by Taylor Kole
A race engineer kept communication with Alex through a microphone in his helmet. The chief’s reticent instructions seemed limited to course impediments such as traffic congestions, debris, or crashes.
The first crash occurred on the eighth lap.
“Eyes up, Alex. Wreck ahead.” His clear voice temporarily blotted out all the sounds of the drive. “Lower your speed. You’ll have visual in two kilometers.”
Alex first saw a front wing near a displaced barrier: the twenty-one car, a Ferrari-powered SL-48, sat idle, facing the wrong direction.
Its driver stood with two medics on the safe side of a barrel wall, gesticulating as if explaining what had happened.
When traveling 180 miles an hour in a machine that weighed less than a ton, a nick could send shredded parts seventy feet into the air.
Unlike NASCAR, if the wreck didn’t block the course—like now—the drivers continued on. Alex grinned—he’d just gained a spot. He depressed the accelerator.
By lap thirteen, courtesy of losing another driver, Alex advanced to the twenty-second spot—nice surprise. Aligning with his car, he pushed past his fear and focused.
Six laps later, his race engineer spoke again. “Wowser. We got a doozy coming your way, Alex. Three cars. The Redbull, the thirty-five, and the eighty-nine. It’s confetti, my man. Stay sharp.”
Alex sat forward. Roy drove the eighty-nine.
Though no injuries in the Lobby transferred to the real world, the initial reactions of fear, shock, and pain remained for those hurt. Alex’s gut tightened at the thought of Roy trapped in a burning car or impaled.
“Slow ’er down, Alex. Slow ’er down. Next bend. This one’s serious. We’re going to get a caution.”
Alex smelled the smoke before he saw the detritus of chewed metal, colorful fluids, and torn rubber littering the roadway.
He slowed his vehicle down to sixty MPH, an Indy crawl, and then to avoid the many tire shredding obstacles, fifty, forty, twenty.
The fourteen had spun out, but remained intact. Its driver stood near the fence, helmet in hand, seemingly answering cognitive questions posed by his pair of medics. Five yards farther, the thirty-five lay upside down, partially leaning against the concrete barrier—a clean tear down its side. Its driver sat on the pavement, also clear of the wreckage, with his own pair of EMTs. That meant the third car—the one demolished down to a flaming cockpit—belonged to Roy.
Between the dancing flames and the black smoke, Alex made out the number eighty-nine on its side. His chest constricted. They entered most worlds with the pain modifications at twenty-five percent or less, and many times, that intensity proved too great.
He knew the polyurethane 131 suit protected Roy from a good degree of heat, but that didn’t mean the helmet couldn’t melt over his flesh, his lungs couldn’t fill with smoke, or the skin on his body couldn’t boil.
Then Alex spotted two members of the medical team standing near the barrier. They stood rigid, frozen, as if glitched—something he’d never seen in the Lobby. They should have been tending to Roy regardless of his condition. Alex searched the flames of the wreckage for the outline of a corpse.
Through fire and smoke, he saw nothing.
Again, he scanned the crowd.
If this collision had caused Roy’s digital death, which seemed probable, he would have popped back into the white of the lobby by now. Most likely, he would reenter the corso di fantasia world and meet Alex at the conclusion of the race. But passing the wreck without spotting any semblance of Roy added confusion. He could think of no reason why there wasn’t a charred corpse in the cockpit, a deceased body on the pavement, or a random limb somewhere, all of which would be attended by a pair of medics.
He had been granted clean looks inside the cockpit—no one sat in the seat. Regardless of the crash’s outcome, Roy’s body should have remained. And even if tossed hundreds of feet away, the paramedics would rush directly to him, not stand like twitching mannequins.
As he passed the scene and brought his speed back to par, he tried to wrap his mind around it.
“You’re clear from here out,” the race engineer said.
Perhaps he’d missed Roy in the stands? If so, fans would have flocked to that section, particularly the medics. He couldn’t understand why they were standing about, idle?
“Go ahead and pick ’er up.”
The voice alerted Alex that he’d yet to return to the race. Knowing he’d see Roy soon enough, he shifted the Model L-7 into higher gear and tried to get his mind back on the race.
Unfortunate for Roy, yes, but three crashes gained Alex three more spots. He faced an opportunity for bragging rights and his best finish.
The longest straightaway on the course approached. He gassed the accelerator and settled back into the mental niche needed to compete. His fellow AI racers wouldn’t care about Roy’s accident, so he shouldn’t either.
As Alex downshifted in anticipation of an upcoming curve, a strange tingling sensation washed over his skin.
“Aleckz,” the race engineer’s voice crackled. Another first-time error for the Lobby.
His foot left the gas pedal. A car zipped by, perilously close, as his world grew foggy.
If Alex didn’t know better, he’d think he was exhibiting the symptoms of exiting the Lobby. But he wasn’t set to exit for days.
The absurd notion of an emergency evacuation crossed his mind as his environment blurred further.
“Cratz nu fuo.”
Many neurologists had concluded that emergency extractions were dangerous. Only life-threatening situations in the real world warranted the action.
His body growing light occupied half his mind. The other half accepted his slowing car had butted into the wall and was now drifting into the hazardous middle lane. Not that he cared. A peaceful euphoria overtook him—the definitive symptoms of an exit.
Fear percolated as well.
When drafting the legal implements for emergency evacs, none of the scenarios ended with happy, smiling faces welcoming a person back into the real world.
Chapter Seventeen
Alex always used the first few seconds after exiting from the Lobby to store blissful memories in preparation of heavier ones. He first registered the smooth walls and unique lighting of the personal access room in his master suite. That familiar tranquility was instantly squashed by the commotion around him.
Voices barked urgently. Sneakers squeaked on the glass floor. A drawer shut with a bang.
The private access room was seven hundred square feet. Half of the room held two rows of four access chairs, each with its own privacy curtain, a small sitting area, and a table with a motion activated lamp. The other half of the room held the control panel, which resembled an industrial generator with an interactive top for inputting vacation durations, the number of chairs to be used, and, in extreme circumstances, the ability to execute emergency load outs.
Since almost all of the vacations launched in this room involved Roy, Charles, and Alex, he rarely saw anyone else in here. Definitely not a team of anxious people, like now.
Opening his privacy curtain all the way, Alex saw medical staff working together to administer chest compressions to Roy: one, two, three, four, continuing the rhythm to fifteen, twenty, twenty-six, at which point the doctor paused, and a nurse used an Ambu bag to force air into Roy’s slack mouth.
A fourth nurse held Roy’s limp wrist, shifting her fingers to different locations, searching for a pulse. Two other attendants stood nearby. Another manned a cart with various electronics. He flicked a switch up and down as if bored, despite the urgency around him. Another EMT stared out of the back wall, which overlooked the rear of the property. It seemed to Alex that he was watching for more of the medical team to approach from the rear deck, which doubled as Roy and Charles’s private entrance.
“Is he okay?” Alex asked.
Only one nurse looked in his direction. He shook his head, no.
As Alex stoo
d dumbfounded, Rosa’s hand intertwined with his. Seeing Rosa brought tremendous relief. If he wasn’t so shocked, he would hug her. Her lips were pressed tight together and her eyes were locked on his, but he couldn’t read any emotion on her face.
Through the wall, which had been made transparent, Alex saw movement in his bedroom. Two of their staff stood watching.
The entire interior of the house was transparent. The clear view through the floors, walls, and ceiling further disoriented him.
Many people turned toward the main double-door entrance to Alex and Rosa’s immense bedroom. Following their gaze, he saw Glen pushing a gurney at a brisk jog. As Glen neared, someone opened the access room door for him.
Rosa’s hand moved to the back of Alex’s neck. As always, the gesture calmed his rising anxiety. Being near a freak-out, it lowered him to simply feeling deranged.
Two nurses thanked Glen, then relieved him of the gurney.
The doctor stopped the chest compressions and said, “I’m calling it.” He backing away to give others room, retrieved his cell-phone, and casually tapped on its surface as he paced away.
The room’s intensity vanished.
“This is going to be all over the news,” one nurse said to another. “Reporters are going to be tracking each of us down for interviews.”
“Your ugly mug isn’t going on TV,” said another, drawing a few chuckles.
The female nurse who had been searching for a pulse assisted with aligning the gurney against Roy’s chair and then moved as the male nurse prepared to transfer Alex’s friend.
“Is he going to be okay?” Alex said.
“I’m afraid he’s gone, Mr. Cutler,” the doctor said.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Rosa said.
His mind swirled with thoughts. Roy dead? That wasn’t possible. Alex had just watched him racing a Formula One car. He’d also seen the flames consuming the A-26 cockpit. There had been no body in the wreckage, strewn on the road, or attended by pit-crew medics.
It felt like someone was pouring wet cement into the top of Alex’s head, filling his body with an unwanted weight. He eased onto the edge of his access chair. When he spoke, his voice sounded unfamiliar, as if thrown into him by some unseen ventriloquist. “Why’d you stop?”
The preoccupied doctor looked away from his phone and, finding Alex again, he softened his countenance. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Cutler. There was nothing more we could do. I should have called it minutes ago. The preliminary assessment would be that Mr. Guillen suffered a major cardial infarction. He was gone by the time I arrived. I really am sorry.”
Though confusing, if Roy had died in real life while driving his Formula One car, it solved the mystery of his disappearing body. Since Roy’s hadn’t been a program-induced death, where a corpse remained powered by the energy that constituted the man, it had disappeared like a regular load-out. Kill the power, in this case the life force of a human being, and you severed the data stream into the Lobby. Thinking back, every time he had witnessed a person logging out, they had vanished in the same fashion. Yet those exits had been planned.
Something deep in Alex wrestled with accepting the reality of Roy’s demise. He would never talk to his friend again. They’d never be a pair of Gulmacs, the Ogre-like race in Cosmic Conflict, never storm Normandy with the first wave.
“I’m having trouble with my service,” the doctor said, displaying his phone to Alex. Behind him, the nurses had loaded Roy onto the gurney and politely guided his body past Alex and out of the room.
Alex puzzled over how small the man had become. The husk before him resembled an old, disfigured elf out of a Grimms’ fairy tale.
“I’ve been coming out here for three years,” the doctor said more to himself, but loud enough to be heard. “Never had any problems with my reception before.”
Reality slammed into Alex like a two-by-four to the head. Roy was gone.
Shockingly, a smile tickled his cheeks. The wave of nausea receded. What a great way to go! You’re driving along, having fun. You don’t even know your organic system has been socked by heart failure or that you’re in pain or that you’re scared. Then, blip, you reenter the brain attached to your body. It’s fair to imagine, at that point, that you’re confused, engulfed by the body’s own defense mechanisms reserved for the finality of death. Confusion. Perhaps a brief, peaceful understanding, and then nothing.
By the time Roy had realized he was dying, it would have passed.
“He was such a great man,” Rosa said from next to him. “Angels will swiftly guide him into the gates of our Lord.” She kissed his shoulder.
“Seriously,” the doctor said to Alex. “Have you ever had problems with service before?”
Ignoring the question, Alex rose, excused himself, and stepped out of the room. Those present in his master suite shared quiet condolences and dispersed.
“Alex.” Victor’s voice came in from one of the nearby speakers. “At the first sign of catastrophic heart trauma, I contacted Ms. Capaldi per my programmed instructions. She is eleven minutes out and has asked that we keep everyone here until she arrives.”
Tara? Alex thought. Why would she come here, at this moment? Alex respected the woman, but he didn’t want to see her, especially right now.
The odds of her being in California were close to nil; being in America at any specific time might be fifty-fifty.
If his Yin included staying out of the limelight and enjoying time in the Lobby and with his wife, Tara’s Yang placed her on every forum imaginable. Once, while channel surfing, she was on five stations at the same time—all unique interviews. Without fail, seeing her on a program meant a clip, photograph, or entire story about him would follow. Their inseparability drove him mad.
Alex wanted Lobby proliferation, but he never thought it would come at the expense of being so recognizable he couldn’t go to the store without reaping attention.
Tara had as much, maybe even more money than him. She used her resources and fame to promote and propagate the Lobby, and to pacify the many false campaigns. Only a handful of people, including Alex, knew one of her top goals was to allow Markers to be implanted at birth. She had wild theories for child rearing in the Lobby.
He respected her drive. Anyone would. And he appreciated them being on the same team (because she often scared him). Conversely, he’d had his fill of scheming and planning. Atriums littered the planet. Strangers discussed the Lobby a million times a second. The Lobby ruled.
Bottom line, her involvement in any matter diminished his authority. Her silver tongue acted as a lasso, twirling around everyone in earshot, tugging them closer and closer until their position aligned with hers. Resigning himself to deal with Tara as she came, he moved to the more immediate concern of telling Charles that Roy was dead.
Alex stared at the phone on his nightstand. He inhaled, exhaled, and said, “Victor, put me through to Charles Arnold.” He lifted the receiver.
“No calls are permitted at this time.”
Alex stopped, and then stared at the nearest speaker.
An icy chill plinked down his spine. A notion spirited the possibility that his image of Victor as a doting friend had been fraudulent, that these seven years of dependability between his electronic assistant and himself had been but a ruse for this very moment of revolt.
“I’m not following you, Victor. What does that mean?” He pressed the talk button and brought the phone to his ear.
Nothing. No dial tone. No static. He might as well have been holding a brick.
“What is this, Victor?”
“I do apologize. It’s a directive for this specific circumstance. Ms. Capaldi will arrive in six minutes. The gates are closed, and communications are down for a duration of her choosing.”
Rosa exited the access room. Unaware of the imposed restrictions, she smiled meekly. “Are you okay?”
He inspected the phone and stared at the speaker.
Furrowing her brow, Rosa said, “What is i
t?”
“Victor says there’s a block on all outside calls and people can’t leave Legion.”
“Don’t use that name,” Rosa snapped. Grabbing the phone, she listened for a dial tone.
“Nine-one-one personnel were allowed to enter and are taking possession of Mr. Roy Guillen,” Victor chimed. “The rest is beyond my control. I do apologize.”
“Is that why everyone keeps complaining about their phones?” Rosa asked.
A glance onto the balcony showed a trio of nurses gesticulating their phone frustrations to one another. A fourth woman held hers at arm’s length as if searching for a signal.
“He said it’s a policy directive for this specific scenario. Tara’s orders.”
“Tara?” Rosa said as if a bad taste entered her mouth. “Tara Capaldi?”
Seeing the familiar irritation in Rosa caused his own to flare. If Tara intended to arrive in four minutes, he’d get to the gate in three. Unable to call the guard shack, he’d walk down there and open it manually and allow whoever wanted to, to leave. Tara be damned. He strode past Rosa.
No matter the situation or motivation, Tara had no right to assume control of their household. Descending the stairs, he thought of a dozen curses he’d toss her way.
Reaching the bottom of the steps, he paused as his anger boiled. He had a flash of pulling Tara’s hair. The uncharacteristic violent nature of that rerouted his thoughts. Perhaps grief, not anger, fueled his current overreaction.
Taking a succession of deep breaths, he steeled himself, and then motored onward.
Chapter Eighteen
An ambulance idled halfway up their driveway, facing the open exit gate. The brake lights were lit, a paramedic sat in the passenger seat. The ambulance looked set to go, but it just sat there.
Alex increased his pace. He wanted to tell them to go, and to hurry. He had a feeling they wouldn’t want to be here when Tara arrived.
He stopped twenty feet from the vehicles as the mystery of the inert ambulance was resolved. A black Maserati Ghibli with tinted windows glided up the drive. He didn’t need X-ray vision to know that Tara relaxed in the back seat. An identical Maserati followed on its tail. Once through, the gate closed.