by Baron Sord
“Yeah,” I’d sigh with relief. “Hey, everything okay with you?”
“Yeah, why?” She’d sound irritated, like I didn’t think she could take care of herself, which she totally could.
“Oh, no reason. Just wanted to hear your voice, I guess.” I’d change the subject. “Dad says hello.” Then we’d chat like usual. She’d tell me some funny stories, I’d tell her some funny stories, then we’d hang up. All good.
Instead, her phone went to voicemail.
My stomach did a flip-flop. I ignored it. Emily’s voice message was the generic digital sim-voice greeting, which she always used. After the tone I said, “Hey, sis. It’s Logan. Ring me when you have a chance.” My voice had a shake to it I didn’t like.
She was probably busy working or out with friends or something. What time was it where she was over in Asia?
2:00am or something?
She was probably asleep.
I swiped back to the email and looked at the photos again.
At first glance, it was easy to think she was taking a nap, lying on top of a random bed in shorts and a tank top, eyes closed, jaw slightly slack, head propped up on a pillow. She would be the picture of restfulness if it wasn’t for the hollow shadows under her cheeks, the dark circles around her eyes, the feeding tube going up her nose, and the sleek ring of black plastic perched on her head like a crown of thorns. Instead of thorns, it had dozens of bright blue LEDs.
I knew what that was.
NeuraSoft headgear. They called it a NeuraLink.
The proprietary hardware used only for Reternity Online.
I recognized it because my brother Jason had one on his head 99% of the time. That wasn’t an exaggeration. 99%. He was an addict. Reternity Online was the biggest and most realistic full immersion virtual reality game ever created. People called it the Star Wars of MMORPGs. Everybody who played immersion games played it. Last I heard, RO had over a billion subscribers. They said it was more addictive than heroin.
Had Jason gotten Emily sucked into this? Was this his fault somehow? It was one thing for him to throw away his own promising future as a coder (he was brilliant), but if he’d gotten our sister kidnapped because of his addiction to a FIVR game, I would murder him thirty ways to Sunday and feed him his balls for breakfast.
But that didn’t seem likely.
Emily was nothing like Jason. She was like me. She hated video games and didn’t play RO or any other FIVR games. We both knew the price. We’d both watched Jason’s five year downhill slide into addiction. So why did she have a NeuraLink on her head? Maybe it wasn’t her? She was supposed to be in Cambodia at the moment, helping build schools and hospitals.
But the pictures didn’t lie.
My kid sister was in serious trouble and she needed my help.
I glanced again at the email.
=============
…we sell her for donor body.
=============
Chills ran up my spine.
I didn’t want to think about what that meant.
Time to track her down and bust the heads of the assholes who took her.
Before things got worse.
—: o o o :—
“I haven’t seen Emily in almost two weeks,” Susan Mirsky said to me over Skype3D an hour later. Susan worked for Giving Hands Worldwide, the same non-profit Emily worked for. I contacted them and they gave me Susan’s contact info. She was the last person to see my sister before she was supposed to report back for work.
“Where did you see Emily last?” I asked.
“In Bangkok,” Susan said. “We had a week off, so we took a train there to party.”
“Party?” That didn’t sound good. Emily had a tendency to get in trouble when she partied.
“Yeah.”
“You guys weren’t getting high, were you?”
“No! Nothing like that. We maybe drank a bit too much, but nothing illegal. No drugs. Just alcohol.”
That was a relief. “Why didn’t Emily go back to Cambodia with you?”
“I got really sick and had to leave early.”
“And she stayed in Bangkok by herself?”
Susan’s eyes darted around nervously.
“What, Susan?”
“She met a guy the first night we got there.”
“A local guy?”
“No. An Australian.” Susan blushed. “He was really hot. That accent of his was—”
“Stay on point, Susan.”
“Sorry.”
“Did she go someplace with this guy or leave Bangkok with him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you get the guy’s name?”
“Ryder.”
“Ryder. Did he have a last name?”
She winced. “I don’t know.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“Maybe on my phone?”
“Can you check now?”
She reached off camera for her phone, which she then swiped through for a minute before holding it up to the camera. The photo showed Emily with some handsome and overly-tan blond dude. I hated him immediately.
“So you left my sister alone in Bangkok with some random Australian dude she just met?”
“He seemed nice,” Susan said apologetically.
I shook my head, wishing I could strangle Susan through the screen. But I knew that wouldn’t help find Emily. “Do you know where Emily was staying in Bangkok?”
“Yeah. The hotel was called A-One Bangkok Hotel.”
I tried not to laugh. “Is that even a real name?”
“Yeah. It’s actually a nice hotel. She’s probably still there with Ryder.”
“I hope so. I’ll call them and see what they know. One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know if Emily started playing any virtual reality immersion games like Reternity Online?”
“Who, Emily?”
“Yeah.”
“No way. Emily hates those games. Why?”
I hadn’t told Susan or GHW about the ransom note, so I ignored her question and said, “Did that Ryder guy say anything about any immersion games?”
“Not that I remember. He didn’t seem like the type.”
Translation: Ryder was a young good looking guy who was probably more interested in chasing real tail in the real world than virtual tail online.
I wrapped up my Skype3D call with Susan quickly, but only after confirming I had the right hotel. Based on the images I found on Google, it really was a nice looking hotel. Nicer than any hotel I’d ever stayed in. Emily didn’t make a lot of money working for GHW, but at $50 a night, she could’ve easily afforded it.
Ten minutes later, I was talking to the cute Thai hotel clerk at A-One Bangkok Hotel, also on Skype3D. She wore a black suit jacket with white trim that made her look like a stewardess, and she greeted me by placing her palms together while tipping her head briefly. I then explained the situation using the simplest English I possibly could.
“Your sister check out Friday,” she said.
“Three days ago Friday or ten days ago Friday?”
Her brows knit for a second as her eyes searched her screen. “Ten day.”
“Do you have any idea where she went?”
The clerk shook her head. “I very sorry. I no here when she check out.”
“Do you know who was?”
She smiled demurely. “Oh, I don’ know.”
“Can you ask your supervisor?”
“Super… visor?”
“Your, uh, boss?”
“Boss?”
“Your manager?” The language barrier was killing me.
She smiled recognition. “Oh, yes. Manager. I ask. Please you wait.”
Five minutes later, I was talking to an older balding Thai guy. His English was worse than the clerk’s. With her help, I told him the same story. After, he babbled off a string of rapid-fire Thai.
The female clerk smiled nervously, nodding frequently.
; I had no idea what the guy was saying.
The manager finished and the clerk said to me, “Oh, uh, I sorry. She no check out.”
Relief washed over me. “You mean she’s still at the hotel?”
“Uhhhhh, sorry.” She turned to the manager. They spoke. Turned back to me, “No. Sorry. She no here. She, uh, leff.”
“Leff?”
The clerk nodded. “Yes. She leff.”
“What? I’m sorry. What do you mean leff?”
She bit her lip nervously, obviously worried her boss was watching all this and grading her performance. “She go. Uhhh, she go but… no check out.”
“Wait, hold on. She left without checking out?”
“Yes! She leff but no check out!” She was relieved we’d cleared that part up.
I wasn’t. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “She pay for fi nigh. She no here sicks nigh, bag stew here. We open room to new guess afah dat.”
It took a moment for me to translate in my own head: Emily paid for 5 nights, didn’t check out but left her bags for another night, and after that, they opened up the room. Was that normal hotel practice? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t stay in a lot of hotels on what I made. It pissed me off either way. I wanted to yell at the clerk and the manager for not keeping tabs on my sister, but I knew that wasn’t their job.
I sighed before asking if anybody else at A-One Bangkok Hotel knew where Emily went after she left.
Nope, not a chance.
But they still had her bags. I considered asking them to ship them to me, but I had a feeling they’d get lost in transit. I also had a feeling I’d be in Bangkok before not too long and I could get them myself.
Before I did that, I needed to track down this Ryder guy, if that was even possible.
—: o o o :—
“Do you know this Ryder dude’s last name?” The guy asking was my buddy Cisco Gonzalez. He was on his lunch break from the solar panel factory where he worked. The two of us stood outside in the sunshine near a crowded food truck parked a block away from the factory gates, eating the burritos I’d bought for us.
I grumbled. “I don’t even know if Ryder is his real first name, bro. I already checked every Ryder I could find online. Didn’t find shit.”
“Too bad,” Cisco said. “With a first name like that, you could find him easy if you knew his last name.”
Cisco was a Friday regular at Opal, the club where I tended bar four nights a week and worked the front door as a bouncer the other three. No matter how far the economy sank into the toilet, people still found the money to get drunk. And no matter how good virtual reality games got, real men wanted to chase real women, and real women wanted to be chased. As long as there were people on this planet, they would need bartenders. Call it job security.
I was here talking to Cisco because his brother Javier worked for Facebook. Unlike my brother, Cisco’s brother was smart enough to use his brain to get a good job, not burn it away on FIVR gaming.
Cisco said, “Do you have a pic of Ryder with his face pointing straight at the camera? One with his face relaxed, like you might see on an ID or Passport or mugshot?”
“No, this is all I got,” I said, referring to the collection of 3D photos on my phone that Susan had emailed me. The pics were all the candid shots of Emily and/or Susan with Ryder at various Bangkok bars. In every pic, Ryder’s head was turned to the side, or he was grinning like a tool, or sloppy drunk, or his curly blond hair was hanging over his eyes.
“Email me those, and I’ll send them to Javi. Then he can send them to the facial recognition guys, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“I thought you said your brother worked in facial recognition.”
“Nah, ése. He works with them, but it’s not his department. But that’s not the problem. The problem is these pics. Facial recognition is 99.9% accurate if you have a good photo. If you don’t, it’s hit or miss.”
I tried not to grumble. “Gotcha. Have Javi do whatever he can and thank him for me. Anyway, how’s that burrito?”
“Frickin’ phenomenal, ése.” He poured more red salsa from the little plastic cup onto his half-eaten burrito.
I took another bite of mine. As good as it tasted, it went down like a rock. My guts were in knots with worry about Emily. It had been 6 hours since the ransom email had been sent and I didn’t have shit.
If I had money, I would’ve hired a private detective and flown us both to Bangkok, but I didn’t so I couldn’t.
I had to figure this out myself.
—: o o o :—
Next stop, The US State Department building downtown. To get there, I had to take the monorail. When I got to the station, I missed the train. The next one wasn’t due for almost an hour. I didn’t have time to wait. As I rode the escalator down to the street, I pulled my phone out and launched the SuperUber app and called a car.
Thirty seconds later, a sleek driverless Audi pulled up to the curb, the passenger scissor door already lifting open. City traffic had gotten so bad, the only way to beat it was to go driverless. The freeway had a dedicated driverless upper level that was never stop and go. Any car using it had to connect to the MTMN (Metro Traffic Master Navigator) network before merging onto the road. The MTMN was an Artificial Intelligence that controlled everything and it was smart enough to smoothly handle traffic 24/7. Number of freeway accidents caused by the MTMN annually? Zero.
Who wouldn’t go driverless?
Anybody who could afford it let their car and the MTMN do their driving for them. I couldn’t afford my own driverless car, but I could afford SuperUber.
I slid into the leather seat and the scissor door automatically closed.
“Logan! I haven’t seen you in forever, babe!”
The sexy blonde on the variable-opaque Heads Up Display smiled at me like she was an ex-girlfriend who wished we’d never broken up. Like the MTMN, she was just an AI. She had a 3D face, but she was still just software.
That didn’t make her any less annoying.
I wanted to turn her off, but that wasn’t an option.
Anyone who rode a SuperUber was stuck with their own personal avatar. The avatar was highly customized because, you had to give SuperUber your name and bank info. That led them to your personal info, which they used to raid your Tinder account so they could run facial recognition algorithms to see who you were attracted to. All totally legal. Thanks to privacy deregulation in the late 20-teens, every major corp could buy any info they wanted about you.
In other words, Candice was exactly my type. Blonde hair, blue eyes, full lips. And she was on-trend, wearing that new aqua-blue lipstick I kept seeing lately on the women who came into Opal. Hated it, but Tinder didn’t know that.
As long as Candice wasn’t talking, she was gorgeous and incredibly realistic. But the second she opened her mouth, the illusion fell apart. The giveaway was speech. The audio always had some kind of slight emulation artifacting that didn’t sound 100% human. Worse, the lip and tongue movements never quite matched the audio. To me it was like watching a rubber puppet talk. Of course, it was a statistical fact that something like 33% of kids under 12 couldn’t tell the difference between real and an avatar (that number was growing by the year), and 22% of adults couldn’t either. But I could.
“Hey, Candice,” I muttered, trying to be polite.
“Everything okay, Logan?” Candice’s concern was obvious. And obviously fake.
“No, I’m fine.” I wanted to tell her to shut up, but I wasn’t going to risk it.
“Having a bad day?”
“Thanks for asking, Candice.” Yes ma’am, no ma’am, anything you say ma’am. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“No problem. Where to?”
“The State Department. Downtown.”
“On our way,” she smiled. The car accelerated into traffic.
Why was I such a pussy with an AI avatar? I’ll tell you. If you didn’t treat your SuperUber chauffe
ur nicely, it would respond like any person would. I’d learned the hard way. When Candice thought I was being rude, she’d take the long way and charge me more. Once, for some unknown reason, I pissed her off on my way home from work one night. She got lost on purpose. Took me three hours to get home instead of the usual 20 minutes. And she wouldn’t open the door so I could get out and walk. Said it wasn’t safe. Total control freak, if you ask me. But shit like that was the tip of the iceberg. I’d heard a story about a dude whose AI fell in love with him and the dude made the mistake of screwing his wife in a SuperUber in front of his AI. Sex in a SuperUber was breach of contract, but the dude didn’t know or didn’t care. Apparently, dude’s AI got super jealous one night and refused to take the dude and his wife to their kid’s high school graduation. And called the dude’s wife a bitch. Oh, and did I mention the dude’s AI was a male AI named Rinaldo? Yeah, SuperUber bought that info off Grindr. The dude’s wife loved finding out about her husband’s secret gay lifestyle from an AI. Rinaldo told her all about it. Dude tried suing SuperUber, wife did too, but SuperUber had a million lawyers and the case went nowhere in civil court.
I’d never had anything that bad happen to me because I’d learned my lesson. Now I always kissed Candice’s ass every time I saw her. And I never picked up a date in a SuperUber. Ever.
She smiled, “Would you like a commercial-free ride, or are you doing commercials today?”
I scowled, “Commercials.”
“Are you sure? The trip to the State Department will only cost $159.99 if you go commercial-free.”
Jesus. The monorail ride and a walk would’ve only cost me $7.99. But I didn’t have time to wait. I sighed, “How much if we go with commercials?”
“$39.99. But you don’t sound too happy about the idea, so I checked your bank. You can afford commercial-free.” She smiled big, trying to get me to pay the premium while pretending she didn’t have her arm all the way up my personal business.
“No, thanks. I’ll suck up the commercials.” It drove me crazy that big corps like SuperUber could check your bank balance so easily. They ran an algorithm based on your balance, spending habits, time of year, and then made budgetary suggestions like this.