New York Nights [Virex 01]

by Eric Brown

  ‘What kind of place are you taking me to, Kim? Formal or informal?’

  She wore a distracted air. ‘What? Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  He looked at her, slim as a boy, tiny breasts the only sign of fat on her well-defined ribcage, her stomach scooped and incurving.

  He laughed. ‘What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what we wear, Hal. We can go naked if we like.’

  He grabbed black jeans and a white shirt and dressed quickly. He approached her from behind and entrapped her in his arms. ‘Sometimes I wonder which planet you’re inhabiting, Kim.’

  He released her and she made her choice, a short red dress and a long black coat, matching the fall of her jet hair. She dressed distractedly, her gaze seemingly focused miles away.

  At last she said, ‘Hal. . .?’

  He was watching her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why do you think the shape-shifter wanted to kill you?’

  He sighed. To explain what Jeff had told him would only frustrate and antagonise her. ‘Probably because I trespassed on its territory,’ he said, ‘and it didn’t like it.’

  She buttoned her coat right up to her chin and regarded him seriously. ‘Promise me you won’t go near that place again, Hal. Say you won’t.’

  ‘I’ll promise, if you promise to cheer up.’

  With the forefingers of each hand she pushed up the corners of her mouth. ‘Thut butter?’

  He hugged her. ‘Twenty-five going on twelve,’ he said.

  Outside, he grabbed an order of spare ribs and french fries from one of Kim’s stalls. A radio was playing full blast, and between the music Halliday heard a snatch of news. The war between Thailand and China had escalated; the fledgling European colony on Mars was expanding. He thought of life on Mars, people going about their everyday lives on another planet, and found it hard to believe.

  They ate as they motored downtown in the Ford. Kim drove, even though it entailed her having to take off her coat and fold it into a cushion in order for her to see through the windshield. He watched her as she turned onto Park Avenue.

  ‘Now are you going to tell me where we’re going?’

  Thin-lipped with concentration, she gave him a swift glance. ‘Be patient.’

  ‘Give me a clue. Have I been there before?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘I’ve never been there before? Not ice hockey? Skyball?’ He slipped a french fry into her mouth.

  ‘You hate sport,’ she said, chewing.

  ‘Have you been there before?’

  ‘Nope again.’ She looked at him. ‘I gave you a big clue before, when I said we could go naked if we liked.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought you were kidding.’

  ‘No kidding, Hal.’

  He thought of the sex clubs that had opened recently around Battery Park. ‘Christ, not a sex club, Kim? If you think for one minute...’

  She turned to him and gave a serene little smile. ‘Not a sex club, but we can make love where we’re going if we like.’

  ‘So it’s a private place? We’ll be alone?’

  ‘Not necessarily. There’ll be other people there.’

  ‘Kim, for Christ’s sake . . . Put me out of my misery!’

  She turned off Broadway onto Fulton Street and approached the towering twin monoliths of the World Trade Centre. Two minutes later she pulled into the kerb before a row of holographically-enhanced buildings, their usually bright façades washed out in the winter sunlight. In places, where the sun caught the original windows of the building beneath, the holographic projection flickered like a ghostly double-exposure.

  ‘Here we are, Hal.’

  He peered out. ‘Where? I don’t see anything.’

  ‘There.’ She pointed to a line of people on the sidewalk. He followed the queue to its origin.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘a VR Bar.’

  She was peering at him expectantly. ‘Well? What do you think?’

  He tried to summon the requisite enthusiasm. ‘It’s . . . Well, we’ll be queuing for ages.’

  She pulled a golden envelope from the pocket of her folded coat and waved it in front of his face. ‘I know the manager. He gave me complimentary tickets. We can walk straight in.’

  He was tired, and the last thing he wanted was to immerse himself in a vat of jelly and experience the dubious delights of some spurious reality.

  ‘I’ve been working hard lately,’ Kim said. ‘All work, no play. I’ve been neglecting you, Hal. This is my little present.’

  He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Can’t wait,’ he said.

  The foyer of the Bar was done out like the lobby of an expensive hotel, with thick pile carpet, potted ferns - artificial, Halliday noted - and bronze-framed mirrors. The scrolling legend above the reception desk said: Welcome to the Cyber-Tech VR Bar, TriBeCa.

  Kim presented the tickets at the desk, and a minute later a smiling, blue-uniformed woman appeared through a pair of swing doors. She reminded Halliday of an air hostess.

  ‘If you’d care to follow me this way,’ she said, indicating the double doors. ‘Is this your first visit to a VR Bar?’

  Kim nodded, as wide-eyed as a child at the fair. Halliday felt her fingers squeeze his in excitement. They were escorted into a long room furnished in the fashion of the foyer, with ersatz palms and a blue carpet patterned with the intertwined CT logo of the corporation. Customers sat around on sofas and loungers, reading company magazines and brochures.

  The chamber was flanked with a series of mock-timber doors, giving access to the VR booths. Their hostess ushered them across the room and swung open a door. ‘Just follow the instruction on the programming screen. If you need any assistance, “don’t hesitate to press the call panel.’

  They stepped inside and the door closed behind them. Halliday stared around him. ‘Good God, what now?’

  They were in a room the size of a hotel bathroom, white-tiled and brightly illuminated. A shower unit stood in one corner, but in pride of place in the centre of the floor were what appeared to be two large aquaria filled with a liquid substance the same colour as honey.

  Kim was already reading the instructions from a wallscreen. She tapped the screen, summoning menus. ‘Hal, come here. Look, these are all the options.’

  He joined her. ‘First, all the realms we can visit: over fifty different venues.’

  Halliday stared at a succession of alluring panoramas, from what looked like the landscape of another planet, to more recognisably terrestrial locations, mountain scenes, deserts, rolling grassland. Another menu listed dozens of historical options. Ancient Greece, Egypt, the South America of the Incas . . .

  Kim touched the screen. ‘This is the persona menu. Look, you just type in here the type of body you want, height, age, coloration, even sex.’

  ‘You mean, you can appear as someone else in there?’

  ‘That’s what it says. Or you can take the default option and appear as yourself. Even then, you can change whatever you want about your appearance.’

  ‘I think I’ll go as I am,’ he said.

  Kim frowned. ‘I don’t know ... I might try another body. How would you like to make love to a tall, shapely blonde, Hal?’

  He laughed. ‘You mean I could commit infidelity in there?’

  ‘Well, you’d be making love to another body, but underneath it would still be me.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it’d be anything like the real thing.’

  ‘According to the publicity, it’s hard to tell the difference.’

  ‘Go as yourself, Kim. I want to share the experience with you, not you in disguise.’

  ‘Not even if I’m built like some holo-drama beauty queen?’ she asked, watching him slyly.

  The thought obscurely worried him. ‘Especially if you’re some holo-drama queen,’ he said. ‘You’re perfect as you are.’

  ‘Hokay,’ she said, tapping the screen. �
��And I’ve selected you to go as yourself.’

  ‘How does the program know what we look like?’

  Kim pointed to four cameras mounted in the corners of the booth. ‘And dress?’ she said. ‘There’s a default blue gown. We can choose from a menu of other clothing, or we can wear what we have on now.’

  ‘That’ll suit me.’ He looked at her. ‘I just hope you aren’t going to take all day deciding

  She punched him. ‘So . . . where do you want to go to, Hal?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  She tapped the screen again. ‘It’s all set. All we have to do is undress, attach the leads and put the facemasks on.’

  They moved to the tanks and undressed, stowing their clothes in wall-units. They attached what might have been electrode leads to their arms and legs, and then slipped the faceplates over their heads. Halliday felt air-ducts locate his nose and mouth, tickling him. He looked at the tank, unsure now that the time had come to immerse himself.

  He glanced across at Kim, naked but for the ludicrous facemask and leads.

  ‘You don’t know how bizarre we look,’ he said, his voice muffled.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Kim said, as if from a great distance.

  He watched her as she straddled the side of the tank and stood up to her thighs in the amber liquid. Demurely, she sat down and waved fingers at him.

  He climbed awkwardly into his own tank, thinking that a distinct design improvement would be to have the tanks set flush with the floor, like bathing pools.

  The fluid was viscous, and surprisingly warm. It oozed up around his legs, quite unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He sat down, then lay back so that only his head was above the surface. In the other tank, Kim had totally submerged herself. Wondering what to expect, Halliday did the same, feeling the jelly seal around him. He floated free, a specimen preserved in amber, and over a period of perhaps ten seconds he was aware of gradually losing contact with his senses. He could hear nothing, and the visor of his faceplate was darkened. Then all tactile sensation deserted him. For a second he seemed to be floating, disembodied, in absolute darkness.

  Then, it was as if he had been reborn. His senses were flooded with an explosion of awareness, and for the very first time Halliday experienced life in virtual reality.

  He had never really believed the claims Barney had made for the verisimilitude of the technology. He had expected to experience something along the lines of an improved holo-drama, to look out from the point of view of some clunking, robot-like version of himself, the movements and sensory awareness sloppy and imprecise.

  What struck him in a sudden rush was the absolute reality of the world he was viewing, and of his place in it.

  He was standing on an outcropping of rock, a warm breeze playing against his face, staring out across parkland towards an almost-familiar cityscape scintillating beneath a bright summer sun.

  He looked down at his body, at the clothes he had worn back in the real world. He touched his left hand, felt its warmth, its reality. He flexed his fingers. He reached up and touched his face, felt the stubble on his jaw, the ticking pulse at his throat. He found the absolute fidelity of the experience somehow frightening. Had he not known, intellectually, that he was in a jellytank, he would have been convinced that this was the real world, somehow altered.

  He looked out over the city. Buildings soared into a blue sky, towering over the few skyscrapers that still remained. The new buildings seemed extruded from some diaphanous substance, like glass blown and elongated. He made out darting specks in the sky, which resolved themselves into air-cars. Higher still, he saw the great mammoth shape of a spaceship, moving through the air with stately, colossal grace. People hurried though the streets below, and the park was full of citizens strolling, roller-blading, jogging. The scene was at once familiar and strange, all the more bizarre for his knowing that it did not actually exist.

  ‘What do you think, Hal?’

  He turned. Kim stood beside him, radiant in her short red dress. Her jet hair fell sheer to the small of her back, almost iridescent in the sunlight.

  He gestured feebly. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘This is New York sixty years from now,’ she said. He could see that she was as amazed as he was by the experience. ‘A programmer’s vision of the year 2100.’

  He stared at Kim, could not take his eyes off her. She was the woman he knew, but somehow altered. He reached out, almost experimentally, as if he expected her to vanish before his eyes, and took her hand. He felt the warmth of her fingers squeeze his as she smiled with excitement.

  ‘What do you think of the new me?’ she asked.

  She had increased the size of her breasts, swelled the curve of her hips - only slightly, but enough to make Halliday desire the original Kim.

  She had often said that she wished she was different, wished that she had the body of a real woman, though Halliday had told her that she was beautiful as she was. Well, now she did have a more voluptuous body, but he didn’t intend to spoil her fun and tell her that he thought the change almost gross.

  He reached out and took her in his arms, feeling her weight, her warmth, against him. Good God, when he inhaled he could even smell her distinctive Kim-scent, soap, shampoo, warm skin, the subtle underlay of steamed noodles.

  He laughed.

  She pulled away. ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I just can’t believe how damned real this is. I owe Barney an apology.’

  ‘I never thought it would be this good, Hal. Must admit.’

  He touched her face, then his own. ‘How the hell do they do it? I mean, I’m wearing that damned mask. How can I feel my face?’

  She reached up and touched her small chin, her broad nose. She laughed. ‘I don’t know, Hal. I’m no technician. Perhaps it’s magical.’

  He smiled. ‘I thought there’d be rough edges, glitches.’ He looked around at this futuristic Central Park.

  She laughed. ‘This is just the start, Hal. Come on.’ She took his hand and tugged him down the hill.

  He marvelled at the sensation of walking, the movement of his body, the stretch of his muscles and sinews, as he strode across the grass towards a curving path.

  ‘Where are we going, Kim?’

  ‘I read about it in the brochure,’ she said. ‘This way.’

  They walked to Bethesda Terrace, two people in a crowd of weekend strollers enjoying the open air and sunlight. He looked around at the towering city on all four sides.

  ‘I think I’ve spotted where they’ve got it wrong,’ he said.

  ‘Trust you!’

  He stopped and pointed at the futuristic city. ‘Do you think New York will look like this in fifty years? The future is never as slick and shiny and new as films and books make out. It’s always much as it is now, but grimier.’

  Kim laughed and punched him with the heel of her hand. ‘That’s what I love about you, Mr Halliday. Always look on dark side.’

  ‘I’m not criticising the programmers, though. Who’d want to escape one shitty New York just to find themselves in another?’

  She looked past him, serious. ‘Maybe future won’t be so bad, Hal. Maybe things will get better.’

  He reached out and pulled her to him, kissed the top of her head. ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right,’ he said.

  They crossed the piazza to where half a dozen small, separate crowds were gathered. Each knot of twenty or so people was congregated around a short, hexagonal column, each facet displaying a different scene. Over the heads of one crowd, Halliday made out a section of sky in one scene, mountains in another.

  ‘This is it, Hal,’ Kim said.

  ‘What?’ he asked her.

  She shook her head. ‘Wait and see.’

  They joined a gathering. Kim made no move to push to the front to view the columnar displays. He frowned at her and shrugged. ‘What now?’

  She was enjoying his confusion. ‘We just wait,’ she said.

 
Oddly, the people around him were moving forward, as if in a queue that was being slowly absorbed. He stepped forward with Kim. The crowd was only three deep now, and he wondered where everyone had vanished to. He looked at Kim again, but she wore a tight-lipped smile and was giving nothing away. Behind him, more people had joined the gathering. He turned to the front and watched the couple before him move around the column, pointing at the glowing scenes and talking in whispers. They made their decision and approached the facet of the column displaying a desert scene. As Halliday watched, the couple stepped into the image, moved from the reality of Central Park and walked across the desert towards an oasis.