Levels: The Host (2 page)

PROLOGUE

S
omething
about California.

Something curious happened out there, word had it. Something interesting, they said. Something big. All official channels were silent on the subject, but word of mouth was buzzing with vague, strange tales. By the time these stories traveled across the continent, across the entire United Countries of America, through the borders of Arizonia and the Nuclear Nations and the Drug Zones and Jesusland and Pennyork and all the other countries, by the time they reached from the Republic of California to Brooklyn, they had become nebulous and blurry. Amorphous gossip. People talked on street corners. People speculated and elaborated. Whatever it had started out as, it was distorted, mutated—probably bore little resemblance to the truth. Or to the facts, either.

California. Something about the Republic of California. Something had happened out there. Something those here weren’t supposed to know about. Something those in power wanted to contain. Something involving violence, perhaps. Little people, big changes.

Some said it was mass destruction. Earthquakes, the bomb, war. . . . But most said it was an uprising—a takeover of some kind.
Revolution
. No one used the word
revolution
—no. But it was there, unspoken, floating just beneath the surface of every conversation.
Revy
. It was a tough word to say out loud. A tough word to think about. The connotations of that one simple word . . .
enormous
. So no one said it. But it
was there.

And during this, during these drifting rumors and quiet mutterings and murmurings, perhaps
because
of them, something
moved
in the people. Something shifted slightly. Tilted. Twisted. It was not a specific, tangible thing, but even in Brooklyn you could feel it in the air. A vibration. An electricity. A charge that went from negative to positive. An excitement that . . .
something
was going to happen soon here.
Here
. People felt a
pulling together.

The news reports said nothing. The news reports always said nothing. There were hardly ever any real bulletins anyway, except about the local countries. Once in a while you’d hear something bland about the other, more western ones. Nothing important. And there was never anything at all about overseas. The distant lands outside of the UCA had been totally out of bounds since well before Cedetime. Shut out completely. For all anyone knew, things might have become very nice over there in the Outerworld in all this time since Euroshima. But nobody knew, or cared, really. There were probably lots of low wars going on there. There always were. Fights over territory, economics, or religion—all of which really were the same thing in the end. But this California talk, this was different. It made people hinky. Uneasy. Fidgety.

There was unrest about. Unspecified, unfocused unrest. Lots of it. The streets were thick with it. Clogged with it. The streets of Brooklyn, and even the streets—the bottom ones—in the country of
Manhattan itself.

Watly Caiper didn’t care. Not at all. He had more important things to think about. Personal things. Things involving his goals, his ambitions. His life. Things were moving for him. All that rumor stuff was of no concern. None at all. Let other people think on it. He didn’t care. Caring was something Watly used to do. That was his mother’s influence. That was
her
way. Now . . . now he cared about himself. Now he cared about his dreams,
his plans.

His plans.

Tiny toenails and hyperventilating cries. Fine wispy locks and contented gurgles. Small toothless smiles and first words. The pink cheeks, warm to the touch, and that bubbly cooing. Grasping hands—always grasping. Eyes focusing, tracking, gazing lovingly. Hiccups. Spit-up on a towel. The smell of shit—somehow sweeter and less offensive than your own. Hugs and cuddles and tiny feather kisses. The laughs, the incredible impossible giggles. Dependency goaded, prodded, nudged into a painful independence, like you’d coax out a burp. Someday. Somehow. Raising another self until that self can do it alone. And on. Babies. Children. Kids. Being
in
on it. In on the formation of another person. A different person. Better, maybe. A person to carry on. The new wave. The pass-along.

“You don’t pay back,” Watly’s mother would say. “You pay forward.” And so.

This is where Watly Caiper’s mind was. This was the nature of his thoughts. The Republic of California was not a concern. Unrest was not a concern. Revy was not a concern. Leading a revolution was the last thing on his mind. The last thing. If you had mentioned it, he would have laughed and slipped quietly away. There was a time he would not have laughed. Or slipped away. There was a time he would have cared. But that was long ago. That was then and now was now. Now he was out for himself. And for
his passion.

Mothering.

PART ONE

THE SETUP

The me is a movable thing.

– Watly Caiper

CHAPTER 1

T
hump
thump thump.

He was a real pig of a man. Size of a house, with little tufts of black and gray hair peeking from each nostril. The sign in front of his desk said his name was Mr. Oldyer and that he was
Examination Five.

Thump
thump thump.

Oldyer. Ol-die-yer. That’s how the clerk had pronounced it. Ol-die-yer. Rhymes with
mold buyer
.

Thump
thump thump.

He had no hair to speak of except for that nose stuff and, Watly suspected, an ugly mat of it all down his back. He didn’t just look fat, he looked bloated—inflated, pumped up with fluid or jelly or something. His eyes seemed almost buried amid little puffs and folds of extra lumpy flesh. The two thick lids looked permanently bruised. And beneath it all—beneath these pinkish flaps and lumps—two glistening pupils could still be seen. They watched coldly and aloofly, with that special mixture of hatred and condescension that always appears when one gives a little scrap of power to a little scrap of
a mind.

Watly shifted from his left foot to
his right.

Thump
thump thump.

Mr. Oldyer hadn’t said one word yet. He just sat and stared at Watly, thumping that No. 2 pencil proudly on his plasticore desktop.
A real wood pencil like that must’ve cost him a full week’s pay,
Watly thought.
He’s really showing
it off.

Thump
thump thump.

Watly wished he could think of something to say—something witty or sarcastic. A quip. Where the hell was a quip when you needed it most? Needed it for your own sanity. Watly’s brain was dry. This Mr. Oldyer—this unapproachable
building
of a man—stood between Watly Caiper and his future. This was it. Watly didn’t want to blow it. Not now. Not after coming
this far.

Thump
thump thump.

Even before the enormous man finally broke down and spoke, Watly suspected this was the kind of guy who could make every word in existence a curse. Watly braced himself for it. Everything this man would say was going to sound like an obscenity. And curses—rape, bolehole, subspawn—would sound worse than ever slipping from this man’s sloppy flesh wound of
a mouth.

But nice, positive words—good words—would be tainted with fatty toxins. Words like
pretty, happy, wonderful, kind
would be corrupted when spewed from those two lopsided lips. Even wholesome, positive words like
fuck
would end up tainted.
Fuckhead, fuckable, fuckface
—all would sound like bad things instead of good when they escaped from this blubber-puss.

Watly stared at Oldyer’s mouth. He remembered hearing once about how in ancient pre-Cede time, pre-history, the word
fuck
was indeed considered a curse: something harsh, something one couldn’t say in polite company. Whereas, back then,
rape
was not considered a curse word at all. Pretty strange, that. It was like they had everything backward in
those days.

Thump
thump thump.

Mr. Oldyer broke his stare and turned his massive head down to look at the papers on his desk. The facial blubber trembled for a moment and then the man laid his pencil carefully before him. No more thumping. There was a palpable release of tension. Watly exhaled slowly through his teeth and focused on the toes of
his shoes.

“Watly Caiper, huh?” Four swinging jowls shuddered with the impact of speech on Oldyer’
s face.

The brown half-walls of the small office seemed to close in around Watly. He felt as if something was tightening around his neck—pressing, squeezing. Yes, Watly had been right. This man made even Watly’s own
name
sound like
an obscenity.

“Yes, sir. That’
s me.”

“Come a long way, haven’t you, Caiper?” the big man said in
a monotone.

Watly smiled but kept his mouth shut, not sure what was expected of him. It hadn’t sounded like a question.
What do you want, fat man? Tell me and I’ll give it
to you.

“You’ve passed through four examinations and two physicals, right?” Oldyer looked up from the papers and resumed his scrutinizing gaze. “You know how to talk, firstface?”

“That’s right, sir. Been here all day.” Watly’s hands were damp again. They’d been going damp like that on and off since he’d first gotten on line at five that morning. The whole thing had been much more an ordeal than he’d expected. The enormous queues, the tension, the waiting, the shuffling, the forms, the prodding, and the endless,
endless
questions
....
Yes, sir-ree, the admissions procedure at Alvedine Industries’ Hosting Building was.
..
less
than soothing.

Watly surreptitiously wiped his clammy palms across his pants legs on the pretext of smoothing the fabric. A conspicuous dark stain of sweat was
left behind.

“So you want to be a host—is that it, Mr. Watly Caiper?” Oldyer’s voice now had a tinge of sarcasm
to it.

“Yes, sir. That’s
it exactly.”

“A fade-out host? A final host?” Oldyer’s sunken
eyes gleamed.

Watly’s stomach did a complete half turn. Something bubbled in his throat. “No, no, Mr. Oldyer. Not a fade-out host, sir. Just a host. A
regular host.”

The huge man was playing with him. Any other circumstances and Watly would have socked him in the jaw. The guy was a secondkissing bolehole. But it was all too important. This was the
big time.

“We’re always in need of a good
fade-out
host, Mr. Caiper,” Oldyer said slyly, leaning back in his chair. He was smiling. The man was showing off his power. He was threatening Watly— trying to intimidate him, trying to make him hinky
and more.

Watly allowed himself a tight little smile back. “I’m not interested in dying just yet, sir. I understand fade-out hosting pays very generously but I’d have no one to leave the money to. Right now, sir, I’m just interested
in hosting.”

“And why would that be, Mr. Watly Caiper? Why do you want to be a host?” Mr. Oldyer lifted his pencil again and began to slowly—almost sexually—caress it with
his fingertips.

Watly picked out a particular Oldyer nose hair to focus on before answering. A gray one. “I need the money, sir—Mr. Oldyer. It’s the only way I know of to make a lot of
it fast.”

The huge jowls reared up to form a smile again. A big one. “Oh, you’re a treasure, Mr. Caiper. A real treasure. Need the money, do you? That’s precious. I’m stunned. Imagine my surprise.
Kelgar!
”
Oldyer’s voice boomed out—directed over the half-wall to the next office. “Kelgar! This unique fellow’s in here because of financial considerations! He needs the money!” The big man rose with great exertion. His fat wobbled asymmetrically over the top of his pants as he rounded the desk toward Watly’s side. The floor shook slightly under Watly’s feet. “Imagine that!” There was clipped laughter from beyond the half-wall. “Needs the money!” Oldyer moved closer and held his face just a few centimeters away from Watly’s. Watly could smell the stale alcohol-infused breath, the rancid skin. He saw that Oldyer’s swollen nose and cheeks were covered with a fine latticework of blood vessels that grew more engorged by the minute. A map of blood. The guy was flushed. “Mr. Caiper,” he said. “Mr. Caiper, in the entire history of hosting—since it first began—there has never been a sofdick subspawn of an applicant like you who came across my desk, or any other terradamn desk.
..
who
didn’t
need the raping money.” Oldyer accented each of the last few words by poking Watly in the stomach with his blunt
index finger.

Watly Caiper remained as still as possible. He wanted to strangle this Mr. Oldyer. This bole- hole. He wanted to knock him down and see how high he’d bounce. He didn’t. He didn’t budge. He breathed. In-out. In-out.

Oldyer moved even closer and Watly thought for a moment the big man meant to
kiss him.

“You’d like to hit me, wouldn’t you, catbreath?” Oldyer asked softly. “You’d like to knock me over. I’ve read your file. There’s more than a streak of prideful violence in there.” Again a sharp poke in the solar plexus. “You don’t dare, though, do you? ‘Cause you want this real bad and it’s all in my hands.” Oldyer backed off a few inches. “Do you know what my job is, Mr. Caiper? My job isn’t to
accept
you. Oh, no. My job is to
weed you out
. My job is to turn you away. My job is to send you out of here on your bole. Just because you made it this far you think you’re second shit. This department
alone
sees over a thousand people a day just like you.
Just like you.
You know how many of those people get by us?” Watly shook his head. “On a good day?
None
. On a good week? Maybe one, if you’re lucky.” Oldyer moved back to his side of the desk. “So, Mr. Watly Caiper, the odds are against you.” Oldyer paused and sat his huge form back down. “That is, unless you want to be a fade-
out host
....
”

Watly clenched his teeth. The guy wouldn’t give up. “I do not want to be a fade-out host, sir.”

“Then give me a reason I should make you a host, Watly Caiper. I’ve got your file and papers in front of me and there’s nothing special there. Give me a reason”—Oldyer’s eyes smiled, though his mouth showed nothing—”why I shouldn’t kick you out
right now.”

Watly felt his mind go blank. Somebody must have pulled the stopper and let his brain drain out.
There’s gotta be a puddle of it somewhere down there
...
.
He openly wiped his hands on his pants this time.
Give him a reason, dammit!

“Well, Mr. Oldyer, I’m, uh.
..
I’m in good shape. I’m strong. Uh.” Watly groped for something—anything. “I’m relatively attractive to either sex. Pretty fuckable-looking. I.
..
uh.
..
can take a lot of punishment. I’ve got a lot of stamina
and endurance
....
”

Oldyer started shuffling the papers around on his desk. “You’re not helping yourself, Caiper,” he said offhandedly. He pulled aside one particular form and began inspecting it. “Says here you did factory maintenance work in Brooklyn and that you just moved to Manhattan last month. Are you a tenter or are you
staying someplace?”

“I’m staying with my Uncle Narcolo. He has
an apartment.”

Oldyer seemed to perk up for a moment. “Narcolo?” he asked. “
Narcolo Caiper?”

“That’s right,” Watly said, his hopes rising a notch at Oldyer’s
perky tone.

The man scratched his large bald scalp. “He used to work here a few years back—Narcolo Caiper.
..
Narcolo Caiper—he worked in files, I think. Retired now, I believe.” Oldyer grinned, ignoring Watly. He seemed pleased with his
own memory.

“Yes, sir. He’s a real fuck, a great guy. He—”

“Subspawn,” Oldyer snapped. “Connections will get you nothing here, Caiper.” The cavernous eyes turned back to the form. A thick vein near one oversized ear bulged outward. “So you’re staying in an apartment. Near here,
is it?”

“It’s very convenient, yes, sir.”

There was a long moment of silence from Oldyer. Over the half-walls, Watly caught snatches of conversation from the other interviews and examinations going on all around him—insecure mumblings from applicants and self-confident bellowings from interviewers. It was the
same everywhere.

“Let me guess, Mr. Caiper. You want the money because you’d like to save up and someday move to Second Level. The good life, and all that? Gave up on playing the Level Lottery, huh?”

“No, sir.”

“Dying relative out in Jersey Commonwealth needs
an operation?”

“No, sir.”

Oldyer looked annoyed he hadn’t guessed right. The nose hairs actually seemed to bristle. “Then what’s your sad story, Caiper? What’s
your tale?”

“Antiprophies, sir.”

The fat man looked confused for a second, as if he’d never heard the word. “Antiprophies? You want to be
a mother?”

“That’s it, sir.”

“A mother? A mother, huh? Had a calling?” There was new respect in Oldyer’
s voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have a female? Volunteer or mate or anything?” Oldyer’s face transformed into that of a pouting child for a moment. “You have a poovus?”
he asked.

“No, sir.”

Oldyer inhaled and let out a long, drawn-out whistle. It started high and descended slowly, the sound of someone falling off a cliff. “Gotta give you credit for trying, Caiper. You’d need a rape of a lot of money—antiprophies, a female, a license. A
lot
of money.” Oldyer’s eyes glazed over as though he’d slipped into a daydream. He
was gone.

“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Oldyer,” Watly said as firmly as possible.
Wake up, Mr.
Fat Man.

Oldyer still looked like he was drifting, his mind far away. “That’s fine, Caiper.” Without looking down, Oldyer gathered the various papers together on his desk. “
Application denied.”

Watly thought he hadn’t heard right for a moment. “What?” he
said softly.

“Application denied. You know the way out. Follow the
blue arrows.”