Virtually Dead

by Peter May

  Twist: I’m afraid you serve no useful further purpose Chas. Time to die.

  Chas knew he had a split second while Twist went into Mouselook to fire. He glanced at his open Inventory and the LMs that Doobie had given him. He double-clicked fast on the first one his mouse landed on and teleported out of the drive-in at the very moment Twist pulled the trigger. He heard the gunshot following him like an echo, but he was gone, intact, and rezzing suddenly into a strange new world.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  He was on some kind of asteroid. It was dark, the skies filled with a million coloured stars, some of which streaked across his screen. Planets hung in the mist, green and molten amber, blue and red. Huge rocks tumbled through the night in slow motion. And slowly, as this bizarre world rezzed around him, he began to see people. Lots of them. His radar showed a long list of names. This was a busy place.

  Blue chairs floated through the sky, avatars comfortably seated for a ride through the asteroid belt. Behind him was a blue globe, liquid patterns constantly changing, and sliding like oil over its shiny, smooth surface.

  Yet more avatars lounged on cushions around a central circle, and beyond a collection of floating boulders that created a bridge to a neighbouring rock, citizens practised slow-motion tai-chi in perfect synchronisation.

  He saw Twist’s name appear on his radar and turned as his pursuer began to rez, still grey, and almost certainly still blind. Chas would have a few seconds before Twist would see him.

  He started running. Straight across the floating rock bridge and into the serried ranks of the tai-chi practitioners. Almost before his eyes, a girl called Phacelia Jolles burst apart in an explosion of blood and flesh, an enormous hole torn through her middle. The avatar fell dead, blood oozing fast all around her. Chas turned to see Twist in pursuit, gun raised, ready to shoot again.

  He swerved off to the right and ran across the smooth rock surface of the asteroid. Another AV, Thadeus Horchier, spun away, spraying blood through the sky. The report of the gun came almost immediately afterwards. Chas kept running, bumping and crashing his way through the crowds. He saw text appearing. Curses and cries of abuse.

  He was almost at the end of the asteroid now. Nothing beyond it but empty space and a dark planet hanging ominously in the night. A young couple stood by two poseballs. Orbital Kiss F and Orbital Kiss M. The young man, Will Stacy, clicked on the M ball and vanished. Before the girl had a chance to click on the F ball, Chas stepped in and beat her to it.

  Immediately he found himself floating through space in the arms of young Will. They were engaged in a long and passionate kiss. The young man had expected to be locked in the embrace of his girlfriend and was still muttering words of love.

  Will: Mmmmh, darling. I’ve been wanting for this for so long.

  And then came the moment of realisation.

  Will: Jesus Christ! Who are you? Get off!!

  A large ringed blue planet drifted by.

  Will Stacy clicked to detach and was instantly disengaged from the animation, leaving Chas to float alone through the cosmos, embracing nothing but space vacuum. But only for a moment. Within seconds he was wrapped in the arms of Twist, running a hand over his butt, and making out in the shadow of the moon. Far below, he could see the chaos and confusion they had left behind on the asteroid. Dead and bleeding AVs. Panic among the space worshippers. But he knew that as long as he and Twist had their arms around each other he would be safe.

  Twist: You caused me to terminate three innocent AVs, Chas. That is not good. And you can’t escape from me, you know. I have a TP-tracker. I can follow you wherever you go.

  Chas: I don’t understand, Twist? Have you really killed all these people?

  Twist: What do you think, Chas? How much sense does that make to you?

  But Chas wasn’t stopping to think. He needed to get away. Needed time to think elsewhere. The easiest way would be to log out. He clicked the Quit button, but nothing happened. He cursed to himself. His cursor had gone into egg-timer mode. The programme wasn’t functioning properly. So he went instead to his Inventory and double-clicked another LM. In the blink of an eye, he was whisked from the arms of Twist, and hurled through the Second Life metaverse to rez on another continent, in another light zone.

  ***

  For a moment Chas was completely disoriented. At first everything was dark. Then luminous blue triangles appeared beneath his feet, moving away from him, like arrows pointing the way ahead.

  A circle of blue contained him within a larger circle that burned a wide blue arc into black. Red light appeared suddenly on the horizon and sent sparkles glittering toward him across a flat, calm ocean. Behind him a large fishpond caught the light, and he saw a frog sitting on a waterlily looking at him.

  Overhead loomed the shadow of a vast wheel-like construction with four arms extending to north, south, east, and west, where circular helipads were suspended in midair. Directly ahead of him, rezzing in the early dawn light, hung the neon blue legend, ABBOTTS Aerodrome. He was still set to Run, and so he ran, following the arrows beneath his feet.

  They led him into a vast, circular hall where planes and helicopters were mounted on stands, an exhibition of flying machines, old and new. Tall windows all around looked out over the sea and the pink tinted clouds drifting in the from east.

  Immediately ahead of him was an elevator that glowed with walls of blue neon. He ran inside and hit a luminous button on the side of the door. A menu appeared asking him to choose a level. Somewhere, once, he had read that people running away always go up and at some point run out of anywhere further to go. A glance at the panel told him he was currently on Level Two. So he chose Level One. He would break with convention.

  As the doors slid shut, he saw Twist rezzing at the arrival point by the fishpond. But then, in a rush of sound, he descended in the elevator to be tipped out on to a walkway leading to the runway and hangar. He followed it through space to an elevator pod almost immediately above the runway. To his left, there were airplanes and helicopters parked along either side of the runway, a tall radio tower, and an orange hot-air balloon, tied down but inflated and ready for take-off.

  To his right, beyond more stationary aircraft, a large, black hangar stood on the tarmac.

  Text on the elevator pod told him to Click Here. He did, and was given a menu option to descend. He was immediately transported to the tarmac below, and started running toward the hangar. A piece of tarmac to his right lifted and burst into pieces. He turned to see Twist on the bridge above, aiming the Super Gun straight at him. He ducked behind a red single-engined biplane as its nose exploded in flames. Then he turned and ran again. Heading for the hangar. Looking around for help. But there wasn’t a soul in sight.

  At the end of the runway, a large passenger plane rezzed and slowly turned before heading down the tarmac, picking up speed for take-off. Its engines roared in the glowing dawn air and receded into the early morning mist. Chas ran on, past a teleporter terminal, and turned into the vast, echoing space of the hangar. It was filled with every imaginable type of flying machine and shrouded in a darkness that faded almost to black toward the back of the building.

  Chas remembered seeing, somewhere on his screen, a box he could check to hide his avatar name. He found it in Preferences and checked it. Now he could hide without his telltale tag giving away his whereabouts. He would show up, he knew, on Twist’s radar, but with luck it wouldn’t be directional and Twist would take some time to find him. Time enough, perhaps, to figure how to log out.

  He ran to the back of the hangar, into the gloom, and crouched down behind a twin-engined propeller plane from the 1950s. From here, he had a clear view out toward the front of the hangar, and the runway beyond. Another plane roared past, nose lifting as it headed up into the clearing sky.

  A bare-chested figure ran into view, long red hair flowing out in its wake. Twist was little more than a silhouette against the morning sky. Chas watched as he stopped, looking around for Chas
’ tag. Twist’s radar was telling him that Chas was here somewhere. But there was no tag hovering above Chas’ head to betray his whereabouts.

  Twist was still holding the Super Gun, but his arm was crooked at the elbow, and the barrel of the gun was pointing to the sky. He would need to go into mouselook again to fire. Chas ran his cursor along the top menu bar, looking for an alternative way to quit. His original command to log-out was still causing the egg-timer response. Somehow, his system had gone into a spin.

  Twist was moving cautiously further into the hangar. He turned first one way, then the other. Chas imagined that he was checking distances on his radar and that he would very quickly pinpoint Chas’ position. He had almost no time left. Then the drop-down menu under File showed him an alternative Quit option. He just prayed that this one would work. If not, he was cornered here. And the avatar Chas Chesnokov would almost certainly be erased from existence. He stood up and walked boldly out between the aircraft.

  Twist swivelled toward him, evidently surprised by his sudden appearance. Twist O’Lemon’s gun arm levelled out in front of him, the Super Gun pointing straight at Chas, sunlight casting pink reflections on its silver barrel. Twist’s animated smile seemed almost grotesque.

  Twist: Goodbye, Chas.

  Chas: Goodbye, Twist.

  Chas clicked on Quit and screwed his eyes tight shut. He heard the whooshing sound of log-out, almost at the same time as he heard the gunfire.

  ***

  Michael sat staring at the screen, breathing hard, perspiration gathered all across his forehead. Log-out had been successful. Chas had lived to fight another day. But that hardly made him feel any better. He had a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach and was aware of his heart punching his chest as if trying to escape. How was it possible? Janey?

  He shook his head in disbelief and let himself tilt back in his seat, trying to control his breathing. There had to be some rational explanation. Something he was missing. He ran back through the events of the last fifteen or twenty minutes. Twist’s strange, forgetful behaviour back at the office and at the Club Echangiste. His skilful avoidance of Chas’ questions about what had made him believe there was some sort of link between Smitts, Mathews, and Michael.

  And then he saw the answer, suddenly, clearly, in a moment of absolute revelation. Like that moment during a chess game when the route to checkmate becomes so obvious you wonder why you didn’t see it from the very first move.

  The thought took him back with vivid clarity to the drive-in porn theater above the Club Echangiste, his confrontation with Twist in the dying light. And Twist’s words came back to him like bullets from the Super Gun, with almost the same devastating effect.

  You’re too damned clever for your own good, Michael.

  Michael, Twist had called him. But Twist was Janey. And Janey never called him Michael. In all the years she had known him, he had been Mike to her.

  The Twist O’Lemon who had just tried to kill him wasn’t Janey. It was someone else operating Janey’s avatar. And with that chilling thought came the realisation that if someone else was inside her AV, then Janey herself was either in grave danger, or…

  He didn’t even want to think about it. He snatched the phone and called her cellphone. Hi, this is Janey…He hung up and dialled her home number. Hi, this is Janey…He hit the End Call button and sent the handset careening across his desk.

  He tipped back in his chair and cursed the heavens. “Damn you, Janey! Why didn’t you call me back?” He stood up, his mind racing, blaming himself for not picking up the phone sooner the first time she called. He checked the time. It was almost six. It would take nearly half an hour to drive down the Coast Highway to Janey’s place at Laguna Beach. But he didn’t see any other option.

  Early evening sunlight slanted through the birds of paradise growing along the front of his house as he backed out of the garage and saw, parked across the street, the same two mob minders who had been tracking him all day. They sat in their Lincoln, windows down, smoking, making no attempt to conceal themselves. In his rearview mirror, Michael saw the Lincoln pull away from the sidewalk to follow as he accelerated away along Dolphin Terrace. And as he swung out on to PCH south, in the dying light of the day, misgivings about Janey morphed into an almost unbearable sense of dread.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Traffic fumes rose infuriatingly into the cooling evening air, long lines of vehicles blocking the lanes of the Pacific Coast Highway as it came down the hill into Laguna Beach. The last of the rush-hour traffic.

  Fading red light shimmered on the ocean as the sun began its inevitable descent toward Catalina, hidden tonight in a long line of purple haze on the far horizon. Traffic lights turned to green, and the lines of traffic began inching forward. Michael eased his way into the outside lane and pushed himself into the left-turn filter, patience finally giving out as the lights turned yet again to red. He flipped down his turn lights, and with a squeal of tyres, accelerated across the lane of oncoming traffic, turning into the narrow suburban street that would take him up the hill to Janey’s bungalow. Behind him, he heard horns venting angrily at the car, three vehicles back, that had followed Michael’s lead and jumped the lights for the left turn. He wondered, fleetingly, if the mobsters thought he was trying to lose them. But right now, he didn’t care. The motor of his SUV screamed at high pitch as he accelerated hard, ignoring the give-way signs at cross-junctions, before finally turning into Janey’s street, which ran at right-angles along the top of the hill.

  Her car was parked below her house, a battered fawn-coloured Ford Focus, with its defiant bumper sticker, Fermez la Bush! Michael had no idea whether to read this as a good, or a bad omen. If she was at home, why wasn’t she answering her phone? He pulled in behind it and glanced back as his minders drew into the sidewalk on the other side of the street. He started up the steps, two at a time, to the veranda that ran along the front of the bungalow. Still breathing hard, he banged on the door with the heel of his fist then stood listening. But he could hear nothing except for the distant cry of the seagulls and the sound of someone mowing his lawn several houses along.

  “Janey!” he shouted, and banged this time with the flat of his hand. But he didn’t wait for the responding silence. He ran along the wooden deck and tried to peer into the living room window. The blinds were down, and the slats almost shut. With the sun sinking behind him, he couldn’t see anything for reflected light. He ran back along the length of the house and around the side. A small gate opened into the back yard. Janey had never been one for spending time in the garden. Most of the yard was laid with concrete flagstones, weeds poking up between them. A small swimming pool had never been uncovered after the winter. A rusted grill still contained the ash of some long-forgotten barbecue. Bins lined up along the back wall were almost overflowing. French windows leading from the house to the patio stood open, and Chas paused, looking at them with a growing sense of misgiving. This did not look good.

  Caution overtook him now, as he moved slowly from the patio to the interior of the house. He crossed a temperature threshold. The evening air outside was still warm, humming with the sound of spring insects. Inside the house it was cold and dark. He could hear the distant rumble of the air conditioning unit somewhere deep within and knew that no one in his right mind would leave doors wide open with the AC turned on.

  He called out again. “Janey?” His voice cracked a little, and he became aware for the first time of his own fear. Still no reply. He was in her bedroom, her unmade bed a tangle of sheets and blankets, a smell of stale training shoes hanging in the cool air. Dirty clothes overflowed from a wicker laundry basket. He opened the door and moved through to the hall. The blinds everywhere were drawn, and the house stood in darkness, an odd sense of silence about the place. He glanced along the hall to the kitchen and then moved toward the front of the house and the main living room. This was where Janey had lain mock-dead on the floor the last time he had been here. But the room was e
mpty, old beer bottles accumulating around the legs of her favourite armchair where she liked to curl up and read.

  He began to relax a little. There was no one here, after all. And he began to wonder why her car was still parked out front. He moved back along the hall and pushed open the door to her den. The glow of her two computer monitors filled the room, and by their light he saw her lying on the floor by the wall, huddled like a child in the womb. A large, dark patch stained the creamy shag of the rug beneath her. Blood smeared the wall above her, and he could smell it in the chilled air.

  “Jesus, Janey!” His voice came in a whisper that seemed to thunder around the room. He reached her in three paces and crouched to turn her over. There were two bullet holes in the centre of her chest, very close together. Most of the blood had leaked out through a single exit wound in her back. A dribble of dried blood had oozed from the corner of her mouth. Her lips were parted slightly, and her sightless eyes, still behind her thick-framed glasses, were wide and staring. She was cold, bloodless flesh as chilled as if it had come straight from the freezer.

  There was a short trail of blood across the carpet as if she had not died immediately, but dragged herself to the wall and tried to stand up. Then slipped back down to her last resting place, where she had finally bled to death.

  Her right hand was clutched tightly around something small and white. Rigor mortis had not yet set in, and carefully he prised her fingers apart to release what they held. It was a tiny plaster bust of a winged cherub, and he had a recollection, then, of noticing it on previous occasions, hanging from a picture hook on her wall. Janey was not a religious person, but she had been brought up a Catholic and had several religious mementoes around the house. For some reason she had made a determined effort to reach this particular piece, almost as if she knew she would die and wanted the comfort of it, or to ask for some kind of absolution for her sins.