by Mason Adgett
“Not in it,” he said, “no, no.” But he didn’t look sure. “They were attached to you but when we shut the machine down they fell off. Same as India.” He looked at me closely. “You all right, man? Listen, we’re gonna get you checked out, okay? Just relax.”
“None of it was real,” I said. “Kantsky wasn’t real?”
“No Kantsky,” he said. “Forget about Kantsky. This madman Boldt, he’s been keeping you in a sim. Can you stand up?” I tried and found I could but my legs were wobbly. I allowed Charles to support me. “Mike and Lewis are waiting outside.”
“Lewis?” I said, disbelieving. “Lewis is here?” I had calmed down enough to take in my surroundings. The room we were in was small but it seemed like one of Kantsky’s labs. Only he wasn’t Kanstky, instead he was Boldt. I had been strapped it appeared to a bench jutting out from the wall and there was a mess of machinery to the side to control the wires attached to my head. It was far less high-tech than the bots I had seen in the virtual world but it had the same mad psychopath written all over it.
Opposite was the only door in the room – a side-slider with a touch panel – currently closed. There were no security bots or cameras, just the small room with the bench and the machine. Charles touched the door panel and it slid open. On the other side I didn’t see Lewis or Mike first as I expected, but India, who had apparently been waiting for the door to open.
“Are you all right?” she said immediately, then to Charles, “Is he all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, though I really wasn’t, but as she looked more fragile than I felt I reassured her. She was not the same 3V India I was used to. Her face was blotchy like she had been crying, her hair was in tangles, and she was huddled inside a loose gray sack two sizes too big for her.
“I thought he killed you,” she said. “I saw it.”
Then Lewis pushed her out of the way and I noticed the crowd in the hallway behind her. Besides India and Mike and Lewis, there were a lot of people I didn’t know that I took to be human behavior enforcement based on the uniforms as well as India’s manager and some of her people. Lewis’s camera crew was there too. I noticed there were no gobos present – no Vavaka, no halikari – and didn’t know what to make of it.
I was tired, too exhausted for a crowd of people. Whether my experiences were real or imagined they had worn me down the same. Lewis, in an incredibly rare moment of empathy, seemed to sense my discomfort and immediately set to work doing what he does best – telling others what to do. In minutes he had us moving, to a transport shuttle I was told. He did a good job of keeping the camera crew out of my face so he must have been truly worried about me.
The shuttle turned out to be a behavior enforcement travel station. Kantsky – or whatever his real name was, I was too tired to remember – was in a separate jailing facility. The rest of us rode in the lobby. We were about two hours from Earth, Charles told me.
"Earth?" I repeated, my confusion evident.
"You were taken off Asitot almost as soon as you left Vavaka's," he told me. I tried to think back.
"From the pedto," I said.
He shook his head, frowning. "You made it to the pedto? Word is it was before you even got there. From what the halikari told us no one at the pedto had seen you. You weren’t in any of the cell footage or security videos. They figure he took you on the road just after you left Vavaka's estate."
This made absolutely no sense to me. "How?" I asked. "How is that possible?"
Charles shrugged. "We don't know. Maybe he'll explain it once they get him back to the station."
On the other side of the lobby India sat next to Ms. Rhine. Her eyes never left me, her face thoughtful. Not an expression I had come to expect from India Phoenix. Whatever illusions she had about the world before had clearly been shattered. Maybe I thought her shallow, maybe she was naive, but whatever innocence she had had been stolen from her. Boldt – his name occurred to me then – had destroyed whatever India had once been and left something deeper but far more soiled in its place. The oversized cheap dress she wore made her look like a traumatized child. Where had they found that ugly thing and why had they put her in it?
Where was Vavaka, I wondered? If she were mine, wouldn't I be there to take care of her if something like this went down? Wouldn't this be exactly the type of moment love was meant for? But there was no sign of him.
I asked Charles about it.
"I don't know," he said, his eyes shifting over to India and Ms. Rhine. "Something to do with his estate, I gathered. Political, I think."
"Must be important for him not to be here," I said.
"I don't know," he repeated, but the way he said it, the way he hooded his eyes, I thought maybe he did know and this wasn't the place to talk about it.
I sat back and shut up. India stared at me, I stared back, unable to answer whatever question it was that colored her eyes. She had lost her trademark pout. Her face now was pensive, withdrawn. Charles, meanwhile, quietly tried to catch me up as much as he could. After I had left Vavaka's, he had gone online and began searching for India's kidnapper.
"Not easy," he assured me. "I really didn't know where to begin. But since we were talking about a fellow gamer being a possibility, I started with her Galactic Empires profile."
"It’s private," I said. "She keeps it unlisted. I looked it up before we went."
"Not completely," he said. "Friends of friends. I sent a message to Claire Cadence, she sent me a list of her top games and profile names." Claire Cadence was a 3V star. I was not aware Charles knew her but he did occasionally move in celebrity circles. “It took a while, but in the end that was what led me to him.”
“A while?” I said, fixating on this. “How long have I been out?”
“Eleven days,” he said, then gave me a moment to process this.
“Impossible,” I said. “There’s no way.” I tried to think back. How long had it really been since I had “arrived” at the pedto? It seemed at best a few days.
Charles shrugged sympathetically. “I don’t know, man. It’s been eleven days since I saw you. I’ve never been so worried, bro.” He put on a grim smile. “I haven’t slept much. When you didn’t come back after bazza I got pretty aggressive. I’ve been up day and night trying to find you.” He laughed. “I can’t say I exactly kept a low profile, like I promised.”
We were interrupted by one of the behavior enforcement officers, a polite young kid who practically bowed when he came up to us. “My apologies, sir,” he said, “but they want to have a look at you in the med center.”
I was about to protest but Charles practically lifted me out of my seat. “Yes. Go get looked at. They already checked out India, hopefully you’re both fine.”
I followed the officer’s freckled neck to a small room where a very small, very kind, very quiet middle-aged woman scanned me from head to toe with a tablet. After swiping a few shapes she patted a pair of dual cells over her eyes and made a more detailed study of my skull, peering into it with the cell’s biometric display no doubt giving her all kinds of information. She turned my head a few times, her eyes looking eerily through me. “Everything appears normal,” she said, but there was a furrow to her brow that said otherwise.
“What is it?” I demanded immediately. “What are you not saying?”
She blinked the dual cells from her lids and shrugged lightly. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just that you and India Phoenix have remarkably similar neural structures. I just looked at hers and now seeing yours… It’s a little unusual.”
“What does that mean?”
She looked briefly uncomfortable then smiled and waved her hand like it was nothing. “It’s just strange, nothing to be concerned about. Everyone has a divergent pattern, you see. You never see two that are the same. But you and Miss Phoenix are both remarkably similar. That’s all. It’s a remarkable coincidence.”
I went back to the lobby unsatisfied with that explanation. But when Charles a
sked how it went I said, “Everything appears normal,” and didn’t elaborate. Still I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For some reason it just wouldn’t sit right in my “neural structures.”
Lewis also wanted to know how the scan went and after I reassured him, he said, “You could have died.”
“Yes,” I said. “There were times it even seemed likely.”
“Mom wouldn’t be happy if I got you killed.”
“Well she’s not here,” I said.
Lewis looked wounded, retreating to sit on the opposite side of the lobby until we returned to Earth.
····12····
It’s possible I was being callous. Mom had been dead for only three years and Lewis still was not over it. I don’t suppose I was either. I don’t suppose we ever really would be, just as I had never gotten over the loss of our father who had died in a shuttle accident when we were both kids. But I didn’t blame Lewis for my danger and found the whole idea of blaming anyone but Boldt silly. Leave blame where it properly belonged, I thought, with the villains, with the cruel and sadistic Kantskys of the universe, whatever names they might hide behind.
Back on Earth both Charles and Lewis offered me a place to stay but what I really wanted was to be back by myself at home. I was exhausted and had trouble sleeping in any bed but my own. We made a brief stop at Lewis’s to recover the things I had taken to Asitot, which had all been returned from Vavaka’s estate a few days ago. The wedding, Charles told me, had been postponed indefinitely so as far as we were concerned the case was closed.
It was likely then that I would not be returning to Asitot. My investigation of Vavaka was over. I was too tired to feel one way or another about it but I couldn’t say I had accomplished much.
I had all kinds of notifications on my cell I didn’t bother to open. When I got back to my apartment I went immediately to bed and slept dreamlessly well into the next day. My cell woke me, Lewis on the other end wanting to come over and check on me. I told him not to worry about it, I was fine. He wanted to make me breakfast. It was weird to see Lewis so considerate and it was obvious it was no act. After a few minutes on the cell I realized two things. One: I was still very tired and Lewis – even at his best – was already making me irritable. Two: despite that irritation I was looking forward to his company. After my night of rest I needed something tangible – someone tangible – to bring me back to reality, not to mention provide a distraction from the chaotic tumble of recent traumatic memories I was still sorting through. As far as distractions went Lewis was tops.
He arrived shortly thereafter and took over my small kitchen. I tended to go with the automated meals but Lewis had always enjoyed throwing “human” food together and he was good at it. He talked constantly as he always does. He told me what he was making – an eggs Benedict casserole – and how he was making it. He had carried a pile of things in with him, like paprika, ham, hollandaise sauce he had prepared himself. “You have milk, I hope?” Otherwise he could call Mike to bring it by but since I did have it Mike would drive around an hour or two and then come pick him up. He had told Mike I didn’t want his company which I thought was awfully rude but also true. He talked about the last eleven days, after making sure I didn’t mind. They had released another episode of the show. Wildly popular but he had been too worried sick about me to enjoy it. That was before Charles had cracked the thing open. The whole case was a nightmare, he wished he had never taken it but he was already getting calls for more. Big names, too. But I shouldn’t worry, he wasn’t going to involve me again. He’d been thinking about that. Awfully selfish of him. Instead he’d rely on Mike for that kind of stuff. He didn’t say what kind of stuff but I took it to mean the going places and doing things kind of stuff. It went on like this a while. Eggs Benedict, he assured me, was not to be rushed.
I let him go on, listening for the things I was interested in. How Charles cracked it open. The murderer, Boldt. He talked around these while somehow not telling me anything I didn’t know.
My cell went off as he was whisking the sauce and when I saw it was India Phoenix I interrupted him so I could take the call.
“Can you talk?” she said when the video came on. It looked like she was still wearing a nightgown, a silk kimono style thing with a gentle pink pattern. No make-up. I wondered if she had just gotten up. She didn’t look like she’d slept as well as I had.
“Lewis is here,” I said. “Making me breakfast.” No doubt she could see him behind me.
“I’m glad he’s taking care of you.”
“How are you doing?” I asked her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Everything he did to you, it was my fault. I can’t stop thinking about how he hurt you.” She looked haunted and I thought it was weird, her calling me, her worrying about me, when she had been the one he was after. Besides India and I hardly knew each other.
But she didn’t feel at all like a stranger to me anymore and I could tell she felt the same. Truth was I had no idea what she had experienced and vice versa. Whatever virtual torture Boldt had put her through he had made for her as much as mine had been made for me. We each had been given our own private hell. But whatever he might have done to us as individuals, by threatening us with each other he had tied us together with a unique, indescribable bond.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, and, “I really should go. Lewis is here.”
“Will you come see me?” she said. “Sometime soon?”
“I will,” I said though I didn’t know why or what I would say when I got there. “Thank you for checking up on me.” I really did appreciate it but there was no way I could say anything I was thinking – not coherently anyway – in front of my brother.
I hung up just as Lewis was getting my plate ready, drizzling sauce over the casserole. He handed it to me and waited expectantly for my first bite. The hollandaise sauce was like rich, lemony butter, the eggs and muffins were airy and light, the ham providing a perfect, firm texture to round it out. He truly did have a gift and I told him so.
“Thanks,” he said, beaming. “I thought you would like it.” Really it had been the perfect gesture. I never cooked for myself. I generally felt that’s what the kitchen was for and it made all my meals in a matter of minutes. But if I were being honest there was no comparison between a kitchen-made meal and the one Lewis had just prepared.
After he left I felt good, refreshed. I checked my cell notifications – something I still hadn’t gotten around to – and saw India had tried calling me earlier that morning already. I had slept through it. She had called twice, both before 9am. I thought about calling her again but resisted the temptation. We’d already talked and I would go visit later like I told her.
Instead I deleted v-mails, paid bills, cleared out my junk folder and emptied my news feeds without viewing them. I only kept three messages. One was a form from behavior enforcement requesting a written report of my experiences at my own convenience. Another was a job offer reconfiguring a game interface for a neighbor, a single day thing that didn’t seem urgent and I might have time for later in the week. The last was from my brother, a link to the latest episode of Lewis Gregory, Private Investigator. I flicked it to the big 3V screen and lay down on the couch to watch it. Kudos to Lewis for not making me start it with him around.
It flashed a warning right away that some content could be disturbing, and it was, as the first portion replayed the initial kidnapping. I grew tense reliving it even though the version in the show was only a short cut of the real thing. It featured action more than dialogue: the appearance of the kidnapper’s ship in the viewport, Charles and I with our laser apps burning through the walls, the finding of the dead and unconscious bodies. The cameramen Jack and Jerry made no appearance but I was aware of them in every shot, their unfeigned tension coming through in every angle.
I was disturbed personally most by the replay of the conversation with Boldt on the comm. It was the same voice, the voice of Kantsky in
my virtual nightmare, and to hear it again made my skin crawl. I paused it after this, actually stepping outside my apartment to get away from it. I took a walk in the apartment’s solarium, letting the sun through the glass warm the chill away before I went back to the room.
The second portion featured Lewis in an interview with Debra Rhine speaking for the Phoenix family. Her comments were as professional and reserved as I would have expected and she assured Lewis he had the full support of the Phoenix family in his search for India and his own brother. Her narrow brown eyes stayed locked on Lewis as though the camera wasn’t there, her graying hair pulled back into loose waves to soften the harsh angles of her face. I knew India’s father was ill and her mother a recluse so I was not surprised they did not appear on the show. I also knew the family was conservative but mostly kept their politics to themselves. Krumb for instance had sought their endorsement with no success. None of this came up in her interview but these were the things I thought about while watching it.
The last portion of the show was of the most interest to me as it covered events that had happened after I left Vavaka's estate. It had been released before Charles had identified Boldt but did show how he got on the right track. By using India's gaming history and his forceful personality he had been able to acquire all the records – legally, thank God – of the games India had played over the last year. It was a long list but his approach had been simple: to create a list of common players/spectators that showed an unusually high interest in India's gaming. Local behavior enforcement had approved the approach and lent their support.
He must have been nice to Jack and Jerry too because they caught almost all his interactions perfectly and it didn’t once seem like he was acting. He even narrated his thoughts through portions of it and did Lewis the ultimate favor of acting like it was all his idea, like former basketball star Charles Thomas had no problem doing legwork for a guy like Lewis no matter the danger. He knew how to use fame. He threw out both his and Lewis’s name at every opportunity and probably wouldn’t have gotten access to the list if he hadn’t. Charles is a good friend. I now owed him big time. I particularly appreciated a moving monologue he delivered on how worried he was about my disappearance even though I thought it to be his only bit of overacting.