The Jake Hill File
Londonspace, 2062
"Archie," Amanda Jones addressed her drone imperiously from the heights of her hover-armchair in her study. "Why don't you get Mr. Giles a drink? Then you can let yourself out." She turned to the sunken-eyed wreck of a man who sat opposite her on a dirigible divan. Ronnie Giles certainly looked like hell since she'd seen him last. But then so did everyone else, or so she'd noticed lately.
"Ronnie, what would you like?" Amanda asked her ace excavator. He had come to her East End flat to deliver his report on her delinquent writer Jake Hill. "Your usual? Gin and bitters?"
Ronnie Giles waved at her weakly. "How about a noose around my neck? Or something opiated? A cyanide-laced Pepsi would be quite refreshing."
"That bad, eh?" Amanda looked him up and down as she crossed her plump calves. "Don't hold anything back. I'm filled with anticipation."
"It's time I quit this business," Ronnie's face grew dark. "I'm not cut out for it anymore. All those vision spores in Mangaspace, it's like breathing in coal dust. I should be receiving disability."
"You'll be getting a nice fat check from me, don't forget. And-" Amanda glowered at Archie Winkles. "A gin for Mr. Giles and be snappy about it."
"Won't be a moment." The droid adjusted the powdered white wig on his chrome skull and hurried out of the room on the worn-out treads of his house-slippers.
"So tell me--" Amanda leaned towards Ronnie. "What have you got on Jake? Is he fucking with me? What's his connection to this Hanging Butoh character? Is he one of Jake's brainstorms?"
"He's seeing a shrink."
"The Butoh?"
"No, your golden boy Jake. Golden ghoul, I should say." Ronnie gave Amanda a bleak smile.
"I'm not sure I follow," Amanda arched an eyebrow. "Explain. In monosyllables preferably. I want to be sure I get the entire gist of this."
"It wasn't an easy job, Mandy," Ronnie warned her. "I risked everything to get my hands on this." He held up a blinking REM folder marked PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL. "My excav license, my neck, my soul . . . . "
"Spare me the crap and get to the point."
Archie Winkles reentered the study and handed Ronnie Giles his drink. "Will there be anything else, ma'am?" he turned to his employer.
"Your brass nuts, if you don't watch out. Now scoot--" Amanda thrust her arm towards the door. Archie didn't waste any time leaving.
"You were saying?" Amanda focused her hard eyes on Ronnie Giles. "Something about Jake Hill seeing a shrink?"
"Yes. He's being seeing one for the past three months now. A fellow named Eric Dante. He's got one of those oddball practices in San Francisco. Just the ticket for Jake, if you ask me."
"Oddball?"
"This Dr. Dante specializes in sports injuries that occur in the Tibetan 'bardos.' Those are the after-death states that seem to attract so many adventure travelers these days. He also treats spiritual hypothermia and other creative disorders. He's what's called a 'shen' therapist."
"A shen therapist?" Amanda gaped at Ronnie Giles. "What's that?"
"In 'qigong'--speak--that's an ancient Chinese system of energy work, by the way--the shen is the soul-node that connects a person's individual consciousness to the local physical plane. Without a properly functioning shen, you'd be just another hungry ghost inhabiting your own body." Ronnie took a sip of his drink. "That's what they believe anyhow."
Amanda looked incredulous. "Jake Hill's been skateboarding in the after-death states? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Not exactly," Ronnie replied as he tapped the REM folder. "It's all in here. I snatched it from Dante's clinic. It tells the whole story."
"Well, give me a summary, will you? I'll view that thing later on."
"Very well," Ronnie sighed. "Apparently, Jake Hill is suffering from a 'shen-disconnect.' His Mangaspace consciousness and Realtime consciousness are split in two. Or fused into one. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It's not exactly my field."
"Oh, just give it a try," Amanda goaded him.
Ronnie sighed again and continued. "A while ago, Jake had some sort of an accident in M-space. His nodes got all fucked up. He blew out his neural circuits and his back-up brainstem. It's a miracle that his delta-wave bag inflated just before he slammed into whatever he crashed into. Some stray vector, I suppose."
Amanda fidgeted nervously. "Is he damaged goods now?"
"Let me put it this way, Mandy," Ronnie Giles gave her another gloomy smile. "Jake's a walking magnet for the exorcists."
Amanda was silent for a moment. "How about this Hanging Butoh character that's been assassinating all those big shots in New Nippon? Is Jake hallucinating him into a life form on account of his condition?" She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Is the Butoh some kind of a mutant? Half-real and half-unreal?"
"Half-digital and half-physical, you mean?" Ronnie now had a sinister twinkle in his eye. "I managed to get the scoop on him, too."
"Oh, yes?" Amanda sat up eagerly. All this would go to Rocky Ikkyu in Tokio. Ronnie would receive his pittance of a fee for snooping on Jake Hill, and she would be rich.
"His name is Johnny Hara."
"The Hanging Butoh has an actual name?" Amanda was beside herself with excitement. "I thought this 'toon only went by his flashy sounding moniker."
Ronnie gave her a stony look. "Johnny Hara is no 'toon. He actually exists--or used to. He's dead now. He was a famous Butoh dancer. Jake and Johnny were best friends. This was before Jake came on the scene as a bio-anime artist. In fact, they grew up together in New Nippon. Did you know that Jake once lived in Nippon?"
Amanda was stunned. "No, I didn't. No one knows anything about his past." Her face looked pale. "You say Johnny Hara is dead? What happened to him?"
Ronnie lowered himself to the floor from the dirigible divan. "Fucking thing," he muttered to himself. "I've got to be going. I'm exhausted."
"Wait!" Amanda pleaded. "There's a bonus in this for you. Just answer my question!"
Ronnie Giles dragged his foot around in a circle. "Nice floor," he said. "Six-dimensional. Wish I could afford that."
"Ronnie!"
"It's a mystery, Mandy," Ronnie frowned. "But from the looks of it, Jake killed him. Over a woman. It's in the file."
Then Ronnie Giles corked himself back into his genie bottle and vanished up Amanda's chimney. He was driving a Mini-Vapor these days.
Amanda Jones plugged the 'trode into her head. Then she settled back in her hover-chair to view the REM file that lay in her lap. Her eyes widened as she opened the folder and the meta-images flooded her pineal gland.
No shit! She thought to herself. Ronnie wasn't kidding. This stuff was hot. You're the best, Ronnie, you dumb bastard! How did you manage to get this out of the psych's office?
Incredible! Amanda glanced at the time-glyph. The material was recent, too. Rated 'Synchronicity Plus.' Meaning the data was still being psycho-processed and evaluated at this very moment. Outstanding, how far psychoanalysis had come in the past fifty years! It was practically a living organism now. Its nutrients were the psychoses of its patients.
Ping! Amanda was transported into Dr. Dante's clinic. It was on the top-floor of a red Victorian that faced a green park in a quiet San Francisco neighborhood. They couldn't see her, of course, because of the time warp. How convenient. But everything around her was brightly focused and vivid and full of ambient details. The psi-audio level was perfect. Nice and crisp between the dimensions.
"Ready for your session, Jake?" Dr. Dante looked up from his desk as Jake Hill arrived for his appointment. "How's it going?"
"Fine," Jake replied morosely. "Maybe we can dredge up a stool sample from one of my past lives. Hack away at it."
Dr. Dante chuckled. "We're much more interested in the DNA of dreams here. Come on, let's go inside."
Amanda's invisible form followed them as they entered a huge loft with an eighteen-foot high ceiling. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a cobblestone courtyard lit by floodlights. Gamelan music with a Moroccan backbeat played in the background.
What an interesting space, Amanda thought as she looked around. A Sri Lankan Buddha occupied one corner of the loft. A thin wreath of smoke wafted from an incense-urn at the base of its altar. The rest of the room was empty except for a fiberoptic rope that hung from a crossbeam in the middle of the loft.
"You know what that is, don't you, Jake?" Dr. Dante asked as he pointed his finger at the rigging.
"Must you remind me every single time?"
"It's part of your therapy, you know that. The reason it's there is to remind you of everything that it represents. So that you can come to terms with your past."
Jake trembled. "That's what's left of Johnny's rope. He fell to his death from it when he gave his final Butoh performance ten years ago. Thirty stories down to the ground from the top of the TransAmerica Pyramid building."
He covered his face with his hands and sobbed. "It was an accident, I swear! But he still thinks it's my fault! Why won't he leave me alone?"
"That's what we need to find out," Dr. Dante glanced at Jake with a look of pity. "You've repressed him from your memory long enough. Soon you'll be free of him once and for all. Shall we pick up from where we left off last time?"
"Where was that?" Jake shrank back in horror.
"You know where, Jake--over there, in the usual place. Be a good Butoh."
"Okay, watch this--" Jake let out a manic laugh. He kicked off his shoes and began to pull his socks off.
Amanda could scarcely believe it. Here she was in her hover-chair, thousands of psi-miles away in her London flat, all her time-zones distorted, but she was fully present and they were unaware of her. She felt like she could enter into the pores of each man's inner being. She was zone-shifting!
Jake Hill assumed his primary Butoh position. He exhaled his body out of his nostrils. Then he clenched his stomach and tightened his anal muscles and brought his chin down to his chest.
He took a deep breath and scanned his stance for viruses. Eyes focused like mute silkworms . . . .
Unfolded his hands. Fingers twisting like roots in a mulberry field . . . Got into a squat. Hips down, defecating upon all of eternity . . . .
He swiveled his bare feet over the broken shards of Sung dynasty porcelain that his mind had strewn on the path in front of him. The pain of beauty, the beauty of pain . . . .
He breathed in again. 1,001 strobing cactus needles dipped in vermilion dye . . . .
He slid forward on the floor, all his toes amputated. Stravinsky's left testicle! Bald genius in a hair salon! Black iguana on a purple mesa!
He was >in<.
Jake's entry into turbo-delta was swift, as swift as the beam of Chinese qigong energy which Dante aimed at the back of Jake's skull. The shen doc looked like a welder as blue sparking light shot out of the palms of his hands.
"Don't forget to ask him what he wants from you-and where you go together!" Dante called out to Jake. "It's important!"
Jake half-crawled, half-shuddered as he moved towards the rope that hung from the beam in the middle of the loft.
The Butoh was already there waiting for him, hanging upside-down like a nodding chameleon. He stretched down his hand and hoisted Jake up into the air.
"Welcome aboard, Jake," Johnny Hara told him. "You're late. We've got a busy schedule this evening. Things to do. Got to hustle."
Back in Vector 6 of Londonspace, Amanda Jones almost fell out of her hover-chair. This was more than she had bargained for. This wasn't the past. It wasn't the present. It was the Future Now. Did she really want to be here? Oh, my God, here it was . . . .