The Presence

by Paul Black

  “Hey, Oscar?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think Deja’s with your brother.”

  Pavia’s drink stopped short of his mouth; he frowned over the edge of the glass. “Why?”

  “If I had to guess ... Marl.”

  Pavia shook his head. “What is she doing?”

  “Something stupid, that’s for sure. I gotta get down there, and I was hoping you’d join me.”

  Pavia set the drink aside. “You go. I’ve got to take care of something.”

  “Oscar, don’t go after Marl.”

  “I have to, Sonny.”

  “Look, I think I know how you felt for Corazon, but–”

  Pavia shot him a look.

  “Okay, maybe I don’t. But I do know that Marl is in another league. I’m still not sure what happened. He must have been holoprojecting or something. And I can’t get my head around why he did what he did. What was there to gain?”

  “I think it was about me.”

  “What? That’s absurd.”

  “Sonny, I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years.”

  “No, if that were the case, why did he approach Deja with that bizarre alien story?”

  “You don’t understand. The people I have dealt with are ruthless. Cross them, and they’ll jack with you from all angles. They’ll even kill the family of your brother if they thought it would get to you ... psychologically.”

  This last statement sent a shiver through Chaco. His mind flashed on the file of Bartas’s family. “No,” Chaco said, shaking his head, “I don’t think it’s like that. This clone is way beyond anything I’ve ever seen or studied. Whatever he is, I’m beginning to consider Tsuka’s story.”

  “Sonny, come on.”

  “No, I mean it.... Something’s not right here.”

  “Look, I don’t really care what he – or it – is. All I know is that I have to defend Corazon’s memory. It’s my nature.”

  Chaco sighed. “Watch yourself. We have no idea what we’re getting into. By the time I get to Bartas’s, this situation could be a real bucket of assholes.”

  Pavia chuckled.

  “What?” Chaco asked, suddenly realizing he had been nervously pulling at the patch of hair below his lip.

  “Nothing. My father used to use that phrase. It just made me think.”

  “My dad did, too.”

  Both men studied each other.

  “You be careful, Sonny,” Pavia said.

  Chaco took another pull. “You, too. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  30. SOMETHING FOR LAO-TZU TO PONDER?

  “If you know so much about us, then you know that in my culture, we have a little thing called morals,” Deja said, edging down the credenza.

  “You wouldn’t give of yourself to save your planet?” Marl asked, stepping closer.

  Deja stopped and put her hands up. “All right, that’s it. Bartas!”

  “He won’t be able to help you.”

  Deja’s nerves spiked. “Listen, Marl,” she said while she sidestepped a chair, “I’d be the first to help our screwed-up world, but I’ve got my limits.”

  Tsukahara’s image suddenly formed on the other side of the table.

  “Yoichi!” Deja exclaimed.

  “Ms. Moriarty,” he said surprised, and bowed.

  Deja ran around the table and came up to Tsukahara. She mouthed “That’s him.”

  “Pardon?” Tsukahara asked.

  Marl said something to Tsukahara in what Deja thought was Japanese. Tsukahara responded, and they conversed for a moment.

  Deja looked from Tsukahara to Marl. “Hey, what are you two saying?”

  “I was just telling Yoichi how good it was to finally meet him ... face-to-face,” Marl said.

  “Ms. Moriarty,” Tsukahara began. “Marl is the presence that I told Agent Chaco about. The one who spoke to me ... about certain things ... in my thoughts.”

  “Yeah,” Deja said, “he has a way of doing that.”

  “Yoichi knows all about my mission,” Marl said, “and he probably knows better than most how screwed up,” his eyes moved to Deja, “this world can be. Don’t you, Yoichi?”

  Tsukahara averted Marl’s gaze and nodded.

  Marl suddenly approached Tsukahara, passing Deja like she didn’t exist. He stopped about two feet in front him, and Deja could see an immense discrepancy between their virtual forms. Tsukahara looked like an ancient video signal compared to Marl’s perfection. The difference was shocking.

  “Curious,” Marl said, studying Tsukahara’s pixilated form. “Often, your species is at its best when it’s at its worst. Something for Lao-Tzu to ponder, eh, Yoichi?” He took a step back. “It was good to speak with you again. I hope we talk soon.”

  Tsukahara shot a startled look at Deja and began to protest, but his image de-pixeled and was gone.

  “Now,” Marl said, turning, “weren’t you about to help your planet?”

  31. INTERESTING

  “This ride is gonna cost you a bundle, pal.”

  “I know,” Chaco said, watching the gray mass of buildings that canyoned the Interway blur by the passenger window.

  The cab driver glanced back over the half-raised plexi. “You’re lucky to catch me this early. I usually get off around seven.” He looked again. “What’s eatin’ you?”

  “Got a lot on my mind.”

  “I never heard from you after I dropped you off at Heaven. What happened to that girl you was tailin’?”

  “That night got a little, ah ... complex.”

  “I hope it was good complex.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “That sucks.” The driver returned his attention to the road.

  * * *

  “This is it. Want me to wait for ya?”

  “Yeah,” Chaco said, “but it might take a while.”

  “Don’t worry. I still got your card in my system.” The cab driver looked out the windshield at the rows of storage units. “Who the hell would live in one of these?”

  “Nobody you’d want to know.”

  A light rain was falling as Chaco approached Bartas’s front door. He pressed the buzzer and waited. No answer. He tried again. Still nothing. Finally, he called up the NSA’s field program for residential security systems and held his Netpad to the face of the lock. Still no response. It was an old palm-print lock that apparently would take a few passes for the program to find Bartas’s records and reproduce the digital code for the lock’s hard drive to recognize. After a fourth pass, it clicked, and the deadbolts released. The porch light flickered.

  Chaco slowly opened the door and was hit with that sick smell, but it was even more pungent now. The repeated failed calls to Bartas made him suspicious, and his guard was about to go through the roof. He cautiously edged through the maze of boxes that crowded the front door.

  “Hello? Bartas? Deja?”

  Silence.

  Chaco removed his Light-Force and crept down the dark hallway towards the Net room. At the Academy, he always had trouble with interior tactical simulations. Something about the restricted movement made it hard for him to concentrate. His thoughts began to wander to Bartas, his sickness, and his dead family.

  Come on. Concentrate.

  Chaco edged up to the open doorway of the Net room and put his back against the wall. He engaged the Light-Force’s sequencer and held the weapon loosely, as he had been trained. If he gripped it too tightly, it might go off if he got spooked. And right now, he was pretty fucking spooked. He slowly peeked around the doorframe and saw Bartas slumped in a chair at the main console. He was wearing a different robe than before, and his head was wrapped in a standard Virtgear unit. White spittle clung to the corners of his mouth. He looked dead, except one of his arms hung down the side of the chair, and his fingers were twitching. Even that didn’t mean much. If a person died while virt-in, the neuro-connections would continue to feed a signal that could cause muscles to twitch.

  Chaco fully entered
the room and spotted Deja in Bartas’s VirtChair. Her body was entwined with connector tentacles, and her fists were clenched as if she were in some kind of pain. He noticed a large wet spot at her crotch, which was easy to see thanks to her bright green lycra shorts that he liked so much. Chaco had learned that people rarely pissed their pants when they were virt-in, but Bartas’s chair made the experience hyper-real, and according to the manuals, people only pissed when they were scared out of their wits.

  Bartas’s pulse was low but steady, and he reeked of sickness. Chaco inspected the console and saw that the conference room actually had three occupants: Bartas, Deja, and an “unknown,” but the readings for the unknown weren’t in a range that would define life.

  Deja groaned and arched her back. Chaco approached the chair and reached for one of the tentacles, which reacted by tightening around her arm. He desperately wanted to help Deja, but a radical separation from Virtgear might kill her. He didn’t know enough about Bartas’s chair to risk that. The only way to help her was to get into the Net meeting room. Chaco searched for another Virtgear unit but couldn’t find one. He walked back to Bartas and eyed his unit.

  “Sorry man,” he said and gripped the unit by its main body. Its tentacles quivered. He began to pull, but the unit clamped tighter around Bartas’s head.

  Deja groaned again.

  Chaco yanked with all of his weight, and the unit slipped off, leaving behind a series of ugly scratches on Bartas’s face and neck. When the last tentacle broke free, they all retracted into the housing. Bartas’s head snapped back, and his chair rolled into a computer stack. The impact knocked Bartas forward. He landed on the floor in a crumpled heap.

  Chaco pulled the chair over and sat at the console. Bartas’s conference room marker was gone, leaving Deja’s and the unknown’s.

  “Shit,” he said and slapped the Virtgear unit to his forehead.

  As Chaco’s vision faded in, he was greeted by an uncompromisingly blinding radiance that burned away much of the conference room’s detail. Virtual reality had a way of tricking the mind, especially when it came to pain, and he thought he felt his ocular membranes automatically close. Peering through the glare, he could barely make out Deja and Marl. They were across the room at the end of the conference table, and Marl’s coat was glowing like a small sun. Deja had her back to Chaco and was in silhouette. It took him a second to realize she was completely naked.

  Marl was standing in front of her. In the glow, Chaco could only make out parts of his face. His eyes were closed, and his hand was pressed against the center of Deja’s chest. The whole scene made something boil over in Chaco – a primitive need to protect, but driven by hate. He tried to lunge towards them, but something prevented his lower body from working.

  “Get away from her!” he yelled, fighting the force that trapped him.

  Marl didn’t respond.

  “Get the hell away from her!”

  Marl remained silent, but the glow from his coat appeared to flare slightly.

  “I swear to God, if you hurt her in any way, I’ll kill you!”

  Marl removed his hand, and Deja collapsed into one of the tall, black conference chairs. It slowly turned, and Chaco gasped.

  With one arm caught behind her like a rag doll, Deja looked like a victim from one of the vids Chaco had seen in his Intro to Homicide class. She had the freakish expression of one whose last moments were filled with terror: the eyes wide with fear, and the blank stare of death. A dark handprint between her breasts stood out like an old-fashioned brand. The light from Marl’s coat instantly vanished; the room regained its normal level of detail.

  “Goddamn it, you fucking son-of-a-bitch!” Chaco screamed.

  Expressionless, Marl slowly opened his eyes.

  “I’ll kill you. I swear, as long as it takes me, I’ll find a way!”

  “Sonny,” Marl said calmly as he began walking toward him around the table, “this is only her virtual form.” He stopped and passed his hand across Deja’s hair before he continued towards Chaco. “She’ll be all right. A little sore maybe, but she’s a strong woman.”

  Chaco felt himself dangerously close to the edge of his sanity. “Fuck!” he exclaimed, spittle flying. He struggled against the invisible bands that held him. “If we were in the real world, I’d reduce you to a fucking puddle!”

  Marl stopped within inches of Chaco’s face and began studying him like a rare piece of art. The detail in Marl’s virtual form was astonishing; it reminded Chaco of the first time he had ever witnessed Alto Definition: no pixel gradation, just a continuous image that appeared wherever the targeting gun beamed it.

  Marl leaned closer. “You truly want to kill me,” he said. “You’re so filled with hate that the emotion has taken over some of your higher brain functions.” He raised his hand to Chaco’s chest. “I have to experience this.”

  The instant Marl’s fingertips contacted Chaco’s pixeled form, the conference room fell away. He found himself standing on the stairs of his parent’s old mobile home, facing their yard filled with abandoned cars his dad planned to someday strip down for their organics. It never happened. His mother had finally sold them to the strange bearded guy who lived on the other side of the transport park. That man had given Chaco the heeby-jeebies, always looking at his mom funny, like he wanted to date her or something. After his dad had died, the man had come around often and said really stupid things like how a boy should have a man to look up to. As if Chaco would have ever looked up to an asshole like him. The guy had shot himself a year later, making love to Mister Sixteen-gauge after an evening of binge drinking. But that was western Oklahoma at its trashiest, and it took the Marine Corps to get Chaco the hell out of there.

  The sun was setting, and the sky was filled with brilliant amber striations created by hard-blowing wind and red clay. Chaco missed sunsets on the plains. They had a sensibility you could taste. But if anyone ever asked him where he was from, he always said Tulsa. Who the hell wanted to be from a place called Hooker?

  The screen door opened behind him. Anywhere else, that sound wouldn’t mean much, but here in the callused hell lovingly referred to as the Panhandle, it usually meant that class was in session, and his dad – flush with Jack and stoked as a Banty rooster – was preparing another lesson on the hard life to his only son. Chaco felt the hairs on his arms rise in what his grandmother used to call goose pimples, though he never understood exactly what the phrase meant. He instinctually flinched and turned.

  “Hello, Sonny,” Marl said from the top step. He let go of the door, and it shut with a crack.

  Chaco stepped off the last stair and backed into the middle of the yard, or what his parents had called a yard. In reality, it was an encrusted patch of caliche-stained earth that was home to three early BioBugs and a late-model ethanol burner. Dust kicked around his feet, which he noticed were donned with the last pair of Tony Lamas he’d ever owned. He had on the jeans and shirt he had bought with that cute waitress. God, he had loved her.

  “Good to be home?” Marl asked. He stepped down one stair.

  Chaco looked about and caught the punch of a dry wind against the side of his face. His hair whipped across his eyes.

  Hair?

  He quickly felt his head and ran his fingers through the shoulder-length mane he wore just before he had shipped out to boot camp.

  Marl stepped off the last stair and approached, keeping what Chaco took as a calculated distance.

  For an instant, Chaco had been back home, but he quickly shook off the illusion. “Okay, you had me. I’ll give you that.” He folded his arms. “Cut the shit, Marl. What’s this all about? What the hell did you do to Deja?”

  Marl gave him the same heavy look again. “This is your memory, Sonny. Why are we here?”

  “I ... I don’t know.” Chaco studied the scene, and suddenly he was 18 again. A thickness rose in his throat, and he tasted the dust and sweat of his youth.

  And of a life he thought he had forgotten.r />
  “What’s the matter, Sonny? Is this not where you wanted to be?” Marl was leaning against one of the BioBugs. His coat was calm, its stitch pattern as inert as the soil beneath their feet.

  “I just hadn’t thought much about this place for a long time,” Chaco said.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t fuck with me like this. What have you done to Deja?”

  Marl smiled. “I would never do anything to harm her, Sonny. When she wakes, she’ll have no memory of our time in the conference room.”

  “You fucking scared the shit out of her. What were you doing to her ... some kind of mind rape?” Chaco felt his anger rising again.

  “That was the point. Her emotion was base, primitive. For her, only the fear of rape could bring forth such a raw emotional response. Fear is your species’ second most powerful emotion – and the driving force behind many of your culture’s most important decisions. I now can also state conclusively that it’s one of the most destructive.”

  “What’s the first?”

  Marl stood motionless while the wind flapped the front of his coat. “Rage,” he said finally.

  Another gust of dry air brought a protesting creak from the screen door. Chaco flinched again.

  Marl’s eyes moved to the door. “Bad memories?”

  “You could say that.”

  Marl regarded Chaco, but the heavy look was gone. “You fascinate me, Sonny. In you, I have found the dichotomy that represents man at his essence.”

  “Excuse me?” For a second, Chaco had to search his memory for the meaning of “dichotomy.”