Virtually True (30 page)

True remembers he laughed. Over mind’s edge. “My old friend Aslam.” True was only obliquely aware of his incoherence. “My old college buddy Aslam. What a great place for an alum—an alumni reunion, buddy.”

From his ground perch, True watched as Aslam, then an officer in the Pakistani army, marched over—he can see the mud-caked boots even now—and kicked True. There was a breathless flash of white that came from somewhere inside his head, the shock of pain. Darkness blanketed him. When he woke up, he wasn’t chained and was sleeping on a mattress. The scent of clean sheets made him cry; so thankful for little things. A pillow, pillow case, blanket, cleanliness. Someone had bathed him while he slept, and at the time, it was all True needed to be happy.

“Psalm” ends, the final song on
A Love Supreme
. True checks the time—the hour is sifting into dawn. He knows he has to sleep, but is afraid to dream, afraid to be alone, afraid to be with anyone.

True types a new drummer into the program, substituting Tony Williams for Elvin Jones. But keeps the rest of the John Coltrane Quartet intact, even though he’s sure Tony Williams never recorded with Trane. But True wants to hear something unique. Tony Williams, always on top of the beat, sticks skimming along like flat-sided stones on a lake. The infinite space between two beats. Some drummers play right on it, others a little on top, like Elvin Jones, but a few sprint ahead, as if they alone pull the music along with them.

Tony Williams’s conception of time is unique.

              True’s conception of reality is unique.

                      Because what is reality anyway?

                            Where are the boundaries?

                                   Once, he thought he knew.

And the song he chooses for the computer to assemble from the billions of bytes of artistic data it absorbed, all the players’ solos and recorded works, all of their tendencies and theoretical underpinnings? Knowledge of their substitutions, altered dominants, diminished and augmented scales, triads.

The song?

              What’s the song?

                    “The Promise.”

But before the music runs out, Reiner calls and True’s taken away.

Her first. “You were right about the capital, the land transactions, everything. What now?”

“What do you think?”

“I’d suggest you get your ass to Japan.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Are you really ill?”

“I’ll explain when I see you.”

“How will you get out of the hospital?”

“Leave it to me.”

CHAPTER 21

Urine-warm rain slants down from smudged clouds, runs off through cracks and fissures in the pavement. Pumice and coral walls, barriers built to hem in shanty dwellers, sponge water until stained with greasy patches. Mined from surrounding reefs, coral is nature’s barrier against wave erosion. In Luzonia, it’s also ground, mixed with flour. Buildings and bread: two reasons Luzonia’s coast melts away. White flakes flop down with the drops, like snow but not snow, spewing from an abandoned rubber factory constructed before Luzonia’s rubber trees were stripped away, processed, exported, gone forever, point-zero-zero-zero-one percent repatriated as foreign aid: as windshield wipers, weapons, sneakers, surplus condoms, useless shit.

The factory’s been converted into a crematorium. The plague is out of control, thousands of bodies a day stuffed into ovens. The gagging aroma fills True’s head. He wonders why his scent mechanism works after his VR-FREEze-mare. Probably because he’s tiptoeing on shards of fear.

True and Rush stand crammed at the starting line of The Urban Survival Tournament, set outside the tunnel where the truck was stuck. It’s True’s neighborhood, a place he knows, but through the tunnel exists an unknown purgatory. A martial artist practices “Bruce Lees,” rooster squawks and kicks, his heel brushing Rush’s well-ordered locks. Rush ducks, collides with a female bodybuilt. Biceps roaring, she collars Rush and flings him down.

Rush picks himself up. “Lot of fucking help you are, Ailey.”

“I’ll be sure to count on you later.”

But it’s good to be outside again, even rain-soaked and surrounded by these combat-tested loaves of violence.

Rush holds his press pass as a shield, hoping to avoid more ignominy. “Give me the wrist-top. You can’t take it inside. It’s against the rules.”

“Give me a minute. I don’t like to part with it.” True tugs at the bright red sweatshirt Rush gave him. It flows loosely from his nail-file frame, the fibers coated with a radar-enhancing material so Rush can track him from the air.

While Rush gripes, True wonders how his hair stays so perfect in rain. “It cost me a lot of money to get you here to the starting line. Bong Bong is convinced your death will bring him personal honor or something. I’m definitely going over budget this year.”

“You deducted the shirt from my salary. What are you complaining about? Besides. Think of the ratings.”

“Yeah.” Rush says this dreamily.

“Think of the money you’ll save on my salary after I’m dead.”

“Yeah.” Rush’s smile flips to a frown. “Not that I want you to die or anything. Hang in there as long as you can. The more footage we get of you, the better. You win, that’d be the best scenario of all.”

“You honestly think I can complete this course without getting my face ripped off?”

Rush squeezes True’s limp bicep. “No.”

The joint network craft hovers overhead. Background footage sweeps.

Rush holds out his hand. “I better get to my ride, get out of this rain. Give me your wrist-top.”

True unclasps it, dangles it for Rush to take. Before Rush can grab it, a street urchin snatches it and tucks into the crowd. Rush shouts after him but the boy vanishes.

True says, “You have all of it on file anyway.”

“It’s WWTV property. Now I have to requisition another. Now I’m really going over budget.” Rush goes to his waiting hovercraft.

True works his way into the contestant pool, his eyes darting left and right. He’s careful not to rub elbows or step on toes. Already fights break out between those with too much pride and too little brain, all with lots to prove, this their only means to prove it.

There are announcements—the usual warnings and explanations: no outside equipment; the winner is the first contestant to wind through the ghetto unassisted and come out the other side alive. A 21
^st
century game for a 21
^st
century media market. The footage will be grisly. True wonders whether this is actually better than being glued to a hospital bed, psychotropic patterns beaming above. He looks around, sees Bong Bong lounging on the bridge walkway. A black umbrella shields him from the downpour. Bong Bong waves, calls down, but True can’t hear him. He wonders where Pidge is.

Cannon fire. The start. True’s pulled along in the contestants’ current, through the tunnel, deafening and dark, then out. As soon as they clear daylight, bricks, bottles, and rocks whistle down. True covers his head, keeps pushing forward. Steps aside, lets the rest of the pack shoot by. At his feet is a school of cockroaches, water bugs, other festering insects, feeding on the slime and garbage. A teeming congress of rats nearby, too. He wonders about their reputation as being able to survive atomic blasts and feed on the toxic waste, that they’d outlast humans on earth. But True’s seen roaches or rats only where people congregate. Maybe vermin need people like journalists need misery.

True sprints down the main artery, well behind now, counts off one cross street with his fingers, another, another, another, as the contestants shatter into smaller groups, working in teams in some instances to fend off attacking Luzonians. True hangs a right with a small herd of other contestants, scoots into a doorway where he stays hidden as the tumult crescendos.

From here, he watches the martial artist fend off a gang-pack, his feet spinning like turbine rotors, crashing into jaws and ribs. Until he’s speared. The pack pounces, rips the clothes from his body, checks for gold or silver in his teeth, carves organs out of his body and sticks them in plastic baggies with ice. You can’t strip a car or computer that fast, True thinks. The Urban Survival Tourney, the organ trade’s grandest supply show.

He waits minutes more, overwhelmed by the frenzy, sees the female bodybuilt beat and stomp her way down the alley until her brain is crushed by a well-aimed brick. She’s consumed by a teeming mass of teens who pick her clean. Leave the rest to the roaches and maggots. More die while others fight on. Only a few able to advance to the next block—the next game level. Obstacles pop up at every turn: ghetto survivors, pockmarked by radiation burns, scars, and blisters, brandish weapons. Artillery debris and bricks fire down. Old-style bullets smash into hearts, heads. Makeshift spears pierce natural body armor.

True’s waited long enough. Hops over a pile of corpses, their organs sliced out, their innards dripping, and takes another left. True’s heading away from the finish, sees Rush’s hovercraft above, imagines his supervisor’s confusion as he circles back toward the start. Keeps his back to walls, ducks under windows, is wary around doorways, notices that although people here are poor beyond poor, they all have TVs, tuned in to the event as it happens—graphs, stats, interviews, replays, comments from last year’s winner.

A rock glances off True’s head. A boy, couldn’t be more than ten, jumps on his back, and True shakes him off. Keeps running. He’s gasping now, out of breath, didn’t think about that when he filled out his entry app. Near the tunnel he slows. A gang blocks the street he needs. They brandish metal rods and clubs, home-made knives, jagged glass blades, spears made from remelted metal. True’s panting, his sides cramping. The mob moves forward. No hurry. True searches for a way around.

Suddenly, there’s Pidge, as if the cops rule here as they rule outside. Pidge sprays the ground with jus de betel nut, hits some ants, which are attacked by other ants only because they are different now, forming teeming balls. True checks behind. There’s even greater tumult there. Pidge sidles forward, stands face-to-neck with True. Above, Rush’s hovercraft, action-catching.

Pidge holds out his hand. “Cash card?” True shakes his head. Pidge taps True’s pocket. “No.” Pidge snaps his fingers, points to True’s sneakers.

“You’re going to have to kill me.”

Pidge’s eyes glow yellow with threads of red. He draws his pistol. True looks to the gang, watches their fluttering hand signals, fingers flickering and snapping, waving like hummingbirds. In seconds, in a flurry of furious activity, Pidge is dead, rent limb from limb, his neck sliced ear to ear, his spine split.

And this is the extraordinary part for True. They don’t gouge out Pidge’s organs. Instead, they choose retribution. Dwellers fly out from behind doors and windows, from all around, and beat on Pidge’s corpse with fists, feet, rocks, bottles, garbage, bricks. When they’re done mashing him to ground meat, they take turns spitting on what’s left. Rush’s hoverer hums upstairs, capturing the moment for posterity.

True follows the gang down the street into the winding ghetto-maze. At the farthest point from the finish line, True sees a man dressed the same as he, the same radar sweatshirt, the same build, skin tone, hair. His twin goes in the other way while True follows his guides through a criss-cross of homes, blade-narrow alleys, and tunnels. True squeezes through a hole in the shanty wall. Scrape, scratch.

On the other side Piña’s lazing on her skateboard. “Pidge bought it, huh?”

“Thanks.”

“That’s free. Piña owed the motherfucker.” She heaves a shirt at True.

“
I
almost thought I wasn’t going to make it. The double Piña chose? Perfect.” True takes off Rush’s radar shirt, puts on the new one.

“Even made sure his underwear matched yours, stains and all.”

“How did Piña stage my death?”

“Stage? We x’ed your double. Only way it’d look real.”