Deathworld Read online

  Charlie opened his mouth to make some angry retort, and then stopped himself, for Nick’s tone wasn’t angry or mocking. It was a compliment. “Uh-”

  “Yeah. Well, there’s something I’ve been wanting to try, and we’d better try it now, before somebody grabs us.” He looked over at Mark. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Nick, this is Mark. Mark Winters, Nick Melchior. Mark’s a virtwrangler, Nick. He’s figured a way to track our progress in here.” Charlie displayed the jacket. “Look, we have to give the bad guys a target, but one that’s too tough to actually catch. That means we’ve got to get in deep enough that the people looking for me won’t be able to find me. Help’s coming, but we’ve gotta stall.”

  “Great. Come this way,” Nick said, heading off to their right. “Nine be deep enough for you?”

  “Nine?” Charlie swallowed. “Nick, one of them, the one who called himself Kalki, he said he’d been through the gates of Nine… .”

  “He’s full of it,” Nick said. “No one can come back after they get through the gates of Nine. There’s a ‘limited resume’ in place after that. The designers implemented it to stop all the walk-throughs from blowing the final solution of the environment.”

  “When did you find that out?”

  “Yesterday. From the Gate Guardian.”

  “You found the way down to Nine?”

  Nick nodded. “But I put it off … I didn’t want to go through until you were along. So now we’ll give it a try.”

  “You don’t know if it works or not?” Mark said, sounding alarmed.

  “We’re gonna find out real quick,” said Nick. “Come on!”

  There were nine tall gray doors opening out of the left-hand side of the huge entry hall, genuine old-fashioned doors with lever handles, looking like something out of the seventeenth century, with fancy scrollwork carved around the gray stone doorjambs. “Don’t look like we’re rushing or anything,” Nick said, “just stroll.” Charlie found this extremely difficult to do under the circumstances, but he forced himself to slow down and keep pace with Nick.

  “A lot of people look at this at one point or another,” Nick said softly, “but usually there isn’t anything here. There’s a trick to it, though… .”

  He went to the first of the five doors and stood by it, idly, listening. Then he shook his head.

  “Nothing,” Nick said, “but this is gonna be easier with three of us. Each of you, quick, go up to a door and listen. If you hear anything, open it right away. Don’t look obvious about it, though. You don’t want anyone noticing if you can help it!”

  Mark headed for the next door up, and Charlie took a long breath, trying to calm himself, and went to the door after that. He stood by it … and then his eyes widened. A soft rumor and murmur of voices, like a crowd-

  He pulled the door open a crack and peered in.

  The sound didn’t change, but Charlie looked in and saw that the dimly lit room was completely full of people, pushing, murmuring, moving together. It was in fact a vast dance floor, absolutely crammed with people in every kind of clothes, ancient and modern, and they were dancing hard to Joey Bane’s music. Hanging up high from an almost invisible ceiling was, of all things, a mirrored “disco ball,” and it shot glitters and spots of light all around the room as it turned, picking out here a jeweled headdress, there a studded white Elvis jacket, over there a slowglass jumpsuit. Charlie looked back around the door, signaled unobtrusively to Nick and Mark. They came over, and as they did, Charlie slipped in through the door. They came after him, and Nick shut the door behind him.

  The instant he did, the sound came blasting up to full: the “flap mix” of “Don’t Look Back,” banging away with its wild 11/4 beat. Mark looked around him with admiration at the dancers. “They may be the Damned,” he said, “but they’ve got rhythm.”

  “They’re not the Damned,” Nick said, grinning. “They’re us.”

  Charlie looked at him, bemused. “It’s a party,” Nick said. “The Party. One of the environment-programmers’ jokes. Everybody who ever visited Deathworld wanders in and out of here eventually. Not the real them, of course; just a recording of them, a sim… .”

  “You mean we’re in here somewhere, too?” Mark said, sounding slightly amused. “Someone might find that confusing… .”

  “Sorry,” Nick said, “but I don’t think it works that way. The one time your simulacrum can’t be found here is when you’re genuinely on-site. So the Guardian told me. But other people might see it and not know for sure, for a while anyway, whether it was really you they were interacting with…” He grinned. “There are probably some funny scenes, every now and then, because some people do just come here to dance… .”

  “Looks like a good place to get lost in, anyway,” Charlie said.

  “Better than that,” said Nick. “This is the Party. And since it is, there’s a side door … and a Lady sneaking out of it. We’ve got to catch her. Come on-”

  Nick started to push his way through the crowd. The other two followed him. It was hard going, hot and difficult. The oblivious dancers were packed incredibly tightly together and the music was jarringly loud. Even Nick looked like he was wincing a little at the volume.

  Mark was close behind Charlie. “Are you sure your dad’s people are gonna get here before our time runs out?” Charlie yelled to Mark, that being the only way he could make himself heard.

  Mark was beginning to look uncomfortable. “Look,” he shouted back, “I did the best I could. My dad gets busy, too! I told you, I sent a ‘most urgent’ to his virtpager. He’d never ignore that unless some seriously important government thing-”

  “Like happens every day!” Charlie yelled. But there was no point in fighting about it now. Charlie took another deep breath, went plowing through the crowd in Nick’s wake.

  It got harder as they got closer to the center of things. There’s this, anyway, Charlie thought, it’s not gonna be easy for anyone to follow us- For that moment he disobeyed the advice of the music, looked over his shoulder.

  And saw one of those tall doors behind them open. A second later he got a glimpse of a long black drapecoat, violet skirt, violet hair, as Shade came slipping in

  Uh-oh. Fear and loathing both rose in him, and Charlie struggled to deal with the reaction rationally. It wasn’t as if she was going to be able to spray him with sco-bro here and now. If she’s even directly involved. Had Mark gotten any concrete evidence that she was? Had he even managed to track down exactly who had tripped the “trip wire” around his workspace? And is Shade someone different from Kalki-or is she the same person? For I didn’t see them together… . Charlie gulped. No time to spend worrying about all this now. Just follow Nick and keep them in here, and pray that Net Force is on the job-

  Ahead of him, Nick was maybe two thirds of the way through the crowd, moving faster now, as if it was begin

  fling to thin a little in patches near the far edge of the room. He was making his way toward the far left corner. Charlie could just see that the crowd was somewhat sparser there. And also a black blot, a shape, leaning near a door, a normal human-sized door, not like the ones they had come through, a door that was just closing …

  Nick came out of the crowd, with Charlie behind him, and Mark bringing up the rear. The black blot-shape, hard to see in the disco-ball dimness, was a tall, potbellied demon, presently standing in front of the newly closed door. He had little stubby black-leather wings, and he was wearing a uniform like the ones movie-theater ushers or hotel-lobby bellboys had worn a century ago, right down to a rather ridiculous looking little pillbox hat pushed over to one side and partly resting on one of his big ears. Nick, coming up to him, paused and looked at him oddly.

  “Hey,” he shouted over the music, “you’re not Melchgrind! You’re Wringscalpel! I remember how you wear that hat.”

  The demon with the flaming sword blinked at him. “Nick?” it shouted back, squinting at him. “Why, how are you, fella? You back again? I did
n’t think you were going to linger.”

  “Change of plans,” Nick said loudly. “This isn’t your usual patch, either.”

  “No, we have to rotate through all the ‘portal’ jobs,” Wringscalpel said, sounding resigned. “Sometimes whether we’ve been briefed on them fine detail or not. If I had a nickel for-”

  “Neither of us is gonna be worth a plugged nickel if we don’t hurry up here, Wringer! We’re in big trouble at the moment. Someone’s chasing us, and we really need not to get caught.”

  “Now, you know I can’t let you go through without passing the test… .”

  “There is no time for that!” Nick yelled. “Wringscalpel, in Joey’s own name, will you let us through here before you have a bunch more fake suicides on your hands?!”

  “Test?” said Mark. “What test?”

  Wringscalpel’s eyes went wide. “But I can’t. It’s not that I wouldn’t do it for you, Nick, it’s just that the machine’s routines won’t allow-”

  “What test?” Charlie said.

  “He’s not going to ask you what’s your favorite color, if that’s what you were thinking,” Nick said. “Hurry up and ask the damn questions, then, Wringscalpel! I’m answering for all three of us.”

  “You two agree to that?” Wringscalpel said.

  “Yes,” Mark said, and “Yeah, yeah, just do it!” Charlie said, for he could see Shade getting closer to them.

  “All right. You understand the rules? If you miss a question, you’re all bumped back up to One-” “Fine!”

  “And they’re not the same questions as yesterday, Nick, they change every hour-”

  “Come on!” they yelled at him in unison.

  “All right,” Wringscalpel said. “What is the purpose of life?”

  “He doesn’t want anything easy, does he?” Charlie moaned.

  “Shaddup, Charlie. Pain, Wringscalpel! And learning how to deal with it.”

  “What is the dawn of the soul?”

  “Which version?” Nick said.

  Wringscalpel looked surprised, ‘then smiled. “London 2024.”

  “The other side, / where the shadows hide, / and the dark no longer falls: the night of pain, / when the final chord / Comes breaking through the walls!”

  “Hey, you’re serious about this,” Wringscalpel said. “Are you sure I can’t ask you your favorite color?” “No! Get on with it!”

  “What is Joey’s middle name?”

  “The one on his birth certificate,” Nick said, “or the one from the press release?”

  Wringscalpel grinned. “The birth certificate.”

  Nick swallowed. “Illusion,” he said.

  “There you go,” said Wringacalpel, and began to grow.

  The floor of the place shook. The disco ball hanging from the ceiling of the Party Room started to tremble, and stalactites of crystal and onyx began to fall from way above it, causing screams among the partying multitudes, who scattered in every direction, but then returned to the dance floor as if driven there with whips.

  Wringacalpel, though, was paying all of this no attention. His uniform was tearing and shredding away, falling to the floor, as the demon grew, lost his potbelly, gained wings that lost the toy look they had worn earlier and now looked seriously functional, gigantic pinions, that spread above him and out to either side. He cried a great cry that shook down more stalactites.

  “Is he angry?” Charlie shouted at Nick over the din of the music, the screaming dancers, the crash of falling crystal.

  Wringscapel heard this and laughed. “Angry? You kidding?” he said. “I get a bonus for this.” He held out his huge hands, and suddenly they were filled with a flaming sword that lit the whole place blindingly in actinic blue-white fire. “And now I get to leave this job to somebody else, while I go up to Seven and kick some-”

  “Yeah, great, later!” Nick shouted, and dodged under his arm, past him, through the suddenly open door.

  Charlie and Mark followed him in a hurry. Past Wringscapel, on the other side of the door, it was as dark as the inside of a dog, and involuntarily Charlie looked behind them, back toward the light.

  “Whoever’s behind us, they can’t follow us in here unless they pass the test,” Nick said.

  “Yeah, and what if they know the answers, too?” Mark said, looking around him in the darkness with some concern.

  “There’s still one thing I don’t think they’ll do,” said Nick. “Come on!”

  He ran into the dark. More slowly they went after him, but their eyes were getting used to the dimness now. They were in a huge, huge cave, the size of a sports stadium, its stony ceiling lost above them.

  “What are we supposed to be doing?” Mark said. “Looking for the Lady,” said Nick.

  Charlie looked at him as they ran. ” ‘She left the party early’ …” he said. “Or something like that.”

  “Something like that. We have to find her. She’s the key.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard, there’s nobody but us in … uhoh.”

  There were eyes in the darkness. They glowed. The predatory eyes blinked slowly and looked thoughtfully at the three of them.

  “Ignore them,” Nick said. “Look for a single light by itself.”

  It was hard. They walked on through the darkness, and it got hot and stifling, and the eyes pressed in close around them, and they could all hear breathing… . Charlie shook his head at the oppressive quality of the illusion. And he stopped, then, hearing footsteps behind him.

  “There,” Nick said. He pointed. One light, distant-not horizontal like the lights around them, but vertical, not green, but a pure white.

  “What’s the rush?” said a soft voice from behind them.

  Charlie turned, and there she was, Shade, looking at him with an expression that was almost sad … but not quite.

  I can’t have more than fifteen minutes left, Charlie thought. I’ve lost track. All I can do now is stall, keep her talking… .

  “Kalki told me you ran off without a word,” she said. “Without even looking at him! He didn’t mean to frighten you, really … he was just going to give you a ride.”

  And she’s got to do more than just talk. “Was he?” Charlie said. “And what would we have done then? He and I. Or the three of us. If there really are two of you …”

  “Why, talk,” Shade said. “What else would happen?” “I have two words for you,” Charlie said. “Scorbutal cohydrobromate.”

  She looked at Charlie, and her eyes widened.

  Not enough. “And a white cotton sweater,” Charlie said. “It must have been very new, one of those teased-cotton ones … because it shed all over Richard Delano’s rug.”

  The look on her face went horrified for a moment, just for a flicker. Then she got hold of herself again and smiled very slowly, a knowing smile. “Scorbutal? Someone your age,” she said, “shouldn’t be messing around with drugs, Manta. Your folks would be shocked to find out about it. Maybe some responsible adult should tell them what she thinks you’ve been up to, hmm? How you tried to buy some from her?”

  He went hot with fury.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” Shade said. Charlie stared at her, kept his mouth shut. “There are always other people to work with, aren’t there? It’s not like suicide is going to go away. There are always mixed-up kids who stumble into nasty places like this.” She looked around her with scorn, at the eyes pressing in close. “Or going to incredible trouble to work themselves deep down into them. Places full of sick images and soul-destroying music and ugly ideas. Who would be surprised when kids who spend a lot of time in a place come to grief? No one would be surprised at all.”

  She looked at Nick and Mark. “It’s nice to see you’ve picked up a couple of friends here, finally,” Shade said. “But there will always be people who need friends, and aren’t so spiteful and suspicious. For them … I’ll always be here. Until Deathworld shuts down, some day. Maybe some day very soon … because, if there’s justice, nothing lasts forever
.”

  That smile again: self-satisfied, controlling. Charlie would have loved to have an excuse to punch her in the nose. But then he realized he didn’t need to … and he stood quite still, and smiled just a little himself. He couldn’t help it.

  And a second later he had the satisfaction, as hot as the fury had been a moment before, of seeing her eyes go wide, as she stared at the man and woman who suddenly caught hold of her “seeming” from both sides. “Net Force,” said the woman. “We have some questions we need to ask you, please, so if you’d come this way-”

  There were suddenly about six other Net Force operatives there as well, all in their usual dark suits and coverslicks, and they closed in on the group. “You kids all right?” one of them said.

  In the background Shade was shouting, “What? Who are you? This is an outrage! I want a lawyer-”

  “Uh, we’re fine,” Nick said, looking around at the ruckus with some surprise. He looked at Mark and Charlie. “But how’d they get in here without answering the questions?”

  “Either a search warrant,” Mark said, looking at them with relief, “Or a ‘back door.’ Does it matter?” He looked at Shade as the agents walked her away. “Looks like it’s gonna be a real interesting debrief. Here, wait a minute… .” he said to the agent who had spoken to Charlie.

  Mark reached up and helped Charlie out of the Magic Jacket.

  “Thanks, Squirt,” Charlie said as Mark handed the jacket to the operative.

  “It’s still live,” Mark said. “The evidential trail is still hot, so you’ll want to lock it down when you get it back into the examination space at HQ.”

  “Thank you,” said the op.

  “And,” said another voice out of the darkness, “I would appreciate it if someone would give me an explanation of what’s been going on here …”

  Jay Gridley came striding out of the dark-a lithe, intent-looking Thai-American man, in a business suit and tie. Right now, though, the intentness was mostly concentrated on his son. Mark was looking a little sheepish. “Uh, hi, Dad,” he said, “you see, Charlie came to me with a problem-”