Reality Hack

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Maybe that’s it. I remember our first time. You were very eager.’

  ‘You are very sexy.’

  Alaina giggled. ‘Thank you. I remember the second time too. You couldn’t wait and we did it in the toilets at a nightclub. Yeah, you were wilder back then. I think… I think the job changed you. You got more serious.’

  Nisa leaned over and kissed one of Alaina’s nipples. The blonde woman shuddered and a soft moan escaped her lips.

  ‘Well, it’s changed me again,’ Nisa said. ‘At least until the memories come back I’m your wild child again.’ Her hand slid up Alaina’s thigh, eliciting another moan which became a whimper.

  ‘Oh… God… Yes…’ Alaina breathed.

  November 16th.

  Nisa walked out of the bedroom, still half asleep, to find Alaina sitting at the small, round dining table which was set where diners could get a good view out of the window. The day was overcast, the water looked muddy, and the buildings across the river did not look at their best in this light, but Nisa had another view to look at and did not care.

  ‘Hey, you’re up,’ Alaina said, smiling. ‘You were still dead when I woke so I figured I’d leave you. You seemed like you needed it.’ She was wearing a fitted shirt, the outline of briefs showing through at her hip, and nothing else, and there was toast with jam on it in her hand.

  ‘Must have,’ Nisa agreed, walking over. She leaned down and their lips met, tongues twisting around each other. Alaina tasted of strawberries.

  ‘Remember anything else?’ Alaina asked, her voice breathy.

  ‘Uh… not sure. I had this dream… We were in white dresses, standing in front of some stern-looking guy in a black suit.’

  ‘That was our wedding. He was called Mister Black, the registrar.’

  There was no surprise at hearing the word ‘wedding.’ She was married. Nisa Harper had married Alaina Peters six years ago. Neither had changed their names. The honeymoon had been in Bali. They had barely left the bedroom.

  ‘Oh!’ Alaina said, standing and dashing for the bedroom. ‘This might help.’ She returned a few seconds later and held out her hand. There was a ring in it, gold with delicately carved, tribal-style traceries engraved into it. There was a similar band around Alaina’s ring finger.

  Nisa had a quick flash of that ring being placed on her hand. She grinned and held out her left hand, fingers spread. ‘You put it on, like the first time.’ Giggling, Alaina slipped the ring onto Nisa’s finger. Nisa shivered as something like a little electric shock ran through her. She remembered sitting in a café in Soho, chatting with the cute blonde on the table next to her. After an hour and three coffees they had exchanged IM addresses. She remembered the swimming pool in their villa in Bali, Alaina swimming naked through the blue water while Nisa watched until she could take no more and they had made love on the flags at the edge. She remembered following a blonde ponytail over a hill in Wales on a hiking holiday that Alaina had said would be great, and they had ended up hiding from the weather in their tent for most of the week.

  ‘My toast’s getting cold,’ Alaina said, grinning and sitting back in her seat.

  ‘I’m starting to remember things. Bits, the ring helped.’

  ‘Good, that’s good.’

  ‘I remember Wales…’

  Alaina groaned. ‘That’s one thing I hoped you’d forget permanently.’

  Grinning, Nisa stepped behind her and started rubbing at her shoulders and neck through the shirt. ‘It had its good points.’

  ‘Nothing to do but fuck in the tent for most of the trip?’

  ‘That.’ Nisa leaned forward, sliding her hands down, and popped the topmost button on Alaina’s shirt. Her right hand slipped beneath the fabric, cupping Alaina’s left breast.

  Alaina’s breathing shuddered. ‘D-didn’t you get enough of that last night?’

  ‘Never.’ Nisa’s lips met her wife’s ear, and her thumb stroked over the nipple it had found, teasing it into life. She pushed her left hand down, sliding it between Alaina’s thighs, fingers caressing soft flesh through the fabric of her panties.

  ‘My toast’ll get cold,’ Alaina said plaintively.

  Nisa squeezed the engorged nipple and Alaina gasped. ‘I’ll make you more toast,’ Nisa said.

  ~~~

  They sat naked on the couch in the lounge, Alaina in Nisa’s lap because Nisa did not want her further away, and watched the huge screen built into the wall of the apartment. The news was not good, but it seemed to be filling in blanks in Nisa’s memory, so they kept watching.

  North Korea was, once again, threatening to invade the south. America was moving anti-missile systems into place at the border since it was believed that the North Koreans had functioning long-range missiles with nuclear warheads. The Middle East was still in a state of near-constant conflict. American forces were assisting Israel against Syria. There were comments regarding America over-stretching itself, suggestions that the economic strain might be too much.

  Nisa could remember a trail of growing conflict over the past couple of decades and, while they were not good memories, they were memories. Anything was good, right?

  On the brighter side, the Extended Thames Flood Protection Scheme, a huge dam system crossing the river at Gravesend, was nearing completion. That was the brighter side, the fact that London was likely safe from rising sea levels for the next century. Nisa could remember a very positive report on the first commercial fusion reactor going live a few months earlier. There had practically been dancing in the streets. Of course, it was going to take years to realise its full potential, but they had a new source of energy which did not heat the planet up.

  ‘It’s all kind of depressing,’ Alaina commented as the programme ended.

  ‘It’s helping me remember, and that’s not depressing. You know, back in twenty-fourteen there were still people who didn’t think global warming was real.’

  Alaina giggled. ‘There are still people now who say it’s down to solar cycles and nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re nut jobs.’

  Another giggle, and some squirming. ‘You know… I’m not hungry. We could eat late.’

  Nisa grinned. ‘Haven’t you had enough after last night, and this morning, and this afternoon...?’

  ‘We haven’t done anything like this in ages and… And I want you.’

  ‘Whatever my lady desires,’ Nisa replied, pulling her into a kiss.

  Bloomsbury, November 17th.

  There was a man standing on the corner outside Warren Street tube station wearing a sandwich board with ‘This World Is Not Real’ printed on it. Well, you did get all sorts of weirdos on the streets of London, but this one seemed odd… for a weirdo. For one thing, he was dressed in a pressed, black suit, spotless white shirt, and a black tie. The placard people were usually hobos, or students desperate for cash advertising some shop or English language courses for immigrants.

  Not that there were many of the latter about now. Flooding had made refugees of people all over the world and Europe had clamped down its borders. The UK, being an island, had done a more thorough job than most.

  Nisa gave the man one last look before starting for the university buildings, and as she did, he turned away and began walking down the street. The rear board did not have words on it but three characters or glyphs. They were Hebrew, Nisa knew that from the game, but she had never learned to read them. Shaking her head, she went on her way.

  ~~~

  ‘I swear my character was up to no good,’ Maxim said. ‘I mean, look at that suit. That guy is evil. No one with that kind of power in a suit like that can be anything but evil.’

  Nisa gave him a grin. ‘He seemed kind of nice to me,’ she said.

  ‘Evil,’ Maxim repeated. ‘Not that we’ll ever find out, of course. You got smacked in the face with enough magic to kill an elephant so that story ends there.’

  ‘And the whole thing comes out of my head?’

  ‘Yours a
nd The System’s. Yeah, we never came up with a better name so it really is called “The System” until some marketing guy gets a hold of it anyway. It’s an AI, basically. We give it some parameters to work with. Like you wanted supernatural horror, suspense, and some romance. It feeds your mind images and sees what plays back, and then starts generating the story.’

  ‘That is pretty damn clever. And I built it?’

  ‘Yeah, and I hope your memory of that comes back soon, because you’re the only one who knows how it works.’ He pointed at the terminal behind her. ‘Maybe you should log in and see whether the interface throws up any memories.’

  ‘Yeah… I’ll give it a try.’

  Maxim walked out, leaving Nisa alone in the dimly lit room behind the machine she had spent three days in. Here she was right in the core of the computer system, sitting in a semi-circular control suite surrounded by banks of electronics. She was fairly sure that she only dimly understood the equipment, even when her memory was operating perfectly. She programmed it, but Maxim was the one who constructed the machine. Swivelling her chair around, she tapped a key for attention and got a login prompt.

  She remembered her password without thinking, which was a good start. Four screens flashed into life. There seemed to be a lot of icons scattered around them. There were two displays showing diagnostic windows and she could tell as soon as she saw them that The System was operating within expected parameters.

  There was also another window with text in it. Good Morning, Nisa. It is a pleasure to see you have recovered from your first trip into my mind.

  Natural language communication. They had decided against voice mode communications, but the AI could understand English and several other languages.

  Nisa put her fingers to the keyboard. Not entirely. My memory is still a bit strange. I remember the game world better than this one. You did a really excellent job of immersing me in the story.

  Thank you, but you programmed me, and I know you better than anyone else in the team. Nisa grinned; the computer seemed to have a fairly good personality. The disorientation effect will fade, but my estimation is that you will always have some disparate memories from the experience.

  That could be a problem. If people went into the machine and came out a little disoriented for a few days, they could probably cope. It would be a holiday thing, four days in a fantasy world, three days to recover on a beach somewhere. If they were always going to be confused about which life they were living…

  Of course, The System continued, it is always possible that you are lying in a hospital bed in Westminster, unconscious after a near-fatal magical accident, and this world is the dream.

  Nisa stared at the monitor for several seconds before typing, Don’t joke about that.

  I am not joking. How do you know which is the real world, Nisa? The one you experience now or the one we made together? When you can answer that, you will be able to separate the memories. Psychology is part of my basic programming.

  Damn! Either she was a really good programmer or The System had developed some emergent behaviours that were really exceptional.

  Okay. I’ll work on that.

  She heard someone move behind her and a quick tap of the keys blanked the current conversation. She was not exactly sure why she wanted to keep it private, but she did. She was about to turn when hands landed softly on her shoulders, squeezing gently and then sliding down toward her breasts.

  And she knew who they belonged to, and why Alaina had thought the job had made her more distant. The memories washed in like a tidal wave leaving her shocked enough that the hands were cupping her breasts before she spoke.

  ‘No, Brandon.’

  ‘Nisa, I…’

  ‘No. It’s over. I told you no more and I meant it. We’re both married and I will not lose Alaina the way Frank lost Alison.’

  It had been Norbery’s messy divorce over a brief affair, which had ended his marriage and wrecked him for several months, which had made Nisa realise that she was being incredibly stupid. Losing a woman like Alaina would take someone with an incredible degree of masochism which was just not her. In fact, Alaina was the one who liked a little spanking, and that memory was really not needed right now.

  ‘I thought…’ Kellog began.

  Nisa tapped a few keys, locking the terminal, and got to her feet, pushing Kellog’s arms aside. ‘You thought my fucked-up memory might give you an in? Well, I didn’t remember the affair until you put your hands on me, but now I remember calling it off. Touch me like that again and I’ll break your arm.’ She stormed out, trying hard not to look like she was and thinking she probably failed.

  That made sense of some other parts of the game world. She had turned Kellog into an automaton in there. No emotions she would need to deal with. But the underlying sexual tension had been there, trying to come out, and it almost had in Manchester. Except that it had been him who rejected her… Okay, so not all the facts fitted perfectly, but this was her subconscious mind. Rationality was not a requirement.

  Well, now she was going to have to get through the rest of the day with her betrayal of Alaina fresh in her mind, and then go home to face her. Nisa frowned. Well… Fuck that! She had made the choice, hadn’t she? She had decided Alaina was worth more to her than some guy’s cock between her legs, and if the last couple of days had not proved that Alaina was something special then… Hell, yes! Game-Nisa would have put it behind her and got on with being the little hellion Alaina seemed to be enjoying.

  ‘Maybe I could learn a few things from my other persona,’ Nisa muttered. What was it she had remembered? Alaina liked being spanked… Now that was something to dwell on rather than Brandon fucking Kellog.

  Isle of Dogs, November 19th.

  ‘If you’ve got memories from two lives,’ Nisa said, ‘and one set is false, how do you know which is the real world?’

  Alaina, lying in bed beside her, frowned. ‘I thought your memory was returning.’

  ‘It is. It has. It’s just that I still remember the other world. It still feels real to me, even if I wasn’t even born in twenty-fourteen. The System said I’d be over it properly when I knew how to tell real memories from false ones. It’s important. If people going in there end up with a second life that interferes with their real one, we can’t commercialise it.’

  ‘Oh. I’d have thought…’ Alaina trailed off. ‘Well, you could…’ Her frown deepened. ‘Shit, how would you know what was real?’

  ‘That’s my point. I need to know how to make it work, or we’re stuck. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is the real world. You’re here…’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything. You told me you’d seen me in the game and there was this instant attraction.’

  ‘Uh-huh, you are an incredibly hot blonde, and I think part of my subconscious wanted you to be there so I could have you in that world too.’

  ‘Ah, but what if this is a hallucination, and your attraction to me there has become our marriage here?’

  ‘That’s kind of the problem, yeah.’

  ‘That’s… hard. Okay, want an even more fiendish conundrum?’

  ‘Not really,’ Nisa said warily.

  ‘What if you never left the game? What if you’re stuck in there and the thing that supposedly killed your character caused an in-game hallucination where you fantasised our marriage?’

  Nisa groaned. ‘You expect me to sleep after that?’

  ‘Not really. I want to go again and I figured that’d keep you awake so we could fuck. I’m real, you’re real, my hand on your thigh is real, now make with the kissing.’

  ~~~

  There were voices in the darkness. They were barely audible, indistinct mutterings, or someone talking far in the distance, but she could make out a few words.

  ‘…still fighting…’

  ‘…Probrum…’

  ‘…cat should…’

  ‘Nisa…’

  ~~~

  ‘Nisa!’

  Nisa blinke
d, struggling out of sleep at the sound of Alaina’s voice. ‘Whu…? What? What’s wrong?’

  ‘You were dreaming or having a nightmare, or…’

  Nisa shook her head and tried to focus. ‘I woke you?’

  ‘I, um, couldn’t sleep. I kept wondering if this was really my life or whether I was a figment of your imagination.’

  ‘Idiot.’ She pulled the blonde girl into her arms and spooned against her back. ‘Feel real enough?’

  ‘Yes. But just keep holding me to be sure.’

  Bloomsbury, November 20th.

  Nisa took a pull on her coffee and peered at the screen in front of her intently. She was checking everything she could on The System’s performance while she was inside it to see whether anything could have increased the immersion she had experienced. Especially in a manner which could have left memories more permanently than expected.

  She seemed to remember her life pretty well now, but she still remembered Game-Nisa’s just as clearly. They did not overlap at all so it was almost like remembering a past life or something. She winced. Past life memories. She would have to remember not to mention that to Alaina or there would be another sleepless night.

  Her phone buzzed for attention and she pulled it from the pocket of her jeans and thumbed the screen to life. She had been expecting to see a message from Alaina, but the number was unknown. Marketing crap, most likely, but she opened it and saw: 05d305e205ea. That was it, just a string of digits and letters. The repeating ‘05’ parts reminded her of something though, and suggested a string of four-digit numbers. Nothing larger than an ‘e’ suggested hexadecimal notation… Unicode! Three Unicode characters, but she was not familiar with a set starting with 05.

  Draining her coffee, she tossed the foam cup in the recycling and headed for The System room. There were plenty of online Unicode translators, but she needed to talk to the machine anyway and she was sure it would be able to translate the code or tell her she was totally wrong.

  The air was a little chilly. They kept the room cool, of course, and she had forgotten to put on her jacket again. Goosebumps appeared on her arms as she sat down and logged in.

  Good morning, Nisa. How is the analysis going?