“Holy shit.”
I open my eyes and give myself a little fist bump. It’s not a great wall. It honestly looks like a safety violation, but I don’t care so long as it keeps Dr. Brooks on the other side.
“Okay, so that was super bad ass and all, but now we’re trapped between two brick walls.”
I wink at him, feeling cheeky with my newfound power. “Only if you don’t have the ability to bend your own reality.” I lift a hand and imagine the first, very solid brick wall is nothing but children’s toys. The soft foam bricks that babies stack and knock down with glee. When the image is solid in my head I make a fist and punch right through.
“Jesus, Viv. This whole integration thing is starting to look pretty good.”
“Sure.” I shrug, punching through more of the wall to make a big enough hole for both of us. “So long as you don’t mind the mad scientist chasing us.”
“And why is he doing that?” Grant steps through the hole, ducking to avoid the exposed bricks.
“I’m not positive, but I don’t think it’s to welcome me into the program. How valuable do you think a working AI is to a company like VALR?”
“Can’t say I’m up-to-date on the current rates for cutting-edge technology, but I’m thinking they could name their price.” Grant waits for me to pick my way over the debris to the other side of the wall.
“Exactly.”
“Now what?”
“Stairs.” I race to the end of the hallway. There are always stairs on the exterior of buildings for a quick fire escape. Sure enough, there’s a door at the end, clearly marked as stairs.
I fling open the door and freeze. Where there was once a staircase is now just a block of cement.
Grant pulls up short next to me. “Any chance you can punch through that?”
“I doubt it. Even if I could, I doubt those stairs are there anymore.” I turn to face him and it hits me in the chest just how much Grant has grown on me. In less than a month, I went from rejecting every person that even came close to entering my life to not only needing Grant, but wanting him here.
“An AI is only valuable if you can control it.” My mind whirls with this new knowledge. I should have seen it from the beginning. “A computer that can beat you in chess is awesome, but only if the computer agrees to play chess.”
Grant smiles at me. “I take it you’re not much of a player?”
“Never was a big fan.” I wink and turn back toward the hallway. “Dr. Brooks should have been a little more careful in selecting his candidates.”
“Alright, VR girl. How do we keep you from becoming the sacrificial pawn?”
I take in a deep breath and shake out my hands. “We outwit the king. And call me Butterfly.”
C:>THIRTYTHREE.exe
The hallway doesn’t leave many options. A blocked off staircase, a dismantled brick wall, and two doors. I open one of the doors into an exam room. Nothing but plain white walls and a small bed. It’s not like they were expecting more patients.
Grant jerks his head toward the other door. Inside is a small broom closet. The shelves are bare, but there is a lonely bucket and a mop.
“Why bother putting a broom closet in the VR building?”
I shrug. “I’m guessing they just followed the blueprint when they were coding in the building. It would have been easier to set it up exactly like the plan than deviating. Good news for us.”
I slam the door shut and close my eyes. Distant shouts ring from down the hall.
“Viv, not to rush whatever it is you’re doing, but you need to hurry up.”
I push the noise away and refocus on what I need the broom closet to become.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Dr. Brooks’ voice calls out from not too far away.
I open my eyes and let out a sigh of relief. The broom closet door is gone and an elevator is in its place. Reaching over, I push the button and the doors ding open. Grant and I jump in and push the button for the fourth floor.
“Viviana!”
Dr. Brooks runs into sight just as the doors shut.
“Cutting it a little close there, but seriously, it’s going to take some getting used to you altering reality.”
I slump against the mirrored wall and drop down until I’m sitting in the corner. It feels like I just ran a marathon. Or at least what I imagine that might feel like. I grin at the other side of the small elevator car. The bucket is still there with the mop resting inside.
“Are you okay?” Grant crouches down next to me as the elevator dings past the second floor.
“Yeah,” I huff out. “Just a little tired. I didn’t exactly have a training program for matter manipulation.”
Grant stands and stares at the numbers on the panel as it flashes from two to three. “You rest. We’re almost—”
The elevator shakes, tossing Grant to the floor, and then shudders to a stop.
“What now?”
“You didn’t think they’d let me get away that easily did you?” I stretch up and push the buttons on the display. Nothing happens. Not that I thought it would. “They shut us down.”
Grant stares at the door as if he could will it to open. “Can you get it moving again?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what they did to stop it.”
“Then we need to get out.”
He’s right. I’m so tired, but I can’t stop moving. Dr. Brooks will be here before I’m ready and every minute that passes inside this reality makes me more certain that staying here will only lead to an eternity of being forced to perform like a trained monkey.
I grab the handrail and pull myself up, stretching my muscles like I’m prepping for a workout. “We’ll have to pry the doors open with the broom.”
“We?” Grant quirks an eyebrow at me.
“Right.” I sigh and grab the broom. “Stay back so I don’t take your virtual head off.”
Grant nods and moves to the corner I evacuated.
I gauge the door and the handle and realize right away that I’m not going to make any progress here. I need something thin I can wedge between the door, but strong enough to hold up and not snap. Like a bladed shovel.
My shoulders sag with the thought of more manipulations, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I picture the shovel I need and the broom morphs in front of me. I didn’t even have to close my eyes this time. Maybe it is like training, and I just need to keep doing it.
I wedge the shovel into the thin crack of the doors and pull back with all my body weight. The doors slide open a bit, but it’s what I need. I lift my leg and brace my foot against the inside of one of the doors. Dropping the shovel/mop, I grab the other door and lean back with everything I have. The door opens a good two feet.
I’m able to wedge it far enough to get my back against the door with my leg braced out in front of me. I can finally see the hallway. The elevator is maybe a foot above the third floor. An easy step down.
“Alright, Grant, go.”
“What about you?”
I watch him crawl over to the opening to shimmy under my leg. “I’m right behind you.”
He drops down to the hallway, and I wait for him to scoot away from the opening. The doors will close as soon as I let go. I suck in a deep breath and hurl myself out of the elevator.
I hit the ground and roll a few times before stopping against the wall of the hallway.
“We have to keep moving.” I jump up, feeling more energized than I did just a minute ago. “Follow me.”
We rush to the end of the hallway, and I fling open the stairwell door. Thank god whatever they did with the concrete downstairs didn’t impact them up here.
“Who knew taking down a huge corporation would be so cardio heavy?” Grant winks at me as he heads into the stairwell and sprints up the first couple of steps.
“Keep laughing and we’ll see what happens.” I rush behind him. “I wonder what you’d look like with a big red clown wig?”
Grant freezes
on the stairs, and I almost run into him. He spins around and stares down at me. “Could you change me?”
“What do you…I don’t know.” I throw my hands out in exasperation. “Maybe. Why? Do you want red hair?”
“No.” Grant’s voice is a whisper. “I want to be able touch things.”
Shit. I hadn’t even thought about how being integrated might change things for Grant. I was so focused on myself I never even considered that I might be able to fix things for him.
“I can try.” I hold my hand out over his. “But if I do that, they might be able to see you. No more hiding in the shadows. If I can’t destroy the system, they would know about you, and I have no idea how Brooks might try to take advantage.”
“It would be worth it.”
I nod and close my eyes. There’s not a manual for this. Changing a broom is one thing. Making Grant a real person inside the VR is another. I imagine touching him. Placing my hand in his and letting some of his strength flow into me. I picture the hug he threatened me with. Right now that doesn’t sound as awful as it used to. It would be nice to lean on my friend right now.
Warm skin brushes mine. I jump down a step and open my eyes.
“Viv.” Grant’s voice is like a puff of air, like he’s afraid if he talks too loud it will break the spell.
I don’t have words so I reach out and grab Grant’s hand. His fingers close over mine and squeeze a little too tight, but I don’t pull away. For Grant, this is his first contact with another human in over a decade.
I look up at him through watery eyes and find I’m not the only one tearing up.
“So worth it.”
I want to stand in the stairwell and watch Grant touch everything around him, but we don’t have time. I brush away my tears with my empty hand. “Come on, now you can help instead of being dead weight.”
Grant snort-laughs. “Dead weight? I’m a ghost. What other kind of weight would I be?”
I squeeze his hand. “You’re not a ghost anymore, so let’s move it.”
We sprint up the rest of the stairs to the fourth floor, Grant’s hand never leaving mine.
C:>THIRTYFOUR.exe
We hit the fourth floor and Grant steps in front of me, grabbing the handle to the door. “Please, allow me.” He opens the door and gestures with a sweep of his arm.
“Don’t let all that power go to your head.” I step to the door and peek around the corner.
“Too late,” Grant whispers behind me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and peeks over my head.
If anyone else touched me like that, they would have received a sharp elbow to the gut. But Grant deserves every bit of contact he can get before I shut this down. If I can.
The hallway is clear so we walk out of the stairwell. “The room we want is on the other end of the hall. On the right.”
We take three steps, and Dr. Brooks appears at the other end of the hall.
“Shit.” I can’t throw up another wall. I need to get to the end of this hallway.
Grant stands next to me, and Dr. Brooks glares at both of us.
“Where did he come from?”
“Well, I guess we know he can see me now.” Grant raises his hand and waves at Dr. Brooks, a stupid grin on his face. “Hiya there, Dr. Brooks. Remember me?”
Dr. Brooks squints at Grant for a second, and his eyes widen in recognition.
Grant leans down to whisper in my ear. “Aw, he remembers.”
“Okay, knock it off. I need to get access to the system.”
“Fine.” Grant grabs my arm and pulls me toward a closed office door. “Let’s just go in here.”
As if on cue, every door near us disappears. The office doors fade into the walls around them. The only door still visible is the one I need to get inside.
Dr. Brooks waves at us from his end of the hall, smiling like a shark about to bite into its meal. “It doesn’t have to be like this. You’re already learning how to manipulate the world around you. This could be your paradise.”
“For how long?” I shout down to him. “Are you saying you’ll never force me to integrate with other programs or prance around like some dog and pony show to prove to the world you have a functioning AI?”
“AI?” Dr. Brooks laughs like I’m a precocious child. “Is that what you think this is about? Some elusive science fiction story? This is so much bigger. Way bigger than you or Grant down there. Though I am looking forward to learning more about that.”
“So what do you and the mad scientists have cooked up?”
“Eternal life.” Dr. Brooks’ eyes light up at his words. “Don’t you see what a gift you’ve been given? You never have to grow old or face illness again. You can do whatever you like. Read, write, paint, love, travel. People are going to pay handsomely for the opportunity that you’ve been given for free.”
“Why would anyone pay to be stuck inside a virtual reality?”
“Because the whole world is afraid of dying.”
“Not me.”
“No.” Dr. Brooks points at me. “Not you. It’s why I greenlit your application to VALR. You have a bad attitude, and I knew you’d give us grief if you were able to integrate. But it was that lack of fear of death that made you a perfect candidate.”
“If we walk away from here, that’s it? You just let us go, and we can live our lives?” Grant’s voice is unsteady. After spending so many years trying to get out, he’s considering staying. And I don’t blame him. Dr. Brooks paints a pretty picture.
“Well, nothing is ever free, is it?” Dr. Brooks takes a step toward us. “We need someone on the inside who can serve as an ambassador of sorts. Help the new inhabitants as it were.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I’m not exactly Miss Congeniality.
“It means your own exploration of the VR would be…limited. Once we get the program really up and running. We expect new customers to arrive regularly so you would need to be available to them, help them adjust. Teach them how to get the most out of their own world.”
And there’s the catch. People would pay for the opportunity to spend their afterlife in a paradise of their own making, but that’s not in the cards for me. I’m here to serve as a door greeter in lifestyles of the rich and recently deceased.
“Sounds a lot like an indentured servant. What exactly do I get out of this?”
Dr. Brooks looks at me like I’m a simple minded child refusing to grasp that one plus one equals two. “You, a girl who knew she’d never live past twenty, get eternal life.”
Some life. “And if I refuse to be your virtual slave?” I jut my chin out, and Grant squeezes my hand.
“Oh, Viv.” Dr. Brooks takes another step closer to us. “You have a lot of control in here, but surely by now you’ve realized that so do we. If you refuse to cooperate, we can make the rest of your eternity a living hell.”
Hell? “What about heaven? How will our souls ever get there?”
“We’re making our own heaven.”
Daddy. He promised I could see him again, but not if I’m stuck in here. Not if I spend every day for the rest of forever teaching people how to give up their souls.
I look to Grant and I can see it in his eyes. The VR is shiny and exciting on the surface, but this isn’t where we belong. Turning so my back is to Dr. Brooks, I lean up and whisper to Grant. “Stay behind me and get ready.”
Grant nods and reaches out to squeeze my hands. After avoiding contact for years, now I relish these few seconds of connection. An inconsequential passing of time, but a moment that shores me up for what we have to do.
I spin back around to face Dr. Brooks. “I have a joke for you. What do you call a woman with only one leg?”
“Viviana.”
“Nope.” I focus all my energy into the floor. “Eileen.”
Lifting my arms I imagine the hallway tipping with our end raising and the section by Dr. Brooks dipping down. Instantly the floor under us shifts.
I try to stay on my feet, but
the incline is too steep. I grab Grant’s leg and roll so we can get over to the side of the hall. I can’t see Dr. Brooks, but from his screams I have to imagine he is falling all the way down the hallway.
“We need to grab this doorway coming up.” The frame comes into view and I reach for it with my empty hand, but I’m going too fast and my fingers can’t latch on to the edge. “Grant!”
Grant reaches out and snags the edge of the doorframe, but our combined weight is stretching his fingers. I picture the floor leveling out in my mind and feel the hallway righting itself.
“Up, now,” I bellow at Grant. Dr. Spencer had to use her badge to scan us into the room, but a locked door is barely a blip on my radar now. I simply imagine the room as unlocked and it is.
We rush inside, and Grant locks the door as if that will keep Dr. Brooks out.
“Stand back.” Grant moves behind me, and I focus my mind on erasing the door. It’s not as slick as the disappearing doors the programmers pulled off in the hallway, but it works. I watch as the door shrinks down to the size of a mouse hole and then disappears. “That should hold them for a bit. Now for some light programming.”
“Viv.” Grant is standing in the middle of the room staring at one of the screens on the wall. “You should see this.”
I turn around and realize I’m looking at my room back in the real world. I’m still there. Or my body is, wasted away to nothing but skin and bones. My hair gone except that one strip of purple. If I didn’t know it was me, I might not recognize myself.
The wires and tubes are gone. No longer needed. Because I’m dead. I knew that in my head. I understood that once I integrated my body would stop. What’s a body without a soul? But it’s still weird to see myself lying there so still and…lifeless.
The door of my real world room opens. “Mama.” She walks in a stupor over to my bed. Large dark bags hang heavy under her eyes, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days. The past month has taken a toll on her body.
Ghost Code Page 15