“Let me talk to Sandra,” I said.
Kyle winced. “Now, see, here’s the problem. She’s my only chip in this particular bet. Surely you see I can’t give her up without something in return? Look, let’s do a quick deal. Handshake. Give me a few days of data, and let me prove to you that I can create a reality where you don’t have aspects. In turn, I’ll let you talk to Sandra.”
“He’s a snake, Steve,” Ivy said. “I can’t believe you’re even considering this. Why are we listening?”
I closed my eyes. But it was strangely tempting. Last time I’d tried to get away, Joyce had come complaining that I never took her on missions, Armando had phoned me seventeen times, and I’d found Ivans in the closet drinking the bottle of hotel wine. On top of it all, J.C. had shown up “just in case.”
My life was so stuffed full of fake people, I didn’t have room for anything or anyone else. But that look in Ivy’s eyes. And this offer … it would only give me another layer of fakeness. I wouldn’t be normal, because none of it would be real.
“No deal,” I said, turning to walk away. My three aspects joined me as I strode toward the front door of the large, hollow room.
“Very well,” Kyle said with a sigh. “Gerry, try the isolation program on him.”
I spun. “You can’t—”
“Steve, you broke into my offices. You’re the trespasser. I’m perfectly justified in holding you a little while, to be certain you aren’t dangerous. Until the authorities arrive.” He smiled. “Next time, maybe don’t screw with the guy who literally owns the prison.”
I lunged for him, but the room flashed white.
I stumbled over a rock and hit the ground. A sandy beach, with waves softly lapping to my right, a jungle to my left. My aspects stumbled around, J.C. with hand on gun, Ngozi gasping—horrified—to be suddenly outdoors someplace so wild.
A deserted island.
TWELVE
“That rat!” J.C. shouted. “That slimeball. He’s getting free time studying us!”
Ivy helped me to my feet, but I had difficulty meeting her eyes. I sat down on a rock by the water, feeling exhausted. I was so tired. Tired of being a test subject. Tired of imagining a world where everyone lived—had friends, fell in love, visited family—except me.
Tired of being the middle manager of my own existence.
“I can’t believe this!” J.C. shouted. “I can’t … Yo, Ngozi. You okay?”
She shook her head. “No. This is horrible. Where are my gloves?” She fished in her pockets.
“Yeah,” J.C. said, “but—like—there’s no people, right? So no germs.”
“Except for the fact that we’re not really on a beach!” she said. “We’re in that smelly warehouse, next to a table full of six old Chinese delivery containers. I’m going to end up touching one by accident.”
“So what do we do?” Ivy looked toward J.C.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “All I know how to do is shoot people and make clever wisecracks.”
“Oh please,” Ivy said. “Your wisecracks are not clever.”
I put my head in my hands, looking at a wave roll in, feeling a pounding headache come on.
“I think Steve is going to be indisposed for a little while,” Ivy said. “We might need to solve this ourselves. Ngozi, ideas?”
“Well, there are footprints in the sand over there,” she said. “Might be one of those ‘quest lines’ the tech people were talking about.”
I watched the wave roll in, deposit some sand, then die off. It would all just get sucked out again when the tide changed. Then return. A thousand little versions of Sisyphus, repeating until the sand wore away to nothing.
“Steve,” Ivy said, stepping up. “We’re going to follow those footprints. We’ll be back in a minute. You’ll be okay?”
I didn’t reply.
“Just stay here, all right?”
They walked off. A part of me noticed that they were acting a little strange. They almost never left me. But now they went off exploring?
Maybe, I thought, maybe they’re excited to be able to actually interact with a world. In here, everything is fake. So maybe it’s better for them.
Or … was Kyle going to do something to them? To prove he could leave me here alone? How long would he hold me here? How long could he?
A strong hand gripped me on the shoulder. I jumped, turning, and found Lua standing behind me. Lua! He’d vanished from the mansion, becoming a nightmare.
I screamed and scrambled off the rock, pulling out of his grip and dropping into the rolling surf. I splashed, climbing to my feet, soaked wet and holding out my phone—for some reason I would never have been able to articulate—as if it were a weapon. Only then did I realize something was wrong. Lua didn’t look like a nightmare—he didn’t have the dead eyes or the sunken face. He looked just like his normal self.
“Sorry, boss. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” The large Samoan man folded his arms. He was wearing jeans and flannel, with the sleeves rolled up. He inspected the sky, then the woods, then the rock I’d been sitting on. “A deserted island. Of all the places for you to end up.”
“It’s … it’s not real.”
“What is?” he asked, then chuckled. He never laughed loudly, but I’d also never known him to be angry. In fact, it was hard for me to imagine him as a nightmare, like Armando had become.
“They got all the clichés at least,” Lua said. “That bay is right out of a freaking Disney movie, complete with—yes—the mast of a sunken ship. Tribal drums in the background. Mysterious footprints. What you want to bet that if we start digging, we’ll find a treasure chest somewhere on this beach?” He started toward the woods. “Well, let’s get you out of here.”
“Out?” I asked, scrambling across the beach behind him. “How?”
“They implied earlier they couldn’t re-create more than a small space,” he said. “A building at most. So I figure, if we get you out into the water—away from the actual island—the thing will fall apart.” He started pulling at some vines dangling from a tree.
“Lua?” I said. “How do you know what they said to me earlier? You weren’t there.”
“I know what you know, boss. And you know what I know.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I said. “Because that’s the way I stay sane. That’s the way Sandra set it up.”
Lua grunted. “How did that work out for her?” He knelt down, twisting the vines to strengthen them, then wrapping them around the edge of a small fallen log.
“Lua, you’re breaking the rules. I didn’t bring you on this mission.”
He kept wrapping the log, affixing it to another log he pulled from the underbrush. “Boss,” he said softly, “you need to see what is real.”
I stepped back; that was what Armando had said. I reached for a stick to use as a weapon, pulling at it, but it was stuck in the underbrush.
Lua went faintly transparent, as if he weren’t all there. “I guess,” he said as he worked, “we have different ways of trying to make you confront it. Armando, he always was a little loony. He had a loony solution.”
I glanced in the direction the others had gone. I really didn’t want to be alone with a possible nightmare.
“Don’t mind them,” Lua said. “They’re getting pulled into the simulation, you know? Rolling with it.” He yanked on his log and pulled—from the underbrush—a fully formed catamaran ship, made of logs and vines. “Not the best I’ve ever made,” he noted, “but it’s not bad, considering what I had to work with.”
I gaped. That was a serious breaking of the rules.
“In here, you are the rules, boss.” I could still see through him, and got the distinct impression that in his outline—as if he were a window—I could see a concrete floor, some desks with computers.
Voices.
He’s up and walking. The brain has stopped suppressing his movement, even when we te
ll it to. That’s new.
How are the readings?
Interesting. Completely different from Sandra—and completely different from when he broke in. These readings mean he’s adding aspects into the simulation, though. The program should be able to interact with them, like we interacted with Sandra’s aspects.
“I could live here,” I said to Lua. “I could let them create my reality, and I could just … go with it.”
“Isn’t that what you do anyway?” He smiled, then turned and waved at the other three, who were walking back along the beach. He gestured toward the boat, looking very proud.
“Lua,” I said. “What does it all mean? Why is this happening to me? How do I stop it?”
“You think I know? I’m what you made me to be—the guy who can get you off an island. In the end, we’re all just trying to help.” He got behind the boat and shoved his weight against it, pushing it along the sand toward the water.
J.C. and Ivy arrived to help push, while Ngozi complained that seawater was “full of animals.” Finally she climbed aboard, then J.C. and Ivy joined her—with Lua ready to push the boat the rest of the way out into the water. He waved me toward the last seat in the catamaran.
I stepped into the warm water. “They can just stick me into another VR world if I escape this one.”
“Nah,” Lua said. “You can see through it.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “I can’t even see what is real in my own bedroom.”
“And tell me. Who is the strongest, boss? The guy who never goes to the gym, or the guy who tried—but failed—to bench his best yesterday?” He nudged me toward the boat, looking even more transparent than before.
I sat down, then realized there were only four seats. “You’re not coming?”
“Gotta stay here now,” he said, giving the boat a good shove. “Broke too many rules. But don’t worry about me. I’ve got a day job.” He winked. “Call center for an insurance company. Something boring. Normal.”
He pushed us out into the water, then waved as we picked up oars and began to row. I watched him as he vanished, and I braced myself for the ripping sensation, the loss of knowledge and information. But this time it was more … more like a subtle fade. Like falling asleep.
The simulation barely lasted twenty feet beyond the small bay. One second we were rowing, and the next, the four of us were standing back in the warehouse. I reached up, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“That was awful,” Gerry—the tech—complained from his seat at the computers. “He didn’t follow any of the quest paths. He just broke the thing.”
“A ton of hard work, flushed right down the drain,” the female techie complained.
“It’s the aspects,” Kyle said. “They’re letting him cheat. We’re going to have to remove them. He’ll be helpless without them.”
“No,” I said. “Listen. I—”
“Don’t worry, Steve,” Kyle said. “They aren’t actually people. No loss. Mob scenario, Gerry.”
The room flashed white, and we were standing in an old-time casino, next to a spinning roulette wheel.
A man burst through the door. “Big Salamander is here!” he shouted. “He’s wise to—”
Gunfire blasted through the door, ripping through the man’s body. He collapsed as men flooded into the room, then began shooting people indiscriminately.
THIRTEEN
Ivy fell first. She clung to my arm as she looked at the bullet wound in her stomach. Then she began to slide down.
“No. No, no, no!” I screamed, kneeling beside her. Gunfire tore up the room. Ngozi dove for cover, but a bullet hit her in the forehead, and she collapsed. J.C. kicked over a table, then grabbed Ivy, hauling her behind cover.
I scrambled over beside them, bullets blasting wood chips from nearby tables. People screamed, but for once, J.C. didn’t return fire. He pressed his hand against Ivy’s wound. “Hey. Hey, stay with us. Ivy?”
“Steve,” she whispered. “Steve!”
I huddled beside the overturned table.
“You need to promise,” she said to me, “that you won’t abandon the rest of them. That you won’t let us end like this.”
“I promise,” I whispered.
She smiled, lips bloody. “That was a lie.” She nodded toward J.C., and tried to sit up. He helped her, and then she kissed him. An intimate last kiss, amid a hail of gunfire. Our table wasn’t doing much good. A shot went right through the wood and hit J.C. in the shoulder, but he lingered on the kiss until Ivy was gone.
He reverently lowered her body back down onto the floor. Then he looked at me, bleeding from one arm. “You’re going to have to handle this alone, Skinny.”
“I can’t, J.C. I can’t.”
“Sure you can. You had an awesome teacher.”
“Don’t—”
“Why do you think I’ve been training you all this time? I knew.” He tapped his head. “See what’s real. You can do it.”
“J.C.…”
He raised his fist toward me. “For good luck.”
I raised my fist, then tapped his. He grinned, then pulled one gun from a holster under his arm and a second one from a hidden holster strapped to his right ankle. He stood up.
And was hit with about a hundred rounds at once. He collapsed back to the ground without getting off a single shot.
“No!” I screamed. “NO!”
I let out a ragged, raw screech, a moan of pain and frustration. Of anger. I rocked back and forth on my ankles as the bullets demolished the room. But they didn’t hurt me. They weren’t real.
Not … real.
The shooters grew faintly transparent. The splinters flying off the table, the spilled casino chips, the fallen corpses. It all … faded. The roar of the gunfire became a buzzing. In its place, I heard voices.
We need to learn why he’s still up and moving.
We could tie him down maybe.
I could see them gathered around, watching me. Shadows looming, all save for one man at a desk of computers. Chin, I thought. I need you.
I stood up. Then, for effect, I ducked in a low run and scuttled across the casino room, as if trying to dodge bullets. That put me close to the computer desk in the real world.
To my eyes, the virtual casino faded further, and I could see real-world details. Kyle, grinning as if amused to see how helpless I was. The two guards approaching, perhaps worried that I’d hurt myself or ruin something in my thrashing.
The computer monitor.
“Yeah,” Chin said in my ear. “That’s easy. Not a bad UI, for what has to be an early build.”
“Emitters are along the ceiling of this warehouse,” Arnaud said. “In the whole room.”
“Click that radio button,” Chin said, “and change the target from ‘single subject’ to ‘entire room.’ See that checked box at the bottom? The one that says ‘Debugging mode.’ I suggest turning that off, as it might prevent them from using backdoors they’ve made to get themselves out of the simulation. Good luck.”
I leaped for the computer, shoved Gerry aside, and clicked as Chin had instructed.
The guard from the hot dog stand rushed for me, but moved too slowly to stop me. Instantly, we were all there together. Kyle, the two guards, Gerry and the other techies. We stood in that casino, surrounded by dead people. The mobsters had stopped shooting, and were now picking through the wreckage.
“Oh, hell,” Gerry said. He scrambled for the now-vanished computer controls, but just waved his hands through empty space. “Oh, hell!”
The hot dog guard grabbed me by the arm. “This won’t accomplish anything. You’re still in our prison.”
I sagged in his grip, glancing toward J.C., dead on the floor. I muttered something softly.
“What’s that?” the guard said, shaking me by the arm. “What did you say?”
“This isn’t your prison,” I muttered louder. “It’s mine.”
I bolted upright, slamming the back of my head into the guard’
s nose. As he shouted in pain I turned, grabbing him by the arm and flipping him over, then slammed him into the ground. I came up with his handgun, and held it out, sighting—flipping off the safety—just as J.C. had taught me.
Thank you.
I squeezed the trigger, firing off three quick shots, bringing down virtual mobsters who had been picking through the room. I wasn’t really worried about them, but I wanted to get the others into firing mode. Indeed, the rest of the mobsters raised their weapons and started shooting again.
The other people—one more guard, Kyle, the four techs—screamed and dodged behind overturned tables. “It’s not real!” Kyle shouted. “Remember, it’s not real!”
It didn’t matter. I’d been there so many times. What sounded real, what looked real, was real to you—even if you logically knew otherwise. Even Kyle ran for the doorway to a bathroom, where he could hide from the gunfire.
I stalked through the room. A pile of poker chips next to me exploded as a bullet hit. Shots passed right through me. I reached to my arm, where Armando had cut me, and found only smooth, unmarred skin. When had I started ignoring that wound?
A guard—one of the real people—pointed his gun toward me, so I was forced to shoot him in the shoulder. He screamed, and I casually stepped over and kicked his gun away from him. I pushed him down and took a second gun from his leg holster.
Thanks again, J.C.
I stood up and fired in two directions at once, simultaneously killing two mobsters. The techs were screaming somewhere nearby, but the only person I really cared about was hiding in the bathroom. I stepped up to the wall nearby, then pushed through. I didn’t break through; I just shoved my way past it. As I did, the virtual world became even more flimsy to my eyes.
In the bathroom, Kyle spun on me, but I easily swept his feet out from under him, stepped on his wrist—getting him to drop the gun—then kicked his weapon away. I leaned down in a smooth motion and pressed two weapons to the sides of his head.
“Two guns, Kyle,” I whispered. “One is real, one is fake. Can you tell which is which? Can you feel them, cold against your skin?”
Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds Page 26