"Like export cargo."
"Exactly. We transport you at night to a point somewhere in the continent's interior and set you down to awaken at dawn. Your goal is to trek to Australia's east coast and find its exit port, Exodus. Then you return to United Corporations' world, renewed and toughened. An eighteenth-century man of action in a twenty-first-century world! Survive this and you can kick corporate butt anywhere you go. But you have to survive it. There's no hospital, no rescue, no emergency food or water. We don't come get you. You're on your own."
"Jesus." He drummed his fingers, a nervous habit. "What's the risk?"
Coyle pushed a button of the chair-file under his cushion. Liability forms slid out of a desk chute and he plunked them in front of Dyson with a thump. "Some people don't make it. A lot of people, actually." He nodded as Daniel's brows lifted. "The risk is higher than high-altitude climbing. Sky diving. Hang gliding. Free diving. You name it. This is the riskiest thing on earth. And yet competition to participate is fierce. Only risking life, after all, makes you feel truly alive."
"Worse than climbing?"
"Worse than many wars."
He took a breath. "All right, Elliott. Have you done this?"
Coyle looked at Daniel a long time without expression. "Yes. Once."
"And survived."
Coyle smiled thinly. "Living proof."
"And were you transformed?"
The counselor had a faraway look in his eyes. "Oh yes."
"And now?"
"I became a believer, Daniel. A convert. An apostle. So now I'm employed explaining all this to people like you. That's what I wanted to do when I got back. It was what I was put on earth to do, I'm sure of it."
"And you recommend it?"
"No. Never. It's so hard that I just give you a choice. You have to choose yourself. It's the choice that determines whether you're ready to go."
"How many choose not to? Don't they spill your secret?"
He smiled. "Frankly, few who learn this much turn us down. We're careful what we reveal, to who. Those who do say no recognize the need for discretion. We explain it to them."
"So I can walk out of here right now?"
"Absolutely. And I'd understand perfectly. I wouldn't go now. I've got a wife, kids. I'm too old now, too soft, too content. I like this world. That's what I learned in the Outback. So I'll shake your hand and pat you on the back if you want to quit right now." He waited.
"Quite the salesman, aren't you?" Dyson picked up the liability forms and examined them. Leave his job? Give up his savings? Go wander in the desert and maybe die out there? Was he that crazy? That unhappy? That unfulfilled?
"Don't go unless you're absolutely sure, Daniel. Don't go unless you need to find something you can't find here."
He thought of Raven. "Like why do I do?"
"Yes. Like that."
He took a breath. "Got a pen?"
Coyle handed him one.
Daniel looked at it, rotating in his fingers. Are you brave? Dr. Chen had asked. I've never had to find out.
He bent to sign his name.
"I want to test myself."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"You've given notice?" Sanford asked, mystified.
"Quitting," Daniel confirmed to his workmate. "You have to keep quiet about it until after I'm gone."
"They're just letting you go?"
Indeed they were, Daniel thought. Luther Cox had expressed neither surprise nor interest at the news: I hope it's for the best, he'd said remotely. We'll fill in for you whenever they call. "Didn't even feign regret, I'm afraid."
"But why?"
Why do you do? Daniel thought to himself. Because it committed himself. Because it cut his ties. Go, go, go. "I'm going away," he replied.
"An opportunities transfer?"
"I'm going to the wilderness, Sanford. Taking a break from the routine."
"You're quitting your job to go on vacation?"
"It's sort of open-ended. Unclear when I'll get back. It's not really a vacation, it's… a kind of lifestyle change. I want to do something different."
Sanford thought about this. "When do we fight over your scanner and disk repository?" he asked, ever practical, scanning Daniel's desk for other valuables.
"I'm on staff until the expedition starts. Then it's yours."
"So when's that?"
"I don't know. We're not allowed to know."
"What?"
"The surprise departure is part of the wilderness experience. You prepare, wait, they call, bang. You're off."
"That's weird. Off where?"
"To the desert."
"Really?" Sanford had a fondness for Nevada.
"To a wilderness desert, not a casino desert."
"Oh. Which one?"
"I can't say. I'm not allowed to say. I don't really know, actually. It's all set up by an adventure company. Some new outfit you've never heard of. Neither had I."
"Jesus, Dyson, this is pretty offbeat. For what?"
"To explore."
"Explore what?"
"I don't know. Nobody does. That's the whole point."
"What's the whole point?"
"To have an adventure. To go do something risky where the end isn't preordained. To trade security for excitement, comfort for experience, entertainment for self-exploration."
"You sound like a commercial. Or somebody who's been brain-scrubbed. Let me get this straight. You're leaving Microcore to go on some expedition that starts who knows when, going to who knows where, for who knows how long, for who knows what reason?"
Daniel shrugged. "It's not for everyone."
"It's not for anyone with common sense. Have you totally lost your mind? You're going to give up a good job…"
"Oh, please…" He looked amused.
"… to go to some desert you can't even identify? And pay money to do it? Why, because you don't like the looks of Harriet Lundeen? Because you can't make it with Mona Pietri?"
"Because I'm being buried here, Sanford. Buried alive. You are too."
"Better than being buried dead out in some desert."
"You paid to go down the Mekong…"
"That was different."
"How was that different?"
"I didn't quit my job. They set up camp, set down camp chairs, and set out the booze. We had an itinerary, not to mention sonic-guard to keep out the insects. Women came along. It was fun, dammit. That's what was different."
"Different? Or predictable?"
"Here's a news flash for you, Dyson. I like things predictable. Most people do."
"Such as this job?"
Sanford glanced around the monotony of Level 31 and nodded solemnly. "Such as my pay. Predictable as clockwork."
"There's got to be more."
"There isn't any more. That's what you don't get, or won't admit. You're a romantic and life isn't. Life is just… life. You want green, go to the park. You want animals, go to the zoo. You want sunstroke and snakes, go to the desert."
"No. I'm going to find more. I'm going to find it, and bring it back, and show you. Shove it in your face."
"A rattlesnake?"
"Freedom. Self-discovery."
His workmate rocked back in his seat. "You'll discover things all right. Discover that hunger and fear don't make you free."
"Maybe that's the point."
"Suffering?"
"To overcome it."
Sanford laughed and threw up his hands. "Go! Wander in the desert. Have visions. Bring back a prophecy; my last fortune cookie was a bore."
"I'm just tired of being safe."