02. The Shadow Dancers (42 page)

"Damn it, Sam! Then I'll take the capsules. Move back in to Philadelphia and our world. It can be like it was before."

"Really? You'd be picking up the cab driver and the laundry man and every jock you met at the health club or on the streets while you exercise. I wouldn't have a wife, I'd have a wildly promiscuous and uncontrollable daughter I couldn't depend on personally or professionally."

"Look-you control the capsules. I'd have to do just what you said, act just the way you wanted."

He looked appalled. "My god! You can't even see how that sounds. I don't want to
own
somebody. I don't want a slave. I want an equal partner who sticks with me and puts up with me because she loves me." He looked up at the security guards and made a motion. "Good-bye, babe. I need a drink."

12.

Fate and Fortune

The doctor's name was Chidra, and he had me strapped down and surrounded by so many gadgets that I couldn't move. They'd already poked and probed and scraped and sampled and quizzed and tested us so much I was dizzy. Now it kinda looked like the moment of truth.

Fact was, I was totally incapable of kickin' the juice, even though I was no longer expectin' that massive high. I felt great, and just a rest or heavy exercise was enough to wash away guilt and lingerin' doubts and memories. I wanted Sam. I loved Sam. But I thought Sam was bein' totally unreasonable. If he really loved me, then he'd take one of my offers. That's how you thought.

"First, since you are intellectually unimpaired, I am going to explain the options to you," Chidra said. "I'm going to be blunt, and I already know your answers so I don't wish or expect any. Just listen. Clear?"

"I guess." What was the point if he already knowed?

"First, you can elect the colony. It won't be fancy, but there will be people there you have known and work will go on studying this thing. You would be provided with all the basics and be expected to submit from time to time to studies, but otherwise it would be a carefree life, much like the life you shared with that stranded exploiter team, with some amenities and no strange natives. I must be blunt. With this thing managing and protecting your body, you might well live a hundred and fifty years. Even if we eventually found a miracle cure or stabilizer that would render you harmless and nondependent, which may be years, even decades away or might not be possible at all, you would remain there, since your patterns would be fixed and
there would be, I'm afraid, little purpose or use in allowing you out. You simply have no means to contribute."

It didn't sound too awful. Plenty of sex, lots of room to exercise and play, and no work or responsibilities, plus flush toilets.

"A second choice would be to return to your world where, I'm told, you still have a substantial sum of money that would guarantee supporting you comfortably. Your half would come to a bit under two million dollars, if that means anything to you. I have no idea what a dollar is worth. You would be maintained on the capsule with the pure virus as you were for most of your addiction period. When you needed a supply, thirty days or so at a time, you would go to a Company representative and draw it, like from a bank. You already have a high level of nymphomania; this would probably proceed unchecked."

That sounded even better.

"We would, in either case, make some adjustments that would be in our mutual interests. We would not tamper with your intellect, but we would have to tamper with your memories. We would eliminate all memories of Sam, of your marriage, of your career, of the Company and the Labyrinth. There would be gaping holes in your memories of the past, but you would not be bothered by it and you would never be curious about it or want to know. You would dismiss it if you found it out somehow. You would be perfectly content the way you were.

"The third and only other option would be to allow us to treat the illness and cleanse your body. The cleansing itself is relatively simple and subjectively painless, but curing and treating the results in mind and body would be a long and difficult process with no guarantees. If you want your Sam, though, that's the only road. We've done some fairly good analysis of him, and we believe he will be dead or as good as dead within a year without you, and that's the plain truth."

"I'll bring him around. I'll take number two. You even get the high with that, don't you?"

"I said you weren't to choose. Not now. The reason why you are so secured is that in a few moments I'm going to feed a charge through the body at a low level. It will stun the virus and confuse it. It will not be able to deal with it. There
will be no permanent harm, and the whole process will take many hours as we compensate. During that period, and particularly near the end of it, since the virus will adjust eventually and reseize control, you will have your thoughts clear, organized, and unfettered.
Then
I will ask the question again."

"Now, wait a minute, I-"

Suddenly I felt a real sensation through my whole body, kinda like when you touch an electric light socket that ain't grounded but weaker, almost pleasant. After a while, I just went to sleep with it, hardly thinkin' at all.

Now, I know what they done. I even kinda suspected it at the time, but it didn't make no difference. They used that neutralizin' current and a hypnoscanner not to program me, but to feed in subtle visions and suggestions, provoke old feelin's. Memories of life with Sam, of just lyin' there sometimes while he was still asleep and just watchin' him and feelin' love. All his habits, his quirks, his idiosyncracies. Knowin', too, that it was mutual, that he both loved and respected me just the same. And then other visions-one vision. Sam, in the Labyrinth, tryin' to block the killer from shootin' in my direction, takin' the bullet, part of his head splatterin' . . . and what I felt then, and after.

And there was other visions, superimposed one on the other. Me, screwin' Calvin or somebody, havin' a ball, gettin' into that high, always over the sight of Sam's bloody head. The meanin' was clear. All I had to do was nod my head and get a life of highs, pleasure, and ease-all at the expense of Sam, all paid for by Sam's destruction.

And, through it all, I could think.
Really
think, 'cause the juice was too busy handlin' the distractions to block out the negative emotions. Guilt, shame, regret, all was there; I had a sense of right and wrong, good and evil 1 hadn't had in over a year. I had perspective. Yeah, I'd be happy. Oh, I'd be sad and cry if I was told that Sam blowed his brains out, but it wouldn't last long.

But they was honest. I also got views of them wards of Vogel refugees, of Donna and the rest. What if I did take the cure and wound up crippled or brain damaged? Would
that
be any more of a service to Sam? And I knowed it would. I knowed that even then, he'd be there, always, doin' what he could, 'cause he loved me. I was the only thing left to him that had any importance, any meanin'.

In the end, the bottom line was, who did I really value most? What was most important to me? Who was more valuable, more precious? With the juice in force, of course, the answer was simple. Self-preservation of me and the juice inside was all there was. But the juice wasn't talkin' now. It was just me, all by myself. I still
loved
the juice, the way it made me feel, but I loved Sam, too. I owed him.

"You simply have no means to contribute."

And there it was, in the doc's own words. Without Sam, I had no reason to exist except for pure pleasure. Brandy One and Brandy Two would merge. It would be as if Sam had never existed, like the agency died with Daddy. Not only Sam, but all that I had accomplished, or might have accomplished, would be gone.

You could live a hundred and fifty years . . .

As a fucking dumb vegetable. What kinda livin' was
that?

He was there, watchin' over me, even though he was sick at what I'd become . . .

Values . . . worth.
You ain't human,
he said. The juice needed to survive. It needed a host and it needed a weed and both was equal in importance. That's all I was or would be. Some stinkin', worthless weed. Not a human, a
thing
who'd turn its back on somebody who needed me even when that somebody'd been there when I'd needed him. Once he'd been willin' to die for me, and me for him. I was willin' to get in this fix just to avenge him. If I really loved him, no matter what the power and lure of the juice, I oughta have the guts enough to live for him, too.

I was still under; I knowed they wasn't even ready for me to come out of it yet, but I still fought it off and screamed,
"Do it, Doc! Get this thing outta me! Hurry it up and do it now, fore it changes my mind!"

They learned enough from the early ones to know how to do the easy part. They put you in a chamber, out cold, the juice in you and doin' fine, and all at once, evenly through the body, they put this ray that was very specific and very
deadly only to it. The death of the juice was instantaneous and uniform throughout the body. There was no chance for it to curl up and mount a defense or do more damage than it done already.

The trouble was, the damage it done makin' you over into a comfortable and controllable home for it was done, and on top of that its absence was more painful and rough than you knew.

All our lives we live with some pain. Gas pains, joint pains, muscle aches, you name it. We tune it out, learn to tell the new pains from the old, the important ones from the routine. With the juice, you didn't have no real pain 'less it was somethin' serious, and then only long enough for the juice to take care of what was wrong. I woke up in real pain. I needed a pill somethin' bad. I was in so much agony that I pleaded with them to put me back on the juice, that I couldn't stand it no more. I knowed Sam was there, but I couldn't see him or talk to him. I couldn't face him with the idea that I was too weak to take this, that I couldn't hack it no more without the juice. They gave me a few pills to help me sleep but that's about all they did. No juice. Lotsa sympathy, no juice.

They was always there, though, watchin' and monitorin', tellin' me it would get better, but it didn't. It got worse and worse and finally I just couldn't stand it no more. I sunk so deep in depression and pain and misery I couldn't even think straight and all I wanted was out. They stopped me twice from killin' myself.

They begun a program of physical and mental therapy and drove me hard. I didn't feel no better, but at least I was doin' somethin'. Fact was, the lousy way I felt was called normalcy. It was somethin' you just didn't know or notice till you didn't have it. Then, when I was ready to at least see Sam, to get some reinforcement, I couldn't.

I was in a kinda isolation ward. Seems the juice took over most of the job of my body's immune system. It took a lot of their medicines and a lot of time to build itself back up where a common cold wouldn't kill me.

They had a lot of pills for me to take without fail, and my mind worked funny tricks there. I kept tryin' to understand why if I had to take these damned pills all the time they just
couldn't give me the juice and cure it all at once. God! How I wanted it! I thought about it, craved it constantly.

Finally I was built-up enough to see Sam, but all he had to do was come in and say, "Hi, babe," and I collapsed into his arms and just cried and cried and begged for him to hold me and never let go. A few days later, when they decided that the benefits outweighed any risks, they let him move in with me. I just wanted him to hold me and kiss me and make love to me and nothin' else mattered in the whole damned multiple worlds.

I wore him out, and I knew it. He was exhausted and a little ill himself and wound up with what they called a "minor coronary episode," and that was crazy, too, 'cause all of a sudden he was more of a patient than I was and I was gettin' shit for him and tendin' to him.

The docs got fancy names for it. They claim I subordinated and fixated and all the rest of that crap on Sam. All the energy, all the emotions, all went to Sam and Sam alone. It was, well, like when you first fall deep in love with somebody. You can't think of nothin' or nobody else but them, you damn near worship them, you just wanna be with them always. It kinda wears off and settles in after a while-what they mean when they say the honeymoon's over-and it had some with us, too, but they say this kinda thing might not wear off for years, maybe not ever, this time, and I don't give a damn. Sometimes you just about gotta lose what you most want before you realize how important it is. I had almost murdered half of myself, and it would never happen again. I was Sam's rainbow weed and he was mine and we was each other's juice. Neither of us was much damned good without the other, but together we was one
hell
of a team.

"Sam?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"I love you Sam."

"I love you, too, babe."

"You still gonna love me when I'm old and blind and ugly wrinkled?"

"If you can love me the way I look now, why the hell should I be any different?"

"I don't want it to go back like it was, Sam. You was
miserable with that high-class clientele and chasin' down computer embezzlers in Pittsburgh and I was miserable 'cause I wasn't chasin' down them white collar bastards with you. I don't wanna be separated again by no job or no funny lone wolf missions to other worlds. We're a team or we're nowhere. Even in this business, even though we didn't know it, we was a team. Ain't nothin' gonna break us up again."

"You impressed a lot of people here, babe, including me. Even the bad guys were impressed. They made most of their mistakes because even though they had you on a gold leash they couldn't keep their admiration and fear of you in check. Half that summation was yours, maybe more. God, though, wasn't that
great!
You couldn't sell it to Hollywood. They wouldn't believe it."

"I'm through impressin' nobody but you. I talked myself into this mess in the first place 'cause I kept tryin' to impress all them folks who looked down on blacks, on women, on people with bad grammar or ignorant table manners. All them stupid,
meaningless
rules."