Virtually True
Page 24
CUT TO
TRUE, enhancing the scope of his screen to 360 degrees. Behind, he can see that the MERCENARIES have stopped running and are massing behind them. The CLONES in front. Realizes HE and MAXI are seconds away from being caught in the crossfire.
TRUE
Sato’s mercs are regrouping to take this hill.
CUT TO
TRUE, WITH A DESPERATE IDEA. CLOSE UP.
PAN BACK TO
TRUE, pointing at the CLONES.
MAXI
(shaking his head in disbelief)
You out of your fucking Yankee head? Run straight into an army pointing lasers? That’s hara-kiri, mate. Those clones have no soul. They’ll kill you in a quick sec.
PULL BACK TO REVEAL
MAXI, looking to run toward the mercenaries. TRUE grabs MAXI’s injured arm.
MAXI
Fuck! That hurt.
TRUE
You’re not thinking clearly. Listen. The clones only shoot pre-scanned enemies. It’s the mercs we have to look out for.
MAXI
Don’t wait around on my account.
CUT TO
TRUE and MAXI running full throttle down the hill, into CLONE fortifications. TRUE feels he may not be the fastest man who ever lived, but then again, maybe at this moment he is. As they get closer, bullets and lasers piss across the sky, over them, not on them, from behind. The hill provides temporary shelter, a shield from the mercenary volley. CLONE lasers and guns are held, ammo not wasted. True and Maxi skid to awkward stops when a CLONE laser is fired. The smell of an electrical fire. TRUE and MAXI see a MERCENARY melted into a small pond. TRUE holds up both hands in surrender. MAXI holds his hat to his head.
TRUE
(shouting hoarse)
We’re journalists.
MAXI
That’s right, you bloody laboratory experiments. Show them your press pass, Ailey.
TRUE
(hissing)
Me? I’m not reaching into my pocket with a billion jigs of laser fire power trained on us. Show them yours.
MAXI
Give me back my wrist-top.
TRUE
Fucking usurious Ozzie bastard.
CUT TO
The CLONES, who don’t even twitch at the sight of TRUE and MAXI. Breathing hard and heavy, sweat flowing down their heads into their eyes, stinging them, making them blink. TRUE and MAXI wait. Finally, TRUE slowly reaches into his pocket, wincing as the guns, unwavering, point at them, and extracts his hologrammed press pass.
TRUE
See? Journalists. Observers.
CUT TO
The CLONES, who don’t waver. From behind them, TRUE can hear explosions, then the buzzing, hacksaw sound of a laser. Some of the CLONES drop, their armor melted to their skin. But they don’t cry out, don’t exhibit the human characteristics of pain. They are merely incapacitated. The thought crosses TRUE’S mind that it was a shame he couldn’t have been a CLONE when his life with Eden fell apart.
CLONE lasers blind them, the sound of screams and agony of men and women in battle. TRUE turns to advancing mercenaries.
TRUE
Hope none of the clones makes a DNA miscue.
CUT TO
TRUE and MAXI sprinting into the CLONE stronghold. The CLONES ignore them, keep their weapons trained on MERCENARIES. TRUE and MAXI swivel through the first wave of CLONES, dive behind some mortar and cement—the remains of the factory—and thousands of pairs of sneakers. The stench of melted rubber is almost suffocating. From behind the wall, TRUE and MAXI keep recording the action, catching the battle on screen, trying to remain calm as MERC and CLONE alike are maimed and killed.
CUT TO
TRUE’s wrist-top screen, EDEN in the right-hand corner, sitting quietly in the apartment as the other 15 screens are taken up with vicious fighting, 15 tales of bravery and cowardice, violence and retreat, death and injury, lasers, guns and hand-to-hand combat.
EDEN
Are you all right?
TRUE
So far.
CUT TO
An explosion nearby, and hundreds of pairs of sneakers raining down on and around them.
EDEN
(screaming)
True!
CUT TO
TRUE and MAXI, huddling under sneakers, dust, concrete, and glass floating down.
MAXI
(tossing a sneaker away)
I got a bloody headache.
TRUE
Tell me about it. We’re OK, Eden.
EDEN
Incredible footage. I feel like I’m in the middle of the war.
TRUE
Funny. So do we.
CUT TO
MAXI, grinning broadly, then wincing, although the smile stays intact as a whole platoon of MERCENARIES is wiped out.
CUT TO
TRUE. CLOSEUP. EYES WIDE OPEN, MOUTH AGAPE.
CUT TO
THE FACTORY, TRUE and MAXI, part of a world that’s gone haywire. Suddenly, their positions change, the whole battlefield has shifted, kaleidoscoping, like falling off a motorcycle. In a blink of the eye, they are 10 meters from where they were before.
CUT TO
The CLONES, still firing on the MERCENARIES, who seemed to have all of a sudden increased in size, as if reinforcements have been sent in. And then CLONES begin disappearing, but not from mercenary fire. One second the CLONE is firing or moving to shore up a position, the next it’s gone. Whole lines of CLONES disappear, like a shuffling deck of cards.
TRUE
(Seems to understand something important)
Maxi. We have to get out of here.
MAXI
OK, just a little more footage. Look at them disappear. Like they’re dissolving. This is incredible.
TRUE
Now!
CUT TO
MAXI, who doesn’t answer, wrapped up in the battle.
CUT TO
AN OVERVIEW OF TRUE and MAXI’s WRIST-TOP SCREENS, as CLONES disappear in a domino-effect crossing screen to screen.
CUT TO
TRUE, running, waving MAXI on, as he heads out onto the battlefield
PULL BACK TO REVEAL
THE BRUNT OF THE MERCENARY ARMY, their guns trained on him
CUT TO
A TEENAGE MALAY MERCENARY, tattered and bloody, taking aim
CUT TO
TRUE wincing and running, looking suspiciously like a video game character
CUT TO
MAXI, still in the same spot, filming
CUT TO
TRUE, doing a quick 180, the MALAY missing him, then aiming elsewhere, as if he couldn’t be bothered with TRUE, and TRUE racing back to MAXI
CUT TO
TRUE screaming at MAXI to get moving and
CUT TO
MAXI shutting off his wrist-top, muttering “Ready to rock and—”
CUT TO
CLOSE UP. MAXI looks at the camera, says “Holy Fuck,” and photo-flashes invisible.
CUT TO
TRUE hitting the deck where Maxi was, hugging the ground, his nose nudged under sneakers
PULL BACK TO REVEAL
THE WHOLE BATTLEFIELD and the ensuing mayhem, as the battle intensity picks up, one long gun report and laser hiss, the air redolent with blue smoke, chemical lasers, burning flesh and hair, rubber and gun powder. There is a loud thud that seems to come from within True’s head and his world spins out of control, the atmosphere’s molecules breaking up into molecules, a Seurat painting, thousands of colors shimmying, shimmering.
There’s another thudding explosion, the world shifts again, and True is lying on something soft, gooey. The stench of burnt flesh and hair is melted into his clothing. Something familiar lying by his head. The dregs of an oil skin hat. Maxi’s wrist-top beside it.
True rolls out of the muck, frantically rubs at the viscous material. In his mind he’s screaming, Get it off! Get it off! but knows he’ll never get Maxi off his clothes, never get him out of his mind.
True in unfettered shakes. Looks over the battlefield. A clone steps around him, ignores him.
True picks up a half-melted sneaker. Heaves it at him. Misses.
CHAPTER 29
Eden gasps when True walks in, stained with vomit, dirt, and Maxi. “Are you all right?”
True nods stiffly, afraid he’s on the verge of losing control.
The apartment is crowded with flowers. Roses. In vases, bouquets, planters, wrapped in plastic or displayed in pancake-thin origami. The air is thick with their perfume.
Eden explains. “Someone named Piña sent them. There’s a note.”
She draws a bath, strips him. He knows she’s surveying Piña’s chafes, the scratches running along his spine, the purple-olive splotches on his chest. Artillery, she may ask? But she doesn’t and True doesn’t say.
After he’s immersed in the stinging water Eden takes off her panties, steps in, hiking up her skirt and lowering herself on him. She soaps his body, the arms first, gently; his shoulders, kneaded. She lathers his toes and works herself up his ankles, shins, knees, thighs. True’s aroused despite his pain. She encloses him in her, her legs rubber-banding around his waist. She urges his hands onto her breasts. The nipples push hard against her soaking dress. She rises, falls, tension and release, stroking him as she dances.
The tub is slippery and True slides along the bottom. As her movements animate, her fingers and toes curl behind his back. Husky breaths. She throws herself all the way down on him, driving almost inside him, pulling close. He’s coming down from her climax. His nose is mushed into her cleavage and he’s thinking about the cycle of life, how it’s really just a cycle from childhood to childhood. Except in his case, his childhood was taken away from him, spent in a lab.
Eden’s hair is steam-damp. She hugs him as if this is the last time. But her message is different. “I love you, True. I love you. And I’ll always be there for you. I know you don’t believe me. I know you don’t trust me. But I’ll show you. I promise.”
Plagued by guilt. He has a lot of work but little time.
She submerges her hands, reaches for him. “Want to come?” Licks salt off his lips.
True turns away. “I’ve seen two men melted in just hours and I have to finish this story. Later.”
He knows, although she pretends this is fine, it isn’t.
Eden stands and water cascades down. She pulls off her dress, wrings it out over True, flings it in the corner. One foot then the other out of the tub. “What can I do to help?”
“Can you measure the difference between the amount of power generated and the amount consumed in Tokyo?”
“They’ll be roughly the same.”
“I don’t think so. When you locate the largest users of electricity, let me know.”
“You want to tell me what this is about?”
True touches a Piña clamp-bruise on his wrist. “Just do it.”
She sashays out of the bathroom, as if to remind True what he’s missing.
True towels off, grabs the medical kit, and runs ultrasound treatments until he can breathe without wincing and walk without limping. Piña’s video-card was already viewed. He glances at Eden, who’s wrapped in work, and opens it. A hologram of Piña, a different, digital Piña, coalesces from pink mist. She’s elegant, a one-and-a-half-meter feminine icon in slinky designer wear, purring breasts, silky legs.
“Dear True. Forgive me. I love you. If you let me into your life, there is nothing we can’t accomplish. I can imbue you with strength and resilience. You can share your sensitivity and intellect. Together we dance among the stars. Alone I am inconsequential. I love you, True, truly.”
Piña’s sucked back into the envelope. True wonders what she traded for help in composing her sonnet. He studies a pink rose, de-thorned. Which’s unlike Piña as well, to alter nature.
Eden, with a thread of a smile, calls over. “I have that power data. You were right.”
“About?”
“Since the quake knocked out hundreds of thousands of buildings, consumption is only five percent what it was the same time last year.”
“But power output?”
“Is up. What do you think it means?”
“Can you knock out Tokyo’s power in one jolt at my command? Make it brownout so nothing vital goes out. Even just for a minute?”
Eden weighs. “Difficult; not impossible. Strictly speaking, not in one jolt but in trillions of electrical pulses, which would amount to the same. They wouldn’t expect it, that’s for sure. They usually guard against tappers, not someone trying to kamikaze the system at five percent capacity. I could probably block the access cells. It’ll automatically reroute trillions of times but I could hold it off for maybe thirty secs. Rerouting will intensify with each failure, so with the limited hardware I have here, that’s what I can do.”
“Set it up.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to finish what’s been planned for me.”
“Then?”
“I don’t know.” He swipes at a strand of loose hair. “Rush is going to be here any minute. When he buzzes, let him in.”
“How do you know Rush is coming?”
“If he doesn’t, I won’t be able to complete my computer destiny.”
* * *
Reiner’s transmitting from the Tokyo bureau, three dozen monitors behind her offering views of the city’s wards.
True tweaks the picture. “I like you better this way, without your broadcast icon.”
“You’re probably the only one. I coded a message to the WWTV board telling them the war poop was yours. I also said you were working on a story that would blow the ratings heaven-bound. They said they’d clear the boards on your cue.”
“Thanks. It’s almost ready. I hope.” Reiner knows not to ask about a scoop before air time. “Any word on Odessa?”
“Tracked down an antique obaasan who said she witnessed a gaijin matching O’s description disappear. Then again she swore the Emperor’s her lover, so there’s that. Still looking.”
True doesn’t say Odessa’s dead, like Maxi. Could be wrong, so shhhhh.
She: “Did you catch the promos Rush made for your obit? He scored a ratings coup with the Urban Survival footage. I sent word you’re alive so he has to post a worldwide retraction. He’ll be irate.”
First Aslam pulling his exclusive, now this. Rush’s road to anchor nirvana is strewn with potholes. Pounding on the door. Eden lets Rush in, who steams over. “Ailey. You are such an asshole.”
“Right on time,” True says.
“Told you he’d be pissed.” Reiner’s beatific icon, her defense, now substituting for her on screen.
Rush stomps his foot on the carpet. A mushy sound. “You’re not allowed to transmit footage without my OK. Those are the rules. You’re not even supposed to be alive.”
“What’s that mean?” Reiner cracks her neck.
Rush blisters. “I saw him picked apart and transmitted the footage internationally. I’ve been nuked twice this month. I’ll be filed under ‘gullible’ at the home office.”
“You should have checked with me. I’d have told you he wasn’t dead.”
“Reiner, shut up. Congratulations on your scoop. You’re lucky as fuck. An earthquake then a war while I’m stuck in this SE Asian toilet.”
“True’s the one who dug up the war scoop.”
True’s aware of distortions in some of Reiner’s monitors. “What’s happening?”
There’s rumbling, whirlpool dots and strands of light, buildings and people exploding silently, disappearing. The ground shakes as portions of Tokyo are sponged away. Pastel phantasmagorisms splashing eerie.
“Is that an aftershock?” Rush asks.
True, frantic. “Reiner, get out of there. Leave Tokyo immediately.”
More cosmic disturbance. “I’m staying, True.”
“You’ll die, Reiner.”
She switches off her icon and Rush’s eyes wiggle. He doesn’t know this Reiner, the one unable to parry time. “I’ve lived a long time.”
The bureau remains unfazed by the electronic squall, swirling, untangling pointillism. True says, “Even with provisions for low-tonnage weaponry, you know the risk you’re taking?”
“I’m staying.”
Another wrinkle in the cosmos. Reiner’s face dances from silvery old to gilded youth, then back. On one of the monitors: a shuffle of people disappear. Flash into air. On other monitors, too. “Aw, True. I’ve been sitting on the greatest scoop of the 21st century, and I missed it. Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, man. That really sucks. Sh—” Reiner spins into cottony fog.