The Game of Luck

by Catherine Cerveny

I swallowed the pill. “Will I feel different? How long does it take to change me?”

  “No, you won’t, and not long.”

  I looked down at myself. Initially, I’d been wearing my standard workplace attire—burgundy business suit and my hair pulled back in a serious knot at the base of my neck. Now I wore the same basic black as Alexei. I reached back to feel my hair and discovered it cut to a sleek chin-length bob and colored a dull mousey brown. Out of sheer curiosity, I held out the neck of my sweater and examined my chest. My breasts were considerably smaller.

  “I would have thought the Consortium would go for bigger,” I murmured as I dropped my sweater back into place.

  Alexei barked a laugh. “While I love your breasts, the look we want to achieve is subtle and forgettable. Busty blonde does not say subtle or forgettable in anyone’s vocabulary.”

  “I wish we could change our appearance this easily in the regular CN-net,” I complained. “There are so many rules to follow. You need to buy things and have them shipped between realms, and everything is where you last left it instead of where you need it to be. Why is this so complicated, especially when it isn’t real?”

  “Because that’s what happens in a bloated bureaucracy. The CN-net doesn’t have a single designer. One Gov oversees it, but they contract out, and everyone wants their slice of the gold note pie. One company may design a handful of realms, but the travel between realms is designed by another. Wardrobes are created by outside fashion houses who also want payment. But no one wants to pay for clothes that disappear once you log out, so those need to be regulated as well. If we all had the blue pill, the middlemen would be bypassed and One Gov would have a problem.”

  “Fine, but knowing that doesn’t make me any less annoyed.”

  “It annoys me too,” he said, then took my hand. “Come on. We only have a few hours before these aliases burn out. One Gov’s AI queenmind is always patrolling for errors, which is what these shells are. If it detects us, we’ll be swarmed with drones attempting to tag our real-world location.”

  He pulled me after him and a second later, the black shadowy veil dissolved.

  The CN-net worked on a twenty-four-hour solar day cycle. It always had perfect weather with blue skies, a warm sun, and balmy breezes that never made your hair frizz the way mine usually did. It rained only when the AI queenmind decided it should, based on whatever algorithm it used to calculate weather, and only in specific realms. In this particular realm of the CN-net—base model, public access—the sky was vivid blue with lush undertones of violet and pink. The sun was so fiercely bright, I felt like I could reach up and pluck it from the sky as if it were a jewel. Everything had been rendered as if drawn by an excitable painter at the creative peak of a Euphoria hit, right before the crash. The detail and the colors were exquisite. Given that One Gov employed legions of code artists to create and refresh the imagery, this beauty wasn’t surprising. But it was a toxic beauty. The CN-net didn’t just entertain the people. It was One Gov’s tool to control and monitor every citizen in the tri-system.

  We stood in the CN-net proper on a sidewalk crowded with storefronts beside a busy roadway. Buzzing by were all manner of vehicles, passing at impossible speeds. In the real world, none of these vehicles would be fuel-efficient, roadworthy, or safe. Here, that didn’t matter. Anything was up for grabs, depending on what you could afford or code for yourself. Some vehicles were standard air-hacks. Others were flight-limos of various lengths and colors. And in some cases, the appearance defied all logic or practicality.

  “Is that a goldfish?” I asked, watching something float—no, swim—past. Were those people straddling its back?

  Alexei barely spared it a glance. “Most likely,” he said as he drew me down the sidewalk.

  “Why would someone do that?” I marveled, eyes straining after it.

  “Because they’re idiots who believe they’re creative and miss the mark entirely.” We stopped walking and my eyes flew to the vehicle parked in front of us. “Get on.”

  I knew about these from pictures of Old Earth. Combustible fuel engines. Very fast. Two wheels. They didn’t exist in the real world since One Gov banned them for being unsafe. Looking at it now, I couldn’t help but agree, but gods it looked like fun.

  “How did this get here?”

  “I pulled it through a gap in the code. It’s simple to snipe a change if the code already has an aberration built into it. Plus, it’s inconspicuous and fast. We’re in a race against the queenmind’s drone army.”

  “Do you think they’ll tag us?”

  “No, but it’s best to be cautious. I’m not putting you in jeopardy. We get what we need, then transition out.”

  “Fair enough. You didn’t say where we’re going.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he agreed before climbing on the vehicle and steadying it between his legs.

  The thing was black and sleek, all shiny chrome, plastic, and leather. It was low to the ground, with handlebars in front I assumed were used for steering. It looked like you needed to lean forward to grasp them, so you were practically lying down in order to drive. It could seat two, but whoever rode in back would need to cling to the other person just to stay seated. When he looked at me expectantly, I climbed on behind him.

  “What do I do with my hands?” I wanted to know.

  “Hold on to me,” he said, and I caught his fleeting grin.

  My arms went around his waist, my front pressed to his back, my inner thighs gripping the outside of his, but I felt nothing. It was a damn shame I couldn’t enjoy the sensation.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder. “I would love to be able to ride with you like this outside the CN-net. You would like it.” He sounded wistful.

  “You’re probably right.” I rested my chin on his shoulder, lips at his ear. “Now tell me where we’re going.”

  “We’re going to the Renew treatments DNA repository. Nothing like a little break-and-enter as a couple to keep a relationship fresh. Hold on tight.”

  Break and enter? Before I could squawk a protest, the machine roared to life and we were off.

  * * *

  In the real world, the Renew treatments DNA repository was a massive database that housed billions of records—perfect copies of anyone’s DNA who’d ever had a Renew treatment. On the CN-net, the tri-system database was a multilevel, near-impregnable fortress with versions in every realm. I was informed the CN-net visual representation was all for show and we’d be able to get in and out with no problems.

  Renew treatments began at age twenty-five. Everyone had a baseline measurement taken to be used as a reference guide. All future treatments were administered to keep the body in sync with the original baseline. The Renew repository was also the best way to track someone since it kept the most up-to-date records in the tri-system; no one—no matter how tech-averse they were—skipped their Renew treatments. That meant everyone checked in at least once a year, making it a great place to start looking for someone. Further, if someone wanted to look for the luck gene, combing through a vast DNA repository and searching for the necessary genetic markers was the best place to start. If my family members’ DNA had been sniped and copied from the Renew database, Alexei would be able to track it.

  After a perilous drive where we wove in and out of traffic, we roared to a halt in front of the Renew database castle. We’d both been windblown during the ride, but now that we’d stopped moving, our images resettled to the new environment. A look in one of the cycle’s side mirrors showed my chin-length hair lay smooth and sleek. In fact, it looked as if it had just been washed and styled.

  “If I thought my hair would behave this well in the real world, I’d cut it off in a heartbeat,” I murmured as I straightened from my examination.

  “Don’t. I like your hair the way it is.”

  I mock saluted him. “As my lord commands.”

  “I like the sound of that too,” he mused. Experimentally he tried, “‘Yes, my lord.’ I like it. You s
hould try it at home.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not in this lifetime.” I gestured to the massive fortress. “What’s the plan to storm the castle?”

  “No storming necessary. I’ve already booked an appointment for a Renew treatment consultation. That gets us in the front door and a sit-down with a consultant.” He took my hand and pulled me after him. “The appointment is for you, by the way. Have the consultant run you through the various procedures available. Keep him talking and get him to explain all the advanced procedures.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “Once the consultant links to the Renew records, I can open up a trapdoor in the coding. Then I’ll do what I do best.”

  That statement was so loaded, it was a wonder I didn’t explode from the hundreds of smartass answers vying to stream out of my mouth. In fact, I think my brain almost shut down in the competing stampede.

  “Snipe,” he said, shaking his head as he watched me. “The answer was snipe the CN-net.”

  “Right. I was going to say that. That was my first answer. Honest.”

  “And ‘being a manipulative son of a bitch’ wasn’t?”

  I barked out a surprised laugh. “That was way down the list. Practically at the bottom.”

  He jerked me after him, and I caught his smirk. “I’m sure it was. Ready?”

  All traces of humor vanished and I looked up at the walls. I tightened my grip on his hand and he squeezed mine. “Ready.”

  The good thing about being logged in to the CN-net was I didn’t need a chip reader to scan the citizenship chip in my c-tex. We crossed the drawbridge, sailed through the massive front gate, and announced ourselves in minutes. Soon after that, we were in a small office, seated in front of a consultant who rattled off procedures while I oohed and aahed in excitement. The office was a letdown. I’d expected more from a building that had gone out of its way to look so medieval and impenetrable.

  We sat in a dull gray office decorated in Early Modern Boring, the consultant in front of us. He was blandly attractive with even features, wearing a white uniform of fitted short-sleeved shirt and long pants. Emblazoned on the upper left pocket of his shirt was the One Gov logo—yellow sun, three white dots representing the planets, all superimposed over a black background. He looked eerily similar to the avatar alias shell Alexei had constructed. It shouldn’t have surprised me. I knew the majority of the population used One Gov’s base-model predesigned embryo plans rather than take their chances with a fate-baby, but I rarely considered its tendency to strip out individuality.

  We went through all the Renew treatment options and I booked a follow-up appointment for out in the real world—an appointment I’d never attend. Then again, my birthday was next month. I’d be scheduling a Renew session soon anyway, providing I wasn’t pregnant. Maybe I could transfer the appointment…No, wait, I was supposed to be in disguise. Transferring was impossible. Still, I paid attention to the treatment options and made a mental note to ask Alexei if he’d be willing to spring for the deluxe package.

  As the appointment drew to a close, with our consultant looking thrilled he’d been able to up-sell so well, I glanced to Alexei for confirmation.

  “Is there anything else we should consider before we go?” I asked.

  Alexei smiled and said, “No, we have everything we need.”

  That was our cue to get the hell out. We wrapped up with handshakes and pats on the back, and not long after, we were on the street.

  “How did it go?”

  Alexei threw a leg over the cycle. “Get on. Let’s discuss it later.”

  I studied his expression. Nothing. Absolutely inscrutable. I couldn’t get a read on the man, although I blamed the avatars for that. Since I couldn’t stand around on the virtual sidewalk and compel him to talk if he didn’t want to, I climbed on. We roared away until we reached the other side of the city, far from the Renew fortress and anyone who might be watching us.

  Alexei coasted to a stop in a busy commerce district with hundreds, if not thousands, of other avatars weaving around us.

  “Why are we stopping here?”

  “Because it’s so busy, no one will pay attention to us.”

  Apparently I needed to put more effort into understanding basic cloak-and-dagger techniques since this hadn’t even occurred to me. Alexei turned enough for me to see his profile and he looked…concerned.

  I leaned into him. “What is it? What happened at the Renew repository?”

  “I found what we needed, but the snipe was more complicated than I anticipated. Renew repository data typically isn’t very secure. It shouldn’t have its own AI watchdog drones, but it did. The data on your family was double-encrypted, with unexpected tags. I can’t be sure if I tripped over any of the flags.”

  None of that sounded good. “Should I panic?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, frowning. “When I dug into your father’s whereabouts on Venus, I hit a wall. I couldn’t force my way through it—not without calling attention. I tried to run the DNA code locators against the Consortium network, but our network is spotty there. I couldn’t pull any information tags without alerting the drones. I can’t get anything more on your father without punching a hole in the queenmind a mile wide.”

  That sounded even worse. “But you did get something useful, right?”

  He nodded. “I copied DNA prints for all the Sevigny family members the repository had on file, paying special attention to those we know are missing. Yasmine is only sixteen, so she’s not on file yet, but I did get both of her parents so I can cross-reference against any future data we find.”

  “What about expired citizenship chips? Did you find any?”

  “Usually those are immediately logged in the data to prevent Renew fraud. However, I couldn’t find any expiration tags. I don’t know if that’s because the data was locked or because your family isn’t registered through t-mod reference points.”

  “That sounds like a lot of dead ends. Is there anything else we can do?”

  He nodded, but his expression didn’t hold out much hope. “We can still coordinate a locational search, but we need to be in a different realm. And we need to hurry. I don’t want to keep you here much longer in the alias shell.”

  “Okay, let’s do that. Do we use a nexus-node jump pad?”

  “Unfortunately, no. The scanning system rendering the avatars will identify the shells as coding errors and try to correct the inconsistencies.”

  “So we’ll lose our cover. Do we go back to nexus-node 183?”

  “Not quite. The Consortium has a trapdoor that lets us drop to the sub-realm layers of the CN-net. It’s where you go when you want to find anything that’s been deleted or strip anything encrypted. In our case, it’s the perfect place to trace hacked citizenship chips or reconfigured DNA.”

  “But if it’s been deleted, how do you find what doesn’t exist?” Then I caught the expression on his face, one that said nothing was ever deleted from the CN-net, no matter how much you wanted it gone. “Never mind. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  There were several ways to get around the CN-net. Either you transitioned from one realm to another using jump pads—the fast way—or you drove around on light roads that connected the giant blobs of light, with the giant blobs being different CN-net realms—the slow way. Thanks to our avatar shells, we zoomed around the slow way.

  I wasn’t sure how long we’d been on this particular light road when Alexei cut the engine and sat back. The silence was instantaneous and unnerving as we sat in between two realms. Around us was a vast, unending darkness, as if the CN-net code artists hadn’t bothered to render this part of the e-universe. The light road was empty save for the two of us, creating a spooky and surreal backdrop that seemed plucked right from a horror slash.

  Even with my dulled senses, tension spiked through me with sharp immediacy—a reaction to Alexei’s stillness. “What is it?”

  “Something is following us.”

>   I looked back the way we’d come. Nothing but darkness, and in the distance, a blob of light representing one of the CN-net’s great realms. “Are you sure? I don’t see anything.”

  “I can feel a change in the CN-net’s vibration frequency. It’s in the process of manifesting.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about but bowed to his greater experience. “Manifesting? What does that mean?”

  “The AI queenmind has released…something, and it’s causing this plane to resonate at a different pitch. Back at the Renew repository, the setup showed signs of tampering, and none of it should have been tagged like that. I didn’t think I hit the triggers, but now…I don’t know.”

  I touched his cheek, not liking the troubled look clouding his face. “There’s no way you could have known. Someone set a trap for whoever came snooping. If anything, it proves we’re on the right track.”

  His smile was faint. “Yes, but now we have drones en route to tag us.”

  “Well, we already know that’s bad news so let’s not dwell on it. We’re not close to a nexus-node. What do we do?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Several seconds clicked by where it seemed he considered his options. I sat paralyzed in my seat, rigid with inaction, and pressed my lips together in a thin line while I stared at the back of his blond head. Mostly, that was so I didn’t scream. Why was he taking so long? Alexei always knew what to do, and did it. No hesitation. No doubt. No lack of certainty or fear he’d made the wrong decision.

  Finally he turned enough so I could see his profile. I took in the features so foreign and alien to me. “I think we can outrun them,” he said. I wished I could say he sounded decisive, but all I heard was hesitation and worry. “The public-access nexus-node is ahead of us, so we’ll exit there. The jump pads will strip our avatars, but it’s our best option. Hold on to me and don’t let go. If you fall off the cycle, you won’t be hurt but it will give whatever’s behind us the opportunity to catch up before we can resume our speed.”

  “What happens if—”

  “No ifs,” he said before he picked up one of my hands and pressed it to his lips. “I promise to keep you safe. Nothing will touch you.”