Oz Reimagined Part 7

"And you wanted Lion to let you use some of the Forest land?"

Tinman gave the closest thing he could to a shrug, a brief up-and-down pump of his shoulders. "He has a great deal, and there is much of it going to waste, but here in the Works, we are cramped between Emerald on one side and Lion's domain on the other, with nowhere to grow."

Lebensraum, Orlando thought. Isn't that what the n.a.z.is called it? Out loud he said, "Was there anything else to your message? Anything besides the request to use some of his land?"

"I can remember nothing else," said Tinman. "Now if you will excuse me, my a.s.sociates and I must discuss an addition to one of our factories. We would like to complete it during the dry season. Many of our laborers are Henrys and Emilys, and unlike my own people, they do not enjoy working in bad weather."

"Of course," said Orlando. "We'll find our own way out."

As he led the Gla.s.s Cat from the Shop, he considered what Tinman had said. On the surface all was as Orlando would have expected, so why did he feel as though something just as importanta"perhaps many important thingsa"had gone unsaid?

just checked in on tinman. he's still a little weird, but he always was, even in the nicest versions. something about that voicea"like a robot with a bucket over its head. can we just redo the way he talks? that's probably most of the problem with the simulation right therea"that voice is utterly creepy. if sims can dream, I bet he's giving the others nightmares.

Is this whole world just doomed to go wrong? Orlando wondered. Maybe the whole network? Something in the original programming that keeps tipping it back toward chaos? Or am I seeing ghosts where there aren't any? Maybe Omby Amby justatripped or something. And his head fell off. s.h.i.t, this is Oz, more or less. Stuff like that happens in Oz all the time.

But unless he could prove it, it didn't solve the current problem. "I guess we're off to see the Wizard," he told the Cat.

The Wizard, known in the present version of the simworld as Senator Wizard of Kansas, lived in a stately white house on top of a hill between Emerald and Forest, overlooking the city. He was semiretired, leaving the business of governing mostly to Scarecrow and the others.

Orlando had discovered Oz early, first in various vids, then later in the books themselves. For a very sick child who spent most of his short life in bed, the Land of Oz had been the best childhood dream, a place where even someone as prematurely aged as little Orlando would have been just different, not a freak.

Another big part of its appeal: n.o.body died in Oz.

It was not surprising he had a soft spot for this place, but Orlando had also seen the horror that could be produced here firsthand, and knew that leaving its sims to such a fate would be far more cruel than simply pulling the plug.

A riddle like this was so much more difficult to solve than something like the endless train robbery, which Kunohara and whatever programmers had signed his penalties-worse-than-death nondisclosure agreement could solve just by fixing a few command lines. This Kansas thing was a people problem, at least so far. They might just be code, too, but every single bloodless algorithm had been through the black box of the Otherland network's strange origin, had been effected by its living operating system and its many Grail Brotherhood manipulators, and had evolved and changed even since Kansas had been restarted. They were nearly as complex as real human beings, and although he knew it wasn't that simple, Orlando couldn't stop thinking of them that way. Shutting down the previous version of Oz had been a mercy killing, and it might come to the same thing this time, but it was a lot harder to think about euthanizing a patient who was smiling and happy and enjoying being alive.

"Princess Langwidere of Ev once told me," the Cat said suddenly, "that if everyone had brains like mine, the world would be a less boring place."

Orlando had only the vaguest recollection of Langwidere, a minor royal who lived somewhere on the fringes of Oz, or in this case, obviously, sim-Kansas. "Ah? Did she?"

"She most certainly did. She said that at least it was something to see, interesting enough to make her look away from her mirror every now and then."

"She sounds charming."

"She is. Most regal and discerning. When I visited, she took special trouble to show me her lovely things, her whole collection. She understands my true uniqueness." They had reached the front porch of the Wizard's big white house. The Cat vaulted up and waited for Orlando to open the door. "It is a shame there aren't more people of heraand myaquality."

The Cat was a useful informant, but she wasn't his favorite sim by any means.

The Wizard came down the stairs as they entered the cluttered front parlor.

"Orlando!" he said with obvious pleasure. "Come in, young man, come in! A privilege to see your shining visagea"and you, too, Gla.s.s Cat! You are even shinier! Hmmm, there was something I wanted to ask you, but I can't think of it just now. Anyway, come in, both of you. May I offer you some lemonade?"

When they were comfortable, Orlando began to explain what had happened, but the Wizard held up his hand. "I have already heard this terrible news. Scarecrow sent me a letter this morninga"although I had a devil of a time reading it. I suspect the actual hand was the Patchwork Girl's." He held up a sheet of paper daubed in several different colors, with no hint of sentences or even individual words holding themselves to straight lines. "Her enthusiasm somewhat outstrips her patience." He put on his gla.s.ses and squinted at the page. "Scarecrow says that he's keeping up the search for the unfortunate Mr. Amby's head but he thinks he must nominate another policeman."

"Makes sense." Orlando looked around for the Cat, who seemed to have gone missing again, but she had only crossed the room to admire herself in the polished sheen of the Wizard's fireplace fender.

"I suppose, yes," said the Wizard thoughtfully. "In any case, he says he thinks the s.h.a.ggy Man would be the best choice, because he is such a great traveler and will be happy to go back and forth wherever he is neededa"

"Piffle," p.r.o.nounced the Cat in a ringing tone.

"I'm sorry?" The Wizard turned to her with an indulgent smile.

"The s.h.a.ggy Man! I'm sorry, Senator Wizard, but I have spent time with the s.h.a.ggy Man, and the man is far too irresponsible for such a job. He simply does not care a feather for anything. How could such a man carry out important tasks?"

"Perhaps you're right," said the Wizard. "In any case, you should bring up your objections with Scarecrow, who says he has not made the decision yet. Perhaps you have some preferred candidatea?"

The Cat snorted, a delicate noise like a tiny chime. "Hah. Who needs a policeman anyway, in a place that has no crime?"

"Except for what seems to have happened to Mr. Amby himself," the Wizard pointed out.

The reproof had been a gentle one, but still it was a silent, perhaps even chastened, Gla.s.s Cat who accompanied Orlando back across the fading afternoon into the heart of Emerald.

note to hk for later: we need to start a serious categorization census, because policing this network is getting a lot more complicated than just me and a bunch of glitchy sims. in the year or so since we took over the system, we've run into simuloids with personalities and memories stolen from real people like my friends that came into the network with me, others that are probably based on real people we don't know, some ghosts created from just a few aspects of real people, and some that are regular sims but seem to be turning into something else all on their own. even if this oz has gone bad, i'm not 100% sure we should get rid of it. i mean, this is evolution in action! okay, it's not the normal kind, but who said it had to be? but these simworlds, these sims, they're definitely changing over timea"is that just the complexity of the programs, or is it something else? i know they're supposed to seem real, but sometimes I think it goes a lot deeper than that. yeah, that probably makes you even more certain we should erase kansas and the oz folk, but I don't want to if we can avoid it.

Of course Orlando had to admit his feelings might change when he learned what was really going on here.

When they reached City Hall, they were told the Scarecrow was having a private conference with the local balloon-maker's guild. The Cat wandered off on some idleness of her own, so while Orlando waited for Scarecrow's meeting to finish, he went out to wander the gardens and orchard behind City Hall. Every shapely trunk had a great spread of branches, and each branch was heavy with fruita"apples, pears, and sunset-colored orangesa"all so lovely and enticing that it reminded Orlando all over again of why he had fallen in love with Oz and its simple but dreamlike pleasures. He wandered a long time, but enchanting as the place was, he could not really enjoy it, too busy picking at the problem of the murdered, or at least dead, soldier from every angle he could conceive.

Perhaps it was simply an isolated glitch. That was the simplest explanation. The old Kansas had been like Pol Pot's Cambodia, but that version was gone; as someone had pointed out, n.o.body was supposed to die in Oz, and those rules applied in this rebooted version. If it had been an accident, one of the searchers should have stumbled across...o...b.. Amby's head by now. If it was an actual murdera"why? The policeman had no enemies, no job that anyone else coveteda"h.e.l.l, the Gla.s.s Cat didn't even think they should replace him. And while Orlando might be full of nagging worries about the simworld turning feral, other than the soldier's surprising fate and a little minor squabbling between the three princ.i.p.al rulers, he hadn't seen any evidence of it happening. The people seemed free, happy, and prosperous.

A blare of trumpets in the distance startled him. The loud call didn't quite sound shrill enough to be an alarma"more like the herald of something official, perhaps an announcement. It might be nothing more exciting than a breakthrough in the balloon negotiations, but Orlando thought he should check it out anyway.

He followed the noises out of the gardens and around the front of City Hall, where he found a crowd had gathered: an a.s.sortment of Henrys, Emilys, and less human-looking Emerald citizens milling in the lamplit square before the building. As the horns blared again, he saw people standing on tiptoes and heard them oohing and ahhing. He worked his way to the front just in time to see what looked like a circus parade pa.s.sing into City Halla"antelope, bears, porcupines, all manner of woodland creature. No, he decided as he saw the beasts' expressions, it was not a circus parade but something more serious, more somber. He was about to follow the last of the animals into the building when he heard people begin to shout behind him. He turned in time to see a solitary figure making its way through the crowd, headed toward the entrance.

"The Wizard!" someone called. "He'll sort things out!"

"Help us!" cried another.

"Ah!" the Wizard said to Orlando, seemingly oblivious of the onlookers. "Do you know where the Gla.s.s Cat is? I remembered what I wanted to speak to her about. She carried a message from me to the King and Queen of Ev on her last trip, and I forgot to ask if they had sent back any reply."

"You sent the Cat all the way to Ev?"

"Because it is on the far side of the Deadly Prairie," said the Wizard. "The Cat is nearly the only person who can cross that burning expanse without harm."

"I'm not sure where she is, to be honest," said Orlando, anxious to find out what was going on inside. "She's somewhere on the grounds, though, I'm pretty certain."

The Wizard excused himself and hurried off, apparently completely disinterested in (or, more likely, completely oblivious to) whatever had brought a protest march of forest animals into the center of Emerald. Those of the throng who had not yet made their way into City Hall cheered him as he pa.s.sed.

Inside, the Forest animalsa"and many others, Orlando could now see, including a large contingent of tin people from the Worksa"had gathered in the rotunda at the base of the large ceremonial staircase. Orlando saw a sparkle above him: the Gla.s.s Cat was perched on a railing above his head, watching the crowd with grave interest. But before Orlando could ask her if she knew what was going on, the Scarecrow appeared at the top of the stairs with the s.h.a.ggy Man and a few of his other advisors. The Scarecrow stopped short, apparently surprised by the size of the waiting crowd and the presence of Lion and Tinman.

"Here, nowa"hey! What are you all doing here?" Scarecrow's mismatched eyes seemed even wider than usual. "Is it time for a council meeting? Did I forget?"

Sc.r.a.ps came spinning dizzily out onto the landing beside him, whirling like a top. "No!" she shouted as she stumbled to a halt. "It's a revolution! Round and round and round!" She didn't sound too concerned.

The noises from the rotunda floor grew louder; Orlando could hear some of the animals and tin people shouting "Cheat!" and "Liar!" They seemed to be shouting it at Scarecrow.

"I cannot make heads nor tails of any of this," Scarecrow said.

"It doesn't work that way, either!" cried the Patchwork Girl, who was now standing on her head.

"Quiet, please, Sc.r.a.ps," said Scarecrow. "Tinman, Lion, can either of you tell me what is going on here?"

"We know about your plan to seize the Works, brother!" Tinman cried in his harsh, echoing voice. "Is that fair? Is it right?"

"What plan?" said Scarecrow. He seemed honestly confused, although his lumpy face often looked that way because of the slapdash work of the farmer who had painted it.

"Don't listen to his gibble-gabble," rumbled Lion. "Tinman plans to annex part of Forest so he can build more tin people and be the leader of the largest group of citizens!" Lion's animal supporters growled loudly at this. Some of them, like the bears and wolves, were actually quite large and frightening. Orlando was seriously beginning to worry that things might get out of hand.

"That is an untruth!" Tinman's voice grew higher in pitch, like a giant tin whistle. "It is you, Lion, who plots with the Scarecrow to absorb my beloved Works and divide it between yourselves. You would make my people your servants, and that is most unfair."

"Never!" cried Tinman's supporters in voices as inhuman as New Year's noisemakers. "Never slaves!" The din made the great room seem even more crowded and dangerous.

Orlando looked up to the landing, where the Wizard had found the Gla.s.s Cat and was talking animatedly to her, still seemingly unaware of the angry crowd of animals, toys, and people. Orlando wondered what could be keeping him so busy with the Cat during all this. The slightly absentminded Wizard was certainly capable of overlooking a revolution in the making, but was a message from the royal family in Ev really more important than the growing chaos right below their nosesa? Couldn't the two of them do anything to help?

Then somebody threw something at the Scarecrowa"an oil can, Orlando thought. It missed the mayor of Emerald by a wide margin and clattered across the landing at the top of the stairs, but it shocked the Scarecrow; even fearless Sc.r.a.ps looked a bit taken aback. As Orlando turned back to the confrontation, an idea, or rather a fragment of memory, drifted up from the back of his mind. Wait a minute. Ev. The royal family. Princess Langwidere and her collectiona Krrrunch! One of Scarecrow's anxious supporters, perhaps the s.h.a.ggy Mana"who was originally from America and not one to ignore an insulta"had pushed a large vase off the landing. Orlando didn't believe he meant to hit anyone, only to startle the troublemaker who threw the oil can, but pieces of the vase flew in all directions and bruised more than a few of the animals and people gathered below him. One of Tinman's toy subjects received a large scratch across the shiny paint of his suit coat and let out a ratcheting noise of protest. The entire crowd began to push in closer in an attempt to climb the stairs, which brought the Forest contingent and the Works party together, not always smoothly. Shoving and arguing spread throughout the bottom floor of City Hall, and Scarecrow huddled on the landing with his face between two of the rails, watching it happen. As the first of the Works folk reached the stairs, the mayor tried to stand up again, but his padded head was now caught between the railings. Sc.r.a.ps and the s.h.a.ggy Man couldn't get him loose, and Scarecrow began to shout in dismay, which only made the crowd more excited, more certain that somebody was being hurt and that one of them might be next.

Orlando sent out a quick dispatch.

okay, worse than I thoughta"some serious s.h.i.t is going down here. i'll finish this later, but please stay on call. hate to say it, but maybe you were right about this one all along.

"Who killed Omby Amby?" someone on the rotunda floor shouted. "Who killed the Policeman with Green Whiskers?"

Others picked up the cry, although the different sections of the crowd seemed to have different ideas of who had removed Omby's head, and why. Orlando shoved his way onto the bottom of the stairs, but one of the larger tin toys took exception and tried to obstruct him with a large tin rake. He ducked under the halfhearted swipe, stepped slowly and carefully over a large and very angry porcupine, then turned to the crowd from the steps of the great staircase, raised his arms, and shouted "STOP!"

It took a moment, but the mob quieted and the shoving lessened; at last something like silence fell over the City Hall rotunda. Everyone turned to look at Orlando, and there were suddenly so many painted eyes, shiny b.u.t.ton orbs, and outlandish cracked gla.s.s eyeb.a.l.l.s staring up at him that he felt a moment of real unease, even though he was the only one in the room who was in no actual danger. "Thank you," he said in a loud but more normal tone. "I know you're all upset, but you don't know the entire story. Senator Wizard, can you hear me? Come down, will you? And bring the Gla.s.s Cat. These people need explanations."

The Wizard crossed the upper landing, stopping for a moment to help unstick Scarecrow's head from the bars before he descended the stairs. The Cat hesitated before following him.

It was only as he reached Orlando's side that the Wizard finally seemed to notice what was going on around him. His bushy eyebrows rose. "Goodness," he said. "What's happening here?"

"Confusion. But we're about to resolve it. Did you find out what you needed from the Gla.s.s Cat?"

"She forgot to give them the message, for some reason." The Wizard shook his head. "I don't know why, after she traveled all the way across the Deadly Prairie to see them."

"Because the message wasn't what interested her." Orlando turned to the Cat, who was watching him with something like alarm. He bent and picked her up. She struggled, but he held her firmly until she stopped fighting. "Let me go!" she demanded. Orlando ignored her.

"I have a few other questions," he said. "Tinmana"who told you that Scarecrow and Lion were planning to take your land?"

"It was the Woozy!"

The animal named Woozy was a strange boxlike creature, an old friend of the Patchwork Girl and others. He frequently helped out in the forges of the Works, keeping them roaring hot with his magical fire-eyes. "I heard it from the Gla.s.s Cat," Woozy called from the middle of the throng. "She told me it was a secret."

Orlando felt the Cat grow tense in his arms. He tightened his grip. "Ah," he said. "And Lion, perhaps you could let us know who told you about Tinman's plans for your forest."

"Easy," the king of the beasts replied. "It was Kik-a-Bray the Donkey."

The donkey stepped forward, embarra.s.sed to be the center of attention. "But I didn't make it up!" the beast protested. "I heard it from Bullfinch!"

The little bird seemed a bit reluctant to speak up in front of an angry crowd, but after some coaxing from Orlando it fluttered up to a railing and announced, "As for me, I heard it directly from the Gla.s.s Cat herself."

This time the Cat really tried to get away. Orlando held on as tightly as he could, but it was hard to manage without cutting himself, so he borrowed the Wizard's coat and wrapped it around her until she again stopped struggling. "You're not going anywhere," he said. "You have a lot to answer for."

"I did nothing wrong!" she said. "I was just trying to help!"

"Trying to help start a fight."

"Goodness," said the Wizard. "Goodness! Why would she do such a thing?"

"I'll get to that," said Orlando. "But first I think we should fetch Omby Amby's body and head out to the bridge over the stream on the way into Emerald. I need to show you something." It was a bit of a risk if he hadn't figured everything out correctly, but at least it would get the unhappy mob out of City Hall. "Come on, everybody. Follow me."

Kik-a-Bray the Donkey, perhaps ashamed of his unwitting part in things, allowed himself to be hitched to a cart, and Omby Amby's motionless, headless body was gently loaded onto it. The large party set off, with Orlando walking in front, still holding the angry but temporarily resigned Gla.s.s Cat. The Forest animals and Works workers, along with dozens of curious Emerald Citizens, all fell in behind them. Scarecrow, Lion, and Tinman joined the procession too, muttering grumpily among themselves. The Wizard, in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves as though going to a summer picnic, walked with them to forestall any more arguments.

When they reached the bridge, Orlando had them set Omby Amby's body down on the ground before he led the party of onlookers down the bank to the stream. He waded out into the gentle, singing current, the Gla.s.s Cat struggling mightily now because although she was made of gla.s.s, she still hated water (as most cats do), but Orlando retained his grim grip.

"Put me down!" she spat.

"This is your fault, and I don't want to hear any nonsense from you," he said in his sternest voice. He knew from experience that the best way to talk to Oz folk in times of crisis was in a firm, parental tone. When Orlando stood thigh-deep in the rushing, burbling stream, he began looking carefully into the water while the Kansas sims lined up along the bank to watch him. At last he found what he was looking fora"the longest streamer of wiggling, wavering moss at the bottom of the stream. He leaned over and grabbed it, and when he lifted the dripping green ma.s.s from the water, the head of Omby Amby hung upside down at the end of it.

"I should have realized that stuff wasn't all moss," said Orlando. "This one was so long! Because it was your beard."

The eyes of the Policeman with Green Whiskers popped open. "Dear me, many thanks!" he said after he had spat out a great deal of water. "It was terribly boring down there on the bottom of the stream. I slept most of the time. If I'd known you were looking for me, I would have tried to make bubbles for you."

"I wasn't looking for you until just now," Orlando said, wading out of the water with the squirming Cat still clutched securely under one arm and the policeman's bearded head cradled in the other. When he reached the spot where Omby Amby's body lay stretched on the ground, Orlando set the head on top of the neck, and the two parts immediately joined together. The Policeman stood up, unharmed except for the water drizzling from his long, green beard. "Goodness, it's nice to be back," he said, rubbing his throat. "I'm not sure what happened. One moment I was kneeling down having a drink; the next I was lying facedown in the stones on the bottom of the stream and unable to move. What happened to me?"

"Curiosity," explained Orlando shortly. "But let's get you back to Emerald and into a warm bed. Your beard should dry by the time we get back."

"But I'm not cold!" Omby Amby protested, but then paused to consider. "Well, my body isn't, but I suppose I do feel a bit of a damp chill on my heada"

Relieved to find it had all been a mistake, or at least that their accusations against each other had been untrue, Tinman and Lion led their charges back to the Works and Forest. Orlando and Scarecrow returned to the Wizard's white house on the hill to talk things over, the Cat still wrapped firmly in the Wizard's coat.

"You wanted things to be exciting, didn't you?" Orlando asked the Cat. "You liked being the center of things."

"What if I did?" She turned her head away. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"There is if you manufacture a quarrel so things will become even more exciting," said Orlando.

"I am very disappointed in you, Gla.s.s Cat," Scarecrow added as they entered the Wizard's parlor. The mayor of Emerald was doing his best to make his painted smile turn downward, but without much success. "I always thought your good intentions were crystal clear."

"But what about Omby Amby?" asked the Wizard. "What did she do to him?"

After the doors and windows were locked so she couldn't escape, Orlando set the Cat down in a chair and let her wriggle free of the imprisoning coat. She wouldn't even look at him and groomed her long gla.s.s tail as if she hadn't a care in the world.

"The Gla.s.s Cat had just come back from Ev, where she had forgotten to give your message to the King and Queen. The reason she'd forgotten, I suspect, is because she had been visiting with Princess Langwidere."

"Oh, goodness, of course!" said the Wizard.

"What do you mean? I don't understand." Scarecrow still couldn't make his mouth do anything other than smile, so he was doing his best to squeeze his painted cloth face into an expression of incomprehension. "What does Princess Langwidere have to do with any of this?"