***---arget bearing…strong quantum dis…zhzhzh***
The coupler link with Doc suddenly went silent. And Johnny Winger felt very alone. The infinite chessboard of the lattice came to an end and he found himself once more in the presence of something he never expected…something he had no defenses for….
The problem with being a swarm being, Johnny Winger figured, was that you couldn’t taste hot dogs being grilled on a campfire. And that sucked.
He really didn’t know how he had gotten here. He had a memory—did swarm beings even have memories?—there had been an endless field of waving, undulating plants, like a corn field, only it wasn’t corn. When he looked closer, he could see that the corn was actually composed of trillions of tiny bots, a whole field of bots. A whole planet of bots. When he walked through the field, the bot-plants parted like corn stalks, but little poofs of them drifted up and he soon saw he had a rooster tail of dust behind them, identifying the path he had taken through the field.
Then he had come to a small lake, barely a hundred meters across. There was a small white wooden footbridge across the center of the lake. And, not unexpectedly, he saw a small whirlpool churning alongside of the bridge piling, right in the middle of a lake.
What else was there to do but jump into the whirlpool? If this was a dream, that was the logical thing to do, wasn’t it? So he jumped…
And wound up here. ‘Here’ was actually a place of strong, good-feeling memories. ‘Here’ was one of the good places.
It was the old fishing camp and cabin at Ford’s Creek, Colorado. It had to be ’35, maybe ’36. His Dad, Jamison Winger, had often brought him here for long weekends in the summer and fall. Trout and bass and all that cold running water that burbled down out of the Rockies made Ford’s Creek a special place.
He knew this place.
Now he was inside the cabin. It was late, well after midnight. He was supposed to be in bed, in the top bunk, of course, with his brother Brad and neighbor Archie below. There were others in the bedroom too, but he didn’t know them and they were sound asleep anyway.
Somehow, like a well-rehearsed routine, he knew what he was going to do before he even did it. Trains ran on tracks and memories followed tracks too.
Johnny shimmied quietly down the ladder from the top bunk and padded across the hard wooden floor to the bedroom door. He cracked it open, crept out into a darkened hall and made his way toward the living room up front. There were voices there and some laughing and chuckling. Cards were being dealt. It was the grownups and their poker game again.
Johnny stopped at the end of the hall and peered around the corner.
A fire guttered in the chimney, mostly smoke, but no one paid any attention. A small rickety table was set up next to the fire. Chairs had been pushed aside to make room for the table. There were cans and paper sacks strewn across the floor.
Someone burped real loud and Johnny had to stifle his own laugh.
Grownups, really--
Five men were playing poker around the table. One was his Dad, tall, fringe of gray hair around a mostly bald top, red flannel shirt not tucked in, his weathered, rough hands fanning out the cards to study his draw. There were others too: Hugh, Roy and Todd.
The fifth man sat with his back to Johnny. The low lights and the flickering flames of the fire cast deep shadows across a broad set of shoulders. He never turned around, and Johnny took to calling him the Shadow Man. He didn’t know the Shadow Man’s real name.
“Come on, Roy, you in or out?”
Roy was stocky, white-haired, ruddy-faced, in fact he had a pig’s face, Johnny had always thought. His lips tightened and he slapped a few cards down on the table.
“Yeah, I’m in. I’ll see your five and raise you five.”
Todd tossed a few chips into a growing pile. “I’ll call.”
Johnny’s Dad did the same, but added, with a mischievous wink, “I’ll see your five and raise you twenty.” He tossed a handful of chips in the pile, which had now become a small hill.
The Shadow Man said nothing at first. Then, with no words, he tossed his own chips in, all of them. In a low, almost inaudible voice, he said, “See…and raise fifty.”
That raised eyebrows around the table. It even gave Johnny a chill. Not what the Shadow Man said but the way he said it…like a hiss, almost, like a snarl. The Shadow Man talked like Johnny figured a talking grizzly bear would talk: guttural, menacing, hoarse and deep.
Who was this Shadow Man? Johnny wondered.
Then, almost as if he were answering Johnny’s question, the Shadow Man spoke again, just like a grizzly bear playing cards.
“I never bet less than the house.” It was a kind of an explanation. The Shadow Man must have had a winning hand; he’d bet everything on that hand. More raised eyebrows.
“Sure, whatever you say,” muttered Roy. He didn’t look up, but continued fiddling with his own cards.
Johnny had about a million questions. Was this fishing camp real? Did I actually jump into a lake on a planet of bots? Am I dreaming?
“You’re not dreaming,” the Shadow Man bent forward, toward Jamison Winger. “I saw the look on your face. You’re wondering how any hand could be that good. My hand is that good.”
No one argued with the Shadow Man and the game went on. As he hung by the corner of the hallway door, Johnny tried to take in everything he saw. He knew it all had some kind of meaning.
“Doc, I don’t really understand what all this is about—“
***Metaphoric simulation….*** came Doc’s reply, still intermittent, like it was being jammed by proximity to Config Zero. ***Johnny, they’re accessing your memory…somehow, in the file, the traces can be followed….this is a simulation constructed in part from your memory traces***
“But I don’t ever remember anything like this. Not exactly, anyway…maybe, pieces of it.”