Despite the histrionics, she had a valid point. Patricia herself had baked strict privacy controls and rules into the foundations of the laws and systems governing the pssi system. Individuals and families had an absolute right to their privacy, unless there was some good reason otherwise.
“Is there anything wrong with Jimmy?” my mother asked. “Is he healthy?”
Patricia sighed. “He’s perfectly healthy. His mind seems distracted, and there’s some unusual neurological activity, but physically, he’s perfect.”
“Well then.… ”
Patricia thought for a moment and then stood and walked to our side of the table. She sat down on the couch next to us and put an arm around me, looking up at my mother. “Could I take a more active role in Jim’s development? As a teacher, if you see what I mean. I don’t want to intrude on your mothering, of course.”
Mother eyed her, weighing the situation. “That would be an honor, of course,” she replied after a moment. “Wouldn’t it, Jimmy?”
It was less a question than a statement.
I sat dumbly between the two of them, unable to say anything, cringing, sure that Patricia was about to become part and parcel of some new awfulness in my small life. Fearful of the horrors awaiting me, I dug in deeper and deeper, building my shell.
As they bid each other good-bye, I got up and slipped away to hide away from my mother, sliding into tiny worlds within tiny worlds for refuge. Mother quickly gave chase, however, eventually cornering me in the Little Great Little, past fields of glowing jellies, under a thunderfall whose white sensory noise I often hid behind.
“I know you hide here, little worm,” she said, her voice oozing venom. “Don’t think I don’t know where you go.”
Hate distorted her features here, her skin flaking red and crimson, and her hands turned into fearsome claws that she gripped and scratched me with. Pulling a tight security blanket around us, she squeezed me until I thought I would pop.
I squirmed and whimpered.
“Not a word to Aunt Patty, little worm, do you understand? If you say anything to anyone, I’ll tell them all about you and your daddy. Do you want that?”
Smiling at me, she laughed from a fanged and fearsome mouth.
“No, Mommy,” I squealed, “not a word, of course not.”
I began to cry.
“Such a little crybaby.” Mother waved her claws around at the purple canyon walls. “None of this is real.”
And then she was gone, popping out of the Little Great Little and into another one of her soapstim fantasies to burrow away from her own pain.
Dad must have known something was going on because he appeared just after Mother left, looking pale and dejected. “Don’t say anything about you and me, Jimmy. It’s secret, you know? They would put me away in the farms if you told anyone, Jimmy. Do you want to turn your dad into a psombie?”
I shook my head. “Of course not, Daddy. I won’t tell anyone.”
Samson, who’d remained quiet, emerged from his hiding place under the thunderfall, and we sat down together, holding hands. Dad left us there without saying another word.
My fascination with pain began very early. Sometimes, we won the topside lottery for passes to go above. I vividly remembered those days, those rare moments when we could enjoy the air above-decks. While my parents would sun themselves on the beach, I would hang at the edge of the palms and palmettos nearby.
At the fringes of the dark forest, I would summon little creatures to venture forth into my hands. Taking great care in their capture, I’d stimshare into them to feel their squirming pain as I slowly pulled off their legs, one by one. When all of their legs were gone, I would gradually squeeze them between my chubby fingers, flitting into them to feel their spasms of agony as I crushed their legless little bodies.
Feeling their agony helped me cleanse my own pain.
And, perhaps, I enjoyed it a little, too.
20
Identity: Bobby Baxter
“Sid!” I yelled out into our private emergency channels.
“Jesus, Bob, what is it?” he replied as his reality merged with mine.
I watched Sid working, engrossed in some data-mining blitz as he searched through reams of multiverse worlds. Even with the storms threatening, he was still on the hunt for Willy’s body, his dozens of phantom hands dancing through the hyper-control spaces around him.
“If you play with your phantoms too much, you’ll grow hair on them,” I couldn’t help joking as I watched him and Vicious working their magic.
“No more Humungous Fungus this week, I’ve had enough, buddy.” They gave me several fingers. I watched them fiddle around some more.
“So what has your hair on fire?” Sid finally asked.
“I need your help to infiltrate the Cognix networks.”
That stopped them in their tracks. Sid looked at me and cracked a smile, all his phantoms dropping to the ground.
“Let’s get the band back together,” I continued.
“Jimmy, too?” Sid asked. Vicious was vigorously shaking his head behind him.
“I think we’ll let Jimmy sit this one out.” Jimmy had bigger fish to fry, and something about him made me very uneasy. “But I’m going to ping him and tell him we’re doing our own storm research. That way we won’t raise any alarms if we scan the perimeter.” I thought about this for a second. “And I want him to know what we’re doing.”
“Sure,” said Vicious, “just don’t tell him too much.”
That wasn’t a problem. I didn’t know anything.
“I think we should get Vince in on this, too,” added Sid.
Nodding, I pinged Jimmy, shifting my primary subjective into a tight and secure channel that he opened up to me. My perspective shifted into a small, pristine white room, where I found myself seated at a white interview table. Jimmy had his hands clasped on the table and was staring directly into my eyes.
“Did you find Wally yet?” He cracked the faintest of smiles. “What’s going on? No surfing today?”
21
Identity: Jimmy Scadden
“No,” replied Bob, “even I couldn’t handle what’s going on out there right now.”
The storms had converged. Winds were tearing at the forests while an angry ocean pounded the beaches mercilessly. Surface access would be shut off soon as we finished stowing everything and everyone below decks.
Incredibly, the storms were getting worse. As they neared the coast, and each other, they defied all physics and gained in strength, progressing past Category 5 into something terrifyingly unknown.
We’d already entered American territorial waters, and their air force and navy was scrambling to surround us, battling their own way through the storms. Atopia and the US were close allies, but the prospect of having a wholly independent country slide across the map and run aground in California had raised some hackles, even if they understood we had no choice. The fact that Atopia contained a fully energized fusion core raised the diplomatic tension bar just that much higher.
Of course, the anticipation of two giant hurricanes simultaneously slamming into one of America’s most populated coasts had them already preoccupied. Communications were strangely incoherent. It may have just been the storms, but we seemed to be getting contradictory diplomatic messages from one moment to the next.
Despite it all, I had a plan for our escape and had been running phutures of it right at the moment Bob had pinged me. As busy as I was, Bob’s primary subjective calling me on an emergency channel was unusual enough to warrant the attention of a splinter.
“So what can I do for you?” I asked, not bothering to explain how busy I was. Bob was many things, but he wasn’t stupid.