Snowy said mildly, “Buddy, where I come from, it’s not so wise to mouth off to a guy as big as me, especially for a little twerp as skinny —” Snowy blinked. “What’s wrong?”
“Jesus Christ.” The kid was staring tearfully at Snowy, mouth hanging open.
“What —?” Snowy halted a motion to scratch his head and realized what the kid was seeing. His hand had turned furry, the fingers tipped with milk-white claws. It was his normal hand. He felt his face. Sheila’s spell was fading.
The kid tore his eyes away to glance at the road, then looked back. “Hey …”
In the intervening instant, Snowy’s hand had turned human again, the fur and claws gone. His face felt smooth.
“What the hell’s going on?” the kid said. “Did you — did you just —?”
“What’s that you say?”
The kid focused his stare on the road, his face set grimly.
“Nothin’,” the kid said. “Forget it.” He opened his own window and threw out the butt of the joint he’d been sucking on. “Forget that shit, too.”
Great White Stuff, Snowy thought. This is going to be a long trip.
Twenty-five
Castle
Jeremy didn’t know what he was crouching on — it could have been floor, wall, or ceiling. He couldn’t tell. Things had gotten to the point where it didn’t matter. Everything was crazy, everything was totally out to lunch.
He had lost sight of Linda, although he could still hear her. She was off somewhere to the left, as far as he could tell, lost in a nightmare of bulging walls and constricted passageways.
Linda called his name, and he answered.
“Are you all right?” she yelled back.
“Uh … yeah! Well, not really.”
“Hang on, I’m going to try getting to you.”
After a minute or so she appeared, sticking her head out of a small tunnel about ten feet above Jeremy’s head.
“There you are,” she said. “It seems to be quieting down a little.”
“Yeah.”
As if in defiance, things began to shift again, Linda’s tunnel sliding off to the right somewhat.
“Whoa!”
The slab of stone under Jeremy began to tilt. He reached for the computer but it slipped away.
“Shit!” He lunged after it and slid to a level spot. Fishing the computer out of a trough in the “floor,” he checked it for damage.
“Your computer’s beeping again,” Linda said.
“Yeah, I know.” Jeremy flipped up the readout screen.
REALITY PROCESSING? CAN DO.
“What the hell does that mean?” Jeremy asked of no one in particular.
“What does what mean?”
“Nothing. It’s just that this thing has gone bat shit, too.”
“How so?”
“Well, it’s in WordStar — it gets it out of ROM — and it’s telling me it can do ‘REALITY PROCESSING.’ Whatever the hell that is.”
“Sounds like we could use some of that.”
“Yeah. I don’t know, this is really —” Jeremy typed out a query.
WHO ARE YOU?
Came the answer: YOUR COMPUTER, DUMMY.
“Holy shit. This thing is alive.”
“Great,” Linda said. “Ask it what we ought to do.”
“Yeah. Right.”
WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Jeremy keyed.
WELL, NOW, HAVEN’T I JUST MADE A SUGGESTION?
WHAT WAS THAT? Jeremy replied.
WE CAN REPROCESS THE IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT AND ACHIEVE TEMPORARY STABILITY.
Jeremy typed, OKAY. RUN THE PROGRAM.
PRESS RETURN, the computer directed.
Jeremy did.
Things got blurry, and Jeremy thought he might be passing out. But the computer wasn’t blurry, and neither was he. He strained to see Linda, but couldn’t make her out in the wavering nonreality that surrounded him.
Then the world refocused again, and he was squatting on a level, stationary floor. He looked up and saw Linda getting to her feet.
Linda brushed hair from her eyes. “Whew! Whatever you did, it worked.”
“Yeah. I didn’t do anything, though.”
“Yes, you did. You brought that computer with you. If you hadn’t, we’d be goners.”
Jeremy grunted. “I guess. What now?”
They were becalmed in the eye of a strange, reality-changing hurricane. Down the hall in both directions lay chaos, the nightmare jumble that Jeremy’s computer had just set aright locally.
“We have to get through a portal,” Linda said. “But I don’t think that’s going to be possible right now. If Sheila were here, she might be able to summon one, but maybe not, in this mess.”
“So, what else?”
“So, what else have you got? Look, you have the ball, Jeremy. You’re going to have to run with it.”
“Me? What do I know about this place?”
“Use your magic. You obviously have the right stuff. Just learn to use it, and do it quick.”
“But …” Jeremy lifted his shoulders. “All right, but this is —”
“Stop saying things are crazy,” Linda snapped. “Sure they’re crazy, but no crazier than the nutty world we come from. It’s just different, that’s all. You have the power to deal with it. So do deal with it.”
“Right.” He knelt at the computer and typed.
WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?
WANT SUGGESTIONS, DO YOU?
YES, Jeremy answered.
VERY WELL. START WALKING. REALITY STABILIZATION FIELD WILL FOLLOW.
Linda was looking over his shoulder. “That sounds like a good idea. If we come across an area that’s supposed to have a portal, maybe it’ll be there.”
They strolled a good distance down the hall, but no portals appeared. The jumble in both directions seemed to stay the same distance away.
“The trouble might be affecting things,” Linda said. “Blocking off the portals, or chasing them away, I don’t know.”
Jeremy set the computer down and queried again.
He typed: MORE SUGGESTIONS?
POSSIBLY FURTHER REPROCESSING NEEDED. NEED MORE RAM.
“Damn. It’s asking for more memory space, but I don’t have it to give.”
NO CAN DO, Jeremy said.
CAN DUMP TO DISK. ERASE EXISTING TEXT AND BACKUP FILES?
SURE, GO AHEAD, Jeremy answered.
