Levels: The Host Read online

  She turned to the hanging dinosaur and talked into its mouth. “Are you ready up there? Is the donor ready?”

  Watly gave a start. Up there? It never occurred to him the donor was in the same building. It hadn’t crossed his mind. It made sense, of course: Wealthy donor goes to Alvedine Building on Second Level. Meanwhile the first five stories of what really is the very same building are on First Level. How convenient. He’d never really thought it out. At this moment right above Watly was his donor. Maybe directly above him. Maybe just a few feet away. Have a good vacation, big fella, Watly thought. And... make nice.

  Watly didn’t hear any reply from the monster’s mouth, but the doctor nodded into it and released three ringlets from its side.

  “We’re starting now, Watly. Here we go.” Watly got the joyful impression she wouldn’t have said that to just any host. He was special to her. She connected two of the loose cables and released another ringlet from its casing. It dangled freely. “I’m going for it now, Watly. Try to relax,” she said.

  Relaxing wasn’t all that hard. The expression mild euphoric had been, perhaps, a touch understated. Watly felt a renewed tingling where his jawbone met his skull.

  And then... then it started.

  Watly Caiper felt the strangest sensation he’d ever felt in his life—horrifying and fascinating simultaneously. It was like some drug-induced distortion of perception. It began with the feeling of being removed—of being one step away. It was dreamlike, foggy. It felt to Watly as though he had pulled back from himself—as though he’d moved back from his usual place at his window to the outside world. His body seemed far away. Drifting off. He was smaller—shrunken down and receding into a corner within himself.

  And then, while he receded as if down a long mental hallway, he sensed—he tasted—another coming in. From behind. A stranger coming in.

  This mental hallway was confined—narrow and dark. The tingling sensation of another person neared and neared and neared and then brushed by him in the darkness. There was no feeling of it being another body, another full being. Not at all. It was a metallic taste, an antiseptic smell, an electrical feeling of another consciousness passing swiftly by. Nothing more came through. No sense of who, just the sense that it was an “I.” A different “I.”

  Fear washed over Watly, and it seemed whatever euphoria had been there was now gone. He felt panic. He seemed to sink back farther down the corridor—farther and farther away from... life. Away from existence. And then this other being—this other person—was taking over. The other one was in charge. It was as if Watly had been pulled away and someone else had replaced him at the controls. All power was gone. He was impotent.

  He wanted to at least comment. He wanted to say something—anything—but he couldn’t. He had the words but no place to put them. It was like some insane nightmare. He couldn’t even make himself twitch. He could see and hear clearly but it was more like seeing a monitor and hearing through a hollow tube. Echoey and astigmatic. Reality was at arm’s length. He felt lost.

  Whoever was in charge flexed Watly’s right elbow slowly. To Watly, the sensation was almost familiar. It was similar to a trick he’d tried as a kid. Back then, he’d stood in a doorway with his arms straight down and pressed outward on the doorjamb with the backs of his hands. He pushed with all his might for a full two minutes. When he finally stopped and stepped out of the doorway, his arms spread upward like a bird’s wings. It was totally involuntary—something to do with muscle tension. It made him feel strange and foolish, puppet-like. Out of control of his own body.

  Now was worse. Now there was no control over anything. Someone else was telling his arm to move. This was no kid’s game. Someone else bent that arm. Watly had no say in the matter. Watly didn’t even have a say over which way to move his eyes or what to focus on. When to squint—to flinch—to twitch—to blink. Nothing. Watly wanted to scream. He wanted to bail out. Where’s the escape hatch? Dammit! Nobody had warned him properly. Nobody had said it was like this. Five to seven hours of this? I’ll go mad, he thought. Worse than mad. I’ll raping die in here. I want out!

  Watly felt his hands grip the armrests. His body leaned forward slowly. After a brief pause, Watly felt his body carefully stand up.

  And he had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

  CHAPTER 6

  Watly knew something of history.

  Not a whole lot, but enough. Enough to fake it. Enough to think about, to concentrate on, and to ponder over. He’d learned some of it from the CV, some of it from books and leafs, some of it on keyboard, but most of it from stories. You’d always hear stories.

  When he put it all together it was impossible for him to tell how much of the history he knew was true, how much was conjecture, educated guesses, and outright lies. And there were a lot of holes.

  Nobody knew much about the time before Cedetime, about the time when it was called the United States instead of the United Countries. All Watly knew was that they fought like crazy, those “united” states. Economics, politics, laws, religion, medicine, the bomb, drugs, sex, everything. Mostly money, though. That, Watly knew, was always the bottom line.

  They fought and they fought, and the government just got larger and more lumbering and more unwieldy and more out of control. So they started breaking the thing up; dismantling the bulging hulk. Everyone wanted to be isolated, separated, and in control of themselves. They formed their own little countries. Watly figured it was like Narcolo had said about the family. Everyone just wanted to be left alone. They pulled away from each other, and—most of all—they pulled away from the rest of the world. Away from the bigness of it all.

  International trade and relations were just about cut off completely. Isolationism. The last straw was that Euroshima thing. Watly had no idea why they’d called it that—somebody probably thought it was catchy once.

  But, whatever the name, it sealed the UCA up tight. People were fighting some war or other in the Outerworld and the United Countries of America was staying neutral. Then somebody dropped a bunch of big ones somewhere over there and messed everything up bad. Watly didn’t know exactly where—somewhere in Europe or Asia or Affrika or someplace like that, or maybe all over the place. Maybe it was a couple little big ones or big big ones or maybe it was a whole pile. But it was a big mess. People dead, people sick, the air all over raped up bad. Euroshima. And the good ol’ “You See of Aye” said, “Okay, that’s it. Have fun. Play all you want. We don’t want nothing to do with your boleholes.” So we hung a big KEEP OUT sign, closed up shop totally, and let them be.

  Some of the midwest UCA countries still had bombs and stuff, so, Watly supposed, that helped keep the Outerworld from messing with us. That, and the fact that those countries got protection money from the other ones, and that there were all kinds of complicated treaties and contracts tying us UCA folk together. But that was about as much as Watly knew of it. You never heard anything much about the Outerworld growing up in Brooklyn. And Watly sure hadn’t heard anything consequential about it so far during his one month of Manhattan. Hard enough to hear news of Brooklyn on the island country.

  Manhattan was a special country. Watly knew more about its history than Brooklyn, even. No other UCA country, as far as he knew, was bi-level.

  The development of the bi-level system was not a planned one, the stories said. No one ever sat down and designed it that way. It was never laid out on some blueprint. Referenda and polls and votes were never taken. No, Watly had heard that it grew all by itself. It evolved not long after Cedetime. There was some disagreement even among the historians Watly had read on keyboard, as to how it all got started. The general consensus attributed its inception to Walker Gavy, real estate baron.

  Mr. Gavy was a wheeler-dealer. They say he devoured plots of land like another person would eat a meal. Gobble, gobble. Each day enormous areas of the island country would change hands, and they almost
always passed through Walker’s hands first. At one point he owned a large piece of prime real estate in mid-Manhattan. It was a Fifth Avenue section in the fifties, and full of very profitable retail businesses. He’d been holding on to it for some time. One day, one of his many lackeys made an off-the-wall suggestion. A crazy suggestion. Gavy liked it. He never turned down an idea that might yield a profit, and this idea sounded good to him. He began work on the project right away. The central concept amounted to nothing more than a glorified mall. It was a way to attract more businesses, more people, and—he hoped—more money.

  The idea was to build a second “street” five stories above the first. This higher street would be for pedestrians only and would be accessible through numerous elevators. New stores and other businesses could be put in up there. Where there once had been only windows and ornaments and ledges and air conditioners, Gavy would cut out doorways and install elaborate storefronts. So that the lower level wasn’t too dark, he designed the upper street with a center strip of clear glass to let sunlight down.

  They say his many critics had called the project absurd. Walker Gavy never denied it was absurd—not at all. The point was, he thought it would work anyway. And it did. After changing a few zoning laws, fighting a few noisy groups and associations, and greasing more than a few palms, Gavy built a small “sample area.” A couple of shops and restaurants, far above the madding crowd. Yes, it did work. It worked fabulously. People flocked to the area as much for the novelty of it as anything.

  An embryo had been conceived, or a fungus, or perhaps a cancer—depending on one’s viewpoint. Watly thought of it as a fungus. Whichever, the idea caught on and others tried it and added to it. It seemed a good investment to many, and so it continued. Second Level expanded. People hardly noticed any change, though it was not all that gradual. In just a few years, 25 to 28 A.C. or so, large areas of the city became bi-leveled. It was unpopular among the rich and the powerful (usually one and the same) to live in the lower or “dark” level, as it was called. No matter how many glass panels or gratings in the upper level, the lower was still largely in shadow.

  As more and more of the city was covered, the technology involved progressed. The upper “streets” were reinforced and braced to handle private vehicles. A somewhat primitive (by modern standards) system of suspension support poles was set up. The idea of permitting sunlight to pass down to First Level became impractical and was abandoned. Artificial sunlight (daylite) was tested and eventually installed throughout the First Level. These lights supposedly mimicked exactly all healthful qualities of real sunshine, though Watly had his doubts. In addition, they were timed to three convenient brightnesses: bright for day, half power for evening, and low for night. All the comforts of Sol. The exhaust fans and intake ducts were added. Gradually, First Level was literally being sealed up tight.

  It became more and more difficult to travel from one level to another—or at least from the lower to the higher. Identicards were issued and checkpoints instigated. Those in control decided to limit the number of “undesirables” permitted above. First Levelers had to have an approved reason to go up to Second Level. Eventually virtually no reason was approved, except for the select few who worked up there. And most of the labor in Manhattan, though done for the Second Level, was done on the First.

  The rich succeeded in isolating themselves almost completely. If the CV was any indication, their world was clean, bright, uncrowded, and crime free. A beautiful environment for the beautiful people. Watly figured that this boringly serene existence was probably a prime motivation in the creation of hosting: the restless rich seeking safe excitement. In any case, there was a sharp contrast between life above and life below the “fifth-floor line.”

  The First Level was overpopulated and dirty. Ironically, expressions like “the lower classes,” “the underclass,” and “below the poverty line” took on literal as well as figurative meanings. People were poor down below. Those who couldn’t find space indoors moved to the streets and sidewalks. Tenting became popular. Tenting was considered just a short step above bumming, even though many tenters had jobs. A tenter had to be ever prepared to pick up and move on a moment’s notice. The police would often shift them around arbitrarily.

  Then there were the roofers. They fell on the social scale somewhere between tenting and apartment dwelling. These were people who’d set up a house or shelter on the roof of a building that was four stories high or shorter. Quite a few Manhattan buildings had less than five floors, so there was a lot of space between their roofs and the Second Level “ceiling.” Some of these roofers set up quite elaborate homesteads up there. Others were just glorified tenters.

  The Second Levelers would give an occasional nod of the head to those below in the form of repair or maintenance. But more often than not, those below had to fend for themselves. If the “upperfolk” did help with a problem, it was only when they foresaw it affecting their lives adversely. They would repair and maintain decaying buildings when it affected the stability of the upper floors. When escaping odors became a problem for them, the Second Levelers funded public W.C.s on street corners and an extensive garbage disposal and air filtering system. It appeared they were free with money as long as it was in their own interest to spend it. But if the people needed something on First Level that had no impact on Second, those above did nothing.

  A perfect example was the underground. Years before, the subs were called the lifeblood. No more. As time progressed, they decayed and corroded, gradually falling apart. Eventually they broke down altogether from neglect. The upperfolk had no interest in repairing them. Why should they? They left them to rot. Over many years the barren tracks and filthy tunnels became home for the worst sort of person. Criminals of all kinds gathered there. Murderers, rapists, thieves, muggers. It was the last outpost for humanity’s rejects. An island-wide hideout for sociopaths. The police wouldn’t go down there. Even the toughest and most streetwise of First Levelers never ventured below. Eventually, First Level authorities brought military personnel in and held a massive cleanup. The system was purged. The criminals were flushed out in one bloody massacre and all of the sub’s entranceways were sealed. It was over. Done. Since no one went down there, nothing more was heard, but the rumors and tall tales continued. Stories circulated of an evil subculture that still existed below. “Go to sleep, Tinny, or the Subkeeper will get you!” “Eat your food, Mesipi, or I’ll send you to the Subkeeper.” Watly had heard these fairy tales all his Brooklyn childhood. As time went by, the underground was all but forgotten. The fairy tales were all that was left. Transportation for Firsters was either on foot, on bicycle, or on the occasional bus. A good subway system would have been welcome. But Second Level said no, and Second Level was the boss.

  The flip side of the bean was Central Park. Unlike the subways, the upperfolk wanted it. They wanted it bad. It was their style. As construction spread, those in charge realized something drastic would have to be done. Already people were complaining that the park was “down there with the dirty ones,” and how unfair that was. Meetings were called. Further construction was delayed. At first they were going to build their own elevated park above the real one, but the logistics were too complicated back then. A few trees here and there up above were easy, but this was too much. And too damn expensive. Besides, Second Level wanted the real Central Park. It was a matter of principle.

  So they took it. They claimed the park. Central Park became the only place in Manhattan where Second Level dipped down to First. Starting around a half block away—all around the park—the upper streets sloped down to the lower level. If Second Level was thought of as real land, then Central Park was its green valley. They built a gentle incline all around the park down to its level. Of course, it therefore became inaccessible to First Level people. On First Level, the result was an angled ceiling in those areas, narrowing to pointed corners where bums slept. And no park. Watly had visited the park’s edge
s when he first moved to Manhattan. It was cramped and claustrophobic, not a nice area at all. This was to be expected. This was the way of the world. The way of Manhattan, the island country.

  It was said—said quietly—that at various points in time attempts were made to liberate the Second Level. There was nothing about it in history lessons. No one taught it in school. Nothing on the CV. But Watly had heard the stories: Attempts were made. And failed. Failed real badly and real consistently. It may have been propaganda or it may have been truth. Who was there for Watly to ask? But there were stories. The tubes were stormed, they said. Uprights and girders were bombed. Hostages taken. Riots and rebellions. Violence. Uprisings. Unrest. Maybe even Revy. But it never worked. None of it. They said nothing like it ever could succeed. And, if these things really happened at all, Watly knew they had only resulted in stricter security and tougher laws. Crackdowns. Punishment. Discipline. Execution. Actions against the bi-level system were useless. Against the greater good, and all. So it was said. And Watly believed it, or—more accurately—he accepted it.

  The upperfolk always had a favorite response to unhappy Firsters: “If you don’t like it, you can leave!” It was hard to argue with. You could leave. No one was forcing anyone to stay on First Level. Not at all. In fact, it was always much harder to get into Manhattan than to get out. Getting in was complicated and required all kinds of approval. But you could always leave the country easily. No problem. Few did. Manhattan had the money. Manhattan had the jobs—what there were. Those above had wealth and power—investments and businesses in various countries all across the UCA. And if any of that money was going to trickle down, it seemed logical that it would trickle down in Manhattan.