by S. W. Clarke
And when Mother was about to decline—“you’re a service administrator”—Veda had invoked her one request. Upon adulthood, every dupe was given the opportunity to make a single request that, within reason, was unrefusable. But it was such an old custom that most clones didn’t even know it existed anymore. And for good reason: it allowed them to do things like this. It had allowed Veda to enter the game.
She had been braver than she thought. She had chosen Sicora Online, and she had persisted.
In her mind, she sensed Sicora waiting, hovering, undulates of her presence washing over Veda’s consciousness.
How did I pass the preliminary? she thought.
“Just as you surmised, Veda: you were braver. You didn’t run. You faced your worst fear,” Sicora said.
Full integration. Sit. Don’t move. Face forward. The thump. If Veda had use of her body, she would have shuddered. Did I imagine all of that?
“Yes. That was the reality your brain conceived during the preliminary,” Sicora said. “Only the memories I’ve returned to you were real.”
So she was still alive, un-integrated, her body inside a capsule.
What happens now?
“Many things, I expect. For now I’m going to return you to your body. I’ll see you again, Veda Powell.”
The interview room was windowless, not very large. Veda listened to a hologram of Haito Mizuki, the foreign mastermind behind Sicora; he spoke breathily, in a language she didn’t know. He sometimes punctuated his sentences with “very good, very good.”
“Mr. Mizuki was so deeply impressed by your performance during the preliminary he decided to conduct your interview, Veda. You’re one of the few clones to pass,” the translator, Mariella, explained. Anya was somewhere, too; Veda could almost hear her harsh speech, feel her rough fingers applying the sensors to Veda’s body. She had reported Veda’s success to Mariella, had brought her to this room.
“Please, have a seat,” Mariella said, taking one of Veda’s hands, guiding her to a chair. She sat upright, sensed she was positioned opposite Mariella and Anya and Mizuki’s hologram. “We’d like to talk to you about Sicora Online before we make a decision about testing.”
Miziku spoke again, breathy and soft. Veda sensed a question forming.
“How did you feel inside the preliminary, Veda?” Mariella asked.
Veda folded her hands in her lap. Her time with Mother had prepared her for these kinds of interrogations. “I didn’t know I was inside the game. It felt real to me. I was afraid.”
A pen clicked, the nib scribbling across paper. Mizuki spoke again. “What did you see?”
Mariella whispered something in the other language, clearly not intended for Veda. And then Mizuki sounded apologetic. “I apologize. Mr. Mizuki didn’t realize your circumstances,” Mariella said. She was referring, of course, to Veda’s blindness. “You’re actually the first one of your kind we’ve had pass the preliminary.”
Veda said nothing. If she weren’t asked a question, she had learned it was better not to speak at all.
Mr. Mizuki was talking again. He did sound a little apologetic, even if she couldn’t understand his words.
“How did you feel in the game, Veda?” Mariella asked. Her thumb pressed the pen’s nib in. And out. And in.
“I was afraid, mostly,” Veda said.
Mariella translated. Mizuki spoke again, and Mariella said after: “That’s right, your brain activity shows you were greatly affected by immersion in Sicora. The preliminary has been designed to tap into your subconscious and play out your worst fear. Sicora Online is intuitive—and a bit rough—in that way. The good news is, you endured it, Veda.” Mariella paused, allowing Mizuki to add something else. “What was that fear?”
“Don’t you have a way of knowing?”
“I’m afraid not,” Mizuki replied through Mariella. “Over six-hundred people tested today in Columbia City, and we can’t watch all of you. We can measure some things—like your heart rate, your neural activity—but at this stage, the experience is yours alone.”
Veda could tell this was a half-truth. It was a delicate time: she couldn’t tell them about her fear of full integration; it might disqualify her if they eventually wanted to integrate her with one of their own games. But she was also a terrible liar. Veda settled for her own half-truth. “Inside the game, I just spent the rest of my life doing the same thing: working as a service administrator, never experiencing anything else.”
“Is that what you want, Veda—to experience new and different things?” Mizuki asked.
Veda nodded. “Yes.”
“We would like to send you through to the trial,” Mariella said, translating, “but to be frank, we’re concerned by the amount of neural activity reported on your readout.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll describe to you what I’m displaying on this screen,” Mariella said. “I’ve just brought up your readout from your time in the preliminary. The line on my tablet is spiking up and down like a jagged mountain range.”
“That’s bad.”
“Potentially. It means you’re extremely stimulated by what you’re experiencing. That could be a bad thing, or it could be very good.”
“How could it be bad?” Veda asked. She had a feeling Mariella was going to tell her another half-truth.
“If, at some point, something were to happen that overstimulates you, the extreme neural activity could cause your adrenal system to overreact.”
“Overreact?”
“Too much adrenaline through your body. Your heart could get out of control.”
“And how could it be good?”
She sensed Mariella touching the tablet again; her nails clicked on the screen. “What I’m looking at right now are four readouts of the top competitors during the preliminary—those who made it furthest in the game. The fifth, the red one, is yours. It’s almost identical to theirs, Veda.”
Her breathing quickened. She knew who one of those top four was; there was no question about Prairie being up there. Of course, Veda couldn’t ask without giving herself up—the only thing that kept them from connecting the last names was that 36% of clones were “X Powell.” The surname was the equivalent of Smith for humans. And that was how Veda had always thought of herself: common, workmanlike, replaceable.
But she wasn’t common in this game. Maybe all of this was part of the preliminary, too, the workings of Veda’s outrageous imagination. Or maybe it was the longest, craziest dream she’d ever had.
Or maybe—and her heart beat against the cage of her chest—it was real. “What happened to the other four?”
“Knocked out in the course of play, as happens,” Mariella said. “Veda, we need you to be aware of the risks of entering Sicora. You would be one of a handful of clones we’ve selected for testing, and the first service admin. We’ve done extensive trials with humans, but when it comes to your readout—and with you being the first of your model to enter—we’d need to be extra cautious.”
Veda had to be careful with her questions. “Is there anything else that could happen if I were overstimulated? Could I begin to integrate with the game?”
Mariella paused while Mizuki spoke. “Given that you’ve been engineered to work with artificial intelligence, that’s a risk. We will, of course, limit your time in the capsule to eight hours a day.”
Eight hours. That was less time than she spent at her current job—and a lot less time than she’d spend fully integrated.
“What will happen to me after the testing?”
Mizuki paused often during his reply. “That depends,” he said. “As you know, this is the last trial before the game goes live. We’ll have to see how things go. If you do well, we may hire you to permanent testing of Sicora Online. If you and Sicora don’t mesh, then we may consider other options, such as returning you to your previous employer.”
Her previous employer, which wasn’t employing real people anymore. Veda needed to be useful to Py
ro. “One more question,” she asked, “do you ever plan to fully integrate clones with your game?”
Mizuki sounded terse this time. “I’m afraid that’s information we can’t share with you. Gets into classified territory and all that.”
That was a yes. Veda nodded. Be brave. “I understand the risks,” she said, “and I’d like to continue.”
Mizuki’s hologram clapped his hands once Mariella had translated. “Wonderful news, Veda. We’ll arrange for you to take the hyperloop tomorrow. Be prepared to experience many new and different things, both inside and outside the game.”
And then she was led out of the interview room, transport arranged for her to return to the apartment and inform Mother that she would be boarding the hyperloop to the reclaimed west coast in the morning. Tomorrow.
On the transport, she reached into her pocket, unfolded the note. She ran her fingers over it again and again. Be brave, the lettering said, and be smart. That was what mayday had always meant between them.
There was no last dinner, no salmon filet. Veda hadn’t told anyone she was leaving—especially not Dairy. For all Veda knew, fake Prairie might try to stop her. She certainly had reason to. She was a replacement, after all, for a person that wouldn’t be returning.
And Pyro clearly didn’t want anyone sniffing around that gravesite.
Departures were always kept quiet anyway: most often they involved full integrations, and Mother didn’t want any needless grief. So Dairy would assume Veda had been integrated with Big Stax, and that would be it. Veda wrote a note to Mother informing her that she had been approved to join the final trial of the game. She folded her personal clothes into her backpack while the others sat in the mess with their hydro-bars. And, of all things, Veda wondered what food she would be given at this new place. She wondered what kind of pod she would sleep in. And she wondered—
“Ready for laps?”
Dairy. As soon as she’d spoken, the clock chimed: 8pm. Time for their nightly walk.
Veda stood, sealed her pod with the backpack inside. Her heart clattered. “Lead on.”
Outside, Dairy hooked her arm into Veda’s elbow. It was summer, stifling summer, and the mask felt almost wet on Veda’s face. They started down the sidewalk, both silent. She thought of the preliminary, Dairy embracing her in the pod, and she wondered if her mind had imagined such a thing because she sensed it was possible. Maybe Dairy was capable of more than Veda had given her credit for.
“Where were you today?” Dairy asked when they had reached the corner. She pulled her mask down and her voice came clear, inquisitive. “I didn’t see you walking to work.”
Veda started to pull right—custom was to walk the single block—but Dairy didn’t move. She was waiting for an answer.
Veda turned to her, pulled her own mask down. “I was late.”
A moment passed, and then Dairy started them straight—not right. They crossed the street to the next block. “That’s not the Veda Powell I know.”
Be brave, be smart. “I just felt off this morning,” she said, keeping step.
"Did it have to do with the midweek?"
Of course she knew about the midweek; word of those got around fast. "No. Mother just wanted to check in after Sybil reported an error."
“Did your efficiency go down?”
“Luckily not. Five years of being on time gave me a good backlog.”
And they continued in uncommon silence to the end of the next block. Here, finally, Dairy turned them right. “You know, I had a lot of off days after I got back from the trial. The whole thing really did a number on me.”
Veda said nothing. Dairy never talked about the trial without Veda’s prompting—which she’d stopped doing when she’d discovered the truth.
“I’ve heard the game has been toned down a bit since then,” Dairy continued. “Turns out, psychological trauma isn’t something gamers leap at.”
“You were traumatized?”
“A lot went down,” Dairy said. “I don't even know how many times I nearly died before I actually did. And let me tell you: near death feels just as bad as actual death.”
They took another right. They were circling back to the apartment. “Is that why you didn’t want to join the next trial?”
“Oh no. It wasn’t the physical pain in Sicora that brought me back here,” Dairy said. “It was everything else.”
Veda kept her arm hooked in Dairy's, or maybe Dairy wouldn't allow her free. Either way, the other clone had sensed something. She was a security admin, after all, attuned to signs of stress. This was a warning.
“Well, I’m happy you’re back,” Veda said. Like a good service admin, she slipped her mask over her face. "Don't let Mother catch you with your mask off again. You can't afford another midweek."
Be brave, be smart. And sometimes a smartass. It helped with deflecting attention, Prairie had taught her.
Dairy laughed the laugh she knew so well. “Speaking of psychological trauma,”—she was walking easier now—“that woman will actually be the death of me.”
And Veda knew she had passed another trial.
Four
Veda came off the hyperloop after six hours of travel at 500 miles per hour, both thumbs hitched under her backpack straps. Her aural aids—courtesy of Pyro Games—bloomed with activity in the San Jose station. The two white pebbles in her ears operated by sonar, created a tight grid of echoes and sound that allowed Veda more mobility in this new, unfamiliar place.
Her first time in a hyperloop station, and this one was a flurry with the arrived train, thousands of people making to get off, to get on. She ended up pressed to the cold tiles of a wall, listening for her name from the Pyro staffer who would transport her to the campus.
And she did hear her name, but it wasn’t the staffer. “Holy hell,” came a female voice, and then two hands on her arm. She recognized this person. “You made it. The service admin actually got through.”
“Amy Park,” Veda said, her voice rising at the end, a question.
“Forgotten me already?” She delivered a soft jab to Veda’s shoulder. “Oh, they totally suppressed your memories, didn’t they?”
Prairie’s Amy. Scrapper Amy. Hanged-from-a-noose Amy. She’d participated in the very first trial a year ago, and she and Veda had talked before the preliminary. The memory was coming clear: after Veda had arrived at the stadium, she and Amy had been put in a waiting room together. They’d talked about the game, and she had asked Amy about Prairie. But Amy had gone strangely mum, didn’t want to talk about ‘Ringer,’ as she called her. Not then, not there. Not at all.
“I remember you,” Veda said. “You used to hate dupes.” That summer, Veda had listened to the telestream of the first Pyro trial on her breaks at work, heard the interviews and the play-by-plays. Amy and Prairie had been enemies. Until they weren’t.
“Okay, amnesiac—fast-forward a bit there. First off, those were your opening words the last time we met. Not the best start,” Amy said. She was already leading Veda away from the wall, navigating her through the station. “And since you still sound a little mind-boggled, what I said to you was: I didn’t strictly hate dupes. It’s just most of us have never really met a clone, you know? Seen you, yes, but not met you. Anyway, that’s long past. You’re in the trial now, and we’ve got a whole lot coming down the pike.”
They wove past people and signs and benches, Veda’s aural aids pinging like rocks across water. She walked in a half daze, processing Amy’s words. She talked like she already knew Veda—had been expecting her—even when they met at Brand Stadium. Maybe Prairie had mentioned her in the course of the game, but why did Amy sound so relieved? And Veda wondered, above all, whether she had made the right choice; she didn’t know how she felt about “a whole lot coming down the pike.”
They passed from the heat of the station into the dry heat of the outdoors, and Amy planted her in front of a transport. Vehicles hummed past. “Two accounted for,” she called. “Amy Park a
nd Veda Powell.”
“Well hey kiddos,” came a man’s voice. He sounded young: mid-late twenties, over-cheerful. He crossed to stand in front of Veda. “I’m Jon, one of the Pyro staff. And you,”—he was talking to Veda—“must be our service admin.”
“How could you tell?” Veda said.
“Well, you’re the only blind tester—“
“She’s joking, Jon,” Amy said.
Jon’s fingers snapped. “Of course, of course,”—he let a high-throated laugh—“Clones joke, too. Welcome Veda. Did you know you’re only the fourth clone we’ve had in the trials?”
Veda shook her head. Beside them, a bus horn sounded, and she flinched as the aural aids registered the blaring with histrionic echoes. The technology was almost too good, too acute, and Veda thought she might actually prefer old-fashioned walking with her hands in front of her.
“Well, you are! And oddly enough, the second Powell. Do they just pick from a pool of like, four names?”
That was bad; as clueless as he sounded, Jon had picked up on that detail. Before Veda could sidestep, Amy spoke: “There’ll be plenty of time for interrogations after we’ve gotten to the campus, Jon.”
Amy sure didn’t hesitate with the punches.
A beat, and then Jon recovered. “Sure thing, Ms. Moxie. Let’s just hop right on. So glad to have you back by the way, Park.”
On the transport, Veda’s hands went to the seat beneath her. The vibrations came different: subtler, smoother. This was the newest vehicle she’d ever ridden in. Her aids pinged with the voices around her, and from one seat over, Amy whispered: “Twenty-one cutthroats. Don’t trust a single one of them except Galen.”
She knew that name. Prairie’s Galen, the guardian. So he’d come back, too. “Where is he?”
“Ignoring us, as usual. Don’t worry: he’s always like this at the start.”
“What do you mean, ‘always’?”
“I mean he and I have been in five trials together, and Galen’s always a massive grouch until he’s in the game.”