Two True by Katherine Tate

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Two True, Part 2
by Katherine Tate

"You mean she's in some kind of VR coma?" Morgan squeaked. Bess, looking near tears, nodded.

"Julia's afraid that if she doesn't come out of it by herself then her brain will freak out or something. They figure she was in there all afternoon and until they found her." Morgan paced in the small area in their tent. VR was near and dear to him. That it could cause this kind of problem could be a big problem for him too. Especially after he . . .

Breaking his pacing abruptly Morgan began searching through his belongings.

"Oh no!" he cried, when his search found nothing. "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!"

"What?" asked Bess, "Morgan! What?!"

"That little brat!" Morgan practically screamed. "Oh no!" He stormed out of the tent. By the time Bess followed he'd disappeared into Julia's tent.

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It was getting crowded in Julia's tent even before Morgan showed up. Danziger sat next to True, a VR set dangling loosely in his fingers. Devon and Yale stood next to Julia's table, both looking concerned. Little Uly had snuck in and was watching True with wide and scared eyes. Alonzo was seated his hands fidgeting nervously and Julia was checking True yet again with the glove. Morgan burst in and stopped short at the sight of so many people. Whatever he'd intended to say came out as a startled,

"Aaaghhhh!" which cut off after he received a withering look from Alonzo. Danziger ignored him. Bess poked her head in after Morgan, but didn't say a word. She cast her sympathetic eyes on Danziger who didn't appear to be aware of anyone's presence.

"OK." Julia said softly to him. Swiftly he slid the VR set onto his head.

"Everybody out." he said softly, staring at the floor. He looked up. "Now!" That last command, gruff and loud, like the Danziger of old startled them into action. Bess tugged at Morgan who spluttered,

"But she, she . . . " before disappearing outside.

Yale herded Uly towards the door and Alonzo gave Julia's arm a light squeeze before following. Devon moved to follow but stopped and turned when Danziger called,

"Wait." Their eyes locked a moment. "Stay. Please." She nodded.

"OK."

"Right, then." Julia said briskly, "Go ahead. But remember, she has to initiate the leaving."

Danziger seemed surprisingly reluctant to begin the procedure.

"Why hasn't she come out on her own?" he asked Julia. She wished people didn't always turn to her for all the answers. Especially the ones she didn't have.

"I don't know. Maybe she's so caught up in it that she doesn't realize it's VR. Maybe . . . I don't know John." She didn't say what she was most worried about and that was that something had happened to True in VR that was preventing her from leaving.

Danziger took a deep breath and entered . . . a world that resembled the area around which they had found True lying. Except it was mid-day and the sun was hot. Yes, there was the log, there was her bag. My God, it was so REAL! Danziger had never felt so a part of a VR program before, he could even feel the hot wind on his face.

After turning a complete 360 d. without finding her, Danziger sighed. He'd spent a great deal of time in reality scouring this countryside for True and now it would appear he was going to have to do the same in VR as well.

"True!" he called softly, tentatively at first. Would she hide from him, even in VR? This was ridiculous, she must be here or the program wouldn't have put him in this spot. "True!" he shouted.

"Have you come to play with me?" True asked, in a sweet innocent voice that was not like her.

Danziger whirled around to find her standing behind him, standing where there had been no one a second before. His shoulders sagged with relief.

"True, baby, " he didn't know what to say. He hadn't counted on having his apology to her being witnessed by Julia and Devon. That wasn't important now, John, he told himself sternly. "True, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I am."

She didn't respond but kept looking at him with a frank curiousity. He was starting to feel uncomfortable under this scrutiny. What was wrong with her anyway? Had the extended time in VR changed her personality?

He took a step closer to her and she backed away, looking scared. He stopped, confused. True had never been afraid of him. He must have really lost his temper. Her fear hurt him, more than he would consciously admit. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"True, I'm sorry that I wasn't more understanding. It's just that I rely on you to help me . . ." This was stupid. They should not be having this conversation here. "True, we have to get out of here."

"Why?" she asked, surprised.

"Because this isn't reality. C'mon, it's time to go back. OK? Let's get out of VR and go back to reality." He coaxed. She didn't move.

"But I like it here."

"Sweetie," Danziger reached out as though to touch her. He knew that it was just an image of True; the real True lay on Julia's cot. But it was just an image of him trying to touch her as well. Unfortunately, she was beyond his reach and he didn't want to risk having her move away from him again. His arm dropped back to his side. Something was definitely wrong here. "True, I know that today probably wasn't the best of days, but remember there are things you like about reality too. Let's go back there and we'll talk . . ." Danziger's voice trailed off as his eyes caught sight of something behind True.

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True stood next to a tree looking down on the scene below with growing fear. She leaned against the tree, needing it's solid feeling to support her. She knew she shouldn't be able to feel the tree, but then, a lot of things weren't not quite right in this VR program. Including the image of herself talking to her Dad just below her. The implications of it made her a little dizzy.

"True, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I am." She could hear her Dad but it was a though he was a lot further away. He looked sorry too. Right now, she was a lot more afraid of her VR image than of her father's wrath.

"True, we have to get out of here." He was saying.

"Why?" True couldn't believe she was hearing herself.

"Because this isn't reality. C'mon, it's time to go back. OK? Let's get out of VR and go back to reality." True's hand came up to touch the VR set; she wanted so much to pull it away from her eyes.

"But I like it here." True's hand came away from the set as her eyes caught sight of something hidden behind her double's back. Her mouth opened with the intent to shout as she saw her Dad lean in towards the other True. Unable to scream she moved away from the comfort of the tree and this motion caused her Dad to look in her direction.

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Danziger was distracted only for the briefest seconds but that was all it took for True to leap him and swing around from behind her back a large knife which she plunged into his stomach with a viscious glee. Danziger cried out and doubled over. Shocked at both the pain, the intense pain, which one was not supposed to feel in VR; and by the act that True had committed, he clutched his abdomen. Horrified by the blood that now covered his fingers he focussed instead on his daughter's face. There was an eerie look of satisfaction, right down to her eyes. Above them he could hear someone else screaming. He was starting to black out. He reached up to his eyes and pulled the VR set away.

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Devon and Julia watched the exchange between Danziger and his daughter anxiously. Of course, they could only witness his side of it, as True remained silent and motionless. When his first entreaty to get her back to reality failed the two women exchanged glances. There was no need for words. Obviously it wasn't going to be as simple as they hoped. At one point True's hand went up to the VR set and she seemed about to end the program. Devon's heart leaped.

"C'mon True." she whispered.

Suddenly Danziger doubled over in pain. They both rushed towards him but Julia was slightly quicker.

"He's going into shock!" she cried alarmed, not really knowing how to treat this. Was it Danziger or his image in VR that was in trouble? How do you treat a VR image? She was saved from her dilemma by Danziger's hand wrenching the VR set off his eyes and flinging it across the room.

"John?" Devon was also leaning over him. "What happened?"

Danziger's fearful eyes scanned the tent. He could see Julia and Devon, both concerned, and True, slightly obscured from this angle, still lying eyes open on Julia's cot her hand back at her side. He was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding in his throat. He found that his hands were pressed hard against his stomach where . . .there was no stab wound. Still breathing heavily, he began to relax a bit. He wasn't dying. This was something to be thankfull for. But True had stabbed him. This was unthinkable.

He groaned and covered his face with his hands, pulling them suddenly away to examine them. There was no blood. Julia and Devon hovered ever closer both wanting to touch him, both for different reasons.

"John," Devon's voice was more soothing now, less demanding. "Take it easy. Take it easy." She and Julia helped him to a seated position. "Tell us what happened." He looked so afraid, so upset, Devon grew more concerned.

"She wouldn't come out with me." He said abruptly.

"Obviously." Julia said, stress making her more sarcastic than she intended. "Why not?"

Danziger struggled to his feet. He felt totally drained. Sadly, he looked down at his daughter's still form.

"I don't know."

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Bess had watched her husband grow from angry to agitated to frantic back to angry again and she had not succeeded in getting any answers from him.

"Morgan, I know she took your VR set, but that's hardly a consideration now is it? The main concern is whether or not she's going to be OK. Right?" But Morgan was somewhere else and not paying her any attention. He seemed to worried that it was somehow going to be his fault. This didn't make any sense to Bess. True had taken the set all on her own. It wasn't Morgan's fault that she'd gotten stuck in there.

Morgan sat down like a dejected lump next to Bess. He turned his serious eyes towards her and ended up slumped against her shoulder.

"Oh Bess, I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt." She patted his shoulder to try to comfort him. "I was experimenting, but I never thought anyone else would be using it, I mean it is MY set and so if anything happened it should have happened to ME, right? I mean, it's not as though I leant it to her or asked her to try it out or I mean, you know what I mean?" He looked at her imploringly. Something stirred inside Bess. Up to now she'd been thinking Morgan was worried because it was his VR set involved. Perhaps there was more to this.

"What exactly do you mean?" Morgan sighed unhappily.

"I've been fiddling with a VR program, y'know just tinkering around really, trying to, well, I . . "

"Morgan!" Bess said sharply, "What did you do?"

"I programmed it to reproduce images of the user." Morgan quickly looked away, as though he expected a reprimand from her.

"What do you mean 'reproduce images'?" Bess asked slowly. "Do you mean that there will be more than one image of the user in the program?" Morgan nodded unhappily. Bess's next question caught him by surprise.

"Why?"

"I wanted to have a companion that was just like me." Morgan wailed. "Who better to fill that role than me?" Bess shook off the implications of that and focussed on the problem at hand.

"What makes you think that something has gone wrong with the program?"

"The one time I tried to use it - it didn't make a complete copy of me." Morgan could see more questions in his wife's eyes so he pushed on. "There were two images but they were not the same person. One was me and the other only contained some parts of my personality," Morgan hung his head low and finished so softly Bess could barely hear him, "and they weren't very nice parts."

Bess was silent for a long time wondering what this meant for Danziger and True. Had Morgan's program copied True? Was that why she hadn't come out?

"We've got to tell John." Bess said finally. Morgan gave a low moan.

"Oh, great, like he needs another excuse to want to kill me."

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Danziger sat on his cot looking at True's empty bed. Julia had told him to take a rest before attempting another VR rescue. If she'd been surprised at how easily he'd agreed to it she didn't show it. Devon's face had betrayed her though. She'd expected Danziger to jump right back in. Danziger had walked off to his tent without another word, but feeling her questioning gaze burn into his back.

Now, in the solitude of his tent, he could admit, if only to himself, that he was afraid to go back into the program. True had tried to kill him. Images of True's life began to float before him - the first time he'd held her (Hell, it had been the first time he'd EVER held a baby); the first time she looked at him and known who he was; her shaky first steps; her running to him when he returned from work, eager to share some miracle of the day; her squatting near him while he worked, chatting away and laughing; putting her to bed at night; explaining what 22 light years of cold sleep (there and back again) would mean; True demanding a cat upon their return; her fear of the crash, her wonderment at the dirt . . . There was nothing in those memories that he could reconcile with the True he had just encountered in VR. Suddenly, like a flash, another image hit his brain - True with Gaal.

Danziger had to admit that there were parts of his daughter he didn't know.What kind of pride he must have to assume he knew what lurked in the mind of his little girl! He remembered the negative waves pouring off her yesterday while they'd attempted to work together.

What was worse, he wondered, the fear or the hurt?

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Devon hesitated outside of Danziger's tent. He hadn't seemed willing to discuss the details of his trip. Something terrible had happened there. Something so bad that he wasn't rushing back in, even though True still lay in her VR coma. Devon couldn't imagine how bad it would be to prevent her from going after Uly and Danziger had proven in the past that he could match her in stubborness and parental love for his child.

And now Morgan's confession. Trust Morgan to be responsible for putting a wrench into this mess. Devon was a little worried that Danziger, in his present state of mind, might do something rash - like attack Morgan. She had offered to explain the situation.

Entering his tent Devon saw Danziger staring into space, an expression of such sadness on his face that she forget all her worries about his wrath.

"John," she crouched on the floor and looked up at him, "John, please. Tell me what happened."

Danziger didn't respond immediately and for a moment she was sure he hadn't even heard her. Then, without looking down at her he started.

"It was in the place where we found her, except it was day. It was hot, but there was a wind. There was wind." he repeated wonderingly. "It was so real. I've never been in a program that was so real before." Now he looked down at her. She put her hand on his knees and encouraged him to continue with her eyes. He cleared his throat and stared up at the tent wall again.

"She appeared out of nowhere behind me. She didn't want to leave. She said she 'liked' it just where she was. She," here Danziger paused, and his voice dropped to almost a whisper. "she was afraid of me."

Devon was beginning to understand Danziger's uncharacteristic reluctance to act. He was far too emotionally close to the problem to be able to deal with it. His hands covered his face and he was rocking slightly. She brushed aside some of his hair, just as she would do to Uly when it got so long she couldn't see his eyes. This maternal touch did not seem to affect Danziger, although at any other time she was sure he would have not have allowed her this close.

"You two had a pretty big disagreement yesterday." she whispered to him. "It's natural for her to be little . . ." Devon paused. It was hard to imagine fiesty True being afraid of John, under any circumstances.

"You don't understand." John looked at her, putting his hands over top of hers which remained on his knees. "I have never, *would never* hit True. _Never_."

"I know." Devon believed him. Danziger was big and he could be tough; violence was an option he would willingly use when warranted, but not against a child. That was not something she could imagine him doing.

"She backed away from me and she refused to leave VR." Danziger continued with the story. "Then, " he squinted up to roof, as though still trying to see what had distracted him. "I dunno, something caught my eye. I don't know what it was." There was a long pause. Devon toyed with the idea of telling him that she and Julia had seen True's hands go for the VR set and rejected it.

"Julia said you were going into shock." Devon said, "Just before you came out of it, you cried out. . ."

"She stabbed me." Danziger said harshly, bluntly. "She stabbed me in the stomach." Devon gasped. Whatever she'd been expecting, this was not it. Danziger's hands went back to cover his eyes again. "Oh God! There was all this blood and someone screaming and True. And True! Looking triumphant!"

Devon's hands flew up to his face, trying to comfort as well as pry his fingers away from his eyes.

"John, I know that," she hesitated, "I know that it must seem . . ." He roughly pushed her away and she nearly fell over backwards.

"Don't you tell me how I should feel!" he snapped at her. "Don't you tell me what I'm going through now. You wait until Uly comes after you with a MagPro and Shoots - You - Dead." He jabbed a finger at her to emphasize his words. "Then, and only then, you can tell me how to feel." The anger gone he slumped back on the cot again and sighed wearily. "My daughter tried to kill me and took great pleasure in it. You have no idea what that feels like."

"John, you have to keep in mind that all of this happened in VR. Not reality." He was shaking his head.

"Devon, it was so REAL. I felt the pain. I felt the blood. I saw her expression." Danziger shook his head. "She was like someone I didn't even know."

Suddenly, a thought sprang into Devon's head. In the shock of John's story, she'd nearly forgotten Morgan's confession.

"But it wasn't reality John. It wasn't real. And more than that, I don't think it was True either."

Now he cocked his head at her with that familiar 'are you crazy look' that usually infuriated her. She scrambled to her feet and began pacing in the small area.

"It looked like True because True created the image by being the user of the program."

"What are you talking about?" Danziger remained seated following her with his eyes.

"Hear me out before you do anything." Devon said, "You see, well, it appears Morgan was messing around with a program that would copy the user's image. In order to create the perfect companion." Devon added dryly. Danziger's eyes narrowed. With Morgan involved it must mean bad news.

"So, " Devon resumed her pacing, "the user enters the program and a copy is created, but not the whole person. Just one part of the personality is transferred onto the other image. And magnified or something." Danziger was on his feet now, his face held in an expression of controlled rage. Devon held out her arm to stop him storming out of the tent.

"Please, John, you're supposed to hear me out first." He made no other motion to move.

"What Morgan said was that the only time he tried it, the other image of him was so awful he had to shut down the program. Now, knowing how narcissistic Morgan is, we have to assume that his copy was really, REALLY, exaggerated for him to not like himself."

"I dunno," Danziger muttered, "It's not so hard not to like Morgan."

"What if True copied herself, but only one part of her personality made it into the image?"

"Yeah, the part that wants me dead." Danziger said.

Devon had to admit to herself that it still wasn't a very attractive situation. She frowned and bit her lip, thinking. When she spoke it was as though she was thinking aloud.

"But amplified somehow. Look, you guys have a big blowout. She resents you for making her work when she'd rather be off chasing Kobas. You finally tell her to scram and she heads far away and sits and fumes about how unfair you are, how unfeeling, how unkind, whatever. It's totally natural for a kid to rebel against a parent now and again. But now this feeling is transferred into an image of True - **and that's the only part of her in that image**!" Danziger nodded as though he was finally beginning to understand.

"So if what you're saying is right then the True that attacked me was just an image of her anger at me." he said slowly.

"Yes! Her anger personified in a perfect image of True." Devon paused thoughfully, "Which means . . ."

"Which means that I wasn't speaking to True at all." Danziger tried to ignore the waves of relief that were invading his conscience. "Then where was she?" He mused. His mind replayed the scene again, with vivid clarity. "She was watching from above. She was screaming."

"There's only one way to find out." Devon said, picking up the VR set from Danziger's cot. "Let's go."

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