Complete Atopia Chronicles (53 page)

Patricia rematerialized in her office with me as I watched all this in my display spaces. She looked grim. My anger had totally deflated.

“I guess you’re right, Patricia,” I said as she appeared. “What could be worse than letting billions of people die? Thank God Jimmy figured it out.”

“Don’t thank God,” said Patricia quietly under her breath. “To be honest Bob, there may be something worse, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, but I wasn’t sure until now.”

She looked at me with infinitely weary eyes.

“Bob, I need you to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to leave Atopia, as soon as they open up the surface, and take as many of your friends as you can. Take Sid, Willy, Brigitte, and please, take Nancy away from here.”

“Why?” I asked, shocked.

I’d never even considered leaving Atopia before. It was all I’d ever known. Even the thought of leaving made my skin crawl.

“I can’t explain right now, I just need you to trust me. Even I’m not sure right now. It’s just a precaution.”

“Give me one good reason!” I demanded. Even if I wasn’t really angry anymore, my trust in her was almost completely gone.

“For one thing,” she said slowly and with effort, “Willy’s connection here through Terra Nova will almost certainly be revoked—he will be in effect exiled. Do you want him to go alone?”

I sat thinking on this for a moment. Jimmy had mentioned it, but I hadn’t considered it as a real possibility.

“I have a feeling that Willy and Sid will be implicated in what has happened,” she continued. “As soon as the surface opens I need you to get away from Atopia, and please take Nancy. I can’t explain more than that for now.”

Looking tired beyond comprehension, she added, “I need some time to myself. Oh, and one last thing, apologize to Vince for me—I couldn’t get Kesselring to remove the system we have chasing him.”

I nodded. She just looked at me sadly and then closed the connection to her office.

I snapped back into my body, down with Nancy and Sid in the dimly lit cafeteria. Robert had taken my body out of the water and we all sat together at one of the tables, everyone splintered out watching the media frenzy. Wet towels were draped around Nancy and I. They were all transfixed by the unfolding media storm.

Only Jimmy had been able to see it. The media stories began buzzing about links to Terra Nova as synthetic forensic intelligences tore backwards through the path of the virus, reverse hacking to where it had come from. Images of Jimmy, the savior, were featured on the covers of magazines and billboards, instantly appearing in millions of metaworlds. Information about the coming phuture apocalypses gained ground.

Stories began to emerge about the phuturecasts of world destruction Patricia had been hiding, how the Atopia pssi program was designed as the solution to save us, and how Terra Nova had attempted to stop this for their own profit. Stories were even circulating about the how Patricia had been hiding some of the addictive effects of pssi, but how there were ways to control it. In the middle of it all remained the image of Patricia, struggling to stop Jimmy from saving us all.

Jimmy had saved the world, and a grateful world was held spellbound.

“Patricia wants us all to leave,” was all I said on my return to the gang.

Everyone turned towards me, shocked, as parts of their minds disengaged from the media frenzy to comprehend what I was saying. I left a splinter to explain what had happened while I flitted off to the surface for a walk on the beach.

I needed to clear my mind and put things in order.

29

Identity: Patricia Killiam

“NO PUBLICITY IS bad publicity,” said Kesselring, standing uncomfortably in my office, “but how on earth did you let this viral skin get past you?”

I just stared at him and took a drag from my cigarette.

“You are our chief scientist—you must understand how this looks,” added Kesselring. “The blame for hiding any data regarding the trials has to come down on your shoulders.”

I was the scapegoat.

Jimmy and Kesselring had pre-empted my plan to release the hidden data on the pssi program through Sintil8. By coming clean at this moment, and laying the blame on my doorstep at the same time as exposing the apocalyptic phuturecast data, they had neatly jiu-jitsued themselves into the position of saviors and simultaneously thrust the pssi program into the global mind.

“You can’t buy advertising like that,” I bitterly complained, “and it looks like you don’t need me anymore.”

I was tired beyond belief after the showdown with Jimmy. He had used some sort of pssi weapon to stun me into submission at the end, a part of the weapons program Kesselring had been hiding. I’d felt it once before, long ago when Jimmy had been exposed at Nancy’s thirteenth birthday party, but he was infinitely more powerful now.

“There will always be a place for you here, Patricia.”

Patronizing bastard.

“So what’s happening then?” I asked wearily.

“Jimmy had made some modifications for an override to the pssi network to stop something like this from ever happening again,” said Kesselring. While I felt defeated, he looked elated. “The media attention has boosted demand for the launch with consumers by an order of magnitude. We’ve already begun private distribution of smarticles into business ecospheres for early adopters.”

There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do anymore. I had created a monster, which I loved.

30

Identity: Jimmy Jones

I’D STOLEN OFF to the surface to relax a little and escape the madness of the media. With all the tourists gone, nobody else had come above yet, and the scene at the edge of the beach was quiet.

The sun was setting through low hanging clouds on the horizon, illuminating a beautiful orange and pink sunset. I was sitting by myself under some low hanging palms. A pleasant breeze blew in off the ocean and pelicans swept in on calmly curling waves.
What a beautiful way to end the day.

I sighed and felt my mind calm and focus itself. Susie really understood more about the nature of pain and suffering than anyone, and truly wanted to help. I knew she wanted to help me.

I stood, trying to decide whether to walk myself home or let Samson do it and get some work done, when Bob appeared. He was walking along the beach alone, looking slightly dazed.

“Hey Jimmy,” he said as he walked up to greet me.

“Amazing. You saved my life. You saved all our lives.” He shook his head. “It’s crazy, but maybe you saved the whole world.”

He reached out to shake my hand, smiling.

“Thanks Bob,” I replied, watching his hand touch my mine.

“Wasn’t Susie just up here with you?” asked Bob, looking around.

“She was,” I admitted, “but she had to go somewhere.”

Bob shrugged and smiled. He looked off into the sunset and surf to watch some pelicans as they used their ground effect aerodynamics to sweep in ahead of the waves, unseen forces propelling them effortlessly through space.

“Hey Bob, I’ve got a slightly oddball question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“If you had to sacrifice your soul to save someone or something,” I asked, “what would that be for you?”

Bob regarded me quizzically. “Well, for love, for Nancy, I guess.”

I smiled. “That’s nice Bob, I thought the two of you…well, anyway, that’s nice to hear.”

Bob smiled back.

“So, still haven’t taken me up on that surfing lesson, big shot that you are now!”

“Maybe one day soon, Bob,” I said, smiling at him, “maybe we’ll do a lesson one day soon.”

He smiled back.

“See you Bob.”

I turned to walk away.

31

Identity: Bobby Baxter

“SEE YOU JIMMY.”

Just then Jimmy stopped and turned to look at me. Something was weighing on his mind.

“You were the only person who was ever really nice to me,” said Jimmy after a pause. “I really appreciated that.”

I smiled. Jimmy had always been so awkward. Even with him as the most famous person on the planet, I felt like I wanted to protect him somehow.

“I love you Jim,” I said simply, “we’re brothers, no? I’ll always stick up for you, no matter what.”

“Do you really mean that?”

Jimmy looked like he was about to cry.

“Of course, buddy!”

Jimmy looked down, uncertain now. “I think you and your friends should leave Atopia.”

In my whole life nobody had ever mentioned leaving Atopia for anything. Two
people on the same day?
A sense of dread filled me.

Squinting into the dying sun, I shook my head lightly and shrugged and asked, “Why?”

Jimmy pressed his lips tightly together. “I’m just saying, I think it might be a good idea, and the sooner the better.”

With that Jimmy turned away and walked into the darkness.

32

Identity: Jimmy Jones

AS I WALKED away from Bob and into the dark underbrush, I became aware of someone walking beside me, someone new and yet someone intimately familiar.

“Why did you do that?” asked the apparition.

“Do what?” I replied. Curiously, I didn’t even think to ask who had appeared beside me.

“Warn off Bob,” it responded. “I think we need to have a talk, you and I.”

The undergrowth around me gave way to a voluminous, brightly lit corridor. No, it was more than a corridor, it was a long set of huge rooms connected by large square archways, and I was sitting in the middle room, the rest stretching off to both sides in the distance. I was perched on a white wooden chair.

Intricate, sky-blue frescos of angels and cherubs adorned the twenty foot ceilings, bordered by elaborate gold carvings. Ornate, richly decorated furniture was strewn about topsy-turvy and littered with broken bottles, golden goblets, and inert bodies.

Darkly framed oil paintings of men in uniforms, on horses directing battles, hung across one set of walls, while the other wall featured floor-to-ceiling lead glass windows that looked out onto an endless, manicured garden beyond. The garden centered around a long reflecting pool. Sunlight streamed in through the windows between heavy purple velvet drapes that were tied back with gold sashes.

The place stank of urine, and as if on cue, one of the inert bodies came to life, stumbling to its feet as it shuffled towards the nearest corner and began pissing across one of the other bodies.

“Sorry for the mess,” said my apparition, now taken solid form and stretched out before me on a chaise longue. “We had a bit of a party here today.”

He adjusted the frilly white cuffs of his tunic, and then the blond wig whose hair fell in tight curls to frame his painted white face and bright red painted lips. Leaning forward, he smoothed out a wrinkle in his tight black britches and looked up to smile at me self-consciously.

His heavy eye liner had smudged, so he looked slightly comical in a threatening sort of way, and his eyes shone brightly—my eyes.

I sat there, looking at myself.

“Come now, this isn’t that much of a surprise is it?”

I felt uneasy, wondering if this was some splinter or sub-proxxi gone wrong. The party guest that had arisen to relieve itself had finished pissing and turned towards us, blearily rubbing its eyes which then widened.

“The dauphin!” it said, barely audible. It was clearly excited, looking at me.

“What do you want?” I asked. This was all more familiar than I cared to admit.

“Ahh,” said my doppelganger, “it is not what I want, brother, but rather what we want. You and I, Jimmy. And by the way, call me James.”

He affected a tiny bow for my benefit. Several of the party guests had begun to rouse themselves now, encouraged by the first who was whispering urgently at them. The air filled hollowly with the sounds of clinking bottles and bodies coming awake.

“Come now Jimmy,” scolded James, his brow furrowing, “do you really think your rise through the ranks to a position of such power so quickly was all just happy coincidence?”

He smiled widely as he finished saying this, revealing a mouthful of yellowing teeth and large, sharp canines below his glittering black eyes. The waxy makeup on his face cracked as he smiled and he cocked his head playfully.

“The time for hiding is finished now,” he continued, shaking his head and sighing. “We are not children anymore. The world needs us now.”

Several of the guests were now sitting and watching us hungrily from nearby. Samson was here now too, watching me from a corner in the distance.

I began to recognize some of the faces around me, my childhood playmates I had invented to keep me safe, to keep me company, hidden away in my secret spaces when I was a child.

“You always knew I was in here Jimmy,” he said, looking towards Samson who acknowledged him with a small nod. “Most people with our, ah, condition, don’t get to meet their other selves—just one more of the wonders of pssi.”

He smiled again.

“We have been protecting you a long time now,” James added as he extended a hand to sweep past the assembled misshapen guests, who were all wide awake and encircling us ever closer. “Your children await.”

They were close now, and James reached out to touch one of them who sat down next to him, affectionately placing a hand on its head.

“Has your mind been clear lately?” questioned James, smiling as he ruffled the hair of his favorite before looking back to me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” I had to admit, feeling the hot breath of the creatures behind me. “The past few years, my mind has been gaining a clarity that…” I was at a loss for words.

“That what?” questioned James. “That escaped you before? The mind is cleansed with pain, isn’t that right, Jimmy?”

As he said this the eyes of the assembled flashed darkly as they leaned closer towards us. James splintered us off into a sensory imprint of the private world I had burned so long ago, feeding the pain of the writhing creatures pinned to the walls into my pleasure centers. I shivered and gasped slightly.