Kelley Eskridge (31 page)

Jackal nodded.

“You know she's the first and longest VC
prisoner. Eleven years.”

Jackal didn't bother to agree, she just
waited for him to get to the point.

He leaned close so he could speak without
being overheard. “Come on, Jackal. You've read the web sites. You know
the story. VC made her crazy. She's wonderful, I adore her, and she's
completely unpredictable. They started capping VC at eight years when
they saw how she came out. You've been lucky. She could just as easily
hand you your own eyeball as feed you dinner.”

Jackal sipped her coffee. There was a lull
at the bar, so she pulled up a stool and sat down. “I certainly agree
that she's a little peculiar,” she said quietly. “And I can handle her.
She's been very kind to me and it's nice to talk to someone again. To
have an interesting conversation. You know what I mean. You and I can
talk like that, at least I hope that's what we're doing now,” making a
back-and-forth motion with her hand between them to show that she meant
the circularity of real communication, the active connection. “But
you're busy here and god knows the watchers don't have much quality
conversation to offer so far. And the other solos are…I don't know what
they are. I just sat upstairs with a bunch of them for forty minutes,
and if that's what passes for social activity…” She shook her head.

“I understand what you mean.”

“Solo isn't just about being in VC, is it?
It's about what comes after.”

He began to polish a glass she was sure
was already clean. He said finally, “It seems like there's direct
relationship between the amount of time people spend alone in virtual
space and their—what would you call it—maybe social stability
afterwards. The longer you go in, the more disconnected you are when
you come back out. The biggest exception to the rule so far is you.” He
raised his eyes to her face without pausing in the polishing; the cloth
squeaked along the edge of the glass. But Jackal felt warm and soft
from the wine and the evening with Estar, unassailable in the way that
alcohol sometimes fostered. His speculations didn't worry her; what
does he know? What do any of them know about me?

She replied, “You do fine.”

“Sure, but I wasn't in that long. Eight
months, a little less. I'm just a garden-variety criminal.” He smiled a
private smile, and she wondered for the umpteenth time what he'd done
and how he ended up running Solitaire. “I'll tell you about it some
time,” he added casually, but the glass squeaked again from the
pressure of his grip.

“I'd like that,” she said. “Maybe we can
trade some stories.”

He set the glass and rag aside, and then
reconsidered and took the glass back to pour himself a beer. “So where
I was going is that I think there's threshold of alone that most of us
can't pass beyond without some kind of profound change.”

That silenced them both for a long time.
“Well,” she said with a deep breath, “that's a big one. I'll have to
think about that.”

“It makes some sense out of why they've
rounded up all these people for that two-year research program of
theirs.” He squinted at her. “Are you in it?”

“No.” He gave her a funny look and she
wondered what he'd heard in her response; but she knew he was too
polite to poke at it.

He went on, “Well, rehabilitation is still
the goal of the prison experience, at least in all the political
speeches, and having people come back whacked out and antisocial from
VC doesn't play well. So they're trying to fix that part. Then they'll
go make lots of money and put lots of people through a whole new kind
of hell. Unless the researchers can spin it out longer by making it
look like something really interesting is happening here, in which case
they all get to keep their high-priced jobs a little longer. Hence the
program—fix the bugs and maybe find some new ones and everyone stays
employed for as long as possible.”

“They have to fix the aftershock too.”

“They don't give a shit about that. Who
cares about the occasional bad day for a bunch of convicts as long as
it doesn't directly contribute to recidivism? Want some more coffee?”

“Yes, please. Scully, that's a really
cynical attitude.” She said it with a certain admiration.

He fetched the coffee. “Cynical is just a
grouchy word for right,” he said when he returned.

“Maybe. But in this case, I think there's
more to it. I think it's worse.”

She waited to see if he was interested; he
made a questioning face, so she went on. “This stuff is intended for a
lot more than just prison applications. They're going commercial.”

“How could they? The technology is way too
unreliable for respectable citizens. I'm guessing they're just trying
to meet what passes for humane treatment criteria in most of these
judicial programs.”

“I don't think so. There's nothing in
those regulations that would stop them from rolling out now. None of
the anomalies have proven to be fatal or result in permanent damage.”

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But I've run
Solitaire for over two years now, and I say the damage is all around
us.”

They shared another one of those silent
moments. Then Jackal said, “Maybe one of the reasons solos don't talk
to each other much is that we're all so fucking depressing.”

“Or depressed.”

“Same damn difference. Oh, hell, I'm
sorry. I believe you. I know you're right. Look at me: I won't even
tell my lover where I am. How well-balanced is that? But I don't…I
don't want to be damaged.”

“I know you don't, sweetheart,” he said.
“None of us do.”

His hand rested on the bar between them,
and he started to move as if he might reach out and touch her, and she
wondered how she would react; no one except the testers had
deliberately touched her since she went into VC. So many years without
touch. The internal voice tried to say, no, it's only been a few months
really, but she told it to shut up: if Scully was going to reach out to
her, she did not want to be distracted. But he did not reach: instead,
he made a nasty, strangled noise and his eyes rolled up into his head
so that for one horrible moment they were solid white, like a pair of
Crichton's lenses. He turned boneless and went down behind the bar.

“Oh, shit,” she said, and in an instant
had climbed over the counter and swung herself down next to him. He lay
in a heap on the floor, looking much smaller than himself. His body,
when she touched him gingerly, was pliant and relaxed, and his eyes
were open; they moved in rapid small jerks back and forth, as if he
were looking around himself quickly. And she knew: he was in
after-shock. At this moment he was in his cell, perhaps pounding on the
wall as she had done, perhaps curled up and crying, perhaps simply
resigned.

She could move him in an emergency, she
was strong enough, but there were too many sharp edges and hot surfaces
between them and the back stairs to his apartment. She bundled some
clean bar towels into a lumpy pillow, and used another towel to mop up
the beer he'd spilled on his way down. Then she stepped over him and
began to serve the customers who were piled up three deep at the end of
the counter, alternately gawping or politely looking somewhere else.
She knew how to draw the beer properly, and she managed to find an open
bottle of house red; but when a scrawny tourist openly leered at Scully
on the floor and then demanded a tequila sunrise and a turkey sandwich,
she gave him a withering look and said, “On your bike, son,” and jerked
her head for him to leave the line. “But…but,” he sputtered, and Jackal
gave a nod to the person behind him, a big man who got the point
immediately and growled, “You heard the lady.”

“Thanks,” Jackal said economically, and
gave the big man his beer free.

When the line had cleared, she turned and
found Scully on the towels, eyes open, watching her.

“Hey.” She squatted beside him. “You okay?”

He wasn't; he was shivering and his eyes
brimmed with tears.

“Can you walk?”

He gave her a tentative nod.

“Okay, hang on just a minute.” She stood
and scanned the bar. “Ho, Razorboy! Yes, you. Come over here.”

He did, looking confused and a little
excited.

“Can you pour beer?”

“Sure, can't everybody?”

“Okay, get back here and serve. Beer and
wine only, nothing fancy, no food. Make sure the tourists pay. If they
don't, tell that guy over there.” She pointed at the big tourist with
the intimidation skills. “I'll be back as soon as I get Scully
upstairs.”

Razorboy swallowed. “Are you sure? I mean,
nobody ever runs the bar except Scully.”

“Well, right now I'm running the bar. Do
you have any concerns you'd like to express about that?”

“Nom—” He caught himself, and she kept her
smile off her face.

“Good. Then I'm putting you in charge. Any
solos give you a hard time, you tell them they can talk to me when I
get back. I won't be long. I really appreciate your help.” He
straightened up at that, and she wondered with a pang what Neill would
think about her using her management skills to put a boy in charge of a
bar full of tipsy ex-convicts. Never mind about that now; it was time
to get Scully off the floor.

He stood with help and managed the stairs
with little problem. She hesitated at the landing as he fumbled with
the print lock on the apartment door: she'd never been up here, and she
did not want to intrude on his privacy.

“It's okay, you can come in,” he said.
“I…I'd like it if you did.” Then he pushed the door open and shuffled
inside, slightly bent as if he were hurt. She followed and closed the
door behind her.

He was already easing himself down onto
the couch in the front room. He reached for a blue-and-green patterned
blanket folded over one arm of the sofa; she took it and spread it over
him and, after a moment's hesitation, tucked it around his sides and
feet. He was still shaking, but he didn't flinch from her touch.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No.” His jaw and the muscles around his
eyes were tight. “Could you sit with me for a minute?”

“Sure.” There was an armchair at the
corner of the sofa. She tucked her legs up in a tailor's seat so she
wouldn't be so obtrusive; that would make it easier if all he wanted
was the comfort of another human in the room. And at first it seemed
that was how it would go: he closed his eyes, and she waited for his
breathing to slow and deepen. She would leave when he was asleep.

She looked around the room, curious about
the kind of place he would make for himself. The sofa was good brown
leather, now worn and battered. He had an entire shelf of paper books
with colorful spines; their musty smell mixed with incense and the
faint residue of grease from downstairs. The walls were painted the
muted green color of forest light, and the illusion was strengthened by
the painting on the wall by the door: a cathedral of giant, straight
trees, painted as if the artist were standing head back, looking up at
the trunks and the distant treetops, and beyond them, the coming dusk.
It reminded her of Estar's work, except that it was so serene.

He spoke, his eyes closed, his face
completely still except for the smallest movements of his lips: a
talking stoic mask. “That was a bad one. I only notice the bad ones
anymore.” A breath. “Most of the time I just bounce into my cell for a
second, maybe two, just a flash of the walls and then I'm back. It's
only a microsecond in real time, not even long enough to pass out.”

He was silent long enough for her to work
out what he meant, and to feel a deep wrench of horror and pity.
“Scully, how often does this happen? How many aftershocks do you have?”

“Huh,” he said, in a hopeless imitation of
a laugh, “I've lost count. It's a really good day when I don't go back
four or five times. I had a really good day last week.” Silence again,
and then a sigh. “But usually I just take a deep breath and go back to
whatever I was doing. Nobody ever notices.” And as if that were the
saddest thing of all, he began to cry.

She unwound herself from the chair and
found his bathroom, brought back some toilet paper and pushed it into
his hand. “Thanks,” he said, eyes still shut, and wiped his face until
the tissue was a soggy lump that he dropped uncaringly onto the floor.

“They scare me so much.” His nose was
clogged; he breathed through his mouth and spoke in short sentences,
his voice thick. “I was in the first phase of VC testing. Like Estar,
but a much shorter sentence. Eight virtual months…that's where I found
out how claustrophobic I really am. I was scared all the time. And I
was so lonely. I just sat there every day by myself in this room that
was too small, feeling myself going crazy. They have a viewscreen now,
right?” His mouth tightened. “We just got four walls and a shelf of
food and this horrible grinding quiet. Finally I invented a friend so
at least I wouldn't be alone.” His face moved briefly into a small, sad
smile. “Forty years old and I have an invisible friend. He's called
Bert. I talked to him every day for the rest of VC. And it made a
difference. It was still horrible, but it was better.

“And then they let me out and I had some
money from…well, I started to make Solitaire. I had my first aftershock
one day while I was painting the place, that's how I got this scar.” He
put his fingers above his right ear. “Fell off the ladder and hit my
head. And then I was back in my cell and I didn't know what was
happening, no one had told me, and I was terrified. And Bert wasn't
there. I couldn't hear him anymore. He never came back. And I'm so
scared of being trapped again all by myself. One of these days I'll
have an aftershock bad enough that I really will be crazy when I come
out. It's just a matter of time.”

He sighed. “You know what I've been doing?
I've been pretending that Bert's on a long trip somewhere. I write him
letters. He doesn't write back because he's not allowed to. He's on a
secret mission, and even though he can't be in touch, getting my
letters is really important to him.” He sighed again. “You probably
think that's weird, but sometimes I just need someone to talk to.”