by Dan Davis
“Maybe they have more,” Te said, staring unfocused at the wall as if he could see right through the bulkheads of the Victory.
“Indeed,” Alina said. “How many heads do we have? And what will happen to them if they are not needed? That is not acceptable to me, ethically.”
“That’s what we’re saying,” Te said. “Ethics don’t really matter for UNOP. Not with what’s at stake. Anyway, it doesn’t sound as though Ram was conscious when he was on ice, right, bro?”
Ram shrugged. “Can’t believe it. How long until we reach Orb Station Zero?”
“Nearly there,” Te said. The other nodded. “Three months left for the outward journey. Few days in orbit and then we burn for home.”
“Do not think about home,” Alina said. “Only victory.”
“You know what Rama has got that we haven't?” Sifa said, slyly looking between them. “Why they might have woken him up now, right at the end? What are we doing again tomorrow?”
“Yes, possibly you are correct,” Alina said. “That could be it. Perhaps they decided the group must improve our performance in this area and produced for us an expert.”
“Expert?” Ram said.
“See, Alina,” Te said, clapping her on a massive shoulder. “You're always looking for a nefarious purpose behind everything. A secret cabal, a conspiracy. But there’s always a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything.”
Alina scoffed at that.
“What are you guys talking about, what are we doing tomorrow?” Ram said.
“We know for certain that you will enjoy tomorrow's activity,” Sifa said, patting him on the arm. “It’s Avar practice.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – INTO AVAR
That night, with the door to his quarters properly locked, Ram lay awake listening to the hum of the air conditioning and power units, the major and minor vibrations that harmonized throughout the ship constantly.
He could hear the occasional and faint murmur of voices through the walls between the rooms. If he could hear voices from the room beside him, surely that meant the night that he had been attacked, the others in the barracks who he had considered his friends had decided to not intervene. Perhaps they had not been woken by the commotion and but more likely it meant that his new friends would not protect him, as Milena had suggested. So if Mael and the others broke in or came for him somewhere else, Ram had to be ready to fight for himself.
Unless he could change their minds about him. If he could show how much value he could add to the mission through the Avar session the next day, perhaps they would help him next time.
On the other, he knew now that he couldn’t trust anyone on the ship.
Ram checked the date on his screen again. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t done it before and it had taken a chance comment for him to find out. Milena had not bothered to tell him. Dr. Fo had not told him, even when given the opportunity, so it must have been a deliberate deception.
It had been 33 months since they took him from his apartment. 33 months since they had left Earth orbit. They had cut off his head 33 months before they had woken him up.
Almost three years.
He lay on his back on his bed and hunted through content on the screen, searching articles and videos on recent world history that had been transmitted to the Victory in flight. There was too much information to take it and reading text from a 2D screen was so painfully old-fashioned that he found the process irritating. The Victory used hardened computer chips and ancient operating systems in space but kitting out even the non-critical personal devices with it smacked of a conservative, almost ascetic mindset. No doubt it was that smug Director Zuma and her love for ancient books, the ludicrous, affected bastard that she was.
It was the same old shit, anyway. Pro-human terrorism sweeping the globe with attacks on Artificial Persons labs in North America and Europe especially. The pro-human movement was a strange collaboration between religious lunatics of various denominations, leftwing civil rights fanatics, biological purists and tedious moralists. Some focused on blowing up labs, other on freeing APs to go live in remote sanctuaries where they could live out their days in mindless, idiotic peace as if they were rescued farm animals. Corporations everywhere were investing in space technologies and more and more people were clamoring to their governments for additional colonies to be set up on Mars and on moons, asteroids and artificial space stations. There were the same old objections raised, how emigration from Earth would not solve Earth’s problems, there were hysterical Left Behind groups who demanded that the disadvantaged of Earth could not be left to become even more of an underclass after all the best and brightest were selected for colonies and research outposts.
Ram looked for references to Orb Station Zero and the United Nations Orb Project. He was amazed at how much information was in the public domain but it was swamped by the sheer volume of data. There were so many conspiracy theories, especially related to humanity’s sudden and rapid leap into becoming a spacefaring civilization, that the UNOP content was just one set of data amongst the relentless opinions of billions of people, everyone shouting and no one listening.
He struggled to wade his way through the ocean of bullshit but he could not keep his eyes open for long. He stuck his hand down his shorts and had a half-hearted attempt at jerking himself off but he wasn’t in the mood and, anyway, it felt weird. It was like someone else’s dick in his hand. It wasn’t even his own hand, for that matter.
Soon enough he was woken up by the light in his room brightening automatically and a chiming alarm tone growing louder and closer together. The noise stopped when he stood up.
Te Zhang banged hard on his door and shouted through it to hurry up, have a shower and come eat your fucking anabolic breakfast, mate.
After showering, he stood naked in front of his steamed up mirror, trying to reconcile the sight of the monstrous bodybuilder physique and how he thought about himself. He gave up and got dressed. Someone was filling his drawers with fresh clothes when he was out. At least the barracks was five star rated.
When they sat down in the mess hall, Ram noted how the room was divided physically between those that were in Alina's camp versus Mael and his band of bastards. A couple of subjects held themselves apart so presumably they were not taking sides.
“Big day for you,” Te said, spraying crumbs from his mouth while he tore into a whole loaf of bread. “We're all expecting great things.”
Ram swallowed a mouthful of micronutrient tablets and washed them down with the protein drink assigned to him.
“In Avar?” Ram said. “You've all been in your Avar dozens of times in the last three years.” He did not bother to keep the bitterness from his voice.
Milena would have heard that and yet she said nothing. She had not spoken since he left the barracks and yet Ram knew she would be listening. It was an odd feeling, being watched and listened to during every waking hour. Was this how his ancestors felt about their gods? Always on edge, watching what they said.
“We have been using Avar,” Sifa said. “Even before we were transplanted onto our bodies, Avar was a vital part of the selection and training process back on Earth. We have hundreds of hours in Avar.”
“How do you train with it?” Ram was excited to be going into an Avar device. He'd never been out of one for more than a day or two since he was a kid and he was itching to get back into one. The urge to link himself up and disappear into a second world writhed through him and he tried to remember that he had to be sure to impress everyone, as much as possible. Other than brute strength, it was the only possible thing he could excel at in the ludus. “What are the programs you use?”
“It's not the kind of shit you're used to,” Te said. “We don't get to fly fighter planes or do giant ancient battles or whatever.”
“That's a shame,” Ram said and he meant it.
“I know, man,” Te said. “We should get them to sort us out some free hours on them things, we’ve argued we shoul
d get downtime, visit simulations of a tropical beach or a forest or something at least, surely that has a therapeutic effect, right? But no, Bediako and Zuma just want simulations of the alien fight. Over and bloody over again. We change the variables, change the tactics. We get smacked down, we respawn, we try something else, we get smacked down. We’re all really good at getting killed. But that’s all we get to do.”
“You will love it,” Sifa said, grinning. “Hurry and eat your breakfast.”
“Drink your protein shake, bro. Get that shit down you.”
Later, they gathered in the Avar section of the Ludus Ring. Just looking at the machines, in two rows of six along the center of the room, gave Ram a thrill. The chairs were hugely bigger than the normal ones, even his own custom made one in his apartment, designed to support the weight and mass of his flesh in comfort. The other equipment was in proportion. The gloves attached to the chair arms, the boots at the foot of the chairs, the glasses and headset sitting ready to be lowered onto the heads of the users. Most commercial chairs were sold in flashy colors but in the Avar section of the Victory, everything was done in tastefully black synthetics and edged in delicate silver.
“You know the drill,” Bediako said, his voice echoing around the Avar machines. “We'll run individual simulations to start and team sessions at the end. The usual variables. Take your seats and do not disappoint me again.”
“Why was he disappointed?” Ram whispered to Sifa.
“When is it not?” she whispered. “That's your chair over there.”
“The dead woman's chair,” Ram said. The one called Samira who had died six months before.
“What are you assholes gossiping about?” Bediako shouted at Ram. “Sit in your chair, Rama Seti. Or perhaps now you've had a taste of the real world you're afraid to go back into the fairy tale one?”
What's real about all this shit? Ram wanted to say but he knew an argument would be giving the bastard what he wanted so he held his tongue.
The chair and equipment were first class. The materials, the finish spoke of enormous investment, clearly custom made with extraordinary care. The joins between the softer sections and the harder ones blended so smoothly that it was difficult to determine with the naked eye. Every surface was scrupulously clean, as if it was new, which was certainly not the case for his own Avar chair. Ram had paid a fortune for his device, choosing the top of the line at every opportunity, taking the best available for every optional extra. He'd scanned his body in a hundred poses, standing, stretching - as best he could - sitting, laying down. His chair was molded for his body, for the rolls and folds of fat that spread in all directions when he lay down. He'd chosen the very best massage components and software which would help him to avoid bed sores and circulatory conditions. Even so, his home chair was not as sleek as the one under his fingertips.
“Rama Seti.” Bediako's voice shook him out of his revere. “Are you going to sit in that chair or fuck it?”
“What? No, I'm going to—”
“Sit down, you idiot,” Bediako roared.
Ram eased himself into the chair to the sound of laughter. It was irritating. He had wanted to look professional but already he was looking like an idiot.
Everyone else was getting hooked in. He slipped his hands into the gloves and the boots. They had redesigned the chair for him. It all fit perfectly. Every finger was fully enclosed and touching the inside surface of the gloves and nowhere was too tight. The headset must have been molded to his head when he was unconscious because it slipped on like a second skin and the temple contacts aligned perfectly with his subdermal implants. He should have thought of it earlier but the chair seemed so new because it had been repurposed to match his new body.
Everyone seemed to be jumping straight in so he pushed down on the activation switches inside the little fingers of both hands simultaneously and focused on clicking his implants on. Ram had logged into Avar more than four thousand times in the previous decade so it was like stepping into an old pair of shoes or sliding into a hot bath. Although, for Ram, there was no equivalent activity that was as familiar and as comfortable to him as the slipping out of the real world and into the virtual one. The “shared dream” of Avar, although the famous marketing slogan fell down as a true analogy because the second world was fully programmed and hosted by a powerful server rather than a human mind.
Avar was a multiuser space, though, that was the “shared” part and Rama uploaded into the lobby while the others joined, faded into existence into a square room with dark walls. Bediako was there with the others, already shouting out orders as the figures filled the room.
Everyone's avatar was an exact copy of their real life body. Which was almost unknown in the Avar world, unless you were on one of the servers that demanded such a thing and they were pretty niche. Even if you made your avatar in your own form then you would make improvements. Make yourself thinner, bigger, taller. Change your hair or features. Most people went further and changed their form entirely. You weren't limited to your own gender, of course but nor would you need to appear fully human, depending on the competition. Some in Ram's co-operative favored anthropomorphic animals of various kinds, especially in social situations. In the deep servers, you could find avatars of the most insane and terrifying forms imaginable, often doing unspeakable things to each other.
But as he spawned in the loading space, everyone around was an exact copy of themselves in the real world even down to the thin, stretchy clothing covering their ludicrous musculature. The Avar generated lobby had twelve doors around the four walls, each with the subject's name on it. He saw his own, SETI, on one across from him.
“Finally,” Bediako’s avatar said. “We'll start off with the Wheeler dialed down to thirty percent and you can take it from there. Listen to your drivers, they've been working on your approaches and they'll have our suggestions ready to feed to you. Rama Seti, we're all expecting great things. We are all prepared to be impressed.” Laughter, both good natured and nasty, filled the Avar space. “Now, go on, get out of here and tear those things apart.”
Te and Sifa patted Ram on the shoulder as they went to their doors. Everyone was opening them with a waved hand and stepping through into a large open space, their avatars froze and faded into nothing, the doors closing behind them. Loading points. Conscious of Bediako's contemptuous, amused glare, Ram waved open his own door and stepped through.
The loading was smooth, no stuttering at all and he came out into a space he recognized at once.
An exact replica of the arena in the Orb, just as he'd expected it to be. The domed ceiling was far above and the far side was barely discernable.
“Ram,” Milena's voice in his head. “How are you?”
He wanted to confront her about being kept unconscious for 33 months or whatever but he was too angry to do it virtually. Ram would wait until he could look her in the eye and see her squirm about lying to him. That was the least he could hope for and he meant to have it.
“Great,” Ram said. “So how do we do this?”
“I'm sure you can guess,” Milena said. “I'm sure the others explained it. This is a combat simulation. You versus the alien entity.”
“Just like that? No discussion of tactics or training on how to fight from Bediako or one of the others?”
“I'm here to tell you about tactics. And you'll have plenty of time to learn how to fight. I think we're all curious to see how you do without any training. Now, go to the middle of the arena.”
Ram started walking, out to the center. The curving edges of the circular walls around him arced up into the domed roof above. It was like being a tiny ant walking around underneath an upturned bowl.
“You think I'm going to apply my Avar fighting experience to this simulation.”
“Exactly. But more than that, I'm excited to see the extent to which your virtual experience will carry over into your real world body.”
“Yeah, you know, I'm not sure about that. My usual
avatars have specific powers and abilities that have no real world counterpart. In one of them, I had the ability to jump a distance of twenty meters without tiring. Another one I had arms that were machine guns in a dieselpunk fantasy version of the Great War. I fought with swords and assault rifles in zero-g vertical structures. I've been a rampaging bear, fighting groups of armed peasants in medieval Europe. You think this stuff has any real world application then you're deluded.”
Ram reached the center of the space and waited for the game to start. Everyone else must be in their own virtual spaces, running concurrent simulations.
Milena scoffed. “Stop making excuses. Stop preparing for failure. I've seen you play with avatars just like the body you're in now and I've seen you do amazing things with them. Your body, the one reclining in an Avar chair right now? That is simply another avatar for you. Or that is how you should see it. You have the skills, you have the experience. You simply must now apply it to this form, within this simulation and out in the real world, on the Victory.”
Ram looked around at the huge half dome arena. The light was strange, glowing artificially from no specific light source.
“Easy for you to say,” Ram said. “If I die in Avar then I respawn. Or I turn off the Avar and I'm fine. That's not going to happen when I fight an alien, is it.”
Milena paused before replying.
“Ram, you know there's no chance you'll fight the alien. For all that I believe in you, and I truly do, you have no chance to perform as well as even the lowest performing subjects on the ship. I'm sorry but that's the way it is. You will, however, be fighting them in sparring and I want you to know that you needn't be afraid. We have a world class medical staff here, as you know. If you get hurt, even seriously, you'll wake up in the medical ring again. That's just like respawning, right?”
Ram sighed. “That subject Samira was killed by Mael and she didn’t recover, did she. And there were those terrorist attacks on the facilities before, back on Earth. Training accidents with potential subjects. This isn’t exactly a risk-free situation, is it.”