Science Fiction Originals Vol 3 Part 32

"We considered all of that. But to force the material into a corrupt and artificial form seemed unnecessary."

"This all sounds like a gigantic simulation." Gigantic isn't nearly enough word for it. I thought about my relatively simple ten-mile drive to Peter's, and all the apartments and mansions and storefronts and offices I'd pa.s.sed, and all the women and men and children who lived in them, worked at them, slept on the sidewalks in front of them. People born here, or maybe in Pakistan. Perfectly mobile people, and those like me, each with a story millions of seconds long, and still going.

Then I multiplied for the entire Los Angeles area, that whole sea of lights visible through Peter's picture window. Then I multiplied again, for the rest of the world.

Then the whole universe.

It's not only beyond the end of time, it's beyond me. I think I can imagine how disrupted one of my Cro-Magnon ancestors would feel if confronted with downtown L.A.-that was only 35,000 years ago.

Not a billion.

I began to feel as though I'd had a double shot of tequila, an amount and type of liquor guaranteed to make me pa.s.s out.

"That's one way to look at it. A hideously complex simulation."

Playing along-there is really no option-I say, "What kind of sim allows the operators to mix it up with the players?"

My reward is a raised eyebrow, a pointed finger, a perfectly early twenty-first century American gesture that says, Good point. My moment of triumph is brief. Jaz says, "Oh, this isn't the first time we've run it."

Then I do get chilled, and not thermally, because in spite of several layers of hard-bitten cynicism and skepticism-or Realism-at my core I'm as superst.i.tious as a cave man looking at shadows.

So I'm wondering, am I dead? Did I get killed in front of the Chateau Marmont? Is Jaz the angel of whatever come to deliver me east to Brentwood (aka Heaven) or south of the 10 Freeway (h.e.l.l)?

"Okay," I say, about exhausting this evening's supply of questions, "what was it like, being yanked out of the future and stuck in this simulation? Are you really floating in some tank a billion years in the future?"

"It doesn't work like that at all! We had to search and find a person whose life would intersect with Peter's, then with yours. I had to become Jennifer Leigh Camden."

"You mean, she existed before? In the original version, I mean, not the remake?"

"Yes. More or less."

"So you had to what, be born? Grow up?"

She nods. "For a long time I didn't know who I was."

"When did you first realize that you were... not from around here?"

"I always felt I was different." Knowing how lame that sounds, she adds, "which means I was probably just like every teenager who ever lived. But when I was thirteen I started having dreams-very consistent ones, not just about, you know, the far, far future... but about events I could see happening around me. So I started keeping a journal and saw that the details of my dream world were very consistent, and that some of these dreams came true." She is silent for a moment, examining her hands, as if for hidden flaws. "It wasn't easy."

Those hands are within reach. It seems wrong, somehow, not to take them. "Is there some virginity thing a.s.sociated with being from Beyond the End of Time?" This seems like a logical question, because our noses are now about two inches apart. The rest of us is even closer.

She laughs from somewhere deep in her throat. "Only when it comes to Peter Deibel." And she kisses me.But only once, and the delicious effect fades like a dream on waking. I say, "So where's the proof?"

She laughs so instantly, so happily, that she actually blushes. "There is no proof! You have to take my word for it."

"Just, uh, 'sell all you own and follow me'?" I'm not really religious, but I knew that was a quote from the Bible.

"Work with Peter. Start the project!"

I can't help laughing. "And why? Why change history? Why reprogram your little sim?"

"Because of all the pain! All the lives thrown away! It hurts even in our sim."

"Well, then, you're really late. You should have showed up a century ago, before Stalin and Dachau."

She gets a very strange look on her face. "They were only the beginning, Clark. It gets much worse in the Virtual Age. Much, much worse."

At that moment, I have had enough enlightenment. I back my chair away from Jaz and the couch. "Thank you for a lovely evening."

"Are you leaving?" She actually seems quite upset at the idea.

"It's late, I'm cold. You're a very interesting woman. I'm not nearly good enough for whatever it is you want."

And then, G.o.d help me, I rotate my chair and get out of there.

But not before I see Jasmine stumbling up to Peter, falling into his arms, distraught. And Peter looking my direction as if he's seeing the saddest sight in the world.

I make it home safely, go about my usual routine on Sunday, start making calls on Monday, hoping to scare up an a.s.signment, and think no more about Jasmine.

Actually, that's a lie. Every few moments I think about Jasmine, this business of living in a simulation run by some weird version of humanity a billion years in the (projected) future, but actually sort of outside our time (and universe?). Then my head starts to hurt and I have to change the subject.

When I drag myself out of the house and wheel over to Ventura Boulevard to do errands, I notice that people are glancing at me. Now, given that I've been in a wheelchair for twenty years, I'm used to the occasional stare and the glance of pity, and all the gradations between.

But these are different. From the sheer intensity of these looks, you'd think I had the Playmate of the Month wearing high heels and a thong pushing me. I practically flee back home.

And then I do something silly. I dig Peter Deibel's invitation out of Thursday's trash (I hadn't bothered to add his phone number to my Rolodex) and call him, figuring he'll know where to find Jasmine.

The phone rings. Peter's voice, gruff, raw. "Yeah."

"Hey, Peter, it's Clark," I say, and launch right into, "listen, I'm sorry for just taking off the other night, I had a great time and I'd like to give Jasmine a call-" Then I realize that Peter is just sort of breathing on his end of the line. "Peter?"

"I can't help you, Clark. Not with Jaz."

"Why not?"

"She's dead, man. Jasmine's dead."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Peter is perfectly capable of telling me something like that, just to see me go critical.

"She took off right after you did Sat.u.r.day night. I don't know who with or where they went. But she never came back. The West Hollywood P.D. found her on the sidewalk in front of the Roxy about seven in the morning. She overdosed."

"On what? Was she a user?" Was her whole story some fantasy fueled by Ecstasy?

"They don't know yet. But she never used a thing around me. And I know a user, Clark. That's one thing I can see coming."

"G.o.d, Peter. I don't know what to say."

"You said enough."

Now I get angry. "Are you blaming me for what happened to Jasmine? She was living with you! I talked to her at a party for an hour!"

There is silence on the line. A sigh. "Ah, s.h.i.t, it was meant to be. She always said so."

I don't pursue this with Peter, because I know I won't like the answer. "What are they going to do? Is there a family? Are there funeral plans?"

"I guess I'm her family. And I'm handling it."

Jasmine from Beyond the End of Time, aka Jennifer Leigh Camden of Claremont, California, is buried at Forest Lawn that Thursday. The weather is wretched, cold and rainy, autumnal in a way more suited to upstate New York than to Los Angeles.

The crowd is small, no more than twenty. The only face I recognize is Peter's. The service is low on the religious scale, with a guitarist and a female minister who might have been a Unitarian. Peter at work again.

I sit there, shivering, listening to guitar music and soothing words, and thinking about the things Jasmine told me. Wondering why I had to reject them so quickly, so thoroughly. What made me the kind of human being who was only happy making up fantasies to amuse people I didn't know, and wouldn't like if I did? Who couldn't accept a wonderful idea presented to me purely, freely, even innocently?

What if we were all simulations in some unbelievably gigantic program? Was that any crazier than any other explanation I had ever been offered for my existence?

"I'm sorry, Jaz," I say, offering my words to clouds rolling over Griffith Park, to the cars thundering by on the 134 Freeway.

I wheel back to my car, lever myself inside as I have done for twenty years, and drive home. It is dark by now, my driveway treacherous.

So I am especially careful when I open my door, and swing my chair out of the pa.s.senger side, locking it open. I am unusually patient as I grab the tow bar above the driver's side window.

And I am completely surprised when my legs move as they were designed to, absorbing my weight, allowing me to take my first unaided steps in twenty years.

I spend the evening walking. Clumsily, yes. But I am undeniably mobile.

And I call Peter to tell him. Not just about the walking, but about how I want to work with him on Jasmine's project.

And, feeling truly crazy now, wondering if tomorrow or the day after, Jasmine's grave might turn out to be empty.

Dave Hutchinson

DISCREET PHENOMENA.

1.

The little blue car was moving so slowly that it barely made it over the top of the hill. I saw it edge up over the crest and half-expected it to stop and then roll backward out of view, like a sight-gag from a silent movie.

But it didn't stop. Somehow, it kept moving.

I was outside, topping up Jim Dawes's Jeep Cherokee up with unleaded. Jim was standing beside me, recounting the last grouse shoot he'd been to, but I wasn't really listening. I was watching the little blue car.

Finally Jim fell silent and watched it with me.

"That'll be another one, then," he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

I removed the nozzle from the Cherokee's tank, closed the filler cap, hung up the hose, and went back to stand beside Jim. The car had made it over the crest of the hill and was starting to gain speed down the long gentle slope. Its right-side indicator was winking.

Domino came out of the office and stood beside us. "Another one?" he asked.

"Looks like it," said Jim.

"How many's that?"

Jim shrugged. "Six?"

"Five," I said. "This is the fifth."

The car reached the bottom of the hill and rolled sedately past us with only the sound of its tyres on the road. There was no one in the driver's seat. Or in the pa.s.senger seat. Or in the back seat.

"Well," said Domino, and he set off at a quick jog.

"New lad?" asked Jim as we watched Domino running after the empty car.

"He's been here about a fortnight," I said.

"Never seen him before."

"He's not local."

"Student, is he? Summer job?"

"I suppose so. Something like that."

Jim thought about it for a minute or so, while Domino caught up with the empty car, ran beside it, and in one graceful motion opened the driver's door and hopped inside.

"Good runner, for a hunchback," Jim said finally. He was one of those big bluff Yorkshiremen who think that a reputation for plain-speaking gives them carte blanche to be rude.

The little blue car stopped, performed a neat three-point turn, and came back to us. Domino steered it around behind Jim's Cherokee and stopped it with the handbrake. The indicator was still blinking.

"Same thing," Domino told us as he got out of the car. He held up one of those little cardboard Christmas trees that are supposed to smell like pine forests. He reached back inside and pulled the bonnet catch.

I lifted the bonnet. The engine compartment was empty.

"How do they do that?" Jim said, shaking his head.

Jim shook his head over the car for another twenty minutes or so, then he paid for his petrol and drove off.

Domino and I pushed the blue car out of the way behind the office. I phoned Nigel, but he was out on a job, so I left Domino working on the accounts and went back outside and sat on my stool beside the pumps.

It was one of those extraordinary days you get on Salisbury Plain in summer, when the sky goes a kind of blue-white colour and seems to hum with the heat. We had only had two cars in all morning, not counting the little blue one.