“This ist my place. Haimische, isn’t it? Funky?”
“Yes, well, we’re new in town,” Pikul said. “Whichever town this is—”
“Welcome to D’Arcy Nader’s Game Emporium,” he said. “I am D’Arcy Nader, as you might haff noticed, and I’ll be plissed to help you with anything you might be interested in.”
“Thank you,” Geller said. “But at the moment we’re just looking.”
Nader glanced along the aisle, side to side.
“I think I might haff what you’re looking for,” he said softly.
“You do?” Pikul said.
“Follow me, pliss.”
Nader turned away from them and stepped along the aisle toward the back of the store. Here, there was a warped and grimy door, with no sign on it.
Nader pushed it partly open, then beckoned urgently to Geller and Pikul. A couple of the other customers saw him signaling and seemed about to go along too. Nader gave them a warning look.
Geller went through the door first, with Pikul following. Before the door closed behind them, Pikul happened to look back. He saw that Hugo Carlaw, the sour-faced cashier they’d noticed when they arrived, was writing something down on a pad of paper. He looked vengeful and self-important.
Beyond the door was a dimly lit stockroom, jammed to overflowing with crates and cartons. Long and high vertical racks held a dizzying range of components for computers, old-fashioned game consoles, and parts of organware, nakedly scattered about in varying stages of construction or repair.
Nader indicated some wooden crates, and Geller and Pikul sat down on two of them, feeling disconcerted by Nader’s sudden air of menace. He prowled around them for a moment, then took down two more gel-paks from a shelf.
He studied Pikul and Geller, hefting the paks in his hands.
“All right,” he said. “Who vos it that sent you?”
“None of your damn business, I’d say,” Pikul retorted. “We’re here and that’s all that matters.”
Pikul heard himself say the words, and felt a jolt of surprise. Had he disrupted the game already?
“Hey, Pikul,” Geller said softly beside him. “Don’t blow it.”
“Blow what?”
“The game,” she said. “What else?”
“God, what happened? I didn’t mean to say that!”
Geller was looking strained, but to his relief, she laughed.
“I guess it wasn’t you,” she said, “but your character. The game version of you said that. It’s a kind of schizophrenic feeling, isn’t it? But you’ll get used to it soon enough. There are certain things that have to be said by the game players to advance the plot and establish the characters. Those things get said whether you want to say them or not. The trick is not to fight the sensation when it comes. Go with it.”
“Okay,” Pikul said, feeling somewhat better. “But what you just said . . . should you be saying that in front of him? In front of Nader?”
“Look at him. He’s in memory-save mode.”
Pikul glanced back. Nader didn’t appear to have heard or reacted to anything. He was still standing with the gel-paks in his hands, waiting for a reply to his question. His eyes were closed and he was humming the Antenna Research corporate theme song. His only movements were a slight rhythmic waggling of his head and a foot-tapping motion.
“What’s he doing?” Pikul asked.
“He’s gone into a game-loop. Programmers do that to save memory, or to avoid the program hanging. In the old type of games, you never saw it actually happening, but we’re talking cutting edge here. Everything is upfront, laid out before the players. It paradoxically adds to the aura of reality to put in reminders that what’s going on is largely unreal or imaginary. Nader’s locked up in the loop and he won’t come out of it until you feed him a proper line of game dialogue.”
“Which would be?”
“Whatever you like. But it’s got to be something he can respond to, within his role in the game.”
“That’s tricky.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is. You still haven’t told me what the object of the game is.”
“Okay,” Geller said. “You restart him by repeating your last line. The program ignored it the first time because it didn’t know it. But it has heard and learned that now, so it will recognize it the second time. If you include Nader’s name, he too will know you’re addressing him.”
“So if I say everything twice, the program will catch on without a pause?”
“Not necessarily. But it sometimes helps, if a game-loop starts.”
“All right.” Pikul turned toward the store owner. “We’re here, D’Arcy Nader, and that’s all that matters.”
Nader instantly broke out of his loop. He chuckled.
“You’re right,” he said. “That ist all that matters.”
“What’s next?” Pikul whispered to Geller.
“Get back to the plot. Why did we follow him in here?”
“Got it!” Pikul looked back at the man. “Well, Nader, you said you thought you had what we’re looking for.”
“I haff. Why you want it?”
“You offered it to us. Didn’t you?” Pikul turned to Geller. “Didn’t he?”
“He did,” Geller said. She was regarding Nader with an expression of acute interest, clearly trying to fathom what was going on.
Nader said, “In which case . . . you’re going to need these micropods, so you can download your new identities.” He held up the gel-paks. “I assume you do both haff those industry-standard bioports you mentioned?”
“Yes,” Geller said. “We’ve both installed bioports.” But she looked a little doubtful, and said to Pikul, “We do, don’t we?”
“I assume we do. I mean, here in the game. Of course, we might not.” A depressing thought suddenly struck him. “If we don’t, I’m not having another one inserted!”
“We’d better check,” Geller said.
Nader went into memory-save mode and Geller pulled her shirt out of her jeans and turned her back toward Pikul. He took a look. Her bioport was there, although to his eye it looked slightly rougher, more puckered, more organic than it had in her nongame life.
“Yeah, it’s there,” he said. He told her how its appearance was a little different.
Geller grabbed his shirt and did the same for him.
“I see what you mean,” she said. She turned back to Nader, who was humming the theme song again. “Yes, we both have bioports, D’Arcy Nader.”
Nader jerked back into action.
“Good. Port in, and these vill tell you all you need to know for now.”
Pikul and Geller inspected the gel-paks, Pikul feeling suspicious about the one he was holding. It bore the Cortical Systematics name and logo.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Looks much the same as the one I use,” Geller replied. “A miniature version of the same thing.”
Nader said, “I’ll leaf you two while you finish up in here. It would not be good for us all to be seen together.” He smiled in a sinister way, as if this had been a significant thing to point out. He headed for the door, where he paused. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said by way of departure.
He chuckled, then went out and closed the connecting door behind him.
[ 13 ]
“I assume that Mr. Nader is our entry point into the game,” Pikul said.
“Yeah. Kind of disappointing, don’t you think?”
“Who? Nader?”
“Not a well-drawn character at all. And his dialogue was only so-so.”
“Yeah.” Pikul considered for a moment. “ ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ That’s the kind of thing you get from parents. How are we supposed to know what he would or wouldn’t do?”
“In a game, you can’t take anything for granted. I know what he said was banal, but maybe there’s a reason for that somewhere, one we haven’t come across yet. Remember, this is still jus
t the first level.”
“So do we blame ourselves for that? The bad dialogue, I mean? Would it still be bad dialogue, no matter who was ported in?”
“The game engine is obviously just getting used to us. It’ll be a bit more daring, a bit more imaginative, once it warms up.”
“There was one thing Nader said, about downloading our new identities. Do you know anything about that?”
“That’s probably Nader-speak for moving us up to the next level of the game. Let’s have a look.”
She fumbled the micropod out of the gel-pak she was holding. Pikul saw it squishing floppily around her hands, like a child’s balloon half filled with warm water. It never seemed to keep still, constantly swelling and deflating, rolling around in her grip. Geller managed to turn it over, where some instructions appeared on the underside.
“Oh, okay . . . that sounds straightforward enough. It says here the pods are so small they can be plugged directly into a bioport. No UmbyCord needed. Here, turn around and I’ll do yours.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Geller?”
“Yes, and no. Yes, I’m sure I know what I’m doing, because this is just a game. No, all this is as new to me as it is to you. Nothing is real. All you have to do is relax . . . and roll with it.”
“Okay, I’m rolling.”
He turned away for her to attend to his bioport, and again felt her hands moving his shirt around in a way he found undeniably sexy. There was a slight pressure on his back, in the region of the bioport. Pikul wondered if his back would be flushing as much as his face, because the simple feel of her hands lightly brushing against his skin set all his nerves jangling.
But then Geller said, “Oh my God!”
“What? Oh-my-God what? What happened?”
“The whole pod disappeared into your back. Did you feel it?”
“What do you mean, it disappeared?”
“It kind of wriggled in. I was holding it, and then it just sucked itself in.” She bent down for a closer look. A silence ensued; Pikul could hear her breathing, feel the light pressure of her breath on his back. Finally she said, “Yup, it seems to have gone right inside—”
“It disappeared into my back?!” Pikul shouted. “It’s in my spine? It’s worming its way around my spinal column?”
“Don’t panic! It’s only a game.”
“Don’t panic? I’ve got a goddamn living organism, cloned from a two-headed frog, swimming around inside me, and you say don’t panic?”
“Can you feel anything?” Geller asked.
“Yes! It’s the most horrible sensation—” Pikul groped around his midriff, feeling for the presence of the disgusting thing that had penetrated him. Then he stopped. “Hey, no. Now that you mention it, I can’t feel a thing.”
“So it’s okay, then?”
“Well, I don’t like the idea too much, but as far as pain goes, I’ve suffered a lot worse.”
“Has anything happened to your vision? Are you thinking okay?”
In truth, now that he was calming down, Pikul was still thinking how irresistibly beautiful and sexy Geller looked, and how he’d like to— But this wasn’t the time or place for that. It was all a game, as she kept reminding him.
“Yeah, I’m thinking okay,” he said reluctantly.
“You’d better do me as well, then.”
She turned away from him and with both hands raised her shirt. He looked with great pleasure at the slender curve of her bare back, the way her jeans fitted tightly over the luscious curves of her hips and buttocks. She’d lifted her shirt just high enough that he could glimpse the rounded side of one of her breasts. The bioport nestled against the flesh of her young back, closer than Pikul himself would ever dare go to her. How he dreamed of pressing himself right up against her, putting his hands on her, and—
“Get on with it!” Geller said. “What’s the problem?”
“Nothing. I’m making sure I don’t do anything wrong.”
He sighed, then pressed the edge of the micropod against the port. Although she’d warned him it was going to happen, he was appalled at the eager speed with which the thing crawled into the narrow opening.
“It’s gone,” he said in a moment.
“Right inside?”
“All the way.”
He touched the port with his hand. Geller did not move, although if he hadn’t known her better, he would have thought she shivered with pleasurable reaction to his fingers. She stayed put, with her thin shirt seductively raised, her beautiful back virtually bare before him.
Pikul bent low and pressed his lips on her skin, right next to the bioport. Geller did not move or react. He pressed harder, opening his lips to suck and caress the firm, sleekly toned flesh of her lower back.
“What the hell are you doing?” Geller quickly stepped away and turned to face him.
Pikul straightened, looking and feeling guilty.
“Um, I don’t think that was me,” he said. “Not the real me. It was my game character. He took over unexpectedly. I felt it was in role. Obviously I wouldn’t have done that to you. Not here, anyway.”
But he was aching for her. Her eyes blazed with anger, her clothes were deliciously disarrayed.
“Don’t ever do that again!” she snapped. Then she grinned, releasing the tension. “Do this instead.”
She leaned forward, tilted up her lovely face and kissed him hard and passionately full on the lips.
When they disengaged from each other about a minute later, they were both flushed and panting.
“Wow!” Pikul said. “Want to show me that again?”
“Yeah, but let’s think about the situation we’re in.”
“Who needs to think about a situation right now?”
“No, our game characters are obviously programmed to jump on each other. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Let’s jump,” Pikul said, trying to get his arms around her again.
“But it’s only a pathetic mechanical attempt to heighten the emotional tension of the next game level.”
“Okay, it’s pathetic. But it’s good enough for me.”
“No use fighting it, is there?” Her lips were moist, her eyes were gleaming hungrily. Hungry for him.
“No,” Pikul said. “But what about these new identities we have? Do you feel yours yet?”
She moved in on him again, winding one of her arms around his back and caressing his chest with her free hand.
“That sort of thing can take care of itself,” she said, purring sexily.
“I’m worried about my body,” Pikul said, feeling a familiar sense of panic rising in him. The same panic that struck him whenever she came so close.
“Your what? Don’t worry about it.”
“I mean . . . where are our actual bodies? Are they all right? What if there’s danger? Are they hungry?”
“Who cares? They’ll be in Kiri’s chalet, where we left them. Sitting quietly, eyes closed, side by side. Like meditating.”
Geller was undoing the remaining buttons on his shirt. She pushed the garment open and across his shoulders, letting it slide down from his back. She pressed herself warmly against him and started running her mouth over the skin of his chest. He could feel her lips, and the sharper indentations of her teeth.
“I don’t know,” Pikul said. “I feel really disembodied.”
“What are you frightened of, Pikul?”
“This! No, not this! It’s too much. I want you, but I keep being obsessed by reality!”
“Try this,” Geller said.
She took his hand and led it to the vee of her shirt. She popped open the buttons, then pressed his hand inside and slid it slowly across her ripe young breasts. She continued to rest her fingers on his hand as he moved back and forth. Her nipples were erect and aroused, eager for his touch.
“That’s what you call an embodied body,” she said. “Feel how it works. The trick is not to fight the sensation when it comes.”
“Yea
h, you said that before. I know that sensation. I’ve known about it in the past.”
He kissed her then, and she responded as passionately as the first time.
They ripped and pulled at each other’s clothes, and by silent consent moved around behind the crates they had first sat on, where there was a shaded space on the floor. They sprawled awkwardly, but enthusiastically. Naked, they began to make serious love, strenuously, passionately, and tenderly. They cared nothing about the physical discomforts of the dirty stockroom. They were simply eager to sate the passion that had been rising in them for so long.
As they rushed to joyful climax, neither of them noticed that around them the image of the game store was beginning to melt away.
[ 14 ]
His fingers were twitching, as if his hands were still playing gently with Geller’s soft and willing body, but the rest of his body was rigid and unmoving. Pikul found that he was sitting on a hard wooden bench. His legs were folded under another long bench, this one a work surface with a slow-moving conveyor belt sliding along before him from left to right. On the belt there was an endless stream of what appeared to be animal parts: tiny limbs, eyes, internal organs, bodies, tails, claws, horns. They slithered past, seeming to accuse him with their immobile state of brokenness.
Great noise burst in around him as the scene became more coherent: people’s voices, grinding machinery, a crashing of something metal on something hollow, the whining of drills, distant motors, country music played over the P.A., an endless clattering and banging.
Pikul did not look down at his hands, because he did not yet wish to discover at what they were working so expertly. Something was cool and squishy down there. Instead he looked up and around.
He was obviously in some kind of small factory or assembly plant. It was a large Quonset hut, with a high arching ceiling made of corrugated iron or another kind of sheet metal. The hut was long and narrow, built to accommodate the lengthy, slow-moving conveyor belt. There were dozens of dormer windows built into the sloping walls, but without exception they’d all been boarded up. The light that glared down on the occupants of the hut was therefore all artificial, from many banks of fluorescent tubes.