Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

The earphones started to hum. I wished I could reach out and hold Gloria’s hand, but she was too far away.

“They’ll have no help from the floor judges, or one another, in locating the perceptual riches of cyberspace. Some will discover the keys that open the doors to a thousand worlds, others will bog down in the antechamber to the future. Anyone caught coaching during rest periods will be disqualified-no warnings, no second chances.”

Then Fearing’s voice dropped out, and the scapes started.

I WAS in a hallway. The walls were full of drawers, like a big cabinet that went on forever. The drawers had writing on them that I ignored. First I couldn’t move except my head, then I figured out how to walk, and just did that for a while. But I never got anywhere. It felt like I was walking in a giant circle, up the wall, across the ceiling, and then back down the other wall.

So I pulled open a drawer. It only looked big enough to hold some pencils or whatever but when I pulled it opened like a door and I went through.

“Welcome to Intense Personals,” said a voice. There were just some colors to look at. The door closed behind me. “You must be eighteen years of age or older to use this service. To avoid any charges, please exit now.”

I didn’t exit because I didn’t know how. The space with colors was kind of small except it didn’t have any edges. But it felt small.

“This is the main menu. Please reach out and make one of the following selections: women seeking men, men seeking women, women seeking women, men seeking men, or alternatives.”

Each of them was a block of words in the air. I reached up and touched the first one.

“After each selection touch one to play the recording again, two to record a message for this person, or three to advance to the next selection. You may touch three at any time to advance to the next selection, or four to return to the main menu.”

Then a woman came into the colored space with me. She was dressed up and wearing lipstick.

“Hi, my name is Kate,” she said. She stared like she was looking through my head at something behind me, and poked at her hair while she talked. “I live in San Francisco. I work in the financial district, as a personnel manager, but my real love is the arts, currently painting and writing-

“How did you get into San Francisco?” I said.

“-just bought a new pair of hiking boots and I’m hoping to tackle Mount Tam this weekend,” she said, ignoring me.

“I never met anyone from there,” I said.

“-looking for a man who’s not intimidated by intelligence,” she went on. “It’s important that you like what you do, like where you are. I also want someone who’s confident enough that I can express my vulnerability. You should be a good listener-”

I touched three. I can read numbers.

Another woman came in, just like that. This one was as young as Gloria, but kind of soft-looking.

“I continue to ask myself why in the heck I’m doing this personals thing,” she said, sighing. “But I know the reason-I want to date. I’m new to the San Francisco area. I like to go to the theater, but I’m really open-minded. I was born and raised in Chicago, so I think I’m a little more east coast than west. I’m fast-talking and cynical. I guess I’m getting a little cynical about these ads; the sky has yet to part; lightning has yet to strike-”

I got rid of her, now that I knew how.

“-I have my own garden and landscape business-”

“-someone who’s fun, not nerdy-”

“-I’m tender, I’m sensuous-”

I started to wonder how long ago these women were from. I didn’t like the way they were making me feel, sort of guilty and bullied at the same time. I didn’t think I could make any of them happy the way they were hoping but I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to try, anyway.

It took pretty long for me to get back out into the hallway. From then on I paid more attention to how I got into things.

The next drawer I got into was just about the opposite. All space and no people. I was driving an airplane over almost the whole world, as far as I could tell. There was a row of dials and switches under the windows but it didn’t mean anything to me. First I was in the mountains and I crashed a lot, and that was dull because a voice would lecture me before I could start again, and I had to wait. But then I got to the desert and I kept it up without crashing much. I just learned to say “no” whenever the voice suggested something different like “engage target” or “evasive action.” I wanted to fly a while, that’s all. The desert looked good from up there, even though I’d been walking around in deserts too often.

Except that I had to pee I could have done that forever. Fearing’s voice broke in, though, and said it was time for the first rest period.

“-STILL fresh and eager after their first plunge into the wonders of the future,” Fearing was saying to the people in the seats. The place was only half full. “Already this world seems drab by comparison. Yet, consider the irony, that as their questing minds grow accustomed to these splendors, their bodies will begin to rebel-”

Gloria showed me how to unsnap the cables so I could walk out of the middle of all that stuff still wearing the suit, leaving the mask behind. Everybody lined up for the bathroom. Then we went to the big hall in the back where they had the cots, but nobody went to sleep or anything. I guessed we’d all want to next time, but right now I was too excited and so was everybody else. Fearing just kept talking like us taking a break was as much a part of the show as anything else.

“Splendors, hah,” said Gloria. “Bunch of secondhand cyberjunk.”

“I was in a plane,” I started.

“Shut up,” said Gloria. “We’re not supposed to talk about it. Only, if you find something you like, remember where it is.”

I hadn’t done that, but I wasn’t worried.

“Drink some water,” she said. “And get some food.”

They were going around with sandwiches and I got a couple, one for Gloria. But she didn’t seem to want to talk.

Gilmartin the fake doctor was making a big deal of going around checking everybody even though it was only the first break. I figured that the whole point of taking care of us so hard was to remind the people in the seats that they might see somebody get hurt.

Ed was giving out apples from a bag. I took one and went over and sat on Lane’s cot. She looked nice in her suit.

“My boyfriend’s here,” she said.

“You’re back together?”

“I mean ex-. I’m pretending I didn’t see him.”

“Where?”

“He’s sitting right in front of my monitor.” She tipped her head to point.

I didn’t say anything but I wished I had somebody watching me from the audience.

WHEN I went back the first thing I got into was a library of books. Every one you took off the shelf turned into a show, with charts and pictures, but when I figured out that it was all business stuff about how to manage your money, I got bored.

Then I went into a dungeon. It started with a wizard growing me up from a bug. We were in his workshop, which was all full of jars and cobwebs. He had a face like a melted candle and he talked as much as Fearing. There were bats flying around.

“You must resume the quest of Kroyd,” he said to me, and started touching me with his stick. I could see my arms and legs, but they weren’t wearing the scaper suit. They were covered with muscles. When the wizard touched me I got a sword and a shield. “These are your companions, Rip and Batter,” said the wizard. “They will obey you and protect you. You must never betray them for any other. That was Kroyd’s mistake.”