Death Dream by Ben Bova Read Free Book Online Page A

game.
    He could see the Babe standing at the plate in his odd pigeon-toed stance. He faded out a little, then his image stabilized but it still looked too much like a cartoon, with those pipestem legs propping that big balloon of a body. Gehrig, kneeling in the on deck circle, was only a vague blur. No definition at all. And the crowd in the grandstand was an undefined gray smear with splotches of red and yellow daubed here and there. A peanut vendor was hawking his wares loud and clear but there was no way to see him in the general flat background that represented the crowd.
    At least Grove looked clear and convincing, scowling at the Babe. He checked the baserunners, then threw a wicked low fastball. Ruth golfed it, a massive uppercut swing with all the power of that big torso of his behind it. The ball popped high into the air, over second base, a dying quail looping into short center field.
    Jace raced in as hard as he could but saw he'd never catch the ball on the fly; he'd been playing too far back. Joe Morgan, the second baseman, was racing out but Jace knew he would never make it either. He yelled for the ball and Morgan dutifully turned away. The runners were moving. Jace let the ball bounce once in front of him, then grabbed it and threw with every ounce of his strength to Campanella at the plate.
    "JACE?" a voice boomed through the stadium loudspeakers. "COME ON OUT OF THERE, JACE. IT'S ME, DAN."
    Jace hunched, hands on knees, to watch the play at the plate. Campy tagged the runner out! The inning was over! The fans erupted into wild cheers, throwing a blizzard of straw hats and scorecards out onto the field in celebration.
    "COME ON, JACE. COME OUT AND SAY HELLO. I"VE BEEN WAITING FOR DAMNED NEAR AN HOUR."
    "Terminate," said Jason Lowrey.
    The baseball stadium disappeared. He lifted the visor of his helmet. He was standing alone in the low-ceilinged VR chamber of blank walls, wearing a plastic visored helmet and a pair of metallic gloves, all of them connected by a tangle of hair-thin optical fibers to an assembly of gray electronics boxes mounted on a table beneath the one-way window in the otherwise bare room. The helmet seemed very heavy all of a sudden. He lifted it off and shook out his long, tangled hair. He felt tired, let down, annoyed at having to come back into what people called the real world.
    Jason Lowrey was a genius. Everyone knew it, and if anyone doubted it Jace would immediately set him straight. He looked the part and dressed it. Tall and thin to the point of looking gaunt, he always wore faded old blue jeans and tee shirts. And Indian moccasins. A heavy Navaho belt buckle of silver and turquoise clasped a decrepit old leather belt around his thin waist. His sandy-blond hair was unclipped, uncombed, and often unwashed. His pinched face looked emaciated, all angular cheekbones and stubborn jaw and prominent patrician nose, with big yellowed teeth like old ivory tombstones. His narrow eyes were set too close together; it made him look almost cross-eyed. His skin was pasty pale from a lifetime spent first in childhood video parlors and then in front of constantly more sophisticated computers.
    Dan waited patiently for Lowrey in the cramped narrow control booth of the simulations lab, his blazer hanging from his arm, his conservatively striped rep tie pulled loose from his collar. The two technicians who had been monitoring Jace's run in the chamber got up and left, mumbling their greetings to the new employee.
    "I'll leave you two guys alone," said Gary Chan.
    Before Dan could object he too slipped out into the hallway and let the door click shut behind him. Dan got the feeling that Chan was afraid of Jace, or at least fearful that Jace would be pissed about Dan's calling him out of the simulation.
    The solid metal door to the simulations chamber opened and Lowrey stepped through. Dan saw the motto on Jace's tee shirt: Reality is a crutch for the unimaginative .
    For a moment the two men simply