His skin is clammy and tickles with beads of sweat, some of which run into his eyes and burn.
Trickle and rill of water provide irregular counterpoint to beat of blood, to the gentlest intake and exhalation of air, slow and regular. He remains still, with nary a pop of sinew. Then he slips, setting off a rattle of pebbles which resonates in a way that suggests he's hunkered down on the threshold of a larger volume, a cavernous echo chamber ready to amplify the slightest sound. A muffled rumble and clack from the wadi bottom above him suggests boulders rebedding after the flood.
The subterranean stream is coming from due north, and could well lead to exits. In any case, a faint pressure of stale air from the unseen cavern convinces him, for lack of a better plan, that's the way to go. The odor of batshit is familiar from his earlier, pre‐Aeolian adventures in Living End only two days ago. His own body odor is strangely unfamiliar in its intensity.
His sensory readings aren't supplying enough data for proper analysis. He needs to ramp up the resolution. The problem is that this is no World. This is mondoland, and he has to make do with his native senses. Nevertheless, mind and body do everything possible to up the rez. His nostrils flare, a talent recalled from deep in his genes, the better to sniff at an atavistic sense‐world.
Footfalls! Disused muscles twitch, trying to cock his ears. Somewhere ahead and to the right, on the threshold of hearing, something approaches. A small quadruped, judging by the faint slap and click of paw against rock.
Then he's blinded by a light. A voice rises from dead ahead, nearly at ground level. "This way," it says.
"Not even a hello?" Cisco says. "Just 'follow me'?"
"Hi," says Toot. "Let's go."
Well, okay then.
"Wait." Toot turns his headlamp on Cisco. "Do you have the ball?"
"It's right here."
"Excellent."
Cisco follows in the wake of Toot's light. "Where are we going?" he says.
"Do not worry. Just follow me."
•
Eventually Toot stops long enough for Cisco to catch up. The passage has come to a dead end. Not a rockfall, like the one that trapped Dee Zu, but a plain bedrock dead end, as in: This passage never went any farther than this and never will, so why are they here?
"What's going on?" Cisco asks.
"You ask a lot of questions."
At that moment a large shadow or maybe a chunk of bedrock breaks away from the dark to enter the bubble of Toot's light.
"Meet Sal," Toot says.
"Sal?"
"Hi." A deep voice of authority. "I am a yakbot."
"A yakbot."
"After the yak," says Toot. "A mythological Thai temple guardian. A giant."
"A senior grade securibot," Sal adds.
To Cisco he looks like a refrigerator with smallish hydraulic cranes for arms. A refrigerator with anger management issues.
"Are you ready for our friend?" Toot asks Sal.
"Let's do it."
"Hang on a minute," says Cisco. "You'd better tell me what's going on here."
"No time," Toot replies. A small metallic tube extrudes from the shaggy mop right under his headlamp, and Cisco is thinking this is what it is to stare down the barrel of a pistol.
There's a bang and a twist of smoke as Toot shoots him right in the face, giving Cisco no time even to register surprise before he drops down yet another dark hole.
a bite of exhibit A?
Where's Cisco? That's her first thought.
The boy is perched on a rock beside her. He's munching on a charred monkey leg.
"Want some?" He extends the well‐gnawed object toward her.
"What happened?"
She reaches to touch a bruise just behind one ear. Her head is pounding, and she's flushed with medibot repairs.
"He went down the hole."
"I know that. I mean what happened to me?"
"I had to stop you."
"You bastard," she says.
"I couldn't let you go down there."
"Asshole."
"Hey, I probably saved your life."
"You bastard."
Her headache is gone. She reaches to touch the bruise again and finds the medibots have nearly erased it. Whatever. Adding insult to injury, she has a hunch this boy Son has just eaten most of the weapon in question, Exhibit A.
She knows, now, what it is to have wet sex; she knows even more about wet killings. She knows the slipperiness of fresh blood soon gone sticky, its metallic odor. She knows the smell of wet male secretions and microbial wastes. She knows these things. And she barely hesitated at the sex or the killing. Could she really kill Son? She fears she can.
And she really, really needs to know what's happened to Cisco.
between worlds
Without this woman, the council of elders in his head is the only family he has, the Boogoo his only living friend.
– Son
not so bad, being dead
They're under siege.
Even here, in the living room, Leary hears the din of posit hordes from the lane on the other side of the compound wall. Worse than that, the wall must have been breached. Though Ellie is asleep upstairs the loveseat in the garden is creaking away, and there's a clatter from the kitchen. Who or what might that be? Because Lek is serving coffee here in the living room, and Somchai, the gardener, isn't programmed to enter the kitchen. Maybe it's only his imagination, but Lek looks stressed out, never mind wallpaper maids aren't programmed to get wound up.
The phone rings.
Leary tries to grab it before the insistent jangle wakes Ellie. "Howdy," he says.
"Leary."
"None other."
"Yes." Sky sounds impatient. "I have bad news."
Ellie appears halfway down the stairs. "Who is it, Leary?" she calls, as though it might be someone besides Sky.
"Not now, okay? Hang on a sec'."
Hearing something in Leary's voice, she comes the rest of the way downstairs.
He shows her the palm of his free hand. "It's news of our boy," he says. He listens some more, says "Okay," and puts the phone back in its cradle. He shows Ellie the same face he uses when he's holding nothing but a pair of deuces, nine high.
She generally beats him at poker. "No," she says. A wind gusts up, and bamboo rattles against the louvered wooden shutters. "He can't be dead." Her voice is matter of fact, her features composed. "Not now. Not after everything we've been through."
"His WalkAbout cut out," Leary says. "That's all."
"Dee Zu and Son are still connected?"
"Sure. But never mind. The Kid was carrying that gerry‐rigged medibot assembly. Darn it. Nobody knows how reliable that kind of thing is."
"The transfusion took. Son is connected."
"I believe that was the first medibot transfusion in history. Who knows what the algorithms and suchlike had to say about matters."
Ellie looks calm. "He can't be dead," she says. Then she buries her face against Leary's chest.
"He's not dead. His WalkAbout conked out, that's all." What he doesn't tell her, Sky's satscans aren't picking him up either.
She's refusing to cry, and this tears Leary up. He goes "Gosh," and then he says "Darn it, Ellie. No matter what's happened, we still have his backup, okay? It's not like he could be really dead. Not completely dead and gone, or anything like that. Okay?"
"Still a scendent, you mean."
"C'mon. It's not so bad, being dead."
Ellie has to smile at that. "We should know, right?"
She once said that carrying the Kid, Leary's son, was like she'd won the biggest lottery in history, and she was only waiting to collect the prize. It was better than that, more personal. It was the satisfaction of knowing she and Leary made this thing together, and they were going to guide him into the world. Or words to that effect.
"Relax," Leary tells her. "Gosh‐darn it. Like I say, we've got his backup." So why does he feel like crying?
Once again, he has to wonde
r whether he really is the same person he was. For sure, their Bangkok is not the Bangkok of old. Neither the mondoland nor the Worlds UnLtd version.
He goes over to the phone and dials, leaden fingered, thinking a redial feature might be nice after all. "Yeah," he says. "It's me. C'mon ahead over."
•
Sky parks on the sofa. She's wearing a short white cotton skirt and a summery print blouse with a yellow scarf tied loosely at her throat; her straw‐colored hair is tied back in a long ponytail. Across the glass‐topped mahogany coffee table from her, Leary and Ellie are parked in rattan chairs that squeak slightly as they sit forward, intent.
"We have no choice," Sky is saying.
"So it's time for our young heroes to save the world again. Gosh."
"Cisco is the only one equipped to go solo on a job like this."
Leary mops at his brow, flushed with more than the heat. "The most expendable, you mean."
"Yes. Though there is more to it."
"What about his backup?" says Ellie. "Can we count on that?"
"As long as I am here, he is here. He will be no deader than you or Leary. Or me."
"Yeah," says Ellie. "Well."
"Dee Zu and the boy are another story. If they die, they are dead. Forever and ever. Yes. They also have their roles to play, however."
"Gosh‐darn it."
"And Toot is with Cisco." Sky's smile means to reassure. "He will help."
"Oh, good." Ellie isn't happy.
Neither is Leary. Here they've got nothing but a robopet Sky avatar looking after their son. A poor Pancho for their Cisco the Kid. Nothing but a shaggy little fake Llasa Apso sidekick that sees Cisco as expendable.
resurrection
Beset by dreamscraps, Cisco climbs out of a deep hole toward the light. Tatters of nightmare suggest other times he climbed out of dark holes toward the light, other times when he, or someone like him, failed to recognize himself. Scent of woman clogs his throat. At once clean and furry, hot and fecund, it tugs at his groin as he comes awake.
He's alive. Qubitally alive, at least. This is a World, probably an aspect of Aeolia. Tang of sharpened wooden pencil evokes retro schooldays, not his— he has never sharpened a pencil, never been in a two‐room schoolhouse with battered wooden desks. So whose memories are these? This woman is familiar. These women are familiar. This could be the smear of all women. Then he recognizes Dee Zu's standard Worlds fragrance, a poor facsimile of her actual wet presence.
•
The scents are taken up in a slow tidal swirl and throb of color and taste and sound and texture. It reminds him of synesthetic Worlds he has tested. Maybe Toot blasted him with a psychedelic. Then he opens his eyes.
"Hi, there."
With a blink, Cisco is returned to a sensually orthodox world. But this isn't the cave. And this isn't Toot, who not so long ago shot him in the face. "Sky," he says, pulling back to get a look at her. She keeps a leg hooked around his waist when he tries to roll away from her.
"Where am I, and what am I doing here?"
"You are okay?"
"This is Aeolia, right?"
"Good boy. My alpha test pilot, my rock‐solid space cadet, lands safely on his feet."
"Am I dead?"
"Do you feel dead?"
"Toot didn't kill my wet master?"
"No." Sky runs her fingers the length of his body as she lifts her leg, freeing him. "In fact, we have a job for you back there in mondoland. Yes. Some wet work."
•
"My wet master's still alive?" His only link with Dee Zu. He wants to hear it again. "My body's okay?"
"Alive. It is secure."
"Toot shot me. You shot me."
"Only an anesthetic. We needed you unconscious in mondoland before I revived your scendent here."
This is a warm and comfortable space, where he sprawls on a sleeping platform piled with cushions. The upholstery is cream‐colored simskin. The whole room is cream, from the cushions to the shag carpet and the floor‐to‐ceiling, wall‐to‐wall drapes on the wall opposite. Otherwise the room is unfurnished. What lies beyond the drapes?
The light is too bright, too clinical. It dims even as he thinks this, and the wall to his left responds by enlivening the otherwise monocolor room with a large rectangular orange‐yellow‐brown abstract. Subliminal signals tickle other senses. Drizzadrone, the best of the last musical fashions in the malls, impinges together with a scent at once calming and stimulating. These inputs tune themselves down before they become obtrusive. A slight synesthetic hangover muzzies everything at the same time it tinges proceedings with an engaging extradimensionality.
"You could have told me what you were doing."
"I needed to short‐circuit any argument."
"I have to go back."
"You will. But not yet. It is not yet time."
"Explain."
"Not now."
"Is Dee Zu okay?"
"She is alive. So is Son. They are okay." Sky lets slip a glimpse of something else behind this nice qubital package, something colder and harder. "Dee Zu is fine."
T‐Bone Walker, one of his favorites, starts riffing in and out, soon overwhelming the ambient drizzadrone.
Sky relaxes. She goes more voluptuous and lithe all at the same time, her porcelain skin glowing warm, more like ivory, eyes inviting, promising undreamed‐of delights, a large claim given she's already come up back in the Worlds. "Yes. Son will take good care of Dee Zu," she says. "You need not worry."
"She can look after herself."
"Not the way Son can."
"Meaning?"
"Son knows as well as anyone can how to survive Outside." She actually smirks. "Better than you do. Dee Zu is safer with him."
"You really piss me off."
"Yes." She fails to look seriously businesslike and seductive at the same time. "But I need you to listen very carefully. Your mission is an urgent one. Plus Dee Zu and the boy Son have their parts to play."
divine book‐keeping
"You son of a bitch."
"Lighten up, okay? Just listen."
"You stopped me going after him."
Yeah, well. One minute the dude's a man on a mission, the next he's dead. Or as good as. That was pretty heroic.
Doesn't seem to matter, though. Here it is all over again. It's still a matter of one woman and two men. And the world isn't big enough for both the guys, never mind one of them is probably dead. Mr. Me First just wasn't fit for life outside his mall, and that's a plain fact.
As true as that may be, Son doesn't want to think he helped to kill one more good man in a world empty of men, much less good ones. Because Dee Zu's friend was basically a good man. Never mind he was an arrogant prick. You could even say he saved Son's life, giving him those medibots.
But there's nothing to feel guilty about. Not really. Though Dee Zu is right. He has been talking about the guy like he's yesterday's news. Realistically speaking, of course, that's true.
And believing that says nothing about Son's need to possess Dee Zu. Right. His head is going to explode with this. He really wishes he could talk to Auntie. It's been what? Two days since he killed Poppy; two days since he found the others dead. But when all was said and done, it was either kill Poppy or be killed. In the same way, he's in no way responsible for anything that might have happened to Dee Zu's friend.
And he's in no mood to examine too closely his guilty relief since the guy went MIA. Son didn't do anything bad, yet the guy is gone, leaving the way open to some happy future. Like the loss of Auntie and Gran‐Gran was unfair payback, forget that Gran‐Gran's story of God's book‐keeping is malarkey, and Dee Zu is compensation. That notion inspires something that slips back and forth between joy and horror at himself.
"I saved your life." Thinking to mollify her even further, Son offers the half‐eaten monkey leg.
no data
"You moron bastard." Dee Zu is on her feet, reaching to touch the back of her head where Son whacke
d her.
"What could I do?"
"You could have let me go after him."
"And then you would have done what?"
"More than I'm doing standing here talking to you."
"You think this is one of your 'Worlds'? Some game?"
"I should kill you right now."
At this, Son steps back. Obviously no stranger to close‐quarters combat, he goes at once hyper‐alert and physically relaxed. His eyes unfocused, he looks at once nowhere and everywhere. "It was better you both died?" he says.
"Go fuck yourself."
"Good argument. Anyway, maybe he didn't."
"What are you talking about?"
"Maybe he didn't die."
"Keep talking."
"Didn't you smell the air from that hole? There must be another exit."
Dee Zu pretends she isn't on the verge of tears. She isn't handling the idea of Cisco's passing as well as she managed that of her own, trapped back there in the cave, all alone and hopeless.
"Jesus," Son says. "Jesus Christ."
"So sorry. Like you care."
"I do care. But we can't stay here. And we can't go down the hole.
"I know that." She steadies her voice. "No problem."
"We have to move on. Now."
She still doesn't entirely understand what Cisco told her about "Aeolia" and this business about his scendent. But she does understand he went way out on a limb, coming back from wherever he'd been to rescue her. And now she's just going to walk away?
•
She tries again: "Request current location of Cisco Smith, alpha Worlds UnLtd test pilot. Last seen some kilometers south of biological enclave known as Living End entering dry streambed at position coordinates assigned by MOM alter Sky."
The response is delivered in an anonymous Lode voice: "Information unavailable at this time."
Dee Zu tries again. "Tor? Can you hear me? Tor?"
Nothing. Where's MOM when you need her?
"Tor? Are you there? Sky? Talk to me. Where's Cisco? Is he okay?"
"Unable to process query as framed. Please provide more determinate request."
Dropping any pretence at civility, Dee Zu barks it: "What have you done with Cisco?"
"I didn't …" Son becomes almost comically conciliatory.
"Not you. I'm talking to the Lode."
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