“Huh. Her too?”
Flirting with full disclosure — that she was further still a Blando — Jacob realized he didn’t have the strength to go into it, not now. “Yeah,” he muttered. “But why isn’t the Big O here, if he was killed off in Heropa? Where’s his real self?”
Gonzo cocked his baffled head to one side. “In Melbourne?”
“Obviously — but where?”
“Same place as the Aerialist?”
“Now you’re confusing me.”
“Welcome to the club.” From out of the back pocket of his jeans, the man produced a hipflask, took a long swig of something, and then dragged over a milkcrate to sit. “The original developers of Heropa have their own access points into the place — only the plebs that came later, like us, use this dump.” Gonzo waved around him. “We have no idea where those people really are. I always figured the Aerialist was one of them, since she was there pretty much from the beginning and I never met her here.”
The two gazed at the still-life Rat on the camper bed.
“A swell kid. Could be downright annoying, but he cared about people. Worked with me for months looking after the place — this was his first trip to Heropa, same as you. I told him not to go. Now look at him. Self-indulgent madness. Knew there was a reason I stayed out of there.”
Jacob looked at his companion anew in that moment. The ragged pants, the Docs, his choice of seating, the coat he wore the day the boy first arrived. “You were Milkcrate Man, weren’t you?”
“Ancient history, mate. But how’d you figure that out?”
“Didn’t exactly alter yourself much for Heropa, or so I hear. The affinity for milkcrates and alcohol helped.”
Holding aloft his hipflask, Gonzo bowed while seated. “Happy with who, and what, I am.”
“So you knew Major Patriot.”
“Major Pain, you mean.”
“Original.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, kid — it doesn’t suit.”
“Sorry.”
“Water off a duck’s back. Anyway, Major Patriot and the Great White Hope were in a competition to be the biggest pseudo-intel-lectual ball-breaker, though MP was more smarmy about it.”
“You didn’t like him.”
“Like him? He’s the major reason I left — pun again intended.”
“What was his power?”
“Outside his own head? The despot could duplicate himself — six or seven times. I don’t remember. Six or seven times too many of this bastard, that I do recall. Him and Sir Omphalos had some serious issues — there was definitely a power play going down when I arrived, about a year after they launched Heropa. A bizarre triangle between the Big O, the Major and Bullet Gal.”
“Triangle?”
“They were both obviously smitten with her.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“You have to ask? I spent two years in Heropa, trying to make the place better — a losing cause when you think of all the egos prancing about in tights.”
#174
Gonzo closeted himself away with a litre of synth-brandy, two bags of grass and a salt-shaker half full of ground Clodualdo. Said he was depressed and wanted to be left alone —“Screw Heropa!” — but, prior to locking the door, assured Jacob that someone named Midori would monitor the dozen remaining downloaders.
Having briefly wondered which of these sleeping beauties were the Brick, PA and Gypsy-Ann, or even Saint Y, Jacob decided against snooping about the small rooms amongst people still plugged in. Seemed too personal and far too weird, even if he could win the next round of Whaddaya Reckon This Person is Really Like Out There?
The other thing he skipped out on visiting, like a plague virus, was the back room. His host had warned that’s where the catatonic ones were placed, most recently the Rat.
So, after Gonzo slammed his door, the boy borrowed some of the Rat’s clothes — a disturbing habit he’d acquired, nicking accessories from dead and/or incapacitated types — and headed out into the rain, in the direction of the Tower of the Elephant in Thornbury. Jacob had a busted-up orange umbrella that offered minimal protection, and after five minutes he was drenched. Half an hour of walking later, the itching began.
But Jacob had purpose, something to focus on other than the black hole in his chest. This purpose involved an old school-chum who owned a computer and, given the time of afternoon, he knew where the boy would most likely be.
While it was true that idInteract venues peppered Melbourne, the more famous one in Jacob’s neighbourhood was the Tower of the Elephant, inside Beet Street Arcade, where most kids — aged eight to eighty — hung out. There was a permanent queue spilling from the arcade onto the footpath, and then circumnavigated the block. The owners had installed flashing neon signage and screens everywhere surrounding the building, along with a set of diabolical fifteen-inch, 1800-watt speakers booming out classic rock like the number that roared and echoed along the street as Jacob neared — AC/DC’s ‘Jailbreak’ — above the sound of the downpour.