Lesser Gods (10 page)

Ralph Crocker

I landed in a forest with a belly flop and a clatter of metal. Much as I hate to admit it, I quite often bite the dirt when I enter a SupeR-G on jet. Possibly this would tell someone of the psychologist persuasion something about my personality. Or perhaps it’s a deficit of dexterity, an incipient case of stumbleosis.

However, I normally don’t clatter on my landing. And I creaked like a rusty door hinge as I got to my feet. I looked down and discovered I was encased in a rusty suit of armor. Not a bad idea, I thought. A little extra protection never hurt anything, especially in often-violent SupeR-Gs.

Something clung to my chin — grass?

No.

A neatly trimmed beard that I soon forgot as I feasted my eyes on the electronic world around me. It was another beautiful feat of programming. Although I knew it was only electrons coursing through a computer somewhere and assembled within my brain, it was all a highly detailed and perfect illusion. Someone had gone to a lot of work to create this wooded area.

Turning around, I spied an ill-kept yard and a run-down thatch-roofed cottage of 1800 vintage, I guessed, making my armor from a much earlier period a bit of a mystery. In front of the house, under a large oak, was a dining table set haphazardly with broken crockery lying around it. This all took second place to the creatures sitting at the table. The man-sized rabbit I recognized as the March Hare. The wild-eyed little man next to him with the tall headgear had to be the Mad Hatter.

Which one was Huntington?

Or was he even here?

They noisily toasted themselves, oblivious to the small furry creature lying in a saucer between them.

“Sleeping on a dish must be very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” the young lady who materialized next to me said. “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I said, eyeing her closely for some hint if she might be Huntington. There was no resemblance at all to his picture or to the last incarnation I’d just seen him in. But I’d been in enough SupeR-Gs to know that he might be a cross player. It would be a mistake to assume he could only be one of the male players. So, for all I knew, he was standing right next to me.

Or not.

He could be anyone or anything. He might be the oak tree, for all I knew. Finding him was going to get tricky. Of course if it was easy, then Death wouldn’t have hired me and I’d be dead.

Time to quit complaining.

The young lady spoke again, “I said, ‘Sleeping on a dish must be very uncomfortable for the Dormouse. Don’t you think?”

“Uh, yes,” I muttered.

“I guess Dormouse is asleep,” Alice continued. “I suppose it doesn’t mind. Come on let’s join them.” She took my hand in her cool grip and pulled me along toward the expansive table.

Despite the length of the table, the Dormouse, Hatter, and Hare were crowded together at one corner of it.

“No room,” the Hatter and Hare cried as Alice and I approached.

“There’s plenty of room,” Alice insisted, sitting down in a large armchair at one end of the table. She pulled me down into the chair beside her where I sat with the clang and clatter of armor.

“Who are you supposed to be,” the Hatter demanded. “You’re not a part of this story. You must be in the wrong SupeR-G.”

“There’s always room for another player,” Alice said. Then, winking at me she said in a low voice, “Besides, I have taken a fancy to him. I wonder what he has hidden under that oversized codpiece.”

Normally I’m as risqué as the next guy, but I felt a blush creep up my neck from Alice’s remark. Hearing a demure young lady make lurid suggestions seemed obscene and had taken me off guard.

“Who are you,” the Hatter demanded of me again.

“I’m the, uh, White Knight,” I mumbled.

“Have some wine,” the March Hare said before the Hatter could say anything else to me.

Alice glanced round the table. “I don’t see any wine.”

“There isn’t any,” the March Hare replied.

“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” Alice said, trying her best to appear angry while glancing my way to be sure I was watching her.

“It wasn’t very civil of you to bring this joker to our party without being invited,” the March Hare countered.

“Let’s get naked,” the Hatter said.

“Out of character,” the Dormouse protested, suddenly sitting up, wide awake. He squinted at me a moment and then scuttled off the table and fell onto a chair with a loud plunk. His disembodied voice rose from behind the tablecloth. “We’ve got to stay in character if this is going to be any fun. And this is supposed to be a children’s story. No lewd comments, please.”

“It’s her fault for bringing an extra guest,” the Hatter cried.

“I didn’t know it was your place to decide,” Alice said. “Besides, the table’s laid for a great many more than three people.” She looked me in the eye when she said laid, leaving no chance for me to miss her double entendre.

“Your hair wants cutting,” the Hatter said, fingering a wicked-looking dagger that somehow had been hidden in his jacket. “Or maybe your throat.”

“You shouldn’t make impertinent threats,” Alice countered, drawing a Webley from her garter belt and brandishing the revolver carelessly. “Never bring a knife to a gunfight. How about a little lead with your crumpets, dearie?”

I held my breath, unsure what to say. If Alice shot a simm that game programmer had created, nothing would be lost. But if she shot a real person who was in the SupeR-G on jet — the way I was — it might very well be fatal to him.

Or me.

The March Hare glanced wildly back and forth, leaning back in his chair to stay out of the potential crossfire that seemed imminent. “Now, children. Mustn’t hurt anyone. Tell me, why is a computer like a writing-desk?”

“I’m glad you’ve begun asking riddles,” Alice said, setting her revolver on the table beside her as she returned to character. “I believe I can guess that one.”

“Do you mean that you think you have the answer?” the March Hare asked.

“No.”

“But you said —”

“I mean I know I have the answer.”

“You might,” the Dormouse said, his voice groggy as if he were talking in his sleep. He peered over the table edge and spoke with one eye still closed. “And then again, you may be on another flight of fugal fancy.”

“Have you guessed the riddle?” the Hatter asked.

“No, I haven’t a clue,” Alice replied. “What’s the answer?”

“But you said you knew the answer,” I protested.

“That was only to fake everyone out,” Alice replied. “So what is the answer?”

“I haven’t the slightest,” the Hatter said.

“Of course not,” Alice said. “It’s the March Hare’s riddle.”

“That’s too bad,” said the March Hare. “Because I don’t have the slightest clue to the answer, either.”

Alice sighed. “I think I might do something better with my time.” She stood and took me by the hand. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”

“Oh, oh,” the Hatter said, raising an eyebrow and winking at me. “I bet I know just what it is.”

I started to speak, when the Dormouse interrupted. “Treacle. I want a clean cup. Let’s all move one place.” He leaped to the tabletop as he spoke, teetering on the edge.

I rose to my feet with Alice still tugging at my hand. I didn’t have time to get involved in a tête-à-tête in cyberspace. On the other hand, I wasn’t totally sure that Alice wasn’t really Huntington, so I didn’t want to lose track of her/him, either.

The Dormouse scooted over to the next place setting, staggering on hind legs in an odd, very un-mouse-like way. What should I expect from a talking mouse?

The March Hare settled into the Dormouse’s former place, spilling a cup of tea in the process. The liquid formed a rivulet that flowed a short distance to pool into a tiny sea on the already stained land of the tablecloth.

“Surely you two aren’t going to leave our party,” the Hatter said to Alice, plunking himself into a new chair.

“I’m tired of this,” Alice replied. “It’s always just the same old thing.”

“You forget the time we had an orgy in the pasture,” the Hatter protested, his head jerking so violently it threw his hat askew. “Now that was fun.”

“I wasn’t here that time,” Alice protested. “Some other player.” Turning toward me, she confided, “A nice girl like me would never do anything like that.”

“Wrong,” the March Hare said, again drawing his knife and jumping onto the table. “You were there and now you’re lying to impress the White Knight.”

“Was not.” Alice coolly raised her revolver and placed a slug between the eyes of the March Hare before I could make a move to stop her.

The creature fell over backward, a gaping hole in its head.

“Happiness is a warm gun,” Alice told me, blowing the last of the smoke from the barrel. “Anyone else want to argue?”

“No,” said the Dormouse, feigning sleep.

“I’m stopping this game,” the Hatter said. “This has gone too far. I’m leaving if you can’t obey the rules.”

“So long then,” Alice said, pointing the muzzle of her firearm at his head.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You —”

The gun discharged with a blast that echoed back from a distant hillside. The meadow became ominously silent as the Hatter’s lifeless body fell to the ground.

The Dormouse continued to feign sleep and I stood silent.

Alice grabbed my hand again. “Don’t worry your mind about the Hatter or the Hair.”

“They were just simms,” the Doormouse agreed. “After you play a few times, you realize that.”

“So no harm’s done,” Alice said. “Come on, we’ve got to leave right now. The Jabberwocky’s coming. I can hear it.”

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son,” the Dormouse chanted, dancing around a large cup, making motions with his front paws as he continued, “The jaws that bite, the claws that catch.”

There was a roar from the forest that rattled the crockery and made my knees feel weak.

“Come on!” Alice cried over the still-chanting Dormouse’s litany. “We don’t have a second to lose if we’re going to escape from it. It’s a killer and it’s very, very fast.”

There was another roar that punctuated her warning. Whatever the creature was, it was now a whole lot closer.

Alice said nothing more but instead turned and ran, her dress flapping behind her. I snatched the Dormouse from the table along with my helmet and followed her, my armor clanking as I sprinted toward the maze of oaks.

The roaring behind us grew louder. I ran even faster.

The Dormouse squealed and hid in my helmet.

Commander Jacque Thuriot de La Tribunat

Bodyguards become unemployed when their charges expire. Had I not glanced to my left, my job would have ended quite abruptly. As it was, I did turn to my left, studiously ignoring Emperor Napoleon VI as the monarch directed the crowds’ attention toward the newly constructed hypergenerator.

With nearly all eyes in the pitch-black theater gazing toward the massive construct of glass and wire, the assassin, who had edged his way through the entourage surrounding the emperor, drew the plas-steel stiletto from beneath his great coat and readied to attack.

“I’m here today with great pleasure,” Napoleon VI said, his amplified voice thundering through the hall.