Identity Matrix (1982) (26 page)

Well, there was this dark area, and I got ready, figuring at least I wouldn't have to kill anybody. No use hiding with Parch around. So, I reach out to her, and, by God, she reached out and grabbed me first! Not just her hand—I mean with her mind!"

"She was Urulu?" I gasped.

That strange face was grim. "No, not Urulu. But
I felt the push
—it's
hard to describe. Let's just say she let her mind flow out, flooding mine. I had an instant reaction, first an instinctive block, then I rushed in and made the switch on my terms. Her ego—her matrix—was so sim-ple, so uncomplicated, that I damned near crushed it, and I left my old body sitting in the phone booth with a cupid smile on his face."

"But she could make the svitch, like you, yes?" Stuart prodded. "But this ve have not yet developed. I vould know it if ve had."

Pauley shook his head. "It wasn't IMC, either. It's a new wrinkle, but an old pattern. I wouldn't have guessed it, not yet—but it is The Association."

I thought back to the tapes, and the conversations we'd had, and shivered.

"So ve
are
under attack after all!" Stuart murmured.

Pauley nodded slowly. "The war is here. How long it's been here I can't tell—we've all been out of circulation for three years. That's why I can't just contact Urulu here. I tried a couple of the numbers but they were disconnected."

He turned to Stuart. "Tell me about the Redeemers."

The scientist shrugged. "Ve have had such cults around this country for years. They are mostly young, mostly made up from runaways, former addicts, teens vith un-happy homes."

"I remember the Children of God, the Moonies, lots of others, from when I was growing up," I added. "I suppose Hari Khrishna is still around."

"Most have merged," Stuart told us. "This new church wept them up, a big movement. You cannot escape them, and, thanks to the courts and the First Amend-ment, you can't interfere with them. Many of the older ones have come together vith them. They own huge tracts of land, are rich and pervasive."

"I know how rich they must be," Pauley responded. "I left the mongol sitting there and went over to this cart that read 'Flower Power for Love and Godhead.'

I saw two others similar to myself working further down the airport, and I checked in my pocket. There was almost $230 there.

"That much was good. You ought to have seen those APs when I tried to sell them flowers! I even pressed Harry Parch himself!"

"You didn't!" Dory gasped.."And did he buy one?"

"He looked at me kind of funny for a minute, and I thought I'd gone too far, that he knew who I was despite all. But, I'll be damned if he didn't gentle up and buy a nice carnation! I even chivvied him out of his change for a 'contribution.' "

"Dan!" I scolded. "You shouldn't have! How did you ever—“ That strange, shaven head came up, and I'd swear there was a definite change in the form. It seemed to be eerily transformed, to shrink, change, become someone else.

It rose, an incredibly sincere pleading in its eyes.

"Buy some flowers?" this plaintive voice asked, so genuine and convincing that we all seemed to pull back a little. "Would you convert some money to beauty?" it pleaded, so genuinely that it scared the hell out of me.

Suddenly the effect was gone, replaced by Pauley's confident manner and smile that shone through that odd body. He chuckled.

"My God! That's
incredible
!" I
managed.

His face turned serious. "You see," he said, "my peo-ple developed the IM

transfer without mechanical aid, as an evolutionary device. We were weak, our brains our only defense in a world unremittingly hostile. Our brains gave us IM if we needed it, and gave us a certain illu-sory power as well. There would be this terrible crea-ture, ready to eat us, and we'd activate this protective circuit.

Suddenly we weren't Urulu food any more, we were a plant, another carnivore, something like that. We can still do it—the power of the Urulu is all in the mind.

We've been fighting all our existence, and we still have it."

It was unsettling to all of us. Frankly, Dan Pauley had been a real person, even in different forms. He was not a friend on the trail or on the ferry, but he'd become a lice sort of guy in imprisonment and escape.

But he wasn't a nice sort of guy at all, I thought.

He was an alien creature whose very thought patterns were different from us.

He was simply imitating us, giving us what we wanted him to be. That's why everybody liked Pauley, everybody felt comfortable with him.

Stuart, ever practical, broke the mood. "Did you keep the money?" he asked.

Pauley smiled. "Sure. Two hundred and thirty flower power bucks plus five from Mr. Harry Parch."

"But what good does it do us?" I protested. "We're still known, and now Parch knows we're in town. He can smoke us out—it isn't that big a place. And now The Association will know that a Urulu is here, too."

Pauley shook his head. "No, not much threat from The Association at this stage. These are drones. Their minds have been drained, the useful information, if any, filed, and they have been given identical, empty
personas.
They're robots, that's all. That's why the girl's mind cracked when I resisted. It simply wasn't equipped for it. The other two won't even recognize that one of their own is missing. They'll go on until relieved, then go back to their living quarters.

Nobody will notice or care. The biggies will only show up to make sure everything's going right and collect the money. They won't even count.

Individuals don't exist in The Association."

I started to press for more information on the enemy but Stuart was ever practical. "The fact remains that Harry Parch is here and he knows
ve
are here.

He can lock up this town tighter than a drum but very qvietly, vith full government authority. Ve have to get out of here. As the crow flies, ve are less than eighty miles from IMC."

"Well, we've gotten this far—we can't give up now," Dory put in. "I won't give that son of a bitch another crack at me!" She started thinking. Finally she said,

"Look, I'm the least known and most unobtrusive person here. Parch hasn't seen me since I was a kid and my odds of meeting him head on are pretty slim anyway." There was no arguing with that.

"O.K., then," she went on, fire in her tone, "so we've got $235, plus whatever we have left over. That's a lot. Now, when the stores open, I'm gonna take that money and buy us a way outta here."

Check-out was noon, but, despite some nervousness, we needed a little more time and I managed to sweet-talk the manager, a kindly old guy. I was a little appre-hensive about letting Dory out alone, but Dan and I were both conspicuous, for different reasons, and even if Stuart's current face wasn't familiar to them, which it was, he would have been lost on such a shopping expedition.

She came back in a taxi with a pile of stuff we had to help unload. I looked over it, somewhat approvingly, the only one who, at least, didn't need a wardrobe.

"I kept it simple," she told us. "Things we needed, things for a good disguise, all from the discount stores except the wigs, which I had to pick up at Sears."

We sorted the stuff out and I was amazed at the variety. She handed me a package. ""Mix it," she told me. ""It's hair dye. Sensual Auburn, it says. Seems stu-pid to dye it its natural color, but I couldn't stand black on you, red always looks phoney, and it looked the best."

I took her advice, although with a bit of regret, and filled the sink.

A bit later she took over the bathtub and started pouring in small packets that turned the water into what looked like really thin mud. "What," I asked her, "is
that?
"

"Skin tint," she replied. "You mean you never saw it? It was just getting to be the in thing a few years ago. It's out now, I guess, but it's still around. It's a dye, it won't wash off, and this particular batch is called 'Bronze Goddess.' You can get 'em in any color—even blues and pinks and stuff like that."

I looked at it dubiously. "How
do
you get it off, then?"

You can use an alcohol sponge, but most folks just let it wear off. It fades out in a couple of days. Now, «trip and get in—we got to cover every part of your nice, white skin with it."

The stuff actually didn't look bad
on
the skin, or in it, or
whatever it was. Like a really deep suntan, a real golden bronze. She spent a lot of time making sure I had a complete coat, using a sponge applicator. When she was finished my skin and hair just about matched, although my blue eyes were a little incongruous.

Dory was even prepared for that. "I knew you might have sunglasses, she said, "

but not with a light frame." She handed me a pair and they looked pretty good. A golden nail polish and light lipstick completed the job, and I had to admit, looking at myself in the mirror, I looked like an entirely different person. With my hair now up and back, my ears showing, I looked exotic, all right, but not like Misty Carpenter. I decided to stick to the jeans, sweater, and sandals. It was simple, and comfortable.

She had gotten Pauley a short brown wig that looked pretty good, some false eyebrows that gave the Urulu a more human look, and a simple jeans and T-shirt outfit. "You'll have to wear the cult sandals, though," she apol-ogized. "I couldn't guess your shoe size."

For herself she put her hair up and fitted a black Afro wig over it, applied some judicious cosmetics, and got some new jeans and a souvenir T-shirt but she added a matching denim vest. "Had to go to the children's de-partment," she grumped. She stuck to her boots, on the theory that she still was the least recognizable, and pulled out a denim cowgirl-type hat with fancy stitching.

Stuart was the hardest, since we couldn't change him much. A complete change of clothes made him look touristy, a light jacket, more sunglasses and a brown cowboy hat completed the picture. He had a two-day growth of stubble, and we suggested he not shave for a while. We did, however, give him a dye job, changing his black hair to a browner shade, with just a touch of gray on the sides. It made him look different enough that he seemed satisfied.

Pauley was amazed. "How did you even know the sizes?"

She grinned. "When you've been a woman all your life you get to guessing other women's sizes pretty well."

We stood back and looked critically at one another. "What do you think?"

Pauley asked.

"They'll do," Dory replied. "Look, it was the best I could do for a hundred and fifteen dollars. You never had problems, I am least likely to be known, Stuart—well, if he came face to face with somebody who'd known the original owner he'd be in trouble, but not casually, or from an I.D. photo. No, Misty's the only one with problems."

"What do you mean? I think I look terrific!"

"Yeah, you do—as usual, which is the problem. Honey, you have a forty-two-inch bust on a twenty-four-inch waist. There's no disguising that. Your every move is an advertisement. One sex goddess attracts as much atten-tion as another—and attention is what we don't want to attract."

"What can I do?" I wailed. "This is
me.
"
I felt that it was a ridiculous position.

Who'd ever thought that not being noticed, being nondescript, fading into the background, being very common and ordinary, would be such an asset?

Where are you, Victor Gonser, when I really need you?

"Let's get something to eat," Pauley suggested. "The usual place, I think. It's a good test, since our old selves have been in there before—your old selves, anyway."

I nodded, then had a sudden thought. "What about my suitcase? It's got all my stuff in it!"

He sighed and looked at it. "You can't even lift it," hepointed out. "I'd say take what little you can in your purse and forget it."

"Forget it hell! That's my
life
in there!"

"Or it might be your life if you keep it," he shot back.

I sighed and almost cried when I thought of the stuff I would be losing. But one thing I wouldn't abandon. I opened the thing and took out the mink jacket. It was a nice brown and would go with my dyed self.

"Wow!" Dory whistled. "Is that
real?
"

I nodded. I also took the jewelry case, opened it, and dumped it into my shoulder bag, along with the contents of the smaller purse I'd been going to use.

The rest was really nice, and had some fond memories attached, but it could be more easily replaced. I looked at it sadly and shook my head, then sighed. "O.K.

Let's go before I start bawling my head off."

Stuart and I went first, dropping the key off and then going off arm-in-arm. It served to draw some attention away from me to him for having me on his arm, which was good psychology.

Dory and Dan followed a few minutes behind, and we met in a corner booth at the restaurant. At the end, after figuring the bill, we figured we still had about $120 and some change. That was only $30 apiece. Not very much at all
.
Not even enough for bus tickets.

"We'll have to split up and get out of town," Pauley told us. "I don't like it, but they'll be looking for groups. Ordinarily, I'd say Misty and Stuart were the ideal cou-ple, but not here. Putting our most recognizable people together would be a mistake. Better he and I—much less visibility that way, since they won't know me at all—and you and Dory."

I nodded. "Sounds O.K. to me."

"I'd still not travel around too close together while in Vegas," Pauley went on.

"You've got to face it, Misty-, even in a city full of beautiful showgirls you get noticed, and that could cause them to put you and a smaller Indian woman together."

"We'll take it easy," I promised him. "Look—you two take care of yourselves and don't worry about us. I think we can handle ourselves in the city."

"O.K., then. I'll leave it to you how to get out. Train, plane, and bus stations are bound to be watched closely, as will all rental car agencies."

"They can plug right into the computers," Stuart put in. "Get a readout—and you'd have to use your right name and driver's license and credit cards."