City of Cinders

by Kendrai Meeks

  “The coast is clear. Come on.”

  Cindira reached into her coat pocket and opened her hand. Laporte’s tiny feet tickled her palm. The tug of his little claws surprised her. For something that wasn’t even real, how could he still be so authentic?

  She took a seat at the kitchen bar as she set Laporte on the countertop. Just like a real mouse, he set about his grooming with hasty urgency in between polite conversation.

  “Thank you, Madame, though we must find another way for me to travel with you. Not that your coat pocket is unpleasant, only I do not like being unable to see.”

  “Sorry, but I wasn’t prepared to be an animal carrier.” She grabbed an apple from a bowl of fruit and took a bite, continuing to talk around a full mouth. “Tell me again why you don’t want Asla to see you. She must remember you.”

  “We don’t know who we can or can’t trust yet.” As much as a robotic mouse could, Laporte looked apologetic. “For now, my continued existence must remain need-to-know.”

  “Just out of curiosity, does that include anyone else besides me?”

  “No.” He blinked twice. “And I’ve only come to you now because your recent actions made it necessary. I am doing you no favors to be near you. If my presence is discovered, I fear the repercussions.”

  The context of that comment did not elude her. No doubt Johanna would love to get her hands on something with so much direct knowledge of Omala’s work. “Just how long have you been monitoring me?”

  “From a distance, since your mother died. But when you started working at Tybor, I came back to the city. Luckily, nothing you did put you in harm’s way. Until last night.”

  So much had happened all at once, Cindira at first didn’t remember the major life moment less than twelve hours ago. “I don’t understand why visiting GAIA would be such a big deal. I’ve been there before.”

  “Not since The Kingdom launched. The fact that an explosion occurred precisely where you were during the brief time you were there? I don’t believe it’s coincidence.”

  “Are you saying I was the target?” She nearly choked as she gulped down an oversized chunk of fruit. “One, why would someone be trying to blow up my avatar? And two, I didn’t know I was going until about 10 PM last night. I don’t see how they’d know to expect me.”

  As much as a mouse could grimace, Laporte did. “That is a query for which I haven’t found a reasonable explanation.”

  “Someone had a bot looking for my neural network signature.” Her analytical brain shot into gear. “The question is...who, and for how long?”

  “That’s two questions, actually.” The mouse managed to shake his head. “It is also possible that the attack was indeed meant for the prince, and your presence mere coincidence. After all, the other two explosions clearly had nothing to do with you.”

  “Two other explosions?” Cindira shot to her feet. When she’d learned there’d been one before her arrival, that was frightening enough. “So GAIA has covered up two attacks? How?” Cindira ran her hands through her thick, black hair. “And how do you know any of this?”

  “Because I’m Laporte.”

  His answer was so simple, it took her a moment to realize she had actually heard him correctly. “Right.”

  “Madame, I’m a botic. The purpose behind my design makes the answer obvious.”

  “Hardly. I’ve seen botics. They’re simple devices for people who want a pet without having to feed or clean up after it. Besides, I’m still not entirely sure I haven’t gone insane and am imagining you right now. This could all be a dream, my mind creating ways to rationalize the trauma of having been blasted into pieces last night.” Cindira remembered the mouse she’d seen in the arena as she’d fought Barrel. And again, the one that crossed her path outside her own gate. Was her brain taking the coincidence and creating this fantasy as a form of self-protection? Or was there something else going on?

  “Do you believe that’s what’s happening?” He waited patiently for her answer.

  “I have a near-perfect memory. I’m famous for it, actually. I’ve remembered things that never happened before, but I’ve rarely forgotten something that had.”

  Laporte continued. “Even if you did remember, it may not help. You thought I was a toy, no matter how many times your mother would firmly remind you I was anything but.”

  “In my defense, I considered most objects toys. The whole world was my playground, and what I couldn’t find, I made up. I used to tell everyone that I had too many dreams to waste time awake.”

  The past kindled in her memory, a mostly happy childhood in which she’d been precocious and curious and brave and inquisitive, and her mother had encouraged her every impulse to learn, to dream, to explore.

  As long as she was in bed on time each night.

  “Why did she make you look like that, by the way?” Cindira asked, pushing back memories as she tossed the apple core into the garbage. “I mean, you are an impressive piece of tech. I don’t think I’ve seen a botic anywhere near as realistic as you. Definitely not as small. Why make you look like a dirty street rodent?”

  “Affronts to my personal sense of self-worth aside, it was a protective measure.” The mouse hedged his answer. “No one would look at me and think I was a device capable of monitoring GAIA anytime, day or night. That I could be omnipresent inside of the world, your mother’s portal into her creation. I can tap all its records, search logs, review—”

  Cindira jumped up. “You can access the source code!” She covered her own mouth when she realized what she’d said, as though someone might be listening. “If Johanna knew, she’d be after you in the blink of her surgically-sculptured eyes.”

  “Exactly, Madame,” the mouse concurred in his balanced accent, slicing together Americana and British. “There are others who would also relish an opportunity to hack your mother’s work. No one’s VR programs have ever been so well designed. Just look at what Tybor was able to do making a copy of GAIA, and that was only using it as a base and building atop of it. It made your mother furious to find out what Rex and Johanna had done behind her back.”

  Weakened with the weight of a truth she had suspected all her life, Cindira sank into a nearby chair. “So my father lied; The Kingdom wasn’t my mother’s idea.”

  “No, and if she hadn’t died that night, I’m certain she would have found a way to destroy it.”

  The echo of memories reverberated in Cindira’s head. She didn’t remember Laporte, or did she? She had always had a vague memory of someone accompanying her mother to the party on Angel Island the night she died, but those who were there reported Omala had been alone.

  “Were you with her when it happened?”

  “I was wondering when that would come up.” The mouse’s head dipped. “It is with deepest regrets that I must tell you I do not know what happened. At the time your mother fell into the water, I was running some rather complex tasks that temporarily shut down my animatronic functions. When I woke up, so to speak, I was floating in the Bay and low on battery. I was able to make it to shore after a few days of swirling around in the tides, but by then your mother was no more. I am sorry, by the way. For your loss, I mean. I know it’s been many years, but I do not doubt the pain remains.”

  The pain of losing the most important person in the world to you at the age of eleven? Of being ripped from your childhood home and sent to boarding school thousands of miles away within months? Of your father abandoning his place in your life to raise another woman’s children with tenderness and affection while barely giving you the time of day? Of being forced to devote your working life to supporting a program you’d just learned exploited your mother’s work without her consent?

  Yes, the pain lingered.

  “Thank you, Laporte.” She inhaled through her nose, centering her thoughts. “You said I was in great danger. What did you mean?”

  “You have the same liability that I have. You can access the source code that underlies GAIA and The Kin
gdom.”

  She choked on the accusation. “You know that’s not true.”

  It is true, a voice deep within her said.

  An even deeper voice shot back, I know the language of the source code, that doesn’t mean I can access it!

  Laporte’s little white head tipped to the side. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that as well. Perhaps, like your memories of me, it’s there somewhere, buried, like having the map to a secret treasure, but no ship or shovels to unearth it.”

  She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he was waiting for, so she said nothing. After a few moments, however, the little mouse roused himself from his reverie and changed the subject.

  “Did you not receive the package I sent?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “What package?”

  “The one with the shoes. I had it sent here several days ago.”

  The shoes? “Those were from you?”

  Cindira jumped up and rounded the corner of the kitchen. The box still lay on the counter where a few days previously, Kaylie had eyeballed and ridiculed the contents with the most dismissive tone she could muster. Cindira snatched the items from the box and sped back to the mouse.

  “They’re here, though I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with a pair of glass shoes.”

  “They are not merely shoes. They’re mobile jacks.”

  Kaylie had mentioned the same thing, but that didn’t make it any more a reality. “There’s no such thing.”

  “There are no others, that is for certain,” Laporte concurred. “One researcher in India came close to developing something, but he made a fatal flaw in the design. He thought the shoes should be jackpod and processor, in addition to VR renderers.”

  That was it, the fantasy died. “I hate to tell you this, but those are the three essential elements of achieving a VR presence, so he was kinda right.”

  “Oh, that is completely correct. But, they need not be all in the device itself. In fact, outsourcing the processor is what makes the technology possible.”

  “But even with that being true – and I don’t see how that would work unless the processor was in constant, close proximity – it doesn’t solve the problem of energy. The amount of power needed would—”

  “Be derived from a combination of solar and kinetic energy harvesting,” Laporte again interrupted. “I know you think we’re having a theoretical conversation right now, Madame, but you don’t seem to understand that the device you’re holding was how your mother accessed the worlds she created. You’re right about one thing, though. The processor could not be small enough to fit into a shoe.”

  “Where is it then?”

  The mouse blinked twice. “I’m looking at her.”

  14

  In the second time in as many weeks, Francisco Batista de le Reina, Elected Prince of GAIA, walked into the corner office of the woman who held him and world peace hostage in every way but physically.

  “Hello, Johanna.” The blond snake removed her glasses and looked up from her desk, grinning. “Your Highness?” Something about the way she said it made it sound like an insult. “How delightful to see you again. And so soon! To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

  He didn’t wait for an invitation to assume the chair across her desk. “You know why I’m here.” He unbuttoned his suit coat and crossed his legs, leaning back in the chair to lengthen his body.

  “I can only assume you intend to pass yourself off as an investigator and snoop around. A little friendly advice, though: eventually, you’re going to cross paths here with someone else besides me who knows who you really are, and then your cover is going to be blown.”

  It hadn’t slipped his notice how she cataloged him, as though she contemplated his acquisition. Francisco, of course, had no interest in Tybor’s acting director, but he wasn’t above some harmless encouragement to get what he was after. “There’s been another bombing outside of the war zones in GAIA. This time, two avatars were destroyed, and mine was one. So, I ask you the same question that I did before.”

  She folded her arms over her chest and gave him her undivided attention. “And my answer is the same. Or did you think I was lying?”

  “You, lie?” Francisco chuckled and swiped the air. “I’m sure you don’t think that’s what I’m suggesting.”

  “So, you finally believe that I don’t have access to the source code? Good. Not a single person in this building does.”

  “That right there, Johanna.” Francisco snapped and pulled himself to the edge of his chair. “That is the kind of hedged comment that lets you skate around the truth, isn’t it? No one in this building. Do you know what that makes me think about? About how long it’s been since anyone’s seen Rex Tieg at the office.”

  He’d plucked a string with that move, made Johanna Tieg buzz. The blonde placed two hands on the desk and methodically pushed herself back, standing slowly.

  “Just to clarify, Your Highness, are you suggesting that my husband is a cyberterrorist using knowledge he’s denied having to destroy Tybor’s gift to humanity, that he’s enabling such evil, or merely that I’m lying about his having such knowledge?”

  “How could he not know about the source code?” Francisco demanded. “Wasn’t Tybor and GAIA the result of his work with Omala Grover? Given the fact that they were married at the time, I find it hard to believe he’s completely in the dark.”

  The momentary ghost of past grudges and insecurity erupted onto Johanna’s face. As quickly as it came, it fled. The wrinkles around her eyes grew deeper as she pulled on a smile and sharpened her good graces. She rounded her desk with deliberate steps.

  “I don’t often share my personal feelings with anyone other than my husband, and on occasion, my own children. I hope you understand that, as I’m about to tell you something I’ve never shared with anyone else.”

  The prince acknowledged her with a dip of his chin. “Enlighten me.”

  “I detest GAIA.”

  The comment took him aback, both mentally and physically. “Why?”

  “I could say because maintaining its infrastructure and hardware is a nightmare, both logistically and financially. How its bandwidth eats up precious resources I’d rather dedicate to our for-profit endeavors. Or, I could tell you that playing host to the world’s most advanced war rooms makes us the constant target of hackers and shadow players. All these things are true, of course, but I’m afraid the real answer is very petty. I hate GAIA because it was hers. Because forever more, all the work I do will benefit the creation of the woman who, even fifteen years after her death, my husband still loves, no matter how much he denies it. I would rather it died, and with it, the constant reminder Rex deals with of just how wonderful his ex-wife was.”

  She meant it. God help him, but she meant every word.

  “And despite all this,” Johanna continued, “I keep it going. I diminish our profit margins, skive from our investors, and raise billions of dollars a year in charity drives, to keep it going, because when it dies, I’m afraid my husband’s heart—and our marriage—will die with it.”

  She settled back into her chair, leaning her forehead into hands pressed as if in prayer. When her closed eyes flew open again, Johanna reengaged her mask of slighted malevolence.

  “Rex doesn’t know how to access the source code, your majesty, and neither do I. No one knew except for Omala. As much as I detested her, I’m not bitter enough to say she was a fool, or to deny her genius. If there’s someone, somewhere, who can get to the code, I haven’t been able to find them. And so, I live each day in castles built of sand, knowing that someday, what we’ve built on top of Omala’s work will collapse. For now, I’m just as determined to weed out whoever is attacking inside of it as you are.”

  And there it was. She’d tipped her hat. And now, Francisco had to decide if he’d do the same. Despite having no doubt that her admission had been true, he still wasn’t certain her passion for the vreal world platform he ruled was as steadfast and compassi
onate as she claimed. But if he wanted her help, she needed to understand what he knew.

  “I’ve made a discovery inside GAIA, Johanna.”

  The way curiosity pushed wide her eyes suggested intrigue.

  “Accidentally, but nonetheless. There’s a path between it and The Kingdom. I think...I think whoever is attacking us from inside GAIA is getting to us from there.”

  Johanna clutched the gold chain at her throat. “That’s impossible. They’re two completely different systems with the highest security protocols in the industry.”

  “But they run on the same source code.”

  “Yes, but...Your Highness, that’s just not how it works.”

  “Why wouldn’t it? Even if it’s true, as you say, that hackers have never managed to get into GAIA, I know some have gotten into The Kingdom through the years. Don’t talk to me like I don’t understand this stuff.” Francisco shot to his feet, looking down at the woman. “You know who I am.”

  “Yes, Prince Francisco Batista de le Reina, grandson of Martin Batista de la Leon, the man who funded Omala Grover’s first iteration of GAIA.”

  “You also know that I studied vreal world design and architecture with some of the best teachers in the world, and I put myself through pirate port after pirate port to learn. I didn’t win my crown just because of my family connections.”

  “You seem to think I’m your enemy. I’m not, and I have just as much to lose if word gets around about these events as you do. The Kingdom is a network of powerful and affluential people, each of whom vie mightily for access. There have only been three successful hacks in fifteen years, and we’ve crushed them and patched the weaknesses they exposed immediately. Even still, our stock tanked each time it happened, and took months to recover. GAIA is built on the same security protocols and framework. If word gets out that someone’s not only hacking into it, but actually destroying parts, it will ruin Tybor.”