by Tara Basi
She settled into a comfortable leather armchair and studied the nearby tables. There were humanoids and anything else that could be imagined as long as it was Vogue. Towering machines studded with flashing gems, sexy aliens with extravagant body parts, lions and tigers, cuddly toys; everyone was beautiful, desirable.
A few revellers had glowing halos; even fewer had towers of stacked loops that reached high above their heads. These were the ultra-Broadcasters. The brighter the glow, the higher the stack and the more zombie addicts who had given up on their own lives to live the Broadcaster’s. Zip remembered Peter’s revulsion when they’d discussed her being online permanently through her Headgear. He hated the Broadcasters, and while in one sense she understood his revulsion of the Broadcasters and their followers, she also felt the attraction of enjoying a beautifully lived life without effort.
Before she could look around for a waiter, a divine albino angel with a perfectly sculpted body appeared above her, its wings beating silently, hovering serenely in the undisturbed air. The angel didn’t so much speak as caress Zip’s ears with an intimate whisper, as though they had been friends for ever.
“You’re looking exceptionally alluring this evening, Zip. Would you like your usual, or perhaps you might like to try one of the club’s new cocktails?”
“Surprise me,” Zip answered, knowing there couldn’t be an unpleasant surprise: the club knew every detail of her likes and dislikes.
Moments later, the waiter was flying back, nonchalantly balancing her golden drink on a silver tray in one hand. He put the crystal glass before her, bowed and ascended towards the ceiling before vanishing.
Zip sipped her drink, a perfect cocktail that tasted exactly how she imagined it would taste. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment. The background chatter was civilised and pleasant. Not a strident note disturbed the contemplative atmosphere. Only her thoughts could do that.
She drifted back to the saloon in Sediment Town, the Souk, Gaza, the Favelas, the Dharavi: places she hadn’t thought about in years. Real places, in the real world. Places that demanded effort to find any enjoyment.
A Headgear alert informed her that Bremer had arrived seconds before a puff of blue smoke delivered him. An attentive angel immediately appeared at his shoulder.
“Wonderful outfit, Senior Administrator, you look stunning. The usual?” the angel said, sounding as though it were praying.
Bremer’s brow furrowed – there was literally nothing the angel couldn’t get – then a smile lit up his face. “A Grownup Shirley Temple, please.”
“Excellent choice, Senior Administrator,” the angel whispered and was gone.
Zip couldn’t help laughing out loud. “What the Orb hell?”
“Look who’s talking, gimp,” Bremer answered, accompanied by a nervous giggle.
This is how it was in Orb London. Sitting next to her was not a fat, slovenly and old senior church administrator, but a glowing twelve-year-old girl, a Dorothy straight from her own yellow brick road.
Zip faked a snarl. “Bitch! This is a cool outfit. The spikes deform when I’m sitting. They’d cut you up in no time.”
The little girl senior administrator giggled, “It’s for fun. Less of that around every day.”
As though sensing a lull in their conversation, the angel descended from the ceiling and delivered the senior administrator’s drink. She liked Bremer a little bit more. They enjoyed a rare and comfortable silence. For a moment, all the fears of a new conflagration, of the world ending, their lost souls, all of it was out of mind, out of sight. It would be so easy to drown in the Net VR worlds and forget about the Church, Orb Industries, Peter, the wars gone by and the war to come.
“She’s a really top Broadcaster,” the senior administrator said, discretely indicating a striking, red-skinned woman porting a tower of pulsing haloes.
Zip studied the woman. She was, of course, stunning, but there was something else about her, a certain grandeur. “Do you follow her?”
“Sure, occasionally.” Bremer noted Zip’s surprise. “We’re not all addicts.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why read a novel? Or do this? A good Broadcaster can take you places you couldn’t imagine. Like the Tramp.”
Zip had never thought of Broadcasters that way. Maybe she’d give it a try someday.
It suddenly occurred to her that the senior administrator didn’t have Headgear. “How are you doing this?” Zip said, spreading her arms to indicate the bar. “With gear-specs?”
“Immersion suit and a flotation tank. It’s fine.”
Zip was sceptical. “Where’s the spontaneity in that? Don’t you want the taste, the smell?”
“I’ve got pre-programmed keywords and a library of stock sensory effects.”
She laughed. He had it all worked out. Lovely though all this was, Peter was waiting. “You have something for me?”
Bremer sighed. He was perhaps hoping to delay their discussion and pretend they were having fun for a little longer. “There’s a rumour going around in the office of the CEO.”
Playfully, Zip pulled Dorothy’s pigtail. “And?”
Bremer’s smile was weak and watery. “It’s bad stuff, dark. You sure you want to know?”
It was Zip’s turn to lose the smile. She nodded.
“Don’t ask me to explain, but everyone is quoting some line from the writings of the seventh CEO: ‘A blasphemy is coming, so terrible that Armageddon is the only possible consequence.’”
Zip smirked. “That sounds like a trashy horoscope. Is it yours?”
Dorothy giggled nervously. “Do you believe it?”
“No.” She thought of Peter. “One man couldn’t trigger Armageddon.”
The senior administrator shrugged, chinked glasses with Zip, and took a long sup from his cherry delight. “I’m out of the Church tomorrow. I don’t believe in much of anything, except for good administration. My new place is called Café B. You must visit, and, sad to say, you’ll have to be clothed. It’s going to be a house rule. No naked. It wears on you after a while. Most people don’t wear naked well.”
Zip laughed. “Café B sounds great. And I’d love to come, if the Church doesn’t kill me first.”
The pigtailed girl looked down at her shoes. “Something’s going on. It involves that professor of yours, you and … the Tramp.”
Zip was startled. “Me? The Tramp … How?”
“The Church is sinking in fear. It’s primal, defensive.” Bremer’s face darkened. “They’re talking war.”
“War,” Zip echoed.
The little girl shook her head, sending her golden pigtails dancing around her face. “There’s nothing concrete. I’m going to go now. You call me if you need … a coffee.”
Bremer took Zip’s black-leather-skinned hands and squeezed. The senior administrator disappeared politely. A slow shimmer, a Club Trash signature puff of blue smoke and he was gone. Zip was left alone to digest his enigmatic warning.
The Church bar was a beautiful creation, occupied by beautiful creatures living beautiful lives. None of them had her unspeakable talent for making war. She wondered if any of this was going to survive for much longer.
A striking girl with golden skin and platinum hair, sitting alone at a nearby table, caught Zip’s eye. The girl got up and sensually slinked over. Zip looked up into her bright blue eyes, flashing with ice and fire.
“Distraction lust?” the gorgeous girl asked, as though she knew that’s what Zip wanted more than anything else right now.
Momentarily, she wondered if distraction lust was appropriate when, maybe, Peter was about to commit a blasphemy that would trigger the apocalypse, but she didn’t think it for long. The apocalypse and Peter could wait a little longer. The girl’s avatar was imaginatively stunning; her voice was so sexy. She was a work of art, even if she really was a ninety-year-old granny Zip didn’t want to know.
Zip and the luscious girl fell into a slippery, warm sea of fragrant oils. Her d
elicious companion wrapped her perfect body around Zip’s like a python, and together they slipped and slid down into the bright blue depths. All around them, mermaids, dolphin-men and man-seals echoed their passion, keeping time with their movements. The distraction lust was good, very good. This was going to take a while.
Afterwards, instantly back in her real boxy bunker, she couldn’t help but smile: the privileges of citizenship, the bounty of the Orb, it almost balanced out the price. Almost.
Peter had stopped calling. On the surface, the sun had set and it was safely dark. Zip headed for the hotel, the world’s most exclusive, housed in the walls of the Cuboid.
Peter’s key codes got her through the excruciating security and as far as the hotel lobby. Headgear showed Peter was in his room, but he wasn’t answering her calls. He hadn’t left any more messages after his bizarre, raging, drunken explanations of Quattro’s abduction.
The lobby was decorated in muted beige and mink to match the low lighting and the mushroom-grey carpet underfoot that was thick and lush. After the vibrancy of Club Trash, the hotel seemed lifeless, despite its subdued opulence. Rooms overlooking the Orb were beyond unattainable. Those overlooking London were unaffordable. The floor was deserted, though Zip knew that formidable security was ever present and watching her every move.
She made her way to a set of discreet lift doors that would take her to Peter. When the doors opened, what unexpectedly greeted her was a comfortable lounge rather than the anonymous box she’d been expecting. Inside was a svelte, polished-brass, mechanical server that invited her to be seated. It offered her a glass of champagne: a rare treat in the real world. Zip accepted and sipped, wondering how this was going to work. She was anxious to confront Peter and get some answers. A low-key piece of classical music played in the background as Zip tried to wait patiently for something to happen.
After a couple of minutes of inactivity, Zip downed her champagne and rose to berate the mechanical. As she did, the door panels slid apart to reveal a dimly lit hallway. She was on Peter’s floor, two kilometres up, and she hadn’t noticed the tiniest movement. Real could sometimes be so much more amazing than virtual.
Peter’s suite was inside the external walls of the Cuboid, looking out over London. His door was directly ahead. It opened at her approach, recognising the key codes Peter had supplied. Zip found him passed out on the floor, discarded bottles all around, holding a half-empty decanter of brandy.
She dragged him into a shower cubicle and turned it on. Peter gasped like a landed fish as he was assaulted by the icy water and instinctively tried to crawl out. Zip pushed him back under the downpour with her foot. Too drunk to resist, Peter fell backwards, gurgling in protest as he lay on his back under the freezing deluge. When Zip judged he’d had enough, she let him crawl out and curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor, shivering uncontrollably. Gingerly, she undressed the old man and led him into the body drier. While he warmed up, she went to find fresh clothes and ordered coffee and a sober-up pill. The shower treatment was unnecessary. The pill would have been sufficient, but she was furious with him. Meddling with AI tech was bad enough, without getting mixed up in a blasphemy that could trigger war.
When she returned to the bathroom, Peter was slumped in the drier, half asleep. She threw a pile of clothes and a robe at him, and he jumped, groaned and clutched at his head. Peter carefully opened his eyes and started again when he realised he was naked. Pulling the clothes close, he weakly waved Zip away. The smell of coffee drifted in from the lounge and Zip went off to find it.
A few minutes later, Peter followed, clutching the robe tightly around his body. He was magnetically drawn to the steaming coffee cup on the low table. Zip sat on the corner of a long sofa, her knees pulled tightly to her chest, staring at the view through a large window, looking out over London towards the northern perimeter of the wall. Dawn was coming.
Zip waited till Peter had taken the pill and drained his first coffee.
“What are you up to, Peter? What haven’t you told me?”
Peter looked at Zip blankly. Slowly, the pill worked its magic, his eyes unglazed, he shook his head, everything came flooding back, and he started trembling with fury.
“Where the hell have you been? Mathew took Quattro. You’ve got to rescue her.”
Zip swung around to face Peter. She was still in her holographic dominatrix outfit, her tail with its threatening barbs pointed at him accusingly. “Church thinks you’re up to blasphemy, Peter.”
The professor shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Quattro might be in danger. You’ve got to get her back from that … thing. Now! You’ve got to go—”
She slapped Peter hard across the face with her tail. In surprise, more than pain, he clutched at his cheek. The barbs weren’t real, but her tail was.
He glared at her for a moment before speaking. “Orb Industries is up to something, I don’t know what. It’s something to do with the technology I used to bring back Kiki.”
Zip didn’t respond. She stared at Peter, her eyes hard and unflinching.
Peter looked away. “This morning, they’re coming for me. Maybe I’ll find out more. Now, will you help me? Please.”
Reluctantly, Zip believed Peter. He didn’t know anything, not yet. “How did Mathew escape?”
Peter’s hands clutched at each other. “What does it matter? You’re wasting time.”
“Answer my question, Peter.”
“I’ve no fucking idea. One minute he’s a flesh and blood prisoner. Then his brain’s in a Thermal Mines mechanical. Then he’s dead. Or so his lawyer says. Then he’s a bloody AI. Shit, you know him. You tell me.”
“Mathew, an AI? He hated the AIs. Are you sure?”
“Yes. Yes. How the hell do you explain the coincidence of your Mathew being involved in all of this? Did you hire him to kill Kiki? Tell me the truth.”
Zip glared at Peter. “Don’t be so bloody stupid. Think I’d be here if I had?”
“OK! OK, I believe you. Kiki’s transactions … with Mathew.” Peter hesitated, his face screwed up in pain. “They came from the house network.”
“So?”
Peter looked at the ceiling, down at his shoes then at Zip, his eyes tearing up. “It wasn’t Kiki who paid him. He said Kiki wasn’t expecting him. It wasn’t suicide.”
“Who then?”
“Quattro knows. She knows why you’re so important, too. You’ve got to find her. I want her back. She has our answers.”
How could Quattro know anything? She’d been isolated in Peter’s firewalled VR cellar. Zip didn’t bother asking; she was tired of all the riddles.
Peter, obviously encouraged by Zip’s silence, babbled on, “Look, I’m sorry. There’s clearly something bigger going on, bigger than both of us, that’s dragged us in. We both need answers. I created an app last night; it’ll track Quattro, even outside the wall.”
Zip’s brow wrinkled. “She’s outside, beyond the wall?”
Peter nodded. Avoiding Zip’s gaze, he busied himself pouring two cups of coffee and handed one to Zip. She slapped it out of his hand, sending the crockery flying across the room and splashing Peter, who yelped in pain.
“What the hell have you got me involved in?” Zip raged.
Peter snatched an ice cube from a glass of water and rubbed it over his scalded hand. “Only what I asked you to do, what you agreed to do – find out who killed Kiki and why. Quattro knows something. Please, please, go find her.”
Zip held her head in her hands. Mathew was an AI, Quattro was a bodied AI and outside. Only Jesus and the Tramp knew what Peter was falling into with Orb Industries. She couldn’t stop now, not if answers were out there. “Install the app. I’m not making any promises.”
Peter smiled with obvious relief and nodded enthusiastically.
Seconds later, her Headgear had finished sanitising and installing the app. The tracking information was not very precise, but if it was accurate, Quattro was well bey
ond the wall.
Chapter Eleven – Bunny
A few hours had passed since Zip’s departure. Headgear announced that the Orb Industries’ representative had arrived and was waiting outside Peter’s room. Peter wasn’t sure what the crazy woman was going to do, but he begged whatever god might be listening that Zip was out there looking for Quattro. In the intervening time, he’d collected his thoughts, shaved and dressed. It was important that he learn as much as possible about Orb Industries’ plans without committing to anything. He might learn something about Kiki’s death, or maybe he would find a fix for Quattro’s dementia.
He opened the suite door and was puzzled to find only one of the hotel’s brass servitors outside: a machine that looked more like a Victorian fairground attraction than a modern mechanical. Nevertheless, Peter was invited to follow the polished droid as it headed for the lounge-lift.
The droid waited patiently for Peter to settle himself in a comfortable chair, then offered him breakfast. His stomach wasn’t ready for food, but he accepted the offer of coffee. Peter watched the curious behaviour of the machine while sipping his beverage. It removed an optical key from some recess in its body and caused a small panel to open in the wall, revealing a waiting keyhole. It inserted the key and the panel closed.
“What was that?” Peter asked.
“Apologies, sir, but that information is restricted. I understand it will take one hour and ten minutes for us to arrive at our destination. There are commodes in the rear should sir require them. Is there anything more I can offer sir?” it lisped in a stylised Victorian English that tourists probably thought was amusing.
Peter had assumed they would be visiting some nearby office. “Where the hell are we going? The Thermal Mines?”
“Apologies, sir, but that information is restricted. Would sir care for some more coffee?”
Peter proffered his empty coffee cup. He knew better than most how futile it was to argue with a dumb mechanical. Almost certainly he was being observed and he didn’t want to reveal how agitated he really was. He wanted to kick the brass droid so hard the dent would never buff out. His anger didn’t last long. It cooled quicker than his coffee. He realised, with mounting despair, that Orb Industries may have already tracked down Mathew and killed Quattro. He wouldn’t be able to cope if she was gone, not again.