River of Blue Fire

  “For the present.” Dread’s eyes seemed very bright. “We’ll see what happens in the long run. And, in fact, you may have to take a little larger share of sim-time than you’ve been doing, especially in the next few days. The Old Man’s put me onto something, and I have to get him some answers, keep him happy.” The smile again, but smaller and more secretive. “But I’ll still be taking over the puppet on a regular basis. I’ve got used to it, see? I kind of like it. And there’s some . . . some things I’d like to try.”

  Dulcie was relieved, but also felt she was missing something. “So, then that’s it, right? Things just kind of go on as they have. I do my job. You . . . you keep paying me the big credits.” She knew her laugh didn’t sound particularly convincing. “Like that.”

  “Like that.” He nodded and his picture vanished.

  Dulcie had several long seconds to feel herself relaxing, then his face popped on again without warning, forcing her to stifle a squeak. “Oh, and Dulcie?”

  “Yes?”

  “You won’t resign. I just thought I should point that out. I’ll treat you well, but you won’t do anything unless I tell you to. If you even think about quitting, or telling anyone, or doing anything unusual with the sim without my permission, I will murder you.”

  Now he showed the teeth, and they seemed to spring out from his dark face and fill the wallscreen like a row of grave markers. “But first we’ll dance, Dulcie.” He spoke with the dreadful calm of the damned discussing the weather in hell. “Yes, we’ll dance. My way.”

  Long after he had clicked off, she was still wide-eyed and shivering.

  CHAPTER 15

  A Late Crismustreat

  * * *

  NETFEED/DOC/GAME: IEN, Hr. 18 (Eu, NAm)—“TAKEDOWN!”

  (visual: Raphael and Thelma Biaginni in front of burning house, crying.)

  VO: The controversial contest/documentary continues with tonight’s Part Five. Contestant Sammo Edders follows up his successful (and ratings-busting) arson on the Biaginni’s house with an attempt to kidnap the three Biaggini children. Smart money has the rapidly destabilizing Raphael B. committing suicide long before the tenth and final episode . . .

  * * *

  RENIE stared at the hollow man, at his nodding head of straw, and her fear was washed away in a surge of indignation. “What do you mean, execute us?” She pulled herself free of the girl Emily’s clinging grip. The idea that this lolling thing, this clownish figure from an old children’s movie, should threaten them . . . “You’re not even real!”

  The Scarecrow’s one mobile eye squinted quizzically and a weary smile twisted his sock-puppet mouth. “Whoa, there. Hurt my feelings, why don’t you?” He raised his voice. “Weedle! I said change these wretched filters!” The rather nasty-looking little ape scampered forward, wings twitching, and began to pull at one of the mechanical devices attached to the throne. “No, I changed my mind,” Scarecrow said, “get those damn tiktoks back in here first.”

  !Xabbu stood on his hind legs. “We will fight you. We have not come through so much just to lay down like dust.”

  “Oh, my God, another ape.” The Scarecrow settled back in its throne, rattling the welter of pumps and tubes. “As if Weedle and his little flymonk pals weren’t enough. I should never have saved them from Forest—it’s not like they’re grateful or anything.”

  A door hissed open and a half-dozen tiktoks stepped forward out of the darkness and into the light.

  “Good,” sighed the Scarecrow. “Take these outsiders away, will you? Put them in one of the holding cells—make sure the windows are too small for the baboon to get out.”

  The tiktoks did not move.

  “Get on with it! What’s your problem?” Scarecrow hoisted himself forward, sack head wobbling. “Oil dirty? Overwound? What?”

  Something clicked, then a low whistle hummed through the small underground chamber. A new light flickered in the shadows, a shimmering rectangle that revealed itself to be a wallscreen in a frame of polished tubing, with dials and meters all along its lower edge. For a few seconds there was only static, then a dark, cylindrical shape began to form in the center of the screen.

  “Hello, Squishy,” it said to the Scarecrow.

  Emily screamed.

  The head on the screen was made entirely of gray, dully-gleaming metal, a brutal, pistonlike thing with a small slot for a mouth and no eyes at all. Renie felt herself drawing back with instinctive revulsion.

  “What do you want, Tinman?” The studied boredom of Scarecrow’s words did not completely mask a nervous undercurrent. “Given up on those little dust-devils of yours? Keep throwing ‘em at me if you want. I eat ‘em like candy.”

  “I’m rather proud of those tornadoes, now that you mention it.” The metal thing had a voice like the buzz of an electric razor. “And you have to admit they’re demoralizing to your meat-minions. But I called about something else, actually. Here, let me show you—it’s cute.” The bantering, inhuman voice took on a note of command. “Tiktoks, do a little dance!”

  Horribly, all six of the windup men began to stumble through a series of clanking, elephantine steps, looking more than ever like broken toys.

  “I located and usurped your frequency, my dear old friend.” As Tinman laughed its grating laugh, the door inside its mouth slid up and down several times. “You must have known it was only a matter of time—the tiktoks were really supposed to be mine, after all. So, Uncle Wiggly, I’m afraid we’re in one of those game over situations which you player-types know so well.” It indulged itself in another scraping chuckle. “I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear I’m not going to waste time on the standard ‘now I have you at my mercy’ speech. Tiktoks, kill them now. All of them.” The tiktoks abruptly ended their dance and took a juddering step into the center of the room, jackhammer arms raised. Emily waited with the stunned fatalism of a born slave; Renie grabbed her and dragged her back against the wall. Tinman swiveled the blank curvature of its head, following the movement. “Tiktoks, wait,” he ordered. “And what are these, Scarecrow? Your charming guests, I mean.”

  “None of your business, fender-face,” wheezed the Scarecrow. “Go ahead and make your play.”

  Renie stared at the goggling, idiot faces of the mechanical men and wondered whether she could dodge past them, but it was hard to weigh the chances of successful escape when the room’s periphery was in darkness. Was the way they had come in still open? And how about Emily? Would she have to drag the girl with her, or could she leave her behind, gambling that she was only a sim? Could she do it even if she knew so for certain? The suffering in these simulation worlds seemed very real—could she condemn even a Puppet to torture and death?

  Renie reached down for !Xabbu’s hand but felt nothing. The baboon had disappeared into the shadows.

  “Tiktok, examine that woman,” Tinman ordered.

  Renie straightened, hands raised to defend herself, but the mechanical man lumbered past her and lifted its clawlike hands toward Emily, who moaned and shrank back. It swept its pincers slowly up and down the length of her body, never closer than a few inches, like airport security running density-detectors over the pockets of a suspicious passenger. Emily turned her face away, weeping again. A few moments later the tiktok stepped back and its arms dropped to its rounded sides.

  “Goodness,” said Tinman, as though he had read the information directly from the tiktok’s internal workings. “Goodness, gracious me. Could it be?” The buzzing voice had a peculiar cracked resonance—perhaps surprise. “My enemy, you astonish me. You have found . . . the Dorothy?”

  Emily sank to the floor, limp with fright. Renie moved near her, the protective impulse the only thing that made sense in this entire, incomprehensible drama.

  “Piss off,” Scarecrow wheezed, clearly fighting for breath. “You can’t have . . .”

&nb
sp; “Oh, but I can. Tiktoks, kill them all except the emily,” he rasped. “Bring her to me immediately.”

  The four clockwork men nearest the Scarecrow’s throne turned and began to shuffle toward him, spreading into a crescent formation. The other two turned to face Renie and Emily where they stood in the shadows against the wall.

  “Metal boy, you are so stupid that I’m beginning to get bored.” Scarecrow shook his ponderous head, then hawked up something unpleasant and spat it into the corner. When the mechanical men reached the base of his throne, he raised his gloved hand and pulled a hanging cord.

  With an immense, booming clang, as though an immense hammer had struck an appropriately sized anvil, the floor all around his throne abruptly fell away beneath the tiktoks. They dropped out of sight, but Renie could hear them pinballing downward for three or four long seconds, banging against the metal walls.

  “Tiktoks, bring the emily to me!” Tinman ordered the two remaining mechanical men. “I may not be able to get you, Scarecrow, but you can’t do anything to stop them either!”

  Renie didn’t know if that were true or not, but she did not wait to find out. She threw herself forward, hands extended, and thumped her palms against the nearest tiktok’s chest. The creature was heavy, and only rocked, but one of its cylindrical legs swiveled in an unsteady step backward, protecting its balance.

  “Weedle!” shouted the Scarecrow. “Puzzle, Malinger, Blip!”

  Ignoring this nonsense, Renie bent her knees and wrapped her arms around the tiktok’s barrel torso—she could feel the grinding vibration of the thing’s gears right through to her bones—and shoved again, pushing with all the strength in her long legs. A foam-padded pincer found her arm, but she jerked her wrist free just before the claw could close, then heaved again, struggling to keep her weight low and her legs extended. The tiktok tilted, forced into another backward step to keep upright. The claw groped for her again, but she gave one last shove and jumped free. The thing took a rolling drunken step and its gear noises rose to the whine of an angry mosquito. It teetered at the edge of the pit that had opened around the Scarecrow’s throne, then toppled and was gone.

  Renie had only a heartbeat to savor her triumph before another pair of padded claws closed on her side and shoulder, pinching her so hard in both places that she yelped in shocked agony. The second tiktok did not hesitate, but shoved her across the concrete floor toward the open trench where the others had gone. Renie could only scream panicky curses and thrash at the thing behind her with useless backhand blows.

  “!Xabbu?” she cried. “Emily! Help me!” She tried to dig in her heels but could not slow herself. The pit yawned.

  Something surged past her and the pressure on her shoulder abruptly eased. She craned and saw that something small and simian had wrapped itself around the tiktok’s face. The mechanical man was flailing at it, but its short arms were not able to do effective damage.

  “Xabbu. . . !” she began, then suddenly several more monkey shapes dropped down out of the darkness overhead. The tiktok jerked its other arm free to flail at its attackers. Released, Renie fell to her knees and crawled away from the pit, fiery pain coursing along both sides.

  The tiktok was now stumbling, blind and beset, but its flailing defense took a toll. One of the monkeys was batted from the air and fell limply to the ground. The tiktok took a few awkward steps, then seemed to find its balance. Another monkey was struck down with a horrible wet crunch as the tiktok began to move slowly toward Renie again. She could not see in the darkened chamber whether either of the two battered shapes was !Xabbu’s.

  Abruptly, and without warning, the chamber, the struggling tiktok, the monkeys, and the Scarecrow enthroned amid his clutter of life support, all turned inside out.

  It seemed to Renie that a million camera flashes all blazed at once. The small pools of light became black, the shadows flared into blinding color, and everything jerked and stuttered simultaneously, as though the universe had slipped a sprocket. As she felt herself wrenched into a thousand pieces, Renie screamed, but there was no sound, only a vast low hum that ran through everything like a foghorn buried deep in the heart of the world.

  Her sense of her body was gone. She was whirled in a vortex, then spread thin over a thousand miles of nothing, and all that remained to her was the single point of consciousness that could do nothing more than cling to the bare idea that it existed.

  Then, as suddenly as everything had happened, it stopped. The bleeding colors of the universe ran backward, the negative became positive, and the chamber was restored.

  Renie lay gasping on the floor. Emily was stretched beside her, whimpering, arms wrapped around her head in a futile effort to keep the chaos at bay.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” slurred the Scarecrow. “I hate when that happens.”

  Renie dragged herself up onto her knees. The remaining tiktok lay in the middle of the chamber, its arms twitching slowly back and forth, its pocket-watch innards apparently disrupted past recovery. The two surviving monkeys hovered over it, wings whirring at hummingbird speed, staring fearfully around the room as though everything might go mad again any second.

  The screen from which Tinman’s eyeless face had watched them now displayed only a confetti-shower of static.

  “That’s been happening too often lately.” The Scarecrow propped his head between two hands and furrowed his burlap brow. “I used to think it was Tinman’s doing, like the tornadoes—it’s a bit too advanced for Lion—but he wouldn’t have chosen that timing, would he?”

  “What’s going on here?” Renie crawled to examine both monkey corpses—neither of them were !Xabbu. “Are you all crazy? And what have you done with my friend?”

  Scarecrow had just opened his mouth to say something annoyed when a small shape appeared at his shoulder.

  “Stop!” The baboon reached down and grabbed one of Scarecrow’s larger hoses firmly in his long fingers, then followed its length until he gripped the tube just where it entered the straw man’s body at the neck. “If you do not let my friend go free,” !Xabbu said, “and the girl Emily, too—I will pull this away!”

  Scarecrow craned his head. “You are definitely out-of-towners,” he noted pityingly. “Weedle! Malinger! Come get him.”

  As the flying monkeys shot toward the throne, !Xabbu wrenched the tube free. A wisp of cotton batting floated free of the end; as the monkeys caught him and pulled him up into the air, it swirled lazily in their wake.

  They dropped !Xabbu from a few feet up. He landed, crouching, at Renie’s feet, baffled and defeated. Scarecrow lifted the tube in his soft fingers and waggled it. “Stuffing refill,” he explained. “I was a little less tightly-packed than I prefer. Things have been busy lately, personal grooming suffers—you know how it is.” He looked down to Weedle and Malinger, who had landed by his booted feet and now were picking fleas off each other. “Call the other flymonks, will you?”

  Weedle leaned back his head and made a high-pitched whooping noise. Dozens of winged shapes suddenly swept down from the darkness overhead, like bats disturbed in their cavern roost. Within seconds, Renie and !Xabbu were pinioned head and foot by dozens of clinging monkey hands.

  “Now, leave the emily on the floor—I want to talk to her—and take the other two to the tourist cell, then come right back. Be sharp about it! The tiktoks are going to be out of service, so everybody’s pulling double shifts until further notice.”

  Renie felt herself lifted into the darkness, wrapped in a cloud of vibrating wings.

  “Not all of you!” the Scarecrow bellowed. “Weedle, get back here and reattach this stuffing-duct. And change my damn filters!”

  THE door clanged shut behind them, a solid, permanent sound.

  Renie looked around their new accommodations, taking in the institutional, mint-green paint that covered walls, ceiling, and floor. “This isn
’t quite how I imagined the Emerald City.”

  “Ah, look,” someone else said from the far end of the long cell. “Company.”

  The man sitting in the shadows against the wall, who seemed to be their only cellmate, was slim and good-looking (or at least his sim was, Renie reminded herself.) He appeared as a dark-skinned Caucasian, with thick black hair brushed back in a slightly old-fashioned style, and a mustache only slightly less extravagant than the metal ones the tiktoks’ wore. Most astonishingly, though, he was smoking a cigarette.

  The sudden leap of longing at the sight of the glowing ember did not smother her caution, but as she swiftly reviewed the facts—he was in here with them, so he was probably a prisoner too, and therefore an ally; it wasn’t like she was going to trust him or anything, since he might not even be real—she found herself coming to the conclusion she had hoped to reach.

  “Do you have another one of those?”

  The man raised one eyebrow, looking her up and down. “Prisoners get rich from cigarettes.” He seemed to have a slight accent to his English, something Renie couldn’t recognize. “What is in it for me?”

  “Renie?” !Xabbu, not understanding the treacherous lure of even noncarcinogenic cigarettes, reached up to tug her hand. “Who is this person?”

  The dark-haired man did not seem to notice the talking baboon. “Well?”

  Renie shook her head. “Nothing. We have nothing to trade. We came here like you see us.”

  “Hmmm. Well, then you owe me a favor.” He reached into a pocket on his chest, pulled out a red pack of something called Lucky Strikes, and shook one out. He lit it off his own and held it out. Renie crossed the cell to take it, !Xabbu trailing behind. “You have the gear to taste that?”

  She was wondering the same thing. When she inhaled there was hot air in her throat, and a feeling of something filling her lungs. In fact, she could almost swear she could taste the tobacco. “Oh, God, that’s wonderful,” she said, blowing out a stream of smoke.