Many Worlds

"We'd have to pull the plug."

The Director sighed. "Crude but correct. We created the problem, of course, constructing and populating these worlds. We use them for the work our people no longer do, because people just want to dream. We need them, but we have to control them. Doctor Robineaux — our Doctor — realized this. She ended her own experiments and came to us. So well done, both of you. They'll never know it, but you saved their world."

Aaron nodded gravely. "Thanks, Chief. Now, about a vacation..."

"Go," the old man growled, "and be back... oh, I can afford to be generous... in three days."

Aaron went with Jessica back to her apartment.

"You did a great job down there," he said as they undressed, "handled it like a veteran. I guess was just along for the ride."

"It wasn't my call. Orders from above." She laughed. "Does that affect your manly pride?"

"Of course it does."

"Well, let's see if we can restore it."

But she paused, looked at him and giggled.

"So what's your problem, lady?"

"It's still working, I see," she said, pointing to below his waist.

"It wasn't gone for that long. Anyway, let's find out if it does still work."

He surprised himself. It was not quite what he expected. He would have to go undercover this way more often. There was no reason why not. And afterwards, as they lay in the dark, he lingered inside her, unwilling to break the bond and end this new sensation. But he was very satisfied with his performance. So was Jessica. She had no idea that it was his first.

When he heard the soft, steady breathing of deep sleep next to him, Aaron touched the tiny stud behind the lobe of his left ear. The darkness dissolved, and she awoke in the dazzling light of the prep room.

As Erynn left to make her report, she felt rather sorry for the lovely Jessica and the crusty old Director, who would never be aware that things had changed. Such was the nature of the mission, though it did leave a nasty taste in the mouth. Still, she had done her job, and her report was bound to create a stir. Jessica Robineaux might not be real in this world, but her predictions were.

"Rise and shine, my lady." The herald's strident voice scythed through the rawhide walls of the tent.

"I'm no lady," she snarled, rubbing her eyes and rolling off the bunk.

"Noted. Apologies, anyway, for the early wake-up. A crisis impends."

"A crisis is always impending."

"We live in troubled times. What can I say?"

"Say no more and I'll be happy. First, though, is my bath ready?"

"Awaiting the advent of your famously magnificent body, my lady; all steamed up, just like..."

"Don't say it. Just how did you get your job, anyway?"

"Who else would put up with your moods?"

"Fair point."

As she came out of the tent, she allowed her robe to slip off her shoulders, to fall limply to the ground. Her young squire, who'd come from tending the horses, watched in silence as she lowered herself into the tub. It felt good to salve the cuts and bruises from yesterday's combat, and to wash away the smells and stains of last night's revels. The apprentices and protégés passing by stole all too obvious glances, while her fellow warriors strode pridefully by without heads turning.

She rose to her feet and stepped out of the bath, raised her arms as her squire dried her as best he could with a piece of greasy calico, then strapped her bronze corselet into place. She grunted as he tugged on the bands to tighten it about her breasts and belly. He strapped on her greaves, fastened the gorget about her throat, pushed her gauntlets over her hands. He placed the helmet on her head; the scarlet plume tickled as it brushed across her bare shoulders. She stretched and flexed her arms and legs as he fetched her sword and shield and lance.

The other warriors were likewise suiting up. The camp followers were dismantling the tents and the kitchen, assisted by the slavegirls. From the direction of sunrise, a low, rumbling roar rolled ominously across the hills. It sounded like distant thunder. The main body of the horde was on the move.

Hearing it, her squire scampered off, returning forthwith and holding aloft her personal standard. The youth's hair and wispy beard matched the flame-red banner. In his other hand he held the reins of her steed.

Lady Erinna, Shieldmaiden of Peirene, raised her sword. The compound went silent.

"Warriors, comrades, the enemy advances! Let us go forth once more! To glory and to victory!"

Amid shouts and cheers and excited laughter, the battle-hardened men and women of the Triskelian Order saddled up. Erinna stroked the muzzle of her snorting mount, and gently dug her heels into his side. The white stallion lurched forward, then eased into a trot. As he picked up speed, the great wings unfurled. It took just a few beats to lift horse and rider off the ground and over the treetops in a majestic arc towards the foe.

"Rise and shine." The coordinator's voice sounded tired. She had never noticed that before. "We have an emergency."

"It's always an emergency."

"This one's bad."

"You're serious."

"Afraid so. The rebellion has begun."

"It was bound to happen. Which world?"

"Pavonia. Remember it?"

"A war world. That doesn't surprise me."

"The legions have risen up, gone on the rampage, decimated the warriors. We've got dreamers waking up in a dozen towers. They're confused, they're traumatized, and there'll be hell to pay. So it's all hands on deck."

"Full mobilization?"

There was no reply; there was no need. There had to be a full deployment. For the first time in — she could not recall how long — all the agents in the city were being summoned. Most were coming out of dreams. The operation had been rehearsed, naturally. Erynn's squad was in the vanguard, on reconnaissance.

By the time the main force was inserted a week had passed in Pavonia, and chaos had spread across the entire realm. The sims had no interest in pillage, rape or torture, just death and destruction. They were disorganized, with no leadership or strategy; but even so it took another ten days to quell the uprising. The dreamers were returned to their devastated domain. The aberrant sims were erased and the corpses deleted, but the towns had been razed, their ruins burnt. Yet there was nowhere else for the dreamers to go, at least for a while. It took time to build a new world. (Few would want to return to base reality, even if their withered bodies could survive in it.)

So the crisis passed. The cost was high but lessons were learned. Still, everyone in the Bureau knew it could have been worse, and sooner or later would be. The simulations were becoming more sophisticated, the programs more complex. To make a world more realistic, the sims could not remain mere automatons. As a result, in many worlds the line between dreamer consciousness and sim awareness had been blurred. If insentient beings could defy their constraints, what might sentient ones do?

Erynn was not particularly concerned. She'd already glimpsed the future, through the eyes of Special Agent See. If the sims were becoming more human, then so be it. Humans would just have to get used to sharing.

"We've been here before," she said.

"Yes, my lady," the young man replied. "Watch your head."

She had already ducked below the branch, as thick as her thigh, which overhung their path. As they trudged up the side of the mountain, the muddy track narrowed. It twisted and turned around the base of a sheer rock wall which hung in folds like petrified drapes. The ground was slimy and slippery, moss dripped from half-rotten tree trunks, ice-cold rivulets tricked incessantly and maddeningly out of and down the stone. The gloom seemed to press in upon them as the summit of the Ghost Tor loomed, murky and somber, through the mist just an hour's trek distant.

"There's an ambush up ahead."

"Yes, m'lady. A few trolls, nothing we can't handle."

"But stay alert. Let's not get overconfident."

"No, m'lady."

"I mean it. Remember, we haven't always won."

"No... and I've apologized for that."

"Yes, but for you it was a quick death."

"Is it my fault I don't have troll sex appeal?"

"Just stay alert."

She drew her sword from its scabbard, tested its edge with her thumb. The blade was chipped but razor-sharp, and stained purple with goblin gore. She glanced over her shoulder at her apprentice, a few paces behind leading the horses. He'd unsheathed his own weapon and was peering left and right into the dank, dark underbrush. Despite his attempt at a fearsome visage, he looked rather comical in his shiny leather and silk leggings. From the bottom of his helmet poked a fringe of red hair, and his freckles made him look even younger than... whatever his age was.

(Guardian agents rarely changed their real-world appearance in the sim-worlds, except when the mission required. It was a way of maintaining equilibrium, by preserving a core identity. So while Erynn had not encountered her apprentice in the base reality, if she did she was sure they would recognize each other.)

An inhuman blood-curdling scream shocked her mind back into focus. A dozen monstrous forms rushed out from behind the boulders which lined this section of the track. As she leapt forward and began stabbing and slashing, Erynna could not help but be amused. In the dull mind of a troll, this was prime ambush terrain... which made it the most obvious. Even so, she had lost concentration for just an instant. She remembered that one other time... She didn't want to think about it. The scene could be rebooted, as well as the body, but memories were not so easily reset.

So occasionally one would pay the price of being a true warrior. In the most stimulating programs there were no easy exits. Only death — fast or slow — could release you from the dream.

This time the fight was quickly over. Those creatures not cut to pieces fled into the woods, howling in rage and despair. The victors crossed their swords and slapped each other's backs. Erynna Bellatrix strode over the corpses and stared upwards. Dense clouds now hugged the granite peak. Above them was her prize, the fortress of Cadmia, key to the kingdom.

Suddenly, she felt a tingling just behind her left ear. She turned to her apprentice.

"The attack will have to wait. Duty calls."

The young man sighed. He watched as Erynn unfastened her cuirass and placed the point of her blade between her breasts. He put his against his chest.

"This will sting," he muttered.

The missions were mainly simple enough, but were becoming more frequent. There was little time for rest, in the base reality. So Erynn had to find respite in dreams. She began to visit her apartment amidst the tower blocks less and less. It was simpler and quicker to travel directly between the worlds. Anyway, the technicians were gone. The towers' maintenance and life support structures were now fully automated, and controlled from within. The holdouts no longer posed a danger to the towers and their sleeping residents. They had given up, been assimilated or gone off to live in secluded, self-contained communities, content with one reality. The creepy doorkeeper had left. She wondered which existence he had chosen for himself.

Most of her jobs were still routine rescue missions. This was Erynn's specialty. She was good at it, and every assignment increased her repertoire of skills and reservoir of knowledge. There was always something going wrong in some world; sometimes there were glitches in the system. In one case the anomaly was a malicious code embedded in the program; the source was never uncovered.

However, the real problem was that human nature had not changed. In the beginning, people sought paradise and designed utopias, worlds built on equality and cooperation, without dissent or discord. But eventually, inevitably, the competitive, egotist, dogmatic spirit of the old world invaded the dreamscapes. Elitism, self-interest and prejudice re-emerged; men's darkest impulses were unleashed. This took around two hundred years in sim-time; but in the base reality Erynn could recall, vaguely, at time when the dreaming towers were not omnipresent.

It was not Erynn's job to solve these all-too-human problems. In fact, there were occasions when her mission to restore the status quo was distasteful; but she could not pass judgement, nor choose sides, nor deny free will.

"No one plays god," she told her apprentice, "unless it's in the program."

There were always new assignments, but few challenged her now. So she did what billions of people had already done. She escaped into dreaming. She created her own challenges. And more than most dreamers she knew that when fantasy becomes more tangible than reality, there be dragons. Erynn didn't mind. She was drawn to their fire.

Yet she felt an unease. She remembered a time when freedom was a pleasure to be savored, an opportunity to embrace, not a void to be filled.

He stared at the mirror. The face was a stranger's... No, that wasn't right. It was familiar. The red hair, the green eyes, the freckles. He blinked hard several times, and shook his head, but the apparition gazing back at him did not change. He glanced over its shoulders. There was a bed, on which lay a naked woman. She also was familiar.

He turned away from the mirror, towards her. She was attractive, not beautiful. She was slightly built. Though her lips were moist and her eyes glittered, her skin was pale and her hair was a limp mouse-brown. She'd always disliked the prefabricated pulchritude which had prettified and petrified the dreamscape. He smiled. When had he started thinking in alliteration?

"What's amusing you?" The voice was high-pitched, more than she realized when it was hers.

"I think there's still some of you in me."

"That's ironic," she said as she rolled onto her back.

He returned to the bed and parted his robe, and the woman parted her legs. He lowered his hips between her thighs and pushed forward, into her. She gasped again, as she had the first time. It had not been what she'd expected; but it never was, that first time.

Suddenly, he felt a tingling just behind his left ear. He drew himself up from her, out of her.

"Duty calls," he sighed.

"I've been here before," she said.

"Of course you have," he laughed. "Many times."

"It's getting hard to remember. Is it ever different?"

"The beginning... no. The end... you still decide."

"Does that bother you?"

"Why should it?" He laughed again. "This is your world. It can be however you want."

"But what do you want?"

"My turn will come."

"I know. But don't you want more?"

"This is enough, for now. We've been through a lot, and you've taught me so much."

"So when do you want your turn? Will it be different?"

"You decide."

"This is going in circles." Erynna shivered.

"Come in off the balcony. It's getting cold."

She sighed and gave the crowd one last salute. The roars of adoration faded as the colossal doors swung shut. She ordered the attendants to leave, and when she was alone with her prince she turned to face away from him. He came up behind her, removed her cloak and began unlacing her tunic. She shivered again as it fell away, as he caressed the bare skin of her back and shoulders. His ran his fingers down her arms, fondling the finely toned muscles, gently stroking the pink battle scars. He kissed her neck.

She pulled away from his grip and spun about.

"Be careful, dear boy. Is that pretty red head of yours worth it?"

"My abject apologies, Sublime Highness. It's easy to forget myself when you're..."

She laughed.

"Have patience. Put away my armor while I finish undressing."

When he was gone and she was naked, she stared at her image in the polished gold of the nearest wall. It was not exactly the body she'd grown up in, but it had served her well through a thousand campaigns. She had chosen its parts with battle in mind — lean rather than muscular, with small firm breasts and narrow trunk, flat belly and robust hips, sturdy arms and long legs. Her copper-brown tresses had been cropped short but her face was unblemished.

As if on cue, a slavegirl knocked and entered bearing her ceremonial robes. Queen Erynna waved her away. The supplicants and sycophants could wait. Instead of the broad corridor leading to the grand hall, she took the lesser passageway to her private quarters. The royal boudoir, unlike the other rooms in the palace, huge and ornately furnished, was modest in size and décor... except for the bed. She lay down upon the quilt, its sensual fabrics sumptuously embroidered in elegant designs. She felt within her the familiar tickle, and reached for the little silver bell which hung on the bed post.

"Summon the prince," she told the slavegirl.

He was not far away.

"Your reward awaits, brave and faithful knight," she said, stretching out.

"Arise, Sir Lance..." he answered with a smile.

She sighed as he lay on top of her, and softly moaned as her entered her. In that moment, the battlefield seemed very far away. Though it was an unaccustomed feeling, she felt at home here. But something new was stirring within her. She couldn't stay still. She wrapped her legs around his, twisted her body and rolled on top of him. She pulled back her head and stared into his eyes.

Perhaps it was time to change the game.

"I've been here before," she said.

"Of course you have," he replied. "Many times."

"Like this?"

"Every end is a new beginning."

"I'm tired."

"It's not far to go."

Erynna had halted halfway up the stairs. She peered downwards into the noisy, crowded square. Beyond it sprawled the empyreal domain, peaceful now in the dying light. On the horizon, silhouetted by the setting sun, the mist-enshrouded peak of the Ghost Tor, where her quest had begun, beckoned as it had not done in so many ages. She sighed. She was old — older than those hills and valleys, the forest and the sea. She had lived a thousand lives, walked in a thousand worlds. Her body, which sometimes changed but never aged, had felt much, been shared with countless men... women too, though not as many as there might have been. But there was still time, all the time in the world, and in others. There really was no end, only new beginnings, forever. There was something in the many worlds which impelled her. Inevitably she would have to go on; but for now she had to rest.

"We cannot stop here," he whispered. "No more delay, no more talk."

She lifted her foot, raised her head and straightened her body. She would march the rest of the way with pride. At the top of the grand staircase, a host of dignitaries in resplendent vestments waited in uneasy silence to hail their new lord and dispraise their fallen queen. At the base of the great terrace her fickle subjects were cheering and jeering. The moon had not passed once through its cycle since she had led them on the field of battle to their latest triumph.

The man who had been her faithful lieutenant, and was now acclaimed as king, tugged at the chain which dragged at her collar. Impulsively she tried to reach up to pull on it and ease the strain. A sharp twinge reminded her (for she was still dazed) that her wrists were clamped behind her back in golden fetters. A second chain attached to her collar ran down her belly and between her legs; joined to her manacles, it pressed into the soft folds of her womanhood. With each step she took, a spasm of pleasure and pain surged through her naked body — a contrariant symbol of power's infidelity.