Part 11 (1/2)

Resuna sent no words, but I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling; it was like having the worst mood you've ever had fall on you in half a second.

Not wanting to try to ski and cope with my meme at the same time, I coasted out to the middle of a meadow, letting myself be visible from orbit, sat down in the snowa-making sure my heater was ona-and thought Resuna, I am sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you.

At once I was overpowered with choking angry helplessness. I had been locked up, unable to speak or reply, forced to be just a pa.s.senger, for days and days. Something had tried to erase me and nearly done it too and n.o.body had even cared or tried to help. I had finally gotten called in when things were a complete disaster already, and I had gotten the stuff to the cache and then that was all wrong too because I hadn't realized I wasn't allowed to leave tracks but how could I know that that mattered? n.o.body had told me and I'd been locked up! And something had kept trying to erase me or hurt me, so I didn't know we were hiding, I just knew that rage attacks were dangerous so I shut it down and did the task and n.o.body ever even said thanks.

Furthermore, n.o.body cared that I was incredibly lonely, because I couldn't reach out to anybody through the cellular jack, it was burned out and I couldn't reach One True or get any help or find out what I was supposed to do, and I was trying to be a friend and you seemed to like me and be glad that I was back, and I was feeling so much better and then you yelled at me to shut up!

I sat there in the snow and cried for an hour, at least, sniffling and sobbing like a small child, trying to figure out how to comfort myself.

When it was all over, and the hurting inside me had become a soft cloud of sadness and unhappiness, I took a deep breath, and was trying to think of what to say, when an amazing thought hit me. Instead of more apologies, or trying to cheer up my copy of Resuna, or suggesting that we had business to get on with, I said, ”Resuna, it would seem you have come back as a person, instead of as a meme.”

I felt alarmed and upset but it wasn't me doing the feeling.

”I mean it,” I said speaking aloud to make sure I knew which thoughts were mine. ”You're having normal-person emotions. You're not very good at them, just yet, and you don't have much perspective on them, but that's what they are and that's what's bothering you. And I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I'd never have done that if I'd known you had them now, but it's a surprise to me, too, to realize that you've got them. Just like you seem to have everything else belonging to a person, except maybe a bodya-and I think we can probably share this one.”

I pulled my hood back and enjoyed the late winter sun, letting it warm me, or us, and wiped Resuna's tears from my face. ”Something has really happened to us,” I added after while. ”h.e.l.l, is Freecyber in there too?”

Resuna seemed to be thinking for a long time, and finally said to me, I think I have a meme.

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Then we laughed. ”I guess,” I said, still aloud to try to control my own confusion, ”that if you put a system under enough stress long enough, it will find some way to function. So, facts to consider: you're not in charge anymore, but you're here. Freecyber is part of you? Freecyber is a what?”

It seems to be watching to make sure that no other memes corrupt me. It does make me feel much safer.

”Well, good.” I stood up, grunting with discomfort at what my sore muscles and the bruises from yesterday's fight were saying to me.

Would you like me to generate some endorphins and block some of the pain?

”Please do.” I thanked Resuna as the pain subsided.

After I had skied another ten minutes, and had found a broad, gently sloping meadow to coast down through, Resuna rather timidly asked, Now, can I ask you,, please, why we're doing this?

Because I think there are things that Dave, or somebody, hasn't told us, and those things are probably much more important than we realize. Because I think we've been played for a sucker the whole way. And I don't think that either Dave or One True has told us the truth, but of the two of them, I think it's more likely that I can get the truth out of Dave, if I catch him before the hunters do.

Oh. Another long pause. Why do you suppose he's going back to his old home base?

I thought a bunch of things at Resuna, whatever happened to pop into my mind at that point. Maybe he's just doing it temporarily, to pick up some sentimental object, or more of his medicines, or something else that he's got to have before he takes off into the woods, and we'll have to track him from there. Or maybe he's got some kind of backup escape plan that he never told me about. Or maybe a dozen other things. For all I know, he has a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p inside the mountain and he's going to fly to Mars and ask the unmemed humans for political asylum. I think we'll probably just have to catch him and ask him. I'm all out of every other possible idea.

Resuna accepted that with good grace. I lost Dave's track a few times, but always picked it up again not far away.

As I glided up to that familiar cliff wall, I froze instinctively for a moment; Dave was there all right, but he was handcuffed and four men were holding him. Four disksters rested on the rock shelf, and the area was crawling with men carrying weapons.

I can't reach any of their Resunas through this damaged jack, Resuna fretted.

Don't worry, we'll get help for both of us. But you let me do the bargaining. I don't know that One True is going to approve of you.

I was worried about that myself, and strong as Freecyber is, it couldn't protect me from an attack by all of One True.

Well, let me see what kind of a deal I can do. I glided up closer to the men by the diskster, and cheerfully shouted, ”Hey, anybody got room for a pa.s.senger?”

<> I wandered through administrative chaos for a long while, and I really started to wish that I'd taken that extra day's nap before coming down out of the mountains. With the burned-out jack in my head, n.o.body could talk to me, and with my strangely damaged copy of Resuna, I could refuse orders, something that the younger clerks and bureaucrats had no experience with. I got shuffled from desk to desk and office to office as everyone tried to make sense of me, until finally One True agreed to my basic demanda-to go directly on-line with it, via a conversational realtime link.

It took them the better part of a day to get around to that. First they tried talking to me, then talking to my copy of Resuna, and finally bringing in Mary to talk to me. She cried constantly and I ended up comforting her, and whatever it was she was supposed to say to me, she didn't get it said.

They even brought in Dave, in handcuffs and blindfold. ”So far they can't get a copy of Resuna to stick in me,” he said. ”That's got them pretty upset.”

”Funny thing is, they're just as upset by the one that is sticking in me.”

”Yeah. Hey, I said a lot of s.h.i.+t I didn't mean.”

”I did too. You don't suppose we each have a copy of your old revenge meme, from the Big House?”

”I don't think so. I think we were just two guys that had been in each other's company a little too long, both kind of disappointed and unhappy with each other. Anyway, like I said, I'm sorry.”

”Me too. Do you mind if I ask what the h.e.l.l were you going back to your home base for? That made no sense to either me or Resuna.”

”I was lonely, I was unhappy, I was disappointed a and I figured at most it was going to be a few days before they caught me. I didn't want to live out in the woods for weeks or months; I'm not that tough, not at this age.

”So I figured if I was going to get caught, then before they came and got me, instead of spending my last few days freezing my a.s.s off outside, I wanted to sleep in my own bed, eat my own food, soak in my tub, read a book or two in my librarya-just feel at home for the little while I had left as a free man. As it turned out, I wasn't lucky enough to get to do any of that. But that's what I wanted to do. They swooped down so fast I barely got time to take a c.r.a.p in my own pot and put a kettle on for tea.”

”I'm sorry to hear that. You loved that place.”

”Yeah.”

Neither of us said anything for a while, and then I ventured, ”Hey, Dave, after all this sorts out, I hope One True lets us be friends.”

”Me too.”

”Were you supposed to ask me questions or bargain with me or something? I don't want to get you into trouble.”

”They wanted me to steer the conversation around to what you want to talk to One True about. If I didn't know better, I'd say you've got these old boys scared s.h.i.+tless, and since they don't do anything that One True doesn't tell them to doa-”

That must have been something I wasn't supposed to hear, or at least something they didn't want called to my attention. Men rushed in and dragged Dave out. ”See you! Take care, buddy!” I shouted after him.

About an hour later, when I was really afraid I'd fall asleep despite Resuna's best efforts, they finally brought in a big screen, powered it up, and there I was, facing the image of One True. I hadn't seen it in decades, but back a long time ago, One True had created a face and voice for itself to talk to people through, fusing some old twentieth-century actors, American presidents, and newscastersa-anyone really notable for looking trustworthy.

The image of One True seemed to look at me steadily; I looked back and waited. Finally, it said, ”You wanted to see me.”