Death’s Dimensions a psychotic space opera

you die and rebuild you as many times as I want. You can kill yourself but I’ll grind you to a mush like they ground me and-and-and-” He howled and shook her by the shoulders, her black hair swirling about them. “Fix me, bitch, or you’ll die a thousand times!”

“And if I do? Then we’ll die anyway! Nobody can handle the Valliardi Transfer without going insane. Virgil’s our only hope to get back to Earth. We’re close enough to loop around the sun on engine-”

“We are orbiting Tau Ceti,” the computer said.

“Why aren’t you stopping him?” she screamed at the wall.

“You can always be cloned again-”

She screamed. Baker twisted her hair until her screams turned to plaintive sobs.

“Stop it! I’ll do it, just stop. Please. Just stop. Please. Then her voice hardened. “No. Keep it up. Kill her. Kill yourself. Blow the anti-matter pods and kill Tau Ceti. Kill everything! ”

“Stop, you goddamned seesaw bitch! Dee”-he shook her again-“you’ve got to do it. For me. For us. I promise it’ll be straight. Everything, I promise.”

“Just stop it, please stop it…”

“I will. I promise.” He pulled his arms tightly around her to hold her close to him. “I promise.”

Subdued lighting glowed indirectly from one portion of the room. Following Delia’s instructions, Baker arranged instruments, monitors and drug trays next to the sudahyde-upholstered table in the psychometric bay. He had strapped down to the table and lay watching Delia float above him.

“The computer’ll be watching your every motion,” he warned. “And it can comprehend what goes on in all three fields of vision.”

She nodded and secured a tray of testing devices, her manacles scraping against the plastic counter. She relaxed and looked at him.

“Jordan Baker.” She paused, waiting, then asked, “Are you Jordan Baker?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve always preferred to be called Jord.”

He shifted restlessly. “Dee-”

“Just go along with me.”

“Yes. Jordan’s a name of a river, not a man. It means ‘the descender.’ A man should climb, fly higher, never drop, never fall, never… die.”

“Do you think you’re actually dead?”

Baker tensed, then said, “I’ve wondered whether this is some crazy hell where I keep coming back for more, for eternal punishment. I mean, if we don’t have to die in this world, then it can be an eternal heaven or hell as we choose.”

“Yes. As you choose. Why did you choose to jump from your flyer?”

He shut his mouth and turned his head away.

“Ten ccs DuoTorp Alpha,” she said. The drug dispenser filled a hypodermic gun with the proper drug and fired it into his arm. He grew limp at once and his eyelids, forced shut, relaxed into the mask of calm settling on his face.

“Why did you jump?”

His speech came slowly. “Transfer did it. I died there, and they were all ready to take me in. I would have been… so happy. And then they were gone and I was adrift and then… and then it happened again. Coming back. And I was wrenched free. I wanted to join them.”

“Who?”

“Dad and Crystal. I hadn’t seen them. In years. Since they died. And I wanted to join them.”

“So you felt cheated.”

“Yes.”

“Yet you don’t want to die now.”

“I do! It’s just that… I’ve got to be sure!”

“Of what?”

“Be sure that I’m not just shunted in the back of Kinney’s mind and forgotten. Just filed away and everything that’s left of me will disappear like-like chalk pictures in rain. Would I go down that corridor then? Or would I just evaporate?”

She reached over with both hands and wiped the tears from his eyes. “What are you?”

“Now?” He wept. “A liter of squeezings swirling around the body of another man who’s in there with me. I can feel him there, like a fist, like a shadow around a corner, ready, watching and I’m nothing. Nothing but a lattice of electrical fields, switched on and off like a light bulb. Not a body. Not a brain. Just something light can shine right through as if through a ghost.”

“You’re something, though.” She pondered for a moment, then asked, “What color was your schoolscrim in second grade?”

“Yellow with a blue touch-border.”

“Something remembered that. Someone. Regardless of what your thoughts and memories are stored in, you still have a mind. You’re simply using someone else’s brain in which to integrate your persona, your essence. You’re alive. You are Jord Baker.” Cuffed hands stroked his brow.

“Five ccs DuoHypno Type Two,” she said softly. The dispenser complied.

“Now, Jord, you find that you’re tired. The session has been a strain and you are falling asleep. You are so tired, you will hear nothing and remember nothing from now until I say that you are ready to listen. Do you hear me?” Seeing no reaction, she looked toward one of the computer vidcams.

“I could kill him now,” she said to the wall.

“I would stop you,” the computer replied. “Or clone a new body for him.”

“Don’t you grant that Virgil’s persona is vital to this mission?”

“He serves a purpose. There are many things I cannot do.”

“You sound a lot smarter than the computer we built into Circus Galacticus.”

“A mistake in circuiting has strengthened my neural net.”

“You’re still stupid, Ben. And you, Death Angel, you don’t appreciate.” Virgil stared at her, both of them wide-eyed.

“Virgil?”

“Death Angel you’re stupid too. Forgot what Marsface said? I don’t listen to Duodrugs and their insect tugging. Why am I strapped down?”

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“The dead man in me was doing something and I watched- but he got it all fogged and I couldn’t see out well. Why’re you talking so funny?”

“I bit my tongue.”

“Is Bubbles still inside you?”

She winced, then twisted her hands against the manacles. Through grinding teeth, she said, “I’m keeping her down – because – she’s – the – closest – thing – to – a…brainwipe I could have been p- put in.” She shouted once, as though she had endured a blow from an invisible fist, and untensed. “I don’t see how you can do it, Virgil.”

“Different set of circumstances. Will you unstrap me?”

“Jord,” Delia said in a commanding tone. “You are ready to listen.”

Virgil seemed to melt in on himself, and a dreamy voice answered, “I’m ready. To listen.”

She leaned toward him to whisper. “You are Jord Baker, but only when I command it. When you hear me say the word ‘hide,’ you will surrender yourself to Virgil Kinney’s control. When you hear me say the word ‘jackal,’ you will overcome Virgil Kinney and believe that all the things done by him were your own actions. Do you understand?”

The man before her nodded.

“Good. Your sleep is over now. You will awaken refreshed.”