Hopscotch (30 page)

Convulsively, Artemis reached toward Daragon with a grasping hand. “Please,” he said, his voice wet from the blood filling his lungs. “Can't die like this. Not after so long. Won't somebody hopscotch with me?”

“I'm afraid not, sir.” Daragon wondered how he could apologize to the dying man. But as he stared into the dimming persona, he sensed some connection, something familiar. Nothing he had ever seen before, and yet it still belonged . . .
to him.

Artemis croaked a wheezing sound that might have been laughter, but remained as quiet as faint wind. “Lived more than two hundred years . . . and now I gotta die because I'm shot by
mistake?
Not even for crimes that
I
did?”

“There's a tracer in your body, sir,” Daragon said. “The technician had a locator.”

Artemis moaned and closed his eyes. “Knew we shoulda killed him . . . then no one would've known. Eduard wouldn't let me.”

Daragon leaned closer, still puzzled at the odd familiarity of the persona. He didn't understand what the connection could be. Then he jerked upright as recognition flooded through him. Of course! Just like when he had met his mother. He sensed parallel patterns, similarities, a recognizable
biological
link. When he'd tracked down his mother in Club Masquerade, she had said that his father was a Phantom. He saw traces of
himself
in the dying man's persona.

“You're my father.” He knelt closer, touched the man's shoulder, stroked his cheek. “My name is Daragon. I'm your son. You've never met me before.”

Artemis clasped his hand and opened his eyes to slits, while his other hand fumbled for something in a pocket. He didn't question Daragon's confession, but his eyes held an icy calculation.

“My son? Won't you please swap with me? Do that for your father.” He took a long breath. “Save me if you can.” His hand slid out of his pocket, holding some sort of spray vial.

“I can't.” Daragon grabbed the man's wrist and deftly twisted it so that the Scramble fell to the rooftop. This was his father, and the man didn't even know his son's greatest failing. “I don't know how to hopscotch.”

In the mag-lock harness, Eduard skimmed down the side of the building, dropping floor after floor in a blur. On the streets below, he saw lights and armored men at every exit. Chopters circled all levels like carrion birds as they scanned higher and higher.

Even if he reached the street, Eduard knew he couldn't get away. Not in this body. He had watched the Beetles tracing a mere blip. Perhaps they had managed to tag him somehow. They were hunting this body, this ID patch—if he couldn't switch, and immediately, he would never survive this night.

The safety-configured controls on the harness slowed him. He peered into windows as he dropped past, seeing families, couples, empty quarters. He had no way of barging in, and he refused to threaten an innocent family. Eduard had none of the Scramble that Artemis had used to force an unwilling person to hopscotch. He was out of options.

As he dropped down another floor, he spotted a reflection in the glass, an old man lying in bed surrounded by dim lights. In front of his dull eyes, an entertainment system played a videoloop on low. Eduard hovered, noticing the man's frail arms, his skeletal face and sunken chest, the tubes and monitoring devices attached to his body.

Here,
Eduard thought. A grim chance, but better than nothing.

As he hung in the harness, he withdrew his laser cutter. With its blazing tip, he sketched a rectangle in the main window. The Beetles would already be closing off the building. He nudged the glass inward and slipped into the room, then disconnected the harness, and hauled it inside with him.

The old man woke up, gasping and wheezing. He looked fearful and completely helpless on his monitoring bed. “You . . . you don't scare me.”

“Old man, I need to hopscotch with you. I'll give you this body. It's healthy and strong, but I need yours
now
or I'm dead.”

The old man blinked, his eyes watery and disbelieving. “Trust me, kid, you don't want to be me. Not even for a little while.”

“Mister, I can't tell you how much I need it right now. This is no joke.”

The old man coughed, and Eduard could hear the diagnostic devices monitoring the change of metabolism as excitement kicked in. His bleary eyes grew brighter. “Then I'm not one to argue, kid. You're really giving me a second chance?”

“Yeah, and you're doing the same for me,” Eduard said in a rush. “You can at least walk, can't you? You can move?”

“If you're willing to put up with a lot of pain.”

“I've put up with pain before.” Eduard crouched by the bedside, touched the old man's forehead. “No problem.”

When they hopscotched, Eduard found himself twirling, falling, on the edge of unconsciousness. His heart pounded in his aching chest like the wings of a trapped bird. His muscles were disintegrating. He sat up so quickly on the monitoring bed that he retched.

“Careful,” the old man said, standing in Eduard's former body, the one Artemis had worn for years. His eyes were filled with wonder. He reached for Eduard's hand.

“No. No synching. Keep the ID patch. That's my only price for this swap.” Eduard hoped it might give him a few extra hours.

He forced his thoughts to clarity again and yanked out needles, disconnected monitors, and swung off the side of the bed. He felt like a broken marionette, strings cut, puppeteer absent.

“Clothes,” he croaked. “I need clothes.”

The man bounced and hopped, delighted with his new prize as he gathered the things Eduard needed. “Here, take these. Keep yourself warm.” He held up a small pill bottle. “This will dull the pain.”

Shabbily dressed, walking on his own two feet, Eduard swallowed three of the pain tablets the man handed him. He knew it would be a long time before the litany of hurt subsided, even for a while.
Pain.
He had plenty of experience with pain.
No problem.
He slipped the pill bottle into his pocket. He had given up absolutely everything to flee in this decrepit body.

At least now he could get out of the building, though.

He caught a lifter down to street level, dizzy, taking one step at a time and forcing his vision to focus. He could already feel himself dying, but he had to get away. As he lurched toward the exit, something tore inside of him with a sickening liquid pop, as if dark blood were leaking into his internal organs.

Eduard walked into a wall, disoriented. His legs were an agony of arthritis and brittle bones. But he made it through the doorway, past two Beetle guards who looked sourly at him, checked his ID patch, then sent him on his way. “You don't look well, old man. Should get to a medical center.”

“Where the hell do you think I'm going?” Eduard snapped, then wheezed. “I'd get there faster if it wasn't for your damned delays.”

The Beetles let him pass, and he stumbled into drizzly darkness, trying not to stare at the garish reflections of colored lights on the rain-slick streets. He could feel the black shroud of imminent death at the back of his head.

He had never felt so mortal before, so close to dying. If he remained in this body for more than a few days, he would not survive.

But without it, he wouldn't live another hour.

Eduard could not risk going to a medical facility. Before long, the Beetles would discover how he had broken into the old man's room; they would interrogate the old man, get a physical identification at whatever cost, and send out a COM bulletin for the ailing body. A medical center would peg him right away.

With no other chance, and very little time, he stumbled into the streets—going exactly where he had to. He would find Garth and Teresa. Dying, he doubted they could help him, but Eduard needed to see them again.

One last time.

57

With all of its
expensive furniture and prestigious paintings, Garth's new large house
loomed
around him. Every light was on in every room, but the world still felt too big and too dark.

Musing, he stood in the carpeted corridor leading to the master suite, thinking of the hardcopy books in the library, the fancy foods in the kitchen, and the pseudo-antique furnishings. Every item sent a proud signal of his success, but Garth no longer felt it
inside.

He wanted to do a project bigger and better, more spectacular, more meaningful—yet the canvas of his imagination remained blank. He needed inspiration, not this moody creative block. He began to realize why a failed aspiring artist like Mordecai Ob might have turned to Rush-X. . . .

That thought made his mind stray to Eduard, still lost and on the run, and Garth felt the gloom even heavier around him.

Though it was late at night, he smelled fresh coffee brewing downstairs, and he smiled wistfully. Pashnak's faith in the artist's work and his assuredly bright future remained undaunted—a blind faith. The assistant puttered around the mansion, serving without question. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” Garth muttered to himself.

After being raised by the Splinter monks, he'd always had meager personal requirements. In truth, he had bought this over-the-top mansion more for his assistant than for himself. Pashnak deserved it. Years ago, the gaunt young man had gambled everything on Garth's potential, keeping him on track . . . whatever that track might be.

Pashnak had no other passions, and he enjoyed basking in the glow of Garth's success. He managed the business affairs, taking care of all the social duties that Garth hated, while forcing him to meet his commitments and not become sidetracked by other priorities. Pashnak could easily have been a successful accountant or executive secretary, but he'd devoted everything to Garth's artistic career.

The COM signal startled him like a bolt of lightning, even at such a late hour. After a moment, Pashnak called from the kitchen. “Garth! It's Teresa on the screen. She wants to talk to you.”

Garth smiled warmly at her image on the filmscreen, though it still startled him to see her wearing Eduard's face instead of one of the familiar female forms in the portrait spectrum. “Oh, Garth! I've got good news.” She looked much healthier now, happier, with a fire in her eyes that made him briefly envious.

“Something amazing happened, and I finally have a lead. Jennika, the woman who took my original body, works at a place called Precision Chaos, an expansion-chip manufacturing facility.” Breathless, she hesitated, as if afraid to say more. “I think . . . I think it was Soft Stone inside COM who guided me.”

Though he had never really understood why finding her old body was so important, Garth knew how much it meant to
her.
“Are you going there now? Do you want me to come with you?”

“They're closed, Garth. It's three in the morning.”

“I don't think I've looked out a window all day.”

She chuckled. “You work too hard, Garth, don't you think? I'm going first thing in the morning.”

Garth didn't want to tell her that he longed to feel the fresh drive Teresa had found, the meaning she'd rediscovered in her life. “Best of luck. Come and visit me anytime, no matter what body you happen to be in.” After she signed off, he felt a flicker of rejuvenation just from talking with his friend. He walked down the hall toward the studio.

Closing the door behind him, Garth stared at his nearly completed work, A
NGER
. His new experiential piece was meaningful, showing the nuances of one of humanity's most powerful and destructive emotions, the pettiness and nastiness, the damage it caused, the blindness it inflicted. A
NGER
.

Standing inside the arrangement, he touched the images, tweaked sound loops. Hawkishly, he looked for gaps, weaknesses. He tried to imagine other directions or connections that could tap into the viewer's emotions.
Anger . . .
he had to be angry. People should be livid when they emerged from this exhibition, and ashamed at their own susceptibility to such violent emotions. They should feel chastised and penitent.

In his heart, though, he knew that A
NGER
would be even less popular than A
PATHY
(which had lived up to its name, if the audience response numbers were to be believed). Critics would complain that Garth Swan no longer gave the audiences what they wanted. Stradley would have a fit, would probably write off his client altogether.

All his life Garth had had sharp eyes, a huge heart, a wealth of compassion—too much compassion, some might have said. But he'd never tried to rationalize his actions. He just stumbled along, curious, learning, searching. And now he had lost that feeling. Had all of his success been a fluke—a timely accident, forced into place by the pressure and funding of Mordecai Ob, an abusive drug addict who had doomed Garth's friend Eduard?

Now, in the studio, he worked as hard as he had ever worked, but his output no longer seemed vibrant and new, just a pale repetition of techniques and experiences. Maybe something was wrong with
him;
maybe it was too easy to pin it on the fickle tastes of a public whose attention span was too short.

Surrounded by A
NGER
in the silent studio, he found that he couldn't experience the rage, couldn't tap in to the powerful emotions. Garth had already reached the pinnacle of success and could not go any higher.

Flash in the pan, now get off the stage and let someone else have a try.

58

Late in the rainy darkness,
Eduard staggered toward Garth's large house. In this decrepit and ailing form, he couldn't trade down any further. He had nothing of value to offer, and he would die in this body within days if he kept overexerting himself. If Daragon didn't catch him first.

Still, he needed to see Garth, if only to spend his last hours beside a friend, rather than be gunned down by bloodthirsty Beetles. At least that way he would save Daragon the anguished conscience—if he still
had
a conscience—of having to kill him.

Eduard had been on the run since before Garth moved into his new dwelling, but he'd had no difficulty tracking down the successful artist's extravagant residence. Months ago, while on the run but before meeting Artemis, he had sauntered down this exclusive tree-lined street, snatching a quick sidelong glance as he hurried past. With a secret, mischievous smile he had thought about ringing the signal buzzer and then running, a silly prank like he had often done as a boy in the Falling Leaves. Now, though, those carefree times were long past. . . .

He lurched forward, soaked from the chill drizzle. His joints ached, his mouth tasted of copper, and his lungs felt as if they were filled with powdered glass. Oddly placed pains reminded him of the incisions and repeated surgeries the old man must have suffered through.

He looked up at the gables of Garth's big house, saw warm lights burning behind the windows, a squarish studio building brilliantly lit. Of course Garth would be working, even at such a late hour.

Ready to collapse, Eduard stepped up to the ornate security shell that surrounded the house. The outer gate remained locked, and dazzling security lights flashed on, warning of hazards that awaited any foolish curiosity seeker. After all Eduard had been through, though, it would take more than that to intimidate him. No problem. He just hoped Garth's security systems didn't automatically alert law-enforcement personnel.

He found the summons buzzer camouflaged behind an oleander hedge. He parted the dark leaves and held down the signal, not worried about being obnoxious, waited a few moments as more voodoo needles of pain jabbed his body, then buzzed again. “Come on, Garth, I'm not selling anything.” He would not relent. Eduard could be as persistent as any man on Earth.

Finally, a stone brick in the wall fuzzed and turned into a videoscreen as a camouflage hologram faded. Pashnak looked at him, hard as a statue.

“I need to see Garth,” Eduard rasped.

“I'm sorry, sir, it's late. Mr. Swan isn't seeing anyone.” Pashnak showed no interest in the visitor or his request. No doubt he had seen the same thing many times before. “If you want to know what he has to say, go see his artwork. That's how he communicates with the world.”

Eduard smeared drizzle from his face, blinking away a black haze of impending unconsciousness. The pain increased, spreading like fire through his tissues. “I know it's late, too late. This is important.” After all his fleeing, all the paranoia Artemis had taught him, he was reluctant to give out his identity.

“Mr. Swan doesn't feel very well.”

“Yeah, right—neither do I, dammit!”

“Sir, please don't force me to call private security.” Pashnak seemed to be going through a well-accustomed dialogue.

Eduard grasped a rustling oleander branch, but the limp twigs gave him no support and he swayed on his feet. Gasping, coughing blood, he shouted at the videoscreen, “Dammit, Pashnak, didn't Soft Stone teach you better than that? Trust me, Garth will want to see me.”

Pashnak frowned at him, still skeptical, then his face filled with an expression of amazement.
“Eduard?
Is that you?” The security lights switched off, and the humming guardian fields ceased crackling in the ever-present drizzle. The locked gate swung open on pneumatic hinges. “Come in! Please, come in—get out of the rain.”

Eduard stumbled down a walk of inlaid synthetic flagstones. The front door of the big house opened, and Pashnak hurried forward, dressed only in robe and slippers. He splashed through a puddle, but paid no attention. “Here, careful. Watch your step.”

He led Eduard's failing body up the slippery steps toward the door, ushering him into the warmth and the light. With slow steps they walked through the foyer into the sitting room. The sofa seemed like a whirlpool sucking at Eduard, and he slumped into the soft cushions. He had never felt anything so wonderful.

Pashnak fussed over him, draping an afghan over his wet and rumpled clothes, then ran to the intercom. “Garth, come quickly! It's Eduard! Eduard's here!” Then he rushed off to the kitchen. “I'm going to make a fresh pot of coffee. You look like you could use some.” He hesitated, flustered. “Or maybe warm tea would be better. Chamomile?”

Eduard clung to consciousness, willing himself not to let go. He couldn't feel safe, not even here. He heard footsteps and raised his head, trying to focus his bleary eyes.

Garth emerged from his studio and rushed down the hall. “Eduard? Eduard!” Standing over the sofa, he stared in dismay at the dying old man's condition. Garth leaned down and gently embraced his friend, his clothes smelling of paints and solvents, his skin decorated with smudges of charcoal dust, dots of pigment, flecks of lubricants.

He tucked the silkweave afghan around the shivering wreck, then used a tissue to wipe blood from Eduard's cracked lips. As Pashnak clattered about, busying himself in the kitchen, the smell of brewing coffee wafted through the air like a gentle glove.

With a pillow, Garth propped Eduard into a more comfortable sitting position. “Here, I did this a lot when I was pregnant.” He blinked his stinging eyes.

“No problem,” Eduard said, and Garth's heart went out to his friend. “That's fine.”

Pashnak finally brought coffee mugs, one filled with steaming water and a bobbing self-infuser of herbal tea. In quivering hands, Eduard held the cup; the aroma itself seemed to bring him back to life. Pashnak frowned in deep concern. “We should call a medical center, Garth.”

“No,” Eduard said. “They'll have an ID on this body already. As soon as the doctors could help me, Daragon and his killers would . . .”

Pashnak's eyes went wide as he realized what they had gotten into. “We've got to be very careful, Garth. He's a fugitive, already convicted in absentia. You know what the stakes are—the Bureau could be here at any moment.”

“This is
Eduard.”
Garth squared his shoulders and spoke forcefully. “We'll do what we can for him here. Go find him some dry, comfortable clothes.” He looked at the opaqued window. “And make sure all the security systems are turned back on. That'll buy us a little time at least.”

With an audible gulp, Pashnak scurried off.

“Eduard,” Garth sighed, “what are we going to do with you?”

Haltingly, Eduard told the story of what had happened to him since they'd parted company so long ago in Club Masquerade. As Garth listened to the desperation and struggle, hanging on every hoarse word, he reprimanded himself for his own selfish depression. It was pathetic the way he had wallowed in self-pity
—he,
who had everything a person could want!—while Eduard struggled so hard just to survive. . . .
No problem.

Who was
he
to complain about his life, about his success? Ridiculously trivial concerns! He cursed his blindness and naïveté. Had he learned nothing from all the miserable people he had experienced on his List? Bored and uninspired—poor baby! He had to do something for Eduard.
He had to.

Long ago, during the BTL shootout in the flower market, Eduard had thrown himself into the line of fire for Teresa while Garth froze, unable to do anything but watch. Then, Eduard had gone alone to save Teresa from the Sharetakers while Garth went swimming in Hawaii. After Ob's death, Teresa had given her waifish body for Eduard, taking his strung-out and drug-addicted form so that he could get away, while Garth had been unable to help because of his borrowed pregnant body.

He had botched his chances over and over again . . . but not this time. He would have sacrificed much more than a handful of credits, done whatever was required of him. But he had somehow managed to miss the boat, every time. Perhaps now he could make up for it.

He'd petulantly abandoned his List and called it done—but he had never managed to experience true
heroism,
a selfless and automatic love, the willingness to risk his life without thinking. That wasn't something he could plan ahead of time, nothing Pashnak could arrange for him. It just had to happen.

Garth scowled at himself. To hell with the List—he wasn't doing this for the damned List!

“Listen, Eduard,” he said, his whisper so low it was barely a kiss against the old man's ear. “It's my turn to do something for you. I'll give you the chance you need, and you have to promise me you'll take it.”

Eduard's pain-filled eyes blinked, unable to focus on an object so close to him. “Garth, I don't have another chance. This body is already dying.”

“Mine will last as long as you need it.” Garth smiled distantly. “You'd do the same for Teresa, or me. Take my home-body and all the unmarked credits you could possibly need. I've got so much money lying around that you could get away forever, go across the ocean, pay whatever bribes you need—make yourself completely invisible.”

Eduard tried to lean back against the sofa pillows, averting his gaze. “Garth, don't be an ass.” His face crumpled into an expression of pain, and his chest heaved in an effort to hold back a rasping cough. “In case you haven't noticed, this body was already wrecked when I took it, and I've made things worse by running. Hemorrhaging, malfunctions, shutdowns. No matter how much money you have in your accounts, you won't be able to fix this. You won't find anyone willing to hopscotch with you.”

Garth shook his head. “If I did, then another person would have to die. Any payment would only be blood money. This is my choice, and I won't let someone else pay the price for it.”

“I appreciate the offer, Garth, but I can't accept. Sorry.”

“You've got to accept, Eduard. I'm offering, as your friend. I've had a perfectly good life. Let me decide how I want to spend it.” Tears sparkled in his eyes.

Eduard snorted. “Your art has spoken to more people, touched more lives than anything I could dream of. The only way
I
got famous was by killing someone.”

Garth stared around at his ornate dwelling with its fine furniture and embellished library. “Eduard, shut up and listen. I've had everything, done everything. And my star has burned very, very bright.”

“Garth, I don't have the energy to argue with you.”

“Then stop arguing.”

Eduard pressed his lips together to hold in the pain, and shook his head weakly. “I refuse. Get it through your head. If you swap with me, you'll die.”

Garth wore a beatific expression. “If my art is good enough, I'll live forever, anyway.” He leaned closer, and Eduard ineffectually tried to slide away.

“My art is my life, always has been. You've known that since we were kids. I spent everything in my soul to make people
notice
what I had to say. I poured out the emotions and the experiences I had. My career skyrocketed, and people wanted more and more, faster and faster. But Eduard . . .” He rested his hand on the dying man's bony chest. “What if I don't have anything left to say? I want to end my career at a high point, not become some pathetic has-been whose later work waters down his original output.”

Eduard sipped more of the chamomile tea, sighed. “Look at everything you have, Garth. Don't expect me to feel sorry for you.”

Garth tried a different approach. “All right, but I can last a little while in your body. Let me give you a respite, just like you did for Teresa after Rhys beat her up.”

Eduard's eyes glimmered. “Have you heard from Teresa? How is she?”

Garth smiled. “She just contacted me a few hours ago. She thinks she's found her original body—she's been looking for it a long time, you know.”

Eduard tried to sit up. “Did she tell you where she is? I'd like to—”

“Yes, I know exactly where she'll be first thing in the morning. Swap with me, go and see her while you can.” Garth began to talk in a rush. “I'll stay here and rest, and you take your last chance. Go, say goodbye to her—I know you need to.”

Eduard thought of Teresa, how much he loved her, how much he missed her . . . how much he had ruined everything. “You mean it? This isn't permanent, you know. I'm not going to stick you with this . . . this old wreck. It's my problem.”

“Eduard, you have enough problems to go around. Let me do this for you, now. It's my turn.”

Eduard's pain-wracked eyes regarded him with suspicion. “Promise you'll wait for me here?”

With a deprecating frown at the decrepit form lying on the sofa, Garth said, “Look at your body, Eduard—where am I going to go?”

Before he hurried off, fit and healthy again, Eduard turned back. “Garth, you're not going to do anything stupid?”

The artist lay trembling on the sofa, his body wracked with the pain of dying slowly. “No.” Behind Garth's bleary eyes, Eduard could see a surprising strength and confidence, a contentment that hadn't been there earlier that night. “Just go! But remember, it'll be dangerous for you.”

Eduard crossed his arms over his broad chest and flashed a wry smile. “Garth . . . it's
Teresa.
What choice do I have?” Then he slipped out into the dawn.

Pashnak returned with an armful of warm clothes, but all he saw was the old body sitting there, wheezing, and in pain. “Where's Garth? He shouldn't have left you alone.”

“I'm here.”

Pashnak looked at him in dawning horror. He dropped the clothes on the floor. “What have you done?” He advanced forward, reaching out but afraid to touch the old man. “Oh, Garth—what have you done?”

“I did what I had to do. One last experience.”