Lizard Girl & Ghost

by Olga Werby

  I canceled on him that night and got ahold of Doc. I needed to know if he’d spilled the beans. I shouldn’t have accused him like that. I was sure…almost…that Doc would never rat me out. But he did say that he heard his mom speaking to someone about me—the Lizard Princess cool avatar me.

  So what was I supposed to do? Not go back? Never date? Lose my amazing avatar body? No, no, and no!

  But I couldn’t hang out at the happy arcade zone, not while the Evil One was looking for me. I needed to cross over The Edge—Ms. Claudia wouldn’t follow me there. There was no reason for her to. The Far Cinct wasn’t a place where dancing queens hung out, I reasoned.

  I told Doc my plan and he told me I was crazy—nice girls like me don’t go beyond The Edge. But what about cool lizard avatars like me? Where do they go? Wherever they want, that’s where. So we argued, and Doc finally relented and said that he would write some code for me. For protection. I was good with that.

  5. Three Days Ago

  Doc sent me this file named Mirror-Mirror.app. He said it was a communication tool. He would be on one side, and I would be on the other—Mirror-Mirror. Get it? He wouldn’t monitor or spy on me and Dude, but he would stand by to pull me out if I got into trouble. One minute, I’d be there, and the next, I’d be on his side of the mirror, someplace safe, in querencia.

  You obviously understand that to leave cyberspace, one usually has to go to a predefined exit. These exits are monitored for malware and such. But they are also spread out. If you’re not next to one and you get in trouble, it could be bad. Since Ms. Claudia had her spies looking for me, I had to have a way to get out in a hurry. And my winking out of existence would just make me more exotic to Dude. I figured he wouldn’t tell on me—there’s more power in knowing a secret than in telling it.

  So, armed with Mirror-Mirror, I locked myself in my bedroom again and went to meet Dude right on The Edge, away from the regular dating scene. The anticipation was exhilarating. My lizard body was pulsing with excitement—emotions and enhancements tightly linked, evidently.

  Dude tried to drag me back to that rave palace, La Chingada. Apparently, he got mucho macho points for bringing me there the other night. My awesomeness clearly had some transference property. Too bad. I didn’t really want to share, not that way. I almost agreed to go back so I could reclaim the glory for myself, but The Evil One… Not worth it. And I really wanted to explore The Edge. For all his avatar lameness, Dude was still quite a cyber specimen and I had a feeling no one would mess with us. And I had Doc, too.

  We tried to be casual, getting closer and closer to The Edge. As we got close, the world around us shifted in curious ways. The first thing I noticed was the dearth of other school kids—the giggling hordes were simply gone. And the soundscape tone shifted—there were deeper, more disjointed notes and strange wispy melodies. The boom boom boom of the rave scene receded. There was still constant background music, but nothing I recognized. It was exciting. My rhythm app was responding to the slightest changes in our environment by driving my lizard scales into ever more intense colors and pattern shifting. I was even astonishing myself.

  No one stopped us as we approached; no one questioned what we were doing there at The Edge. What to my mind was an impenetrable barrier was, in reality, nothing. Nothing at all. It was like we were just going for a uitwaaien, just a stroll.

  Deeper inside The Edge, we came across our first cyber ghost. Doc explained to me that ghosts were manifestations of programmed entities—just someone’s code written to interact with avatars of real people. They weren’t people at all. They had minimum body specs, just enough to carry a message or execute an action. They looked ephemeral, floaty, transparent, and, for the most part, lacking facial features. I guess that’s why people called them ghosts. Doc warned me to stay away from them. Some carried infections and could pass them to unsuspecting avatars. He wasn’t very specific how close or what kinds of infections, but I made Dude take a wide detour to avoid one specter floating a bit too close to us. I guess Dude was scared of them too—he wasn’t making fun of me for being so cautious.

  The Edge was a somber place. Lots of blacks and grays. The surfaces were non-reflective and had a light-sucking quality like Doc’s panther avatar. I could see where he got the idea. But farther on, beyond The Edge, things perked up again. There was a jumble of light and color and a beat. More chaotic than a rave, but still a beat. I could feel the distant rumble in my chest, my rhythm app responded to it. It was strange because I wouldn’t have thought my avatar body would resonate so much to irregular, almost completely arrhythmic, sounds. None of the girls from school described anything like this when they talked about their dates in the cyber arcade. So either I had a better-made avatar (a given), or there were more layers of programming here, enhancing the space for its users. I checked Dude out, hoping to see if he was feeling it, but he was too good at hiding all feelings. He puffed up to occupy the maximum space his avatar could fill and tried to look fierce and dangerous. I thought it was a good idea. I even went so far as sliding my arm under his for support and encouragement…his or mine, it didn’t matter.

  The cyber arcade neighborhood was laid out in an orderly way, like a grid. The streets of The Edge weren’t. They twisted and turned so there was no way to see more than a few yards ahead, no matter where you were. It would have been easy to get lost without the map app telling us exactly where we were relative to the arcade. Far. We were quite far in by then.

  I made my legs suck up the pavement pattern when we reached one. It was a strange mixture of old-timey cobblestones and cut metal with rivets. These two styles seemed to be in a constant battle for dominance. I could see the pattern boundaries shifting. It was like steampunk sensibilities duking it out with Victoriana. And my legs reflected the battle…or, perhaps, spurred it on. It was quite pretty, I thought. The top part of me was still a bright lizard green. I didn’t like the dull noir of the surrounding buildings.

  “I think we should go back,” Dude said, perhaps not for the first time. I wasn’t really paying attention to him.

  I tried to ignore Dude and act all cool, but I started to feel out of sorts too. It was like all joy was sucked out of us along with the color. It was a real effort to keep my green up. And Dude was straining with his silver and gold buckles and stuff.

  “Don’t you want to see what’s on the other side?” I asked innocently and even smiled.

  The problem was that “the other side,” The Far Cinct, was just not getting any closer. We could see the sex shops and demonic drug-enhanced parties, but we couldn’t get there. The map app wasn’t very helpful, either. It kept showing that we were just around the corner from all the action. But that corner was perpetually out of sight.

  “I think we need a key or a password or something,” Dude said. “We should have been there by now.”

  I hadn’t considered that The Far Cinct might be restricted. Doc never said anything. But then, I told Doc that we’d just hang out on our side of The Edge. But The Edge was a dud. There was nothing really there. What gives? It looked so much more interesting from the arcade. The grass is always greener and all that.

  “I can’t really hang out at the arcade,” I finally admitted to Dude. “My stepmom…you know, she’s a witch.”

  “Oh,” he said. “We could go to a private party. Invitation only kind of thing. Your stepmom wouldn’t be able to get in there,” he promised. But I think he would have said anything at that point to get me to go back.

  Ms. Evil would actually have no problems getting in anywhere she wanted—that was her superpower. I thought it but didn’t say so out loud. Besides, what kind of private party? The girls at school talked about boys doing strange sex things with their avatars at some private parties. I didn’t want to do that. It’s one thing to look sexy and exciting—that was educational—but I wouldn’t participate in anything perverted.

  “I don’t know…” I started. But he yanked my arm, still int
ertwined with his, and pulled me backward hard. I think I yelled. I wasn’t expecting Dude to get rough with me. I twisted and kicked, and he dropped me on the ground and ran. I gathered myself and got up. By then, Dude was long gone—I couldn’t even see him anymore.

  I was considering getting all pissed at him, but then I looked up and saw a large group of ghosts floating my way. They were all around me, closing in.

  “Hey there,” I said, raising my arms in supplication. “I’m just visiting. You know, nothing confrontational or anything.”

  They kept coming at me. I wasn’t sure they heard me. Were code phantoms even capable of hearing? I didn’t know. Doc said they had limited senses.

  I stepped back. And again. And again. The Edge’s streets were narrow and crooked. I had to hit a wall pretty fast… but I didn’t. I just walked backwards, herded by ghosts. This went on for a while. I called Dude for help several times, but he never replied to me. Jerk! And then I tripped and fell. My body absorbed the pattern of the pavement. No, it was more like I just became part of the pavement. And I lay there, sprawled out, watching a fright of ghosts slide over and past me.

  After a while, I picked myself up and ran to the arcade side and to the closest cyber exit.

  Doc contacted me in the middle of that night. No, I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t. I was still shaken by my experience. It wasn’t that anything bad really happened to me—other than figuring out that Dude was as worthless as a chocolate fireguard. But I was still so unsettled, I couldn’t sleep.

  “Jude,” Doc buzzed my direct cyber connection. I gave him my personal contact after deciding that we would be close. “Jude? Are you asleep?”

  “No. What’s up, Doc?”

  “Why didn’t you use Mirror-Mirror?”

  Frankly, I totally forgot about it. Duh! I could have ditched those ghosts at any time. That was dumb. Oh well.

  “Jude?”

  “I didn’t think of it. Sorry, Doc,” I said.

  “Do you still have it?” he asked.

  It was a strange question—Mirror-Mirror was just a bit of code. Why wouldn’t I have it? It was not something you could misplace or drop somewhere by accident. “Sure,” I said.

  “Check, will you?”

  He had me nervous. I rifled through my personal files on the cyber terminal. My lizard avatar with all of the add-on apps, including the cool eyes, was there, and so was my personal journal—empty, but it was there if I ever felt like writing something personal for just me, personally. But the Mirror-Mirror files—conveniently shaped like an ornate hand mirror—were missing. How could that be? My personal files were encryption-protected by my own brain frequency. I had to take action to lose them. And I hadn’t, not actively.

  “They aren’t here.” I was irritated.

  “That’s what I thought,” Doc said. I sensed a bit of panic in his voice then. And I was feeling something close to it, too. My files should have been there.

  “Where did they go?” I asked.

  “Someone took them,” he said.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But I felt it being taken,” he said. “I had Mirror-Mirror keyed to just you and me, Jude. There was no way…no way…” Doc sounded confused, upset.

  “Did someone else try to use it?” I asked.

  “I think so. I think someone was tracking you. Keeping you in The Edge.” That made sense, considering we tried and tried and couldn’t cross it. “And they took away your exit, too,” Doc added.

  “Did you see what I did to get away from the ghosts?”

  “Ghosts? No. I tried to look but I was blocked. I was only able to monitor you for a few turns into The Edge. Then you were gone from my side of Mirror-Mirror.”

  “Did Dude make it back okay?” I was uneasy. For the first time that evening, I was actually worried about the guy and not just angry with him for running away and leaving me to the ghosts.

  “Oh, he’s fine,” Doc said.

  And then, just like that, I was back to feeling angry again. Jerk. All that chivalrous stuff was just for show, like the stupid silver buckles and fake fur. Dude was a coward.

  “Did you come in contact with anyone out there?” Doc asked.

  “No, not really. There were ghosts, but we…I managed to stay away. And you just said that you’d lost me early on.” There was no point in telling Doc about my scary encounter now—the ghouls never touched me. I was almost positive.

  “Well, someone managed to steal your set of Mirror-Mirror.”

  “Hmm. Can you link up to my set still? Are the Mirrors still paired like that?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t elaborate.

  “And did you?”

  “I’m scared to,” Doc said. And he sounded like the ten-year-old boy he really was, not a giant, light-sucking black panther.

  “Then don’t do it,” I said. “Just get rid of your set. Dump it.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s just a code—”

  “I’ve plugged in.” Doc said in a rush. “I wanted to be right there for you. Just in case, you know? So I plugged in. I’m sorry, Jude. I know you told me not to spy on you. But I wasn’t sure I could be quick enough to get you out if something bad happened. So I plugged in. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Jude.” He certainly sounded very sorry. If I wasn’t so unnerved by this whole evening, I would have felt sorry for him. But I still needed to know what was going on.

  “I still don’t know what you mean, Doc,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster at the time—so not very. “And I forgive you for whatever.” It’s not like anything worth spying on happened with Dude. Dude was a dud. “Just explain what you’re talking about. What does it mean that you’ve plugged it in?”

  “It means I was there, with you. As a panther. I walked behind you until you disappeared. I was plugged into Mirror-Mirror. But I couldn’t hear you or anything. So please don’t be upset that way—”

  “I’m not upset that way, Doc. I just don’t understand. You were there?”

  “Right.”

  “And you plugged in…”

  “Right.”

  “But I didn’t plug into my side of the Mirror-Mirror.”

  “No.”

  “Okay. But then something happened?”

  “Yes. You obviously didn’t have the paired Mirror anymore, because someone else was plugged into it.”

  I took a moment to digest this. “Do you know who, Doc?”

  “No. I was too scared to look. I tried to pull out, but they had me.”

  “Are you home now?” I was suddenly scared for him. “I mean like home-home. You aren’t still wandering out there as a panther, are you?”

  “Well…”

  “You are?”

  “I can’t get back, Jude. They snagged me. And I can’t get out.” He was almost crying now. He was such a little kid.

  “Okay, okay, okay.” I tried to think it through. It was around three-thirty in the morning. It was a school night. Doc was stuck in cyberspace, in the bad part of cyberspace. “I’ll go back and get you,” I said.

  “You’d do that for me?” he asked.

  “Of course! You are officially my baby stepbrother. Of course I’d go back for you. Now, where are you and how do I get to you?”

  “I’m hiding on The Far Cinct. I can blend in, you know.”

  “I know. I can too.”

  “Really?”

  “The chameleon thing. It’s not as good as your light-sucking trick, but it’s good enough.”

  “Great!”

  “So I’ll go back and get you, and we’ll return together,” I said. I ran into my private bathroom, a safe place to plug in, and then grabbed a glass of water and stuffed a cracker in my mouth. I was starving and thirsty and tired and cranky and…and really frightened. Doc’s mood rubbed off on me. How was I going to get him out? He was far more capable in cyberspace than I was. “How wi
ll I find you?” I asked with my mouth full of wet cracker.

  “I’ll show you a dot on the map once you get close,” he said.

  “Why not now?”

  “Just come for me,” he pleaded. I figured he was worried that someone might hack him and get to him before I could. My mind was running on dread, actual and imagined.

  I plugged in and was back at our local cyber arcade. There were still a few delinquents hanging out. Their parents probably had no idea that their kids weren’t really tucked in safe and sound in their little warm beds. Well, neither was I.

  I ran towards The Edge. I tried to take the same path Dude and I took earlier that evening. I figured if Doc followed us, he would be someplace there, along our route. Unfortunately, I passed right by La Chingada, the rave club. And it was still hopping. They spotted me before I could take evasive action.

  “Hey, Lizard Girl!” a giant Godzilla bouncer stationed at the door called to me. His voice was booming, space-clearing. Instantly, dozens of people were staring at me. There was a wave of recognition, and I felt a tug—a compulsion to go inside.

  That pull flipped me out enough to snap out of it. I bolted, moving like a green blur against the neon of the party zone. I could sense people chasing me. I zigged into a dark alley. It wasn’t The Edge yet, but it had that feel. I don’t know what made me think of it, but I made my coloring black and white and fuzzed out. I tried to chameleon myself into a ghost. It wasn’t a good impression, but out here in the dark shadows, I thought it might be good enough to fool my pursuers. I stood in the gloom and waited.