OtherWorld Read online

  Stoner felt terrible. “I hate my temper,” she said.

  Gwen laughed. “Stoner, you hardly have a temper. Most people blow up fifteen times for every time you do.” She took Stoner’s hand. “Besides, Marylou can be a real jerk. There’s nothing wrong with being a little impatient.”

  “She didn’t mean to get us in trouble. She was just being Marylou.”

  “And sometimes just Marylou is too much for any sane person to handle.” She brushed the hair from Stoner’s eyes. “Come on, Pebbles, let’s get ice cream.”

  She stood at the railing and looked down at the milling crowd. Food was happening in The Land. Lots of food. All kinds of food. Salads and soups. Baked potatoes. Quiche. Desserts. Picnic tables with brightly colored umbrellas lay scattered like mushrooms around a fountain at the Farmers’ Market, while replicas of hot-air balloons rose and fell gently beneath the glass-domed ceiling. The picture was one of calm, light, and health—which was what was intended, no doubt. Though she hadn’t been in WDW very long, Stoner had definitely gotten the idea that whatever one experienced was exactly what the Disney folks wanted you to experience.

  Except for her anxiety over Marylou, of course. But you couldn’t blame WDW for that, unless the brains behind the place had programmed in some bizarre emotional experiences. “Anxietyland, a magical trip through the rocky shoals of friendship, highlighted by a terrifying plunge down the Waterfall of Moods.”

  “Stop worrying,” Gwen said as she handed her a chocolate ice cream in a dish.

  “I called,” Stoner said. “I thought she might have gone back to the room, you know, to console herself with her vibrators. She wasn’t there.”

  Gwen took a thoughtful spoonful of ice cream and worried it around in her mouth. “Probably hasn’t had time to get there,” she said at last. “Assuming she gets up her nerve to get back on the Monorail alone.”

  “Probably.” The sweet, chocolate taste was overpowering. She’d be jumping out of her skin in ten minutes. “I talked to Edith. She said don’t be silly.”

  “Well,” Gwen said, “sometimes Edith gives good advice, and sometimes she doesn’t.”

  “I told her, if Marylou comes in, tell her I’m sorry and please stay there until fifteen after whatever hour she comes in. I’ll keep calling until I reach her.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “I guess there’s not much else we can do.”

  “Guess not.” Gwen moved closer, so their arms touched. “Stoner,” she said, and pressed her shoulder against Stoner’s in a reassuring kind of way, “I know you hate to have anyone mad at you, but it really will be all right. You and Marylou have been friends for half your life. That can’t be ruined with an argument.”

  “I know.” Gwen was right, of course. She wished she believed it. She didn’t like to argue. Some people found it exciting in a perverted way. Some people didn’t believe life was real unless they were fighting. Some people were even aroused by it. People like that scared her. There was danger in anger. The potential for the breakage of things that couldn’t be mended. Things like trust. And love...

  But she had to agree with Gwen about one thing: there wasn’t much they could do about it right now. She finished her ice cream and pushed away from the railing. “Want to take in the boat ride?”

  “Sure,” Gwen said, and trotted their dishes to the nearest trash container.

  * * *

  David leaned against the palm tree and ate his popsicle and listened to the birds carrying on overhead. The air was warm and soft, the sky bright and blue. Life was good.

  He liked his work. Took pride in it. That was important, to do your work well and to take pride in it. Sometimes he wished his mother could see him now. She hadn’t understood what he did and how it made him feel. Not that he blamed her, exactly. She was an uneducated woman, and didn’t know about art. Sometimes he felt real bad about his mother, guilty that he hadn’t understood about her not being educated and had let her disapproval come between them. After all, it had been up to him to see it. He’d been around. His mother had never been anywhere. Just Baltimore, where they had lived in one tenement or another for most of his growing-up. And Ocean City once, off-season, all they could afford. But by the time he had figured it out, about her education, she was dead. His therapist had helped him to see it wasn’t his fault. It was just how life was. The important thing was that he go on feeling good about himself.

  But he missed her sometimes. You could have a lot of friends, and a lot of lovers, but you only had one mother.

  One of the most difficult things about his work was his curiosity. More than once, he’d wondered about his assignment. It had been hard at first, doing what he did without knowing the reason. But he’d learned to take a professional attitude. It was reward enough, to do the job at hand in the best way he knew. There were only three things that were important to him: do your best, keep clean, and take pride in your work.

  And, now and then, an assignment like this one would come along. Something special. Something only he could do.

  His therapist had helped him with that, too. David smiled to himself. She was a real special lady, his therapist. He’d been real messed up when he met her. Young, unsure of himself—face it, the word was “dumb.” Fresh out of Juvie for a hold-up he’d helped some older guys commit, only when the police arrived they’d run off and left him holding the bag. And the gun. But the parole board got him the therapist, and she’d set him right. Showed him where he’d been used, encouraged him to get his high school diploma through the G.E.D. program. Helped him apply for college correspondence courses. And pointed out how nothing that had happened was his fault.

  He’d kept in touch over the years. You did that, with people who meant a lot to you. A card at Christmas, flowers for her birthday, sometimes a letter just because he felt like it. She’d always written back.

  His therapist. He liked the way that sounded.

  He watched a group of young parents go by with their children, all tanned and happy. David yawned. He was getting bored with Orlando. Nice climate and all, but he missed the excitement of Vegas and the West Coast cities. There were too many children and old people here. Too homogenized. Too easy. His skills were being wasted. Leave this easy stuff to the new men, the ones just coming up, the ones who needed a couple of successes to build their confidence.

  Yes, he could do with a change of venue. Maybe, after this assignment, he’d take a trip back to Vegas. See how things were there.

  He spotted a man he’d met some weeks back, and dipped his head in greeting. They’d gone drinking together one night after work. They were in the same business, though they didn’t talk about it. Nobody talked about this business, that was how he knew the other man was in it. It was like working for the CIA. He was beginning to suspect that other man was in with the Satanists. David had no respect for that. A bunch of loonies, bad as Bible-beaters. You were here on this earth, and you had to make the best of it, not run around trying to get someone else to take responsibility for your life. God or the Devil, it was all the same. When it came down to it, what you had was you, for better or worse.

  His therapist said that made him an Existentialist.

  Sounded good to him.

  Instinct made him look up. The quarry had left the Mexican take-out stand and was coming toward him. David pretended to be immersed in his guide book until she had passed. She hadn’t noticed him. Casually, he slipped the guide book into his pocket and sauntered off with his eye on the floppy black hat.

  * * *

  It was Stoner’s first direct experience with the Disney touch, and despite all her vows not to be taken in, she was completely enchanted. The little barge with its rippling striped canvas canopy floated on a canal surrounded by magic. Artists’ renditions of roots and seeds and blossoms, cut from what looked like cardboard, seemed to glow in the moist dusk. The canal opened into a tropical rain forest, where birds chirped and lizards darted, catching insects, while a warm mist sur
rounded them and smelled of earth and vegetation. Then, suddenly, they were in the desert, and the air turned hot and dry. Desert gave way to prairie, and grazing bison, and swarms of locusts racing before a lightning-struck grass fire.

  Around another turn and they were floating past a midwestern farmhouse. A giant sycamore stood before a comfortable porch. It was just after dawn, and a rooster crowed at the growing day, while golden light spilled from the farm house kitchen, quickly glimpsed through the open front door. From an upstairs window, a woman waved to them. A little dog, some kind of terrier, yapped a warning, then broke from its rope leash and dashed barking after the boat.

  Then through a barn, with displays of farming equipment and stacks of hay. And finally into the growing areas themselves, where tomatoes glowed like Christmas lights, and beans and cucumbers grew from string-supported vines. In a large rotating drum, lettuce gleamed brightly, growing in a simulated gravity-free environment. Everything was lush and healthy and tidy. Aunt Hermione’s McTavish Blue Runner Stringless Hybrid Snap Beans wouldn’t last a minute in this Eden. The Blue Runners were bred for the squalor, chaos, and carbon monoxide of the city. Stoner could just imagine a single daring carbon monoxide molecule finding its way in here, to be leapt upon and vanquished by the Germ Police.

  “That was amazing!” Gwen exclaimed as they slid into the dock and climbed out—helped by the ever-watchful young men in futuristic bib overalls who seemed to materialize out of thin air when needed. “How do they do that?”

  Stoner shrugged. “Beats me. I hear there’s this exhibit in the Magic Kingdom with all the Presidents. They move around and give speeches. The Ronald Reagan one even falls asleep.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” Gwen said with a laugh, “we’ll pass that one up. Eight years of that was enough.”

  “You know, I can figure out how they get them to move and talk and stuff, but how did they get the dog to chase the boat? I mean, that was a long way to run, and I didn’t see a track of any kind.”

  “It didn’t.”

  “Sure, it did.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “I know it happened. I saw it.” She glanced at her watch. “We can’t check on Marylou for another twenty minutes. Let’s go through again.”

  The dog didn’t chase the boat this time, but one of the bison on the prairie wandered over to the side and looked her in the eye curiously.

  Gwen didn’t see it.

  Okay, this was beginning to make her a little crazy. They couldn’t keep going through The Land all day, hoping to catch the same illusion at the same time. The little ditty that accompanied the ride was catchy enough, but she had the uneasy feeling that too many repetitions and it would be like one of those commercial jingles you get in your head and can’t get rid of for a week. A week of “Listen to the Land,” and she’d be ready for the rubber room. Time to get a friendly Farmer of the Future for a little information.

  One materialized on cue. It was a young woman. Stoner made a mental note that WDW was doing its best to be non-sexist, and to be on the lookout for lapses. “Can you tell me,” she inquired of Sue (that was her name on the discrete plastic tag), “how the moving exhibits work?”

  Sue was prepared. The ‘Audio-Animatronics’ were driven by computers and motors, with feedback to the main God-computer that could tell you exactly what each one was doing at any precise moment, and if anything went wrong...

  Like an Audio-Animatronic Revolution? An Audio-Animatronic Runamok?

  ...engineers would be on the scene in minutes. In addition, each tiny movement of the figure, down to the flick of a fingertip or blink of an eyelash, could be computer-controlled.

  That was what she was looking for. “What I really wanted to know,” Stoner said after Sue had run down (or completed her program), “was how they vary the movements from moment to moment. I mean, is the dog programmed to chase every third boat, or every second boat, or is it random or what? And how come the bison walks up to the boat sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t?”

  Sue looked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Well, I mean, I can figure that much out, I guess. Computers being pretty complex things and all, aren’t they? Scary, really, until you realize how stupid they really are. I mean, you have to tell them everything, just the right way, or they don’t know what to do. They can’t think, is the problem. Of course, do we really want them to?”

  Gwen cleared her throat loudly.

  “Oh,” Stoner said. “Running on again. I do it when I’m nervous. Does this place make you nervous?”

  “Not really,” Sue said.

  Stoner felt incredibly foolish. Okay, press on as if nothing were happening. You’re not making a fool of yourself, you’re asking for perfectly reasonable, sensible information. Intelligent information, really. “What I really mean is...” She had the feeling this was not going to sound like a request for intelligent information. Or an intelligent request for information. Or whatever. “...how come the dog chased the boat when I was watching, but it didn’t chase when Gwen was watching? And how come the bison came over and snuffled me but she didn’t see it...?”

  Sue glanced around surreptitiously, as if checking for the nearest Security person.

  Not again. “They don’t do that, do they?” Stoner asked quickly.

  “Not that I know of,” Sue said in a friendly tone.

  “Must have been an illusion, then.” Stoner smiled. “This place does funny things to your head, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Sue said.

  Gwen squeezed her wrist to shut her up.”What she means,” she said to Sue, “is that the juxtaposition of illusion and reality is so finely tuned...Well, one hardly knows what to think.”

  “I guess not,” Sue said.

  “Thanks so much for your help,” Gwen said, and yanked Stoner away.

  “It really did happen,” Stoner said when they were out of earshot. “We both saw it. Or didn’t see it. Or one of us saw it.”

  “I’m sure we did. Or you did, or I did. Maybe Sue did. I don’t really care who did, but I think we’d better not attract attention.”

  “Right. We’re probably under surveillance already.”

  “No doubt. Call Marylou again and let’s try some other rides.”

  * * *

  The woman had the constitution of a camel. David wiped the sweat from his face and folded his handkerchief very neatly and slipped it back into his pocket. She’d been eating and drinking her way around the World, and never once stopped at a rest room. Rest rooms were good places to grab someone, though in this case it would have helped if he’d had a female operative with him. Well, actually it wouldn’t have helped, since the quarry never went into the rest room.

  * * *

  Marylou still hadn’t come in by the one-fifteen room check, or the two-fifteen, or the three-fifteen, or four-fifteen. Stoner kept telling herself not to worry, and worrying. Trouble was, Gwen was beginning to look a little worried, too. It hadn’t reached brow-knitting concern, but Stoner could sense a slight wrinkling of synergy that told her a Gwen-worry was imminent. Even Edith Kesselbaum had ceased to be reassuring, saying she had known her daughter to get into fits of pique in the past, but certainly never one of this magnitude.

  She was beginning to suffer from sun-shock. It made her feel dizzy, claustrophobic, and a little grumpy. There didn’t seem to be an empty seat anywhere, in all of EPCOT. What benches there were—and they seemed to be disappearing by the minute—were jammed with tourists or stuck out in the glaring sunlight and heat and humidity, and the thought of sitting on one had all the appeal of being staked to an anthill. Gwen suggested they go back to their room and wait there. “At the very least,” she reasoned, “Marylou will show at the restaurant. She’d never get angry enough to skip a meal.”

  “Especially not one she nearly got arrested for,” Stoner added with an attempt at humor that fell flatter then a pricked balloon.

  They trudged onto the monorail and
rode back to the Contemporary in silence.

  “Here’s a suggestion,” Gwen said as she came out of the bathroom rubbing her hair with a towel. “If she doesn’t show up at dinner, we’ll have Aunt Hermione try to make psychic contact, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll call George. She ought to know what to do.”

  Stoner pulled the cold washcloth off her eyes and sat up. “You probably have to be missing for two days before they’ll do anything. Like in the real world.”

  “Well, this isn’t the real world.” Gwen tossed the towel onto a chair back and ran her hands through her hair. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yeah.” She couldn’t help it, she was always left weak-kneed by the way Gwen looked running her hands through her hair. She didn’t know whether it was the hands or the hair that moved her the most. But it was a graceful, sensuous, completely un-self-aware gesture, and she wouldn’t have mentioned it for the world, for fear she’d make Gwen self-conscious and spoil it all. Some things, she knew, shouldn’t be tampered with. Turning the light of awareness on them would only make them disappear. Gwen running her hands through her hair was one of those things.

  Gwen running her hands through Stoner’s hair, on the other hand, was equally exciting and something on which she commented at every opportunity.

  She forced her attention to the problem at hand. “Do you think George would help us?”

  “Why not?”

  “We didn’t exactly have a friendly time this morning. We made her have to be at MGM.”

  Gwen stared at her. “For Heaven’s sake, Stoner, the woman’s a professional. And a lesbian. One of the tribe. Of course, she’ll help us. But let’s not get bent out of shape yet. Marylou’s like a pet dog. She’ll come home when she gets hungry.”

  * * *

  David was pleased. The project was going like clockwork. It had been a brilliant stroke on his part to send a drink to their table last night. Pure instinct, and brilliant. The most he’d hoped for was to make a definite I.D. But when they’d shared the drink… The way his client had described their relationship, it only made sense they’d get all cozy and romantic on vacation, of course. And now the quarry was even helping out by walking back to the hotel. Walking. When there was the monorail, as easy to get on. It was almost as if she were trying to put herself in his way.