Counting Heads (28 page)

Justine and Victor Vole were explaining to Samson how Moseby’s Leap worked, but Samson wasn’t getting it. A young man, a hollyholo character, leaned over a distant parapet on the other side of the stadium.

“That’s a character named Moseby,” Samson said, “and he’s going to jump?”

“No, no, Myr Kodiak,” Justine said. “That’s Jason. There are no more Mosebys left anymore. The Moseby line is dead. There’s a lot of Jasons, though, and they’re having a rough time of it. This one may or may not jump today. It all depends. And there will be a lot of viewers tuned in to see which way it goes.” The topic of suicidal simulacra seemed to have loosened the old woman’s shy tongue.

“It all depends on what?” Samson said.

“On life,” Justine said, stroking her gray and white cat. “On love, forgiveness, redemption.”

Samson saw the patient look in Victor’s face. Apparently, he didn’t share his wife’s enthusiasm for the novellas. “So, what’s he doing now,” Samson said, “besides blubbering like a fool?”

“Yes, I suppose Jason tends to be emotional,” said Justine. “What he’s doing is waiting for his lady love, Alison, to arrive and talk him down.”

“What he’s doing now,” Victor added with a wink, “is waiting for audience numbers to threshold.”

Justine looked at her husband with pity. Two of the counterfeit children behind them began to squabble over a doll, and Justine leaned over her seatback to straighten them out.

Samson was glad he’d come here in secret, giving no one the chance to talk
him
down. He wondered if the worldwide audience for this novella foolishness would exceed that of his own more genuine swan song, and he wondered if this was Hubert’s idea of a joke—to bring him somewhere where sims deleted themselves, or if Hubert could even tell the difference.

“Mama,” said one of the little boys, “I have to pee pee.” He held his crotch and bounced in his seat.

“Who else has to go?” Justine said.

All their little hands shot up. “And I’m
hungry
,” said a little girl.

“Me too!” chorused the others.

“Ah, the bliss of family life,” Victor said to Samson and winked again.

He winks a lot, Samson thought. Or maybe it’s a nervous tic.

Justine sighed and lifted the cat off her lap. “Here,” she said, reaching around Samson to hand Victor the leash. She excused herself, unlatched her and the children’s seats, and retracted them to the loading gallery, leaving the men and cat alone, suspended over Soldier Field.

“Easy, Murphy,” Victor said. The gray and white cat was standing in his lap, its claws sunk into the fabric of his clothes. Victor tried to soothe the cat, but it climbed the cushion of his seat and perched itself on his seatback behind his head.

Murphy seemed oblivious to the sheer drop to the stadium floor. He sat on the seatback and meowed aggressively at Samson, regarding him with yellow eyes. The cat had a scrappy look to it, like an alley cat, and a vaguely Siamese-shaped face.

“Quiet, Murphy,” Victor said gently. “He doesn’t like strangers, our puss. He doesn’t like me, for that matter; only Justine. The kids he doesn’t even see.”

“Still, he must be a comfort to have,” Samson said. What Samson wanted to say was the cat was real at least, unlike the children. Samson still possessed a trace of social tact, but his curiosity was strong, and today of all days allowed no time for subtlety, so he said, “Aren’t your children those—I don’t know the brand name—”

“Fracta Kids,” Victor said.

“Yes, Fracta Kids. You buy a newborn and raise it like it’s real. Feed it, burp it, tell it bedtime stories. Send it to school. Loan it money. It grows up eventually and leaves home, sends you Christmas cards, etc., etc.”

“That about sums it up, yes,” said Victor. “Only these are orphans. We scavenged them out of recycle bins. My dear Justine has a heart as large as this arena, Myr Kodiak.”

At Moseby’s Leap, a female hollyholo joined the man at the railing.

“Uh-oh,” Victor said, “Alison’s here. Justine, dear, can you hear me? Yes, do hurry or you’ll miss it.”

Hubert spoke to Samson,
None of the Voles’ Fracta Kids are sentient, Sam. Myren Vole’s subem isn’t powerful enough to support the apps. They have only basal logarithms: hungry, happy, sad, sleepy, and the like. They don’t grow or develop
.

How ghastly, thought Samson. All the hassles of child rearing and none of the payoff. Even he, father of an unconceived son and genetically unrelated daughter, had enjoyed more parental bliss than that.

Justine returned. Her seat bumped Samson’s and latched to it. She said she had put the children down for the night, which Samson took to mean she had switched them off. Murphy, the cat, quit its howling and climbed over Samson’s seatback to Justine’s lap.

It was already twilight in the huge space. Only the rim of the stadium opposite them was still in sunlight. Elsewhere it lay in shadow. There were no lights except for the exit chutes, the biolume railing and walls, and the scape surrounding Moseby’s Leap.

“What did I miss?” Justine said.

“Nothing, my love,” said Victor.

“Bring them in closer, please.”

The parapet, with its hollyholo characters, zoomed toward them until it appeared suspended directly in front of Samson. Now he could see and hear the characters clearly. Jason, who straddled the railing, one leg dangling over the abyss, flung angry, tear-soaked words at Alison.

“But Cindy said the castle belonged to Carole and Candy!” he shouted.

“Cindy lied to you,” Alison protested. “It doesn’t belong to them or to Teddy, Patrice, or Oliver either. It doesn’t belong to
anyone
we know. That’s what I’m trying to
tell
you!”

“But
why
would she
lie
? And what about the
diamonds
? Surely, you’re not trying to tell me that
Frank
would—”

“
Feck
Frank. Forget about him. It was Karman’s scheme, or his sister Kameron’s—no one knows for sure. The only thing we know is that someone
stole
the deposit and blamed Roddy who now faces revocation of his parole, but you
know
he won’t testify because of what
Charles
said.” Alison took two cautious steps closer to Jason, who balanced precariously on the railing.

“Charles? Are you sure it was Charles?” Jason gasped for air like a drowning man. But when Alison took another step closer, he shouted, “Stay back!” and swung his other leg over the rail. “I’ll jump! Can’t you see I’m
serious
?”

“All right, Jason.
Relax
. Look, I’m backing away.” But she only pretended to backstep.

Jason began to weep again. “Charles,” he said between sobs. “Charles—my cad, my curse, my dad, my cure, my
love
.”

Next to Samson, Justine leaned forward in her seat and said, “
Oooh!
”

“Jason!” Alison gasped. “Did you just say that Charles is your dad—your
father?
And he’s your
lover
too?”

Jason turned a face of self-loathing to Alison and let go of the rail, but Alison snatched the collar of his jacket just in time and was nearly pulled over by his weight. She was doubled over the rail, unable to lift him, unwilling to let go.

“You fool!” she gasped. “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know what I
sacrificed
for you?”

The quality of the scape changed then, and there seemed to be two Jasons and two Alisons struggling within the same frame. “Interactive audience divergence,” Victor explained to Samson. “I fixed it so Justine can watch all the branchings instead of just one.”

Two Jasons sobbed, and two Alisons strained against his weight. Then one Jason cried out, “Don’t you
get
it? Charles is my father, but he’s not my lover. He’s my
victim
. I
raped
him.” And with that confession, he shrugged himself out of his jacket and hurtled head first, down, down toward the field below, where now, inexplicably, there was a track meet in progress. The field was awash in light, and the lower stands were jammed with spectator placeholders. The Alison still clutching his jacket fell backward from the rail, leaving the other pair of lovers struggling there.

“Oh!” said Justine.

Samson snuck a peak at Justine. Her hand moved delicately over her breast, and he wondered if she perhaps wore a simsock under her clothes in order to enjoy the feely track of this novella. The first Jason, meanwhile, was taking an inordinate amount of time to hit the ground. He was tumbling in an overly artistic slow-motion flashback summary of his life. Key scenes and whole episodes of his past streamed off him like ribbons. Interested viewers could prolong this high dive for weeks as they replayed the whole sorry story tree of his life. Samson looked away and remembered why he never watched this crap. Had he come all this way to waste his final hour like this?

Jason hit bottom at last, but instead of splattering like a water balloon, he landed on a pillowy pole vault mat. Bruised but unbroken, he would live to cheat another day.

“For crying out loud,” Samson said. He looked at Justine. She was happy. He looked at Victor, who winked at him.

Meanwhile, Jason and Alison No. 2 lost their balance and fell together from the railing. They also fell in slow-motion, but instead of reviewing their past, they were relishing the present. They had somehow managed to undress and couple in midair and were frantically banging away at each other. They drifted down past a mural of spectator faces with O-shaped mouths, down toward the fifty-yard line (for the sport in this thread was American rules football). Samson had no doubt but that the lovers would climax simultaneously at the moment of their impact.

A musical score that Samson had not noticed till now rose in an emotional crescendo as the grunting, straining couple hit. At least they did burst open in a satisfying way. Justine shuddered. Samson tried not to notice. Justine wiped tears from her eyes. “That was so sad,” she said. In her lap, Murphy was purring.

Victor reached across Samson to squeeze Justine’s hand. “Life is full of tragedy,” he crooned.

The Moseby’s Leap parapet, with its bereft Alison, receded back to its real spot, and the scape lights faded out.

“A glass of wine to wish our novella friends
bon chance?
” said Victor.

Samson didn’t want more alcohol. He wanted to be clearheaded. But then he thought that a high blood alcohol content might make a hotter fire, and he said, “Sure, I’ll join you, but isn’t there something a little stronger than wine?”

“Whiskey!” replied Victor. “A man with a taste for
life
!” He produced a flask from an inner pocket and unstoppered it. He wiped the spout with his sleeve and passed it to Samson. “Please excuse the lack of ice.”

WITH THE FLASK empty and the evening well advanced, Samson fell into a maudlin mood. “I’m afraid I’m eating and drinking you out of house and home,” he said.

“Nonsense,” said Justine. “We entertain so few guests these days.”

“Neverthelesh, I insist on replenishing that lovely liquid. Hubert!”

Yes, Sam
.

“Don’t yessam me. You heard me; order my hosts a case of Glenkinchie.”

I’m sorry, Sam, but that would be very expensive, and I’m not sure how I would transport it here without alerting the authorities to the Voles’ presence
.

“Are you telling me I’m broke? I can’t even afford a lousy case of booze?”

The brand you named is distilled according to traditional methods and
—

“You’re a fucking mentar, aren’t you? Figure it out, for crying out loud, and don’t bother me with the details.”

Justine and Victor pretended not to listen to the audible portion of this conversation. Samson’s face was as dark as a blood blister. “Drop the hack!” he shouted. “I don’t need it. I’ll squeeze through these straps and fall to my death. I gotta hand it to you, Hubert, you brought me to the right place. Maybe you can convince Alison to come back and jump with me. We could screw on the way down and still have enough time for my
eulogy
.”

Sam, slo-mo is a vid technique. Your actual descent would take only five seconds
.

“I know that, you brainless knickknack!”

Sam, I perceive that you are upset with me, but I don’t understand why
.

THEY SAT IN silence. Murphy came to sit on the cushion behind Samson’s head. Full darkness settled upon the stadium. Samson said, “Forgive me. I seem to have become a mean drunk in my old age.”

“I’m sure it’s due to the pain you suffer, and not to any meanness on your part,” said Justine.

“Don’t bet the farm on that,” Samson said. “In any case, it’s only fair to warn you that I will soon become an object of public scrutiny, not to mention a fire hazard. You know what happens to the seared when they expire, don’t you? You may want to find more distant seats.”

Starting from the field and lower bleachers, blue-white stadium lights ignited, tier by tier, up the stadium well.

Victor said, “It’s not in my nature to meddle, Myr Kodiak, but are you sure there’s not some path for you other than the one you’re contemplating? At the very least, wouldn’t you rather spend your last moments with your loved ones?”

The lights hit them, and they winced in the brilliance. The rest of the seats on their tier came out, assembling themselves into rings of bleachers. Placeholder spectators appeared in the seats and began to cycle through their pregame repertoire of restlessness, gaiety, and chatter. The great space hummed with fake excitement.

“Yes, frankly, I would,” Samson said, straining to speak over the noise, “but this is my fate.”

“Forgive me for arguing, but is it?” said Victor. “There is no doubt that the seared suffered a great injustice, but that time is long past. You’re too late to make a difference one way or another.”

“That may be so,” Samson said, “but at least I can
remind
the world of its crime. At least I can go out in blazing testimonial.”