Virtual Immortality

by Matthew S. Cox

Kenny had a strange feeling about the whole situation. He would never let Alyssa stay with total strangers even at fourteen, much less Hayley’s age. Of course, Alyssa did accuse him of being overprotective.

  “Why don’t you go with Alyssa and help her get ready. Ask her if you can borrow a few days’ worth of clothes. I’ll be damned if she doesn’t have them to spare.”

  Hayley slid out of the chair, new shoes squeaking along the kitchen floor. The sound vanished into the carpeted hallway as she rounded out of sight. Within a few minutes, the voices drifting back made it seem like Alyssa had lifted her mood.

  “Time to pack the truck…”

  enny looked up from the bed of the truck as a metallic thud echoed through the yard. Eldon’s helmet peeked over the gate, his hoverbike lifting him just enough to see over it. Kenny jogged to the control box, and danced through a shower of gravel that pelted him in the shins.

  Eldon eased the bike around the truck and down onto a trio of landing struts that extended as it powered off.

  “Hey man. What’s goin on?”

  “You got a hoverbike but you make me open the gate?” Kenny shook his head. “Joey got himself caught up in some kind of shitstorm. He’s waiting for everyone to get here before he explains it.”

  “Don’t wanna be rude, just come in over your wall and shit.” Eldon chuckled. “That can get a man shot.”

  A black hovercar whizzed by overhead and turned around on a direct path for the scrapyard.

  “Speaking of which…” Kenny squinted into the sun, watching it.

  “Masaru doesn’t make me run over here to open this thing.”

  Eldon waved his arm. “I rest my case.”

  The car settled down amid a cloud of cryonic fog; an onyx set in a bed of cotton. Bands of early morning sunlight glinted over the doors as they opened upward with a hiss. Masaru and Katya got out and walked over.

  “Masaru, Katya, this is Eldon Church―Eldon, This is Masaru Kurotai and Katya… um…”

  “Volkov.” A pleasant smile hovered for a moment before her usual neutral expression returned.

  Eldon nodded at them in turn, as Kenny beckoned Joey over. He came trotting over to the group, wearing a big grin, and shook hands with Eldon.

  “Hey guys, thanks for coming. I’m sure you’re all wondering what the fuck is going on about now so…”

  “Yeah pretty much,” said Eldon.

  “Couple of days ago, Cleopatra got into a military intelligence network with the help of some other hacker. For reasons I can only begin to guess at, she made it look like I did it.” Joey paced back and forth. “I’m not sure what kind of data was taken, but somebody’s gotten pretty pissed off.”

  Eldon frowned. “Nothin’ good’ll come out of that.”

  Masaru folded his arms. “This Cleopatra seems to be causing you a lot of problems; we should send her a message.”

  “About that…” Joey chuckled. “Um… Yeah… I’ll get back to that. I know you’re not a big fan of C-Branch Eldon, but I think one of them gave me something.”

  Eldon took a step back. “They’re setting you up as a blame catcher.”

  “If it makes you feel better, someone killed him as soon as he gave me the holodisk. The last thing he said was something about Mayberry.”

  “The Mayberry incident?” Masaru spoke up.

  “No idea. Maybe he was gonna say that; he kind of got interrupted by his head exploding.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Katya.

  Masaru cleared his throat. “Seven years ago, WellTech Corporation began marketing a new kind of companion doll made in the image of a child anywhere from eight to twelve years old. They sold them as artificial siblings, companions for the elderly, or substitute kids for those who couldn’t have their own.”

  “Yeah, I heard about those.” Eldon nodded. “Damn creepy fuckin’ things. They look too real. Always made me think they’d go psycho and kill you in your sleep.”

  Kenny shook his head. “There’s so many real orphans, why bother?”

  “That requires background checks and such,” said Eldon.

  “They act too real as well.” Masaru nodded. “The HLM decided to protest these dolls, saying the company went too far playing God. They said cyberware was already well on its way to making humanity extinct, and this was just another step down that road.”

  “HLM?” asked Katya.

  Eldon spat to the side. “Human Life Movement. They’re a paramilitary group that thinks cyberware is a tool of the Devil. I had a few scrapes with them when I was still on active duty. Most of the time, they’re just a bunch of rich kids with nothing better to do with their parents’ money. Of course, you also get the occasional merc that has some training, but for the most part, they sit around and protest and experiment with chems while singing songs about the evils of robotics. Think of them as the bastard offspring of religious wingnuts and fringers.”

  Masaru nodded. “The new model was a leap ahead in simulated reality, next to impossible to tell apart from an actual child unless you got inappropriate with them. Let’s just say that they are not anatomically correct. Also, their AI is not fully self-aware. They don’t think for themselves, they just run action modules based on how the engineers felt a typical child would react to a given situation.”

  “That’s just a little awkward…” Kenny winced.

  “Well, they are programmed to be unable to lie if they are asked if they are a WellTech RealLife doll.”

  “Oh, like programming can’t be changed.” Joey laughed.

  Masaru glared at the interruption. “The HLM seized on these dolls being ‘too real’ and stirred up a wave of panic that the government wanted to control how people had children.”

  Kenny looked at the clouds. “Yeah, I remember that now… Everyone went on about how they would gene match you to the perfect wife or husband and it would become illegal to marry anyone else. According to the conspiracy wonks, those kid dolls would help people cope if you lost the genetic lottery.”

  Eldon made a dismissive wave at Masaru. “Most people I know thought it was just a bunch of bullshit. They can’t control street drugs and they’re going to try and put a leash on your dick too? I don’t see it working.”

  Masaru waited for the laughter to subside. “The HLM scared enough people to get a groundswell of interest and new recruits. The police sent notices to all technology companies warning of potential terrorist attacks. At least, until the Mayberry incident put an end to the HLM’s popularity.”

  “What the hell was it already?” Katya snapped.

  “Two HLM associates sprayed an EduTran with automatic weapons fire near Mayberry Park in Sector 310.”

  “Oh my…” Katya looked horrified.

  “310? Isn’t that near the foothills in the east? Rich bastard land.” Joey smirked.

  “Yep.” Masaru’s distaste for the poor dueled Joey’s contempt for the rich in a stare. “One of the injured boys was the son of a WellTech executive.”

  “That’s awful.” Katya sighed.

  “At least they chose a rich sector.” Eldon grumbled. “The EduTrans up there have armor plating.”

  “The only fatality was some poor bystander that caught a ricochet, but three of the children were crippled, one paralyzed from the waist down. Kind of ironic actually.”

  “How the fuck is that ironic?” Kenny glared at Masaru’s clinical tone.

  “The shooters claimed to be trying to destroy a shipment of WellTech dolls, and were unaware they shot real children on their way to school. The anti-cyberware crusaders caused half a dozen kids to become dependent on cybernetics in order to continue to lead normal lives.”

  “Okay, that is ironic.” Katya nodded.

  Joey paced. “That couldn’t have gone over well for the HLM. I don’t see how this comes back to me.”

  “Not at all. Most of their newfound support left them. Even their leadership, who are notorious for being secretive, wasted no time turning over the two men invo
lved. The police became suspicious at how readily they capitulated.”

  “That sounds too perfect. That’s the kinda shit C-Branch would set up.” Eldon spat again.

  “Maybe they were as horrified as everyone else and wanted to do the right thing?” Kenny lifted an eyebrow.

  “Or they had another agenda.” Katya scowled.

  “Who knows?” Joey shrugged. “All I know is that a guy got his head blown off giving me this holodisk he said was connected to the Mayberry incident. The only thing on it is a cipher key and some coordinates in the Badlands. My guess is there’s some data out there that this thing will unlock and someone’s trying to kill me to stop me from finding it.”

  “That’s tragic.” Katya’s sarcasm hung in the air.

  Joey stuck his tongue out at her and pointed to Hayley’s face in the window. “They’re also trying to kill her. Oh, by the way, that’s Cleopatra.”

  Masaru coughed. “Are you serious? How the hell did a kid manage half the things you said she did to you?”

  “Someone was ghosting her on the net. I don’t know who or why yet.” Joey growled. “The same guys that are trying to kill me kicked in her door. I still don’t know how a little kid evaded corporate hit men.”

  Katya turned away, her tone soft. “It’s not as difficult as you think.”

  “What the hell does that little girl have to do with this?” Eldon faced Joey.

  Joey waved at Hayley. “I don’t understand either. Whoever is messing with me decided to involve her as well.”

  “Doll?” Masaru raised an eyebrow.

  Joey stopped in mid thought. He’d never thought to ask, or check, and that could explain why Jacob Roth seemed so blasé about her. “I never thought to check… Maybe she has some kind of secret data locked away in her head.”

  Kenny watched Alyssa pick through clothes to loan. “I got a weird feeling about her father. There’s something just not right about him… He seems so dismissive, even when he was told someone tried to kill his daughter.”

  “Definitely odd, she tells me that she’s always home alone and her dad is always at work.” Joey shook his head. “But I am not going to go see if she’s anatomically correct.”

  Masaru rubbed his chin. “We need to know what we’re getting involved with.”

  “Can’t you dig up birth records in the net or something?” Eldon seemed uncomfortable with the way the conversation went.

  “If they can fake her father, they can fake her birth records.” Joey added; his face still stuck in a repulsed grimace.

  “Well if they can’t lie about what they are, why don’t we just ask her?” Kenny thought he pointed out the obvious truth everyone overlooked.

  “She could have been reprogrammed.” Masaru sounded detached. “Why don’t you ask Alyssa to check?”

  “Look, we’re not going to de-pants a kid without more to go on than a paranoid hunch.” Joey took a step back.

  “Wait a sec, when you brought her here, she was bleeding from the foot and a stimpak worked on her. Would a stimpak work on a WellTech doll?” Kenny glanced at Masaru. “She also ate breakfast. Do they eat?”

  Masaru rubbed his chin. “They will bleed if cut, but no on the stimpak and the food. Stimpak nanobots only have human “blueprints” so to speak. They wouldn’t know what to do with synthetic materials.”

  Joey breathed a sigh of relief. “So that proves she’s real?”

  “I can double check.” Katya tapped near her artificial eye. “I can scan her for metal. No plastisteel skeleton, no doll.”

  Everyone nodded. Katya went into the house as Kenny discussed the plan for the trip. Masaru took his armor out of the trunk and put it on except for the helmet before retrieving a black case. He pressed his thumb into a small glowing blue square near its handle and a brighter blue line passed up and down beneath it. The case chirped and clicked. The motorized lid opened; on the underside was an image in bronze of an Asian dragon coiled around a large K―the Kurotai logo.

  The black shape of a thirteen-inch weapon with the profile of a submachine gun lay nestled within white foam. Blinking lights flashed up and down along its length. Above the handle, a cobalt blue screen displayed 100% charge. The meager one-inch thickness coupled with the clear artificial crystal barrel gave it away as an energy weapon.

  “Damn, man, is that what I think it is?” Eldon lifted an eyebrow.

  “Kurotai Shinobi, model S-19.” Masaru held it up with the grin of a proud parent. “One hundred seventy thousand credits, factory price.”

  Kenny blinked at it. “They let you own an energy weapon on Earth?”

  Masaru’s smile grew. “Display permit for sales.”

  “Damn…” Eldon shook his head. “Nasty as they are, I still wouldn’t want to use one of those, might as well hold up a sign sayin’ “send bullets here”.”

  “Incorrect.” Masaru shook his head. “The S-19 laser operates within the infrared spectrum; it creates a beam that is invisible without night vision or IR sensors.”

  Eldon raised an eyebrow. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

  Joey chuckled. “I’d be more afraid of his sword.”

  atya peeked through the doorway, staying as quiet as she could. Neither girl noticed her as her cybernetic eye changed the room into the grey and white shades of a metallurgical scan. The kids appeared as dark silhouettes save for a few white spots: earrings, buttons, zippers, and a NetMini in a pocket.

  “Come on, we’re ready.” Katya spoke, satisfied the girl was human.

  Both of them jumped and screamed at the sudden voice. Katya offered an apologetic look and walked with them. Alyssa plodded down the steps and leaned into her father, avoiding eye contact with Eldon. Hayley waited a few paces back, staring at the ground. Sensing her mood, Kenny put an arm around her as well, at last making her smile.

  Katya shook her head, mouthing the word “alive” without giving it voice. Joey furrowed his brow as his theory about valuable information concealed in a fake child went up in flames. The situation with her father confused him even more, now, but he was a cop―that tidbit made Joey even more unwilling to engage in a pissing contest.

  “Okay, let’s get you two squared away.” Kenny pulled the door open.

  Alyssa, familiar with the truck, knew the handholds and climbed the tire into the cab with ease. Hayley just stared at the eye-level running board until Kenny helped her up.

  “I’ll ride in the bed till we drop them off.” Eldon went around to the rear.

  Eldon’s status as a reservist, as well as a friend in the armory willing to fudge some authorization files, allowed him to keep his recon armor. For this run, he had come prepared.

  The girls shared the large passenger seat, with Masaru and Joey on either side of Katya in the back. The ride to the Rodriguez house was short, just under ten minutes. Kenny carried their bags up the walkway. A short conversation later, he exchanged a handshake with an older man and a hug with his wife.

  “Thanks so much for watching them, I owe you a favor.”

  “Is okay. Ava is lonely since Javier moved to the east for that important job of his.” Arturo Rodriguez’s face broke into a thousand wrinkles as he smiled and shook Kenny’s hand.

  “I’m going to be out of net range for 2 or 3 days, I’ll vid you as soon as I get a signal.”

  Arturo nodded as his wife escorted the kids inside. “No problem, Kenneth.”

  “It wouldn’t be right of me not to warn you. Some people are trying to hurt that other girl, Hayley. Joey said that someone showed up at his place and tried to kill her.”

  “Ay dios mio!” Arturo grabbed at his chin and gasped.

  “There’s almost no way anyone can track her to you, I doubt they even know about me; but try to keep her away from windows and don’t let her go online. I’ll get back as fast as I can.”

  Kenny turned off the natural dirt road to an access ramp that carried traffic up to the level of the city plates. A number of Division 1 police staf
fed the top, observing cars as they went by. Everyone’s NetMini chirped in sequence, scanned by the checkpoint.

  “The ACC has its claws in Mexico, they’re looking for infiltrators.” Now in the front seat, Eldon leaned out the window and waved at the cops.

  Katya remained motionless the entire time, hoping her fake ID checked out. She was not here on behalf of the ACC; quite to the contrary, she wanted to get as far away from them as possible. Nonetheless, her entry to the UCF was not official; she had been too afraid of her old owners catching wind of her to leave any kind of trail.

  “You’re welcome.” Joey patted her on the thigh.

  Her head snapped to glare at him. “For what?”

  “Your electronic identity. The fact that you’re not face first over the hood of a police car with a rubber glove elbow deep in your ass right now means they believed it.”

  “How… colorful…” She grabbed his wrist and tossed his hand away from her leg as if it was a turd. “Thank you.”

  “You know, if you’re hostile to everyone around you all the time you’re just going to be miserable.” Joey glanced out the window at the passing buildings. “You’re just like my sister.”

  Katya did not respond. The concept of trust was so anathema to the core of her identity that she never thought about opening up; it would just provide her enemies with an exploitable weakness.

  The truck mired in morning commuter traffic on a main transit path. Much of the south sectors of West City contained citizens too poor to afford hovercars. The elevated truck offered a view over the sea of passenger cars. Kenny squeezed the wheel, trying to resist the temptation to drive over them. For the better part of an hour, Joey’s eyes locked onto an older man that bobbled his way down the road and bounced off street lamps and other pedestrians. He seemed quite drunk, high, or both―and his erratic travel outpaced them. Each time he walked past the truck, Joey felt a twinge of frustration until traffic inched ahead and they passed him; then it would stop and he stumbled into the lead again.

  Joey grumbled. “You should get a hover truck.”

  Kenny laughed. “Some of the shit I haul back is way too heavy for that. Besides, no such thing as a backup diesel for those.”