by Needles, Dan
After several minutes Brooke said, “Charlie, I’ve had enough.” She pressed a button on her wrist and spoke the command “Home.” A portal opened twenty feet ahead of them. The current dragged them through the portal and she tumbled through. When she emerged, she was still wearing her swimsuit. A kayak materialized around her, and an oar formed in her hand. Why hadn’t she returned to the old Ben n’ Breakfast? Why was she still in her swimsuit? She grabbed the oar with both hands and paddled. The warm water lapped against the sides of the Kayak as it glided forward. The sun neared the horizon and extended finger-like streaks of orange, red, and purple across the sky. The shadows from the land drove the foliage along the shoreline into deeper shades of green.
She looked around. Where was Charlie? She found him a few yards back, dog-paddling in the water. Obviously, something had malfunctioned. Poor Charlie! This VR server had not expected an intelligent agent.
The kayak continued moving, and she faced forward. The kayak had grown into a tandem. A figure sat in the front kayak’s seat.
“Excuse me? Who are you?”
“I’m Syzygy.”
Syzygy’s deep, confident voice made her heart beat faster. “What is this place?”
“A chat room. Outdoor Adventures.”
“How did I get here? Where’s your partner?”
He shrugged his shoulders and continued to row.
“So you went on a date with yourself?”
The man did not respond. He continued to row.
“Something is wrong,” Charlie said.
“Charlie, it’s fine,” she whispered. “He’s just confused is all.”
The dog levitated out of the water and moved in front of her. His body glowed a bright orange.
“Charlie, knock it off!”
“I’m detecting something in the system, something I don’t recognize.”
Brooke frowned. “What system? The sites’ VR server?”
“No, your Nexus.”
“Don’t be a drag!” She pulled him out of the air and set him in front of her.
“What’s your name?” Syzygy said.
“Nikki, Nikki Smith.” Brooke said. Her father had told her never to use her real name.
Charlie cut in. “I must insist. We need to leave.”
“Charlie, shut up.” Brooke placed him in the water alongside the kayak. His limbs paddled wildly. He barked.
“I’m sorry Size—what was your name?”
“I’m detecting a software violation.” The dog vanished.
“Charlie! Charlie!” she screamed.
Syzygy turned and faced her. His face was expressionless but his gaze piercing. “This reminds me of the sunsets in Hainan. Have you ever been there?”
31
Steve exited VR and appeared back at his desk. He was an hour late for lunch with Brooke. She would be pissed. He did not blame her.
“Brooke, are you ready?” Steve took off his Nexus and turned to place it in the drawer.
He gasped. Brooke sat next to him. “You scared me half to death! Brooke?” In the twilight, he sensed something was wrong. From the blinking lights of the Nexus, he saw her chin rested against her chest. Her shoulder twisted toward him, her arms rigid at her sides, and her hands curled inward.
“Brooke!” Steve ripped off her Nexus and shook her. Her body was limp and heavy. He dialed 911 into the Nexus front panel.
“911. How may…” a voice from the speakerphone said.
“Something’s wrong with my daughter.”
“Is she breathing?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Is her chest rising? Can you …”
Steve put a hand in front of her mouth but felt nothing. “Oh, God! She’s not breathing!”
“Lay her flat.”
“She’s in a wheelchair.”
“Lay her flat, now.”
Steve swept the books and papers off the desktop. A flash lit up the room and the scanner hit the ground. He lifted Brooke out of her wheelchair and laid her on the desktop. “Done. I’m not sure if she has a pulse.”
“Open her mouth, check for anything obstructing her breathing.”
Steve checked. “It’s clear, but her pulse …”
“She needs oxygen. Pinch her nose, open her mouth and place your mouth over hers and exhale twice.”
Steve did as he was told. “Done.”
“Does she have a heartbeat?”
Steve placed a finger on Brooke’s neck trying not to look into her open eyes. Tears welled up in his eyes. “Shit! I don’t feel anything.”
“Do you know CPR?”
“No!” He choked down a cry.
“How old is she?”
“17.”
“Is she on a hard surface?”
“Yes, yes my desk.”
“Okay. Find where her rib cage comes together. Come up two fingers. Place the heel of your palm there, overlapping your hands. I want you to push down, compressing her chest five times in succession, one second apart. Okay?”
“Okay!” He leaned over her and placed his hands on her chest.
Someone pounded on the door.
“That’s help,” the voice said.
“Come in!” Steve yelled.
He heard the sound of splintering wood as someone broke through the locked front door and ran down the hall. Two men in fireman’s bulky pants with suspenders and Tshirts charged into the dimly lit room. Steve stepped aside. One of them fell, stumbling over a pile of books on the floor. Steve saw Walnut Creek Fire stenciled across the back of his shirt.
“Firemen?” Steve gasped.
They ignored him. The man who stumbled cut off her shirt and bra with a utility knife as the other placed a mask attached to an air sack to her face. In rhythmic motion one pumped her chest while the other forced air into her lungs using the air sack. The fireman controlling the mask glanced toward Steve and punched his radio. “Chief, bystander. Get in here!”
Steve stepped back toward the doorway. He watched as the fireman worked on his precious Brooke.
Someone pushed him aside. Two more men dressed in green paramedic uniforms stormed inside. One of them set down a defibrillator. The other placed the paddles on her chest. The defibrillator’s screen displayed a green, flat line.
“Chief, get in here now!” The fireman screamed in his radio, not stopping the CPR rhythm.
The other paramedic opened a tackle box and extracted a long, slender L-shaped flashlight with a pliable end. The fireman took the mask off her while the paramedic threaded the flashlight into her throat. “She’s clear,” he said.
The other paramedic handed the first paramedic a clear plastic tube attached to an oxygen tank. He snaked the tube down Brooke’s throat and into her lungs. The fireman taped the tube and mask to her face. Tears streaked Steve’s face as the second paramedic ripped open a package and shot a syringe of medicine down the tube.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Steve turned and found a burly man in his early fifties wearing fireman’s pants with suspenders over a T-shirt standing there.
“Let my men work. They’re doing all that can be done.”
Steve nodded. He looked down the hall and vacantly registered that the front door had been thrown off its hinges. Behind him one of the paramedics shouted into a phone, “17-year-old, full arrest. Downtime unknown. CPR started by bystander. Etiology unknown. Paraplegic from previous trauma …”
“Sir, please,” the man gestured in the direction of Steve’s living room.
Steve followed him there and sat down. The fire chief questioned Steve while his men worked on Brooke. Twenty minutes later, one of the paramedics stepped into the living room. He made eye contact with the chief and shook his head.
Steve stared at his feet.
“I’m so sorry,” the chief said. “Is there someone you can call?”
Steve shook his head. “I need to be alone.”
“Are you sure? I can stay as long as you need.”
<
br /> Steve fought back tears and forced a smile. “Really, I’m fine. I just need time to myself.”
Footsteps came down the hall.
“The coroner,” the chief explained. “Did you want to see her before …”
Steve stared at his feet and shook his head. Plastic ruffled and a few seconds later a zipper closed. He looked up and caught the fireman’s worried gaze. “I’ll be okay,” Steve reassured him, while fighting to keep his composure.
Within half an hour, he was alone in his empty, silent house. He wandered into his office with the bottle of Glenfiddich Scotch he had taken from the kitchen. Books and papers tripped him as he made his way to his desk. He sat down and stared at the spot next to him where Brooke had died inches from him. He remembered after the car accident looking over to Tamera, tangled in metal and glass and covered with blood.
He imagined Brooke as she struggled next to him as his mind wandered in VR. No, he was not wandering. He was distracted, trying to catch the bastard. All the while, Syzygy was killing her. It was unreal. If only he could have sensed something, anything. If only he had left VR a minute earlier. Steve touched his forehead with the cool bottle of scotch. His stomach grumbled.
Lunch. He had pushed off meeting Brooke for lunch! Of all the times to be late. He took a swig from the bottle as his gaze drifted listlessly about the room.
Despite the scotch, memories of Brooke flooded back to him. I’m a horrible father. I neglected her, broke all my promises to her. I never talked to her. Never took the time to lock up her Nexus. Why didn’t I turn it off when Allison was done? Why did Syzygy, out of the millions of Nexus users, attack her? But it did happen, and he did nothing to stop it. A tear trickled down his cheek.
His mind drifted back to the car accident. He had awoken with his wife dead next to him. He had shouted for Brooke, but she had not answered. Immobilized by crumpled metal and twisted plastic, he had no idea if she was alive, dying, or already dead. An hour passed before he learned Brooke was alive.
He felt powerless all over again, but this was final. Brooke was dead. He remembered his covenant after the accident, a promise that Brooke would walk again. She had become his world, his life. Why had he wasted her last days chasing Syzygy?
An image of Syzygy attacking her came to mind. He could not bear to imagine how Brooke had suffered, killed in such a horrible way, in a machine he had designed.
Stop it! Steve took another swig. How could she be dead? What had he done to deserve this? He felt his emotions oscillate between rage and helplessness as they mixed with the alcohol coursing through his veins. He could not stand it. He needed to do something, but what could he do? Syzygy was still out there, a nebulous form in a non-reality. They had no way of tracking or even identifying him.
He finished off the bottle. Still, he grew more agitated. His anger stirred inside him. The anger thawed the numbness protecting him. The trapped emotions of rage and helplessness exploded.
He threw the empty bottle against the wall and buried his face in his hands. He was not even aware of the scream that filled the silence in his empty home. As his voice trailed off, a flood of tears came and sobs racked his body. After a few minutes his body stilled, but his mind continued to race. It solidified around a single, unifying thought—one way or another he would kill the bastard.
Grabbing his Nexus, Steve entered VR.
32
Steve entered his virtual office and scanned his notes about Syzygy’s attacks. He found his source code for the patch along with a long detailed specification for the Signal Amplifier modifications. When he had finished reading, he created his weapon.
He started with the Sensory Isolator. It could test various aspects of VR, isolating a user’s experience to a particular sense like sight or scent. Steve needed something that could point and shoot. To that end it would do fine. The Sensory Isolator used a simple design. Steve had modeled it after a phaser, a weapon that appeared in Star Trek, an old science fiction show from the twentieth century.
He went into the code and made the necessary modifications. Steve would fire the modified Sensory Isolator twice. The first pull of the trigger would kill the patch. The second would send a strong signal to overload the Signal Amplifier.
Slipping the weapon into his pocket, he frowned. Syzygy was hopping from Nexus to Nexus. The weapon he had made would kill the Nexus user, not Syzygy. How could he make the weapon jump the hops? He rubbed his temples but scotch clouded his mind. He also needed to find Syzygy. Damn it! He had to do something!
He thought about Ron. Ron had not gotten back to him on the numbers yet. Only Austin could unravel the books to pay for the recall. He patted the weapon in his virtual pocket. He would force Austin to talk. “Jan, page Austin to meet me in his office.” Steve opened a portal to Nexus Corporation.
Stepping through the portal into the lobby, he walked to Austin’s former office. The balcony over the opera was gone, replaced by the simple ten-foot square white room with matching mahogany desk, file cabinet, and bookcase. Austin had not arrived yet. Steve eyed the file cabinet. Perhaps, he had not cleared everything out yet. Something there had to make sense of Austin’s second set of books.
Steve stepped around the desk and sat down. He went through the desk drawers. They were empty. He swiveled around and opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.
“You won’t find anything in there, son,” a voice said behind him.
Steve turned. Austin leaned against the threshold, a smirk plastered to his face.
“Come in and close the door.”
Austin walked toward the seat across the desk, leaving the door open.
Steve stood and walked around the desk. “No, sit here, behind the desk please.”
Austin’s smirk turned to a grin. “I just knew you’d see things my way. You can’t run this place without me.”
As Austin sat down behind the desk, Steve shook his head. “You’re not getting your old job back.”
Austin frowned.
“Jan, I want you to close down all the links to the outside except for Austin and myself and then shut yourself down, password Brooke.”
Austin stood in alarm. “Hey! What’s the meaning of this?”
Steve closed the door. “There are only two connections into this room. Without Jan, there is no way to exit or portal out of here except through there.” Steve pointed to the door.
Austin waggled a finger at Steve. “Son, if you think …”
“Brooke’s dead. Syzygy killed her.”
Silence. Austin finally said, “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”
Steve pulled the phaser out of his virtual pocket and leveled it at him. “You can start by …”
Austin stood up in alarm, backing against the wall behind the desk.
His gun hand shook. Steve took a deep breath. “Tell me where you hid the company’s funds. No one else is going to die because of this. A recall will happen.”
A smirked cross Austin’s face as Austin looked from Steve to the gun. Steve could almost read his thoughts. The phaser looked like an old garage door opener.
“It’s a phaser,” Steve said.
Austin laughed. “Son, you’re drunk. Now put that thing away. We’ll talk when you’re sober.” Austin started to walk around the desk toward the door.
“Stop!”
Austin froze.
Steve’s hand holding the gun trembled with anger and rage. He gripped it tighter. “It can kill.” A rueful expression crossed his face.
He sensed Austin probing him, trying to ascertain the truth. Steve took a few steps back.
“Tell me where you hid the money.”
A panic tugged at the edges of Austin’s expression. He took a jagged breath and forced a smile. “What guarantee do I have you won’t shoot me after I give you the information?”
The scotch swam in Steve’s head. He rubbed one of his temples. “You don’t. Without you Syzygy wouldn’t have killed anyone.”
&nb
sp; “I think you need your head examined, boy.” Austin said, his voice cracking.
“You created the opportunity. You broke the rules and pushed the Nexus through. You chose the software patch over the hardware patch. You blackmailed me and prevented the recall. Any one of those things would have saved her.”
Austin shook his head. “It’s a lie.”
He felt his blood begin to boil. “Shut up. You murdered Brooke, you goddamn bastard! Now, tell me how to access the accounts!”
Shock covered Austin’s face. He repetitively punched his exit button. It didn’t work.
Steve pulled the trigger once, enveloping Austin in a blue glow as the shot took down the patch.
Austin fell to the ground, screaming.
“The first shot won’t kill you, but the second one will. Now tell me where the money is.”
He held his hands up. “Don’t, son. For god’s sakes, don’t!”
A sharp, metallic whine distracted Steve as a window opened up beside him. It was Allison.
“Steve!” Allison said, pointing past his shoulder.
Steve turned just in time as Austin jumped over the desk. He sidestepped Austin, moving closer to the window. Austin flew past him, landing face down on the ground. Steve pointed the phaser at the back of his head. “Get away from the door.”
Austin scurried behind a corner of the desk.
“Steve, what are you doing?” Allison gasped.
Keeping his gaze on Austin, Steve said, “Syzygy killed Brooke. It wouldn’t have been possible without Austin’s help.”