Flashback

“Oh, yes. To these men and women, everything they are dreaming is totally real,” said Sato, misunderstanding Nick’s comment. “The only difference separating life under Flashback-two and what we call ‘real life’ is the wonderful absence of physical pain and painful experiences or memories or emotions for this privileged group.”

“How long do they… live?” asked Nick. His clothes still carried the stink of Denver Municipal Landfill Number Nine. He wished he were back there.

“Our best projections, based on a decade of research, suggest a normal span of seventy or eighty years,” said Sato. “Sometimes longer. A full, rich, happy life.”

Nick covered his mouth with his hand. After a moment he removed it and grated, “The penalty in Japan or anywhere else for Nipponese nationals using flashback is death.”

“As it shall remain, Bottom-san,” said Sato. “And that law will continue to be strictly enforced, just as it is in the Global Caliphate.”

Nick shook his head. “You’ll sell this stuff, this F-two…” He broke off when he realized he didn’t know how to end that sentence.

“At a lower price than the original flashback,” Sato said proudly. “F-two will be street priced at a new dollar for forty or fifty hours. Even the homeless will be able to afford it.”

“You can’t give three hundred and forty–some million people each a fish tank to float in,” snarled Nick. “And who’s going to feed the flashing millions? It’s hard enough to do that now.”

“Of course there will be no tanks, Bottom-san. The customer will have to find his or her own flashcave or comfortable, private place in which to go under Flash-two. The tank really is the best option. We imagine that providing such places—perhaps some not so different than NCAR—will be a growth industry in the next few years. We imagine that other nations, ones that do not allow either form of flashback within their own borders, might be helpful in manufacturing such total-immersion tanks for Americans.”

Nick counted cartridges. He had fifteen rounds in the magazine already in the Glock and one more magazine in his jacket pocket. Thirty rounds total. It might take several 9mm rounds to crack one of these tanks, if they were breakable by small-arms fire. The .32 didn’t count since it almost certainly couldn’t smash this type of super-Plexiglas. It might be transparent Kevlar-3, in which case even the Glock would be useless here. He later realized that this probability was the only thing that stopped him.

The two men stood in green-shadowed silence for a long moment: Hideki Sato contemplative, Nick Bottom seething in murderous frustration.

“Why are you showing me this?” asked Nick, staring Sato in the face.

The big security chief smiled slightly. “We have to leave now, Bottom-san, if I am to return you to your vehicle before the hour is up as I promised. Later today, when you speak to Mr. Nakamura, do not forget the possibility of NCAR.”

“I’ll never forget NCAR,” said Nick.

1.17 Denver—Saturday, Sept. 25

“Where are they?”

Nick was in the weapons-check airlock and Gunny G. was the only one behind the counter.

“Your son’s gone, Mr. B. And your father-in-law has had some sort of stroke or heart attack,” said the ex-Marine.

“Gone?” shouted Nick. “What do you mean Val’s gone? Where to?”

“We don’t know, Mr. B. He went up and out the skylight and down a rope. I’ll show you.”

“Is Leonard—my father-in-law—alive?”

“Yeah. I brought him to Dr. Tak.”

“Let me in, Gunny. Buzz the door open.”

“I can’t, Mr. B. Not ’til you surrender the two guns you checked out this morning. You know the rules.”

“I know the rules,” said Nick. He came back to the counter and slipped a $50 old-bucks bill across. He was nearing the last of his “advance” from Nakamura.

Gunny G. buzzed the heavy door open.

Dr. Tak’s real name was Sudaret Jatisripitak but everyone in the mall called him Dr. Tak. He’d fled from Thailand during their last “Thai Rak Thai—Thais Love Thais” revolution that had killed a fifth of the nation’s population and found that he could make a decent living, without ever being medically certified in the United States, simply by giving black-market medical care to the few thousand residents of the Cherry Creek Mall Condominiums. Accordingly, Dr. Tak’s cubie was one of the largest in the mall, half of the upstairs part of the former Macy’s department store, and Nick found Leonard asleep in one of the ER cubicles near the entrance to Dr. Tak’s lair.

Nick’s heart leaped in terror when he saw the IV drip and other tubes going into his father-in-law. No, he wouldn’t be forgetting NCAR any time soon.

Tak, a small man in his seventies but still with short jet-black hair, came into the cubicle, shook hands with Nick, and said, “He will live. Mr. Gunny G. found your father-in-law unconscious in your cubie and I directed he be brought here. I’ve done various diagnostic tests. Professor Fox regained consciousness briefly but he is currently sleeping.”