Masque, p.1
Masque, page 1
MASQUE
a novel
by
F. Paul Wilson
Dedication
to the cast and crew of the Sci-Fi Channel’s FTL NewsFeed
for faithful and brilliant service during the years 2142-2146
This one’s for you
~~~~
“We have discovered the secret of life.”
Francis Crick
“We control the secret of life.”
Teresa Goleman
PROLOGUE
The fat man breathed hard as he stood in the vast valley between two empty, black buildings, their struts and columns exposed like the skeletons of giant prehistoric creatures felled by spears and left to rot...
At least they're rotting slowly, he thought. Enough of the buildings remained to house thousands of outsiders.
The fringe of the jumble. Glom control ended miles back, but this urban wilderness was no freezone. Nothing here but miles of desolate, burned-out buildings.
Was there a more dangerous place? Dark as interstellar space, with only eerie glimmers of light speckling the buildings, lights fueled by outsiders, who could see him...watch him.
They'd know he was alone. They'd think he must have come from the warm heart of the jumble, from one of the gloms. He might have weapons, he might have a splice card or a credit chip—as good as metal.
Wrong on all counts, but they could do things to him... things he wouldn't let himself imagine.
He stopped and listened.
He heard yelling, the voices faint at first, then swelling, growing more excited. Good, he hadn't lost them. He licked his lips, scanned the ragged walls to either side, and started moving again.
The fat man reached a corner, the curb worn to a nearly smooth bump. Other skeletal buildings stretched away in the distance.
And now he saw them. Five figures chasing one. He'd followed them from the westernmost stretch of Flagge Glom, through the warren of outsider camps that girded its boundary and clung to its perimeter like remoras on a shark, looking for scraps—food, trade, people.
The fat man had followed the five as they hunted this lone mime.
Now he edged closer to the flank of one of the buildings, but not so close that a noose could snake out and pull him into the stench and darkness.
Still, he couldn't let the men see him...and he had to get closer.
Who were these five? Hunters, out to nab the mime for a bounty? A mime bolts into the jumble for some reason, and the hunters are called out. Happens all the time. The mimes never get very far...
They all know better, but desperation sometimes overcomes good sense.
Or maybe the five were Sibs. In which case the mime was doomed. Sibs blamed mimes for all their problems: Mimes caused the Great Collapse...mimes took all the work, leaving nothing for real humans...mimes degraded the Brotherhood of Man...
So let's kill them all.
They'd tear the hated mime to pieces, and that would be the end of it.
The fat man didn't have the stomach to watch that. Getting stuck watching a street mimefight was bad enough.
One of the little aphorisms, the official wetphitti that filled the Ocean, suddenly popped into his mind. It's a good world, and it's getting better all the time.
Sure it is—and the gloms only want peace and harmony for the whole world.
Uh-huh. And I've got one of the finest transit tube systems in the jumble I can let you have for a very reasonable price.
The fat man inched close to the next corner. Beyond it he saw older buildings, even some TwenCen ferro-concrete monsters squatting in the dark, worn to crumpled heaps that didn't deserve the word "building." Fires dotted the cave-like openings.
The wind bit him...supposed to hit freezing tonight. Bad news for anyone without an energy allotment...which meant just about everyone outside the gloms.
The mime was yelling. The fat man couldn't make out the words. Not yet. He backed closer to the cold concrete of the building, pressing himself tight. The five thugs, whoever the hell they were, could just as easily turn and come for him. And nothing would save him if they realized he'd been following them.
Another few feet. He heard the mime screaming, yelling in frustration.
Then something snapped out of the darkness and looped around the fat man's throat. He managed to slip a hand inside the noose before it pulled tight. He fought a surge of panic as he imagined the grizzled figure on the other end of the coil. He hoped his attacker was alone. His life could be over in seconds if he wasn't.
The fat man's free hand slid up to the inside of his belt as he fumbled for his pulser—and came up empty.
The noose tightened further and tugged him back toward the darkness. He clenched his teeth.
The mime's yells and screams seemed to mirror what was happening to him.
Where was his weapon? Had he dropped it, racing after the mime and his hunters? Had he somehow missed the clatter of its fall?
He grabbed the cable with his free hand and yanked on it, putting his considerable weight behind it. His girth had its drawbacks most days, but tonight it gave him an advantage. A human bag of bones tumbled out of the shadows and sprawled on the pavement.
The fat man took advantage of the slack in the cable to make another swipe at his belt, and now he felt it, right where it was supposed to be. He pulled out the weapon and placed the muzzle against the poor creature’s scabby scalp.
"Sorry, brother," he whispered. "I know you're desperate, but that's no excuse."
He pressed the trigger and his attacker crumbled as an ultrasonic pulse jellied his brain.
"Peace, brother," the fat man whispered, feeling a little sick as he secured his weapon.
He looked back to the street corner.
Mute! The mime had moved, and his pursuers had followed. He couldn't see them, couldn't hear them anymore. Might all be over by now and the risks of this midnight run would have been for nothing.
He moved as fast as his mass would allow, trying to land lightly on his feet, but mainly concerned that he might miss what was happening.
The fat man found them around the next corner. He stopped only a few meters from where they clustered in the center of what had once been once a street, encircling their prey. The trapped mime, in male masque, still in his teens, cried out, his voice echoing off the cold walls rising around them.
"No...please!"
"Steady there, clown boy," one of the pursuers said. "We keep telling you, we're not going to hurt you."
The mime kept turning, studying the men. The fat man saw something in his hand. Not a weapon. If he had one he could have used it on them when they were chasing him. No, it looked like a blade...a chunk of something sharp.
So why aren't they killing him? Why are these five men standing there, trying to talk to him?
"Flux, mime!" one of the men said.
"Yeah! We want to see you change."
The mime turned in a slow circle, looking as confused as the fat man felt. What was this all about? If they were Sibs they'd have killed him already. And radical Imagists probably would have done the same thing—though True Shape preachers in the Ocean claimed that they only wanted "eternal freedom" for the poor freaks.
And Hunters simply would have slapped a collar on the terrified mime and dragged him back to his owner and eventual death in the Arena.
So who were these men, what were they doing?
That was what the fat man was supposed to learn. Those were Okasan's instructions. Watch for any strange anti-mime activity, anything out of the ordinary.
But the fat man was uneasy now. This was a little too far from the ordinary.
"Go on, hit a mutin' template, mime. Give us a show. Let's see what you got."
The mime scanned the angry faces. He looked like some dumb animal being asked to do a trick but knowing he’d get a beating instead of a treat when it was done.
One of the men pulled out a weapon—a full-size version of what the fat man carried. That model pulse gun could be programmed to knock someone out for ten minutes or punch a hole in a steel wall. Standard issue for glom security forces.
The mime stood wide eyed and wobbly, certainly as scared as any human the fat man had ever seen. His instincts urged him to help, do something to even the odds. But he could only watch, then tell Okasan what he’d seen.
"Hit your button," a voice barked.
And now the mime, resigned, nodded.
Why so reluctant? the fat man wondered. No big thing. Probably nothing the mime hadn't done fighting in the arena. Or if he were an agent, he might flux a few times a week.
Why so nervous now?
The mime spoke. "I know you’ve done something to me. What did you—?”
"Shut up," one of the men barked.
The mime's eyes reflected the scant light as he looked around.
The fat man, too, looked around. He wondered if the thousands in the twisted steel nests were watching.
One of the men in the circle took a step closer. "Quit stalling, copycat!"
And that was when the fat man noticed something strange about the mime's eyes. A sadness there, something like resignation. His hand fumbled over his abdomen, opening his interface slit, removing the template seated there. He looked around the circle again, blinked...
Then began to flux.
His features shifted, the flesh rising, dough-like, as if released from the skeletal structure below.
And then a hissing noise. One of the men in the circle, close to the mime, moved to his right, blocking the fat man's view. More hissing, then a terrible low dull moan, a sad animal sound, the cry of something dying, that rose suddenly to a shrieking bellow. An awful sound, like what must have come from—what did they used to call them?—slaughterhouses.
What the hell is this? he thought. What's happening? If only I could see.
The shriek devolved into a sickening gurgle, and then he heard a thick, wet sound as something smacked against the pavement.
The fat man backed away, trying to move slowly but wanting to be out of this place. His right foot kicked against a stone and it clattered a few inches away.
He kept his eyes on the circle of men. Had they heard that? No. They still encircled the mime, who remained hidden from view. And they fell silent, as if the brutality that defined their existence was being sated by what they were witnessing.
The fat man backed away a bit more, then turned and retreated at a brisk walk. And when he thought he'd gone far enough, he pushed himself into his best approximation of a run, heading back to the more civilized areas of the jumble.
And along the way he kept scanning the buildings for those flickering lights, watching for anyone who'd risk coming for him. He kept his pulser in his hand.
As he moved, he struggled to understand the significance of what he had seen—and not seen.
A mime had been tracked and trapped...but not killed... simply forced to go into flux. But something had happened. Something lethal.
But what?
One thing the fat man did know: neither he nor anyone else outside that circle had been meant to witness that. And his life would be worthless if he spoke publicly of what he had seen here tonight.
But he’d tell Okasan
Okasan would understand. Okasan would explain. Okasan knew everything.
PART ONE
INTO THE WOODS
CHAPTER ONE
"Your lordship, it's time now. Come, please...you don't want to miss your meeting, Lord Tristan. Mr. Cyrill will be waiting."
Tristan opened his eyes.
Blue...his one-room compartment was lit in soft blue tones, almost as if it were underwater. Tristan had never seen any of the world's seas first hand, and yet...
The name Cyrill brought him to full alertness as Regis prattled on.
"He expects you in less than a quarter hour, Lord Tristan, and you know how he hates to be kept waiting."
Tristan slid out of the bed and Regis retreated. As soon as his feet hit the floor, the room changed color. The blue light shifted, warming to a burnished orange while a few spots in the room started glowing with a lean white light.
The bubble-screen array he'd been watching last night still floated at the end of his bed.
Tristan glanced at them now, an arrangement of his favorite antique vids, nearly all of them black and white. The absence of color seemed to make them more real, as though they came from a different world, a planet without color, but filled with emotion, filled with people he cared about.
His world had color. No emotion, no beliefs, no people
—but lots of color.
Tristan walked closer to the floating screens.
The vids were frozen at key scenes, moments that particularly interested Tristan. A man stood on a small town's bridge, giant snowflakes flying in his face. Should he jump or not? Was his life really meaningless?
How could it be? Tristan thought. With a wife and children, and that great town filled with people who loved him?
The next image made Tristan smile. A man named Rick sat at table, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, talking to the most beautiful woman in the world.
Who just happened to walk into his club...
Tristan reached out and pushed his hand through the image, and the flat black and white image danced on his hand.
He wished he could step into that world.
He shook his head. This was dreaming. Looking at these vids, dreaming about a world that probably never was.
"Access my newsfeed, Regis."
"Oh, there's nothing there that you'd be really interested in, your lordship. And you are running late."
"Play it," Tristan said, thinking he must set aside time to reprogram his PDA.
This English butler thing was getting old. He’d picked up the idea after watching all these old vids, the black and white flatties; he'd thought it would be fun to have his own butler. But in real life, day after day, it got pretty muting annoying.
Before this reprogramming, Regis had been an elderly cardinal, addressing Tristan as "Your Holiness."
Fun...for awhile.
Everything got annoying. Or boring. Especially when your life was so circumscribed. The mime warren had every amenity... except freedom of movement. No mime could leave the warren unless his Roam Grid was cleared by the glom.
Tristan could only look at the tantalizing holo-visions of places so different from the gloms. There were jungles, lush and crazily green, filled with mottled snakes that hid in the trees and odd little mammals with dark, haunted eyes. What a wonderful thing to actually go to them, he thought. Or imagine the mountains, the tremendous jagged peaks. Imagine climbing up those rocky cliffs, feeling the hard stone, the icy wind...
Tristan could imagine it. And that made this life, this imprisonment, so much harder.
But today he’d get out and travel, if only in the man-made world of the glom. Yes, today would be a good day.
He turned and saw his reflection in the large glistening mirror against one wall. His features were blank, with flat cheek bones, a rudimentary nose, a slit for a mouth, his irises nearly white. His smooth naked body stood slim and pale, with no sexual organs.
He took a step toward the mirror. His templates lay on the counter, including the new ones Cyrill had sent over.
A ball of light materialized in the air behind him as Regis began to run his personal newsfeed.
"Lord Tristan, I do wish you'd forego today's—"
An announcer's voice cut Regis off.
"A new wave of anti-mime violence is sweeping the freezones."
Tristan glanced at his PDA. "Still trying to shelter me, Regis?"
Then he turned back to the holo. Sure, he thought, anything could happen to a mime in the freezone. Without a glom behind him, a mime was as good as dead. The gloms hammered that one home.
The bubble filled with solid-looking images of a pair of running mimes. The pursuing crowd screamed at the escapees, their yells filling Tristan's apartment.
"Kill the copycats! Kill the freaks!"
Sibs on the prowl...he wondered how many of them were roaming the jumble.
Some of the screaming crowd carried weapons...sticks, stones, knives. So primitive. Revulsion crawled through Tristan's gut, still he kept watching, fascinated. Something so primal about the scene, almost like a racial memory.
But mimes had no race.
In the globe, the mimes turned a corner. The robocams followed, recording the incident from above and behind, dumping the images into the Ocean for anyone to watch, to enjoy over and over, to alter, to add to their favorite vid collection.
Simply one more set of images to play with.
The announcer's voice, incongruously matter of fact, described the obvious.
"We are tracking two escaped mimes who have been ID'd by a Sibs local. The crowd is rushing to make quick work of the two runaways."
"Lord Tristan, you really should hurry. Mr. Cyrill expects you—"
Tristan raised a hand.
The mob caught up to the two mimes and flowed over them like a tide of rushing water. Fists rose, shiny blades glinted even in the murky morning light—silvery at first, then red. The camera lingered. Sure...not much different from the Arena...just more entertainment, another show.
The announcer's head floated above the mayhem.
"We asked someone from the crowd if he had any remorse over attacking and killing those defenseless mimes."
Suddenly the holobubble filled with a florid, moon-like face, brutal and belligerent. Tristan took an involuntary step backward.
"Why should we? Damn things aren't human, and yet the genetic freaks take work away from us, the human family. You steal our jobs, you pay the price. Every dead mime frees a job for a real human." He raised his fist. "The Brotherhood of Man—Sibs forever!"
