by Matt Ruff
“And this software, it lets you—”
“Enough to keep a guy interested,” Darla said, “and then some.”
I faded back into the trees.
“ON THE RIGHT,” JAVIER SAYS CALMLY, AS A BLACK GOVERNMENT van with tinted windows appears along a side road. The van tries to T-bone us, but Anja gives the SUV more gas and gets out in front of it, while Blanca fires a full clip from her submachine gun. The driver of the van is hit and loses control; a pair of llamas grazing by the roadside watch as the vehicle goes plunging down the mountainside.
We are crossing the Andes, en route to Santiago. Our notoriety level is currently four out of a possible five, which means it’s not just the local and provincial cops who are after us, but the Argentine equivalent of the FBI and the Secret Service. We’re OK on time, though, and the SUV is still mostly intact. Anja has dropped the pretense that she can’t drive and is doing a good job of swerving around the spike strips that the feds keep throwing on the highway in front of us, while Javier, Blanca, and I deal with the pursuit. Bruno on the other hand is useless at the moment. It turns out he really is a newbie, not just to Habitual Offender but to VR games in general, and he’s got a newbie’s case of motion sickness: Every time Anja whips the SUV around another switchback, he groans and clutches his stomach.
We crest a high point in the mountains and pass a sign reading BIENVENIDOS A CHILE. Crossing a national border instantly knocks a level off our notoriety. This is good, but not good enough: We want a clean slate before we hit the next bank. If we weren’t on a clock, we could detour down to Patagonia and drive around the wilderness until the cops lost interest in us, but our current situation requires a quicker solution. Anja knows this.
The highway turns sharply into a long straightaway. The Chilean-Argentine border is above us now, on a steep slope to our right, running parallel to the road. “Bruno,” Anja says, “you probably want to close your eyes.” She floors the accelerator and cuts across the soft shoulder. The SUV tilts at a fifty-degree angle as we climb the slope, but the high-traction tires cling like magic and Anja slaloms back and forth across the border—Argentina, Chile, Argentina, Chile—zeroing out our notoriety. As we thunk back down onto the highway, a motorcycle cop who was out for our blood just seconds ago breezes past without even a glance.
We race downhill into the Chilean Central Valley. As we near the outskirts of the capital, we are treated to an amazing sight: A jumbo jet has just taken off from the Santiago Airport, and there are people riding on the outside of the plane. They run around on the roof and the wings, shooting at one another. Competing teams of hijackers, maybe, or perhaps a group of players have made up their own achievement, a guns-and-grenades version of the Mile High Club. Whatever the motivation, the outcome is predictable: A stray round knocks out one of the jet’s engines. The plane rolls over and starts to nose-dive.
I am reminded, inevitably, of Sunil Gupta’s hack. But I also know the difference between real mass murder and a video game, so what I feel in this case is not horror but annoyance: It looks like the plane is coming down onto the main road into the city. This could delay us.
“Don’t worry,” Anja says. “I know a good detour.” She swerves right again, plowing through a barrier onto an unfinished highway exit that is perfectly angled to serve as a jump ramp. We enter Santiago in midair.
Bruno makes retching noises.
“DID YOU ENJOY THE SHOW?” DARLA SAID.
The griefers had caught me on my way back to Ray. I’d uncloaked once I got clear of Darla and Anja, which turned out to be a mistake. As I passed a particularly large tree, a troll warrior jumped out at me, screaming and swinging a battleaxe. I wasn’t flagged for PvP, so he couldn’t actually hit me, but I reacted by reflexively slashing with my katana—and then I was flagged for PvP. A gnome sorcerer popped out from behind another tree and started hitting me with frostbolts, which slowed me down while the warrior hacked me into slabs.
After I was dead, they camped on my corpse. I came back from the graveyard, resurrected, and tried to use my ninja smoke bomb to make a quick exit, but the sorcerer set off a freezing sphere to stop me turning invisible. They killed me again. And again.
I was debating whether to call for help or just quit the game and get a job at McDonald’s when Darla showed up. She was playing a druid tank—an armored grizzly bear—which made her the opposite of stealthy, but she ran up on the sorcerer and mauled him to death before he knew what was happening. Then she took out the warrior, dancing around him with a nimbleness no real grizzly will ever possess. It was quite the show, all right—but I knew that wasn’t what Darla was talking about.
“You saw me.”
“Of course I saw you. Pro tip, if you’re going to sneak up and eavesdrop on somebody, you want to turn invisible before you step out in the open.”
“Where’s Anja now?” I asked.
“Back with Ray. Helping him get his ass unchapped.”
“Yeah, about that. I really need you to stop poking at him.”
“Ray needs to get a thicker skin, is what needs to happen.”
“The problem isn’t Ray being thin-skinned,” I said. “It’s you, shit-stirring because you’re bored.”
Darla shrugged. “That’s just how I’m wired. My mom says I get the devil in me whenever I don’t have enough to do.”
“Is that what’s going on with you and Anja?”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, before, but I did hear what you were talking about.”
“Yeah? Did it get you hot?”
“It got me wondering. Are you trying to help Anja, or are you pretending to be helpful, so you can stir up some kind of trouble between her and her mom?”
“Wow,” Darla said. “First of all, fuck you. And second of all, what the fuck do you think of me, that you’d even ask that?”
“I’m not trying to be an asshole, Darla. But I do pay attention.”
“If you really fucking paid attention, you’d know that I like Anja. She’s not a pussy, like Ray. Or like you.”
“So when you ask her whether her family knows the Mengeles, or if they ever had Adolf Eichmann over for dinner, that’s just you being friendly? Or the other day in Zuul’titlan, when you made that crack about how all the corpses must remind her of the old country . . .”
Darla rolled her eyes, like she couldn’t believe I was uncool enough to judge her by her actual behavior. “Fine,” she said. “Maybe I do tease her, sometimes. But this is different. She asked for my help, OK? She wants a sex life, the same as any normal girl would. You have a problem with that?”
“No, I don’t. But it’s not my opinion that matters. Anja’s parents are religious—especially her mom. I don’t know the whole story, but it’s caused problems for her before.”
“So what, because her mom has a thing for Jesus, I’m supposed to tell her tough luck?”
“I’m not saying don’t help her. I’m saying, don’t get bored and forget. If you get into a fight with your mom, you can walk away. Anja can’t.”
Darla sighed in exasperation. “Fine,” she repeated, and looked away frowning. But then the frown became a smirk. “You know she’s into you,” she said, turning back to me. “Anja. She told me she had a big crush on you when she first joined the crew.”
I did know that. It was another reason I’d agreed to vet Anja’s dates for her—becoming her confidant was a diplomatic way to take myself out of the running.
“Yeah,” Darla continued. “She said you told her you don’t date coworkers. So is that, like, a blanket policy, or just something you say to girls you don’t have the hots for?”
Now it was my turn to be bored. “Where are you going with this, Darla?”
“Where am I going?”
“It’s no secret I’m attracted to you. And I think the feeling’s mutual, but what I can’t tell is whether you’re really interested or just like pretending because it’s fun to wind me up.”
“Well,” Darla said, “if you have to ask . . .”
“The answer’s probably no, I know. But I’m asking.”
“Why, so you’ll know who to cut from the crew, me or Ray?”
“I just want to know where I stand, OK? Tell me you’re not interested, and it’ll never come up again.”
But of course that would have been way too simple, and no fun at all for her. “Maybe I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Darla said shrugging.
“Well, is there something I could do to help you decide?”
Enjoying herself now, Darla stroked her chin and made a show of thinking it over. “What about a bullet?” she said finally. “If you’re serious.”
“You want a bullet? From me?”
“No, from the Duke of Luxembourg . . . Of course from you. Give me ten minutes, in PPML 4.2 format, with full audio and visuals—good ones.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “And what do I get?”
“Well, I’m not making you a bullet,” Darla said. “I could offer you a hundred bucks, I guess, but that’d probably be some kind of interstate felony. Just make me the bullet. Make it good. Then we’ll see.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She laughed. “Oh yeah—I know you will.”
“I NEED MORE BULLETS!” BLANCA SHOUTS.
“Forget bullets, get the rocket launcher!” replies Javier, who has finally lost his cool. “A tank is coming!”
Like the original Butch and Sundance, we have come to grief in Bolivia. We’d hit the bank and were about to make our getaway when another group of players decided not to wait their turn and drove up shooting. Bruno was killed by the opening round of gunfire, and a lucky grenade toss blew the back wheels off the SUV. I got busy with the minigun and made short work of the attackers, but in the process I accidentally vaporized a procession of nuns in front of the cathedral across from the bank. This instantly maxed out our notoriety and put the Bolivian Army on crash alert.
Blanca grabs the rocket launcher out of the crippled SUV as the tank rumbles into view at the end of the block. She takes aim and fires before the tank can bring its cannon to bear; the tank explodes and its turret goes flying. Javier and I target the Army snipers who are trying to set up on the surrounding rooftops.
Anja meanwhile searches for a new getaway vehicle. She runs over to an armored car parked in front of the bank, hauls out the driver and executes him, then shouts, “Come on!”
Bad idea. If our notoriety were lower, sure, but that armor won’t protect us against military weapons. We need high speed and maneuverability. “Get the Lobini!” I tell her, indicating a yellow sports car farther down the street.
“It’s a two-seater!” Anja says.
“I know,” I reply. “You and Javier get inside, while Blanca rides on the roof! I’ll stay behind and try to keep the soldiers occupied!”
“Fuck that,” says Blanca, standing over Bruno’s body as she reloads the launcher. “I’ll stay too.”
“No!” says Javier. “We all go together!” He and Blanca start arguing, faster than the subtitles can keep up, but I get the gist: Javier believes in teamwork and fair play, and doesn’t want to win the achievement at someone else’s expense. But Blanca doesn’t really give a shit about the achievement; she’s just as happy to go out in a blaze of glory.
Their debate is interrupted by the arrival of a helicopter gunship. Blanca nails it with a rocket; the chopper spins out of control and crashes into the cathedral’s main steeple, killing another sniper. “Take your girlfriend and get out of here while you still can,” Blanca says, as fiery debris rains down all around us.
“It’s OK, Javier,” I add. “I can get the achievement another time.” I can tell he’s still not happy about it, but the flaming tail rotor that comes whizzing past his head appears to decide him; he gets moving. I glance over at Anja and give her a nod: As best I can tell, Javier is a keeper. Anja nods back, mouthing, “Thank you,” and gets in the car. She and Javier speed away.
“Shit!” Blanca exclaims. Two more tanks have appeared at the end of the block. She fires a rocket at the one in front, turning it into a flaming roadblock. “I’m out!” She tosses the empty launcher aside and grabs an M-16 from the SUV. “Now what?”
“Back inside the bank,” I suggest. “We can hold them off for a while from in there.” Blanca nods and retreats into the building. Burdened by the weight of the minigun, I follow more slowly, continuing to pick off snipers as I go. Another gunship appears above the cathedral and I empty my last few hundred rounds through its windshield.
I drop the minigun and unsling my backup assault rifle. At the end of the block, the second tank pushes past the wreck and fires. The cannon shell zips by a few inches in front of my face and hits the armored bank truck, blasting it into shrapnel. I quickly duck into the bank.
Inside it’s much quieter. The only sound is the whimper of terrified customers cowering in the corners. This would be disturbing if they were real people, but they’re not, so I ignore them.
“Blanca?” I call. She doesn’t answer. I walk slowly forward, scanning for security guards. I don’t see any, but I do find Blanca. She is lying on the floor in front of the open bank vault. Her avatar’s eyes are glazed and unmoving, and there is a bullet hole perfectly centered in her forehead.
“Don’t shoot!” a man’s voice calls, in English. I take cover behind a pillar. A figure emerges from the vault with both arms raised. His right hand is empty, while his left clutches a money sack. His only visible weapon is a Taser in a holster on his right hip. “Don’t shoot,” he repeats. “I just want to talk, John.”
I recognize him then. It’s the white guy from the CIA Factbook. The one I thought was a reporter, who seemed to be following me and Mr. Park around virtual Pyongyang. His Habitual Offender avatar is dressed in black body armor rather than street clothes, but the face is the same.
I lower my rifle and step out from cover. “Who the hell are you?”
“Ms. Pang sent me,” he says. He waggles the money sack. “I have your payment.”
I’d laugh if I weren’t so confused. “You’re going to pay me in play money?”
“No. It’s real.” The heels of his combat boots click against the marble floor as he walks towards me. But then I hear another sound, an incongruous sound—the creak of a floorboard. A wooden floorboard, like the ones in my apartment.
“Here,” he says, and tosses the money sack at me. I make no move to catch it, so in the game world, it passes right through me.
In the real world, a cloth bag filled with soft bricks hits me in the face. I stumble backwards, more startled than hurt. I lift my hands to pull off my goggles and that’s when he tases me. The synchronization is off this time: His avatar is still pulling the Taser from its holster when the real-world darts hit me in the chest and pump fifty thousand volts into my nervous system.
The two realities diverge as my avatar topples over backward while I pitch forward. The money sack breaks my fall, but the pain of involuntary muscle contractions keeps me from appreciating it.
When the current shuts off, I am blind. My headset was knocked askew in the fall. Once more I reach to pull it off, but he says sternly, “Don’t.”
He nudges the money sack. A stack of bills pokes me in the cheek. “Four hundred thousand dollars,” he says. “Two weeks’ pay. Ms. Pang wants you to know she’s good for it. But she also wants you to start taking her seriously. If she tells you to do something, you need to do it. If she tells you to not do something, you need to not do it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” My voice is shaky and I’m short of breath.
“I hope so, John,” he says. “You really don’t want me coming back here for another visit. Trust me on that.” A pause. “This is so we’re absolutely clear.”
He must have upped the voltage. The second shock is more painful than the first, and it goes on longer. I think I scream, though maybe that’s just inside my head. I definitely piss myself. When i
t’s over, I still can’t see, but colors are blooming behind my eyes. Through the headphones pressed to the side of my skull, I can feel as well as hear the sound of raised voices in Spanish—Bolivian Special Forces have entered the bank. Their shouted commands mingle with the sound of his footsteps moving away, and a bang that registers dimly as a door slam. Or maybe the bang is a soldier executing my avatar—I can’t really tell, and anyway it doesn’t matter. The absence of pain, that’s the important thing.
I lie on the floor, grateful that the pain has stopped, and while I wait for my nervous system to reboot, I drool on the money.
Chapter 14
* * *
friend of the Tin Man — Slang term for someone who possesses the necessary hardware and software to engage in cybersex.
—Lady Ada’s Lexicon
* * *
When Men on the Internet built the first fellatio machine, they called their bullet encoding scheme Blow Job Markup Language, or BJML. This inspired a fair amount of mockery from Women on the Internet, as well as two semi-serious attempts to create a female-friendly version of the code: CML, and the functionally equivalent but more cleverly named PTBML, in which PTB stands for “petting the bunny.”
All of these encoding schemes were designed for solo playback of prerecorded sex acts, but of course once you got that working, the logical next step was figuring out a way to allow couples—or groups—to have cybersex in real time.
Men on the Internet once more took the lead—and proceeded to bungle the job. The problem was emotional, not technological: They wanted the convenience of quick, no-strings sex with strangers, without the potential downside of discovering that the hot woman they’d hooked up with was actually a guy. (Yes, there were also gay men who feared being tricked into having sex with girls, but let’s be serious: It was freaked out straight boys driving this particular bus.)
The obvious solution—getting to know people before you fucked them—didn’t fit with the “quick, no-strings” part of the program, so the Men opted for a brute-force approach instead. They created male and female versions of the software, and went to absurd lengths to try to ensure that only people with actual vaginas could use the female version. Saner members of the community pointed out that this was an impossible goal, but it was like trying to convince politicians that there’s no such thing as a crypto back door that only good guys can use: The fanatics kept insisting that with enough nerd power, anything is possible.