Chapter 3
"Someone's been sleeping in Grandpa's bed, and he's still here!"
I jerked awake and rolled over, blinking up at the silhouette of someone leaning over me. My enhanced new eyes quickly filtered out the glare and I could see features. My grandson Jack was standing there, still dressed in his cap and goggles, smiling down at me. He pushed the goggles up on his forehead and the flight cap fell down on its strap around the back of his neck. Blond, bushy locks sprouted over the top of the goggles like a pom-pom. Sixteen and handsome like his mother. Some kind of good dream. I rubbed my eyes and then I could hear someone moving around downstairs, probably the kid's mom putting groceries away. Good old Jillian. She'd brought Jack along and stopped in to check on me.
I sat upright in bed and faced him, feeling a grin spread across my cheeks. Something like a spark went through him when I looked into his eyes. He staggered back like he'd been stunned.
"What's the matter, son?" I said, kicking my legs out from the covers and standing up. A full night's rest had done me well. Energy surged through my young body. I felt flexible and lithe, no pains or aches anywhere. "Come here and let me take a look at you. My, it's good to see you, Boy."
Jack went over to the door and stood there with his hand on the knob. "Grandpa?" he said. Uncertainty dripped from his voice. He looked like he was about to flee for his life. "This is fuzzered," he finally said. "You looked just like Benj laying there, and you're calling me 'son' and 'Boy.' This is too fuzzered."
"Yeah, it's me. March back over here, Kiddo, and give me a hug before I have to whip you."
He recovered enough to give me a sly grin. "Ha! You couldn't whip your way out of a roll of recycled toilet paper."
I chased him out the door and down the stairs to the kitchen where he hid, giggling, behind his mother. Jillian turned around just as I skidded in and crashed into the fridge. She stopped and covered her mouth.
"Dad?"
"Why's everyone look so shocked? Yeah, it's me."
They were both staring at me with the strangest looks on their faces. It made my skin crawl and I suddenly wanted to run to the bathroom mirror to be sure my face hadn't sprouted a fake mustache while I was sleeping. Even Jack who had done a halfway decent job of covering his initial shock upstairs was back to gaping again.
I was starting to feel exasperated and I put my hands on my face to feel if my nose and everything were still in the right places. "We just talked on the cube two virtual weeks ago," I said, assuring myself that everything was in order. "I told you they made a mistake on my—"
"Dad, I know. I know." Jillian walked over and touched my shoulder. "It's just, you look so cute—" she beamed down at me, "like your old pictures.
"I told him he looks like Benj," Jack said, pulling up a barstool by the island. "I thought he really was Benj at first, somehow asleep in Grandpa's bed!" So Jillian had forgotten to warn everybody about my appearance. I should explain that Benj—or Benjamin—is Jack's cousin, the only son of my only son. He's about twelve.
Jillian moved toward me, her hands stretched wide, inviting. "Come here and let me hug you, you darling little boy."
It was my turn to stagger back. "Take it easy, girl," I said. "I used to change your diapers, you know."
I tried to get away, but I still wasn't completely at home in my new body. Jillian tackled me in the living room and gave me a great wet smooch on the cheek. Then she giggled all over about how my cheeks were like a baby's 'shiney hiney.' Smooth. She proceeded to plant a few kisses on the other cheek, testing her theory. It was the most undignifying experience of my life, or at least of this new chapter. When she was finally through pestering me I got up and dusted my self off, hoping I looked sufficiently miffed. Jack came over and punched my arm.
"Sorry, Gramps," he said, pulling me into a sideways embrace under his arm. "It's just gonna take some getting used to, the fact I gotta look after you now instead of the other way around." He let me go but couldn't resist tousling my hair with the palm of his hand.
I grimaced, rubbing my shoulder, and waited while Jillian scolded him for being disrespectful to his elders. I noticed she didn't scold herself for knocking me down and humiliating me in front of my grandson. She sent him outside to wait in their hover pod.
I looked up at her and forgave everything. It was good to be back. "Talk about role reversals," I said. "Did you ever think you'd have to care for your aging parent this way."
She shook her head. "Life just gets weirder, doesn't it, Dad?"
That was putting it mildly.
Jack and Jillian flew off after promising to bring the entire tribe for a homecoming celebration they were planning in my honor for the weekend. When they had gone I decided to check in on some of the friends I had made in virtual land. I had already had a few days to practice with my new built in net receptors during therapy, so I concentrated on a spot on the wall. After a second, part of the wall seemed to peel away, leaving a gaping portal into the cyberverse. It looked like a fiery ring, burning on the wall in my living room. I stepped through that ring into a completely black void without walls, ceiling or floors, and summoned up a cube. It appeared as a glowing event slowly rotating in space a few feet from me. I floated up to it and touched it to make contact and then entered my search queries telepathically. In a few minutes I had located Bernie.
"What mere mortal has dared stir my slumber?" he said when he came on, rubbing his eyes and the whole bit.
"I don't want to bore you so I'll talk fast as I can," I said. "I need your help with a project I'm working on."
Bernie yawned, his eyes still half closed. "Dude," he said, finally seeing me. Then he waved and shook his head. "Relax, old man. I'm in no hurry."
I stared at him and checked his status. "Then, you've—"
"That's right, I've been retrofitted with a new body, too," he said, nodding. "I wondered when you'd call. I think we might have recarnated just a few minutes apart. Same rebirthdays now and everything."
He finally looked closer at me. "Hey, what happened to you? You look like a punk."
"Aw, I never got the chance to tell you. Somebody screwed up."
"Royally," Bernie said, nodding. "Are you suing? Please tell me you have your lawyer all over this."
I shook my head. "I don't think it would do any good. I was in too much of a hurry to be in a body. I signed their waiver."
"They can't do this to us, Kev, you have to fight back."
"That's why I'm bothering you," I said. And I told him about my idea to free Ponyboy.
When I finished he was looking at me in the same peculiar way my daughter and grandson had. "You sure the kid body isn't fuzzing you out?"
"I don't think so. The idea came, then the body." I frowned at him, realizing what he was suggesting. I didn't like having to defend myself, but I added, "Hey, even if this was a case of reversion to preadolescence, you would still help, right?"
Bernie rocked back in his chair and laced fingers behind his head. He looked about twenty-five now, but he still acted like a Geezer. I had to smile as I watched him thinking it all through, just like I might have if someone had come and told me their harebrained scheme. I could tell he was planning, calculating. He was not only a good friend but a hacker of supernatural proportions. In fact, it was Bernie who first broke through the clinic's virtual security barriers and taught me how to slip out of my ankle bracelet and go out into the cyberverse without getting caught or tracked. If anyone could help me with this it would be Bernie.
"Yeah," he finally said, breathing the word through a smile. His eyes were focused on something only he could see. "This could be good, if we do it right."
The next day we hit the novel hard, trying to learn all of its possible weak points. Bernie tunneled a link through our connection to my c-reader and met up with me on the hard copy. He explained as we walked together through the first few chapters what we were looking for.
"When I feel for cracks," he said, "I ask what's going on in a designer's mind when he builds something. In this case, the designer is an artificial intelligence. Some people think AI's are inscrutable, but I propose we can learn useful things from them. So far, what do we know about B.O.B.?"
"Obviously, he likes detail," I said. "The forums I visited said every person you meet in his constructs is a complete person with real DNA sequences and blood types and personality scripting. Construct characters are just like the people you meet in real life, self conflicts and all."
"So even down to your chromatids, old B.O.B.'s got you brassiered." Bernie stopped and glanced down. "Just look at this sidewalk."
I followed the drop of his chin down to the uneven surface we'd been walking on. It was broken and heaved in places—the kind of sidewalk that used to trip little kids just to feed its hunger for knee-skin. Such a thing would be illegal in any city on the planet nowadays in real life, but B.O.B. could get away with it here in historical fiction.
"No repeating patterns," Bernie said, explaining why the sidewalk interested him. He stamped down on the concrete and I could hear the thud of his boot. "Feels real," he said, "down to the last speck of sand. There are even ants carrying food into their burrows there." He whistled and I could tell he was impressed. I looked at the ants and wondered if they were DNA coded as well. Probably. Each one was a perfect little machine.
Bernie said, "This type of coding is cutting-edge as it gets, not like the olden days when it took a programming team years to create a video game. Universalcom. That's the language the universe speaks to itself. Everything's integrated, tight as your pinky, and every atom talks to everything else constantaneously. There's no command central here. It's an exact mod on reality, like a split-off universe from our own."
We went on. It was getting dark and we'd left Ponyboy and Johnny out at the old church. I thought about the sun as it was setting and wished I could have been there with them. Oh well, there'd be another time. Maybe I'd slip back in on my own and flip to that scene.
We came to the vacant lot and stopped. I looked at Bernie. "Got any ideas yet?" I still didn't understand why we couldn't just talk to Ponyboy and win him over, but I was trying to be patient and trust Bernie's wisdom.
He shook his head. "This is more complex than I expected. With B.O.B being the anal-retentive type that he is, intuition says we won't find a backdoor this way. It's going to have to be something personal. Maybe a flaw in one of the construct characters themselves or something in the plot of the novel."
Bernie pulled out a c'jette and let it hang on his lip for a second before pressing the ignition. He was watching the sunset too. A tiny ember appeared on the end of the jette and he exhaled a plume of acrid smoke that smelled faintly of burnt lilac and hickory. "I think we've done enough damage for one day," he said. "Tomorrow we introduce ourselves to the kids and start getting to know them. Let's rendezvous here then. Same place."
I nodded. "Bookmark?"
He grunted and tipped his hat. "Bookmark. See ya around, kid."
"Tomorrow," I said. But he had already vanished.
I saved the bookmark, and then because I didn't feel like quitting just yet, walked back the way we'd come, towards the city lights. The October evening was growing colder so I snapped the collar of my bomber jacket up to keep the chill off my neck. I was really here this time, could pick up rocks and defend myself if needed.
I'd also brought a few items of my own along. The switchblade in my pocket felt smooth and "tuff." But it was the bulge under my jacket made from the Star trek phaser pistol that really gave me courage. I'd picked it up earlier in one of those online constructs where you could buy and trade virtual gear. The third item wasn't a weapon. Just an old fashioned 35mm film camera. I thought it would be cool to post some authentic black and whites on fan fiction later. Yeah, all these years later and I was still thinking about fan fiction.
I headed downtown and wandered around until I figured out where the ribbon was. It was fairly easy identifying Hinton's cruising strip. I just had to look for the parade of cars filled with screaming teenagers. I watched them go by for a while until I couldn't stand it any longer. This wasn't what I had in mind. I needed company, and felt like rubbing shoulders, meeting and getting to know these people. Instead, here I was, a lone puppy on the curb looking bleak and sad.
Finally I found a group of socies sitting on the hoods of their cars at a drive in burger joint. Ahh, accessibility. I walked up to one and asked him if I could bum a smoke, and even as I did a stabbing thought poked my conscience and I saw poor Johnny all beaten and bruised. I tried to shake off the image, but then the soc turned and looked down his nose at me. It was a dirty look and it made me feel dirty. He told me to beat it and then went back to talking to his buddies as if I didn't exist.
That made me kind of mad. For one, I don't like to be treated like that, but at the moment thinking about poor Johnny got me also remembering that he and Ponyboy were shivering and scared right now in a dark church because of the cruelty of Socs. Before I had time to consider what I was doing I found myself pulling out the phaser and pointing it at the teenager.
"Shoo, kid," he said, smirking at me, "you got a death wish? Go play cowboys and Indians with my little brother." He nudged the guy sitting next to him and added, "before I take that toy pistol there and break it between the sidewalk and your head." He cracked his knuckles and looked menacing. The guy next to him grinned at me wolfishly and took a swig of his coke.
Self righteous anger washed over me like I hadn't felt in years. Who was this guy to talk to me like this? I closed the contacts on the phaser and dematerialized him right there from the hood of his car. He face froze into a look of alarm, then he turned all glittery and disappeared.
"Chalk one up for Ponyboy," I said, suddenly in shock at what I'd just done. But something inside demanded I keep playing the whole thing cool. I pretended to blow smoke off the barrel.
The other guy dropped his coke bottle and said a curse word. Then he and all the rest of them jumped off and scattered, trying to get away. The rush of their movements startled me. I swung the phaser in an arc and got all of them too. "And that's for Johnny Cade," I said. A weird pulse had begun thumping loudly in my ears.
Jungle drum, drum, drum. Jungle. Jungle drum, drum, drum.
Though I'm ashamed to say it, I went around for a few minutes just blasting cars and everything in sight. At first I was still in a daze but as I began calming down, I found it was kind of neat seeing things sparkle like pixie dust. Everytime I would zap an object, like a car or brick wall, the air around it would pop and crackle where it slapped back together to fill the vacancy. I played with the settings on the phaser a bit until I figured out how to set it to stun, then began zapping people. I don't know why I did any of it. I guess I felt like blowing off steam. Pretty soon there were a whole lot of people lying around on the ground, out cold.
When the cops arrived and got out of their squad car I stunned them too, and then borrowed their black-and-white to drive all the way back to the vacant lot. But my short legs had a hard time hitting the brake. Too many years had gone by since I'd driven a real car anyway, and I couldn't stop in time. I ended up crashing into a tree.
That knocked the virtual wind out of my sails. I crawled out, clutching my diaphragm where the steering wheel had punched me, and looked at the gash in the trunk of the tree. Some of the bark was torn. Instantly a long forgotten phrase drifted back over me: "…one of the oldest trees in Pottersville!" and I got a mental image of Jimmy Stewart staggering toward an icy bridge. Someone was bound to be angry about that tree. There was an eerie blue-green tint in the sky that I hadn't noticed before and I felt kind of high and yet low at the same time. I started walking down the street, trying to act casual, but I could feel my face twitching as I went. There were sirens in the distance and dogs barking but I must have left enough confusion in my wake downtown because no more police came around to bother me.
I was stumbling along on the trippy sidewalk when I first heard the shouting. I looked up and realized I was near Johnny's house. There were lights on inside and they didn't have the curtains drawn so I could see a woman waving a butcher knife around. The front door burst open and a bald man in a soiled white tank top came running out toward me. He was looking right at me as he came. It set my gut into fight or flight mode, seeing him racing toward me and staring at me like that.
He leapt off the porch and took a few more running steps but then stopped when he reached me and swung back around to face the house. I guess he figured he was safe. Johnny's mom stood on the porch, swaying in the lamp light and holding that knife out in front of her like it was some kind of evil scepter.
"You're crazy, Woman!" said the man next to me whom I assumed was Johnny's father.
The woman's voice came witch-like, kind of maniacal and shrill. "I ever catch you with that tramp again, I'll show you 'crazy woman', you hear me?"
The way she was screaming, I figured the whole neighborhood heard. Boy was she ever mad. Mr. Cade put his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Now, Marlene, what you thought you saw and what really happened are two different things." He suddenly put his arm around me. "Look, right here. It's Bernie's boy. He can vouch for me, cuz he was there too."
Before I could scream or run or wet myself, he looked at me and whispered, "Don't tell her where we really were, just agree with whatever I say."
I jerked out of from under his arm and started running down the street. When I looked back, Marlene was chasing me with the knife. "I know who you are," she screamed. "You don't take my baby. Don't take my baby boy. We all know who you are." That scared me more than anything.
Thankfully she fell behind and stopped following, but I kept running until I could no longer see her back there. I finally collapsed into the shadows with my back against the side of a house. When I caught my breath I decided to walk off the weirdness. Something must be haywire with the c-reader, I thought. A character can't know anything like that. Maybe I'd heard her wrong.
I walked on, trembling a little bit, but not from the cold. It could be culture shock, I told myself. That was it. I was simply fuzzered about the way construct people believed they were real. They didn't have the foggiest clue they were fictitious characters living in a computer program. But that didn't explain Johnny's dad knowing Bernie. What had he said? That I was Bernie's 'boy'? What in hippie hairs was going on!
I was suddenly aware of a cold presence. I had been walking along without noticing it at first, all the while something invisible had been descending down upon me. Now there was definitely something hovering right at the back of my neck. I could feel it breathing cold puffs of chill down my collar. An overwhelming sense of terror that I've rarely experienced sliced through me. I could barely breathe, I was so afraid something would sink its teeth into me and carry me off.
Somehow I managed to keep my feet shuffling along, not breaking into a run like they wanted to do. There was evil here. It was clear. The whole place was off and I wasn't supposed to be here. Did the construct know what I was up to? For all of that, what was I doing here? But I couldn't put a finger on it. And in the morning when I woke up in my own warm bed again and heard birds chirping, I somehow managed to brush it all out of my mind.
