Red

by Ryan Rinsler

“Not a great introduction.”

  “Like most of the women you meet.”

  Connor smiled sarcastically. “Makes you wonder what this guy is like.”

  “You mean you?”

  “I don’t know really. It’s hard to talk about because it feels like I’m talking about a different person.”

  “Well by all accounts, you are.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You ain’t that guy, bro, whoever he is.” Suddenly the 3D printer switched on and began whirring.

  “Is it working?”

  “Yep. Calibrating it now.”

  “Great.” He finished his breakfast and cleared the table before returning to the morning room. Matt followed closely behind, continually tripping over the cables that he was dragging with him.

  “Did you get it working?” asked Jacob as they entered the room.

  Matt placed the machine on a nearby table and plugged it in, and with a couple of taps on his keyboard the printer buzzed into life.

  “Magic!”

  “I need a console,” said Nolan. “Bring up a console.”

  Matt opened a small screen on his laptop and Nolan sat down beside it. He began typing furiously, with lines of code appearing and disappearing quicker than Connor could read them.

  “Before you ask he’s not trying to get someone’s number,” said Matt.

  “Bet he could though.”

  “Nolan said you need some security,” said Jacob. “Apparently you’re in danger of being taken over.”

  “We are?” asked Connor. “What about you?”

  “Only one Jammer. We only have one,” muttered Nolan, still typing on the laptop, his fingers a blur.

  “What’s a Jammer?” asked Matt.

  “It’s a microscopic thing that Nolan will install in you,” said Jacob, “which stops anyone from alternate universes using you as a host.”

  “Do you and Matt not need one?” asked Connor.

  “Yeah, don’t I need one?” asked Matt, looking worried.

  “Bah, nobody cares about me,” said Jacob, waving his hand in dismissal. “Nolan said that because you have already gone through to the other side it’s possible they have your details.”

  “Well, they definitely have mine,” said Connor. Nolan looked up sharply. “They interrogated me and found a number that I guess identifies me.”

  “What was it? What was the number?” asked Nolan, looking nervous.

  “No idea, it was a long one. Black Alpha something.”

  Nolan relaxed again. “That’s a system code.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s the code of this system.”

  “What’s a system?” asked Connor, looking at Jacob.

  “Not sure, maybe this universe.”

  “That was the only number?” asked Nolan. “They said nothing else?”

  “They said something about geolocation I think.”

  “They don’t know you. No, they don’t know you,” he muttered to himself.

  “So it sounds like they knew where you were from but couldn’t get a direct idea of who you were,” said Jacob. “Why would that be?” he asked Nolan.

  “Jammer.”

  Connor was surprised. “So I already have one?”

  “Yes. Already.”

  Connor’s mouth fell agape. “Why… Why would I have one already? It would’ve had to have been… like… implanted, right? In my head?”

  Nolan didn’t respond, instead continuing to type intensely.

  The three of them shared a puzzled look.

  “I suppose it’s a good thing,” said Jacob. “Maybe they did it when you went into that thing?”

  “Pure Reality?”

  “No, not Silk,” said Nolan. “Not Silk.”

  “Well, whatever,” said Matt. “Does this mean I can have one?”

  A few seconds later the 3D printer began printing.

  “It looks like you’re in luck,” said Jacob. “In any case, it’s a safety precaution for us all. We don’t want someone taking over you and murdering us all in our sleep.”

  “He wouldn’t get out of bed anyway.”

  “I can move if I want to,” said Matt.

  Nolan took a freshly printed device from the machine and placed it on the table.

  “What is that?” asked Connor.

  “Applicator.”

  While a second component was being printed Connor examined the first. It was shaped like the letter T, with a sharp point at the end, a tiny cylindrical hole running right the way through it from the point upward. The second piece looked to fit inside the hole, being long and delicately thin, with a flat round base, presumably to push on, and a tiny, razor sharp threaded tip. Nolan reached into his pocket and withdrew a small shiny black box. He opened it and withdrew something, then appeared to click it into the smaller of the two freshly printed components, before connecting the two pieces and drawing back the pin.

  Matt’s eyes widened.

  “On the bed please, lie on the bed. Face down. Lie face down.”

  “I, umm...”

  Connor gave him a prod. “Just do it.”

  He shuffled over to the sofa bed and lay down. Without hesitation Nolan strode up to him, tucked the tip of the device behind his ear and deployed it. Matt flinched violently and grabbed his ear.

  “What the hell, man? You not think to warn me?”

  “Is that it?” asked Connor. Nolan nodded.

  “Well, that was easy enough!” said Jacob with a beaming smile. He clapped his hands and looked around the room. “OK, what’s next?”

  Nolan was already busy tapping away on the screen attached to the Seeker device. “Need host I.D.,” he said without looking up.

  “Someone I can, umm, take over, right?”

  “Can you choose anybody?” Matt asked the room. “Like, some super athletic war machine or something?”

  “No,” said Nolan.

  “Oh.”

  After a few minutes of waiting, with Nolan staring unwaveringly at the screen, it flashed up with something. Before Connor could glimpse what it said, Nolan was back typing again and it disappeared.

  “Did you get it?”

  Nolan hit a large button on the side of the Seeker and after two hisses it began to hum deeply. Connor could feel the vibrations through the wooden floor as a red glow slowly emanated from a ring around the center, and after a few seconds the machine beeped.

  Matt looked around the Seeker. “It’s not even plugged in. How is this thing working?”

  “Uranium.”

  “Nuclear!” exclaimed Jacob, a look of glee across his face.

  “Holy shit, dude, we’ve got an atom bomb in here.”

  Nolan scowled at Matt. “On the bed please. Lie on the bed,” he said, gesturing to Connor.

  He suddenly realized he’d not even thought about what to wear when he went in, nor had he mentally prepared for it. “I’m going in now?”

  “On the bed please. No time.”

  For some reason he patted himself up and down, checked his empty pockets, then sat on the bed. “Should I take off my socks?”

  “Just lie down, bro. Seriously.”

  “Do you want to do this?”

  “Yeah I do, actually.”

  He shook his head and lay back, lifting his feet gently onto the pillows. Do I need to pee? I might need to pee. “Wait!” he shouted, sitting bolt upright. “How do I get back out if I want to leave? I mean, how do I get back here?

  “Can’t.”

  “What? What if something happens?” Connor was beginning to enter panic mode. He had no rational reason for this panic, having experienced this three times now, but this was different. This time he knew exactly what was happening — he was taking over control of someone else’s body. Just gotta shut it out. Just gotta do it.

  Nolan produced a familiar looking cap as Connor lay back down, his heart thumping in his throat. Nolan slid the cap slowly onto Connor’s head and fastened it below his chin, then con
nected a monitor to the end of his finger.

  “What if I need to pee?” he asked, the fear showing in his quivering voice.

  “Medipack. I have a medipack.”

  “A what? What for? What will that do?”

  “It’s OK, son,” said Jacob, crouching next to the bed. “You’re in good hands. I’ll be here the whole time while you’re in to make sure you’re OK from this end. I’ve asked Alex to wait on us so I don’t even have to leave the room.”

  Connor felt like a child on his first day of nursery. Gotta man up. “Right, let’s do this.”

  “Five… Jumping in in five… four… three… two… one.”

  And then, black.

  17

  “Welcome Connor,” came a gruff, deep voice.

  He opened his eyes. A ceiling fan whirred above him, the low, stained ceiling flickering as each blade passed a harsh fluorescent strip light. He was lying on an uncomfortable bed, the itch of the musty woolen blanket irritating the bare skin of his arms.

  “Remember me?”

  He rolled his head to one side and saw an elderly African-American man sat by his bedside. Age weighed heavily on his face yet his tightly curled grey hair was neatly trimmed, as was his moustache. His brown cardigan and high collared shirt looked to Connor like a fancy dress costume he once had to wear to one of Matt’s parties.

  “Should I?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow.

  The man looked himself up and down. “Underneath this rather distinguished veneer is the person you came to see.”

  “Mana?”

  “Correct.”

  He glanced around the room. It was small and dank, the broken blinds perfectly matching the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet. The decor was beyond extraordinary, with a huge array of flowers, patterns and colors from floor to ceiling. In the corner was what looked to be an antique television, the reflection of the room bowed in the domed glass. On the bedside table stood an old lamp with a traditional filament light bulb, with a large, red, wired telephone next to it.

  “Where are we?”

  “Detroit.”

  “Detroit?”

  “In a motel.”

  Connor stood up, and as his legs almost gave way he dropped back down on the bed and took a moment.

  “Your host will be tired. Sometimes a full night’s sleep isn’t possible when being called upon.”

  Connor looked at his hands. His skin was young and pale, his fingertips soft. He glanced in the mirror across the room, and in it saw a clean shaven, long haired, early twenties male. “What do you mean?”

  “I suspect your host had only just gone to bed, so you’ll feel the physical effects of that lack of sleep.”

  “Yeah I don’t feel tired, just a bit weak.”

  “That’s because your mind is not sleep deprived, but your muscles are. Your mind will catch up soon, trust me.”

  “So how did you know I was coming?”

  “We received a message from your side requesting a host, so we set up this arrangement.”

  “So umm… I thought I’d be in the bunker.” He hoped he would be in the bunker, not some dilapidated old motel room on the edge of town.

  “You’re perfectly safe here,” replied Mana. “We’re not in the same world now as you entered before.”

  “Why? Why here?”

  “The equipment we have, which is the same as the equipment that brought you here, is not as advanced as what was used in your first Pure Reality experience. Silk Corporation security measures are, let’s say, robust. Our systems can’t bypass that.”

  “Security? What kind of security?”

  “I presume before you came here Nolan implanted you with a small device, yes?”

  “Yes. Well, not me. I was already, uh, done. Matt had it done.”

  Mana looked puzzled. “Well, that’s a security device to stop you from being hijacked from another universe. Anyone with one of those devices implanted are impossible to take over. It’s obvious you have one, because if those Silk agents that took you in would have been able to connect to you, that would have been the first thing they did. The security I’m talking about that Silk has, goes one step further than that — not only does it restrict connection to a particular host, it restricts connection to that world entirely, by any unauthorized equipment.”

  Connor tried to take this in.

  “Sorry,” said Mana, “It’s a bit difficult to understand, and I’m not the best person to be explaining it to you. To put it as simply as my limited knowledge will allow, imagine every timeline in which Silk Corporation exists, they have installed a locked door. Of course, if you enter through Pure Reality, no problem, they give you the key. If you try and get in outside of Pure Reality then you’re met with this locked door.”

  “So I can’t enter your world using Nolan’s gear?”

  “No,” he replied. “Just the same as we can’t enter your world using our gear. The Silk barriers stop us.”

  “So how is it possible that you can enter this one?”

  “We can enter any world in which Silk Corporation doesn’t yet exist. The relative year here is 1983. No Silk, no locked door.”

  Connor felt a flutter of excitement. “Genius,” he said, under his breath.

  “This is the reason we tried to make contact with you during your first experience.”

  “My Pure Reality experience?”

  “In every version we’ve encountered of what we would call Earths similar to ours, Silk Corporation didn’t exist until sometime after 2060, so it was just lucky for us that you chose a time before that.”

  He searched his memory. “But, I don’t remember anyone contacting me then at all.”

  “Nolan wouldn’t have been my first choice to send to make contact with you but he was the only person available at the time. Unfortunately our attempt didn’t work, but eventually things aligned and now, here you are.”

  Connor walked over to the window and drew back the yellowing net curtain slightly. Outside was dark, an orange hue draped over wet tarmac and strange, heavy-looking cars. Neon signs flickered nearby and the lights of a highway moved quickly in the distance.

  “So, what’s the next step?”

  “Well, we’re not sure yet. The first step was to get you here. What’s next is a bit of a mystery. We’re taking it one step at a time. Having you here is a new piece on the board, and a big one at that. We’ve no idea what you can do yet, or how you can help, but that’s what we need to find out. Maybe your tech guy can help us get you into our world.”

  “Matt?”

  “He spoke to us last time he was here and, from the sounds of it, he’s more than qualified.”

  “He spoke to you about hacking into Silk Corporation?”

  “Not specifically. It was more of a boast, on his part. He was telling us all about what he does on your side of the sill.”

  “Matt’s just a computer hacker who finds cheat codes for video games.”

  “He sounds like just the guy we need.”

  “Where would he even start?”

  “Nolan has information on what they’ve been able to do so far. We can transmit very small packets through the firewall but actually connecting, not currently possible.”

  “What if he can’t?”

  “I have every faith in your friend. From the way he was talking to our team I believe he could do well for us. We have very few techs and even fewer with any kind of programming experience. All the hardware we use is old Silk kit acquired by Nolan. He knows how to use it but how to modify it, well, he needs some fresh eyes.”

  “Can we not do what we need to do here?”

  “At the moment we don’t know what it is that we need to do,” he replied with a smile. “You need to be there, in our world. There is a lot you need to see and learn and the only way you’re going to do that is by experiencing it for yourself.”

  Connor glanced in the mirror again. “Do you ever get used to this?”

  “Be
ing in someone else’s body? Yes, over time.”

  “You’ve done this a lot?”

  “At first,” replied Mana. “There’s not much need for me to jump now. There’s enough for me to deal with in my own world.” He smiled. “So how are things with Nolan?”

  Connor laughed casually. “Nolan. He’s not the same person I met before.”

  Mana didn’t smile. “He had it rough. Beyond anything you and I could conceive. I would imagine his first encounter with you was difficult.”

  “He was terrified of me.”

  “He looked him in the eyes Connor. He’s one of the only ones left of us who has. When you turned up, he will have seen those same eyes.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “That’s for another time. Only one person could get any information from him about it, and he only used three or four words, but the ones he gave us all the information we needed. It wasn’t just the brutality of his experience, it was the fact he endured it in my world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The experience you had, before Ruby could get to you – the interrogation, the torture, that was real, yes? And you remembered it when you got back to your world?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, multiply that by whatever number you can think of and it will still barely scrape the surface of what he went through. When it was over, it wasn’t over. He disconnected and was back to his reality, where he could do nothing but think about it.”

  Connor sighed. “It’s a strange feeling for me. I feel responsible.”

  “You’re not responsible, Connor, any more than a twin is responsible for the actions of their sibling. Simply by you being here we are a step closer to finding a solution.”

  Connor rubbed his eyes. “No pressure.”

  Mana laughed. “OK, let’s get out of here.” He lifted a plastic box from the floor, shoebox-sized with a handle on top. “Take this,” he said, picking up a second one.

  “What is it?”

  “I have neither the knowledge nor the vocabulary to explain it, but I’m taking you to someone now who does.”

  He lifted the receiver from the telephone and pressed a button. “Please connect me to 1430 Lunt Avenue.” He waited for a moment. “Are you in? Good, we’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  They stepped out of the motel room with their heavy plastic briefcases and into a light rain.