by Aaron Jay
“Miles. I started to think that you were going to stay in your apartment and burn with the rest of this goddamned building,” he growled at me. “It wouldn’t have been anywhere near as satisfying as getting to beat your face in first.”
And then he started to do that very thing. He slammed punches down on me. Slow and deliberate. He’d take a moment, let go of my shoulder and ram a fist into my face and then grab me again to keep control. One blow. A pause to hold me in place. Another. Punch after punch. I just had time to focus on him between blows and try to twist out from under to no effect. He seemed to be made of steel cable. He was stronger than he had any right to be, and somehow I couldn’t do a damned thing.
His eyes stopped focusing on me. He almost seemed lost in his own fantasies as he beat me. He panted as if the enjoyment of beating me unconscious wasn’t satisfying him enough. After five or so blows (it’s amazing how hard it is to keep count of punches to your face), he bared his teeth in a rictus. It might be called a smile but was more like how a shark’s teeth make a slight upward curve if you see it from the right angle. His hands clenched around my throat and he started talking to himself as he choked the air from me.
“Got me black-balled. Made me look like a fool. Ruined my life. Gonna kill him. Ruined my life. Die Boone. Die. Black-balled me. Made me a fool. Die Boone. Die. Gonna kill him.”
He wasn’t talking to me. He didn’t care if I was listening. He was talking to himself. Psyching himself up. Cheering himself on as he killed me. I was just a receptacle for his anger. The last words I thought I’d ever hear, delivered by the man who killed me, and he wasn’t even talking to me. It was creepy as fuck. How was he so strong?
I could see my backpack to the side with my nano in it. My vision was going gray at the edges but in the center of my vision things were as clear and picked out as I have ever seen anything. I could see the weave of the bag. I reached out and managed to get my hands around one of the shoulder straps. Nano is some odd, enigmatic stuff. It never weighs what you think it should. It never moves as you think it should. It doesn’t even predictably move in the same way under the same forces, at least the forces we can perceive. It moves as if it has a mind of its own.
I was weak from the beating and the lack of oxygen. Disoriented from the blaring sound and the chant for my death that Aabid was panting out. I swung the bag containing the nano into him. The first blow was weak and it seemed like I was hitting him with a pillow. The second was no better. But nano behaves in unpredictable ways. Energy, inertia, and momentum appear and disappear in enigmatic ways. My third blow might have come from a sledge. It snapped Aabid back into the here and now and also off from on top of me.
I dragged in a wheezing breath through my bruised throat. And hit him again. This time it was neither pillow nor sledge but solid enough to help me out. We both scrambled up from the floor to keep the other from getting the advantage of height. I was trying to suppress my cough from both the choking and the smoke that was filling the hallway.
“You burned down the building?” I rasped.
“Who me? No. That would be criminal. I just came to your apartment knowing you would come out and I could kill you,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was making a joke or was just insane.
I kept my eyes on him in case he rushed me. There really wasn’t anything in it for me to fight with him here. Even if I won the fight I might die from the fire. That was when I noticed it. There was something odd about him. Not just the psychotic murderousness. Something in his neck was throbbing. His neck wasn’t throbbing but something in it was. Something under his skin. Here and there I thought I saw scales form on or just under his skin. Body modification and adds were common enough, but this creeped me out. Reason number 10,324 to get the hell away from Aabid.
I tried for the old “look over your opponents shoulder to distract him” trick. I peeked past him and said, “Hey!” It didn’t work much if at all, not that I waited around to see if he fell for it. I spun and ran down the hall, bursting into the fire stairs. Aabid’s footsteps immediately pounded along after me. My feet barely touched the stairs as I hurled down toward the ground floor.
Evacuating down the stairs were other residents making their escape. I threaded my way past them to shouts of, “Hey!” and officious sounding admonishments to evacuate in an orderly fashion. I could sense that Aabid was gaining on me. Usually the guy running for his life can outrun the maniac, as the desire to live should outweigh the desire for vengeance. Either Aabid’s legs were just that much faster than mine or he wanted to kill me more than I wanted to live. My legs needed to get with the program.
Alright, if my legs were failing me, let’s let my brains try to save me. I passed an elderly couple. Nope. Then a mother with two small children. Nope. Finally, I passed a forty-year-old man who looked back to see what the commotion was. Perfect. I grabbed him by the shoulder as I passed, shoving him backwards and me faster along my way. His squawk blended into Aabid’s cursing as they tangled.
“Sorry!” I yelled as I kept going.
Shooting out the front door, a crowd from my building and even some people from the other nearby apartment structures milled about wondering what to do. I slowed down and did my best to blend into the crowd.
Now that I was outside, I could see the flames had engulfed one entire side of the building. The authorities would arrive soon. Even so I didn’t think it was wise to wait. The crowd might or might not stop Aabid from attacking. The authorities were also a crapshoot: it was hard to believe the Eastmans hadn’t covered that angle if this was about me. I headed for the darkest street nearby and put distance between Aabid, my old apartment, and myself.
For once I was glad that most street-lamps were broken and dark in our brave new world. The darkness was comforting. I tried to calm down. My breath was still coming in gasps and my eyes watered as my nose felt numb. Aabid claimed that he wasn’t operating under Maya or the Eastmans’ orders. Who knew if that was true? Even if the authorities were willing to do their jobs and took Aabid off the street, Maya had plenty more lackeys to fill Aabid’s spot. Although I wasn’t sure this was an Eastman action. Aabid had gone mental. He had always been a petty thug but I wouldn’t have thought he’d turn psychopath. What the hell was up with his neck? Whether I had my own personal murderous stalker or I was the target of an entire clan, I didn’t have a lot of options of where to go and what to do.
My father had asked me to visit. Admittedly, he also wanted me to visit just to see him and not because I needed anything. Well, this visit would have to do. What was the old line? “Home is where, when your enemies burn your previous habitation to the ground, they have to take you in?” Yes, that sounded right.
Hurrying through the dim and darkened city, I kept my nano swinging from its strap, ready to bash anyone who came after me. My mounting paranoia of enemies in the dark got me to do something I had been resistant to meddle with. I engaged my “Eyes of the Hunter.” Maddie the Bruja had given me these eyes in the game. They seemed to have modified my eyes IRL as well. My father had engaged Hardcore mode for me and it bled the Game into real life in ways that concerned me. I had avoided asking him what exactly it meant. I’d have the opportunity now.
The darkness receded as the game-based ability kicked in. The intermittent lighting was more than enough to let me know if anyone else was out there in the darkness. My nerves settled as I walked along the empty streets. The unknown is scarier than known dangers. Even murderous known dangers. Way back in the distance, I could just barely make out the sounds of the fire and its response. The sky had a small glow back in that direction.
There is something wrong when you think your home being burned to the ground and someone trying to kill you is bad because it derails your work schedule. But I really couldn’t afford the time this was taking from me.
After nearly an hour’s walk, I came to the street with my father’s house. An anachronistic brownstone that would have fit into a different city and dif
ferent time without any problems. Now it was one more quirky bit of symbolism my father indulged himself with.
ArchE opened the door half a minute after I knocked. Frankly, with a psychotic killer after me, it would be nice if ArchE didn’t pretend that he needed to hear my knock and then make his way to the door. I knew my father’s security had at least this block and probably beyond covered. ArchE knew as soon as I showed up on their systems. Thinking further though, since ArchE knew I was there and also saw anything else that came near the old brownstone, I was actually in the safety of my father’s protection long before I mounted his steps. When you think someone is about to beat you to death, you prefer visible signs of safety. It was good to see ArchE’s metal noggin.
My father and I hugged as is our ritual. Most parents would have immediately asked why my face was such a mess or why I smelled like smoke. He merely asked me how I was after I sat down. It was the same polite inquiry he always offered. A stranger might have thought that he wasn’t interested in my beaten and disheveled state. The truth was that he wanted to know how I was just as much when I didn’t look like a mile of bad road.
He listened as I reported my tale of woe and arson. He looked at me with consternation after I was finished.
“If he hadn’t gotten the drop on me, I think I could have taken him,” I said.
He looked at me with affectionate dismay and a touch of surprise. “Are you ashamed you lost the fight? You yourself noted that there was nothing to be accomplished by engaging with him.”
No one likes to admit when they lose a fight, but somehow when the other person was a vengeance-driven maniac you don’t feel like a loser for getting your face beaten in. My father’s careful listening made me think about my fight. Aabid wanted to kill me. Who got the most licks in seemed like a petty concern when I hadn’t been certain of escaping with my life.
“He tried to kill me. I’m still alive. That seems more important than bragging rights,” I said.
“Indeed. Fights for survival aren’t about who will be top dog. Which monkey can beat their chest loudest. Or, at best, whose ideas will prevail. Those kinds of fights are at the base of civilization. They let us know how we hairless apes are going to organize ourselves. The ones for survival are about something even more primitive,” he said.
“So, why did you give me that look?” I asked.
“Look?”
“You looked disappointed with me.”
“Not with you,” he said. “I see trouble before others. It is nice to see you. Perhaps I should write Tasha Eastman and thank her. I have been seeing more of you in the past few months than I did in the entire previous year.”
“Ha ha,” I said. Silence descended.
“My look was for other reasons,” he finally stated.
“Aabid’s weird neck thing? The scales?” I asked.
“No. Obviously we would be witless not to think of GM Pulling’s sad acquaintance. His behavior changed, if not as murderously, and he had some modification or implantation that contained scale-like features. It bears investigation. But that is not what I was thinking about”
My father gave me a deep look.
“Then what?” I asked, trying to restart the conversation.
“Do you remember when you were seven? You wanted me to give you a genetically altered hippopotamus. You found out that I had the skills and material to make you one only nine inches tall and you wanted me to give you such a modified creature,” he reminded me.
“Sure. You refused,” I said. I had obviously long since made my peace with this disappointment. But I clearly recalled being that incredibly disappointed seven-year-old boy. Who wouldn’t want a tiny hippo?
“Yes. You were very disagreeable about it. You pestered me for a year. Worse, you lavished guilt upon me. Saying that if I loved you, I’d give you the hippo. You did your best to make me miserable in the hopes that I would surrender to your desire. After all, it was only such a tiny little hippo.”
“Hah. Sorry. You thought of that and that made you look at me like that?” I laughed.
“No. I gave you that look because I believe you are about to once again ask me for a hippo,” he replied.
I looked at him blankly. He sighed.
“It isn’t actually easy for parents to say no to their children. Even when it is the correct thing to do, it is still uncomfortable.”
“It’s ok, Dad. I understand why we couldn’t have a tiny hippo. I’m old enough to know that I was totally full of it when I said I’d do all the work taking care of it. Heck, I knew I was lying about that at the time.”
I laughed but my father didn’t.
“What is your most urgent need and desire right now?”
I thought for a minute and then I could feel my face get stony.
“That look right there. It is exactly the same look I saw when you were seven. You wore it most of the year till you were eight,” he grunted.
The thing I needed and wanted right now more than I wanted that tiny little hippo was a safe place to stay and play the game to win my bet. Despite me not saying a word, my father answered my unspoken question.
“Miles. I can’t,” he told me.
“You are kicking me out?” I asked, stunned.
“No. But I cannot permit you to play the Game from here. Which I suspect means the same thing given your circumstances,” he apologized.
“Dad. Aabid and/or the Eastmans are trying to kill me. If I can’t play the Game, I’m a slave,” I reminded him. I stared at him. He was constrained by his massive frame from completely avoiding my gaze, but I saw that he wanted to.
“You are welcome to stay here as long as you like. But I will not allow a connection from my home to the Game system. It is impossible.”
“Impossible? Every other person alive on this earth has a connection to the Game.”
“I misspoke. It is untenable,” he allowed. “I severed any connection to the Game over a decade ago.”
“I am familiar with your eccentricities and habits. No one else is as aware of them as I am. I moved out at fourteen because of those habits. I didn’t even blame you. But this is different. I am facing death or slavery,” I repeated.
“It’s the hippo thing all over again,” he muttered, closing his eyes to avoid looking at me.
I waited until his eyes opened.
“No. It isn’t. I know you have been stuck alone in this house for quite a while. You may have lost your sense of human proportion or what people recognize as sanity. But this isn’t the same as, ‘the hippo thing,’” I snapped.
“I’m sorry. I know this is a big disappointment to you. I wish that I could accommodate you. But I cannot let you play the Game from my home,” he said evenly.
“ArchE could handle the entire process. The pod could be in any other room in the house. It’s not like you can even leave this room with your condition. You won’t even know that I am playing except intellectually. I know you hate the Game, the Party. That you don’t trust the GMs or the whole bunch of them. They are failing us all. I agree with you on all of that. It’s part of why I wanted to play and need to win my bet. Are you really going to let your issues with all of that drive me out to be murdered or into slavery?” I demanded.
“You are avoiding the elephant in the room,” he said.
“It was a hippo,” I snarked but I knew what he meant. I had been avoiding what I knew was driving his decision as soon as I heard it. The Party would love to breach his systems. My father still had some sort of hold on them keeping them from complete control. I couldn’t help but press him on the issue. “You can connect to the wider world. You represented me with the GMs just a few weeks ago.”
“Yes. And I am still working on reconstituting my defenses after that brief interaction. A castle only works as a defense if you maintain the walls and keep the gates and drawbridges in place. You actively playing the game here would represent a hole in my defenses bigger than ten full-sized hippos. I cannot do it,” my father
explained.
I looked down at my feet and thought. Something my father couldn’t easily manage and thought. The looking at my feet part. He could certainly think even if he hadn’t seen his own toes in years.
There was no point in discussing the technical issues. I would have no insight on how my playing could be managed that my father, the genius, and his AI assistant ArchE, wouldn’t have already considered. In the end it really came down to one question.
“Are your secrets worth my life?” I asked.
He went pale and the breath went out of him.
“Yes,” came the answer. My father being who he was, I believed him. . I didn’t know what The Party would do with no check on their ambitions.
I rubbed my face with both of my hands. My mind desperately wanted to think of some sort of solution. Part of me wanted to yell at my father and say, “If you loved me, you’d let me play!” My father was right: it really was the hippo thing all over again. But I was older now. I knew that as hard as it was for me to hear that he wouldn’t shelter me, it must be harder for him to abandon his son in his time of need.
“Alright then,” I said. “I guess that is that.”
He took my hand in his much larger one. I was no longer a child, but his condition meant that I still got to experience my father’s hands being much bigger and stronger than mine. My fingers looked like a small child’s in his. I wished that his were big enough to shield me from my enemies, but they just weren’t.
*** ***
I woke up in my old room. Nearly being murdered and having your home burned down turns out to be a great sedative. I had slept like the dead. Sleep is great for giving your brain a chance to get perspective on the problems of the previous day. Turns out murderous enemies, no home, and a bet with your freedom on the line still look pretty bad in the light of a new day.
