by Nick Cole
I hit no and my avatar’s camo glove flicks the arming switch. I get a green light, showing the weapon is armed.
Back in-game, I lob the rocket through the broken doors and slew my POV over to JollyBoy.
He’s gone. Behind me on ambient I hear, “Up here, PerfectQuestioney. I was only kidding; I love Chinese history. The moon colony, tennis champion Chow Wong, that sort of stuff. You might want to get down. In case they throw those things back through the door at us. They could . . .”
He’d left that part out.
A sudden hissing sound turns stereophonic whoosh, as the rocket engines within the missiles ignite and go careening across the lobby beyond the blasted doors. First, one explodes, we hear that, and as the building trembles from the force of the internal explosion, once again the emergency lights in the stairwell go out. Then the second one blows up with a tremendous craacka-boom, and there’s a secondary shattering, as though first a wall had collapsed, followed by a sheet of disintegrating glass.
We raise our weapons and kick our way through the broken double doors at the bottom of the stairs.
The lobby, done up in polished gray marble and anthracite blue, looks like a war zone. One WonderSoft grunt crawls across the floor, his twin reflected in the digital polish and mirrored depth of the surface. JollyBoy puts one of his last bullets into the grunt’s back and he stops moving. The rest of the lobby defenders are dead.
“Kiwi? Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, mate. What’s your status?”
“Lobby secure. Building cleared.”
“Good, we’re going to need it, WonderSoft broke through the line an hour ago with motorized infantry and light armor. We can’t hold them much longer. I’ll tell everyone to fall back across the bridge.”
Down the street, I see our grunts and the rest of our remaining players leaving their fighting positions, running toward the bridge that leads into Song Hua City. In the distance, burning columns of oily smoke tell the tale of exploding WonderSoft personnel carriers.
“That’s tonight’s game, folks,” says the announcer as they cut the live network feed.
The game shuts down, as suddenly the league’s musical theme of triumphant horns begins to blare beneath the bleating voice of the announcer for tonight’s match.
“What a game; can you believe it, Dale? Looks like ColaCorp pulled one over on the big WonderSoft machine and forced a sudden death round. We’re getting word from the commissioner that tonight’s game saw WonderSoft fail to achieve certain victory conditions, and due to the efforts of some outstanding team leaders in JollyBoy and Kiwi, with a two-hundred grunt kill streak by ShogunSmile, ColaCorp has earned the right to play another day. Tune in Saturday night when the boys and girls in blue will try again to shut down the red-and-white heroes of ColaCorp. It’s going to be an exciting night with some big prizes for the players and also you viewers at home. Plus, this sudden death final match Saturday is going to be really different. There could be a big surprise if either team options the roll. The only clue we can give you for now is ‘TimeWarp,’ folks. Good night, everybody; this is Don Keckle saying . . . good-bye and keep on fightin’!”
Chapter 21
I leave ColaCorp. Not because I want to, but because I have to. The Black is just an hour away from going live and I need a machine I can log in with. ColaCorp’s IceStorm firewall won’t let me get anywhere near a Black nebulae server.
I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m homeless.
The Asian kid with the skateboard is waiting outside. His HyperGear glows a soft neon blue as sheets of sleet begin to drive down onto the city.
Will winter ever end?
“Grandpa says you need to log on to Black, chump.” He holds his FlexyBoard across his chest as though prepared to defend himself with it. “S’pose to take you to a terminal. You ready? Or are you gonna ask lots of stupid chump questions?”
I’m out of options. Our . . . I mean my apartment, is now . . . not. Along with everything else I own, my computer is most likely ground down to a fine powdery dust. Any reputable café where I might actually get onto a terminal in less than an hour after the obligatory security background checks isn’t going to be usable for tonight’s Black tournament. Every public terminal is a public place to get whacked by Mercator and his RPG-toting merc tacticals.
“So do we take the board?” I ask.
The boy’s almond eyes find new depths of contempt for me.
Out of the storm above, a high-end charcoal-dusted armored limo signals its arrival with an automated broadcast for pedestrians to clear the area. Its neon blue parking lights arch and swivel through the sleet and off the side of the building as it settles onto the street, adjacent to the curb. I’m impressed.
“Get in,” orders the kid.
Limos cost upward of three grand an hour. They’re never free. Someone will want something in exchange for all this impressive impression making.
The gray interior cycles from loading red to soft neon green as the driver accelerates back up onto the invisible sky lane above the street.
“Where are we going?” I ask. “Grandpa’s house?”
“Airport.”
“Grandpa’s house is at the airport?”
“No. Plane at airport. Here’s your boarding card. You’ve already been prescreened, so don’t make a fuss and act the newb, otherwise you’re going to miss your flight while you sit through medical. Got it?”
I give the kid a dismissive shake of my very tired head. It’s hard being lectured by a fourteen-year-old boy. After staring out the window for a few seconds at nothing but swirling snow, I clear my throat and try to delve.
“At this point, I might raise a whole bunch of questions about where am I going, and why for that matter. But I think I’ll just cut to the chase and ask, What’s going on?”
The kid is playing a game on his very high-dollar version of my Petey.
“Listen, you PerfectQuestion, right?” he asks without looking up from some type of lunar colony game. I don’t know which one.
“Right,” I answer. After all, he did pick me up in front of ColaCorp. Why lie?
“Also, you Wu in very illegal game, right?”
I nod, hoping that if there are any federal livewire devices, they might neglect visual or atmospheric recordings and fail to detect my affirmative nod.
On-screen, the kid shoots down a Chinese lunar bomber. He’s awarded fifty thousand points and the exclamation, Most Indelicate!
“You have fifty-three minutes left until Black game goes live. You need terminal. Trade jet is refueling for flight to Eastern markets for tomorrow’s opening bell. We get you a terminal on the plane more than good enough to run Black game because no trader wants his location being accessed or screened. In fact, perfect for Black. Also, gets you out of city. In case you haven’t noticed, people trying to kill you, chump.”
Trade jets are the ultimate office for brokers of all types who want to be airborne over markets at opening bell all over the world. Airlines that operate them are secretive, ultrasecure, and very expensive. The kid’s right; it’s actually a great place to lie low and log on to the Black. If you have that kind of money. The “lots” kind.
“We got you cabin 67C, upper deck. That two stories above main wing so you won’t be able to see much of Tokyo tomorrow.”
“The cost for those rooms is. . . . I don’t even know how much, but, but it’s got to be . . .”
“Three million per seat or .05 percent of trading gross per trip. Most brokers pay the three million. It’s cheaper.”
“Just so I can play a game to make rent.”
The boy returns to his game. Why wasn’t he in school, instead of wandering around Grand Central that morning? What is he doing out on the streets of New York at nine twenty in the evening in the middle of a blizzard?
“Listen.” The boy stops, seems to argue with himself for a moment, then continues. “Grandpa not grandpa. Maybe he like great-grandpa or even great-great-grandpa. May
be even great-great-great. I just call him Grandpa. He greatest game designer ever known. He go way back. You ever heard of CD-ROM? No. I thought not. Me neither. Grandpa all time talk about old games and old ways. Sometimes I think Grandpa stuck in past. But all the same, I love him. Grandpa say feed the cat. I feed the cat. Grandpa say pick up bag of money from man in high tower. I pick up bag of money from man in high tower. Grandpa say, stay and talk awhile. I stay and talk awhile about old games he love so much. Grandpa say take chump to airport and put him on trade jet. I take you to airport and put you on trade jet. Grandpa didn’t say anything about answer stupid chump questions. So I’m not gonna.”
The boy turns toward the window and the storm, and five minutes of deep silence later we’re settling into the approach flow for the executive terminal at Steinbrenner. Curbside, the kid kicks me out. Before the door closes, he blurts out into the howling wind after me, “Hey, chump!” I turn back.
“Listen, seat is hacked, so don’t act stupid. Act like you actually bought it.” The door shuts, and the armored limo lifts away from the curb.
Hacked?
Hulking men with the latest in armor and smart weapons guard the fortified entrance to Steinbrenner International. A thin man dressed in a well-cut suit steps forward, smiling.
“Mr. Saxon, we’ve been expecting you. I’m sorry but there isn’t much time for the lounge, we’re just moments from push back. Any luggage we can assist you with tonight?”
I shake my head.
“Our scans indicate you’re carrying a baton.” I guess my sawed-off broomstick has a fancy French name. “Would you like to check that?” Meaning I’d need to check that.
I pull my only weapon from my trench and hand it over. When he sees that it’s a baton in name only, he pulls a face but recovers quickly because he’s a professional.
Next, I’m whisked through the curving glass and steel-arched post-retro terminal. Vintage lithographs from past airlines I’ve never heard of dangle from cables in the ceiling. At the gate, I hand a smiling model wearing a powder blue air hostess outfit, complete with pillbox hat and long white gloves, the hacked boarding card the kid gave me. Her translucent SoftEye scans it, entering all the information on it into the Lufthansa system.
“So glad you could make it tonight, Mr. Saxon.” She flawlessly fades a flirty wink and turns to another model behind her. “Please escort Mr. Saxon to his suite.”
The second model pivots, her long legs turning as her perfect heart-shaped face smiles for me to follow along. “Right this way, Mr. Saxon,” she says as if happily surprised. We begin to walk down to the jetway leading to the massive trade jet’s main door. “We have you down for a prime steak hamburger topped with Stilton cheese and a port reduction sauce after takeoff,” she says over her shoulder, eyes riveted on mine. “This will be accompanied by the chef’s signature duck-fat fries. I recommend the ’32 Takehashi zinfandel. Can we offer you anything else to accompany your meal, Mr. Saxon?”
Mr. Saxon?
Who’s that guy?
Apparently, I’m that guy for now.
Someone’s paying and it surely isn’t going to be me.
“What do you have in the way of scotch?”
Her eyes murmur a seductive respect before she names a brand that makes top-shelf malt look and taste like gutter liquor.
“I’ll have a bottle of that. And some ice.”
“Of course. My name’s Candy if you’ll be needing anything else.”
Is there a suggestion of something off menu? Suddenly I feel like a rube just arrived at PlanetDisney. That won’t work on board a trade jet. I need to be an international spy. The kid in the limo told me that acting like all this wasn’t the norm was a great way of letting everybody know I didn’t belong here.
Hacked.
Another model, pixie-cut blond hair, long-legged and lithesome, leads me down a connecting ramp that jogs to the left as a large glass wall opens up onto the massive Krupp Skyliner, the largest plane ever built. It’s a bat winger with eight massive scramjet engines. The fuselage rises up from the hull where the two wings jut way off to the sides. At the rear, two tail fins climb impossibly upward. Its exterior is highly polished shiny metal with a white stripe running above the third tier of windows. Within the white stripe, the name of the airline shimmers in powder blue script. Lufthansa. The entire plane is graceful and terrifying all at once.
On board, we pass a lounge where jazz burbles away under the soft tinkling of glass and ice.
“Is this your first trip with us, Mr. Saxon?” asks model number three.
“No, I’ve done this before,” I lie. “It’s been awhile though. Any changes?”
“None to speak of.” She presses a button for the elevator that will take us up to the executive deck. When the kid’s grandpa hacks, he really hacks. Only very high rollers make it to the executive deck. Or so I’d once read in a trashy celebrity blog.
“After takeoff, we’ll serve dinner. You can take it in your room if you like, or join us in the dining salon. There’s going be a beautiful moon out tonight as we head west over the continent. Once we get up to speed, most passengers sleep until we arrive over Tokyo. Then the trading starts. Then it’s on to Thailand, Cairo, and Paris where we’ll be landing.”
The elevator door opens on the plush white carpet of the executive level. Another model, rich auburn hair in tight, little coils that peek out from beneath her tiny pillbox hat, skin creamy and rosy but only slightly more beautiful than the others, greets me with a cut-crystal tumbler of amber scotch.
“We took the liberty of pouring your first drink, Mr. Saxon. The rest of the bottle will be waiting in your stateroom.” Her voice is a husky purr.
I take the glass, nod to her, and taste the smoothest scotch in the world. The fire starts slow and warm and finishes nicely on an oaky note that smells like fall and burning leaves and the earth on a cold day.
Red disappears down a mahogany-paneled corridor all amber swirls and chocolate whorls. Blondy leads me in the opposite direction down the dimly lit corridor until we arrive at suite 67C. She punches in a code, and the crash door scissors away. Inside, I’m greeted by a large mahogany desk with a high-backed leather chair and a small seating area of two vintage brown leather cigar chairs with a chessboard between them. The chess pieces are ornate. Martian Colonists versus Corporate Raiders. The rest of the suite looks like a rich person’s library.
“Through there,” she says, indicating another smaller door, “is the bedroom.” There isn’t a way she could have said that and not sounded suggestive.
Then again, maybe it’s the scotch.
“In the event of an emergency,” she continues, “we will notify you of what to do. In the event of a crash, don’t do anything. The cabin will fill with SafetyFoam moments before impact, after the suite has jettisoned itself from the fuselage. But don’t worry, that’s never happened.” She laughs lightly. “A crash I mean.” Almost a coy giggle. “Anything else I can offer you for now, Mr. Saxon?” I know the scotch is working when I think about making a crack regarding their turndown service.
Instead I bring myself back to the business at hand, the reason I’m actually here. “The terminal?” I ask, trying to make it sound like an afterthought. Nonchalant.
“We’ve already keyed in your bio-profile to the desk. Place your palm on the top, like this, and it will activate for you and you only. This is a state-of-the-art microframe from Bang and Olafssen. The display uses a nano-coral technology and I can assure you, the color is dynamic and very lifelike. Very easy on the eyes for long hours of trading. But it really comes into its own if you decide to watch your favorite entertainment. I love Lavender and Croquet, that BBC show. Every time I watch it on one of these, it’s like I’m actually living in London back in the 1990s. Its processing power and bandwidth are capable of running twenty million individual applications, while handling data at a rate of forty to the tenth power luminal. All our passengers find this more than adequate for
their needs.”
There wasn’t a look on my face. There was no leer at her obvious beauty. No pleasant buzz from the scotch. No stunned amazement that I was going into the Black on a scramjet hurtling at almost the edge of outer space.
I’m blank.
Because it’s all too much.
“I’ll take that burger now, if you don’t mind,” I mumble.
“Certainly. I’ll be back with your burger shortly, Mr. Saxon,” I hear her say from far away. The door silently slips shut behind her.
I check my Petey. I have eighteen minutes until the Black goes live. I have to eat now because I can’t have them in here serving me the burger while I’m in the Black. Plus I’m really hungry. I throw my trench onto one of the cigar leather chairs, use the nickel-brushed restroom and the softest white towel I’ve ever touched in my entire life, down the scotch, think about another and then think better of it. I probably need to go easy on the scotch until the Black ends tonight.
When I come back into the salon, the blonde is setting up my meal on the now cleared chessboard. Large starched white napkin, silver silverware, logoed tableware that looks expensive because it is. She turns and offers the bottle of zin for my inspection.
“Shall I pour?”
I nod. She could have asked me to light myself on fire and I probably would’ve just nodded to that too.
“I’m going to keep my eye on you.” She leans close, suddenly the professional company line gone. “I can tell you have all kinds of appetites.” She tugs at the top button of my shirt and bites her full lip as if trying to stop herself from something she desperately wants to do.
Then I have the dumbest thought ever. Honestly.
Maybe she really likes guys who like hamburgers.
When the door slides shut behind her without her giving a backward glance—she’s fully confident that I’m watching her legs walk themselves out the door—I throw myself at the burger with seven minutes to go.
Have you ever eaten a burger that was so good, so really good in fact that you had no idea it was the best burger you’d ever eaten until the last bite, in which all the burger-cheese-sauce essence distilled itself down into the last perfect bite of cheeseburger? Unmarred by produce. Have you? Well, every bite of this burger was like that perfect last bite. Not just the last bit. The whole thing. Every bite. It was so good, I almost forgot the zin and ate the entire thing, groaning to myself each time the heady Stilton surrendered to the brash zin. Each flavor draped the grilled medium-rare burger with taste and succulence. Oh, and then there were the duck-fat fries.