Virtually Dead

by Peter May

  Doobie: Gillian MacCormack.

  Chas: Scottish?

  Doobie: Irish. LOL. And French. What a mix, eh? And before you ask, you weren’t far out in guessing what side of the country I live on.

  Chas: California?

  Doobie: Way up north. Little town called Auburn. Not far from Sacramento. And an easy drive to Napa and Sonoma.

  Chas: You like your wines, then?

  Doobie Littlething smiles.

  Doobie: I’ve got a glass in my hand as we speak, Chas. But I’m going to have to finish it and go.

  Chas: Oh. Commitments RL?

  Doobie: Commitments SL. I’m due on stage for a couple of hours of pole dancing at Sinful Seductions. If I don’t show I’ll lose the job. But if you need me, just send an IM. Okay?

  Chas: Sure.

  And she was gone.

  ***

  Michael sat back and watched the sun starting to dip toward the west. In a few short hours, his time would be gone, wasted and lost. And he would be face-to-face with mob retribution.

  He tried Janey’s cellphone again and hung up when he got the answering service. Then he phoned the office. Someone told him that she’d gone home feeling sick. He frowned. It had to have been an excuse for getting her out of the office. But he phoned her home anyway.

  “Hi, this is Janey. Either I’m not here right now, or I’m wa-ay too busy to talk to you. Leave a message, and if you’re someone I like I might get back to you.”

  This time Michael decided to leave a message. “Janey, it’s Michael. Where the hell are you? Call me. Whether you like me or not.” He hung up, and sat gazing into space. This was frustrating. Why hadn’t she called him back? He got up, wandered across his office, and stepped out on to the terrace. He took a deep breath. The way it seemed to him now, either Wicked Wilson was the murderer or he himself had been killed for his gun. But whoever had it was using it to kill AVs for the money in their accounts. Money that shouldn’t have been there. Secret or stolen money. So it had to be somebody with access to that kind of information. But it still made no sense to him that the killer would have put three million into Chas’ account, unless it really was just some kind of horrible mistake.

  But, then, Janey had said she’d found a connection, something that linked Smitts, Mathews, and Chas. It seemed that the more he knew, the more baffling it all became.

  A ching drew his attention to the computer, and he went back into his office to sit down at his desk. Chas was still lounging in Twist’s office crossing and uncrossing his legs. There was an IM waiting for him.

  ***

  Chas opened up his dialogue box. The IM was from someone called Dionysus Winestock.

  Dionysus: Hi, I need your help to find out if my partner is cheating on me.

  Chas sighed. He had enough problems of his own without worrying about taking on someone else’s. But, then again, what else was he going to do while he waited for Janey to call? He was trapped in a frustrating limbo, somewhere between the real and the virtual worlds. He desperately felt that he should be doing something but had no idea what. And the illusion of safety in SL was far stronger than the very real fear that awaited him in RL. There was almost a comfort in it. An escape.

  Chas: What’s the story, Dio?

  Dionysus: I need a good private eye.

  Chas: You’re talking to one. How can I help you?

  Dionysus: Well, I fear my SL wife is messing around a bit. But you should know, straight off, that we are swingers.

  Chas: Swingers?

  Dionysus: Yeh. We swap partners for sex. Twosomes, threesomes, group sex, you name it. We’re members of a swingers’ club called Echangiste.

  Chas: So why are you worried about your wife messing about?

  Dionysus: I don’t mind if she has sex, Chas. But the romance and lies, I can’t handle. I just need to confirm my suspicions. There’s another couple we know from the club. We’re good friends. We’ve all had sex together. But I think she’s having an affair with him.

  If Chas could have scratched his head, he would. Sex was fine, but romance was taboo.

  Chas: Have you asked her outright?

  Dionysus: I actually caught her at it by using a spy device. But she says it’s all over now. I just need that confirmed. The guy’s called Crompton Nightly. He and his SL wife, Tab, have an apartment at Shyland.

  Chas: Is that where you think he and your wife are conducting their affair?

  Dionysus: No. Too risky. I think they might be taking sex rooms at the club, and since I found her out, they might be using alternative AVs.

  Chas: Any idea what their alts are called?

  Dionysus: Not sure about Crom. But I’m almost certain she’s going under the name of Icy Fizzle.

  Chas: So what do you want us to do?

  Dionysus: Get me proof. A photograph. Or better still, log some dialogue. I know that’s hard if they only communicate in IM.

  Chas: Well, can you get me an introduction to the club? What was it called…?

  Dionysus: Echangiste. No. You’ll have to join. And you have to be a couple to get membership.

  Chas thought for a minute, focusing on everything he and Twist might need to know to get a foothold in the case.

  Chas: Okay, listen, why don’t you set up a notecard? Write down everything that might be useful for me to know. All the names. Where your wife logs in. Landmarks for the club and the homes of any of the other people involved. Drop the notecard onto my profile, and I’ll take a look at it. I’ll get back to you if we think there’s anything we can do.

  Dionysus Winestock sighs.

  Dionysus: Well, I guess that’ll have to do. I’m kind of impatient to clear this up and move on. You know what I mean?

  Chas: Sure, Dio. I’ll need to discuss this with my partner first, then we’ll be in touch just as soon as we can.

  Dionysus: Okay. IM me. Bye.

  Chas created a notecard himself and copied his dialogue with Dionysus into it to save for Twist. A couple of minutes later he received the notecard from Dionysus with the information he had requested. But before he had a chance to read it, a blue window flashed on and off to tell him that Twist O’Lemon was online. His heart skipped a beat.

  Twist rezzed into the office, grey at first, before finding definition and turning toward Chas.

  Twist: Hey.

  Chas: Where the hell have you been, Twist? I’ve been calling and calling. Ever since you left that message.

  Twist: Hey, calm down, Chas, I’m here now. What’s been happening?

  Chas: Nothing’s been happening! I’ve been treading water till you got in touch.

  Twist: No, I mean with the investigation in SL.

  Chas: Nothing that can’t wait, Twist.

  Chas’ impatience was very nearly palpable.

  Chas: You said you’d found RL and SL connections between Smitts and Mathews.

  Twist O’Lemon sighs.

  Twist: Yeh. Turned out to be a total dead-end. Sorry, Chas. Didn’t mean to get your hopes up like that.

  Twist paused for several long seconds, during which Chas’ dashed hopes were allowing despair to creep back in.

  Twist: I’m just reading your IM about the geckos. Good work. You actually went to Sandbox Island? I hope you were well-armed.

  Chas: You made sure I was.

  Twist: LOL. So I did. Anyway, tell me what you found out about the Mathews girl in SL.

  Chas: Not much, I’m afraid. She danced at a shemale club, as well as several straight clubs, and worked as an escort. She had a huge private house and a smaller place she called the Whorehouse. It’s where she took her clients and where we found her dead AV.

  Twist: Oh. You actually found her, then? Were there any clues as to what might have happened?

  Chas: She’d been shot. Blood all over the place. But that was it. No trace of the killer. Nothing incriminating left behind that we could see.

  Twist: We?

  Chas: Yeh, me and Doobie.

  Twist:
Oh. Doobie. Right.

  Chas: So what was it you found that made you think there was a link between Smitts and Mathews? And me, for that matter.

  Twist stood going through his range of animated poses, but failed to respond. Chas waited. For nearly half a minute.

  Chas: Twist? Are you still with me?

  Twist: Sorry, Chas, I had incoming IMs. Anything else been happening while I was away?

  Chas restrained an urge to shout. Twist seemed blissfully unconcerned by his predicament. He dragged the two notecards on the Dionysus case on to Twist’s AV and waited until Twist had confirmed receipt.

  Chas: That guy got in touch just before you logged in. Wants us to catch his old lady in flagrante delicto.

  Twist: Just reading through it.

  A pause.

  Twist: Hahaha. Swingers in love. Almost a contradiction in terms. Let’s go check it out.

  Chas: The swingers’ club?

  Twist: Sure. I’ve never been to a swinger’s club. Might be interesting.

  Chas felt the tension in him ratcheting up several more notches. Not only had Twist’s lead on the Smitts-Mathews connection fallen apart, but Twist himself now seemed quite unconcerned about his partner’s increasingly unhappy predicament. He shook his head in frustration but had no idea what else to do. His pursuit of the killer in both RL and SL seemed to have come to a dead end. And so he responded with reluctant acquiescence and a deep inward sigh.

  Chas: I guess.

  Twist: Okay, TP from the LM and I’ll see you there.

  ***

  The Echangiste Swingers Club was in Zurich City. Chas rezzed into a large, marble-floored hall just seconds before Twist. Windows looked out into the city streets of old Zurich. There were two doors, but neither of them led anywhere except out again. In the centre of the floor stood a large box constructed from still shots of the interior of the club. Yellow text above it urged, Please take a card for Club Echangiste information by touching this box.

  Chas clicked on the box and immediately received a notecard describing the purpose and facilities of the club.

  CLUB ECHANGISTE (Swingers Club)—Sex with Elegance.

  Club Echangiste is an exclusive, invitation-only club for open-minded, nonjudgemental men and women who enjoy their sexuality and want to explore intimate and group sex in a refined, elegant environment.

  Here, you will find a romantic ballroom, “group activity” room, beautiful private rooms for couples or small groups, a 50’s drive-in theater park with movies and TV, and a holodeck with twenty-five scenes. All well equipped with the best sex toys around!

  A green pad on the floor read, Teleport to Club Echangiste. Chas right-clicked and selected Teleport. But it only turned him around, and left him standing where he was.

  Twist: It must know, somehow, if you’re a member of not.

  Chas looked around. A constantly evolving slide-show on one wall depicted naked men and women in various sexual poses, but apart from the two exit doors, there didn’t seem to be any way in or out of the club itself.

  Chas: How are we going to get in, then?

  Twist: This is just some kind of welcome lobby. I’ll bet the club itself, and the various sex rooms and holodeck, are actually skyboxes.

  Chas: Then there’s no way of getting to them without an LM.

  Twist: Of course there is. We’ll fly. Do you have a flight feather?

  Chas: What’s that?

  Twist: It’s an attachment to help you fly straight up. Measures your altitude and lets you hover when you get there.

  The offer of a flight feather appeared from Twist. Chas attached it invisibly to his left hand. Twist clicked on the main door and went out into the street. Chas followed.

  Immediately opposite, a three-storey greystone building with a colonnaded arcade on the ground floor rose into a blue sky. Further along the street, a square building flew the Swiss flag, and open green lawns were bounded by tall office blocks. It was completely deserted. Chas looked up and saw that there were another four storeys above the lobby, and the building advertised itself as the Savoy Hotel. There was no sign of anything up in the sky.

  Twist: Follow me.

  And Twist took off, straight upwards, spiralling as he went. Chas put his arms at his side and followed, as instructed. The city fell away below him, and he had a view of the twin towers of the cathedral, a huge square building with a strange, domed construction on its roof. In the distance he saw the sea, before piercing the scattering of clouds overhead and rising at speed into the blue.

  At three hundred metres, he flew past a square grey building floating in the sky, tall windows and a balcony running around all four sides. He nearly crashed into Twist, who had stopped and was hovering just above it.

  Chas: There don’t appear to be any doors. I don’t see how we can get in.

  Twist: Well, we don’t need to get in. We can just take a look from here.

  Twist O’Lemon grins.

  Twist: An old griefer’s trick for getting in and out of buildings.

  Chas Chesnokov: I know. It was just about the first thing you showed me.

  Twist: Exactly. So, let’s take a peek inside.

  Twist dropped down to land on the roof, and Chas did the same. He zoomed in on the side of the building and swivelled to swing his POV beyond the wall and into the club. Immediately he found himself looking into a large, high-ceilinged room, a thick patterned green carpet overlaid with Persian and Chinese rugs. Several beds, a sofa, and a profusion of sex poseballs were scattered around the room. Erotic paintings lined the walls, and in the centre of the room stood a large maroon circle with eight cushions around its edge. Eight naked Club Echangiste members, four men, four women, sat around a green bottle in the centre of the circle. With each spin of the bottle a new couple was paired off, and they got up and disappeared through a doorway to another room.

  Chas carefully manipulated his POV to take him through to what was evidently the ballroom described in the blurb. It, too, was luxuriously carpeted. Flames flickered in an open fire, and there was the usual proliferation of poseballs, some of which were occupied by swingers grinding and grunting their way through various sex acts. Along one wall were teleporters to the other club rooms. The Traditional Suite, the Asian Suite, the Drive-In Theater, the Holodeck. He saw that from the inside all the windows were clear and realised that they might have been seen flying past. But everyone seemed too preoccupied to have noticed. He checked his radar and went into IM to talk to Twist.

  Chas: Well, there’s no sign of Icy or Crom in here.

  Twist: There are more boxes above us. Let’s go up.

  Chas took his POV back outside and craned to look above them. He could see another, smaller building, about a hundred metres further up. Twist took off, and Chas soared after him. Again, they landed on the roof, and swivelled to peek inside. A black couple on an enormous bed were indulging in an oral sex act. Chas could hear the chatter of keyboards. So they were talking to one another, although they were too far away for the text of their conversation to register.

  Twist: Hahahaha. Didn’t her mother teach her it was rude to speak with her mouth full?

  But Chas was embarrassed to be spying on people’s privacy like this.

  Chas: Come on, let’s check out the other rooms.

  Twist: You go on, I’ll catch you up. I’m enjoying the view from here.

  Chas hesitated a moment. Twist was behaving very strangely. But then he pinned his arms to his side and soared upwards again, past another sex room and the holodeck, checking his radar as he flew. There were plenty of names appearing on it. But none of them was Icy Fizzle or Crompton Nightly. Finally, he arrived at the drive-in theatre, which was open to the skies and bounded by a low wall. There were two cinema screens and a red 1950s automobile. The place was deserted. The sun had sunk low on the far horizon, and night was falling fast.

  Chas landed beside the car and looked around. There was nothing showing on either screen. He clicked on one, an
d a menu appeared, offering him a choice of half a dozen porn movies. He closed it again, wondering what drew people to a place like this. People’s second lives seemed dominated by sexual obsession. Club Echangiste was the epitome of it. And then it struck him that, really, people’s first lives were dominated by sex, too, but that here in the virtual world, there were fewer complications and no danger of disease. The worst that could happen was that you might pick up a computer virus.

  While he waited for Twist, he opened up the Landmark folder in his Inventory, to start sorting his LMs into rational groupings—all the links that Doobie had given him to places he might one day explore. And he thought about how he and Doobs had very nearly consummated their relationship earlier before being subjected to coitus interruptus at the hands of two giant geckos. It was a thought that brought a smile to his face, in spite of everything.

  He saw Twist appear on his radar, but no sign of him arriving at the drive-in. He turned through 360 degrees but still couldn’t see him. For the first time, he felt a strange chill of apprehension. Something was wrong. He had felt uncomfortable ever since Twist had TPed into the office.

  Twist: I’m sorry, Chas. Didn’t really mean it to end this way.

  He turned around to find Twist standing behind him. How was it possible for an avatar to look evil? But there was something very menacing in Twist’s proximity, a strange tilt of the head that caused his eyes to look up at him, narrowed and laden with threat.

  Chas: What are you talking about, Twist?

  Twist: You’re too damned clever for your own good, Michael.

  Twist made a swift movement, and there was gun in his hand. A large, silver revolver, beautifully engraved. Every fibre of Chas’ conscious mind told him that he was looking down the barrel of the Super Gun. And yet he still found it impossible to believe.

  Chas: For Christ’s sake, Janey! What are you doing?