New York Dreams by Eric Brown

Author:Eric Brown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780575074941
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2004-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Barney Kluger sat on the edge of the bed and stared through the window at the sunlit coastline. Another perfect day in paradise. He had been here around eight days now, each day exactly like the one before. Until, that is, Lew Kramer showed up with that half-assed explanation as to why he was imprisoned here.

He turned and stared at the sleeping Estelle. He tried to recall the feelings he had experienced during his first hour in this site, when he had made love to the construct of his wife. He was sure he had felt something, then - but now when he looked upon her sleeping form he felt nothing. He had been deprived of his other emotions, too. He knew that he should have felt rage towards Lew the other day, anger and frustration at the predicament he was in. The fact was that he felt nothing, nothing at all.

He knelt on the bed, reached out, and slipped his fingers around his wife’s neck. He felt her warm flesh in his grip, her fluttery pulse beneath his thumb. He saw what he was doing, but was unable to summon any consequent self-censure. He knew that Estelle was only a computer-generated simulation, with no life of its own, but he wondered what he might feel if he were to perform the same act on a conscious, living human being. It would be an interesting experiment. Would he feel nothing then, too?

He increased his grip on the constructs warm neck, throttling her. This, in its own way, was an experiment. How might the construct react to his attack? Would she refer to it later?

He felt the muscles of her throat collapse realistically beneath his fingers. Will the woman wake up and scream at him to stop? Any reaction, he thought, other than her bland repertoire of platitudes and niceties, would make a welcome change.

He dug his fingers into her neck.

She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. ‘Hi, Barney. Let’s go and have breakfast, shall we?’

He let go of her, rolled away and moved from the bed. He felt nothing, not even despair.

‘I’m going for a walk. See you later.’

‘Okay, hon. Back around lunchtime?’

He made some non-committal reply and hurried from the bedroom. He left the villa and walked through the dunes towards the sea.

He tried to work out why the fact that he was imprisoned in this site should have robbed him of his ability to feel anything, love or hate, joy or anger. He had been perfectly capable of having human emotions during that first hour, so what had happened to him since then?

He watched the sea push scalloped lace petticoats up the hard-packed, shelving sand towards his feet. He inhaled, tasted the brine in the air; the wind was warm on his skin. He wondered what was missing from this site to make it truly paradisiacal.

Real people, he thought. Human beings he could talk to and react with. What was paradise, without friends with whom to appreciate it? He thought of Hal, out there in the real world.

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