Realms Unreel

by Audrey Auden

  Ollie rolled her eyes.

  “The dinner’s in two hours. And anyway, you need to learn how to be as comfortable in your own skin as you are in all your avatars. You’ll do great. Remember, he wants to see you. He doesn’t care how you look. He cares what you can do. But you really do look great, so don’t worry about it.”

  “All right. All right,” Emmie took several deep breaths and checked her hair once more in the video feed, “You’re right. Thanks, Ollie.”

  She left for Berkeley too early and so arrived at the restaurant over an hour ahead of time, before it had even opened for dinner. The host took pity on her and let her inside, and she waited at the reserved table. She sat, periodically tugging the hem of her skirt, flipping her visual overlay on and off, glancing at email and news feeds, unable to focus on anything.

  Tomo arrived promptly at five thirty. He was a compact, vigorous man, though well past middle age, his thick black eyebrows and dark eyes framed by square-rimmed glasses, thinning silver hair speckled with black. He was dressed in a surprisingly trendy fashion, unconsciously absorbed from the current of youth that flowed perpetually into the alternet domain design space. When Emmie turned and saw him, her mouth fell open and her eyes grew wide. She stood so quickly that she nearly overturned the table. She felt her face grow hot and tried to rearrange her features into a semblance of composure. Tomo came to her aid, steadied the table, and reached out to shake her hand.

  “It is so nice to meet you in person, my dear,” he said, a beatific smile alighting on his features.

  “Yes,” Emmie said breathlessly, “So nice to meet you, too!”

  Tomo pulled out her chair, and Emmie sat down. Tomo did his best to put her at ease. He steered the conversation expertly through subjects of mutual interest, discussing domains and domain designers they both loved, the latest developments in immersion technology, speculations about what might be the next hot alternet trend. Gradually, Emmie loosened up, and at last Tomo decided to reveal his purpose in meeting.

  “I will soon start work on a new domain, the first domain to be released by Augur, a company I recently co-founded with two young friends of mine,” he said, swirling the remaining bit of red wine in his glass, “I wonder if you might enjoy working with us on the company’s first project.”

  Emmie gaped.

  “Really? I — I —”

  She closed her mouth and nodded, beaming.

  “Yes,” she said, “That would be awesome.”

  CHAPTER 5

  One Year Later

  As was his habit, Tomo rose from his desk well before sundown, put on his coat, and tended the greenery of his corner office. The ritual conveyed him to a bonsai tree that grew in a blue ceramic tray atop a heavy Japanese cabinet. Tomo pulled a small pair of shears from the top drawer of the cabinet and ministered to the minute leaves and branches. When he was done, he brushed the dusting of leaves into the wastebasket and returned the shears to the drawer.

  But today, as Tomo straightened up, he slid his right hand down the side of the cabinet, until he found a catch concealed in the dark wood frame. A small compartment slid open beneath his fingers. He withdrew a square jade box the size of a cigarette lighter and slipped it into the breast pocket of his coat.

  Tomo stepped out of his office and made his way through the maze of cylindrical projection chambers, modular workstations, and young men and women arranged singly and in clusters about the room. He passed unseen before most of them, who were immersed in the internal Augur domain where the first Temenos expansion was slowly taking shape. But one young man with white-blonde hair and blue eyes ringed with bruise-like shadows looked up as Tomo passed. He pushed back his immerger glasses and said,

  “See you tomorrow, sir.”

  Tomo waved and nodded cheerfully in response,

  “Don’t forget to go home tonight, Zeke. Even God couldn’t create a world in one day.”

  Zeke gave a half-hearted laugh before re-immersing himself in Temenos, where he would likely remain long into the night. Tomo was no stranger to energetic obsession with work, yet he worried about that boy. He had hired Zeke on Emmie’s recommendation, but it had not escaped his notice that Zeke was becoming isolated from the rest of the team. Though all Zeke’s work thus far had been beyond reproach, the boy seemed unable to shed his loner mentality.

  Tomo stopped at an empty desk near the center of the room and looked around for its usual occupant. His gaze settled on Emmie, standing by the lounge coffee machine, deep in conversation with Owen, now her associate creative lead. He had never thought twice about hiring Owen; he and Emmie were nearly inseparable. Tomo watched them for a moment, his fingertips brushing the outside of his breast pocket thoughtfully. Then he continued on his way.

  A bit more than three miles separated Tomo’s office overlooking the San Francisco Bay from his home overlooking Oakland’s Lake Merritt. He enjoyed the walk almost as much as the wonderful diversity of urban landscapes it encompassed.

  He made his way through the spacious lobby of the recently-constructed central office building and out across the well-manicured lawns of the Augur campus. A winding path through fruit trees and over little man-made hills — modeled on a location in Kaisei that was particularly dear to his heart — led at last to the east pedestrian gate. He palmed the door, casting a disapproving look at the spiked wrought-iron fence as he passed through it. He had complained frequently to his co-founders that the fence was an eyesore, as well as entirely unnecessary, but they had insisted that it remain in place. In all the years Tomo had lived in America, he had never come to understand how a culture so fearlessly inclusive could yet be so fearful of its own people.

  He stepped out onto the gritty sidewalk of the West Oakland neighborhood that surrounded the Augur campus. Soon after he had hired Emmie, her father had convinced Tomo of the merits of the re-emerging manufacturing district here, and Tomo had been pleased to add Augur’s weight to the community revitalization effort. He, like Emmie’s father, saw just beneath the urban decay the prospect of renewal.

  Tomo walked through blocks of shabby Victorian homes and chic mixed-use developments, which merged gradually into the high-rise offices of the financial, governmental, and commercial district. Downtown was fast emptying of a workday population heading home toward the lake or over the bridges or through the tunnels, leaving behind only the permanent inhabitants of the street. Charmingly-renovated historic buildings came to life as cafés and tapas bars opened their doors, drawing foot traffic from the tentatively gentrifying blocks nearby.

  A bright red and yellow floral motif worked into the dark asphalt of the crosswalk marked the edge of Chinatown. Mouthwatering scents of baking pastries and savory meats wafted from the open doors of restaurants and bakeries, interrupted here and there by the sweet and pungent smells of fresh fruit and green vegetables piled before grocery stores. Tomo lingered here, where details of the streetscape evoked memories of his youth in Kyoto.

  He paused at one restaurant window to examine an enticing display of dumplings, considering whether to cook for himself tonight or take a table and watch the world go by. Someone a few steps behind him came to a stop before the window, as well. Tomo’s eyes refocused on the glass. Behind him stood another man, watching him in the reflection. Tomo narrowed his eyes, puzzled. There was something vaguely familiar about that face.

  When the recognition hit him, a chill ran down his spine. Tomo turned slowly to face the man.

  He was tall and well-built, dressed in an impeccable suit, silk tie, and shiny shoes. His mane of white-blonde hair contrasted strikingly with his smooth, deeply tanned skin. He would have been quite handsome were it not for the predatory look in his pale blue eyes.

  Tomo stood transfixed as the man withdrew from his jacket a slender silver cylinder that gleamed in the warm light of sunset. Although he did not recognize the object, he knew instinctively that it was a weapon. Tomo backed away slowly until he stood pressed against the restaurant window. Th
e man pointed the weapon casually at Tomo.

  “You were duly warned,” said the man, his genial Southern accent incongruous with his threatening words, “It’s most unfortunate things had to end this way. I do apologize.”

  Tomo felt a pinprick in his chest, followed by a spreading numbness. He looked down in surprise and saw a fine needle, almost invisible to the eye, protruding from his coat lapel, just over his heart. He felt dizzy, then staggered and fell heavily to the ground. He gasped as icy fingers gripped his chest. He was unable to cry out, unable to move. The man knelt over him, calling loudly,

  “Sir? Sir? Are you all right? Sir!”

  The man leaned in close to Tomo, blocking him momentarily from the view of the gathering crowd. A heavy gold ring bearing the sign of the cross gleamed from the man’s right ring finger as his hand passed over Tomo’s eyes. The last thing Tomo felt was the light touch of the man’s fingers as they slipped inside his breast pocket and withdrew the small jade box.

  ∞

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight,” said Owen, handing another soapy dish to Emmie, who loaded it slowly into her parents’ dishwasher. She heard his words from a distance, and it took her a moment to refocus on him. Her mind had been wandering a lot lately.

  “Yeah,” she smiled ruefully, shaking her head, “It’s just Atlantis, you know? I can’t even look at the concept sketches without feeling this … frustration? confusion? revulsion? Something. I know there’s something wrong with it. I feel really bad for holding up the team, but I just can’t let it go. I went to talk to Tomo about it this evening, since we’ve had nothing to show for weeks. Tomo’s patient, but I know Ty’s been bugging him for a review. Just my luck, though. He left early.”

  “You should take a page out of his book. Didn’t you spend last night at work?”

  “Um.”

  “And I bet you’re planning to go back after dinner, aren’t you?”

  “Judgey, judgey, judgey!”

  “Balance, girl. The stress is prematurely aging you.”

  She huffed and flicked water onto his shirt.

  “Seriously, though,” Owen said, brushing himself off, “Sometimes you act like you have to do everything all on your own. Don’t you think you can count on any of us? At least on me?”

  “Come on! Of course I do. I just —”

  “Hey, you guys!” Ollie shouted down the stairs, “Are you coming back up here?”

  “Let’s talk about this later, okay?” Emmie said to Owen, stuffing silverware into the side basket of the dishwasher and closing the door. She wiped her sudsy hands off on her jeans and hustled up the stairs to her parents’ rooftop deck, “I can’t stand having Ollie analyze our shop talk.”

  They resurfaced from the kitchen and found that Emmie’s twentieth birthday dinner party had migrated to the bridge table. Mom and Dad were dissecting a hand of bridge for Uncle Frank and Nora’s benefit, part of their indefatigable campaign to teach them the game (“How have you never learned to play bridge after all these years, Frank?” Mom demanded. “How have you never learned to play Eleusis, Anatolia?” he had countered, laughing.) Dad was making a gallant effort to translate Mom’s bridge jargon, but Mom hardly paused for breath and didn’t seem to realize how confusing the phrase “getting your kids off the street” sounded to a novice player.

  Emmie retrieved her wine glass from the dinner table and walked up to the railing at the cliffside edge of the deck, Owen close behind her. She turned to him, watching the sunset transform his face into a kaleidoscope of golds and crimsons. Not long ago, she had seen Owen as merely a friend and business partner, but in the weeks after their trip to Yosemite, she had started to think perhaps romance had been inevitable from the start. She was just beginning to reconcile herself to her family’s teasing.

  Owen smiled at her, and they leaned out over the railing, watching the warm light play out over the Oakland flats.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” she said, taking a sip of her wine, “But I need a vacation. Want to come with?”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t do anything until your next review with Ty?”

  “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t,” she grumbled, slumping dispiritedly over the railing and propping up her chin on her hand. She dreaded her next meeting with Ty. She could never seem to see eye-to-eye with Tomo’s cofounder.

  “Hey, no, that’s not what I meant. If you want to go, let’s do it. I have a list as long as my arm of places I’d love to see. Where are you thinking you’d like to go?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, swirling the wine in her glass, “Some place I’ve never seen before. Some place new.”

  “Hmmm. That’s a tough one. I’d guess you’ve already visited every rendered place on Earth.”

  “Isn’t that awful? It’s like the only places left to discover are on the alternet.”

  “There must be some uncharted territory somewhere out there,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist, “I bet we could find it.”

  ∞

  The next morning, Dom stood behind Emmie on the fore deck of a ship surrounded by swirling fog. At eye level before her hovered a bright stack of windows, each displaying an aerial view of a topographical map. She flicked through these with her fingers, occasionally pulling one down to scrutinize it from multiple angles as it morphed from a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional terrain in miniature. Beside her, Owen alternated between squinting into the impenetrable mist before them and peering over Emmie’s shoulder at the renderings, making quick tweaks here and there as he noticed mistakes in the environment presets.

  Dom struggled to hold for Emmie the vision of the Temple City, which Emmie had somehow plucked from Dom’s own subconscious and now seemed determined to use as the basis for the Atlantis subdomain design. Dom would not have chosen to have the Temple City occupy both his attention in Dulai and in Emmie’s world, but Emmie’s mind brooked no argument. The only sound was the muffled splash of waves against the creaking hull of the ship, until Emmie said,

  “Let’s see this one again. Atlantis concept 42.”

  Owen glanced at her sidelong, saying softly, off the microphone,

  “Are you sure?”

  She shot him a cool look, and Owen backed off cautiously, mouthing, Okay, okay, before tapping a short sequence onto the forearm of his immerger sleeve. As Owen muttered commands quietly into his patch mic, Emmie cast the terrain maps away with a sweeping gesture and leaned forward against the railing.

  After a minute of back-and-forth between Owen and the spliner control room, the fog dissolved, revealing the distant shape of a mountainous island, which the boat now approached at speed. Emmie grasped the railing more tightly as the ship pitched and rolled, unconsciously brushing away from her cheeks the sensation of cold ocean spray created by the electromagnetic tactile simulator on her headset.

  “Shiva!” Emmie said sharply. In the wave of new hiring that Augur had done when Emmie first joined the company, a number of friends of hers and Owen’s had signed on as well, including Shiva Mehrotra. To Emmie’s perpetual annoyance, Shiva lived up to the reputation for laziness he had earned as Owen’s Eleusis-addicted roommate, but he was undeniably competent and one of the best coders on her team. “What’s with these waves?” she complained, “Sound design sent you the rest of that library like a week ago.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Shiva’s disembodied voice drawled through her earbuds, “Hold on.”

  A moment later, the muffled splashes, which had been incongruous with the ship’s speed, escalated into crashes. Emmie, at last satisfied by the auditory details accompanying the ship simulation, focused once more on the island, which was now crisply silhouetted against a clear blue sky. The ship sped onward until they were within swimming distance of the dramatic cliffs that formed the shoreline. Unable to draw closer, the ship slowed to a stop and rolled gently in the waves. Emmie contemplated the cliffs uncertainly for several minutes, her head cocked to the side. Dom’s own antipathy to
ward the Temple City seemed to have cast a veil over the island that even Emmie’s most determined concentration could not lift.

  “No,” she said, furrowing her brow, “It’s close, but there’s something … Something …”

  A long silence elapsed. Owen suggested tentatively, again off mic,

  “We’ve been at it for hours, Emmie. The team needs a break. We should —”

  “Tsch!’ Emmie cut him off, her eyes still locked on the cliffs, her fingers gripping the rail. Owen sighed. A moment later, she shoved back angrily and growled, mussing her short hair violently until it stuck out in a dark halo of chestnut streaked with cobalt blue.

  “You haven’t slept in two days, Emmie,” Owen said, more firmly now as he saw her resolve weakening, “You need to take a break. Or,” he laughed, looking at her greasy hair, “at least a shower.” On mic again, he said,

  “I’m sure everyone could use a break.”

  The disembodied murmurs of the control room operators agreed from every direction. Emmie nodded reluctantly. Casting a final reproachful glare at the unyielding cliffs of the island, she said with strained politeness,

  “Thanks for your patience, guys. Really great job with the ship simulation. I’m releasing the spliner to the other teams for the rest of the day. I’ll let you know our next call time when we meet tomorrow. Lydia, could you shut down, please?”

  “Sure thing, boss,” a cheerful voice promptly replied.

  The island flickered and disappeared, and the deck of the ship sank slowly, lowering them several yards as it melted into the smooth grey floor of the spliner. She and Owen stood now in a cavernous space. Sound-dampening floors stretched away to meet distant, windowless grey walls that rose over a hundred feet. Owen stretched and yawned. He slipped off his immerger headset, tapped off his patch mic, and peeled off layers of immerger gear until he stood naked to the waist in the flat ambient light. Emmie continued to gaze at the space where the cliffs had stood a moment ago.