Oz Reimagined Part 6

Whatever the reason, someone seemed to be waiting for him. She would have sparkled if the sun had been on her, but since the Gla.s.s Cat was sitting in the shade grooming, Orlando didn't see her until he was almost on top of her. She looked up at Orlando but didn't stop until she had finished licking her gla.s.s paw and smoothing down the fur on her gla.s.s face. The Gla.s.s Cat might be a sim of a cata"and a see-through cat at thata"but she was every inch a feline. The only things that kept her from looking like a cheap gla.s.s paperweight were her beautiful ruby heart, her emerald eyes, and the pink, pearl-like spheres that were her brains (and also her own favorite attribute).

"I expected you to show up," said the Gla.s.s Cat. "But not this quickly."

"I was in the area." Which was both true and nonsensical, since there really was no distance for Orlando to travel. He existed only as information on the ma.s.sive network and could visit any world he wanted whenever he chose. But as far as the Gla.s.s Cat and the others were concerned, there was only one worlda"this one. The sims didn't even realize they were no longer connected to the Oz part of the simulation, although they remembered it as if they were. "I hear there's a problem," he said. "Do you know what it is?"

She rose, swirling her tail in the air as gracefully as if it had not been solid gla.s.s, and sauntered off the path, heading down toward the stream. "Am I supposed to follow you?" he asked.

She tossed him an emerald glance of reproach. "You're so very clever, man from Oz. What do you think?"

Following a snippy, transparent cat, he thought: Just another day in my new and unfailingly weird life. Orlando's body had died from a wasting disease as he and others had struggled against the Grail Brotherhood, the network's creators, a cartel of rich monsters and other greedy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all looking for eternal life in worlds they made for themselves. But now they were all gone, and this was Orlando's forever instead.

"I hope this is important, Cat," he said as he followed her down the embankment, into the rustle of the birch trees. "I've got plenty of other things to do." And he did. Major glitches had looped Dodge Citya"the simulated outlaws had been robbing the same simulated train for daysa"and the gravity had unexpectedly reverted to Earth-normal in one of the flying worlds, leaving bodies all over the ground. He planned to fob at least one of the problems off on Kunohara, who, like most scientists, loved fiddling with that sort of programming problem.

"There," the Cat said, stopping so suddenly he nearly tripped over her. "What do you think of that?"

Orlando was so irritated by her tone that for a moment he didn't see what she was talking about, but then he noticed a leg and the long, curled toe of a boot lying half-hidden in the tall wheatgra.s.s. "Ho Dzang," he said softly. "Who is it? Do you know?"

"I think it's...o...b.. Amby."

"The Soldier with the Green Whiskers? The Royal Army of Oz?"

"If you mean the Royal Policeman of Kansas, then yes," the Cat said. "You know we don't use those t.i.tles and such from the Old Country." She yawned. "I found him this morning."

"What were you doing way out here?" Orlando bent down. The top half of the body was still hidden by gra.s.ses, but he could see enough of the man's slender torso and green uniform to be sadly certain the Cat was right.

"I get around." She rose and writhed herself in and out of Orlando's legs. "I travel, you know. I see things. I learn things. I'm curious by naturea"isn't that why you chose me to help you?"

"I suppose." As far as he was concerned, she was merely an informant, but of course the Gla.s.s Cat would see herself as more important than that. He bent lower to pull back the gra.s.ses. "But if you really want to help me, you'd stop b.u.mping ma""

He never finished his sentence. As he exposed the rest of the green-clad figure, Orlando Gardiner was arrested by the sudden realization that while this might indeed be the body of Omby Amby, Royal Policeman of Kansas, that was all it was; his neck ended in a cut as neat and bloodless as if someone had chopped a potato in half with a surgical knife. His head and famous long whiskers were nowhere to be seen.

okay, it's a little worse than I first thought, mr. ka"there's a body. but it's a minor character, and it might just be an ordinary glitch. My cover story (about being sent by ozma from oz) still holds up though, so give me a little time with this one. i promise I'll get to the other fenfen soon. Maybe you should check out dodge city in the meantimea"i think that one has some major programming screwups, because the bridge there fell down and then put itself back up a few months ago, and the native americans are kind of blue-colored. looks hopeless to me, but you might notice something in the numbers I missed.

"Most disturbing!" declared Scarecrow. The Mayor of Emerald s.h.i.+fted in his chair, but his legs wouldn't stay where he left them and kept getting in his way. His friend the Patchwork Girl leaped forward and helped push them into place. "And where is the body of poor Omby Amby now?"

"Being examined by Professor Wogglebug," said Orlando. "Well, all of it that we have, since the head's missing. Amby worked for you, didn't he?"

"Of course!" Scarecrow said. "I'm the mayor, aren't I?" But although he sounded indignant, Scarecrow seemed to lack the spirit to back it up, slumping in his chair like a bag of old was.h.i.+ng. His lethargy worried Orlando, reminding him unpleasantly of the bloated, monstrous version of the Scarecrow that had ruled Emerald in the bad old simulation. "And his head's gone, you say?"

"Yes. Professor Wogglebug says he's never seen anything like it."

"He would say that," declared the Patchwork Girl, turning cartwheels around the mayoral office. "He's got a terrible memory!" She was not the most focused personality in the simworld, but her heart was good, so Orlando did his best to be patient. That was why he had taken the job instead of leaving it to short-tempered Hideki Kunoharaa"you had to be very, very patient, because the inhabitants were like weird children frozen in the manners of the early twentieth century.

"Sc.r.a.ps, your foolishness is making my head hurt," Scarecrow complained. "Please stop revolving like a Catherine wheel. This is serious. Omby Amby is dead! Murdered!"

"Hah!" shouted the Patchwork Girl. "Now you're the one who's being foolish, Scarecrow. n.o.body dies here in Kansas, just like n.o.body dies in Oz! Right, Orlando?"

The question caught him by surprise. "I'm not sure, Sc.r.a.ps," he said. "I've certainly never heard of anything like this happening sincea" He had almost said since the simulation was restarted, which would have only confused his listeners. "Well, since forever, I guess. Was he on some kind of mission for you, Mayor Scarecrow?"

"Mission?" Scarecrow gave him an odd look. "What would make you ask such a thing?"

"Well, he's your police chief. In fact he's your only policeman. He was found on the road that leads to Forest. I thought you might have sent him to Lion about something."

The Scarecrow wrinkled his feed-sack brow and shook his head. "No. Though I did send him to Tinman a few days ago to ask him to stop making such a pounding in his factory at night. The people of Emerald are having trouble sleeping!"

For the second time in a few moments, Orlando felt a tingle of unease. What was Tinman building, working his machines at such hours? The metal man had been one of the worst parts of the corrupted simulation. But this wasn't the same Tinman, he reminded himself; the Kansas world had been restarted and returned to its original specs months ago.

"I suppose I'd better talk to Tinman," Orlando said out loud. "Lion, too."

"I'll come along," the Gla.s.s Cat announced. "I like a little excitement, you know."

Orlando wanted to check in at the Wogglebug's Scientific University and Knowledge Emporium, so he and the Cat made their way through the quaint streets of Emerald, a strange hybrid of Oz and an early-twentieth-century Kansas town, full of cheerful people and animals and stolid little houses decorated with all kinds of fantastic trim and paint.

The Wogglebug was bending over the soldier's headless body, which had been laid out on a table in his laboratory, but the man-sized bug (although there was never a real insect who looked anything like him) turned to greet them as they entered. Professor Wogglebug was wearing his usual top hat but also a pair of magnifiers that made his eyes seem huge, as well as a lab ap.r.o.n to protect his fancy waistcoat and tails.

"Goodness!" said the bug. "I can make nothing of it, Orlando! Look, he is completely de-headed. Not be-headed, though, which would have been much messier. The head has come off as neat as a whistle."

The Cat leaped onto the table and walked once around the body, sniffing. "Is he really dead?"

"Hard to say." The Wogglebug wiped his magnifiers on his coat. "He does not breathe. He does not move. He certainly cannot speak or think. It seems an awkward way to continue living, if by choice."

man, how do we figure out something like this if we can't even figure out whether a sim's really dead or not? i mean simworld-dead, of coursea"he's not really dead since his patterns are still in the system, and we could just restart him.

by the way, working a possible murder in oz/kansas is like trying to solve an embezzlement at a daycare by questioning the kids. you'll get lots of answers, but none of them will help much.

After leaving the lab, Orlando and the Gla.s.s Cat walked back across Emerald, dodging in and out of the Henrys and Emilys now heading home from work to have lunch in their quaint houses. In the corrupted, dystopian version of the world, all the human men and women had been little more than beasts of burden, of which the most obvious proof was that they had all been given the same name: all the men named after Dorothy's Uncle Henry, all the women named after her Aunt Em. But in this new version, they seemed happy and prosperous, dressed in an amalgam of Oz and American fas.h.i.+ons from a hundred and fifty years earlier in many shades of green. It was hard to look at their smiling faces and believe something could be truly wrong with this world. But there was that headless policeman.

"Are we going out to visit Lion first?" asked the Cat as they reached Emerald's outer limits. "It would have been quicker to go to the Works. That's right next to town."

"I don't want to wander around in Forest after dark, Gla.s.s Cat, so we're going there now." As in the original Oz, the Kansas animals didn't tend to be dangerous, but it was easy to get lost in the deep trees. Orlando might not have a real body anymore, but he still needed to sleep, and he had no urge to spend the night bedded down on the cold, damp ground of the woods.

They pa.s.sed the spot where the soldier's body had been found, but Orlando didn't bother to examine the crime scene again. The Scarecrow had sent a dozen Henrys to search for the head, but they had come back empty-handed, and any traces of the original crime had doubtless been trampled many times over. Only the stream remained undisturbed, plas.h.i.+ng and playing its way between the pale birches.

The current version of the Cowardly Lion was still impressively scary but nowhere near as grotesquely human as the previous corrupted version. If it weren't for a sort of hyperreality, which covered him like a coat of varnisha"his magnificent mane all whorls and golden curlicues, his expression just a tiny bit too much like a person'sa"he would have looked like the biggest, most impressive lion any nature doc.u.mentary ever showed. As it was, though, he looked a little too styleda"more like a celebrity lion tamer himself than the creature to be tamed.

Not that he isn't pretty tame already, Orlando thought. Luckily for everybody.

The protector of the woods listened to Orlando's news with grave concern, nodding his huge head sadly. "But I just saw Omby Amby last night," he growled. "He was right here in Forest."

"Do you know why, exactly?" Orlando asked.

"He had been to see Tinman and brought a message for me. Scarecrow asked the Works not to make so much noise at night, so Tinman wanted to know if he could expand some of his factories into land on the edge of Forest."

"And what did you say?"

"About that idea? That I'd have to think about it. I wanted to talk to Scarecrow, too. I don't see why my people should give up their territory without getting anything back, and we don't like noisy machines, either."

"And it was...o...b.. Amby who you gave that message to?"

Lion frowned, his furry brow wrinkling like crumpled velvet. "I told him what I thoughta"that it was a serious issue and nothing to rush into." He raised his head and sniffed the wind. "Why do you ask? Did Omby Amby talk to Tinman? Did he tell him what I said?"

"We have no way of knowing," said Orlando. "I haven't spoken to Tinman yet."

"Ah. Then you came to me first?" Lion seemed to like that. "Well, if he didn't get the message already, tell my tin friend I won't be hurried into a decision. I have my subjects' welfare to think of, you know."

"Of course." Orlando suspected there wasn't going to be much more to be gained here. "Thanks for your help."

"I hope you find out what's going on," said Lion. "I know Ozma will be very upset. She was very fond of the Soldier with Green Whiskers."

Princess Ozma, like Oz itself, was now unused strings of code sleeping in the original specs of the simworld, but Orlando certainly wasn't going to mention that.

He called to the Gla.s.s Cat, who had disappeared somewhere. When she finally sauntered back into the clearing, Lion said, "Say, Gla.s.s Cat, you get around. Do you know anything about what happened?"

"I found the body," she said. "n.o.body else did. Just me. It's because of my superior brains. You've noticed them, of course."

Lion shared a look with Orlando. "We've all admired them, Cat. How did you find him? Were you out searching?"

The Gla.s.s Cat looked irritated, her version of embarra.s.sment. "Actually it was sort of an accident. I was on my way back from a trip when I saw him."

The Lion shook his head again. "Someone has done a very bad thing."

As he and the Cat made their way out from beneath the pleasant insect-humming shade of Forest, Orlando said, "You couldn't have seen Omby Amby's body from the road."

The Cat was silent for a moment. "Very well, I didn't notice it right away. I heard a noise in the bushes. I thought it might be a mouse. I went to look."

"Was it Omby Amby? Was the noise from him? Or did you see someone else?"

"How should I know who made the noise?" Now the Gla.s.s Cat was genuinely annoyed. "Is it important? I didn't see anyone else or I would have told you, and when I found him, he certainly wasn't moving."

The number of things that could have been rustling through the gra.s.ses by the side of a Kansas stream, even in this simulated version, was effectively endless. "You said a trip. Where?"

"Just to see some friends. I've been very busy lately, running errands for Scarecrow and the others, and I wanted a little time to myself. I'm very important, you knowa"they need me for lots of things because Omby Amby was just too slow sometimes."

"Has there been a lot going on here lately?" Orlando asked as innocently as possible. "Lots of activity? Messages going back and forth?"

"Goodness, yes." The Cat stopped to smooth her already smooth gla.s.s fur with her tongue. "I've hardly had time to catch my breath, if I had breath in the first place. Go tell Scarecrow this! Go ask Tinman that! Sometimes it's quite overwhelming."

"And are any of the messagesastrange?"

The Cat gave him an odd look. "As far as I'm concerned, man from Oz, they're all strange. But that's just me. Because I have a much better than average set of brains." She leaned her head forward to better display the cl.u.s.ter of pink pearls glistening in her transparent head. "You already know that, of course."

"I'm sure everybody knows that by now," Orlando a.s.sured her.

Of all that had changed since Kansas had been rebooted, the Works was the most striking example. The final corruption had been a nightmare of ma.s.sive gears and steam and dripping oil, with so many wires strung overhead that they blocked out the sky and plunged the place into permanent, sodium-lit twilight. The inhabitants had been either semisentient tin toys or mindless human Henrys and Emilys, most with cruel mechanical devices surgically implanted into their bodies. Now the Works looked like something out of one of the real-world Disneylands, all bright, s.h.i.+ny colors and smiling mechanical people marching in and out of cheerful little metal houses. Of course Orlando could not help remembering that those smiles were painted onto their faces.

Not fair, he told himself. Everybody in Kansas is a sim, even the most human-looking of them. All the faces in this world have been painted ona"by programming, if nothing else.

Still, after experiencing the horrible previous version of the Works, Orlando had never felt quite the same about Nick Chopper again.

man, what was with those grail brotherhood people s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up perfectly good children's stories, mr. k? I mean, you knew some of those peoplea"what was their scan?

Kunohara himself had been an early member of the Grail Brotherhood, but only because he wanted access to the powerful simulation engine to pursue his scientific interests. That was how he told it, anyway. But he had helped Orlando and the others take down the Grail Brotherhood, so Orlando trusted him. Didn't always like him, but trusted him.

i mean, dzang! those old scanners turned the first version of kansas into a nightmare, ruined alice's wonderland and pooh cornera"remember pigzilla?a"and a bunch of other stuff besides. didn't those fenhead b.a.s.t.a.r.ds ever hear of innocent childlike wonder?

that's a joke, case you didn't know. sort of.

"Tell me a bit about Omby Amby," said Orlando as he and the Gla.s.s Cat walked down the main street, past clean, bright tinfringe lawns and polished mailboxes, toward the Shop, the unofficial city hall of the Works. "Did he have family? Friendsa"or more importantly, enemies? What did he like to do?"

The Cat shook her head. "No family, but I didn't know him very wella"to be honest, we do not travel in the same circles. If you'll remember, I am intimate with many of the leading citizens of Kansas and was present to see several of them come to lifea"like Sc.r.a.ps the Patchwork Girl, for instance. The Policeman with Green Whiskersawell, he was a policeman. A civil servant. You would have to ask around in the workingman's taverns in Emerald."

"Taverns?" That didn't sound very much like the Oz that L. Frank Baum had written about, and it didn't sound like it belonged in this rebooted version of Kansas either. "There are taverns here?"

"Of course," said the Cat. "Where else can that sort of people drink ginger beer, play darts, and generally be loud and not half as amusing as they think they are?"

"Ah," said Orlando. "Ginger beer."

"Although," said the Cat with a little frown of disdain, "I hear that nowadays the younger men are drinking sarsaparilla instead. Straight out of the barrel!"

"Goodness," said Orlando, trying not to smile. "These places sound desperate and dangerous."

"I wouldn't know," the Cat said. "My superior intellect doesn't permit me to visit such low establishments."

Tinman was in the barnlike building known as the Shop, standing beside a large drafting table, surrounded by tin toys of various descriptionsa"a bear on a ball, a monkey with cymbals, a car with an expressive, smiling face. Tinman stared as Orlando explained why he had come, his brightly polished face devoid of any discernible emotion, although his eyebrows had been welded on in such a way that he always seemed surprised, an effect amplified somewhat by the gaping grill of his mouth, as though he were perpetually hearing news as unusual as Orlando's. Tinman was less human than the drawings in the ancient books, but still a great deal friendlier-looking than the thing that had ruled the Works before the restart, a creature more like a greasy piston with crude arms and legs than anything with thoughts and feelings.

As Orlando finished his recitation of the facts to date, the tin toys standing around the table began to make quiet ratcheting noises and move in place.

"My friends here are upset by your news," Tinman said tonelessly. "As am I. Poor Omby Amby! He was kind to everybody. He lived to help, and although he was a soldier, he would not have hurt a flea." He paused for a moment. "Nor would he flee from hurt, evidently."

The other tin creatures gave little whirring laughs. "Very clever," the rolling bear said. "Your workings are as droll as ever, Tinman."

"But now my heart shames me for making light at such a time," he replied, though Orlando could see no evidence of it on his inscrutable metal face. "What has Scarecrow said? Will he draft another policeman? The whiskered fellow was very useful dealing with small problems and matters of everydayafriction." It was impossible to tell if Tinman was making another joke or talking about something of particular concern to folk whose internal workings were composed of oiled gears. The tin toys began to whisper among themselves, a noise not much louder or different than the sound of their clockwork, until the monkey became excited and clapped his cymbals together with a loud crash, which startled the Gla.s.s Cat so badly that she jumped off the table.

"Careful," said Orlando.

"You are right," said the Cat. "Scarecrow was right, tooa"there are too many hard edges around here for me."

Tinman swiveled his head toward her. "What does that mean, Gla.s.s Cat? Has Scarecrow said something unkind about the Works? That would be very disappointing."

"No, no," said the Cat. "Only that he told me I must be careful when I am visiting you here. That all this metal is a threat to my delicate, beautiful gla.s.s body."

"Nonsense," said Tinman. "No more so than the brick sidewalks of Emerald or the stone-scattered paths of Forest. It is too bad to hear my old friend speak about my part of Kansas that way."

Orlando was going to say something conciliatory but instead found himself wondering what was going on behind Tinman's s.h.i.+ny face. Was this exchange really as innocent as it seemed, or had the rivalry, treachery, and ultimately destructive conflict that had ruined the previous version already started again between the leading characters of this simworld?

Orlando asked about Omby Amby's last mission.

"Yes, he took a message to Lion for me," said Tinman.