The Disk Mirror Solution (Galaxia Mortem Book 1)

by Danielle Ste. Just

  The Disk Mirror Solution

  Galaxia Mortem, Book I

  Danielle Ste. Just

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  Copyright © 2021 by Danielle Ste. Just

  Chapter 1

  An Approximation of Victorian London, England, Cozplai, Underworld

  Date: 2422

  If you believed half of what the manufacturers claimed, anyone with an optical hook could tell when a mosquito farted. And for the first time in her life, Redcholate wished she had one. An optical hook, not a farting mosquito.

  She stopped across the street from the long row of stone and brick buildings. A horse pulling a cart ambled past, blocking her view. The horse pooped. She backed away from the street one long step, and peered up again. If she had an optical hook, she might be able to peer through the code of the building and orb its innards. But instead, she’d have to go in blind.

  OS, she said, play the request again.

  Redcholate did have an eyescreen, obvs. It was just a tiny implant to display vid and text in her right eyecube, instead of an entire eyecube replacement like the optical hook. For some reason, the thought of having an entire body part replaced had always heebed Redcholate’s gibs.

  Her OS played the client’s vid on her eyescreen. In the vid, a black blob, vaguely humanoid, stood against an anonymous dark purple background. “I have a job for you, Redcholate Parise,” the blob said. “Come see me at my office. 221b Baker Street, Cozplai, Underworld.”

  A grubby young girl with bare feet ran over to Redcholate from the opposite side of the street and swept away the horse poop with a broom. The girl grinned and raised her right thumb. She wanted real creds for sweeping digital poop. Redcholate approved a transfer of one cred and touched her right thumbnail to the girl’s.

  “I’m on the pig’s back today,” the girl said, and ran away down the sidewalk.

  What does that mean? she asked. On the pig’s back?

  It is Victorian slang, said her OS. From Earth. It means to have good luck.

  What the necrotic weevil nostril hairs is this place? She’d stuck mostly to Dirtburg during her three years of working intel in the Underworld. Obvs she’d never visited Cozplai. Filled with dilettantes.

  This is an envisioning of Victorian London, Earth.

  Is the address signiffy? 221b Baker Street?

  Affirmative. This is the address of a Dark Ages detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes, and his biographer, Dr. John Watson.

  Shutters opened in the house above Redcholate’s head. A woman leaned out, tossed the contents of a bucket out the window. Dirty water splashed all over the sidewalk, the street, and Redcholate. The woman peered down and grinned as if she were having fun. Redcholate shook her head and spouted a few licks, removing the splashes of dirty water from the fussy dress her avatar wore. This Victorian London node had strict codes, like every other node in Cozplai. No non-human avatars, no hambones—not that the lack of hambones was anything to complain about—no ‘discordant’ clothing. She couldn’t even use holohair, and it was her signature style, so in protest she’d used an OTS avatar for this node. Utterly generic.

  All these people playacting instead of using the Underworld for serious business. It irked her entrepreneurial soul. Well, she was no Underworld dilettante. She had to get to work.

  Redcholate dashed across the street, just in front of a pelting carriage.

  The driver shouted, “You oughta get a oner over the gash!”

  She ignored him and his stupo slang, and pushed the doorbell of 221b. Yes, this was the Underworld, and yes, she could spout a few licks and dissolve this digital representation of a door. But people were loops about maintaining their fictions. So she waited.

  A proggie opened the door. It looked like a middle-aged woman, pale, greying hair in a bun. Its dress covered it from neck to floor. Someone had written this proggie better than most. No artifacting around its edges.

  “I’m, ah…” Redcholate didn’t know who to ask for. The client’s vid had been 100 percent anonymous.

  “Right up there, dear.” The proggie pointed up the stairs.

  “Thanks.” Redcholate had a policy. Always treat a proggie like a human. Nice to a proggie, no probs. Snub a human avatar by mistaking it for a proggie, your mistake could snipe your asteroid. If the human knew good licks.

  She walked up the stairs. They looked like dark wood, with a red patterned carpet running down the center. And they squeaked. At the top of the stairs stood a door. She knocked. Once again, waiting for real-flesh conventions in a digital world.

  The door opened. A woman stood there. Well, her avatar. She was about Redcholate’s height. Golden skin. Wavy brown hair, pulled back. Kind of chestnut-colored. And brown eyes. She wore a brown pinstripe suit.

  “Come in, Redcholate. Nice to meet you.”

  She sidled past the client. “Thanks.”

  Sunlight streamed in from the two large windows at the front of the room. Lots of furniture only an old farty gas giant would like. Redcholate glanced at the fireplace, then did a double-take. There was some sort of curly-toed shoe nailed to the mantel. She pointed at it. “What’s that?”

  The client looked at where Redcholate was pointing. “What is what?” she asked, like she couldn’t see the shoe. Weird.

  “This. This.” Redcholate poked at the shoe. “What’s this shoe doing here?”

  “Oh. The slipper. It’s my mentor’s. Let’s sit.”

  They settled on facing chairs in front of the fireplace.

  “What’s your name?” Redcholate asked.

  The client gave a small smile. “Call me Watson.”

  “Watson? Like Dr., ah…” her OS helpfully displayed a few lines of intel on her eyescreen, “Dr. John Watson?”

  Watson’s eyecubes narrowed. “How do you know his name?”

  “I asked my OS about the address. Why?”

  “Oh.” Watson puffed her cheeks and blew a breath out pursed lips. “Never mind that. I’ve asked you here to give you a job. A very well-paying job.”

  Redcholate smiled. Things were suddenly looking better. “K. I have no probs with being well-paid. What’s the job?”

  “I want you to get a piece of information. From the Forger.”

  “K,” Redcholate drawled. “That’s what I do. I’m an intel broker for the Forger. Tell me what you want to know, and I’ll get it from him. What’s with all this secrecy? I couldn’t even poof into this room, I had to walk all the way down the street.”

  “What is a poof?”

  “Poofing’s when you jack in and visit the Underworld. Your avatar poofs into being. You know.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know. I’ve never been to the Underworld before.”

  “You’re a vergie? Heol. And you’re so old. Unless you’re a bogus.”

  “I’m hardly old. I’m only twenty-one. In fact,” Watson cocked her head, “I seem to be a few years younger than you. Anyway, what is a bogus?”

  “You know. Someone whose avatar doesn’t look anything like them.”

  “No, I’m not a bogus. But let’s focus on the job.”

  “K. Just tell me what you want.”

  Watson took a deep breath—as if avatars needed to respire—and said, “I need to know the identity of the Butcher.”

  Redcholate collapsed back into her chair. “Holy arthritic space ponies. You’re loops.”

  �
�Why?”

  “The Forger’d never do it.”

  “Why not? One mononymous person against another. Forger versus Butcher. The master of information against the worst mass murderer the galaxy has ever known.”

  Redcholate rolled her eyecubes. “Yeah, what about worst mass murderer the galaxy’s ever known don’t you understand? The Forger never messes with him. Never even researches the murders.” And what’s a mononymous person? she asked her OS. She didn’t want to be like Watson, asking stupo questions every digisecond.

  Someone known by only one name. E.g. the Forger.

  Watson stood and paced across the patterned red carpet. “I’ve thought about this for a long time. And the Forger’s the only one who can help me stop the Butcher.”

  “Um, just because you want to stop the Butcher doesn’t mean you have to drop distro in the Forger’s bucket.”

  “What does—”

  “You don’t need to drop all your problems on his cranial embed. Or mine, either. I don’t want to be yoinked out through my own anus.”

  Watson narrowed her eyecubes again. “How… how would that even work?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure the Butcher could figure it out.” Redcholate stood to go. “Sorry, but no.”

  “Wait!” Watson sounded so authoritative that Redcholate stopped. “If you help, I’ll give you 25,000 creds. Enough to take you anywhere in the galaxy.” She was breathing deeply, as if she’d run a millio kilis. And avatars didn’t even need to respire. Serious loops.

  But 25,000 creds was a fortune. At the thought, an intense desire to travel to a distant planet, to see a strange horizon, filled Redcholate. As if someone else were controlling her emotions. Which was impossible. Yet… With that many creds she could travel to any other planet. The thought made her shiver a little. But she had to pretend to be koo. Couldn’t let Watson know right off the launchpad that this was the best payout she’d ever hope to earn in her life. “Even if you pay all that, I’d just get my standard finder’s fee.”

  Watson shook her head. “Over and above what I’d pay the Forger. You’d get 25,000 creds all to yourself.”

  “Loops,” Redcholate whispered. But she knew she was going to bring the request to the Forger, because she was already making excuses. Like, the Forger was such a good intel mogul that the Butcher would never find out he was being investigated. Or even if he did, by the time he came to Bituminous Tarsi to mort the Forger, Redcholate would be halfway across the galaxy. Or—

  “But you must do one thing for me,” Watson said.

  “What?”

  “You have to talk to the Forger in person. You can’t discuss the job with him in the Underworld or by any other technological means.”

  “You mean… You don’t mean you want me to meet him real-flesh?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. You must meet him in person.”

  “Why?” Redcholate put all her dizda into that one word, but it didn’t seem to bother Watson.

  “We all know the Butcher is a master of code,” said Watson. “Data pushing this request to the Forger would be like sending the Butcher an invitation.”

  Redcholate looked around. “Aren’t you dreadly he’s listening to us right now?”

  Watson shrugged. “We’re just two random avatars among trillions, discussing him. He doesn’t have time to eavesdrop on everyone. But I’m sure he would be interested in anything the Forger has to say about him.”

  Redcholate peered around the room again, then shrugged. “It’s impossible, anyway. The Forger doesn’t meet anyone real-flesh. I’ve been working for him for three years, and I’ve never even seen him real-flesh.”

  “Yet, you must if you want the 25,000 creds.”

  At the thought of all those creds, amazed joy flooded Redcholate’s body. She could go anywhere. Build a new life she hadn’t wanted until a few minutes ago, but was now the only thing she could ever imagine. “I don’t know how I’ll convince him to meet,” she whispered, half to herself.

  Watson smiled. “I have confidence in you, Redcholate. So, we have a deal?”

  Redcholate looked at Watson, who stood with her hands in her pockets, leaning against the mantel. An aching sense of familiarity twinged Redcholate’s innards. “Have we met?”

  “I’ll tell you when you come back with my information,” said Watson. As if it had all been decided. Which it had. 25,000 creds’ worth of decisions.

  Redcholate walked toward the door. Something felt bizzo about this entire thing. She put her hand on the door handle, then turned back to Watson. “Why’d you ask me? Specifically? The Forger has twelve other intel-brokers. Why me?”

  “I’ll tell you when you return with my information,” Watson said again. “I promise.”

  “And you’ll give me 25,000 creds,” Redcholate said, halfway between a statement and a question.

  “When you bring the information back, you can have every cred I own, Redcholate Parise. That, I promise.”

  “K. I’ll message you when I get the intel.”

  Watson nodded and ushered her out, closed the heavy wood door between them.

  Redcholate started down the stairs. Halfway down, she paused and looked over her shoulder. That was loops, right?

  The situation contained a number of oddities, her OS said.

  She made it all the way down the stairs before she realized she’d forgotten the numero hana thing. She ran back up the stairs and opened the door. “Watson, how’m I supposed to contact you when I get the intel?”

  For a split digisecond, the room was empty. And then Watson poofed in the middle of the room. “Come in, Redcholate. Nice to meet you.”

  Redcholate huffed. “What? We already met.”

  “We haven’t met before, I’m certain,” said Watson. “Come in and sit. I’ve asked you here to discuss a job. A very well-paying job.”

  Redcholate’s gibs shivered. “I… I think I’m in the wrong place.” She backed out of the room, ran down the stairs, burst open the door to the outside. The digital warmth of the sunlight blazed over her avatar skin. She shook herself. She’d never bring this job to the Forger. Although 25,000 creds was a fortune, the client was a spacenutter.

  A short, stout man had stopped in front of 221b Baker Street. He held a huge painted cube on a stick with one hand, and turned a handle on one side of the cube with the other. An awful sound emerged, vaguely approximating music. A monkey sat on the man’s head, screeching at Redcholate in time with the melody.

  “Loops,” Redcholate muttered under her breath. “You’re all loops.”

  She fled across the road, away from the sound. But by the time she’d reached the opposite sidewalk her braincase was emptying of all objection to the job, and she was already planning how to convince the Forger to meet her real-flesh.

  Chapter 2

  Hampton Beach, Terry’s New Earth

  Date: September 40, 2411—Eleven Years Earlier

  Twelve-year-old Armintor Vess always remembered that day as one of sun, and sand, and the smell of sun/sand-repellant. The death came later.

  “Bye!” she called through the open window to her mom, who was tinkering in her office and didn’t respond.

  She ran through the open door into the kitchen. “Bye,” she said, kissing her dad’s cheek as he sipped from his mug at the sunny kitchen table. The scent of fresh-brewed chostim swirled around him, a smell she equated with her dad’s prickly, not-yet-shaved cheek and his crinkle-eyed grin.

  “Bye, sweetie. Be careful.”

  Banging open the front door, she grabbed the handlebars of her h-bike and leaped astride. Although it was a hand-me-down from her older brother, it still looked new. He’d stenciled red and orange flames up its sides. She felt faster on it than on any of her friends’ h-bikes, and steadfastly resisted offered trades for various electronic tidbits or copied homework. But nowadays, only the younger kids asked to trade with her. All her friends now had real hoverbikes, not limited to one meter in altitude.
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br />   After a fast ten minutes’ pedaling, she skidded to a stop, descended to ground level, and parked her h-bike at the beach racks, not bothering to lock it. If someone dared to steal it, everyone else in town would know who’d done it before dinnertime. At the sun-sand booth she sprayed herself head-to-toe in repellant, not forgetting this time to coat the soles of her feet. She grabbed her flake and her lunch from her h-bike’s basket and trotted down the rough wooden stairs to the beach.

  Her best friends Barta and Salli already lay sprawled on their towels. They were experiencing an immersible in the Underworld, grinning like idiots and oblivious to her and everything else.

  Armintor dug her bare toes into the gritty sand, which felt pleasantly cool to her repellant-coated feet. “Heya,” she said. Barta and Salli, of course, were deep under and didn’t hear.

  She shrugged and plopped down beside them. Grabbing her flake—another hand-me-down from her brother—she continued tweaking the reminder program she’d been working on for the past two weeks.

  Less than ten minutes later her friends twitched, gasped almost in unison, sat up.

  “You’re here,” Barta said. “It’s such a great day, isn’t it?” She stretched and yawned. “No one told me how sore you get from too many immersibles.”

  “It’s because you don’t shift at all when you’re in an immersible,” Salli said. “It hijacks your motor cortex.”

  Barta rifled in her bag for a drink. “How’s your mom, Armintor?”

  “The same. You know. Morose.”

  “You’re still working on that reminder prog for her?”

  Armintor lifted her flake. “I’m pretty much done. The house reminder prog is really cringy. It just says, Hae-na, time to take your pills in this meek little voice. This new prog’ll flash the lights in the kitchen one day, open and slam the front door the next. You know, things like that. To shock her into reality.”

  “Why doesn’t she just ask her OS to remind her?”

  “She won’t let it talk to her about anything but work.” Armintor shrugged. “I just need a cranial hook and tie-in socket to modify house progging.”