Black Phoenix

by B. V. Larson

  “It’s the core of Tarassis code. The fact that’s it became intelligent—I think that part is intentional. Software doesn’t become aware without someone giving it a nudge. The cultists are excited by the idea, claiming it’s a new kind of sentience.”

  “I wouldn’t want to die for an idea,” Turtle said. “Like, in ten years, it’d be an idea no one would care about anyway, but I’d still be dead.”

  “I think that makes you a nonbeliever. Don’t tell anyone else about that.”

  Turtle knew Scarn was right. Because of the grimness of everyday reality, people aboard Tarassis took their virtual reality and gaming very seriously.

  “I can see dying for somebody, but not for an idea. I’ll bet back on Earth there are a bunch of dead true-believers.”

  “What do you call us? We’re out here exploring empty oceans on dead planets. They’re probably glad our kind left.”

  In the teenager’s ruined bedroom, they lay back and let everything rest. Outside in the passageway, they heard one of the security drones, going past, leaving a buzzing sound behind it.

  “I wonder what it’s like on the upper decks these days,” Scarn said. “My parents were upset the day I got kicked out.”

  “Mine too.”

  Scarn’s parents had lived on a guest deck. Turtle had been born crew.

  Being born on the upper decks wasn’t a guarantee of security these days. If someone powerful didn’t like you, or if you failed to be the best, most obedient apprentice who flawlessly learned your place among the elite, they kicked you downstairs to scratch your way through life.

  Turtle cocked his head, making his neck bulge. He listened. Then he peeked out over the jumble of the teen’s desk, chair and junk.

  “You hallucinating again?” Scarn asked.

  “Kinda… It’s the same thing…”

  “Like ‘mouse voices,’ you said.”

  “You can’t hear that?” Turtle asked.

  Scarn rolled over and got up next to him.

  Turtle pointed to the destroyed home across from them. “I think there’s something over in that direction.”

  Scarn turned his head. After a moment he just barely nodded and he whispered, too. “You’re right… It does sound like mouse voices.”

  “Fourth day in a row.”

  “I guess we should check it out.”

  “Yeah,” Turtle said, “but after four days, I guess we don’t have to rush right into it.”

  “Not unless you want to.”

  They relaxed and enjoyed another fifteen. Midday was quiet in the north section of Level one-fifty-four. There used to be light panels that brightened up the whole place, simulating day and night. But many were broken, and none of them would switch into full daylight mode anymore. They just sputtered from dim, to dark, to pitch-black. Most of their world was permanently filled with shadow.

  Turtle and Scarn, survivors since they’d been kicked off the upper decks at sixteen, knew each other’s moves as well as they knew their own. Their thoughts on life, however, were different.

  After a bit, Scarn spoke up again. “Ready?”

  They raised their heads, scanned the area together, and separated. The only place in the vicinity where anyone could hide himself was in the still-standing living room and bedroom of the small house, thirty or so meters away. Scarn started toward one side, Turtle the other—then Turtle stopped and signaled: Listen.

  After a moment, Scarn nodded.

  Scarn signaled: AI. Turtle nodded.

  They moved closer, safeties off, converging on a single interior bedroom door. Behind it, they could clearly hear the tinny voice of a talking bot.

  Turtle mouthed, Wow.

  A talking bot was as valuable as food. It could tell you what faction was moving where, where the places were that no one wanted to go, and the under-weather caused by the flushing drainage system. All of these facts could save one’s life.

  A little closer, and they could hear a tiny but assured voice talk about how level one-fifty-seven had come under the general control of one of the Singularity sects, but the fight was still hot on level one-fifty-eight. Non-combatants were advised to stay away from both zones.

  Outside the bedroom door, Turtle nodded to Scarn once, twice, and on three they both stomped the door open. Turtle dodged in first with the black end of his Sepp 40 in front of him.

  “No! No! I’m a believer! You can have my bot, too!”

  A skinny old man rolled sideways, covering his face with his hands as he did a fetal curl.

  First thing, Turtle and Scarn scanned the room for hidden accomplices, trip wires, or weapons... and they found it clear. Nonetheless, Scarn positioned himself in the corner of the room, ready to kill anything threatening.

  Turtle squatted next to the man. “We don’t plan to kill you, but it could still happen. Have you been living here?”

  The small man peered through his fingers at the intruder’s lumpy muscles. He was pale and wrinkled, well-worn past sixty with bristly white hair.

  “Maybe…”

  “Why?” Turtle asked.

  Sensing he wasn’t going to be killed outright, the old man sat up. “I been following you a week now. I want off this level. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Yeah, but why follow us?”

  “Why not? Where you go, you clear the path.” He glanced back and forth between them. “What sect you belong to, by the way?”

  “We’re independents.”

  “Really? You’re not gonna put me through an initiation?”

  “Looks like you’ve already done that,” Turtle said.

  The man lacked two entire fingers on one hand and a few joints of several others.

  “Yeah…” he said, looking at his ruined hands. “They signed me into one of their sects.... My name’s Loid.”

  “Welcome to our little safe zone, Loid.”

  “At least they didn’t use the drills,” Loid muttered. “I couldna took the drills. Wire cutters on the fingers wasn’t a picnic, either, I tell you. But at least I was sincere when they swore me in.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  The old man sat up, still checking to see if they were going to shoot him, and then visibly relaxed. He brushed the dust out of his hair. “Where you goin’?”

  “We’re aiming for level one-forty.”

  “Geez.” Loid looked back and forth between them. “That’s a long walk. But I can see why you’d want to get out of this place.”

  “We’re heading up to collect some money,” Turtle said.

  “Money?” Loid was incredulous. “Nobody uses money down here anymore!”

  “I’m the one who’s going to collect some money,” Scarn explained, “and Turtle needs to see a woman up on one-forty. He thinks she might be the one.”

  “Walking up ten levels for a woman…? Hm. I used to like women.” The old man looked momentarily wistful. “Time passes.”

  “Her name’s Iris Soquel,” Turtle said. “I need to see her again to find out... for sure.”

  Scarn patiently looked up at the ceiling.

  In the pause, Loid again looked back and forth at them. “Could I go with you guys? These people down here got pus for brains. If I can’t keep up with you, or I get hurt, you can just leave me behind. But if we find a floater, I could get us up there by tomorrow. Really. I used to be a taxi driver, back when I lived in some kind of real world. I know vehicles of all kinds.”

  Scarn held up his hand for silence. After a moment, from the front part of the house, they heard something knock against something else. It was a small noise.

  There was a pause and then another small bump.

  Loid tip-toed into the closet and took himself out of sight.

  Turtle and Scarn covered the door from two directions. The shaved woman in black coveralls and wearing a silver face mask stepped in. The mask’s teeth were bright metal, and they smiled incessantly.

  “My brothers,” she said.

  “You followed us?” Tu
rtle asked. “I thought you blew up.”

  Scarn slung the Sepp around to his back, he went over to the woman and patted her down.

  “You would violate this body?” the fake synth asked.

  “Am I the first?”

  Loid looked out from the closet. He frowned. “I never seen one of these guys close up before.”

  “Scarn saved her life a while ago so she followed us—if she’s the same one.”

  “This place was hidden and quiet,” Loid said. “But whoever this fool is, looking like that, she’ll bring more cultists. Some gang will come looking for her, and half of them always want to shoot the other half. We don’t wanna be near this lady.”

  Scarn had posted himself beside the front window, but now he hurried back across the room, hooking a magazine disk into the Sepp. “You’re clairvoyant, Loid. They followed her. Here we go.”

  Loid dived back into the closet.

  “Oh boy.” Turtle pulled three fat cartridges out of his pocket and snapped them into his gun.

  Scarn turned to the woman. “They followed you. Here’s the deal: You’re going to turn around, go out the front door, and you’re going to walk away from here like you don’t have a care in the world. You make any move I think is a signal that we’re here, I’ll blow you apart. Now, take off. Maybe they’ll follow you to your next prey.”

  She stared at him without moving. “I’ve seen the True Intelligence,” she said. “You can’t reject Truth.”

  “I’m not. I’m rejecting you,” Scarn said and pulled out a nine-inch hook-blade and held it for her to see. “It’s a decision you’re going to make in five, four, three—” He was counting fast.

  The woman smiled pleasantly. “It shall be as you wish. My time to exit this reality hasn’t yet come.” She turned and stepped over the debris to the front door and exited.

  “Crazy bastards…” Turtle muttered. “Why are they so happy to worship something inside a computer?”

  “The computer is smart,” Scarn said. “VR does nothing but make them happy. What else does that? It’s their way of escaping this rock.”

  “Look how she just strolls along out there”, Loid said. Wrong people in the mix, they could shoot the shit out of her.”

  “Her problem,” Turtle said firmly.

  Turtle and Scarn carefully peeked past the edge of the bedroom door where they could see through the front window frame. The woman got to the street and started across it.

  Someone trotted out of the dark and grabbed her. Immediately, there were three or four popping noises that rattled through the street, and the woman’s attacker was hit. His right arm flew sideways off his shoulder. The woman was sprayed in blood, but she seemed unhurried.

  Another ripping sound went off, and the shocked assailant was hit again. Something blew through his abdomen and something else took off most of one leg. As he dropped in a graceful twirl, his scavenger’s pack flapped over most of his pieces, though his exposed head lay with his foot in front of his own face.

  “She must have a guardian angel out there,” Loid said.

  The room faintly hummed with a distant noise. The three men eyed one another. They went outside and looked upward. The drones were thick tonight, and sometimes they carried more than cameras.

  “Moving time,” Scarn said.

  No one argued.

  “I’m ready, if it’s okay with you guys,” Loid said. He grunted as he got to his feet. “I’ll follow along. You’ll have no trouble from me. Leave me behind anytime.”

  They glanced at each other and shrugged. Loid was an obvious load, but they could understand a man who was just trying to survive another day in these lower levels.

  “You got a deal for now, old man,” Turtle said. “Make sure you keep that bot nice and safe.”

  “Yeah, sure thing.”

  They hurried down the remnant of a hallway, kicked the back door open, and faced a grinning teenager pointing two handguns at them.

  “It’s game-on, losers,” he said. “Back up, real slow.”

  “I’m a believer!” Loid said with his hands up. He displayed the physical signs of his initiation.

  The trio backed up through the narrow hall until they re-entered the living room. In their brief absence, the room had filled with five heavily armed men dressed in gray coveralls and silver masks.

  While the others stood in place, a middle-aged man with a black carbine moved cautiously around the room.

  “Another cluster of heretics,” he said with a smile. “Slowly put your weapons over there.” He pointed to an empty place on the floor.

  Turtle and Scarn reluctantly complied.

  The leader with the carbine aimed it back and forth across their faces.

  “We’re wandering souls,” Loid said. “We hunger for uplifting VR! Show us heaven in the midst of this... this sewer of a world. You can save us!”

  “That’s true. But we’re here because your impostor friend out front got one of our boys killed. Women who walk around looking like that, we do them the best favor we can.”

  “Lemme frag these,” whispered someone younger from the group. He might have been fourteen. “I can do it right this time.”

  “Shut up.” The leader turned to Scarn, Turtle, and Loid. “Let me introduce us. We follow the Singularity.”

  He produced a pair of VR goggles.

  “Oh my god...” Loid whimpered.

  “You may have heard of us,” the cult leader continued. “We offer eternal joy. That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it? So, we sacrifice ourselves by staying behind in this nasty world and handing out happiness.”

  “But why?” Turtle asked. “Why not just enjoy your games all the time?”

  The man’s face trembled for a moment, then he regained control. “The Singularity demands service. The data core won’t let you play forever… you have to perform certain duties. You’ll see.”

  Another of them stepped forward. He took off his mask. He was in deadly earnest, and his eyes were alight with the glow of a thousand fantasies he’d lived in VR.

  “All the food!” he said. “All the booze! All the babes! Just waitin’ for us!” The man smacked his lips. “Whatever you want, twenty-four-seven, it’s all possible!”

  “He’s crude, but he’s right.” Their leader smiled and nodded at Scarn. “I can see by your expression that you’re dismissive of our beliefs.”

  “No, no,” Turtle said. “His face is always like that.”

  “It’s an affliction,” Scarn said grimly.

  “Of course, of course.” The man smiled. “We are all afflicted.”

  “I can do it,” the fourteen-year-old said. “Lemme deliver ‘em.” He nervously snapped his weapon’s safety on and off.

  The man patted his shoulder. “I’d rather kill them Kevin, but for now, put your goggles on this one. We’ll join him in the game, and you’ll watch over us all.”

  “Rip off…” Kevin muttered, but he did as he was told.

  The goggles were lowered over Scarn’s eyes. The injectors made contact with skin, then dug in. Soon his eyes, his neural pathways, every sense he had was overtaken by a reality more real than anything he’d ever seen or touched with his own primitive senses.

  Turtle turned his attention toward Kevin. The kid was already wearing goggles like the other cultists were. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from putting on a spare set and plugging in—giving Turtle an opportunity to improvise.

  What seemed like a moment later, the goggles were ripped from Scarn’s face. Blood dribbled and other fluids ran into his eyes, making them burn. He staggered, and then he howled with insensate longing.

  “Scarn? Snap out of it, man.”

  Scarn looked at Turtle, but he didn’t really see him. He had a fierce look on his face, and the light of insanity in his watery eyes. There wasn’t much time to act. Around the room, the initiates were all insensate, but they were veterans of VR. If they were given a chance, they’d snap out of it and fight. Already,
Kevin was reluctantly prying the goggles away from his face.

  Turtle set his teeth, knowing what had to be done.

  Yanking Kevin’s gun from his lax grip, he leveled it back at the hapless kid and let it rip. The concussion made Loid and himself stagger away. The largest piece of Kevin’s body hit the back wall and rebounded with surprising force into Scarn. It staggered him sideways, and he fell flat covered in the red and purple mess of Kevin’s blood and unidentifiable organs.

  “Scarn!” Turtle said. “Scarn!?”

  “I’m okay,” Scarn said from beneath the gore, beginning to get up. Smaller pieces slid off him as he began to push himself up, his hands beneath him.

  Turtle discreetly stepped a half step to the left, nudging Loid in that direction.

  “Risen to ecstasy!” announced the reverend. “Eternal bliss!”

  The other men in the room dully repeated his words. “Risen to ecstasy!”

  They were all wearing goggles. They seemed not to have noticed that it was one of their friends who had been blown away. At least, not yet.

  Turtle nudged Loid a little further to the left.

  A bit at a time, Scarn humped up his back and the last pieces of Kevin slid off him. Scarn stopped moving for a moment, seemed to take a breath, and then in one smooth unhurried roll, he turned over, sliding through the muck with Turtle’s Sepp 40. The gamers alerted all at once, eyes focusing on Scarn, their hands moving to lift their rifles—

  Scarn fired one-two-three times. Thunk-thunk-thunk at the gamers.

  They froze in position and seemed surprised as their bodies were penetrated by a hundred thin metal disks that set up a paralyzing electrical grid. Their blood flowed through their clothes like a lowering curtain.

  One by one, they dropped, except the leader, who slumped in place, widened his stance, and with great effort held his chin off his chest.

  “The Singularity… has seen this perversion,” he said in a guttural voice. “It is unhappy. You will never survive this insult.”

  Scarn had now gotten to his feet. Two steps forward and he kicked one of the leader’s spread legs out from under him. The big man dropped on his back like a log. Scarn watched him die. The others hadn’t lasted so long.

  They looked at each other worriedly. “You think that was for real?” Turtle asked.