Virtually Dead

by Peter May

  Chas: I open my mouth and feel your lips turn against mine. Warm and wet. And your tongue in my mouth sends a thrill right through me.

  At first he felt strangely embarrassed, and then as his excitement grew, emboldened to the point where it didn’t seem to matter any more. His imagination took over, his eyes half-closed, picturing every movement, feeling every touch. His sense of the woman he was with seemed so real, that he could almost believe she was there with him in the flesh. This was the first sex of any kind he’d had since Mora’s death, and it was as if a floodgate had opened inside him. Feelings and emotions and desires that had been pent up for so long came flowing through him in an almost uncontrollable rush.

  Step by step, Doobie somehow controlled their AVs through the physical stages of the sex act, to the point where he saw himself slipping inside her, and imagined it so powerfully that it seemed almost more than real. All the time her words provoked and inflamed him, his responses following almost involuntarily.

  Until a ching broke his concentration and an IM appeared on his screen.

  It was from Jamir Jones. The gecko. And Chas remembered with a start that he had taken Jamir and Roger’s money, 500 Lindens, and done nothing to earn it. His sexual arousal rapidly faded as the image of the two geckos on the floor of Twist’s office returned to him like a bad dream.

  Jamir: Hi, Chas. Just a quick IM, since we hadn’t heard from you. Any news for us about Nevar Telling? Roger’s very impatient, but I told him you would be on it.

  Chas was flustered now.

  Chas: Doobie, I’m sorry. I’ve got incoming from the geckos.

  Doobie: What?!

  Chas: Hi, Jamir. I hope to have news for you very soon. I’m just on my way to Sandbox Island right this minute.

  Jamir: Oh. Good. I knew we could rely on you Chas. We’ll be waiting to hear what happened. We’ll not go offline until you get back to us.

  Chas: Damn!

  He detached himself from the poseball and stood up on the bed, his erection rapidly wilting from lack of continuous excitement.

  Doobie: What is it?

  Chas: I have to go to Sandbox Island, Doobs, to deal with a griefer.

  Doobie stood up.

  Doobie: Really! Well, I’d better come with you, then. It’s a damned dangerous place.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Chas stood on top of a giant ketchup bottle and surveyed the scene two hundred feet below him. A vast, sandy plain shimmered off into an unrezzed distance. Smoke rose from a disabled tank. Several armoured vehicles lay in a tangle, embracing in a death crash. A Second World War fighter plane was buried nose-first in the sand. The sounds of distant battlecries carried on the wind, and Chas could see figures diving and darting around each other in the airspace overhead, flashes of light and smoke accompanying the sounds of gunfire. This was Sandbox Island, and Doobie stood beside him in full armour, arms folded across her chest, smiling in anticipation. She was ready for action.

  Doobie: Everything that happens here is just temporary. You can do almost anything. Build or rez whatever you like. The server scans every five hours and erases everything. So anything goes. Griefers come to try out new weapons on each other, experiment with revolving spam boxes that just keep duplicating until they bring a sim to its knees. Gangs come to fight it out. It’s a dangerous and anarchic place, Chas. The SL equivalent of somewhere like Somalia. If this Nevar Telling character hangs out here, then he’s a bad lot.

  Chas: I thought you came here.

  Doobie Littlething grins.

  Doobie: Just for target practice.

  Chas had filled her in on the background to the case, and she was looking forward, with what he thought was an almost unhealthy relish, to the idea of a confrontation with Telling.

  Doobie: We’ll overfly the island. You take the west side. I’ll go east. Keep an eye on your radar. If Telling appears on it, IM me.

  The giant ketchup bottle stood at the northern tip of Sandbox Island, and they took off, left and right to head south and scan for the griefer. It was less than a minute before Chas saw Nevar Telling’s name appear on his radar, just seventy metres distant.

  Chas: Got him, Doobie.

  Doobie: TP me.

  In an instant she was hovering beside him, swivelling through 360 degrees.

  Doobie: Down there. Next to that bombed-out building.

  And she was gone again, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. Chas went after her, but couldn’t keep up. As he approached the building and dropped to the ground, he saw Doobie, gun drawn, facing up to a Neanderthal-looking man in jeans and a torn tee-shirt with two bloody bullet holes. The tag above his head betrayed him as Nevar Telling. He was barefoot, unshaven, and bald, a cigarette smoking in the corner of his mouth. His left arm was tattooed all the way up, and one of his eyes was pure red.

  But just as Chas touched down, Telling took off. Straight up, like an arrow, spinning as he went. And Doobie went after him, a first shot ringing out, leaving a smoke trail soaring into the blue. Chas craned to try to follow them, but they were gone, and he could only assume that they were using some kind of accelerated flight HUD. There was no way he could ever have kept up with them. He looked around.

  The building next to him was a ruin, walls pitted and pockmarked by gunfire. Wisps of white smoke rose from within, and a pile of rubber tires burned outside what had once been the entrance, belching thick black smoke into the air. Abandoned vehicles were scattered around, like the decaying remains of animal carcasses.

  Chas was startled, suddenly, to notice an orange and green dragon perched on top of a smouldering gallows. The creature was looking at him, eyes blinking imperiously. The name tag revealed him to be Devil Davis.

  Chas: Hello.

  Devil: Hello.

  Chas: Are you a friend of Nevar Telling?

  Devil: Not telling. Never will. Why do you want to know, Mr. Private Detective?

  Chas: Just wondered, since the two of you were down here together.

  Devil: Doesn’t mean anything.

  Chas: No. Just wanted a chat with him, that’s all.

  Nevar: What about?

  Chas wheeled around to find himself facing the Neanderthal Telling. His right arm was extended, a large, ugly-looking weapon two inches from Chas’ face. His lips drew back to reveal a mouthful of broken and decayed teeth, in what was more a grimace than a smile. Chas glanced quickly around, but there was no sign of Doobie.

  Nevar: Doesn’t matter anyway. Gonna blow your fucking head off.

  Chas braced himself for the shot. There was nothing else he could do. But in the blink of an eye, Telling was suddenly encased in one of Doobie’s cages, closely meshed black metal holding him so tightly that movement was impossible.

  Nevar: WTF!

  Doobie dropped out of the sky beside them, grinning, her gun held up by her head.

  Nevar: Fucking bitch. I’ll de-rez this in sixty seconds, and you’ll never catch me.

  Doobie: Never say never, Nevar.

  She turned to Chas.

  Doobie: I’ll let you have the pleasure of blowing the brainless head off this bloated bastard, Chas. But you only have about forty seconds left to ask your questions.

  Nevar: Questions?! What fucking questions!?

  Chas: About my clients Jamir Jones and Roger Showmun. You might remember threatening them from the wing of their jet plane the other day.

  Nevar: Oh, them? What about it?

  Doobie: You’re running out of time, Chas.

  Chas: Okay.

  He clicked on the red gun HUD on his screen and drew his weapon.

  Nevar: Jesus Christ, you’re not seriously going to shoot me with that?

  Chas: Well, maybe I won’t. But I’m going to need your word that you’ll leave Roger and Jamir alone in the future.

  Nevar: Hey, anything, man. It was just words, you know? Nothing serious. I mean you shoot me with that, I’m a dead AV.

  Doobie: What makes you think that?

  Nevar: H
e’s Chesnokov, right? Chas Chesnokov. That’s what his tag says, unless he’s some kind of replicant.

  Chas: No, you’re looking at the genuine article.

  Nevar: Well, that’s the Super Gun you got, right? Scripted to kill. Hack the computer and wipe me out.

  Chas: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just wanted to speak to you about the geckos.

  Doobie: Hang on. What do you know about this Super Gun, Nevar?

  Nevar Telling was scathing.

  Nevar: Everyone knows about the Super Gun. It’s a fucking legend, isn’t it? Can kill an AV, kill an account. Ever since Wicked disappeared off-world about three months ago, there have been rumours about who had the weapon.

  Doobie: Wicked?

  Nevar: Wicked Wilson. Fucking genius. It was Wicked that wrote the script. Stuff of dreams, man. Or nightmares. But he’s gone. History. No one knows what happened to him. Shot himself, maybe. LOLOLOL.

  Chas: What makes you think I know anything about it?

  Nevar: Common knowledge, pretty boy. You wuz talking to Gunslinger about it just yesterday. Word is, you know where the gun is. And for all I know, that’s it clutched in your sticky little paw. So I ain’t taking no chances.

  The cage de-rezzed.

  Chas: Don’t move.

  Nevar: Hey, man. You got it. I ain’t going nowhere while you’re pointing that thing at me.

  Chas: I need your word that you’re going to steer clear of Jamir and Roger in future.

  Nevar: Man, if those geckos want to fly around my airspace, you tell them they can go right ahead. They got my full blessing.

  Chas: Okay.

  He waggled his gun.

  Chas: Go.

  Telling didn’t need a second invitation. He took off like a bullet and spun off into the blue, vanishing completely within a matter of seconds.

  Devil: Nice gun, Chas.

  Chas turned toward the dragon.

  Devil: Gunslinger’s 1911A1 Custom, am I right?

  Chas: Yes. You are.

  Devil: Thought so. That asshole wouldn’t know a Super Gun from a lollipop. LOL. Well, thanks for the entertainment. See you, guys.

  And he flapped green, webbed wings and took off with a loud beating of the air.

  Doobie stood looking thoughtful, and Chas wondered if it was the animation, or whether he was just superimposing that impression on to a blank AV. Either way, it was becoming clear to him that SL projected much more than met the eye.

  Doobie: Methinks, Chas, that we should pay a return visit to your friend, Gunslinger Kurosawa.

  ***

  They stood in the yard, among the swirling papers and the smoke from the brazier, waiting for Gunslinger to show. He had told them in IM that he would meet them back at his place. A bunch of soldiers in army fatigues and dark glasses pushed past them and into the store, walkie-talkies humming and crackling, the sound of distant voices burbling across the airwaves. They lined up along the edge of the sandpit and took it in turns to fire at Bin Laden.

  Chas was nearly finished with the IM he was leaving for Twist. He had written an account of the gecko case, telling her that they had paid a further 500 Lindens on learning that Nevar Telling wouldn’t bother them again.

  Doobie had been silent for several long minutes, engrossed in Search and IM, trying to piece together every scrap of information available in SL on the subject of Wicked Wilson. Finally she emerged from Busy mode, and swivelled toward Chas.

  Doobie: Seems that Wilson was some kind of computer geek in RL. No one knew exactly who he was, but he was famous amongst the griefing community here in SL. A kind of genius vandal. The kind of malicious mind that would concoct the worst sort of computer virus and let it loose on an unsuspecting world. Until he disappeared, he had a store here that sold very sophisticated weaponry and tracking systems. It was a mecca for all the griefers in SL. And the military and police communities were also frequent customers.

  Chas nodded toward the soldiers in Gunslinger’s store.

  Chas: You mean, like these guys?

  Doobie: Yeh.

  Chas: I didn’t know there were cops and soldiers in SL.

  Doobie: LOL. Oh, they’re not real, Chas. Just muttonheads macho role-playing.

  A diffusion of light burgeoned in the air above them, and Gunslinger Kurosawa dropped to one knee, then stood up and glanced at his watch.

  Kurosawa: Hi, guys, what can I do for you?

  Doobie: Well, for a start, you could keep your mouth shut in future.

  Chas jumped in hastily.

  Chas: What Doobie means, Kuro, is that somehow it was all over SL today that we were talking to you yesterday about the Super Gun.

  Kurosawa: Yeh, well, you know, it’s kinda hard to keep a secret in this place.

  Doobie: Well, you managed to keep the secret of Wicked Wilson and his Super Gun pretty much to yourself yesterday.

  Gunslinger Kurosawa shrugs.

  Kurosawa: There was nothing secret about Wicked. Everyone knew about him.

  Chas: And the Super Gun?

  Kurosawa: A rumour. Nothing more.

  Chas: So what happened to him?

  Kurosawa: No one knows. It was a complete mystery. One day he was there, the next he was gone. And since no one knew his RL identity, there was no way to know what had happened. When the tiers ran out on his store, it got erased, and everything with it. Damned shame. There was some fine weaponry in there.

  Doobie: So do you think Wilson would have been capable of writing the kind of script you described to us yesterday?

  Kurosawa: If anyone could, it would have been Wicked.

  Chas: And do you think this Super Gun might really exist?

  Kurosawa: It’s possible. We heard reports of AV’s being zapped and replaced by cadaver clones. Nothing ever verified. But the rumour didn’t go away.

  Chas: Unlike Wicked Wilson.

  He turned toward Doobie.

  Chas: Do you think it’s possible that someone killed him with his own gun, and that’s what they’re using now to wipe out wealthy AVs and steal the money from their accounts?

  Kurosawa: I don’t know how they would do that, Chas. There’s no way to take something off another AV unless they give it to you.

  ***

  With the ringing of his phone, real life crashed back into Michael’s consciousness for the second time that afternoon. He tore himself away from Chas and Kuro and Doobie, and saw that it was Angela calling. He picked up the handset.

  “Hey, Angela. How are you doing?”

  “Hey, Michael. Just a quick call to say I’m putting all my appointments on hold for the next few days. I’ll reschedule when I get the chance. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Is there a problem, Angela?”

  “A bereavement, Michael. There’s no accounting for death, and it’s no respecter of diaries or schedules.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Angela. Don’t give it a second thought, where I’m concerned.”

  “Okay, thanks, Michael. I’ll be in touch.”

  It was only when she had rung off that he saw the red light winking on the handset to let him know there was a message. He hit the button and listened to the welcome message, before he heard Janey’s voice, shrill, almost trembling with excitement.

  “Michael, where are you, for God’s sake? I think maybe I’ve cracked it. Found the link between Arnold Smitts and Jennifer Mathews, RL and SL. Staring us in the face the whole time. Even makes sense of the money being paid into your account.” He heard her sigh of frustration. “Oh, God, typical that you’re not there. There’s someone we should really talk to together. But I don’t think it can wait. Call me soon as you can.”

  Michael hit the recall button and listened as the phone rang four times before Janey’s messaging service cut in. He hung up.

  “Shit!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Chas and Doobie sat in the sofa chairs in Twist’s office, watching the little train roll by. No giant dildos on it to
day.

  Chas: It’s so frustrating not knowing what it is that Twist has found out.

  Doobie: It sounds promising, though.

  But Chas was doubtful.

  Chas: I can’t figure how he could just stumble across something that connects all three of us—Smitts, Mathews, and me. And how can we all be connected SL and RL.

  Doobie: Well, presumably he’ll phone again.

  Chas: I guess. Maybe I should have left a message and told her about the Super Gun.

  There was a momentary pause.

  Doobie: Her?

  Chas held his breath for a moment. He had just let the cat out of the bag. Only, there didn’t seem any point in keeping up the pretence any more.

  Chas: Okay, you caught me. Twist isn’t really a guy, Doobs. Twist’s a girl I work with at the FSS. Her name’s Janey. Sorry about the deception. That’s just who she is in SL.

  Doobie: No problem, Chas. Actually, I was going to ask you to give me your RL ID anyway. I mean, I know what you do and where you work. But it would be useful to have a name.

  Chas: Why?

  Doobie Littlething sighs.

  Doobie: I hate to put it to you this way, Chas, but if anything happens to you, don’t you think there should be someone that knows the full story who can go to the police?

  Chas: Well, thank you for that comforting thought, Doobs.

  A silence hung in the air between them.

  Doobie: Well?

  Chas: I’ll give you my name on one condition.

  Doobie: What’s that?

  Chas: That you give me yours. After all, we almost had sex this afternoon. That makes us pretty intimate.

  Doobie: I’ve had more than almost sex with lots of men, Chas, and I’ve never given any of them my RL name.

  Chas: Yes, but none of them ever beat you at chess.

  Doobie: That’s true.

  She appeared to think about that for some moments.

  Doobie: Okay, you first.

  Chas: Michael Kapinsky.

  Doobie: And an address?

  Chas: I live in Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach, California, Doobs. That’s as much I’m telling you. Oh, and I’m ex-directory, so you won’t find me in the phone book. Your turn.