This Virtual Night

by C. S. Friedman

  “When she first got here she was mostly a novelty act,” Shane told her. “I don’t think too many people took her seriously. But Hydra is where people come to wind down, and the more entertainment options there are, the better. There are only so many whores you can fuck, y’know?”

  “But now?” Micah pressed.

  He snorted. “She virtually runs the fucking place. Oh, no one’ll say that out loud, God forbid. But the patroni look to her for guidance, and sometimes after they get it they change their plans—canceling raids, financing new projects, maybe hiring or firing people. Her power may be indirect, but it’s real. She has the big seven wrapped around her little finger. A woman.” He snorted again, wiped his nose with his arm, and took another long swig. “Who’da thought?”

  “When did all this happen?” Ru asked. “The change?”

  His eyes glazed over as he tried to think past the alcohol. “Dunno. Two, maybe three years ago?”

  A chill ran up Micah’s spine. He tried to keep his expression impassive, so that Shane wouldn’t realize the impact of what he’d just said, but it was hard. When he glanced at Ru, she appeared to be fighting a similar impulse. “Two years,” she said quietly, more for Micah’s benefit than Shane’s. He understood. Two years ago was when the raid on Shenshido had taken place. It was when Ivar had been imprisoned there. When the madness had begun to spread. And apparently, just before that, a psychic performer who had been of little consequence to anyone suddenly became a major player. A puppeteer, who manipulated powerful people to accomplish her ends. The timing couldn’t be coincidence. The Oracle might not be the person who had designed Shenshido’s malware—given her mystical bent, it seemed unlikely she was also a master programmer—but Micah was willing to bet she knew who was.

  Shane had emptied his glass. Ru took up the pitcher and refilled it. “What about the labyrinth? We heard some people experience delusions there.”

  “Could be. The place itself isn’t a mystery. Hell, you can download a map of it from the innernet. But people who brave its innermost tunnels tend to not come out, and those that do . . . don’t talk about it later.” He took another drink. “They don’t talk about much of anything.”

  “Meaning what?” Micah asked.

  In answer, he tapped the side of his head and rolled his eyes.

  They go mad. Yet another puzzle piece was fitting into place. But the overall picture was still a mystery. How was a psychic tied in to all this? It was torture not being able to discuss the possibilities with Ru.

  Shane started to raise his glass again, but the drink slipped out of his hand and fell to the table. Beer sloshed everywhere. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!” He started to pat at the spill with the end of his shirt, then rubbed his arm across it to absorb it with his sleeve, making it ten times worse. Micah pushed back from the table so beer wouldn’t drip into his lap. It was clear that Shane wasn’t going to be of use to them much longer, but that was all right. He’d already given them the one piece of information they needed most, that Shenshido’s malware was somehow linked to this Oracle. She might not be the orchestrator of those events, but Micah was convinced she knew who was. “If we wanted to find out more about this Oracle, how would we do that?”

  “Well, you could ask for an audience. She’ll expect some kind of offering.”

  “Like what?” Ru asked.

  He shrugged. “Something of value. The more unusual, the better. But she’ll take money if that’s all you’ve got. What matters is that it be a gesture of respect.”

  Like one would make to a god, Micah thought darkly. Is that how she sees herself? “If we wanted to find out more about her—before seeking an audience—who would we talk to?”

  Shane hesitated. “I know someone, but . . . I’m not sure he’d want his name given out.”

  “We won’t make it public,” Ru promised. “It’s just for us. So we can figure out what the best kind of offering would be.” She ran a fingertip down his arm. “Please?” They’d spent an hour plying him with enough beer to drown out his critical functions. Micah held his breath, wondering if it would be enough.

  “Ben Caruso,” he said at last. “Doesn’t hang out on the rock much. Prefers his own ship.”

  “How can we find him?”

  “Works for Cassini. Head over to the Trident and ask them.” He belched. “They’re drug lords, you know. Suppliers of Venom-X and Viper. Nasty shit. You don’t want to fuck with them.”

  “We don’t intend to,” Ru assured him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “I think maybe you should . . . I mean . . . I’m sorry.” He belched, then laughed. “Drank that one a bit too fast. God, you’re hot, woman.” He shook his head, then belched again. “Stomach’s doing somersaults . . .”

  “Rest for a moment,” Ru urged. A gentle touch to the back of his head urged it forward, then down to the table. Sweat-soaked hair spread out in an amber puddle as he shut his eyes. “I’m okay,” he whispered. “Seriously. Go ahead and order another round.”

  Ten seconds later he was snoring.

  Micah looked at Ru. “You have any idea where the trident thing is?”

  “Actually, I think I may. One minute.” Her eyes unfocused as she consulted her files. “Check out G-5 on my map.”

  He had his headset call up the appropriate image. And yes, there it was: three flyways converging into one as they neared the core. Damn it if the result didn’t look like a trident. “No easy way to get there,” he muttered. “We’ll have to walk.”

  “Looks like it’s on a main route. Should be easy to find.” Ru caught the eye of a server and waved him over. “Unless you think we should just go to the Oracle directly, and see what’s up with her. Skip the middleman.”

  “Um . . . let me think for a minute. . . . No.”

  As the server approached she indicated Shane’s sleeping form. “Please see that our friend is safe.” She put a hundred-C cash chit on the table. The server’s eyes widened. “Maybe there’s some quiet nook you can take him to, where he can sleep it off undisturbed?”

  “I’ll find something,” he promised, glancing both ways as he swept the chit into his pocket, clearly hoping no one would catch sight of his prize. He then began to clear the table of everything that wasn’t snoring.

  “All right then.” Ru pushed her chair back, settled the strap of her supply bag more comfortably on her shoulder, and stood. She looked steady enough. Had she drunk less than Micah, or did she just hold her booze better? “Let’s go find this Ben Caruso.”

  * * *

  The pedestrian tunnel that led to the Trident was more polished than the spaces they’d been in previously, with smoothly finished walls, floor, and ceiling, such as one might find on a normal station. It was wide enough for small groups to pass each other comfortably, which happened often; it was obviously a busy thoroughfare. Couples passed Ru and Micah, hand in hand, and one amorous trio. A bevy of female Variants in painfully bright costumes giggled their way by. Two scruffy boys with the hunched posture of the downtrodden wheeled a closed cart past them. Ru remembered how Ivar had offered her slaves in return for her service, and she looked after the boys as they shuffled down the hallway, wondering what happier place they had been kidnapped from. Slavery was practiced on some colony worlds, so she was familiar with it, but though the first rule of outriding was to refrain from criticizing local customs, it was always hard for her to keep her silence in such a setting. At least with the colonies, she had the comfort of knowing that when the Guerans arrived they would demand the practice be ended, as a price of relocation. Common Law did not allow one human being to own another. But here that law had no power, and she had no power to change that.

  “So,” Micah said, when a break in the traffic left them alone for a few minutes, “what do you see?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He waved at the tunnel surrounding them. “Te
chnology reveals social patterns, right? This place is the product of technology. What does it tell you?”

  The blank walls offered little to go on, but she was grateful to have something to focus on other than the darkness of her own reflections. She considered the space as she walked, and finally said, “It’s too big.”

  “The tunnel?”

  “The core. Only a harvester ship could tow something this massive to the ainniq, and the expense would be phenomenal. A single person couldn’t finance it.”

  “A patronus?”

  She shook her head. “Even if they had that kind of money, this much raw mass wouldn’t be given into private hands. There’s enough here to build a small station.”

  “A Guildmaster would own it. Or perhaps a rich company.”

  “Most likely.”

  “The Terran megacorps build stations. They need mass to do that.”

  She nodded. “So say that a harvester brings this hunk of raw mass back to the ainniq, and some corporate entity purchases it. They drag it to their station, beyond the control of the Guild and other megacorps. Then what? How does it get from there to here?”

  “Stolen?”

  She shook her head. “Too big. It couldn’t be accelerated fast enough to escape pursuit. And no megacorps would ever tolerate such a theft. They’d lay waste to half the outworlds trying to get it back. And nothing like that has happened in this node. No, some combination of barter and bribery must have convinced its rightful owner to part with it.”

  He looked at her. “You think . . . the outlaws cut a deal with one of the megacorps? That they’re allied to a Terran corporation?”

  “See? Now you’re thinking like an outrider. My guess would be one of the patroni.”

  “And all this you get from the size of this rock?”

  “And a knowledge of human nature.” She smiled.

  “And what about this tunnel?” He gestured down its length. “I thought the goal in station design was to put things near each other, to minimize the dead space that environmental control had to regulate. These people seem to have gone out of their way to do the opposite.”

  She laughed softly. “You’ve never been dirtside, have you?”

  “You mean . . . on a planet?”

  “Or a moon. Or an asteroid. Something produced by Nature rather than humankind.”

  “Not in reality, no.”

  “Well, construction on a station is additive. If you want to expand your usable space, you have to bring in mass to build walls with. Construction on the surface of a dirtworld is also additive. But inside that world, it’s subtractive. You get new space by removing the mass that currently occupies it. And since that mass has monetary value, selling it can help cover the cost of excavation. A perfect trade-off.” She looked around, eyes narrow as she studied the rock walls. “The cost would be cheapest if they followed the natural structure of the rock, linking together open spaces that already existed. The support structure would remain intact that way. Hence . . . long, twisting tunnels underground.”

  “But shorter ones aboveground.”

  She nodded. “Additive construction prioritizes environmental efficiency.”

  “Damn, woman.” He shook his head. “I wish you’d been with me when I designed Dragonslayer. That was all underground.”

  She smiled slightly. “I’m guessing magical construction has different rules.”

  He looked like he was about to attempt a witty rejoinder when she raised a finger, warning him to silence. The sound of footsteps was faint in the distance, but gradually growing louder. Private conversation would have to wait.

  This time it was a group of five who were heading in the opposite direction: two men, two women, and one whose gender Ru wasn’t sure about, all of them clearly inebriated. One of the women waved expansively to Ru and Micah as they drew near, then turned back to her companion, to beg for a swig from the bottle he was carrying. A faint smell of vomit wafted from the group. Ru turned away in distaste as they passed by. She’d be glad to get off this glorified piece of rock. She listened to the group’s footsteps recede behind them, waiting for them to fade into silence. But suddenly the rhythm changed. That was all the warning she had. Even as she started to turn, a heavy rod swung toward her head, its tip crackling with blue sparks.

  “Shit!” Micah yelled. Out of a corner of her eye she saw him fumbling for his gun as two of the drunkards lunged for him. They didn’t look nearly so drunk now. Then all her concentration was needed to deal with the one who was attacking her, and he was close enough that it would be hard to dodge his blow. She moved in closer and blocked that arm with one hand, then punched into his gut with the other, triggering the charge on her rings. He tried to back up but wasn’t fast enough; sparks flew as the charged rings were driven deep into his gut. But two others were ready behind him, and even as he fell one of them forced her ring hand aside and slammed his body into hers, the smell of stale vomit filling her nostrils as his full weight drove her back down onto the floor. She tried to bring her weapon around, but the third assailant—a woman—slammed a foot down onto her arm, pinning it to the floor. Pain shot through Ru’s wrist as she tried to shift the body that was crushing her chest into a position where she would be able to breathe, but even as she struggled the man reached up and covered the lower part of her face with a foul-smelling cloth. In a panic she tried to twist her head out from under it, but he had too firm a grip. The weight on her chest eased, and she reflexively gasped for air, drawing that vile smell into her body. Deep into her body. The tunnel began to swim around her. The pain in her arm filled her universe. She struggled against darkness, against death, but to no avail. She couldn’t even turn her head to see if Micah was still alive, but was forced to stare into the dirt-encrusted eyes of her attacker as the darkness sucked her down, deep down, into that place where all thought—and all hope—was extinguished.

  A man cannot know how much he would be willing to sacrifice until sacrifice is required.

  DUAEN CORREN

  On Human Nature

  HARMONY NODE

  HYDRA COLLECTIVE

  SILENCE.

  A pinpoint of light in the distance.

  A distant drumbeat: like the rhythm of a human heart, but slow, so slow.

  A thin beam of light breaking through a bank of black fog.

  Faster drums. Almost a real heartbeat now. The light burns more brightly. The fog dissipates . . .

  Ru opened her eyes. The light that was shining into them was so blinding, she couldn’t see where she was. She turned her head to one side and saw Micah’s body lying beside her. His face was covered in blood.

  They were alone.

  Groaning, she tried to sit up, but when she touched her left hand to the floor pain shot through her wrist. She took a few deep breaths and then tried again, gritting her teeth against the pain. That bitch who had pinned her arm down must have broken something. When she finally managed to get herself up, she felt the bones gingerly with her other hand; even though the slightest touch sent shards of hot pain shooting through the joint, nothing felt out of place. Probably a fracture. She still had a decent range of motion, though it hurt like hell. It could have been worse.

  Blinking to clear her eyes, she tried to make out the shapes surrounding her, despite the glare of the light fixture she’d been staring into when she woke up, illumination in the rest of the space was dim, and it took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust. Slowly her surroundings came into focus, and she could see they’d been dumped in a narrow tunnel—big surprise—but one that was different from the others they’d seen. Its floor was pitted and irregular, its walls ragged, its ceiling so riddled with faults and jagged protrusions that it looked like it might break up and collapse at any moment. The single domed fixture overhead offered just enough light to cast jagged shadows along the walls, like monstrous black teeth.

>   With her right hand, she felt for her weapons. They weren’t there. Not the shock rod, not the charge pistol, not the taze rings. She’d been stripped of all armaments, and from the look of him, so had Micah. Her shoulder bag had been taken as well, which meant the Frisian K-1 was gone. Not to mention their emergency medical supplies. She felt around in her pockets to see if anything was left; they hadn’t taken everything, it turned out, but they’d taken everything that could be used aggressively.

  Carefully, trying not to put any weight on her injured hand, she moved over to where Micah was lying. He was pale but still breathing, albeit shallowly. The blood on his face was from an ugly impact wound on the side of his forehead. The blood was mostly dry now, with thin streaks coursing from the wound down the side of his head, to the floor. So he must have been lying there a while. Gingerly, she ran her fingertips over the damaged spot, feather-light, to explore the condition of his skull. It seemed intact and was still the proper shape, so whatever hit him hadn’t cracked it open. But he was still out cold, and that was worrisome.

  “Micah.” She nudged his shoulder gently. “Time to get up.”

  He didn’t move. Bad sign. If he’d suffered a concussion she might not be able to wake him at all. “Come on, Micah.” She pushed harder at his shoulder. “Come back to me. You can do it.” Still no response. She shook him harder. “Damn you, say something!”

  Slowly his lips parted. His chest drew in a long, gasping breath, and as he exhaled he struggled to produce words. They came out as a whisper: “Worst. Hangover. Ever.” His eyes opened. “Where the fuck are we?”

  “No clue. Chrono says it’s been four hours, so we’re still in the core. Not enough time to take us anywhere else.”