That had been his worst screw-up, ever. But there had been other, lesser mistakes lately, one right after another, ever since his husband Lon had left him. All minor stuff, but if he made one more boner like that Santiago flight he was going to be out of a job. He would then be put on the official government lists as a nonproductive person, and he, not some shirker, would be up in front of the Triple-S; and before you knew it
he
would be slaving away in some lunar pit. This was precisely what he had joined the Agency to avoid, of course, having no particular talents or skills that he could parlay into a career.
Another bus whooshed up to the stop, and Alderdice was relieved to see that few people got off. He bounded onto the bus and sat down in the nearest seat, hoping that Biberkopf hadn't flown the coop. This was the optimum period for that sort of thing, the day before the Triple-S hearing. How could he have lost the suspect at a time like this? Now he had to hope that Biberkopf didn't run away, and hope would not be enough if it happened.
As the city flew by in a sun-baked blur, Alderdice decided that the smartest thing for him to do was go directly to Biberkopf's effapt building, in the hope that the suspect had simply gone home. If Biberkopf wasn't there when Alderdice arrived, though, there was going to be big trouble.
"I almost ran into him on my way here, when I was getting off the bus," Ronindella said over the music, her pale but attractive face lined with worry as she glanced around the teacher's lounge. "I can't believe he didn't recognize me."
"You were wearing your mask and hat, and he's got a lot on his mind these days." Ryan Effner pointed at the sweating glass in front of her. "Finish your drink, and we'll get out of here. He might come back to clean out his desk or something."
"Okay." She downed her grappa and stood up. "You know, Ryan, he's got to find out the truth sometime."
"Not if he's on his way to the moon, he doesn't." Effner popped his credit card into the table slot and sucked the ice from his drink while he waited for the transaction to clear. "He'll be there for the rest of his life, and need never know that his wife's left him for his best friend."
"You say that so matter of factly, Rye."
"That's how it is." He snatched his reemerging card and stuffed it into his wallet. "We didn't ruin his life, we just happened to benefit from it."
"I guess so." They put on their protective sun gear and went outside, and Effner hailed a flyby cab. In minutes they were at Ronindella's apt. Johnsmith had lived there with her until he had moved out last month. In fact, they had selected this place because of its proximity to the university, because of his job.
As soon as Ronindella passed by the security screen, the door opened and they went inside. Smitty II was there, playing with a jerkily moving dinosaur.
"Hi, Smitty," said Ryan Effner.
"Hi," the boy said, simulating the dinosaur's roar as he picked up the toy and pointed its gleaming fanged mouth at Effner and his mother.
"How come you're home already?" his mother asked.
"School got out early today, on account of the ceiling fell down."
"What are we paying taxes for?" Ronindella wondered aloud. "The schools are collapsing, and the kids aren't even being taught the classic videos."
Effner nearly said that Beeb thought it was a whole lot worse than that, but he decided that it wouldn't be wise to mention the kid's father right now. Smitty II had to have time to adjust to Beeb's departure. The kid was probably too young to think anything of the fact that good old Uncle Ryan was around comforting Mom these days. And for now, it seemed wise to keep it that way.
The phone rang.
"I'll get it, Mom," said Smitty.
Before Ronindella could object, Smitty snapped on the video. Effner headed for the bedroom just as Johnsmith Biberkopf appeared on the screen.
"Who was that?" Johnsmith asked.
"Repairman," Ronindella lied. "What do you want, anyway, Johnny?"
Smitty II seemed confused.
"I just called to see how you and Smitty are." Johnsmith attempted a smile, but it didn't quite work.
"We're fine. How are you?"
"Uh, okay. I'm going down to the Selective Space Service tomorrow."
"So soon?" Ronindella was playing dumb.
"Oh, didn't I tell you last time we talked?"
"Maybe you did, Johnny. I've had so much on my mind lately, you know . . ."
"Yeah, haven't we all." Johnsmith looked at Smitty II. The smile was more sincere this time. "How's my boy?"
"Good, Dad. Why don't you come home?"
"Sorry, son, but I can't. Is that a dinosaur you've got there?"
"Yeah. And it moves around."
"What good is a dinosaur that doesn't move around, I always say."
"Look, Johnny, I'm kind of busy right now," Ronindella said. "Maybe you could call back some other time."
"From the moon?"
"You're not leaving this minute, for Christ's sake," she said angrily. "Stop trying to make me pity you."
"It won't be long before I'll be there, Ronnie. And I'm really not trying to make you pity me. It's just the way things are, that's all."
Smitty had lost interest in the conversation, and was playing with the dinosaur again, his piping voice roaring away in the background.
"Smitty!" his mother shouted. "Stop making so much goddamn noise!"
The boy became silent and looked at her resentfully. He took the dinosaur into the bedroom with him.
"Going in to join the repairman, huh, Smitty?" Johnsmith said to the boy.
Smitty turned toward the screen to reply one last time, but his mother looked at him warningly. "Yeah, gonna play in there, Dad. See you."
"You might at least let me hold a conversation with my own son," Johnsmith said, as Smitty closed the bedroom door. "I'll probably never see him again in the flesh."
"Don't be so melodramatic." But Ronindella knew that what he said was true. Life would be a lot easier when Johnsmith was on the moon. Half of his wages would be sent to her automatically by the government, for child support. He'd be more useful to her up there than he ever was here on earth.
"Goodbye, Johnsmith," Ronindella said, ending the phone conversation. "And good luck."
"Goodbye, Ronnie," He watched her flick the connection off. Her face narrowed, shrank to a tiny rainbow point, and vanished. "And fuck you, too."
Alderdice was wheezing badly by the time he got out of the sun. He used his passcard to get inside Biberkopf's building, slumping against a paint-peeling vestibule wall to wipe his dark face while he waited for it to clear. Full employment was a laudable goal, and he was certainly glad to have a job, but on days like this he almost wished that he were doing something else
—anything
else. The trouble with that wish was that it might come true, and he'd soon be doing something else, all right, but doing it in a lunar mine.
The notion motivated him to start climbing the stairs. He comforted himself with the thought that the life of a public servant was never an easy one, as he labored up toward the fourteenth floor, where Biberkopf's effapt was located. He had discovered on his first visit to this building that the elevator didn't work, much to his dismay. He was usually glad that the Conglom didn't require biannual physicals anymore, but it occurred to him that he might be in better shape if they did. Wheezing, he took a break on the landing between the fifth and sixth floors.
After a short rest, he pressed on, climbing one flight after another, deliberately and ponderously. At last he reached the fourteenth floor, stopping again to catch his breath. Doors were lined up on either side of the corridor, inches separating each occupant's effapt from his neighbor's. Biberkopf lived at N-39, about halfway down the hall on the left.
Alderdice fumbled in his pocket until his fingers found the sound scoop. He pointed it at the door and it picked up a voice from the other side, channeling it to Alderdice subaudibly. Breathing a long sigh of relief at finding the suspect at home, he listened carefully.
Biberkopf was talking. It didn't sound as if anybody else was with him, though. He must have been on the phone. Yes, he could hear a woman's tinny voice, definitely coming in over the phone. She was trying to end the conversation. After she cut the connection, Biberkopf uttered an obscenity. After that, the effapt was silent.
WELL, THAT WAS that. All Johnsmith had to look forward to now was the Triple-S and a short life in the airless void. The screen faded to a dull gray, which he fancied the perfect metaphor for his state of mind at that moment. He slumped into a chair and wondered how his life had ever come to this. He'd tried to be a good teacher, a good parent, a good husband. His intentions had come to little as far as Ronindella was concerned. They'd been married in the Video Church of God, just as Ronindella had wanted, though Johnsmith hadn't been brought up in any organized religion himself—his father had seen to that—and had always vaguely considered the wedding a compromise of his principles. In fact, it seemed that life with Ronindella had been mostly a series of such soul-killing compromises, when he thought about it. He couldn't remember her ever giving in on anything.
He had become less compromising in his profession as his marriage had soured, though. Maybe that was why he had forced himself into an unyielding position at the University, secretly knowing that his rigidity would lead to his downfall, and ultimately to a divorce.
But that was so irrational. Why exile himself to the dark side of the moon just to get rid of Ronindella?
He stared at the bare wall of his effapt, wondering if he really was that self-destructive. It was possible. After all, he never could have left Ronindella. She'd been forced to throw him out, or there wouldn't have been any end to their marriage. It
had
to end, though; there was no doubt about it.
His gaze wandered to his jacket, slung across a chair by the door. He had tossed it there when he came in. The onees were in the inside pocket, weren't they?
He got up and grabbed the jacket, bunching its synthetic weave in one hand while he felt for the film canister. There it was. He took the canister out and looked at it. To hell with using the onees tomorrow. He would take them now.
Twisting the cap off the canister, he looked inside at three silver dots, almost like ball bearings, only slightly larger. So these were onees . . . .
How did one go about this? He could get a pair of tweezers and pick one out. You had to be cautious with onees, they said. But why should he be careful? If anybody on earth had nothing to lose at that moment, it was Johnsmith Biberkopf. If he went insane or died, what would it matter? At least Smitty would get his insurance credit . . .maybe not, come to think of it . . .the Triple-S board might decide that it was intentional inducement of psychosis, or something else that would mean they had no legal obligation to pay up. If the onees totally short-circuited his nervous system, as rumor had it sometimes happened, he would be pronounced brain dead, legally a suicide. Then Smitty would get nothing at all.
It would be Ronindella's problem then, wouldn't it? Maybe the "repairman" could help out with the bills . . . .
Johnsmith tipped the canister so that the three tiny spheres rolled into his palm.
He had imagined that the effect would start in his hand and work its way up his arm and through the rest of his body. That was probably what had actually happened, in picoseconds, but it didn't feel like that. It felt as if he had just stepped off the edge of something into nothing. He was swimming through a churning sea, each stroke changing the color of the water—blue, green, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue—right through the spectrum. The water was flowing coolly around him, its pressure constant against his naked skin. His ears were stopped up and bubbles tickled the insides of his nostrils. It was too goddamn much. Maybe if he just floated for a while, the shifting, synthetic dream world would change a little more gradually.
But it didn't. Instead, it became a whirlpool, vertiginous tints dragging him down, colors swirling into a dark spiral that threatened to swallow him. He was scared, finding it hard to remind himself that this was just a sensory input illusion, triggered by his own electrical charge. The information passing into his nervous system couldn't be controlled, of course. That was what was dangerous about onees.
The thing to do was relax and enjoy the sensations. Either that or drop the damn things. He looked down at his hand, opening his fingers to see the three minute spheres gleaming in the blackness.
"You're the only things that are real," he said. "Just you and me, guys. We're real. The rest of this is just some sort of entertainment feeding in through the nerve endings, right?"
As intense as the sensual bombardment was, he did not drop the onees. He clutched them so tightly that his nails dug painfully into his palm. He just had to remember that he could get out of this at any time. But everything was changing so fast that he had a hard time remembering that.
He wasn't sinking anymore. Now he was bobbing on a fogbound surface, Odysseus washed onto shore to be discovered by Nausicaa. But there was no shore in sight. Nothing but the fog, impenetrable and curling above the nearly still sea. The smell of salt water was powerful, and his ears were still plugged up, but the water seemed warmer than a few moments ago.
He floated on his back, at peace with the world. This was all right. This was very nice, in fact.
And then he heard something splashing in the distance. It splashed again. Every few seconds, the sound repeated itself, and it was getting louder. Whatever it was, it was coming closer. Johnsmith was scared. He forgot about the onees. This was just too real. For all he knew, this was the
real
reality, and the other reality, the one he had left behind, was the fake.
Which meant that he was at the mercy of this thing coming through the fog toward him.
He was so scared that his bowels let loose. Heart pounding wildly, Johnsmith thought that he should be ashamed of his cowardice, but he wasn't. He only wanted to get away from here before the encroaching
thing
was on top of him.