‘Yes,’ Daed said. ‘Well. More or less.’ But he didn’t sound worried; just impatient. ‘Rick —’
‘But you’re going to fix it? The malfunction?’
‘Rick.’ Muscles flickered over Daed’s jaw. Then he reached out and linked his fingers behind Rick’s skull, pulling his head forward. ‘Just promise me. Now.’
‘All right, I promise,’ Rick said. ‘But how soon will it be fixed?’
Daed kept his hands where they were and looked into Rick’s face. Rick stared back, wondering what Daed could see in his eyes. The veil of steam between them rippled and thinned.
‘Thank you.’
‘That’s OK,’ Rick said, and suddenly he was scared that he’d promised something bigger than he knew.
Silence. Then Daed got up. Rick heard the moisture dripping off his clothes as he moved. He wondered if Daed had ever said thank you to him before.
Daed reached out and pulled him up by the wrist. Rick could feel him trembling, right up into his shoulder. He was afraid to let him take his weight; but afraid not to, too.
He didn’t let himself think. He said, ‘You’re OK, aren’t you, Daed? With Asterion?’
Daed’s hand tightened and loosened again, like a spasm. ‘What about Asterion? What do you know about Asterion?’
‘I —’ Rick got to his feet. ‘Nothing. I mean . . . only what you said about it. That it makes you —’ Immortal sounded too dramatic, but he couldn’t think of another word. ‘It stops you dying. Daed . . .’
‘Stop worrying.’ Daed opened the door of the hammam and the cold air swirled over Rick’s face and tingled on his lips. ‘I’m OK.’
‘You were sick,’ Rick said. ‘You kept coughing, and —’ But he still coughed, didn’t he? He still looked like he was being eaten from inside.
‘I’m OK.’
‘You were sick,’ Rick said again, as if it was a game.
‘Shut up!’ Daed rounded on him. His hand was raised, at the height of Rick’s face. ‘Gods . . . you don’t know anything about it. Asterion is —’ He stopped, suddenly, and when he blinked the condensation rolled down his face like tears. ‘Rick. Just do what I say, and everything will be fine. You keep that promise, OK?’
‘OK.’ Rick felt like he’d heard OK so many times it didn’t mean anything any more.
Daed looked at him for a long time. He let his hand fall, slowly. A wisp of steam coiled round his wrist and faded. Then he walked away, without a word. As he went past the corner of the swimming pool he glanced down, and the shark rose a little and flicked its tail, as if in greeting.
Rick watched him go. At the last minute, he said, ‘Daed?’
‘What?’ He didn’t turn round; just halted, his hand poised over the comms panel. His shoulders were sagging.
‘Is it a real shark?’
‘What?’ Now he did turn.
‘In the — under the pool. It’s not real, is it?’
Daed’s eyes narrowed. He said, ‘Have you ever seen it being fed?’
‘No, but — but you can’t see right to the bottom. You can’t see the shark all the time, only when it surfaces.’ Rick could feel the blood tingling in his cheeks, as warm as the wall of steam behind him. But you can’t see all the way down, he thought. It could be a real shark . . .
A fractional pause; as if Daed was listening for something Rick couldn’t hear. Then he said, ‘Of course it’s not a real shark, Rick. Relax.’
‘Oh.’ He was disappointed, somehow: that the world wasn’t scarier, nastier, beyond his cell of glass. Stupid.
‘Honestly,’ Daed said. ‘A real shark. Would I?’ He didn’t seem to expect an answer. He leant his hand on the comms panel, until the bones shone white through his skin. The door slid open.
Then he turned round and smiled at Rick. It was a strange smile; on anyone else Rick would have thought it was affectionate. No, not just affectionate. Loving. It was a gift, a miracle of a smile. It made Rick take a deep breath.
Daed said, ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘See you later,’ Rick said. ‘Downstairs — in the party . . .’ He took a step forward, and another, until the hammam door swung shut behind him and he was trembling in the cold. His wet clothes were sticking to him. ‘Daed —’
‘Goodbye, Rick.’
And then he went, and Rick was left standing on the brink of the swimming pool, shivering.
Chapter 21
The Nucleus was full of people; more people than Rick had ever seen in one place. They were in black and white, most of them, but their faces and hair were so bright and varied Rick couldn’t work out what was GM and what was make-up. They milled about, talking too loudly — at least someone had turned the sound-deadener off — and occasionally glancing over their shoulders at the giant staircase as if it gave them the creeps, even with all the lights and the decorations. Their champagne glasses were round-bottomed, with the same trendy curve as the iTank. There were already a few empty glasses on the floor, spinning and rolling as people caught them with their feet. Rick paused where he was, ignoring someone hissing impatiently behind him as she came through the ticket gates, and just looked. Gods.
And he saw that the decorations were a kind of sci-fi version of the iTank demo: skeleton trees, leaves of copper foil drifting down from the roof, 2D ruined walls, like lazy graphics. Either the ceiling glass had been tinted red, or outside there was an unusual glow in the sky. It made him think of the time he’d spent in the demo, the way a skull would make him think of a face. He hated it.
And if he closed his eyes, he thought of the black sickening flash-out when the tank malfunctioned. What the iTank could do to a brain.
He looked round. He needed something to drink; or just something to hold. The champagne glasses were hanging from the trees, like tall pale green fruit. He pushed his way through the jostling groups of people and grabbed for one. It was cool and slippery with condensation, but it didn’t have a proper stem and he had to cup it in his hand. He heard someone say, ‘Gods, whose bright idea was this? It won’t stay cold longer than a minute.’
‘Yeah, and if you put it down it doesn’t stay upright. Not that there’s anywhere to put it down . . .’
Rick glanced round, and then quickly away again, because it was the group of Creatives that had laughed at him, when he’d tried to get into Perdy’s office the second time. But he could feel them staring. He hoped it was because of his clothes — the histro suit was ruined, so he was wearing a slim-cut black pyjama instead — but he thought he could sense hostility heating the back of his neck like sunburn. He really didn’t want to be here. He took a long swallow of cold champagne and tried not to drop the glass.
There was a sweet, clear, chiming noise, like a bell. Slowly the noise subsided. Everyone looked up.
There were vidscreens set up, just too high to be comfortable to look at. Rick hadn’t noticed them before, but now they flashed into life: first the Crater logo, then a CGI sequence from the Maze, then, finally, a man’s face. He was badly designed, with a clumsy nose and weak eyes, and after the CGI it was a bit of an anticlimax.
He said, ‘Welcome, my friends — guests, employees, gamerunners and gamepros. Welcome to the launch of the iTank, the biggest virtual reality product the world has ever known.’ He pressed every word like it was a button. ‘This is not merely an upgrade of the gametank; this is not merely an expansion of the Maze.’ He paused, and his amplified breath hissed into his lungs. ‘Friends, guests, employees . . . The Maze —’ the vidscreen flashed up an ® symbol — ‘was already the biggest game ever played. Crater is the biggest employer in Ingland. We have already achieved worldwide — and breathtaking — success. The Maze —’ another ® — ‘is not only a world so vast, so complex, and so adored that it has its own economy, not to mention a higher GDP than Ingland itself; it is also a work of art. You already share in that success; you are the heroes, the creators, the owners, and the gods of our virtual world. And please — don’t make the mistake of thinkin
g that a virtual world is somehow less real than the real one.’ There was a little titter of laughter: not amused, Rick thought, but smug.
‘But that is all in the past,’ the man went on. He lowered his voice — for dramatic effect, obviously — and went on talking. Rick tuned out and let his gaze wander from the vidscreen. With a strange jolt, he realised that the man was actually there, live, on a platform at the foot of the giant staircase. When he looked back at the screen he saw that there was a time-delay on the camera, so the man wasn’t in sync with his real self. It made Rick feel seasick.
‘Let us,’ the man was saying, ‘focus on the now. Crater has never been content to rest on its laurels. To be human is to create, to improve, to evolve. There is no rest for humanity. Time enough to rest when we’re dead.’ There was another laugh, although Rick wasn’t sure it was a joke. ‘It goes without saying that Crater’s products far outstrip our competitors’. But they can never be good enough — not for us, not for you, not for our consumers. And so the gametank as you know it, my friends, is finished — despite its success, despite the amazement and excitement that it still inspires. The gametank, and the Maze — the old hardware, and the Maze itself — were, are, a magnificent achievement. But we just weren’t satisfied. We wanted something better.’
There was a pause. Rick heard the crack of someone stepping on a fallen champagne glass, and the stifled syllables as they swore under their breath.
‘Imagine,’ the man said, and leant forward, his face expanding on the screen. ‘Imagine the days of flatgames. Imagine the consoles, how impressive they must have been, at first. PlayStation,’ he said, savouring the word. ‘Xbox. Dreamcast. And yet —’ he gulped with mirth — ‘imagine the difference, for those first realgame players, when they stepped into a tank. It was the end of an era; the end of a world. And now, my friends . . .’ He paused, and this time no one broke the silence. ‘My friends, what you are here to witness is as dramatic, as wonderful as that moment must have been. We, too, are poised, ready to witness the beginning, ready to discover a new universe. The iTank is beyond everything you have ever experienced; the Maze expansion exploits every new possibility the iTank provides. Together they are — literally — incredible. I hope you enjoy yourselves tonight, my friends, and I welcome you on Crater’s behalf. I hope you all have a fantastic evening. But, please, believe me when I say that this is not simply a launch party. This, tonight, is history.’
Rick felt his back teeth grinding together; but applause erupted around him, loud enough to drown out the sound. He was glad he’d got his drink, because it stopped him having to clap. He didn’t know why he was so annoyed; after all, the man was right. He looked round, wondering whether the smiles and wide-eyed nods were real or put on. Unexpectedly, he saw Daed, alone, leaning against a fake tree, a few ems away from the PR man’s platform. He seemed to sense Rick’s gaze; he looked up, met Rick’s eyes, and made a tiny humorous gesture as if he wanted to be sick. Rick grinned, feeling a tiny release of tension in his jaw.
And then Paz stepped on to the lowest stair of the giant staircase, and there was silence like a flash of lightning. Rick held his breath, waiting.
She didn’t need the screens; they’d gone blank. She stood still, and the sheen of water on the step below her reflected every detail of her body. She was holding a glass of champagne, and she held it to one side without looking and let go. Someone scuffled and crouched to get to it before it hit the ground, but too late, and it smashed. Paz smiled.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘As my esteemed colleague says, welcome.’ She paused, and the silence wrapped round the words, glittering, so it hardly mattered what she said. She looked about her; Rick could have sworn she was looking directly at him. ‘Everything he said was true — but let’s not beat about the bush. We’re not here because we want to make history. We’re not here to amaze our consumers. We’re not here because we want to create works of art. We’re here to make money. And the iTank will make us more money than you can imagine. Combined with the new Maze expansion, it will make us money beyond our wildest dreams.’
More silence. And slowly, one by one, people started to smile again. A new light was coming into their eyes.
‘Most of you aren’t my friends,’ Paz said, with an ironic glint in her eye that — Rick thought — made everyone think they were one of the exceptions. ‘But you are all my guests. You all share my values. So . . . Guests. Mazerunners, Mazepros, colleagues. The toast I propose isn’t to our Creatives; it’s not to Daedalus.’ For a moment her eyes rested on Daed, and Rick was impressed despite himself, by the way she was almost thanking him, but not quite. ‘It’s not even to Marketing or PR. I’m not going to be polite. Why should I?’ She paused, and no one moved or made a noise or breathed. She held out her hand to the side, and this time someone was ready, and when she lifted it again it had a new, full glass of champagne in it. She said, ‘This is my toast. Let’s raise our glasses to the money we’re going to make. And the world we’re going to rule.’
There was a pause, and then a murmur, as people echoed the toast.
And then there was a ray of light falling on her, blazing copper and gold, striking sparks of rose and orange off her dress and the curtain of water behind her. She looked up, into the beam, and smiled.
Rick followed her eyes, expecting to see a lighting rig. But it wasn’t an effect; it was coming from the sky. There was a break in the clouds, and the gash of light was gaping like a wound, scarlet-edged, glaring platinum, more beautiful than anything Rick had ever seen. It hurt to look, but he couldn’t help it.
‘The heavens are smiling on us,’ Paz said. And Rick knew everyone else was staring, too, that there was no one in the Nucleus looking anywhere but at the sun.
The sun.
Rick couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually seen the sun.
He felt water rising in his eyes and he blinked it away, not wanting to miss a second of this light — sunlight — this wonderful unbearable hole in the sky, dazzling, unlike anything he’d ever seen. I want to go outside, he thought. I want to see it properly.
The world seemed to stop where it was, for a second, for ten seconds. Then the clouds closed up, their edges knitting together like broken bones. The light went grey and faded; the strange electric stillness went out of the air.
‘Thank you for your attention,’ Paz said, and it was like she’d been in charge, all the time, like even the sky belonged to her. ‘And now the last speech of the evening. I promise.’ And she gestured to Daed.
Daed looked up, almost as if he was surprised. Then he smiled, and went to the little low platform where the PR man had been, a few minutes ago. The crowd shifted restlessly; Rick could feel their impatience. Another speech . . .
Daed cleared his throat. ‘The iTank was mostly the invention of one Creative,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mean me. Perdita Sands was one of the most talented technicians I’ve ever known. She was killed in a tragic accident a few weeks ago. I know she would be very proud of the iTank.’ He paused, and his shoulders spasmed as if he was trying not to cough.
‘On the other hand,’ he said, his voice tight, ‘the Maze is almost entirely my own work. My life’s work. And the new expansion even more so. The Maze is the creation — the work of art — without which the iTank technology would mean nothing. And I think you’ll be impressed.’ A silence. Rick thought: He isn’t even trying.
‘Enjoy the Maze,’ Daed said. ‘But be careful. It has some surprises in store.’
Silence. No one clapped. No one seemed to realise he’d finished. They watched as he stepped painfully off the platform and retrieved his drink from someone’s hand.
Then people stopped listening and turned away. A couple of Creatives started to applaud and then stopped, looking foolish. The murmur rose, like a sea washing footprints off sand.
And it was as if Rick was the only one who’d actually heard what Daed had said. Rick was the only one who stayed still, the back of his neck
tingling, wondering what was going on. Everyone else took a swig of their drinks, smiled, or snorted with mirth at a wisecrack. They were going to enjoy the party.
Only Daed caught Rick’s eye. He held his stare for a second; and then glanced quickly — too quickly — aside.
. . .
The party went on. Rick couldn’t work out whether time was going too fast or too slowly. He leant against one of the champagne-trees, watching the nearest glass swing gently in and out of focus. He felt sick; he’d drunk too much, and there wasn’t any food. The noise of five hundred people talking at once battered at his ears, drowning him. How long had he been here? How soon was he allowed to leave? It wasn’t like anyone cared that he was there . . .
There was a hand on his shoulder. For an odd, dislocated moment, he thought it was going to be Perdy: Don’t worry, Rick, I was never really dead, it was all a big practical joke . . . But when he turned, it was Daed.
‘Having fun?’
What do you think? But it came out as, ‘Whasshink?’
‘Evidently,’ Daed said, without smiling. ‘Sorry about the speeches. Should’ve warned you. Oh, and don’t drink too many cocktails — they’re champagne and absinthe. Lethal.’
Rick didn’t know what absinthe was, but he’d already worked out the lethal bit. He said, ‘Great, thangforelling me.’
Daed looked at him, his head tilted to one side. He looked grey. There was a tightness around his eyes and lips. Through the alcoholic haze Rick thought: Sick, he’s sick, sick and scared . . . Then he dug his nails into his palms, trying to concentrate, because Daed was fine, really, when he was sober he knew that. Didn’t he?
‘Gooparty,’ Rick said. He smiled, hoping the muscles in his face would obey him. ‘Nishe.’
‘Glad you’re enjoying it,’ Daed said. ‘Another three-quarters of an hour and you can leave. Or you can stay all night if you want. It’s up to you. But don’t leave for another forty-five minutes, or Paz might notice and be angry. OK?’
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