Arcade

by Robert Maxxe

  Carrie stood up and looked at Lon. "It's alive," she said.

  He nodded, then turned away quickly as if embarrassed, unwilling to have her scrutinize him.

  From the faint movements of his head, little shrugs, Carrie could tell he was engaged in some conversation with himself, trying to make sense of what they had seen. She waited, giving him time to find his answers, but when two minutes had gone by, she walked around to face him. "What does it mean?" she insisted.

  His eyes met hers, and only now she noticed that they were moist, shining with the sort of dewy wonder Carrie hadn't seen since reading bedtime fairy tales to the kids, when they were at that tender age of absolute belief in magic.

  "It's not ours," he said. "I don't think it can be. . . ."

  "Ours?"

  He put his hands on her shoulders, then slid them down gently along her arms. He was touching her, Carrie thought, as if he needed simply to feel her solidity.

  "I've been trying all the time," he said then, "to stay within my frame of reference, to explain this—the game—within the terms that I understand, within the context of our technology. It's all I could do, of course; it's all I know. But it was wrong." He was still not completely with her, she saw, looking past her in a daze like someone who'd just gotten back on his feet after being knocked down. "I said the memory had to be outside the game because what it did was so complex that no memory would fit in there, none that I knew to exist. But what we've seen now"—he nodded toward the microscope —"that is the memory, the source of everything the game does, living organic material that can do what's only done now, in the machines I build, with metal and silicon. But a million times better. Because it's alive, it can reorganize itself, change its own circuits. It can do everything a human brain does, and probably more; just as fast, and probably faster." He shook his head. "Don't ask me how, I can't tell you any of the technology involved. There are some people around who could explain the theory, but that's all. The theory." He hit the word again hard. "Because that's as far as we've gone. Computer scientists have been saying for a few years it should be possible to use molecular protein, bacterial organisms, to make memory circuits—biochips the whiz kids call them. And if they could do it, then the memory capacity of machines would be multiplied millions of times over. . . ." He broke away from her, and walked back to stand in front of the microscope. "The thing is, Carrie, it's all been talk. Scribbling on blackboards. In one or two labs, they've strung together a few molecules and made them dance a little when a current is put through . . . but, practically speaking, everybody in my business knows the biochip is thirty or forty years from being workable, twenty at best. We know it'll be done someday, but the knowledge, the technology just doesn't exist to do it now." He gave a short, quiet laugh, then put his eyes to the microscope again. "And there it is. A memory probably a billion times as powerful as anything we can build. A mind that communicates and teaches. From a game called Spacescape."

  "It's not of this earth," Carrie said. "That's what you mean, isn't it? The knowledge to do it, the intelligence comes from . . . somewhere else?"

  He pulled away from the eyepiece and settled on a stool by the counter. "So it seems."

  "But we know it was made by ordinary people, not thirty miles from here—"

  "Manufactured, put together like any machine out on my factory floor. The people who make it don't have to understand what they're doing. They follow instructions, plug things in according to diagrams. Only one person really has to know—whoever designs the hardware."

  "Peale . . ." Carrie said, and Lon nodded.

  She moved up beside him and bent over the microscope once more.

  The chains formed and reformed, myriad tracks and grids like the streets and squares of an immense city seen from a cloud. Carrie tried in vain to lock her perception onto something recognizable, a key to the code, the private language of that infinitesimal world.

  It taunted her with its secrets until she could no longer bear to look. "So he's the carrier of this . . . alien intelligence," Carrie said. "He came from another planet, landed on a flying saucer. . . ." She herself had proclaimed that Peale was a mutant, that he could not be human. And yet her words now sounded so ridiculous as she spoke them, so unbelievable, that she had the feeling of listening to someone else, a disembodied voice, Almost to test that they came from her, she was compelled to make her speculations even more absurd, "One of those whatchamacallits landed one day—a UFO—and Peale got out, and buried his spacesuit under a rock somewhere, and bought himself a nice gray flannel single-breasted and some shirts and cashed a few space-traveler's checks and set himself up in business to make games. . . ."

  Lon let her spin it out to the end, then he smiled wanly, "That wouldn't be my guess, exactly. . . ."

  "Oh? And what's yours?" Tired, edgy, she couldn't keep the harshness out of her challenge.

  "No guess of mine could ever be good enough," he said mildly. Turning back to the lab counter, he looked once more at the yellowish gel, and switched off the microscope light. Then he stood without moving, pensive. "There are astronomers who say there must be at least a billion other planets in our galaxy capable of supporting life. Just in our galaxy, not the universe. That doesn't come from any nutcases, either; top men, the best minds." He looked to Carrie. "And by the time they get through all their mathematical equations, allowing for errors, and unknown factors—the difficulties of life forming even where conditions are perfect, and the problem of making guesses about an infinity that shows us only the tiniest fraction of itself even through the most powerful telescope . . . when they've boiled it all down, you know how many of those billion planets the great men think may have actually produced life—multicellular forms that can organize, think, produce civilizations? Do you know how many . . .?" Carrie shook her head, though she knew Lon was not really expecting her to answer. "Just a measly half a million," he went on, and turned from her to the window. "We think we're so marvelous—the human being, 'the living end' in what nature can bring off its design boards. But nature is out there, too, doing other kinds of experiments. The odds say we're not the best of the half million." He moved up next to the windowsill and scanned the sky. With the onset of dawn it had turned to a field of lavender studded with twinkling specks, and tinges of pink on the horizon where the stars had already blinked out. "Whoever they are that have found a way here, their intelligence is probably so much greater than ours that trying to comprehend them with our logic—to guess how they came, or even what they want—is as far beyond our capacity as . . . as it is to look out at the stars and grasp the simple truth that there are no limits, none, that space goes on and on and on and on and on, without ending—ever." He turned to face her again. "We can't do that, can't quite get our minds around that notion. For us there always has to be a boundary, an end, something to comprehend in our own terms, an image of ourselves. We can't go farther. We . . . we just don't have the equipment." With the tips of stiffened fingers, he struck suddenly against his head, drummed at his temple so hard that it sounded like knocking on wood. From his expression, Carrie could see that he was frustrated and angered by his human limitation. But when he took a few steps to come close to her, and looked for a long moment into her face, his expression softened. "So I'm all out of guesses, love," he concluded. "I just don't have any trouble believing that they've come, and they may be our masters."

  Returning his gaze, Carrie felt her emotions vibrating between doubt and belief, terror and wonder. And even while she was grateful to have him with her, she felt the faintest twinge of suspicion about the ease with which he accepted, and encouraged her to accept.

  But when he put his arms around her at last, she let herself be gathered in.

  Huddling against him, she faced the window. The whole sky was blushing now with the peach and rose of sunrise. Searching it with her eyes, she could find only one star. Then, as she watched, that one also blinked out.

  There was only the earth, alone in its brig
ht pocket. Carrie couldn't believe there was nothing to do but surrender.

  36

  They drove east toward the sea and the sun rose up to face them. The sky turned a plain familiar blue, hiding the mysteries of space like a magician's cloth masking the tricks on his table. The fantastic discoveries of the night receded behind them like a dream.

  But when Lon put his hand to his shirt pocket, he felt it there, the sterile glass dish containing the living memory, the game's heart being carried over his own. He had considered leaving it behind in the plant, this piece of technology thirty years ahead of its time—worth an incalculable fortune to anyone in his business. But how could he explain it if he showed it to others, attempted to use it? And there was a danger in trying to use anything about which so little could yet be known or understood. It was tampering with the forces of the universe. You could be no more sure of the result than when atoms were split.

  A road sign loomed up ahead:

  EXIT 77A – THE HAMPTONS, MILLPORT, MONTAUK

  Lon glanced over at Carrie. Quiet as she had been during the ride, she wasn't napping. She had also seen the sign—a reminder that the unreal was no longer receding behind; it had orbited around them so that now they were driving toward it.

  "What will we do, Lon?" she asked, it was not one question, but many. What would they do to reach Peale? What would they do about the children, to help them? What more could they do to comprehend . . .?

  And one that overrode all the others.

  Lon had no answer, but he wanted to be sure Carrie realized what was at stake:

  "If we do succeed in stopping it here—assuming we can—it still won't be the end. You saw how many games Peale is sending out. But even that must be a drop in the bucket. He isn't alone, Carrie, can't be. This is happening everywhere, all over the world. And if it isn't now, it will soon. The powers, the beings—whatever, whoever put this here—their reach is so great that what seems monumental to us, an immense global effort, may be no harder for them than it is for us to take this drive home."

  "We can't do nothing, Lon. You can't think it's pointless even to try!"

  "No . . . if I could only be sure it was right to try." They had reached the exit ramp. As he veered onto it, Lon tossed a glance at Carrie. "But suppose it's wrong. . . ."

  She gazed at him in confusion. "You think we should just . . . give up our children? Are you really ready to surrender them to . . ." She turned away to scan despairing eyes across the sky, then threw up her hands and was silent.

  Lon followed the ramp down and took the turn onto the state road.

  "Christ, using a game," Carrie muttered then. "Goddamn sneaky bastards, whoever they are. . . ."

  The prosaic insult seemed for a moment to make the phenomenal powers small. Then the absurdity of it struck them both. Lon laughed softly, and when she joined him for a moment, he felt there was a chance she could share his vision.

  "Carrie, we don't know what their goal is. Maybe they used the game because it was the best way to reach the best people—they wanted the kids because they need to communicate with minds that are open, have room to accept. Don't you see, darling, if we fight we're only doing what they expected from us, what they wanted to avoid?"

  "Yes, I see that. I can look back over everything Peale has done and see it was meant to keep secrets, keep us out of it. But can that be a reason to stand back now—because we're the children's protectors, and they were always afraid we'd get in the way?"

  "Sweetheart, listen: what's happening is a miracle as great as our existence, Something separate from us, from this planet, has found its way here and reached out to the children—"

  "—reached into them," Carrie amended quickly.

  "All right. They're enchanted, yes, like kids in a fairy tale—following their own mystery the way children danced after the Pied Piper. And that's scary as hell. But if they're enthralled, my God, so they should be. If the difficulty of coping with it threw one kid into a tailspin he couldn't get out of, that's terrible, sad . . . but still I don't see that any deliberate evil was done. We have to welcome the miracle, nurture the contact. We don't want to get in the way . . . or let anybody else get in the way. We have to do everything we can to find out who or what we're in touch with. You and I: we have to do everything possible to let the miracle keep happening."

  There was a pause before she said quietly, "Do nothing, you mean. Keep the secret."

  "Yes. For now."

  She looked away and gave an anguished sigh. "Oh Lon, no . . . the responsibility . . ."

  "It comes down to us, what we decide. There is no other way. If we tell, let others decide, then who should it be?"

  "The authorities, the government—"

  "And what will they do? Impound the machines, put guards around them, study the shit out of them . . . and keep them from the children. End of miracle."

  Yes, the games were for the children, only for them. They were the only ones who could "get through." They had said it again and again.

  The only hope.

  But to what fate were they consigned if allowed to finish?

  "How do we know?" she burst out. "In the end, how do we know it'll be good?"

  "We don't," he said. "But if ever a risk was worth taking . . ."

  ". . . with the children . . ." she whispered unhappily.

  "For them, Carrie. For their world. For their future."

  They passed the sign on the state road saying that Millport was two miles ahead. It wasn't just a place they were speeding toward, she felt, but a moment of decision for a whole planet.

  "I don't know, Lon. I don't know. . . ."

  There was a silence. Then Lon surprised her with a light, chatty question. "Ever read the science pages in the Times?"

  She had to smile. "I try . . . and always fall asleep."

  "I think it was in there—a year or two back—I saw an article about Francis Crick, one of the guys who won a Nobel for discovering the structure of the DNA molecule, the basis of life. Crick believes now that the formation of living organisms on this planet—the coming together of the essential elements at just the right moment, growing out of the stew of minerals and elements that was here at the start—required so many coincidences that the odds against it are almost mathematically inconceivable. The only way to explain it, he says, is that life was seeded here—drifted in from space, carried on a meteor perhaps—or perhaps was even sent. And according to Crick, the form in which it would have arrived, the only form that could have survived the journey through space, is bacterial."

  It was a couple of seconds before she understood his reason for dragging in theories of life. "Like what we saw under the microscope, is that it? You want me to believe that whatever is out there planted us here . . . and now they're just checking on the farm?"

  "I don't want you to believe anything, Carrie. It's a theory, that's all: what else do we have to explain Creation? But maybe this one illustrates best why I think we ought to go ahead, let the kids get through. Because it's the best chance we may ever have to know more about ourselves—and our stars."

  Carrie took a deep breath, and said nothing.

  She had still given him no answer when they took the turn at the Millport Green and started traveling along Elm Street.

  "But one more thing, Carrie," Lon said. "Whatever you want, that's the way it'll be. I won't go against you. I want you more than all the stars."

  She kept looking away, out the window. But her hand moved across the seat, found his, and gripped it tightly.

  Driving along Elm Street, they passed the bakery, already open, and Carrie saw Ray Mackeson, the owner, leaning into the window and laying out some fresh loaves of bread. She thought of what Lon had told her about the formation of life on earth, Crick's theory: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, all cooked up billions of years ago out of some "yeast" from outer space.

  But what were people except groups of cells, grown together, organized in a very particular way?


  And then they approached the arcade, Was it only last night they had been there? Carrie thought, Or eons ago? Light-years, Before the dawn of Creation. Knowing the secret of the game altered perceptions of time, transformed the mind. The world looked different to her. People looked different—creatures of the universe, not merely rulers of the Earth. Merely one species in space.

  Suddenly it no longer seemed incredible that something was reaching out from another world. Rather, it seemed inevitable. Overdue.

  Yet she couldn't welcome it, couldn't purge a terrible sense of danger—portents of death. Perhaps it arose from nothing more than confronting the infinite; a million ideas must die—and a thousand gods—when this miracle happened.

  But a million new ideas would be born. (And who could say what gods?)

  Perhaps.

  They rolled past the front of the arcade, and Lon slowed the car. The rising sun tinted the white siding of the old cottage to pinkish gold. It looked so pleasant and ordinary. Nothing there to suggest the phenomenal. Nothing at all.

  She looked around at Lon.

  "Well . . .?" he said.

  She couldn't decide. Could only long for the past, that state of innocence in which this crushing responsibility didn't rest on her. Could only delay.

  "I have to see the children first. I have to ask them. . . ."

  He nodded and pressed down the accelerator.

  The morning was dazzlingly bright. The children might be awake when they got there.

  All the way from town the picture of the arcade lingered in Carrie's mind: quiet, ordinary, like any place else on the street.

  They were already nearing Lon's house when she realized there was more teasing her consciousness than the irony of the old cottage being a door to the universe. If not so tired, so stunned by what they had discovered—unearthed—in the night, she would have seen the significance sooner, would have known they were wasting precious time.

  "The door . . . !" she erupted just as Lon turned into his driveway.