“Roll it,” said Jones or Smith.
“This morning in London,” Macy said smoothly, “we spoke with the celebrated British brain expert Varnum Skillings, who gave us this assessment of the situation.”
“Cut,” said Smith or Jones.
Macy smiled. Almost home free, now. The platform monitor gave the signal. Macy delivered the final line. Done. Sighs of relief. People trooping out. Low whispers, everyone no doubt talking about his creepy paroxysm.
Let them talk. I beat him down again, didn’t I? He loses every time.
For once Macy thought it might be almost tolerable to have Hamlin alive within him. Hamlin was the perpetual challenge that defined him. Every man needs a nemesis. He arises, I smite him. He arises again, I smite again. And so we go on together through the busy, happy days. He gives me texture and density. With him, I am a man with a unique affliction; I carry tragic angst. Without him I would be a shadow. And so we are comfortable with one another. Until the time when the pattern of testing, of thrust and parry, is broken. Until he conquers me. Or I him. When it comes, it will come with one quick sudden triumphant thrust, and one of us will succumb. He? I? We’ll see. Home, now. A long wearying day.
9
Lissa wasn’t there. He looked through the apartment with great care, methodically passing several times from one room to the other and quickly doubling back, as though she might be slipping invisibly through the door just ahead of him; but no, she wasn’t anywhere around. He checked the bathroom and the closets. Her things were still hanging helterskelter among his. Not gone permanently, then. A note from her? No, nothing. Might have gone out to take a walk. Or to buy some groceries for dinner. At this hour, though? Knowing he always came home punctually? Briefly alarmed, he searched the place once again, looking now for traces of violence. No. A mystery, then.
She had her own key, and he had reprogrammed the thumbplate safety latch to accept her fingerprint; she could come and go as she pleased. But she should have been on hand when he arrived. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t. What now? Notify the police? There was this girl, officer, she’s been living with me since Tuesday night, she wasn’t home when I returned from work, I wonder if you—No. Hardly. Ask the neighbors if they had seen her? No. Go out and look for her in the local shops? No. Search for her at her own apartment? Maybe. Do nothing, stay here, wait for her to show up? Maybe. For the time being, yes. Give her an hour, two hours. She has her moods. Maybe she went to a show. Feeling tense, just went off by herself. Odd that there’s no note, anyway.
He showered, put on his worn dressing gown, poured himself a little cream sherry to blunt the edge of his appetite. Getting later all the time. Half past six, no Lissa. Worry mounting in him. They had not, in the course of constructing him at the Rehab Center, prepared him to handle this sort of situation. He reviewed the possible options. Police. Local shops. Her apartment. Neighbors. Sit and wait. No tactic seemed adequate.
Out of the silence, the voice of the serpent:
—Don’t worry about her.
Right now, in his jangled state, even the presence of Hamlin was a comfort. His other self had spoken in a casual, easy way; no challenge, at the moment, merely conversation. Macy was grateful for the muted approach. He wondered how to be properly hospitable. Offer Hamlin some sherry? A gold? Sit down, Nat, make yourself at home. An impulse of lunatic sociability.
I can’t help worrying, Macy said.
—She can look after herself.
Can she, though?
—I know her better than you.
You haven’t had anything to do with her for almost five years. She’s unstable, Hamlin. I don’t like the idea of her wandering off by herself this way.
—She probably felt she needed some fresh air. Bad telepathic vibrations bouncing off the walls in here, isn’t that what she told you? Getting her down. So she went out.
Without leaving a note?
—Lissa doesn’t leave notes much. Lissa’s not awfully big on responsibility. Relax, Macy.
That’s easy enough to say.
—You know, maybe she walked out for good. Sick of us both, maybe. All the tension and brawling.
Her things are still here, though, Macy pointed out Grasping at straws. Lissa! Lissa!
—That wouldn’t matter to her. Abandoned possessions fall from her like dandruff. Hey, cheer up, will you? The worst that can happen is that you won’t ever see her again. Which maybe would be not such a terrible thing.
You’d like it a lot, wouldn’t you?
—What’s it to me?
You don’t want me to have anything to do with her. You’re jealous because I’m alive and you’re not. Because I have her and you don’t.
Robust interior chuckles bubbling in the brain. Derisive guffaws echoing through the involuted corridors.
—You’re such a prick, Macy.
Can you deny what I said?
—What you said had more nonsense per square inch than is allowed under present brain-pollution laws.
For example?
—Where you say you “have” Lissa. Nobody “has” Lissa, ever. Lissa floats. Lissa drifts in a private orbit. Lissa lives inside a sealed airtight glass cage. She doesn’t involve herself with other people. She spends time with them, yes, she talks with them, she fucks them sometimes, but she doesn’t surrender anything that’s real to her.
She involved herself with you.
—That was different. She loved me. The great exception in her life. But she doesn’t love you or anybody else, herself included. You’re fooling yourself if you think you mean anything to her.
How can you claim to know so much about her when you haven’t seen her in five years?
—I’ve had all this week to watch her too, haven’t I? That girl is very sick. This ESP thing is pulling her apart. She thinks she has to be alone in order to keep the voices out of her head. She can’t give herself to anybody for long; she has to retreat, pull back, sink into herself. Otherwise she hurts too much. So you mustn’t be surprised that she’s walked out. It was inevitable. Believe me, Macy, I’m telling the truth.
A strange note of sincerity in Hamlin’s tone. As if he’s trying to protect me from a troublesome entanglement, Macy thought. As if he’s got my welfare at heart. Curious.
Seven o’clock, now. No Lissa. Another sherry. Feet up on the hassock. Feeling almost relaxed, despite everything. Hardly even hungry. A slight headache. Where is she? She can look after herself. She can look after herself.
—Have you done any further thinking about the proposal I made?
What proposal?
—On Tuesday, in the museum. That you go away and let me have my body back.
You know the answer to that one.
—You’re being unreasonable, Macy. I mean, look at it objectively. You may think you exist, but you actually don’t. You’re a construct. You don’t have any more genuine reality as a person, as a human being, than that wall over there.
So you keep telling me. If I don’t exist, though, why do I worry about Lissa? Why do I enjoy sipping this sherry? Why do I work so hard at the network?
—Because you’ve been programmed to. Crap, Macy, can’t you see that you’re only a clever machine that’s been slipped into a vacant human body? Which turned out to be not quite vacant, which still had some bits of its former owner hiding in it. If you were capable of facing your own situation decently and honestly, you’d recognize that—