JAMES
I have to get her out. I kept repeating the phrase in my brain, even though I knew it was preventing me from coming up with a plan. The guards seemed to think it was funny to let me be here with Casey’s body in the warehouse, holding her hand, when they knew I knew what was going to happen. Even as I sat there trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do, she slipped further and further away from me. The sensors and nodes were draining her mind into Forever.
“Hey,” the last guard poked me in the side with his weapon. All the others had left an hour ago after they’d gotten Casey hooked up. There were a lot of jokes about how her punishment was really more like a reward. I hadn’t laughed.
“What?” I replied angrily. I supposed he was going to make me leave. Playtime was over. All I could do now was go back to the dusty wells or sign on the dotted contract line and go in after her. But how would that solve anything? We’d both be puppets in the system with no idea where the strings went.
“She didn’t actually sign,” he whispered.
“Of course she didn’t,” I barked. “She was too smart for this. We were trying to figure out what was really going on.”
“You don’t get it,” he whispered again, even quieter than before. He turned a dial on a machine at Casey’s side and some sort of white noise flooded the space. I had to lean closer to him to hear the next thing he said: “It’s not in order.”
“Damn right it’s not ‘in order.’ I have to get her out.” What was with this guy? He actually seemed a little afraid, which was unbelievable given the size of his gun and his intense black uniform. He kept glancing around like bogeymen were going to jump out at us. Some guard. I felt like kicking over all the stations, destroying as much of the creepy place and its cold equipment as I could while I still had the chance. But something held me back. Casey. She depended on all those sensors now. I knew I couldn’t just rip the wires and tubes out of her, even if the guard didn’t have a gun. It was more complicated than that.
“Listen, I don’t like how this went down. I’m going to give you two pieces of information before I throw you out of here. Do with them what you will,” the uneasy guard hissed in my ear. “One, you can’t get her out without a specific code. It’s like a social security number. They’re on file in Central; we don’t even have them here—they get saved remotely. Two, you only have about a week before she’s drained. Some people take much longer, but her scans are showing a quicker-than-normal data collection speed. You’ll have to hurry.”
“What? Where is Central?”
“It’s where the Programmer lives. Where all the Controllers live. It’s your only shot.”
“How do I get there?”
He just shook his head, grabbed me roughly by the elbow, and ushered me out of the warehouse into the hot sun. It was so bright I had to immediately fling my arms over my eyes. I never even got a good look at the guard’s face in the light.
*
“They got her,” I shouted at my stepdad Patrick as I entered our apartment. I wasn’t thinking; I was just moving, practically punching the walls I was so upset. I immediately went to the closet, grabbed a bag, and started tossing things into it that seemed like they could be useful. The Greys had gotten the money to bail me out of jail the first time, and I had a vague idea that they’d help me again. In between tripping over my shoes and searching for the one weapon I owned—an old can of Mace—I typed hurried SOS messages to every hacker contact I had who could possibly do something. “I need all the cash you have. And all the gels.”
“Whaaa…?” He was waking up from a nap on the couch. Patrick had been either sleeping or tinkering in the garage, alone, since Mom died. I knew he was depressed, but I didn’t know how to fix it. “They got who?”
“Casey. She’s in the system. I have to go to Central.”
He sat up and ripped the corner off a gel. His eyes looked surprisingly alert as he drained its contents into his mouth. “That’s pretty far.”
“Wait, you know where it is?”
“Yes. Before I was born, it was called Chicago. It’s about six hundred miles east—there were lakes there once, huge ones.”
“I suppose it’s all a desert now.”
“Don’t know.”
I continued running around, stuffing gel packs in the pockets of my bag and shoving in all the cash that I’d previously had hidden in my bureau. What else would I need? A weapon. A plan. A map.
All things I did not have.
I glanced back at the couch to tell Patrick I’d be gone at least a week, but he wasn’t there. He appeared at the door wearing camouflage pants and a tan t-shirt. He’d been in the military a long time ago. I saw that his posture was straighter than normal and noticed he wore a black watch and a black cap.
“Let’s get your girl.” Patrick had a gun in his left hand. He loaded it with definitive crack. I finally stopped moving and stared at him, open mouthed. “Here’s what I need you to do. That fool next door, Kyle Pinter…he hoards gas. Break in and steal it. Should be enough to get us close. I’m going to lighten up the Jeep.”
“Um…wow. Okay. Okay.”
I was stuck in place in our garage for a few moments as I watched Patrick pull the back seats out of the Jeep. He also removed the canvas roof and the spare tire.
“Go!”
Kyle Pinter wasn’t home, thank God, so I picked his locks quickly. His house had an alarm system. When it went off, I froze, but I realized that if I hauled ass, we’d be gone before the cops arrived. found the stash of large gas cans he had hidden in his basement and took two. We used one of them to fill the jeep’s tank and placed the other in the trunk for refill. Kyle Pinter’s home alarm was our soundtrack. I kept glancing at Patrick, waiting for him to realize how hopeless this all was, but he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed two screens, a wad of cash from under the stovetop, locked our apartment, and threw me the keys.
“Patrick, I…”
“Drive.”
*
The highway was a mess, full of potholes and entire sections that were dirt only. But the twenty-year-old Jeep handled it beautifully, even though I held it to eighty-five miles-per-hour. On the way, I explained everything that had happened, including what the rogue guard had said to me before tossing me out of the warehouse.
“This is gonna be fairly simple,” Patrick said when I’d finished. “We’ll have to kidnap someone the Programmer loves.”
I looked at him, surprised.
“Then it’ll be a simple transfer. Casey for that person. It’s the only way, unless you’ve got something better.”
“I, um, know some people,” I said. I didn’t want to tell an outsider about the Greys, but I trusted Patrick.
“Some people? Go on,” he said with a glint in his eyes.
“They’re called the Greys. I’ve been working with them at night to fight the system. Remotely. I think they could help.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Patrick said. “Your mother knew of them.”
“She did?” I felt that old familiar pain in my gut. Loss. Desperation.
“Yeah. I think she’d be proud of you for finding them. Let’s switch, I’ll drive, you ping your Greys.”
The data started pouring in immediately from contacts around the globe. The Greys believed the Programmer was a man named Max Patterson. He had once been a powerful CEO for a cloud computing corporation, but that was decades ago. His online data stream had all but stopped when he’d gone into politics and been elected to the U.S. Senate. There were no data streams covering federal government because they couldn’t generate any revenue—they were too boring. I did some more digging in some old archives, however, and learned that Patterson had risen to considerable power inside Central. When I tried to learn more about Central—to find maps or even weather data—I got locked out.
“I can’t get any data about our destination,” I said. “But I think I know who the Programmer might be.”
“We’ll improv
ise.” Patrick replied.
I laughed. I missed Casey; she’d love a crazy adventure like this. I wondered what she was doing in Forever. I hoped she was happy…but not too happy. How would it feel to be inside paradise and come back out again?
“Listen, Jimmy,” he cleared his throat and sounded extremely uncomfortable. “I’m sorry I went AWOL for so long.”
“You’re forgiven if you stop calling me Jimmy.”
“Deal.” He smiled.
“Besides, I checked out, too,” I admitted. “I’m sorry I stayed away from home so much after Mom died. I didn’t know what to say.”
“No one did. But you’re young. You can start over. It’s almost time for you to have your own family.”
“You are my own family,” I said. Patrick had married my mother when I was only four. He was the only father I’d ever known. “Always.”
After eight hours of pushing the poor jeep to its limit, we reached the outskirts of a towering, sprawling city. I had expected it to be gated, or under a bubble, but it wasn’t. People came and went as they pleased, but of course no one wanted to go. We ditched the jeep when we ran out of gas and began walking, trying to push closer to the middle of Central. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen, with clean and new buildings, trees everywhere, and plenty of water. There was so much water that they had fountains of it. I couldn’t understand how there could be so much water. I wanted to jump into it, to drink it until I threw up.
We looked different than the other people around us—our clothing was older and our faces were unshaven. We didn’t have enough money to purchase even the simplest things. A cup of coffee cost more than we earned at the wells in a day. I saw that it wasn’t necessary for the city to be under a bubble. It had an invisible one: we were too poor to participate in anything, even lunch. Sure, the Central people there seemed to say. Come on in, but don’t plan on staying for long. We don’t have your crappy two dollar hydration nutra-gels here. We were in an alien land: a perfect, untouchable moneyed alien land.
The other strange thing about Central was the fact that I could see a lot of young adults. It wasn’t just kids, teens, and old people. There were tons of men and women in their twenties and thirties shopping, laughing, and zooming around on silent little electric scooters. It was incredible. None of them had gone into the system. None of them had signed the contract. It was all exactly like I had pictured it. Real paradise. Real.
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “Why are they keeping all the water here when we need it?”
Patrick laughed, but it came out more like a bitter harrumph. “That is the question.”
Since my screens were useless, I tried to gather information the old-fashioned way, by talking to people. Ten men and four women hurried away tight-lipped when I asked about the Programmer. But finally, one boy about my age laughed at me. I took it as an opening.
“I’m serious, man. I have to speak to him. It’s important.”
“Dude, that’s hilarious!” He was eating a sandwich that smelled so delicious I wanted to snatch it and run. “Where are you from, man?”
“Dakota. Do you know anything?”
“Cool! I’ve heard of that place. Out west, right? Badass…I want to see it sometime. Sure, I know some things, but the main point is the big P does not take appointments with scrubs from the provinces. He’s like the Supreme Leader, dude. Even I can’t talk to him, and my parents are major.”
“How major?” Patrick asked.
“They’re in the administration, man.”
“Nice,” I said, trying to look suitably awed. “Can you at least tell me where the, um, big P is?”
“The complex. There.” The boy pointed to a palatial building on the river. I sighed. How were we supposed to get in there? Much less kidnap someone? We were hungry, tired, thirsty, and we stuck out like escaped prisoners.
The kid was wandering away from us when I saw Patrick make a quick movement out of the corner of my eye. He grabbed the boy, pulled him into an alley and shoved the gun in the back of his neck.
“Listen, kid. We don’t want to hurt anyone. But that is a serious gun you feel pressed into your brain stem. You said your parents are major, and we could use some access to some major people. You understand me?”
The kid whimpered, terrified. Patrick pressed the gun into his head harder and the kid nodded. I gulped.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Jadien.”
“Alright, Jadien, here’s how it’s gonna go. You will give my son your screen. You will not say anything to anyone about us. You will live and have a beautiful future. Do anything other than these things and I will find you and remove both of your eyes from their sockets. Slowly. For fun. Got it?”
“Yes. Here.” Jadien thrust his screen at me and Patrick let him go. He ran from us. We jogged in the opposite direction and hid behind a spotless dumpster.
“I hope that was worth it,” Patrick said, wiping sweat from his brow. “There’s no way that kid is gonna keep his mouth shut.”
“It was. This is the key to the city,” I said, touching Jadien’s screen. I did a few quick searches and hit pay dirt. “Unbelievable. Look at this,”
“Don’t bother, I can’t read that tiny type,” Patrick said. “Just tell me what’s next.”
“Looks like Jadien goes to private school with Liza Patterson.”
“Who?”
“The Programmer’s daughter.”
CASEY
“But how does everyone get their habitats to fit into a larger whole?” I asked Ben. It was so wonderful to be with him again, and I was thrilled to find out that two avatars hugging felt real, at least to me. Ben was himself. He wasn’t dead. Ava was crazy…just some sad avatar off her rocker who liked to mess with newbies. Everything was in order.
After I accepted that I had been put into the system after being arrested, I had walked out of the detention center and found my brother. I pictured his apartment in my mind and I was there.
We’d spent the entire morning swimming in an ocean and drinking ice cold water. It was amazing. My avatar body felt strong and more real than I had expected it to. Even the air had a nice smell—sort of like lemongrass or quince. Very subtle, but wonderful. It was hard to focus on what I was trying to find out; I felt sort of mellow and slowed down.
Can’t you just enjoy it?” He asked. Kai laughed and splashed me. Kai’s girlfriend Hannah dove under the water and immediately began swimming around us with a mermaid tail. It freaked me out, but I tried not to stare.
“Aren’t you curious about how this was all programmed, though?” Even though it was amazing to taste and see and touch beauty all around me and to be with my brother again, I was still me. I knew this was all too good to be true.
I just didn’t know how to get out.
“Not really,” Ben said. “I’m just glad I don’t have to work anymore. I’m glad I don’t have to eat another one of those horrid gel packs. We gotta get Mom and Dad in here, Case. What are they waiting for?”
“They don’t trust it.”
“Fogies.”
I kept my mouth shut and splashed him. I had learned that your avatar looks like the human body had unless you specifically conjure something different for yourself. For now, I was so overwhelmed that I chose to look like I had before. My welcome message had explained that new entrants had a certain number of points for conjuring, and that more points were accumulated over time.
“But seriously, though. If everyone can just conjure whatever building or habitat they want, how does that not disrupt someone else’s space?” I persisted. “Doesn’t it mess with the background protocols?” For example, we had visited a theme park for lunch. Someone said it looked just like the Magic Kingdom in Florida from the late twentieth century. Thousands of avatars chose to live there. But what I wanted to know was why hadn’t they all conjured their very own Cinderella Castle to live in and ruined the overall park layout?
“It’s becau
se of the points system,” Ben said with a sigh. “The top Conjurers have more points than everyone else because everyone likes their stuff. I’ll win some points because you’re staying in my apartment. That’s like a vote for my work. Someone a long time ago conjured that theme park habitat, and when other avatars moved in, that avatar got a ton of points. So there are controls. But space is also infinite, so if you don’t mind being alone, you can go off and conjure your own habitat and stay away from everyone else. Seriously, Casey. It’s awesome. It all works. You’ll get used to it.”
“I doubt it.”
“Let’s go home and nap. It’s one of my favorite things to do in here—nothing.”
“Okay.”
We returned to Ben’s apartment. He went to his hammock and immediately fell asleep, and I spent the time touching everything inside the place. There was a giant screen in every room, of course, but it was the other items I found more interesting. Ben had several expensive-looking musical instruments, a huge music-playing machine that I didn’t understand, and a casino room with slot machines. It was all designed for maximum fun, but it made me uneasy. What were people really supposed to do all day in here? I supposed that if I stayed, I’d become a Conjurer because it seemed like the only job there really was.
I glanced down at my personal screen, which still showed my welcome message. I scrolled down from the main message and saw smaller writing.
Not true, Casey. Conjuring isn’t the only job here.
“Who are you?” I asked aloud.
I am your guide, the screen read.
“Are you real?”
Yes.
“Nevermind. Okay. What are the other jobs here?”
The Programmer learned a long time ago that the only human beings who were truly happy in their lives were the Creators and the Caretakers. So those are the two jobs here. They take many forms. Creators conjure habitats, invent new games, write stories and plays, or design gardens. They also paint, sculpt, decorate homes, or cook meals for others.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
It is nice. The Caretakers look after animals or avatars that need someone to talk to. They teach others. They keep order and fix broken code. They are guides, docents, doctors, priests, and yoga instructors.
“So everyone does have to work?”