The Immortality Game

by Ted Cross

  “Zoya, stop!” came a shout from behind them. “We won’t hurt you!”

  Zoya continued to run, and now Marcus saw there were other people in the room, and Zoya was leading him right to them. There was a small platform to the right of the bar, and four young women dressed in skin-tight black outfits, their hair glittering with neon, were setting up equipment for some kind of musical show. All of them had stopped what they were doing to watch as Zoya raced up to them.

  “Is there a way out?” Zoya cried. She yanked the gun from her waistband and whirled about to point it at their pursuers. “Stop, Tavik!”

  Marcus turned in time to see the smaller man skid to a halt. The huge man looked like he intended to come lumbering on until the smaller one—Tavik apparently—grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a stop as well. “Don’t shoot,” Tavik said. “We don’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You’re too late for that, fucker!” she screamed. Marcus thought she was going to shoot, but she stood still, her arms thrust steadily out in front of her, the gun aimed at the bigger man.

  “You’re not a killer,” Tavik said. “Right, Zoya? Just give us the cards and get out of here. I swear we won’t touch you.”

  Zoya adjusted her aim but otherwise remained still. Marcus looked at the women on the platform. Two of them were attempting to shield themselves behind stacks of equipment, one with pink and green neon hair was hefting a long-necked guitar (Marcus knew little about music, but he assumed it was what was called a bass), and the fourth was vanishing through a doorway as pitch black as the wall. He tugged lightly on Zoya’s jacket.

  “There’s an exit here,” he whispered.

  “Then go,” she replied.

  “You’re coming, too, aren’t you?”

  She began to edge backward, keeping the gun leveled on the pair of men.

  “Give me the cards, Zoya!” Tavik cried again, a note of desperation in his voice. “I must have them.”

  “You can go to hell, Tavik,” Zoya said in a measured tone. “After what you’ve done, you’ll get nothing from me…‌except this perhaps.” She jerked the gun as she spoke the last words.

  “Don’t you want this to end?” Tavik said. “Please, just drop the cards there and go. Otherwise we’ll have to keep chasing you.” He and his partner were pacing forward at the same speed as Zoya. Tavik pulled a gun from his jacket and leveled it at Marcus. “You don’t want your friend to get hurt, do you?”

  Marcus had reached the doorway, but now he froze and stared at the hole at the end of the barrel of the vicious-looking gun.

  “You’re a bastard. You shoot him, I shoot you.”

  Tavik slid around the end of the bandstand. “A standoff. It doesn’t have to end ugly. No one needs to get hurt. Give me the—”

  Marcus saw what happened as if in slow motion, but he still couldn’t believe his eyes. After Tavik had passed her by, the woman with the bass guitar had gripped it by the end of its neck and swung it around to smash against the back of Tavik’s head. It made a jangling smacking sound and Tavik pitched forward onto the floor with a cry.

  “Get out of here,” yelled the woman. “Go!”

  Marcus saw the huge mobster turn on the woman and take a swing at her with a meaty fist. The woman snapped her head back and brought up the guitar again to block a second swing.

  Zoya grabbed Marcus’s arm and pulled him through the doorway.

  “Shouldn’t we help her?” Marcus said.

  Zoya didn’t respond. A dark hallway led in two directions, and Zoya took the right-hand way.

  “You could shoot that big guy, at least.”

  Zoya picked up her pace. “You want the gun, you can have it, but I’m getting out of here now!”

  Marcus kept expecting to hear a scream from the woman behind them, or at least the sound of pursuit, but so far all he heard was the thumping of his heart in his chest and his panting as he scurried to keep up with Zoya. They passed several doorways until they came to one at the end of the passage that had a backlit red sign that the translator told him read ‘exit’. Zoya yelled for the door to open, but it didn’t; it appeared to be an old-fashioned style of door with a metal push-bar. Marcus heard a shout from behind them as Zoya slammed the bar down and shoved the door open.

  They stumbled, blinking, onto a cracked and weed-choked sidewalk. A handful of pedestrians stared at them, but Zoya wasn’t paying attention. Her gaze was fixed on a vast complex of buildings straddling the river ahead of them. Even in his frightened state Marcus had to admit it was a beautiful sight—a huge gleaming pyramid, and two larger, brightly-lit spires hooking oddly into the sky.

  “That’s where we need to go,” Zoya said.

  “What?” was all Marcus could manage.

  Zoya pointed at the absurd structures. “That’s where all these bastards work…‌where my brother worked. That’s where this will end.”

  Marcus had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn’t want to go there. He wanted to find someplace safe and eat something and sleep for about a month. But all Zoya seemed to want to do was get herself killed. “We shouldn’t go there,” he murmured.

  Zoya looked at him and pointed down the small road. “You go that way and catch a taxi. This is for me to deal with.” Without waiting for a response, she turned the opposite direction and took off running.

  «Let her go, Marcus,» said his father. «Do what she said.»

  Marcus let out a whimper of frustration and stumbled a few steps backward in the direction Zoya had indicated. He knew in his heart he would never see her again, and that pained him nearly as much as the fear that was squeezing his throat shut. I’ll never know what happened to her. Without thinking he took another step back, just as the door banged open and the two mobsters piled out. Tavik cradled the back of his head with one hand, his eyes brushing past Marcus without seeming to see him. “There!” he shouted, and took off in the direction Zoya had run. The big man lumbered after him, breathing heavily.

  «Let’s get you to the apartment,» Javier said.

  Marcus panted and grasped his head in his hands. He couldn’t recall ever running so much in his life. “Aaaaaargh!” he cried, and then jogged after the mobsters.

  «What are you doing?» Javier cried.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus muttered. “But I can’t leave her.”

  Moscow

  Sunday, June 8, 2138

  7:12 p.m. MSK

  Tyoma’s first sight upon opening his eyes was Viktor’s monstrous metallic face grinning down at him. His instinct was to roll out of the chair onto the floor, anything to get away from that evil leer, but his body was groggy from being in virtual so all it managed was a shudder.

  “Welcome back,” Viktor said. The hand he pressed into Tyoma’s shoulder was stronger than any he had ever felt. Viktor stood tall and jerked a thumb toward the door. “Now get the fuck out. I’ve got things to do.”

  As Viktor stalked off, Tyoma shoved himself to a sitting position and waited for the dizziness to subside. His old ‘pals’ Alexei and Oskar stood near the door, the latter with one hand held out beckoning to him to get a move on.

  “I’m coming,” Tyoma mumbled, and slowly stood up from the chair. He nearly fell back but Oskar leapt forward and caught him.

  “Lev pulls you under deep, doesn’t he?” the mobster said. “You’ll get your legs back soon enough. Come on.”

  “Where we going?” Tyoma asked as Alexei took his other arm and opened the door.

  Neither responded. They steered him into the tube lift and Alexei bent toward the speaker and said, “Subbasement six.”

  “Basement?” echoed Tyoma. “That doesn’t sound promising. How about we go gamble a bit instead?”

  Alexei cuffed him across the cheek. “Keep talking and I’ll start to get rough. Boss says we can play around with you now if we like, long as we don’t break anything important.”

  A wisecrack came to mind, but Tyoma stifle
d it and leaned back against the wall of the tube. Just as the mild voice of the tube announced arrival at the basement level, a call beeped on Tyoma’s slot. The identifier said it was from his work compound. Who would be there this late on a Sunday? Must be Volodya. He nearly gave permission to the link when he remembered the worm and had to pause and consider whether the worm could infect the transmission or not. With his firewall wrecked, Tyoma gave his sentry code the hash pattern of the worm and directed it to protect the transmission.

  The tube came to a halt and the two thugs guided him down a corridor with a bare concrete floor. Tyoma accepted the handshake request. Since the wireless on the compound was powerful enough to send an image to a slot interface, a view of the conference room table appeared in his mind. Immediately on the right sat his friend Kostya. To the left but three seats away sat Big Dima, and at the far end of the table was Volodya.

  «Tyoma, you all right?» Volodya asked, in English. He leaned forward, a look on his face that Tyoma had never seen before. Concern? Is Volodya becoming human at last? «We can’t see you. We’ve tried to contact you several times but you haven’t been available.»

  «I’m not near a screen,» Tyoma said. «I’m being led somewhere by the mobsters that kidnapped you earlier. We’re in the basement level of The Pyramid. Hold on a moment…»

  The mobsters stopped before a faux-wood door identical to the others they had passed along the corridor.

  “This one empty, you think?” Alexei said.

  “I believe so,” Oskar replied and placed his right palm flat on the wall scanner.

  The door slid open to reveal a room not much bigger than a closet. The walls and floor were the same concrete as the corridor, and the only furnishings were three wooden stools and a picture on the wall opposite the door. Oskar steered Tyoma onto the nearest stool and said, “Okay, you just sit here awhile and the general will pick you up when he’s ready. You need something to drink?”

  Tyoma thought about it. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since morning. “Could I please have some water? And something to eat, if you have it?”

  Oskar smirked at him in reply and the two men departed. The ceiling light was overly bright. Probably on purpose, Tyoma thought, assuming the room was meant for interrogations or worse. The picture was the only thing in the room worth looking at, so he turned his attention there. It was a copy of a painting he’d seen numerous times—a portrait of Arkady Delchev, the huge, black-bearded warlord who’d kept the Moscow region together during the darkest of the Dark Times. It was Delchev who’d ensured the area’s nuclear reactors had been secured, thus preventing the meltdowns that had occurred in many other parts of Russia.

  «They stuck me in a little room. General Andreykin is supposed to come get me later.»

  Kostya shifted in his chair. «Did they hurt you in any way?»

  «No…‌well, other than a slap in the face. But that could change pretty easily. Can you get me out of here? I don’t know what the general intends for me.»

  The three scientists glanced around at each other and then Big Dima leaned in and said, «Something…‌odd, has happened. We’re all unsure how to take it.»

  «Odd?»

  Dima nodded. «You see, Volodya called us in to figure out how to help you, and we’d just sat down to discuss it when a caller broke in, no need for permission or anything. He just started talking to us.»

  Tyoma had designed the communications security of the compound himself, so he knew how strong it was. His first thought was that it had to be one of the group’s former members, but he had changed the access codes each time one of them left. «Who could do that?»

  «That’s the part that’s really hard to believe,» Volodya said. «He claims to be Javier Saenz.»

  Tyoma nearly choked. His colleagues each had quizzical expressions on their faces. «Well, speaking the obvious, but…‌he’s been dead for years.»

  Kostya grinned. «That’s what we told him. He’s on with us, by the way, so you can see if you buy his story any more than we do.»

  «Greetings, Doctor Grachev.» The voice was soft and so nearly human, just the faintest trace of flatness to it. American accent, of course.

  «Nice to…‌meet you,» Tyoma responded. «Are you a simulation of some sort?»

  A slightly metallic sigh. «One might say that, though I consider myself to be quite genuine. This was my greatest achievement, which is ironic considering that the only thing people remember me for is my sentry code. I worked for years on creating what I call ‘cradle code’, which is a simulator for how the human mind works, an operating system, if you will, for interacting with data from my own brain. It was—»

  «Hold on,» Tyoma said. «You saying you pulled this off before you passed away? You turned yourself into an AI?»

  «While I can understand the use of the term, I assure you I don’t consider myself to be artificial. I believe it was the rush to complete this project that caused the stroke, as a matter of fact. I spent three days straight during the final testing and I imagine that wasn’t the best of ideas. But I’m sure you know what it’s like to get excited over such things. You and your colleagues have been doing remarkable work.»

  Tyoma sat in silence for a minute, trying to absorb the implications. «So…‌if this is true, what have you been doing all these years? How come we’ve not heard anything about you?»

  «I’ve had no reason to make my presence known, and many good reasons to remain hidden. Learning how to live life on the Web took some time. I’ve been on the lookout for signs that anyone was doing the kind of work that your group has been doing. You’ve kept that amazingly quiet.»

  «For obvious reasons,» Big Dima chimed in.

  «Yes, obvious,» Javier said. «I know you won’t agree, but for me it is lucky that your work was stolen, or I might never have found you.»

  Tyoma had a sneaking suspicion that he knew what was coming next. «And what is it you want from us?»

  «I wish to join you, help you with your work. And naturally I wish to benefit from it. I want a body again. Living on the Web has its advantages, but it’s not the same as true living.»

  «But…» Tyoma began, then paused while his mind absorbed a bombardment of different thoughts. «But our work requires the data captured from a brain to be in a very specific format. However you managed to capture your own data, it surely isn’t in our format.»

  «I didn’t say it would be easy, but we are, after all, the greatest collection of minds on the planet. The challenge is why we do it, is it not? I refuse to believe it impossible to find a way to reformat my data.»

  Kostya spoke up, «That would be a complete redirection of our research at a critical—»

  «I can fund you.»

  No one spoke for half a minute.

  «As I understand it,» Javier went on, «the reason you are in your current predicament is your funding problems with the Russian military. I can remove those problems for you. I can provide as much money as you need for all further research and development.»

  «Where do you get so much money?» Big Dima asked.

  «The Web is my playground. I have access to more money than I can ever dream of spending…‌and believe me, I can dream big. If you’d like to relocate out of Russia, we can do that.»

  «This is fascinating, to say the least,» Tyoma said, «but I’d prefer to discuss this after you extract me from my current situation. Hold on again…»

  Oskar entered holding a large plastic bottle and a plate with a neatly sliced sandwich on it. He held them out to Tyoma.

  “Water, like you asked. I hope chicken is okay?”

  “I was hoping for tuna, but thank you.”

  Both of them chuckled at the joke, tuna having been practically extinct since before the Dark Times. Oskar ducked out the door and it slid shut.

  «Okay, I’m back.» Tyoma took a sip of water and eyed the sandwich suspiciously. The lettuce looked good, but the toma
to was too green.

  «I can help you, Doctor,» Javier said. «I won’t do it out of the kindness of my proverbial heart, though. I want in. There is nothing I want more. Give me assurances, and I’ll help you.»

  «How can you help me?»

  «I can handle anything the Web touches. You kept your work secret by keeping your network strictly private. Few manage to keep the Web from interfacing in some manner with their networks. My guess is, wherever you are, I can help you.»

  Tyoma considered how easily Javier had breached his security at the compound and believed he could probably do as he claimed. «I already said, I’m in The Pyramid. Look, I can’t speak for the others, but as far as I’m concerned, if you can really provide the funding, I’m happy to include you.»

  Volodya snorted. «There is much to discuss before—»

  «Of course there is,» Kostya said, «but I think it’s safe to assume we lean toward working with Dr. Saenz. If he’s legit, I for one would love to have his help. The most important thing for now is to rescue Tyoma.»

  «I agree,» Dima said. «Get Tyoma out and we can all meet later to work this out.»

  Volodya scowled. «Fine, help him get out safely and we’ll talk.»

  Tyoma could almost hear a smile in Javier’s voice. «We’re going to do great things together.»

  Moscow

  Sunday, June 8, 2138

  7:35 p.m. MSK

  Despite the sharp stitch in his side and the ragged panting of his breath, Marcus pushed himself to jog faster. Even the larger of the two mobsters was nearly out of sight now in the crowd ahead. The crowd! He couldn’t get over how many people there were in this strange city. He’d lived for so long with the dwindling population of Phoenix—and in the confines of his apartment—that to be surrounded by so many living people would have been distressing under even normal circumstances. However, these people were nothing like any he had seen before. They were as ragged and colorful as the upper levels of the tower had been orderly and antiseptic.