Echoes of Another

by Chandra Clarke

  When Dominic dismissed him, Ray went out for a walk around the block. Dominic’s mob was much bigger than Ray had realised. He had thought, when he signed up, he was getting involved with some local petty thugs and thieves, and he would learn about the larger players and go from there. But given the money and activity he had seen so far, Dominic was a significant player in the city, and maybe even beyond.

  And so much had changed for Ray so quickly. He had a home now — a teeny, one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen that was a little bigger than a storage closet, but it was a roof over his head. It was free, provided by Dominic with hints there were better spaces available for people who earned for the organisation. Now he had money, too, and he could buy a change of clothes. He was concerned how he would keep track of who was who as he started digging for information about Mick. A tablet wouldn’t be secure, but perhaps an old-fashioned notebook and a pencil, kept tucked into his coat. He wondered if they had wired his apartment with cameras and mics.

  He crossed the flow. Then there were these walks. Somehow, without him saying, people in the neighbourhood knew who he was with, and they got out of his way. Even the two old-timers who passed their days in the restaurant only glanced at him now, averting their eyes if they saw him looking back. Sylvie, who had been friendly before, treated him with deference now.

  Ray had gotten more from this group in a few short weeks than he had in an entire lifetime with his mother and the system outside.

  A dog bounded out from behind a building, tongue lolling, panting hard. It ran up to him, its tail wagging furiously. He crouched down to stroke it, and it licked his face. Well-groomed and overweight, it had escaped from someone’s yard far away from here. Ray noticed a small black box on its collar, covered in slush, a red light flashing. He cleaned it off and wrapped his fingers around it to warm it until the light turned green. The dog squirmed away, but Ray figured its owners would pick it up soon now it was connected to the thingweb again. Then he caught sight of his own bare wrists, and stood up quickly.

  He should have been happy.

  But he wasn’t. Ray hadn’t grown up dreaming of being a crook.

  He walked faster, feeling the damp cold seeping into his core.

  When he got back, he found Tomasso waiting for him.

  “C’mere,” he grunted.

  They went back into the games room. There were two open bottles of beer on the card table. They sat down, and Tomasso handed him one. “Boss says you’re the lowest rung on the ladder. Congrats.”

  Not sure what he meant by that, Ray clinked bottles with Tomasso uncertainly, and they both took a long drink of beer. They drank in silence, Tomasso being a man of few words.

  Ray suddenly felt very lightheaded. He eyed the label of the bottle to see how strong it was. He wobbled and grabbed at the table.

  Tomasso put his bottle down and gripped Ray’s elbow.

  “Nothing personal,” Tomasso was saying. “Just part of the business.”

  ~

  Some days later, Ray was carefully taking the steps down to Dominic’s office, his stomach churning. He had awakened about twelve hours after losing consciousness with a foul taste in his mouth, a splitting headache, and a bandage on the back of his head. He’d staggered into the bathroom to see what had happened, but all he could see was something hard and black at the base of his skull, crusted in dried blood. Ray went to his kitchen and discovered instructions to rest and then report to Dominic. There had been a steak in the fridge to eat. He hadn’t touched it.

  Dominic was at his desk, having a quiet conversation with three of his men. They all stopped when Ray arrived. Dominic dismissed two of them and beamed.

  “Ray, Ray, Ray, I knew I could count on you to show up again. How you feeling?”

  “Okay,” Ray said. “I—uh, I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “No, of course not,” Dominic said. “We didn’t tell you. We have something we would like you to help us with, and you didn’t have a brainjack. So we had to fix that. Now come along.”

  A brainjack! Ray felt a little woozy at the thought someone had drilled into his head. He tried to blot out a vision of himself, out cold in a back alley somewhere, a grubby robot surgeon bearing down on him, bigger than the one he remembered—

  Dominic gestured and Tomasso guided them both to the door that stayed closed. Ray was close to panic. What had he done wrong?

  The door opened into a room that was empty save for two chairs and two small tables beside each chair. They were facing each other. In one chair, strapped in tight, was a young man of about twenty, looking miserable. He had a black eye and a split lip, and there was a strong tang of urine in the air. His left arm was bound to the table, with the hand palm down.

  Dominic bade Ray sit in the other chair. Quaking, he did, expecting to be tied down. His mind was racing, struggling, trying to figure out what he might have said to offend someone in the organisation already. He couldn’t think of anything; Ray hadn’t even really poked around about Mick yet. He had done exactly as he had been told. Hadn’t he? He pressed his lips together. He would not embarrass himself by asking stupid questions or grovelling.

  “Now then, Ray,” Dominic began, lighting up a cigar. “First, I should tell you what’s about to happen here does not leave this room. Second, I should say that I have always wanted to bring our ways into the twenty-first century. I grew up seeing other famigle live and die with the drug trade. All that struggle, that strife, all of those guys who fell under the spell of a drug themselves, all of it suddenly worthless when the drugs were decriminalised. Who wants to buy a dime bag probably cut with flour off some mook on the flow when you can get high-grade goods at the local liquor store? Tsk, tsk. Such a waste of effort. Whole families, penniless and scrambling.”

  He dragged on his cigar, relishing the taste. “Extortion is still a good racket, though. We run a great line on mech suits for the chronically underemployed. And printing cut-rate parts for sale on the black market.” He grinned. “But the thingweb, brother Ray, that’s where it’s at. The incident last month where the emergency services number went down? That was us. Oh, did we ever make bank with that.”

  Ray couldn’t help himself. “The city paid the ransom?”

  “Of course not,” Dominic waved his cigar, looking scornful. “No, they paid one of our ‘companies’ to fix it. Which we could since we’d broken it to begin with. And we now have a standby fee in case it happens again. It won’t be long before the contract is up for renewal.” Dominic walked slowly, going behind the other man’s chair, puffing smoke. The man hunched over, trying to resist the urge to look back. He flinched when Dominic leaned a hand on the chair.

  “Unfortunately,” Dominic continued. “We still have to do… this sort of thing. But this can get messy and…” Dominic wrenched the man’s head backward suddenly, to look down on him, “it can leave a mark. I don’t like evidence.” He paused, and fixed Ray with a stare. “Did you know, Ray, I killed my sister so there wouldn’t be a witness to one of our jobs?”

  The revelation both shocked and didn’t shock him. “I didn’t know you had one,” Ray lied again. At least now he knew what had become of Drea.

  Dominic watched him for a moment longer and then nodded. “She was my twin, you know. Sometimes I think I can still feel her presence. A phantom twin,” he grinned, and then waved his cigar as though this had all been distracting. “Anyway, today we will test something new.” From his back pocket, he pulled a small device. “We were sold this by a very enterprising young woman. It will work on anyone with a standard port.” He pushed the man’s head down and inserted the device into his brainjack. “You see, Ray, it records brain states. You can take snapshots of what’s going on, how the brain is responding and so on. And it allows you to replay it at will. Tomasso?”

  Tomasso surged forward, pulling out a rubber mallet he had kept hidden, tucked under his arm, until now. Ray watched in horror as he brought it crashing down on the man’s hand. Ther
e was a horrible crunching sound and a fine spray of blood spattered the floor. The man howled and writhed, desperately trying to pull the arm out from underneath the straps.

  Dominic grabbed the man by the hair to hold his head still and extracted the implant.

  Then he walked over to Ray.

  “Now, this isn’t strictly to code. I’d never do this with a made man. But you’re just a rookie and possibly still in need of impressing. And I’d like an honest report about its effects from someone I can trust, a guy on my team. So lean over.”

  Ray gaped at him, not willing to understand.

  Dominic rolled his eyes and pushed Ray’s head down. Ray felt the click-clip of the implant going into the port echo into his skull and down his spine. He took a deep, shuddering breath

  — and his world exploded in pain. He leapt off the chair, screaming, grabbing at his left hand, drawing it close to cradle it, his whole universe shrinking into a solid mass of anguish, falling to his knees, feeling the bone chips grinding together as he moved his hand —

  and then… nothing… there was nothing. All of it gone. Meanwhile, the man still bucked and whimpered in his seat, sobbing and shrieking with every pulse beat.

  Ray reeled upward and collapsed into his chair, stroking his perfectly intact hand, staring at it, unable to believe Tomasso hadn’t somehow smashed his too.

  “Oh, yes,” Dominic said, blowing his cigar smoke out in a long, satisfied breath. “That will do nicely. Very nicely indeed.”

  SETH

  Seth walked slowly into the tavern, every muscle in his body aching.

  It was a typical mediaeval setting. Low ceilings, wooden beams, and dark except for the blazing hearth and a few lanterns scattered throughout. Seth didn’t even bother pretending to get an ale, as most players would. At this point, he just wanted to sit down. He found a table tucked away in a corner and sat on the bench next to it. Triggered by his location in the game, his exoskeleton locked into position to support him as though he was really sitting on a hard surface.

  He was working on his eighth character as a game farmer, this time, a Mage. He had been looking forward to being one, as every Mage he’d encountered so far was incredibly powerful and vindictive. But it was turning out to be ridiculously hard to level up.

  The first time he had spawned in the game as a Mage, he had turned up in a dragon’s nest and ended up being baby food. The second, third, and fourth time he had logged in, he’d been killed by a clan that had worked out where a novice spawn tile was. They had parked next to the tile and racked up easy kills. He noted it for the developers to fix.

  On his fifth try, he got a new spawn location and promptly stumbled into a cave full of supersized huntsmen spiders. That game cycle was still giving him nightmares.

  On his sixth login, he managed to live long enough to gain his first enchantment. A freezing spell, it was supposed to temporarily halt his foes so he could get away. A great idea, except at his level, it only worked thirty percent of the time. He was getting a bad case of casting arm at this rate.

  Seth stared into the flames of the fireplace. He wondered if he wouldn’t make more money on a montage video of all the ways he was being snuffed. He was also getting a clear understanding of why upper-level Mages were so mean.

  At least it paid well.

  “Hail, traveller, well met. May I?” A warrior, dressed all in red, appeared near his table.

  Seth suppressed a sigh. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, but this could be a non-player character with information he’d need for his next quest. He gestured to an empty spot on the bench.

  “What, pray tell, troubles thee?” the thief said, sitting down.

  Nope, not an NPC. Their dialogue wasn’t that cheesy. Seth knew it was against the unwritten rules to break the illusion, but he wasn’t sure he could handle more than five minutes of faux-chivalry. “Sorry, just exhausted. My RL name is Seth. What’s yours?”

  The other character sagged a little. “Mike,” he said. “I’m in Toronto. You?”

  “Toronto as well,” Seth said.

  “Wow, lots of people in here from the city,” Mike said.

  “Well, the game headquarters is here,” Seth replied, thinking that should have been obvious.

  Mike scratched his belly. “In here avoidin’ the father-in-law. My family think I’m working overtime. He’s been at our place for two weeks already. Only so many stories about his glory days you can take, you know?”

  Seth nodded sympathetically. He didn’t have many annoying in-laws, but he had several relatives who would fit the role. They were quiet together for a minute, but Mike was keen to keep the conversation going. Seth could practically see him fishing around for potential topics in his head.

  “So how come you’re so tired? I always find it kind of relaxing in here.”

  Seth hesitated. He didn’t want to say he was a game farmer. Selena had said it wasn’t a secret, but he didn’t think he was supposed to advertise was what he was doing. He also didn’t want to say he was an author. In Seth’s experience, when you mentioned that, few people wanted to ask you about your work, they wanted to talk about something they would write… someday. “Oh, well,” he said, “been finding it hard to balance all the things I have going on in real life. And the Mage character is pretty demanding.”

  “You should try meditating,” Mike nodded, looking strangely excited. “Best thing to restore energy. Helps you get clarity.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about it. Never really got the hang of it. Can only do it for about ten minutes, then I go stir-crazy.”

  “I used to be the same way. But … then I got my hands on something seriously underground. Totally changed my meditation game.”

  Seth braced himself for a sales pitch. Even though he’d only been playing a short time, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been stuck in a conversation with someone who claimed to be a player but who was here to market the latest service or product.

  Mike leaned forward and dropped his voice. It was obvious from his body language, even filtered through the game’s avatar, he was bursting to share. “Buddy of mine at work, he let me know about this secret club. Digital Buddhas, they call it. Brand new. They got this thing, see, plug it into your ‘jack, and it plays a recording directly into your brain. And at this club, they’ve got a recording of the meditation state of a real Tibetan monk. You get to use it for ten minutes, and it’s supposed to be the best meditation session you’ve ever had,” he said, tapping his temple. He winked. “It’s amazing. I’ve never felt better. But that’s just between you and me, eh?”

  Seth twisted back and forth to ease his lower back. No sales pitch seemed forthcoming, so he cautiously asked, “It plays a recording of a meditation? And then your brain goes into a meditative state immediately?”

  Delighted he’d found someone who was interested, Mike edged closer. “Yeah, it’s the darndest thing,” almost a whisper, “you sit there, like you would to meditate. They pop this hardware in your jack, flip it on and bam! Instant gamma waves. It’s amazing.” He settled back in his seat a bit, looking put out. “Wife thinks it’s a scam. Doesn’t think it’s worth the monthly membership fee.”

  He wasn’t so sure ‘bam’ was something he associated with calming meditation, but the idea of a device like that sent Seth’s mind racing. What if he could have recorded the time he was cranking out the words for his book a few weeks ago? Was that even possible? What would it do for his creative output rate? Or his learning rate?

  “So, this club, where did they get this device, do you know?” he asked.

  “No idea,” Mike said. “But you think it would be worth a monthly fee to have access to that kind professional-quality meditation, don’t you?”

  Mike was looking a bit sulky now. Seth wondered what it was his wife had said to him about the club. He probably would not give him much more helpful advice without validation, so Seth said. “Oh definitely. Say, if a guy was interested in checking this o
ut, where would he go?”

  Mike beamed. “New place called DB just off Church. Tell them I sent you. I might get a referral fee for it!”

  KEL

  “Now in here,” the guide said, “we will give you a virtual reality tour of what it would be like to take one of our augmented-reality tours. Specifically, we’re going to take you on a tour of Paris, France and show you the view if you downloaded our Nomad pack while you were there.” She donned a pair of stylish glasses and pointed at them. “On site, these will beam images directly on to your retina, giving you a heads-up display of information about your surroundings. As you tour the site, it will detect which data points you linger on and customise the display to your preferences. This data is keyed to your location, and also time of day, so it will know the reason you’re lingering on information about pain-au-chocolat is because it’s breakfast and you’re hungry—”

  Everyone in the tour group laughed.

  “—and it won’t drown you with trivia on the history of the patisserie. Unless, of course, you ask it to. If you’ll follow me into the arena?”

  The tour guide walked backward until she was sure her group was following and then she took them to a large room with several dozen VR goggles lined up in neat rows on the floor. Kel dutifully shuffled in with everyone else.