The Archimedes Effect

28

Confederation Prison

“The Cage”

The Planet Omega

Jay hadn’t figured out why his sci-fi convention scenario had crashed, but he didn’t have time to sit down and debug the software—it wasn’t as if he didn’t have other things on his plate. He’d get back to it later, or maybe he’d just crank up something totally different and bag the convention imagery.

Sometimes, half the fun in finding information was in coming up with a new scenario for VR. Jay had to admit that he did more of that than was absolutely necessary, but he figured, if he couldn’t have fun, why bother? Any hack could use off-the-shelf software and filters—Jay liked to think of himself as at least a good craftsman, if not an artist. . . .

So it was that to hunt down a connection for the dead terrorist Stark, he had spent a couple hours building a scenario. Sure, it was easier to do these days, because a lot of the construction material was prepackaged, but that was kind of like buying a steak at the store instead of going out and hunting down your own cow. He had no problem with taking that shortcut; after all, it was the way you cooked the meat that made the difference. The proof was in the meal—nobody cared if you’d butchered the beef yourself or had somebody else do it.

Over the years, Jay had VR’d to many corners of the world, from Africa to Java, from Japan to Australia, China to Canada, you name it. Not only in the present, but throughout history. And he had built more than a few fantasy scenarios—and not just here on Earth. The solar system, the galaxy, the universe—shoot, the next universe over—Jay had explored all kinds of territory, real and imagined. Sometimes, the trick was more about how to keep it interesting than it was to find what he was after. That was part of the challenge.

This time, he had come up with one he thought was a hoot: He had gone to the planet Omega, in a stellar system far, far away, to the galaxy’s toughest prison. Ordinarily, this was a one-way ticket. Nobody was paroled, all the sentences were for life, and nobody had ever escaped—not and lived to tell of it.

While Richard Lovelace had it that stone walls did not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage, a joint with fifteen-meter-high walls painted with slick-ex too slippery to allow a fly to land, armed guards who’d just as soon shoot you as look at you, and set smack-dab in the middle of a pestilent, tropical swamp full of quicksand pits and man-eating critters that flew, ran, crawled, or slithered all over looking for a two-legged meal? Those made for a pretty good cage. Even if you could get out, the nearest port was a thousand kilometers away—how would you get there?

Jay, in his guise as a notorious drug smuggler sentenced to The Cage, as it was known, had arrived, beaten the crap out of the bully who had been sent to test him, and integrated himself into the population.

Stark was dead in this reality, too, but he’d been in the prison a while, and there were people who had known him. Jay needed to find them and get them to tell all. Which meant running down e-mails or postings or URLs or newsfeeds where somebody had mentioned Stark. At least enough so he could make a connection between Stark and whoever else might have been on the raids at the Army bases. Every new lead he found would need to be checked out.

He thought about calling Rachel and inviting her into his hunt, but since she was military and restricted to using their systems on this project, that would mean he’d have to go to the Pentagon and set it up there, and at the moment, the only place he wanted to deal with Rachel was in VR, not the Real World. Not that he was repelled by her, no, that was the problem. She was altogether too attractive. It was way too easy for him to visualize her with her hair spread out on a pillow. Something he had certainly thought about.

He wanted her, and he knew he wanted her, but he didn’t want to want her. He was married—happily—and in love with his wife. This thing with Rachel—no, it wasn’t a thing, not yet, and it wasn’t ever going to be. This would-be thing with Rachel was a temptation, a distraction, a fantasy—albeit a very pleasant fantasy. But no way was he going to let it be more than that.

Fortunately, they couldn’t hang you for thinking—not yet anyhow.

But she had rubbed his neck. And it had felt really good. . . .

Bag that, Jay—get back to work.

Jay drifted across the exercise area, looking at the yard monsters lifting weights. The temperature out here was well above body heat. Some of the iron-pumpers had arms as big around as Jay’s head, and looked as if they could pick themselves and all the weights on the bench next to them up with one hand. Jay was here to find information on a guy who’d lived in the same barracks as Stark when they’d gone through basic training. His contact-metaphor, whose name here was “Jethro,” wasn’t a weight lifter, but a boxer who was working the heavy bag.

High-tech as the prison was here in the future, there were still some old-style technologies extant, and a stuffed bag hung from a steel frame was among them.

Jethro was muscular in the way of a heavyweight boxer, and he wore bag gloves and shorts and boxing shoes. Here in the sticky heat, sweat beaded and ran down his torso to stain the waistband of his shorts, and more perspiration ran in rivulets along his legs to soak his socks. He had a few interesting scars on his body, along with a few tattoos. He hammered the bag, chuffing and breathing hard, grunting with effort. Jab, jab, cross. Jab, cross, hook! Overhand, jab, uppercut . . .

Jay stood by, not speaking, watching Jethro work. And maybe patting himself on the back a little at how good his sensory details were.

After a few minutes, the man paused to drink something colored a phosphorescent orange from a plastic bottle, and to wipe his face with a towel.

“What?” he said.

“We had a friend in common.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Stark.”

Jethro shook his head. “Stark didn’t have any friends.”

“It was more of a work arrangement,” Jay said.

“So?”

“So I need to know something he knew.”

“Too bad. Why would I care?”

“I cut a deal with somebody. I find out this information he knew and pass it along.”

“And this buys you what?”

Here Jay had but one thing of any real value to sell. Everybody here was a lifer. The only way to leave The Cage was to die, get recycled, and flushed through narrow sewage pipes into the swamp. Hardly a glorious exit.

“A way out.”

“Sheeit.”

Jay shrugged.

Jethro wiped at his face again. “How?”

“A door is going to be left unlocked, a guard will be looking the other way. I’ll have a weapon. Not much chance I’ll survive the run to Port Tau, but at least it’s a shot. Better to die on my feet free and running than in here.”

Jethro considered that. “Say I buy this. How long is that door going to be unlocked? How long is the guard gonna be blind?”

Jay shrugged. “Could be long enough for two guys to pass.”

The boxer shook his head. “You know that’s how Stark got it? He was trying to run, got a needler bolt in the back.”

“I heard.”

“Been a while since Stark and I were tight.”

“I just got here,” Jay said. “More likely you can talk to people than I can.”

“What do I have to pay them with?”

“Two, three fast guys can run through an open door as quick as one, if they hurry.”

Jethro considered it. Nodded. “I can maybe talk to a couple people. Of course, if this is bunta-crap, you’re a dead man.”

“Of course. Whaddya got to lose?”

“That’s the prongin’ truth.” Jethro hung the towel over a steel strut, stepped back up to the bag. Hit it with a short right, hard. “I’ll find you if I get something.”

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Jay said. “For a while, anyway.”

Jethro smiled at that one.