by Curtis Hox
“You’re doing fine without your AI. This is a retro environment. You having your suit and kit already breaks ten versim rules, not to mention your physio enhancements. Besides, you’re illegal. No way you get her back in that state. Now, explain what you mean by ‘going down in flames.’” The man grinned as if used to hearing silly threats to the integrity of the Mindworlds.
“I believe we have a major bleedover insertion affecting this Rend-V. A complex horror scenario. I think it’s designed to try to kill the host—and do it in a spectacular fashion.”
He saw the man’s eyes widen a tad, but he was too seasoned to show more. “Horror in this Rend-V? Specialist Cole, people immerse in Collides for drama and romance. They watch principals bickering and arguing, making love and breaking up, circles within circles of silly intrigue. Nothing more. Granted, your stunt is an anomaly we’re benefiting from, but when it’s over our regulars will return to what they want. Did you really say horror?”
“Do a scan. It’s right there.”
The man looked up, as if giving a command. “What’s your role, exactly?”
“EA has a special relationship with me that I can’t tell you. But I have to wake up your host.”
“Wake her up?”
“I have to do it for EA’s own reasons.”
The man glared. “EA has no authority to wake up a host. They hire you guys and market what we build. That’s it.”
“I know. It’s complicated. Bottom line: I need help stopping the intrusion elements, otherwise you won’t have to worry about me waking her up. She’ll die in narrative and so will everyone inside.”
“Help?”
“Arrest Director Miesha Preston. Find out where her illegal host is that’s tunneling Ervé Wrighter and shut it down. That’s a starter.”
The man smiled. “That would be nice, if we could touch her. Her mother is the host—”
“I know who she is. Just arrest her.”
“What else?”
“Goddamn it. What do you think? Get everyone out. Evacuate the V.”
The officious prick smiled as if he’d just stolen someone’s lunch money. Hark saw the man’s inability to empathize as his teeth glittered in the light. Hark stepped forward, wishing he could pull the man through the window into this world where millions would die.
How many high-paying customers led to believe their insurance policies would save them would be maimed, or killed? Those who lived would be pulled from their stasis vats only to be damned to a life as a vegetable or as a schizophrenic—or, in the best-case scenario, haunted for the rest of their lives by the person they had been.
The neural scrubbers didn’t work when a Rend-V just shut down like that. The reorientation of a person’s cognitive mapping was always damaged. And since a person was experiencing life in a Rend-V, you couldn’t just rehusk a body for them. You’d have to kill them first, and there were strict laws about that.
“We can’t just evacuate,” the official said. “Your little stunt, I hate to admit, has tripled our quarterly revenues in one day. Pull everyone out? I don’t think so.”
“You’re a Voxyprog producer for Collides, aren’t you?”
The man tilted his head slightly, a sort of bow. “Specialist Cole, do … whatever it is you want to do to thwart this horror flip. But don’t further encourage our host to awaken. We already have operatives on the way to … restore her equilibrium. Can we count on you?”
Operatives.
“Contact your lead tech team and have them do a basic scan on intrusions. You’ll see what’s coming.” Hark swiped through the image, destroying the connection.
He turned to Binda. “We have to hurry.”
24
Hark activated his HUD as he sprinted down the corridor. Without Magdalena’s help, everything at speed was more difficult. He said the commands to trigger his enhanced audio as fast as he could. He felt his ear canals bulge as they filled with pressure. Then he activated his heat sensors. His HUD tiled data as the world around him blossomed into red-and-orange registers. He waited for it to finish scrolling. Magdalena would have done all of this for him in an instant.
When he arrived at his floor, he was as ready as he could be. He focused on the door handle.
Sure enough, a recent heat signature of a hand in a bright yellow patch.
Very recent.
He heard whispering coming from inside. A female talking to Celia. Two heavy breathers. Probably males. Frankie just burped. Hark doused his heightened audio and visual.
“Binda, go wait for me in the lobby.”
She must have seen the concern on his face. She backed up without a challenge.
Hark ramped up his AbSys to attack mode, felt the energy envelop him in warmth, and kicked the door so hard it slammed into the wall.
Frankie was sitting up on the couch, smiling again, no longer looking like road kill.
Celia was also sitting, talking to a woman.
Two Voxyprog personal-security thugs stood to the side. They were large men, both in suits, both with augmentation Mirrorshades. Their expressionless faces meant they weren’t used to being inside.
Hark strode forward. “Get away from her.”
Both women looked up. By the ache of concern on Celia’s face, Hark could see that she hadn’t been reversed. The other woman was tall, lean, and gorgeous—the sort of perfected human the Consortium loved to parade around as the face of enhanced society. She wasn’t Vox, for sure. Too pretty. Then who, he wondered?
“Specialist Cole, what timing. I was hoping we could avoid this.” The woman stood and began edging away, as if she might be interested in something on the other side of the room.
“Frankie, grab our stuff and wait in the lobby.” Hark saw the woman’s transmission to attack ping in his HUD. The Voxyprog thugs began to round the coffee table. “Celia, go with him.” She didn’t move. “Fine with me. You get to watch.”
“Specialist,” the other woman said, “we can talk—”
Both thugs’ carapaces activated with a snapping electric flash that would have alerted someone a mile away.
Amateurs.
Hark kicked a chair at one, forcing the man to sidestep while he deflected. At the other Hark launched himself ten feet through the air like an arrow. He crossed over the couch Frankie had been sitting on, over the coffee table, and into his target.
The explosive sound of two carapaces nullifying each other made Celia jump away in fright.
Without protection, it was time for Hark to shine. He smashed his forehead into the man’s nose, breaking it, blinding the man in tears and blood. The volley of strikes he threw were so fast and well timed, he heard six bones break: the man’s jaw, his orbital socket, a clavicle, a radius, an ulna, and, maybe, a cracked skull.
The man crumpled to the floor, nearly lifeless as his partner charged, pulling some strange device from his jacket pocket.
Hark stood still, waiting for his carapace to reactivate. The one thing these temporary Rend-V thugs never understood about the professionals was that specialists like him lived in the Rend-Vs. The Sersavant hackers could give these two thugs magical powers but they had to use them on a regular basis for them to work well. These guys looked like private security way in over their heads.
Hark stepped to the side, triggered the glove to form over his hand, and punched three fingers through the man’s throat, tearing out the carotid on one side in a fan of salty crimson. The device fell to the floor. It looked like it was some fancy, one-shot vaporizer.
“And that’s how it’s done in the big leagues.”
Hark faced the mysterious agent, who was now up against the far wall, eyes wide, mouth open, nostrils flared.
Celia was just exiting the apartment at a run, Frankie now by her side, escorting her.
The agent breathed deep, her chest heaving. She was definitely someone enhanced from birth with an aesthetic package. Hark stood toe-to-toe with her, and she stared into his eyes, the shock of suc
h violence triggering something animalistic in her. Most of the time, lucky paying customers dropping in for a quick immersion took something chemical to heighten their brief trips inside. Most people couldn’t handle the intensity of seeing a specialist at work. Most women he’d encountered, especially, responded in a primal way.
“You’re no Voxyprog lackey. Who do you work for?”
“EA.”
“Thought so. So you and the Vox are working together like good buddies? When did that start happening?” Before she could answer, he asked, “Did you reset her?”
“No time.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “It’s true what they say about you …”
“I never fail to please.”
She snaked her fingers under his shirt to caress his Skinsuit. “We’re dampened, of course.” She opened her mouth and breathed deep. She was definitely on something.
He nodded, his HUD clearly showing no viewers or riders of any type were watching. “I can see that.” He extricated himself from her, but only slightly. “What does my contract have to do with EA trying to kill a host? They’re forcing me to wake her one way or another.”
She looked like she might try to dissemble. Instead, she raised her eyebrows, as if it didn’t matter now if she told him. “That’s been the plan all along, Specialist Cole. It’s just taken this long for all the players to be organized. That’s all I know. They put you under their thumb so that you would do what was necessary, no matter what. You’re contract to do as requested is now about that moment Director Preston entered your life.”
“EA made me sign that contract to keep my promise because of her?”
“She’s had plans for you since the beginning?”
Hark saw it all come into focus. Hark was a pet project of Miesha Preston’s. “And EA’s backing her.”
“You’re on script. Now, stay on script.”
“Why? I’ll destroy the entire V.”
She moved close now, pressing her pelvis against his, wrapping one leg around his. “We know.”
“Will you do something for me?” he asked, exasperated.
“For you?” She ran her hand up his abdominals. “Anything.”
“Tell them to evacuate. I told the Vox, but they laughed at me.”
She grinned as if he’d asked her to turn to gold. “Of course.”
He snatched her hand away and with his other grabbed her chin. “I’m serious. Tell me you’ll do it.”
She slapped him hard, as if she were performing. But she wasn’t, which meant she liked that sort of thing. He let the sting linger.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I promise I’ll give them your message. Now show me why you’re so special, Specialist Cole, so a girl can go back with a story. You’re safe for a few hours, at least, now. Specialist Paratore is out of the picture, and you’ve dispatched those two goons. I was sent as a cursory gesture to try. But I failed too.” She winked.
He kissed her and lifted her off the ground and considered taking a few minutes for some critical stress release. Instead, he hoped a kiss would make a big enough impression so that she’d deliver his message. Then he set her down leaving her with a smile.
25
He tried to ignore the lost opportunity up stairs as he checked that his Blaster and Kit were in the bag on Frankie’s back. Celia re-wrapped a wide-brimmed sunhat with a shawl to cover the sides of her face, while glaring at him. The lobby was busy, as usual. The lavender perfume of the EA agent sent to awaken Celia also still lingered. He could feel the soft skin of her neck against his.
One more fan who might help …
He led his small crew into a bright, summer morning. They were assaulted by the sounds and smells of the city in a wash of life that made all three pause. He guessed they probably only had a few hours before Miesha’s and Ervé’s non-standard narrative insertions began to surface. Only a few hours for him to convince Miesha to change her mind before he had to make some hard decisions.
“Where we going?” Frankie asked. He grinned now, as happy as can be, his brain obviously purring with the proper lubrication.
Binda eyed Hark, as if she suspected what he’d done in those ten minutes he’d been upstairs. Even though she was wrong, her frown was on display for everyone to see.
Celia kept quiet about what she’d seen before she’d rushed out of the room. The violence was enough to reinforce the seriousness of her situation. And she’d been silent ever since. She looked at Hark once, as if he were the killer she should fear.
Those two thugs he’d dispatched had also been Voxyprog employees, so they’d have the best care. And since they were only immersed for a few minutes, their cognitive architecture would be intact. But each had stared death in the face. It was rumored that no matter how well the technicians scrubbed you, a part of that experience lingered. Death in-V, some say, is so real that one can never truly come back from it. The immediacy of knowing you will be destroyed shakes people to their cores. The existential immediacy cannot be erased. Hark had never died, not once, in a Rend-V. And he didn’t plan to start today.
“So?” Frankie said.
“The Mediaplex.”
“Sweet!”
Even Binda lightened with the sort of half smile that said she wasn’t finished sulking.
Celia snorted and began walking north. “I know where it is.” Hark had expected her to at least demand an explanation.
He let the others start walking. He trailed behind them a few steps, his HUD scanning for potential threats. Hark could read in Celia’s downcast eyes that she was slowly awakening to the reality of her situation. But she would take the final steps alone, parachute in a tense hand. The Mediaplex would be his best leverage. If the authorities wanted to ignore him, then he’d stick the truth in everyone’s faces and force them to act.
A few blocks away, they crossed Broadway and headed east toward Sixth Avenue. The bobbing heads of pedestrian traffic were still as dense as in Times Square, but the shift away from entertainment to business establishments allowed a subtle diminishment of sensory assault.
Hark walked slowly, relieved he had some time to kill before making his move. Hark wanted to wait until Celia was more awake before going to the Mediaplex. This provided ample opportunity for his conscience to shake a rattle inside his head. Without Magdalena, he continued an endless dialog with himself.
When you going to retire from all this killing, bud? Retire before you die in-V?
He had been asking himself this question for the last twenty-five years. Twenty-five years of constant activity in the Rend-Vs—longer than any other continually working specialist without a death scrub on his sheet.
You were only allowed to die three times, the absolute ceiling for someone to come out sane. He had experienced close calls, but never seen the lights go out, as they say. Still, on lonely missions, or long ones, or when forced to make the hard decisions that ended someone’s life, he would stop and ask himself why he didn’t retire.
Krista said that with his skills he could transition to the Inspector Corps or use them to understanding narrative in a variety of other ways. Twenty-five years was a long time. And retirement wasn’t permanent. Take time off, he chided himself. Choose a Rend-V, one of the private productions run for employees and celebrities. Tend your garden. Read a book or two. Write a novel in secret.
Frankie stopped at a street vendor to buy a fruit drink in a glass container with a round, metal top that made a popping sound when it came off. Celia and Binda were actually speaking politely to each other. Hark could hear both their voices through the din. Celia was asking what Binda’s “story” was, with no idea how ironic the question was. We’re all characters in a grand drama, he wanted to remind them … that could end in a day or two.
Hark ran a finger over the back of his hand, bare because his suit had retreated up his arm and under the sleeve. He checked his neck. The buttons of his funky, wide-collared shirt were all the way to the top, as if he were a disco li
brarian. He smoothed out the fabric of his denim pants. He was just like everyone else in the city.
Alive, as Krista would remind him.
They began walking again, four individuals swallowed in a sea of others. Hark enjoyed the old-world feel of these pre-Rupture environments. He could understand why Binda had come. Life was simpler, realer, if that were possible.
He paused before a wide glass window of a first-floor retailer. Rows of analog books dominated the window display. These were multicolored objects with crisp paper inside them and actual bindings. Each one was a ticket to prison in his world. Or used to be. Only collectors and fetishists had them now. Novels were responsible for the spread of bleedover. Books, the great evil. The original mechanism to manipulate a mind. The generators of the unreal. Crucibles of sorcery.
The others stopped, as well.
Frankie saw Hark staring and giggled. “Want to go inside and pick up a trashy romance novel? Maybe one with Fabio on the cover?”
Hark chuckled at that tiny bit of versim minutiae. Some Sersavant narrative expert had dropped the buff, long-haired model, Fabio Lanzoni, into this world. Hark knew who he was because he’d seen the cover model on a few of his sister’s illegal texts. She loved novels too. They would have shared a smile over Frankie’s well-timed quip.
“I think that’s exactly what you want,” Hark said, opening the door. “You’d probably like a poster of him for your bedroom.”
“What?” Frankie said, a look of mock confusion crossing his face. “I like ladies, dude.”
“I wouldn’t mind browsing,” Binda said.
Celia hurried in first, probably to find an empty corner where she could hide.
“Stay with her,” Hark said to Frankie. “And give me that.”
He grabbed the bag and slung it over a shoulder.
“I’m on it,” Frankie said, and raced after Celia. “On it like a magnet.”
Binda grinned at Hark. “You hooked on forbidden knowledge, Mr. Specialist?”
“Aren’t we all?”
Binda entered the bookstore and headed for the new releases.