Dietrich william novel.., p.10
Dietrich, William - Novel 02, page 10
"Too bad it's a controlled substance," he muttered.
Physical training became an obsession. Now his miles were timed. Alternate days were spent with weight and tension machines. He logged endless crunches, sprints, and even began a martial arts class. Daniel wasn't especially quick or coordinated, but he decided the discipline and drills of Asian combat couldn't hurt. He also sought out advice on practical, gut-level street fighting— more to give himself self-confidence than because he expected to have to use the knowledge.
One of the trainers, an ex-cop, looked at him doubtfully. "Hit first and give it everything you've got, Coogan," he said, wryly using the name of a current action hero. "It will all be over in fifteen seconds, one way or another." He looked Daniel up and down. "It wouldn't hurt to know how to run, either."
Daniel loaded his pack, weighed it, and then went over his list again. He filled it with rocks equal to twice the weight and climbed the stairs of his building. Then again, and again, and again. He spent a night on the roof in a bedroll with ground cover, kept awake by the lights and the heat. His back was stiff by morning.
He stalked, and butchered, a possum he spied prowling through garbage, comparing its internal architecture with the manuals he was reading. He practiced until he could hit crows with rocks. He ran in a downpour, drank water sluicing off an awning, and measured how much he could catch in his hat.
People ignored his eccentricity. Everyone moved in a bubble of anonymity.
The exception to this was an orientation and final screening session for regional participants, the first of several weekend seminars for the next class of Outback Adventurers. "We thought you'd like to see who you might rub elbows with in the bush," Elliott Coyle told a gathering of two dozen in a windowless rented conference room in the basement of Outback Adventure's office tower. "Just so you know you're not alone in your desire for wilderness challenge."
"Or our insanity," someone quipped. The group laughed nervously.
Daniel glanced around. Most of the participants looked to be in their twenties and thirties, a third of them women. A few had the whippet leanness of endurance athletes but the majority looked reassuringly ordinary, and uncertain about whether they were in the right place. They glanced at each other shyly.
"Some of you will insist on traversing the Outback on your own, we know, but most of our participants choose to form a small group," Coyle said. "I encourage you to consider it. For ourselves, it simplifies problems of delivery. For you, it enhances the chance of survival. Not to mention the possibility of forming friendships that will last the rest of your lives." He paused to let them consider that.
They looked at each other uncertainly. Who would they get along with? Who could they trust?
"We're also going to subject you to a physical, some inoculations, and a final psychological screening to make sure you're really Outback Adventure material. While some of this may seem intrusive, it's the kind of thing that could save your life in the end. So please, bear with us and accept our judgment."
The group looked surprised. They'd already made their decision and paid a deposit. Now there were last-minute hurdles?
A hand went up. "Did I miss something here?" the person who'd made the earlier quip now caustically asked.
Coyle looked at the short, wiry, thin-faced young man raising the question. "Ah yes, Mr. Washington. Ico, isn't it?"
"It is, Elliott." He stood. "So glad you remember me. Now, if I remember correctly, we're paying you. And we have to go through more bullshit tests? Come on! We're ready to go or we wouldn't be here."
Coyle looked at him calmly. "If you're ready, Ico, you won't have any problem with our tests. And if you don't like the Outback Adventure program, then obviously you aren't ready and can expect a full refund." He let his stern gaze pass across the room. "This is your life at stake here. We're not going to put you out there if you don't belong."
Washington sat down. "Corporate nonsense," he fumed. A couple of candidates snickered and a few others looked uncomfortable. Coyle ignored the rustle and called a couple of names to begin the screening.
The man sitting next to Daniel smiled. "That boy needs to get into the bush," he whispered. "I just want to."
Daniel studied his companion. The man was big, dark, and powerful, so long and solid that Daniel thought he looked like a folded tree.
"Everyone in this room has been tested up the kazoo since birth," Daniel whispered back. "Who wants any more?"
"You do what you have to do to get where you want to go," the man replied. He held out a hand. Like shaking a baseball mitt, Daniel thought. "Tucker Freidel. I was an Alaskan trapper in a previous life. And a Zulu warrior in the life before that." His brown eyes smiled.
"Daniel Dyson," came the reply as his arm was pumped. "And in this life, Tucker?"
The man grinned good-naturedly. "A failed computer salesman. My theory is, I can't do worse in the wilderness."
"At least you're honest."
"And as fed up as that little guy there. I'm willing for a last poke in the butt if it gets me out of here and into God's country."
"We're going to find God out there?"
"I sure as hell am going to look. I figure I might need Him."
"But not a computer."
Tucker laughed. "I sure as hell ain't packing one!"
"You know what Captain Cook said about the aborigines?"
"Captain who?"
"One of the discoverers of Australia. He said, ' They may appear to be the most wretched people upon earth, but in reality they are far happier than we Europeans. Being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them.' " Daniel winked. "Happy in not knowing the use of them. Like computers."
"And how do you know shit like that? You with Captain Cook in a previous life?"
"No, just a history major in this one. A walking repository of trivia. Though I guess you could call college a previous life. Or a hallucination."
Tucker laughed again. "Or a damn waste of time. But then, so was my marriage and most of my career."
"So now you're here."
"So now I'm trying to get there. Listen, do you know why I'm really going?"
"Why?"
"Because it's the one thing a computer would never do. There's no logic to it. I'm going because it's there, like that Everest guy said. Because it feels right. I like the pointlessness of it. The one time in my life when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. Can you understand that?"
Daniel nodded. He liked this guy. He seemed unpretentious, down-to-earth, self-aware.
"How'd you hear about it?"
"Tipped by a correspondent on the web. Pen pal fellow failure. I'd heard rumors, floating in the cyber underground, but never knew it was real."
"So what did you think about Coyle advising us to team up? Are you game for that? Maybe we could be partners."
Tucker eyed him speculatively. "Maybe. What do you do when you aren't quoting history?"
"I thought it was supposed to be why do you do. The what is a software writer."
"Sheeit."
"The why is... I don't know why. I haven't thought it through as clearly as you, perhaps. That's what I'm looking for out there: why."
"That's what unites this bunch, I'll bet. We're all looking." Tucker glanced around at the other chatting adventurers. "Listen, I wouldn't mind teaming up but I've already got someone else who wanted to tag along." He pointed. "That cute little girl over there. The one with the short black hair. Name's Chiu." He caught her eye and waved to her. "Amaya! Help me check this guy out!"
A young, pleasant-looking woman with a ready smile came over. She wasn't really little, but shorter and slighter than either Tucker or Daniel. Her round face was open and cheerful and her dark eyes danced as she looked up at each in turn.
"This is Daniel. He wants to come with us. He can quote Captain Cook."
She cocked her head. "How useful. And his field of expertise?"
"He says he's a software writer. I think that means he can type." Tucker laughed.
"And a military engineer." Daniel said it lightly. "I build catapults."
"Why Tucker!" she exclaimed. "Exactly what we need!"
"What do you do, Ms. Chiu?"
"Partly stand in Tucker's shadow," she teased, stepping slightly behind his powerful form. "He's the brawn and I'm the brains, right, Freidel?"
"I ain't doing all the lifting."
"I'm also an executive suck-up by profession, and amateur naturalist and closet romantic by inclination."
"Executive suck-up?"
"Assistant, associate, deputy, and lieutenant, rising horizontally from one middle-management post to another. A gofer who finally answered to one idiot too many and decided to really go. I love adventure stories, so I've decided to live one. And I'm fascinated by nature."
Like Tucker, without pretense. "We all seem to have a lot in common."
"And two strong males! You two can break trail. I'll point the way."
"Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea," Daniel said.
"Except a hundred eighty degrees in the opposite direction. We want to go east, gentlemen, not west. I'm already contributing, you see, by making that clear."
Tucker scratched his head in mock befuddlement. "And doesn't the sun set backward Down Under?"
Amaya rolled her eyes. "I never did have a proper taste in men. So do you really build catapults, Mr..."
"Dyson. Daniel Dyson. A little one, once. It got me into trouble."
"War machines usually do."
Daniel liked her banter. This could be fun.
"I saw you talking to the hand-raiser," Tucker said to her. "What's he like?"
"Smart. As in mouth, ass. But quick too. Maybe we should enlist him."
Daniel was doubtful. "That guy?"
"He's interesting. He'll talk your ear off. Come over and meet him."
Ico Washington wasted no time in presenting them with his worldview. He had curly hair and olive skin and a restless manner, his eyes flicking around the room as he talked. He fizzed like a shaken bottle.
"I don't take these Outback guys seriously," he explained. "I don't take anyone connected with United Corporations seriously. I haven't heard an honest word since the delivery doctor slapped my butt and extended condolences, just happy-talk bullshit my whole life and an unending list of rules and come-ons. I mean, a year's salary to dump me in some desert? It's gotta be a scam. And when an oily snake like Elliott Coyle says gee, not all of you may get to go, I know I'm being taken."
Tucker frowned. "So why are you here?"
Ico laughed with self-deprecation. "Because this is my peek behind the curtain, man. This is my chance to look from outside the box. I figure that out in the bush there's no wall whispers, no head-vid, no committee-meetings-from-hell. For once I get away from the ambient noise, you know? So I can think. So I can consider. So I can plan."
"Plan what?"
"Permanent escape." He nodded, as if confiding a great secret. "I don't want a temporary furlough, I want release from this bullshit corporate world. I want to experience real freedom. So I go along with their little mind games, even while I let them know I see through them. Because this isn't a vacation for me, this is a turning point. Once I'm down on that Outback ground, I'm not the same guy coming back. I'm going to imagine a better life. I think they're betting a taste of dirt and bugs will teach me the benefits of the United Corporations world, but I'm going to be finding my own world. We're Pandora's box, man, and they've no clue what can happen when you open the lid."
Daniel frowned, recognizing a bit of himself. "So what is it that you do, Ico?"
He looked at them smugly. "I see things clearly."
CHAPTER TEN
By design, there was no one to see them off.
There were thirteen pages of rules to replicate wilderness experience: "Condition 27: You will not write or speak about this experience. Condition 63: You will have completed and filed with Outback Adventure a last will and testament. Condition 81: You will have been screened and found free of communicable diseases."
Condition 17 specified an unpredictable departure time. No goodbyes to family or loved ones. No hugs. No weeping. No notice. They came, you went, like a furtive kidnapping. Daniel's call buzzed through at the trailing edge of night. "I'm in the lobby, Daniel," Coyle's voice calmly announced. "It's time for adventure."
He groaned. "Jesus, what time is it?"
"Just before dawn. The favored time for surprise attack."
"All right," he said groggily. "I've just got to pull my stuff together."
"Five minutes."
"Elliott..."
"Five minutes. We told you it would be like this. Cold plunge. The time for second thoughts is over."
Daniel knew the opposite was true. He could still quit, even now. The urgent, disorienting departure was a final test. "I'll be down. Everything's here. Just a couple items I've been debating to take."
"If in doubt, leave it out."
He swung out of bed, dressed without a shower, and grabbed his gear. His last pained decision had been to leave his sleeping bag behind in favor of a lighter, slimmer, tougher bedroll. He needed to move to survive. After another minute's indecision he pocketed the toy action trooper next to his computer. Gordo Firecracker, tough guy amulet. Then he glanced around a last time.
The apartment was already bare. He'd made arrangements for the last of his belongings to be packed and moved into storage. The video wall was a dim gray, his computer cabinet lightless. Now he threw his Microcore identity badge into the trash. "Mona, I'm gonna," he recited. Goodbye to the goddess, goodbye to the gorgon, goodbye to all that. "Raven, I'm... cravin'." Craving what? Sand in his cereal? Blisters on his heels? "Cravin' to find out why."
Coyle saw him into a cab and gave him tickets for a shuttle. A red-eye flight to a coast city, leaving in forty-five minutes. "You'll meet the others for final departure there." The door slammed.
Daniel keyed down the window. "Aren't you going to wish me good luck?"
His counselor was silent a moment. "Luck is just preparation plus opportunity," he finally recited. In the darkness of predawn, Coyle's expression couldn't be seen.
There was a two-hour flight to the final departure point, the two dozen other adventurers scattered at random through the plane, a few sleeping and most just quiet, lost in their own thoughts. At the airport an unmarked bus met them for transport to an industrial airfield. More than a hundred people had assembled there for flights that would scatter them like shot across the continent of Australia. They checked into musty dormitories.
"Barracks," Ico corrected. "Crap left over from the army or something. Unloaded on these guys, or picked up for a song. You'd think for a year's salary they'd give us a last night in a hotel room."
"My guess is it's a last reality check," Daniel said, sitting on a bunk. It creaked, its wire web apparent under the thin mattress. "So we're clear what we're getting into."
"And my guess is that they're a bunch of cheap bastards who know if we're already dumb enough to sign on for 'adventure' that we'll tolerate any fleabag they check us into."
"A small price to come alive," Amaya teased him.
"Yeah, what difference does it make?" Tucker said. "Tomorrow we wake up on the sand."
"It matters if someone snores. You snore, Freidel?"
"I dunno. If I do, I sleep through it like a rock."
"That's a question that would've been useful on the questionnaires," Ico said. " 'Do you snore?' But oh, no, they gotta know what my favorite damn color is."
"What'd you say?"
"Green. The light that says go."
Told they'd leave before dawn again the next day, the four companions decided on a final party in a nearby restaurant, their evening celebration wired with the adrenaline of excitement, a magnum of champagne, and tabs of EcSotica drug. They laughed so hard they finally cried about snarled commutes, dead-end jobs, blank-brained bosses, mortgages on units they hated, and insurance on lives they'd felt were hardly worth keeping. Now it was all going to be gone, poof, and they'd wake up to find themselves in the Outback, life reduced to a hunt for food to eat and water to drink. Simple. Stark. Scary.
"Did you see that guy?" Ico snorted excitedly, spitting a bit of champagne across their table as they talked of hopes and fears. "Came out of their phony last-minute screening positively mystified that he didn't get in. 'Gee, I met all the criteria. Golly, I don't know what the problem was. But at least they turned me on to an executive opportunity at DisneySoft I'm sure is just as exciting...' What crap. They tried to get me to back out too with their song and dance about a good job elsewhere. I didn't fall for the ploy. It's a test, man, a trap. These guys are Machiavellian."
"How can they make any money if they keep turning people away?" Tucker drunkenly wondered.
"By making it hard to get in! Christ, try to keep people out of a nightclub and they'll line up around the block. This idiot will tell his friends he washed out and half of them will sign up to replace him. They're playing us, man. They're reeling us in."
"So aren't you upset at being netted?" Daniel asked.
"Nope." Ico poured another glass. "Because I'm riding the fishing boat to a better place, my man. Because all their bullshit is just a taxi for my mind."
They barely got two hours' sleep before being awakened at three A.M. and electro-bused to the waiting transports. The night was chilly and dark, and a light fog drifted off the harbor. Daniel could see that their craft was marked by a nondescript OA on its fuselage. This jet would take them to some transfer point and then smaller hovers would disperse individuals and small groups, they'd been told. Sleepy and hungover, they shivered gloomily. The freight decks of the aging terminal were shut.
"Damn, I'm tired," Tucker said.
