I paused. This wouldn't kill me, but it might lock the interface forever, paralyzing me, turning me into a thrashing maniac. I knew that I would never be able to pull the trigger. The doc must've known, too-this was his way of convincing me to let him do that restore.
I opened my mouth to call the doc, and what came out was 'Waaagh!'
The seizure started. My arm jerked and my thumb nailed the stud, and there was an ozone tang. The seizure stopped.
I had no more interface.
***
The doc looked sour and pinched when he saw me sitting up on the gurney, rubbing at my biceps. He produced a handheld diagnostic tool and pointed it at my melon, then pronounced every bit of digital microcircuitry in it dead. For the first time since my twenties, I was no more advanced than nature had made me.
The restraints left purple bruises at my wrists and ankles, where I'd thrashed against them. I hobbled out of the Faraday cage and the lab under my own power, but just barely, my muscles groaning from the inadvertent isometric exercises of my seizure.
Dan was waiting in the utilidor, crouched and dozing against the wall. The doc shook him awake and his head snapped up, his hand catching the doc's in a lightning-quick reflex. It was easy to forget Dan's old line of work here in the Magic Kingdom, but when he smoothly snagged the doc's arm and sprang to his feet, eyes hard and alert, I remembered. My old pal, the action hero.
Quickly, Dan released the doc and apologized. He assessed my physical state and wordlessly wedged his shoulder in my armpit, supporting me. I didn't have the strength to stop him. I needed sleep.
'I'm taking you home,' he said. 'We'll fight Debra off tomorrow.'
'Sure,' I said, and boarded the waiting tram.
But we didn't go home. Dan took me back to my hotel, the Contemporary, and brought me up to my door. He keycarded the lock and stood awkwardly as I hobbled into the empty room that was my new home, as I collapsed into the bed that was mine now.
With an apologetic look, he slunk away, back to Lil and the house we'd shared.
I slapped on a sedative transdermal that the doc had given me, and added a mood-equalizer that he'd recommended to control my 'personality swings.' In seconds, I was asleep.
Chapter 7
The meds helped me cope with the next couple of days, starting the rehab on the Mansion. We worked all night erecting a scaffolding around the facade, though no real work would be done on it-we wanted the appearance of rapid progress, and besides, I had an idea.
I worked alongside Dan, using him as a personal secretary, handling my calls, looking up plans, monitoring the Net for the first grumblings as the Disney-going public realized that the Mansion was being taken down for a full-blown rehab. We didn't exchange any unnecessary words, standing side by side without ever looking into one another's eyes. I couldn't really feel awkward around Dan, anyway. He never let me, and besides we had our hands full directing disappointed guests away from the Mansion. A depressing number of them headed straight for the Hall of Presidents.
We didn't have to wait long for the first panicked screed about the Mansion to appear. Dan read it aloud off his HUD: 'Hey! Anyone hear anything about scheduled maintenance at the HM? I just buzzed by on the way to the new H of P's and it looks like some big stuff's afoot-scaffolding, castmembers swarming in and out, see the pic. I hope they're not screwing up a good thing. BTW, don't miss the new H of P's-very Bitchun.'
'Right,' I said. 'Who's the author, and is he on the list?'
Dan cogitated a moment. '
'Call her,' I said.
This was the plan: recruit rabid fans right away, get 'em in costume, and put 'em up on the scaffolds. Give them outsized, bat-adorned tools and get them to play at construction activity in thumpy, undead pantomime. In time, Suneep and his gang would have a batch of telepresence robots up and running, and we'd move to them, get them wandering the queue area, interacting with curious guests. The new Mansion would be open for business in 48 hours, albeit in stripped-down fashion. The scaffolding made for a nice weenie, a visual draw that would pull the hordes that thronged Debra's Hall of Presidents over for a curious peek or two. Buzz city.
I'm a pretty smart guy.
***
Dan paged this Kim person and spoke to her as she was debarking the Pirates of the Caribbean. I wondered if she was the right person for the job: she seemed awfully enamored of the rehabs that Debra and her crew had performed. If I'd had more time, I would've run a deep background check on every one of the names on my list, but that would've taken months.
Dan made some small talk with Kim, speaking aloud in deference to my handicap, before coming to the point. 'We read your post about the Mansion's rehab. You're the first one to notice it, and we wondered if you'd be interested in coming by to find out a little more about our plans.'
Dan winced. 'She's a screamer,' he whispered.
Reflexively, I tried to pull up a HUD with my files on the Mansion fans we hoped to recruit. Of course, nothing happened. I'd done that a dozen times that morning, and there was no end in sight. I couldn't seem to get lathered up about it, though, nor about anything else, not even the hickey just visible under Dan's collar. The transdermal mood-balancer on my bicep was seeing to that-doctor's orders.
'Fine, fine. We're standing by the Pet Cemetery, two cast members, male, in Mansion costumes. About five-ten, apparent 30. You can't miss us.'
She didn't. She arrived out of breath and excited, jogging. She was apparent 20, and dressed like a real 20 year old, in a hipster climate-control cowl that clung to and released her limbs, which were long and double-kneed. All the rage among the younger set, including the girl who'd shot me.
But the resemblance to my killer ended with her dress and body. She wasn't wearing a designer face, rather one that had enough imperfections to be the one she was born with, eyes set close and nose wide and slightly squashed.
I admired the way she moved through the crowd, fast and low but without jostling anyone. 'Kim,' I called as she drew near. 'Over here.'
She gave a happy shriek and made a beeline for us. Even charging full-bore, she was good enough at navigating the crowd that she didn't brush against a single soul. When she reached us, she came up short and bounced a little. 'Hi, I'm Kim!' she said, pumping my arm with the peculiar violence of the extra-jointed. 'Julius,' I said, then waited while she repeated the process with Dan.
'So,' she said, 'what's the deal?'
I took her hand. 'Kim, we've got a job for you, if you're interested.'
She squeezed my hand hard and her eyes shone. 'I'll take it!' she said.
I laughed, and so did Dan. It was a polite, castmembery sort of laugh, but underneath it was relief. 'I think I'd better explain it to you first,' I said.
'Explain away!' she said, and gave my hand another squeeze.
I let go of her hand and ran down an abbreviated version of the rehab plans, leaving out anything about Debra and her ad-hocs. Kim drank it all in greedily. She cocked her head at me as I ran it down, eyes wide. It was disconcerting, and I finally asked, 'Are you recording this?'
Kim blushed. 'I hope that's okay! I'm starting a new Mansion scrapbook. I have one for every ride in the Park, but this one's gonna be a world-beater!'
