Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip

Such as:

A sense of motion. Jolt jolt jolt, stride stride stride, Hamlin is going somewhere.

A sense of position. Hamlin is standing upright.

A sense of muscular activity. Hips and thighs in action, soles of feet hitting pavement Hamlin is walking.

A sense of environment. Bright light. Sunlight? General warmth and humidity. Morning? A summer morning? Street noises. He is walking along a street.

A sense of vision, coming jerkily into focus, now clear. Office buildings, pedestrians, vehicles. A street in Old Manhattan?

Riding along as though seated on Hamlin’s back, legs around his neck, Macy felt a sharp pang of discontinuity at the absence of proper transitions. At the moment of loss of consciousness this body had been grappling in a slum-building corridor with an unknown assailant, late at night. Now it was walking down a busy daytime street. How much time had passed? What was the outcome of that struggle? What injuries, if any, did the body sustain? Where is Hamlin heading now? None of these things could readily be determined with the resources presently at Macy’s command. One can try to improve one’s resources, though.

The logical next step, Macy told himself, is to hook into Hamlin’s consciousness. So I can read him and maybe hamper him if not entirely control him. A tentacle into the cerebral cortex. But where is the cerebral cortex? Macy could only repeat his previous trial-and-error tactics, groping here, groping there. No luck, though. Impossible to grasp the handles of Hamlin’s cerebration. Macy’s efforts succeeded only in giving Hamlin’s memory storage regions a high colonic, stirring turbid strata of ancient events. Across the screen of Macy’s awareness floated a cloud of mucky particles of experience, miscellaneous rapes, seductions, artistic triumphs, investment decisions, childhood traumas, and indignations, drifting murkily about. While the sensory inputs continued to show Hamlin swinging jauntily along down the sunny street.

Now for the first time came desolate moments for Macy. A feeling of hopelessness. A realization of the reality of this unreal captivity. Admissions of defeat, the inevitability and finality of. It was to be expected that he’d catch me and lock me up in here. A stronger ego than mine. Wilier. He lived thirty-five years and I lived only four. A criminal mentality, too. He knows how to defend himself. I’ll never be able to meddle with him as he did with me. I’ll never get out of here.

But as he mourned for himself Macy automatically went on searching for the right place to plug in, trying this and that and this, marching into one blind alley after another, battering himself against dead ends and withdrawing to try again. And abruptly he made his connection, tapping into the line he sought and drawing a staggering numbing dizzying but ultimately satisfying current, the pure juice, the unimpeded flow, the hefty amperage of Hamlin’s unfettered soul.

go to see Gargantua first almost there ten minutes more find out what’s been going on the business the buying and selling my price these days it must have gone up plenty I bet they figured I’m dead the cocksuckers no more Hamlins so double the price every week well why not why not why not and then out to the studio all boarded up I bet just take a little look of course I’ll have to pose as Macy that will present some problems won’t even be able to let Gargan know the truth outright although I’ll drop him some hints that fucking mass of meat he’s clever he’s clever he’ll figure it out won’t say a word a buck or two in it for him you bet your fat ass there is so then to the studio a sentimental journey I mean I need to go there like a shrine like my own shrine like like all dusty I bet the Goths and the Vandals fuck fuck fuck they bust everything up maybe I wasn’t so pleasant a guy but I had a decent respect for property except of course all those cunts if you consider a cunt property and anyway I was crazy then much better now purified by adversity my head clear at last rid of Macy stuck him where he belongs the poor dumb shit no personality at all just a construct a plastic man well it wasn’t his fault but it wasn’t mine either the survival of the fittest don’t you see Darwin was no dope and then I’ll visit Noreen old time’s sake I’ll have to play it very cagy with her that bitch is perfectly capable of turning me in but maybe not after all nobody ever gave it to her in her life the way I did even if toward the end we were somewhat estranged nevertheless that’s part of the normal risks of marriage especially when you marry an officially accredited genius a member of the international elite of artistic achievement high intensity sometimes boils over I’m almost at Gargantua’s now I think unless he’s moved the gallery four years shit the whole shitting universe changes in four years every cell in the body turns over doesn’t it or is it seven years anyway we aren’t the same and Gargan probably sells his schlock out of Philadelphia now Chicago Karachi who knows but we’ll find out fast enough God it’s good just to walk the streets again breathe the air throw my shoulders back and tonight we’ll find some friendly hole for dicky dunking yes indeed four years without a piece that’s quite a long time for a man of my ability artistic and physical well maybe out in Darien I’ll find Noreen willing to come across or one of the others God that creepy Lissa I guess she’d do it she’d do it for anyone even Macy thinking she’s really fucking me of course but I don’t want her I don’t want to go within a million miles of her too dangerous what a shot in the head she gave me that time I don’t want her ever again ever ever I wonder what kind of work I’ll turn out as soon as I’m back in the swing of things it better be good if I can’t maintain quality might as well give the body back to Macy but I think I’ll pick up fast enough do some small pieces first recover my grasp of perspective my perspective of grasp and then we’ll see anyway the important thing is that I’m back

—But you still have me, Hamlin. Macy. Oh, shit! Macy. I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so soon.

—Sorry to disappoint you. Why don’t you just erode away? Dissolve. Let yourself be absorbed by the cranial phagocytes, Hamlin suggested. You’re over and done with, anyway. Your nebulous existence has ceased to be, Macy. Admit it and go.

—The Rehab Center failed to program me for auto-destruct.

I don’t need you, though.

—But I do, Macy said.

What good are you? What imaginable value do you have to the world? To anyone?

—I have immense value to me. I’m the only me I have. And I want to survive. I’m going to beat you, Hamlin. I’m going to throw you out again and this time I’ll abolish you. Just watch and see.

Please. Your buzzing is giving me a headache and it’s such a beautiful day.

—I’ll give you a lot more than a headache.

Noisy threats were pointless. Macy wanted to make some dramatic demonstration of his ability to harass Hamlin. Give him as good as he got when the tables were turned. Clutch his heart, grab a bundle of muscles in his cheek, shut his eyes, make him piss in his pants. Jolt him, but without, naturally, doing real harm to the body they shared. Only he couldn’t. Macy’s harassment quotient was close to zero. All he could do was ride again on Hamlin’s sensory input and pipe messages directly into his conscious brain. Buzzing. But no control of the motor sectors whatever. No grip on the autonomic system. Merely a passenger who hasn’t the foggiest where the throttle might be, or the brakes, or even the switch for the headlights. Meanwhile Hamlin, untroubled, turned a corner and entered the vestibule of a glossy-fronted shop on the smoked-glass window of which danced the words OMNIMUM GALLERIES, LTD. in free-floating globules of green capillary light. Inside, a battery of safety mechanisms bathed him in scanner-glow. An inner door finally rolled aside, and he entered the gallery, pausing not at all to inspect the treasures of contemporary art it displayed. He said to the girl at the desk, “Is Mr. Gargan here?”