“How are you going to get to Chinatown?” Frances asks.
“The way I always get to Chinatown – hail a taxi!”
“Will that work?”
“Never fails,” I say as I lift my hand into the air.
~*~
“Fare is double right now, Mac,” the taxi driver says as soon as I close the door. He lifts off as stray Reapers’ bullets ding into the cab’s bodywork.
“Normally, I’d toss you out of the cab and take it for a spin anyway,” I tell him in my gruffest, most Loopest voice.
He flinches; I can see it through the reflection in his rearview mirror.
“But seeing as how you’ve just picked me up in the middle of a warzone, I’m going to agree to your demands. Hell, I may even give you a nice, fat tip. Chinatown, and goose it.”
“You got it, pal.”
It rains; it always rains here. The Loop without lightning and rain is like North Korea without famine and stupid haircuts – it just ain’t right. Gumdrop-sized plops of rain smack against the windshield of the taxi as it speeds through the air; lightning cracks and thunder rolls, which adds a sense of foreboding to the already looming disaster metastasizing on the horizon; the churches turn out the fiends for the night as they shut their doors; the bars roll down their blast shutters and the winos stumble into the streets in search of pro skirts; the place that was already a rat-infested shrine to the unscrupulous has finally taken notice.
True to his word, the driver makes it to Chinatown in record time. He drops me off in front of the sushi place and I’m just about to turn up the stairs when a shooter in full battle rattle backs around the corner, firing as he comes. He pulls the pin on a frag, lets the spoon go, lobs it around the corner and turtles up.
‘Ere, ‘ows that then, ya sodding lot of poncing poofters!” Burly stands, angles his L7A2 around the corner and fires half a belt; links and empties pile up around his feet, which are clad in pink bunny slippers. He ducks back around the corner as a torrent of return fire chips away at the corner. “Ya ‘eard me now you bloody wankers! Coming inta my city and tryin’ to … ” His eyes find me. “Quantum?”
“What the hell’s going on?” I ask. “And nice slippers, by the way.”
The pink bunny heads look up at me and snarl.
“Eh, they’re comfy. Battle all over the damn place. Reapers came and they detonated a source code bomb. It’s bloody terrible, mate! The ‘ole place is going to go up in smoke.”
“A source code bomb?”
Return fire sprays against the wall. A Reaper on a Mad Max motorcycle comes ripping around a corner and I lay him down to sleep with my Reaper Hack.
“Ooh! That’s a nice bit o’ gear! Where’d you get that thing?”
“Long story. Look, where’s Aiden?”
“Last I saw ‘im, he was with Scarface Charlie’s register girls, trying to keep the Fat Slags and the leather-clad Nancy-boys from getting any further into Chinatown.”
“Where was that?”
“Near the Chinese Grocery,” he says. An explosion a ways off sends twisted rebar, brick and glass into the air. “A sly dog ‘e is … Aiden was waiting for those ladies with flowers and liqueurs once they respawned. ‘E’s got ‘em all on ‘is side now, ‘e does.”
“I can’t say that I’m proud; I can’t say that I’m disappointed. And Dolly?”
“No one ‘as seen ‘er since all this started. Bloody ran off on us by the looks of it.”
I glance up at her flat. The light that usually illuminates her red curtains is off.
Burly wipes a streak of blood off his check. “What’ll it be then? You fighting with us or you going after the girl?”
“Which do you think?”
He turns back to the battle. “Same thing I’d do, laddie buck. Don’t worry about the Reapers. We’ve been ‘olding ‘em off and we’ll continue to do so. Fight like a bunch of overweight Girl Guides if you ask me.”
~*~
I’m up the stairs leading to Dolly’s in seconds flat. No schoolboy act this time, no thinly-veiled pizza delivery guy classic porn setup – just me and just her. Another explosion in the distance; the huge yellow orb of energy consuming the city shows no signs of slowing down. It’s currently near the area of the city that I called home for two subjective years. If I had time to mourn the Mondegreen Hotel I would.
Another knock.
“Dolly, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m coming in!”
I shoulder through the door and spill out into her flat, nearly face-planting on the carpet. My eyes move from her Picasso to her stove to her armoire – nil, nothing, nada. No sign of the NVA Seed, no sign of a struggle.
“Where?” I slap my hand against my forehead. “Of course!”
I kick out the door, bolt to the streets below. My hand comes into the air; no taxi this time. I scroll to my flare gun, item 24. I let one go and a taxi drops a minute later.
“Where will it be, bub?” he asks as I hop in behind him.
“The Badlands. Fast or my stomper goes in your ass and your ass goes out the window. We clear?”
“Yeah?” he says, giving me the Robert De Niro head tilt. “What do you think my little friend has to say about that?”
He brandishes a cowboy gun with a barrel nearly as long as a cat’s tail. Item 71 comes in my hands, my eel leather belt with a custom-made, solid silver QH monogram belt buckle. I activate AA, toss the belt around his neck, catch the other end, and throw all my weight backwards. His larynx and trachea crush just about the same time his neck breaks, and he’s gone in seconds. I get out the back and drag him out of the front. In the driver’s seat now, I add his Ruger Vaquero to my inventory list, item 575.
Chapter Eighteen
That gal don’t fool around with white picket fences or ‘If You Can Read This, You’re In Range’ signs. A wall large enough to keep the Mongols out protects the vacation home that Dolly built from the rest of The Badlands. I’ve already crashed the taxi into the Great Wall of Dolly to no avail; the smoldering hunk of machinery barely chipped the thick wall.
“Damn, Doll,” I say as I stand before the barricade.
With no entrance in sight, and a big sphere o’ death sucking the life out of the only place I really feel at home, I equip a weapon I’ve never actually used before to cut a hole big enough in the wall to slip through.
Item 459 appears in front of me. The Reason Railgun is too big to take on vacation. Its rotary cannon is mounted to a large, wheeled ammunition box that’s also attached to a harness. The railgun fires depleted uranium flechettes, a testament to both Stephenson’s imagination and quality nuclear physics courtesy of Dirty Dave.
The harness over my shoulder, I wrap my hand around the black grip and pull the trigger. The whole thing is surprisingly anticlimactic – I can feel the magnetic pulse in the iron in my blood when the weapon discharges, but that’s it. No flash of flame, no smoke, no whopping great explosion when the flechettes impact the wall and sail through like it’s not here. I’m not skilled enough to spell out STEAMPUNK IS DEAD, and in too much of a hurry to do more than blast out a Quantum-sized mousehole.
I dive through the hole, shoulder roll to my feet and dust off my pants. A light’s on inside the cabin – someone’s home.
~*~
I knock once. “Dolly, it’s me!”
No time to wait for an answer, I let myself in using my lock pick, item 5.
“Dolly!”
She’s on her side, lying on the floor in the red dress. Her hair covers her face.
“Babe, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, Quantum. How could you?” she says without looking up.
My heart drops, my blood runs cold, my fingers twitch.
“How could I … what?” I ask, swallowing hard.
“I know about you and … her.”
“Frances?”
If it wasn’t already clear, I sure as hell just gave it away.
“I’ve seen … I’ve seen what you
did, where you were last night.”
“You … what?”
The bar. My hotel room.
“How? What did you see?”
“I saw.”
“How?”
“I showed her.”
A wave form ripples behind Dolly. As if he were parting the curtains of reality, Strata Godsick steps into the room. He’s in a black cloak, deer skull mask on his face and no red here’s your target jewel on his chest.
Two subjective years in The Loop taught me a number of thing, not the least of which is don’t let ‘em see you draw your weapon; I access my inventory list from behind my back. Item 33, stag-handled Bowie knife sprouts in my fist.
“Put your toys away.” Godsick’s voice is surprisingly mild for a super villain. Sure, it’s mechanized like all the other Reaper’s voices, but it is also a bit higher than I would have expected, especially after seeing him in his Eyes Wide Shut accoutrements. “I am destroying this world and you brandish a knife?”
“I want to look in your eyes as I cut your heart out.”
I sense that he’s smirking at me under his mask. “You’ve always been a fool, Quantum. Since the day we met in Infected Zero.” I can see the sky through the window over his shoulder, a swirling, churning, apocalyptic, Old Testament Armageddon-style skyscape as the source code bomb sucks this world up into it. I know my friends are waging a Stalingrad-style house-to-house delaying action; I know something end-of-the-world bad is happening to my home away from reality, I know that there isn’t much I can do at this point. My eyes dart from Strata to my Bowie knife. Yes, a stupid weapon. Still, old habits die hard.
With my other hand still behind my back, I quickly scroll through my list and stop on my Reaper Hack, 571. I don’t equip it yet, but it may come in handy.
“It seems as if we both have something to trade, Quantum,” he says.
“It’s a bit early for Secret Santa,” I tell him, “and I’m not giving you shit.”
He looks to Dolly. “You don’t seem to be in a bargaining position, old friend.”
“Why have you done all this? Why are you doing all this?” I ask him, seething. “We created the Dream Team to help people and you, you’re killing the people that we once tried to save!”
Godsick is quiet for a moment, a long moment, long enough for me to move closer to Dolly. “Please, Doll, let’s talk about this later. Please, baby, do your Witchblade thing and filet this son of a bitch.”
“It’s very simple,” Godsick says, still at ease, standing the way a self-satisfied, tenured professor would stand in front of his class of adoring first-year students.
“Nothing in life is simple, virtual or otherwise.”
“Simple – I’ll stop the source code bomb if you tell me where my son is. This,” he waves his hand out the window, “was your home for eight years. This,” two fingers go to Dolly, “is still her home.”
“You piece of–”
“–Tell me where my son is and I will save your world, for both you and her.”
Dolly has propped herself up on an elbow, her body facing Strata Godsick and her hair still hanging over her face.
“Dolly?”
“She’s not in a speaking mood, Quantum, especially since you’ve been cheating on her.” Godsick clears his throat. “What will it be? My son’s location for your world, her world. Now.”
“Tritania,” I blurt out. “He’s in Tritania! Somewhere. I dunno where!”
~*~
Strata Godsick turns to the window, takes in the carnage with a single deep breath. There’s no time to process what I’ve just done, to contemplate how the Reapers will affect Tritania. I’ve just sold out an entire world and all I can think about is what I’m about to do next, and how I’d better not miss.
“As I said before, Quantum, you are a fool. A trusting, trusting fool. Goodbye, and enjoy watching your world implode.”
Shows how much he knows – I learned long ago not to trust anyone in The Loop, regardless of whether or not they’re just a visitor.
“Not so fast, asshole,” I say through clenched teeth.
Strata turns and looks down the business end of the Goosinator. He tries to logout; I blast him before he can finish the gesture.
“You’re mine now,” I say as his form disappears. “Mine.”
~*~
I got him.
I zapped the sonofabitch and his location is ours now; the Dream Team is closer to victory than it’s ever been, but the guilt I feel replaces the overwhelming sense of accomplishment twisting through my digital bones. Dolly looks at me with hurt, mournful puppy-dog eyes and reaches up to me.
“Doll, I know I’ve screwed up,” I tell her, “and I know that nothing I can say will make it right, but right now we need to figure out how to disable the source code bomb. Now is the time for us to save The Loop. You can be angry all you want, hell, you can ignore me for the next two months, but if we don’t do something … ” I swallow. The glowing sphere in the distance finishes my sentence – everything is coming apart at the seams.
“There’s no way to disable it; it’s consumed too much and grown too big. There’s only one thing I can do now.” She puts her arms around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder. I drop both my Reaper Hack and lucky number 33; they disappear before they hit the ground. Dolly’s eyes finally lock onto mine. “This is it,” she tells me.
“What do you mean?”
“This is it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her eyes flash orange.
~*~
We appear on a rooftop in Chinatown, and it’s very apparent that the end is extremely nigh. The orb consuming The Loop has grown; yellow flares cascade along the outer rim of the source code bomb like a bad 1950s sci-fi special effect. Dolly drops her arms from my neck to her sides and levitates away from me.
“What are you going to do?” I call up to her. “What about the others, Aiden, the Brits, everyone?”
She smiles a sad little smile that clenches at my heart. Chef, the Saucier, Croc, Cid the bartender, Jim the doorman, the six Brits, Dirty Dave and finally Aiden populate the rooftop.
“Quantum,” he says with true fear in his eyes.
“I don’t know what to do!” I tell him as Dolly moves higher into the air.
“She’s going to do it.” He covers his mouth with his hand and frowns.
“Aiden, help me, please!” I step to the rooftop’s ledge. “Dolly! Don’t!”
“It’s the only way,” Aiden says, touching my arm. His eyes flicker orange and an overwhelming sense of shame rolls through me.
“What about … Frances and the others?”
“They’ve just logged out.”
“I saw to that,” Dirty Dave says, stepping forward.
“So what about you?” I ask. “All of you?”
Scotty says, “She left us a gateway, ya know.”
“To where?”
The Brits step aside to reveal the door to room 406 at the Mondegreen Hotel – my room. An indicator appears above the door, flashes the letters KNCM. Scotty opens it to reveal a field of close-cut stubble, blue sky and a few wispy clouds.
“Tritania?”
Aiden says, “We’re going there. As a member of the Knights of Non Compos Mentis, I can invite others to our guild.”
Scotty and the others file in.
“What about Dolly?” I ask, choking back tears. She’s moved closer to the sphere, her hair streams in front of her as the source code bombs sucks in everything; an angel in a red dress embracing her dissolution. “Why can’t she come? Invite her!”
“Not my choice.” Aiden’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“Well that’s bullshit! I’m getting her! I’m … I’m going to … Yes! I’ll equip my steam powered jetpack!”
My life bar drops to just twenty percent. I don’t even have to glance down to see Aiden’s Slice Bang protruding from my body.
“I’m sorry, but it’s better this way,” he says
with Dolly’s voice. “Go to your real girl in your real world.”
“Please … No!” I scream, my vision flashing red. Dolly is directly in front of the sphere and all I can do is stand here like a shish kebab.
“Please!” I push my hands against the tip of Aiden’s blade, try to push it out; my life bar drops another five percent. “Please!”
“I’m sorry, Quantum.” Dolly’s voice from Aiden’s lips; the last thing I see before my avatar expires is her silhouette vanish into the glowing sphere.
Epilogue
The next day.
Hard to move, hard to live, hard to log back in, hard to accept what has happened. In my hotel room away from it all. I’ve spent most the day on my bed, staring at the NV Visor across from me, avoiding the real world, regretting that I couldn’t do anything to stop Dolly from ...
The empty beer cans shouldn’t spell something, but they do. My filthy shirt shouldn’t mean anything, but it does. The fact that I’ve been watching The Maltese Falcon on repeat shouldn’t matter – it does. The Loop – my home for two subjective years – has been vaporized, erased, eradicated, de-rezzed.
Brooding won’t do anything about it, but it’s about all I can do at this point. And Dolly … the regret weighs heavily on my soul as it should – I deserve this, I caused this, and if I didn’t exactly cause it, I made the ending that much worse by my actions.
A message from Frances Euphoria burns across the inside of my eyelids reminding me that the future boils down to distraction management – you’re either good at it, or you’re getting better. The real world is one end of a seesaw; virtual dreamworlds the other. I put pressure on one end and it sends the other sky-high. I may never find a balance and I didn’t much mind this before – the loss of Dolly has changed everything.
Another message, this one from Doc, the Dream Team’s Cyber Warfare Operative.
Doc: Okay Princess – you stuck it where you shouldn’t have, betrayed an NPC friend, had a major loss, and you’re feeling really, really bad for yourself. I got it. Time to pull up your skirt, put on your big girl panties, and get back with the program.
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