F. Wilson: Dydeetown World

The holo of Lynnie on the shelf to the left of the bed snagged me for a moment. Maggs had had it made for me before she ran off. A special holo, programmed to age the image with each passing year.

Lynnie had been five when Maggs took her away. She was thirteen now and probably looked almost exactly like that teenage girl on the shelf. I've spent years wondering if Maggs left it for me out of compassion or vindictiveness.

If only…

Found myself standing by the button drawer.

Somewhere during the trip back from Yokomata's I’d promised myself never to use a button again. Promised to get my head unbuttoned. Knew what they said: Once a buttonhead, always a buttonhead. That no matter what you did there would always be a part of your brain that would compare the real thing to the button and find the real thing wanting.

But I had to stop. Especially now that people like Yokomata and her men and the clone knew. Had to get unbuttoned. Couldn't face again the kind of humiliation I'd faced today. Had to stop — But not tonight.

More than any other time in the past few years, tonight I needed a button. Reached in the drawer, pulled out one at random and hurried toward the bed. As usual, I took the holo of Lynnie off the shelf and dropped it in a drawer — didn't want her watching — and flopped down on the mattress. Snapped the button into place on my scalp and lay back, waiting for the impulses to start running down the wire into my brain.

Slowly at first… light touches, little shudders of pleasure and anticipation, her on him, him on her, pleasure from both sides, building, building, encircling and encircled, searing ecstasy every place and in places where there was no place but which the brain found ways to interpret and pass on…building and building toward the inevitable that seemed so near and yet so elusive…building and bending the body into an arch with only heels and occiput touching the mattress…building forever until the final cataclysm …

…and then sleep.

Was back in Elmero's before noon. Much of yesterday seemed far away, but parts lingered, clustering around the button at the back of my head. Got the usual nods from Doc and the crowd of regulars at the bar. No jeers or catcalls or cries of "Buttonhead!" Don't know what I'd been expecting. Because a few people knew, seemed like everyone must know.

Elmero smiled his awful smile as I came through the door. "More gold?"

"Soon maybe. Right now I'm looking for info on a guy named Kyle Bodine — ever heard of him?"

"Never."

"How about Kel Barkham?"

He laughed. "Don't I wish I could find him !"

"What y'mean?"

"At 50k dead and lOOk alive, every body's looking for Barkham!"

Had forgotten about the bounty Yokomata had mentioned. Big bounty. Yokomata wanted him real bad.

"What did he do to Yokomata anyway?"

Elmero shrugged. "Nobody knows for sure, but I've heard it had something to do with a Zem deal."

Figured. Yokomata was reputedly big in the drug trade and Zemmelar was the latest rage.

Wanted to try Zem some day, but had enough problems for now. Already hooked on buttons, and Zem was the most potent, addictive, tightly controlled synthetic narcotic in Occupied Space. But when I was cashing in, that was the way I wanted to go.

After all, that was what it was made for — so the terminally ill could spend their last days and weeks in pain-free, euphoric hallucinations. No one was surprised, though, when Zem addicts popped up all over Occupied Space within a few standard years after its release. Zemmelar analogs were now manufactured on lots of planets, but Styx Corp. band name Zem from Earth was reputedly the best.

"Tell me what you know about Barkham."

That smile again. "It'll cost."

"If I find him, you get twenty-five percent of whatever I get. Consider it an investment."

"Make it fifty."

"Too much. Can find out whatever you can tell me in the tubes." Jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "Probably in the barroom."

"Don't count on it."

He was right. Shrugged. If I got to Barkham first, half of fifty or a hundred thousand Sol Credits was more than I'd ever seen at once in my entire life. The money wasn't my primary concern, anyway. Yokomata had called me a third-rater. She was going to eat those words.

"Deal."

"How do I know I'll ever see you again if you get the bounty?"

Offered him the only collateral I had: "My word."

He stretched his considerable length. "With anybody else I'd laugh. But you, Sig…deal."

We shook hands and then he leaned forward.

"Hear: Barkham came out of the tubes and up through the ranks of Yokomata's organization real quick. He's been Yokomata's right-hand man for the past two years. He's got a reputation for dealing dirty whenever he can, even when there's no good reason. He likes working that way. But if you try to deal him the same, nobody ever hears from you again."

"Real dregger."

"Too true. He was a perfect first-in-command for Yokomata, kept everything running smooth, kept everyone in line — until he doubled Yokomata."

This was the jog who got Harlow-c a greencard and was going to run off to the outworlds with her? Were we talking about the same guy?

"How'd he do that?"

Elmero sighed. "Been trying to find out. Not easy. Yokomata's clamped a tight lid on the affair — which means she'll probably look real bad if the details hit the tubes. What I do know is this: Yokomata's crew stole a hundred vials of Zem concentrate right off the production line."

Until now I had been leaning up against the front of his desk. Now I took a seat. A hundred vials of concentrate. It could be cut again and again before it hit the brains of the addicts.

"How much is that worth?"

"Mucho millions at user level, but word is that Yokomata was wholesaling it for a quick return. And Barkham was handling the sale."

"And he's gone."

Elmero nodded. " With the Zem. And the couple million payoff from the sale."

No wonder Yokomata had posted a big reward.

"No sign of him since?"

Elmero shook his head.

"How about CenDat?"

"I had a contact there trace his credit trail — something I'm sure Yokomata's already done — but Barkham hasn't used his thumb since Friday."

Which meant he was using barter to move around. Only a stellar-scale jog would use his thumb on the run. Anytime he bought or sold something, the transaction would be recorded in CenDat — where, when, how much, and with whom. One of the unsung benefits of Earth's cashless economy.

The only way around it was barter. And bartering would be easy if you had a hundred vials of Zem concentrate within reach. He could go anywhere. He could be anywhere by now.

So why the charade with the Dydeetown girl?

Maybe I'd never know.

"Anything else you can tell me?"

"That's it. Except there's a whisper about The Man From Mars being involved in the deal."

Laughed. "Sure! And I'm a Boedekker heir!"

Elmero shrugged. "You asked me what I'd heard, not what I thought was sensible."

Got up and headed for the door.

"Thanks, Elm."

"De nada — as long as you remember my cut."

Was back in my office cubicle, whiffing some tay. Had just let Ignatz loose to start gobbling up the cockroaches and was watching Newsface Six doing this interesting interview with Joey Jose when some graffiti about inhumane treatment of chlorcows warped into the holochamber. Wondered if they had this much datastream graffiti in the Western Megalops or Chi-Kacy or Tex-Mex. Annoying at times, especially when the datastream was interviewing my favorite comedian.

Turned the set off when a stranger walked through the door. Short, strutting, roosterish creature, slightly older than me, with curly blondish hair banged in front, wearing a worn, dark green pseudovelv jump. Figured him for a client.