Empathy

by Ryan A. Span

She woke up encased in a bubble of soft rubber and a throbbing headache. The first thing she saw was a line of text dancing in front of her eyes, saying, “User timeout exceeded. Connection closed.”

  She lifted the VR crown off her head and put it back on its cradle. The ‘Please return equipment to cradle’ light on the door blinked off, and the button marked ‘Open door’ blinked on. The door made a soft hiss when she touched the button, then popped open.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said a soft, female voice over the intercom system, “we are now arriving at our destination, Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. Please return to your seats so that we may begin landing procedures.”

  Alarmed, Gina checked the time readout inside the cubicle, only to find that all fourteen hours of the flight had passed her by. Muttering curses under her breath, she picked up her belongings and scrambled out of the cubicle to get back to her seat.

  Rat was waiting for her in the window seat by the time she got back. “Where have you been?” the girl asked. “Haven’t seen you since we split. I tried buzzing the cubicles but nobody squelched back.”

  “Sorry, I was pretty out of it,” said Gina. “Spent the whole trip off my tits in that cubicle.”

  “Yeah. VR’s like that.” She produced some painkillers from a jeans pocket and handed them to Gina, who swallowed them gratefully.

  “Down we go,” Gina sighed, making herself comfortable in the soft, roomy chair. Money was a great thing, but in lieu of that, having a hacker on her side would do.

  The airship swayed gently in the wind. It eased down towards the ground in a slow spiral, lowered its landing hooks, caught them on the moorings, and pulled itself the rest of the way in. Within minutes people were on their feet and collecting their luggage.

  They passed uneventfully through the security gates. The guards there looked worried and annoyed, as if their equipment wasn’t performing quite right and they were just keeping up the pretense in the hopes of giving a good impression to anyone travelling first-class.

  “Welcome to Hong Kong,” said a woman on the other side of the gate, repeating it mechanically over and over while handing out fliers. “Enjoy your stay. Welcome to Hong Kong. Enjoy your stay.”

  Gina remembered wading through the clean and well-lit terminal, out the revolving doors, into the parking lot. Rat tried her phone again once they were outside, but couldn’t manage to get through to Jock. Cursing, she put it away again and flagged down a sky-blue taxi on her own initiative. Gina didn’t mind. She was happy to delegate responsibility for a little while.

  “Mandarin hotel,” Rat said to the driver after they settled into the slightly sticky back seat. “Fast’s better than slow.”

  Gina daydreamed the trip away, thinking of the past, the relative peacefulness of her life just a week ago. A wave of crushing sadness overcame her whenever her thoughts turned to Onu and Mashei. She swallowed a sniffle and wiped away the oncoming tears, but nothing could take away the burning guilt deep inside. And then there was Gabriel. Her confused feelings for him didn’t help any.

  “Did you say something?” asked Rat, and Gina shook her head. “Okay. Just thought I heard you talk, is all. Yo, greaseface, is that the hotel?” she asked the cabby.

  “Yep. That’ll be six hundred and twenty dollars. Cash or card, I don’t care, just make up your mind.”

  Rat paid him. They’d barely climbed out of the taxi when her mobile beeped, and she answered it with a flippant, “Fashionably late, huh?” She beckoned for Gina to lean in closer.

  Jock’s voice buzzed, “Yeah, been talking to the Emperor. He’ll join back up with you later. Are you at the hotel yet?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Ah, good. I’ve booked you a reservation under my handle, just give the desk clerk your aliases when you check in. Everything secure. Don’t abuse the service too much, though, we don’t want to be bad guests.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe to stay here?” Gina asked uncertainly. “I mean, what if Gabriel traces us again?”

  Jock snorted his disbelief with a generous helping of condescension. “Are you kidding? Haven’t you ever heard of the Mandarin? Their client registry is kept only on paper and gets locked into a tungsten-reinforced vault every night, where it’s guarded by a small army. The people who stay here are so rich that nobody can afford to bribe the staff. These hotels are the safest places to stay in the world. Not even the Feds have managed to get their hands on a Mandarin registry.” He smiled so hugely that Gina could sense his smugness over the phone. “Forget advertising, forget tourism, forget IT. Anonymity services are the industry of this century.”

  “And you wanna know the best thing?” Rat chimed in, excitement in her voice, causing Jock to let out a chuckle. “Hackers stay for free. We’ve got an understanding with them, y’see.” Grinning, she started towards the door and said, “Catch you later, Jock. We got five stars waiting for us.” Then she hung up.

  The building before them looked like the unholy union of a Greek temple and a sports car. Everything shone in that mass of polished granite and marble, but it was all done up in austere tones and marked by a touch of restrained elegance. It was aerodynamic. The architect had to be a genius, Gina reckoned, because despite everything it somehow managed to look attractive.

  The same style could be seen across the lobby. Rich but not excessive carpeting, comfortable but not indulgent chairs, lush but not ostentatious plants, and an opulent but not cluttered bar-restaurant. Syrupy golden light splashed everywhere from globes that dangled on invisible wires from the ceiling.

  They cut through the main lobby to the massive semi-circular hotel desk, a solid barrier of exquisitely carved and polished wood, behind which stood a gaunt moustachioed man watching them with wary eyes.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in a painfully neutral voice. He was trying hard not to offend anyone just in case Rat and Gina were not the deadbeats they appeared to be.

  Rat beamed him a huge, uncharacteristic smile. “Hello, we’re checking in on behalf of Mr. Jock Reynolds. I believe he made reservations for us. My name’s Rat, and this is Beauty.”

  Wordlessly the clerk turned to check the name in his book, and absorbed the information without so much as a twitch. “Very good, sir. Please give Mr. Reynolds our compliments.” He scribbled some notes and pressed a few buttons embedded in his desk. “Room 207, down the hall on your right as you leave the elevator. The door is unlocked, you’ll find your keys waiting for you inside. Do you require help with your luggage?”

  “We can manage, thank you very much,” Rat said, enjoying the exchange perhaps a bit too much. “Does it come with room service?”

  “All our rooms come with room service, sir.”

  “That’s great, that’s really great.” Rat turned away with a casual wave of her hand and said, “Thanks again!” as she started towards the elevators. Gina kept pace beside her.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Gina muttered, “Could you try not to piss off all the hotel staff?”

  “Relax, it’s not like they’re gonna kick us out.” She gave Gina a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Come on, it’s a free ride, baby! Live a little!”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll live,” she said reluctantly, unconvinced.

  Inching into their hotel room, Gina knew that there’d been some mistake. The Hilton paled in comparison. The floors were a soft shade of red, the ceilings white and towering, and the walls sloped out on both sides to give the customer an open feeling. A massive set of glass sliding doors led out onto the almost overgrown verandah, bathed in silver moonlight. Other rooms had their own terraced gardens sprawling out above and below, a great man-made slope of marble and concrete down to an open swimming pool at the very heart of the structure.

  Viewed from this side, the Mandarin stopped being a hotel and became more like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

  It was a relentless assault on her lower-class social status. Elegantly comfortable furnishings, all the electronics her heart could desire, a
bed the size of a small country. Off to one side stretched the palatial bathroom, with a hot tub big enough to drown a whale.

  Gina now had her very own tightly-uniformed 20-year-old valet. And a maid.

  And despite all that, there wasn’t a single bug to be seen. The hospital handed out bug scanners, listed phone numbers of independent security retailers, and offered to relocate anyone to a room they might feel more comfortable in, just to prove that this hotel could be trusted.

  “Fucking hell,” she said at length.

  “Yeah,” Rat agreed. “Yeah.”

  “You stayed here before?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not sure I want to go in. I might get lost,” Gina whispered.

  “I’m not sure I’d mind,” said Rat. “Come on.”

  By the time they’d finished exploring the room, the servants were gone and a tray of cold drinks had materialised on the table. Several perfect cubes of ice bobbed around in the multicoloured liquids. Gina had no doubt that, if the drinks went untouched for a while, they’d disappear as surreptitiously as they’d arrived.

  Flopping down on the high-tech foam bed, she asked, “So what’s the deal with this place? Why do hackers stay for free?”

  Rat talked in between mouthfuls of snacks. “It’s part of an agreement they made with the Hacker Nations. The Mandarin gives free rooms and a place to hide to us Citizens, and the Nations take care of the Mandarin’s security and makes all the Citizens swear not to try and hack one of the hotels. According to Country law, anyone who tried would get his Citizenship revoked, his accounts seized, and he’d get stricken from the hacker ranking. That’s pretty much full-on banishment from the Nations.”

  “Christ. Has anyone ever managed it?”

  “Heh, you don’t get it, do you?” Rat smiled. “That’s the official penalty. If someone ever actually managed to hack the Mandarin, d’you really think word would get out? That they’d ever let it go to trial? None of ‘em would get another client in this lifetime.” Lowering her hood and taking off her sunglasses, Rat’s smile turned into a grin. “No. What they do is take ‘em behind the chemical sheds and...” She folded her hand into a pistol shape and mock-fired it. “I hear there’s a few bodies.”

  Gina decided she didn’t want to think about that right now. Gracefully changing the topic, she said, “So when are we going after Bomber?”

  “Don’t know yet. Soon. If the Feds have got him, we can’t wait too long. Feds don’t piss about.”

  A sudden snort of amusement burst out of Gina’s nose. “Speaking like you’ve done this before.”

  Looking sheepish for a moment, Rat said, “Well, I bust myself out of minimum-security once.” Even she seemed to think it was painfully inadequate. “No Feds, though...”

  “We’ll just have to do the best we can. I’ve seen Feds, I know what they’re capable of.” Gina shuddered at the memory. “God, I’m tired.”

  Rat looked around suddenly, snapped her fingers in annoyance. “Then I guess we’re gonna have to bunk together. This is the only room we got on the reservation.”

  “Jock,” Gina growled.

  “Yeah. Must’ve had a good laugh over putting a boy and a woman in the same room. Idiot.” She shrugged and started to take her clothes off, moving just a touch woodenly, as if the thought of baring flesh in front of someone was uncomfortable. “Oh well. You already know. No point being shy, huh?”

  Then she stopped to think about something, and asked over her shoulder to Gina, “You don’t snore, do you?”

  “Me?” yawned Gina. “Never! I’m a proper lady, you know. Me, snore, the very thought...”

  She yawned again, mumbled some more unintelligible things, and drifted off -- still in her clothes -- with sounds like a revving chainsaw.