by Paul Anlee
“The challenge?”
“It’s no trivial effort to wipe out the complete concepta and persona of a Full Cybrid instantiation and reprogram them. We have security, remember?”
Just then, half a block away on a street segment suspended vertically in the air, a dazed looking man grabbed his head and yelled in pain. His back arched and his arms flung outward. He shook himself violently as if to dislodge some horrific attacker from his shoulders. He dropped down on all fours, stood up again, and ran away at full speed, screaming the entire way.
The man disappeared from the local view in three dimensions, but Darya and Timothy had no trouble tracking him by shifting their vision, first “blueward” and then “strangeward”, as he barreled down the road in agony. He re-emerged in their local 3-D space, where the road ran in front of them.
The man came to an abrupt stop, clutched his head again, and screamed in anguish at the sky. His features grew indistinct and then melted like plastic on hot asphalt. He slouched nearly to the point of collapse. When he stood erect again, he was a Trillian.
The transformed man regarded Darya and Timothy, wearing the same avatar image as him. “Hello,” he said.
Darya felt a deeper communication pulse, requesting her Trillian instantiation tag and an update on local conditions. She reached under her jacket, where her sword was neatly rolled up in a small sheath on her belt, and grasped its handle. In a fluid motion, she pulled the handle from its holder and flicked it outward as her arm made a backhand swoop.
The blade elongated fully at the moment it contacted the new Trillian’s neck. His severed head flew into the street.
“Run!” Darya hissed at Timothy, pulling him down the street with her.
They took a quick couple of turns through a complex mess of ten dimensions. When they stopped to breathe, they were still a kilometer from the UN Plaza but there were no Trillians in sight.
Darya rolled up her sword and stashed it back in its sheath.
“What was that all about?” Timothy asked, winded and confused.
“Just the wrong place at the wrong time,” Darya answered. “None of the other Trillians bothered to talk to us. I guess, the first thing the new ones do is get a local update. After this, I expect they’ll all start checking in with each other.”
Darya’s image shimmered and her Trillian disguise fell away. She was herself again. Timothy looked at his hands; they were his own once more. Trillian’s preferred white jacket was replaced by the smart black leather piece Timothy had chosen for the adventure.
“Thank you!” he said. “I detest carrying the appearance of that man.”
Darya frowned. “Unfortunately, that was the only extra avatar I could bring inworld. Let’s hope Trillian isn’t looking for our faces. We’d better start avoiding all the clones we see.”
“I agree.”
They set out again. Their one small advantage, the ability to see in all ten dimensions at once, was only helpful if they spotted the Trillians before getting spotted themselves.
Each time a Trillian came into view, the pair turned outside of his 3-D space as casually as possible. When they could, they ducked into side streets, back alleys, or shops. They held their breath when they passed within touching distance of a stumbling Trillian who couldn’t see them only an arm’s length away in an alternative dimension. Darya hoped Trillian hadn’t thought to adjust all of his clones to see in ten dimensions yet.
When the UN Plaza came into view, the pair let out a sigh of relief. There didn’t appear to be any more Trillian instantiations here than anywhere else in the New York labyrinth. They headed toward a busy hot dog vendor next to the plaza, the same one who’d been cheerfully serving hot dogs to throngs of people the last time Timothy had been here.
Wearing Trillian’s face!
“Keep walking,” Darya whispered. She split off, clambered over the nearby fence and walked quietly along the trees behind it.
The former First Footman obeyed without question, paralleling her path with a confident nonchalance he didn’t feel. When he arrived within a dozen meters of the stand, the Trillian noticed him with some surprise.
“Timothy! I wasn’t sure we’d have a chance to meet again.” He searched around uncertainly. “But, where is your lovely companion? I do so wish to speak with her.”
A flurry of possibilities flew through Timothy’s mind. They hadn’t practiced this scenario at all.
“She’s…she left me,” he sputtered. “Not that it’s any of your…. I don’t need her to deal with the likes of you.”
Trillian threw his head back and laughed. “Perhaps you imagine a good old-fashioned round of fisticuffs, do you? Why don’t I call over a few more of me and we’ll see how your bravery holds up?”
Hotdog-vender Trillian wiped his hands on his smock and stepped around the cart toward Timothy. He was so intent on the former Footman he didn’t hear the rustle of leaves or quiet footsteps behind him. He did hear the whoosh of the blade an instant before it removed his head. He died with his startled eyes wide open.
Shocked customers and passersby shrieked and fled in all directions.
“Let’s move before any more of him get here,” Darya said.
Taking advantage of the pandemonium, Timothy dropped his fists and blended in with the crowd, doing his best not to attract further attention.
After a series of quick turns in other-dimensional directions, they broke free from the excitement and located the familiar office building.
Today, unlike their first visit, the place was bustling with activity. A loud, impatient woman pushed past the others in the lobby and strutted purposefully to the Receptionist. Darya used the distraction to pass through to the offices behind.
“Can I help you?” a voice intervened.
Damn! Darya stopped short of the threshold, and searched her memory for nameplates she’d seen when she’d last opened a portal into Vacationland.
“Oh, hi, there. We just thought we’d pop in and speak with Reg.”
“Reg isn’t here,” the gatekeeper answered curtly. “He doesn’t work here anymore.”
“He doesn’t? Well, that’s a shame. How about Drew? Is he available?”
The Receptionist pointed to a chair. “Have a seat right there and I’ll ring him.”
“That’s okay, we know where he is,” Darya replied, as she grabbed Timothy’s arm and pulled him through behind her.
“Hey!” the Receptionist cried. “You can’t go back there.”
“Sword!” Darya whispered in Timothy’s direction.
The two strode into the shared corridor over the young lady’s protests. They could hear the Receptionist calling for Security. They carried on.
As Darya walked, she snapped her sword out. Her mind was already working on reopening the portal to Vacationland. The links to the pipe code she’d inserted into this distorted version of Alternus were all in place.
Behind her, someone screamed. She heard a scuffle and spun around in time to see Timothy kick over a wounded attacker. The assailant was too astonished by the gaping wound in his belly to avoid Timothy’s foot.
She caught Timothy’s eye and held it. Move on. No time for sentimentality now.
Darya heard someone rush up behind her. She ducked low, and slashed a wide arc.
A fierce-looking brute gasped and put a hand to his thigh, where her sword had opened a gash through his pants. Before he could advance, she delivered a jump-kick to his chin, propelling him backward into two others who were closing in.
In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Darya and Timothy bolted for the nondescript door where the open portal waited.
“Locked!” she cried, and slapped the door.
“Allow me,” Timothy offered, and kicked it open.
It was hard to say which of them was more surprised. It certainly wasn’t the Trillian clone with crazed eyes who’d been waiting inside to greet them.
“Hyaaaaaah!” he bellowed, almost comically,
and leaped from the desk with murderous intent.
Darya whirled to one side, and slashed at the Trillian’s throat. His cry gurgled through blood, and he thumped lifelessly to the floor.
The portal shimmered over the far desk. Darya grabbed Timothy’s hand and they dived through without looking back.
31
not a single person marred the tranquility of the impossibly long, pristine beach, though the weather was perfect for swimming. While the tranquil tropical paradise was alluring, the sight filled Darya with foreboding. Over thousands of visits, she’d never seen Vacationland so deserted. All in all, the effect was disturbing.
They’d nearly knocked over her favorite Cloud 49 table when they came hurtling through the portal, wild-eyed and out of breath. She noticed the lack of patrons immediately.
No time to analyze. Keep moving!
Darya started down the hovering restaurant’s long stairway, making no attempt to hide her drawn sword.
Timothy followed in her wake. “Where should we start? Do you have any idea where she might be? Where are all the patrons?”
“Trillian’s masking Mary’s location, but there’s a perpetual cloud of quantum confusion around her. I think she’s over that way, in one of the cabinas.”
“He won’t make it easy to reach her.”
“I don’t expect so. We’ll take an indirect route.”
They reached the bottom of the stairwell and headed for the lush vegetation across the beach.
Darya plunged in.
Timothy struggled to keep up. “Do you plan to approach through the underbrush?” he panted.
“No, Trillian will have guards on all routes between the restaurant and the resort area. We’ll find someplace quiet in another direction, and I’ll see if I can hack into a more direct route from there.”
“Couldn’t we have done that from the Alternus maze?”
“It was too complicated from there, and Trillian already had too many safeguards established.”
“We made it here, didn’t we? How much harder could it be?” Timothy asked. He was beginning to think Darya enjoyed the chase more than the accomplishment.
She stopped abruptly and faced him. “You’ll just have to trust me on this,” she said. “I think I can get us close to Mary, but I can’t do it from a different inworld, and I can’t do it if I need to keep watch for enemy Trillians descending on us. We need a hideout.”
She turned and resumed picking her way through the vegetation.
After what he hoped would be a safe while, Timothy ventured another question. “Do you have somewhere in mind?”
“I do. There’s a recreational cave system not too far away. It rearranges itself randomly with each user, or every twenty-four hours. It’s impossible to map. I’m sure Trillian won’t be able to track us there if we go in deep enough.”
They began making their way uphill, leaving the idyllic resort area behind. The trees thinned, and the pair picked up a trail to the cave system.
“If the caves can’t be mapped, how do people get out?”
“They don’t,” Darya answered, digging into the loose gravel underfoot. “That’s a big part of their charm; visitors pay extra for that,” she explained. “They are led deep inside by an automated guide they hold in the palm of their hands. They walk in for about an hour and then the guide shuts down. The challenge is to find their way out. Almost no one does.”
Timothy slipped on the loose rocks. “And they consider that “fun”? Do visitors die in there?”
“No, they call the Supervisor to let them exit. That won’t be possible for us.”
“Okay...so…how will we get out?”
“We’ll pipe across to Mary.”
“If you can track her down.”
“When I find her, we’ll cross over to wherever she is.”
“But won’t we be walking right into Trillian’s trap?”
“Yes. Once we find her, we’ll rescue her, and I’ll set a pipe back to New York in Alternus.”
“Are we any safer there?”
“At the very least, she’ll be out of Trillian’s hands. I think I can get her back to her trueself from there.”
The incline was getting steeper. Darya pulled herself upslope by tugging on a thick tuft of grass. She pointed out some better footholds to Timothy, who’d paused to catch his breath and was looking back wistfully toward the jungle and beach.
“I feel rather exposed out here,” he confessed.
“It’s not much farther now, and I doubt Trillian has any eyes on the ground up here.”
Timothy face brightened at the thought. “Why is that?”
A loud, wild snarl came from a nearby bush. Darya and Timothy jumped; they’d been so busy making their way and watching for Trillian, they hadn’t given much thought to the wild animals that drew hunters to this area of Vacationland. They froze and scanned the area for the source.
“Make some noise; maybe we can startle it away,” Darya said, and slapped her hands together sharply. “Be careful, though. We don’t want to alert the Trillians,” she warned.
They clapped and hissed. “Psst! Scat! Ssst!”
Timothy stomped his foot down hard against the ground and was rewarded with an annoyed roar.
An enormous cougar leaped from its hiding space. The sight of its fierce jaws and claws almost paralysed him, but the past few weeks of intense training with Darya had heightened his automatic response.
As he rolled backward, he whipped his sword up and slashed the air in the direction of the feline. The big cat flew over him, unleashing an irate cry as she avoided the blade. She landed heavily and crouched for another attack.
Timothy rolled to the side and into an upright ready position but he was shaking uncontrollably.
The cougar eyed his fear and trembling hands, as did Darya.
Easy prey—they both concluded.
Darya lunged at the wildcat, thrusting and rattling her sword. The big cat gave a throaty growl and bounded away. Darya watched until it disappeared into the tall grass. Her gaze swung to Timothy. “We were lucky,” she said. “I know these creatures; they’re vicious. They hunt the hills around here, and they don’t usually give up so quickly. She must have eaten recently.”
Timothy dropped to the ground in a relieved heap. “I don’t feel lucky,” he said. He was so tired.
Darya continued, but kept a wary eye on him. “These ones are based on cougars but they’re even more stealthy, persistent, and deadly than the trueform. They’re also why Trillian won’t have many eyes on the ground here,” she reassured him. “He knows these animals will kill anyone walking around this area, including us and his Trillian clones.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Timothy replied. “If it had wounded me, what would you have done?” he asked.
“I’d have finished the job. You forget, we are not real here, either. No more than the enhanced Partials, the servers, or the surf instructors. Same for those predator cats. They’re programs; for them it’s kill or get killed. If they get killed, they just start over. If you’re killed here, you’d wake up back in your trueself on Secondus.”
“But that…that would hurt, wouldn’t it?” he asked. His teeth were chattering now and he was shivering. Shock was setting in.
Darya stepped forward and hugged him. “It’s okay. Take some deep breaths. You’re doing great, Timothy. You really are, and we’re almost there.”
Timothy hugged her back, and forced a deep exhale that would allow his lungs to draw in maximum oxygen as they refilled.
“Thanks for saving me. I was mentally prepared to fight as many Trillians as it took. I wasn’t ready to face animals. People are one thing. Animals, vicious or not, that’s a whole different thing.”
“Some say people are the most vicious animals in the universe. Regardless, we’re okay now. The cougars have a large range, many square kilometers. It could be a while before that one comes back to check on us, but we don’t want to be here when
she does. She’ll be especially aggressive.”
Timothy pushed aside the images of massive teeth and razor claws intent on dispatching him from this world, breathed as deeply as he could, and loosened his desperate hold on Darya.
“I’m okay now,” he said and took another deep breath. “Let’s keep moving.”
Darya held him at arm’s length and examined his color. It was back to normal; close enough, anyway. “Okay. It’s not too much farther, now. We can rest a bit once we get deep enough inside.”
They carried on a short way up the hill and turned away from the resorts.
“I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind fighting through those animals just to get to caves with no exit,” Timothy said.
“Define ‘right’ mind,” Darya joked. “Cybrid life, making things, fixing things, pushing things around, that all gets boring. People will do all kinds of crazy things for thrills and adventure.”
Timothy shook his head. “I don’t understand that drive, not at all.”
“Give it time. You will. And you have to keep in mind that, inworld, we’re essentially invulnerable. Well, unless potential death is part of the draw, which is exceedingly rare. To a lot of people, nothing matters more than the chase and to experience the thrill. Anything else is background noise.”
“Alternus didn’t used to be particularly thrilling, not before Trillian arrived.”
“That was a special case; it was my attempt to get people interested in being in charge of their lives. Their real lives.
“Ah, here we are! The caves. See? I told you we were close.”
A roughly carved wooden sign warned, “Despair all ye who enter!”
A little cliché, but it does set a tone—Darya thought.
Timothy shrugged. “It’s smaller than I would have expected.”
“It’s not much to look at from out here, but the system has hundreds of kilometers of cavern.”
They pushed aside some leafy vines that cascaded over the entrance from the rocky hill above, and plunged into the dark cavern.