Versim

by Curtis Hox

  “You heard me.”

  The words had been implanted in her before they’d begun the Rend-V. It was the first trigger of her awakening. She could still ignore the truth, if she chose. And he would have to help her find her alarm clock … and make her activate it.

  The words of Miesha Preston came back to him in an instant: What I’m asking you, Specialist Cole, is to wake up the host of The Collides Rend-V. Can you do that for me? Wake up the host? One way or another

  Sweat beaded on Celia’s forehead. She blanched.

  Hark moved to her side.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s not easy.”

  He’d been present for several awakenings. Those were sometimes solemn affairs, sometimes joyous, sometimes traumatic. This was a fully working world with millions of individuals who’d had lives for two decades. Each one would push to keep her from waking.

  “I once dreamed … that I was someone else,” she said. He waited to let her speak. “What are you saying?”

  “You, ma’am, are a woman with a world-building mind. You like to read as a child?” She nodded. “I did too. And all of this is because of you.”

  She didn’t scoff or quip or snort. She stared at him.

  “Look around, Mrs. Preston. Do you see anything odd?”

  Her eyes slowly scanned across the kitchen. She stopped at the refrigerator. Hark turned. Pinned behind a magnet was a photo of Celia, maybe as a young girl. She was at the beach, wind blowing in her hair, a huge smile on her face.

  Celia stood and rounded the counter in such a way she looked like she floated. She walked straight to the photo and grabbed it. She stared at it, and Hark saw the dawning complete. Celia looked up at him, the dream world already fading. Now, all she needed to do was one more step: activate her parachute so that she could wake up.

  Don’t faint.

  He moved close to catch her if she passed out.

  She held onto the counter, but she began to teeter.

  He picked her up.

  He carried her to her bedroom and laid her down. She was weeping, as if she’d remembered some long lost memory.

  He glanced at her once to make sure she was all right, then shut the door.

  Binda was standing in the living room, holding his kit. “She knows now?”

  “She’s beginning to feel it,” Hark said. “You should use your parachute. Get out while you can.”

  “They’re really trying to kill her?”

  “The person who tricked me into this wants a disaster. She wants her favorite construct to be granted legal right to live in reality, plus a whole bunch of other twisted desires. And she’s going to flip this V so that he can show off. For some reason I have to wake up Celia before she’s killed inside.”

  “Who?”

  “Ever heard of Miesha Preston?”

  “The bleedover director?”

  “The very one.”

  “You’re in big trouble.”

  “She’s connected and determined. And she’ll sacrifice this world and her mother to make her point—”

  “—that some constructs should be granted legal personhood?”

  “That’s it. She a grand hypocrite. Get out, Binda.” Hark looked around the room. “Where’s your parachute?”

  “I’m staying.”

  “Krista put you up to this?”

  “She did, but it’s my choice. This is an opportunity of a lifetime. They’ll pull me out before a real death. I signed for it.”

  “That only works under normal circumstances. But if the host goes, they’ll be too many insurance policies activating. It’ll crash the system.”

  “We all die?”

  “Everyone.” Hark retrieved his kit. “Help me with him.”

  Frankie lay in a stupor on the couch, mumbling to himself.

  Binda put a pillow under his head and sat next to him. She crossed her legs, her miniskirt barely hiding all her parts, but Hark looked away before she saw. He knelt by Frankie.

  “Poor guy’s brain’s about as dry as can be. Synapses been firing overtime.” He swiped his hand over his kit. “Give me a mood booster to counteract dopamine and serotonin depletion.”

  He felt the box hum. He set it on a coffee table holding several hotel magazines. Cobalt laser tendrils popped out of the box and lit on the magazines. They ranged back and forth and ate away, repurposing their molecular material.

  “It’ll just be a minute. Drugs are easy to compile.”

  Binda had obviously seen enough of these back home. They were quite common, if you had the money. Most homes had regulated molecular assemblers. You could use licensed templates, so long as you didn’t abuse them. As a boy he’d once tried to build his own girlfriend based on a fabricated woman in an old pre-Rupture film, Weird Science. He’d spent six months on the template. Within a minute of starting the fabrication, his box sent a warning to its manufacturer, and he got a visit by the authorities.

  Two small pills appeared a few inches from the box, light caressing them with a few final passes.

  “I got it,” Binda said. She put the pills to Frankie’s mouth. “Take these.”

  He swallowed dry.

  Binda glanced over her shoulder at Celia’s room. “How long will she be out?”

  “Not sure. It’s a slow process waking up when you’re a host. Right now she’s experiencing a dissolution of who she is.”

  “You’re the big hero on this one, aren’t you, Specialist Cole? Everyone here is counting on you, aren’t they?”

  Hark continued to smile as Binda got it all wrong.

  She was a little thing, with those big eyes and funky hair. She was smart, he could tell, probably had some sort of intellect package her parents bought for her before she was born. And she thought he was here to save the Rend-V. She had figured out Celia was under house arrest because she was a target. Binda hadn’t asked who or what was coming for them. She probably figured it was something bad. And here was Hark, hero extraordinaire, to save the day.

  Dammit, if she didn’t realize he was here to save the life of a boy and woman in another Rend-V because of a goddamn promise. And he was here because someone had a beef with him for arresting a favorite villain. And he was here to be made an example of for political reasons. I’m here because of my own sense of duty, he thought, and I may have to kill you, Binda, and Frankie, and Celia to keep my word.

  “Let’s let him sleep. Can you do something for me?”

  Binda perked up. “Anything.”

  “I need another set of clothes. Run downstairs and buy me some. And I need to contact someone. Frankie is out of commission for a little while. You can help.”

  “Sure thing.” She smiled at him in that way the innocent smile at the mighty. “My hero.”

  21

  Celia stood by the floor-length windows that overlooked Broadway. She had to clear her head after feeling faint. Hark had brought her some more juice, then left her alone. He was in the bathroom, cleaning up. She grasped the cool glass in both hands as if it might slip through her fingers. She sipped, letting the citrus tickle her lips. Outside, the world as she had always known it busied itself with early morning activity. She wanted to walk out of the hotel and go for a walk.

  Something unreal was happening that made her want to scream.

  First the call from her sister that she was in danger, and then the arrival of her bodyguard.

  Too many events had transpired after that, each one sending her further from a place of comfort. Then, last night, she had a strange dream, a thousand voices, each one distinct, each one with a request. She woke up remembering the dream, something she never did. She hadn’t thought it unusual that she couldn’t remember any dream she’d ever had until last night. And out of the cacophony of voices, one stood out, a towering presence that wanted … she tried to focus on the dream, tried to remember.

  She almost let the glass of juice slip through her fingers.

  She set it down on the windowsill because her hands sho
ok.

  Something about a library …

  Celia remembered the voice in the dream wanted her help in securing a library. She shook her head to clear it. Don’t worry, she told herself, the stuff of dreams are just … the stuff of dreams. But the odd lyric that Hark had said to her felt like an auger driven deep into her mind, unraveling it, heightening the feeling that the dream she’d had last night was important, that the world around her wasn’t as it seemed.

  She felt her heart in her chest beating, felt a rising heat in her body. She steadied herself against the glass window. The panic attack was less intense this time. Her knees didn’t feel empty. She could carry her weight. She told herself to breathe and to focus on a random woman on the sidewalk with the pink parasol and the lovely sequined pumps that glittered in the sunlight. That was her world. Right down there. No matter what else happened, she told herself, she wouldn’t forget it.

  Then an image of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue formed in her mind. She saw the lions, and the stone steps, the wide facade, the mighty ashlars. She had walked by it many times. But … it was different now.

  A fortress …

  Celia had to sit back down.

  She did so just as the hotel door opened.

  Binda walked in carrying a few bags.

  Celia laid her head down, closed her eyes, and tried not to hyperventilate.

  22

  Binda set the bags down and hurried over to Celia. The woman sat on the couch, eyes closed, one hand on her head. She was pale, as if all the blood had drained into her legs and couldn’t find its way back up.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Celia shook her head, eyes still closed. “Just give me a minute.”

  Binda heard Hark in the other room talking to Frankie. The two of them seemed like they were becoming fast pals. Binda was happy for Frankie, although she knew she had a few charms he lacked. If this was to be her big chance to become a true Rend-V actress, she had to be committed. She was willing to play whatever part they wanted. She just hoped it would keep her close to Hark. In fact, she hoped for alot more than that.

  “It’s tough, I bet,” Binda said, “waking up.”

  Celia opened her eyes for a second, nodded once, then shut them again. “Waking up … I guess that’s what this feels like.” Celia stood, suddenly. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She rushed to the restroom.

  Binda wandered over to the door to Hark’s room and deposited the large bags. “I’ve got your clothes.”

  The door cracked. He stood there in his skin-tight Consortium Skinsuit like some perfect ideal of rugged masculinity. He smiled, and she smiled back.

  “I hope you were kind,” he said.

  “You’ll look good.”

  She handed the bags to him.

  He smirked, accepted them, then shut the door.

  She’d almost suggested she could help him try them on.

  She stood in front of the closed door, hands on hips as if she might will it back open with an evil stare. She looked around the room, knowing she was at the center of things. Right now, millions of viewers were in their living rooms, in pubs, on trains, in parks or in hives, watching Collides from a million different angels. They could control the POV as if they were camera operators. Most of them would be zooming in on the action surrounding Harken Cole. That meant most of them were probably watching her getting denied right now.

  She’d entered the V as a paying customer outside the drama. Her parents were connected and rich and paid to have her genoscript captured. Her essence had been scanned and processed. EA had husked her a body in-V and readied it for her. The day she went to the immersion facility, she didn’t hesitate when they gave her a vat suit. She put it on, then the goggles and the ear and nose plugs and climbed into the liquid-filled cylinder.

  The last thing she remembered was how warm it was before she woke up in a bed in her new apartment in the West Village. As an embodied individual in-V, she wasn't supposed to have any contact with the principals. That was why she was allowed to stay awake. But she’d been recruited. And now she was crossing over into the drama. Her keen sense that the world was watching made her self-conscious, but she was already shaking that off.

  A good Rend-V actor knew that the viewers were the least of her concern. EA offered another level deeper for paying customers. You could actually immerse yourself in the narrative as a rider. This was a simple as using VR equipment to login to whatever principal you’d subscribed too. Right now, people experiencing this very moment as if they were she. They were probably in a VR room, or lying sedated on an immersion couch. They were hooked up to an immersion system that allowed their minds to experience what she was experiencing, or what Hark was experiencing, or Frankie. The riders were the real driving force behind the success of a V. When they left their immersion session they were the most vocal fanboys and girls. She probably had her own booster coalition by now.

  She had made the leap from a fully immersed individual living in-V to an awake principal. She had no idea how long they’d let her stay awake. Hark was awake. Frankie was coming to understand what he was, as was Celia. All the normal rules were being broken.

  On the other side of the door, Hark began to laugh. Binda smiled. He’d seen his clothes. He had no choice but to wear them.

  23

  Hark and Binda rode an elevator to the top floor of the hotel.

  He snarled as he glanced at the clothes she’d bought for him: a wide collared, long-sleeved shirt colored a glitzy bright azure with patterns repeated into endless fractals. The lean-cut denim pants were close-fit but flared at the bottom. The leather boots looked like something a country music fan might enjoy. His hands were bare, and the armor gone from his suit. He flexed them, just in case. In a moment, the suit could reform to full capacity

  “What are we doing, again?” Binda asked.

  He kept his eyes straight. Since she was so much shorter than him he’d be staring at her open cleavage, which—he knew for a fact—was much more on display now than before. She’d also bought a new skirt, this one tighter than the other, and had put two baby-doll clips in her indigo hair. He could tell she was staring at him, smiling even.

  “You have a girlfriend, Specialist Cole?” she asked.

  “You have a boyfriend?”

  “No one special.” She inched closer to him. “You in the market?”

  He grinned back at her. “So, Binda, you’re sweet and all that, and as much as I’d love to get to know you—”

  She leapt into the air, wrapped her legs around him, arms snaked around his neck, and planted her lips on his. Hark kissed back, of course, because it would be rude not to. He held her with one hand, the other hand running fingers through his own hair as he figured out what to do next.

  “Binda …”

  She slapped her lips back onto his and began probing his mouth with her tongue.

  And just before he thought he might have to give in to her amorous desire, she jumped off him with a smile. She wiped saliva from her chin. She turned to face the elevator door as it opened.

  Hark watched her exit first. He stood riveted for a second, damned if he wasn’t staring at her with all the wrong intentions. That was the second time in two days he’d watched a woman walk away from him without doing anything about it. He exited the elevator into an empty corridor with evenly spaced hotel room doors and told himself to stay clear headed.

  “We’re looking for a long drop,” he said. He led her to a stairwell doorway in a niche. He opened it and stepped in. Switchback stairs descended. “Fifty floors to the bottom.”

  “I’m not walking down …”

  “No need.”

  Hark withdrew a few quarters from his pants pocket. He’d snagged them from Frankie’s bag.

  Hark found the narrow open space between the flights of stairs that allowed him to see all the way to the bottom. It wasn’t even four inches wide.

  But wide enough to drop some change …
/>   “It’s so nice that you’re awake,” Hark said. “Not a problem for you to see this. It’s a trick of the trade, as we say. Like dialing home.”

  He eyed the open shaft down the narrow well and dropped the coin. Inertia took it as far as it could before it banged off one of the railings.

  “That was a big enough fall,” Hark said, stepping back. “It’ll work.”

  A far away whistle sounded, like a train in the distance. It grew louder, and louder. Binda edged closer to Hark. Hark couldn’t resist and put his arm around her. A blast of carmine-tinged light exploded out of the opening between the flights. Before them, no bigger than a basketball, a globe of blood-red pulsing energy rotated.

  “What is this?” Binda asked.

  “Backdoor access.”

  “Neato.”

  “We’re automatically dampened when one of these arrives. So no one sees us access it.”

  Hark approached the globe, then stuck both hands inside. The globe bulged. He then withdrew his hands, pulling tendrils of energy with him; like a painter flinging paint on a wall, he slung the energy into a rectangular shape. He muted his HUD to not mix signals.

  “How did you get inside, Specialist Cole?” The face in the window looked like a high-level Voxyprog official. He was clean-shaven with a button-down shirt and tie.

  “Listen,” Hark said, “I’m not trying to screw anyone here. I’m trying to help. I’d like to report a critical danger to the integrity of this Rend-V.”

  “What operation?”

  “No operation.”

  “You’re acting on your own initiative? That’s what we thought.”

  “Yes, but it’s complicated. I’m being manipulated here. Who are you?”

  The man in the window continued to glare. “I’m the guy who’s been waiting for you to contact us and who’ll decide if your ass is retired when this is over.”

  “I want to talk to an EA rep.”

  “You talk to me.”

  “Look, you Voxyprog suit. I don’t work for you. Tell your Sersavant cogno-pricks that if they don’t want to see this work of technoart go down in flames, to listen to me. And let me access Magdalena.”

  The slightest hint of trepidation rippled across the man’s face. He glanced up, as if others in whatever communication room he sat in were listening.