eXistenZ (16 page)

“We can get out through the kitchen!” Pikul called to Geller. “That way!”

They zigzagged between the tables, inadvertently knocking against several of them in their haste. They barged their way through the serving doors.

They found themselves in a large professional kitchen, all gleaming aluminum surfaces, huge ranges of gas burners, row upon row of overhead racks from which shimmering steel pans hung in long lines. Flames and steam rose from where an intent group of white-coated workers were cooking busily on the far side of the room, but everywhere kitchen staff were dashing around in the familiar apparent confusion of a busy kitchen. Pans and appliances constantly clattered, and chefs and their assistants bellowed a stream of orders across the bowed heads of the more humble staff.

On many shelves and polished working surfaces lay the ingredients of the meals. Legs, claws, abdomens, heads of reptiles were scattered everywhere, some piled into heaps on huge serving plates, others arrayed neatly on chopping blocks for the attention of the
sous
-chefs.

A huge glass-sided tank had been placed against the wall at one side, and in the murky green water dozens of dark, reptilian shapes constantly moved. The surface of the tank shifted and heaved like turbid oil.

One large creature, apparently a hideous mutant between toad and snake, pressed itself against the glass with suckered feet splayed out. Its belly was pale and vulnerable. Its head, prodding up above the surface of the water, surged slowly from side to side, a long pink tongue reaching endlessly around it. Its body breathed convulsively as it sucked in air with a desperate jerkiness.

Pikul’s precipitate entry into the kitchen had startled several of the workers close to the door, and now a wave of reaction spread through the room. Faces stared at him and Geller from all sides.

Moving swiftly, the chef who had waved at them stepped forward from where he’d been concealed by the doors swinging open.

It was Yevgeny Nourish.

“How did you enjoy the meal I am preparing for you?” he said cheerfully. He was holding the eviscerated remains of a large lizard.

“It was . . . revealing,” Pikul said, trying not to recoil in surprise at seeing the man there.

“Yes,” Geller said. “Not what we expected at all.”

“Well, no matter what you haff thought of it,” Nourish said. “You both passed our little test with flying colors.”

“It was a
test?”
Geller said.

“What else?”

“If it was only a test, why was it important enough to make the Chinese waiter die?” she said.

“You know how it is with waiters,” Nourish said, tapping the side of his nose with his finger. “Waiters are hearing many things being said around them. People let their guard slip when they are eating. They are relaxed, they are saying things that perhaps they shouldn’t. Restaurants haff traditionally been used by spies for centuries, for the gaining background information. This restaurant in particular is notorious: it has many people, it is full of people, who used to be working for other game companies, and others who will probably be changing jobs in the near future. A waiter is having many opportunities for listening in, eavesdropping you say, and in consequence it is passing on information he can do to those who might be paying him.”

“Are you saying he betrayed you?” Pikul asked.

“He has betrayed all of us.” Nourish stepped back to where there was a bar-locked emergency exit door. He pushed it open with a loud clanging noise from the bar. “Now, out this way! Quickly!”

[
19
]

The door opened directly into the woods. A short path led down through the trees to the river, where a second path followed the bank.

The three of them walked quickly along this, while Nourish calmly pointed out the various dams, vats, and breeding pools that had been built across or in the water. He seemed oblivious of the scene of carnage they had left behind them in the restaurant, and instead serenely showed them the insemination terraces, the breeding pools, the growth extension sections, and finally the sorting pans, where individual species were channeled off prior to final dispatch either to the restaurant or to the assembly building.

All the various areas of the Trout Farm were teeming with mutilated, mutated life, scrabbling in the shallow water as if desperate to escape. Dark, malign shapes moved horribly just beneath the surface, and in the growth extension and sorting areas the surface of the water was constantly being broken as the frantic amphibians either grabbed air or tried to find some way out of the watery hell into which they’d been born.

Some of the beings were not able to survive, and their bodies drifted to the sides of the vats or up against the banks of the river itself. From their appearance, these creatures were dysfunctional, bred not for survival or evolutionary credibility, but for their individual organs or limbs. Even some of the living ones were so malformed they could only swim belly up, paddling desperately in the muddy water to try to move around and breathe. Others, making it somehow to the edges, would roll over onto their sides, their distorted limbs flailing helplessly and their protruding eyes goggling at the sky.

“Is this where you come and collect the ingredients for the day’s special?” Pikul said.

“No . . . this is being the development area. We don’t cull from here. What we are doing is coming to development for ideas. You never know what you might be finding here, and what ideas they might be sparking off for new types of weapons. There’s always an element of chance in the animals you are finding in this stretch of the river. We generally are using only successful mutants, but you never know when something might be coming in handy for a specialized piece of equipment. Before we decide what use it is we are going to put them to, we are transferring them first to the tank in the kitchen.”

“And they’re all eaten?”

“By no means. Some are being eaten of course, but many are being used in other ways.” Nourish gave a harsh, sardonic laugh at the look of disgust Pikul could feel on his own features and see on Geller’s. “We originally are starting to raise reptilian mutants for their nervous systems. These were the basis of the main logic engines in the game-pods. But then we are finding quite by chance that some of the reptiles were rather tasty, especially when they are being fried quickly in the Chinese style. Once we had established this, and we are realizing we already had a number of Chinese people working for us, we opened the Chinese restaurant as a cover for our other activities.

“Of course,” he went on, “our main interest is in using the animals as components for undetectable and hypoallergenic weapons. There is not a defensive security system in the world that is picking out our handguns, grenades, antipersonnel mines, and so on. We are taking our feelings right up to the feet of our enemies, so to speak. And speaking of our enemies, it’s important that the two of you are going back to work at Cortical Systematics. We are needing to maintain as many active agents in there as we can. There’s an unholy mess in the restaurant that you helped make, but I can take care of all that. No worries.”

“Agents?” Pikul said.

“Agents.”

Pikul thought about this as they walked along.

“The Trout Farm is owned by Cortical Systematics?” Geller asked.

“Yes.” He grimaced bitterly. “Their corporate slogan is ought to be: ‘Enemies of Reality.’ ”

Maybe it was the use of the word “corporate,” or more simply an overload of recent horrible events, but a certain light-headedness suddenly swum over Pikul. He felt the first chords of the Antenna corporate theme sounding in his mind, like a private jukebox starting a new track. Resisting the urge to start humming along with it, he allowed a game role to take over again.

“Reality is a fragile thing,” he said tonelessly. It was extraordinary to feel these words and sentences forming of their own accord inside his mind. “Most people think that reality must of course be the most solid thing, but it frequently is not. Inner reality, emotional reality, imagined reality . . . all these are as plausible as external or objective reality. Anyway, what is reality without someone to observe or measure it? Reality in all its forms is being threatened now, more than ever. It is being eroded and it is washing away in the deforming storm of nonreality, which masquerades as reality and which will eventually replace it if we do not take the appropriate steps. Nonreality is deformed and crippled and limping and hideous and pathetic, threatening to engulf us all.”

Geller was staring at him in admiring disbelief.

“Wow!” she said.

“You like that?”

“Where did it come from?”

“The game made me do it,” he said modestly.

“I’m impressed.”

Nourish also appeared to be impressed. Smiling broadly, he lunged at Pikul and gave him a great bear hug. Then he turned to Geller and did the same.

“That proves you have become trustworthy Realists,” Nourish said warmly. “We love you for that. Welcome aboard.” He raised his hand in farewell. “Now I must leave you, but I’ll be back. We’ll be in touch. Have a nice day.”

He turned around and with one more friendly wave began walking back toward the restaurant.

Pikul and Geller resumed their stroll. Pikul felt the glow of pride starting to recede from him.

“What did he mean just now, about enemies?” he said. “Enemies of what? Reality?”

“That’s what it sounded like to me.”

Pikul silently agreed. He realized he was being drawn into something yet again.

“Or did he really mean, enemies of
eXistenZ?”
he said. “I’m trying to work this out. Who are the Realists? Assuming they have a game role, are they the game-world equivalent of the Anti-eXistenZialists, the people in the real world who were trying to kill you—”

“I wouldn’t take it too seriously,” Geller said.

“—who presumably still are trying desperately to kill you?” Pikul went on.

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Of course, you never seem to take this kind of thing seriously. But maybe you should.” Pikul stared around at the placid woods with the sun streaming down through the leaves and branches, then looked at the turbulent, churning waters of the Trout Farm where the thousands of mutant reptiles scrambled to escape their horrific fate. It was a scene of sylvan peace and calm, yet also one of unimaginable horrors. “Why does the name Cortical Systematics seem so familiar?”

“You feel that too? I’ve been trying to remember.”

“We saw it somewhere.”

Geller touched a long finger to her forehead as she stared thoughtfully at the ground. A lizard skittered away across the path.

“At the game store!” she said. “We saw it everywhere in D’Arcy Nader’s game store. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” Pikul said. “So that would make it . . . what? The game-world equivalent of our own company? Cortical Systematics would therefore be the virtual-reality version of Antenna Research.”

“ ‘Only from Cortical Systematics,’ ” Geller intoned ironically. “I wonder what their company theme sounds like?”

Pikul frowned. “So what’s next?” he said. “Do we go meekly back to work in the assembly building and say nothing?”

“I guess so.”

“It sounds as though Nourish and his Realists are preparing to sabotage the Trout Farm. Before you know it they’ll be planning to assassinate game designers.”

They were still walking along the riverbank, leaving the turmoil of the Trout Farm well behind them. Here it was genuinely peaceful again in the sunlit forest, with just the sounds of the river and the occasional calls of songbirds high in the branches above them.

“I don’t feel threatened by the thought of those fanatics, you know,” Geller said. “Maybe I should, but—”

“I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. We’re just game characters in here. It’s wrong to mix up our real-life loyalties with the game or you’ll lose for sure.”

“Lose?”

“The game,” she said. “It’s what we’re still doing. Playing a game.”

“All right,” he said. “So what do we do next?”

[
20
]

Reality dissolved, reality firmed up again. Trees faded away, walls blocked themselves in. The sunlit sky went dark, a grimy ceiling plastered with ancient posters of Darth Vader and Indiana Jones obtruded itself. The sounds of the river died down, replaced by a jangling electronic racket, mixed with pop music, which flooded the room.

Pikul found himself leaning forward, looking closely at a Cortical Systematics corporate logo. It was printed on a game-pak.

Geller was beside him. He nudged her to point out that the name had appeared again, but she was looking away, across the room. Pikul followed her stare. They had reappeared in D’Arcy Nader’s Game Emporium, haunt of Geller’s youth, and were squeezed into an aisle between the racks of games, surrounded by many other customers.

Geller looked back at him. “Do you recognize where we are?” she asked.

“Yes, of course. Do you see Nader anywhere?”

“Not yet.”

She pushed her way along the aisle toward the raised counter where the cash register was situated. Pikul followed.

The cashier was the same sallow young man they’d seen before. He was sitting at the counter, writing on a pad of paper in front of him. His sour expression hadn’t improved.

Geller said to him, “Were looking for D’Arcy Nader. Is he here?”

The cashier made no response. He continued to write. The lenses of his spectacles were grimy and covered in white flecks, Pikul noticed, and he was wearing a name tag.

“Try using his name,” he prompted Geller.

“I was about to,” she said. “Hugo Carlaw, is D’Arcy Nader here?”

The young man cashier looked down at them, then scanned the store and locked the cash register.

“Yes,” he said. “Mr. Nader is most certainly here.”

“May we see him?” Geller asked.

“He won’t talk to you.”

“He did the last time we were here.”

“Things have changed since then. You surely know why.”

“No,” Pikul said. “We don’t. We would still like to see him.”

“Suit yourself,” Hugo Carlaw said. He stood up and came down from the raised counter. “Come with me. I think he’s in the stockroom out back.”