Virtual Horizon

by Kris Schnee

  Horizon

  At the seastead town of Castor, Horizon popped into reality. He woke up in the body of a robotic griffin, thigh-high to the young man who'd just assembled it. Stan, he was called, an up-and-coming handyman working as assistant manager of the local Fun Zone facility.

  Now, Horizon rode a boat across open sea with him, to the site of an underwater housing tower. The man looked at the pile of computer equipment they were escorting, and asked, "Is this stuff really that important?"

  "Would you leave part of your own brain around unguarded?" It wasn't part of the hardware that ran minds like his, or anything super-secure, but Ludo was putting more and more assets into place near human housing areas. The nice way to describe that was "harmonious integration", but critics sometimes used the phrase "human shields". The really important hardware getting installed was on Cuba, at an upcoming fairground.

  Horizon's current body was a Squire class bot. Metal and plastic, designed either to walk around as a talking security drone or to wear a plush pelt and be a cuddly living toy for humans at the Fun Zone. (He'd fought harpies and demons, but grease stains were the bane of his visits to the restaurant.) Right now he made sure nobody somehow stole the hardware while Stan carried it down a tube that reached the seabed. Horizon plugged in whatever wires and cables he could manage with the robot's hands; he had some dexterity but little strength.

  He'd volunteered for this particular job because he had a personal interest in the seastead. Linda still worked nearby, and he sometimes quietly checked on her.

  "Can you tell me what happened to the Balkan Butcher?" asked Stan.

  Horizon felt himself scowl, though this body couldn't show it. That was a recent uploader, an amoral arms dealer who'd given much of his fortune to Ludo. "He's dead weight, in his own private little world. At least we've got his money."

  He and Stan spoke of happier things. Then the man said, "What are those little connectors hidden under your wings? In hindsight, they're not for the plush pelt."

  Horizon looked himself over, surprised. "I wasn't fully briefed on this model's specs. We keep playing around with different models... Oh!"

  He used a mental command to speed up his subjective time-sense so he could think faster for a moment. He unlinked himself from the body. Suddenly he was standing in a stark white control room that resembled a video arcade, where various people were "going outside" to the Outer Realm by piloting robots. Ironic that the control systems looked like VR hardware. Horizon pinged the AI that ran the place, asking about the connectors.

  A reply came back from Ludo herself, as text across his vision. [Classified. These are expansion ports for special equipment, including defensive weapons systems. Just on certain bot models. Interesting that he noticed. You may tell him; he's due for a security clearance.]

  Horizon cursed, then dropped back to the Outer Realm. His senses told him he was back there, in the world of humans and true danger, looking up at Ludo's handyman. "Okay, Stan, I've just been given some more info. We need you to not talk about those. They're ports for optional, special defensive features we might equip at some point. Exciting times, as I said."

  And Linda was on her own adventure, somewhere in the same town.

  * * *

  Linda

  She lived in moderate chaos on the seastead, and liked it.

  One day, she was contemplating the giant diamond in Franklin Square. This place was a combination factory and office building that rested partly underwater like a mystic pylon. At the center of its open "ground" floor there sat a bolted-down crystal, created by Franklin Forge just beneath her feet. Tourists always gawked at the near-perfect gem and asked if it was real. A simple plaque beneath it read:

  [Solid diamond, created by Franklin Forge, 2038. "If you would be free, create. If you would have others create, set them free."]

  A dark-skinned young woman with blue hair and a bodyguard walked up from the basement stairs. "It's not going to do a trick if you watch."

  "Hey, Molly." Linda had only met the CEO's daughter recently, and had gotten into a friendly argument right away. This rock was the center of it. To Molly it was an annoying bauble that distracted people from humbler, more important jobs. But really, the shock value was important. People needed to know that mere human hands could still accomplish amazing things.

  Molly said, "I'm thinking for April 1, I should sneak up and spraypaint a smiley face on it. Or, no, a hammer and sickle, just to see Daddy's reaction! What do you think... ah, Vince, isn't it?" She grinned at her guard.

  The man looked like a bodybuilder and he had a gun, but he still went pale. "I wouldn't recommend that, ma'am."

  Linda chuckled. "Want to get lunch?"

  "Can't today; tomorrow's good though. Aren't you busy too? They must have you running ragged between the Exposition and the Challenger project."

  Westwind was placing multiple bets on the future. Ludo's operation was one of them. The AI was setting up a fancy fairground on Cuba to show off her technology later this year, and had invited other high-tech companies to put exhibits there. Meanwhile, Westwind was also working closely with a group of rocket scientists. They were going to help send people to space, to mine an asteroid!

  Well, not exactly "people". Digital minds. But it would be humans doing the launching, and venturing farther out once an automated gas station awaited them.

  Linda said, "They've got me busy, yeah. I may not be doing the rocketry myself, but to have any hand in that at all is an honor. People need a flashy, bright symbol to inspire them, like a trail of fire in the sky." She tapped the gem with one fingernail; it had countless fingerprints already. "Or a diamond."

  Molly said, "Maybe we could smash it up and hand out pieces to everyone... Well! I've got a doctor's appointment to get to. Tomorrow?"

  "Sure."

  * * *

  One day she was scuba diving with Tess and with that handyman she'd met in the noodle shop. That guy was Stan, a Ludo minion, and today he was assembling Westwind's underwater housing project. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  And then she and Stan noticed that Tess was convulsing and not wearing her air mask.

  The two of them argued in pantomime about whether to rush for the surface or take the ascent slowly and safely. They pulled off her weighted belt and let her rise while Stan used a computer tablet to call for help.

  Linda reached the surface a few minutes later for safety's sake. She sat there stunned in the bright sunlight, while Stan reported in and medics took Tess away.

  Stan calmed her down and even took her out for a meal. That was great, actually. He was a bright and talented young man, even though he was working for Ludo's company. He wore a homemade hammer on his belt as though he expected a fantasy adventure to break out at any moment. A good guy, but it was possible that he planned to upload as soon as he could afford to.

  He asked her to sing, out of the blue. She was out of practice but sang a little hymn from the American Revolution, right there in the noodle shop. The place went quiet. She blushed. Here was something real and physical, the motion of air through her lungs, her lips, impossible to ever perfectly copy.

  Before she left to try her best at keeping Westwind afloat without Tess, she planted a quick kiss on Stan's cheek.

  * * *

  Linda had never been comfortable in hospitals. The one in Havana unnerved her with its antiseptic smell and sterile green tiles, its undercurrent of death and pain, and her own knowledge that another of her friends was becoming undead.

  The nurses let her into the uploading wing. There, Tess de Castille lay with her shaved head on a pillow, her arm pierced by an IV near a tattoo of a dolphin. Linda tried not to shudder or imagine steel in her own veins. "How're you doing?" she asked. The robot Zephyr stood beside the bed.

  Tess gave her a weak smile. "I'll be better soon."

  Linda was still stunned from seeing her boss get a heart attack. Over the last two years Linda had seen Tess shake off injuries fro
m lab accidents and the other dangers of life as a mad scientist of Castor. In America she would have been safer, and probably flipping burgers, and on mandatory mood-altering drugs.

  The robot Zephyr said, "Thank you again for pulling her out."

  Linda swallowed. "Yeah." She wanted to scream at Tess and tell her not to kill herself. Ludo had promised -- Horizon had personally promised, in one of their rare conversations -- that advanced, piecemeal uploading technology was only months away. Today's method of having her brain chopped out and sliced was suicide, creating only a copy of a mind. It was bad enough to know that. Worse to know Tess planned to do it anyway.

  Tess seemed to read her thoughts. "I don't buy the philosophical argument. Besides, half my mind is in Zephyr already, with how much we coordinate. After this, we can get real work done."

  Zephyr took Tess' unpierced arm. "We will. We'll really be together then, and show this world what we can do."

  The three of them had uncorked the genie by leaking the NSA data they'd gotten. Uploading technology was in no one person's hands now; Ludo's monopoly had been cut short. Good! But that also meant more people using the technology, and sooner. They were beginning to see uploading as routine medicine instead of a last-ditch survival method. So it was a mixed victory.

  Tess smiled. "Linda, you're worried about feeling left behind, aren't you? Why don't we put your mind on the asteroid probe? It's only meat that's obsolete." She tried to go on, but coughed.

  Herself, on the probe?! But that meant uploading! It was ridiculous. Except, the crew didn't really have a drone-piloting expert yet. And hadn't looked very hard for one...

  Linda looked down in shame. Tess was about to die and become something else, and Linda's thoughts were drifting back into old debates instead. She ignored the needle in Tess' scarred, tattooed arm and held her hand. She would try to make friends with the new Tess on the other side, as she'd done with the new person Paul had become. If she ever gave up, they could be there to welcome her.

  She patted Tess' arm and walked out to the sunlight of a humid Havana day. Stan was there waiting for her.

  "Tess is uploading," she told him. And though he was one of Ludo's believers, he hugged her as though he understood her view, too.

  She wondered if Horizon could still appreciate the real world.

  * * *

  Horizon

  He peeked into the room of a new uploader and asked, "Are you awake, ma'am?"

  The woman had appeared in an enormous bedroom, laying against a pillow larger than herself. Horizon needed to fly up to the bed. They both looked inches tall at this scale. He didn't know what the environment represented for her, or why she'd come here. It was best to greet the new uploaders without preconceptions.

  The newcomer yawned, opened her eyes, then looked at her body in its cute blue pajamas. Then she noticed Horizon, the massive bedspread, and the towering door, in a single sweep of her eyes. A smile grew on her, then wavered. Existential horror, from having her entire body torn away and burned, fighting with joy.

  Horizon lowered his head and tried to look harmless. "Welcome home."

  She grabbed him, shuddering, letting her tears wet his feathers.

  I'll never get tired of getting to greet the humans, he thought, and wrapped his warm wings around her. They all get that moment of realizing that life's about to be great.

  A while later, she lifted her eyes from his shoulder. "I... I'm Stephanie. I can really do anything in here?"

  "Anything that'd be fun. It won't always be easy, though. We have a tutorial and great support groups if you're interested. My name's Horizon, mostly here for hugging duty today. Can I get you anything?"

  She looked herself over, sniffling. "No job, no... other problems. Breakfast in bed?" She said it like a joke.

  Horizon pulled a fake mustache from his saddlebags, stuck it to his beak, and took out an order pad. "Oui, madame. The everything is good this morning."

  Stephanie giggled, then put one hand to her mouth. "It really is."

  He left the huge room to fetch food. He could've just summoned it, but wanted to give her a few minutes alone to think. The normal-sized hallway gave him vertigo after feeling tiny. He rode the elevator down to the lobby of Hotel Computronium.

  The lobby was a welcoming place that had gold and diamonds in the furnishings but could otherwise fit in anywhere on Earth. The main hall stood three stories tall with many pillars, sofas, plants, fountains, and other things to bump into or hop over. This building was the usual starting area for new uploaders, part of the Ivory Tower zone. It had a casual atmosphere. Theme mattered little here and any plotlines were the players' own doing. The hotel and the cave beyond it were a good low-key way for the newbies to relax and browse the weekly Newcomer Fair on the Tower's second floor.

  Horizon raided the free buffet, and came back up with a tray of pancakes and eggs precariously perched between his wings. Back upstairs he opened one of the doors (didn't matter which) while thinking of Stephanie. It opened onto the giant room. "Breakfast!" he said. He set the tray down, grabbed it in his forelegs, and flew up to deliver it. The new gal enjoyed the show. "Don't you just stuff items into an inventory screen?"

  "It depends on the zone and context. In most places, putting pancakes and syrup into an inventory turns out as pleasantly as you'd imagine for using a backpack."

  "Eew. Seems like common sense then."

  Horizon pawed at the giant bed's covers, enjoying the novelty. "Intuition doesn't always apply though."

  Stephanie asked, "Like the balancing? When I played Thousand Tales on a screen, there was a balance meter to represent using my Acrobatics skill. Will I still have that?" "Usually no; it's more like actual physics for us. You can get good at a lot of skills." Horizon sat up and looked at his taloned hands, thinking of the last robot body he'd used. "And maybe apply them."

  Stephanie dug into the food, and pointed to a pamphlet she'd been reading. "Says here that the Newcomer Fair isn't for three days. What should I do till then?"

  "Sorry; my sense of timing is thrown off this week. More meetings than usual. I have a few hours free to take you somewhere, if you don't mind my fetching another person first. Or you can just hang out in the hotel."

  The woman looked down at her half-eaten meal. "Let's go somewhere; I don't want to mope. I can flip this without really wasting anything, can't I?"

  "Flip it good!"

  The tray and plates crashed to the ground far below. They'd be digitally erased as soon as she left the room. "How do I get down from here?"

  He gave her a ride in his talons, enjoying her roller-coaster squeals. He stepped out to the hallway with her.

  As soon as she was outside, though, she frowned. "I'm regular-size."

  "Does it matter? We can find you a different body, but again the best place to shop around is the Fair."

  "I'm in perfect health again, right? Might as well explore."

  "Good attitude to have. I need to leave you, so either take this elevator to the lobby and wait or use the [Adventure] button. Remember, you can't really die here." He opened an interface window and edited her starting room. He put her respawn point on the floor, in case she had to reappear there.

  "Adventure?" Stephanie said. She stepped into the elevator and hit a button. "Whoa!" The doors closed violently and the whole thing rumbled, whisking her off to a one-shot maze of doom or something.

  Horizon chirped, amused. "Okay, next customer."

  He selected the next guy on the list, who was... He blushed. Oh, her.

  He knocked before opening the door to the hotel room of Miss Deelight Marvele. She had made her fortune in "film" and "photography". Ludo had assigned him to handle her initial greeting, and had pranked him by having the profile photo be one of her nudes. He cringed a bit, wondering what he'd see in the room, but it was just the ordinary suite with a balcony overlooking the cavern.

  "Yep, I'm still here," Marvele said, swinging her legs down from the bed. She wore th
e standard newbie t-shirt and shorts, tightly, and held a book. She stretched and enjoyed Horizon's flustered reaction. "It's been fun relaxing now that I'm healthy again. But I'm at a loss."

  Horizon found something else to look at. "What book is that?"

  "One of the ones I wrote." She held up a mystery novel titled The Curse of Atropos. Several similar books lined a shelf in her room. "What? I had a profitable side business."

  "Must've missed that in your profile."

  "Take me somewhere nice, please. Don't care where; it's time to play this Game of yours."

  Horizon said, "Yours too. Follow me."

  He checked a random door to Stephanie's room and she wasn't there; good sign. Down in the lobby she was talking with a friendly alien in spiky armor.

  Horizon introduced her to Marvele. Stephanie blushed too, saying, "This guy was talking about Threespace, the space world. Could I try that one?"

  Horizon nodded, and waved them toward the hotel door.

  "Wait," the alien said. "They start you off with barely anything. I've got trash weapons to share, so you can save your credits for better stuff." He opened an inventory window and made two battered guns materialize on the sofa beside him.

  [Laser Cutter: Attack 1, Energy, Gun skill. Slow Burn: Must hit a target for 2 seconds to do damage. "Mind if I cut in?"]

  [Stunner: Attack 1, Energy. Gun skill. Inflicts Stun only. 5 second recharge. "Pew."]

  Horizon read off the descriptions and taught the newbies how to inspect things.

  Stephanie said, "So only one does damage, and maybe it's useful out of combat, but it's hard to use."

  Marvele nodded. "Mind if I take the stunner?"

  "Okay."

  Horizon stepped out through the hotel door and into the cavern world. He paused and looked back over one wing. Sure enough, the newbies were staring up at Ivory Tower.

  "Now I feel tiny," said Stephanie.

  The three of them traveled across rocky ground. Horizon flew with long, dreamlike hops and hovering. He was the first to spot the pair of goblins trying to ambush them. He paused in midair and let it happen.

  The green-skinned midgets ignored him, leaping out from behind a boulder to swing clubs at the humans. Both of them yelled in alarm. Horizon just flapped slowly, saying, "Handle them how you like!" A common battle song played.