we come.'
Again irritation flickered over Jimmy's face, but I didn't know him well enough to guess what the cause might be. He controlled it and forced himself to relax. 'Hey, Wolf, that was nice of you to ask Thumper if he wanted to join us.'
'No big deal. He seems like a nice guy. I thought he'd like time away from the Dome.'
Jimmy frowned. 'He probably would, but I don't think he can exist away from the Dome or the circus environment. He's in deep.'
'Like Babe?'
'No.' Jimmy shook his head solemnly. 'Ken Wilson is in deep by choice. Sure, the Seattle organization planned to draft Babe Ruth and use him, so they wanted someone like Ken whose physiology matched the Babe's right down to length of thumbs and space between the eyes. Ken was groomed to play Babe Ruth since Little League, so making it to the show is the fulfillment of a dream for him.'
Coming out of the Dome's parking garage I waved at Thumper, then steered toward downtown Seattle. 'Wilson's lucky-he looks enough like Babe Ruth to be his clone.'
'He didn't when he started.' Jimmy began to scowl. 'The man's had more plastic surgery than many elf wannabes. Ken's in deep because he chooses to be in deep. He lets the statsoft ride all the time, and he wears the Babe's identity like a mask.'
'I take it, from your tone of voice, you've got a problem with what Ken does?'
Jimmy waved me off. 'Not really a problem, but a difference of opinion. Look, when I started playing ball, I was just like you. I played in the streets with the kids from the neighborhood, then I graduated to Little League on a team sponsored by Renraku. My father is a district manager for them and the corps take care of their own. A scout saw me and I got pumped into the Seattle organization, of which Renraku owns a big chunk.'
From outside, street lights strobed pinkish highlights on the ebony of Jimmy's nose and forehead. Humanoid shadows scuttled through the darkness surrounding Fourth Avenue South as we shot around the Renraku Arcology. Try as I might, I couldn't make out any signs of where the helicopter had crashed during the Night of Fire, but I'd have expected Renraku to clean up fast, so that didn't surprise me much. By the same token I knew the area of Westlake where I'd seen action that same night had long since been patched up by Tucker and Bors, so the power of corps to heal their wounds was never in question in my mind.
Jimmy's lips peeled back from white teeth in a grin laden with irony. 'I really love this game. In fact, I have it written into my contract that I can play in pick-up games whenever I want to-unlike others whose playing time is all tied up by contract.'
'Having your father as a suit in the corp hierarchy must help.'
'Yeah, it has its advantages.' He stretched, placing his palms flat against the dashboard. 'Ken stays statsoft- operational all the time because he really wants to be Babe Ruth. Whatever personality Ken originally had has been smothered by his statsoft. Me? I realize that baseball is my life right now, but it won't be forever. I only let a statsoft ride when I'm on the field. Other than that, I'm Jimmy Mackelroy.'
I nodded. The Old One, the fragment of the Wolf spirit lurking in my brain, likewise had to be segregated out of my life. Yes, his power and abilities gave me, through magic, what Jimmy got through wired reflexes and cybered eyes. Still, the Old One, with his wild wishes for combat and killing and blood, brought with him a dark side that I could not let run riot. Like Jimmy, I could not let the Old One control me, or I would lose my personality and end up hurting many people.
As those thoughts coursed through my brain, I looked out and saw a nearly full moon flashing through the picket fence of skyscrapers in downtown Seattle. The Old One's howl echoed through my mind.Beware, Longtooth, with the moon comes my power. You retain control for now, but invoke me and I will show you the true way of the warrior.
I shivered and spoke to deflect my thoughts away from the path blazed by the Old One's whisper. 'So why is Thumper different from Ken Wilson?'
'Ken has a choice, Thumper doesn't.' Jimmy's brown eyes narrowed as bitterness entered his voice. 'Al had Ted Williams riding him when his skull was fractured. The brain damage was extensive, and the doctors initially thought he'd never be more than a turnip suitable for organ-harvesting. His sister agreed to pull the plug on him, but she demanded he be allowed to die as Ted Williams. League officials agreed and returned the statsoft to him. That brought Al out of it, though through rehabilitation his personality integrated with that of the statsoft, creating the composite personality of Thumper.
'The corp meat-mechanics refer to him as the first Al in a wet chip. Bastards.'
'Amen to that.' I whipped the wheel around and pulled into the semi-circular drive in front of the ParVenue. 'We're here.'
An ork valet opened my door and helped me out. 'Be nice to my car and I'll be nice to you,' I told him with a smile. He glanced up at me, surly, until he met my eyes. The dark ring surrounding my green irises zapped a little respect into him.
'Yes, sir. Not a scratch, sir.'
I nodded happily. What's the purpose of having Killer Rings in your eyes if you can't make use of them? A howl from the Old One rose from the depths of my mind, but I stifled it.Not this time, you old tick hound. Nothing and no one to fight here.
The ParVenue Club had some fairly unique architecture. The drive led to a simple three-story brown-stone facade, much like the one Doctor Raven used as his headquarters. The prefab granite looked suitably weathered to give the building an air of antiquity, and the copper awnings glowed green in an advertisement for building fossilizers. In a high-speed, low-drag world where a venerable genealogy means respectability and virture, this building came off like an old-money family with a virgin daughter.
The door elf, nattily attired in a long, scarlet wool coat with gold braid, smiled cautiously as Jimmy and I approached his station. 'Good evening, gentlemen.' He turned the word into a title that implied his pleasure at seeing us, though his tense stance and sour glance belied his words.
'Evening, yourself.' I gave him a hey-everything-is-cool-here-chummer smile. 'You'll want to verify our memberships?'
His tension eased just a microvolt. 'Yes, sir, I am afraid I must.' He reached back and touched a brick with a white-gloved hand. A panel slid up and the hole in the wall extruded a blocky lucite sheet. I smiled and pressed my right hand to it. A light passed under it and back, then the beeped verification of membership. The elf smiled. 'Very good, sir. And this is your guest?'
I speared the man with a questioning glance. 'Guest? Mr. Mackelroy is a member.' Winking at Jimmy, I waved him forward.
The door elf paled-which is quite a feat for an elf anyway. 'I am afraid you might be mistaken, Mr. Kies. He can enter as your guest, but…'
Jimmy hesitated and the door elf looked stricken. 'Trust me, gentlemen.' I smiled. 'Mr. Mackelroy is a member.'
'Wolf, I don't know about this,' Jimmy murmured.
'Don't worry, Jimmy. Just imagine you're running Jackie Robinson's statsoft.'
Jimmy pressed his hand to the printscanner, and the elf didn't hide his surprise at the affirmative beep. He smiled as sheepishly as an elf can. 'Welcome to ParVenue, chummers.' He swept the door open and smiled. 'Locker room is to your left. Your lockers will be in berths four and seven. I've made sure they're upper units.'
I stabbed a credstick down into a discreet socket beside the door and zapped him a five-nuyen tip. ' 'Predate it, chummer. Don't let the corporators get you down.'
'Slot and run,' he said with a laugh, then let the oak and glass door slide shut behind us.
As we entered the locker room we saw a single bank of twenty-four lockers facing us. Two of the lockers in the upper row, in slots four and seven, withdrew back into the wall. It left the row looking like some gillette's broken grin for a moment or two, then new lockers slid into place. We both exchanged glances, then shrugged and located our appropriate lockers by the little laminated name plates slotted into them.
I opened mine, then sat down hard on the bench. 'Oh, Val, whathave you done?'
'Do we have to wear this stuff?'
'Dress code.' I groaned aloud. 'Your clothes will fit perfectly. Valerie is pretty sharp, but her taste runs a bit odd.'
