“Hey guys,” she said, feeling beads of perspiration pop out on her forehead. “This is getting a bit hot.”
“Just another minute,” the mage said, then reverted to muttering some more, then started waggling his fingers at the lock. Tasha wasn’t really sure what he was doing, and felt the metal begin to burn, seriously burn, against her flesh. She yelped as Orlando and Misha both rushed toward her; Canador shouted one last imprecation in his eldritch tongue and with a hiss and a shower of sparks a cloud of smoke erupted from the locking mechanism.
The smoke swirled…coalesced…and there he was again. Yuri’s smug, rubbery lipped visage appeared hovering in the smith’s workshop. “You think you can thwart me, do you?!?” the swirling outline of a face barked aloud. “I will make your life here hell if you do not do as I say!” Tasha found herself walking mechanically toward a pair of bellows as Yuri’s smoky caricature shrieked at her. “Return now to Elsinore, turn yourself in to Ruby at the Guild Hall and get to work immediately, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!? My representative will be around to take our part of your pay, our 90 percent, and…what do you think you’re doing?!?”
Clutching a pair of hand-bellows, Tasha began working them, blowing the compressed air into the center of the hovering cloud of smoke that was trying desperately to pimp her out. He shrieked as the smoke dispersed through the room, then his voice went silent as it finally dissipated. Orlando chuckled. “I am getting really sick of him,” Tasha muttered.
……….
After the cheers of her compatriots at her actions died down, after both slave collars were permanently removed, and just as they were preparing to leave the forge of Dway-un the Smith, Tasha received a video by mail that took much of the burnish off their celebratory mood.
It was simple enough: footage of her and Kat, side by side in what looked like hospital beds, plugged into the immersion links to the world of Brutalia. Both were wan and still. No faces of their captors were visible, but the hands of various men occasionally strayed down over their bodies, groping them to the sound of guttural laughter. One of the hands produced a very large knife, the edge of which went to Tasha’s throat.
Then Yuri spoke: “Return to Elsinore, sluts,” he commanded, “both of you. Present yourself to Ruby at your bordello and get to work immediately. My man will be by in a week to take my percentage.”
The video went dark.
Tasha emerged from screen mode, saw Kat doing the same, and said, “We’re screwed.”
They were in the corner of Dway-un’s shop, though the dwarf ignored him now, back to work on some suit of armor he was crafting, as the mage sat in the corner munching brownies and eyeing the two harlots with what looked like could pass for casual aesthetic interest.
“Literally screwed,” Kat added.
“What was it?” Brand asked.
“A video.”
“Send it to me.”
Tasha had enough platinum now to send messages, so she sent the video to everyone in her group and sat disconsolately as they watched it, holding hands with Kat. We must make quite a sight, she thought. Young Harlots Defeated By Life. Yuri would be so pleased, bending them to his will.
Brand and Misha were deep in conversation as Tasha sat there trying to keep the tears from her eyes. Orlando paced the blacksmith’s shop, admiring weapons and glancing with concern in Tasha’s direction.
Misha cleared his throat. “We have to act soon.”
“Act how?” Tasha’s voice was filled with disgust. “Get back to Elsinore and start hustling tricks?”
“Please, beloved,” Orlando, suddenly by her side, pleaded. “He is a smart young man, that much is obvious, and he still has fond feelings for you. Hear him out.”
Orlando and Misha met each other’s gaze, the young man nodding at the erstwhile City Guard. “We must strike immediately,” he said.
“How is that even possible?”
Misha gestured to Brand. The burly Death Knight was seated, meditating. “When he returns, he’ll let you know.”
……….
Brand did let them know. They were outside now, out from under the great mountains of Tanna-Thule, and he was once again regaling them with the story of his bit of hacking detective work. “Their big mistake was sending you the video, though I suppose Yuri felt he had to so you’d pay attention to him, realize what a threat he posed. But the serial number on the immersion unit, the number that was visible – visible enough, once I tweaked it; that was the key. Once I hacked the address of where the unit was delivered, I was able to check out the place, even borrow a bit of overhead imagery, thanks to Misha’s help at the RU Military Surveillance unit.”
“You know where our bodies are,” Tasha muttered for the tenth time as they stood beneath the glittering stars of Brutalia’s night sky.
“Damn straight,” Brand said. “Berlin.”
Misha cleared his throat. “And I know how to get you out.”
……….
Misha’s work for the drone branch of the Russian Air Force, jacking pilots’ brain waves into the hardware they flew on missions, would allow him to do the same for them. “The tech is similar to what’s used in full-immersion games like Brutalia,” he had explained to them. Tasha understood that. What she didn’t understand is how he could make her brain waves interface with the drone machines he had access to…without having access to her brain. Which was somewhere in a house in Berlin, Germany.
“I don’t need your actual brain,” he had patiently explained. “I have access to your brain waves.” He patted her on the head, then thought the motion a bit too condescending, and moved his hand down to a friendly touch of her shoulder. “You’re right here, Tasha.”
She shook her head, unable to get her mind around it. “But I’m not. I’m trapped in a damaged body in a hospital bed in Yuri’s rec room, and I just think I’m here.”
“Actually,” Brand said, “infrared imaging suggests you and Kat are in his basement.” When she glowered at him he said, “But whatever. Not the point you’re making.”
“You’re in both places, Tasha. We all are. We’re here, and we’re there. Your cortex activity can be accessed through hacking the guts of this world’s engine – “
“Which I’ve successfully accomplished,” Brand bragged.
“And that information can be channeled into one of our drone nodes, which you will commandeer during our rescue of your and Kat’s bodies.”
“So it will be just the two of us?”
“Yes. I have access to two drones in the area, Russian-made security bots, used for both reconnaissance and crowd control, sold to the German BND. They’re in a maintenance pool and won’t be missed.”
Brand cleared his throat at that. Misha laughed. “Okay, they won’t be missed because Mr. Super Hacker here has altered their tracking codes.”
“That’s why you and Kat have to pilot the drones, basically,” Brand said. “Misha will be overseeing the interface, and I’ll be handling the hacking work. Like shunting your brain waves through the Brutalia servers into his hardware.”
“I really don’t feel right about letting you guys take risks like this for us.”
Brand laughed, albeit a bit nervously. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I am absolutely on board.”
Misha nodded. “I’m convinced we can get the hardware in and out without observation, as long as Brand can alter the digital paperwork.”
“As good as done, man.”
“And Yuri can’t go to the authorities. German police and intelligence services are not fans of his, and he has more enemies than friends in the Russian FSB. Besides, Tasha, I have to do this. I can’t bear the thought of you living the rest of your life enslaved to that scum.”
She was touched, and felt herself blushing. “Thanks, guys. One other thing, though. I’ve never piloted a drone before,” Tasha said. “And I assume Kat hasn’t, either.”
Kat rolled her eyes. “I appreciate you guys helping, but I ju
st don’t see how this can work.”
“The interface is intuitive,” Misha told them. “You’re used to operating an avatar, and you know how to fight in it. Once you’re plugged into the machine, it’s capabilities become your own. Basically, just think ‘fly’ and you fly. Think ‘fire finger laser’ and you’ll fire your finger laser.”
Tasha pondered that, how it would feel to fire a laser into Yuri’s smug face. Her eyes met Kat’s, who nodded at her. Then she turned to Orlando. He had remained tight-lipped, silently scanning the horizon for trouble as they stood just outside the dwarven hall. Orlando cleared his throat. “What will I be doing?” he asked.
“Guard duty, basically,” Misha said. “Brand and I will be checked out of the game, back in the real world, handling the technical end of this. The girls will be asleep here, with their brain waves in the drones. They’ll be vulnerable then. You’ll have to watch over them in case Yuri sends goons.”
“We should be safe from any of Brutalia’s normal mobs,” Brand said. “There’s a guardpost near here, a merchant hub and pit stop, basically. But if Yuri gets wind of what we’re doing and finds where we are, he could mount an attack.
Orlando nodded. “I’ll do what I can…but I would rather be coming with them.”
Misha shook his head. “We appreciate your bravery, but I don’t think it’s possible. You’re not really…human. Sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I just don’t think your, uh, brain waves would shunt through to the drones and interface with them properly.”
Brand cleared his throat. “Dude, I’m not trying to be disagreeable here, but I looked at Ortlando’s AI imprint while I was doing the girls, and, well, frankly its indistinguishable from theirs. In all the important ways, anyhow.”
Misha looked at him blankly. “But it takes human brainwaves to jack into the drone system.”
“Misha, man, you’re too close to it to see it. The brainwaves are digitized first. Orlando’s AI is already digitized, and it’s virtually identical to Tasha’s or Kat’s. Well, slight variations accounting for personality differences, etc., but he’s essentially the same. If their digitized info packet from Brutalia’s internal guts can be shunted into one of your drones, then so can Orlando’s. It’s the new reality, man. Artificial intelligence is, right at its core level, its binary essence, indistinguishable from human intelligence.”
Misha spread his hands as though in mock surrender. “Whatever. I’ll take your word for it. But it’s a moot point anyway, as I can commandeer only two drones in the area at the present time.”
“It’s fine,” Orlando said. “I’ll remain here and guard the ladies’ sleeping bodies. With my life, if necessary.”
Tasha clutched his hard hand and squeezed it. Brand nodded and said, “Good man.” Misha’s eyes rolled up, accessing his inventory screens, no doubt. “We should get moving. The guard post we want is over an hour’s hike. Then we should get moving on this fast.”
“Before Yuri finds us again.”
“Exactly.”
……….
Occam’s Outpost stood at the edge of the Great Waste, run by a pack of lizard people, one of whom presumably was Occam. It was basically a largish tent, but carried a number of standard supplies, and always had a good sale on shaving razors, an example of the game designers’ idea of humor. But the motley band needed only food and drink before pitching their camp at the edge of the small outpost. They made sure they were close enough to where a pair of lizard guards roved, assuming the guards would pitch in and help if they were attacked by mobs. They didn’t know how the guards would react if they were jumped on by Yuri’s people. Probably best to assume they would stay out of it.
“You girls about ready?” Misha asked.
Tasha swallowed a final drink of water and said, “Yep.” As they had dog-trotted to the outpost, Misha had sent her schematics of the drone she would be operating while in the real world. Finger lasers. Smoke bombs. Detonation grenades. Jet pack. It kind of sounded like fun. Kind of.
“One thing confuses me,” she said.
“Only one thing?” Misha said with a chuckle. The five of them sat in a circle at the edge of the outpost.
“Okay, let’s of things,” Tasha admitted, “but one thing especially. I’m going to find myself, theoretically, and rescue myself, theoretically.”
“Exactly.”
“But I’m not there, I’m inside a freaking robot suit.”
He shrugged. Brand said, “It’s no more weird than you being here, in Brutalia, your mind anyway, while your body is in that townhouse in Berlin.”
“I guess,” she said. “But this feels like a dream. Like I’m not really here, just dreaming I am while lying abed. But soon I’ll actually…be back in the real world…” Looking at her damaged body, she thought but didn’t say. Hers, and Kat’s, broken, abused bodies.
“M-maybe,” Misha sputtered, leaping to his feet. “Maybe you won’t get back there—” Pulling his sword, he pointed behind Tasha.
She jerked her head around.
And saw a dragon.
……….
We’re all going to die. That was her first thought.
But she was pulling her weapon even as she acknowledged the obvious fact, and saw that Orlando was doing likewise. All of them were preparing for battle, in fact, though…it did not look good.
That dragon was big. And the flames from its snout shot out for dozens, maybe hundreds of feet, as it approached the suddenly frenzied encampment of Occam’s Outpost. The guards were loping on their lizard legs for the hills; Occam and family grabbed the most valuable possessions from their tent and followed them, pausing only to glare at the newcomers, who they correctly assumed were responsible for the dragon’s presence. One of them threw Tasha and company a long, green, middle-fingered salute. “Sorry,” she muttered to herself, shrugging.
It was still a long ways off, apparently, but it was getting bigger by the moment, and the flames looked more and more like something from the end of the world. “Do we have any way of fighting this thing at all? Brand? Your Death Touch?”
Brand laughed darkly. “Even if I got close enough to touch that thing, I doubt I would knock more than five percent of its hit points off it.”
Somewhere Kat heard Yuri’s voice, laughing. This was it. He would kill all of them, then plant minions near their respawn points and capture her and Kat…and force them into the bordello of his choice. She imagined the rest of her virtual life, bound inside a whorehouse bedroom, taking on one pixelated “client” after another. Even orcs and lizards. God but it all seemed so hopeless.
Tasha heard a still, small voice beside her. “I think I can do this,” Kat murmured. “But you’ll have to move, all of you. Get cracking on rescuing our bodies. I can hold the dragon for a while.”
“Of course!” Brand cried out.
“What?” Orlando said.
“The jewel that she got back in Elsinore, off that guy who was trying to screw with her.”
Kat was already running toward the dragon, holding the glowing orb before her.
“It should hold the dragon for…well, a long time. She has a Slow Spell, and the jewel will augment its effectiveness by a hundred-fold. It should be long enough for the two of you…oh. Shit.” Brand sat abruptly on the ground. “We’re screwed without Kat operating the second drone.”
“Can you do it?” Misha asked him.
“Not while handling the interface tweaks that will come up.” He looked over at Orlando. “He’ll have to do it.”
……….
Reality froze like a tableau for Tasha, a remarkable, impossible display. Kat, running pell-mell toward a dragon that would kill her, determined to slow it long enough for her group to start its rescue mission. Misha, slack-jawed, looking at the Orlando avatar and trying to get his mind around an inconceivable concept: that the erstwhile city guard of Elsinore was “human” enough to enter the real world…and commandeer a drone ship. Brand, nodding. “Dude. We don’
t have time to talk about it.” He sat cross-legged. They all did, including Orlando.
“What will I have to do?” her lover asked, clutching her hand.
Misha scowled. “You’ll have to operate a small transport carrier.” He laughed. “It’s like driving a car. A flying car. Shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
Orlando looked at him blankly. “What is a car?”
“It’s a vehicle,” Tasha said.
“A horseless carriage,” Brand said. “Look man, you’ll intuitively get the hang of it. He becomes part of the vehicle, right? So there’s an autonomous function quality to it?”
“Yes,” Misha admitted. “For a human there would be.”
Tasha glared at him. “We have no choice, Misha. Get on board so Kat’s…sacrifice will not be in vain.” They all looked at the girl, face to face with the dragon, staring it down. She held a glowing ruby above her head, and she and the gigantic flying lizard seemed trapped inside a larger ruby, a crystalline structure hovering around both of them, freezing them in time as well as space. “They could be in there for an hour or more,” Brand said, “from our point of view. It’ll seem like only seconds to her. Let’s make the most of the time we have.” He closed his eyes to log off.
“What do I do?” Orlando said. He looked more frightened than Tasha had ever seen him. Though he claimed to disbelieve their stories of the “real world,” she suddenly knew that he must lend the stories some credence, and that he was scared witless at the idea of seeing it.
If it even worked.
Misha grunted at him, waving a hand as he tried to act casual. “Just relax, if you can. Close your eyes, try to be calm. I’m logging off now, and will be shunting you two into your drone-bots in, oh….a few minutes at the most. Orlando, your job is to follow Tasha. She’ll look like…well, kind of like a flying robot.” He shook his head. “Fuck, he has no idea what I’m talking about. Help me out here, Tasha.”
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