eXistenZ

  “I guess you could say that’s what she’s good at. We pay Allegra Geller for being sensitive.”

  A strange, choral humming could now be heard, filling the high vaulted roof of the old church building. Pikul and Levi turned their attention back to the stage, where the participants were rocking and swaying in their seats, moving in time with the pulsing, throbbing pods in their laps.

  “What’s going on now?” Pikul said quietly to Witt.

  “That’s the new Antenna Research theme song. We thought this might be a way to launch it. Anyone who plays eXistenZ is going to be familiar with that tune.”

  Loyally, for at heart he thought he should at least attempt to be a good company man, Pikul tried to hum along. He gave up after a few bars.

  “That’s catchy,” he said.

  Levi made no response but he too began humming, emphasizing the important notes, urging Pikul and everyone else to join in. Soon the whole room was humming along.

  Everyone in the room, that is, except Noel Dichter. Pikul, never at ease with community singing, had started to glance around the room nervously, and within moments he noticed what Dichter was doing.

  The young man had moved to the edge of the platform and was fumbling with the catches of his vinyl pod case. As the flap swung open, Pikul saw the fleshy mass of an old game-pod resting inside. At first he thought Dichter was going to take it out, but to his amazement he saw the man thrust his fingers straight into the resilient organic mass of the pod.

  Moments later he pulled it back out, but now he was holding something small and irregularly shaped.

  At first sight Pikul thought it was the half-decayed cadaver of a small animal, like a large rat or a small dog. It was made of bone and gristle and had fragments of furry flesh attached to it. Dichter used his free hand to strip away a few pieces of the gelatinous game-pod flesh still clinging to it. He held it up briefly to his eyes, checking or inspecting it.

  At the front of the object was an animal’s bony mouth, or snout; the little jaw was fixed open to form a rigid O. Behind this was a bulge of bony carapace, mostly blocked in by the remains of flesh or fur; Pikul could see several small bones inside, braced together like precision levers in a tiny machine. At the back, where Dichter was holding the thing, was a rigid hind leg.

  Dichter held this the way he would hold the grip of a handgun. A spread of tiny foot bones formed the butt of the handle. His finger curled around a dislocated knee as if it were a trigger.

  He was aiming it at Allegra Geller as he stepped up on the platform.

  Pikul shouted at Wittold Levi, waving his arm wildly. “He’s carrying a gun, a goddamn gun!”

  Levi appeared to be blissed out, swaying as the corporate hymn surged through the air. Pikul dived away from him, launching himself through the crowd.

  Dichter held the cadaver-gun in both hands and was advancing on Allegra.

  “Death to eXistenZ!” he shouted. “Death to Antenna Research! Death to the vile demoness Allegra Geller!”

  Uselessly, Pikul yelled, “Don’t do it!”

  He was scrambling up on to the dais as he shrieked this, and the shout succeeded in momentarily distracting Dichter. The young man glanced back to see what was happening, but instantly turned on Allegra again.

  He raised the cadaver-gun.

  He fired!

  A loud explosion shocked everyone to silence. Allegra Geller took the full force of the bullet. She was twisted around in her chair by the impact and thrown backward to the floor. The chair spun around, landed across her and happened to be in place as Dichter fired again. This time the bullet hit the upturned underside of the chair and was deflected away from her. It zinged through the air and ricocheted from an overhead lamp shade.

  As Allegra fell, the neural surge communicated itself to the other players hooked into her game-pod.

  They all gasped, thrust their heads back, swayed back and forth perilously on their chairs.

  Allegra was still conscious, but was sprawling painfully on the hard surface of the platform. The bullet had buried itself in her shoulder. She pressed her good hand against it, trying to ease the pain. Otherwise she lay still, watching in terror through half-opened eyes. She was breathing harshly, letting out whimpers of pain.

  On their chairs, twenty-one other players clutched their shoulders.

  Pikul’s dash across the stage was completed as he launched himself into a flying tackle. He brought Dichter crashing to the floor. Dichter fired twice more as they fell together, hitting the two participants closest to Allegra. Both flew backward from their chairs and fell to the wooden floor.

  Pikul used his security wand at last, repeatedly whacking Dichter across the face, neck, and arms. Each blow induced a galvanic convulsion of pain in the man, but he was not disabled. Struggling to get away from Pikul, he managed to bring his gun hand around.

  Pikul found himself staring into the open O of an animal’s snout, where smoke still lingered.

  He threw himself backward to escape, and Dichter managed at last to scramble to his knees.

  Wittold Levi and his assistants had by now run back onto the stage and were dashing across toward Dichter. The young attacker saw them coming and swung the cadaver-gun around.

  He caught Wittold Levi full in the chest. As the bullet struck him, the man fell backward and crashed painfully to the stage floor amongst the jumble of overturned chairs, fallen game-pods and writhing UmbyCords.

  The female assistant Pikul had noticed earlier pulled a conventional pistol from a shoulder harness beneath her jacket. She steadied her gun hand, took careful aim, then fired two calm and accurate shots into the side of Dichter’s head. He crumpled immediately, amid a spurting fountain of cranial blood.

  The chaos did not end here, because the game players were quickly reemerging from their participation in the game. Blasted by the psychic waves of pain from Allegra, they were in full panicky urge to escape.

  Everyone jostled, pushed, and screamed, trying to get away from the confusion, the dramatic slashes of spilled blood and the tangle of fallen bodies on the platform. Meanwhile, friends and relatives who had been watching from the audience were trying to climb up to the platform to help.

  As he clambered to his feet, Pikul was clouted from behind by a game-pod swinging on the end of its UmbyCord; the soft and surprisingly massy weight knocked him full-length. He sprawled across someone. Muttering automatic apologies, he tried to get to his feet.

  The man turned desperately to face him. It was Wittold Levi, his face contorted with agony.

  “Get her out of here, Pikul!” he said fiercely. His voice was a gasping parody of the smooth tones he had spoken in before. “Save her! That man’s not acting alone! There are probably more of them out there somewhere!”

  “Save who?” Pikul said stupidly.

  “Allegra Geller! Get her away from this place. Do it now!”

  “Me?” said Pikul.

  “Trust no one.” Levi’s eyes were glazing, and his voice was weaker. “Trust no one. There are enemies everywhere. Out there, in here . . . everywhere. Even in our own house! The corporation cannot protect—”

  Levi made an appalling belching, vomiting sound and his face turned darkly purple. His eyes closed and his body convulsed again.

  Pikul backed away, twisting around to find Allegra. As he did, he tripped again, and this time sprawled across Dichter’s body. Full of horror he levered himself up, pressing down on something hard and springy beneath his hand.

  When he finally regained his feet, he discovered he was holding Dichter’s cadaver-gun.

  Levi’s assistants were approaching him, both carrying weapons at the ready. Without thinking twice, Pikul shoved the cadaver-gun deep into his trouser pocket, forcing it in, feeling it bend and yield. Like supple muscle tissue.

  There was no sign of Allegra.

  Standing there, still foolishly clutching his electronic wand, Pikul looked around desperately for her.

  He saw the prosth
etic junction pod where all the UmbyCords had met to join Allegra’s master pod. It was lying on the floor with an UmbyCord stretching out and over the edge of the stage. When he looked, Allegra was down there, twisted painfully in the angle between the main hall floor and the raised section of the platform.

  He leaped down to her.

  He established two things with great speed: that she was still alive, and that she was suffering considerable pain.

  Where the tautly stretched UmbyCord was connected to her, it was wrenching on the bioport on the lower part of her back. With great presence of mind, Pikul slipped his hand underneath the tight fabric of her T-shirt and managed to release the connector from the port.

  As the connector slipped out she slumped forward and her body relaxed. She groaned loudly, then with blind movements managed to get herself upright. With Pikul’s assistance she regained her feet and stood close to him, swaying slightly.

  Two of her fans approached, trying to push Pikul aside to get to her. He forced them back with a vicious swing of the wand.

  “Stay away from her!” he shouted. “Allegra’s coming with me! I’m taking charge of her!”

  The fans backed off, and next to him Allegra stirred. Amazingly, she laughed weakly.

  “I’m coming with you?” she said incredulously.

  “Yeah, lady,” Pikul said. “You’re with me from now on. Until I get further orders from Antenna.”

  Although she was clutching the bloodied wound in her shoulder and looked extremely dazed, Allegra Geller appeared to be rational and capable of movement. Pikul put his hand under the elbow of her good arm and helped to swing her around. The moment she regained her balance, she unexpectedly turned away from him and scrambled back up on the platform.

  “I can’t lose my pod!” she shouted, above the racket of the panicking voices still swelling around them.

  Her pod had fallen under one of the overturned chairs. She hurried across and grabbed it, pausing for a couple of seconds to examine it. Her gestures, her body language, reminded Pikul of a mother with a small baby. Apparently satisfied that the pod was undamaged, she looked around for her pod case and managed to retrieve it from the edge of the platform. She slid the game-pod and its UmbyCord inside and snapped the lid closed.

  Pikul dashed across to her, took her hand and hauled her through the crowd.

  In spite of everything that had just happened, people recognized her as the star and turned to her, trying to reach out and touch her.

  Pikul barged his way through, holding the electronic wand menacingly before him.

  The main door was locked. Pikul groaned inwardly. He now remembered locking it himself, to keep out more people like Dichter, but the key was somewhere deep in his pocket, with a gun made out of a dead animals body pushed in tightly on top of it. He had neither time nor inclination to go hunting around for the key. They had to move immediately. He silently congratulated himself bitterly on his own lousy planning.

  “Over there!” Allegra shouted to him. “At the side.”

  It looked like a door that wouldn’t take them outside, but when Pikul kicked it open, they found themselves in a short corridor leading to a kitchen. On the far side of the room was another door. It sprang open with the help of Pikul’s boot, and moments later they were outside in the calm, scented air. Cicadas rasped in the placid nighttime heat. Stars shone with reassuring normality overhead.

  “Does that happen everywhere you go?” he said to Allegra, panting with sudden exhaustion.

  She simply shook her head, clutching her injured shoulder. Pikul glanced back through a window at the illuminated interior of the hall. He could see part of the platform. Five or six of the fans had found Dichter’s body and were kicking it in a frenzy of hatred and revenge. Wittold Levi’s two assistants were carrying away Levi’s body with great care and tenderness.

  “Come on, lady,” Pikul said. “Time to be out of here.”

  [ 4 ]

  They emerged from the church hall at the side. Pikul rushed her along the path to the front. The parking lot he’d been in earlier was here, reaching as far as the edge of the highway and around to the other side of the building. He dragged her along, heading past the main door.

  “Where are we going?” she shouted.

  “To my car. I parked it on the other side.”

  “No . . . forget that. We’ll take my limo.” She pointed to the Land Rover Defender.

  “No way!” Pikul said.

  “Why not? What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t trust the driver.”

  “Who? Frances? You can drive, you idiot!”

  They hurried across to the Defender and Pikul pulled open the passenger door. Frances, a magazine propped up on the dash under the dome light, looked startled at their sudden arrival.

  “You again?” she said.

  “Start the engine, ma’am. We got to go.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, young man!”

  “Frances?” Allegra’s voice rose up from behind Pikul. “We need the car.”

  “What’s all the commotion, Miss Geller?”

  “No commotion. We have to leave.”

  Frances noticed Allegra’s blood-soaked sleeve. “Are you all right, Miss Geller?” she said anxiously. “What’s been going on back there?”

  “Things got a little out of hand. But now we’d like to be on our way. I guess I must tell you we need this vehicle, and we need it with the keys. But this time we want it without you.”

  “Miss Geller, you know I drive for you, but my paycheck comes from Antenna. I can’t abandon my vehicle without the say-so of my boss.”

  Allegra moved swiftly, stretching her good hand around Pikul’s back and slipping her hand brusquely into his trouser pocket. He jumped in astonishment at the intimacy the feeling gave him. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding the cadaver-gun. She pointed it at Frances’s face.

  “Get down from the driver’s seat, Frances,” Allegra said. “You can tell your boss you were hijacked.”

  “Sorry, Miss Geller,” Frances said, and chuckled. “It’s gonna take more than a dead squirrel to get me out of this seat.”

  Pikul was going to explain about the gun but Allegra wasted no more time. She fired two shots, the first through the side window behind Frances’s head, the second into the cushion of the headrest.

  “Shit!” Pikul shouted, his head ringing from the explosions.

  Frances was already halfway out of the car.

  “You have to push down the shift lever to get it into reverse,” she said at the window. “It’s got a nearly full tank of gas. Don’t use four-wheel drive unless you need to.”

  Her head dropped down out of sight.

  “Thanks, Frances,” Allegra called.

  Pikul moved across into the driver’s seat, and Allegra followed him into the vehicle, slamming the door behind her.

  Pikul turned the ignition, and the engine fired smoothly right away. They lowered both windows to vent the gun smoke out. Pikul was momentarily confounded by the unfamiliar manual gear lever and the reach of the pedals, but he’d driven many different kinds of vehicles in the past. He swung the heavy Land Rover around in reverse, then bumped and crashed across the verge and made a lurching turn onto the highway. He put his foot to the floor and they accelerated away.

  They headed north, toward the distant line of mountains.

  The cones of the headlights picked out the road ahead. The white division markings in the center of the highway shot soundlessly by beneath their wheels, like tracer shells fired low from far ahead. The engine made a powerful, soothing sound, and the interior of the saloon was lined with thick, noise-suppressing fabric, but the hard suspension transmitted the uneven surface of the road to them.

  Allegra was wedged against the door stanchion, her head tipped away from him, her face pale in the glow from the dash. After their getaway had been secured and they were certain no other vehicle was in pursuit, she’d lapsed into this withdraw
n state. Her hands rested listlessly in her lap, and she responded to his questions with vague movements of her head. Pikul had given up trying to talk to her after a few minutes, and let the road sweep by and the miles build up.

  Finally, she stirred, focusing on the restricted nighttime view ahead. A semi, its headlights undipped and glaring at them, approached on the other side, a curve of orange glitter-lights surrounding the cab. They’d barely registered this when the thing thundered past and out of sight. The Land Rover shook in the wash of turbulent air that followed the truck’s passage. Allegra peered through the window at her side: vague shapes of trees and open land could be glimpsed under the moon.

  “We’ll drive out of this farmland,” she said, her voice sounding none too strong. “There’s sure to be a junction on the highway soon. Whichever way there’s a turn, take it. We’ll drive for a while, find a safe place to stop.”

  She shifted awkwardly in the seat, changing position.

  Pikul glanced across at her, suddenly contrite.

  “I’d almost forgotten—you’ve been shot. How are you feeling?”

  She turned away from him again. “It’s stopped bleeding,” she said quietly, “and it isn’t hurting as much. It’s gone all numb. I can hold on for a while. But I guess you’re right: I’ve been shot.”

  “I’ve never been near anyone being shot before,” Pikul said.

  “Me neither.”

  “I kind of thought . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, you know, needing a security guard. Normal people don’t have a security guard.”

  “Normal people don’t get fired at by maniacs holding dead animals.”

  “That’s kind of what I’m saying. Sorry.” He stared ahead at the uncertain destination. “You know, about being shot . . . it was almost as if you were expecting it.”

  “I expect you to get me home safely. That’s all.”

  “All right.”

  The vehicle lurched wildly again.

  He noticed that she was still gripping the injured shoulder with her free hand. The rolling motion of the Rover must have been agony for her, whatever she said.