The Live Soldier Trilogy Box Set

by Liam Clay

  “Can we please get this over with already? The suspense is killing me.”

  “Get what over with?” Ryo asks.

  “I want to hear from the women. Do you really think we've made you soft?”

  Peace shrugs. “I can’t speak for Tikal or Lucy, but me and Amy went over this, remember? The link might have affected our personalities to some extent, but it wasn't the only factor. And once it's been uninstalled, we will know for sure. So let's just wait and see what happens, yeah?”

  Delez looks flabbergasted. “So you came to terms with all of this months ago? Why didn't you say anything? I've been worried sick.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were eavesdropping on everything we did?”

  “We weren't eavesdropping!” Ryo yells, startling everyone. “If I could have stopped being Amy, I would have.” He brightens. “Maybe I can leave for the Thresh ahead of you guys. To let the Mezareens know you're coming, I mean. Alright, that's settled then. In fact, I'll just leave right now, shall I?” He stands up, seeming to forget that he's in his birthday suit.

  “Sit down, you dolt.” Den says affectionately. “She isn't going to be mad at us.”

  “But her and Balthazar...”

  “Were a thing, yeah. Get over it.” A worried look crosses her face. “We'll never have to meet Balthazar in the Real though, will we? Because I'm definitely a little bit in love with her.”

  Jinx is listening intently to everything being said, but he has barely spoken a word himself. Out of the group, he seems the most self-conscious about being naked. The skin disease he contracted here covers his entire body, and he clearly thinks of himself as hideous. He must care deeply about the Afflicted, to be voluntarily working with the people who did this to him.

  “You've been quiet.” I say. “What's on your mind?”

  He scratches absently at his shunts. “It was something Ryo said, about wanting the Mezareens to know we're coming.”

  “I don't think he was fully serious about that.”

  “So I gathered. But it might not even be necessary. Because if your feed was live this whole time, then they will already know.”

  From the looks on people's faces, I'm not the only one who hadn't thought of this.

  “But I couldn't have been transmitting while we were in the Kogi world. My feed originates from my retcom, and all of that took place in my mind, right?”

  For some reason I desperately want this to be true, but Lucy is already shaking her head.

  “Your feed isn't just audio/visual though, is it? Viewers get access to your surface thoughts and emotions as well, and all of that comes straight from your neurals. So it's possible the world saw everything.”

  “The entire year of it?”

  “Yes. Hundreds of editors might be sifting through the whole thing right now, trying to put a highlight reel together.”

  Jinx lets his head fall back against the wall.

  “What's wrong?” Lucy asks.

  “The Colonizer is going to be soooo mad when he hears about this.”

  .

  A few hours later, the door to our stasis chamber slides open, revealing a prim looking man in a gray suit. He surveys the room with thinly veiled disgust.

  “My name is Fabian. Come with me, please.”

  “Where are we going?” Tikal asks.

  “To get you cleaned up, first of all. And then I will be showing you around the arcology. If you plan to accept our offer of employment as security consultants, that is?”

  “What does it pay?”

  “The return of your vehicle, and a full pardon for your recent trespassing violation.”

  “I was hoping for a gold speedboat, but we accept.”

  The Bridger leads us out of the room and into a brightly lit corridor. Shower stalls line the walls, with long benches running between them. This is the first hot shower I've had in ages, and I let the water run for a long time. The shunts in my neck heat up after a while, but the sensation doesn't bother me that much. This is far from the first body mod I've received in my life, and you really can get used to anything.

  Afterward, Fabian leads us to a row of lockers located further down the corridor. Inside them are yellow jumpsuits identical to Jinx's old one. The salesman slips into his with obvious relief, and my heart goes out to him. When we're dressed, the Bridger beckons us onward again. Reaching a set of double doors, he turns around and begins to lecture us.

  “Virtual facilities like this one all share a common challenge. They contain cryobunkers which must be kept cold, and server farms that generate large amounts of waste heat. For this reason, Worldpool is divided up into three nested pyramids. The outermost houses our servers. The middle holds ten million cubic tons of water, which functions as insulation. And the innermost pyramid, where we are now, is our cryobunker. For the past six weeks, you have been isolated inside our high-risk ward. But the general population lies on the far side of this door. It has rarely been seen by outsiders; you should consider yourselves lucky.”

  Peace puts her hand up. “I have a question.”

  “If you insist.”

  “You must have fucked up pretty bad to get stuck out here in the Real. What did you do?”

  The man goes stiff. “That is none of your concern. Now, do you want this tour or not? I am very busy, you know.”

  Delez is laughing behind his hand, but he straightens himself out pretty quickly. “Our apologies. Please continue.”

  The Bridger applies his thumb to a digital reader, and the door opens. We step through, and my gaze is drawn immediately upward. And up again, and then some more, until I get a crick in my neck and have to stop. The inner pyramid is one truly enormous space. A labyrinth of steel catwalks fills it, rising into obscurity. Ladders connect them, but they appear dusty and disused. This is the domain of drones. The fan-powered bots glide between levels, carrying out routine tasks on the thousands of stasis tubes that are their charge.

  “Welcome to the Icebox.” Fabian says. “Follow me.”

  He guides us to an open-sided freight elevator. We squeeze in, and the ascent begins. After the 50th level, I lose track of how high we've climbed.

  “How many popsicles do you have here?” I ask.

  “30,568.” The man replies promptly. “All serviced by 79 administrative staff. It is a more complex operation than you could possibly imagine.”

  “It looks to me like those drones are doing all the work.” Ryo says.

  “Yes, but who do you think manages the drones?”

  “An algorithm?” Peace hazards.

  “Well, yes. But who ensures that the algorithm continues to function properly?”

  “Some of the popsicles? They wouldn't need to be in the Real to do that.”

  Fabian scowls but says nothing. We really shouldn't be goading him. But the squad has had a stressful 6 weeks/year, and blowing off a little steam at his expense seems to be helping. It takes a full five minutes to reach the roof. The inner pyramid's shell is a sweeping span of angular concrete with a pattern of toothed joins traced across it.

  “The Colonizer wanted you to see this. If Worldpool's outer defenses are ever breached, this shell will crack open like an egg, and the water contained in the middle layer will flood in. The temperature will drop to negative 50 Celsius, and the Icebox will become just that.” He smiles. “If our enemies want to kill us, they will have to chip us out one by one.”

  Peace is staring at the facade with awe. “That might be the coolest thing I've ever heard.”

  This mollifies Fabian somewhat. “It certainly is.” He says as we start back down. “But this defense mechanism has been in place for decades, and does not need improvement. Your, ahem, expertise is required for our outer defenses. Come.”

  Stepping off the elevator, we walk to the Icebox's eastern wall. From there, a reinforced glass tunnel takes us through the structure's middle section. The vast weight of water above us would be completely dark, were it not for the submersible drone
s that call it home. These bots range up and down the walls, searching for infinitesimal cracks in the concrete. When they find one, articulated arms make the necessary repairs. They remind me of the janitor bots that wander the skyscrapers of Opacity, cleaning away holo-projector graffiti.

  As we near the exterior wall, the temperature starts to rise. The change is barely noticeable at first. But by the time we emerge into another huge space, I'm sweating absolute bullets. The outer pyramid looks similar to the Icebox, but with servers instead of stasis tubes. And here, finally, there are people. The yellow-clad server monkeys pace the catwalks, running diagnostics and checking cables.

  “And this, we call the Jungle.” Fabian says.

  “Where are the drones?” Francis asks.

  “The heat plays hell with their circuitry. We tried adding shielding, but that made them too heavy. Migrant laborers are more cost-effective.”

  Behind me, I swear I can hear Jinx's teeth grinding. I wonder if any of the workers above us were his friends. Crossing the Jungle floor, we enter a tunnel that brings us to a shallow stream of weaponized nanovax. This is the barrier that ended our second assault on Worldpool. After being assured that it will not harm us, we wade across. The circular tunnel mouth appears up ahead. The enclosing walls fall away, and the glass city spreads out before us. I wish I could say that the Kogi’s virtual world paled in comparison, but that would be a lie. I can see no discernable difference between it and the Real.

  And now Tikal takes charge of the situation. She starts to point out defensive weaknesses and potential chokepoints to the Bridger. He nods along, although I doubt he has any idea what she’s talking about. It must be nice, being called upon to utilize her area of expertise. But to me, she seems a little too keen to immerse herself in work all of a sudden.

  We spend almost an hour among the greenhouses. But it’s hot out here too, and none of us have recovered from our six weeks on ice. Leading the way back through the pyramid, Fabian delivers us to the door of our stasis chamber.

  “We have no proper facilities to house you in.” He says by way of explanation. “And I thought you might want to remain with your friend as well. A drone will be along shortly with bedding. In the meantime, feel free to explore our public virtual environments. You don’t need to use the stasis tubes; those are only for long term immersions. Just tap out this bootup key against your central data shunt.”

  The Bridger teaches us the sequence and then takes his leave. When he’s gone, most of the squad logs in immediately. Peace and I have had our fill of virtual, though. She rolls over and is asleep almost immediately. I’m about to do the same when I realize that Tikal hasn’t logged in.

  “You ready to talk?” She asks.

  “Are you?”

  “We’re speaking right now, aren’t we? Come on, let’s find somewhere private to go.”

  “Like where?”

  She touches her neck. “Take your pick.”

  Nodding, I tap out the activation sequence against my shunt. There is no intermediate period. One second I’m sitting on the floor of the stasis chamber, and the next I’m standing on a crystal pillar with Tikal at my side. The edifice rises from the eye of a swirling vortex of color and sound. At first, there is too much sensory information to take in. But my brain eventually makes sense of the data. Every time the vortex completes a revolution, it changes to show a different virtual environment. Sky cities, underwater worlds, spacecraft deep in the void: it’s all here. The many domains of Worldpool.

  Directly in front of us is a miniaturized version of the pillar we're standing on. An interface is displayed on it. From what I can tell, it is showing us a list of public environments that we can choose from.

  “Where would you like to go?” A voice says, the sound issuing from everywhere and nowhere.

  “A lounge.” Tikal replies. “Think mahogany and crushed velvet, tasteful chandeliers.”

  The vortex flickers, and then the room she described appears, spinning around us at speed. The scene folds over our heads, the pillar vanishes, and now we're facing one another across a white tablecloth. Polished silverware shines in the candlelight. Tumblers of whisky sit in front of us, sweat beading on their sides.

  “Nice.” Tikal says. She looks down at her jumpsuit. “This won’t do, though.” Another flicker, and the yellow fabric is replaced by a sheer red cocktail dress with a plunging neckline. She’s decked me out in a black tuxedo as well. I smile.

  “This reminds me of the first time I saw you, at that industry party on the 180th floor. We’ve come a long way since then, huh?”

  She nods. “You could say that. We were both selfish pricks back then, weren’t we? You hustling for credit, and me hiding behind a tarnished badge.”

  “True. But everyone changes, I suppose.” This hits a little too close to what we’re here to discuss, and I cover my discomfort with a sip of whisky. But Tikal has already latched onto it.

  “Yes, they do. But how much? Anex, in my entire life, I can’t ever remember wanting to settle down. So the way we've been going represents a big about-face for me.”

  “Then all that white picket fence stuff... wasn’t true?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong: I like you, and I’ve been enjoying the idea of this going somewhere. I just want to know how much of it is real, and how much is reflected from you.”

  “Or from Delez or Lucy, or any of the others.”

  “Fuck. I never thought of that. Could one squad member be making all of us want to get married and have babies?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe. But all of this will solve itself once the Colonizer uninstalls the link.”

  “Will it, though? Maybe the damage has already been done.”

  This one hits me hard.

  “But if that’s true, then everything we’ve fought for has been for nothing. We will never be the same, and neither will the Afflicted.”

  “It’s harsh, I know. But we can’t discount the possibility.” She leans back in her chair. “So what should we do?”

  “What can we do, other than wait until the link is gone and see how we feel?”

  “I guess so. On another note, I’m sorry for giving you a hard time about being a woman. I actually thought you did a passable job.” She smirks. “But I couldn’t help noticing that you never, mm, took advantage of the situation.”

  “What do you... oh. It would have been too creepy, getting myself off in someone else’s skin. I kept thinking of whoever that body was modeled on, and what they would think, you know?”

  “Well you missed out on an opportunity to do some first-hand research. Den would be disappointed. But I guess the same old you will have to do.” Rising from her chair, she holds out a hand. “There's a hotel upstairs, and I’m sure they have a room free...”

  I hesitate. “Really? I thought we might be taking a break or something.”

  “From our future, maybe. But we still have needs, and neither of us has gotten laid in over a subjective year.” The candle’s flame is reflected in her eyes now. “To be honest, I’ve been dying for it ever since they woke us back up.”

  I take her hand in mine. “Lead the way, then. And I promise to channel my inner woman.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Three days later, the Colonizer announces that he is ready to uninstall the pooled link. We still haven’t seen the man in the flesh; and it sounds as though we never will, because the entire procedure is to take place in virtual. He isn’t sure how long it will take, so he has requested that we return to our stasis tubes. I’ve developed a healthy aversion to the things, but I climb in along with everyone else. His avatar watches us from the center of the room - probably because that's the only place his holo-projector can situate him.

  “Oh, and don't worry.” He says to me as injection foam swallows my arms. “I will make sure not to tamper with your feed while I’m inside your mind.”

  A lump forms in my throat. “You know about that?”

  “Naturall
y. It was one of the reasons I let you into the arcology.”

  “I don’t understand. How does my feed benefit Worldpool?”

  He shrugs. “Free advertising.”

  My tube closes over me, cutting off further conversation. From across the room, Tikal catches my eye. I have no idea how things will end up between us, but getting the link out of our heads is a step in the right direction, at least. The last couple of days haven’t hurt either. We’ve spent the majority of it in virtual, enjoying each other’s company. Tikal even asked Den for some pointers yesterday, which was kind of like having a professional sex coach. I don't know if we will follow through on her suggestions... but it was enlightening, I will say that.

  This time, the Colonizer puts us into true stasis. If I dream while we’re under the cerebral knife, I have no recollection of it. The next thing I know, my tube is open and the injection foam is draining away. The Colonizer’s paunchy avatar is back too, looking extremely pleased with itself.

  “Your face is giving me good news.” Francis says, rubbing the needle marks on his arms. “Please tell me you’re not thinking about something unrelated.”

  “I am not. You have all been cured. The pooled link has been completely erased from your neural pathways, with minimal side effects.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Side effects? No one said anything about side effects. What kind of side effects?”

  “Nothing to worry about, really. You may have an occasional flashback from someone else’s life, but they won’t last long. Who knows, maybe you will even enjoy them. Just imagine you’re watching a movie.”

  Francis is not appeased. “So I could be chilling out one day, minding my own business, and then all of a sudden I will be Lucy, cleaning the grout in her bathroom?”

  “Hey, I made good money playing poker.” Lucy snaps. “I had a guy for that kind of stuff.”

  “Whatever, you get the picture.”

  Francis isn’t the only one to complain, but it’s mostly just our relief talking. The specter of the link has been hanging over our heads for a long time. Now we just need to do the same thing for the Afflicted. Which brings us to the question of how we're supposed to accomplish that. Thankfully, the Colonizer has an answer.