House of the Galactic Elevator

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “I’m here!” she cried.

  He went in the direction of her voice. She clung with one hand to a decorative stone outcropping that extended over the parapet. Her right arm hung uselessly at her side. He grabbed her and pulled her up.

  “Your arm,” he said.

  “Broken. Sword went over the side.”

  “Log out.”

  “Like hell. I’m not out of this yet, you know.”

  Irving rushed towards them. Jeff moved them both away, weaving between anything that provided cover.

  “Can you use this as a weapon?” he asked, offering her the tablet. “It’s indestructible.”

  “Not if it’s yours. You can’t trade achievement items. Duh.”

  They ducked behind a giant stone bench that Jeff could barely look over. Irving came around one side. They went around the other. They both changed direction.

  “Take your medicine, human,” Irving said. “And besides, what have you got against a few sprinkles?”

  “You do realize your own people are down there and are going to suffer,” Jeff said.

  “Hmm. You haven’t asked me if I cared.”

  They stopped on opposite sides of the bench. Above them, the heavens burst open with a pelt of hail that dispersed around the top of the courtyard. The Grey jumped up to the top of the bench and looked down.

  “Time for you to log out,” Irving said. It leaped at them.

  Jeff was prepared to block again with the tablet. He and Jordan couldn’t move away in time. How much damage could their virtual bodies sustain before they would be forced to leave? Jordan pushed Jeff away, rolled back, and kicked upward. The blow caught Irving in the belly. The Grey whuffed, doubling up on the ground. Jordan spun and stood. She delivered another kick to the downed Grey. As her foot connected, Irving vanished.

  “Ha!” she screamed.

  “Will Irving be able to log back in?” Jeff asked.

  “No idea. Depends on the rules of this place. Most games allow for respawn but not all. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  Jeff took his tablet and went to the station where Irving had been working.

  “You got it from here?” Jordan asked.

  Jeff shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t get past Irving’s password. I can only make guesses.”

  And guess he did. He tried all of the usual in rapid succession. The system indulged him and never shut him out after any number of attempts. But none of his guesses worked.

  He examined the data before him. He wasn’t a meteorologist and didn’t understand the meaning of most of the numbers and measurements. The colored splotches looked like stylized features from a television weather map. Jeff understood enough to know that a storm was brewing. What he saw and heard outside the protected bubble of their virtual world confirmed this.

  “I’m logging out,” Jordan said.

  “To do what?”

  “Something besides watching you fuss with a computer you can’t get into.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Oliop couldn’t hear anything in the chamber above once he crawled out onto the bottom of the weather palace. He found more than enough railings and handholds to move about with confidence, these no doubt designed for those species not equipped for arboreal locomotion. Each support felt solid, like the rest of the palace. But none of this would last if the worms kept up their assault.

  He moved along with the greatest ease, a fluid hand-over-hand that took him across the bottom of the machine. The wind whipped and tore at him, trying to pull him from his handhold.

  The machine’s large, round bottom was visible. Here it didn’t have its copper skin, but appeared as if the purple liquid contents hung over the very air like an upside-down pool. He watched as it churned above him. Something held it all in, but the lack of gauges or anything else that would relay useful information about the contraption continued to vex him. He got a good purchase on a rail with both his feet. He removed a drone from his pouch and placed it on the edge of the machine.

  The drone took a moment to secure itself. It then probed the bottom of the sea of liquid and crawled out on it.

  “Ohhh,” Oliop said as he watched his drone skitter on an inverted liquid surface. The wind buffeted it with a sudden gust. The drone placed all of its feet down, slid, and was dislodged. Oliop watched it fall.

  He touched the surface with a finger, found it smooth and firm. Data from his fallen drone showed on his wrist device. He read through the brief analysis of the liquid. The drone hadn’t actually touched the stuff but had been traversing across a force field that must be holding up the machine’s contents. Oliop began to work his way around the edge of the machine’s underside.

  The machine began to hum louder. Oliop thought he might have touched something. He confirmed that his current footholds had no toggles or pressure switches or sensor arrays of any kind. Then the liquid started to bulge out the bottom. A swirl of the white things circled about the extending purple bubble like a school of fish. As if on some unseen cue, the fish moved to the bottom and passed through the bubble’s skin. The bubble deflated, getting sucked back up into the machine. The falling fish dispersed down into the clouds. Almost instantly the clouds darkened. A storm rose from below and began to spread outward and upward, soon engulfing the weather palace and obscuring the city. Lightning flashed, and the wind increased its pull on the technician, a steady tug that wanted to tear him away.

  His ears popped. He worked his jaw to clear the pressure in his head. The ozone smell from before stung at his nose.

  The bubble began to swell again. More of the white fish swam down and began their spiral lap in the purple liquid. Soon the bubble would burst and release them out into the sky.

  With greater care than normal, he moved back to the hatch, hand over hand with tail assist, pausing occasionally to get a firm foothold to resist a blast of wind. The hatch didn’t want to budge. He went into his tool pouch and produced his new favorite microfuser. He set it to cutting action. What can be fused can be torched asunder. He went to work at the edge of the hatch where it was hinged. The hatch held in place.

  He had seen enough of the portal to know that the frame of the hatch would keep it from opening outward. And he watched helplessly as some kind of foamy nanobot swarm bubbled from the stony surface and began to repair the cut hinges.

  Oliop took out a second microfuser. This one had a beige handle and was never a favorite, but that didn’t matter now. Working as fast as he dared with both hands, with feet and tail holding him precariously against the palace’s underside, he cut the hatch in half from opposite edges. He next cut lengthwise. The foam tried its best to repair the damage but suddenly the four parts of the hatchway blew out. The pieces almost took Oliop with them and he slipped. He caught a fixed handle with one foot. He had to swing around backwards to gain a handhold. He managed to keep both tools in his grip.

  Tiny objects shot out of the open hatch as the room above once again lost pressure. Worms sailed past him. Hundreds of them were torn from the machine room and out into the storm. Oliop waited for the pressure to come close to equalizing and the flow of worms to stop. He pulled himself up into the machine room.

  Lord Akimbo stood over him. The three-legged creature had all five limbs braced between machine and wall. His limbs strained from the effort even though most of the danger of being sucked outside had passed. Clusters of worms clung to Lord Akimbo like rifts of fleshy snow. Irving the Grey stood there, too, both arms around one of Akimbo’s legs. Oliop’s former boss looked as if it were in a trance. The Grey must have been logged into a program because it hadn’t said anything mean yet.

  When Lord Akimbo saw Oliop, he glowered.

  “Oh you naughty, naughty technician!”

  More worms inched their way from the access tunnel. These headed straight for Oliop.

  “You dare cause me delay. Such insolence.”

  Oliop leaped to the machine and climbed up to the top. The worms went after him, creeping up
the coppery surface. So many more hadn’t been swept out when the hatch blew. They came from all sides. One stabbed at his foot. Oliop began a dance through the wriggly things. Their line closed in on him, and he ran out of places to go.

  He got down on all fours and jumped for Lord Akimbo. He had to touch down more than once on the sea of worms, scattering some while others pricked at his hands or clung to his fur. Some sprang on him as he passed. He resisted the urge to stop and knock them free. He landed on Lord Akimbo’s shoulders. Lord Akimbo screamed and swatted at Oliop as if he were an insect. The limp assault felt like a toddler’s slaps. But more worms attached themselves to Oliop, flying through the air at him like tiny springs.

  Oliop produced one of the four darts he had taken from the human’s tranquilizer rifle and stuck it into Lord Akimbo’s shoulder. Lord Akimbo screamed like someone was taking a dull saw to one of his legs. He spun about like a puppet with twisted strings and fell to the floor.

  But the worms still had their marching orders, and the ones on Oliop began to poke at him. Oliop saw the rest of the tiny creatures draw close. He would quickly be covered by a blanket of the things. Each worm’s monospike was capable of cutting through the hardest stone. His fur and flesh didn’t stand a chance. Oliop was about to dive out the opening in the floor and take his chances in the storm below when a hatch in the ceiling opened.

  “Up here!” Jordan called.

  He didn’t pause, bounding with all his might. He clambered up and out of the machine room.

  ***

  The Grey paced back and forth in its own virtual headspace. The program that allowed it to interface with other program platforms wasn’t letting the Grey log back into the weather controls, instead forcing it to wait. It paced and willed the counting-down numbers to move faster so it could eliminate the humans and lock them out once and for all.

  At first, it thought the game code would have helped. The extra abilities had certainly made trying to kill the humans more fun. But the game proved to be so…sticky.

  “How much will it cost me to get back in right now?” Irving asked.

  Zachary, having been standing quietly in the shadows up until being addressed, said, “That’s root code right there. A time out before respawn.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve bent any rule in your way for a profit. You’ve done quite well this day, wouldn’t you say?”

  Zachary made a noncommittal gesture. “Rules are rules.”

  The Grey pondered the human apparition. “Don’t you think that anyone might put together the fact that you are the embodiment of a single user’s game experience, even perhaps drawn up from one of his memories? Appearing as a human is bad enough. But reusing this particular disguise makes it a dead giveaway that your very essence is derived from human thoughts and experiences. Is this the conclusion you wish your entire player base to reach? At the very least it will dilute confidence in your end product. People might think their game experiences are being monitored and recorded. They’ll be less likely to pursue their darker pleasures in your product. That might, pardon the pun, alienate some of your potential clients.”

  “I can’t eliminate the respawn timer.”

  “But certainly you can shorten it. Besides, no one but the two of us knows that you’re no longer just a game program, but a mash-up of the AI along with whatever game persona from the human’s diseased head. You’ve become something new, and it can stay our secret. Folks get so annoyed by unexpected visitors to the Commons. But in the spirit of capitalism, let me offer incentive.”

  Zachary offered a slight smile.

  The Grey saw the timer double then triple in speed. He would be able to reenter the virtual weather control room in no time.

  “So while we’re still waiting, what else can you sell me that can cut through that infernal woman’s black armor?”

  ***

  “Hold still.”

  Jordan plucked worms off of Oliop and flung them down the hatch. Oliop wasn’t waiting on her. He hopped and swatted and tore and screamed. The worms wanted to get at his translator, so at least they weren’t boring into him. But they did stab at fingers and hands and tail when grabbed. When most were off, Oliop took his microfuser and fried each and every worm he could.

  Nearby, his sidekick Jeff Abel looked like he was sleeping.

  Jordan saw the look of concern on Oliop’s face and said, “He’s fine, you know. Well, hopefully. He’s fighting the Grey inside a virtual world that controls this place.”

  “It’s a weather machine,” he said with a profound nod.

  “Seems so. Listen, I need to get back up to Lady Capitoline. She knows how to work the virtual interface. Irving started something, and we don’t know how to stop it.”

  Oliop looked down into the machine room. Irving still stood there, arms linked around one of Lord Akimbo’s legs. Had Irving been infected by a worm? The Grey hadn’t ever used a translator before. It had never needed one. So it must have another device for logging into the virtual control room. So many worms still wriggled about down below, the little machines in some sort of holding pattern while their master was down for the count.

  “Wait,” Oliop said. “I might need your help.”

  When Jordan looked down and saw the Grey, she nodded. “I killed that little creep inside the weather room, but he’s still logged in. Can’t be up to anything good.”

  Oliop dropped down the hatch, grabbing onto its edges with his splayed feet. He reached for the Grey. His fingers were just above its head. He couldn’t drop down further.

  “Grab my feet and lower me down.”

  Jordan grabbed his feet. Oliop wrapped his tail around one of her arms. The female human wasn’t stronger than Jeff Abel, but at least she didn’t ask as many silly questions. Still, she made some grunting sounds as she leaned into the hatch to get Oliop closer to the Grey.

  The Grey continued to stand like a statue.

  Oliop plunged his hands into the pocket of the Grey’s pants. He found a blaster. This he pitched down the hatch. Next he searched it for a translator. The Grey wore a null-space pouch behind its bulbous head. Oliop reached inside and plucked out a small neural interface device. Not a translator but a chip that allowed access to networks via wet-installed apps. Embedded within the device were a pair of worms. The Grey blinked once before looking straight at Oliop with its milky eyes. Rage filled its face.

  “Hurry!” Jordan said.

  “Pull me up!” Oliop said.

  “Give that back!” Irving the Grey said. It latched onto one of Oliop’s arms and reached for the neural interface.

  And so began a tug of war between Irving the Grey, Jordan, and gravity, with Oliop as the rope.

  “I’m slipping,” Jordan said.

  Jordan shifted, lowering Oliop with a short lurch before regaining a tentative handhold on his ankles. Oliop still clung to her with his tail. He also kept a tight grip on the neural interface. The Grey bared its teeth, trying to bite the hand holding the device. Oliop looked up and saw the strain on Jordan’s face.

  “Let go,” Oliop said.

  “Like hell.”

  Oliop let go with his tail and kicked Jordan back, which sent him falling on top of the Grey and the worms. Many worms latched onto him. Oliop took the neural interface and pitched it in a perfect arc out into the sky below.

  “You idiot,” was the last thing Oliop heard the Grey say as the worms attacked.

  CHAPTER 30

  Jordan watched helplessly as the worms took Oliop down. Several had made their way into his translator pouch. She closed the hatch and sat on it for a moment. The little wriggling machines were everywhere. They had taken down entire buildings in minutes. How long before this place came crashing to the ground with them inside?

  Her hands and arms trembled. She wasn’t sure if it was from trying to pull Oliop up from the machine room or from the overwhelming sense of frustration. She looked over at Jeff. He continued to lie slumped over like he was napping through this enti
re ordeal.

  “I hope you’re having a good time,” she said.

  She pulled out her translator. The worms would have to kill her to stop her. She entered the grav lift, and it drew her upward.

  Back in Lady Capitoline’s chamber, Jordan found the giant slumped on the floor. Her odd structure gave her the appearance of some graceful princess having just bitten a poison apple, but her posterior section reminded Jordan of a queen termite – segmented, fleshy, and bloated. Hundreds of worms wiggled about, carelessly meandering on the floor and furniture in the room.

  Scores of the things lay squished near Lady Capitoline’s feet. At least she had taken a few of them out before they got her.

  Jordan began to tiptoe through the worms. The sound of the storm outside was muted here. The worms whispered an affirmation of their purpose and identity. The sound echoed eerily though the chamber. They paid Jordan no mind. Whatever their mission here, it didn’t include keeping anyone away from Lady Capitoline. Jordan stood over the queen of the weather palace and looked for a null-space pouch where a translator might reside. She didn’t find one behind her head or on her neck. The tiny pouches could be quite small, almost invisible. Yet the worms had found it. Jordan kept looking.

  Some of the worms found Jordan and began crawling over her feet. A few began to climb. When she stopped to grab one between a thumb and forefinger, the worm poked her.

  The worm murmured an unintelligible refrain, its speaker blocked by her hand.

  She flung it away. She swatted off the others. Something changed in the movement of the other worms on the floor. They all paused. Then as one they headed her way.

  Jordan climbed onto Lady Capitoline’s back. She continued her pat down. There, just under a skin fold of the first lumpy termite-like segment, incongruent with her exquisite shoulders, back, and posterior, Jordan found a pouch. She reached inside and pulled out a translator. This was a model she hadn’t seen before, larger, spherical, and pearlescent.