Ghost Code

by Sarah Negovetich

  I’ve always done everything on my own. Grant can’t help me with the coding to wipe out the VR, but I still need to talk to him. Just knowing he’s on my team makes all of this a little easier to take in. It never once occurred to me before my coma trip that I would ever want or need someone else to talk to.

  What does is say about me that I had to die in order to make a real friend?

  C:>EIGHTEEN.exe

  Hey, Viv.”

  I click out of the screen of code I have pulled up and back onto the beta site for the new OS I’m supposed to be testing.

  Looking up, I watch my overly enthusiastic supervisor saunter over to my cubicle. “Samuel.”

  “You’ve been quiet over here.” He flashes me a toothy smile as if we’re old buds just having a good chat. He leans against the wall of my cubicle, smiling. It sends a cold shiver down my back. This isn’t real. Samuel is a simulation controlled by someone on the other side of a partition drive.

  I force a smile onto my face and remind myself that this is just a well-done video game. It’s my player’s turn to speak. “Just working hard. I want to do my part to make sure the new OS is ready for the big transfer. I owe VALR my best.” Nod and grin. Nod and grin.

  I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Samuel’s smile grows wider. “That’s why I like you, Viv. You’re going to fit in perfectly here.”

  Yeah, that’s what everyone wants. Except me. He reaches out to lay a hand on my shoulder, but I jerk away from him. Interacting with the simulation is one thing. Physical contact is something else.

  For his part, Samuel doesn’t even seem to notice. “We want you to keep up the good work, but you need to take care of yourself, too. It’s lunch time. Want to grab something together in the cafeteria?”

  I shake my head. I’d rather defrag a dozen hard drives than have lunch with Samuel. “I’m gonna step outside and grab some air.”

  “Okay, see you in a bit.” Samuel walks away toward the elevators, his role in the simulation done for now. It makes me wonder how many people are operating the sim. How much of it is on autopilot versus manually controlled? It’s impressive, really. I can almost admire what they’re doing…if not for the whole bit about VALR trying to suck my soul into a machine.

  I sit silently at my desk and wait until I’m sure Samuel is tucked safely away wherever they store inactive sims. I’ve about reached my limit for fake smiles today. Once I’m confident I won’t have to interact with him again, I head to the elevators. A bit of fresh air doesn’t sound like a bad idea. It couldn’t hurt since I’m making zero progress in finding the actual code operating the VR.

  Getting into the partition and accessing the security feeds was a cinch. Finding the programming behind the simulation is another story. It’s there. I’m past the point of doubting it anymore. But so far I haven’t found even a bread crumb trail.

  It makes sense. The coding has to be huge and massively complicated. They wouldn’t leave it anywhere where someone could accidentally access it and change the code. The game would be up if the grass randomly turned purple. Even a controller in deep denial would notice that.

  “Viv.”

  I nod at the guard sitting at the front desk and try not to wonder about who’s controlling his character right now. Maybe it’s all the same person, and they just flip between characters like an RPG player who can’t make up their mind between mage, thief, and priest.

  Pushing through the glass front doors, I squint against the overly bright sun. If I could talk to the programmers in charge, I’d tell them to turn that down a bit.

  “Controller, I need to talk to you.”

  Shading my eyes against the sun, I glance up toward the sea of black sedans to find Adam marching toward me, his blond hair reflecting back the golden rays. I roll my eyes and flop down on the bench by the front entrance. Adam stands right in front of me, scowling down. At least he’s blocking the sun.

  And now I’m officially done with people for the day. “Go away.”

  “How can you say that? Did you look up the Remnants like I told you?”

  I suck in a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “Yes, and I believe you that the program got better. Yippee, I’m not going to turn into a mindless zombie, I’m so relieved.” I don’t even attempt to hide the sarcasm.

  “I’m glad you’re ready to put all of this behind you.” He gives me a light smile. “Maybe you’d like to meet the others.”

  “Oh no.” I smile up at him, saccharine sweet. “I’m taking the whole baby down to a meaningless pile of zeros and ones. When I get done…” I spread my fingers like an explosion. “Nothing but dust.”

  Adam purses his lips. His smile disintegrates, and he glares down at me. “Why would you do that? What makes you—”

  I hold my hand up to stop him, already done with this conversation. “Grant took me to see his family yesterday. I watched him stare at them on pins and needles, desperate to say something but left with only a thirty second glance of them walking into their house. How can you want to live like that? When was the last time you spoke to your family?”

  “Not since I was the controller.” Adam sits down next to me, and I scoot over, putting as much distance between us as possible. “My family lived in North Carolina. After I got out of the fake coma, we went home, and I had twenty-eight days to see them. The whole time thinking I had the rest of forever. One night I went to bed, and the next day I woke up in the middle of a field surrounded by a dozen strangers.”

  I close my eyes and try to imagine what it would be like if I didn’t know this was fake. What if I thought I was really cured, only to have it all ripped away from me again without any warning?

  When I open my eyes, Adam is staring at me, his gaze making me squirm in my seat. “They don’t do that anymore. I guess it got too complicated creating all those new worlds every time a controller went under. Now if you aren’t local they put you up in a hotel. They tell the controller they have to stick around for a month so they can make sure there aren’t any long-term effects from the coma meds.”

  It makes sense. One big video game with new players every thirty days. The only new programming they need is the controller’s family, or whoever traveled with them to VALR. Plug someone in; see if you can get them to stick. If not, Game Over and upload a new player. It’s a sick cycle, and every time another controller gets stuck inside.

  The tiny part of me that contains a shred of empathy feels bad for him, except he keeps choosing this. He and the other past controllers could be working together with Grant to end this. Instead, they choose to do who-the-hell-knows what all day, as if this is an ideal way to spend eternity. Maybe that works for Adam, but not for me. “I have to end this. It’s not a life, wandering around the same city every day, alone and not being able to do anything. You might as well be a Remnant.”

  “The Remnants are alone, lost inside their own minds.” His words come out in a desperate rush. “But the ex-controllers have each other. Grant could be with us, too, but he refuses to join the group. Instead he lives in the past, wishing he could change something that happened decades ago in the real world. He can’t let go of his guilt, but that doesn’t have to hold you back.”

  “Wait.” I shake my head to clear it of the thoughts racing through my mind. “What guilt? He was in a car accident.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Adam laughs, the sound hollow and grating in the quiet afternoon air. “You need to keep digging, controller. Grant isn’t the selfless victim he wants you to think he is. If you don’t wake up, you could destroy us all for a lie.”

  C:>NINETEEN.exe

  Marching back into the building, I pull the door shut behind me so there’s no way Adam can follow me inside. His words are too much to process right now, and another headache is building between my eyes. Life was so much less complicated when I was just some girl dying from cancer.

  Back on my floor, I wave at Samuel but keep my head down and walk straight to my desk. I
don’t have the energy for another fill-in-the-blank conversation with whatever programmer is controlling him today.

  The new OS is still pulled up on my monitor, but my fingers freeze on the keys. What the hell am I supposed to do now? There were always instructions for my life. Eat this, take this medicine, go through this trial, make an appointment with that doctor. Even when the cancer had taken over and my life was out of control, there was always some protocol to follow. Some next attempt to get me from sick to healthy.

  But that’s all gone. There isn’t a standard treatment protocol for figuring out how to live or not live inside a virtual reality.

  I mash my hands down on the keyboard, and the screen flickers repeatedly as it tries to follow whatever commands I inadvertently gave it. After thirty seconds, it stops flickering, and the VALR participants page flashes up. The computer must have been running through my access history.

  I slide the mouse over the ‘x’ to close out of the page but stop before clicking the button. Just because Adam acted like an emotionless asshole didn’t mean he was completely full of shit. It wouldn’t hurt anything to check out Grant’s story.

  Scrolling down the page, I find his picture, though I almost missed it. I was looking for the Grant I know, goofy Chinese kid with a perpetual grin plastered all over his face. Instead I find him, Grant Wong, dressed in a black graduation robe, his mouth pulled into a tight line and his eyes staring blankly out of the photograph.

  I click on the picture and read through the brief bio. It’s the same story he told me. A car accident left him in a coma. His parents, Brenda and Stan, placed him into the VALR program so that “our son’s life could have meaning, even in his death.” Short, sweet, and nothing that would suggest Grant was lying about anything.

  Still, something niggles at the back of my head. Adam had been so serious. So insistent that I was missing some important detail.

  Closing out of the VALR OS, I open up a web browser and type “Grant Wong VALR” into the search engine.

  The first several results are public pages on the VALR website and his obituary from the local paper. Exactly what I would expect. Under that are several news stories about the accident. I click to the next page without even stopping to look. No way I want to see a picture of Grant’s mangled car.

  The next page pulls up more news stories on the crash, but a headline halfway down catches my eye: Did Bullying Cause Local Teen Death?

  I hold my breath and open the article. The same somber picture of Grant pops up on the screen, the caption listing his name, age eighteen. I let my breath out slowly as I read the first line of the article.

  The community is calling it a tragedy, but no one will call it an accident.

  Oh god.

  The fatal car crash that took the life of local teen, Grant Wong, wasn’t caused by high speeds, slippery roads, or a distracted driver. It was a direct result of years of unrestrained bullying. Investigators explained in their accident report that the brakes were never applied when eighteen-year-old Wong drove his car into a tree, going over eighty miles an hour.

  Fellow students at Archer High School describe Wong as a funny loner, but a closer look shows a different story. Grant Wong, the victim of years of bullying from his peers.

  Screen shots from his social media accounts are filled with anonymous messages calling Wong every name in the book and urging him to do everyone a favor and take his own life.

  I close out the browser without reading the rest of the article. There’s no need.

  Grant wasn’t in a tragic accident. He drove his car into a tree.

  I rub at my eyes where my headache grows in intensity.

  Suicide. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought of it myself. A person can only hear the word relapse so many times before you start to wonder if it’s all worth it. Plenty of doctors told me it was normal to have those thoughts. So much strain on my body was bound to cause mental and emotional fatigue.

  Even entering VALR was a bit like giving up. Except the only thing I had in front of me was six to eight months of wasting away with my mom in a front row seat. There was no hope, no future. I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t have a choice. And at least signing up with VALR would take care of my medical bills.

  But Grant wasn’t sick. Life wasn’t sunshine and rainbows for him, but it wasn’t locked up inside festering cancer cells either.

  Grant wanted to die.

  He still does.

  Black dots swim in front of my eyes as my headache evolves into full migraine mode. Every tick inside the almost silent building sends another wave of pain through my skull. I stand up, knocking my chair to the ground.

  “Viv, is everything okay?” Samuel pops up out of nowhere, his voice too loud in my ear.

  “I’m not feeling well. I need to go home.”

  “Of course.”

  I don’t wait for Simon to simper out any other useless words. I grab my messenger bag and rush past the elevators to the stairwell, the dark coolness helping to alleviate the nausea taking over my stomach. Rushing down the stairs, I run out of the building without saying a word to anyone. My stomach rolls, and I barely have time to make it to a low row of bushes before my stomach empties out onto the grass.

  “Holy cookie toss, are you okay?” Grant’s stupid upbeat voice rings in my head, battling against whatever is trying to dig its way out of my skull.

  “Shut up and go away.” I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and stumble toward the parking lot. Thank god my truck is easy to spot in the midst of all that black.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you hurling up your pancreas.” Grant follows behind me, his hands out as if he could catch my swaying body. “You know you’re not really sick, right? What happened in there? Did they say something to you?”

  I reach my truck and lean against the hood as another wave of nausea crests through my body. It’s like I’m physically rejecting the information I found on the computer. “Which part of go the fuck away do you not understand?”

  Grant steps back like I had physically punched him. “The part where we were friends the last time I saw you, and now you’re acting like I kicked your dog.”

  My fists clench under my pounding forehead where it rests against the rusted paint of my truck. I can’t have this conversation. This is why I’m so much better off safely tucked behind a monitor with nothing but the darkness and light green code to keep me company. No one in the deep web talks feelings or emotions. No one is really a friend, so there aren’t any opportunities for a betrayal to come back and bite you in the ass.

  “Viv?” His voice is soft, and pleading, and pathetic.

  I don’t have the energy for this, but I can’t keep my anger bottled up inside anymore. I spin around to face him, the movement throwing me backward so I’m leaning against the truck cab for support. “You lied to me. You fucking lied. There wasn’t a car accident. You drove your car into a tree and killed yourself.”

  “Viv, I—”

  “Shut up,” I shout into the empty parking lot. “Shut your stupid mouth before I shut it for you. You weren’t sick or dying. You didn’t have a broken body that rejected every medicine a dozen different doctors forced you to take. Your organs weren’t deteriorating inside you. You could have lived. Lived!” My voice echoes against the black cars as my eyes water over.

  I wipe away the tears and stare at him, hatred tinting my words. “You had everything I didn’t. Your health, money, two parents to tuck you in at night. And you threw it all away because someone said something that hurt your feelings. Well, here are some more words for you. Loser, coward, liar.” A sob chokes out of my throat. “Liar. You lied to me, and I never want to see your worthless face again.”

  I pull myself off the cab and stumble into my truck, slamming the door shut in Grant’s face. My body shakes with anger and pain, so much worse than the numbness I adopted before entering VALR. This is exactly why making friends and letting people get close is a horrible mistake. O
ne I don’t intend to keep making.

  I make it out of the parking lot, but I can’t go home. Not where another lie waits for me, trying to stuff me with sawdust-flavored tamales and Coke.

  Pulling into the choreographed traffic, I drive a few blocks down the street and swerve my ancient truck into the city park. Only a few other cars dot the lot, so I pull down to the end and park beneath an ancient elm tree that has been there since the days when my dad brought me here as a kid.

  My headache surges and threatens to knock me out, so I let it. I lie down across the lumpy bench seat and close my eyes against the pain.

  Stupid liar. This was why I don’t make friends. This was exactly why I never open up to anyone else or hope they’ll open up to me. Because in the end, everyone will let you down.

  I shift my head on my bag and let the darkness take me.

  C:>TWENTY.exe

  I open my eyes two seconds later to early morning sunshine streaming through my dirty windshield. My body aches and protests against sitting up. As much as could be expected from spending the night in the cab of my truck. I don’t allow myself to wonder how much of that is a manifestation of my expectation versus the actual reality of the situation.

  I sit up and let my head fall onto the steering wheel. My body feels like shit, but my headache is gone—so that’s something. My stomach growls, which is not surprising since I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. If you can call three bites of tamale eating.

  My phone dings from inside my bag. I scramble around and pull it out to find ten missed calls and fifty text messages. The calls are all from Mama. No surprise. She has to be worried sick that I didn’t come home last night.