The train was stopped, some kind of mechanical problem, just outside Kassel, still three hundred or so kilometers southwest of Berlin. Some of the team had taken the opportunity to get off and stretch their legs, but Keller saw no reason to do so. He had never been a fan of outside. When you could go anywhere in time or space in VR, could control the weather, the smells, the action, why would you bother tromping around in the cold and dark next to a train track in the middle of nowhere? Where you had no control at all, save that of your own body’s ability to come or go? That’s what the Luddites didn’t understand, that virtual reality was so much better than the real world because you could make it do exactly what you wanted it to do. No wild cards, no chance that you would be caught in an unexpected snowstorm, or bitten by a mosquito chock full of malaria. In VR, life was what you wanted it to be.
This was the real reason that CyberNation would succeed, more than anything. As VR became more and more like RW, the ability to have anything you wanted, to see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and feel it exactly as you wished it to be, that was heaven. Give the people what they want. Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. That was always how it had been, and that was how it was going to continue to be.
There were some things you still had to do. Serious VR players, really serious ones, could hook up IVs and catheters so they could stay jacked in for days, not having to eat or pee. Keller had done that a few times, been in VR for forty, fifty hours, even sleeping on-line, being fed dreams by programs that knew how to input them. Usually, however, he had to interface with the real world often enough so he couldn’t do that. Just like now, he had to go pee. It was a bother, but there was no help for it without a Foley running through your dick into your bladder.
He went to the toilet, which on this old-style car was a pretty big place — five stalls, five urinals, a tile floor, mirrors, sinks, the whole enchilada. Normally, they closed the toilets when the train was in the station, because when you flushed the toilet, a hole opened in the bottom and it fell right out onto the tracks. There were laws against that now in a lot of places, but people who ran private trains didn’t pay attention to them. Who was going to follow a train across the country looking to see if it was dropping turds and piss onto the tracks out in the middle of nowhere?
He stood in front of the urinal for what seemed like a long time, emptying his bladder, zipped up, and started to wash his hands.
“Hello, Jackson” came a voice from behind him.
Keller froze, as if he had seen Medusa and turned to stone.
Smiling behind him, reflected in the mirror, was Roberto Santos.
Keller forgot how to breathe. He managed to manufacture a grin that felt like a rictus. “Roberto. Wh-what are you doing here? Something wr-wrong?”
Santos moved to the door. Locked it.
Keller’s heart turned to a block of dry ice. His mouth went dry.
“Nothing wrong, Jackson. Just balancing things out.”
“Wh-Wh-Whuh—?”
“You touched my woman. You knew she was mine, and you went with her. Missy is fine, she is hot. I know it was her idea, making the two-backed beast, I know how she is. Woman’s got tricks that would make a plaster saint hard. I know turning her down is not easy. But she was mine. She still is, until I say otherwise.”
“Listen, Santos, it was a mistake, a mistake, I’m sorry, I really am, I’m sorry, what can I do to make it up to you?”
Santos smiled. “Don’t worry so much, Jackson. I’m not gonna kill you. It won’t even show. But you got a debt; it has to be paid.”
“Santos, don’t! You don’t want to do this! Jasmine will fire you!”
“No, she won’t. Because you won’t tell her.”
“I will! I will!”
“No,” he said, “you won’t. And you know why? Because if she fires me, I will come back and kill you. But only after a long, long time of you wishing you were dead. You understand?”
Keller’s fear gripped him so hard he started to shake.
Santos moved — so fast! and hit him, just under his sternum.
He… couldn’t… get… any… air—!
Santos smiled. A man enjoying himself.
As Keller tried to get his wind back, Santos hit him again.
It hurt so bad—!
The rental car was cold when Santos started it, and it took the heater a while to warm things up. He hated the cold. Even in a jacket, with gloves and a hat, he felt the chill trying to get to him. Yes, they had winter at home, but it was the kind of winter where you could walk around in a T-shirt and shorts. In June, when it was the coldest, it dropped to maybe sixty, sixty-five most nights. Mean temperature year round was seventy-something. It got hot sometimes — now, in the summer, you could work up a sweat; it actually got cold sometimes, but rarely. Those were not the normal things. In Rio, the temperature was almost always perfect. It was God’s country, and men who lived there were fortunate above other men.
Here and now, there was ice in the ponds and lakes, and patches of snow in the shadows, with more to come. How could people live in such places?
Well. They were Germans, weren’t they? And all Germans were at least slightly mad.
The plane he was going to catch was at a private airport about thirty miles away. From there, he would fly to a big airport in Berlin, and from there, back to the U.S. He was supposedly making sure that preparations for the big attack were in order, and in a way, he was. He had already talked to people he needed to talk to, and he would see others. Missy wasn’t expecting him back for a couple of days.
Putting fear into Keller was part of the preparations as far as he was concerned.
He smiled at the memory of Keller, lying curled like a newborn on the floor in the train’s washroom, a pool of yellow vomit next to him. He hadn’t really hurt the man, nothing permanent. Never hit him in the face. He would be sore tomorrow, belly, ribs, back, thighs, and he would bruise some, but nothing that would show when he was dressed. He was a flower-picker, Jackson was, his ping-pongs the size of BBs, more girl than man. It hadn’t been particularly satisfying to beat him, like slapping a child. He had offered no resistance, but it had to be that way. There were things that a man had to do if he was going to remain a man and not turn into an old woman.
He hadn’t decided yet how he was going to punish Missy, but he was smart enough to know he needed to wait until the attack was finished. There would be a bonus for successful completion, a big bonus, enough so he could walk away if he really wanted to do that. At the very least, he had to wait until that money was converted into gold and on its way home. It would not be quite as much as he wanted, but it would do. A man like him could always find more work if he had to find it.
The heater had finally begun to unfog the windows and offer enough warmth so he didn’t have to tense against the cold. Better. Not good, but better.
Keller would say nothing to Missy. If he knew anything, Santos knew when a man would stand and fight, and Keller was not such a man. Missy was more dangerous. She could put a knife between your ribs if you pissed her off bad enough and closed your eyes at the wrong time. That was part of what he liked about her. She was soft where it counted, she could wring a man dry of his essential juices, but she was also hard in her mind. He would punish her, he had to, but it must be in such a way that she could not revenge herself upon him.
He might even have to kill her. A shame, but sometimes, that’s what you had to do. People died every day. That was how life was: You came into the world, you lived your time, you left. All that mattered in between the coming and the going was how you spent your time. And for Santos, that and O-Jôgo—The Game.