EXCELLENCE

Robert Reed

Larry Voss receives a disconcerting wake-up call in Robert Reed’s acerbic examination of ... EXCELLENCE

* * * *

The Kingdom of Abalone was once again secure. Sitting on his high throne, flanked by a platoon of devoted guards and red-eyed Erebus hounds, my doppel told me that the Conspiracy of Three had been defeated, their armies scattered and their heads set on rusted pikes. Then, with a champion’s smile, he mentioned that our mines on Mt. Kroon were once again producing wagons full of blue platinum—the most lucrative trade item on Kingdom Earth. And, perhaps best of all, this prettified version of me had finally wooed and married a certain notorious virgin witch. This day was bringing me nothing but good news, it seemed, and the only difficulty was deciding which to enjoy first. Immerse myself in the slaughter of my enemies, spend my treasure on castles and yachts, or sit in the shadows of the king’s bedchamber, witnessing the deflowering of a beautiful young woman.

Blood, bucks, or blood: Never an easy choice.

Yet my doppel wasn’t finished. “I should mention too that I recently met someone. A soul that might be of some interest to you.”

“Who’s that?”

“His name is Gilchrist.”

My next question was too obvious to ask aloud.

The Lord of Abalone, one of the thousand Great Kings on a vast, beautiful world, explained, “Gilchrist is from your realm. He attended my wedding, apparently as one of the bride’s guests.”

“Abalone’s a popular destination,” I reminded him. “Thousands of doppels visit us every day.”

“Yet this wasn’t merely a stand-in, Master.”

Gilchrist was an avatar, in other words. An essence.

That story seemed unlikely. I didn’t recognize the name but offered it to my biography, and, as I suspected, nothing came of the search. “I don’t know the fellow,” I replied. “Let’s drop him for now. Show me our war.”

Yet nothing changed. There was no cinematic vista of slashing swords and wild carnage, just my doppel and his throne stubbornly remaining in view. Leaning back, he said, “Master,” as if the word tasted wrong. Then, with a heavy sigh, he explained, “I had a long intriguing conversation with this Gilchrist gentleman. He knows quite a lot about you. And he made a point of telling me that he is a champion of your talents.”

“He’s a what?”

“‘A champion of Larry Voss.’ Those were his exact words.”

Larry Voss couldn’t help but feel impressed. Sitting back in my squeaky old La-Z-Boy, I was filled with keen pleasure and more than a little hope. But modern life is full of people trying to fool other people. The rational, deeply suspicious parts of my brain set to work. Who was this stranger? What did he want with me? He definitely had some purpose, but what did it mean, being my champion?

I launched my security savant.

The king said, “I must admit, Master, I have never had the opportunity, the honor, of meeting a genuine essence.”

And I had never been an essence. The band-fees were prohibitive, and that’s just what it cost to plug a customer’s body and mind into an artificial world. Kingdom Earth lived ten days for every one of my days. Most realms held that pace. Augmenters and neural cheats allowed you to match that velocity. It was a high-wire trick used by Oligarchs and their companies, and, on occasion, certain important underlings.

“You’re sure that this person ...”

“Gilchrist.”

“Was an essence?”

“I am,” he said, launching into a list of technical, tedious clues.

“Shut up,” I instructed.

He fell silent.

“So what else did our friend say?”

“He claims to be a long-time devotee, and he wants very much to meet with you. In person.”

“Face to face. How quaint.” I caught myself fiddling with the drawstring on my sweatpants. “Did he mention an employer?”

“No.”

“An agency? Some foundation, maybe?”

“No, and no.”

“Not that he’d admit anything,” I muttered.

The king’s patience was waning.

“So where does our mystery man want to meet me?”

“You may select a secure public venue. He told me that he didn’t want to intrude on your precious privacy.”

“He said that?”

My doppel saw no point in repeating himself.

“My privacy?” I said. “Shit, this boy doesn’t know me at all.”

On ten very different earths, I am a trillionaire. On an eleventh earth, I’m a warrior of distinction, famous among those players who genuinely appreciate the history of the Mobius War. All told, there are four hundred artificial earths, plus thousands of partial places and unmoored scenarios. My doppels aren’t significant presences in any of those realms, but I don’t know anybody who can juggle eleven earths as well as I do, and that doesn’t even include the drab, exhausted world where I happen to live.

I’m pretty much successful here, too. My parents paid off their mortgage before the Great Repression struck, and they had only one child, and that boy was an adult before they got sick, both dying young, without fuss or much expense. My inheritance included this shelter and its spacious lot, and I was the beneficiary of two matching life insurance policies issued by corporations that weren’t mismanaged into oblivion. Today my money is scattered and safe, and my monthly bills aren’t too awful, and during the occasional lush year I make a little profit. I don’t need work, and sure as hell work doesn’t need me. I have friends who like to boast about tiny promotions and the daily challenges, but most of them are just glorified clerks whose jobs are protected by Humanpower laws or salespeople who survive because other people don’t like buying condoms and beer from machines.

I was six when the Repression took hold—just young enough that I can’t remember any other way of life. Thirty years of tepid growth and emergency politics. Common opinion holds that these are the opening scenes of a new Dark Age, which is why Kingdom Earth and its siblings are so extraordinarily popular.

Yet I’m richer than any king of old. Unlike those jewel-encrusted monarchs, I have friends around the world, and there aren’t barbarians at my gates or plague in my fleas, and every day I do exactly what I want to do, and what I love most is matching wits against people and machines from every part of this dusty, over-heated, dangerously crowded world.

My neighbors have always been my neighbors, most of them old now and set in their ways. I rarely talk to them. But one crazy gal could be considered my oldest friend. Maddy Greene sat me when I was a baby. A lucky back injury made it impossible for her to work but didn’t cripple her, and her settlement included one fat upfront payment and a steady annuity with inflationary clauses. Her back is miserable, but she’s mobile enough to turn clay pots and sew fancy quilts, both of which she sells at the local Farmer’s Market. This woman used to wipe my ass, which puts her in very select company. And one day, Maddy came to my door waving a check for five thousand dollars. Some genius foundation had awarded her a cash prize. She didn’t know that she was being considered, but here she was, five grand richer, and there was also a fancy gold certificate that called her an artist and a unique visionary.

I buried my envy and congratulated her. “What did you win it for? Pots or quilts?”

That brought laughter and a giddy confession. “I don’t know. I think it’s for my quilts, but I’m not going to ask. What if it’s all a mistake?”

Later that evening, I was sitting in the usual booth at my neighborhood tavern, drinking with people that I’d known since we were six. They were in the flesh and otherwise, and we were sipping and joking, and that’s when I told my story about the lucky neighbor lady.

Nelson was our alcoholic friend, brash and loud, sometimes angry but often entertaining when his fury was on display. Trained professionals tested him and me during sixth grade, and one of us was declared to be an authentic genius. Which was pretty much the death knell for Nelson. Today he uses his innate talents to game the welfare system. He works even less than me, unless you count boozing time. And he took my news very badly. “It’s a rip-off, these goddamn foundations are. Money for clay pots! Jesus Christ, whose stupid idea was that?”

“Hey, it was a nice gesture,” I said. “Five thousand isn’t much. But still, I like the lady, and she’s dancing in the street tonight, sore back and all.”

Most people sided with me. Most wished it could be us. But Nelson saw conspiracies, and worse, he smelled guilty consciences. “You know why we have these foundations today? The Oligarchs want to be remembered. They throw pocket change into tax loopholes. A tiny staff oversees the funds, and machines write checks every now and then. Just to prove that the foundation’s working.” His face colored and his arms gestured. “Really, it doesn’t matter who wins these idiot awards. Keep up the illusion of supporting the arts or music or good humanitarian causes. It’s just another trick the Oligarchs use to keep us under their paws, ignorant and helpless.”

Mostly, we like Nelson. Or more to the point, we appreciate the yin and yang of his chaotic nature. But this wasn’t one of his better nights, and I was glad that he lived in a distant city, lured away by lenient benefits and better mass transit. We broke into little conversations, ignoring him by design, and he continued to drink and shout at our blindness. Then we started turning down his volume, and eventually our old pal realized that nobody cared about his profound, acidic wisdoms. Without a good-bye, he vanished, and we looked at one another, laughing.

Then with quiet cruelty, one of us muttered, “Somebody’s still waiting for his little genius check.”

I think that voice was mine. But I’d have to refer to my biography, and really, at this point, I don’t care enough to ask.

* * *.

Traditional identifications weren’t good enough for my admirer. Gilchrist had supplied the king with assorted proofs-of-reality, far and away superior to any evidence that I ever needed, demanded, or dreamed of acquiring. My security savant got to work, and for shits and giggles I hired a random AI to duplicate my software’s labors. Gilchrist Terrence Lambbone proved to be an authentic twenty-four-year-old male, single and employed thirty hours a week by Green Arrow, the biotech firm based in Melbourne. But he lived in southern Mexico, in a little city built by his employer. Corporations love to obscure their inner workings, but my “champion” had the schooling of a numbers master—one of those rare souls who talks to machines as equals, helping generate tactics and predictions, policies and contingency plans. Gilchrist owned a dozen doppels, but if one of my faces had ever encountered any of his, it didn’t show in my records. To be certain, I brought in another AI, one specializing in teasing out the subtle ties between people. For eighty-two minutes, that entity submerged itself in my biography and Gilchrist’s proofs-of-reality, and the result was the quiet, rather puzzled announcement that the two of us were very close to being perfect strangers, which almost never happened. And even stranger was the evidence that at least three hundred employees of Green Arrow had placed their doppels into my little corners of the Web, and quite a few of them had crossed paths with me, and the odds of idiot chance causing that many meetings was deemed to be less than one in nineteen hundred and nine.

I was thrilled and chilled, but by the end of the day I still wasn’t sure what to make of it. Unless I was being professionally scouted, which made the circumstances very, very promising.

Green Arrow began as one man’s business. Its patriarch wasn’t one of the famous giants of commerce, but he was close. Fifty billion euros from his personal accounts had created the Green Light Foundation. And while it wasn’t the biggest of its kind, Green Light was famous for the infrequency of its genius gifts and their considerable, even awe-inspiring size.

Gilchrist’s proofs included a lifetime interlink number and suggested times to call. I thought hard for two minutes, waited until the next window, and then made the call.

Gilchrist opened the channel instantly. “I’m so glad to hear from you. How are you today, Mr. Voss?”

“Puzzled,” I confessed.

He was a smallish man wearing a good shirt and neat tie. He had no beard, and his hair was long and slick like people wore it when I was his age, and his teeth looked perfect, and his skin was office-pale, and he acted respectful if not quite as gushy as I’d hoped for. The faint Australian accent lent him a measure of charm. I expected a sparkly-eyed genius, but no, Gilchrist looked like the most normal person in any math classroom. He sat comfortably before me, and he looked at me steadily, probably taking his measure of the man.

I showed him what I assumed he wanted to see. At one point or another, everybody plays that game. I was dressed in real clothes, my hair combed, my house computer peeling six years off my face. Looking thirty and fit, I leaned forward and said, “Well,” and then waited for him to respond. Because it pays to be paranoid, I wondered if he was real. Maybe I was facing a quality doppel. Sniffing for a trick, I found myself listing the friends and enemies who could put together such an elaborate practical joke.

“I suppose you have questions,” Gilchrist said. “Please. Ask anything.”

“Are you real?”

“I’d like to believe so.”

“Are you honest?”

“Not especially.” He sat back in his chair—a black leather treasure that looked fresh from the factory. “Just today, I told my mother I was coming home for Christmas. But I’m going skiing instead. And a colleague asked if I liked her hat, and I said that I did. But I diluted my enthusiasm. The words sounded nice without making me feel as if I was actually lying.”

I nodded, thinking only about Green Light.

He smiled graciously. “‘What about me could possibly interest you?’ Perhaps that’s a viable question.”

“Okay. What interests you?”

He leaned forward. “Potential.”

The word sounded grim and sorry, even when I repeated it with a question mark dangling on the end.

“Or in this case,” he continued, “I’m interested in your enormous but badly wasted potential. That’s one reason why I find you so intriguing, Mr. Voss.”

Two coolly delivered sentences, and I was both thoroughly stroked and utterly bitch-slapped. Hopefully my software kept me from looking too shaken, but I did lean back in my ratty old chair, asking no one in particular, “So what the hell am I supposed to do about that?”

My neighborhood has a perfectly fine grocery and three houses with restaurants on their ground floors, plus a respectable coffeehouse and one rakishly seedy bar. But when a stranger travels two thousand miles to visit me, and when he makes the bold promise of buying dinner at any place of my choosing, the world opens up considerably. I was yanking restaurants and capsule reviews out of my biography, cross-checking them with those that still exist today. And what I discovered—no surprise this—was that most of my favorites had been relegated to the golden realm of memory, leaving nothing but a certain amount of meat and bone lain down inside me.

One ripe exception lay at the north end of town, and that’s where I told my champion to meet me. As an afterthought, I asked, “Do you like American?”

“I adore good food,” he said with a diplomat’s ease.

“Well, it used to be that.”

“My train arrives at 5:37,” he said. “I’ll check into my hotel first. Does seven o’clock seem reasonable?”

It did. And to be certain that I made it in time, I left my house at six, riding my thermoplastic racing bike instead of the big steel freighter. The journey proved easy and quick, and in contrast to certain recent adventures, the buses and private cars on the street showed me nothing but consideration.

“Because they recognize greatness,” I joked to myself.

Twenty minutes early, I arrived at a restaurant that looked abandoned but wasn’t. Grateful for my business, the owner greeted me with a big smile and my choice of empty booths. He looked exactly as I remembered him, but younger. It took me several moments to realize that this was the original owner’s son—trapped in an inheritance that would, with luck, last until he was old enough for Social Insecurity. A battered LCD was hung on the nearby wall, tuned to an oldie station. Sipping ice water, I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Jasper and Baby Doll and that funny kid who didn’t have a name or parent or any place that could be called home. Sure, I had the entire series on file, not to mention when and where I’d seen every episode, but it felt fresh, watching those three old stars trading barbs all over again. The weather was displayed along the right edge; cyclists always needed to watch for rain. Two bottom scrolls fed me highlights from the world’s news. Between jokes, I read about the drought in China and methane in the Arctic, elections and scandals and other typical noise. Lottery numbers and betting lines for upcoming games filled the top of the screen. Then the program broke for a commercial touting the pleasures of steak—a none-too-subtle touch supplied by the restaurant’s management.

My bio announced that it was seven o’clock.

And Gilchrist came through the door. He was shorter than I would have guessed, wearing what looked like a fresh shirt and slacks and a decidedly bland tie. I was glad to have arrived early; my bike sweat had time to dry. He saw me and approached, and exactly at that point where we felt physically close, he smiled.

I rose to greet him, shook his small hand and sat again.

He settled across from me, looking at my face. I felt studied, and I felt nervous. I’m not an anxious person usually. What I wanted to ask about was Green Light, but my overriding fear was that he would sweep that daydream aside, and, worse, his denials would prove true. So I left that cat in the box, half-alive and half-happy.

Small talk has never been my strength. But just the same, I asked about his journey north.

“It was nice enough,” Gilchrist assured. Then his smile brightened, and with a mild knowing laugh, he said, “You don’t care about my trip.”

“I don’t,” I agreed.

“I’m the object of your fascination.”

Not liking how that sounded, I sighed and looked back at the screen.

“What would I possibly want with you?”

“It’s a puzzle,” I agreed.

My host sat back against the cracked vinyl. “Let’s allow the suspense to grow. Shall we?”

The manager emerged from the kitchen. Two menus appeared inside the table, partly obscured by decades of scratches and stubborn stains. With a finger, I dragged my menu close, and once again Gilchrist said, “Anything you wish.”

It was the tone of a parent speaking to his birthday boy.

“Steak,” I told the manager.

His eyes were pleased. “What cut, sir?”

“All of them.”

Now his eyes bulged.

I laughed.

If Gilchrist noticed my juvenile humor, he didn’t show it. Intent as can be, he stared at the television, at the opening credits to MASH AFGANISTAN. Or no, he was reading one of the news scrolls running beneath.

Later, studying my bio, I decided that his eyes were definitely reading. Comparing the time to the logs of the news feeds, I determined that my new friend was either interested in who was the father to a certain starlet’s baby, or he was absorbing a little snippet of political nonsense.

“Today, at the opening of the new session of Congress, Senator Randolph Cosgrove said, ‘The House can vote as it wishes. The public elects its 435 Representatives, and that body is free to proclaim whatever it wants. But our country depends on the Senate and President for its continued survival in a shriveling world, and I would be derelict in my duties, not to mention a lousy citizen, if I surrendered any of my authority, my wisdom, or, for that matter, my well-deserved capacity to make my competitors grovel.’”

I ate sirloin cut from a once-living steer, and Gilchrist devoured most of a tofu burger and half of his yam bakes. We talked politely about nothing important, mostly trading stories about our respective towns and lives. Then some invisible switch was flipped, and the host turned serious. Leaning across the table, he asked me the first of many questions about my doppels and my tactics and the broad strategies that I employed on various worlds.

To the best of my ability, I answered the questions, sharing the dreary little secrets. But why I did what I did yesterday and last year, and why I didn’t do something else ... well, even when I referred to my bio, I couldn’t give him much meat with the insights.

Twenty probing questions earned me dessert.

Vanilla ice cream and real chocolate sauce were delivered, neither as tasty as the phony stuff that I ate every other day. But I never turn down free food, and he watched me gorge, and while I was spooning up the last of the cold sticky goodness, Gilchrist said, “Abalone.”

We hadn’t touched on that doppel yet. “What about him?”

“He isn’t that much like you.”

“How would you know? You only met my doppel once.”

“But I know a great deal about him.”

I waited.

“How did you build him? Tell me, please.”

“My techniques interest you?”

“Yes.”

“Because you want the same kind of success?”

There was a brief pause, and then he said again, “Yes.” But with a different tone, drawing the word out.

I talked for half an hour, explaining how I began with me and ended up with this doppel. A template of my personality was coupled with Commons software plus some odd little flourishes that occurred to me for no obvious reason. I mentioned five major tweaks before the king was finished, leaving an independent organism with a tiny kingdom and a handful of knights. After forty wars and eleven attempted assassinations, Abalone was a juggernaut. No other doppel interested me half as much, and Gilchrist proved to be a happy audience, nodding and grinning as he focused like a madman, acting as if his own bio would somehow miss my next careless boast.

The bill arrived, and he paid it, adding a substantial tip.

“Well, this has been a very pleasant evening,” seemed like a reasonable concluding statement. He said those words with conviction and then acted as if he was standing, but when my hands touched the tabletop, he paused. Amused, he suddenly said, “Green Light.”

I blinked. I said, “What?”

“You’re familiar with the foundation,” he said. Not a question, but a statement of cold fact.

I nodded.

“Green Light likes to inspire worthy souls. With cash, and not in small quantities either.”

Breathing didn’t seem important just then.

“You suspect, I’m sure. I think you’ve had premonitions for my real purpose in being here.” Gilchrist had color, the excitement pumping blood into that narrow young face. “The Green Light Foundation is considering a substantial gift to someone of genuine talent.”

I swallowed, or at least tried to.

Then he sat back, watching television again. Conspicuously avoiding my eyes, Gilchrist nodded wisely when he said, “Abalone, your king. Now there sits a genius worthy of our support.”

I hadn’t spoken to Nelson in three months. I never had the urge and couldn’t remember the last time he called me, which made it exceptionally peculiar to see his face early on a Saturday morning. Odder still, Nelson was smiling and sober. What he wanted was a mystery until he named a mutual friend, and then he launched into the sketchy beginnings of a very unlikely story.

I warned him not to believe rumors, certainly none coming from that insufferable busybody.

“But you did have a long conversation with her ex-husband. Am I right?”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no ‘maybe.’ You did or you didn’t.”

Summoning up a measure of bristly righteousness, I explained, “First of all, my news is not a secret. I can tell whomever I want. And secondly, I wanted advice from a trusted, informed friend.”

“A friend you made playing tee-ball.”

“A very good tee-baller who happened to go to law school.”

“Until he couldn’t make the grades.”

I sat back and said nothing. But I tried to say nothing in a defiant and borderline proud fashion.

Nelson never looked happier. “I’ll admit to being angry,” he said. “Which was exactly what my source wanted from me. You know how she likes to piss me off. Anyway, she told me how your ‘champion’ came to town and got you drunk on bloody meat, and then Mr. Gill admitted—”

“Gilchrist.”

“He admitted being from Green Light. Convinced you that you were going to be one rich bastard. Then, wham. You’re not the genius in their crosshairs. It’s this doppel, this fancy figment of your imagination.”

“So you’re not so angry anymore,” I said.

He broke into a taunting laugh.

I suggested that he shut up.

“You know, this has happened before,” Nelson said. “Endowments have been granted to entities that aren’t as real as you and me.”

“I found twenty-three cases,” I said.

“Up late doing research?”

I hadn’t slept two hours last night. “Except these other entities were awarded small gifts, microscopic annuities,” I explained. “This is different. Green Light wants to launch a new social experiment. Gilchrist explained that the funds are to be used enhancing the skills and intellectual talents of my creation.”

“What’s your doppel’s name?”

“Abalone.”

“Yeah, I don’t like that name.” Another laugh seemed important. When he was finished, Nelson said, “It doesn’t take any special brilliance to see what they want here. Green Light is fueled by Green Arrow, which happens to be a biotech firm, which is probably going to be the main supplier for this operation. And wouldn’t that be sweet? They help generate a fully conscious, flesh-and-blood, legally sentient entity, and they make a profit at the same time.”

Gilchrist had never mentioned that end game. He didn’t need to. Since last night, I hadn’t stopped thinking about the possibility.

“On the other hand,” Nelson began, and paused.

“What hand?”

“Somebody has to be in charge of all that fine money. I’m guessing that’s your role. As overseer, an administrator. Think up some noble-sounding title and pay yourself a respectable wage.”

“That’s what I’m planning to do.”

“Did your champion suggest a salary?”

“He did.”

“Is it? Fair, I mean.”

I shrugged.

Nelson studied me. Sitting in his own tiny apartment, in a gracious northern city with cheap buses and overlapping welfare rolls, he wore a heavy sweater and a smart, vaguely predatory expression. “None of this is ‘fair.’ Your damned doppel is going to end up being a thousand times richer than you, and with a fresh coat of flesh over those new bones, he’ll be better-looking too. Not to mention famous and wealthy and eventually free. A man of consequence, a king striding about a new world, and what happens to the man who made him possible?”

I was tired of this conversation. I considered cutting the channel between us.

But then Nelson said, “I won’t tell you what to do, Larry. I can’t. But I’d like to remind you that there are laws and that they’re pretty clear on this matter. Your doppels belong to you. They are intellectual properties released into synthetic worlds laced with their own hard rules, and whether these entities fly or crash depends on your suggestions and their luck, not to mention both of your innate skills.”

“So?”

“So make certain that you and a real attorney read the contract through. Pay attention to your property-right clauses. Pay attention to the codes of this artificial earth. And don’t even think about certain possibilities until everything is signed and pretty and very legal.”

“Don’t think about what?”

One last laugh, and Nelson shrugged. “Really, there’s no way you’re getting me to say that aloud.”

Gilchrist arrived in a rented car. He was thirty seconds early and utterly pleasant, telling me that I had a nice home when I didn’t and a lovely old street, which I did. We shook hands for the second time. I invited him into my unlovely house, into my basement. He looked at the La-Z-Boy before settling on the sofa, and I took my normal position before admitting, “I still have doubts.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said. “What’s going to happen is historic, and you’ll be one of the main elements in this event. Believe me, we didn’t pick you by accident. Your doppel is an act of genius, and now that you’ll have endless resources to bring to bear ... well, imagine what kind of successes you can build on top of what you’ve already done.”

I wanted to scream and didn’t.

I wanted to read the contracts for the fifth time but couldn’t. I had hired three different attorneys, two AIs and an old white-haired man recommended by my Maddy. Flipping the pages before my eyes was important. Feigning deep concentration was essential. And Gilchrist waited, ready to grant me twenty years of internal debate. That’s how extraordinarily patient he acted.

I signed where my signature was needed and initialed where initials were mandatory, each one of my marks feeding into a secure depository, and he did the same ceremonial gestures, and I told my bio and his that I was entering this agreement willingly, and that’s when everything felt finished. Our business was done, and it wasn’t even Saturday night.

“Let me take you to dinner again,” he said. “My treat, of course.”

“Of course.”

Both of us laughed.

“Where would you like to go?” Gilchrist asked.

Maybe a little too quickly, I said, “Back to the same place. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance for beef again.”

He smiled. “I’d happily give you a lift.”

I hadn’t quite expected that. “No, I really should ride. I’m trying to lose a few pounds, and these feasts aren’t helping.”

At the ready was a good-humor laugh. We shook hands for the last time, and he asked, “How about seven again?”

It wasn’t quite five. “Fine. I’ll see you then.”

“Very good. I’m looking forward to it, Mr. Voss.”

I walked him to the yard, watched him drive away. Maddy was out in her yard, waving at me in a neighborly fashion. I returned the gesture and slipped into the garage—a piece of storage space designed to shelter my nonexistent car. What was waiting in the garage was worth more than all but the very best automobiles. I had to use most of my savings just to rent this equipment, but measured by a different scale, this was well worth the investment.

The machines had already spliced their way into my house. The body suit and helmet were cumbersome until they were awakened, and then my mind was agonizingly slow, leaden. I found myself standing inside the main castle, in the Great Hall. Like a statue, I could do nothing while the doppels and a thousand extras raced past me. And then the augmenters engaged. I was suddenly part of the throng, immersed in the conversation and excitement, everyone waiting for an audience with their king.

My wait proved brief. An alert guard noticed my face and realized what I was, bringing me straight to the front of the line. Great doors opened. The king was where he looked his splendid best, sitting on that very high throne while his happy subjects proclaimed their love and boundless fealty. He saw me at a distance and waved me forward. Every guard and administrator was impressed, and the lovely witch-queen sitting on her smaller throne gave me a very inviting wink. My arrival meant that the most important essence of all was paying them a visit. The only difficulty was when the Erebus hounds took it upon themselves to sniff my hands and crotch, ten different men yanking at the leashes and begging my forgiveness for this unthinkable breach in etiquette.

I waved aside the insult and pressed on.

“It is you,” said the king with delight.

“Your Excellence,” I replied, not bothering to bow.

He didn’t expect a bow or any other token nonsense. Our relationship was set, and nothing would change that. The king of a contrived realm had to surrender his authority to such as me. But he did have enough curiosity to ask, “What brings you here, Sir? As an essence, no less.”

“I have news,” I said. “Great, unexpected news that involves you.”

Intrigued, he pitched forward on the throne. “Yes? Tell me.”

“You are mine, and now you are dead,” I said, yanking the gun from its hiding place—a neat little tool that did its work in an instant.

I arrived five minutes early for dinner. The restaurateur welcomed me as his personal savior, gave me iced tea and a bowl of beef jerky, and then he hurried into the kitchen, probably to check on his stocks of steak and veal. I drank and ate the salty meat and watched a few minutes of some old documentary. Vaguely familiar faces were talking about those awful days when the Repression began. Except it was a new event for them, and they were part of the history, and I knew most of the facts and nothing else about the events that took place during seven rough months when I was a boy.

I watched the angry faces and listened to pieces of what they said, but mostly I was busy feeling happy. I kept smiling. I kept watching the time. I wasn’t even a little worried when it was 7:03 and Gilchrist hadn’t arrived. In fact, I was relieved. He knew what I had done, and of course he wasn’t going to sit at my table. No untidy scenes for me tonight. I decided to celebrate on my own account, and my new best friend emerged from the kitchen and took my order and practically skipped on his way back to oversee the robotic chiefs.

Moments later, a figure came from the back of the restaurant. I didn’t see him until he sat in front of me.

I said, “Oh,” and laughed nervously.

Gilchrist laughed with more confidence. Snapping up a piece of jerky, he put it to his nose and sniffed and flinched at the salty stink, and he held it up to the light before placing back it into the bowl, very quietly saying, “Of course you shot him then. You didn’t dare wait.”

“I couldn’t,” I agreed.

“Because he was a political creature, a survivor on a brutal treacherous world, and he would have recognized the situation. The game. How you would have stood to benefit with his abrupt and untimely death.”

I kept waiting for that sense of falling, of plunging out of control from some great height. But all that happened was a nagging feeling of discomfort, as if weak hands were trying to suffocate me.

“You went to experts, yes. Which was reasonable. But that king of yours was the one authority that you should have asked for help. He would have offered hard questions, and he might even have sniffed out the duplicities at work.”

“Duplicities?”

Gilchrist said nothing.

I said, “Green Arrow.”

The young face grinned and blinked before saying, “That organization knows nothing about you. Or for that matter, it knows nothing about me either.”

The invisible hands grew stronger, tightening around my neck.

“But on the other hand, I do represent another foundation. Not one with a name or the need for names. But we have a mandate and resources of some considerable reach, and our awards, trust me, are as profound and life-changing as anything that can be done with a few billion dollars.”

“Is it Nelson?” I asked.

“You think your old friend might be to blame. Is that it?”

“He had a role in this. Didn’t he?”

“And so did I. And so did others. But mostly, this is about you, Mr. Voss. You are the active force here.” He leaned back against the stiff old vinyl, saying, “I meant it, Sir. That I was a fan of your promise but thought your gifts were wasted. And sometimes it is best ... in situations like this ... to take a comfortable citizen and make him less so. Put him into a place where he cannot depend on inheritances for his next meal or the roof over his head.”

“What about my roof?”

“You put your savings into the essence trickery. Except there was a problem. Through some complicated difficulties that I can’t begin to describe, your savings never reached the proper accounts. Our banking system is a nightmare, and they have vanished, and you have fallen into deep debt. A debt that will require the selling of your home to make amends. As per the Bankruptcy Act of 2017.”

I leaned forward.

The television launched into a documentary about the New Oligarchs and the subsequent resurgence of order in the world.

“I’m ruined,” I muttered.

“You’re reborn,” he countered. “Fresh into the world with nothing but your skin and basic nature.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Gilchrist said nothing, pulling himself out of the booth.

“What? Do you want me to join a political movement now?” I felt almost hopeful, asking, “Am I supposed to run off with you now? Join the cyber-guerrillas or whoever it is?”

He said, “Hardly.”

I cursed him.

He said, “This is a gift, sir. A gift. And like any charity, its value relies on whatever the recipient gains in the end.”

I cursed him once more.

The youngster grinned and winked, and I suddenly recognized that expression. The witch-queen showed me the same look today.

The door to the kitchen swung open.

As my feast was being carried closer, Gilchrist bent low, and with a quiet conspiratorial whisper said, “You can’t afford this meal. But it might be your last. My advice? Eat your fill. Then put this dried beef inside a clean pocket. And when nobody seems to be watching, run. Run, run, run.”

Copyright © 2010 Robert Reed