Virtual Immortality

by Matthew S. Cox

  “What the fuck is that?” One of the men pointed at him.

  Joey stood up and tried to keep his hands in a nonthreatening posture. “Didn’t you guys get the memo about the sasquatch running around the sector?”

  None of them appeared to find humor in his joke.

  “Looks like more meat.” A different one answered, raising a rifle.

  Joey had watched many cowboy vids and had spent a fair share of his youth standing in his underwear facing a mirror, trying to get a hairbrush out of his waistband faster than his reflection could. The temptation became too great for him to resist now that he found himself in the situation for real. Before he knew what he was doing, his pistol flew out of its holster and he put two slugs in the chest of the rifleman. The man blinked in disbelief as the rifle slid from his hands, and he fell backwards with a long gurgling wheeze.

  “I’m not lookin’ for trouble.”

  A cheesy line from the vids he loved came to mind. He expected one of them would say ‘Well, you found it.’

  Silence.

  All of the gangers stared at him, as if they could not quite decide what to make of what they just saw. For a few seconds, he hoped his cowboy attire and quick draw spooked them into hesitation. Perhaps they wondered if he could take them all out before they could get him.

  His delusion shattered when they screamed and charged all at once. A shot sent into a rusting fire extinguisher on a nearby column created an instant wall of white fog with a loud bang. He exploited the diversion to sprint for a window at the right side of the building and jumped a cart of tools before he flung himself into the glass, shoulder first. The dramatic smash through he expected only existed in the holo-vid that played through his mind.

  His body slammed into the polycarbonate resin with a dull thud and landed in an awkward heap on the floor after bouncing off an old bench. A few bullets went over his head and holed the window. Joey’s hands clawed at the detritus on the ground, taking fistfuls of dirt, cigarette butts, old bottles, and squishy globs of which he would rather not know the composition. He scrambled as fast as he could crawl away from the bench and ducked behind a column covered in flaking grey paint and pornographic graffiti.

  A spray painted phallus pointed at a blown out window on the far side of the room. His crawl rose into a sprint, chased by explosions of dust and splinters. A spray of brick and concrete fragments followed his dive through the window. He flailed in an attempt to roll over in midair, and hit the alley below flat on his back, staring up at the indigo glow in the sky above him. Right that second he had too much adrenaline to feel pain, but knew that alcohol would be involved before the night ended. Joey sighted his gun between his knees at the window, giving the first man he saw a haircut that made him dive for cover.

  Someone inside shouted about a truck.

  He did not want to move, finding the road quite comfortable. It took the sight of headlights coming around the corner and the roar of an old diesel engine to give him the wherewithal to pry his ass off the pavement and run some more. He sent a few halfhearted shots into the grille but hit nothing vital. His only chance would be to find an alley too small for the truck and a hiding place that the gangers would overlook.

  Three blocks down, he spotted a promising passage between two buildings. Angry diesel growls intensified behind him, accented by the squealing of tires and whooping of voices. Rifle slugs whizzed by as the men tried to fire from the bed of a moving truck with futile results.

  He sprinted around the corner and his forward motion came to an abrupt halt with a painful collision against an immovable metal object. His arms wrapped around it in a desperate attempt to stay on his feet while his lungs fought for air. The impact was the last straw for Joey’s ability to run. He lifted his head to see what he ran into, hoping he could hide in it.

  “Who the fuck puts a vendomat in an alley? Oh well, might as well have some coffee.” Joey pawed at it, looking for the console.

  It moved.

  The color drained out of his face as he gazed up into the eyes of an armor plated humanoid figure. Seven and a half feet tall, a goliath of gunmetal blue plastisteel stared back at him. Its face had features designed to strike terror into the hearts of enemy soldiers. Glowing red orbs stared down from the emotionless skull of a Class 4 combat cyborg. It grabbed a fistful of shirt and lifted him with one hand until they were eye to eye.

  Joey let out a nervous titter. The military doesn’t go to places like this, especially not with one soldier. If this guy is here, he’s AWOL―and probably nuts.

  Until that instant, he had not thought it possible for anything to scare him more than a near miss from a railgun.

  Finding himself nose to nose with a rogue military cyborg, consciousness descended to a point of total and complete surrender. Whatever was going to happen now was irrelevant. He would just watch for as long as he continued to live.

  Nothing would ever top this.

  he cyborg stared at Joey. There was no way to tell what mood it was in; its face had only one expression―a metal skull. It did not have individual teeth, just a pair of metal jaws with crenellated interlocking seams. Aside from the fact it had two arms and two legs, only the articulated jaw and approximate shape of the head even tried to recreate humanity in any discernible way. UCFMC markings on the shoulders confirmed that he had run into a military deserter.

  Headlights swerved about amid a squeal of rubber at the end of the alley. The driver had misjudged the width and had tried to drive into it, stomping on the brakes at the last second. Thirteen gangers piled up in the rear, having fallen over each other with the sudden stop. One man wound up on the roof, sliding down over the windshield onto the hood while pointing in Joey’s direction.

  The arm that held Joey aloft went an inch or two higher, and for a fleeting second, he expected doom.

  “Here it comes… Well, Dad… if you really are here, I’m about to find out.”

  Rather than smash him into the wall, the cyborg took a step forward and pushed him behind in a protective posture. Panels on the shoulders opened, allowing a pair of three-tube 60mm rocket launchers to extend as a tri-barrel rotary gun deployed from each forearm. The three-pack missile boxes pivoted down, aiming at the vehicle. Both cannons whirred into motion, stopping with a hard metallic click as they loaded.

  The gangers froze as if time had come to a halt. One in the center of the crowd broke the silence with a scream that sounded like it should have come from a ten-year-old girl. The others snapped out of their terror to look at him with a mixture of derision and disbelief as if the shriek sounded so unmanly that he no longer deserved to be in their company.

  The cyborg took another step at the truck and spun up the rotary guns. The driver jerked the wheel to the right and stomped on the accelerator. The pointing man on the hood slid, as if he remained static while the truck pulled out from under him. Three of his buddies spilled backwards over the tailgate as the truck peeled out in a frenetic serpentine path around the debris in the road. The ones who fell followed on foot, screaming in a mixture of fright and anger as they vanished behind the wall.

  Joey wrapped his arms around himself, laughing and shaking. He had so much adrenaline running through him right now he had trouble containing it. It took him a moment to realize the cyborg was talking to him.

  “Hey pal… this ain’t exactly a good part of town. You should probably get out of here.”

  Joey looked up. “No shit.”

  He cringed at the thought of what he said after it had left his lips.

  The borg laughed and extended a hand as his onboard weapons retracted below armored panels. “Name’s Mark. Mark Bolt.”

  “Bolt?” Joey suppressed a laugh but could not stop the cheap grin that crept over his face.

  “Yeah, yeah… Like I didn’t hear that fuckin’ joke enough when I was in, repeat it some more.” The voice had a metallic ring but sounded more normal than the visage before him would imply.

  “Joey Dil
lon. Umm, thanks for savin’ my ass.”

  Katya was about eight tenths of a second from just going home when she saw the cyborg shield Joey from the gangers. Seeing this guy talking rather than pounding stalled her worries enough for her to approach. No stealth training in the world could fool a thermal sensor; Mark turned and aimed his right forearm in her direction. Her instinct took over and she went motionless, hoping to avoid notice.

  Joey turned at Mark’s sudden aim. “What is it?”

  “Female, twenty yards. Human, one sidearm, one cybereye, finger claws, neuralware… looks like agility and speed amps. Ouch, she’s got one of those things too.”

  Joey grabbed his junk, cringing.

  “Kat?” Joey called out.

  “Yeah.” Her voice came out of the dark.

  Two small spotlights on Mark’s shoulders lit her up. Joey waved her over.

  “It’s okay Mark, I know her.”

  Mark lowered his arm. The weapon retracted and he trudged off down the alley, waving for the two to follow him. “Since you’re here, there is something you need to see.”

  They exchanged a look before Joey shrugged. Since he remained alive at this point, he figured things could only get better.

  Mark went one block down and one over before he trudged into the shadow of a tall windowless building. A curtain of chain link fence blocked off a massive hole in the side. He peeled it aside for Joey and Katya to go through before following and allowing it to crash against the concrete. The crack led to an underground parking garage devoid of cars. Sparking impromptu repairs allowed the lights to function, creating shiny patches in the polished cement floor. About forty feet in from the hole, a large amalgam of scrap metal stood in the approximate shape of a chair. It faced a makeshift table and a small holovid bar from which an enormous view panel dominated the room. A Gee-ball game was in progress, grabbing Joey’s attention.

  “Nice TV,” Joey muttered, trying to think of something to say just to break the silence.

  Mark might have been smiling. “Some gangers left it behind when I moved in, it’s good to bust the boredom.”

  He took a step towards the chair and, looking at Katya, pointed at a cinderblock wall that sectioned off an alcove in the back. Small rusty marks indicated where a door’s hinge plates had once hung.

  “In there.” Mark sat down facing the holo-screen. “This game is drag-assing so bad. The Lunar team has amazing D but their offense plays like a bunch of nine-year-olds.”

  “Ugh, two hours in and still 0-0.” Joey shook his head.

  Unsure why she listened to a cyborg, Katya approached the doorway. For all she knew, that room was about to become her new holding cell. A glance over her shoulder to see the men absorbed by the whizzing bodies on the screen made her feel a little safer. As she neared the doorway, the sound of female crying from within distracted her from her own safety and she ran ahead.

  “I almost feel bad for the ball.” Mark chuckled.

  “Why?” Joey turned to look at him. “He a friend of yours?”

  Katya jumped at the sound of a metal object being thrown and Joey’s cackling.

  The space inside looked like it had once been an emergency shower for chemical accidents. At the rear corner, a naked woman curled into a ball, seated in a puddle of bloody water, covered in dirt, bruises, and scratches. Handcuff loops dangled from each wrist, though the chain between them had been snapped. She cradled a putrefying human arm as though it were a ragdoll, holding the back of the hand to her cheek, muttering to it as if its name was Tom.

  “She freaks out if she sees me.” The sudden sound of Mark’s voice made Katya jump and cling to the wall. “I wanted to take her back to the city but she gets too upset, she might have hurt herself.”

  Joey could not resist the temptation to peek. The girl was in her young twenties, probably blonde under all that dirt, and her darting erratic stare told him that she was out of her mind or close to it. His eyes widened at the sight of the severed arm pressed to her cheek. The corpse he landed on was missing an arm about that length―and he had a NewsNet jacket on. This had to be that missing reporter, Kimberly Brightman. The angel and devil on Joey’s shoulders got into a fistfight as his thought of what kind of massive reward the station would offer for finding her dueled with the feeling that he needed to do the right thing before he worried about money.

  “Can you take her back to the city?” The clank of a metal fist on the chair arm echoed. “God dammit. Lunars couldn’t score in a game of foosball. The friggin’ goal box is fifteen meters wide. Come on!”

  Joey nudged Katya toward the woman with his eyes and went back by Mark. A small table in front of him had a few holographic portraits on it. Several looked like Marines posing for the camera in front of different types of equipment; one depicted a cute brunette holding a baby, and one showed a red haired girl that could not have been older than three.

  “Yeah, no problem. Mind if I ask what brought you out here?”

  Mark sighed, a metallic scraping noise that shivered down Joey’s spine. “I got my ass shot off on Mars. There was enough of me left to put into this thing to finish out my tour. When I got some leave…” His head tilted forward and he hesitated for a moment. “My daughter shit where she stood when she saw me. I never heard a scream like that come out of anyone before. It…” His voice broke into digitized fragments as his audio processor could not interpret his intent and had no translation for choking on your words. His hand crushed the end of the chair arm.

  Joey put a hand on Mark’s metal shoulder. After a momentary pause, he continued.

  “I needed to think. I couldn’t keep going with the routine, ya know? Just need to sort my thoughts out. I didn’t think the Marines would come looking for me out here.”

  A supporting nod from Joey seemed to make him feel a little better. “I got nothin’ to say there… no kids. You gotta do what you gotta do.” He exhaled. “Want me to tell your wife you’re okay?”

  “I’m not sure I am.” Mark loosed a tinny grating laugh. “It’s too late now, I’m AWOL. If I make contact, I’ll probably get put away until Maddie is in college.”

  “I owe you a favor for saving my ass tonight. Let me see what I can do for you.” Joey patted his deck.

  Mark stared at the hologram of the little red-haired girl. “Thanks. Even if you fix my record, you can’t hack me back to normal.”

  Katya crept over to the shivering woman, who lifted her head to look at the person invading her secure little space.

  Her usual affect softened. “Hey there, calm down. Do you want to go home?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Okay. I need you to do something for me first.”

  Kimberly looked about to cry. “Don’t make me…”

  “I need you to put down that arm. You do that, we can get you out of here.”

  She hugged it tighter, causing fluid to squish out of the severed end. “I can’t leave Tom here.”

  Katya put a hand on her shoulder. The girl was cold to the touch. “Tom is already dead. That’s just his arm; you need to drop it before you get sicker.”

  Kimberly looked at it and alternated between hugging it and holding it at a distance. It hit her after a few minutes that she clung to a rotten limb, and she hurled it away with a scream before breaking down and sobbing. Katya tried to keep her from putting her hands in her face, not knowing how much biological danger lurked in the slimy residue. She ushered the girl to the side and found to her surprise that one of the showers spat out more than just dust.

  The water was frigid and shocked Kimberly more lucid. Katya held her under the flow until she got to the point where plain water would not clean her any more. Kimberly stood, shivering, tugging at the broken handcuffs as rusty water ran in rivulets over her. When the corpse-slime was gone, Katya removed her jacket and wrapped the trembling reporter in it, at which point she sank to the ground in a ball, pulling her entire body into the coat.

  “What happened there?”
Joey pointed to the shower chamber as soon as he heard the water start up.

  Mark looked up. “That girl tried to interview some gangers. They killed the guy she was with when he tried to stop them from raping her. I heard the screaming and got over there as fast as I could. They had just stripped her and thrown her to the ground. One was wrestling with her with a dozen more waiting their turn. I’ve been tryin’ not to use up my ammo, it’s not like I can get more out here, but those bastards deserved it. I hosed ‘em all.”

  Joey nodded in agreement.

  “She was so shaken up she didn’t even realize what I was when I carried her back here. Next morning she sees me and goes totally apeshit, just like Madison.” His voice again digitized into fragments.

  Joey was not the most adept reader of people, especially those that had no facial expressions, but it was obvious Mark had a rough time handling people’s reaction to his appearance. The military designed him to be as intimidating as possible; it did not go over well on wives, daughters, or random young women.

  “You got a comm?”

  “Yeah.” Mark shared his PID.

  “I really owe you, Mark. If you need anything, you know how to reach me. I’ll vid your wife and let her know you’re still alive. I’ll try to help if I can.”

  Mark nodded. “Hope.”

  “I’m serious, I will call her.”

  The cyborg chuckled. “No, jackass. That’s her name. Hope.”

  Joey laughed. “Oh.”

  atya supported half of Kimberly’s weight on the way to the main room, and all of it once the woman saw Mark.

  “He’s the one that saved your life. He looks scary, but he won’t hurt you.”

  Kimberly’s panic fell just short of a loss of control. Katya continued whispering reassurances that Mark protected her until the reporter managed a nervous smile at the metal hulk.