The Second Trip

6

Home again, mid-morning. His head throbbing. Not a peep out of Hamlin all the way back. The apartment seemed to have undergone a strange transformation in the two hours of his absence: previously a neutral place, wholly lacking emotional connotations, and now an alien and sinister cell, cramped and repellent.

The flat’s dark new tone astonished him. Its mysterious autumnal resonances. Its shadows where no shadows had been. Nothing had changed in it, really. Lissa hadn’t moved any furniture around or sprayed the walls a different color. And yet. And yet, how frightening it all looked now. How out of place he felt in it. That L-shaped bedroom, low ceiling, narrow bed jammed up against flimsy wall, old-fashioned light fixture dangling, bilious green paint, cheap smeary Picasso prints, slit of a window revealing splotchy May sunshine and two scraggly trees across the street—how ugly it looked, how coarse, how constricted, how squashed! Did people really live in places like this? Tiny bathroom, slick pink tiles. Not even an ultrasonic cleanser, just archaic sink and tub and crapper. A microscopic kitchen-dinette affair, everything jammed together, table, freezer, telephone screen, disposal unit, stove. At least a tiny buzz-cleanser for the dirty dishes. A sitting room, cheap red plastic couch, some books, cassettes, a video unit.

A prison for the soul. Our impoverished century: this is the best we can afford for human beings, after our long orgies of waste and destruction. For the last couple of weeks, this apartment had been his refuge, his harbor, his hermitage; if he thought about it at all, which he doubted, it had been in a friendly way. Why did it turn him off now? After a moment, he believed he knew. Hamlin’s sensibility now underlay his own. The sculptor’s sophisticated perceptions bleeding through to the Macy levels of their shared mind. Hamlin’s loathing for the apartment tinged Macy’s view of it. To Hamlin the proportions were wrong, the ambiance vile, the psychological texture of the place slimy and grimy, the inner environmental color a nasty one. Macy shivered. He visualized Hamlin as a kind of abscess in his brain, a pocket of pus, inaccessible, destructive.

Lissa was still in bed. That bothered him. The Protestant ethic: sleeping late equals rejection of life.

But she wasn’t asleep. Stirring lazily, sitting up, knuckles to eyes. A purring yawn. “Everything taken care of?” she asked.

“No.”

“What happened?”

He told her about the episode at the Greenwich terminal. Writhing on the blue and white terrazzo with fire in his chest. Hamlin playfully strumming the harp of his autonomic nervous system. Lissa listened, big-eyed, somber-faced, and said finally, “What are you going to do?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“But that’s hideous. Having him inside you like a parasite. A crab hiding in your head. Like a case of brain cancer. Look, maybe if I call the Rehab Center—”

A warning twinge from Hamlin, deep down.

“No,” Macy said.

“I could tell them what’s happened. Maybe this has happened before. Maybe they know some way to deal with him.”

“The moment they tried anything,” he said, “Hamlin would stop my heartbeat. I know that.”

“But if there’s some drug that might knock him out—I could slip it to you somehow—”

“He’s listening right now, Lissa. Don’t you think he’ll be on guard constantly? He may not even need to sleep. We can’t take chances.”

“But how can you go on with somebody else inside your head, trying to take you over?”

Macy pondered that one. “What makes you think he’s trying to take me over?”

“Isn’t it obvious? He wants his body back. He’ll try to cut you down, one block of nerves at a time, until there’s nothing left of you at all. He’ll push you out. And then he’ll be Nat Hamlin again.”

“He just said he wanted to share the body with me,” Macy muttered.

“Will he stop there? Why should he?”

“But Nat Hamlin’s a proscribed criminal. Legally he doesn’t even exist any more. If he tried to return to life—”

“Oh, he’d go on using the Macy identity,” Lissa said. “Only he’d take up sculpting again, in another country, maybe. He’d look up his old friends. He’d be the old Hamlin, except his passport would say Macy, and—” She halted. “He’d look up his old friends,” she repeated. She seemed to be examining the idea from various angles. “Old friends such as me.”

“Yes. You.” In a tone that he recognized as unpleasant, but which he found impossible to alter, Macy said, “He could even marry you. As he was originally planning to do.”

“His wife is still alive, I’m sure.”

“That marriage was legally dissolved at the time he was sentenced,” Macy said. “It’s automatic. They cut all ties. Officially, he wouldn’t be Hamlin even if he took over. He’d be Macy, and Macy is single. There you are, Lissa.” The edge of cruelty coming into his voice again. “You’d finally get to be his wife. What you’ve always wanted.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want it any more.”

“You said you loved him.”

“I once did love him. But I told you, that’s all dead now. The things he did. The crimes. The rapes.”

“The first time we met,” said Macy heavily, “when you were still insisting on calling me Nat, you made a point of saying you were still in love with me. The old me. Him. You said it two or three times. Talking about how much you missed him. Refusing to believe that there was somebody new living behind his face.”

“You misunderstand,” she said. “I felt so lonely. So fucking lost. And all of a sudden I was standing next to somebody I knew; somebody out of the past—I just wanted help, I had to talk to him—I mean, I crashed right into you in the street, was I supposed to walk away and not even say hello?”

“You saw my Rehab badge and you ignored it.”

“I didn’t see it at all.”

“You must have blanked it out deliberately. You knew Nat Hamlin had been put away for Rehab.”

“You’re shouting at me.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I’m tense as hell, Lissa. Look, so you saw somebody in the street and you thought he was Nat Hamlin, so you said hello, but did you have to tell him you were still in love with him, too?”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“You said it.”

“What else could I do?” she asked. Her voice was shrill now. “Stand there and say, Hello, you look like Nat Hamlin who I used to love, and of course I don’t love him any more and in any case he’s been wiped out but since you look just like him I’ll fall in love with you instead, so let’s go home and ball a little? How could I say that? But I couldn’t let you just vanish without saying something to you. I was making a stab at the past, trying to catch it, trying to bring it back. The beautiful past, before the hellish part started. And you were my only link to that, Paul, and I was excited, and I said Nat, Nat, I talked about being in love—”

“Exactly. You called me Nat, and said you were still in love with—”

“Why are you doing this to me, Paul?”

“Doing what?”

“Chewing on me. Shouting. All these questions.”

“I’m trying to find out which one of us you’re really loyal to. Hamlin or me. Which side you’re going to take when the struggle for this body gets rough.”

“You aren’t trying to find out any such thing. You just want to hurt me.”

“Why should I want to—”

“How would I know? Because you blame me for bringing him back to life, maybe. Because you hate me for having loved him once. Because he’s sitting inside you right now forcing you to hurt me. I don’t know. Christ, I don’t know at all. Only why do you need to find out where my loyalty is? Didn’t I tell you last night that I didn’t want him coming back? Didn’t I offer to call the Rehab Center just now?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“So how could I possibly be on his side? I want him to be wiped out. I want him gone forever. I want—oh, Christ—”

She halted suddenly. Leaping from the bed as though stung, arms and legs flying stiffly out from her torso. Turning toward him. Her face contorted, the eyes bulging, the mouth a rigid hole, the muscles of her throat bunched and jutting. From her lips a bizarre clotted baritone, hoarse and unfocused, like the blunt blurtings of a deaf mute, no words intelligible: “Mfss. Shlrrm. Skk-kk. Vshh. Vshh. Vshh.” A terrible gargling cry, all the more horrible because of the deep masculine tongue in which it was delivered.

She lurched around the room, stumbling into things, clawing at the air. A plain case of demonic possession. What rides her?

“Grkk. Lll. Llll. Pkd-dd.” Eyes wild, pleading. Bare breasts heaving wildly. A sheen of sweat on her skin.

Macy rushed toward her, trying to embrace her, calm her, ease her back to the bed. She pivoted like a robot and her arm crashed across his chest, doubling him up in gasps. When he looked at her again her face was scarlet with strain and her mouth was open to the full reach of her jaws, beyond it perhaps. The wild gargling sounds still erupted from her, and her eyes registered total horror and despair.

Once again Macy tried to seize her. This time successfully. Muscles leaping and churning and twitching all over her spare naked form. He forced her down on the bed and covered her with his body, hands gripping her wrists, knees imprisoning her thighs. A sour smell of sweat rising from her, bad sweat, fear-sweat.

Some kind of epileptic fit? Epilepsy was much on his mind this morning. In a low urgent voice he talked to her, tried to soothe her, to reach her somehow. More baritone drivel coming out of her in halting husky bleeps of thick noise. The static of the soul.

“Lissa?” he said. “Lissa, can you hear me? Try to go limp. Let all your muscles hang loose.”

Easier said than done. She still twitched. While in the midst of this he felt a hot sensation at the base of his skull, as of an auger drilling into him. Or drilling toward the outside from the soft center of his brain. Something jumped frantically within his mouth, and it was a moment before he realized that it was his tongue, jerking itself crazily backward toward his gullet “Vshh. Vshh. Pkd-dd. Slrr. Msss.” The sounds not from Lissa this time. From him.

Lying there congealed and coagulated on top of Lissa, he understood perfectly what was happening. Nat Hamlin, having conserved his strength for a couple of hours, was trying to achieve a takeover of a new level of their shared brain. Specifically, Hamlin was attempting to grab Macy’s speech centers.

Macy knew that that would mark the start of his own obliteration; once Hamlin had control of the voice, it would be his thoughts, not Macy’s that their body would express. Hamlin would have access to the external world and Macy would be shut inside. But at the moment Hamlin wasn’t doing too well. He had grabbed the neural sectors governing speech, only his grasp was incomplete, and the best he could manage were these bursts of nonsense. Somehow, Macy realized, Lissa had become entangled in the battle before he himself had known it was going on. Her brain hooked into his; Hamlin speaking, or trying to, through her mouth. A microphoning effect of some kind. Now they were both doing it, the two of them bellowing like demented seals. Feeding hour at the zoo. Is this where it ends? Does Hamlin take over from me now? No. No. Fight back. Stop him here and drive him into a corner.

How, though?

The way you did last night, when he had hold of the side of your mouth. Pry him loose. Through sheer strength of concentration, break his grip.

Macy tried to visualize the interior of his brain. Telling himself, This is where Hamlin lives, this pocket of gunk, and these are the pathways he’s been building to other parts of my brain, and this is the place he’s attacking now. It was a purely imaginary construct, but it would serve for the moment. Try to visualize the speech centers themselves. Say, row upon row of tight-strung pink cords, a kind of piano deal, with a switchboard attached. Hamlin at the switchboard, plugging things in, looking for the right connection; and the pink cords, all ajangle, giving off weird groaning noises. Come up behind him. Grab his arms. He isn’t any stronger than you are. Pull him away, knock him on his ass. Jump on him. Careful, don’t smash any of the machinery. You’ll need it when this is over. Just hang on to him. Stay on top. Pin him, pin him, pin him! Good! Smash his head against the floor a couple of times! Okay, the floor’s spongy, it gives a little, smash him anyway. Stun him. Right. Now start hauling him the hell out of there. Heavy fucker, isn’t he? One hundred ninety pounds, same as you. Heave. Heave. Heave. Into this musty corridor. A hot humid smell coming out of it. Things must be rotting in there. In with him! Down the chute! Slam the door. There. Easier than you expected, eh? All it takes is some mental energy. Perseverance. You can relax now. Catch your breath.

Hey, Jesus, what’s this? He must have come to, in there. Hammering on the other side of the door. Starting to push it open. Wow, you can’t let him do that. Hold it closed! Push…push…push…a stalemate. He can’t get it open any farther, you can’t close it that last crack. Push. He’s pushing back. Push. Push. Bear down. Oh, Jesus. There! It’s closed again. All right, keep your shoulder to the door, hold it tight. The bear’s locked in his cave; you don’t want him coming out again.

Now fasten the door. With what? Slip a bolt in place, dodo. But there isn’t a bolt. Sure there is. This is your mind, your own fucking mind, can’t you use a little imagination? Invent a bolt! Like that. Fine. Now ram it home. In the slot. In. In. There. Okay, step back. See if he can break out. Be ready to clobber him if he does. He’s banging on the door. Throwing himself against it. But the bolt holds. It holds. Good deal. Let’s check out the machinery now. Make sure he didn’t screw it up. Loud and clear, let’s hear it:

“My name is Paul Macy.”

Good. Nice to hear some sense out of your mouth again. Keep going.

“I was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on the twelfth of March, 1972. My father was a propulsion engineer and my mother was a schoolteacher.”

Voice production generally okay. A little rusty around the edges, a little froggy in the lower frequencies, but that’s only to be expected, the way he was abusing your pipes. It’ll clear up fast most likely.

You win this round, Macy.

Slowly, shakily, he rose from the bed. Lissa still lay there, looking crumpled and flattened. She didn’t move.

Her face had resumed its normal appearance. Her eyes were open. No glow in them. A sullen, absent expression.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

No response. Off in another galaxy somewhere.

“Lissa? Are you okay?”

Staring blankly at him, she said, “Do you give a shit if I am?” Her voice was as hoarse as his.

“What kind of question is that?”

“You were really letting me have it before all the fireworks started,” she said. “Telling me you suspected I was on his side, and a lot of other crap. If I had any sense I’d get the hell away from you, fast. I don’t need to be pushed around like that.” She stood up, huddling her arms against her sides, looking more vulnerable than ever. The blue streaks of veins visible in her breasts. Stretch marks in the skin of her hips, showing where she had lost weight lately. Quick angry motions. Snatching at her clothes, throwing things on. A blouse, a tunic. She said, “That was him, wasn’t it? Hamlin? Trying to talk through my voice?”

“And then through mine, yes.”

“Where did he go?”

“I beat him down. I made him let go.”

“Hurray for you.” Tonelessly. “My hero. You see my sandals anywhere?”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“This is a crazyhouse. I’m worse off here than I was alone. I’m going home.”

“No,” he said. He remembered that he had decided, only this dawn, to sever her from his life once the Rehab Center had plucked the resurgent Nat Hamlin from his brain. Telling himself then that it was too dangerous to have her around him, because of her gift, her curse, whatever it was that had awakened Hamlin. Out she goes, he had decided. Self-preservation first and always. Out she goes. How hollow that sounded to him now. He still had Hamlin inside him, and he was frightened by the thought of having to grapple with him in solitude. Lissa wasn’t as dispensable now as she had seemed earlier. “Don’t go,” he said. “Please.”

“I’ll get nothing but trouble here.”

“I didn’t mean to yell at you. My nerves were raw, is all. You can understand that. I didn’t intend to accuse you of anything, Lissa.”

“Even so. You got me all stirred up. And then him, jumping into my head. The sounds I was making. I never did that before. Like I was some kind of ventriloquist’s dummy, and I could feel Nat trying to move my lips, trying to push my vocal cords, trying to get his words out through me—” She seemed to gag on something. “It was coming out of you, Paul. I thought my head would blow. I don’t want to go through that again.”

“I beat him back,” Macy said. “I shut him off.”

“And if he gets out again? Or if you start suspecting me again? Asking me if I’m really on his side? Maybe next time you’ll bang me around some. You could break my arms. You could knock all my teeth out. And then you’d apologize later.”

“There’s no possibility of that.”

“But you’ve got reason to be hostile. I’m responsible for waking him up inside you, right? Even if I wanted to stay here, you know, it wouldn’t be smart for you if I did. Maybe he’ll use me now to finish the takeover of your body. Play his mental energy through my ESP output, or something. He almost did that just now, didn’t he? Do you want to chance it?”

“Who knows?” Macy said. He caught her by the arm as she moved slowly toward the door. “Do I have to beg you, Lissa? Don’t leave me now.”

“First you didn’t want anything to do with me. Then you screamed at me that you didn’t trust me. Now you don’t want me to go. I can’t figure you, Paul. When somebody comes out of a Rehab Center, he’s supposed to be sane, isn’t he? You scare me too much. I want to get out of here.”

“Please. Stay.”

“What for?”

“To help me fight against him. I need you. And you need me. We can support each other. Separately we’re both going to go under. Together—”

“Together we’ll both go under too,” she said. Moving no closer to the door, though. “Look, I thought you could help me, Paul. That’s why I wrote you at the network, that’s why I begged you to see me. But now I realize that your troubles are as bad as mine. Worse, maybe. I just hear voices from outside. You’ve got somebody else in your head. On account of me. We can only harm each other.”

“No.”

“You ought to believe it. Look what I’ve already done to you, bringing him back. And then you, bouncing him into my head for a couple of minutes. And on and on and on like that, things getting worse and worse and worse for both of us.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to fight. I’ve beaten him twice in two days. Next time I’ll finish him altogether. But I don’t want to be alone while I’m doing it.”

Shrugging, she said, “Don’t blame me if—”

“I won’t.” He looked at the time. A sudden bold idea hooking him. By their works ye shall know them. Yes. Go to the museum, see his version of Lissa. Look at her through his eyes.

An unexpectedly powerful hunger rose in him to know the real past, to find out what manner of man he had been, what he had been capable of creating. In a sense what I was capable of, in my other self. And the sculpture of Lissa a bridge to that hidden past. Leading him out of this shadowy unlife into the realm of authentic experience. He did this, he made it, his unique and irreplaceable vision was at work. And I must understand him in order to defeat him.

Macy said, “Listen, there’s no sense in my going to the office this late in the day. But we’ve still got the whole afternoon. You know where I want to go? The Metropolitan Museum. To see the sculpture he did of you, the Antigone 21.”

“Why?”

“Old maxim: Know your enemy. I want to see his interpretation of you. Find out what his mind is like. Size him up, look for the places where I can attack.”

“I don’t think we should go. It could trigger anything, Paul. You said yourself, how at your office you saw one of his pieces and it almost knocked you but. Suppose at the museum—”

“I was caught by surprise that first time. This is different I’ve got to take the offensive, Lissa. Carry the battle to him, do you see? And the museum’s as good a place to start as any. Showing him that I can hold my own under any conditions. All right? Let’s go, shall we? The museum.”

“All right,” she said distantly. “The museum.”