Total Recall by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

jack-jock.”
    “Oho! That explains it! You must be very good at it.”
    He knew she was just teasing him along to distract him from her preparations, but he liked it anyway. It was easy to imagine being in bed with such a woman, as he half lay in this supremely comfortable recliner and felt her gentle touch on his skin. He didn’t even feel the prick of the needle when she set the IV. He just felt increasingly relaxed as the tube began its flow. He wasn’t aware of the nurse’s departure and didn’t care; he just seemed to float, perfectly relaxed.
    A young man entered the chamber. He moved quickly, as if hyperactive. He was thin, with nondescript brown hair and rapidly darting gray eyes, reminding Quaid a bit of a foraging mouse. “Hello, Mr. Quaid,” he said. “I’m Ernie, your technical assistant. Dr. Lull will be with you in a moment. Are you comfortable?”
    “Yes.” Indeed he was! Any more comfort, and he’d be asleep.
    “I’ll just set the ‘space helmet’ here,” Ernie said with a jerky smile as he drew the device out on the end of a metal elbow arm. “Sort of a joke, that; you see, it resembles—”
    “I get the joke,” Quaid said. They were treating him like a child. It was fun when a woman did it, but not when a gawky adolescent man did.
    Ernie lowered the burnished metal bowl over Quaid’s head. “This your first trip?”
    “Mm-hmm.” Actually, it was reminiscent of a space helmet, and he could easily imagine himself stepping out on the barren landscape of Mars with such a device on his head. But it was actually a brain wave scanner, he knew, used to read and modify that portion of his mental activity that related to memories. This helmet was probably worth thousands of credits.
    Ernie carefully aligned the complex scientific instrument and locked it in place. Quaid scowled slightly as a strap chafed his head, too snug.
    “Don’t worry,” Ernie said, adjusting the strap. “Things hardly ever fuck up.”
    Just get on with it, twerp , Quaid thought. He was ready for Mars.
    The door opened and a birdlike middle-aged woman entered. She wore a stylish pants suit that didn’t do enough for her. Her body was too skinny and her hair too red. This was an artificial woman in the bad sense: she was trying to make herself look competent and successful, and succeeding mainly in making herself look ungainly.
    “Good evening, Mr . . .” She paused to check the video chart, obviously at a loss for his name. She found it. “Quaid, I’m Dr. Lull.” She spoke with a Swedish accent, and treated him with an impersonal conviviality that would have grated had he not been sedated.
    “Pleased to meet you,” he said insincerely.
    The amenities over, Dr. Lull donned a surgical smock, then flipped through Quaid’s computer chart. “Ernie, patch in matrix 62b, 37, and—” She looked at Quaid. “Would you like to integrate some alien stuff?”
    “Two-headed monsters?” he asked doubtfully.
    She laughed with something approaching actual feeling. “Don’t you keep up with the news? We’re doing alien artifacts these days.”
    Oh. “Sure. Why not?” The notion intrigued him. Maybe that was one reason he was so interested in Mars. He hoped to explore, to discover the remnants of some vast lost alien complex, superscience, stun the world with the discovery, bathe in the notoriety of his achievement . . .
    Dr. Lull tossed the matrix to Ernie. That suggested what she thought of such notions: just a bit of fiction on a cartridge.
    “You got it,” Ernie said.
    As Ernie plugged in the proper cartridges, Dr. Lull fastened straps over Quaid’s arms, legs, and torso to hold the rest of him securely in place. This alarmed him slightly; did they think he was going to go into convulsions?
    “Been married long, Mr. Quaid?” Dr. Lull inquired, actually seeming interested. Maybe a woman of her contours was attuned to the notion of being married, having trouble achieving it.
    “Eight years.” That surprised