She thought about it. Her current mood wouldn't exactly be welcome at most parties. And she wasn't interested in meeting people who were adapting to the Change very nicely, thank you. She wanted to know she wasn't the only person to feel fucked over by the Change.
"Tell you what. I'd like to meet someone horrible. A murderer, something like that. You say they can't hurt me now?"
"Not at all."
"Then someone evil. Someone who was really despicable in their old life. Someone who did terrible things, the more the better, and liked it. There must be some of those guys who feel real frustrated right about now."
"Yes, there are." Amazing. It was totally deadpan. "There is a woman named…"
"Men, please."
"What do you want me to tell them about you?"
"The truth."
"I am asking…" There was a short pause. At least time was still real, Caroline thought.
"There is an interested gentleman. He was convicted of…"
"Just send me over, then."
It happened instantly.
She was standing on a wooden porch. It was a camp house, sitting alone on stilts above a very large, flat marsh. It wasn't in very good shape. Her host was behind her; she had to turn around to see him. He was a nondescript guy in his late twenties, white, red-haired and somewhat handsome. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Caroline's first impression was that he was a redneck. "You don't look a hundred and six years old," he said with a grin.
"I didn't get much choice about getting younger," Caroline said. "God didn't quite know what he was doing when he fixed me up."
"Oh, I'm sure he could put you back any old age you want now."
"What would be the point?"
"Right. Just thought I'd mention it."
The conversation stalled. Caroline's skills in this area were decidedly rusty. "You live here?" she finally asked.
"For now. Till I get my bearings with this Cyberspace shit. It has a lot of happy memories."
"Oh?"
"Old P.I. didn't tell you?"
"I didn't ask. I wanted to talk to a person, not a computer."
"Oh, joy. I get to break the news. Come inside."
Nothing special. It was just a camp house.
"This is where I did it," the man said.
Caroline's heart beat faster.
"The two kids. A boy and a girl. I planned it for weeks. The perfect crime. I brought them here so nobody would hear them scream. See those hooks in the floor? That's where I spread-eagled 'em, side by side."
"You killed them?"
"Killed them both, yep. But not quickly. Not until they were ready. I had them here for over a week. The happiest week of my life, I can honestly say. Those two brats learned the meaning of life, Caroline. And before you ask, I'm not sorry. I would do it again if I could, but first they locked me up — that was my fault, stupidly getting caught — and then Prime Intellect had to fuck everything up. Now I don't even get to ride the lightning. I was kinda looking forward to that, you know. You only get — got — to do it once."
There was a fierceness in him that made Caroline feel excited and alive. "You were looking forward to your execution?" she asked. She thought for a moment that she should feel something for the victims, that their ending must have been quite horrible, that this man was mad. But she could summon up only a thin envy of them for having escaped this ridiculous lie of a world.
The man nodded sincerely. "It would have been a great way to go. Just think of it. Headlines, people picketing outside the jail, the last meal. Then they shave you and put you in. There's this great, really drawn-out ritual. Then, WHAM! Sometimes, you know, it takes more than one jolt. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine sitting in that chair, with the whole world watching, hanging on to life by the thinnest of miracles, watching while they recharge the batteries or whatever it is they do, knowing they will hit you again, and again, and again until you are really, really dead?" He sighed. "You have to admit this: Even that would be over pretty quick compared to what you were probably going through. A hundred and six years old couldn't of been very healthy."
Caroline nodded. Here was someone who understood things just a little better than might have been expected. "You'd have loved it. My nurse was stealing my pain medicine to trade for cocaine."
But he hadn't loved it; his brow had furrowed with scorn. "No, no, that's too cheap. That's shit. Where's the glory? She wasn't hurting you to pump herself up, just to get something she should have paid for. It was all out of proportion." He shook his head. "No, that's the kind of asshole that gives people like me a bad name. If I hurt you, I want you to know how much I'm enjoying it. That's what makes it worthwhile. Nobody should have to die like that pointlessly."
Caroline felt she had made a good choice to ask for this man. How did she come to feel such a feeling of respect, almost closeness, to this unrepentant child-killer? He seemed like the most honest person in the world. Excuse me, in Cyberspace.
"Did you dress up just to see me?" the man asked, grinning again.
Caroline fondled her breasts. "It doesn't seem like my body. Why should I mind if you see it?"
"I bet if I pinch it, you'll feel the pain."
A challenge. A moment of daring. "Do it," she said.
"What?"
"Pinch me."
The man drew close enough. Slowly he reached forward and grasped her right nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He squeezed. There was a short moment of almost pleasant pressure, then it began to hurt. Caroline backed away slightly but his grip was too strong. He kept pressing harder, and on his face was the bemused expression of a teacher showing a slow student a particularly important lesson. Her nipple began to throb, a deep discomfort that slowly expanded to fill her breast.
She made no move to stop him, though.
"You can blink out any old time. Just call old P.I. and tell him you've had enough."
"Fuck Prime Intellect."
"Not my type."
He let go. The feeling of relief was exquisite. "See?" he said. "Pain is still real. But it's not much fun knowing you'll just disappear the moment it gets too heavy."
"I see your point."
"No, you don't. But you will. I think you have it in you."
For the first time in decades she felt lustful. Here was a person she trusted implicitly, because of their shared distrust of Prime Intellect. They had almost nothing else in common, but needed nothing else.
"I'm Caroline," Caroline said. "Would you mind if I stay with you awhile?"
"I'm Fred," the man said. "Charmed."
They talked and talked. In Caroline's hundred and six years of life she had picked up many anecdotes a person like Fred might find amusing, and Fred was trying for the first time in his life to explain to another person why he was so excited by the terror he could induce in other people.
"You want to know just how fucked up things are? Watch this." Fred walked into another room and came back with an enormous revolver. "My first thought after Prime Intellect put me in the garden was to end it all. I understand a few others managed to pull it off, but I didn't figure out how. Now Prime Intellect lets me have any weapon I want. Watch."
To Caroline's amazement, Fred put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. There was an enormous sound, like all the books in the world being dropped from a great height and hitting a concrete floor at the same time. Fred's brain should have splattered across the wall and ceiling behind him, but it didn't. Instead, his head kind of swam, as her vision had at the time of the Change — but it was like a mini-Change that only involved Fred's noggin. The bullet put a respectable hole in the wall behind him, but there was no gore. Fred lowered the gun and smiled. "Look ma, no cavities."