Video Star (Voice of the Whirlwind) by Walter Jon Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

camera cut quickly to his tiger’s eyes, his thin smile. Ric’s eyes. Ric’s smile.
    “My god,” said Reiko. “It’s really you, isn’t it?”
    “No,” Ric said. Shaking his head.
    “I can’t believe they let this stuff even on pirate stations,” someone said from the hallway. Screams rose from the vid. Ric’s mind was flailing in the dark.
    “I can’t watch this,” Reiko said, and rushed away. Ric didn’t see her go. Burning sweat was running down the back of his neck.
    The victim’s screams rose. Blood traced artful patterns down her body. The camera cut to her face.
    Marlene’s face.
    Nausea swept Ric and he doubled in his chair. He remembered Two-Fisted Jesus and his talent for creating video images, altering faces, voices, action. They’d found Marlene, as Ric had thought they would, and her voice and body were memorized by Jesus’ computers. Maybe the torture was even real.
    “It’s got to be him,” someone in the room said. “It’s even his voice. His accent.”
    “He never did say,” said another voice, “what he used to do for a living.”
    Frozen in his chair, Ric watched the show to the end. There was more torture, more bodies. The video-Ric enjoyed it all. At the end he went down before the blazing guns of the Federal Security Directorate. The credits rolled over the video-Ric’s dead face. The director was listed as Jesus Carranza. The film was produced by VideoTek S.A. in collaboration with Messiah Media.
    The star’s name was given as Jean-Paul Marat.
    “A new underground superstar,” said a high voice. The voice of someone who thought of himself as an underground connoisseur. “He’s been in a lot of pirate video lately. He’s the center of a big controversy about how far scum shows can go.”
    And then the lights came on and Ric saw eyes turning to him in surprise. “It’s not me,” he said.
    “Of course not.” The voice belonged to his host. “Incredible resemblance, though. Even your mannerisms. Your accent.”
    “Not me.”
    “Hey.” A quick, small man, with metal-rimmed glasses that gazed at Ric like barrels of a shotgun. “It really is you!” The high-pitched voice of the connoisseur grated on Ric’s nerves like the sound of a bonesaw.
    “No.” A fast, sweat-soaked denial.
    “Look. I’ve taped all your vids I could find.”
    “Not me.”
    “I’m having a party next week. With entertainment, if you know what I mean. I wonder— ”
    “I’m not interested,” Ric said, standing carefully, “in any of your parties.”
    He walked out into the night, to his new car, and headed north, to his private fortress above the glacier. He took the pistol out of the glove compartment and put it on the seat next to him. It didn’t make him feel any safer.
    Get a new face, Ric thought. Get to Uzbekistan and check into a hospital. Let them try to follow me there.
    He got home at four in the morning and checked his situation with the artificial intelligence that managed his accounts. All his funds were in long-term investments and he’d take a whopping loss if he pulled out now.
    He looked at the figures and couldn’t understand them.
    There seemed to be a long, constant scream in Ric’s mind and nerves, a scream that echoed Marlene’s, the sound of someone who has just discovered what is real. His body was shaking and he couldn’t stop it.
    Ric switched off his monitor and staggered to bed. Blood filled his dreams.
    When he rose it was noon. There were people outside his gates, paparazzi with cameras. The phone had recorded a series of requests for an interview with the new, controversial vid star. Someone at the party had talked. Ric stumbled to his office and told the AI to sell.
    The money in his pocket and a gun in his lap, he raced his car past the paparazzi, making them jump aside as he tried his best to run them down. He had to make the next suborbital shuttle out of Christchurch to Mysore, then head northwest to a hospital and to a new life. And