Charlie's

15

A week later I was tracing a quartz vein along the bottom of a cliff when my comm told me I had a message. I thought maybe Marie wanted to talk about things at last. But it wasn't Marie. It was Eddie.

Meet me at Charlie's tonight.

Eddie had never messaged me before. He was pretty laid-back...nothing between us had ever been so important that he'd taken the trouble. If he had anything to say it was usually passed through Marie. Of course, Marie wasn't talking to me right then.

I didn't think I could focus on what I was doing any more, so I marked the location of the seam and rode back to the station. When I got into town it was still early. I killed some time in a book store before heading to the bar.

Eddie was sitting at a table by the window, a bottle of house bourbon and two glasses in front of him. He waved me over, then poured as I sat. "Thanks for comin', Joe. It's about Sarah."

I sighed and picked up a glass. "What's she done now?"

"You seen her recently?"

"Last time I did she nearly sicced a skinhead on me. I don't think I've got any pull with her any more."

"Yeah..." Eddie stared at the tabletop. He hadn't yet touched the drink he'd poured. This wasn't like him. "See...I seen her round town. She's been in some o' the rougher neighborhoods, gettin' it on with some o' the rougher characters."

"I can't tell her what to do, Eddie. She's made that clear. Least she's not making any more trouble for Vic, right?"

"No, no, that's clearin' up. Vic says he ain't even sleepin' on the couch no more. But...yer still kinda takin' care o' her, right? Still payin' her rent an' all?"

"She can't leave. She's got nowhere to go."

"Yeah, I got that. But...look, I'm kinda' worried about her. Seems like she's tryin' to get into trouble. Hangin' out in places where bad things happen to good girls. Not like she has to. Like she wants to. Like she's got it in fer herself." Eddie went quiet for a moment, then looked up and met my eyes. "I'm wonderin' if she needs professional help."

That made me pause. Even more than not drinking, this wasn't Eddie. Eddie was a layout artist for an ad company. What he did was more craft than art, but he was good at it. He did his job, brought home the bacon and did the average husband thing. He was an okay guy, he was a good friend, but he wasn't really all that compassionate. He'd put the occasional dollar in the occasional dixie cup, but I couldn't see him in a soup kitchen.

And yet here he was expressing concern over a relative stranger that had made trouble for his friends and between his friends and gotten in between his sister and her boyfriend. And using terms like "professional help". Calling Sarah "nuts" or "psycho" I could see, but actually wanting something done about it seemed out of character.

I looked at him. He was trying to tell me something, I thought. Problem was, he was Eddie. I really hated doing this. "Okay, Eddie. Tech support."

"Huh?"

"Tech support. Authorization code 'Broken Mirror.'"

Eddie nodded. "Oh, okay. We think she's hooked."

"Hooked...?"

"Addicted. Over-immersed. Exhibitin' behavior indicative o' predisposition toward compulsive self-indulgence..."

"Hooked. Right. I get it. So...wake her up?"

"Not a good idea. Maybe a couple weeks ago it mighta been a good idea, maybe without all the stress she's got an' the bad circumstances o' her arrival here it mighta been a good idea, but now it ain't a good idea. She ain't just jacked in, Joe...she's jacked outa the real world. Turned off all the safeties, locked the doors...Far's she's concerned she's in reality right now. You wanna wake her up, you need a psychological reconstruction pro on hand. Which, accordin' to your registration profile, you ain't."

"But you wake me up all the time!"

"An' you're expectin' it. It's yer wake-up call. She ain't expectin' it no more. I wake her up now, she might go into shock."

"Well...can't I just unplug her?"

"Another not a good idea. Switch sensory input like that, sometimes the brain can't make the jump that easy. Prob'ly won't kill her, but there's a good chance o' catatonia."

I stared at my poker buddy, who glumly regarded me back. "So what can we do?"

"Ya know, when I said 'we', I was kinda talkin' 'bout my processors an' my support policies an' my utility routines an' not so much you."

"Fine. What can you do?"

Eddie sighed and looked away. "Partition her. Stick her in her own copy o' the city, let her be happy, til you can get her to a therapist. The copy'll go with the sim bed...you gotta move her, she'll just stay in the sim. Better continuity that way."

"Just...leave her there? Isn't leaving her in for a long time just worse?"

"Not so bad as pullin' the plug. Long as she's got a pro to bring her out again."

"Someone other than me?"

Eddie shrugged. "Cuz geological researchers are so well trained in psychotherapy?"

I had to admit I wasn't on a barren rock because of my people skills. "Still, it's gotta be better for her to be in real life than in the sim, right?"

"Uh huh. See, like you said once, I ain't real, so I got no way o' knowin'. Is this system situated in an environment which said aforementioned subject might find conducive to comfortable withdrawal from her current perceived reality?"

The wind howling through the canyons...the gentle curve of the wind-eroded ridge line...the gleam of the setting sun on the grains of silicate... "No."

"'Kay. My opinion, she stays in."

"All right. What can I do?"

"Nuthin'."

He had the decency to look unhappy. Have to give the developers some credit. "So that's it? I don't see her, she doesn't see me, and she goes off on the next transport?"

"If you so duly authorize."

The one thing in my power to do. "I so duly authorize, Johann Kepler, as designated representative of this Survey Office outpost."

"An' I so duly note."

We sat there for a while, gazing out the window of Charlie's at the soggy streets. A taxi rolled past and disappeared around the corner. I picked up my drink, studied the contents as I swirled them around, then downed it in one gulp. "End tech support."

Eddie nodded absently. "So...game's at Phil's tomorrow night. You comin'?"

"I'll have to get back to you."