city rose out of the ocean and started its cycle again. “What’s going on?”
“I went back to see Kunohara. We think we’ve finally got the whole thing figured out.” He couldn’t help adding: “I figured it out myself, mostly, but he agrees, and he came up with the one part I couldn’t wrap my head around. It was the Worldwalkers Society pregnancies that tipped me off—there’s about a half-dozen of them now, by the way. I haven’t figured out yet how to straighten out that part of the mess. They’re all utterly scanned about it, accusations, denials, meetings falling apart and people threatening legal action. And the thing is, just like with me and the Avialle shadows, everybody’s right.”
“Hang on.” Sam put her book down. “I’ve been in, like, a death-struggle with colligative properties all day for my chemistry final, but this is worse. What do you mean, everybody’s right? You said you never saw her before, let alone played bumper cars with her.”
Orlando shook his head. “I hadn’t and I didn’t. Or with the other one, and there’ll almost certainly be more. And the Society chairman de Limoux didn’t suddenly get sweet on his arch-enemy Maisie Macapan and give her the gift of motherhood, either—except he did, in a way.”
“That’s it—you’ve gone way far scanbark, Gardiner. You are barking all the way to the moon and back, then taking a little side trip to Bark Island. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Kunohara got me thinking about it first. He was telling me off about mistaking appearance for reality, and he said something like, ‘Never underestimate how many strategies Life will use to perpetuate itself, Mr. Gardiner,’ in that kind of irritating way he has. Well, it irritates me, anyway. And that made me think about how this network has always been so complex. The Other, the original operating system, actually bred life from information viruses and antiviruses. And it made imitation children, based on real children. They may not have been alive, but they weren’t just normal sims, either.”
“Not it, him. The Other was a person, Orlando, despite all the horrible things the Grail people did to him. But he’s gone now.”
“Yeah, but the system was built around his brain, so his original impulses have an effect on everything about the network. And especially—and this is where I started to get my idea—his influence is utterly strong in the shadow-people, all those copies that he made and then released into the system.”
“Like your Society folks, the ones who can travel from world to world through the gateways. And the Avialle-shadows.”
“Who don’t need gateways, although they can use them. In fact, other than me, the Avialle shadows are the only sims who can travel freely throughout the network. That makes them the most advanced of all the copies, really, even if a lot of them are a bit mental. So, me and the Avialle shadows are pretty much the most advanced things in the network. Are you starting to get the picture yet?”
Sam frowned. “Don’t be all Professor Mysterioso. I was up practically all night last night studying Chemistry: The Central Science and I have a drastic headache.”
“Well, I’ve been up several nights in a row studying biology, so who’s zoomin’ now?”
“Just explain.”
“How about if I said that instead of ‘most advanced’, you could also call me and the Avialle-shadows the fittest creatures on the network. As in ‘survival of the fittest?’”
“You mean it’s like an evolution thing?”
“Yeah, in a sense, it’s beginning to look that way. Somehow, even without the original operating system, this network still has a tendency toward … well, if not actually being alive, then to lifelike behavior. It wants to reproduce. In fact, now that the original brain of the network is gone, it may be more like a true organism. It’s just trying things and if some of them work, it will continue. See, in some ways the people in the network, at least those like me and the society people who are more or less alive, we really are people. We think, we feel, we make plans. But to the network, we’re more like cells in a single organism—or maybe like individuals, but in a hive culture. The network is the hive, and we’re the drones and workers and all that. That’s the example that Kunohara kept using, anyway. He’s utterly excited about all this, by the way, even though it means he was wrong about the network being dead.”
“He would like it, if it’s got hives in it. But I still don’t get this, Orlando. Are you saying that the system wanted you and the Avialle-shadows to reproduce together? But you’d never seen each other and she
’s already pregnant. That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you remember what Kunohara said, that we shouldn’t confuse appearance and reality, that Life has lots of strategies. Just because we look like humans and the women appear to be pregnant in the ordinary, human way doesn’t really mean it has to be anything like the same process. Think about flowers. They reproduce too, but sometimes the genetic information comes from two plants that are miles apart—they certainly don’t ever see each other. But when humans or us humanoid sims think they’re pregnant, the natural assumption is that it happened the old-fashioned way.” He frowned. “Unlike normal human reproduction, I have to say the network’s model is a little lacking in the motivations department—you know, the we-do-it-because-it’s-fun stuff.”
“Slow down, Sherlock. So the system is just … throwing together genetic material from you and other people in the system to make new people? But you don’t have any genetic material.” She suddenly looked horrified. “I’m sorry, Orlando, I didn’t mean …”
“Don’t worry, I’ve been thinking about this stuff for days. This game is weird and different and even a dead guy like me can play. See, it’s not genetic material in the normal sense, it’s what Kunohara calls the network’s codification of us—the blueprints used for us virtual copies, which is the closest to genes we’re going to have. It’s just found a way to mix them up.” Sam still looked worried, so he smiled. “As far as throwing the stuff together—yes, more or less, but not so random. A good reproductive system usually has some component of winners-get-to-mate in it. That’s why my material showed up first, and it was paired with an Avialle-shadow—the fittest parents, remember?—and why more than one of the Avialles is pregnant by me. We have the most mobility, and in my case I have the most power—I’m not sure the network really factors that in, though—so my material … I’m going to need a new word, ‘material’ just doesn’t do it … my information is the most attractive. There’s only one me, but there are more than a few Avialle-shadows, and they’ll tend to select for my information if they can get it.”