Side Life

by Steve Toutonghi

  The man says, “Hey.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Hey, motherfucker, it’s me.”

  “Is that—Bill?”

  “Yeah, man. Always good to see one of you join us.”

  “Bill, you’re black.”

  “And in my world, you are too.”

  “I—” Vin is stymied. The man’s face is almost composed of Bill’s features, but slightly different. The look in his eyes though, and the sound of his voice, are Bill’s. He stands with his chest forward, as Bill’s would, with his weight shifted toward the balls of his feet. His chin is high, hiding his fear the way Bill does.

  This Bill says, “I see, you haven’t been here before? That’s too bad. I was looking for a partner for an attack. But, you should probably get oriented first. Sorry, I thought you might be cycling through a second time or something.”

  “No.”

  “Well, okay, I can give you the basics, anyway. I don’t think anyone can actually explain all of this.” He laughs. “This’ll be sort of an ad hoc thing, but that’s really all most of us get. So, first, I guess the fact that I’m black is important. You can tell I’m not from your world. You may know me, but don’t make too many assumptions. That’s good as a general rule for people here. Second thing is, obviously, this place is different than most of the others. I think that this is a far, far future. They’ve had crèche technology here for a long time, and are good at it, very good. You are actually in this place and if,”—Bill’s face suddenly screws up as if he’s in terrible pain. His head starts to swell, it happens quickly, skin weirdly separating from bone until his skull pops softly—his skull explodes—slapping Vin with a spray of blood and sharp bits of bone. Bill’s headless body rolls onto itself and falls to the meadow. As Vin is gasping and spitting out the taste of blood, another Bill, also black and also in armor, hurries over.

  “Shit,” the new Bill says.

  Vin can’t speak. He bends to put his hands on his thighs and turns away from the bloody mess that had been a neck. One of his hands is moving on its own, wiping at sticky brains and blood that plaster his soft cotton shirt to his bare chest.

  “You okay?” asks the second Bill.

  “What was that?” Vin manages. “Is he going to remember that?”

  “Remember?”

  “When he gets out of the crèche?”

  “Oh. No. You haven’t been oriented, huh? No, he won’t remember. If you’re killed here, then you’re dead, okay? You die back in the crèche. So that version of me is dead. Are you alright?”

  Vin shakes his head. Vomits. Bill puts a hand on his shoulder as his body shakes. The vomit is oddly gold-colored, shining. Vin is leaning forward, hands braced on his legs.

  Bill says, “I can see you can’t help it, but we need to be quick here. We’re always under attack. Even right now. It’s kind of like archery coming over castle walls. The enemy’s trying to soften us up by sending waves of random death events at our causality shield. Every so often, one gets through. And—” He nods toward the mess that was the other Bill’s body.

  “Who is the enemy?”

  “He didn’t have a chance to cover any of that with you? Before he got hit?”

  “No.”

  “For now, I guess who the enemy is probably isn’t that important. And, just so you know, we’re doing the same thing to them. First things first though. We need to get you into some armor.”

  Vin stares at the heaped body—veins and hints of structure, maybe a chip of spine—but he’s also starting to pay attention to the efforts of his right hand, which is still swiping at the remains on his face and chest. And he’s trying to spit out bits that are dripping from his upper lip, and not allow more into his mouth.

  The new Bill touches his shoulder. “You’ve got to put yourself back together. C’mon. Follow me.”

  Vin straightens, muscles and joints slowly unclenching. He walks in shock past Monas and other Vins, other Bills, and other people he doesn’t recognize. Of course, this means that Bill used the crèche. That would be Vin’s fault. But then again, if it were possible for Bill to use the crèche, he would have. Somewhere.

  There are also several of the thin, gray-haired woman whom he first saw in the crèche, and many Kims. Many people are wearing metallic helmets. Vin can’t see who they are.

  The Bill walking beside him says, “Okay, man, here’s what I think is going on, but the truth is, I don’t actually know and I don’t know that anyone does. People say this place was created in a future—a far future from our time. And, one thing they did was build it big enough to accommodate any number of travelers, maybe like, literally infinite people. So, then, maybe what they didn’t understand was that because of its sheer size, it created this huge radius of probability, a probability sinkhole that attracts people who try to shoot themselves into the far future. Maybe that was what they wanted, though. What’s really, completely cracked, is it took on its own reality. Because the technology was manipulating—ah, I don’t know. Shit. But now it’s a real kind of place, a manufactured fork in dimensions and out of control. They say it doesn’t split the way normal dimensions do but just adds to itself, so it’s, like, eating other dimensions. Try to get your head around that. We call it Armageddon. Maybe you gathered that.”

  “But, why are you fighting?”

  “The fight? Well, that’s simple. Survival. I mean, when I first got here I realized this is what I’ve always been doing. It’s just more honest here. It’s kind of what life’s about when you factor out the living.”

  “That’s terrifying.” Vin isn’t sure he’s hearing Bill correctly and is yo-yoing between states of panic and numbness, his heartbeat surging painfully then slumping into fatigue.

  Bill says, “Funny though, some people feel better here than in worlds like ours.”

  “Those people are terrible.”

  Bill looks like he’s about to say something, but doesn’t. The sounds around them seem almost unsynchronized from the movement they see, like a video with a fractionally delayed audio track. But Vin can’t be sure. It’s slippery. Anything he pays close attention to becomes synchronized. It might just be his general feeling of disorientation. He says, “Do you talk with them, the enemy? Why do they fight?”

  “Same reasons, I assume. But I haven’t been on their side. I don’t think.”

  “You don’t think?”

  “Well, yeah. You know how it is. It’s confusing. I think maybe their side looks like ours. When I come here, everything is always the same. And, you know, infinite people, or so many you can’t tell the difference, flying up into the sky to fight infinite people. Everyone in armor. I mean, you might not know who’s who.”

  “You can’t tell the difference between them and you. That’s what you’re saying?”

  “I said maybe.”

  “So, people appear in this world. There’s a fight. No one knows why.” His voice trails off and they walk in silence. A small cluster of helmeted and armored figures is having a conversation. One of them flashes a thumbs-up at Vin. As a group, their boot jets fire and they begin to ascend. “And death here is real,” Vin continues, watching them rise, “and we can arrive on either side. Maybe, side A. Maybe, side B. And human beings made this.”

  Bill makes a kind of growling noise. “It’s almost like you’re purposefully not getting it.”

  “Okay. What if you and I were to just start fighting, right here? If I were to attack you right now, what would happen?”

  Bill stops and puts an armored hand on Vin’s sticky, bloody chest. “I suppose that would make you one of them. Look, man, don’t freak out here, okay? It doesn’t help. Not at all. This place is actually as fucking deadly as you think it might be. I’ve been here a lot. I know. Your job is to get out alive.”

  “Alive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you just said this is what life is about, when you factor out the living.”

  “Yeah. I believe that.”

>   “You choose to come back here.”

  The distance between them doesn’t actually change but feels as if it may be twisting. Strong, unknown scents are turning on and off in the air. Bill says. “I’m trying to find something better, like everyone. I don’t avoid this place, though. Look, you have to kill to eat. You kill things to build. You kill to protect your family. This place is just uncomplicated about it.”

  “Bill that’s—some fucked up death cult shit.”

  “It’s just survival, man. We’re all part of something that pits us against each other. When it’s hidden, I just feel despair. People may have made this thing, but there’s a reason it grows on its own. It’s a clarification. And that word, survival, maybe it’s like infinity, or probability, words that are just the sound of your brain giving up, in English.”

  “No, those are ideas. We can work with those things, we can understand them. They’re math.”

  “Jesus. See, you’re such a fighter, man. If it doesn’t make sense to you, you fight it.”

  “This is bullshit. We don’t have to do this.”

  “I thought that too, once. But you know that’s just another kind of fighting, right? Resistance. And it can be infectious too. So, if you resist, you end up on the other side, and the people here kill you. It’s true no one knows how the sides get made. Maybe Vins are always on our side. Maybe you guys get split up.” Vin has a sudden moment of blankness as he realizes that he’s hearing a threat in Bill’s voice. Bill says, “I should warn you, man, a lot of you Vins die here. A lot.”

  Vin’s eyelids are getting stickier as blood dries on them. He rubs them. Bill waits, says, “Armor?” Vin, feeling sick, nods, and they keep walking. The field is covered with a tough and vivid green grass, moist, a few inches long. It folds under their feet but doesn’t seem damaged by their tread and they don’t leave a trail.

  Despite the many vehicles, some wheeled, some flying, there are few sounds of engines about them—primarily the loud, Doppler-stretched whines of rapid motion, and a constant uneven surround of many voices. Beneath the odd fragrances that seem to come and go, the field mostly smells of freshly cut grass. Sunlight sparkles like poured gold between standing and walking bodies.

  Vin says, “Nobody seems bothered by what’s happening.”

  Bill stops walking again. He’s making a tsk tsk tsk sound and shaking his head as he looks away from Vin. “You still don’t get it, man. You have to stay buttoned up or you will die. I just saw my own head blow up. There’s plenty of people suffering, but we don’t show it. Weakness gets you and people you love killed. The Vin from my world understood that. And, by the way, that’s not the first time I’ve seen myself killed. How do you think I should react to something like that? What would satisfy you? I’m doing what I can, and right now, I’m helping you.”

  As they’re facing each other, Vin sees the Bill he knows, the Bill he has a history with. And he also thinks he notices a subtle thing about the air. Breathing it is sending little micro-jolts of panic through him. It’s not just the smells that stop and start. It’s almost as if all of the air, even the air in his lungs, were blinking out of existence for microseconds and then returning before its absence changes anything, but his body can feel it. Why build that into a manufactured dimension? Could it be a bug?

  “This place, the fighting is pointless. There are no answers here.”

  “No, man. That’s not right. There are two sides. That’s an answer. The fight.”

  “It doesn’t explain anything.”

  “I love you man, but this fight is happening. Pick a justification. The fight is what matters. You Vins have your heads in the clouds. You have to focus on your game here, or you won’t survive.”

  AT A FREIGHT TRUCK WITH its rear doors rolled open, Bill and a woman Vin doesn’t know find him armor and a weapon—a long, shiny gray tube with metallic protuberances. The parts that stick out have triggers on them. With the safety on, Bill shows him how manipulating the triggers can cause the tube to fire a variety of lethal ordnance. The tube clicks with magnetic certainty onto a flat area on the rear of Vin’s armor, leaving his hands free as needed. The armor fits as comfortably as loose cotton clothes and doesn’t feel as though it has any weight.

  Bill talks Vin through what’s expected of him. Assuming he survives this shot, if the crèche ever sends him to Armageddon again he’ll be expected to suit up on his own, find others willing to accompany him to the front, then go there and fight. Most of the people around him are veterans of the environment and can answer questions. Bill suggests that he connect with a Mona, if he can get one to talk with him, as they’re generally considered exemplary warriors of Armageddon. While Bill is helping, Vin is only half paying attention. He is distracted by the repeating mental image of the first Bill grimacing in agony, his mouth stretching open, cheeks and forehead knotting down over his eyes as his head begins to expand.

  Bill points out that Vin’s armor includes jets and suggests Vin practice flying before going into battle. Then he fires his own boot jets, and before he streaks away, tells Vin that the armor will protect him from enemy fire and random death events, which means that for safety, Vin should always wear his helmet.

  From the inside, the helmet is invisible and the world looks exactly as it did without it. It seems to fit poorly though, and slides a bit across the back of his neck and knocks against his nose when he moves his head quickly.

  Vin curls an index finger into his palm to fire up his boot jets, as Bill showed him. The pressure balances across the soles of his feet as he lifts off the ground. Bill told him there were stabilizers in the armor.

  Vin isn’t sure whether he actually has a body in this place. His “real” body must be in a crèche in some other world, and so he’s not sure whether he’s wearing any actual armor at all, in any sense he’d understand. But, whatever is happening, the flight feels true—joyful, liberating—and he doesn’t have any trouble directing it.

  No one seems to be paying attention to him. He spends the rest of the shot flying from place to place across the field, trying to convince himself that no one cares that instead of contributing to the cosmic battle of us versus them, he’s just playing with his equipment. And he thinks Bill has it wrong. No matter how overwhelming the reality of the place, there is more to living than a brutal and arbitrary fight for survival. There is flying, for example.

  HE LEANED FORWARD, COMING PARTIALLY out of the casket. Dumbfounded again, scrambled and worn by the shot. His limbs felt drained. His mind was active but deadened, a dizzy zombie. The crèche was a trauma marinade. All those people fighting. A warm bath would have been a better vehicle for changing the world.

  This variation on Nerdean’s office was cool and dark, an unusual gloom shrouding its corners. The light was weak and fragile, portions of the glow-strips on the ceiling were off and he couldn’t hear the AC.

  He stepped out of the third casket, the one furthest from the chute, and put on the white terry cloth robe that was hung over an eggshell chair. He turned toward the rack of servers. Only two appeared to be on; there were no lights on the others. On the back wall, the lights of some batteries were green but some were yellow, a few were red, and some bezels had no lights.

  He picked up the notebook and flipped through it quickly, looking for unexpected entries. It all looked familiar. Only one computer screen would turn on. He logged in with I am Nerdean, and looked for clues that might explain why this office was different, but could find nothing. He considered going back into the crèche and leaving this world.

  The third casket, the one he had just left, began its cycle of rejuvenation, its exterior lights blinking in the gloom. No lights illuminated the other two. But the transparent pane on the middle casket, number two, was oddly shadowed.

  He opened an empty document on the only computer screen that worked, turning the screen white, then found a button to increase its brightness. He tried to angle the screen so its light would fall on the middle casket.<
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  Something large and dark filled the interior there. Straining for detail, he saw that the thing inside was partly transparent, had a blue hue, and contained a deeper shadow that might have the form of a body. He traced a roll of darkness—an arm—to its end—a hand, fingers curling in. The blue broth had hardened around a person, sealing them in.

  A breaking clangor, the sound of metal raking across metal, rose from the casket he’d just exited, followed by an extended thrashing noise. The lights under the lid turned red and started blinking. As he watched, all the lights faded and went out and the noises ended. Silence washed the room. Then the crèche seemed to restart the cycle of rejuvenation. Its lights came on at the beginning of their sequence, but the device also made muted squealing sounds.

  THE LID OF THE CHUTE made a sucking sound as it lifted and a briny smell with a familiar tang of iron dropped into the narrow space. The room above was dark. He placed a hand on the rug outside the chute but pulled it back immediately. His fingertips were wet, bloody.

  He pushed himself back so he was leaning against the wall and took a slow breath. Should he go up or down? He couldn’t hear any sounds above. He pulled himself up and peered into the basement room, gagging softly. He turned to his left and almost fell back down the ladder. There was a body lying on the floor, staring toward the chute. Kim, eyes open and lightless, the lower half of her face a reddish-black blur.

  He retreated. He hung on the rungs in the dark shaft until the smell of death filled it and he could not be still any longer. He climbed out, keeping as far from the corpse as possible, but spotted a child’s body tumbled on the carpet in the back of the room. He closed his mind. He knew who the other body was, who it must be. He closed his mind and floated. And found himself upstairs.

  The dining room was dark, heavy curtains drawn across the picture window. Mona sat at the long dining table in a white robe like the one he was wearing, her elbows pressed on the table, her hands covering her face. She didn’t look up as he approached, as he paused to steady himself on a chair.