The Alejandra Variations (14 page)

"Son of a bitch!" Nicholas swore, staggering to his feet, fighting mad.

The Counselor was beside him. "Hold on, Nick. It's part of the game!"

"It's not part of any game I've ever played before!" he yelled at the Historian. "What's going on here? Who's out to get me? You said I'd be safe!"

"They're working on it back at the Gaming Center. No one's trying to get you, OK? Trust us. Just keep on playing." Riordan ran back after the Italians, leaving him where he stood.

Lexie had her hands over her mouth. Her brow was knitted with worry and she seemed pale.

The soccer ball bounced across the field. Two Italians captured it and passed it back and forth. Nicholas, blood trailing down one ear, reacted swiftly. He stole the ball in a magnificent maneuver. The crowd screamed approvingly.

At that point, another Italian slammed into him, and they both tumbled to the turf.

"Goddammit!
That's it!"
Nicholas shouted, and leaped to his feet, wanting one of those roach-guns. He came around with a thunderous punch that knocked the Italian's face a few degrees off center. Nick felt teeth and bone rearrange themselves.

The instant he had flattened that player, another Italian took a flying jump-kick at Nicholas, and the next thing he knew, they were all part of a full-fledged soccer riot.

West Germans threw themselves at Italians, members of the crowd started swinging at each other—and in the center of it all, Lexie was trying to reach him, climbing over the restraining fence.

"Nick!" she shouted.
"Darling!"

The arena convulsed with angry people. Lexie went down as the stadium collapsed. Nick tried to find Riordan, but everyone was lost in the melee of rabid soccer fans.

It
was
the Goths versus the Lombards. These people were barbarians!

Panicked, he turned and sought some exit from the stadium. He was met head-on by a flying wine bottle. The bottle pulverized itself on the side of his face, showering him with iridescent purple stars. Wine mixed with blood.

The stars fell to the earth. And so did he.

Chapter Five

FLOATING UP AND UP, he tried to bring the world into focus, but in his drugged sleep the journey toward consciousness seemed never-ending. He heard voices.

"We never should have plugged him into the gaming system so soon," someone protested.

Then someone else, a different voice, a different sense of authority. "But he's used to it. Our records show he did this all the time."

He heard a chant, far away, and from an altogether different source: "Death to the death-dealers! Death to Eridani!"

The voices argued among themselves. He drifted. They sounded like the branches of trees clashing in a storm. Voices of the past. Voices of the present. The soccer riot. Italian players out to get him. Roaches crawling all over him.…

A responsible woman's voice filtered through the dark. "We'll let him sleep it off. Keep him away from Lexie, Riordan, everyone. He's not a toy."

Another voice said, "If anyone knows he's here, they'll kill him,'

A judgment came: "It was an irresponsible thing to do."

And: "He doesn't take to
genna
well. It makes him forget his past. That is what we need most."

And finally, pervading all of this, came another voice. More familiar. More electric. "You can't keep me away! He's mine! You said he was mine. It's the Creed. I need him! I love him! Nickie…"

The next morning—if morning it was—Nicholas rose and quickly found his clothes. He had come to some decisions during the long night, and a look of determination was on his face when a doctor came in to check him.

"I see you survived," the young medic smiled. "I'm Dr. Bakke, the Counselor's personal physician. He wanted me here with you, as a precaution."

Dr. Bakke, unlike Riordan, seemed a little unhealthy. His face was the color of toadstools, and his hair a light, tired brown. He was only in his mid-thirties, but already he had liver spots on his hands.

"Where's Counselor Riordan? I want to talk to him."

"We'd like to run a few scans for your chart, first." His was one of the voices from the darkness, Nick realized. "You've had an unusual response to the gaming system, and if you can help us out we might be able to make some much-needed changes in it."

Nicholas stood up. He put a strong hand on the man's chest. "Sorry, bub. I'm through being your guinea pig for a while. No charts. No scans. No drugs," he snapped. "Notify Riordan,
now
."

Dr. Bakke became even paler. Nicholas didn't care if he'd suddenly seen him as an Eridani.

A nurse walked in carrying a small tray of cubes—which Nick recognized as varying doses of
genna
.

He pointed to the tray. "Do you have an antidote to that stuff?" he asked.

The doctor turned. "Well, yes, naturally. But, Nicholas, the
genna
wears off after—"

"Friend, I'm not stupid. The
genna
may wear off after a while, but the desire to take it only increases. I want no more
genna
. Got it? If there is an antidote, I'd like to have it. And call the Professor."

Dr. Bakke's examination was brief. Nicholas took a cube of something that hissed easily into his arm. Bakke seemed disappointed as he went to summon Riordan.

The Counselor had been nearby. He entered the room smiling.

"You didn't tell me your gaming system was so dangerous. They were out to kill me!" Nicholas practically jumped on him.

Caught off guard, Riordan grimaced and cleared his throat uneasily. "Please believe me, Nicholas. No one intended to harm you. Everyone in DefCon goes into the games. It's our most important source of amusement. You would've gone under sooner or later."

Nick tucked in the tails of his tunic. "I think you people are sick. You should try playing soccer the real way. Build your own goddamn arenas. Find out what it's like to get a real set of cleats in your face." He strapped on his roach-gun.

Riordan was embarrassed. "Foul-ups like that are rare within the system, Nick. That riot was totally spontaneous."

"I don't believe that," Nick said accusingly. "Someone was out to get me. They spoke to me directly. You heard them."

Nicholas strode into the hallway and glanced around, getting his bearings. Riordan followed him.

Nicholas soon made his way out of the hospital and into an area of walkways, parks, fountains, and smoothly flowing creeks. Foxfire on the ceilings gave the place an eerie, spectral light. A tall holographic construct, representing this section of DefCon, hovered above a platform next to the moving side-walk. There was a green star in the three-dimensional direction finder indicating their position. Nick began walking toward a subway stop not too far away.

He began, "I'd like you to tell me what those two Italians were talking about."

The Counselor wheezed, trying to keep up with him. "The experts informed me that all the players were from various parts of DefCon. One man was over thirty miles away. None of them could've known who you were."

"What about Lexie's ex-lovers?" Nick asked. They entered a long tunnel which opened out into a wide glade. Nick walked across the soft green grass. "Everyone knows I'm with her, and if it wasn't for her constant duties at the Academy, blabbing about me, she'd be my Siamese twin."

Riordan walked beside him. "Lexie's new at a lot of things. She's only a child, you know."

No, she's not, Counselor, Nick thought to himself. She might be a lot of things—but "child" is not one of them. Just take a peek underneath her tunic and you'll see for yourself.…

"It is possible that you entered synergistically with the gaming computer, mixing in some of your old memories, rivalries, fears, and the like," Riordan said.

"What about the riot?" Nick asked. "Are you saying that I caused the riot?"

"Well," Riordan stated. "Soccer games
were
known for their enthusiastic responses to the competition."

During his long and troubled sleep, Nicholas had decided he couldn't tolerate DefCon any further. It was too much too soon.

Nick recalled the term "future shock." When technology advanced so rapidly an individual had no sense of what he could rely upon. Obsolescence was the name of the game. Technologies changed; societies changed. Morals changed. The only way you could survive such changes—if at all—was by offering yourself as an instrument of change, so as not to become its victim. Fight back, in other words.

There had been something positive about his encounter with DefCon's gaming system. It indicated that in-system techniques had stayed with the survivors of the Third World War. Wasn't it remotely possible that there were others of his kind sleeping somewhere? Captain Lazlo had hinted as much. And much of the Eridani legend was sustained by the belief that other Peh-de-eh-ghans were waiting to be unleashed.

Nicholas knew that he could survive only with others of his kind. Otherwise he might never know how he was moved along with the rest of Foresee to Omaha—or how the stasis couches were developed. Or when the last war occurred. He had questions, and no one seemed interested in supplying answers. Maybe no one knew the answers. Life in DefCon had no future, only a present, with a few ghostly whisperings of a long-gone past.

He had a plan. To begin, he had to elude Lexie. Something about her compelled him, against all wishes, to fall into a web of unleashed desires. One week with her had been enough, though the Council had agreed with Lexie that he'd be better off in her care until full indoctrination was complete. Lexie brought back and intensified all those yearnings and sensual delights he'd buried long ago, after Rhoanna Martín. He didn't need a little busybody to dig them up.

At the far end of the glade they found a moving sidewalk. Nicholas turned to the Counselor.

"Where is Captain Lazlo?" he asked.

Riordan's eyebrows rose slightly. "I imagine he's down in the Bore bays. He's preparing for another outing to the south. Why?"

"Good," he said. "Let's go down to the bays."

"May I ask why?"

Before Nicholas could respond, the radio on the epaulet of Riordan's tunic beeped.

Riordan touched it. "Yes? What is it?"

There was an alarmed voice at the other end. "Counselor, is the Eridani with you?"

Riordan glanced at Nick, almost apologetic.
"Mister Tejada
is with me, yes. What's the problem?"

There was a tense pause, then the voice returned. "Counselor, we have a report that a committee is coming to see you about… Mister Tejada."

Nicholas didn't like the sound of that.

"A committee?" Riordan asked.

"Sir, we've called out a riot unit to the health complex, but it appears that some members of the riot-control group are part of the committee."

"I copy on that," Riordan said, switching off. "You were talking about the bays?"

"I want out of here," Nicholas told him. "You've seen it yourself. This place's out to get me."

"Nicholas, there are hundreds of locations where you can hide," the Counselor said.

"Look, I don't want to hide. I want to live!" He stepped up onto the moving sidewalk. The subway was not too far away. The Counselor followed rapidly.

"Then, why the Bore bays?" he asked.

Nicholas said, "Captain Lazlo told me no one's ever been west of the Continental Divide. Right?"

"Yes," Riordan said. "That's true."

"There's an Air Force base in Utah that once had Mnemos systems hookups. I had friends in Salt Lake City who used them on behalf of Foresee."

This shocked Riordan. Nicholas could almost read the man's mind: Eridani! Even the knowledgeable professor wasn't without his weaknesses.
One
Eridani he could probably handle. But what about a dozen? Or three dozen?

"Nicholas," Riordan began hesitatingly. "I don't know."

Nicholas pulled out his roach-gun. "Either we go for a ride and try to find more stasis couches, or all that'll be left of me in this park will be some bones. Of course, you'll go first."

The glade was empty, and the only sounds filling it were those of the bursting fountain. Ventilation provided the only kind of wind they'd ever know. They drifted along on the silent sidewalk.

"Riordan!" Nicholas began angrily. "Think about it! I don't belong here. I've got to know if there are any others like me alive."

"Nick…" Riordan began, but a voice rang out across the glade.

"Nickie!"
it sang. "
Oh, Nickie!"

Lexie's call came from several announcement speakers hidden in trees throughout the glade.

"And
she
doesn't come!" Nick whispered.

"We can occupy her. Don't worry."

Nicholas smiled, breathing easier. "Think of it as a matter of history. After all, you may not find any more Eridani."

"But then what would you do? You'd only have to come back here."

"Maybe I'll stay in Utah," Nick said. "Become a Mormon."

"What's a Mormon?"

Nick looked at him. "Never mind. Let's find Captain Lazlo."

In the pilot's seat in the nose of the Bore, Captain Lazlo chewed on his ever-present cigar and adjusted the controls. A rainbow of lights sprinkled him with flashing colors. Nicholas sat in the copilot's seat. The great fusion engine in front of them was sucking in rock and converting it to white-hot iron, like an earthworm digesting soil as it burrowed.

In the first compartment behind the Captain's console sat the Counselor himself. The Boremen occupied their usual seats along the central corridor. The smell of
genna
flowed everywhere about them. Captain Lazlo's men were already plugged into the delights of the shipboard computer system. They'd left DefCon only half an hour ago, and already the men were lost to their dreams of other worlds.

"You're sure a lot of trouble, son," the Captain said, making some final adjustments. "If it wasn't for the Counselor himself, I wouldn't take
anybody
into the west. Some think that's where the great ash falls started."