02. The Shadow Dancers (29 page)

It was on, right full, all them cubelike shapes dancin' and changin' and ready for use. No way to make any kinda run, so I just held the pistol at my side and walked through the backdoor onto the porch. They turned and their guns come up.

"Hey, boys!" I called to them. "What de hell goin' on, anyways?"

One of 'em cussed but they both relaxed, and then 1 shot 'em both down with my eyes at more than thirty feet and jumped down onto the lawn. Somebody come at me right then, and I swung the briefcase and caught him on the head, then kicked him hard with my foot. He fell back and doubled over.

There was another one near the Labyrinth I didn't see, and he made right for me. He musta been six three and three hundred pounds and yet so fast I didn't even have time to use the gun. I dropped the briefcase and then kicked him, grabbed him, and brought both my arms, with gun, down on his head so fast I ain't never gonna know what I did or how. I was now only a few feet from the fence, but I couldn't go yet. I had to drop that case and wasn't no way I was goin' without it even if they shot me dead.

I made for it, got it, then looked up and saw a man on the back porch, framed by the house lights, gun held steady by both hands. There was no way I could figure on scoopin' up the case and gettin' off more'n a wild shot while he had me cold, but I went for it anyways, hardly lookin' as I shot him. I turned and looked back to see him fall forward off the porch onto the ground. At that moment I wasn't one to question luck; I jumped that little fence and ran into the Labyrinth just as it seemed to be slowin' down and growin' smaller.

I hit the cube runnin', then rolled and stopped, then crouched and waited to see if anybody was followin' me. Instead, I watched the cube face from which I'd entered slowly fade out to black. Only then did I get back my wits and try to think 'bout what to do next.

First I looked at the pistol. No wonder it made that funny noise! It was made outta somethin' like yellow or gold plastic and you could see a lot of funny works in there. It sure as hell shot somethin' hard and real, though; those was holes in Arnie, not no ray gun burns or shit like that. That also meant it could run outta bullets anytime. Hell, it might be empty now, but I didn't dare test it. That test might be my last bullet, too.

I looked next at the briefcase that was life to me. Hell, maybe it was only six months, maybe a year, but it was more'n
they
tried to give me or woulda if I'd stayed with no Arnie around. I opened the case and felt panic. It wasn't empty, but it nearly was. Only one of them shrink-wrapped packets of juice cubes was in there. Only one. Panicky as hell, I counted them. Four layers of eight each. A month's supply. Probably
my
supply. I still had three in my bag, that meant thirty-five. I had thirty-five days to live.

That meant I had to do somethin', make some hard decisions, but not right away. More worrisome right off was that somebody back there had helped me escape. The other guys I shot, they all fell backwards like they should, but the guy on the porch, the one who had me cold, had fallen
forward.
Maybe that killer was still back there, waitin' for the time to light out for South America or whatever. It was a woman, that was for sure, and I didn't think she planned to kill Arnie. I really didn't. She coulda done that nice and quiet. Most likely it was that strange woman at Siegel's house. That was almost surely Addison, only she didn't look nothin' like the sketches that Crockett bitch showed me.

Maybe Arnie'd gotten greedy, or ambitious. He knowed what was up, that's for sure, but he wouldn't be more than a small part of it. What had they promised him? That he'd replace Big Georgie as crime boss when they took over? It probably sounded good at the time, but he now knew that was just chicken feed. So maybe, after years of setup, Arnie decides when they begin to roll that he'll throw some kinda monkey wrench in the machinery and hold out for more. The only, way to know for sure what it was about was to ask Addison, and I was a long way from bein' able to do that yet.

Now I had only a few choices. First switcher I met, I'd hav'ta give a destination. I was one of them lucky few cleared through to headquarters and it was the logical place to go, but I didn't want to go there unless I had to. They'd take all my information, all right, but then I'd wind up in the Center. Maybe if I started into withdrawal and there was no other way I'd do that, but so long as I had juice I sure as hell wouldn't. Requestin' some destination by description, like Brandy two's home world, was risky. Them switchers used translators and so many worlds was alike enough to them that they usually got it wrong anyways. Besides, what would that buy me 'cept a month of freelance whorin'? Crazy fact was, the best chance I had was tryin' to push the case. Get 'em where
I
could call the tune. I didn't give a damn if they took over everything or not no more, but I wanted a personal, guaranteed, lifetime supply of juice they couldn't cut off. It was a lot cheaper price than Arnie probably asked for, and if I was smart about it they wouldn't dare knock me off.

Yeah, I know, it was crazy to think that they would even bother dealin' with me with all the power they had, but that's the thing 'bout bein' hooked. Still, other than that, it made me very cool and logical. I just had killed my first three people and it didn't bother me one bit. I had no inhibitions at all. Now I knew. My twin would kill without a thought if it was that or juice. That was my only lead, then, too. If I was wrong, if I hadn't doped it out right, I was stuck, but if I was right, I had a place to start.

The briefcase didn't seem worth keepin', now. I put the packet in my shoulder bag, and the gun, too.

I knew what they done to me, and I kinda guessed why. Brandy Two and I was even more alike than I figured. Oh, she was a whore, all right, but that didn't mean nothin' when it came to other interests. She'd still come from a readin' family and she read real good. She maybe talked better than I did, too; she might have been a higher class hooker by the time they got her than she was supposed to be. That's why they run her up to Vogel's place first-to get her brains scrambled a little, the same kinda thing as they did to me. Made her a dumb-ass ignorant slut, then sent her down to Siegel till they could get hold of me. Workin' the shadow dancer route, bein' conditioned with slow withdrawal and then suggested to death on the comedown, she
was probably all set up as the girl I saw. It's all they needed from her.

Then I showed up, and I didn't look the same no more, and for a while I gave 'em the slip before walkin' right into their hands as I had to sooner or later. This was a patient bunch. They had somethin' else they was gonna use this other Brandy for, somethin' I didn't have worked out yet, but then there I was. Somehow, durin' that time, they had an extra problem, too. If Sam was dead or still in a coma, then I was all wet, but I bet my last shot of juice that he recovered. Watchin' me, they had a healthy respect for him, and he wasn't no easy snatch and switch. More, he'd be a real dangerous enemy 'cause he'd know where I was and sooner or later he'd come and find out, and maybe not alone. So they changed their plans.

And that's the point I was really guessin' on. Suppose Vogel's experimenters found that they could make a juicer do absolutely anything, and I mean
anything-
even kill. But there was a point, someplace, where even the juice couldn't force it. Maybe a percentage of folks just couldn't be made to kill their wives, husbands, or babies. Maybe it was only a few, but it was there no matter what they did, and they needed a Brandy so convincin' that Sam wouldn't have no doubts at all-and they wouldn't, neither. So they had Brandy Two watch me, watch my moves, my mannerisms, my quirks and habits, talk a lot about myself. Maybe she didn't even know then that she was takin' it all in, but she was. We was inseparable.

So, when they was ready, maybe when Sam was just due to come home, they took us to Siegel's estate and stuck us in such a low, degradin' situation we didn't even have no track of days or times, just shot to shot. Then, when we was on our juice high, they bring in this Dr. Carlos and he hooks up the hypnoscan to us and he puts that dumb, ignorant slut version in
me,
probably a real edited version of the real thing, and two triggers.
The cards!
The crazy things on them cards they had us read! More than enough.

All they had to do was start when we was juicin' high, keep us out for a full twenty-four hours, then give us the next day's jolt and let us come out natural. We never woulda knowed we lost a day, not
there,
and Carlos would have a full day to do real fancy work on both our brains.

So when Brandy Two read her card,
bingo!
All her old skills and speech and shit come back, just flowin' in till it dominated the other, and that along with all she'd learned and observed by bein' closer to me than anybody else could for all that time and a friendly hypno-shove convinced her she was me. At the same time, when
I
/ read
my
card, the Brandy Two lower personality flowed in and my old stuff was shoved to the back. I couldn't read that card 'cause I'd been cut off from my old skills.

But why not just do a Beth number on me? Make me Brandy Two completely and block off the old me entirely? Maybe 'cause they couldn't, quite. When Doc Jamispur done it to me at Mayar's place, he had all the top shit, the best computers and stuff they had. Maybe it took more than a hypnoscan to do it completely. How would I know?

What he done was bad enough. Even
I
believed it. Forcin' that Brandy Two personality and cuttin' the skills-they knew just where to look 'cause they already did it once to
her-
to be up front. Even if you had the old stuff, you could do what they couldn't-forget it or push it all the way back till it rotted. Vogel proved that by bringin' out Beth on the getaway. All he did was talk me into the idea that I was turnin' back into Beth and I couldn't fight it, and I was so ignorant of what they done to me and so in awe of their powers that I swallowed it and started becomin' Beth and trashin' Brandy. This time they was more clever, 'cause I didn't know I'd been hypnoscanned, wasn't ready for it, and when I figured it out they had a real convincin' reason for me to doubt my own identity. Real convincin'. Still, it was one of their stock tricks, and it had worked on me
twice.
Woulda worked, too, if Marty just hadn't shot off his fat mouth and started that old part of me movin'.

Not that it was easy. I knew who I was now, and had my old memories, but Brandy Two was still forward, still in the driver's seat, and I didn't have no Center to get her out. I was stuck with that real southern ghetto dialect, had a hard time handlin' big words, and I wasn't gonna write no incriminatin' statements. I needed to take a chance on somebody who could and who might not turn me in.

If that damned twin of mine hadn't already murdered him.

9.

Plot Counterplot

One thing Bill Markham drove into my head was that long string of numbers for home. I had some trouble pullin' 'em out, but they felt and sounded right when I faced the switcher.

"Thuteen, twenny-nine, two, stroke sev'n," I managed.

The switcher checked. "You are authorized transit to that world," she said. She was one of them that really needed a shave and a haircut. "Proceed straight on and I will autoexit you."

"Any ways I can git a word sent up to Aldrath Prang?" I asked her. I wanted some insurance.

"Executor Aldrath Prang has been relieved of all duties in security," she told me. "I can connect you to Security General if you like."

Aldrath fired!
This was goin' along much faster than I thought. "Uh, no thank you, ma'am. It be kinda
personal."
And I walked straight ahead, and five cubes later walked out into a mess of broke-down concrete surrounded by a high wall. It was a real mess down there, and I was glad it was daylight. It looked from the droppin's and shit that things lived down there I didn't wanna meet.

There was this rickety old ladder, and I climbed it to the top and found myself out in the woods with just this pit or well or whatever it was there, surrounded by a fence with barbed wire all 'round it. There was a gate with a big padlock on it, though, and there was only one thing to do. I took out the gun, prayed it was still loaded, and shot square at the lock. It kinda ricocheted around and away without smashin' the lock like it always does in the movies, but when I pulled the lock came free and I could get outta the gate.

The next question was, where was I and was I in the right world after all? It still looked like Pennsylvania, which made sense-I was on the Pennsylvania track and hadn't really been switched, just told to go straight ahead-but it wasn't any territory I knew.

I tried to find a clear spot, then looked around at the horizon. Nothin' much to see. A farm or somethin' off one way, not much else. Every time we used the damned Labyrinth before it always dumped us at the Company in Oregon where we didn't wanna be and I kinda expected the same thing. This time, though, they'd stuck me at the State College area substation which they didn't use much and wasn't manned. First time I actually ever
wanted
to be in Oregon and I was here!

I listened, and heard the sound of traffic off in the distance. Well, that was somethin'-a road. Someplace along there there just
had
to be a phone. Clutchin' my shoulder bag, I made my way through the woods and down the mountainside toward the road.

Things opened up considerable after a while, and I was lookin' out over green fields and farmland down to a snaky little road with a fair amount of traffic on it. I started down, and was halfway across the open field before I suddenly remembered I was stark naked. It didn't bother me none but it sure would attract a whole lot more attention than I wanted and I didn't want to get picked up and thrown in no jail while they charged me and checked me out. I sat down in the field and checked what I'd chucked into the shoulder bag. Thing was, I'd had time to unpack at the lodge and I hadn't really been thinkin' too good when I made my run for it. I was lucky to have thought of the bag at all.