Lesser Gods (8 page)

Death must be after the jet. Maybe the Powers were, too.

I no longer felt so sorry for Huntington, even though he was horribly handicapped and had apparently lived a sometimes-tragic life. It’s hard to feel sorry for someone that makes Midas look like a pauper.

I thought a moment. Maybe I could turn Huntington in, avoid Death for a while (since he would undoubtedly double cross, if not kill me either way), and maybe get out of the mess with my life, avoiding my Nearer, My God, to Thee moment that seemed all too likely if I simply went along with Death’s plan.

It was time to look out for number one, to get my rear out of the line of fire.

But first, I’d have to find Huntington and get some answers. After that I could throw him to the wolves.

Yes, that’s what has to be done. No more feeling sorry for the guy.

It was him or me. He’d had a long life. He wasn’t as pure as the driven snot. I could rationalize trading his life for mine — but first I had to find him.

That’s where the jet came in, along with all its risks. I had to use it. The records showed Huntington’s SupeR-G attendance was daunting; the guy must have been into jet in a big way and had all the earmarks of a multiple personality whizzer. The SupeR-Gs were my only chance of finding him in two days. The trick would be finding the right SupeR-G, and then managing to recognize him. Then I’d have to hack the site and track his anonymous e-cash back to the source.

I fought off a feeling of panic as I thought of all I had to do, of the blind luck I’d have to have. I was tempted to suck the muzzle of my favorite pistol right then and there and get it over with.

Focus.

I took a deep breath.

Looking over the list of SupeR-Gs Huntington regularly visited, I tried to narrow the sites to just a handful, concentrating on those that seemed the less dangerous to visit. Jet enabled you to immerse yourself in the side code for an experience that was more real than life. But there was a catch. A user’s brain filled in all the gaps in the code to create a whole, seemingly real fabric. Jet abusers felt pain just like the real thing. Just as real as everything else in the SupeR-G. Extreme pain — or the apparent death of a user — could prove fatal due to the excessive stress on his heart.

Jet isn’t all fun and games.

Nor was it an on/off proposition. Jet stayed in the bloodstream until the drug was exhausted by the receptor cells in his nervous system. While it was in his bloodstream, it was impossible to pull the mind out of the whole SupeR-G world that had been created. So once someone jetted into a system, they were there until the ride ended.

And if the ride came to a sudden and violent end before the jet ran out, the shock could fire the starting pistol for a race between the arteries in the brain and the heart, seeing which would rupture first.

For most people jetting into a SupeR-G, anything from an imaginary car wreck, to getting stabbed with a sword, became a fatal event. The person didn’t die of the wound in the SupeR-G; rather, the sudden shock of what was perceived by the mind as a massive injury, led to a brain aneurysm or heart attack.

The question: How had Huntington survived all his heavy attendance of SupeR-Gs noted for their dangers. That was a mystery for the time being. Either he was very skilled or had developed some way to protect himself or cheat the system.

A new form of Jet perhaps?

That might explain the interest both the government and Death had in finding him.

I continued studying the files for any other clues.

Finally it was time to enter the fray.

I addressed the MC. “Computer.”

“Yes?”

“Sort through Huntington’s list of SupeR-Gs with an eye toward where I’d be most likely to encounter him.”

“Sort finished. The ‘Vietnam War In Indochina’ SupeR-G is unlisted and has low attendance. Normally he’s there during this hour. You therefore have a very high probability of finding him there.”

“You have the address?”

“Last hack included it.”

Maybe I was finally going to get a lucky break. It was about time.

There was just that nagging question: Do you really want to do something this stupid?

I held the vial of jet in my fist, reflecting on the time in rehab, hands shaking. Sweat broke out on my forehead and detox conditioning sent a wave of nausea washing over me.

I ran for the bathroom.

What a day. What a life. What a choice.

After emptying my stomach and then re-filling it with liquids so I wouldn’t dehydrate if I got stuck in an extended stay on the net, I threw an absorbent towel over my chair and settled into it. I closed my eyes, and forced myself to relax.

“Maximum security,” I told my MC. “Use the emergency generator if you need to and shoot to kill if someone other than a medic breaks in. Don’t shut down my connection unless you have to. If you do, loop me and have an alternate line open and ready. I want to net-jet undisturbed.”

“You’re net jetting?”

“Your auto report circuit is still overridden, isn’t it?” I asked with a sudden cringe of terror at the possibility that my computer might this very minute be reporting my drug infraction to the authorities.

“My virtual lips are sealed. No reports of your sins to the cops from me.”

“That’s good,” I said, ignoring the hint of sarcasm in the machine’s voice. If the flash updates ever started changing that bit of programming protection, I would be dancing the hokey poky for sure. Meantime, the hack of my MC was one of my get-out-of-jail-free cards.

The computer spoke, “I’ll monitor your vital signs and call the medics if you should happen to —”

“Good plan. Just be sure I’m really slipping into the sweet by and by before you call the cavalry. I don’t want a bunch of paperwork to do unless I’m about to kick off.”

“Understood.”

“Permit transfers to other SupeR-Gs from the first site in case I have to chase this guy. But make me wait twenty minutes before jumping again — no matter how much I beg you to let me. I don’t want to get locked into a false personality loop.”

“I’ll wait at least twenty minutes between jumps.”

Already I was trying to figure out a way to override my last command so I could get maximum use of my jet jolt.

Once a jethead always a jethead.

I just hoped my new self that came back wouldn’t outfox the old one now departing at Gate Six for parts unknown.

I put the VG onto my head and settled into my chair, wiggling a little to be sure I was comfortable and double-checking to be sure I had left my legs uncrossed so I didn’t return to a body with gangrene in one foot.

I opened the vial and got a whiff of the chemical’s acrid odor. Then I placed a drop of the white liquid on my forefinger and touched it to my tongue. Resealing the container, I carefully laid it to one side before the drug started to take effect.

“Connect me to the first SupeR-G on the list.” I ordered, lowering the view screen on my VG.

“Connection established.”

My world exploded.

Louis Berlioz

I watched helplessly as the hatch to my compartment swung open. Stale air hissed in, with an unpleasant odor I associated with reptiles or something dead. I knew smelling was impossible in my artificial body — I was totally confused. I looked at my hand — it was still mechanical. I was still in my mechanical self. Yet how could I explain the smell. The new Jet perhaps?

Then I saw it. A nearly transparent tentacle snaked into the compartment and blindly searched the space, tapping here and there as if groping for me.

I plastered myself against the far wall of my tiny prison, side-stepping to avoid the appendage hunting me. After a few more random attempts, the intruder brushed against my arm, fastening itself to my skin before I could pull away. Its suction cups gripped so tightly I knew they must be damaging my plastic skin.

The tentacle dragged me, screaming, out of the familiar setting into twilight where my eyes no longer seemed to function properly. I found it impossible to focus on the shapes and forms that shifted around me like ghosts in a high wind, barely visible and even then only from the corner of my eye and vanishing when I looked directly at them.

The tentacle was real enough, however. And the bat-like creature it belonged to lifted me effortlessly into the thick air. I was dangling below as it dodged and soared through the finger-like crystalline tree branches that appeared without warning ahead of us. Abruptly the stems vanished into the gloom after we passed.

For what seemed an eternity, my bat-like captor carried me through the night, bringing me to an island of dim light. The creature circled the three glowing obelisks standing beacon-like atop the cliff and then swooped downward, settling onto the ground in front of the objects.

Its tentacle released me; I landed on the hard rock with a jarring thud. Scrambling to my feet, I stepped away from the bat as it furiously beat its leathery wings, lifting itself into the air, hissing as it vanished. I stared after it for a moment and then turned toward the nearest obelisk, extending my hand to touch its frosty surface.

The monolith was almost transparent, a shadowy form trapped inside it. Almost afraid of what I’d find, I reached out and scraped the frost away from the surface first with my hand and then, when that became too cold, my forearm. I continued to work frantically as the shape became almost distinguishable beneath the frost.

With a gasp I recognized who I was looking at. I stopped and stepped back, gulping air like a fish out of water. There, below the surface was Sam, an impossible grimace of torment frozen on his plastic face. A face that could never have had such an expression on its countenance.

My scream, my impossible scream rattled through the darkness, echoing back.

“Your time has come,” a voice behind me whispered.

I turned to see an impossible monstrosity in front of me, one huge eye surrounded with clawed tentacles, standing on grasshopper legs. It reached a slime-covered appendage toward me.

My blood thundered in my ears. I dropped to the ground and clutched my chest where a heart seemed to be bursting. My vision darkened and the tentacles gripped my throat, tightening, tightening.

Ralph Crocker

I have been shot at by, but never shot from, a gun.

Yet, like most jet users, I have a good notion of what that circus act must be like because abusing this drug makes a guy feel ballistic. My whole body seemed to pour into my view goggles, zip along fiber optical lines, and flow directly into the SupeR-G site. I left my body at the speed of light and entered a world that seemed real, more real, than the day-to-day one in which I lived.

The sideband code of a skilled programmer flowed into my mind via the VG. Once in my brain, it produced colors brighter and more intense than reality; I could hear sounds too high and too low to physically detect in real life; I could smell things I could never smell in the living world; my body became invincible and tireless — whatever the coder put into that sideband I became.

That jet can be habit forming is an understatement. Jet’s more real than life. That’s why there are so few ex-jet heads and so many dead jetters. The drug was habit forming to the unth, and most ex-users were ex-users only because they were dead.

A voice floated from nowhere, echoing in my head with the coder’s prologue. “You are in Vietnam, 1970. You are the pilot of a Bell Model 209, Single-engine, AH-1 Huey Cobra helicopter gunship.

You have just received word that a squad is under attack and you are to provide air assistance for it. There is heavy ground fire from the Viet Cong. Your chances for success are low. Good luck.”

Abruptly I was in the pilot’s seat of the chopper, sitting above and behind the gunner who manned the lead cockpit slightly below me. The air was hot and smelled of the new plastic interior of the aircraft whose blades thumped above my head.

Artificial memories flooded my mind and took residence in my synapses. I “remembered” everything from the synthetic past of my new life role, from time spent in basic training to the period that I had learned how to fly the Cobra gunship that thundered around me.