“No tumors. They give it a sixty-seven percent chance of schizophrenia if the system was truly sealed and bug-free.”
“There are no bugs.”
“I know. Something like this would have shown up before.”
“And this system, my system, is sealed tight,” Andy said. Then he chuckled. “I guess you’re nuts.”
Zundra shook her head, her claw-like hands balling into fists. “There has to be a leak.”
“No, no way,” Andy said, his mashed nose wrinkling. He shook his head like a dog drying itself. “Not in my system.”
“Someone’s tapped into the link, I know it.”
“Well, you go on again in eighty minutes Z. Why don’t you meditate for a while or something? Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Zundra swung one baleful eye around to cover him and he flinched and shrank like a convict in a spotlight. “ You’re going to do something about it! You’re going to set a trap for the intruder.”
“But I’m telling you that there isn’t any intruder,” insisted Andy, uncrossing his thin arms long enough to shake a bony hand at her.
“Don’t whine, just do it.”
“Eighty minutes isn’t long enough to produce a good piece code.”
“Do it.”
NURSE TAI: So, you admit to it. You did sleep with my twin sister. (Musical Score shifts to Strident Events).
RAY WAZER: What’s the point of denying it? It was a simple mistake. I thought she was you.
NURSE TAI: (Tight shot of her round lovely face, eyes shining and wet, jaw set firmly). You’re lying, doctor.
RAY WAZER: (Standing up and approaching, leans forward over the hospital bed and its comatose patient). I still want you Tai. You’re sister has your body, but not your heart.
(The couple kiss heatedly, but before events can take their natural course the comatose patient jerks awake like a puppet pulled erect by its strings. The patient is a black woman of surpassing ugliness. She makes gross slurping sounds with puckered lips, mocking the kiss.)
COMATOSE PATIENT: Whew! Sure is getting hot in here! How about a refresher? (While the two lovers watch dumbfounded, the black woman rips loose her I.V. and aims the needle-tipped tube at them. Screaming laughter, she sprays them with an amazing amount of liquid. Quickly, the I.V. tube and needle grow into a fire hose with a brass nozzle. Liquid floods the room knocking the lovers to the floor and soaking them.)
COMATOSE PATIENT: (Shudders, spasms, then looks around the room in shock). That was, ah-to teach you two cheaters a lesson!
(While RAY WAZER and NURSE TAI pick themselves up, dripping wet, COMATOSE PATIENT reaches up and rips off her face. Beneath the ugly exterior is the mirror image of NURSE TAI.)
COMATOSE PATIENT: (Voice raises an octave to match NURSE TAI’s). That’s right, I’m your sister, and before I’m done I’ll kill you both!
SYSTEM CLOSE:*Curtain Close, cue Theme Song* (short sound-bite version) cut away to commercial.
SYSTEM WARNING:*Commercial cut-away occurred 55 seconds early. Auto-readjust of schedule completed*
When the ordeal of Orbital Hospital was over, Zundra awoke with a nasty, morning-breath taste in her mouth. She realized vaguely that her mouth must have gone slack and hung open during the broadcast.
“How are the ratings?” she croaked, tapping the button for a shot of glucose. She pursed her lips over the plastic feeding tube that rose up from her life-support module and drank a few swallows. The fluid smelled faintly of lemons.
“They wavered terribly during your little hose-job, but somehow you pulled it all off. We made target by a three-point-eight percent margin. You didn’t plan all that wacky stuff, did you? That was just your alter-ego coming out for an encore, wasn’t it?”
She ignored him for a moment, forcing her blurry vision to focus on the wall-trend. It was indeed in the green by the end, with a few precious kilo-dollars to spare.
“Of course, the network won’t put up with this goofing around at their expense for long. Even if you claim that you’re not nuts, that you’re just ad-libbing-artistic license and all-they’ll pull you quick for all these deviations from the script. All the old ninnies back in the writer’s shop must be chewing the walls by now,” Andy said, rocking himself and chuckling at the thought.
“What about the trace? Did you get anything?”
Andy made a flippant gesture of annoyance. “I told you, there’s nothing to trace.”
“Did you get anything?” pressed Zundra. “Did you run a full systems-level diagnostics?”
“There were some low-level anomalies, but nothing worth commenting on.”
“Get me the file. Net it over to my workstation. Now.”
With a supple shrug and a pinched look of irritation, Andy netted her the file. Fifteen minutes later she had analyzed the trace, and soon after that she had a handle to what had to be the return code.
“When does Cyborg Command run next?” she demanded suddenly.
“It’s on right after the Killer Kitty Show, say forty-two minutes. Why?”
“Vector me to this port address in forty-two minutes,” she said, then fell back into her chair with her eyes closed.
After a minute or two of trying to resume the conversation, Andy shrugged again, snorted disgustedly and punched the port address into his hand terminal.
CYBORG WARLORD: The enemy are in our grippers, we’ll crush them like ruptured egg-casings!
(Shot switch to the stylized war map. The tunnel complex of Deeth Kar flashes up, tactical decisions are transmitted in from all the junior rebel leaders via mind-modem. Once the votes are tallied those that came closest to predicting the computers tactical plan are awarded game points. Advertisements for Cyborg Command Collectibles hum down the mind-modem lines, Action figures and T-shirts are purchasable with game points and a nominal fee of real money from the accounts of your parent or guardian.)
MR. SQUIBBS: (The cybernetic parrot squawks and ruffles its metallic scale-like feathers before speaking). Looks like the rebels are getting away again.
CYBORG WARLORD: Shut up you tin-plated cockatiel. Building you in the first place was a mistake.
(Shot flips over to the War Map again, where the kid- icons in blue are devouring the metallic cyborg icons in a steady get-away path toward the top of the volcano and the distance escape chute.)
MR. SQUIBBS: At least they didn’t manage to penetrate to our headquarters.
CYBORG WARLORD: You’re right there, Mr Squibbs. They will never manage to stop me completely!
(Suddenly, a third figure bursts into the cavern in an explosion of rock and debris. It is a large red-haired kid with a toy rocket-launcher in his hands. With a whoop of delight, he fires a blue rubber ball into CYBORG WARLORD’s chest, pressing the big red off-switch that has materialized there.)
MR. SQUIBBS screeches in protest.
RED-HAIRED KID: Cyborg Command’s tyranny is at an end! Next week we’ll have a new show in this time- slot kids, so don’t go away!
Steve jerked upright, the keyboard and joysticks in his hands clattering to the studio floor. His red curls surrounded his face, framing the boiled-egg whites of his wide staring eyes. Operators shuffled back, stirring their coffee cups nervously with thin red shoots of plastic.
A roar of rage bubbled up from the depths of his chest. The roar died into almost a pitiful sound as Steve focused on the wall-trend, which had bottomed out in the red. The network cancellation notice was already up on his e-mail screen, making a soft beeping sound.
Zundra came awake slowly, smiling. She tapped at the keyboard mounted in front of her and brought up the
