by Paul Anlee
“And Gerhardt?” Mary’s lip trembled hopefully.
“I’m sorry. I think you’re right. I think he’s really gone,” replied Darya.
So why don’t I feel anything?—she asked herself. He was one of my oldest and dearest friends. She pressed her fists against her lap and straightened her back. No time for sorrow. I’ve got more urgent matters to attend to.
“The Supervisor reports that Gerhardt’s return to his trueself was blocked,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Trillian had something to do with that.”
Mary nodded. “Do you think he knows about us, too?”
“I hope not. I’ll call Qiwei and Leisha right now and tell them to drop everything and exit to the outworld immediately.”
Darya got up and headed into the corridor toward the bedrooms. She nearly collided with Timothy, who’d been standing there, rather awkwardly, in his pajamas.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I heard people talking,” he said softly. “I thought I could make some tea.”
Mary turned at the sound of the man’s voice. She looked at Darya with surprise and a hint of amusement. “Ohmygosh, I’m so sorry. Have you been…entertaining?”
Darya rolled her eyes and grimaced. “Very funny. No. Well, yes, but not the way you’re thinking. This is Timothy. He’s got a very interesting story. When we have a little more time, I’ll have him tell you.”
“Oh, oh,” Darya added, tapping her forehead a couple of times.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mary.
“Timothy’s an anomaly,” replied Darya. “When Trillian hacked into the Alternus inworld it somehow caused Timothy’s Partial, a DonTon persona, to convert into a full instantiation. I have no idea how that could’ve happened; I’ve never heard of such a thing. Regardless, Timothy has no trueself to return to. If I shut Alternus down right now, our friend here will just…dissipate.”
Mary’s jaw dropped. “Oh. That wouldn’t be nice.”
“Not nice? It would be murder,” Darya replied. She concentrated a second or two. “Maybe there’s a solution. I wonder if Trillian’s block on Gerhardt’s trueself is still in effect.”
“I don’t know; I didn’t check,” replied Mary. Her eyes grew wide when she realized what Darya was thinking. “You can’t be serious!”
“It’s the only option he has for survival,” Darya answered.
The two women regarded Timothy.
“He can take over Gerhardt’s body,” Darya confirmed.
While Mary and Timothy stared at each other, Darya retrieved her cell phone.
Damn! Lattice technology sure would be handy on Alternus right now. Unfortunately, she was stuck with the ancient system.
I just hope Leisha and Qiwei have their phones on. She wanted them out as soon as possible. She started dialing Leisha’s number.
“No Service Available,” the screen flashed.
“Crap!” she said.
“What is it?” asked Mary.
“Cell service is out. We’ll have to go there in person.”
“Trillian again?”
“I don’t know; I hope not. Let’s go.” Darya sent Timothy to put on some street clothes and did the same herself. “Dress in layers,” she told him. “We may be out for a while; best to be prepared.”
Within minutes, the three of them were in the street. The temperature was a good 15 degrees lower in the pre-dawn hours. The wind had picked up, and it was starting to rain. As they stepped outside, lightning cracked about a mile away.
“Great.” Darya stepped back in and tried to call a taxi from the land line in the lobby, but that line was as dead as her cell. She hoped they’d be able to hail a cab.
Out front, they scanned in both directions, but Fifth Avenue was eerily deserted. Without the usual foot and vehicle traffic, Central Park looked dark and foreboding. No way I’m going to cut through there.
They turned down a side street and headed toward Madison and Park. It was the same in that direction: strangely silent streets, devoid of cars and pedestrians.
This is absurd—Darya thought. New York never sleeps, not even at four in the morning. They didn’t pass a single person, and not one of the shops, clubs, or bars was open. What’s going on?—Darya wondered.
They exchanged worried glances, but no one wanted to say anything out loud. Just as she was about to announce a change of plans, the headlights of a single car approached them along Park Avenue. It was a taxi.
Darya held up her hand to hail the cab and, miraculously, it pulled over for them. The rear doors opened and two men got out. Darya recognized—from her review of Gerhardt’s fight—one as Shard Trillian and the other had to be one of his thugs.
She faced them square on, and let them walk to her. Mary and Timothy cowered behind.
Shard Trillian flashed a brilliant white smile. “Darya!” He greeted her as if they were old friends. “I have been anticipating meeting you for such a long time.” He gave a short bow in Mary’s direction. “And this lovely creature, I presume, is Mary.”
“I think you know exactly who she is,” Darya scowled.
“Yes,” he admitted, “though we’ve not been formally introduced.” He took notice of the tall, well-groomed man attempting to comfort Mary.
“And I believe I recognize this adventurous young man from Casa DonTon. Did I not tell you to close that door, Timothy?”
“You did, my Lord,” the former Footman stammered. “I’m afraid that in my excitement at being threatened by a Securitor, I disobeyed that particular order, my Lord. Or, at least, your intent. To be precise, my Lord, you said, “Would you close that, please?” And I did. Behind me, though, once I’d passed through.”
“Interesting,” said Trillian. “My dear man, have you made the leap to persondom?”
“Pardon, my Lord?”
“Are you now fully instantiated?” Trillian demanded.
Timothy stood proudly. “It would appear so, my Lord.”
“Fascinating. I will have to discuss this mechanism with Alum, upon our return.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” interrupted Darya. She was pointing a small but efficient-looking Berretta at Trillian and his thug.
The henchman growled at her. In reply, she shot him in the left thigh and he fell to the ground screaming, trying to stop the bleeding with his hands.
She smiled coldly at Trillian. “He’s not a Full, is he?” She brought the barrel to bear on the Shard. “You, however, are,” she threatened.
Trillian put his head back and laughed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “That which we make can so easily be unmade. Don’t you agree?” He stepped past the thug, who’d stopped screaming but was still struggling on the pavement.
“I wouldn’t come any closer,” said Darya.
Trillian’s creepy smile transformed into a wicked leer as he took two more steps.
She aimed her pistol above his right ear and pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening in the otherwise deserted street.
Trillian hesitated for a fraction of a second and then closed his eyes.
Darya was puzzled by his reaction until she heard the buzzing sound.
“Mary, Timothy, run!” she ordered.
The two had been slowly backing away as Trillian came forward. They turned and bolted.
Darya watched them enter a nearby alley.
Trillian opened his eyes, and his malicious smile returned. “I’ll round up your underlings later,” he said and took another step.
Darya aimed the gun mid-torso and pulled the trigger. There was a soft click, and another. Click, click, click, click.
Trillian held his hands out. “Oh, that wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?”
She was sure the clip had been full. She’d only used two bullets; there should be eight more in there. Click, click, click, click.
Trillian had been closing in the gap. He lunged for Darya.
She took a step back and flung the pistol, backhand, at his face.
Her fierceness took him by surprise. He batted the gun out of the air but his attention was diverted long enough for her to direct a kick at his stomach. It connected solidly, and a winded Trillian fell to his knees.
Darya wheeled and with a sweeping kick, sent him to the ground. Without waiting to see him land, she bolted for the dark alley where her companions had gone.
Against orders, they’d waited at the entrance. “Follow me,” she hissed and plunged deeper into the darkness. “We don’t have much time before he’s back on his feet.”
“How’d you do that?” Mary huffed from beside Darya as she struggled to keep up.
“I’m a warrior princess, remember?
“So why didn’t you just knock him out or kill him?” asked a breathless Timothy from her other side.
“He hacked the Supervisor,” Darya answered. “That move only worked because it surprised him. He’d already put up a shield by the time I pulled my foot back. Another blow wouldn’t have connected.”
A narrow passage between two old brick buildings appeared on the left.
“Down here!” Darya urged, and they picked their way down.
Mary and Timothy followed as fast as they could, but Mary’s stylistic bulk and Timothy’s months of inactivity limited their speed. They were tiring quickly.
“Ah, yes, here it is,” Darya said. She opened the third door they passed. The three of them tumbled through the door and into a small, dimly lit all-night bar/café.
A few dozen patrons gave life to the space, even at this hour. Some were winding down after a late night comedy show. Animated conversations flowed among groups of college students. Solitary customers caressed their drinks or picked at their food while they people-watched.
Darya hustled Mary and Timothy into a booth anchoring a dimly lit wall.
“I don’t know how long we have before he finds us,” Darya said. “Mary, you don’t need to stay for this. Head back outworld, and we’ll meet up at Secondus in a few hours.”
Mary’s eyes were filled with worry.
“We’ll be okay,” Darya assured her. “Go!”
Mary hung her head in resignation and nodded weakly. She closed her eyes and sent the lattice command to leave for the outworld.
Nothing happened.
With renewed exertion, she scrunched her brow tight and concentrated. It made no difference. The signal wasn’t getting out.
“Darya!” she whispered. “I can’t exit!”
31
Darya didn’t waste a second. She closed her eyes and gave the command to return to her trueself. Her persona bounced off the barrier denying exit from the Alternus sim and right back into her inworld body.
“I should’ve realized he’d shut us in immediately.” She chided herself. “Okay, try sending the UNHQ code, and we’ll see if you can transfer to the United Nations Headquarters. That’ll buy us some time to figure out what to do next.”
Mary sent the transfer code. Again, nothing. Hope drained from her face. “We’re going to die here,” she said.
“We are not going to die,” Darya replied. “First of all, I’m sure Trillian would rather take us for complete interrogation. Second, we are not going to be killed or caught. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Maybe she couldn’t upload her persona back to her outworld trueself, but that wasn’t the only way to escape.
Darya hadn’t trusted any inworld since the events of Lysrandia. As a precaution, she’d copied her quark-spin lattice capabilities into the inworld hardware. Unlike others who came to this world with only human-level capabilities, she still had access to lattice IQ-enhancements of her own design.
If Trillian could hack across inworlds, she could too. He’d come from DonTon, so she was definitely not going there. But where, then? The choices were fairly limited as to what was both convenient and a good place to hide. That left a few playing fields. Vacationland would work, or maybe that ridiculously bizarre inworld, the GameRoom.
Darya smiled. The GameRoom was always Gerhardt’s favorite. It had the loosest physical laws and the most flexible access to Supervisory changes. She’d be on more even footing against Trillian there, if he could track her into the GameRoom at all. Did he think to expand the trueselves-block to all of the inworlds?—she wondered. Maybe they could get back to the outworld through one of them.
Like many engineers, years of tinkering with software security systems gave her a deep understanding of the machine-level implementations of code used to program inworld simulations.
Over millions of years, the code had migrated from what used to be called “high-level languages” to programming environments that would be hardly recognizable to a human engineer of old.
Keeping abreast of those developments and contributing to the advances brought her satisfaction, when she wasn’t pushing asteroids into new orbits. Now her hobby was about to save their lives.
She hoped.
Darya began assembling low-level code to probe the boundaries between inworld Alternus and the GameRoom. Trillian’s control of the Alternus Supervisor had to be incomplete or faulty. Otherwise, he would have located the group by now and altered the sim to trap them.
Timothy groaned and put his hands to his head. “What’s wrong?” Darya asked.
“My head hurts,” he complained. “It just started now. Do you think that means he’s nearby?”
“No, that’s probably just me,” she replied. “Let me find a different place to work. A little distance might reduce the effect my coding has on your persona.”
She walked over to the bar and ordered their best single malt scotch. She took one sip and grimaced. Wow, maybe that’s your best, but it’s far from the best.
She closed her eyes and set to work. Her quark-spin lattice generated code at a rate that would have astonished ancient programmers. She hoped it was fast enough. After about fifteen minutes, she’d constructed a probe, located a circuitous route to get them from Alternus to the GameRoom, and established a few basic conditions for the game they would arrive in.
The conduit was thin and slow. It would take them each a day to make the transfer, and she was pretty sure they wouldn’t get more than an hour here in the café before Trillian found them.
Darya wove code as fast as she could to construct a higher bandwidth route. She was in such a focused programming frenzy she didn’t notice right away that the room had fallen silent. She looked around to see why conversation had stopped.
The sports programs on the television screens above the bar and around the café had been replaced by unflattering photos of her, Mary and Timothy. A scrolling announcement below the photos instructed viewers to “Contact the number at the bottom of the screen if you see these individuals.”
Darya looked around. A number of customers already had their phones out and were texting something. Apparently, it’s only our phones that are blocked. Time to move.
Her hack into the GameRoom was almost finished. She let a high-priority background process complete the job while she sent a message to the Supervisor, asking it to create a diversion. She left her unfinished scotch on the bar and walked back to the booth where the others waited.
Mary greeted Darya with an expectant, wide-eyed stare. She looks exhausted—Darya noted. Even Timothy was having difficulty offering any comfort.
“I’ve asked the Supervisor to spread a few virtual ghosts of our likeness around the neighborhood,” Darya reported. “Hopefully, that’ll lead to a flood of information to Trillian. We might be able to delay him by a few minutes or hours; there’s no saying how long we have before he gets here. In the meantime, I’ve set up a data pipeline between us here and the GameRoom.”
Mary’s eyes lifted at the mention of Gerhardt’s favorite inworld. She drew in a breath to speak. “Darya…,” was all she got out. Her openly skeptical look finished the sentence.
“I know,” Darya replied before Mary could launch her protest. “It’s a strange choice and not even nearb
y, but that could work to our advantage. It’ll take Trillian a while to check out this inworld and any others nearby, like Casa DonTon.
“Once we’re in the GameRoom, I can start looking for a way back to our trueselves. To help buy us some time, I set up a game that might make it harder for him to locate us there.”
“What kind of game?” Mary asked.
“It’s a ten-dimensional maze.”
Timothy looked confused, but Mary accepted the notion without a blink. “Okay, how do we get there?”
“You don’t have to do a thing,” answered Darya. “I’ll send you. Once you’re in, don’t move anywhere. And I mean it. Not anywhere; it could be dangerous. I don’t have time to program 10D vision for us, so moving around will be tricky. But it’ll be equally tricky for anyone to find us. Just stand still, and we’ll come in right beside you. Okay?”
Mary nodded. Darya connected Mary’s Alternus persona to the GameRoom transfer pipe and activated the Send command. She was pleased to see her background processing had found a faster route between the two sims. They’d still be limited to one person at a time, but it could process in minutes what the other route would’ve taken hours to complete.
A small portal, like a literal funnel connected to a piece of pipe, floated above Mary’s head. It drew further attention from the café patrons but Darya’s threatening scowl encouraged them to go back to their texting. A few snapped quick photos, anyway.
It would have looked funny—Darya thought—if the tube sucked Mary head first up into the cosmos but reality, even inworld simulated reality, didn’t work that way. Instead, Mary dissolved, gradually growing less substantial, more transparent, and increasingly poorly defined. The process took a few minutes, and Darya sighed with relief when Mary was completely gone.
Darya turned to Timothy, “Okay, my friend, you’re next.”
The front door of the bar café slammed open with a bang, startling everyone.
Trillian stood in the doorway. He pegged his hands triumphantly to his hips and looked around the room. His chest was puffed out and he was beaming with pride, like a caricature of a swashbuckling pirate. If his presence hadn’t been so terrifying, Darya and Timothy might have found it comical.