by John F. Carr
"It's almost time for first meal. I thought that you and I might discuss the case while eating."
"I can't take time to eat now," she said. "I'll keep you posted if anything significant happens. I appreciate your cooperation."
Clandine came in to collect me. She asked, "You don't mind missing first meal, do you? We can eat later."
"I don't mind. I’m ready to go."
As we walked out of the damaged VIS center, a new day was dawning. I felt hopeful and optimistic.
EIGHT
Outside the VIS Center, Clandine removed the custodial collar and folded it into her waist pouch. We walked to the nearest slidestrip, I took a deep breath. The air was fresh and cool to my lungs, a welcome change from the gas-tainted atmosphere of the VIS Center. My collar was off. The rising sun seemed to hold the promise of a new and better day for me.
Clandine and I got on the slidestrip towards the nearest slideway. As we made our way toward the Simulike Palace, I asked her how she made her way around without directions. She said she’d developed a mental map that oriented her to the VIS Centers and all the other buildings like the Color Wheel and the Simulike Palace.
We got off a slidestrip at the Simulike Palace. It appeared to be closed at this early hour. The only people around were two grays sleeping on the walkway. As I looked at them I noticed that their limbs were trembling as if they were cold, although the early morning sun felt warm to me.
"Those two seem to be suffering from chills."
"It’s probably a Cainenol reaction," she said.
"What’s Cainenol?"
"An illegal drug. Take too much and the body can’t handle it."
"Should we find a medic to treat them?"
"The twitching will go away without treatment, usually," she said. "The patrolling medics will find them if they stay here long enough to become a nuisance. But right now they’re overworked and probably won't bother with them. The medics have enough problems trying to handle the Cainenol chumps who go berserk and attack everything, including each other."
I wondered if that was the drug that Lyonella had taken, possibly given to her by Vargan—possibly by me if I had been Vargan before I was brainwiped and turned into a blanc. I didn't want to let my thoughts linger on questions like that. Instead I told Clandine the route I remembered that would take me back to my dwell, the one place where we might find a way to get in touch with Errox. She listened with a concentration that made me certain that she was adding my information to the map in her head.
As we moved onto another slideway to follow the route I remembered, I saw some kind of commotion on the slowest strip. Clandine and I moved onto a faster strip to bypass the group who appeared to be fighting on the outside strip. When we got close enough to see what was going on, I could tell that it was a cluster of five or six people lashing out wildly at each other and at all the travelers who came within their reach.
"Watch out, berserkers are rioting on the slow strip," she said into a small handphone.
She pulled her stunner out of her waist pouch and, when she got close enough, began firing at the berserkers. Two of them, a woman with a torn tunic and a man with a bloody face, collapsed immediately. A second man with one eye swollen shut jumped off the slideway strip and ran down a walkway as if pursued by creatures from a nightmare.
A second woman jumped onto the slidestrip where Clandine and I were. She was a short distance behind us, running toward us in an adrenaline-charged rush of rage. I threw myself at her legs and knocked her off her feet.
Clandine pointed the stunner at the fallen woman and fired. The woman's eyes lost their crazed light and then the lids came down as if she were going to asleep.
"Help me pick her up," Clandine demanded.
I grabbed the woman under the arms and she picked up the woman's legs.
As soon as we had a firm grip on the unconscious berserker, Clandine said, "Let's move over to the slowest strip. We'll drop her off by a walkway. When she wakes up the berserker energy will be gone and she'll have a hangover but otherwise be okay."
After we put the woman down by the walkway, Clandine said, "If we had time, we could get on the fastest strip, catch up with the other two I stunned and get them off the strip, but we don't have time if we're going to catch the crew at your dwell during first meal."
I thought of the two downed berserkers on an unconscious trip to an unknown destination, doomed to arrive with a painful hangover and other body aches. I felt good by comparison until I realized that I'd lost count of how many urbodes we had passed and I had no idea where I was in relation to my dwell or the Simulike Palace.
"Clandine, I've lost count of the urbodes along this slidestrip. I don't know whether we've traveled too far or not far enough."
She nodded. "Then we'll have to go back to the Simulike Palace and retrace the route. I hope we can still get there by first meal. That's the best time to find most people at home."
We doubled back. There were more people on the slideway than there were earlier, but no more berserkers. I didn't let anything distract me from keeping the urbode count. We got off the slidestrip in front of the square of one hundred urbodes.
"My dwell is in the sixth row back from the front and is the fourth one on the left."
As we walked through the urbodes, more people came out of the front portals, some of them carrying a few belongings in bags made from old tunics, most of them carrying nothing that couldn't be kept in a waist pouch. Clandine looked at the exodus and said, "It's transit day. We better hurry or all the occupants of your urbode will be gone."
We arrived at the urbode only to find the front portal closed. In front were three grays—two men and a woman. Clandine said, "A spotter and a couple of runners. That means the building is empty for maintenance and they are waiting until the building opens again to notify the people they know who will be the new tenants.What was the name of the gray that Errox knew?"
"Miral."
We approached them. Clandine asked the woman, "Do you know where Miral went?" The woman looked at Clandine, saw the VIS white wristlock with the black stars and said, "There's no one left here from the building. They all left as soon as they finished first meal."
Clandine asked again, "Do you know Miral?"
"I don't know any Miral, and I don't know you."
Clandine turned to the two men and asked, "Do either of you know where Miral went?"
One man ignored her.
The other, a bald man of indeterminate age, said, "What do you want with Miral, whoever he is?"
Clandine answered, "I'm looking for Miral and a friend of his named Errox."
"We don't know them. If they used to live here they're gone, looking for new dwells. Who knows where? Not us. As soon as this urbode opens again, We're moving in along with a lot of others we know. We don't want VIS here. We've got busters coming to get rid of outsiders like you two. Leave now. There's nothing for you here."
Clandine turned away from the bald man and said to me, "We are too late. Let's go back to the slidestrip."
I was discouraged. If it hadn't been for the encounter with the berserkers, we might have gotten here in time to see Miral, or maybe even Errox if he came to visit.
I had hoped to help Clandine so that she would help me. Now, how could I help her? I had no dwell and no way to find one where I would be welcomed. I was a stranger in an unfamiliar land, wearing a wristlock that identified me as someone the authorities considered an undesirable, at best; at worst, a Freedom Crusader, part of a criminal conspiracy that caused death and destruction. I stopped walking, immobilized by my downward spiral of depressing thoughts.
Clandine halted, turned to me, and said, "While you were connected to the vericator, you told me I could trust you—and you were right. I’ve trusted you, but now it’s time for you to trust me. You've got to tell me everything you know about Errox. Where did you first meet him?"
"In the Color Wheel."
"How did you get into the Co
lor Wheel? Did Errox take you inside?"
"I woke up in the Rainbow Room of the Color Wheel. Evidently I'd been brainwiped and dumped there. Errox helped me get out alive."
"If you want my help, you've got to tell me everything. There's more to the story than you've told so far."
I hadn't wanted to relive that experience through recall and I didn't want to cause trouble for Errox but I needed help from Clandine. I felt that I owed Errox because he saved my life, but I owed more to myself—a satisfactory life and the opportunity to find out what happened to me and why. Somebody had me brainwiped and left in a place where I was intended to die. I was angry about that. I didn't just want explanations—I wanted revenge.
Clandine seemed my only chance now that Miral and the other grays had moved. Now she was my only contact in this nightmarish world. I decided to tell her everything that I knew about Errox. "I'll tell you what I know of Errox, but I won't let you use me as a witness against him. He saved my life. I owe him for that."
"Start from the beginning. What happened in the Rainbow Room?"
I told her the whole story—the wakeup call from the woman with the green wristlock, how she died, Errox's entrance through the exit, his removing the wristlock from the dead woman, my solving the Rainbow Room equation...
"You solved the equation and figured out which tiles would drop?"she asked, her voice rising.
"Yes, it was simple algebra."
"Errox knows you did this?"
I nodded. "He was there with me."
"Now I know why Errox saved your life. You weren't just another blanc. You were a person with brain power, someone that Errox could pretend to befriend and stash somewhere for later use. If you hadn't been picked up by that sweep of the Simulike Palace you can be sure that Errox had something else planned for you—like maybe an early death wearing his wristlock so the VIS wouldn't be looking for him anymore."
"I’m not convinced you're absolutely right, but I don't know anything that would prove you wrong."
"Errox did stash you in a dwell. Was it Miral's?"
"No. It was with someone else. I don't want to give you a name and cause trouble for that person."
"I don't need the name. Someone reported a nu-blanc who could play the Game well was staying at Ural's dwell. That was you. Ural has been under Errox's influence for some time. We don't know why, do you?"
"No."
"Since you're reluctant to name names, let me tell you that we know Errox deals with two smitties, Dreena and Hushel. Errox took you to a smitty's dwell, didn't he? There he had his wristlock replaced with the green one and had his old one put on you. Is that what happened?"
"Yes. It happened just like that. Then he took me to Miral's. The next time he came by, we went to the Simulike Palace. You know what happened after that?"
"What did you experience while under Simulike?"
"The experience was completely real. I found myself being initiated into full membership in a tribe with mind-changing sacraments and strange rituals that were to culminate in a naming ceremony."
"That figures," she said. "You were getting what you needed: acceptance and a name, a feeling of belonging. That's what the Simulike is supposed to do—create a fantasy that meets your needs. Was there any violence in the scene, directed toward you or anyone else?"
"No," I replied.
"That's a good indication that you would never make a good Freedom Crusader. If you believed that might makes right, you would have had an encounter with enemies and killed them."
"I wouldn't hesitate to defend myself if attacked," I interjected.
"I believe you, but your Simulike experience shows that you are not full of the kind of rage that the Crusaders want to nourish and channel. I think it's very possible that Errox took you to the Simulike Palace to learn more about you. Once he learned what you needed, he would be in a position of increased knowledge and greater power. Errox probably intended to use your brain power and your abilities to improve his position in the world."
"You make him sound like a monster."
"Isn’t he? From what I know, Errox is one of those people who has never known love, never recognized the meaning of any life but his own. He uses people, takes rights for himself that he denies to others. He can murder, torture and mutilate because he has never felt empathy. He regards other people as animate objects for manipulation."
"He may have been manipulating me, but he did save my life. Then, he helped me obtain food and shelter. I don't have either now."
She looked up and down the slidestrip. "Come on. There's nothing for us here. Let's get on the slidestrip and go."
"Go where? Transit time has robbed me of any place to go."
"We'll go to my dwell. I promised I'd get you something to eat. You can stay with me for the time being."
It was the best offer I'd had today; it wasn't likely that I'd get a better one. As far as I knew, I'd never had a better offer in my life. But maybe I was still in custody. Clandine knew that she could trust me. I'd told her so and my words had been verified by the vericator. I wished I knew how far I could trust Clandine. I know that she had originally wanted to use me as a spy. Maybe she still did? Had I given her more power over me by telling her about my Simulike experience? I hadn't told her about the sexual content of my initiation because I wasn't sure whether or not she would use sex to try to control me.
I said, "Lead the way." I was tired of my own thoughts but not so tired that I neglected to add the route to Clandine's dwell to my mental map.
NINE
Clandine’s dwell was in an urbode not far from the Simulike Palace. I added its location to my mental map as a permanent landmark since Clandine, as a white wristlock wearer, did not have to change residences on Transit Day. Her dwell was cleaned on a separate schedule, saving her from the reorientation that most people went through every thirty cycles. This world would be far more pleasant, I thought,if all the urbodes could be cleaned on a schedule that didn't require the tenants to find new lodgings. My mental musing stopped when Clandine spoke.
"Sit down, Rathe. We’ll have a late first meal."
The food was the same as I'd had in the other urbodes and in the VIS center, but it seemed better here because there were only two of us and we were in a comfortable setting.
"I'm sorry that we couldn't find Miral or Errox," I said. "I didn’t know that it was Transit Day nor did I have any idea how disruptive it would be. I can understand the need for cleaning urbodes and that the people need to be out during the process but why do all the people, except the rainbows and some of the whites, have to change dwells?"
With a serious look on her oval face, Clandine said, "Transit Day forces the players of the Game to take a break and keeps some of them from burning out. It gives the white wristlock wearers that have to move—like Listeners and Clerics—a renewal and all new clients until the next Transit Day. It also makes it more difficult for grays to form permanent groupings. It's like True Faith Forever, another device for controlling grays."
"Some of the grays in my last urbode tried to interest me in meeting with a Cleric," I said. "The idea of devoting this life to spiritual exercises in order to have a better next incarnation requires more faith than I have."
"Me too," Clandine said. "I don’t want to waste this life on speculation. I’m trying to improve things so that when I emerge from the House of Rebirth for my next life I'll find the world a better place, even if I don't remember what it was like before."
"Is it true that only rainbows retain their memories when they reincarnate?" I asked.
"Rainbows don’t pass through the House of Rebirth. When they want their life renewed they go to the Fane of Change and come out rejuvenated with memory intact. Immortality! All you have to do is play the Game."
There was a note of dissatisfaction or disbelief in Clandine’s voice that I hadn't heard before. I asked, "Why don’t you play the Game?"
"I wanted to do something better with my life. I wear
the white wristlock of the VIS because it gives me the power to help root out the misguided and criminal elements in our society. I want to stop the Freedom Crusaders. They're tied into the distribution of Cainenol, the drug that’s becoming a plague on our society. The Crusaders use it to control the minds of recruits, convincing them that if they die in the cause of freedom they will be reborn in a paradise called Freeland. Some of the recruits die from overdoses and some have berserker reactions. I want to stop the flow of Cainenol."
"Do you think Errox is involved in supplying the drug?"
"I don't know but I think he could find out about it. He might be willing to do that to get his slate wiped clean instead of being brainwiped."
From the way she talked, I realized that Clandine would have no compunctions about brainwiping anyone who didn't cooperate with her. Knowing that, made me uneasy. I hoped I had the skills to appear useful to Clandine until I could find a way to get out of her custody. I wasn't wearing the control collar, but I was still under her watch. I needed to know more about Transit Day if I wanted to survive until the next one. But,first, I needed to find a new dwell.
"I can see the kind of problems you're dealing with, Clandine, but doesn't Transit Day complicate things for you, even though you don't have to move?"
"Yes, but that's never going to be easy to change since Transit Day promotes the Game. As long as most of the best people concentrate on the game, the rainbows will continue to run things and whites perform the necessary services that can't be automated. Friends and acquaintances may lose track of each other every transit, but the Game goes on forever."
"Why is the Game so crucial? I played it once for a few minutes and I found it interesting because I was good at it. It didn't seem to be important enough to be the center of my life."
"The Game allows everyone a chance for upward mobility. People who are good at symbol manipulation and pattern detection advance to higher levels of the Game where the solutions of abstractions provide the skills the rainbows need to govern and control this world."