Half the Day Is Night (20 page)

It
was
nice not to have to worry about ammunition.

Krump krump krump krump. And then the pattern changed to angle the other way, to catch a team in retreat. Krump krump krump KRA-THUM-krump.

“We got a Kessler!” Santos shouted. “Come on! Vamos!”

“One more walk,” David said. Krump KRA-THUM-krump, the sound of the exploding gun swallowing the motor sounds.

“Two of them! Slap, man! Now we split so they can only get one of us! Down the hill and watch for the glider!”

Down the hill. It didn't feel like down the hill, the treadmill didn't tilt, the ground wasn't uneven. David just walked, pushing the handlebars to indicate speed, but he and the Kessler zoomed downhill, it bobbing and swaying as if traveling fast over uneven ground. In his headset he heard Santos reporting, “Two Kesslers, Sarge!”

“Clear,” Amazon Lil said. “Fallback Al.”

Fallback Al? What did that mean?

“Ah, fuck!” Santos said. “Lezard! I didn't tell you the fallback patterns!”

“Ears on the line! Com clear!” Amazon Lil said sharply. Vid army talk that said the channel wasn't secure and the enemy was listening.

“I just keep my nose clean then,” David said.

All he needed to do was hide. Although that was hard to do with the Kessler rumbling along behind him. He tried to keep close to the ridge, on the flat grassland the Kessler would stand out like an oil derrick. Camouflage nets would help, heat reflecting nets. Break up the signature of the Kessler. He should ask Santos if they could get any.

The grass swished around him, he wished he could feel the wind. Still, the sunlight was so nice. And he was sweating from excitement. He was, he had to admit, having a hell of a time.

Were there mines?

Nothing to do if there were, he couldn't get the Kessler to go in front of him. He should have asked more about the rules. Next time.

Too late he caught a glimpse of something and looked up. “Watch for the glider,” Santos had said. Although what he was supposed to do when he saw it—

“Glider above me at 15.4,” he said, just as a woman with a banner of black hair leaned over the side and dropped something. He tried to push the handlebars out to go faster and there was this tremendous noise, the world went red, then black—

And he was in the playground. His ears were ringing. Around him stood phantoms, talking and laughing. He caught his reflection, a tall black man in a green sweater looking back out of the curving chrome of the pillar. He laughed a shaky laugh.

The playground was darker than the simulation, like being inside rather than like being in strong sunlight. Like being in Caribe.

Of course. When you died you went to Caribe.

*   *   *

The day was half gone, time eaten up by the game. That was something, it was even fun. He stood on the treadmill, absently rubbing his knee, wondering what he should do next.

He should leave a message for somebody. He put the visor back on and went back to the playground. If one of them got killed while he was leaving the message then he'd run into them. He didn't want to do that. He didn't know why, but it just seemed easier to just leave a message and get off the system, not say anything about getting killed in the game.

He told the system he wanted to leave a message for Santos.

The system didn't recognize the name.

Shit. What was the other name they had called him? Something like chico. Chaco. Leave a message for Chaco?

The system pulled up a phantom of Chaco and it was Santos, alligator tattoo and all.

“Okay,” David said. “Thanks, ah, tell everyone thanks. It was very interesting. Ah, and I have a good time. Sorry I get killed and all, I hope you win. Fin.”

David pulled the visor and was back on the treadmill. Stupid message. He could never leave very good messages. And he knew his English had been bad. He thought about going back and changing it, but every moment he was in the playground increased the likelihood that one of the others would pop out.

Enough. It had been a nice time.

Now all he had to do was remember how to get back to his room. And maybe pick up something to eat. He was kind of hungry.

*   *   *

David didn't plan to go back, it just used some of his money and he should be saving. He didn't know what he was saving for, he was pretty sure he didn't have enough for a passport and every day he was here he spent a little on the room, and on food for him and Meph. Bleeding to death a drop at a time.

“I should get a job,” he told Meph. A job would be nice, pass the time, bring a little money in instead of the money all going out. But he would have to have identification.

Maybe he should sell something? Make something? What could he possibly sell or make? If he didn't do something, sitting in this room was going to drive him crazy.

Meph was sitting on the windowsill, ignoring him. Meph wanted to go out. Every time he opened the door he was afraid Meph would get out, if the kitten got away he thought he would never see him again.

When he stood up Meph mewed, hopeful. “No,” he said. “I am just going for a walk. You stay here.”

Sure, just going for a walk. Well, he would just see if Santos had left an answer to his message, see if they had won.

He didn't have to go back to the
Plazoleta D'Imagen,
but he didn't know of any others, so he went that way. The square was full of peddlers, but there were no children playing in front of the peep show, so the butterfly girl had no audience to activate her. He was careful not to walk near.

People still stared at him. How was he supposed to hide? Maybe he could get surgery? Change his face? He didn't even know who to ask to find a doctor who would do it. And he didn't want to change his face. He wanted to goddamn well go home.

Maybe if he cut his hair he would look more like these people. Not many people wore their hair down to their shoulders anymore. He would do that, see if it helped.

He shoulders ached from tension by the time he got to the Reality Parlor. At least it was the same girl. He paid for an hour. Just an hour. If he met anyone he could always pay for more.

There was a message for Lezard, the system told him as soon as he hooked in.

Santos, of course. David felt himself smiling, Santos' way of talking was so boyish, so completely at odds with the sinister-looking revolutionary persona he wore. “Hey, Lezard, you should have waited around! We won, five to four. You were the only person to get killed, but that was my fault because I didn't tell you where it is we fallback. And I did not tell you how to hide the Kessler. The thing you did, elephant walking the mortars, that was great!

“Anyway,” Santos went on, “We play again on Saturday. Zanaza is supposed to be here on Saturday, so we have the six, but maybe you can show up and if someone else can't come then you can play, you know?”

No, he really shouldn't. He couldn't. It was a waste of money, playing games when he should be planning what to do, figuring out a way out of this country.

But where was he going to start finding a way unless he talked to people? Through the system he could talk to people and they would never be able to tell anyone who he was, never be able to betray him to the blue and whites.

So he might, after all.

But maybe he should look more like the others? In a way, he was more obvious than if he were somehow, how could he describe it? Flashy.

He asked for the catalogue again, called up the doctor. What could he do, strange-colored eyes? He tried blue eyes. No. Green eyes. Eh. Not so much difference unless he made them really green, and that felt foolish. Red, orange, yellow, purple, metallic, stone and other. He couldn't even imagine trying purple eyes, metallic gave him the obvious choices (with or without pupil). Featureless bronze eyes seemed very distracting and rude and when he looked at his own image they made him uncomfortable. He looked, he thought, dead. Other was very strange. Pupils shaped like hourglasses, hearts, circles like snakes, shattered eyes, tiger eyes, goat eyes, lizard eyes (which was kind of funny), eyes that were hollow as if there was nothing in there except darkness, and to take that further, empty eyes that were like windows on galaxies.

He wiped that as quickly as he could.

One of the options for yellow eyes was a dark amber, almost like brown eyes but not quite. He liked that. It was a little different, but not something anybody would notice unless they looked close.

Then he changed clothes. Something a little stranger, maybe like a commando would wear? Sweater with a shoulder patch to rest a rifle butt, boots.

It looked a little foolish. He almost switched back. No, save now, he thought, before you change your mind.

He saved and then wandered into the playground. He stood at the list of games trying to decide what to play. He could go to Tokyo, go diving, be a spy, be lost on a space-ship … but nothing would take him to Paris. It would have been nice, even if it was a synthetic Paris.

Eventually he tried being a spy for awhile. There was an international module but if it took him to Paris he couldn't get that far. He stopped playing before his hour was up.

On the way back to the room he stopped and got his hair cut short. But he still felt foreign.

8

Mindgames

Mayla and Tim settled in to her grandfather's house and her grandfather had Jude open up the rooms and take the dust covers off the furniture. It raised dust and in the dry, carefully maintained air of her grandfather's house the dust hung, fine as fog. Mayla couldn't see it but she could feel it, cottony tasting, coating her tongue and the inside of her mouth. It dulled the mirrors, dulled the fabric of the furniture, dulled her sense of taste and smell and made her feel tired and thick. She ran her finger across the mirror and left a line. The service came in and cleaned and the mirrors looked as clear as windows, but the next day the dust was back.

Two men from the insurance people came out and sat on the pink flowered couch where she had sat while the blue and white asked Tim why David wasn't coming back. The older, shorter man had a gray unhealthy face. Mayla supposed he had good insurance, though.

“Will you be staying?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “well, yes, for awhile.” She wasn't going to rush into buying a place and it would take awhile for the insurance money to come through.

“You will move to the United States?” the gray-faced man asked.

“Pardon me?” she said.

“If you are not staying.”

“Oh, no. No. I thought you meant would I be staying here, with my grandfather. I'm not leaving Caribe.”

“Ah,” he said. “You see, a lot of people do, after something like this.”

Leave home.

He told her she needed to hire some security.

“I will,” she said. “I plan to. As soon as things get settled, right now I don't have a place of my own.”

“You need someone now,” the gray-faced little man said.

“It's not like I don't have someone, Tim is still here,” she pointed out.

Tim sat, listening, his empty hands loose on his knees.

“It has upset everything,” she explained. “I have to tackle things, one at a time. There are some things at work that I have to take care of, and then I have to find a place to live. And since Tim is here, I have security.”

“Ms. Ling,” said the gray-faced little man, “if you are going to stay, we believe you need to hire someone professional.”

“Okay,” she said. She could understand why they didn't exactly consider Tim a professional. “As soon as I can.” First, she had to settle the MaTE deal. If she settled the MaTE deal, everything would fall into place; she could think about things, she wouldn't have to worry about being a banker, about work. “It might take me a few weeks, right now I don't have any place where someone could live, do you understand?”

They did not understand, or rather, as they made clear, she did not understand. Her insurance rates were going to triple, no matter who or what she hired.

“Triple?” she said.

The house had been bombed seven days ago. And if she did not hire someone within the next fourteen days, her insurance would be canceled. She was now in a “high risk group.”

“Because you have been targeted, Ms. Ling.” The little gray-faced man seemed sympathetic. “And your security is compromised.” He said “promised,” as if she had been promised something. “Because your staff is involved.”

“David wasn't involved,” she said, from habit more than conviction.

“Yes,” the man said, “but he ran away. So, we insurers, we are conservative people, we have to assume the worst. I have a list of agencies,” he checked his briefcase, but it was his partner who handed it to her, “ah, yes, there it is. They can send you people to interview. These agencies, they are approved, you see?”

“Yes,” she said. She held the list and read the names and when she was done she couldn't remember what she'd read.

Tim sat with his hands on his knees and the two insurance men sat on the dusty flowered couch, all of them looking expectant, looking at her.

“Thank you,” she said. And then, much to everyone's surprise, including her own, tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked and blinked, but she couldn't stop them.

*   *   *

“I need to go back to work, to establish a routine, but I'm unfocused,” she explained to Tim. They were almost in Marincite. She was working again. Or she would be, just as soon as she got to Marincite and started. “I can't seem to put my attention on the things it's supposed to be on.” The house had been gone for nine days and she had twelve more to find security. “I suppose it's normal, but I'm worried about the Marincite deal. I am not very focused, you know. I can make mistakes, say the wrong thing, because I'm not sharp. People don't make loans with stupid bankers.” When she got back to Julia, she was going to make an appointment with a counselor.