by A A Woods
And I just punched through it.
“Sorry,” I mutter, forcing the word out. Damien might be a flake, but I need him. I can’t keep competing in the open, not unless I want to get caught. Eventually someone will record me, or Kitzima’s security will slip. And then I’ll be toast.
Damien’s laugh fills the room again, but this time it’s laced with bitterness.
“Oh, you can’t hurt me, Tora. I’m made of steel.” I imagine him flexing or pushing back platinum hair with his tattooed fingers, a black-ink feather running along each long digit. “I’m the eagle, remember? The eagle is not so easily wounded.”
I allow a small smile.
“Well the eagle certainly does think a lot of himself.”
“Of course,” Damien says, tossing the words out with a careless flick. “I’m a lot to think about.” He fumbles with something and I hear the splat of the pizza-wrap being set down. “Speaking of which, look at this.” I raise one eyebrow over my Fuzz Specs. “Oh, right. Oops. Anyway, I’ve got a private message from Anastasia Vasquez. Can you believe it?”
“No.”
Damien ignores me, rambling on, his voice rich with admiration. “She wrote me this morning. Says she’s a huge fan and wants to meet in person.”
Now I raise both eyebrows.
“Don’t look so surprised. I do have eight thousand tuners after all. Well, eight thousand and thirty-five, as of this morning.”
“Damien, she has fifty million. Why would she notice you?”
Damien huffs. “Because I’m fantastic.”
“Or because it’s a scam.”
“Of course it isn’t a scam! We’re meant to be and she’s finally realized it.”
I purse my lips and try to find the right words, but on this subject Damien is totally irrational. He’s had a thing for the ProRec golden goose for as long as I’ve known him, following her channel with an obsessiveness that borders on addiction. He’s ventured above-ground—risking the public’s and even police’s often violent bias against Gamers—to see her live on at least four occasions in the last six months. And even though he’s never told me, I’ve seen his private correspondence. Hacking into his PAP was one of the first things I did after finding him down here in the Tunnels. So I know he writes to her every day, proclaiming his ardent admiration in the kind of language that would make a soap opera look normal.
“Damien…”
“Look, you don’t have to understand. But I’m going to meet her tonight. It’ll be magical. You’ll see.”
I roll my eyes, thankful he can’t see them behind the Fuzz Specs. “So long as you don’t miss tomorrow’s match.”
“Stop worrying, I’ll be there. An eagle never lies.”
“Eagles don’t talk.”
“Exactly,” he says, and I imagine his bleached smile, trying so hard to project the kind of charm my brother oozed without effort. Not that Damien would know that.
I feel sorry for him. Despite my own loneliness, there’s something about Damien that makes even my sad life look warm and cozy.
“Any news I should know about?” I ask, choking on pity for the second time today. I should know better. No one wants to be pitied, especially when they try so hard to appear strong.
Damien collapses back onto the couch with a huff, tapping against the exposed plywood on the back.
“Plastic Mike is missing,” he says in a would-be casual voice. But I can hear the concern, the rare show of humanity.
“How long?”
Damien makes a movement that could be a shrug, his clothes scratching against the corduroy upholstery.
“Few days. No one else seems worried, but that’s the fourth MemHead this month that’s disappeared.”
I stare unseeing at the floor. Plastic Mike, a Stargazer addicted to the private celebrity channels, is known for blowing all his money on surgeries to look and live the way they do. In the past few months, the strange peacock of a man had found a kinship with Damien. They share an obsession with Anastasia Vasquez, among other top channels, and are both so vain and self-obsessed that they tolerate one another in a way few others can. Damien has come to depend on Mike’s acceptance. His camaraderie.
And now he’s gone.
“MemHeads disappear sometimes,” I say, hating the words. Thinking of my mother. How long until she vanishes one night, wandering off in search of something she can’t find in her own brain? How long until her mind snaps, worn down like overused guitar strings?
“Not Mike,” Damien says, a faint snarl to his voice. “He hadn’t reached that point.”
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t speak, listening to Damien tap his nails against the back of the couch. I wonder what color they are today.
“Do you ever think about going back?” His words come in a whisper, as if he’s ashamed of the thought.
I squeeze my ribcage, holding myself together. I can’t do this, not now. Not when everything feels like it’s tumbling downhill and I can’t hold it back.
But he doesn’t stop.
“The Purists say they can help if you stop soon enough. They say there are new methods to extract Yuri Gamen wires from the deeper brain tissue, maybe even reverse the nerve damage. You know, if you catch it in time.”
“You’ve been a Gamer for six years, Damien,” I say, keeping my voice smooth. “That’s a lot to reverse.”
Damien takes a long, deep breath.
“Maybe,” he says at last. “But it’s only going to get worse.”
There’s the sound of a shifting body and I picture him lifting a hand. Touching the right side of his face, where his smile tilts down and his right eye droops. Damage from a badly wired Obaki port and the amateur alterations to his cable. Most Gamers have something like this. Limps. Stutters. Tics. I’m sure they assume my blindness is just another consequence of the games. A risk that didn’t pay off. A gamble they all make every time they plug into the mat. The rest of them laugh it off as just another part of the lifestyle, the choice they make when they braid foreign and unregulated technology into their cables and earn the bands of tape that set them apart from the rest of society.
Not Damien.
He carries the punishment like a ghost, like a chain of stones around his neck. To him, the slack side of his face is a haunting reminder of who he could have been if he’d made a different choice.
“So you want to join the Purists?” I say, unable to stop the challenge from seeping into my tone. “Lose your channel? Never plug in again?”
Damien chuckles and I hear his hand fall, slapping against the couch cushion.
“Don’t worry, I’m not buddying up to your dad anytime soon.” His voice doesn’t bring any reassurance. “He was on the Over Eye yesterday, you know.”
“That’s ironic.” I imagine my father on the news channel, preaching in a shared memory about how everyone should remove their cables and live a life of human connection rather than the virtual illusion of one.
What a joke.
Damien moves again. His footsteps trace the room. “He was inviting anyone who needs help t to their floor in the hospital super-scraper. Seemed nice enough to me.”
“You talk to him then.”
“At least he’ll still talk,” Damien says, his voice again coated in that armor, that immense effort to sound nonchalant. “My own loving mother just sent her birthday gift back. Paid for a new tattoo when I returned it.”
“Hope it was a good one.”
“Well it certainly wasn’t Mom on my shoulder,” Damien laughs. “I should have written fuck parents on my forehead.”
“Would have been an improvement.”
Damien shoves me and I stumble, clutching the wall for support.
“Get plugged,” I snap, but I’m smiling and he’s laughing and the tension of the moment rolls off us like water on feathers. Like it always does. It’s intoxicating to forget your problems, move past them as if they aren’t even there. It’s why I keep coming back to Damien, why th
e Gaming House has started to feel like a second home. Everyone here has enough baggage to drown them if they let it.
So they don’t.
It’s a skill I’m slowly learning as my brother’s disappearance fades into memories that I refuse to open.
“Come on, you grump,” Damien laughs, threading his arm through mine again. “Let’s go watch the newbies. I’ll narrate for you.”
I roll my eyes. “Any chance to hear the sound of your own voice.”
“Be grateful,” he says, tugging me toward the noisy game room. “Not everyone gets so lucky.”
Right, says that bulldog part of my mind that refuses to let go, refuses to forgive.
Lucky.
Memory File of Damien Slate
Gamer Name Aquila
Time Stamp: Tuesday, September 18th, 2195
9:32 P.M. EST
You’re whistling as you step through the ancient set of revolving doors, a strange thrill pulsing through your veins. Heart fluttering. Hands swinging. A jitter in your step.
You are excited.
Around you, ghostly in the dim glow of solar lights gone too long without sun, mannequins stand in bold poses, draped in bright autumn colors. Dresses spill over arrangements of sweaters in every shade of orange. A display of floral jeans has tumbled to the floor, ransacked by the desperate souls who lurk in the Tunnels. Sale racks and shelves form a maze of lost opportunity, sprawling out on either side, all of it coated in dust. Forgotten.
But your body almost skips through the gloom. The tune you’re humming fills this space that’s been starved of sound for too long. Dense air seems to suck sound away, greedily stealing the life you bring.
Your IRIS cable hangs over one shoulder, a not-so-subtle show of power, white-silver tape marking you as a Gamer.
“Anastasia?” your voice calls, sweet and inviting. “Where are you hiding, my dear?”
But your question is answered for you by an explosion of color. Christmas lights burst to life, twining around the sale racks and leading into the depths of the store. You see an office in the back, walled off from the nest of old styles, a red-ringed port beside the door.
Your face tugs into a smile.
Well, half of it does.
Body vibrating with the urge to run, to clap, to leap over the pilfered piles of clothing, you allow the invisible tug of something to draw you forward like a beacon. Like a lighthouse. With shaking restraint, you force yourself to saunter. Whip your head to shift the hair that covers the right side of your face. Dig your hands into the pockets of your thin, crinkling coat and resume your whistle.
The glass around the office is opaque but gleams with color. The Christmas lights guide you, moth to the flame.
Your hand reaches up and slides down your IRIS cable. The sharp end of it hangs from one hand, catching the light.
With a gesture as smooth as silk, you slide it into the glowing red port.
Pain explodes in your head.
A voice rises. A scream. Your own. Your focus narrows to a glowing line of agony tracing itself up your cable, into your brain, spidering out into the network of your neurons. It’s a wildfire, spreading and spreading until there’s nothing left.
Vaguely, as if in another world, you’re aware of your knees hitting the tile floor. Your cable pulls taut but doesn’t come out of the port. Limbs jerk and flail but you have no control over them.
Someone’s words filter through the storm of your anguish.
“Target acquired.” A hand disconnects you, tugs your cable free, and your body falls still. You can’t open your eyes or move your limbs. “We will deliver him within the hour.”
You can’t hear the answering voice, but there’s a crackle and a shift. Bodies move. Someone lifts you like a child.
“Make sure he’s out. Yasmin won’t be happy if he hurts himself.”
“Why bother? They already have to fix his face.”
“Just do it.”
Your eyes are fluttering, the Christmas lights drawing you back, but, before you can wake, you feel someone dig through your hair. Find your cable. Slide it into another device. A memory enters your mind somehow, not bothering to ask for confirmation. Like an Obaki Mat, it pulls at you. Twines into your senses and yanks you from your body. You’re trapped in mud and sinking, sliding away from this reality and into something darker. Something otherworldly.
Your consciousness flails like a horse trying to throw off its rider, like a drowning man. But whatever program they’ve shoved you into is too strong. It sweeps you into a sharp landscape, trapping you in nightmares as the voices carry you away.
Tora
Wednesday, September 19th, 2195
8:28 A.M. EST
I’m not sure what I feel when I turn my Bi-Bike toward the Sky Market and see Anubis standing on the level four loading dock, alone, waiting for me in a new pair of neon green stilettos and her signature smirk. Irritation, perhaps, that I actually have to go through with this? Surprise, that she didn’t call the cops on me?
Excitement?
I swallow all of it as I park and re-adjust my Fuzz Specs. I can’t afford to be distracted out in the open like this.
“I thought for sure you’d ditch me,” comes Anubis’s husky voice from my right.
“Same.”
She laughs and the sound is rasping thunder and smoke. “Not one to mince words, are you Tora?”
I flinch, but it seems pointless to call her out for using my Gamer name in public when her IRIS cable is hanging out, banded in all the colors of the rainbow.
“I want to be paid upfront before we start. In virts.”
“A businesswoman too.” She takes a noisy step toward me. “You’re just full of surprises.”
Her fingers land on my arm like butterflies, incongruously tender when I think of her icepick shoes and near black eyes. I flinch out of habit but don’t move as she makes a warm trail down the loose arm of my brother’s jacket, to my knuckles. With the deftness of a pianist, she flips my hand over and presses a tiny data-drive into my palm.
“For your trouble, ma’am,” she says in a mock posh accent.
I flick the data-drive to my fingertips and plug it into my PAP. While the virts begin to scroll over my vision, I take a peek at Anubis. She’s smirking, arms crossed, staring at me like I’m a puzzle and she’s the missing piece. It makes me want to plug back into my bike and speed off into the morning like I did last time. Like I always do.
But instead I wait as the number of virts keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Finally, the tally stops.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
“I imagine it’s adequate,” she says in a voice that makes it clear she knows it’s more than enough.
“What are you buying, my liver?”
“I’m buying your help,” Anubis says and through the PAP I see her fold her arms, cock her hip. “And your discretion. Can’t have every Gamer in Kitzima’s ring knowing my weaknesses.”
That I can understand.
“As I’m sure you can see, it’s coded for release based on the delivery of proper lessons. It’s all yours, of course, but if you run off on me it’ll evaporate into the VERAN and no amount of genius coding is going to get it back. Savvy?”
My lips twitch. Another pirate fan?
“Fine,” I answer, leaning over the handlebars. “So, what first?”
Through my PAP I see her lips curl and her eyes flash over my bike. A skitter of nervousness crawls down my spine at that smile, so full of trouble it could spontaneously combust.
“Driving lessons.”
“I’m not sure that’s a—”
“Careful, Tora,” Anubis says, swinging one pointed toe over the seat of my bike and settling gracefully down behind me. “Or I might think you’re underestimating me.”
I grit my teeth.
Is this how these lessons are going to go?
I consider tossing the data drive back at her and saying that if she just wan
ts to boss someone around, she should hire a servant with all those virts. But I don’t. I can’t.
I need the money more than I need my pride.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I mutter, hunching my shoulders as her arms wrap snake-like around my middle.
I’ve never understood why people think it’s okay to touch other people without invitation. Especially blind people who can’t see the question in your eyes or read your body language as it warns of an impending handshake, a kiss on the cheek, a hug. But there’s always that person who’s ‘touchy-feely’ or ‘showing support’ as they slap your back and almost knock you to the ground.
Just because they don’t need their personal space doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer for it.
Anubis’s arms loosen as she chuckles.
“Geeze, Tora, unclench. I don’t plan to grope you when you’re looking the other way.” I freeze. Wait for the realization. “Oops, sorry.”
To her credit, Anubis at least sounds apologetic. Unlike Damien.
“Okay, so this is a Bi-Bike,” I say to fill the silence, talking over her unwelcome pity. “Adapted for both land and air. For security reasons, I rigged this port myself, but any vehicle can be altered to work with an IRIS cable.”
“Meaning you could drive it?”
“As long as it has cameras and a port, I can drive it.”
“Excellent.” I hear the smile on Anubis’s voice. It makes me uneasy, but I plunge on.
“It’ll be difficult at first, but think of it in the same way you think of Gaming. The machine becomes an extension of your body, like a Yokai. It feels different for everyone, but with practice it can become reasonably smooth. The more you work this particular connection, the stronger the wiring gets.”
What I don’t say is that it’ll always be harder—and riskier—for her. Because, unlike me, she didn’t have a genius coder for a brother.