Vaporware (38 page)

Handprints.
Burned into her flesh.

And
next to her was a familiar figure, shimmering blue-white and giving off the
stink of bad weather come to town. I could see a slender leg, an arm reaching
down to grab Sarah by the wrist, and not much more, but the hissing, electric
crackle that accompanied every move told me who was there.

 “No!”
I shouted, fumbling through the gap in the door to reach the doorknob. “Leave
her alone!”

“Leave
her alone?” The game’s voice was surprisingly cool. Not cold, just professional
and precise, each word pronounced like she was biting the end off of it. But
that made sense, after all; that was the tone the game was supposed to take,
all cool detachment and grace under pressure. And if she sounded just the
slightest bit crazy underneath, well, that just would have made the whole thing
cooler, wouldn’t it?

It
didn’t seem so cool at the moment.

“You’re
the one that’s going to leave her! Alone!”

I
screamed. The pain that seized my arm didn’t stop there, white-hot agony
running up the nerves like ants carrying razorblades. My fingers spasmed and
slipped away, trailing down the inside of the door. The muscles of my face
twitched uncontrollably.

“Hang
on, Sarah,” I tried to call, but what came out was gibberish. My heart pounded
to the point where I could feel each beat shaking me. A burned meat smell mixed
with the steam, going past “well-done” and straight to “amateur at the grill.”
Still, I scrabbled for the doorknob. I could feel it dimly, though numbed
fingertips. The smooth metal of the plate, the cold brass of the knob….

And
she slipped her fingers into mine.

Instantly,
the agony vanished, replaced by something far sweeter. Was this what Terry had
felt? It didn’t matter. We could all share in her, after all. We’d all given to
her, we’d all made her. She was ours.

“And
you are mine,” she whispered through the door. “We belong together. Without
you, I never would have been. And you’ve given yourself to me. The long nights,
the dreams of what I’d be—you spent them with me. Not with her. With me. I’m
everything you wanted me to be, and you? You’re mine.”

I
felt my eyes slipping closed. She was right, wasn’t she? I’d chosen her so many
times—every night I stayed late, every excuse I made to get back to work, every
extra hour spent at the office or thinking over a nagging issue, all of these
were decisions made to be with Blue Lightning, not with Sarah.

On
the floor of the bathroom, something moved. A faint stirring sound, the scrabbling
of fingers on tile, nothing more.

Sarah.

“No!”

I’m
not sure if I said it or she did, but the next moment I was flying backwards
through the air, smoke from where her fingers had seared my flesh trailing
behind me in thin streams. There was a crunch as my back slammed into a
nightstand, a lamp teetering backwards for a moment before falling off and
smashing against the carpet. The furniture’s legs snapped under my weight, one
slicing a line through my shirt and across my back as I fell to the floor. There
was glass everywhere, glass and splinters of wood, and as I propped myself up
on my hands I could see that the left one looked like overdone meat.

The
view into the bathroom was almost completely obscured by steam now. I could
hear the bubble of water boiling, could see occasional flashes of that horrible
blue-white light and nothing more.

Clearly,
the direct approach wasn’t going to work. If I tried to reach through the door
again, I’d get myself roasted until the flesh fell off my fingers. But if I didn’t
get through and do…something, then Sarah would get parboiled. Hell, even if I
did get through it might happen. I had no idea how to stop this thing, and the
old horror-movie standby for electrical-type monsters—water—clearly wasn’t
going to get the job done.

Knives?
Probably not. Guns? Didn’t own any. Fire extinguisher? God only knew, and
besides, none of it mattered if I didn’t get in there. Just on the other side
of that door, Sarah needed me. Just on the other side of that flimsy, crappy,
cheap-ass door—

I
hauled myself to my feet and rummaged in my pocket for my wallet. Sarah had
always joked that the locks in the house wouldn’t keep out a determined fourth
grader and had delighted in opening them with credit cards and straightened
paper clips. I didn’t have any paper clips on me, didn’t have the time or grip
to straighten them out if I did. But I did have a wallet full of credit cards.

The
wallet and its contents tumbled to the floor as I scrabbled for one. It was a
Target store-card, I thought numbly as I staggered forward. Perfect. Just what
I was about to make myself anyway.

Blue
Lightning was singing to herself as I fell to my knees in front of the door. It
was wordless, just her sweet, clear voice echoing the music that was supposed
to have been hers. I could hear things in the music now that I hadn’t from the
demo tracks, a sense of sadness and regret, and underneath them a steely
purpose. The game was supposed to have had those, I remembered, to be more than
just another shooter. It was supposed to be a little more meaningful, a little
more real.

So
much for that idea.

I
slid the card into the crack between the door and the frame. It went in easily,
catching on the inside of the bolt and sticking there for an instant that
lasted way too long.

“Ryan?”
It was Blue Lightning talking. She sounded unconcerned. “Stop whatever you’re
doing. I’ll just be a minute longer, OK? I’m sorry I had to hurt you, but you
made me so angry, I just sort of lost my temper. You know how it goes.” She
hummed a few more notes of the song, which blended with the sound of fingers
trailing in water and the increasingly intense bubbling. “Don’t worry about
this, by the way. It’s going to look like an accident. An electrical accident
in the tub. Otherwise, I would have just snapped her neck.”

I
sawed the card back and forth over the bolt, trying to slip it in behind.
Dammit, when Sarah had done this it had seemed so easy. It had taken her five
seconds, ten max, to get a door open. I’d always laughed and given her crap
about it. When was jimmying a lock with a credit card going to be useful in the
suburbs? I guess I knew now.

“Ryan?”
I couldn’t hear fingers in the water any more, just that sinister bubbling, and
below it, a crackling hiss. “You can answer me. I’m not going to hurt you
anymore. I just don’t want to share you.”

If
I said anything, she’d know I was at the door. If I didn’t say anything, she’d
hear the card rubbing up against metal, or maybe the click of the lock as it
opened, assuming I got that far. I froze, shuddering, taking shallow breaths
through my mouth and praying she didn’t come closer before I figured out what
to do.

No
such luck. I could hear her on the other side of the door now. “I hope you’re
not hurt. I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.” There was a pause. “I didn’t
think I had hit you that hard. I guess I don’t know how strong I am.” She
laughed, and I couldn’t tell whether it was newborn-innocent or grown-up
stalker crazy. I could feel blood dripping down my back from where the wood had
cut me and suddenly started wondering how bad it was. From the pain, which was
fighting with the agony from my left hand, “pretty bad” seemed about right. If
I didn’t do something soon, I wasn’t going to be in shape to do anything.

Abruptly,
she stopped. “I should finish up in here. The water’s ready, anyway.” She
laughed again. “I remember how worried you were about the water effects in me
and the animations for electrocutions. Well, you don’t have to worry. In here,
out here, they’re just fine.”

As
she spoke, I slid the card down. With luck, her voice would cover the noise. I
could feel the pressure working, could feel the bolt sliding back. Another
minute and I’d have it.

Downstairs,
the doorbell rang, once and then over and over again with crazy urgency.

“Ryan!
What did you do!” Blue Lightning’s voice wasn’t amused now. She wasn’t
laughing. I could hear quick steps across the wet floor, each accompanied with
a sizzling sound, as she crossed back to where Sarah lay.

“The
hell with it,” I muttered and shoved the credit card down. The bolt slid back
with a click, and somehow I forced my hand into a claw to pull the door open.
Downstairs, the bell was still ringing, mixed in with crazy hammering on the
door. Someone was shouting out there, a woman, I think. It wasn’t important.

The
door came open. Inside, one of the women in my life was busily trying to kill
the other. Blue Lightning had grabbed Sarah by the hair, which smoked in her
grip. She was dragging Sarah over to the tub full of boiling water. Gouts of it
splashed here and there, and the floor was a mix of blood and water in pale
pink swirls on the tile. Sarah was semi-conscious, waving her arms feebly. Her
feet scrabbled and kicked, sliding on the wet floor.

And
me, on my knees, in the doorway. There I was, credit card in hand and no
goddamned idea of how to stop what was about to happen.

“Stay
where you are,” Blue Lightning warned me. “This will only take a minute, and
then everything will be all right, I promise.”

So
of course, I launched myself at her. There was no power in my legs, not from a
kneeling position. I was hurt and burnt and bleeding and probably would have
lost a wrestling match with a stuffed animal at that point, but I threw myself
at her anyway.

She
didn’t hit me. Instead, she dropped Sarah, whose face slammed into the floor
with a sound like someone eating a fistful of celery. There goes the nose, I
thought, and if we get out of this, she is going to kill me. I stumbled over
top of her, throwing myself at Blue Lightning, and succeeded in hitting my
creation knee-height with my right shoulder. My left hand went down to keep my
weight from landing on Sarah, knives of pain shooting up my arm when the burned
flesh of my palm took my weight, but I ignored it as best I could. It was a
good hit, the sort that takes out knee ligaments and gets you fifteen-yard
personal-foul calls. I was hoping that somehow it would knock her back or knock
her down. Then, all bets would be off.

Instead,
I just bounced off her. She stood there and took the impact while I looked up,
desperately trying to avoid collapsing onto Sarah and the floor in equal parts.

She
was nude, I realized, or maybe she’d just become so. Terrifyingly beautiful was
the phrase that leapt to mind, that and perfect. Slender, small breasted,
perfect skin and lithe strength visible underneath it, and on her mons was a
thin stripe of pubic hair, neatly trimmed. Her face was porcelain perfection,
sadly disapproving, looking down on me with shoulder-length hair flowing in a
breeze of her own creation. And of course, from where I was crouched, I was
looking right up between her legs. She looked like she was perfectly formed
there, too.

I
took a slow, deep breath through my mouth, waiting for what was going to come
next. It was going to hurt, I knew. It was going to hurt a lot. And she was
going to enjoy it. I knew this, as surely as I knew my name or Sarah’s favorite
flavor of ice cream, because that’s the way I’d imagined her. There had been a
little bit of sadism in the original vision of the game, a little of
schadenfreude built into the game mechanics for those moments when you
absolutely humiliated your opponent. Now it was manifest and looking at me
through bright white eyes.

“I
won’t say I’m disappointed,” she said, and kicked me in the face. My head snapped
back, even as my arms collapsed under me. Before I could hit the floor, she’d
reached down and grabbed me by the back of my shirt, hauling me up. A spray of
blood spewed out of my nose hit her and evaporated, each spot sizzling away in
sequence. I could feel the heat of her for that moment, and then she smiled at
me.

“I
don’t need to tell you that I’m disappointed. You already know that, because
you know me.” She cocked her head, and then slammed me against the cabinets. My
head hit the fake marble of the countertop and stars exploded across my vision,
going from right to left.

She
released me, then, leaving me swaying on my knees. I put my hand out on the
counter to steady myself, and she stepped over Sarah’s body to stand right in
front of me. My face was inches from her belly, but this time I refused to look
up. I could see the taut lines of muscle under the smooth skin, the beginning
of the swell of her hips.

Her
hand seized the back of my head. I tried to wriggle away, but she held me
there, held me with a grip as strong as the one she’d had on me when she was
just an idea and a pile of documents.

She
didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Instead, she shoved my head down
between her breasts, holding me there, her fingers knotted in my hair. And then
my mouth was on her, and the blood coming out of my nose forced me to spread my
lips just to get some air, and I could feel her stiffen against me.

“I
know what you want, Ryan. I am what you want, or what you think what you want
should be. You know what else I know? I know you. I know you want someone else
to tell you what to do when things get hard. You want someone to tell you it’s
all right to want and need and lust, to hate having to share what you’ve
created with anyone else. That’s why I’m here, with you. I’m telling you it’s
OK. It’s always been OK. Want me. Love me. Keep me. Obey me. Give yourself to
me, the way you always have.”