New York Nights [Virex 01]

by Eric Brown

  She took the elevator to the thirty-fifth floor and remembered to affix her security pass to the lapel of her jacket.

  Kia was a technician in Mantoni’s virtual reality development section. At the end of a long day, she would start to tell Anna what had gone wrong during that shift, in a language that might as well have been Swahili to Anna. Mantoni, Cyber-Tech and a couple of other companies had been in a race for the past couple of years to develop the first, and finest, VR experience for a public ready and eager to spend its dollars on yet another outlet of entertainment. Kia had often told Anna that it was not enough to be the first on the market: what was the advantage of being first if your product was only second-best? Just before Christmas Mantoni’s rivals, Cyber-Tech, had opened a couple of virtual reality bars in Manhattan. Kia had admitted that the Cyber-Tech experience was good, but it could be bettered. The public could be offered not only a greater verisimilitude when within VR itself but also a wider range of sites and venues.

  Anna was cleared by a security guard outside the double doors of the research chamber and waved through. She had asked Kia to get her a security pass so that she could do a little research for the last novel she had written. One of the minor characters worked in VR, and for the sake of authenticity Anna thought she’d better take a closer look at the industry. She had found the atmosphere in the chamber, and the work going on there, fascinating in itself, and had often made the excuse of research to drop by and meet Kia at the end of a working day.

  The chamber was an interior room and had no windows; far from appearing enclosed and claustrophobic, the chamber had the air of an open piazza. This was achieved by the placement, at intervals around the walls, of big flatscreens relaying vibrant images of strange landscapes and other worlds. A semi-circle of computer work-stations faced the screens, and a dozen casually-dressed scientists and technicians bent over the terminals or consulted with each other in hurried, frantic exchanges.

  Anna looked around for Kia, but there was no sign of her at any of the work-stations. Then she saw the jellytank. It stood between the work-stations and the flatscreens, raised on a plinth of steps like some kind of ceremonial coffin, lying in state.

  Kia was in the tank.

  She was naked, and the sight of her long, brown body, on display to whoever cared to look, filled Anna with a ridiculous sense of jealousy. She told herself that the scientists here had more to think about than the desirability of the naked body of her lover.

  She fetched a coffee from a machine on the wall, found a seat at the back of the chamber and settled herself to watch what was going on.

  Anna had wanted to experience VR when Cyber-Tech opened the first parlour on Madison Avenue a month ago, but out of a sense of loyalty to Kia she had never mentioned it to her lover. Mantoni had opened their own parlour a few days ago, and Anna planned to visit it with Kia over the weekend. She had read dozens of articles about the latest technological wonder to sweep the land, and wondered if she was letting herself in for a disappointment. All the hype surrounding VR suggested that the experience was indistinguishable from real life, but Anna remained to be convinced.

  In the jellytank, Kia’s long limbs were connected to leads which climbed through the jelly and over the sides of the tank. A sheaf of wires were jacked into her neural-interface, and they rose from her head like a shock of dreadlocks.

  On the largest flatscreen, immediately behind the jellytank, Anna watched Kia stroll through a fantasyland of rolling green hillocks, like a version of Heaven as Monet might have painted it. She was garbed in a simple blue smock, striking against her ebony flesh, and from time to time spoke, evidently reporting on what she was witnessing.

  Anna could hear Kia’s voice issuing from the nearest workstation. The techs were listening intently to what she was saying, adjusting their computers accordingly.

  ‘We have great tone in all the foreground representations here,’ she reported. ‘I’m happy with the analogue-sequencing. There’s still some background interference - check on the sub-routine in the G3x file.’

  Anna listened, smiling, and felt a strange sense of vicarious pride at the thought of Kia, her Kia, at the very forefront of this cutting edge technology.

  Six months ago, she had been upset and concerned when Kia told her that she was going to have a neural implant inserted in her skull. To Anna it seemed like some grotesque Frankensteinian surgery, and that Mantoni were merely using her as a living tool. Kia told her that she was being primitive and reactionary, and patiently explained the process step by step, and the reason for it.

  Kia would be the first person to work for Mantoni to be implanted, though two scientists working for Cyber-Tech had undergone the surgery. One of these people was Sissi Nigeria, and Kia had enlisted Sissi to convince Anna that the process was a hundred per cent fool-proof and safe. Reluctantly, Anna had allowed herself to be won over.

  The implant would allow Kia to be more successful at her job, would make the task of programming the Mantoni virtual reality that much easier and faster. Kia had talked to Nigeria, had looked into the science of nano-cerebral interfaces, researched the hardware and software that would be used, and was eager to have the surgery.

  To Anna’s relief, the woman who had emerged from the eight-hour operation was the same extrovert she had known before the cut. The only difference was that she no longer sported a magnificent mane of jet locks. She was shaveskull now, her bald head inlaid with an intricate array of silver spars and access ports. Anna often caught her lover posing before the wall-mirror back at the apartment, admiring the coruscating inlay as if it were the latest and most exclusive fashion accessory.

  ‘Are you picking up any interference on One?’ Kia asked now. ‘There seems to be some kind of signal loss. Check that, will you, Rodriguez?’

  Rodriguez, a small woman wired up to a computer with a mic and headphones, stared at a screen in a work-station and spoke hurriedly into her receiver. She looked up and gestured to a tall silver-haired guy at the far side of the chamber.

  ‘Bob, are you reading that? It isn’t a programming anomaly, is it? Carol, you’re responsible for the sub-system in the glade site. Tell me it isn’t a programming error.’

  A woman looked up from her work-station. ‘Check. It’s no error, Maria. I’ve never seen anything like . . .’

  Anna sensed tension in the air. In the sudden silence, techs glanced at each other, looked uncomfortable.

  A technician at the far side of the chamber looked up and called, ‘I’m picking up an anomaly in the glade site. Check the sub-routine. There’s something in there.’

  ‘Christ!’ Rodriguez said. ‘It’s a security breach! I thought the dammed system was closed, Bob! What the hell’s going on?’

  Bob said, ‘It’s no anomaly, Maria. There’s definitely something going on in there.’

  ‘What have we got here?’ Rodriguez called to all the techs. ‘I want an answer in one minute. Viral program, some lone hacker, system glitch? I want answers, fast!’

  Anna felt her palms begin to sweat, frustrated that she didn’t understand a fraction of what was going on.

  She looked back at the flatscreen. In the virtual world, Kia was kneeling in the grass, staring into the distance with a quizzical expression.

  ‘Rodriguez, Bob . . .’ Kia said, ‘I have a visual sighting of something that shouldn’t be here, dammit. Can someone tell me what the fuck’s happening?’

  Anna stood up suddenly, spilling her coffee across the table-top.

  It happened so suddenly that Anna doubted the evidence of her eyes. She was staring at the flatscreen, at her lover kneeling in the grass. On the horizon, she made out a tiny speck, no more than an irregularity. In a fraction of a second it grew, expanded - and Anna told herself that she had seen some kind of animal, perhaps a bison or a buffalo, but seemingly made from some silver metal. It charged towards the wallscreen, and Anna heard Kia scream and dive from its path, and then vanish as she exited the site.

&nb
sp; In the jellytank, Kia was struggling into a sitting position, tearing the electrodes from her limbs and yanking the jacks from her cranial interface. She rose to her full height like some black Venus rising from a gelatinous ocean, strings of jelly adhering to her slim limbs and lithe body as if in an attempt to draw her back into the tank.

  She was quickly surrounded by techs. Someone passed her a robe and, like an imperious diva displeased with audience reaction, she pulled it around her and swept from the chamber towards a small side room.

  Anna hurried after her. Maria Rodriguez was already with Kia in the changing room. ‘I want to know what the fuck was going on!’ Kia shouted. She stepped into a shower cubicle and slammed the screen shut behind her. ‘Who the hell was responsible for that?’

  Rodriguez pulled a face at Anna. ‘Are you okay, Kia?’

  ‘I’m fine, no thanks to you. What the hell was it?’

  Rodriguez looked pained. She glanced at Anna and spread her hands. ‘We’re investigating. Bob suspects infiltration, some kind of invasion.’

  ‘An invasion?’ Kia shook her head. ‘Not the Virex brigade?’

  ‘We don’t know. We’re not sure. We think they might have introduced a virus

  ‘A virus?’ Kia echoed. ‘Christ, how did that happen? I thought we were secure.’ She switched on the drier. Through the stippled glass door of the cubicle, Anna watched the nebulous shape of her lover’s tall body.

  ‘We are secure,’ Rodriguez began. ‘I mean, we were secure. Give me a couple of hours and we’ll work out exactly what went wrong. I’d like to check your implant, Kia.’

  ‘You can do that in the morning,’ Kia said. ‘That’s me for the day. Did I see Anna in there?’

  ‘I’m here, Kia,’ Anna said.

  Kia looked over the door of the cubicle and crossed her eyes at Anna. ‘Please take me away from this place,ma chérie: whisk me away to a magical coffee-shop.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. Quit the mothering bit, okay? All I need is a black coffee and pleasant conversation.’

  ‘See you tomorrow, Kia,’ Rodriguez said. She quickly left the room and closed the door behind her.

  Kia stepped from the drier, statuesque without clothes. They embraced, and her head hardly reached the sickle scars of Kia’s double mastectomy. In the early days of their relationship, perhaps as worried as Anna that what was going on between them was no more than mere lust, Kia had joked that the only place they were really compatible was in bed. Some time later, a year into the relationship, Anna liked to remind Kia of what she had said, shaming her.

  Kia dressed quickly in pink leggings, four lace smocks and her multi-coloured knitted coat.

  ‘Let’s go for that coffee, girl.’

  They left the changing room and hurried across the chamber. The techs were gathered around the work-stations, talking animatedly. Maria Rodriguez looked up, opened her mouth to speak, and thought better of it. As Anna followed Kia through the door, she couldn’t help feeling a childish thrill of having stolen the best girl at the party.

  They drove in Kia’s beat-up purple Cadillac to a coffee-shop off Broadway that served lattes made in heaven. Kia collapsed at a window table while Anna ordered at the counter. She carried the tray across the room.

  ‘What happened in there, Kia?’ she asked. She recalled something Kia had said. ‘Who are the Virex brigade?’

  ‘Only some nutcase Luddite group opposed to the development of virtual reality, is all. They try to hack in from time to time, disrupt the system.’

  Kia shook her head in frustration. She was undoubtedly the most striking woman on the New York scene. Anna tried not to set much store by appearance, but she found Kia’s beauty breathtaking: the long Kenyan face, blade-sharp cheekbones, lips as full as overstuffed cushions.

  The silver spars of the implant, which circumnavigated her skull like some bizarre orthopaedic brace, only served to emphasise her natural good looks.

  ‘It should’ve been a routine system check, girl. The site was closed. There was no way, no way, that Virex could’ve got a virus in there.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Tell you what - some lazy bastard fucked up bad and won’t admit to it.’

  Anna sipped her coffee. ‘I . . . when you were in the tank, I saw something in the site with you.’

  ‘The silver thing? The silver buffalo?’ Kia shook her head. ‘It came straight for me. I felt something in here.’ She raised a long-fingered hand and touched her interface. ‘Of course, it all goes on in here: the representation of the buffalo was just the analogue for some code.’

  Anna smiled and shook her head. She was lost already. She reached out and touched Kia’s hand. ‘The main thing is that you’re okay, okay? What are we doing tonight?’

  Kia smiled. ‘First, I sleep. Then we’ll hit the town. Dine somewhere romantic, just the two of us, and after that . . . we’ll decide then, okay?’

  Anna sipped her coffee. ‘What happened last night? The usual crowd at the Scumbar?’

  Kia’s eyes clouded, as if at a worrying thought. She placed a long white cigarette between her amazing lips, blew a billow of smoke. ‘You heard about Sissi?’

  She’d been working on the scripts for the past few days. She was out of circulation, behind on the gossip.

  ‘She’s dumped Carrie?’ she asked.

  Beside their own relationship, Sissi’s and Carrie’s monogamy was the only long-standing ‘marriage’ on the scene.

  ‘No, girl. Sissi disappeared about a week ago. She just up and vanished. One day she’s around, and the next - gone. Then yesterday, Carrie goes missing.’

  Anna shrugged. ‘So they’ve gone away somewhere.’

  ‘Without telling friends? I have the card for their apartment, remember? I look out for them when they go on vacation.’

  Anna thought about it. ‘So, a week ago Sissi goes away. Yesterday, Carrie decides to visit friends. She’ll probably be back today, you wait.’

  Kia angled her cigarette, contemplated its glowing tip. She looked through the smoke at Anna, as if considering whether to tell her something.

  ‘Something happened last night, something weird.’

  ‘You had too much to drink, right?’

  Kia shook her head. ‘I’m in the Scumbar and this private detective shows up, looking for Sissi. According to him, he’s been hired by Carrie. I told him that Carrie hasn’t shown.’

  Anna looked at her. ‘A private detective looking for Sissi? What was his name?’

  Kia screwed her lips askew, thinking. ‘Hal, something like that.’

  Hal . . . How long had it been since she’d last seen her brother? Four years, five? Anna had gone through a difficult period in her early twenties, a period of sloughing off who she had been, unloading the anger and becoming a different person. She had even stopped calling herself Sue, preferring Anna instead.

  Around that time, her relationship with Hal had gone bad. He reminded her too much of their father, and rather than endure the fraught meetings which had always ended in her railing at her brother’s conditioned assumptions, she had decided not to see him again. She had moved from her apartment in the Solano Building and not bothered to give him her new address.

  She remembered Hal from her early teenage years, before she had come to understand who and what she was: they had been close then. She had been brighter than him, and he more experienced than her, and despite the seven-year age difference they had shared an easy and trusting equality.

  She wondered what he might be like now. Perhaps it was time to contact him again. She had become a different person over the past five years, less bitter and more tolerant. She smiled to herself.

  Kia looked at her. ‘What? You know this guy or something?’

  ‘Was he short, with dark curly hair?’

  ‘That’s the guy.’ Kia looked dubious. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I told you about my brother - the private eye. That’s Hal.’r />
  ‘God! Now you come to mention it ... there was a family resemblance. Hey, no wonder I kinda liked the guy. He was gentle, you know, soft-spoken. He wasn’t full of shit. Kinda quiet, calm.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, seeing as how he’s looking for friends, working for us sisters, I said I’ll take him back to Solano and let him look over the apartment. So we go.’

  Anna nodded. ‘And?’

  ‘And we’re in there about five minutes when the lights go out. Then things start getting weird. I can hardly stand up. There’s a ringing in my ears. I hear the door open, someone come in. I crawl to the door, manage to get away, but before I do, I see this figure in black, holding a weapon of some kind. So I run and call the cops - and about an hour later they decide to show up. When we get back to the apartment, place is one hell of a mess, all the furniture’s been sliced, I mean cut up, and the window’s smashed.’