Soda Pop Soldier (23 page)

“Anything you want, you got it, anything at all, baby.”

After the corned beef, the scotch, the winter, nights of war and stress, the Black and . . . Sancerré . . . I'm not there anymore. I'm here. I'm fading into those fingers, that skin, her hair, and everything seems to wash down the drains of life and I'm left with nothing worth calling my own.

Everything fades.

From Sancerré's gentle laugh to the sound of the wind against our taped-up windows in the night. It's all gone now. We'll never lie in each other arms and listen to the moaning of the wind in the night.

For a moment I hear JollyBoy's laugh, far off within the ruckus of period courtesans and present revelers. His laugh seems too real and it almost jerks me out of my moment. Almost. For a moment I open my eyes. I see the spinning microcosm of the public room of the Chasseur's Inn. I look for what I know will be a laughing JollyBoy, his head jerking spasmodically to something only he finds funny. It's too real. But my eyes find nothing except the dark pools of Tatiana's and they drive me back under, making me question if I'd actually ever opened my eyes. If I'd actually ever been awake. Or if all of life was just this dream.

I'm gone.

“Anything you want, you got it.”

Baby.

Maybe it's not sex. What's sex? Maybe it's all a metaphor for another thing. But this elevator screaming high above the atmosphere is too plush, too warm, too quiet for the outside cold that's frosting the glass.

Space.

Actual space.

In that dream, we leave Upper New York. Above is the SkyVault in orbit, tethered by the diamond strand of a space elevator cable, falling straight down upon us.

My muscles don't work. From my legs to my jaws, all refuse the commands my mind issues as Tatiana stands above me, the stars behind her, though they don't get any closer or grow larger, they just twinkle and wink. Above us, I can see the ships docking into something bright and shiny I've only heard about, read about, watched live feeds of. But there it is.

The SkyVault.

For a moment, a scramjet falls away, like it's dying. Dead. Then outside our windows, it's twisting and turning as it angles toward Tokyo, Sydney, the Bankgok Biomass. Engines ignite, and it's burning slow and bright at first like a torch. It's hard going to get up to cruise velocity. But for a brief moment, I take my eyes off the rocket's flame and glance at the gossamer lace that restrains Tatiana's body. It's growing even more unfettered as gravity begins to lighten its covetous embrace. We decelerate as we approach the dock at SkyVault. And when I look back at the scramjet, it's already burning hard and furious, diving through the atmosphere for its destination. A quick run to drop off the smart products made on Mars and then pick up more SoftLife gear for the burgeoning colonies, enticements for all to come up.

And again I fade.

And when I wake, here I am.

Light and airy. Twelve miles high, riding shotgun above New York City. It's just me, a white leather couch, Tatiana murmuring in my ear, and the opulence of the spinning suite in space, and . . . Bony Man.

I raise my hand as if to shield myself from something unclean. No, as a greeting. Again, my muscles barely work.

“There you are, my boy.” His eyes shine brightly, almost luminously, within his clean-shaven bony head. He hobbles forward, assisted by a cane, with a limp I hadn't noticed before. He removes a toothpick from between large clenched teeth as he approaches. Hovering, he jabs me not too delicately in the arm with it.

From far away I feel a soft stab, and my mind, reacting more to the visual than the source, emits a long slow yelp that seems to escape my mouth even though I tried so desperately to keep it between clenched teeth.

“A little too much, I suspect.” He leans close, inspecting me. I'm experiencing, if that's the right word, the not-too-clean aspects of his breath. “A little too much, Tatiana, but good work nonetheless. Maybe you should pop off, my little vixen. Too much and you'll kill us all.”

I have no idea what they're talking about, but at the mention of death, I too am aware of how impossibly slow my heart rate is and how syrupy my mind has become.

Suddenly I know I should be afraid, even though I'm not. I should be, but I can't be.

For a year I watch Tatiana rise, every curve and fall, flanks dropping then rising as she leaves the room on long legs and high heels. There are some women who you watch walk out of your life and you feel nothing. And then there are some who make you feel like you've been branded with a hot iron. Tatiana was the latter, and I felt gratefully sick for the scar she'd left. Even though it hurt, still I was grateful.

Bony Man takes a seat not too far away, and for a while we watch the earth spin from view outside a clear wide window of dark and starlight. A few minutes later it reappears. After three turns, he says something. My mind is less slack than my jaw. I'm clear now. Or at least, clearer.

“Thus we arrive at the present state of affairs,” says Bony Man. For a moment, I swear I'm almost thinking the same thing. He nods toward the earth.

“So much wonderful loot down there.” He sighs happily. “My goal is to get all of it, PerfectQuestion. How about you? Do you love, I mean really love money?”

I love Sancerré, I think, but that's not right. I don't anymore. Whoever could, after having been touched by Tatiana? Still, I loved Sancerré. Once.

I wasn't sure what was “what,” and “when” seemed more than confusing.

Why do I feel like that's a lie? Why am I thinking about RiotGuurl and her “right now's not a good time” text?

And . . .

. . . why does that make me feel like an idiot for even trying?

“Money, money, money,” says Faustus Mercator, the bony man, with a big smacking lip pause. “Money.” He turns his leer to full, eyes hysterically wide, and gazes into my blankness.

Note to self . . . if I ever doubt for a second what Faustus Mercator is really up to, I want myself to remember this little nugget from the personal thoughts of Faustus Mercator.

“I love money.”

He smiles, and it's a really unpleasant vision of teeth and canines and want. Like a wolf in the night.

“Love it, I do. Plain and simple,” he says. “And that, my dear PerfectQuestion, is what this is really all about. It's what your game is all about. All games are about money. Money. Call me bald.” He laughs at his own pun as he rubs his hairless scalp. I murmur something. “Or bold, but that's what I really want. I just want all the money in the world; is that so wrong? So here's my little plan. Ready? Okay. Among other things, I am manipulating the market of game warfare advertising, in an attempt to control a large bulk of the available advertising revenue. By doing so, I can influence the masses to buy the products I want them to buy. To take the journeys I want them to take. And you, PerfectQuestion, are a very small part of my plan, whether you like it or not.”

He leans closer.

“You're a good soldier, online of course. And my team needs good soldiers, all the time. Right now, you're doing the good soldier bit for hard-luck little old ColaCorp. They should be out of business within the next two weeks, by the by, WarWorld-wise. But don't worry, fear not, there's a plan, a solution to your mounting problems dear, dear PerfectQuestion. And here it is, that moment your mother and father warned you about. Paths diverging in the forest and all that. Y'know, the choice between right and wrong. Did you ever get that speech, from your parents or college professors or anyone, did you, PerfectQuestion?”

I nod helplessly, not remembering if I ever actually did.

“You know the one: Do the right thing, son. Never lie cheat or steal, son. Don't turn your back on a friend, betray a commitment, steal, murder, desire. Try to get ahead. Ambition. All that jazz. Well, PerfectQuestion, I'm here to tell you . . . they were all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Doing all that stuff is great. The rewards are limitless once you embrace unrestricted greed. Forget morality. I say pshaw. It's all really just made up to prevent you from getting ahead. And, bonus round, having fun doing it.

“Look at your former filly, the estimable Sancerré. Why, she's really moving up in the world. Last I heard, she's in Europe hanging off the arm of that what's his name. Word is, she's even going to get some big breaks in her career. The sky's the limit, and all she had to do was turn her back on being loyal to a flawed concept. Fidelity. I'm sorry if that hurts dear, dear boy, but it's the truth. You were both going through the motions. Yes, one morning she woke up, in someone else's bed I might add, and sorry but it's true, she just woke up and made the decision to get hers. She was tired of waiting. And now, my PerfectQuestion, I'm offering you that most premium of chances. The one people really do try to summon the devil for. And I'm not even asking for your soul. All I want is for you to come and work for old Faustus Mercator. All that money that I want, some of it could be yours. And some of all, well, I'm guessing that's a lot. So what do you say? Why don't you come and get yours?”

Really?
I think to myself. Really. There's never an easy way, is there? All I'm trying to do is be the best at what I do, professional gaming, and make the rent each month. After that, maybe find a little place to call my own in life. Someone you can love is a bonus. But here I am high above the earth, rent unpaid, desperately due. Sancerré gone and to top it all off, there's a world-dominating, apparently mad villain offering me the chance to be a flunkie in his grand scheme to take over the world. The only thing missing from this is the smoking nuclear missile in the background and, oh yeah, the large digital countdown clock.

I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.

I try to stand.

My mom and dad taught me a lot of things, and maybe they missed a few of the finer points, like how to be really successful or how to have enough in a world economy that's making a clear Grand Canyon–sized delineation between the haves and the have-nots. But they did teach me the difference between right and wrong. Walking out on your team, on a friend . . . I never saw my dad do that. Even though he never made it this high, except for one day, and he was kind enough to share that day with his family, he was still a good man. Like I said, I tried to take a stand. I tried to stand up.

But the couch is too damned comfortable.

“Ah, Tatiana,” croons Faustus. “Without her in the room, those Soft pheromones just seem to vanish in a haze. But they do linger, don't they. Why, I could just toss you out of an airlock right now and there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it. Isn't that a scream?”

He leans down next to me. Looks into my eyes.

“But I can't, because security's so darn tight up here what with all the passcodes for airlocks and security feeds. So no, I can't kill you right here and now in the SkyVault. But down on the streets of forgotten old New York, why anything, and I mean anything, can happen. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I do that. So what's it gonna be, PerfectQuestion?” he asks me. “Will you . . . help me . . . steal . . . all the money in the world?”

I'm not sure what I did. But this is what he said next.

“I see by the shake of your drug-addled head that you're really not thinking very clearly right now. Or are you shaking your head for yes? As in, yes, you will help me ruin the world economy and make more than a few bucks for yourself in the process.”

Faustus Mercator stares at me intently.

“No means no. Okay, so it's a no then. Right, no . . . Okay, shake your head if you're shaking it for ‘no.' That means you don't want to work for me and assist in my plan to take all the world's money.”

I was shaking my head then. I am almost sure of it.

“Fine then.” Faustus snaps his fingers, and from somewhere, a softly glowing Tatiana enters. Hip, leg, heel, hip, leg, heel.

“All right, I'm really very disappointed,” says Mercator, rising. “Now I'm going to have to kill you.”

Chapter 18

I
've been here before.

The morning sun on my apartment floor reminds me of better days. Sunnier days. But the white light is too wintry to be anything other than the cold morning New York seems to be caught in the permanent grip of.

The first thought I have as I fade from the dream of the night before is that if it ever stops being winter, things might get better.

What is “better”?

Sancerré.

ColaCorp winning, at least once.

Getting up there, where I was last night.

Knowing which way is actually up.

I'm not dead, yet. I'm still wearing my cheap gray suit from last night. How I got back, if I ever really was up there, is something I'm not altogether clear on.

It's morning and I'm alive. In my apartment. It's all too weird, and frankly, it must have been the scotch and the stress and maybe even the corned beef. Faustus Mercator probably isn't even real. Come on, he really wants to steal all the world's money, and because I, a lowly gamer, won't help him, he's going to kill me? Please.

Down here, underneath Upper New York, where I live and will probably live for the rest of my life, the streets are generally very quiet. But for some reason, there's a lot going on outside this morning. Getting up, even though there really isn't much of a reason to until this evening when ColaCorp fights the last of its last stands, isn't really necessary. But, like I said, New York streets are quiet, so it's rare if anything ever goes on at this time of the morning. I stand up and amazingly, I'm not really all that hungover. In fact, I feel normal. Maybe slightly dull headed.

Out on the street, after pulling back the curtain, I see a dozen men dressed in matte-black SmartArmor, carrying a large amount of matte-black, boxy, no-nonsense, state-of-the-art automatic weaponry. One of them glances up at me. I can see his pulsing purple SoftEye.