CHAPTER 6
The heavy traffic surprised Dan. Glancing at the dashboard digital clock, he complained to Jace, "Jeez, look at all these cars."
Jace shrugged. "Orlando's a big city, pal."
Then Dan remembered that he had driven to work in the middle of the afternoon. Still, it was damned near eight o'clock and the broad, palm-lined avenues were choked with cars inching along from one stop light to the next. He saw a highway overpass where the traffic was zooming by at a good clip, but there were huge semi-trailer rigs roaring by up there, spurting black diesel smoke and running up the back of anyone doing less than seventy.
"Does the highway go past Pine Lake Gardens?" he asked Jace.
"Damned if I know. I'm on the other side of town."
Dan was stuck with the crowded streets. I'll have to find the best route, he told himself. Must be side streets and cutoffs I can use, once I get to know the area.
It was hot. He had rolled all the Honda's windows down, but inching along like this brought no cooling wind. A sleek red hatchback pulled up beside him, radio blaring raucous rock music with a bass thumping so loud Dan could feel his sinuses spasming. He glanced over. A pretty young blonde wearing wraparound sunglasses and lipstick the same fire-engine red as her car. Her windows were up, her air-conditioning on, and still her radio was giving him a headache.
"Hope she doesn't live on my block," Dan said. Dan jerked a thumb toward the hatchback.
Jace looked, then turned back to Dan with a puzzled look. "Why not?"
Grinning, Dan said, "Forget it."
The traffic crawled along. Dan stared absently at the big Buick in front of him with a driver so tiny her wispy white hair barely came up to the steering wheel. The car bore a bumper sticker, Welcome to Florida. Now go home!
Jace was strangely silent. Moody. He got that way sometimes, Dan remembered. Most of the time you couldn't shut him up, he talked nonstop and brooked no interruptions. But then he would go quiet and you could hardly get two words out of him. Usually when he had a problem to solve or he was working on some new idea that hadn't gelled yet.
"You've really made a lot of progress in one year," said Dan.
"Yeah, but we got a long way to go, kiddo."
"That baseball game—it's going to be a dream come true for every guy who ever went to a game or bought a baseball card. All those couch potatoes who never got picked when the kids chose up teams. They'll all be able to play with Reggie Jackson and Roger Clemens."
Jake's lantern-jawed face broke into a wide toothy grin. "And that's just the beginning, Danno. Just the beginning. I been thinkin' about these conflict sims. Got a lot of ideas about 'em."
That was all it took to break Jace out of his daydream, whatever it was. He started spouting ideas and concepts while Dan laughed inwardly and told himself, it's going to be like old times. It really is. Just like old times.
Yet a faint tendril of worry nagged at the back of his mind. Jace had to make me play against him. why did he do that? It's as if he had to show me he's the top dog. As if I cared. Damned games are only games. Must be important to him, though. I guess he needs to feel that he can beat me, beat anybody. He needs to feel he's king of the hill.
He's right about one thing, though. These games are only the beginning. We can do great things with VR.
"I'll do my symphony orchestra simulation," Dan said.
Jace huffed at him. "Yeah, sure. There's lots of applications for teaching. Muncrief's had me working on games for the local school half the time."
"The school Angie's going to?"
"Watch your driving," Jace said.
Dan was hardly doing any driving, just inching along the crowded street from one stop sign to the next.
"What else have you been thinking about?" Dan asked.
"Besides teaching?" Jace frowned in concentration. "What about microsurgery? We can put the surgeon inside the patient's body and let him see and feel what's going on in there while he's operating."
"Yeah."
"And entertainment. we can make a guy dance like—what the hell's that guy's name?"
"Fred Astaire?"
"Yeah, the one from those old videos:"
Dan almost missed the turn onto his own street. He was unfamiliar with the neighborhood and all the bright new houses looked virtually alike to him. But finally he drove the dark blue Honda up onto the driveway and into the cool shadows of the garage. I've got to watch out for rust, he thought as he got out of the car. In this humidity she'll rust out fast if I let it go.
Susan was in the kitchen, red hair tied up in a bandanna, wearing shorts and a blouse that hung loosely about her hips. Two pots were on the stove, one of them steaming.
"Jace!" she said, putting down the spoon she was holding to fling her arms around his neck. "How's my oldest child?"
Jace grinned and hugged her.
"How about your lord and master?" Dan demanded.
"Hello, darling." Susan pecked at his lips. "How was your first day?"
"Not bad," said Dan.
Glancing up at the wall clock, Susan asked, "It takes forty minutes to get home from the lab?"
Dan had phoned her just before he left, the way he always had in Dayton. "Traffic's pretty heavy," he said. "I'll have to find some short cuts."
"I got the stove working," Susan said proudly. "Tonight we eat spaghetti a la Susan."
"Great," said Jace.
"Sauce from a jar, though. Haven't had time to make it from scratch. And I couldn't carry that much from the. supermarket, on foot. "
"Uncle Jace!"
A blonde blur whizzed into the kitchen and threw herself into Jace's arms.
Dan smiled, thinking of Dorothy and the Scarecrow. Jace hauled Angela off her feet and swung her around, nearly knocking her feet into the pots on the stove.
"My gosh, Angie," he said as he put her down, "you've grown a foot! Here it is on top of your head!" And he mussed her hair with his knuckles.
"You're silly;" Angela laughed. Jace scooped her up again and carried her, giggling and wriggling, into the living room.
Dan followed them into the living room, and then went out to the master bedroom. He tossed his blazer on the bed. It was wrinkled and limp; just the way he himself suddenly felt. Tired. A little disappointed. The excitement of seeing Jace again was wearing off. Like a kid who waited all year for his birthday party and now it's over. Back on the job. It all came flooding back to him, all the memories of the old days at Wright-Patterson With Jace. It was as if the two of them had never been separated. Jace was happy to see him again, sure, but he just took it for granted that Dan would be there when he wanted him. As if he had just been off on vacation or sick leave for a while. This wasn't a new start for Dan, it was just a continuation of his life as Jace's partner.
Well, what the hell. You couldn't do what Jace does, Dan told himself. The sonofabitch is brilliant. Who the hell else could produce a simulation that two people can share completely? These conflict games are his baby. Two people sharing a dream together. Or a nightmare. Nobody else has even come close to what Jace has accomplished. He's jumped light-years ahead of anything that anybody else is doing. A quantum leap.
As he sat down to take off his shoes Angela came bouncing in. Dan noticed that she was already in her pink pajamas.
"Mommy says dinner will be ready in five minutes and I can stay up and sit with you and Uncle Jace even though I've already had my dinner." She seemed quite pleased with her announcement, almost smug.
"That's fine, Angel," he said. "How was your first day at school?"
"It was real neat," his daughter replied, getting up on the bed and tucking her bare feet under her to sit cross-legged.
"You liked it."
"Yeah! I went to Mexico city and saw the Aztecs. It was terrific! They wore costumes made of bird feathers and they had these big tall pyramids and market places and ball courts where they played a kind of soccer and—"
"You used a VR system."
Angela nodded so hard her pigtails bounced. "It's awesome, Daddy. I was really there! With Mr. Muncrief."
"Huh?"
"Did you make that VR, Daddy? Is the one about the Aztecs one of the VRs you made?"
"No, not that one, honey," Dan replied. "What did you say about Mr. Muncrief?"
Her blue eyes were shining with happiness. "He was there, too. I saw him. He was one of the priests. He climbed all the way up the biggest pyramid, to the temple up at the top."
"Mr. Muncrief?"
"Uh-huh."
"It couldn't have been."
"I saw him. He was there, all dressed up in feathers and everything. He looked kinda funny."
Dan tickled his daughter's chin. "You just thought you saw him, sweetie. He drove you to school and there was a priest in the simulation that looked something like him and you thought it was him."
"It was him, Daddy! He even waved to me!"
Dan smiled at his daughter. Twelve-year-olds and their imagination, he thought. But inwardly he wondered if twelve-year-olds might be too young for VR simulations.
"Come on," he said, "let's see what Phil's doing."
He padded in his socks into the baby's room, Angela trailing behind him, still chattering about school and Muncrief. His son was already asleep. Dan smiled down at Philip. Things will get down to normal pretty quick, he thought.
For some reason, it made Dan feel almost depressed. The same furniture, the same routine. He realized that he had looked forward to Florida as a bright new beginning and the sameness he saw all around him made him feel as if nothing had changed. Nothing that was really important.
At dinner, Angela rattled on about Indians and Aztecs and her first VR experience.
"Hey," said Jace, "that's a game I cooked up, Angie. Did you like it?"
Nodding, Angela told Jace, "I saw Mr. Muncrief in it!"
"You did, huh?" Jace glanced at Dan.
"Muncrief isn't in that sim," Dan said. Then he added, "Is he?"
Very seriously, Jace asked Angela, "Are you sure it was Muncrief? Not just somebody who kinda looks like him?"
"I'm . . ."Angela hesitated, "pretty sure."
"Pretty sure?" Jace asked, grinning. "Or kinda pretty sure?"
"Kinda pretty sure."
"Kinda pretty sure, or maybe sort of kinda pretty sure?"
Angela laughed. "You're talking silly."
Jace laughed too. "Yeah. I'm a silly person. Didn't you know that?" And he stuck out his tongue at her.
Angela did likewise.
Susan said, "That will be enough from both of you. Angela, you can go brush your teeth now. Jace, finish your salad."
"Yes ma'am," Jace said sheepishly. But the ghost of a smile still curled his lips; he gave Angela a sly wink.
After Jace left and Angela had gone to bed and the dinner dishes stacked in the ultra-quiet dishwasher, Dan slouched in their old sofa, Susan beside him, blearily watching television.
"Did your computer work okay?" he asked, eyes on the flickering screen.
"Fine. Thanks for setting it up for me."
"And the fax board?"
"I haven't had a chance to try it yet," Susan replied. "Tomorrow I'll send out reminders about my Florida phone numbers to all my old clients."
"Good."
"I'll drive you to the office tomorrow," she said. "I need the car."
"Uh-huh."
"We can shop for my car Saturday, okay?"
"I guess."
"Or Sunday. Whichever you prefer."
He let his chin sink onto his chest. The TV show was something about a woman lawyer dealing with sexual harassment in her office. Dan thought about flipping to a different channel but Sue seemed interested in it. "I'll probably go to the lab Saturday. Got a lot of catching up to do."
Susan did not reply.
"Jake's jumped a million miles ahead of where we were at Wright-Patt. Even the simple games I saw today are way out. The imagery is fantastic. Not like the cartoony stuff we were doing for the Air Force. I mean, you can't tell the difference from the real world, it's that good. They've beaten the time lag problem, Sue. Hell, even the kids on the staff are light-years ahead of me."
"You'll catch up to them in a week," Susan said.
"I don't know. You ought to see what they're doing. Jace is developing conflict games, games that two people can play in, against each other."
"That's what he was talking about! I couldn't quite figure out what he meant by 'conflict games' and he was rattling on about it so fast. He's really excited about it, isn't he?"
"There's a lot to be excited about, Sue. It's fantastic."
"Angie said the same thing about the VR in her classroom."
"Yeah, she told me about it."
"How much about the Aztecs do they show the kids?"
Susan's voice sounded troubled. "I mean, they did human sacrifices, didn't they? Do you think they're going to show that to the children? Cutting out the heart and all that?"
"I doubt it. What do you think about her seeing Kyle Muncrief in the sim?"
"I don't know what to think."
Dan tried to make light of it. "Imagine Muncrief dressed up as one of the Aztec priests, in all those feathers and stuff."
"How could that be?"
"Just her imagination. Muncrief must've made a big impression on her."
"Do you think that maybe she's too young to use VR?" Real worry etched Susan's voice.
"No," he said flatly, hiding his own concern.
"I wonder," she said.
"The school wouldn't let the kids use them if they thought there would be any problems." Listening to his own words, he almost convinced himself of it.
Susan murmured something that Dan could not make out. He turned his attention back to the TV screen although he had lost whatever interest he had originally had in the drama. His mind was picturing an Aztec priest cutting the heart out of a sacrificial victim. The priest looked like Muncrief.
"Jace seems happy here."
He felt his brows rise. "Yep. Just the same as always. I don't think he's even changed his shirt."
Susan laughed. "That's Jace."
"Yeah." Dan did not crack a smile. He knew that he had not told his wife the exact truth. Jace was different, somehow. The difference was subtle, only one of degree. But it was there. Dan tried to shrug it off. Just the first day; we'll get back to normal in a day or so.
A commercial came on, showing a gleaming silver little convertible hotfooting along a winding mountain road.
"Now that's some car," Dan said.
"Not for us," said Susan. "I'm going to get myself something much more practical."
"I can dream, can't I?"
"I only meant," she said, worming an arm around his waist, "that convertibles don't make sense here. The sun's too hot almost all year long."
"Muncrief doesn't seem to mind the sun," Dan muttered.
"He doesn't have two children to think of. And a wife with fair skin."
He turned toward her. "Fair? your skin's better than fair. I think your skin's terrific." Dan traced a finger along the curve of her jaw, then tapped the end of her pert nose. "Wouldn't want that cute little proboscis to get sunburned."
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I love it when you talk scientific."
He broke into a grin. Leaning closer he whispered into her ear, "Testosterone. Estrogen. Penis. Coitus."
Susan whispered back, "More! More!"
"Fellatio. Cunnilingus."
"Oh god!"
He scooped her up in his arms and marched off to the bedroom.
The first time they had made love Dan had surprised her with his fiercely single-minded intensity. Susan had known a soft-spoken, reserved, gentle man who had taken her to dinners and movies and picnics. Many nights they had talked for hours, usually in his car, often until the sun came up. Dan had told her all about his childhood in Youngstown, his work at Wright-Patterson, how much he owed to Dr Appleton. Susan had fallen in love with an earnest, shy, hard-working man who was almost a nerd in comparison to some of the men she had dated.
Yet there was something beneath the surface, a smoldering drive that she sensed from the very first. When at last she decided to go to bed with him, Susan found that she had been more right than she had dreamed. In bed Dan turned into a different person altogether. All the inhibitions, all the cautions and modesty and self-effacements disappeared once he had his hands on her naked flesh.
She saw the passion that he hid from everyone else, even from himself. It almost frightened her, at first, but then she realized that Dan was much more than the uptight engineer she had first imagined him to be. What she had taken to be shyness was actually something close to fear; Dan was not bashful so much as wary, always on guard, as if to protect himself against being hurt by the people around him. She began to see him as a coiled panther, every muscle tensed, every nerve straining against the dangers of the world.
Except in bed. There he was a fiery passionate Italian who swept away all her doubts and inhibitions. It was as if the rest of the world disappeared and there were only the two of them with Dan concentrating every facet of his attention, every molecule of his existence on her and her alone. God knew what fantasies might be boiling through his mind; she did not care and did not want to know. It did not matter to her. He never said a word while making love, he did not have to. His hands on her, his tongue on her, his body hot and eager, inflamed her more than any words he could have spoken.
Now, as they thrashed together on their creaking old springs and mattress in their new air-conditioned house, Susan remembered all over again how important sex was to Dan. It was his only release, his only moment to unleash all the tensions and angers and fears that he carried inside him. In a way it was a sadistic game they played: the more frustration and anger that built up in him during the day, the more passion he unleashed at night.
Only once had Susan forgotten how vital sex was to him and it had almost shattered their marriage. She had never made that mistake again. Susan loved Dan Santorini and she knew he loved her. But it had taken long years of careful, deliberate consideration, day by day, to rebuild the trust in each other that they had almost thrown away.
He could forget everything while making love; she could not. Even so he could excite her to a pitch of arousal that made her wish there was nothing to remember. He responded to her whispered urgings and she responded to his touch, his lips on her throat, her nipples, her clitoris until they both came and she had to turn her head away to bite her pillow so she would not scream and wake the children.
Then Susan lay on the bed, sheets twisted and sticky, body sweaty and shining in the faint red glow of the digital clock on the night table, panting as if she had just run ten miles. Dan lay beside her. She could tell him retreating into his shell again. He got embarrassed afterward and the more Susan told him how wonderful he had been the more flustered he became.
"Another triumph for modern science," she whispered, half giggling.
Dan's only reply was a grunt. Because he was ashamed. While making love to his wife a vision of Vickie Bessel's face had flashed through his imagination. And then he found himself fantasizing about Dorothy. After all these years he still thought about Dorothy.
He loathed himself for that.