Near Enemy (2 page)

It’s those dreams that hoppers are interested in. Because that’s what hoppers do.

Hoppers watch.

For that reason, they’re not too popular. Trouble is, if they do it right, you never even know that they’re there. They just watch, undetected. Like Scrooge, from that old Christmas story.

Ghosts of Perverts Present.

Hopping is highly illegal, of course, but if you get caught, you don’t end up contending with cops. People hire private dream-sweepers. They’re like bouncers, but less gentle. Sweepers catch you bed-hopping, they make you regret your actions. In a memorable way.

And not out here.

In there.

That’s why smart hoppers usually hop in pairs. Have a buddy
out here to keep watch, like old Skinny here. Someone to tap you back out if you get detained. Otherwise, I’ve heard tales of hoppers who got held in the limn for weeks, leg-breakers working on them round-the-clock. Won’t let them wake up, won’t let them tap out, and if there’s no one out here keeping watch, then the sweepers can just whale away. Take their time. Weeks on end. Mark Xs on a calendar. Leave different marks on you.

The sweepers can’t kill you. After all, you can’t die in the limn. But sweepers find a way to use that to their advantage.

Then again, if the person you peeped on is especially vengeful, they might skip the sweepers altogether.

Hire someone like me.

Someone to find you out here, in the nuts-and-bolts world.

Where punishments tend to be more permanent.

Lesser’s still screaming, by the way.

I assume he ran into some limnosphere heavies. That maybe I caught him in the midst of a lesson and he only just barely broke free. Which is bad timing for him, given the fact that I’m here.

Frying pan. Fire. Etcetera.

Finally Lesser stops shouting. Slides into stuttering.

Mumbles something.

What he’s saying:

Not her not her not her not her not her not her not her
.

Not here
.

Damn.

Quick house call turning into a fifty-minute couch session. With me in the role of therapist.

And here I forgot my turtleneck and pipe.

Frankly, I could still finish my business and get home early. But I’m curious.

Not her
.

Not here
.

So I pull up a chair and send Skinny to the deli for a six-pack and a quart of milk. Press two twenties into his palm, which is one more than he’ll need. Hope the tip means he’ll come back, looking for more.

He comes back.

Brings me a six-pack, a quart of milk, and a turkey-on-a-hard-roll besides. In case I’m hungry.

I’m starting to warm up to Skinny.

Crack the carton.

Milk calms hoppers.

No, I don’t know why.

Six-pack’s for me. Skinny’s on his own.

Lesser sits up in the bed, guzzling milk.

Cascade of white splashes off his chest. Runs down his belly. Pools over his privates. Covers them up.

Small mercies.

Then I ask Lesser to spill exactly what he saw.

Finance dude. Orgy. Saturday nights. Like clockwork.

Milk bubbles on Lesser’s lips as he speeds to spit the story out.

I’ve hopped it plenty of times before. So easy to get in it’s almost like he knows you’re coming, wants you there, gets off on someone watching.

Skip to the punch line, Lesser.

Lesser wipes his lips. Looks around. Realizes he’s naked in a darkened room with his skinny friend and a quasi-stranger. And, for some reason, a sledgehammer.

Puts the empty carton down.

Can I have my robe?

Lesser, I thought you’d never ask.

Lesser’s out of the bed, in an overstuffed chair now, in his robe. Terry-cloth. Underwashed. Seen better days. Hopefully better bodies too.

Lesser’s only early twenties, but he’s flabby enough for fifty. Stringy chin-length hair. Skin the color of the great indoors. Complexion like drywall.

He continues.

So I slip in, full-on cloak-mode? I can see him, no one can see me, unless they’re looking for me, which they definitely aren’t. Not in a room that’s so full of distractions. We’re talking wall-to-wall centerfolds. Oiled-up curves in all directions. Like some vintage Playboy-mansion shit. And this dude—

Lesser leans in, like he’s telling us a secret.

—this dude has a thing for amputees. Total weirdo fetish. So half of these ladies are, like, legless. Armless. I don’t know. A few—

That’s interesting, Lesser. But I’m guessing that’s not what sent you out here screaming.

No. So. Any case. Finance dude. Buff as shit. In there, anyway. On the outside, he’s, like, seventy. But in there, dude’s a Golden God. Like he just surfed down from Olympus—

Lesser—

Okay. So orgy. The usual. Room is decked out in this kind of, I don’t know, Victorian drawing-room wallpaper. Couches everywhere, the old-fashioned kind, with velvet. Dude is
jacked
. Really overdoes it on the cock length. God, these coots and their fantasies. I’m talking
javelin
—

Lesser—

Sorry. So all proceeds as expected. Then there’s a knock at the door. And—dude seems surprised. Not scared, exactly. Not yet. Just—curious. Maybe a little annoyed. At first.

Okay.

So the door opens, and holy shit—there’s like—first the temperature drops. Like sub-zero. And these—the centerfolds? They start just—glitching out. Freezing up. Like the whole program’s seizing. So of course finance dude is super-pissed now. Because this is a mad-expensive construct—

But who’s at the door?

Lesser crosses his arms. Holds himself. Looks around.

I gotta go. We can’t stay here. We gotta go.

Stares back at me.

We gotta get out of here.

Lesser, who was there?

Black eyes.

Says it twice.

Black eyes.

Black guys?

No. Black eyes. Just her eyes. Floating there. You couldn’t see
her at all. She was cloaked. Floating. She was wearing—what do you call it—

Lesser gestures. Full-body. Head-to-toe. Searches for the word.

—you know, like a ghost.

A ghost?

Yeah. A black ghost.

I puzzle it out. Find the word.

You mean a burqa?

Lesser nods.

Yeah. A burqa. So all you could see were her eyes. These black eyes.

Lesser shivers.

This banker dude, he just starts
laughing
. Completely naked. Starts laughing, like this is some present someone sent him to spice things up. Like some prank. This woman in a burqa. She isn’t moving. Just watching him. And he, like, walks right up to her, totally naked, this javelin dude. And he looks at her and says,
What’s this? A present? For me? Well, then, let’s unwrap it
. He leans in real close. Says to her, all low-like,
I’m going to
peel
you
.

Then what happened?

Lesser’s eyes empty. Answers in a whisper.

Oh. She peeled him.

Skinny pipes up.

Oh shit.

Lesser spooked now.

She had this blade—

Barely croaking out his story.

—this curved blade. Just cut him right down the front. Just
skinned
him—but left him alive—

And then what?

I mean, everyone else there is
freaking
. Centerfolds just
glitching
.
Two or three start scrambling for the exit—I don’t know, I think maybe two or three of the women were real? I mean, attached to someone real, out here. Girlfriends, call girls, I don’t know. But they’re shrieking, yelling
Security! Security!
like that’s going to help, and this woman’s got some fucking curved, I don’t know, like, sword that she’s pulled out. From beneath her robe. Blade’s all bloody now. She just
split
him, man. Down the front. And this fucking skin—she’s holding his fucking
skin
—

Lesser stops. Gags. Throws up milk.

Splatters on the hardwood.

Wipes his mouth.

Proceeds to paint a vivid picture, despite the occasional retching.

Woman in a black burqa. With a bloody blade.

Floats among the centerfolds.

Makes new amputees.

What then, Lesser?

What
then
? What
then
is I’m scrambling and fucking signaling
this
shitstain to tap me out—

Points to Skinny.

—I’m fucking screaming every safe word I know—

And that’s when you tapped out?

No. No, not right then. But thank God he started pulling me back—

What happened?

What happened? She blew up.

Lesser relives it. Voice rasping now.

She just reached her arms around the banker and then she blew herself up—

We watch it flicker across his face like a movie screen.

—everyone everywhere. Body parts. Fucking fire. I’m on fire—

Skinny flinches.

Holy shit—

—and I’m fucking screaming, they’re all screaming, and I’m
burning
—

Story ends. Movie’s over.

Last frame of the horror film looping on Lesser’s blank face.

Lesser and Moore have both more or less lost it.

Moore crying. Lesser babbling.

Don’t you see? If she’s figured that out—

I press him.

Lesser, figured
what
out—

—if they can bust in to a construct, blow it up, and kill you like that, blow you to shit, then we’re all fucked. Don’t you see?

Who, Lesser?

That
dude
. The banker—

But Lesser, he’s not dead. Not really—

Trust me, man, I’ve seen a million deaths in the limn. This was different. Someone cracked it—

Lesser, that’s nuts—

—and if they could bust in there, and do that, and now that dude is dead for real—

But you didn’t die, Lesser. You’re fine. You got out—

Don’t you get it? It’s bad enough when they blew it all up out here. They blew this fucking city up. Don’t you remember? Out here—

Lesser, you’re out. You’re okay—

—limn’s the last place we have. But now if they’re in there? In the fucking
limn
?—

You’ll be okay.

—if they can find you in the fucking
dream
—

Lesser—

—find you in there and fucking kill you there too? Then no one’s safe. No one’s safe. Don’t you see?

Obviously, after that, I let Lesser live.

Hard to hear a story like that, then say, Great. Thanks. Just one more thing—

Plus I want to figure out exactly what Lesser saw in there. Because what Lesser’s describing, in his babbling way, shouldn’t be possible.

To be killed while you’re inside the limn.

But then, no one understands that better than a hopper like Lesser. And he certainly seems convinced.

I ask him one last time.

Who was it, Lesser? Who did you see in there?

He pauses. Says nothing. Like he’s thinking. Weighing something. Then says simply.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

What about the banker?

Just some guy I peep on. Don’t know his real-time details.

So how can we find out if he’s actually dead?

Lesser looks up at me. Still spooked. And still certain.

Trust me. He is. I know.

I leave Lesser with Skinny and another twenty dollars. Don’t know why. Maybe buy some Band-Aids.

Then I head back to Hoboken, thinking about what he said.

Not her. Not here
.

Terrorists blew this city up twice. The real one, I mean.

World Trade and Times Square. Both left a lingering impression. And the last one left a toxic aftertaste.

It’s been quiet for a while. What with everybody dreaming.

But if they’ve found a way to break into the dream—

Personally, I’m not much for the tap-in.

I did my time in the beds but it didn’t stick.

I prefer the nuts-and-bolts world.

Aches and pains. Bricks and mortar.

Treasure it, really.

But I take Lesser’s point.

This crippled city can’t live without its crutch.

Mark Ray picks me up the next day, early Sunday morning, at my apartment in Hoboken, for our weekly drive upstate. I tell him Lesser’s story, then ask him to explain what it means to me.

Turns out his explanation is very short.

It’s not possible.

You sure about that?

He laughs, then steers our rented minivan toward the mouth of the Holland Tunnel.

What’s the first rule of the limnosphere, Spademan?

Mark says this like he’s talking to a child.

You tell me, Mark.

You can’t be killed through the limn. That’s the first and only rule. Not even a rule, really. More like a law. Like gravity.

I thought anything was possible in the limn. I thought that was the whole sales pitch.

Anything but that.

Why not?

Mark gets serious. After all, he’s a bed-rest junkie. So he can only joke about the limn for so long.

Says solemnly.

Because if you could find a way to kill someone through the limn, Spademan—to find someone in there and kill them so that they died out here? That would be the end of it. The limn would no longer be viable. If it was that dangerous? Game over. They’d have to flip the switch and shut the whole thing down.