Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1)

by M. R. Forbes

  All the while, my eyes stayed on the guards. There was at least a pair at every corner, leaning back and taking it all in. From the size, most of them had to be ogres, or maybe trolls. From the armament, they could have annexed the rest of Brooklyn from the United States before morning if they were so inclined.

  "When we get there, just stay quiet and let me set everything up," Danelle said. "Tony is an okay guy, but he doesn't have much patience for newbies."

  "I've been in the Machine once before."

  Danelle looked up at me and rolled her eyes. "You're running a stock avatar with no mods."

  "I don't know what that means."

  "Exactly."

  We walked another block and turned right. The Machinery was up the street. It was easy enough to find, with massive LED lettering beaming out past mirrored windows and a huge installation of gears, pulleys, and winches taking up a hundred feet of walkway in front of it.

  The Machine was created ten years ago by a technomancer named Aldred Jones. He had this idea that it would be an awesome business and great fun to create a world that couldn't exist anywhere but inside a computer. A world that looked, felt, tasted and smelled like it could be real, but had no solid laws, no solid rules, was completely anonymous, and no one could ever actually get hurt.

  The first iteration was a disaster.

  Not because the interest wasn't there, but the whole idea of lawlessness worked a lot better on paper than it did in reality. When anyone could do anything without consequence, it quickly became a race to see who could come up with the grandest scheme of depravity. From what Dannie had told me, V1.0 got shut down when someone forced all of the avatars to do some pretty nasty things with one another, and locked down the active accounts so that nobody could get out. The only reason Aldred had escaped prison was because nobody knew who he was, or where to find him.

  Version two had a lot more inter-avatar safeguards in place, and maintained a basic ruleset that kept that bit of history from repeating itself:

  1. Keep your shit in its zone. Penalties for acting out-of-zone, or 'oozy', were the harshest penalties in the Machine. Banned for a year, all of your in-Machine credits lost, and your name on the Slime List.

  2. If you died in-zone in the Machine you got kicked off, and you couldn't come back for a week.

  3. If you killed someone in-zone, with the exception of the war zone, in the Machine, and another machinist or the bots got you, you were kicked off and couldn't come back for a month.

  That was it on the inside. Three simple rules. On the outside, it was a little different. The Machine was under constant scrutiny from governments around the world, and while the Houses had seen to it that it was never outright banned from use, it was typically subject to any number of regulations, with certain activities and mods illegal to users depending on their node of origin.

  That was what Dannie had suggested made the Greens so popular, and so expensive. Here, anything and everything was allowed.

  She had owned an account ID for years, but she'd gone into the Machine only rarely, using the anonymity to meet with other ghosts, make some connections, and practice her stealth and combat in the war zone.

  That was before she lost her legs.

  Since then, she went in as often as our finances would allow. She could walk in the Machine. She could run, jump, kick, dance... everything she'd lost was returned, if only for the hour or two that she could afford each week.

  Dannie had told me stories about Ivan Ilyn, a Russian billionaire who had been diagnosed with ALS, and now lived in the Machine full-time. He was strong and healthy inside, even while his body wasted away to nothing outside.

  We passed through the sliding glass doors into the main lobby. It was massive, taking up the entire breadth of the ground floor, and broken up only by support beams, elevator shafts, and a small desk near the center. The outer shell was a single massive wall of video screens, where thousands of streams ran from the inside of the Machine, and hundreds of onlookers loitered in voyeuristic fascination, their eyes shifting from one feed to the next.

  Most of the action was occurring in the war zone, where avatars crouched behind blasted out shells of buildings, or charged through bullet-ridden streets. They were mainly human, though a good portion had mods to give them chameleon skin, or a cannon for an arm, or other craziness like that.

  There was one machinist, recognizable only by his ID number, who seemed to have a following in the building. He was a beast of an ogre, in electric blue combat armor and carrying only a glowing chainsaw. He ran through the debris, taking massive leaps ahead and somehow avoiding all of the incoming gunfire his armor was attracting. He landed on a platform twenty feet up, where a sniper was scrambling to get a bead on him.

  The chainsaw took care of that.

  Danelle followed my eyes to the action. "14596. He's famous in this circle. He calls himself Abe."

  "He's been around a long time." The IDs were sequential. The only person in the Machine who wasn't anonymous was '1', though most believed he had a few accounts.

  "Or she," Dannie said. There was no way to know.

  We kept moving, until Danelle rolled up to the desk. "Hey, Tony."

  "Back again already?" the goblin asked. He cracked a wide smile and held out his hand.

  Amos dug the golden tickets out of his coat pocket and passed them on. Tony looked them over and then glanced down behind the desk. "Room 1214 is open. Who's going up?"

  Dannie pointed at me. "The two of us. Can you run a feed to a private viewing room?"

  He shook his head. "All the viewing rooms are full. It's nuts in here tonight. I can run the feed to the hall?"

  "No. Just keep it closed."

  "You got it. Follow me."

  He turned and headed straight back for the elevators.

  "We'll be back soon," I said.

  "Good luck," Jin replied.

  Amos didn't even notice. He was staring at a feed on the far wall, his eyes bulging and his tongue hanging slightly from an open mouth.

  I trailed behind Danelle and Tony, putting my hand to my mouth to cough a couple of times on the way. My stomach gurgled and churned, and I wondered if the sushi had been a good idea after all. Now that I'd been awake for a while, it seemed my system was getting moving again, reminding me of the truth of my conditioning.

  "So, what kind of mods you got?" Tony asked once we were in the elevator and on the way up.

  I hadn't realized he was talking to me. I opened my mouth, and was saved by Danelle.

  "I'm having him shadow me. He's kind of a newbie. I've got reversal, marksman, agility, ghost, and some other odds and ends."

  "Nice." Tony laughed and put his attention on me. "Fresh meat, huh?" His beady eyes looked me over. "You look like you'd be happier to spend more time in the Machine."

  "Make it a quarter of the price, and I'd consider it."

  He rolled his eyes. "Please. We just increased the prices, and we're still filling to ninety five percent every night. Guess you're just stuck being you."

  I was going to say something unfriendly, but Danelle put up her hand to shut me up. It wouldn't help anything to start with the man in charge of the node.

  "So where'd you get reversal from?" Tony asked. "That one's pretty rare."

  Danelle looked at me, and I could tell she wasn't sure if she should answer or not.

  I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah, D... You told me that one's pretty rare."

  "Shut up. A guy I met inside was selling his, said he needed to raise more cash to buy time."

  And she gave me a hard time about sending money to my daughter?

  "How much?"

  "Do we have to do this now?"

  "How much?"

  "Fifty."

  I laughed. "You were getting me all worked up over fifty dollars?"

  Tony looked at me with a strange smirk on his green face, and I stopped laughing.

  "There are a lot more zeroes attached to that fifty, aren't there?"
>
  Danelle was silent. The elevator reached the twelfth floor. She rolled out ahead of us.

  "D..."

  "Later. Please."

  I let it go. What was done was done. I would save it for later when I needed something, or the next time she got pissed about Karen and Molly.

  Tony got ahead of her and put his fingerprint to the sensor on the door to 1214. It clicked and swung open, and he led us in.

  Aldred Jones was a technomancer, but there was a different kind of magic written into the code that ran the Machine: a billion or so lines of brilliance. The special sauce was in the equipment that immersed the 'machinist' into the world.

  Visually, it was nothing more than a really comfy recliner and a motorcycle helmet. Except, the helmet wasn't just a helmet. It was infused with magic in the form of a pattern like a circuit that rested at the base of the neck right above the spine.

  When you put the helmet on, the magic-powered circuit connected with the latent field energy that humans of every kind had trickling through their systems, and essentially hot-wired it, sending it signals that were able to fool the brain into thinking it was running, falling, lifting a heavy object, having sex, whatever. Ultra-high resolution screens filled the field of vision to trick the brain even further, and the end result was that you felt like you were really in some new three dimensional space.

  I followed Danelle over to the left-hand chair, and gave her my arm so she could swing herself into it. Then I flopped over onto my own rig. Tony hit a couple of switches on each, a soft hum the only indication the system was running.

  "Interfaces." He tapped the helmets resting on the arm of the chair. I picked mine up and slipped it over my head. Foam moved away to let my skull through, then expanded back out to cut off the light from below. It was a lot lighter than I had expected; a newer, better, more breathable version of the one I had used during my only other excursion in the Machine. It sat comfortable and snug, supported by the shape of the chair around it. The screen wasn't on, leaving me in pitch black.

  "The timer starts as soon as I put the tickets in," I heard Tony's muffled voice say. "If you want to know how much time you have left, check your watch. Which zone do you want to start in?"

  "Free," Dannie said. "Near the Jungle."

  I was glad she knew where we were supposed to start.

  "You got it. Three...two...one..."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Machine head.

  I felt a slight tingle in my neck, and the high res screen blew up in a solid white light. The sound of running water filled my ears, and then all at once it started fading, the white replaced with a blur of color, the water overcome by the sound of... engines?

  "This doesn't look like a jungle," I said.

  We were standing on a sidewalk. Cars raced past us in the street. Most were the same brands and models that existed on the outside, but there were a few that stood out. One had paint that seemed to ooze and flow and morph the shape of the vehicle as it cruised down the street, while others sported more complete mods that turned the car into a hovercraft or even a flying pink Cadillac. They were the attention getters, and they captured mine, leaving me staring.

  "The Jungle is a club." Danelle grabbed my arm, breaking me out of my trance.

  I started to look down to where her face usually sat. I had to adjust my angle to look her in the eye. Her purple eye. She looked different here. It was her, but not her. It distracted me more than the cars had. "Dannie, I..."

  "Shhh. No names, remember? I'm Daaé here. You're Baron. Don't forget."

  "Right. You said the Jungle is a club? What kind of club?"

  She turned me to the left. We were standing in front of a large, square building. It had a large neon sign arcing across a vine covered entrance, where a huge man-eating plant snapped at the avatars as they tried to enter. It took good timing to smack it on the head and force it to back away, and if you didn't make it... You were done for the week.

  "Just a regular club with a fun theme. It's run by machinist number forty-two. It's popular here because it's a trade zone. It's also a ghost hangout. Come on."

  She started tugging me towards the entrance, but I pulled back. "Hold on. You told Tony I was shadowing you. What does that mean?"

  She sighed at my inexperience. "Okay, so the Machine is like an alternate reality, right?"

  "I guess."

  "Right. It's also like one massive game. You can choose whether or not you want to play, but the basic idea is that you get in-Machine credits for different things, including just spending time here. The credits can be spent on mods, vehicles, even virtual property."

  "I thought you said the Machine only has three rules?"

  "Damn it, Co...Baron, it has three basic rules. The game part is opt-in, get it?"

  I nodded. "Okay, I get it. What does that have to do with us?"

  "I'm playing the game. Shadowing means whatever you do to earn credits, they go to my account. That's the benefit to me. The benefit to you is that you get to share all of my mods."

  I didn't care about earning credits for myself, so whatever. "How do you earn credits, besides just being here?" I turned my head and followed a white streak of light in the sky - some machinist shooting by riding a jet pack.

  "Mainly through admin organized events with credit pools for the winners. Item hunts, death matches, missile races, that kind of thing."

  "Did you say missile races?"

  "Yes. And yes, you have to ride the missile."

  "This place is fucked up."

  "More fucked up than the real thing?"

  I put up my hands in submission.

  "You can also get points for bounty hunting machinists who are tagged for killing someone else against the rules, or for successful self-defense. They want to reward people for not being pansies."

  "How does it feel?"

  She tilted her head like a dog. "What?"

  "To be able to walk? To have your legs?"

  She didn't need to say anything for me to see what it meant to her. I decided right there that I wasn't going to use the reversal mod fiasco against her.

  "I know why Ivan spends all his time here."

  "Would you, if you could?"

  She took a deep breath and shook her head. "No. Somebody has to watch out for your stupid ass."

  "Thanks."

  "Can we go in now?"

  "Yeah."

  We walked up to the entrance. Danelle leaned in towards me. "Want to see why reversal is awesome?"

  "Sure."

  "When the plant attacks you, just say 'mod reverse'."

  "I need to say 'mod reverse'?"

  "I know it sounds a little silly, but just try it. It isn't any different from vocalizing the magic."

  Except I didn't have to add stupid prefixes to the magic. I went ahead of her, approaching the plant without worry. I trusted her that the mod was awesome, even if I didn't know why or how.

  The massive red bulb of a head slithered back and forth as I approached. I kept my own head straight, watching it out of the corner of my eye. The moment it darted towards me, I said the special words, and it bounced back with a huge chunk out of its front. A second later, it vanished.

  "Hey, hey, hey, what the fuck?" A dwarf dropped from up in the neon sign, landing in front of me. "You can't null Audrey Three."

  I shrugged. "I was just trying out my mod."

  "I can see you were trying out your fucking mod you damn nitwit newbie. You said it like a damn tourist. You must be one of of those rich assholes who just buys half the stuff in the game. You guys screw it up for everybody."

  I didn't know what to say, but Danelle was at my side a second later. "Shit, Oscar, I'm sorry. Will a hundred credits make it better?"

  I could tell by her voice she knew this was going to happen. She was just screwing with me.

  "Daaé? This your new toy or what?"

  "A friend. He's a virgin."

  "Obviously. Yeah, a hundred and we're even
. Just for you."

  They shook hands, and I guess the exchange was made. She took my arm and pulled me inside.

  "Why did you do that?"

  "I needed to teach you about the mods. You remember all the ones I mentioned in the elevator?"

  "Reversal, agility, ghost... yeah."

  "You can use each one once an hour if you need to. Hopefully you won't, but I wanted you to be prepared."

  We reached the inside of the club. Like Dannie had said, it was themed to look like a jungle, with vines hanging everywhere, monkeys swinging, birds flying, and snakes slithering. They all moved in a set pattern that I picked up inside of ten seconds, varying only to keep clear of the hundreds of avatars that sat at large tree trunks, stood in dark corners, or lined up at the bar.

  "You can get drunk here?" I was surprised by the orc pouring thick, glowing liquids into frosty cylinders.

  "Why not? You can do anything here you can do in real life, except die permanently. Get drunk, have an orgasm, even give birth."

  "No shit. Why the hell would anyone want to do that?"

  Dannie laughed. "Lose a bet, on a dare... You never told Karen you wished you knew what it was like?"

  I hadn't, but I knew people who had. "Point made. Are we here for anyone in particular?"

  She pointed ahead, to where a young man with long black hair was sitting by himself. "His name is Azeban. If anyone knows anything about Black, it's him."

  "Relative?" It was hard not to notice the similar hair and cheekbones. Of course, he could have been anybody outside the Machine. Hell, he could have been Mr. Black.

  "Not quite. We hooked up a couple of times."

  I looked at her.

  "Don't you dare judge me, or get jealous, or any of that shit."

  "I'm not. To be honest, I'm happy for you, if it gives you a chance to work off some steam. It's the safest kind of sex you can have, right? No VD, no STD..."

  "No impotence either," she said quietly. I hadn't even been thinking about that.