12. RETURN TO THE CASSINI DIVISION
The return to Ani's idea of an upmarket bar, the Cassini Division, did not go as planned. They found themselves in the same seats but in place of the table was a large package. The package was big enough to contain one fully grown human. So, with no time to readjust they were faced with opening up a box that probably contained a corpse. Ani's expression was like thunder. His security protocols had been breached and that was never a good thing. If Vireo had managed to hack into this program he could hack into anything that Ani had put together. There were literally thousands of layers of encryption, passwords, firewalls and other more exotic stuff protecting this small virtual room yet this large uninvited object had gotten past everything.
Junco started to pull apart the packaging after first steeling himself. His most optimistic hope was for a body that did not show obvious signs of torture. He peeled away the first layer which in turn revealed a second thick but light plastic one. The plastic came away easily enough and what remained was shaped like an old world coffin. Teal and Junco lifted the lid and the room was suddenly filled with a noise that sounded like the wailing of a thousand banshees. A sickly grey light was emanating from the opening. They dropped the coffin lid but the noise continued unabated. If anything the volume was rising along with the pitch. The door with the exit sign appeared in its usual place and Ani grabbed Teal and Junco and manhandled them through it. They found themselves on the metal plate that they had originally accessed the second bar from. Ani motioned them to follow him as he walked back towards the shore and the Jupiter Moon.
Teal pointed out that another two letters of the bar sign had now given up bringing the total to four. Several of the businesses had changed hands or at least changed signs and several others had simply vanished. There were now building sized gaps between some of them. It was raining hard. The Jupiter Moon was empty apart from the bartender and had the look of a bar that had only just opened. They ordered drinks and took them to a corner table.
Ani was troubled. The delivery had obviously upset him. “I don't get it. After the first package, the one with the body parts in it, I really tightened things up.”
“Why did you pull us out?” asked Junco.
“If I didn't you would be dead. That coffin didn't contain a body, it contained a virus, or to be more accurate lots of viruses, malware, spyware and other assorted nasties. That little kit was built to not only destroy whole Levels but also to take out anyone unfortunate enough to be on those Levels at the time.”
Teal spoke. “But Rubidium Beach and us – we are all still here so no harm no foul. Better than body parts if you ask me.” Junco nodded in agreement at the last part.
Ani was still shaken. “There was plenty of harm done. The Cassini Division? That has been completely destroyed. If we had been in that bar for a second longer we would also have been killed and by killed I mean dead on every Level, dead way past the ability of Bob's Body Shop to fix us up. I don't know if anything got past the room and into this Level proper. There is a good chance that nothing did but it will be some time before I finish running the scans to check. Make no mistake, if I hadn't hardened that room to a ridiculously paranoid degree this Level and possibly one or two adjacent ones would be gone.”
The Jupiter Moon was beginning to come to life. There were now a dozen people drinking and chatting. The atmosphere was friendly but something was a little off. There had been a subtle change since they were last here. Junco couldn't quite put his finger on it exactly but the place felt older, more resigned to something or other.
“We have a decision to make re the Mechanik,” stated Teal.
Junco struggled to get his mind back on track. “What are our options?”
“Ani, help us fill in the gaps here.” Teal went on to outline the situation in its starkest terms. “As far as I understand things, if we destroy the Mechanik we get to live and one or some hostages survive.”
“We don't even know that much,” interjected Junco. “Vireo has hardly proved himself trustworthy. He could just kill us and all of the hostages regardless of other factors.”
Ani, who had kept his own council up until this point spoke. “We cannot destroy the Mechanik.” he stated flatly.
Teal chipped in. “I agree, I couldn't live with myself if I was party to that.”
“You misunderstand me. “When I say we cannot destroy the Mechanik I mean it literally. Even if we decided to do it we would fail.”
Junco looked relieved. “Then the decision is made for us. We have to destroy Vireo, and sooner rather than later.” He addressed Ani. “Please tell me that is possible.”
“It is possible, likely extremely difficult but it is possible.”
13. RETRO RUSTBELT
Junco was busy eating something called burgers and fries. on a beat up patch of concrete surrounded by rusted buildings with lots of chimneys, conveyor belts and train tracks when the message flashed up on his home-screen. The message simply said 'Visitors Now.' He looked at Teal, she nodded, and they both dropped back down to his apartment on Level Minus One. At the same moment as his apartment solidified around them Scoter the historian and Tanager appeared on his screen. Junco signaled his front door to open and within minutes they were all back in the Retro Rustbelt sim eating burgers and fries and catching up. Junco and Teal replayed their last few hours on the uplink and the newcomers watched the internal movie in awe. Teal's non-tech background. The strange and changing place that was Rubidium Beach. Ani himself and his part in the creation of Vireo and of course the Mechanik Collective, the stealth repair technicians of all the Levels.
After the playback had finished Tanager and Scoter returned the favor and showed highlights of their last few hours. Vireo had just dumped them in a field in the middle of nowhere. They seemed to be completely intact and they were online when they came to. The first thing that they did was to check the directory to find out where Junco lived. The second was to order a transporter and the third was to spend some time recuperating on a little-known Level where history was considered the most important academic discipline. Of course this was at Scoter's suggestion but it turned out that Tanager was not adverse to a bit of looking backwards instead of forwards.
The group were on their second round of drinks in the Rustbelt scenario. The drinks contained alcohol, some interesting downers and other assorted ingredients. Teal had chosen for the group and had based her choice on drug combination as opposed to flavor and refreshment value. The narcotics and scenario programming were combining in interesting and unpredictable ways. Junco could have sworn that he'd seen two smoke stacks lean in towards each other and the steel rails appeared to be multiplying at an alarming rate. Not only that but they were rising up off the ground in places and starting to intertwine and within the space of seconds the group were enclosed in a nightmare enclosure of steel rails, wooden ties,. and the sides of decrepit industrial buildings. Even through the drugged haze Junco knew that something was not right. Things were getting scary and the respectable scenarios such as this one had safeguards built in to stop that happening. He attempted to drop back down to his apartment on Minus One and drag the others with him but nothing happened – the four of them were still staring at a nightmarish steel and rust landscape that now held them prisoner.
“This is definitely not good,” said Teal with her usual understatement.
Tanager nodded in agreement and Scoter just smiled. He was still in his drugged up happy place. As far as he was concerned this was all a part of the ride. Junco had run his sober up fast routine three times to get the last residue of virtual intoxication out of his system and he now had a pretty good idea of the origin of this latest nightmare. Sure enough Vireo appeared about twenty feet away from where the group sat, perched on a large steel crate with his legs dangling over the pitted side. All of them including Scoter had now decided that whatever lay ahead was best tackled sober.
Junco sent out a message on the closed net that he had
set up for the four of them earlier. The gist of it was an instruction to be careful as he had no idea whether Vireo could hack into their network or not. Ani had built a lot of safeguards into Junco's personal net which he had already shared with the others but he was not sure if it could stand up to an onslaught from Vireo, After all Ani had made Vireo so there was a fair chance that whatever protection Ani had installed would be relatively easy for Vireo to crack. Junco decided that there would be no harm in running a little test and proceeded to contradict his own advice. “Vireo is a moron, a tragic waste of both oxygen and electrons. A pitiful, pathetic shell of a pretend human being.” The others caught on pretty quickly and broadcast their own insults and some threats. Teal's suggestions were both the most inventive and the most anatomically impossible. Vireo did not react at all, the smug grin remained unchanged through the whole exchange. “Good enough.” broadcast Junco silently. “Lets see what happens next.”
The rail tracks and ties were still multiplying, twisting and looping and what was a cage was fast becoming closed in. Shards of light were entering the now small gaps causing the twisted steel to turn bright white. The enclosed space now a madman's rendering of a perverse Gothic cathedral. Vireo hopped off his perch and ambled over towards the group. “What do you think – too much?”
“Just tell us why you are here.” Junco demanded.
“Just checking in for a progress report. Normally I'd just tap into your skulls and take what I needed but it looks as if Ani has been a busy boy. He has been working on his privacy skills since we last met.”
“We are making progress.” said Junco flatly.
“So, what are your plans? How do you intend to take out the Mechanik?”
“None of your business.” said Teal angrily. “You blackmailed us into an agreement and gave us a deadline which, by the way, isn't even close yet.”
“Two things.” started Vireo. “One, when I made my demand I assumed that I would be able to set up a hack to intercept your comms and funnel them directly to me in real time.”
“That shouldn't be our problem.” replied Junco
“And that brings me to thing number two. I don't care what you think.”
Scoter who was now fully up to speed regarding the Mechanik was the next to speak. “Vireo, you do know what the destruction of the Mechanik means for the other Levels?”
“Of course I do historian.” snapped Vireo. “Some Levels will crumble, others will be damaged while others will be pretty much unaffected.”
“And this doesn't bother you?” asked Teal.
“Not really. The whole Level structure is rotten, it's held together with duck-tape and string. It is an ugly, ugly thing. And you know what? The more that the fools in the Mechanik paper over the cracks and patch it back together the uglier it gets.”
“But millions could die,” said Tanager.
“So what? The old saying about having to break eggs to make omelets that comes to mind”
Teal jumped in. “Let's back up a second. You are saying that the structure of the Levels lacks a mathematical elegance...”
“Yes,” replied Vireo. “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“...and that we humans also lack mathematical elegance and are therefore disposable.” Teal continued.
“That is about the gist of it.” Vireo responded. He appeared to be getting agitated, as if he was tiring of the debate. “Anyway I didn't come here to chew the fat with you but to get a progress report. Oh, and one other thing – to make sure that you remain focused.”
The light went from bright white to red in an instant. The rail tracks now resembled satanic spaghetti on a stupid scale. The wooden ties were all but invisible in the gloom. Vireo had disappeared from the scene. Junco tried to drop back down to Minus One and failed a second time. Whatever theatrics Vireo had planned would have to be endured.
The wait wasn't a long one. A cage containing four people materialized in front of them. Junco recognized them as the hostages. He felt sick to the stomach. The hostages did appear to be unharmed though – at least physically. The cage disappeared then the circus began. A piece of railway track freed itself and hurtled through the space from the dome to one of the hostages heads. There was a sickening sound of crunching bone and then the rail continued its journey and reinserted itself into its parent structure. It all happened so fast the that the piece of rail was at rest before the now headless body had finished falling to the ground. As grotesque as the scene was no one was really surprised. The hostages and the group tasked with the destruction of the Mechanik showed little outward reaction. Junco was just about to speak when Ani materialized in front of him.
Junco was fuming. “You are as bad as him in your own way. You had the power to pop in and out of this scenario at will, you obviously knew what was going on yet you chose to do nothing.”
Ani answered. “No it is not like that. Sure I can pop in and out at will as you put it and yes I did know this was going on but here is the rub – I cannot interact with this Level or for that matter any Level where Vireo is playing his little games. He always throws up a firewall that he designed specifically to keep me from participating. Trust me, I have tried.” This placated Junco, at least a little.
It soon became apparent that Vireo's latest production had not yet run its course. Another rail was beginning to slowly extricate itself from the psycho-cathedral. The remaining hostages were the first to notice the new activity and immediately sat on the ground in a circle with their arms around each other. They had obviously made the decision to go together rather than be picked off one by one. Junco again felt as if his guts were being ripped out and even Teal was now crying. The massive steel rod shot out towards the hostages and then veered off in the direction of Scoter and before the historian could even register surprise the rail was flying back towards the structure that had spawned it. Scoter was screaming clutching his forearm above the hand that was no longer there.
The light returned to bright white and the hostages vanished. Junco tried for the third time to drop a Level with the others and this time he succeeded. All five of them including Ani made the drop. It became very obvious very quickly that the damage to Scoter's limb was real and not virtual. Junco knew he only had seconds to act before he bled out. He flipped the medical emergency switch on his home screen and clicked on severed hand. At the same moment he clicked on the submit order button. The glove shaped device materialized in his own right hand. He rammed it onto Scoter's bleeding stump with some force.
14. RUNNING REPAIRS
The gauntlet went to work. The blade aperture went from maximum to minimum leaving a perfectly clean cross section through Scoter's forearm. The ragged excess was spat out of an opening near the top of the glove. Next the wound was cauterized and sealed. While all this was going on the device was taking all sorts of measurements and administering precise amounts of anesthetic and other drugs as required. Scoter was now not only not screaming but was smiling inanely and reciting fifteenth century bawdy verse. Further instructions appeared on Junco's wall then faded out. They were not complicated and just told the patient to leave the gauntlet on for twenty one days to allow for the growth of a new matrix and the subsequent growth of tissue cells. The only other instructions were to not get the gauntlet wet and of course not to travel anywhere where virtual tech was blocked.
Five was the largest number of people that had ever been in Junco's apartment at the same time. For him, as was the case for most Level Zero denizens Minus One was for necessities only. Pleasurable activities, such as meeting up with others, were almost always done on a higher Level. For this reason Minus One apartments tended to be very cramped. They were usually single-room affairs with a bed, toilet, shower and maybe a couple of chairs and a small dining area.
Scoter was sprawled out on the bed and still reciting rude verse. The others were attempting to get comfortable on the floor. Ani indicated that the others, with the exception of Scoter, should follow him outside. Junco opened his
front door and was stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn't looking at the usual rather nondescript landscape but rather into a good sized room that screamed money. There was nothing like this in any of his catalogs. Lots of polished brass and expensive wood panel and also had that distinctive new scenario smell.
“This is new isn't it?”
“Yes, never been used before. Designed it earlier today for a client and this is the first beta test.” That Ani had clients should not have been as big a surprise as it was. Junco had just assumed that Ani swanned around Rubidium Beach or with the Mechanik collective generally doing his own thing.
“Perfect said Junco, now lets get down to business.”
Junco opened by stating the obvious. “We need a plan to take Vireo out – there is no other way through this mess.” The others nodded in agreement. He then addressed Ani. “Why doesn't the Mechanik get involved? Surely it is in their interest to stop your rogue program?”
Ani looked a little hurt but he probably concluded that the jab was a fair one. “Honest answer – I'm not really sure. Bear in mind that they have not known of Vireo's intentions for long. Also, at the end of the day they are a bureaucracy and like most bureaucracies they don't like to rush things.”
“But the guy is a full-on batshit crazy pyscho. Surely the Collective has known about him for longer.” Junco interjected.
“They've known about him from the time I created him – more or less. But, as you know, The Mechanik do not get involved with merely human affairs. That was decided very early on.”
“Maybe they should.” said Teal quietly.
Ani continued. “They coalesced to stop what they saw as the breaking up of the Levels. A part of the collective wanted to extend their original mission to include affecting human affairs. These were few, however, and were outvoted. The Mechanik decided to limit their influence to making sure that the playing surface stayed intact. They had little or no desire to affect the game itself, so to speak.
The Rubidium Beach Series - Episodes 1 Through 4: Cyberpunk/Dystopian Science Fiction Page 5