@Expectations Read online

  2. Any bad publicity that might bring down the feds. Suntum doesn’t want feds snooping around StElene disguised as characters; players are warned to be careful of what they say and naturally everybody tries to be careful what they say in whose presence, but in text, those dark glasses and raincoats are harder to spot.

  3. Anything that brings down federal regulation. Obscenity charges, kiddie porn. Supreme Court decisions at stake. StElene is a free society, within the parameters set by Suntum, and federal regulation would end the experiment. Proud of the big word!

  To this last, Azeath has appended a note:

  Question. WHAT EXPERIMENT?

  He’s put it to StOnge, who mutters about a brilliant application, but it isn’t exactly an answer. Whatever Suntum International’s up to, it’s going to make money. And when it starts making money, Azeath’s damn well going to be in on it.

  He’d be in on it now, if it wasn’t for Reverdy. Well listen, he’s shat on Reverdy some himself. Like when he moved in on Mireya and made her fall in love with him, dumb bitch. She loves Azeath and like Azeath she hates Reverdy and they have a pact. It’s only a matter of time before they bring him down.

  And if you can’t fuck somebody over right now, well at least you can fuck. She’s so beautiful. Mireya, babe. It’s almost closing time in the library. He’s alone. She’s about to log on. It’s their private time. He’ll wait for her here in Azeath’s Little Hell.

  Then his login watcher show that StAndrew, StOnge and StBrêve have just logged on. He types: @find stonge. The three Directors are in the grand ballroom with a group of other players. Can’t let this one go by. Azeath swaggers into the grand ballroom and smiles broadly, waiting to be recognized. In case the Saints haven’t noticed, he says, “Been reading up on arbitration systems in other communities.” That always pricks up their ears. StAndrew smiles. StOnge smiles. StBrêve smiles, but it’s no big deal. They go on saying whatever they were saying. Still, he’s been noticed. Azeath will wait for an opening and say something really smart.

  When Mireya arrives they’ll hug in front of everybody—and if the Directors ignore them they can split for Azeath’s Little Hell to raise a little virtual hell and have some passionate sex. Meanwhile, he can belly up to his friends here and build a little character. He’s just getting in tight when Reverdy drops in like the death’s head looking for the feast. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t do anything; he just grins.

  Then before Azeath even guesses what’s coming Reverdy says right in front of everyone—shit, StOnge! “Oh, Azzy dearest! Thank you for last night.” And smears him with an outrageously detailed sloppy kiss. Too fucking much! Azeath’s rage flames.

  Boiling, Vinnie is shaking so hard that he can’t get out his rejoinder. “Dxhm.”

  Laughing, Reverdy drives in the knife. “Chill, sweetheart, you’re losing it. Get real.”

  And with three Directors and a crowd watching, Azeath lunges for him. “Real? Real?” He is trembling with rage. “THIS IS REAL.”

  “This.” Reverdy sidesteps, still laughing. “This isn’t real.”

  Azeath’s fingers slide on the keyboard as he types, “THE HELL IT ISN’T.” Somewhere between here and there someone is roaring, not speech, just pure sound.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie, can’t you take it?”

  In the library in the penitentiary at Wardville, Vinnie yanks out the plug, but not before Reverdy’s last barb burns into his screen:

  “Don’t you know this is only a game?” IRL Azeath yanks the plug so hard that his computer sizzles. It is like a little murder. On StElene the room sees:

  Azeath disconnects

  In real life somebody grabs a pencil, roaring, “Only a game, only a game!” In real life, somebody screams with pain.

  In the library in the state penitentiary at Wardville, Azeath a.k.a. Vinnie Fuller (manslaughter) doesn’t just slam the pencil down hard enough to break it in two, which it does. He slams it down so violently that the point penetrates the back of his left hand.

  fifteen

  JENNY

  OK, I’m not altogether sure that my secret love is good for me, but I can’t live without it. Things are happening so fast that the compression is killing me. I have to let it out somehow! If I expect to keep going through this hard summer, I have to find some way to tell my secrets without telling anything.

  I’ve started talking to Martha about things that happen on StElene without mentioning that StElene is where they’re happening. It helps. “Martha, my friend the phobic is in trouble.”

  She knows all about Hubert Pinkney, a.k.a. Lark. Everything except the one thing. She looks up. “Anything I can do?”

  “Let me run this past you, OK?”

  If I told Martha these people who fill my life are my best friends I’ve never met, she’d turn me off with that clinical glare: You know it isn’t real. But it is real. Real people who really need me. I know, if you haven’t been there, there’s no explaining it. So I never tell her where these people are, just how important they are to me. I say, “Remember the kid I told you about, my friend Hubert? He’s in trouble.”

  She gives me that clinical look anyway. “Friend, or patient?”

  “Both. I love the kid, he opens up to me. This boy is brilliant, but he’s so shy! Can’t go out in the daytime because he thinks everybody’s staring at him. Lives at home. Now for no reason, his parents are getting cranked up to throw him out of the house.”

  “Patients’ versions of what happened don’t always jibe with reality,” Martha says.

  “He tells me they’re fed up because he doesn’t talk to them, don’t they know he can’t talk to them?”

  “Apparently not.” Martha sounds maybe a little too dry.

  “But he’s their son!” I am getting upset. “How could they live with him all this time and not know?”

  Martha says the logical thing. “Sounds like you need a family conference. Why don’t you pull him into the office for an evaluation? Start the dialog?”

  “Can’t,” I tell her, without giving anything away.

  “If you’re too close to it, maybe I can help. Bring him on in.”

  It costs me to say, “He lives in Pennsylvania.”

  “Pennsylvania!” Martha gives me a look. “How did you get onto the case?”

  “Private referral.” Does she see me blush?

  “And there are no relatives to intervene?”

  “None that I know of. I’m afraid if the parents kick him out, he’ll fly into a million pieces. He’s only nineteen, he’s put together with toothpicks and baling wire and I’m scared to think what will happen if they cut him off!”

  Martha warns, “Professional distance, Jen. If you’re too involved, how can you stand back far enough to help?”

  “Martha, I’m the only person who cares!”

  “Sometimes I think you get too close to your patients,” Martha says. “Rick Berringer, for one.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “You’re young, I know Charlie’s away a lot, I’m sure there are temptations.” Martha’s trying to lead me into a confession I don’t need to make because there’s nothing to confess. “Jen, is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “I told you, I’m worried to death about Lark!”

  “Lark? Who’s Lark?”

  I cover quickly. “I mean Hubert, the Pinkney case.”

  Martha lowers the glasses and squints, as if it will help her see me better. “I’ve seen the way Rick Berringer looks at you. Be careful, Jen, this is a very small town.”

  I groan. “Life is a very small town.”

  “Any conversation we have here is privileged.”

  “Believe me, if I were going to get in trouble, and I’m not about to get in trouble, I would not pick one of my patients, and certainly not this close to home.”

  “About the Pinkney boy. Can you speak to the parents?”

  “Not if I want him to trust me.”

  Martha no
ds. “Try to buy him some time. Tell him he needs to negotiate, you know, see if they’ll extend the deadline. In exchange for certain things. An hour a day upstairs with them. Dinner, maybe. You’ve got to get the kid out of that basement.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Martha is very good at this. I’ve told her everything about Hubert Pinkney except the fact that I know him better than any of my patients and I’ve told him things I’d never tell her. Martha says, “Get him upstairs and maybe they can sort it out.”

  “Makes sense.” I can’t stop pacing. Reverdy crowds into my mind, he fills it up and I can’t afford to let him into the room. “Hubert’s extremely bright, but he’s volatile. And the parents hate him too much to talk to him, much less help him sort it out.”

  “Reality check. Hate’s a pretty strong word.”

  “Resent. They want him out of there. I’m afraid for him.”

  “Listen,” Martha says maternally, “a therapist can’t get too personally invested and still do her job. There are patients you can help and patients you can’t help, and we can’t always know the difference ahead of time.”

  “You mean like Amanda Yerkes.”

  In spite of the air conditioning, Martha’s face is damp with earnestness; sweat snaps her hair into tight curls. “Keep your distance or your patient will pull you into the problem. And know when to cut your losses and move on to help somebody else.”

  “I know. I know!”

  Then out of God knows where Martha comes at me: “You’re not all strung out because of this stupid StHelen thing, are you?”

  I grunt like a shafted antelope. “Who, me? Of course not. No!”

  “Well, something’s the matter,” Martha says.

  “It’s StElene, Mart. And I’m cool.” I am grinning uncontrollably. “I’m cool.” And am profoundly homesick for StElene and my real friends, who really care. I back out grinning and go home early. I need to check on Lark so I can talk him through, I pray that Reverdy’s around in the daytime for once, listen, if nothing else, at least I can check my mail. Maybe I can find Jazzy because … OK, I am becoming aware that StElene is a physical addiction; I need the reassurance of the same old text coming up on my screen, as predictable as sunrise, and I need the unpredictable rhythm of the talk, I need the sense that there is a world out there where I matter, and I need more than anything to be in touch with it. I need to log on. I need thereness. More than anything, I need Reverdy.

  @sixteen

  REVERDY

  Deep in the game, Tom Dearden has started writing. He will use history to get what he wants. Once he has it right, he thinks without being exactly certain what he means, he can mount the revolution.

  stelene.moo.mud.org 8888

  If you are already here, you may think you know why you’re here and how to be here, but you don’t. The program is not case sensitive; from the telnet prompt a player can type in the address in lower case; type connect [your name] [your password] and you’re on the MOO. StElene brings you the world not in a grain of sand but in an island, but it’s still a MOO.

  It stands for Multiple Object Oriented or Multiple Owner Operated.

  MULTIPLE. More than one mind put StElene in place and multiple minds keep the MOO operating, beginning with the thirteen programmers Suntum calls Directors. Ask yourself, are they Directors because they’re better than us or is it a company scam? Their names all begin with St, as if to make you think saints are in charge. It’s the Directors’ job to maintain, not-so-subtly supervise. In case we get out of hand. They debug when necessary and keep objects from getting so big that they overload the database and take the operating system down with them in the crash.

  OBJECT. This particular kind of invention—creation by definition—begins when you log on and choose a name. It advances when you write a description, beginning @describe me as …

  Objects, including characters—in the database, players like Zan and Lark—me! are objects too. Customized by the thousands who request characters and, entered in the database by a registrar delegated by Suntum International, log on.

  You have moved into our town. If you’re any good, you get invested here. You care about the environment. Inspired to put part of yourself into the new society, you build.

  Pioneers tamed the frontier by naming names. You understand, this is the new frontier? Move into this large town or small city and you add to it as soon as you build a room and begin to describe it. If you need a model, look at the Dak Bungalow, but do not try to come here. Go to the dock, which I also built. Note the sunrise, listen to the gulls. I built them. “Reality” is in the details. Places where visitors can sit, objects they can examine, pick up and use.

  OBJECT-ORIENTED. Yes our egos are tied up in it. The best of us code for hours on StElene, expanding the territory. If you’re new and don’t already code for a living, it may seem hard at first. Then it gets hypnotic: try it this way, try it that way, keep dinking until you get it right. Get it right and feel the rush. Code is like poetry.

  But there are limitations, no matter how good you are. Everything has to get past the Directors’ review board. Stop and think. Is it a personal triumph or just flattery that gets a space you’ve built approved, and linked to the environment? Ask any Director. You won’t get a straight answer.

  MUD. MUD originally stood for Multiple User Dungeon, OK we’re descended from Dungeons and Dragons, but we prefer the new definition. Multiple User Domain. The original MUD attracted the people who started with D&D offline and moved on into imaginary spaces with interactive computer games like Zork, the granddaddy of them all.

  Pretty soon they figured out how to meet online to play roleplaying games. MUD opened new worlds. Players could forget the body stuck at the keyboard and move out. You could enter the MUD as if moving into a new landscape, assume the mantle of priest, wizard, monk or warrior. Buckle on that sword and swagger. Become that character as you never could before because you were deep in the territory of the imagination. It was big enough to contain vast caverns and palaces, mountains, plains—this new space that opened up turned out to be labyrinthine, unlimited. And because it was conceptual space, it was easy to get around. Players could cover great distances in nanoseconds, fight dragons, elude the thief, and, wait. More. There were other people there.

  It wasn’t long before they stepped outside the game and talked. About the game, at first. Then anything they wanted. About themselves. Together. In real time. Imagine!

  People like presents waiting to be opened and explored.

  What strikes you first, divorced from the prison of your body and the room where your computer sits and transported into the life of the mind, is the mobility. The freedom! But there’s more. With the illusion of freedom comes power, or the illusion of power. If you don’t like the party you can leave. If you don’t like a person you can have that person removed. You can spy. Teleport at will. Be everywhere at once. Communicate as if by ESP. If you don’t like your name you can change it, and if you can change your name you can change anything. You are free in space. Who would ever want to live anywhere else?

  The freedom!

  More. Synchronicity. No matter where they were in the world the MUDders could meet in real time. Nobody has to be alone. Speak and be spoken to. Act and see others react. Better than email, more social than the conference call, and in the breathtaking freedom of anonymity, more intimate.

  Imagine. Us. Together here. Now.

  It was like landing on Mars.

  Who wouldn’t get drunk on the possibilities? Because even on StElene which is not, repeat, not about roleplaying games, people take roles. Free of the physical world, you can try anything. Put on new selves like teenyboppers trying on dresses in a mall. Things happen. People change. Are they pure, naked souls or is this another kind of roleplaying game?

  The object of the game changed so fast that not even net-historians can mark the exact moment. Who wants to win the game when you can win lives? Who wants to explore imaginary
caverns when you can explore real souls? We don’t MUD but we do play to win.

  StElene is a game and yet it is so not a game.

  It is so not a game and yet it is a game. Assuming new names, do we really reinvent ourselves?

  With a sense that he isn’t finished, Reverdy types, You are what you type. And instead of sending, stores.

  He is torn between two wants. Part of him wants to separate and take everybody with him. Trash the database and bring down Suntum as he goes. The other part wants to expose them so they will go and he can stay. The corporation. What is Suntum really up to? What is it doing anyway? Things run too smoothly here on StElene. The surface is lovely—relentlessly bland, with the hint of menace that lets people shiver in the delicious certainty that no matter how wild it gets it’s only pretend and they’re really safe. Nothing threatens their lives outside the box. It’s like being on a fun ride, excited and scared with no real danger because nothing is real and nobody gets hurt. The Directors provide calculated distractions: parties every night, to keep people too busy to ask questions. To keep them from confronting each other—unless it’s to keep them from confronting the truth. Troublemakers are @erased, whisked away like streakers at Disney World. Weird things go on in darkened party rooms and individual chambers like Velvet’s Velvet Underground and Fearsome’s Wishing Well, but the surface is so lovely, so aggressively squeaky-clean that Reverdy wonders.

  If he can only find out what’s going on and expose them, he can change StElene and make it his. He is planting questions.

  What if we’re psychological lab rats? he asks Articular. Paging because he’s still in the Dak Bungalow, figuring out his moves.

  He pages Jazzy. Or some kind of sexual exhibition?

  He arrives at his best question. What if they’re lying when they say what happens in the private spaces is really private? If the Directors can spy, who else is spying on us here?