robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain (30 page)

She started to peel the denim down over the flare of her hips. The situation was really strange; John had dreamed of beautiful women making this kind of come-on to him, but the reality was different. The reality was different; this wasn't right. He hadn't done anything to deserve her giving herself to him.

"It's worth as much as you want it to be," he said.

She froze, halting her undressing. She looked up at his face and there was puzzlement in her eyes. "Ya saying ya don't want ta hump me?"

"No—I mean, yes—I mean, it's not that I don't—ah, I don't think we should—"

Words failed him and he stood there, openmouthed and feeling stupid. She looked at him, clearly calculating. But what? She broke the stalemate by reaching down and picking up her shirt. Throwing it over one shoulder, she turned and walked away. She looked back when she reached the door.

"You're a strange one, Tall Jack."

Who was he to argue?

Shaking her head, she disappeared into the common room. A few seconds later, he heard her door slide shut. John padded across his room and shut his own door. Tossing the pillow ahead of him, he threw himself on the bed. He had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

There was no mention of the previous night's episode at breakfast the next morning. Sue was quiet, subdued. She even refrained from making any surly remarks when Wilson arrived to escort John to see Bear.

Over the next couple of days, they settled into a sort of routine. Breakfast together, then John would go off for a session with Bear, to return in time for dinner. They talked some, about this and that, nothing close or personal. Sue seemed friendlier, less and less the hard streeter. He liked this Sue a lot better than the smart-mouthed punk who had confronted him in the factory. He began to think that she was coming to trust him.

Each night she left her door open when she retired after their talks, but he couldn't bring himself to go in there. He didn't want her to sleep with him just because she owed him something, or because they were stuck here together, or because there was nothing more interesting to do. He didn't want himself doing it for any of those reasons, either. Still, their proximity and her availability made it harder every day to deny the growing attraction. But was it a real attraction, and not just two lonely people clutching at each other because there was no one else? Their togetherness was artificial, thrust on them by the dwarves. Their interest in each other could just as easily be a product of this enforced intimacy.

He left his own door open as well, fearing that shutting it would offend her, but also a little afraid that she might accept what could be construed as an offer. After a few days, despite his misgivings, he found himself almost hoping she
would
accept the offer.

He continued to sleep alone.

Each day the dwarves interrogated him about details of Bear's modern life; they said they needed the information to construct the reintegration sims. John answered all their questions, watching as they input data and developed visuals and sim personas. He corrected details and helped them adjust the sims; a couple of times they even let him use the construction software. He didn't feel as though he was betraying anyone. It wasn't as though there were any real secrets. At least not any secrets that he
knew
he should be keeping; the dwarves already knew about Nym and Bennett and Faye and the magical otherworld. The last was the one area he would have refused to tell them about, but they never pressed him for details about it.

Every day the sessions with Bear were all the same. For a week, the same. The meeting, the admittance into his choice hand of fighters, the raid on the Saxon camp, the party afterward. An endless round of hairy-chested bonding stuff. Each time it seemed to be a new experience for Bear, but John remembered that everything had happened before. Did Bear? Why was everything being repeated?

"Baseline familiarity," Wilson said.

It became
very
familiar. The awesome detail and realism of l he dwarf sim became old hat. John grew tired of it; the lack of change and challenge stifled him. Did anything he was doing matter? What would happen if he didn't bother to fight in the next attack sequence? Would it make a difference? Did he dare try?

The dwarves' assurances that progress was being made grew thin. And not just for him. As the week wore on, Sue's newfound calm grew more ragged, and more and more her frustration at being cooped up came to dominate their conversations. Her agitation infected John. Like her, he began to wonder if there would ever be an end to their strange imprisonment.

He was ready to tell Wilson that he wasn't going to bother I ighting the Saxons next time, but the dwarf had his own surprise announcement when John came out of the sim.

"Things are looking good. We'll start the next phase tomorrow."

When John told Sue the news, she exploded.

"Next
phase? Ya mean this is gonna keep goin' on? We're gonna be here forever!"

"Only till Bear's better."

"That's what they tell ya?"

"Well, they haven't said so in so many words."

"And they ain't gonna. They're gonna keep us cooped in this can forever."

"Kranekin said he'd let you go in time."

"In time? What? A
life
time? His or mine?" She glared at him. "Ya believe them munchkins too much, Jack."

The dinnercart arrived and they ate in a tense silence. John reloaded the cart and Sue helped. They still didn't say anything to each other, but the silence seemed more companionable than it had.

When the cart left, Sue said, "I been thinking about this situation real hard, Jack. And, ya know, it keeps comin' down ta one thing. Ya owe me, Jack. Major league. 'Cause if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here."

That was true, after a fashion. "Seems to me that when we received our invitation from the dwarves, you were talking about getting a good price for my eyes."

"That weren't nothing. Fight talk, ya know. Ta spook ya. It don't mean nothin'."

It had seemed to mean something at the time. She still hadn't told him what had brought her to the factory looking for him. "Were you really going to cut my eyes out and sell them?"

"Nah. 1 told ya, it didn't mean nothin'."

"So why were you looking for me? It seems that might have a bearing on whether I owe you or not."

"It was a job. Nothin' personal, like. Some suits wanted ta dump the place you was living. Wanted you ee-victed."

"Well, that's done." John was gone, but the factory might not be empty; Faye might still be there. Was she waiting for him there as she had at the rezcom? Guiltily, he realized he hadn't been thinking about her.

"Seems like we both got evicted pretty good," Sue said. "Left behind everybody we knew."

That wasn't exactly true. Bear was here. But Faye wasn't.

"Ya think the munchkins wiped the guys?"

"No." Whatever else they were, the dwarves didn't seem to be cold-blooded killers. Sue's guys hadn't represented a threat to anyone when Wilson had shown up.

"I think ya might be right. If Wilson wanted ta wipe 'em, he didn't have any need not to do it while we was there." She smiled to herself. "Good thing the suits didn't know who I'd picked ta get ya; they'd be on the guys like melting polycarb. The guys don't know nothin', but the suits wouldn't believe that. They'd wipe 'em just for saying 'I don't know where she went.' "

"These suits sound pretty heinous. Why'd you agree to work for them?"

"Monetary units. What else? Girl's gotta get along,"

What else, indeed. "And they wanted me?"

She hesitated. Maybe she sensed how angry being a target made him. "They wanted ya out of your slump. That's all."

"And the eye thing, that was just entrepreneurial spirit?"

"I told ya, that didn't mean nothin'!"

Her indignation was real. Lord knew, John wanted to believe her. "So they just wanted me out of there?"

"Getting out can be bright. Like getting outta here, ya know? I gotta get outta here, Tall Jack. I'm dying in this can. You oughta leave, too. We both gotta get outta here."

"Bear needs my help. I can't leave now."

"Best help ya could give him would be ta get him away from these munchkins."

"He can't be moved."

"That's what they're telling ya."

That
was
what they were telling them. Could she be right that it was only a ploy?

"If you're not bright enough ta get out yourself, at least help me get out."

"1 can't get involved in some half-thought-out escape plan, right now. They're going to start the next phase tomorrow, and Bear needs me. I owe him."

"What about me? Ya owe
me,
too."

All the rational arguments said that he wasn't responsible; her situation was happenstance. So why wasn't he able to feel comfortable with those arguments? Did he really owe her, or did he just not want her to feel as if he did? Was the difference important?

"Let me sleep on it," he said.

To his surprise, she was willing to do that. To his even greater surprise, she didn't say anything more about it over breakfast. She even wished him good luck with the day's sim runs. Her cheerfulness made him a little suspicious, but it also inade him feel good. He liked seeing her smile.

His attitude continued its upswing when he saw that Bear was out of the tank. However, the new arrangement made him almost as uncomfortable. The dwarves had Bear suited up in some sort of bulky bodysuit studded with shiny silver lumps

at all the joints. Fiber-optic cables trailed from the lumps and disappeared under the bed.

"Progressive resistance sheath," Wilson said. "We may have to release some of the neuro locks on his motor control. The PRS will prevent him from hurting himself if he starts thrashing."

At least Bear no longer had to wear the respirator mask.

"He looks different without his beard," John observed.

"An embarrassing necessity," Wilson said. "We've already done a growth stim on the hair follicles. If everything goes smoothly, he'll have his beard back before he has to face the public."

"And if it doesn't go smoothly?"

"He'll have his beard back in any case. Now, come on. Get in the chair and get the helmet on."

John did as he was told. This was to be a replay of Bear's awakening by the mad sorceress Nym, the first step in bringing Bear up to date by helping restore his memory. John wasn't sure how it was supposed to work, but the dwarves seemed confident. He supposed that they had been confident when they had first messed with Bear's mind, but he tried to convince himself that they knew better now. And that seemed to be the case; nothing had gone wrong with the earlier sims.

"We're going to start now," Wilson announced. "We'll set you in first so you can get accustomed to the sim frame. Speak out if there are any anomalies."

John nodded and then he was back in the Woodman Armory Museum wearing his new night watchman's uniform. The flashlight in his hand sent its beam roving across the silent armor and weapons. The hall wasn't silent, though; scrabblings and chitterings echoed from the darkness. Then he'd thought the noises had come from rats; he knew better now.

The setting was real enough that John could have believed that he was back in the museum. But the setting was the easy part. He heard the crash in the special exhibit gallery and walked in that direction. This time he knew what he would find, but he felt the edge of uncertainty and fear he'd felt that night because the sim was feeding him an analog of those emotions as part of the replay.

Nym was there, moving about the case, preparing her spells. The dwarf sim masters had gotten some of the details of the magic staff wrong. Not that it mattered; Bear had been unconscious for that part.

"Come, Lord. Waken. 'Tis time," the sim Nym said.

Naked as the day he was reborn, Bear appeared in a nimbus of magic. He had his beard; his face, though now familiar to John, brought the analog feelings of awe and wonderment.

"You would probably call Mm Arthur," the sim Nym told him.

Bear is what he prefers,
John thought. Wilson had said that Bear's auditory input would be active before Ms other senses, so in the sim John said what he had said that night. "As in King Arthur?"

The sim Nym nodded. "Rise, O King. The fight is to be

fought."

Bennett appeared. "I see I'm too late for the show."

In John's sim arms, Bear started to struggle. In the reconstructed museum, Nym and Bennett began their battle. Bear opened his eyes, allowing John to see the terror there, and started to thrash. It hadn't happened that way. Bear began to cuss; some of the words John knew, some were in the old tongue that Bear spoke. It hadn't happened that way.

Wilson cut off the simulation.

John's head spun with the abrupt cutout. For a moment he was in two places at once, then only one. The dwarven medlab. In the sim chair. Under the helmet. He opened his eyes, still a little confused by the whirling spots overlying everything.