by J P Carver
Instead, I sucked it up. I took one more gulp of coffee and gave a short laugh. “I’m so screwed.”
“I want to be supportive, I do, but I don’t see how we can get out of this.” The bag crackled as she fisted her hands in it. “I ain’t giving up yet, though. No way.”
I smiled. “Good, because I got a bit of a lead, but I’m gonna need your help.”
She looked up, shocked. “A—a what? What lead? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it was nothing, but since I got nothing to lose now, I might as well take a long shot. We need to see Hayden.”
“Aw shit. He’s always drooling over my avatar…”
“Yeah, but he’s also the only one that can get the information I need.”
“You sure? Why not take it to the Stars? One of them could help.”
“They might, but I don’t got the time to wait. Hayden has enough connections and contacts that he’ll find the info in a third of the time… but it’s gonna cost me.” I finished the coffee and pulled the bag from her hands. There was a smooshed breakfast sandwich inside. I unwrapped it and took a large bite.
“So, you need credits or something?”
“I need to piggyback in on your neural since Hayden doesn’t do IRL stuff. If I use my neural, CES will probably have my ass within minutes, but they won’t be looking for you.”
“All right, so what’s this lead?”
“A name I got from Park.”
“Park? The dead guy?” She stared at me. “You taking Pazz again, Raggy?”
Hurt rushed through me. Pazz had been a super popular drug a few years ago, and I was hooked on the stuff when I ran into Nina. She made me promise not to touch the stuff again after a bad trip, and I’d kept that promise.
I went to the desk and snatched up the bridge before stalking back over. “No, and you know I ain’t touched that shit in a long time.” I shoved the bridge into her hand. “Park was working on a digital version of himself. He told me a name that could possibly be the person who killed him.”
“Park is in here?” She rolled the bridge between her fingers. “Why don’t we just turn him over to CES? He may be able to point them away from you.”
“Come on, Crow. They won’t listen. They think they already found the right girl, and like you said, someone is playing in the shadows, keeping things under wraps. The bridge would disappear, and so would I, not long after.”
“Then what? What do we do if we find this person?”
I thought for a moment and shook my head. “One problem at a time, eh? You want to go now?”
“Whatever, just don’t scramble my neural.” She turned her back to me and pushed up her blue hair with a hand to show the bridge port on her neck.
I grabbed my bag, found the adapter, and pulled the wire from my wrist.
“You’ve done this before, right?”
“Once or twice,” I lied. I’d never needed to before, but it was one of the advertised features of the wire connection. The adapter fit snugly into her bridge port. I sat back and opened the wire’s settings, switching them to the adapter. “Hop on CityNet. I’ll join right after.”
“All right, but I still don’t like this…”
“Trust me.”
“That doesn’t help, like, at all.” She took a deep breath before leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes. “I’m on.”
With a thought, my neural switched its input to the wire, and I was brought into a familiar place in CityNet: BitByte Cafe.
BitByte Cafe smelled of fake coffee and static. It was one of many spawn points for CityNet, each one randomly chosen on login, depending on what part you were heading to. CityNet had started as one of the first virtual reality Internet programs that came about once VR really took off.
The name was literal. CityNet was a giant city that, after months of development, had created its own system that matched some real world cities. People could spend money for real estate or to buy virtual goods. Some even started up businesses, creating shops or buying up entire buildings. Mostly, it was a meeting place for anyone, and if you couldn’t find a digital item on CityNet, it likely didn’t exist.
I stood from my seat and shivered. I felt chilled, distant from the world. I chalked it up to having to daisy-chain through Nina’s neural. I hated the feeling.
Nina stood as well, rubbing the back of her neck and glaring at me. Her avatar was so different from what she really looked like. It was as tall as me, lithe with a pair of breasts that were a bit too big for the body and a tan skin tone that was startlingly close to my own in real life. Her hair was a deep black and stopped midway down her back. “You didn’t tell me it would hurt.”
“It did?”
“Not bad, but I could have done without it.” She looked me up and down. “At least your avatar loaded correctly. Are you fully capable here when you’re piggybacking?”
“I guess? It shouldn’t be much different, but it would probably be a good idea not to get too separated,” I said while waving off a computer-controlled waitress. Buying food or drink in the City was a waste of credits, but some people enjoyed the feeling and the atmosphere, especially if they were meeting friends or associates. It made the place feel a little more real.
I glanced around the room at the normal assortment of people, young lovers who looked as though they were in their late twenties but were probably just out of their preteens. Animal avatars talked to each other in wild, childish movements, the computer-controlled waitresses doing their best to keep them in check. Men and women in business attire tapped and swiped at invisible screens while sipping from white mugs and talking to what looked like coworkers.
Everyone used the Net for work or play, but some actually lived in it.
It had been bound to happen. If anything, technology created a space for the strange and the afraid. Some would argue that the environment had created those people, but I doubted that. Those who flocked to technology as a place to hide and to fit in would have found something else, but instead they found another life.
I know I did.
We stepped out of the cafe and into the twilight of the City. It could be related to some real-life cities, as everything was laid out on a grid, but that grid stretched out into infinity. There were rumors of people who had found the edge, that a vast wilderness lay out past the concrete and steel and the City slowly expanded into it. Nothing was ever confirmed, and to be honest, I didn’t care what lay outside of CityNet. I preferred to stay in my little section of it.
Across Main Street and seven blocks down, there was an alley that one could easily walk past without a second thought. It was a rabbit hole. Go far enough in, and you’d end up in an entirely different part of CityNet—this one made for those who liked the more illegal side of the world.
I slipped in, and Nina followed close behind. The whirling of tiny motors drew my eyes up to the purple-blue sky above me. A camera spider looked down at us from its perch between the two flat brick walls, its lens tracking us. With the way CES and their ilk continued to stamp down on Crackers, I didn’t find it surprising that security had been upgraded. I gave the spider a small salute and continued.
I wondered if rumors had started yet. I doubted my name had been dropped, but it wouldn’t be long before someone tried to connect the dots using my sudden disappearance from the system as an anchor point. I hoped showing up here would quiet most of the rumors.
The walls fell away, brick by brick, until we came to stand in the plaza of the Underground. Neon lights flickered and flared around us in a perpetual drizzle. The cobblestone streets stretched out between ramshackle buildings. Beyond them were towers that put some corps to shame with their sheer size. A lot of them were empty, too expensive a status symbol for most people’s credit accounts, but they did feel as if they watched over the plaza.
Vendors stood under smoky lamps or in the aforementioned buildings on either side of the plaza. They hocked the newest in viruses, worms, and cracke
d software. It was a seedy place, but I felt more at home there than I did anywhere else. I scanned some of the recent releases, but nothing looked useful enough to pay the insane prices.
When I finished, I noticed that I’d lost Nina to a cute little vendor who sat on a picnic table under a bare tree. He had a holo-screen up, the rain scattering the light from time to time. It showed off a new pirated vid. Nina’s avatar practically drooled as she stared at the newest iteration of some superhero from eighty years ago. The vendor tried to talk to her, but she just shushed him and sat down on the grass to watch.
“What is it this time, Crow?”
She answered without looking back, eyes glued to the screen. “It’s a reboot. Ain’t supposed to be out for another month.”
“So you want it, huh?” I asked.
She nodded. “Don’t want to waste the credits on it, so I’ll just watch it here.”
I sighed and turned to the guy. “How much?”
He scratched at a scruffy goatee and smiled.
I rolled my eyes. “At least be reasonable.”
“Forty credits.”
I laughed. “With that shit quality? Twenty.”
“Hey, come on. It ain’t even been test-screened yet. Thirty.”
“Twenty-five, and you know you’re getting a damn good deal.”
He sneered and then grudgingly nodded as he went to a small console on the table. He came back after a few minutes. “Here’s the link you can pay to, and then the vid will be sent.”
A message popped up in front of me. I tapped the agree button and paid. “Send it to her, all right?”
“Sure. Don’t matter to me.”
I reached down and took Nina’s arm. She whined as I pulled her up and dragged her away from the holo. “Come on, Raggy! I just wanted to watch for a little—”
“You missed that entire conversation, didn’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Check your inbox.”
She did so and glared at me. “You bought a vid here? They’re so overpriced, Raggy.”
“Wasn’t too bad. Besides, I want to see Hayden, and I can’t go very far without you. Consider it repayment for the piggyback.”
“Oh jeez… I’m sorry, I totally spaced.”
I laughed. “Ain’t nothing new. So, we good?”
“Yeah, I can watch this later.” She grinned as she closed out her mail. “Thanks.”
Hayden had one of the biggest buildings in the sector. It towered over everything else, even though most of the floors were empty. I guess it was more of an ego thing for him than being cost-effective. The windows were almost all dark save for the top three floors, where he lorded over the rest of the sector, playing CEO. Information could be good business.
Nina and I walked into the lobby. Dull yellow light lit the tiled floor of the grand room, which was a lot of wasted space. Pillars ran alongside a centered red carpet on either side, and small sitting areas were scattered about the room on throw rugs. Mirrors were positioned every few feet on the walls. Vanity was high on Hayden’s enjoyment list.
My eyes followed the long rug all the way to a crescent reception desk at the head of the room. The woman behind it looked awfully familiar. I glanced to Nina beside me as she slowed her walk.
“Oooh, that’s creepy,” she said under her breath as we were met by the woman halfway.
She was almost an exact copy of Nina’s avatar, with a slight difference in build, mostly in the hips and chest area. She wasn’t an actual person—she had no tag—but was a secretary program that had gained popularity among business types. This one had been hacked for Hayden’s own purposes. She wore clothes that left little to the imagination, and every movement seemed designed to flaunt her body. Nina grumbled beside me.
“Good evening… Ragdoll and… Crow.” There was a distinct pause in her voice as she accessed the information. “Mr. Hayden is quite busy at the moment, but if you would take a seat, I will let him know you are here to see him.”
“How about you tell him that he still owes me, and I want to see him now?” I pushed past her and went to the elevator.
“Miss Ragdoll, I must impress on you that Mr. Hay—”
I stepped into the elevator and pulled the secretary in with me. She tipped and tumbled into the wall beside Nina.
“Can it,” I said. “He’s probably up there getting off on some new scheme. Get your copycatted ass up and put in the code.”
She stood and smoothed her unwrinkled clothes. “This is a direct violation, Miss Ragdoll, of Hayden Corporation’s rules—”
“Good to know. Do I have to crack the elevator? I doubt your Mr. Hayden would be happy about that.”
The program sneered at me and waved her hand across a glass panel on the wall. I felt my stomach drop as the elevator shot upwards, traveling the sixty floors in seconds.
The elevator dinged as the door opened to a dimly lit room. I let my gaze drift over the rugs and walls, all muted colors and merging with the shadows. At the front of the room—backlit by the yellow, blue, and green city skyline—was a desk.
The program stepped out first and made her way to the desk. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hayden, but these two women were very insistent on speaking to you.”
A shadow stood from the chair and reached over to a desk lamp. The light was blinding for a few seconds, like a tiny star on the desk. The person behind the shadow was the stereotype of an ideal man. Well-built. A jawline that could cut glass, with a fine layering of stubble. Bright-blue eyes seemed to glow in the light. He’d be a dream for some girls, if the look had been real and if he hadn’t been a complete asshole.
He smiled at me, perfect white teeth shining, and motioned for us to come forward with a large hand. “I didn’t expect to have two such lovely ladies as guests tonight, but I must say I’m glad to have you.”
“What’s with the shit program, Hayden? You working on winning a creepy-as-hell award or something?” Nina asked as she stomped up the two little steps to his desk. “She a sex toy for you too?”
He gave a nasally gasp. “Why, Crow, I’m hurt. Maybe she does have some other duties than what she was originally designed for, but when I couldn’t have one product, I went out and got the next best one.”
“I ain’t a product, you ass.”
“Not you personally, but your avatar is nothing but a product here. I will gladly deactivate her if you’ve suddenly become interested in my proposition from before. Though it would be sad, as she’s selling really well with some of the newbies. You’ve been making a nice name for yourself, lately.”
“You’re—you’re selling these?” Nina gave a mirthless laugh, fists balled.
I moved in next to her and took her wrist, to keep her from possibly hitting Hayden. “You ain’t the first, and you won’t be the last, Crow. Once I got what I need, you can turn them both into trash data.”
She gave a growl and pulled her hand free.
“Listen to your elders, Crow. She knows what’s she’s talking about.”
“Suck a high-voltage cable, Hayden. We got some business.” I stepped in front of Nina.
He leaned forward, hands folding over top of a number of blue folders on the oak-looking desk. “We do? I believe last we met, we made a deal that I didn’t bother you and you didn’t bother me. Is that deal finished?”
“I need information, and since you still owe me, I figured it would be best to come here.”
“Owe you? I owe you? Ragdoll, I think you’re losing your memory in your old age.” He paused and glanced to the wall. “But even if I did, why should I help you now? Word on the fiber is that you’ve gone and packed up. Shut down your job picker and gone off on some merry jaunt or something.”
He reached across the desk for a pack of cigarettes. They were illegal in the real world, but there was little harm in having them in CityNet. He pulled one out and lit it.
“But that ain’t true if you’re here.” He blew out a cloud of smoke. “’Cause
if you’re here, that means you’re in trouble, and if you’re in trouble, then I don’t much want to be involved with you, now do I?”
I shrugged. “I don’t much care what you do and don’t want. I’m collecting today, so you better get yourself together and open an ear.”
His laugh came out in a sputter of smoke. “This is why I like you, Doll. You’re always on fire. Tell me what you want, and maybe I’ll consider helping you out.”
Two chairs appeared in front of the desk, and he motioned to them as the secretary program took a seat on the armrest of his own. His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close, something to mess with Nina.
I sat down, crossed my legs, and took a chip from the breast pocket of my jacket. “I need information on someone named Vera. This is what I’ve found so far, but I don’t have the time to dig deeper. You’ll find everything faster than I can on my own.”
“Appreciate the compliment.” He gave a lopsided grin as he took the chip and plugged it into a slot on the desk. A holo-screen appeared in front of him, the back a shimmering orange light that distorted my view of whatever it displayed to him. “Vera, huh? Looks like she’s been trying to keep a low profile. She buys up smaller startups using shell corps. Not unusual. Her real name and what she looks like don’t seem to be in any of my databases, which means she paid top dollar to keep herself out of the electronic eye. Even CES peeps don’t got that much. I like her.”
“You would. Look, can you give me anything? A location? Contact info?”
“She’s a chair on a number of boards, including CES. A few of my informants seem to have had run-ins with her, and I haven’t heard from them since. Give me a day, and I’ll see what I can pluck from my sources.”
“You got three hours.” I needed it fast, and that was a reasonable amount of time for him to get it done with his contacts.
“Rush jobs cost extra.” He smiled again, and I returned it. “My debt to you wouldn’t cover such a thing. I’ll have to call in my own favors, and I really do hate doing that.”
