End Code

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  He's right. After my cyberterrorist ties were unearthed, they knocked him down to pushing files for the new DOTedu curriculum. It's mindless work. All he does is follow orders with no hope of ever being rewarded for his service.

  “You can't worry about him right now,” Cyren says, sensing my guilt. “One thing at a time. Focus.”

  I rub the bridge of my nose, trying to relieve some of the tension that is building. “Grael. About this point you're making...”

  “What about it?”

  “You're not making it.”

  “Be patient with him,” Cyren whispers in my ear. “He's proud of whatever revelation he's come across. You can see it in his eyes. He wants you to be proud of him too.”

  “My point is, I remembered someone else who was connected to the security functions in NextWorld.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl who was with you, the one that got you into DOTbiz.”

  “Raev?”

  “That's the one.”

  “Yeah. Sure. She had connections. But, she was arrested too. She's in mind prison with everyone else.”

  “But her mothers-”

  “Her mothers aren't about to help us,” I say through a chuckle, remembering their reaction to Xen, not to mention the group of cyberterrorists that her daughter was running around with.

  “But they own InfoLock, the most advanced data backup in NextWorld. They may as well have a monopoly on the service. They back up everything from your family photos to your credit account. You know they're backing up some of DOTgov's dirty little secrets too.”

  “If you tell me you want to break into InfoLock-”

  He waves both hands in the air and says, “No, no, no. DOTgov is a flailing beast chasing its own tail. Breaking into their data-banks is easy. But I'm not about to break into the database of a corporation that actually hires competent programmers with skill sets that contribute to the company's security.”

  Cyren can sense my building anxiety. He's toying with me, making me stumble through every hoop he lays out before he tells me what the plan is.

  “Calm down. He'll get there.”

  “Okay, Grael. If you don't want to break into InfoLock's database, how does Raev factor into any of this? It doesn't matter who her mothers are anymore. Now she's just another cyberterrorist locked away with the rest of our friends.”

  He holds up a single finger to stop me. “That, right there.”

  “What?”

  Grael smiles, revealing thin rows of teeth that look sharper than they should as he leans in close and whispers, “What if I told you that Raev wasn't locked up with your friends.”

  “She broke into the Trash Bin with us,” I say, trying to convince Grael of what I saw, and maybe trying to convince myself a little too. “Raev was arrested.”

  “I'm sure she was.” Grael crosses his tattooed arms and leans back, flipping his ponytail of red dreadlocks into the air. “But we agreed that her mothers run the most advanced data backup company in NextWorld, and that they probably have their fingers deeply dug into DOTgov's pie?”

  “Sure, but-”

  “So you don't think that they could maybe cut a deal? You don't think with that kind of weight they could get her off the hook?”

  I shake my head, unwilling to accept it. “You don't know her mothers. They're the type of people that would lock their daughter up to teach her a lesson. And Raev would never-”

  “Never what?” he says, swiping his hand in the air to open a screen.

  With a gesture of his fingers, he spins the screen around so that I can read it. I see an employee manifest for InfoLock. Raev's mothers are at the top, listed as co-CEOs of the company. Grael flings his fingers up the screen, scrolling past thousands of names before flattening his hand again to stop on a single name highlighted in the center of the screen.

  Assistant Manager of the Data Retention Policy Administration

  Raev

  01011011

  “Do you really think Raev would accept a job at her mothers' company to get out of serving time in mind prison?”

  “I don't know,” I say, gritting my teeth to defend myself against the possibility, “but that's what we're here to find out.”

  DOTsoc is the last place I want to be, but it's the most likely place to find Raev at this time of night. She has her privacy filter turned on, so it isn't as easy as tracking her location, and she isn't answering any of my cast requests, so I'm forced to do this the old-fashioned way.

  I push open the doors of Club January and step into an open field being dumped on by a blizzard. A DJ sits atop a tower of ice, his music high-pitched, twinkling and light, fluttering through the air like a crisp wind. Dancers kick the shin-high, fluffy white snow as they shimmy their bodies back and forth. Their breath blows from their mouths in clouds of condensation, evaporating when the cold air consumes it. There must be hundreds of them.

  Cyren's mental image appears next to me, interlacing her fingers with mine. She clutches tightly, beckoning me to continue, to remain unafraid of the social setting. I push forward.

  After making my way through the crowd, I settle onto a pile of snowballs in front of the bar made of blocks of ice. A bartender makes her way over to me, barely covered in some strategically-placed white fur. Her eyes are comically large and her eyelashes are sprinkled with snowflakes.

  “Need a drink?”

  “No,” I say, swiping my hand to display a screen with Raev's picture on it. “I'm looking for this girl.”

  The bartender glances at it and says, “If she's got her privacy filter on, I can't help you.”

  “I'm her friend,” I say, “I need to-”

  Cyren places her hand on my shoulder. “She's an NPC. You're not going to argue with her programming. Better to ask one of the Player-Characters.”

  I ask the small green alien sitting next to me, but he rolls his eyes and ignores me. I glance down the bar at the rest of the patrons, trying to evaluate which one appears the most helpful.

  “Her,” Cyren says, pointing at a generic YOUNG-GIRL-43 avatar, fresh out of the default account options. She's surrounded by friends, all of whom are using default avatars.

  “You sure?”

  Cyren nods.

  I've learned to listen to Cyren about these things. She understands people, society, and the world better than me. She says it's because she wants to, which means she thinks I don't.

  When I approach the girl, I have a hard time hiding my disdain for her and her friends' avatars. Who would be so lazy? If you don't have the time or interest in learning how to design your own, you could at least buy a few items to personalize your image. NextWorld is about extending limitations beyond what life gave us. Why would you limit yourself to what your default account gives you?

  “Excuse me,” I say, tapping the girl on the shoulder harder than I intended.

  She jumps, startled by my sudden touch. When she spins around, she makes the simple gesture with her left hand to check my social screen. It shows her nothing.

  “Who're you?” she asks with a thick American accent. She takes a step back. “What do you want?”

  I notice a few of her friends stepping forward, their chests puffing up defensively.

  I swipe my hand in the air, displaying the picture of Raev. “I'm looking for this girl. Have you seen her out tonight?”

  She glances at her friends, a worried look on her face. Most of them won't make eye contact with her, but one of the avatars gives her a single shake of his head.

  “Never seen her,” the girl says and turns her back to me.

  “Offer her credits,” Cyren says.

  “I don't think she wants to help. Maybe we should try someone else.”

  “You've made plenty of credits off the data we've been selling on the undermarket. Offer her some and she'll talk.”

  I take a breath and tap her on the shoulder again, this time more gently.

  “Listen,” she says as she turns around, “you're
really startin' to annoy me. I'm just here to listen to some music with my friends and you-”

  “You sure you haven't seen her?” I ask, throwing open a trade screen and displaying a healthy amount of credits. Enough for her to pay for her and her friends to have a very good night out.

  She nudges the same avatar that shook his head, motioning toward the screen. He glances at it, looks away, then takes a second look. This time his eyes are much wider. He nudges her back with his elbow.

  “Yeah. Whatever.” She accepts the trade and motions across the room with her head. “Q-pid. She hangs out with him.”

  I look across the dance floor, in the direction she nodded, and I see a chubby little baby angel floating above the dance floor. He's pouring a drink from a large mug over his head and shouting into the air as the music drops a beat.

  I tilt my head toward the girl and her friends and say, “Thank you,” but they ignore me.

  I make my way around the dance floor, through a series of tables that look like water erupted from the ground and instantly froze in place.

  “How did you know that would work?” I ask as I walk in a zigzag pattern through the crowd.

  Cyren tries to sound humble as she explains, “They're all using default avatars, none of them were drinking, and that American accent.”

  “You knew they were poor.”

  “Barely scraping by.”

  I'm embarrassed for being unable to relate. I've lived a life of privilege. First with the government benefits that came from my father's job, and now through all the illegal workarounds I perform on a daily basis. It feels so normal that most of the time I forget not everyone is living at the same level I am. I catch myself wishing I'd given them more.

  I step around an NPC that looks like a snowman serving drinks. Once all the drinks are on the table, one of the PCs backhands the snowman's carrot nose, lodging it deeper into its head. The table erupts in laughter.

  I hear Cyren gasp.

  “Sorry,” I say, though I'm not sure what I'm apologizing for. I suppose there's a sort of guilt, a sense of responsibility for my kind. All Player-Characters in general.

  “It will never make sense to me. Why do they think they can treat digital intelligence like that?”

  “Those NPCs are nothing like you. Their programming is simple, basic. They aren't self-aware.”

  “So it's okay to mistreat something because it isn't as intelligent as you?”

  “That isn't what I meant. I didn't... I wasn't...”

  “I know. I guess I'm just not as sure as you that people would treat me any different.”

  “Cyren-”

  “Let's go,” she says, appearing next to me and tugging on my arm. “It looks like our friend is leaving.”

  I stand on the tips of my toes to peek over the bouncing heads of the dancers, and I see what Cyren sees: The chubby little angel is heading for a side-door, his wings fluttering in the air at a dizzying pace.

  When I shove the person next to me out of the way, a screen pops up in front of me warning me that I've almost exceeded the player-versus-player limitations set by the club. I cast my hand at the screen to close it, and force my way through the mob of dancers.

  “What's the plan here?”

  “Ask him where Raev is?”

  “You're going to need a better plan than that.”

  “Ask him really nicely?”

  I can hear her reluctant chuckle.

  “That's not what I had in mind.”

  “Do you have a suggestion?” I ask, recognizing her passive aggressive way of giving me advice.

  “He's a cherub.”

  “A what?” I ask, squeezing between two avatars made to resemble some kind of tentacle monsters and reach for the side door.

  “It's a common misrepresentation of Eros, a character in Greek mythology, renamed by the Greeks as Cupid. This symbolism is often attributed to the ancient feast of Saint Valentine, a day people set aside to celebrate love.”

  I push open the side-door, which exits onto a patio that overlooks the sheer cliff side of a glacier. The Arctic ocean stretches across the horizon and polar bears lounge around on a floating iceberg below us. Small tables of twisted metal rods are scattered about, surrounded by chairs made of the same entwined metal. It's quiet out here. The crowd is using this area as a brief respite from the intensity of the club.

  “This Q-pid obviously has an affinity for this symbol, which makes me think he is heart-broken, or possibly still in the throes of early love.”

  I scan over the heads of the patrons sitting down until I notice the hyper-fluttering of the baby angel's wings.

  “I think you can use his love-struck nature to your advantage when you ask him for Raev's location. If you tell him that Raev is friends with an old flame and you hope she can reunite the two of you. Or you could say-”

  “Cyren.” I say, stopping her mid-sentence and drawing her attention back to the present. “I don't think I need to ask where Raev is.”

  When Cyren pulls herself out of her problem solving mode and looks through my eyes, she sees the chubby little cherub fly up and hug a blue-skinned avatar with rainbow-colored ribbons for hair.

  The avatar that belongs to Raev.

  01011100

  I approach Raev from behind and gently touch her shoulder. It's a simple, non-threatening gesture, but the touch allows me to directly connect with her avatar and the NPCs get to work hacking through her account. They're met with one of InfoLock's sophisticated firewalls and choose not to risk being noticed quite yet. Cyren pokes around Raev's public accounts instead. She finds screenshots that Raev posted of various club events and a purchase history that allows Cyren to piece together a timeline of Raev's activities.

  When Raev turns around, I don't speak. I didn't prepare anything and the NPCs are too busy working on her account to help me with any kind of social awkwardness. I hope the silence comes across as menacing or stoic instead of the stumbling loss for words that it is.

  “Arkade?” she says, taking a step backward. “What are you... why are you here?”

  I laugh with a low rumble. “Me? Why am I here? I think you being here poses the bigger question.”

  She looks around nervously. The cherub fluttering next to her nervously studies both of us, back and forth. I step closer to Raev.

  “Why aren't you in the mind prison, Raev?”

  She looks away. There's shame in her eyes.

  She half-mumbles, “I got out.”

  “You got out?”

  “Earlier this month.”

  “How? Why haven't you contacted me? I could have used your help with-”

  “You shouldn't be here,” she says before spinning away from me and walking back toward the door to the club.

  I jog to catch up to her. “According to DOTgov I'm a cyberterrorist, so technically I shouldn't be anywhere.”

  “Exactly,” she says in a tone angrier than I expect.

  “Hey,” I say, grabbing her wrist when she reaches for the door. “I was joking.”

  “Let go of me,” she says, yanking her hand back. “You won't be able to get through my security system anyway. I get automatic updates from InfoLock. I'm running the best they've got.”

  “InfoLock? Is that what this is about? Your mothers' company? Did they get you out early?”

  She looks away from me, crossing her arms in front of her and staring out over the glacial cliff. “What do you care?”

  “Care?” Confused by her reaction, I try to explain myself. “Of course I care. I'm not mad at you. I'm happy you're out!”

  “Happy?” she says, turning back toward me with a look of disgust for my use of the word. “Nobody should be happy for any of us. You're the reason we were in the Trash Bin. You're the reason we got arrested. You're the reason our lives are ruined!”

  Her words surge into my ears, flushing my body with a swelling pain as I mumble “I didn't... I wasn't...” My knees want to buckle.

  She poin
ts her finger in my face and growls words through a wall of teeth, “This is all your fault, and yet here you stand, comfortably free to stalk me at a dance club.”

  “I wasn't stalking you. I was-”

  Cyren appears next to me, alerted by my rising blood temperature and rapid breathing.

  “Calm down. Shallow breaths. Focus on why we're here. She wants the same thing you do. She wants Xen back.”

  I do as I'm told. I close my eyes, find my center, and say, “I need your help.”

  Raev's eyes blink, and when they open back up, they've doubled in size. “Help? You?”

  “She's emotional. Stick with basic logic.”

  “I'm going to save Xen. I'm going to save them all. I'm going to get them out of mind prison and- ”

  “You're going to save them?” she shouts at me so loud that a few of the patrons nearby take notice. “What are you going to save them from? From taking the fall? From paying for your mistakes? From suffering your consequences?”

  “Actually, yes. They don't deserve that kind of punishment for helping me get Cyren back.”

  Her eyes grow dark and her voice lowers. “Don't you dare talk about it like you understand it. You have no idea what it's like inside that place.”

  “She's right. Don't try to relate to her. It will only make her more defensive.”

  “You're right. I don't know what mind prison is like. But I know my friends shouldn't be there. We have to help them-”

  “I'm helping Xen. And my way is legal.” She sets her hands on her hips. “I'm guessing your plan is less so?”

  I ignore the comment and ask, “How are you helping Xen?”

  She twitches nervously, looking at anything but me. She finally takes a deep breath, and when she exhales her shoulders droop low, defeated.