city blues 02 - angel city blues (12 page)

My heart hammers in my chest. I climb toward a sky of black velvet, burning with the blue-hot diamonds of constellations. Every fiber of my body is awake, alive, and aware, in a manner that I’ve never experienced before.

And then, with another instantaneous shift, the glider is gone.

The night sky has vanished, replaced by fierce sunlight, reflected off of dirty white sand. I am in a semi-reclined position, wrapped in the bubble-shaped cockpit of a rocket sled.

The hand grips of the steering yoke fit my fingers perfectly, as though molded for me. It’s another unfamiliar body. Shorter this time, more compact, and lacking the lean grace of my glider-pilot self.

But again, it is mine. I
am
this person, the driver of this insanely fast machine as it screams across the salt flats at nearly twice the speed of sound.

My veins don’t merely pulse with adrenaline. They thrum with it. Bathe in it. Surge with it. Man and machine heterodyning under the twin rocket burns of liquid hydrogen fuel and epinephrine.

My teeth vibrate. My vision is blurred, my brain barely able to process the world shrieking past the curved thermoplastic windows of my cockpit.

Nothing is this fast. Nothing can be this fast. But something is…

Coming up on my left, I catch sight of it. The sleek red teardrop form of another rocket sled. Closing by increments. Gaining a few meters every second.

This isn’t just a speed run. It’s a race.

I squeeze the pistol grip control yoke, activating reactive surfaces under my fingertips. The pitch of the rocket motors climbs an octave and my helmet snaps back into the contoured recess of my headrest. The acceleration shoves me into the seat webbing, and my vision narrows to a cone as the g-forces stack up.

Another instantaneous shift, and I am on stage, staring past bright lights into a writhing-thundering crowd of onlookers. The instrument in my hands is some unfathomable hybrid of keyboard and guitar.

I feel the sweat in the small of my back as I leap, and gyrate, and pound the instrument into melodic chaos.

With every pulsing-shuddering note, a strobe of laser light shoots from the string matrix of my unnamed instrument, striking prismatic mirrors that hang from the overhead of the stadium, sending semi-hypnogogic illusions to caper and strut above the heads of the adoring fans.

My fingers dance across the keys, and my voice rises to meet the music in perfect counterpoint. Behind me, my band carries the bottom end, their rhythm, and melodies, and laser images supporting and enhancing the flavor of my own masterful performance.

This is my stage. This is my crowd. The women in the audience want to sleep with me. The men want to
be
me. I am a god, and this is the temple where my subjects have come to worship.

My very soul is singing. I feel the climax of the song hurtling toward me like an avalanche, or an orgasm. I am on fire tonight. This is my moment in history. The absolute pinnacle of my existence.

My hand shoots upward, the gleaming alloy pick held tight between my fingers. My wrist arcs down for the final chord, and an exultant tsunami of sound blasts from a thousand speakers. It blends seamlessly with the ecstatic shouts of the crowd.

I feel my lips drawn back into a grin of purest satisfaction and enjoyment. My knees are weak with the giddiness of the post-adrenaline rush. I raise my arms in triumph…

The shift occurs without transition. It is over. All of it. The glider. The rocket sled. The concert. And I am back in Tommy Mailo’s shop, sitting on a stool near his cluttered workbench.

My hands trembled slightly as I pulled the cranial rig from my head. I sat there for a few seconds, my brain trying to analyze and file the memories of what had just happened.

Tommy cleared his throat softly. “Uh… How
was
it?”

I blinked several times. “
Intense
.”

“Was it real? I mean, did it
feel
real?”

I nodded slowly. “It was real all right. I can’t believe how real it was.”

Tommy ejected the demo chip. “That’s the hook,” he said. “This technology is going to spread like a virus as soon as the price point falls into the consumer range. It’s the ultimate in vicarious living. Our old buddy, John Q. Public, can wine and dine with top-shelf celebrities, play zero-g football in front of a million screaming fans, or get a blowjob from a supermodel, all without leaving the comfort of his couch.”

I looked down at the cranial rig in my hand. Now that I’d had a taste of what SCAPE technology was like, I was even less eager to play the chip from Leanda Forsyth’s apartment.

“Technical question,” I said. “What happens if I plug into that chip and find myself in the middle of something ugly? Is there an
escape
key? Something I can do to abort the playback?”

“Well, you could reach up and pull the rig off your head,” Tommy said. “That’s quick and direct, but it might not be as easy as it sounds.”

“Why not?”

“Because the SCAPE signals override the legitimate synaptic impulses from your nerves and muscles. Your brain interprets the recorded experiences as actual inputs from the real world. As far as your sensory cortex is concerned, your muscles are already busy riding a wind racer, or cooking an omelet, or throwing a roundhouse kick. Supposedly, it takes a bit of practice to exercise voluntary muscle control while your brain is engaged in parsing a SCAPE recording.”

“Can you be a bit more specific than that? How much is a ‘
bit
’ of practice? Ten minutes? Ten weeks? Or ten
years
?”

Tommy shrugged. “That seems to vary from user to user. The manufacturers want us to believe that anyone can figure out the trick in a few tries. But from what I’m hearing, most people don’t ever get the hang of it.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked. “I thought you weren’t into this kind of tech.”

Tommy gave me a sideways smile. “I read the owner’s manual for your unit. And I nosed around on the web before you came over. I figured you wouldn’t want to fly completely blind, so I did a little research.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “Don’t forget to include it on your bill.”

He grinned. “Will do.”

I raised the cranial set to my head, and settled it in place. “Okay, let’s assume that Plan A is not an option. What’s our Plan B? How do I punch out of the recording if it turns out to be something nasty?”

“The manual has two suggestions for that,” Tommy said. “First, they recommend that you only buy SCAPE recordings from licensed and reputable vendors, to ensure that you’re only exposing yourself to high-quality content. Second, they’ve included a handy timer in your SCAPE deck. You can program it to interrupt the playback at preset intervals—like thirty or forty-five seconds—so that you can evaluate a questionable recording in small slices. That doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility of unpleasant experiences, but it does limit your window of potential exposure.”

“I like the timer idea,” I said.

“So do I, with a really short period. How do you feel about twenty seconds?”

“That sounds about right.”

It took a few minutes to get the cranial repositioned and the new chip loaded into the deck. Tommy set the timer for twenty seconds, and looked to me for the thumbs-up.

I nodded.

He hit the
play
tab.

Instantaneous shift…

I’m walking down a hallway in what appears to be a high-end office building. The lighting is indirect, and pleasantly subdued. The silvery wood-laminate wall paneling is complimented by commercial-grade carpeting in a medium shade of gray.

My pace is leisurely, in direct contradiction of the pounding of my heart. I’m obviously psyched up for something more exciting than a stroll down an office corridor, but I have no contextual clues as to what I’ll be experiencing next.

About ten meters in front of me, two men in business suits turn left and disappear through a doorway. A quick glance behind me confirms that I am now alone in the hallway.

My left hand darts into the pocket of my jacket and comes out with a narrow cylindrical object. It is a black paint-stick.

My grip on the paint-stick feels slightly off kilter. My left little finger is missing from the second knuckle. The amputation is obviously an old injury, long since scarred over. The missing section of finger doesn’t appear to hinder my dexterity as the paint-stick is transferred deftly to my right hand.

Another glance in both directions. The hallway is still clear.

I stop, turn quickly to face the wall, and begin to write on the silvery wood-laminate in bold black letters.

FANTASCAPE 389

Dream Snatcher Presents

THE BOSS

The paint-stick goes quickly back into my left pocket, and I continue to stare at the glistening back letters for several heartbeats. I catch a whiff of evaporating ketone solvents from the rapidly drying paint.

Shift…

My first twenty seconds in the recording had elapsed. I was back in the real world, sitting on Tommy’s work stool.

Tommy looked at me for the ‘go’ signal.

There was no reason not to continue. I had little doubt that darker things were coming, but—so far—the POV subject hadn’t engaged in anything worse than a bit of office graffiti.

I gave Tommy the nod. He hit the
play
tab.

Shift…

I turn away from my display of paint-stick penmanship, and begin striding toward the doorway on the left, where the two businessmen went a few seconds earlier. My pace is much faster now.

I shove my way through the frosted glass doors, and I’m into a large office complex on the other side before the doors can rebound.

My heart rate is accelerating. My body is a trembling bundle of nervous tension.

A female receptionist says something to me, but I ignore her and continue walking swiftly.

As I move deeper into the complex, my eyes sweep the desks and cubicles, taking them in with a strange pseudo-familiarity. My internal ‘place’ orientation is somehow at odds with the sureness of my movements. It’s as if I have never been in this building before, but I have studied maps or models of its layout.

People are beginning to notice me. Speak to me. Move in my direction.

My brain doesn’t bother to interpret the sounds of their voices. I’m too focused on something else. Whatever it is that I have come to do.

I spot a pair of impressive wooden doors that obviously lead to an office. Not a desk, or a work area, but an actual office.

I make a beeline for the doors. As I near them, my left hand reaches for one of the doorknobs, while my right hand swings toward the small of my back.

Shift…

I was back in Tommy’s workshop again, and he was watching me for a signal.

I hesitated. I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next in the recording, and I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to witness it. Experience it.
Live
it.

But damn it, I needed to know what was on the rest of the chip. I couldn’t exactly give my best effort to the case if I wasn’t willing to examine the evidence.

I gave Tommy another nod. He hit the
play
tab again.

Shift…

The doorknob turns in my left hand as my right hand finds the butt of the gun and pulls it from beneath the covering of my jacket.

The gun is a heavy-caliber automatic, with an extended magazine protruding below the bottom end of the grip reservoir. The weapon is up as the door rebounds on its hinges, and I can feel my nerves sizzling with fear and excitement as I move into the office.

The furnishings are several cuts above the industrial suite pieces in the common area. There are several paintings on the wall, and—under my rapid sideways glances—they don’t look like prints.