The Mind-Riders Read Free Page A

“If I had a five for every sim I’d driven to its death I’d be in Consie City,” I said, ruminatively. “I guess that’s my forte—dying. Going out with a splash and a rattle. You think it’s the hero and his fancy shooting gives the vamps that flash of satisfaction when the villain buys it, but it isn’t. It’s me. The feeler’s inside the hero’s head, but it’s watching me go out that fires his little burst of glory. It’s not just the winning—it’s the way that he wins.
    â€œI go down screaming, like it’s a pleasure to kill me. We all need someone to look down on, someone to kick in the balls, someone to kill. That’s where the real kicks come from, so far as the vamps are concerned. That’s why it means something to them. They’re getting their own back on the cruel world, on the crowds that hustle them every moment of their lives. It’s the loser who gets the winner his big payoff. Life is a zero-sum game. Without me to go out like an exploding bogeyman there’d be nothing. You remember that when you’re feeding a billion vamps what they love. Remember the poor sod who’s handling your patsy.”
    I shut up then, feeling just a little bit cruel, although he’d never realize it or know why. He wasn’t allowed to think like that, to be sarcastic about the sacred vocation. His mind had to remain pure. A feeler has to identify with the hero-situation all the way down the line. To him, the villain has to be so much filth to be swept up. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about the guy handling the sim—he was supposed to believe in it as if it were all real, whether it was the super space patrol or knights in shiny armor.
    But he didn’t mind me running off at the mouth. It was all the same to him. Just noise. Just something to talk at now his teddy bear was retired.
    â€œYou don’t— like it much, do you?” he said, experiencing a flash of real insight.
    â€œIt’s a living,” I said. “And it’s something I do damn well. I don’t expect much else. It’s an average kind of life. Never mind the quality, feel the width.”
    And it was enough. There had been a time—but isn’t there always?
    The dispensers in the lobby were half-full and working, which demonstrated that the supply company with the contract for the building was at least keeping pace with the local kids, whose mission in life was to get everything for nothing and bugger up the machines in the process. We both got supper packs, hanging around looking hungry while the microwaves got to work. I nodded at the building superintendent, who looked vaguely like a sheriff out of an antique movie. Then we took the elevator to the thirty-ninth, suspending the chat as we went. Nobody talks in elevators, even when they aren’t packed tight.
    We exchanged dutiful smiles as we turned to haul out keys for our separate doors. We each muttered something inaudible.
    Once inside, relaxing like a deflated balloon, I pulled the foil off the supper pack. I accidentally ran the edge along my little finger and slit it from the nail to the first joint. I started to curse, and just for a second the syllable stuck in my teeth. I didn’t know whether to laugh or try again until I got it right.

CHAPTER TWO
    With the magnification turned up full the image filled the cap from the back wall to the central deck. I let the bed down and perched on it, with my legs folded under so I didn’t have to dangle my toes in the fringe of the image.
    The window was behind me and the million multicolored eyes of the neighboring capstacks were staring at the back of my head. I didn’t bother with the screen. Sometimes, in between programs or when the chat got too banal to bear, I liked to turn over, make the bed into a bridge between the holo’s fantasy world and the all-too-real city. I liked to look down both