This Virtual Night

by C. S. Friedman

  She came to an iris portal, larger than any other she’d seen during her flight. It opened at her approach, revealing a cavernous chamber beyond. A storage facility of some kind, long and high and lined with industrial shelves, with so many canisters and boxes and bins stacked on them that the walls themselves were all but invisible. A warehouse? She checked her map, and yes, this was the place Zevi’s people had been heading toward. The one the bios had died trying to reach.

  The door closed behind her, and she found the controls to lock it. One more precious barrier between her and death. Then she looked around.

  There were two bodies on the floor.

  That they had gone down fighting was clear from the glistening pool of blood surrounding them. The man wore a mask and goggles, so he was a bio, but the goggles had been smashed—along with half his skull—so it was hard to make out his features. The woman wore no mask or goggles, but she must have had them on earlier, because the blood that streaked her face had missed exactly the spots where they would have protected her, leaving behind a ghostly imprint of clean flesh. Maybe whoever had killed her had taken them.

  As she leaned down to take a closer look at the bodies, she caught sight of a small black object underneath a shelving unit. The floor behind it was pulsing a dull orange, and her stomach tightened as she realized what the item must be, and what its presence here meant. Gently—so gently!—she turned the man’s head to the right, to look at the undamaged portion of his face. Vestus. She lowered her head for a moment, mourning him, mourning Ivar, mourning everyone who had died in this miserable station. Never had she hated a place so much.

  She used her lamp to make sure the air was clean, then took her own mask and goggles off and pocketed them. Breathing was easier now. So was seeing. As long as the portal stayed shut, the air in here should be safe for her.

  There was light on at the far end of the chamber. She headed toward it.

  At the end of the long room was a wall of plastic bins. Some had been pulled down and were now scattered across the floor; the ones she could see into were empty. In the center of all that mess a Variant knelt, and he looked up as she approached. Tiger-like markings framed a face in which amber eyes gleamed like polished gemstones: Sarkassan. He was wearing some armor, but not a full set, and a bright pink shirt was visible between its segments, jarringly incongruous. His headset was shaped like a golden dragon, its serpentine body coiled around his head, its bright ruby eyes peering out at Ru from beside his left temple as he looked up at her. His hand went reflexively to his belt, as if reaching for a weapon, but he lacked the militant aspect of the others, and didn’t seem anxious to fight. Not from Shenshido, she guessed. Not a victim of the terrible paranoia that had possessed this station, but someone from the outside, like she was. Maybe even sane.

  “There’s no smell,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Startled, she stared at him without comprehension.

  He tipped up the box he was kneeling in front of, so she could look inside. “See?” He shook it slightly. “It should smell, but it doesn’t!”

  She leaned forward to peer into the box.

  It was empty.

  Hell, she thought. Her mind and body were numb from exhaustion. So much for sanity.

  * * *

  They hunger to kill, Micah thought.

  Crouched in the hidden staging area, waiting for action, his legs as tired as his spirit, Micah studied his companions. Three men and one woman. They had all been normal people once, working at normal jobs, facing normal life challenges, just like him. Now they were something else: creatures whose eyes were alight not only with excitement and fear, but with something else, primitive and terrible. Bloodlust. What could transform a normal person into that? Micah knew the story of this place in words—they’ve been fighting for two years, constantly afraid, constantly desperate—but deep inside, on a visceral level, he had no real understanding. He could not imagine the circumstances under which his own essence would transform like that.

  There hadn’t been enough working coms for Micah to have his own—or perhaps they just didn’t trust him with one—but the woman in his group, Leila, took hers from her ear and turned up the volume so that he could listen in on everyone’s chatter. The reception was terrible, but that was to be expected, since they were sending their signals through the tech-caverns, old style. If they used the innernet instead they would have perfect clarity, but they’d also be vulnerable to having their messaging hijacked. Since no one knew what kind of hacking skill the exos had, it seemed best not to risk it.

  With all the static it was hard to tell which voice belonged to whom, much less hear all they were saying.

  . . . nothing on screen yet.

  . . . sure they’re coming?

  . . . not working right.

  . . . they need supplies.

  . . . they’ll come, they’ll come.

  Hours had passed. Hours would continue pass. He couldn’t call up one of his projects to work on, to kill time, because then he might miss some crucial instruction arising from the sea of static.

  But when those words finally came, they were clear enough.

  They’re here.

  The others in the staging area rose to their feet, drawing their weapons. Two of the men were grinning. So anxious to kill. In a way that was more frightening than the thought of battle.

  . . . how many?

  . . . motion sensors say eighteen.

  . . . so all of them.

  . . . looks like it.

  . . . Damn. This really is Armageddon.

  Laughter: callous, blood-hungry. It was doubly harsh filtered through the static.

  . . . now?

  . . . No. Wait for my signal. We need them all to be past the chokepoint, so no one gets away.

  Seconds passed.

  . . . two just split off, a voice said.

  . . . where?

  . . . They’re going into one of the access rooms. A pause. Shit. I think they’ve found the portal.

  Should we attack? a woman’s voice demanded.

  . . . Negative. The others aren’t in position yet. We can’t tip our hand so early. Try a distraction instead.

  Crackling and popping, sans voices.

  . . . took the bait . . . back in the corridor now . . . moving forward again . . . go?

  . . . wait for my signal.

  . . . nearing the chokepoint now.

  . . . what about the others?

  . . . forward scouts have reached the cache. Others close behind.

  More laughter: cruel, hungry.

  . . . those two strays are entering Apollo now . . .

  “Sorry,” the woman whispered to Micah, as she clipped the com back onto her ear. A moment later, all four of his companions were in motion. Micah stepped back quickly to get out of their way, stumbling over a severed pipe. By the time he had his balance again they had reached the secret door and swung it open, and were rushing through. The same was happening up and down the line, he knew: warriors bursting from the walls in a dozen strategic locations, taking the exos by surprise, cutting off every possible escape. He’d designed enough ambush scenarios for his games to know how deadly such a plan could be, if executed properly.

  Noises could be heard coming from the world outside the tunnels. Cries, crashes, the soundtrack of war. His hand closed on the grip of the plasteel baton they had given him. It wasn’t the world’s most sophisticated weapon—they’d wanted to reserve the best ones for their own people—but it was better than nothing.

  You wanted to see battle, an inner voice whispered. So go. See.

  He stepped through the secret opening warily, into a large room filled with banks of machinery. The noises were louder now and seemed to be coming in through an open door at the far end of the room. He edged toward it, listened for a moment longer, then peered around
the edge.

  His companions had engaged the enemy some distance down the corridor outside. People were massed together so closely it was hard for him to make out details of the fight, but he saw flashes of masked faces, weapons swinging and blood spattering and bodies falling . . . there were cries of rage and pain, hate and fear. The chaos was both repellent and compelling, and he felt himself drawn to it, hungry to see the action more clearly. This was what he’d come for, right?

  Suddenly someone in the center of the fight threw a fist-sized object at the ceiling. When it hit, it shattered, releasing red dust that rained down upon the battle. Micah took a few steps back as he watched, wary of getting too close to it. Some of Serjit’s people started gagging and coughing. Then more of them. Then all of them. Some tried to escape the dust cloud that had enveloped the group, but the few exos who were still alive, bloody apparitions in masks and goggles, cut them down. Micah watched in horror for a moment, then began to back away, more and more rapidly. The red cloud was spreading beyond the battle, and since the station’s environmental control kept the air circulating, it would reach him soon.

  He ran.

  He’d already wandered past his entrance point, and couldn’t return that way; he needed another path out of this nightmare. It took him three tries to muster the concentration to summon his map, but when it finally appeared he saw that one of Serjit’s secret doors was located in a large room not far ahead. If he could get to it and shut the door behind him, he might buy himself enough time to get out of range of the airborne poison. He sprinted the last dozen yards, into the large portal that irised open as he approached. Breathless, he turned back immediately and tried to find a way to shut it quickly, but there was no visible mechanism for that, so he had to let it close at its own pace.

  Then he claimed the luxury of a few deep breaths, and tried to get his bearings.

  He was in a warehouse of some kind, packed from floor to ceiling with containers. It also had two bodies in it. A man and a woman were lying on their backs in the middle of the floor, eyes staring out through the same kind of goggles the other exos had been wearing, dust masks soaked in blood. What little skin was visible was gray and striated and covered with lichenous white spots, like rotting wood. Serjit’s people hadn’t been exaggerating. He wondered if he could bring himself to touch the mutated bodies, to salvage a mask and goggles for himself. Just think of these people as Variants, he told himself. One human race among many, only this one has textured skin. Nothing to think twice about. Finally he reached down and pulled at the woman’s mask; it came loose with a sucking sound that made his stomach turn. The goggles had to be lifted off over her head, and got caught in her blood-soaked hair, but he managed to pull them free without retching. He winced as he tucked the two gory items in his pocket, praying to God he would never have to wear them.

  As he headed toward the location where the hidden exit was supposed to be, suddenly it dawned on him where he was. He checked the map to confirm it. Yes, this was the heart of Serjit’s trap, the place the exos had risked their lives to find. Even now he could see that the floor-to-ceiling shelves at the end of the chamber had once held a neat array of food storage bins. But many had been pulled from their perches and dumped on the ground. Had they really contained food? He’d never heard Serjit talk about that aspect of the trap, but clearly the exos had already been here and ransacked the place. Curious, he walked to the nearest box and crouched down beside it, turning it over so he could look inside.

  There probably had been food in it once, but the seal had been broken, and what was in there now didn’t look like anything edible. A dark, viscous sludge clung to the walls of the box, and the rotting chunks floating in it reminded him of human vomit. Swallowing hard, he managed to look away, and pulled another box toward him. This mess in this one was mostly green, but equally unwholesome. Whatever food had been in this place had spoiled long ago, and now was utterly putrid.

  No, he realized with a shock. Not putrid. Putrid would stink. This didn’t stink.

  Startled, he looked around the room, at the dozens of containers whose rotting contents were now exposed to the air. This part of the warehouse should reek to high hell. Hell, the whole frikkin’ warehouse should reek. Only it didn’t. There was no smell at all.

  A tremor of fear ran though him. Slowly, he leaned forward over another one of the boxes, placing his face directly above the disgusting sludge, and inhaled deeply. Please, he thought desperately. Please smell bad. Please. Make me vomit.

  But it didn’t. It smelled like nothing.

  The implications of that were terrifying.

  Suddenly he became aware of another presence in the room. He reached for his baton as he looked up to see who had snuck up on him while he was distracted. It turned out to be a woman: lean, high-breasted, athletic in aspect, with deep golden skin that was flushed from exertion. Sweat-matted hair obscured most of the simple headset she wore—looked like an old Sitech model—spiky copper bangs framing large almond-shaped eyes, which narrowed suspiciously as she studied him. She was wearing a dark red leather coat, and through holes in it he could see a shiny black lining. There was a jagged tear in one leg of her pants, and the fabric surrounding it was stained. With blood? She had no facial deformities. She wore no dust mask or goggles. She wasn’t one of Serjit’s people, but she didn’t look like an exo either. Could it be she was an outsider, like him? Another person who didn’t belong in this crazy place? She was holding a nasty-looking shock rod and looked ready to use it if she had to . . . but she didn’t look like she wanted to.

  “There’s no smell,” he whispered hoarsely. She just stared at him. He tipped up the box he’d been smelling, so she could see the noxious mess inside. “See?” He shook it slightly. “It should smell, but it doesn’t!”

  She leaned forward to peer into the box. Stood back again. Though she said nothing, the truth was in her eyes. She doesn’t understand. Which means she doesn’t see what I do. Which means . . . the thought was too terrible to finish.

  “One minute,” he whispered. He held up a finger. “Just a minute . . .” When she made no move toward him he shut his eyes, focusing all his concentration on visualizing the icon that would shut down any virt his headset was running. He added every variation of the command that he had programmed into his headset. Pause Program. End Program. Sever Connection. Terminate Virt. Shut Down NOW! But when he opened his eyes the boxes of sludge were still there. They still didn’t smell. Shit. He fumbled for the release on his headset, aware that she was watching him closely. Lifting the golden dragon from his head should sever the connection to any external program that was affecting his sensory input, regardless of its source. So he did that.

  Nothing changed.

  He forced himself to be calm as he locked his headset back in place, or at least to look calm. Focus on other things for now, he told himself. Don’t think about the fact that you may have gone insane. Was this woman really from the outside? If so, might she offer him a way to escape this terrible place? Return to a world where people didn’t turn into trees, where putrid things smelled bad? He’d sell his soul for a ticket home.

  “So,” he said, trying to sound less afraid than he felt. “Are you from around here?” The words sounded lame as soon as he said them. She was staring at him like one might stare at a strange bug. Great.

  But then her expression softened a bit, and she shrugged. “Just visiting. Not very impressed.” She nodded toward the boxes, and a corner of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “Food sucks.”

  “No argument there.”

  “So how about you? From Shenshido?”

  He shook his head. “Took a wrong turn on the way to Harmony. Totaled my pod trying to dock here.” He sighed. “Can’t seem to find a rental center anywhere.”

  “Services are definitely lacking,” she agreed.

  “So.” His heart was pounding. “You don’t know w
here I could catch a ride home, do you?”

  A moment of silence. “That depends. Do you know a safe way out of this place?”

  “If you mean the Apollo complex . . . yeah, I might.”

  “Well, then.” Again that almost-smile. “I might know a way home.”

  Slowly he rose to his feet. His legs were stiff—his whole body was stiff—but the thought of escaping Shenshido was energizing. Don’t get your hopes up too much, he warned himself. But the hunger for hope was so strong that it robbed the thought of power.

  “Come on,” he said. “This way.” He gestured toward the place where Serjit’s door was hidden. “I do hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

  The day a programmer developed software that could alter human sensory perception, he sowed the seeds of humanity’s destruction.

  The only question left to us is what form that destruction will take.

  MAXWELL ONEGIN

  Think Again!

  HARMONY NODE

  SHENSHIDO STATION

  THE PROBLEM with the “safe way out” of Apollo, the Sarkassan explained, was that it was the same route the ambushers had used to get in. He and Ru would need to go to an outlying branch of a secret tunnel system and wait, until the attackers had satisfied themselves that none of the enemy were still standing, and left. Then it would be safe to emerge.

  She wasn’t sure if that qualified as a safe exit, but right now she didn’t have a better option.

  He led her to a narrow passage between two towering shelf units and indicated that they would have to squeeze through it. The passage was barely wide enough for her to fit through sideways, and if anyone attacked while she was in there, it would not be a good situation. She looked at the Sarkassan for a moment, hesitant. His motives were reliable enough—like Ivar, he wanted to get off this station, and as long as he thought she held the key to escape he would do his best to keep her alive. But how sound was his judgment? He was about to lead her right into the hornet’s nest, and if he was wrong about what the upstairs folk were going to do next, things could get pretty ugly.