Guy Haley

by Reality 36

  Framed by the fading light of a dirty window was a man in a chair. Otto could see a woman’s foot on a couch poking out from under a blanket, her skin a lustrous black against the evening murk; it was from the end of the couch that the machine noise emanated. Valdaire, alive and still jacked into the RealWorld Reality Realms.

  Of far greater urgency was that the man had a large-calibre pistol trained on him, big and bad enough to make a mess of cyborg internal armour.

  “Good evening, Otto Klein,” said the man. His face was in shadow, but his accent was unmistakeably SudAm. Otto wondered for a moment if the communists had got their red fingers into this whole sorry business, or if the past had finally caught up with him, until the Latino spoke again. “I am Special Agent Santiago Chures of the Virtualities Investigation Authority. Please,” he said equably, jerking his gun, “place your weapon on the floor, kick it towards me and step into the room. Do not turn around. There is a chair to your right against the wall. Back up to it and sit down. Do this slowly and we will remain on good terms.”

  “If not, you will shoot me?”

  The agent nodded.

  Otto dropped his gun, kicked it away into the corner of the room away from Agent Chures. He sat. The musty chair creaked loudly. Valdaire lay stretched out opposite him, recumbent on a mouldform couch, the newness of the equipment around her startling in the decrepitude of the cabin. Tubes went into her arms, sticky pads that glinted with weak LEDs were placed on her temples, somewhere down her top more shone. The light of these sensors gave her an ethereal quality. A skullcap, an antique v-jack, encased her head, a thick braid of cables trailing from it and out of sight. She smelt bad, as bad as a Grid addict out of the Real for months.

  “You have found what you are looking for,” said the agent. There was an arrogance to him, but his hauteur was at odds with his appearance. The man was a mess. He held his gun in his left hand, and Otto guessed it was not his preferred. His right arm was caught up in a makeshift sling, and bandages about his chest were thick with blood. His nose had been broken and hurriedly reset, probably by Chures himself. His lips were split. Both of his eyes were black, the left closed by bruising, all recent injuries. His clothes were filthy and torn, but it was apparent that they had been cut from luxurious cloth. Under his unwashed, animal scent Otto’s near-I caught the lingering smell of multiple toiletries. The near-I duly parsed the olfactory data and identified them: expensive. A small well-trimmed beard stood proud of the stubble that fuzzed the rest of his face. Empty attachment points for augmatics sat above each ear, the skin about them scratched and raw. A fat sausage of an aux-mind, the pick-up housing and buffer system for a full AI personality blend, sat round the base of his skull. This was as battered as Chures, but was as extravagant as his suit, made from hand-worked silver, engravings picked out with niello.

  “I apologise,” Chures said. “Our hostess is currently indisposed. I hope my company is adequate.”

  “You are a mess. Stand down. Let me help.”

  “I was attacked yesterday,” Chures said. He offered no more, but held his gun steady at Otto.

  Otto stared at him, shrugged. There was a flatness to Chures’ eyes, something lacking, or something sharpened to the point of hardly being there at all. He had a gaze hard to hold, the gaze of a killer. Otto looked at the unconscious woman. “Veronique Valdaire. I want to talk to her.”

  “She is illegally trespassing in the thirty-six virtual Realms, in direct contravention of international law.” The man’s voice hardened further. His gun remained trained upon Otto. “When she wakes up, if she wakes up, I will arrest her. Then we shall see what to do about you.”

  “OK,” said Otto. “You do that. First I need to speak to her, an ongoing investigation. I am here on business from the EuPol five, cleared by the Three Uncle Sams. I have jurisdiction here.”

  “I know your business, Mr Klein. Your Allpass carries weight, even with the VIA, but weight is no guarantor of access. As an agent of the sole authority in the Atlantic Alliance tasked with policing the machines, I am free to ignore their dictats. My advice is, don’t upset me.”

  Otto looked down at the gun. “Why this?”

  Chures twitched it. “Not everyone is as they seem, Mr Klein, and I, like you, am not currently linked to the Grid. I have no way of telling if you are who I think you are. Even if I were, I would not put my gun down.”

  “I am not your enemy.”

  “I do not know that.”

  “Why?”

  “Such times, Mr Klein, such times.” He did not elaborate, and settled his gun more comfortably on his lap.

  “I have medical supplies outside…” Otto began to rise, hands raised.

  “Stay seated!” shouted Chures. He moved fast, put a bullet in the wall. The projectile left a head-sized hole in the wood.

  “OK,” said Otto, and sank back down into the chair.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” said Chures. He was pale. He winced as he moved. That shot had cost him.

  Otto frowned, borderline aggressive, to let the VIA man know he wasn’t cowed. “Now what?”

  “Now we wait.”

  Chapter 23

  Reality 36

  Veronique and Jagadith climbed all day. At night, they camped on one of the tree’s broad branches, a silent Jagadith keeping watch, fire in his eyes. Veronique had kept up her fitness regime from her days in the Peace Corps, and her dancing helped, but at the end of the first day she was a mass of aches and grazes, her skin worn out by the bark. She envied Jagadith’s stamina. He was bound by some of the strictures of flesh, she’d seen that, but he was not in any way human.

  They drank water from holes in the bark, and ate the flesh of a giant squirrel that had been foolish enough to stray within reach of the knight, cooking it on a fire of bark shavings.

  Halfway through the second day they reached the top. The drooping crown of spiny leaves proved difficult to ascend, but ascend it they did. On a wide platform of green, they stood between two worlds.

  Below, Jagadith’s world stretched away into the purple distances of mountains, the swamp and jungle Qifang had created pathetically small within the arid landscapes of the highlands. Above them rotated the vortex, huge and foreboding. Each of its arms was a lazy stream of matter being sucked into a hole in the centre, a hole so black its colour was more than the mere absence of light.

  “We must go up,” said Jag, gesturing at it.

  Veronique nodded. “There’s a chance we’ll both be atomised,” she said. “How can you be sure that won’t happen?”

  “I cannot,” said Jagadith. “You are the expert.”

  “Right,” said Veronique, “Fine. I’ve not experienced it very often, but certain of my kind” – she paused – “gods, have been known to partition the worlds they invade. It’s how we run our in-world research stations. We should be OK…” She shook her head, not able to believe fully what she was seeing, wandered round the crown of the tree, taking the vortex in from several angles. “But this is of another order. He’s taking the matter of this world outside it, or into his sub-world.” She stopped, thinking. “Pulling this off is not easy.”

  “Your professor is incapable of such work?”

  “Oh, no,” said Veronique. “Qifang certainly has the skill, I just don’t see why he would do it.”

  “Your devotion is most touching, madam goddess,” said Jagadith, “but I urge you to put aside your concerns for this man, as dear to you as he may have been. I fear he has been concealing an important part of his character. Men do not change suddenly, O divinity. Not in so extreme a manner.”

  Veronique looked at him. “At the time they were closed off, there were thirty-six RealWorld Reality Realms,” she said baldly, “thirty-six universes, until the hackers got into them; four worlds, each unique and full of life that thought and lived, wiped out by idiots. Whatever is happening here, I am not about to let the number be reduced again.”

  “Then let us not be da
llying.” Jagadith made to climb one of the tree’s topmost serrated leaves. It was as big as a hill, its points within touching distance of the vortex. She followed him.

  They gained the top quickly, the nearness of their goal lending strength to their tired limbs.

  “Well then,” said Jagadith, and reached for the vortex.

  “Hey!” said Veronique. “Let’s not rush.”

  Jagadith nodded.

  “Pass me your knife.”

  Jagadith hesitated, then handed over his dagger. Veronique sat down and hacked a stringy, fist-sized lump of the leaf they stood upon. She pulled it free with some difficulty; its fibres were hard to cut. When it was loose, she bundled it into a ball and hefted it in one hand, then she threw it underarm, up into the hole.

  It exploded with a violent flash. When their eyes recovered, they saw flame boiling on the surface of the void.

  “That is most troubling,” said Jagadith, and frowned. “We have no way in.”

  “That’s not true.” Veronique put her hand out to him. “Now might be the time to let me try out my, um, divine powers.”

  “We will alert your mentor.”

  “He knows we are coming.”

  “It is still risky. You do not know it will work.”

  “No, I don’t. Jesus, don’t you people trust your gods?”

  “Madam divinity, we spend rather a lot of time and effort attempting to keep them from meddling in our affairs,” said Jagadith wryly. “Five billion gods are too many for any world. Still,” he sighed, “it is the only thing for it. If we do not go now, the world is lost at any rate. I have no doubt that is what Tarquinius would tell me.”

  “OK. Right.”

  “Only…”

  “I’m thinking. This isn’t easy. I’ve got no experience.”

  “Do let us try to be subtle, madam goddess.”

  “Subtle. Yes. OK. Now be quiet and let me think.”

  • • • •

  An amber sphere rose up and out into total darkness – darkness as black as the hole it hid. Like a drop of luminescent oil rising through dark waters, it floated slowly and majestically, moving slightly off to the left, away from the entrance to the void. It shed golden light as it went, light that was immediately lost. As it descended, its radiance focused itself into a spot of light that grew stronger until the sphere gently touched the utterdark of the floor. It burst like a soap bubble, shattering into a hundred starlets which dissipated with sad splashes of light. Where it had been stood Jagadith and Veronique.

  “Most efficacious, madam goddess,” said Jagadith approvingly. “You guided us as surely as a pilot brings a ship safe to harbour.” Apart from himself and Veronique, who shone with a faint moonglow, nothing at all was visible. “Now, where are we?”

  “Shall I try some light?” said Veronique.

  “Madam, let us not be overstretching ourselves. We are in no immediate danger. It is advisable not to tamper with our increasingly fragile universe if we do not absolutely have to.”

  “Let’s try something a little more straightforward then.” And then she shouted, as loudly as she could. “Professor!” The volume of her voice was shocking in the quiet – both she and Jag had been whispering before without realising.

  “Professor!”

  A light split the horizon, a distance of several miles, Jag guessed. It formed a hemisphere, a glowing halo creeping out from it, bringing feeble illumination to the dark.

  “Veronique? Veronique, why are you shouting? I may be old, but I am not yet deaf.” The voice was gentle and cracked, and carried the faintest shred of a Cantonese accent. It was also everywhere, in everything. The voice was everything.

  It was the voice of Professor Zhang Qifang, fugitive teacher and new god.

  “In the beginning… I see,” said Jagadith, his lips tight. He shifted his grip on his sword. “Be wary, madam goddess,” he said to Veronique, “your mentor is suffering from the largest of all divinity complexes.”

  They walked towards the source of the voice, the light in the distance guiding them across the featureless, entropic dark.

  Halfway there, Jagadith reached out and grasped Veronique’s hand. Though her teeth chattered, his hand still felt warm, and no plume of steam issued from his mouth. He squeezed slightly, reassuring and warming her.

  “They are here, madam goddess,” whispered the knight, “to either side of us. No! Do not look directly. Try not to draw their attention. They are changed, my fellow paladins, but I doubt their abilities are much dimmed.”

  Veronique looked rigidly ahead, but from the corner of her eyes she could see them. A long rank of silent giants glistened into view, the guardians of The RealWorld Reality Realms. Each of the RR’s had them, simple security protocols given forms by bored nerds. Jokes, really, elevated to positions of monumental responsibility when the RR RealWorlds were closed, guarding the universes against the creatures that had created them.

  They glowed with pale blue light, their forms vastly inflated. A knight upon a horse, armoured in the late gothic fashion, glared imperiously at them. A titanic moose stood by his side, its mouth slack, gaze unfocused, a wooden club of Herculean proportions hanging loosely from a primitive hand. Beside it, a pair of moustachioed brothers in what looked like plumber’s garb, wrenches at the ready. By them, a phantom bear with an eye patch wearing a lion skin with intelligent eyes who, though closely resembling Tarquinius, had clearly once been flesh. They and a score more stood silently, tracking the pair with eyes suffused with the cold glimmer of hateful stars.

  It was a long, frightful walk. Veronique wanted to break into a run, to get to the pool of radiance ahead.

  “Be careful,” said Jagadith, his voice almost inaudible, yet full of overwhelming calm. “They are his creatures now, but they still remember me as the greatest of them. Only my will holds them from assault.” A single droplet of sweat worked its way down his temple from under his turban. “It troubles me that the other paladins are here, enslaved. The work of your mentor goes beyond this Realm and into the others. This is not like any expulsion I have ever performed before. He is a powerful man, this Qifang.”

  As they approached the pool, its light drowned out the feeble luminescence of the paladin ghosts, but she could still feel their hard gaze boring into her neck.

  And then they reached the light. It took a moment for Veronique to look into it, and even when she did, she still could not see anything other than the brilliance of a sun.

  Jag stepped straight into it, dragging her with him.

  They were in a room. She blinked the afterimages away from the blinding hemisphere, her eyes struggling with the sudden change. The change was as disorienting as it had been sudden, and the shift in temperature made her giddy. It took her a few moments to recover.

  She recognised it as Professor Zhang Qifang’s office, rendered as she’d never seen it rendered before.

  Books from several centuries lined one wall, ancient mechanisms another. Pieces of pre-electronic machines and newer tech littered the place, half-buried by drifts of living paper. Outside, the sun shone on students crossing a university square, garbed in mid-twenty-first-century fashions.

  It was stiflingly warm after their walk through the dark.

  “This is incredible,” said Veronique. She inspected the ceiling, touched the wood, rubbed dust between her fingertips. “This is not real, is it? I mean this is… This is the most convincing simulation I have ever seen. They never feel entirely real.” She trailed off, walking round the room. In the best virtualities, like the Realms, there were always signifiers to their unreality; those less than the best never came close. “The law won’t let him have an office of his own. I think that always upset him. He is a very private man.” She looked up and down a bookcase. “I never thought about it, but perhaps this is a reconstruction of one of his old offices. He probably had one, once. He’s very old, older than the dippies, that’s for sure.”

  “It is most probably a composite,�
� said Jagadith. He looked sad. “I have seen such things many times before. Not all gods come with heavy hands. Some are lost, and seek a home.”

  “He must have been working at this for ever! It’s like I have stepped back in time.”

  Jag’s lips quirked, his first smile since the death of this mount. “Perhaps you have. This is all illusion, but only so much as the rest of the Realms, and they are very real to me.” He looked about the room. “The same as always, but different as I expected,” he said half to himself. “Not like I remember your ‘Real’.”

  “You have been into the Real?” She stopped herself and thought. “I suppose it is possible, actually, I don’t see why not.” She looked at him questioningly.

  Jagadith started, shaken out of memory. “A very long time ago now by the running of our years, I am thinking.” He breathed a deep breath. “Through here, I think,” he said then, moving toward a curtained doorway on the other side of the room.