This Virtual Night

by C. S. Friedman

  “Sir . . . this may be above my pay grade . . . but what’s up with Shenshido? Shouldn’t someone be repairing it? Or dismantling it? Or . . . something? I got a look at the place while I was out there. It’s a fucking wreck.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then: “That is indeed above your pay grade.”

  Grimm’s jaw tightened, but he bowed his head in assent. “As you wish.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “No. I’ll see the wreckage is disposed of properly.” He bowed his head again, managing to convey both respect and arrogance. What a piece of work he is, Khatry thought as he watched Grimm swagger out. But a useful one. For now.

  “Resume display,” he commanded, and the stars returned.

  In truth, he had no idea why Shenshido was being handled this way. Someone at the top of the Tridac hierarchy had decided that the station should not be dismantled, repaired, or allowed to fall into the hands of a rival company, and had sent Khatry instructions to that effect. While orders direct from Earth were something no CEO in the field dared ignore, it seemed a criminal waste of resources to him. He’d inspected Shenshido right after the big scav attack—to assess the damage—and thought the place still had potential. Certainly it should be used for something. But the triple-encrypted, no-reply orders made it clear his superiors thought otherwise, and didn’t want to discuss the matter with him. Hear and obey, he thought bitterly. But that was price you paid when you served a megacorp. At least until you rose high enough in the company’s hierarchy to earn a seat on the Terran Board.

  A paneled office. That’s what he would buy himself, when he got that far.

  What price must we pay, for inviting this new technology into our brains? What losses must we suffer, for compromising the integrity of the human soul? What dangers must we face, unimaginable to past generations, because we in our arrogance have seen fit to create them?

  MAXWELL ONEGIN

  Think Again! (Historical Archives, Hellsgate Station)

  HARMONY NODE

  SHENSHIDO STATION

  THE LIGHTS flickered intermittently as Micah headed back toward the food court, and one time they went out for several long seconds, making his heart lurch in panic. He activated the flashlight on his headset. When the lights came back on it was still visible, as a narrow beam of glowing dust motes that swirled in the air currents like insects. He tried to stay focused on that, and on where he needed to go next, and not think about the claw marks he’d seen. But it was impossible.

  Something had destroyed a whole room full of equipment, digging its claws deep into a plasteel wall. He didn’t know of any human Variation with claws that large, so it must be some kind of beast. Even now it might be picking up Micah’s scent, tracking him through the flickering darkness. Hunting him. Hopefully he could get off this damn ring and put some kind of barrier between him and it before it caught up with him.

  When he got back to the food court it was darker than he remembered, with a patina of grime on the walls and floor and an atmosphere of imminent decay. Had he been so ecstatic to reach a place of safety, when he’d first arrived, that he hadn’t noticed how dismal the place looked? Even the air seemed different now: colder, clammier. Maybe the life support systems faltered when the lights went out. If so, a longer period of darkness could be deadly.

  Just focus on getting off this ring. Don’t think about anything else.

  As he passed the lock he’d come in through, he hesitated. He’d planned on leaving his evac gear here, but was that really a good idea? If the station’s life support failed . . .

  Then I’m going to die anyway, he thought grimly. A near-empty oxygen tank won’t save me. Best to travel light.

  A sudden scraping sound from behind made him jump. A high-pitched, nerve-jangling sound: claws on tile? He looked around the food court, desperate to discover the source, but saw nothing. Easy, Micah. You’re almost at the exit. Stay focused. The tube that led inward toward the core was positioned behind the one he’d arrived in; wouldn’t it be great if the former were fully functional, and a transport pod was waiting inside it to whisk him away? But no such luck. When he finally reached the tube he wanted, the door didn’t open as he approached. While he struggled to work the manual override controls, he heard the high-pitched scraping sound again. Closer this time. Stay focused, Micah. His hands were shaking, but he knew that his only hope of getting away from the source of the noise was to make it into the tube. Finally the door parted, revealing a dark and empty space. There was a maintenance ladder to one side of the entrance; as he swung himself over to it, he hit the control that would shut the door behind him, praying nothing would follow him through at the last moment. Nothing did. The door closed with a soft hiss, leaving him with only his headlight to see by.

  He clung to the ladder for a moment, giving his pounding heart a chance to settle. For the moment, at least, he was safe. The climb down to the station was a long one, and he was already exhausted. He passed a transport pod at one point, a cylindrical capsule that had once carried commuters from the core to the ring and back again, now frozen in mid-journey. There was just enough space between the pod and the wall for him to squeeze past. Down, down into darkness he continued, until the ladder ended and once more there was a floor beneath his feet. He held his breath and strained to hear any hint of movement overhead. But all was silent. The beast that had ravaged the outer ring hadn’t followed him.

  When he exited the tube the lights came on automatically, but dimly, perhaps at half-strength, revealing a small waiting room. The dust that danced in the thin beam of his headlamp was thicker than it should have been in the filtered air of a space station; life support systems might be working here, but they weren’t working well. He looked around the room, noting half a dozen static chairs and a water outlet. Nothing else. He headed to the outlet and took a deep drink, then squeezed a few inches of food paste out of one of his tubes. Cheesecake, the label said. It tasted vile, but getting some food into his stomach made him feel a little better.

  He called up his map of the station, to see what his options were. Most of this section was taken up with offices and small labs, but there was a large complex not too far away that was labeled Engineering. Perhaps some kind of control center. If there were still any people on this station they might well be there, and if not, maybe Micah could find some working communication equipment. The thought of being able to call for help imbued him with new energy, and he fixed the map in the corner of his field of vision so that he could see it as he walked.

  Empty. The station was so empty. It was a different kind of emptiness than in the ring, where one could imagine the human exodus was recent. The emptiness here felt . . . ancient. Absolute. As if he was hiking through a place humanity had forgotten.

  But though humans were gone, other forms of life had apparently prospered. He saw several vents with dark vines protruding from them; one was low enough on the wall that he could take a closer look at it. He queried the innernet about it, but got no useful data. He prodded one of the vines, to see if it had the resilience of a living plant, and his fingers came away with a sticky black substance on them. He started to wipe it off on his shirt, then thought better of it, and wiped his hand on the wall instead. The parallel streaks he left behind were eerily similar to the claw-marks in the outer ring.

  What the hell was this stuff, and how did it get into the ducts? The map indicated there were biological reserves on the lower levels, but those should have been sealed off. Especially if the station was used for scientific experiments. A sudden chill ran through him. What if the dust that was dancing in the beam of his light was organic? What if an experiment on the lower levels had gone wrong, releasing biological toxins into the air? That might explain why there were no people here. Though if they’d all died at once, there should be bodies lying around. And if it killed them one by one, over time, why hadn’t they called for help? H
e fumbled for the first aid kit in his pack to see if it contained a filter mask in it, but no such luck. Whatever was in the air here, he was going to have to keep breathing it.

  He continued down the corridor. More and more vines appeared, hanging down from the ceiling in thick clumps; he had to duck to get past some of them. Black tangles clustered in corners, around the edges of vents and doorways, underneath lighting strips. The further he went, the more of the corridor they filled. Soon he would have to start clearing them out of the way if he wanted to keep going. Given the mystery gunk he’d just rubbed off his hand, he wasn’t anxious to make contact with any of the vines again.

  Then he turned a corner and stopped short. Stared. And cursed.

  The corridor ahead was completely blocked by vines, so thickly tangled that he could barely see the vents they protruded from. There was no way to proceed any further along this route unless he cut his way through with his utility knife. Like a primitive hacking his way through a jungle, only the short blade of his emergency knife would take hours to clear a path. He needed a fucking machete.

  You can find a way around it, he told himself. But whatever these organics were, they seemed to be clustered in the very section he wanted to enter; the odds were good that even if he could find another approach to the engineering section, that, too, would be blocked.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. Then he yelled at the vines, pouring all his frustration and his despair into the cry: “FUCK YOU!”

  The mass quivered.

  He stepped back quickly, pulling the knife from his pocket. But the vines were still, now. Had he imagined the movement? Was he so tired that he was starting to see things? He looked around for some small object he could use to test the vines, but of course in the middle of a station corridor there was nothing. He started rummaging through his pockets for something expendable, and found the half-empty tube of cheesecake paste. Just heavy enough. He held it in his hand for a moment, studying the curtain of vines in front of him, then threw it with all his might at what looked like the thinnest spot. Maybe if it broke through, he could get a sense of how far down the hall this obstruction went.

  But it didn’t go through. It hit the vines and hung there in mid-air, a ghostly white intruder trapped in a black web. After a few seconds it began to slide down, drops of gelatinous sap slicking its bright plastic surface. In a distant part of his brain Micah understood why that image repelled him—he’d once presented a paper on The Emotive Power of Gelatinous Textures in Virtual Settings—but his response was visceral, and treating the cause as an intellectual exercise didn’t help.

  A vine moved.

  With a gasp, he took a step backward. A tip of one vine beneath the food tube was curling upward, shaping itself around it. As the tube slid into its embrace the vine tightened, wrapping around it like a hungry python—

  Micah turned and ran. The whole world was full of black vines, and once he nearly ran face first into a web of them. Another time he nearly tripped over a clump on the floor. Were they all moving now? Would they reach for him if he stumbled? He used the map in his head, retracing his path from before, praying that whatever the hell those things were, they stayed rooted in place. When he reached the waiting room he hesitated . . . but what was he going to do, go back upstairs and face the beast? He ran across the room and beyond it, into a part of the station he hadn’t seen before. The halls were free of organics—thank God!—and he ran until he could run no more, then stopped, doubling over as he gasped for breath. When breathing became less of a struggle, he visualized the icon that would activate his wellseeker. It greeted him by scrolling bright red warnings in the corner of his visual field, listing all the biological systems that were off kilter, but he ignored those and just told it to give him a small dose of sedative. A few seconds later he could feel his muscles begin to relax, and the fear eased its death grip on him.

  When he had his strength back he started walking again. He figured he would put a little more distance between him and the vine, and then look for a place to rest. At one point he saw a dark branch on the floor ahead of him and his heart sank, but as he edged carefully closer he saw that it was not a vine like the others, just a piece of a long stick that had been broken in half. He picked it up, then found another piece that was clearly its mate. One had a pointed tip, stained black; an arrow? There were dark spots on the floor near where it had been lying, but in the dim lighting he couldn’t tell if that was blood or just grime. Who would use such a primitive weapon in a space station?

  Suddenly he heard a rustling sound: the movement of clothing? He gripped the sharp half of the arrow in one hand and pulled out his utility knife with the other, aware that neither was ideal for combat, but what the hell else was he supposed to do?

  A dark shadow moved into the hallway, about ten yards ahead of him. Too far for his headlamp to illuminate details, other than its human shape. “Off!” it demanded. The voice was male, deep-timbered, and in another setting might have been intimidating, but Micah was so glad to see another human being that all he felt was elation. It took him a moment to realize what the man wanted; when he did he reached up and turned the headlamp off, so that it was no longer shining straight into the man’s eyes. Now Micah could be seen.

  Slowly the figure approached. He was a tall man, Terran in appearance, with harsh, angular features and a stark silver headset. A breastplate made of layered strips of gray plasteel covered the chest portion of his jumpsuit like an insect carapace, and bracers of the same material were strapped around his lower arms. Makeshift armor? There was a weapon in his hand, pistol-shaped but with a two-pronged tip. He kept it pointed at Micah as he approached, dark eyes taking his measure, up and down. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Micah Bello. My ship malfunctioned and crashed while docking . . . I’ve been looking for people . . .”

  The man held out his hand. After a moment Micah realized what he wanted, and handed him the arrow. The man looked it over, studying the tip in particular. Then he glanced at the floor, at the dark spattering that might or might not be blood; his weapon was still pointing at Micah’s heart.

  “Who are you?” Micah asked.

  “Jamal.” The man finally lowered his weapon. “My name is Jamal.” He tapped a small device that was affixed to his ear. “Serjit . . . you there?” He waited a moment, listening. “I’m in sector five. There was some kind of combat here . . . looks like blood on the floor. One arrow left behind. Are we missing anyone?” Another pause. “Well, let’s make sure of it. And put the patrols on alert. If the exos are hunting in this sector now, we need to be ready for them. Meanwhile,” he scowled at Micah, “I’ve got an unidentified person here. Claims he’s a shipwreck. Ship’s gone.” A longer pause. “No, Variant.”

  “Sarkassan,” Micah offered.

  “Says he’s Sarkassan.” A pause. “No, not exo. At least far as I can see. Certainly isn’t acting exo.” A pause. “You want me to bring him in?” Another pause, then dryly: “He’s pointing a utility knife at me. I assume if he had anything bigger I’d be looking at it.”

  Whatever response he got seemed to end the conversation. He focused his attention on Micah again. “Serjit says I can bring you in to meet the others. Expect to be interrogated when you get there. Standard operating procedure.” He snorted. “Well, no, not standard. It’s not every day we come across an outsider.” A corner of his mouth twitched. “Unless you’d rather hang out here, wait for the exos to find you.”

  “What are exos?”

  He snorted. “Some experiment down in Bio went bad, and now the station’s full of the mutated bastards. Sometimes they eat the people they catch.” He held up the arrow. “This is one of theirs. The black on the tip is probably poison. Primitive but effective. And the owner is probably still nearby.” He nodded down the corridor, the way he had come. “We should move before he comes back. Unless you feel like fighting.”

  “
I’m good,” Micah said quickly. He had a thousand more questions, but this obviously wasn’t the time or the place to be asking them.

  As he fell in beside his new guide he gripped his small knife tightly, watching the shadows closely for exos. Whatever the fuck they were.

  The concept of “Us versus Them” is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. It echoes our primitive roots, a time when loyalty to the tribe could make the difference between living and dying. It’s as powerful a driving instinct as the need for food, and sex, and—if properly manipulated—can provide a compelling story dynamic.

  MICAH BELLO

  Crafting Nightmares (presented at Virtcon LVIII)

  HARMONY NODE

  SHENSHIDO STATION

  WHEN RU first woke up she thought the sky was real. It was bluer than Guera’s sky—bluer than any sky she’d ever seen—and the crisp color would have been quite pleasing had her head not been pounding. Slowly her vision came into focus, and the reality of the sky became clear. Maybe if there had been only one sun she might have been fooled a bit longer, but the row of neatly spaced sun lamps arching across a dome-shaped ceiling high overhead gave the game away.

  All of which she could see because she was in a primitive hut that had no roof, just an open framework with a rolled-up tarp at one end.

  SYSTEM SUMMARY, she prompted her wellseeker. A moment later, biological readings began to scroll down the left side of her visual field. Her biostats weren’t ideal, but considering she’d just recovered from a dose of poison that could have killed her, they were reassuring. She let the wellseeker feed her something to quiet her headache, and a moment later the pounding subsided.

  With effort, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Every inch of her body hurt and her muscular response was slow, but everything was responsive; whatever toxin had knocked her out hadn’t disconnected any vital circuits.