City of Golden Shadow (32 page)

Which might mean that she hadn't spoken at all, but only thought she had.

"Exit!" she screamed. Still, nothing happened. It was hard to concentrate, hard to feel her real body beneath the blinding, jaggedly pulsating light and the painful hum of a million wasps in her ears. She could feel her attacker ripping away at her shell of concentration, the only thing protecting her from a tumble down into nothingness. She could not keep it up much longer.

Dead Man's Switch. The words fluttered up, a few scraps of memory shaken loose by the maelstrom. Every system has a Dead Man's Switch. Something to release you if you get into serious trouble, a stroke or something. The Poly must have one. It was so loud, so excruciatingly loud. Each thought felt as slippery as an untanked goldfish. Heart rate? Is the switch hooked into the EKG monitor in the harness?

She would have to assume it was-it was the only chance she had. She would have to try to drive her pulse rate up beyond permitted danger levels.

Renie let the fear she had been struggling to check finally burst free. It was not difficult-even if she had guessed correctly, there was only a very thin chance of this plan working. More likely, she would fail and find herself sliding down a long tunnel into blackness, as Stephen had done before her, a blackness indistinguishable from death.

She could not feel her physical body, which was no doubt hanging uselessly beside !Xabbu's in the Harness Room. She was only eyes and ears, battered to the edge of madness by the howling whirlwind of light that was Kali.

Unchecked and without outlet, desperation ran through her like some horrible silent electrocution. But it was not enough-she needed more. She thought of her heart and imagined it pumping. Now, letting her sheer fright color the image, she visualized it pounding ever faster, struggling to cope with an emergency for which evolution could never have prepared.

It's hopeless, she told herself, and pictured her heart shuddering, hurrying. I'll die here, or fall down into madness forever. The dark muscle was a shy, secret thing like an oyster ripped from its shell, struggling hopelessly to survive. Pumping hard, straining, losing the beat for a moment as the rhythms bounced awkwardly against each other.

Streaks of hot and cold went jagging through her, fear to the toxic level, shivers of helpless animal panic.

Racing, fighting, failing.

I'll be lost, just like Stephen, just like !Xabbu. Soon I'll be in the hospital, zipped into an oxygen-filled body bag, dead, dead meat.

Images began to flash before her eyes, leaping out of the kaleidoscopic display that filled her vision-Stephen, gray and unconscious, lost to her, wandering somewhere in an empty, lonely place.

I'm dying.

Her mother, shrieking in agony during her final moments, caught on the upper floor of the department store as the flames climbed hungrily upward, knowing she would never see her children again.

I'm dying, dying.

Death the destroyer, the great Nothing, the freezing fist that seized you and squeezed you, crushed you into dust that floated in the blank dark between stars.

Her heart stuttered, laboring toward failure like an overheated engine.

I'm dying I'm dying I'm dying I'm. . . .

The world jerked and turned gray; light and dark were evenly smeared. Renie felt a sharp pain race down her arm, a streak of fire. She was in some between-place, she was alive, no, she was dying, she . . .

I'm out, she thought, and the idea rattled in her suddenly cavernous and echoing skull. The shrieking drone was gone. Her thoughts were her own, but even through the agony, a vast, adhesive weariness pulled at her. I must be having a heart attack.

But she had already determined her course before she had begun. She couldn't afford to think about what she was going to do, couldn't pay any attention to the pain-not yet.

"Backtrack-last node." Her voice, though loud against the new stillness in her head, was only a dry whisper.

Even before the gray had finished forming, it was gone. The cavern surrounded her again, the red light blazing. Her position had changed; now she stood to one side of Kali, who was leaning forward over the hunched figure of !Xabbu like an interested vulture. The death goddess' arms were motionless, the maddening voice silent. Her veiled face pivoted toward the spot where Renie had reappeared.

Renie leaped forward and seized the Bushman's sim. Another jagged bolt of pain shot up her arm; she gritted her teeth and fought off a wave of nausea. "Exit," she shouted, triggering escape for both of them, but aborted immediately when !Xabbu's part of the program didn't respond. Her stomach lurched again. The little man was still trapped, somehow, still hooked. She would have to find another way to get him out.

A shadow swung across her like a negative searchlight. She looked up to see the scarlet-limned figure of Kali looming above, arms spread wide,

"Oh, shit." Renie tightened her grip on !Xabbu, wondering how lifelike this simulation was. Bracing herself against the inevitable pain, she straightened suddenly and put a shoulder into the oracle's midsection. There was no sensation of contact, but the creature slid back several feet into the middle of the steaming pit The monster hung in midair, bathed in the red glow, feet flattened on nothing.

One of Kali's hands darted toward her own face and tore away the veil, revealing blue skin, a ragged hole of a mouth, a dangling red tongue . . . and no eyes.

It was meant to hold Renie until the visual tricks could start again. It might have worked before, but now she had no strength left to be startled. "I'm so tired of your goddamned game," she grunted. Black spots swam before her eyes, but she doubted they had anything to do with the programming in Mister J's jolly little hellhole. Dizzied, she turned her face away from the blind thing and heard the ululation beginning again.

Renie was having trouble breathing: her voice was faint "Get stuffed, bitch. Random."

The shift was surprisingly fast The cavern dissolved, and for a moment a long dark hallway began to form before her eyes. She had a dim perception of a near-endless row of candelabra along the walls, each held by a disembodied hand, then she was suddenly shifted again-this time without her command and against her will.

This transition was not as smooth as the others. For several long instants her vision was nauseatingly distorted, as if the new location would not come into correct focus. She tumbled and felt soft earth-or the simulation of it-beneath her aching body. She kept her eyes closed and reached out until her fingers touched !Xabbu's silent, still form. It was hard to imagine moving another inch, but she knew she had to get up and start looking for ways to get them out.

"We have only moments," someone said. Despite its urgent tone, it was a soothing voice, pitched almost equally distant from the stereotypical extremes of both masculine and feminine. "They will find it much easier to track you this time."

Startled, Renie opened her eyes. She was surrounded by a crowd of people, as though she were an accident victim lying in a busy street After a moment, she saw that the forms around her were gray and still. All except one.

The stranger was white. Not white as she was black, not Caucasian, but truly white, with the blank purity of unsmirched paper. The stranger's sim-for that was what it must be, since she was clearly still inside the system-was a pure colorless emptiness, as though someone had taken a pair of scissors and snipped a vaguely human-shaped hole in the fabric of VR. It pulsed and danced along its edges, never entirely at rest.

"Leave us . . . alone." It was difficult just to speak: she was short of air, and a bright fist of pain was squeezing inside her rib cage.

"I cannot, although I am a fool to take this chance. Sit up and help me with your friend."

"Don't touch him!"

"Stop being foolish. Your pursuers will locate you any moment now."

Renie forced herself up onto her knees and swayed for a moment, catching her breath. "Who . . . who are you? Where are we?"

The blankness crouched beside !Xabbu's unmoving form. The stranger had no face and no distinct shape; Renie could not tell what it was looking at. "I am taking enough risks already, I cannot tell you anything-you may still be caught, and it would mean death to others. Now, help me lift him! I have little physical strength and I dare not bring more power to bear."

Renie crawled toward the shapeless pair, and for the first time took notice of her surroundings. They were in a kind of open grassy park, pinned beneath dark gray skies, bounded by tall trees and ivy-choked stone walls. The silent figures that surrounded them stretched away on all sides, row after row; making the place seem a bizarre cross between a cemetery and a sculpture garden. Each shape was that of a person, some highly individual, some as featureless as the sims she and !Xabbu wore. Each had been frozen in some moment of fear or surprise. Some had stood a long time and like the deserted structures of Toytown had lost their colors and textures, but most looked new-minted.

The stranger lifted its head as she approached. "When something happens to one of the guests while they are online, their sim remains. Those who own this place are . . . amused to keep their trophies this way."

Renie put her arms under !Xabbu and lifted him into a sitting position. The effort made the edges of her sight go black for a moment; she swayed, struggling to maintain consciousness. "I may be . . . having a heart attack," she whispered.

"All the more reason to hurry," said the empty space. "Now, hold him still. He is a long distance away, and if he doesn't return, you will not be able to take him offline. I must send for him."

"Send for him. . . ?" Renie could barely form the words. She was beginning to feel quite drowsy, and although a part of her was frightened by that, it was a small and diminishing part. This human-shaped blankness, the strange garden-they were simply a few more complications to an already complex situation. Difficult to think about . . . it would be easier simply to let herself roll down into sleep. . . .

"The Honey-Guide will fetch him back." The stranger held up the blunt white shapes that were its hands as if about to pray, but kept them a few inches apart. When nothing happened, Renie began gathering the energy to ask another question, but the featureless shape had become as rigidly still as any of the trophy garden's other residents. Renie felt a cold pall of loneliness settle over her. Everything was lost now. Everyone was gone. Why keep fighting, when she could let go, could sleep. . . ?

There was a stirring between the stranger's hands, then a sort of opening appeared there, a deeper nullity, as though something had cast a shadow onto naked air. The darkness flicked, then flicked again, then another white shape fluttered out of it. This smaller blank patch, which was bird-shaped in the way the stranger was human-shaped, fluttered onto the shoulder of !Xabbu's sim, then crouched there for a moment, vibrating gently, like a newborn butterfly drying its wings. Renie stared in lazy fascination as the tiny white shape slid close to !Xabbu's ear-or the rudimentary fold in his simulation that represented it-as if to share a secret She heard a high-pitched trill, then the bird-thing leaped into the air and vanished.

The larger blankness abruptly shivered back into life. It leaped up and smacked its rudimentary hands together. "Go now. Hurry."

"But. . . ." Renie looked down. !Xabbu was moving. One of his sim hands clenched fitfully, as though trying to catch something that had flown away.

"You can take him back now. And you must take this, too." The stranger plunged one arm inside itself, then pulled out something that glimmered with a soft amber light. Renie stared. The stranger reached and took her hand with its other arm, peeled open her clenched fingers, and dropped the object onto her palm. She wondered for a moment at the mundane and unremarkable touch of the ghostly presence, then looked down at what had been given to her. It was a round yellow gem, cut into hundreds of facets.

"What . . . what is it?" It was becoming hard to remember much of anything. Who was this gleaming white shape? What was she supposed to be doing?

"No more questions," it said sharply. "Go!"

Renie stared for a moment into the void where its face should be. Something swam through her mind, down deep, and she struggled to identify it.

"Go now!"

She squeezed !Xabbu a little tighter. He felt as slender as a child. "Yes. Of course. Exit."

The garden popped like a soap bubble.

Everything was very dark. For a moment Renie thought they had become stuck in transition, until she remembered the headset. She lifted her arm, gasping at the painful effort, but managed to tip up her visor.

The view around her improved only a little; she still saw mainly gray, although now there were dark stripes as well. Then she understood that the blurry verticals around her were the straps of the Harness Room. She was hanging in place, swinging slightly. She turned. !Xabbu was dangling beside her, but it was the real !Xabbu in his real body. As she watched, he shivered convulsively and lifted his head, eyes rolling as he tried to focus.

"!Xabbu." Her voice sounded muffled. She was still wearing her hearplugs, but she couldn't work up the strength to lift her arm again. There was something she needed to tell him, something important. Renie stared at him, trying to remember, but her head was beginning to feel very heavy. Just before she gave up, it came to her. "Call an ambulance," she said, and laughed a little at the oddness of it. "I think I'm dying."