This Virtual Night

by C. S. Friedman

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Any prisoners taken?”

  He took a moment to check. “One. He wouldn’t give his name. They assigned him a number.” Another pause. “Someone identified him as A.A.” He chuckled. “It looks like that was shorthand for arrogant asshole.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like him. He said there was some kind of prison break.”

  He shut his eyes to concentrate. “There’s mention of that in the public news feed, but not much in the way of details. If you want more, I’ll have to start hacking into protected files.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You said Ivar arrived right before all the trouble started, yes? Well, if he came with the other scavs, that means they arrived just before the trouble started.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “You think they caused this?”

  “Maybe not caused it. But the timing’s certainly suspicious. Scav fleet shows up and cripples the station, and right after that the madness starts. And in the middle of all that, Ivar shows up.” He considered for a moment. “You said he didn’t see the doorway, so we know he was being fed the same illusions as everyone else. If this was a scav plot, would they have done that to one of their own? I don’t think so. But there’s definitely some connection there. Where is he now?”

  Guilt was a sudden lump in her throat. “Probably dead.”

  “Probably?”

  “We were ambushed. He was surrounded.” She shut her eyes. “There were too many for me to fight. If I’d stayed, we would both have died.”

  “Sometimes it’s like that.” His voice was gentle. “At least in the battles I’ve designed. I’ve never had to deal with the real thing before.”

  “I can’t imagine he survived.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  She said nothing.

  “Maybe they thought they’d already killed him,” he said. “Things were moving pretty fast. And if he is still alive, and we can find him . . . if he doesn’t have the answers we need, maybe he can point the way to someone who does.” He drew in a deep breath. “We need to find him, Ru.”

  We, she thought. The pronoun was suggestive. Volatile. Were they a team now? Or was Micah just so used to his make-believe worlds, in which characters who didn’t know each other gathered in teams to pursue exciting quests, that the word had little real meaning to him? The latter was probably true, but that didn’t still the sudden ache inside her, the echo of a loneliness that Tully’s humor had once soothed, Tully’s companionship had banished. When had she ceased to be happy traveling through life alone, and become the kind of person who needed the company of others?

  “We were ambushed in the reception room,” she said. “But it’s the only way out of this complex, so I’d expect them to leave a guard there.”

  “Until the fighting was over. Then there would be no point in it.”

  In her mind’s eye she could see all the dead bodies in that hallway. So many of them! And Vestus and his companion lying on the floor of the warehouse, butchered within sight of their objective. Maybe a handful of bios had survived that initial assault, but if so, they’d have fled. Or died while trying to flee. “It’s probably over,” she whispered.

  “We have to go look for him now,” he said. “No more waiting for the tunnels to clear. Not if he’s wounded.”

  “We don’t even know that he’s still alive—”

  “Do you want to find out what happened here? And who sent the bombers to Harmony?”

  So much death. So much misery. Was Ivar the key to discovering its source? If he died, they would never know. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I do.”

  “Then we need to try.” He rose stiffly to his feet. “And pray that whatever dangers are out there, we’ll see them as they really are.”

  Each man is, within himself, an alien landscape to all others.

  ALEXIS CONSTANZA

  East of Human

  HARMONY NODE

  SHENSHIDO STATION

  THE GROUND shook under Micah’s feet. The heavens trembled. He stood on the edge of a black abyss, earth crumbling beneath him, while the icy winds of the netherworld swept up to chill his face. At any moment he might lose his footing and fall.

  At least that was how he felt. How the hell were you supposed to function when anything you saw or touched might not be real?

  He led her past pipes and conduits. Were they really there? He placed his feet carefully between obstacles on the shadow-wracked floor. What if there was one he couldn’t see? Was there really as much light coming from his headset as he thought? Or less? Were shadows really where he thought they were?

  Thank God, at least he was in front of her, so that she couldn’t see the dismay on his face. Thank God it was dark enough that she couldn’t see his hand trembling when he reached out to the nearest duct (real? not real?) for support.

  Pull yourself together, man. You’ve dealt with illusionary worlds before. But this was different. This was a world for which he had no rulebook, and—more important—couldn’t opt out of. That last factor, he was discovering, merited more fear than all the manufactured monsters he had spent his life synthesizing.

  With frustrating slowness they worked their way back through the tunnel system, retracing the route Micah had taken on the way in. Several times they heard voices nearby and had to stop, but no one came their way, thank God. His nerves were near the breaking point when they finally reached the hidden door he’d identified as the closest one to their objective. Hinges creaked as he pushed it slowly open. Behind him Ru stood with her weapon in hand, braced for trouble. But there was only silence. Whoever had been in this part of the complex earlier was gone now.

  Beyond the door was a room so ravaged that little remained intact. Segments of the wall had peeled back from their support beams, and dirt and debris were everywhere. He picked his way carefully over some large pieces of wreckage, then saw Ru watching him with a strange look on her face. I’m stepping over obstacles that aren’t really there, he realized. But knowing that didn’t make them go away. And if his body thought they were real, they had the power to trip him up.

  There was blood in the corridor beyond that, some dried, some fresh, but they didn’t stop to examine it. Once he thought he saw claw marks scoring the wall, but Ru kept moving forward, and after a moment so did he. None of it’s real, he told himself. Fighting to believe it. Finally they came to the final intersection before the reception chamber. Once they turned this corner they would be able to see into that space . . . and be seen by anyone in it. Gripping his baton so hard his knuckles were white, Micah wished he had a mirror to peer around the corner with. If this had been a game quest, he wouldn’t have left the staging ground without one.

  Ru waved him back, then edged around the corner. After a moment she stepped out into the open and waved for him to follow. He exhaled sharply and hurried along behind her.

  The reception hall was splattered with blood, crimson streaks and smeared footprints surrounding a pool of glistening liquid in its center. From the grim expression on Ru’s face, he guessed that was where she’d last seen Ivar. A long, irregular smear led away from the main pool, toward the curved counter that dominated one end of the room. Perhaps the mark of a body being dragged?

  With a last wary look around, Ru headed for the counter, and Micah followed. And yes, there was a body behind the counter, battered and bloody. If he was breathing, Micah couldn’t see it. “Is he alive?”

  She knelt down beside the body and slid a finger under the coarse beard. “Still a pulse,” she muttered. “But barely. If we can get him to the skimmer while his heart’s still beating I might be able to save him.”

  “How far away is that?”

  For a moment she said nothing. Considering whether to trust him? It seemed a moot question at this point; either they were in this together, or not. Finally she nodded. “The engineering compl
ex. There’s a maintenance hatch there.”

  Engineering. That was where he had encountered the deadly vines, blocking the way. He opened his mouth to warn her—but then stopped. Had those vines been real, or another Shenshido illusion? Shit, had anything he’d seen on this damn station been real? “It’s one hell of a hike,” he muttered hoarsely. “We’ll have to take turns carrying him.”

  She rolled Ivar onto his back and opened his jacket. There was a wet red mass beneath it; apparently before Ivar had passed out he’d managed to stuff a piece of cloth into the wound, stanching the flow of blood. It was a primitive repair, but trying to remove it now might do more damage than good. She settled for closing his jacket again, tightening the straps at the waist to help hold the makeshift bandage in place. “We could try to carry him together. Not sure how well that would work, though.”

  He looked around the room for something that would make the job easier, and after a moment his gaze fell upon the bloodstained cushions of a couch. He pulled out his utility knife, headed over there, and started slicing into fabric. After a moment she realized what he was doing, headed to another cushioned seat, and did the same. Soon they had salvaged enough fabric to wrap Ivar in a protective cocoon and attach two straps for dragging him. It wasn’t a dignified solution, but the floor was smooth, and it would be a gentler journey for the man than being bounced on someone’s shoulder.

  It was a long hike and a difficult one. Periodically they had to shift their grips to ease muscles that had cramped, but they didn’t stop moving. Time was too precious. Now and then Ivar muttered something feverish, then sank back into unconsciousness. Any sign of life from him was a good thing, Micah told himself.

  Then they reached the vines.

  Black, spidery, glistening fingers hung down from one of the ceiling vents, waiting for unwary travelers to walk into them. Remembering how they had curled around his food tube, Micah shuddered. He must have stopped walking for a moment, because Ru looked over at him. “You okay?”

  “The vent.” He pointed. “Do you see anything there?”

  She looked at it, at him. Her eyes narrowed. “No. Do you?”

  He bit his lip and said nothing. After a moment she just nodded, and they resumed dragging Ivar. He ducked low enough that the vines wouldn’t touch him, hoping she didn’t notice.

  Not real. They’re not real. I know that. I can override this nightmare. But the vines remained. In fact they were growing more numerous by the minute, and harder to avoid. They were even more frightening now than they had been the first time he’d seen them, because earlier they’d just been alien plants, and now they were signs of his madness.

  Keep it together, Micah. He ducked under some low-hanging vines and saw Ru glance at him, concerned. If she decided he was too mentally unstable to be trusted on her ship, might she leave him behind? Then he really would go insane. They dragged Ivar over a nest of black vines, some of which stuck to the cloth cocoon, pulling loose from it with a wet sucking sound. Ru apparently heard none of that. They approached a tangle of vines hanging down below face level, and he forced himself not to go around them, not to brush the tendrils aside as they spread invisible slime across his face. He tried not to flinch.

  She didn’t respond to them at all.

  Finally they reached the place where he had stopped so long ago—an eternity, it seemed—where the vines filled the hallway from floor to ceiling, rendering it impassable. He could see his cheesecake tube hanging in the midst of the thicket, one long vine curled around it like a snake. He couldn’t walk into that. He tried to make his legs move, and just do it, but he couldn’t.

  “Micah?”

  He focused on breathing steadily. In. Out. In. Out. “What do you see?” he managed.

  “An empty corridor, like all the others. There’s a small white object on the floor ahead of us. Looks like it might be a food tube.” She looked at him. “Dare I ask what you see?”

  “Plants,” he whispered. “Vines. The corridor is full of them. There’s no way through.”

  “You know it’s not real,” she said. Her tone was surprisingly gentle.

  “I know,” he whispered. He shook his head. “That doesn’t help. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve got to walk through them.”

  He shuddered.

  “Just shut your eyes. I’ll guide you.” She let go of the strap she was holding and held out her hand.

  “But Ivar—”

  “I’ll come back for him once you’re through.”

  He let his own strap drop and took her hand. Her grip was firm, reassuring. He shut his eyes and let her lead him forward.

  —and the vines were all over him, sliding across his face, slithering across his body, leaving trails of slime across his mouth, his eyes, his ears. He stumbled, but her grip pulled him upright. The vines were so thick beneath his feet that they tangled about his ankles, and the nightmare sensation of falling enveloped him again. It’s not real, he thought. It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real . . .

  At last the vines were gone, and she stopped pulling him forward. He dared to open his eyes, and saw nothing but a normal corridor ahead of them. Releasing her hand, he staggered over to the wall for a moment, leaning against it as he caught his breath. Meanwhile he heard her walk back to Ivar’s body, then drag it through the danger zone by herself. His face burned with shame, because he had failed in his share of the labor. As soon as she came up beside him he reached down and picked up his strap again.

  “The bios told me this place was inaccessible,” she said, looking around. “Locked up tight and constantly guarded. And you’ve clearly seen something else that would keep people away. Whatever is causing your hallucinations doesn’t want people entering this section.”

  But it isn’t affecting you, he thought. Because you never connected.

  When they finally reached the iris portal of the engineering complex, he wasn’t able to see it open; she had to push him through the closed door by sheer force. The sensation of being shoved through a solid surface was something he hoped never to experience again. Beyond the portal was a complex of offices and workrooms, and yes, now he understood why the warring factions of Shenshido had been kept out of this place. There was so much advanced tech gear in here that a virt program would have been overloaded, trying to mask it all.

  She led him through the complex, quickly enough that he had little time to observe fine details. He did see that the lights on a communications console were on; so much for that tech not working. How many other lies had the locals believed? There was a small airlock at the far end of the complex, with rungs on the wall leading up to a maintenance hatch; they had to haul Ivar’s inert body up, balancing it precariously on the narrow rungs while Ru unsealed the hatch overhead. A whoosh of chill air entered the station, and a short tunnel was revealed, leading up to another hatch. Between the two, the G-field shifted with sickening suddenness, making Micah fear that he might vomit. Then Ru opened the upper hatch and climbed through it, and together they maneuvered Ivar’s inert body up through the opening. Micah followed as quickly as he could, and collapsed on the floor beside the hatch as Ru resealed it.

  They were in a ship, not large, but comfortable enough for two people and an unconscious body. There were a pair of pilot’s chairs and a large navigational display at one end, a narrow door at the other, and grips along the walls at intervals to facilitate no-G movement. Not much else. Everything was clean, bright, and streamlined, which suggested that whatever program had been feeding images of decay into his mind was no longer functioning. For the first time since meeting Ru, it struck him that he really was going to get off this damned station.

  “It’s a bit Spartan,” she warned.

  Micah leaned down to kiss the floor beside the hatch. “It’s the most beautiful ship I’ve ever seen.”

  She gestured toward Ivar’s body. “Strip him
and put him in the medpod. Cut his clothes off if you have to. He can complain about it if he survives.”

  “And the medpod is . . .” He looked around the empty ship. “Where?”

  “Slideaway, midship on the left. I’ll open it.” She slid into the left chair as if it were part of her body, and her fingers began to dance across the console in front of it, rapidly, without need for her to look down at the controls. He’d never known anyone who would choose to control a ship manually if there was another option. “Brace yourself for detachment.”

  Stripping Ivar was easier said than done, especially with the ship lurching as it freed itself from the station. In the end he had to destroy the blood-soaked shirt to get it off. The body now visible was more bruised than whole, and so covered with blood that in places the flesh beneath could barely be seen. What skin was visible was covered in tattoos, including a kinesthetic snake coiled on the left pectoral. Micah remembered something about full-body tattoos being popular among particular crime families, but he was too exhausted to recall the details.

  A slideaway opened in midship, revealing a small medpod. Micah managed to drag Ivar’s body over to it and lever it inside the capsule. Lights came on and equipment whirred and codes appeared on a small monitor to the side, as a transparent lid slid down into place, sealing Ivar’s body inside. Micah was too tired to take in the details, just leaned against the wall, drained by the effort.

  “It’ll clean and sterilize the wounds,” Ru said without looking back, “stabilize blood pressure, maintain oxygen levels, and a few other emergency tasks. But it’s not a full unit, just enough to get a wounded outrider safely back to the med lab. Hopefully it’ll be enough for him.”

  “We got away,” he muttered. He still didn’t quite believe it. His body ached in every muscle and joint—but he was alive, he was physically intact, and his mind seemed to be functioning. “We really got away . . .”

  “Hold that thought until I get us out of range of those spiders,” she warned.