Welcome to Golden, Chapter 14

Off in the distance Billy could hear Elvis Presley singing. He kept his eyes shut, like he always did when first arriving in Golden. There was a slight breeze and it was warm. Actually, warmer than it should have been; it was hot, and Golden was never hot. He shrugged it off as the different suit and the cold goo his body was in.

He opened his eyes and instantly jumped backward. In front of him was Elvis himself. Well, not Elvis himself, but a movie Elvis. His skin was perfect and his black hair was slicked back just right with a lock falling just right on his forehead. It was clearly not the person's real form, it was too idealized. Before he could speak, Elvis stepped forward with a puzzled look on his face. Billy was a little frightened, but Elvis did not look threatening in any way. He looked curious.

“Dr. Watson?” Elvis said in a Tennessee drawl. “I know it's you, but you don't look like yourself.”

Billy's new avatar was good, but it wasn't good enough to fool the King of Rock and Roll.

“Who are you?” Billy asked. Elvis furrowed his brow.

“I can't say,” he said, not out of defiance but as if it were a problem he couldn't solve. “Things aren't going right around here, Doctor. Do you have any idea why things are so screwy?”

Before he could even think about not answering, Billy found himself talking. He knew there was no such thing as a truth serum, but something was compelling him to answer, like a switch in his brain was being held open.

“Somebody killed Lily Perez three days ago and it looks like the murderer has struck again. We think Marie Engel may have been killed.”

Elvis looked even more confused by this information, as if what Billy had said made no sense.

“I'm sorry, Doctor,” Elvis said, “but I'm just a little mixed up. I know what killed means, and I know that Miss Engel is no longer here, but I'm not sure if I follow what you're sayin'. I'm gonna have to go off and think about this a little bit.” He turned to walk away.

“Wait …” Billy called after him, unable to move his legs to follow “Do you know who killed Lily and Marie?”

Elvis turned back and looked at him with a distant stare, unmoving, as if he were doing a difficult math problem in his head. Billy was about to ask the question in a different way, but Elvis asked his own question: “Miss Perez and Miss Engel were both taken away, Dr. Watson. Does that mean everyone who leaves is killed? Does some … one kill you every time you leave, Dr. Watson?”

Billy tried to go toward Elvis, to get a closer look. His questions seemed easy enough to answer, he'd given every resident who had come to Golden the same lecture about the town being created and controlled by computer servers. Death was a natural part of life, Billy thought, everyone knew that. Except Elvis didn’t seem to understand. It was as if he was a child confronted with the death of a beloved pet.

“No,” he said. “I don't die every time I leave. I'm one of several who come and go into the town. Not everyone who leaves has died. I don’t live here but the people who do die when they leave. But they aren't killed.”

Elvis went blank again, and Billy still could not move. Finally, Elvis shook his head slightly and turned again.

“I still don't understand Dr. Watson. I've got to think about this some more.” Elvis disappeared into the dark without giving Billy a chance to ask any more questions, but before Billy could make to go after him a voice came out of the darkness. “I think what you are looking for is at the school,” Elvis said.

Billy called after him to explain further, but then he remembered Ollie telling Jenny about how some things that had been deleted hadn't been discarded at all, just moved. However, it was questions about why his legs wouldn't budge that popped into his head. Clearly something was wrong with the program Ollie was using to manifest Billy in Golden; but when he tried using his legs again, he found he could move. He ran to catch up with Elvis, but soon realized he was not going to find the King. Not halting to rest, Billy changed directions and headed toward Fred's house, breaking into a sweat with the exercise and the heat. He wondered if the government men messing around with Golden in the Real World was causing the heat in Golden, or if it indeed was Ollie's makeshift lab screwing with his program. One thing was for sure, though, Billy's Golden experience was different than usual — this was the first time he had broken a sweat while in the town.

The run to Fred's house was unusual. Billy had been in Golden at night before, and the town had always given the impression that its streets were safe. There were streetlights spaced at convenient intervals that threw off a warm, welcoming glow — perfect for lovers out on a stroll. Now, though, the lights seemed dimmer and not as warm, as if there would be scary things hiding in the shadows. Billy wrote it off to his new interface, but the creepy feeling just wouldn't subside.

Fred and Ruth were waiting for him on Fred's porch. Ruth was no longer a little girl and Fred no longer looked carefree. The look on their faces reflected worry and suspicion at the stranger who was approaching.

“Why don't you just stop right there and identify yourself,” Fred said, and Billy could tell he wasn't joking.

“What?” Billy said stepping into the light on the porch. “Fred, Ruth, it's me. Billy?” Fred looked again closer and Ruth walked around him examining what she was seeing. Billy had forgotten that he wasn't in Golden in his usual avatar.

“I'll be damned,” Ruth said. “Is this how you really look? You're just a kid. Now that I get a look at you, I see a bit of your mom in you. And your dad, too.”

Fred came right to the point; “You're in the remote location aren't you? Ollie had to make you a new avatar, I take it? Well, I've got to say Billy-boy, this is a real improvement over the old man who used to come here pretending to be the town doctor.”

“Hey, you're blushing,” Ruth said, pointing an accusatory finger at Billy. “Fred, take a look, he's blushing.”

Fred came over and looked closely at Billy.

“Hey, what do you know? Billy's finally starting to look a little more human,” he said. Billy was not sure whether to be offended or not. He'd always thought he looked fine, but to the residents of Golden, he probably looked like a made-up actor, which is fine through the lens of a camera, but kind of plastic up close.

After a moment of Ruth and Fred admiring Billy's new avatar, Billy finally told them that Marie Engel had died. Neither were surprised by the news. Fred led them into the house, looking out into the street and around the darkened neighborhood as he closed the drapes in his parlor. It was as if he was expecting someone to be listening to their conversation.

The house's parlor was well-lit and blazing hot. Billy assumed he was the only one feeling the heat — Fred and Ruth didn't seem uncomfortable at all. He was beginning to worry that Ollie's new nanoprobe formula was doing something to his body. He tried to shunt it aside in order to stay focused on the problems at hand.

“You know, then?” Billy asked.

Fred nodded. “We were heading over there to ask Marie a few questions. Apparently, she and Lily were the only Spanish speakers in town, so we figured … Several people saw Andrew, Cal and Anne giving Lily a hard time the night she was killed. We thought Marie might know something and went looking for her. We found Frank instead, he told us he hadn't seen her in a while and was worried because a couple of Seegees wouldn't let him into her apartment. He went over to the school to see if she was there, but we haven't heard back from him yet.”

“That's not possible,” Billy said. “The Seegees are on a programmed loop. The only way they could change their behavior is if someone …”

The implication struck Billy hard. Someone in the control room of the Golden warehouse was aware of what was going on inside Golden and making changes. Not only was there a killer in Golden, but there was someone in the Real World helping.

“By the time we got over there, the Seegees were gone. Once we looked inside her apartment, we understood — the diorama had been deleted. There was nothing there. We assumed Marie had died and someone wiped all the evidence,” Ruth said.

“We can't even guess what happened to her,” Fred said.

“Maybe not,” Billy said. “Ollie said her diorama, as well as Lily's and the patient files could still be in Golden; that they were never deleted, just moved. There might be some information somewhere.”

Ruth pulled Lily's diary out of her back pocket and held it up.

“I guess that explains why I still have this,” she said. Fred reached into his pocket to check on the envelope he had with the flower petals.

“I've still got these, too,” he said. “So Lily's diorama is still intact, which means the murder weapon is still out there somewhere. I found these in the bathroom of Lily's apartment.”

Fred showed Billy and Ruth the petals, but neither thought much about them.

“They could have come from anywhere,” Ruth said. “Lily loved flowers, she always had them around.”

Billy told them about the government and that there was about thirty hours left until Golden would be shut down. He told them about the goons outside his house and Ollie taking him to the auxiliary lab. He told them about Cal Everitt and his run-in with the law in Amarillo so many years ago and how he is probably the one who was most likely the killer.

Both Ruth and Fred nodded their heads in agreement, and Ruth told Billy about her adventure in the drug store and how Andrew, Cal and Anne were bullying Noah into getting them access to the school. A chill ran down her back when she recounted what Cal had said to Noah.

“It was the scariest thing I'd ever heard,” she said. “I could tell he would have no problem killing anyone.”

All three were quick to agree that Cal was the prime suspect, but were still unsure. Billy told them about his encounter with Elvis and how he was able to control whatever he wanted.

“I don't know who it is, but I don't like his answers to my questions. I can't tell if he's trying to mislead me into thinking he doesn't understand what's going on. He acts like he's puzzled by the concept of murder,” Billy said. “He could be a good actor playing dumb, but it seems like anyone who could render himself as Elvis and control Golden like him would understand what it means to kill someone.”

Fred and Ruth looked at each other and then at Billy. It was apparent to Billy they had already talked about Elvis and possibly had theories of their own.

“I don't think he killed either Lily or Marie,” Ruth said. “I met up with him a couple of times since yesterday, he doesn't seem capable. Tell him what you think, Fred.”

Both of them looked to Fred, who was lost deep in thought. Billy had no explanation for Elvis, but he assumed it was a resident who had better control of the things in Golden than even Fred.

“I think I know who he is,” Fred said so quiet and without movement that neither Billy nor Ruth were sure they heard him.

“I don't think Elvis killed either of them, it's against his … nature,” Fred said. “But I think Lily's death helped him become less shy.” Fred stood and began pacing up and down the center of the room. He took a joint out of his shirt pocket and moved to light it. Before he could, he noticed Ruth's disapproving glare and laughed softly. The joint disappeared, and a knowing look passed between the two. Ruth had apparently been on Fred about his habits.

“I think Elvis probably even knows who did it, but doesn't know how to tell us,” Fred said.

Both looked at him.

“I think our new friend is right now listening in on this conversation, trying to understand what he has witnessed. He probably is just starting to understand things about us and about himself, but he's dealing with things that can't be quantified.”

Billy found a chair and sat heavily. He wasn't sure he was hearing Fred right. If Elvis was listening and he had complete control of Golden, then he was …

“Are you saying that Elvis is actually …”

“The computer that runs Golden? Yes. I think we've created an artificial intelligence,” Fred said. “Think about it — we've been building layer upon layer of Golden, asking the computer to make decisions based upon certain parameters. But what if a parameter it doesn't recognize appears? Somewhere along the line, I think it learned to come up with its own solutions. I think that's where all the glitches were coming from, the computer learning to make decisions — playing around with different aspects of Golden just to see what happens. Think of him as a child; ignorant on how things work, not really comprehending all that he observes.”

“Then all this murder and the government guys on the outside messing with his code must really be screwing with his mind,” Ruth said.

They all fell silent, each mulling over what Fred was suggesting. None found comfort in the idea that a thinking artificial intelligence had the powers of a god over their lives in Golden. Another thought struck Billy as well.

“Why Elvis?”

Fred shrugged, but Ruth probably had the best idea.

“I wondered that, too, when Fred told me his theory of artificial intelligence. I think he didn't want to look like anyone here,” she said, “and he probably started in the form of one of the Seegees. But as he became more of an individual, he wanted a body of his own — one that wouldn't scare the residents yet still be familiar to them. Everyone here knows Elvis. I'm just glad he chose to appear as young Elvis, it's a lot easier on the eyes.”

By this time all three were seated and thinking over all the facts they knew. One thing kept gnawing at Ruth though. They had come to the conclusion that Elvis was an artificial intelligence who lived in the computer, or was the computer; or something like that. She understood, that. What puzzled her was Ricardo. Lily had found a boyfriend, but no one but her and, briefly, less than a handful of people had ever seen. Ricardo could be just about anyone and could confirm Cal had killed Lily.

“We all agree that Elvis probably didn't kill Lily or Marie, but we still have a murderer running around town,” she said. “I think we also agree that the most likely suspect is Cal, but I'm convinced that this Ricardo person might have a hand in all this. We know Cal is adept at rendering, but this almost seems to be too clever for him. I don't think Cal is Ricardo, and I don't have anything but a hunch to back that up. Still … do we go arrest Cal? Do we have that power? What if it was Ricardo who killed Lily?”

They looked from one to another, seemingly at an impasse and on the verge of inaction. Billy had wondered the same thing. The answer would be that if Cal had killed Lily and Marie, then he had to be removed from Golden. But Billy knew that he couldn't just go back to the Real World and have Cal pulled out. There were procedures that needed to be followed, plus there was a government investigator looking for a reason to shut down Golden. What if they were wrong? Cal would have essentially been given a death sentence for a crime he didn't commit.

Residents needed to be protected, though. If Billy was going to face the troubles that would confront him on the outside, he knew he'd have to be sure they had the right person. If it wasn't, then there would be a big problem.

“Okay,” Fred said. “I'm tired of this shit, and I'm tired of someone being here who doesn't belong. I say we find Cal and confront him. Maybe he'll confess or we can find out if he has an alibi. One thing is for sure, though, and that is we obviously aren't very good detectives.”

Cal, they knew, would have normally been at the school. That's where he had created his strip club and where he spent hours living out his fantasies. Sometimes Andrew would be there with him, and occasionally Anne would tag along. What they did, no one was really sure; but it didn't take much imagination to figure out it was something most of the God-fearing residents of Golden found unacceptable. Nothing could be done about it except to use the school as punishment when Cal was acting up. Billy had taken away his school privileges until further notice after he got caught harassing some of the female residents. That ban was still in effect, unless Noah had found a way for Cal to get in.

Cal had such an affinity for his “special” room that he chose as his house the one closest to the school building. If residents had been allowed to live in the school, that's where Cal would live. As it was, he spent most of his time there. Fred, Billy and Ruth all turned toward the school, even though they couldn't see it. They stepped off the porch and started walking down the darkened streets of Golden toward Cal's house.

There were street lights just far enough apart to make you normally feel comfortable to go on a stroll. Billy was struck again how the light shining from the lamps had a different quality to them, and again, he didn't say anything. None of them said anything as they walked, the only sound coming from their muted footsteps hitting the pavement. No one was out on the street and there was no music coming from Larry's Lounge; and there were no Seegees out and about. It was as if the town had been abandoned, but Billy felt like he was being watched.

“It feels … weird tonight,” Ruth said. She was looking around, her brow furrowed.

“I'm glad I wasn't the only one feeling that,” Fred said simply.

“Me too,” Billy added.

The temperature seemed to have raised another five degrees, Billy thought. Fred pulled a cigarette out of nowhere and lit it from a pack of matches in his pocket. The silence seemed to be getting to the three of them, so when Fred spoke, Billy jumped a little.

“I imagine Elvis is very curious about you,” Fred said to Billy. “And by extension, me and Ruth because of our proximity to you. He must have heard us talking about needing something. I'm sure he thinks that the two things are related and he's trying to help us but doesn't know how to communicate it. His logic is simple, really. How do you help someone? By giving him something he really needs. Elvis may have something we need to find out who did this.”

“Or the somebody himself,” Ruth said as they stood in front of Cal's darkened house. “It doesn't look like anyone is home.”

Billy hesitated before walking up to the door. He didn't really want to confront Cal, the guy could be a killer. It was obvious, though, that Fred and Ruth were more than willing to let him take the lead, and he supposed it really was his responsibility.

After knocking, then pounding on the door it was determined that Cal was not at home. In fact, it looked as if no one even lived there. Billy slowly grabbed the door knob and turned. It easily twisted and he swung the door open to a bare room with no doors or windows. It was a blank, what the computer used to hold a space using the least amount of memory.

“He isn't here,” Billy said closing the door.

“What now?” Ruth asked.

Fred turned toward the school building and started walking in that direction.

“Something isn't right in that building,” Fred said. “And I aim to find out what.”

The school building was probably lit better than any other place in the town, like a beacon calling to them. With all that was going on, Billy was sure it wasn't a mistake that they were being led there. It didn't make him feel any more comfortable. They didn't cut across the school's front lawn, instead walking along the sidewalk in front until they came to the front path that would lead them to the front doors. Every window in the building was lit and every outside light was pointed at the building itself.

The three of them walked closer to each other than they usually would have, perhaps unconscious of it, but relieved to be close to someone each could call “friend.”

Suddenly, a figure burst out the front door, screaming as if he was on fire. Fred, Ruth and Billy all jumped as if they had been shocked by electricity and, while all three felt like running away, it was Fred who recognized the figure screaming and running toward them.

“Frank, is that you?” Fred said, stepping forward to meet Frank Horner, whose Playboy After Dark demeanor was nowhere to be found. The man was hysterical, which in two seconds Billy realized might be because of Marie Engel, who Frank had been seeing.

Frank saw the three of them and sighed in recognition of Ruth and Fred, but was frightened by Billy.

“Who is that?” Frank said. “I've got a weapon, don't come any closer.”

Billy stepped toward him.

“Mr. Horner, it's me. Dr. Watson. I'm sorry my appearance looks different, the technicians in the real world had to create a new avatar for me.”

Frank wasn't completely sold on the new Dr. Watson being the same person as the old Dr. Watson, but Fred and Ruth quickly stepped forward and comforted the man. Once his suspicions about Billy were subdued, he began to cry.

“Pull yourself together, man,” Fred said a little brusquely. “Tell us what you are so worked up about.”

Frank shot Fred an angry glance, but then realized that the three people standing there were trying to help.

“I went looking for Marie,” he said, pulling a cigarette from nowhere and lighting it. “I figured I'd look at the apartment here, you know, in case she was just hanging out. So I went up and the lights were on in the place and it looked like someone had a fight there. The furniture was knocked around and most of the plants on the balcony had been turned over. I went to look and I thought I heard ambulances from the street below. I know I didn't create ambulances for the street scene there, but I could hear the sirens.

“So I went over and looked, and sure enough there were ambulances and cops and everything right below the balcony. I couldn't see what they were doing so I rendered a pair of binoculars to look.” He paused for a minute to concentrate on the cigarette and calm himself.

“I saw they were working someone on the sidewalk and there was blood all over the place, like I guess someone had jumped. I didn't know the computers would allow something like that. But I kept looking, afraid of who it might be … and it was … it was Marie. Her body crushed just like she had fallen all that way.”

All three were silent, no one sure what to say. It was Ruth who vocalized what all of them were feeling.

“That son-of-a-bitch threw her off the balcony,” she said quietly. “We need to stop this.”

“Who?” Frank asked. “Who is doing this?”

Fred put his hands on Frank's shoulder and spoke with the compassion of a priest.

“We don't know Frank,” Fred said, “but we plan on going in there and finding out. Why don't you go home, take a pill and get some sleep?”

The power of suggestion is an odd thing, and Billy had used it many times with his patients to get them to calm down. Still, watching Fred suggest Frank go home and go to bed seemed a little too simple, but it worked. Soon Frank was heading home in between small sobs.

The three of them turned toward the front door of the school and swallowed the fears of what might await them.

At the door, Fred paused before grabbing the ornate brass handle. He pulled lightly, but his hand came loose and the door remained closed. Trying again, he gripped the handle tight, pushed down on the latch with his thumb and pulled hard.

It didn't budge.

In a fit of anger, Fred rendered a brick and hurled it at the glass in the door. The brick bounced off the glass and fell to the ground.

“This night is really starting to piss me off!” Fred screamed at the school. Billy and Ruth backed away as Fred hurled himself at it, pounding at the door and pulling at the handle and screaming obscenities. Finally, he had exhausted his anger and slumped against the immovable door. All was silent except for Fred's heavy breathing.

“Is there another way in?” Ruth asked, breaking the spell.

Billy and Fred looked at each other. Both knew the building well. There was nothing around the back other than what appeared to be the rear of the building. Golden's designers didn't build any of the things that go with a school; there was a playground and not much else. No parking lot, no door.

“The boiler room,” Fred said. “There's a boiler room around to the side. Or there used to be because this place is an exact copy of my high school, and I know I used to go smoke cigarettes in the boiler room stairwell.”

He took off to the side of the building with Billy and Ruth trailing behind. Billy decided not to say anything about how Fred hadn't really gone to high school. Golden's school was an exact copy of the school where Fred's sitcom had been filmed. He didn't doubt Fred snuck cigarettes in the boiler room stairwell, but it was most likely with one of the Teamsters on the film crew.

“So,” Ruth asked, “where's the boiler room for this place?”

“Look for a chimney on the building,” Fred said. “The chimney will probably be on an exterior wall, and it will cut a straight line to the boiler room. Doors are usually on the outside. There.”

He pointed off to the right and began walking in that direction. Unlike the front of the building, this side of the school had no lights except for one dim bulb on the side, used more to mark a location than offer illumination. They marched toward the muted light and finally came to what looked like stairs leading down a deep dark hole. A flashlight appeared in Fred's hand and was aimed at leaf-covered stairs.

“Dark stairs, gotta love that,” Billy said with a sarcastic grin, but before he could lodge a formal complaint, Fred gave him a little shove to get going. Once heading down the stairs, it should have seemed less spooky, but it wasn't. There was leaves and garbage on the stairs that would make odd little noises when they were trod upon; and slippery if you weren't being careful.

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, the weak light of the flashlight showed them to be before a door and standing in a half inch of water.

“I didn't think there were water leaks and drainage problems in Golden,” Ruth said.

“There never used to be,” Billy responded. “But it seems like things in Golden are a little screwy tonight. This is not one happy little town. We might as well go in and see what's in store for us.”

Fred grabbed the knob on the metal door, not expecting it to turn. However, the latch turned and he was able to pull the door open with a loud screeching. A cascade of light struck them as they walked through the threshold. Billy was expecting to be greeted by some sort of mechanical room, but all three were surprised to find themselves in a hallway, carpeted in royal blue and gold with matching textured wall hangings. The hallway was lit by fixtures that looked like clam shells throwing off an eerie teal light up the sides of the walls.

It looked like the hall of a swanky hotel, and as such, was lined with doors, a pair every ten feet or so. There were hundreds of them and the hallway seemed to go on forever. There was no telling if there were other corridors at its end. As they stood in shock, Billy noticed the faint strains of Musak coming from somewhere.

“Well, crap,” Ruth said. “What? Couldn't someone put a haystack down here so we could look for a needle. What do we do?”

She looked at the other two. Both Billy and Fred were just as stunned as she was.

“Say Fred?”

“Yes, Billy-boy.”

“You ever been down here before?”

“Why yes, I have. But it didn't look like this.”

Billy went over to the first door, there was a number on it, 101. He opened the door and there was nothing but darkness behind it. He asked Ruth to make him a piece of chalk and he marked the door with an X and moved to the next one and did the same thing. Again, there was nothing behind the door, and again he marked it with an X. Fred and Ruth didn't have to be told, they started looking behind doors themselves.

As he opened each door, Billy expected a monster to jump out at him; but after 20 minutes of opening, looking, closing and marking the door, he was getting to the point where he expected darkness behind the doors. Fred and Ruth were moving down the corridor at a quicker pace than Billy — there was two of them after all. Billy hadn't thought to count the number of doors he had opened and closed; and when he looked up to check the room number it was marked “101.” From then on, he kept count and as long as he paid attention, the room numbers counted upward. If he took his attention away for even a second, though, the room number went back to 101. He was worried that he was going crazy and hadn't really checked any of the rooms, but he walked back several and saw that his chalk mark was on each door, and all of them were numbered 101. Up ahead, he could see Fred and Ruth standing at what looked like a T in the corridor. The pair waved then started making their way toward him, checking rooms on his side of the hall.

By the time they met up and walked silently to the intersection of the next corridor, they had lost all sense of time.

“Anyone know how long we've been at this?” Ruth asked.

Fred reflexively looked at his wrist as though he had a watch, but there was nothing there. Billy wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a joke.

“Don't know,” Billy said. “I was even having a hard time keeping track of how many doors I've looked through. I feel a little like Alice gone down the rabbit hole. Somebody has sure been busy down here.”

He looked down the hallway from where they had come, then to the left and then to the right. If it hadn't been for the chalk markings on the doors, Billy wouldn't have known which direction they had come from – all three directions looked the same. He suspected that things would get weirder the further down these halls they traveled. So he was a shocked when the words came out of his own mouth.

“Let's split up.”