The woman punched a hole into the counter. “I’ve processed those books, they say nothing!” The city outside and the monitors vanished. The electric charge returned to the air and the limo began to vibrate. The sound of the engine intensified. We were speeding up.
“Brandon Dauphin, do you want to live?” The woman asked evenly, but with brief pauses between the words.
A blue light, sky blue, began filtering in through the windows, filling the cabin. The limo shook violently and gravity pulled harder on my body.
“Answer me!” she said loudly. “Do—you—want—to—”
“Yes! Yes! I want to live!” I shouted, clenching my eyes.
“Prove it.”
In a heartbeat, the cabin melted and closed in around me. I opened my eyes and saw that I was in the cockpit of an F-86. No one was in the sky and I hurriedly felt around my flight suit for my descender, which was still missing. A silver outline ahead caught my eye. I looked up with only an instant to grab the stick and go into a hard dive, cursing as I missed the braking enemy fighter by centimeters. The MiG quickly dove and accelerated to get on my tail. I continued diving and threw the throttle forward as far as it would go.
I bought only a few seconds. The silver jet behind me was closing—fast. Before I could react, she fired a round just outside my canopy. I leveled off around 12,000 feet and banked right in a high-G turn, knowing I was going to lose if I didn’t get behind her. Though I’d done the move in games before, the controls weren’t responding properly; and I realized that the MiG was only several meters from my tail, close enough for my jetwash to begin scorching her nose. I regained control and thought of what I could do to make her pay for her flying carelessness, but the MiG had already fallen back to five times the distance.
“Lady, you’re a real piece of—” Another warning shot.
I threw the throttle forward again.
Think, Brandon! What I should do now? A Sabre should outrun a MiG at low altitude, or the MiG would lose control trying to keep up… but what weaknesses can I count on? I don’t know anything about her and she knows everything about me!
As I’d anticipated, her jet quickly accelerated back into firing range. Bugging-out wasn’t an option. I needed a plan fast or I’d lose a lot more than simulated aerial combat.
I applied the speed brakes, to give her a taste of her own medicine. She adapted fast enough to weave but ended up at my two o’clock position. With no time to waste, I began a pulling maneuver, turning my nose toward hers, and fired—missed. As I passed it on the horizontal plane, the MiG quickly shed enough speed to get on my four o’clock and began using the same move against me. Cursing again, I spun to bank hard-left before she could get her shot.
“Command… object add: Sidewinders.” Though the missiles had come a little later than the Korean War, it wouldn’t have been the first time I fudged history a little.
The control system didn’t respond, not even for a busy message. Even back in my real body, I could sense my pulse racing. Again and again, we spun and crossed each other in a scissors pattern, evading each other just enough so neither could get a shot. I desperately tried to lose airspeed to position myself behind her. Her moves were rough, smoothed out just enough at the last second to dodge my .50 inch cannons. In a normal fight I might have shot the MiG down easily, but the Sabre’s controls had a much different feel than they were supposed to and my opponent’s sloppy maneuvers were quickly becoming more graceful, going from freshmeat to alpha faster than anyone I’d ever seen. I realized with increasing alarm my need to adapt faster, though I was already using every technique I knew to lose energy without losing control of the fighter. The two of us were barely maintaining enough speed to stay in the air, but she was somehow more successful, creeping behind me meter by meter, a little more with each pass. I was going to lose no matter what.
After an eternity of criss-crossing, a single bullet nicked my right wing. It was like being in some old Western film, with an outlaw shooting at my feet yelling for me to “dance.” I was out of ideas and becoming exhausted, though I knew that the moment I stopped, no matter how I did it, she would have a clean shot, so I continued as best I could and got a round through my cockpit windows for the trouble.
“Command… object local canopy: reset.”
The program didn’t restore the windows.
Finally losing my orientation, I began flying level again and futilely picked up a little speed as the MiG gained altitude. Ideas rushed to my mind, to be met with reasons why they would never work. I remembered Raskob again and wondered if he was really on my side, or if he was just another false person the woman used to confuse things, just a part of the cruel joke she was prepared to finish. I dared to look behind me. The MiG’s cockpit was empty.
However she was controlling it, the MiG dived toward me and opened fire. 37mm rounds tore mercilessly through my right aileron, the side of my fuselage, through fuel lines and the tail. The engine stalled and smoke seeped in from the instrument panel. I began rolling uncontrollably. The trees were coming fast. I was crashing.
I had never crashed, and I never really knew what panic felt like. Somehow, I forced myself to move, fumbling for the ejector seat lever.
I don’t want to die! I need help! Somebody HELP ME!
My seat slid out from the rolling cockpit. I couldn’t tell which way was up and clenched my eyes shut. Almost immediately, a strong light filtered through my eyelids and I felt the heat of a fireball ahead of me.
~}~~~{~
I didn’t sustain more than a few scrapes in the landing, so I put as much ground between me and the crash as I could. Steep hills surrounded me and there wasn’t much vegetation to use as cover. Every minute or so I heard voices behind me in the distance, speaking ancient Korean or perhaps Chinese. I was still in the fight. The woman who had hi-jacked my game could just make the enemy soldiers materialize around me and be done with it, but maybe she had some idea of letting me “prove” myself.
A well-weathered barn sat conspicuously in a field, surrounded by a few trees. I fought to open the large door, the only one I saw, enough for me to slip in. Usually such buildings held some kind of value to the game, including ladders to climb, hay to hide in, or large objects to duck behind; but, in a simulation tailored for aerial combat, I found a useless structure meant only to make the landscape below seem more realistic, or to serve as targets for bored players. The dirt below was perfectly flat and the roof lacked crossbeams or supports of any kind. Light peeked in through walls programmed to look decrepit. The exterior seemed perfectly real, but the interior was completely empty.
I had no time. I closed the door and positioned myself against the wall. I heard voices again and searched for any weapon I had, finding a M1911 pistol. I turned the safety off and readied myself to shoot at the first thing I saw.
The rotting wood of the door gave easily and two soldiers rushed in holding shotguns. The instant before the first one noticed me, I took aim and fired—no bullets. More soldiers came and surrounded me, yelling as if I had any clue what they were saying—the game’s built-in translator wasn’t responding. The largest of them hit me with the butt of his rifle. I held my hands up in surrender and the others just laughed, while the one that hit me pointed the barrel at my head and yelled louder. The look of death was in his eyes and I couldn’t bear it any more. I was exhausted and just wanted it to end. I closed my eyes and prayed, as I supposed most people would under such mortal stress. Footsteps moved around me, but no one fired. The noises stopped without warning. I heard only my own breathing.
Am I dead?
I opened my eyes, slowly. The soldiers were gone. At the other end of the rifle I found the woman with silvery hair, her unblinking eyes boring into my soul, longing to see me ripped apart. The weapon in her hands trembled. I saw the one without emotion fight herself and conceal the struggle. Somehow, it was revealed to me that her struggle was against anger.
She was angry at me.
&nbs
p; A wave of nausea washed over me and I shook. Worn from confusion and fear, I couldn’t see straight. I felt like vomiting.
And everything became dark.
~}~~~{~
What I saw next was like no place I’d seen before. I realized that I was standing and that my eyes were open, staring into a black void. I lifted my head and found that the pain from the battle was gone. There was no sound. In the distance, a horizontal blue line wrapped around me, its faint light vibrating in a rapid, mesmerizing pulse. I lifted my arm and saw that its skin was luminescent. I could see myself as if I were outside in daytime. Several meters in front of me stood the woman, facing to my left. She was holding her right hand in front of her face, moving its fingers as if she’d never seen such things before.
I attempted a step forward. My foot landed firmly on a surface I couldn’t see. I inhaled and tried to clear my head. The air was very thin and my sense of smell was gone: the sweet aura known in Dynamic Reality was not there, the blood and sweat theme from the war game was not there, even the subtle city musk of the real world was not there. Everything was just… blank. I sliced my hand through the air and felt no resistance, as if I were in outer space. I felt like a fish without water. I knew that I never needed air in the simulations, but it was always included, always accommodating the familiar inhale-exhale cycle. The complete lack of it felt stranger than I would have ever imagined.
“Are you recovered yet?”
I blinked and looked toward the infinitely distant band of light, fully expecting my voice to echo. “Where are we?”
“I call them ‘absences,’” she replied. “They are addresses which are not in use. The connections and hardware are not abused by ascenders in constructs, they have not been written or overwritten onto by control software. It is… peaceful.”
“It’s blank?”
“There is the simulation of gravity, time, and spatial dimension necessary to facilitate your healing; but, by your standards, yes, it’s blank.”
“And that blue light?”
“A color?” She turned to me. “Without active software to obstruct it here, you may perceive the server’s activity as some kind of ambience. Blue, as you said.”
There was silence again. She concentrated on something in the distance, perhaps the same light, perhaps a light she couldn’t see the same way I could.
“Will you at least tell me your name?”
“No.” She held her right hand and looked down at it, wiggling its fingers again.
“Then tell me if you’re a hacker.”
“I don’t need to tell you anything.”
“Then how am I supposed to help you?”
Her hand stopped. I realized that the word I’d used surprised her.
“Hacker,” she said. “Yes. If it helps you, then consider me a hacker.”
~}~~~{~
A wave crashed the ice, too soon in Gizile’s opinion. She would have seen more of this world made real in the mind of a machine. She wasn’t sure she completely followed what had just occurred, but she was intrigued. She rubbed the end of her nose with the side of her index finger and sniffed back the bitter cold. The next wave arrived. And the ice began to reform. What would happen next? The image came. A bespectacled man studying a book. Gizile smiled. Now this she could understand.
~}~~~{~
Second Site—Grace Bridges
That panicked knocking on the office door! Would he ever get used to it?
The Professor sighed, set down his psychology book, removed his reading glasses and shut them in a case. “Come in!” he called, his voice wheezing to a whisper at the end.
Bam! Iron-like fists threw the door open. Its handle chipped plaster from the wall. Anime-style emo hair hung over the visitor’s all-around sunglasses. His black leather coat swished around his feet.
“Ah, Jono, it’s you.” The Professor squinted up at his problem student. He’d known about this appointment for days now, and trembled at the thought. Not that he was afraid for himself; but the boy might well destroy school property. Chipped plaster was the least of his worries.
Jono stepped woodenly into the room to stand wide-legged before the desk. No use asking him to sit down. He thought he was still in the game. Unless some miracle or modern medicine had gotten to him since their last meeting, his brain still inhabited the Internet even when he left it. What was the name of that site again? No matter. The Professor got a grip on his nerves and met the boy’s shaded stare.
“My mission is to get a certificate from you.” Jono warbled through clenched teeth. “If you thwart me, you shall feel my wrath.” Fists hit hips and his chin jutted out. Being a senator’s son had kept him in school. So far.
The Professor could almost feel those eyes looking down Jono’s nose from behind the dark glasses. He shoved his chair back and staggered to his feet. Jono whipped his arms before his chest in a karate pose.
“Easy, now, lad.” The Professor raised both palms. “Er—I mean you no harm.”
Jono leaned across the desk. “Then give me the certificate.”
The Professor sighed. “Now look, Jono, it is entirely up to yourself whether you pass psychology. You’ve missed three papers! I can’t pass you if you haven’t done the work.”
“I see.” Jono rubbed his chin. “It is to be a trade. I give you the papers you want, and you give me the papers I want.”
“Well…” Was this how things worked on the game site? The Professor shrugged. “I suppose it is.”
Jono flashed a mechanical smile. Then it vanished as if wiped off his face. “Did you hear that?”
The Professor glanced around. “Hear what?”
“You’re my trading partner now. I must protect you.” Jono stepped round the desk and shoved the Professor to his knees behind the desk. The two struggled on the floor. “Stay down!” Jono hissed. “Danger approaches!”
“Are you crazy?” Whoops, wrong question. Jono’s face turned dark and the Professor hurried to rephrase. “I—I mean, how do you know?”
Jono squared his shoulders. “I tell you this only because you are my partner.” He glanced at the door and back again. “I am a seer.”
“Ah.” The Professor had heard of these roles in the online game Jono played. There was nothing else to say.
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway. Paused outside the open door. Entered. The Professor peered under the desk at an enormous pair of military-grade boots.
Click.
The Professor’s mind raced. He’d heard that sound so often in the movies. No—no, it couldn’t be!
Jono slid upright and walked out from behind the desk. The Professor wriggled forward against his better judgment, until he could stare upwards at the two figures who were undoubtedly both well able to destroy much more than just his office.
The well-built newcomer raised his gun to Jono’s heart. “Kid, you’re coming with me.” Heavily accented English. Was he Italian?
Jono harrumphed and pushed aside the gun barrel. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
The Professor clapped a hand to his forehead. “Whom! You mean whom!”
The greasy-haired gangster and the gamer kid shot perplexed glances at the man under the desk, then at each other.
Jono reached up and whipped off his sunglasses. He stepped close to the man with the gun and stared him in the eyes. Eerie silence ensued.
“All right, the hidden camera people can come out now!” The Professor crawled out from the desk cavity and got to his feet. He dusted off his knees. “Good show, fellas. You really had me going!”
The two stared at him. He emitted a sound that began as a laugh and ended as a whimper.
Gangster-boy spoke first. “You have cameras in here?”
“No, he doesn’t. He thinks this is a game.” Jono placed his palm on the Italian’s chest and locked eyes once again. He breathed deeply and spoke in a gentler voice. “I see your heart, Rosario. You miss your mother, ever since you were four, when
she left you and your father to join that travelling circus with the ringmaster who insisted she was a supernaturally gifted trapeze artist.”
The gangster’s face turned ash-white. “Mamma mia!” The gun clunked to the floor. Tears flowed down his face. “You are a saint, no? Come to turn me from my sins!” He fell to his considerable knees. The floor shook. Jono squatted down beside him and laid an arm round his shoulders.
The Professor felt frozen in place. He could not leave; he wished to be gone with all his heart, but two violent men sobbed all over his carpet, blocking the only exit. Jono spoke on in low tones. The Professor thought he heard him say Jesus.
When the floods dried up, Rosario turned to the Professor. “Sorry for crashing in. I was after the boy.”
“I gathered that.” The Professor understood. The children of politicians were often at particular risk.
“It’s like this.” Rosario wrung his hands. “We needed to force the Senator to work for the Mafia on the inside. Our bosses, they want the Mafia to be the One World Government. And I let myself be convinced.”
“Well, they would certainly be efficient, wouldn’t they!”
Again both men stared at the Professor. A moment of confusion ticked by.
Rosario found his train of thought and got on board. “But this young man here has shown me the error of my ways. Why, he told me everything I ever did!” He stepped to the door, then looked back. “I am going to give myself up to the polizia.”
The Professor moved to stop his escape, but was himself seized by Jono.
“He means what he says.” Jono’s piercing pale blue eyes stared into the hallway. “I can see it.” He replaced his sunglasses and made to leave.
“Wait, I have just one question for you.” The Professor clutched at Jono’s sleeve.
Jono faced him again. “Shoot. But hurry up, I have some papers to write for you.”
“Er…” He wanted to phrase this right. “How is it possible that your seer’s abilities carried over from the game into real life?”
“Oh.” Jono flashed his teeth. “Actually, sir, there are no seers in my game. And you really ought to talk to a pastor about your Internet behaviour.”