He raised his projectile weapon, pointed it at the running gray-clad figure. The Servant looked up at him, gaping—then Jones fired without hesitation. If he did not delay, his score would correspondingly increase. As he pulled the trigger, though, he noticed the holographic palm trees fluttering like tattered brooms. The computer would throw in factors such as simulated wind and the distortion of the walls.
The projectile missed, striking one of the pedestrians reaching out to grab the Servant. Jones heard his score change, and he raised to fire again before he looked up.
To his surprise, the score had increased by twenty points, even after accidentally hitting the pedestrian. He shot again, and this time he struck the Servant in the shoulder. The Servant spun, injured, trying to reorient himself. Jones released another projectile and began to move his feet as if running toward the Servant.
The computer automatically adjusted the illusory view. The victim fell twitching on the sidewalk as the other people pressed close.
A second Servant appeared, running from the opposite side of the simulator. The crowd suddenly turned, but half of them clustered around Jones, angry because of the slaughtered pedestrian.
Jones turned his scatter-stun toward the approaching mob and mowed down anyone blocking his shot at the second Servant. He watched his score increase again. With a clear shot, he fired once more, paralyzing the renegade Servant’s arm. The Servant dropped the metallic equipment she carried and continued to run frantically.
A third shot, and this time the Servant pitched forward, still trying to move, but with her hips paralyzed. Jones let fly with three exploding projectiles.
His score had soared up to a new high point. He had beaten his previous mark! The computer lingered on the images of all the dead, innocent pedestrians who had gotten in his way. Innocent? Jones relived his own nightmare visions of groping, clawing, tearing hands of the mob trying to destroy him as Danal fled into the distance. Innocents? Any of these pedestrians could become murderous, an instigator of a mob.
Jones swept the scatter-stun around him in an arc, leveling the approaching crowds until the weapon’s charge sputtered to a halt. The other pedestrians stopped, their mob mentality quelled by his show of force.
Jones breathed out a long and heavy sigh and surveyed the people, wondering if the simulation was over. The timer crept toward the finish. But then he noticed that six other Servants had shambled out of the alleys, out of the doorways; they stood looking at him mindlessly.
Experimentally Jones raised his pocket bazooka and shot one of them. They were just simulations, after all. A burst of points appeared on his score. Puzzled, Jones fired again. Two more of the Servants fell, broken into large pieces of torn flesh that oozed clear synthetic blood. Again, Jones received a significant bonus of points.
Is that what they wanted him to do? Was Nathans training him to fire at Servants? Jones lowered the weapon, resisting the obvious ploy. What sense did that make? What purpose did it serve?
He looked at the fallen Servants. Two more had come to take their places, and the other three Servants began to shuffle away, going about their jobs. Did Nathans want him to shoot all those Servants? Jones’s score beckoned, begging him to add more points.
Actually, Servants had been at the core of Jones’s troubles all along. The more he considered the possibility, the more valid the conclusion became.
Jones had almost lost his life in the riot after the rebel Servant Danal escaped, and because of that, Jones was officially dead (although he had been promoted after all, so that didn’t count). Danal. A Servant.
And Julia? He had gambled at happiness when he’d bought her, but she met his kindness, his love, his devotion, with utter and complete apathy, without a spark of humanity. Julia was a Servant, but surely with the care he had taken she could have shown something? Hadn’t Danal worn that wild look in his eyes? Why couldn’t Julia have had that? Why couldn’t she have returned his attentions? Julia. A Servant.
And back in his curfew-patrol days, what about the other Servant, the female who had stolen equipment and tried to escape? Because of her, Jones had been taken from tolerable night patrol duties and reassigned, reprimanded.
Servants.
And the hatred and unrest from the jobless blues, out of work because of Servants—wasn’t that what had caused the death of his friend, Fitzgerald Helms?
That wound struck him deeply. Servants.
He retaliated, lifting his pocket bazooka again and firing at the holographic crowd with an accuracy born of anger and misguided revenge. All five remaining Servants fell in rapid succession. Shaking, Jones slammed the empty weapon into its armor socket as the time ran out.
The scene froze on the walls, but still he saw the images of blasted Servants scattered about on the streets. He relaxed. He doubted he’d ever beat this score. A blinking light appeared in front of his eyes.
GAME OVER.
30
Apply the flesh tone liberally to face and neck—don’t forget the ears. Cover the arms up to the elbow. Reddish-pink stain adds color to the lips. Bite down on the dye bubble to flood the inside of the mouth with red color, and then rinse thoroughly to keep the teeth clean. Eyelashes, eyebrows. Touch up with blush and darker tones to add realism, to add human flaws. Hairpiece or some other covering for the head.
Incognito. Almost like a living, breathing person again.
Danal waited on a park bench, looking up at the tall buildings around him. The hard metal slats of the bench were cool against his leather jacket and patched pants. Discreetly he kept his hands buried in his pockets. A leather skullcap hugged his head with flaps over his ears, making him look like an old aeroplane flyer.
Danal knew exactly what the Cremator client would look like; he was confident the man would be on time.
The client appeared out of a side street, lost and uncertain—a middle-aged man dressed in a perfect business suit, a thin stylish tie studded with reflecting sequins. His hair was carefully cut at just the right length; instead of contact lenses, he wore decorative spectacles with a tiny chronometer implanted in one lens. Under his arm he carried a large, colorfully wrapped box topped with a pink bow.
“Is that for me?” Danal stood up and intercepted him.
The man stopped abruptly and stared at him, sizing him up. “No,” he mumbled, trying to remember the right phrase, “it’s for John.”
“Okay. I’ll give it to his wife, then,” Danal answered easily.
Relieved, the client handed the box to the disguised Servant, then fled down the street without looking back. He tried to hide himself in the crowd, but there weren’t enough people on the sidewalk to do so. Danal watched him for a moment, calmly amused, and then sat back down on the bench.
He didn’t need to inspect the box to know that it contained packaged chemical supplies, two books for Gregor, analytical tools, and some rope-wire—all things the Wakers needed.
Danal considered the box and the client with a detached apathy. After Gregor had shown him how to access his death memories, Danal’s perception of reality had shifted radically. Over the past week he had come to accept his situation with an easy passivity. His other concerns, his leftover anger—no, Vincent Van Ryman’s anger—at his betrayal and at the death of Julia, all of that seemed distant now and inconsequential.
Below in the dark, listening to the ghostly whispers of the ocean and the creaking timbers around him, Danal spent much of his time meditating. Legs crossed, he sometimes sat with Gregor, sometimes alone, journeying deep within himself, confronting the wall, the Heaven flashbacks. It all came back to him with never-ending wonder and awe—the pain, the tunnel, the chimes, the lights, the escort spirits… over and over again.