Heiresses of Russ 2012

by Connie Wilkins

  “Same bloke as the one asking me about the Liebestraum Institute.”

  “You said you didn’t know him, Bruce.”

  “Oh. Right.” Charon downed half his drink. “I met him the time before; when he was a ninja and asked for an audience. With me, I mean.”

  “You personally? Why?” I asked.

  “Man wanted to know shit about organs.”

  Well, that gelled with Zippo’s intel. “And stem factories?”

  “No, just organs. Oh, and juice banks.”

  “Why ask you that?” Decker asked.

  “Don’t he know who I am?” Charon looked hurt.

  “People forget, mate,” I shrugged. “Since you’ve moved in here, there’s a generation never heard of you.”

  Decker’s hand was back on my arm, as Apollo gave me a quick glance. Charon didn’t need to know that my partner was both too young and too old to have ever heard of the Liebestraum Institute, let alone Bruce May and his cohorts.

  Although, strangely, I got the sense that he had. And that he knew…Decker removed his hand.

  Okay. Knew what? I was starting to wonder if I hadn’t been tagged by that bloody Rat Gun. Obviously not enough to kill—unless this really was hell—but maybe a blast-residue had followed me out of Jimmy’s terminal. It would certainly explain the flashbacks and the inappropriately heightened libido and—that too, dammit—that sense that someone was laughing at me.

  “CJ? You okay?” I looked up to find that Bruce had resumed a smaller version of his Charon Marx avatar. Probably so he could sulk discreetly about being a long-forgotten rock star.

  “What could you tell him about the Institute?” Decker asked.

  Now, you see…very odd question. I looked at my partner who was clearly avoiding eye contact. Given everything else he hadn’t known today, his question should’ve been: what is the Liebestraum Institute.

  “I live there, man,” Charon said, as if the whole world should damn-well remember that.

  “I don’t understand,” Decker said.

  “Charon, or rather Bruce and a motley collection of entertainers…”

  “Motley?” Charon objected.

  “…pooled their substantial fortunes to fund the Dreamscape Wing of the Liebestraum. It was then opened to anyone—who could afford it—to take up permanent residence; rather than, you know, die.”

  “Your tone suggests disapproval, CJ,” Bruce said.

  “Talk to me when it’s available to all on UniCare and I might be less subjective in my opinion about who gets to die or not, Bruce.”

  Decker tapped the table. “Dreamscape Wing; organ harvests?”

  I looked at my partner again. Ensign Clueless had suddenly become Detective Impatient. What’s more he continued to avoid eye contact.

  “We have thirteen hundred forty-one Dreamers residing in the Dreamscape Wing,” Charon began.

  “Who exist on life-support, in induced comas, while living permanently in Cy-city,” I finished.

  That made Decker look at me. “Living in here.”

  “Will you show him, mate?” I asked the Undead Host of the Triple 6.

  Without a word, Bruce May allowed his Charon Marx avatar to morph from the achingly-handsome Rock God who’d been lead singer of Scattered Heads sixty years ago. Then on through the gracefully-aging legendary lead of Fraught, to the avatar he’d shown us moments before, to—and I felt Decker’s shock, beside me in my office—the total reality of the wizened and barely-recognisable comatose shell that he was now.

  Although this avatar was looking at us with Bruce’s eyes, I knew that back in the Dreamscape Wing, his eyes—like those of the other thirteen hundred forty Dreamers—were closed; permanently.

  “Remember I said some of the Zen-dens had virtual reality pods?”

  Decker nodded.

  “Well, one good use for them would be for Dreamers like Bruce.”

  “Except I don’t use the pods.” A scowling Charon was back with us.

  “I know, mate. Explain to Decker how the Dreamers get a different reality from the average Pod people.”

  Charon got to his feet and beckoned. “Come with; I’ll show him.”

  Decker and I fell in behind a regular-human sized Charon Marx and wended our way through the dance crowd in his great hall, to Hades Gates beneath his throne. The music dwindled to silence the moment we descended the nine steps to Charon’s suite of Zen-dens.

  I’d been down here many times and knew the Triple 6 layout, so kept half my attention on my partner’s reaction to his newest frontier.

  “So, Startup,” Charon addressed Decker, “Bruce May exists at the Liebestraum but I, Charon Marx, live here. Close to five hundred other Dreamers live in Downside or other parts of Cy-City; the remainder live in CaraBazaar, SanFran or Hawksnest; and a great many of them all circulate throughout the zones.

  “Triple 6 is my joint. I am the architect, builder and Lord of all I survey. I frakn love this place. And coz I choose to recognise this as my world, I’ve never felt the need for extra virtual reality. Although I often relax in my Zen-dens, like this one,” Charon opened a set of double doors to a sandy arena with a martial arts deck where a bloody fight was in progress.

  We continued down the hall. “And this one,” Charon brushed his hand over a panel that turned the stone wall translucent, to reveal a Roman orgy in full swing.

  “A thousand of my regular clientele—tourists I mean, not residents—take The Plunge, that extra trip into deeper VR, maybe a couple of times a year. But some of the Liebestraum Dreamers do it weekly, or even daily, because by doing so and then returning to their Downside homes, they reckon life in here feels more real.”

  Charon had stopped again, this time at the balcony the overlooked the four hundred VR pods—rows and rows of arm-chair or bed booths, stretching into the distance. He peered at the panel of stats he’d conjured on the wall beside him.

  “Got a hundred and twenty three Dreamers and seventy-three tourists in at the moment.”

  “What has all this got to do with our dead man and organ harvests? Decker said.

  “And the juice banks, remember,” Charon said. “That’s what he took most interest in after he’d seen my Abandon Pods.”

  “What?” Decker and I said in unison. I added, “So you brought Jimmy Strong down here too?”

  “If CJ, you’re asking did I personally bring a ninja calling himself Dweedack down here, then, yes. He wanted to know if any clients other than Dreamers stayed for extra-long periods.”

  I poked Charon in his oversized bronze chest. “Please don’t tell me you call them Abandon Pods coz they forget to leave; or you abandon them coz they don’t pay?”

  “I am deeply offended, CJ. Leaving non-paying customers in situ is not good business. I can’t rent out occupied space. I use Ragnor’s bone-breaking skills for that.”

  “Who the hell is Ragnor?” Decker was either playing bad cop to my good, or he was genuinely aggravated.

  “She’s my wife, Startup,” Charon snarled, as ‘Bruce’ added a fleeting doubling of his avatar’s size to tower over ‘Apollo.’ “She was on the dais with me earlier.”

  Apollo-Decker stood his ground. “You mean the one-eyed, triple-breasted leviathan that Agent Capra knocked out with one kick?”

  “Yes, her,” Charon laughed heartily. “I told Ninja Dweedack that only the Abandon Pods were addictive enough to hook people into protracted sessions. Why? They’re called Abandon Pods coz most feature hard-core sex programs; or other adrenalin-endorphin raising adventures. Either way they’re designed to get your juices flowing.”

  “Ah, hence the juice banks reference,” Decker said.

  This time I joined Charon in the exaggerated laughing.

  “What?” Decker asked.

  “Juice banks are sperm banks,” I managed to say. “Their contemporary existence is the stuff of urban myth of course. But until mid-last century they were nearly as common as blood and stem-cell banks.”

 
Decker’s real-hand, clasping my forearm, this time conveyed an unmistakable sense of foreboding. It was shaking.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “Charon,” he said, “what exactly did Jimmy see down here and, specifically, what did he ask you?”

  “He saw everything you’ve seen, plus the Abandon Pods. Come with.” Charon took the wide circular staircase down to the Pod Deck.

  “And you just showed him, Charon?” I asked.

  “CJ, when will you learn, I don’t do favours. Except for you. The ninja paid for a personally-guided tour. Paid well enough for me to let him scope some of the Plungers.”

  “So much for privacy,” I noted. “What did he ask about organ harvests?”

  Charon tapped at the plasma screen on his left palm. The VR Pods began moving around the cavernous space, jostling gently for position.

  “Ninja Dweedack asked if the black market in cloned organs still existed. I said of course it did. Dumb frakn question really.”

  “Cloned organs, not harvests?” I said.

  Charon rolled his shoulders. “I now surmise he wasn’t interested in organs at all. After I explained the nature of most of the Abandon Pods, his quizzing became precise, and turned quite earnestly to the subject of juice banks. You with us on that subject now, Startup?”

  “Yes,” Decker sighed.

  “When we got to this very spot here, he wanted to know if any new Plungers, say in the last two months, had been introduced to Hades Gates by someone. Especially if the same someone intro’d more than one.”

  “And?” I asked as Charon suddenly seemed distracted by the tango his pods were doing.

  “Sorry, I’m calculating. Step back a bit please.”

  Decker and I did as we were told.

  “And when I checked,” Charon consulted his plasma again, “I found that thirty-three Trawlers had been ‘treated’ to first-time Plunges by friends; but only five had been intro’d by the same friend. But not all together. Each of their first visits were a few days apart. After a week, the same-someone—a drek Ragnor later ID’d as Belbo Armitage—escorted them in together; like there were regular old-world bucks. The five have since been here, like clockwork: three-days in Abandon, two days gone, back again for three, etc., for a total ranging fifty-two to fifty-nine days.”

  “And Jimmy’s juice bank questions?” I asked.

  “Your ‘ninja uncle’ seemed convinced the banks were a reality; and that I must know their real-world location.”

  “Why?” Decker asked.

  “Because of the five Plungers, I think,” Charon said. “But as I told him, over and over, there’s no point in juice banks when the produce is forty-five years beyond its use-by date.”

  Oh frak. I glanced at Apollo-Decker who’d clearly seen the same light.

  “Here they are,” Charon announced as a group of pods pulled to a stop before us.

  Decker and I stepped in to take a look at ‘the five Plungers’ as the realisation of what was most likely happening to the missing Spacers hit home. I was swamped by a tsunami of anguish and distress; of almost…oh help, unbearable grief.

  But not mine.

  Not my grief. What the hell?

  I grabbed hold of Apollo’s arm to see if the misery emanating from the pods was affecting him too. In the same nanosec that he resisted my attempt to make him face me, I remembered he couldn’t feel anything in here.

  Real-world Decker then snatched his hand from my arm; and Apollo…disappeared.

  “That,” Charon pointed to the empty space, “is exactly what your Uncle Ninja Dweedack did.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said—to both Charon in Downside and Decker in my office.

  Only Charon bothered to answer. “Ragnor said that when your uncle came back as Pirate Dweedack he met with Belbo Armitage, the Plungers’ escort. Then the brawl started and they were thrown out.”

  I inspected the Plungers again. They were all wearing simple masquerade masks—the most-basic of avatar cloaks—which meant they really looked just like the blokes in the Pods. I took a better look at the one Apollo had been checking…out.

  It was, it looked like…

  I reached out, removed the mask, then shook my head. It didn’t help. For the second time today I was gazing down at one of the finest specimens of manhood I’d ever seen.

  The young man in this particular Abandon Pod was Ensign Milo Decker.

  As my office-hands performed vital logging-out procedures, my fem-punk avatar waved goodbye to Charon Marx. The real-world materialised around me and I swung Aggie around to find out how the hell anyone could be in two—no, who knew how many—places at once.

  My freshly-minted partner was lying on the floor. Again. Only this time he seemed to be out cold. Probably hadn’t accounted for the lack of space between my terminal and the wall behind, when he backed out of Downside so fast. Obviously yanked the VR helmet off and smacked his head into the wall.

  None of which explained the fact that Milo Decker and his spiffy Jumani suit were shimmering—I squinted—no, phasing in and out of focus.

  I stared at my own hands then the wall.

  Not shimmering.

  I directed Aggie down to the floor but still couldn’t reach him coz my anti-grav unit was in the way. I unbuckled and heaved myself over the edge to lie on the floor beside the definitely-phasing Decker.

  I poked him. The shimmering stopped. Then started again.

  I patted Decker’s cheek. He grabbed my hand and stopped shimmering.

  “Who the frak are you?” I asked.

  He blinked. “Who do I look like?”

  “You look like the bloke in the Pod back there.”

  “Really?” he frowned, then hauled me across his body and held me there.

  I struggled for three seconds until I registered that the person below me was now morphing like a changing avatar. Decker became Bruce May became—bloody hell, me—then Decker again.

  This was simply not possible in the real world.

  “It’s coz I hit my head,” whoever-it-was beneath me said.

  No, clearly I had died earlier today. And this was my hell, forever caught nowhere at all.

  Capra Jane.

  Ooh peace. Oh that’s nice.

  Look at me, Capra Jane.

  I did as I was told because now the morpher looked like that delicious Captain Zanzibar Black; and she was doing that talking in my head thing again.

  Jane, remember. It’s time to come back to me.

  Well! With an invitation like that, how could I not let this brilliant hallucination kiss me like her life depended on it.

  The sound of distant gunfire, exploding shells and screeching Atter-jets filled my mind. No not my mind; it was outside, scragging the air around me and tainting it with noxious fumes.

  Where was I again?

  I shifted on the makeshift hospital bed and my blood chilled me to the core.

  “Major Capra, wake up.” I did, so Dr Black kindly held my hand.

  Not again.

  It’s okay my love. You’re not really there.

  Fresh air, music. A deep throbbing tango; just like sex on legs. Don’t have legs.

  Jane, concentrate. On me.

  I was now kissing Zanzibar Black like my life depended on it. And clearly it did, coz nothing could feel this good and not be intrinsic to my very existence.

  Her tongue was in my mouth. Mine was in hers. I was never going to let her go; ever again.

  And then I did.

  Just to check which part of my fractured existence I was in at the moment.

  Yes, I am real.

  Zanzibar Black was lying on my office floor; under me. We had been kissing each other.

  And now I felt completely foolish.

  I rolled away from her and sat up, shaking my head in an effort to say: I. am. so. sorry.

  What for?

  “Speak,” I said. “Who the frak are you?”

  She smiled and—my insides melted�
�said, “Zanzibar Black, just as your Chief introduced us earlier.”

  I scowled at her. “My other Chief intro’d my new partner as Ensign Milo Decker. But he was in Downside and, and now it seems I’ve…”

  “Been with me all along. Sorry.” Captain Black got to her feet. “I’m going to check out Jimmy’s lead.”

  She walked out my office.

  Just like that.

  What? Did you forget I can’t just follow you? I mind-shouted, in the hope she’d hear me. She did.

  I’m sure you’ll catch up, Jane.

  Jane? What’s with the Jane nonsense?

  I rolled over and into Aggie; hovered back up to my terminal and began an intel-hunt on Captain Zanzibar Black. Only family called me Jane, dammit. Family and lovers. And actual ‘lovers,’ not two-minute stands.

  Why on earth, while kissing a woman I’d met today, had my strongest feeling been not to let her leave me again? Actually that was the strongest emotion, in my chest and mind; the earth-shattering feeling was in a whole other place.

  Concentrate.

  I brought up the image I’d taken of Jimmy’s graffiti and stared at it, while my terminal did its own analysis.

  λCJ

  Daerin Juno

  37.48 144.57 libr

  Okay. λCJ equals Lambda Capra Jane; easy. Daerin Juno? Was that simply a ref to Aunt Juno being on the Board of the DaerinCorp Research Foundation, or an actual clue? Jimmy’s final route into Downside had been via Daerin’s data stacks; specifically their Future Projects Division.

  But what could any of this have to do with Juno herself? What would be enough to prompt Jimmy Strong to turn into the most-unlikely of heroes to protect her?

  And why would Captain Black, a spook from HomeWorld Security, impersonate a missing Spacer? Coz it was obvious—well, now it was—that Milo Decker and the other four of Charon’s five Plungers were indeed the missing Spacers.

  If Jimmy had also been searching for them and asking about juice bars, then Charon’s off-hand remark about use-by dates was the crux of this whole mystery. My ‘partner’ obviously had the same revelation about the value of ‘viable’ juice in an age when the expiry-date of genetically-useful men was nearly half-a-century gone.

  Dammit. I’d even reminded Decker—or Zanzibar—myself that he was one of only four thousand humans in existence with functioning sperm.