This Virtual Night

by C. S. Friedman

  He reached up and felt his face, wincing as his fingers touched the wounded area. “Shit.” His hand came away sticky with blood. “Shit.”

  “Something hit you pretty hard.”

  “No kidding.” He wiped his hand on his jacket. “I don’t remember anything.”

  “They took our weapons. And just about everything else.”

  Elbowing himself up to a sitting position, he methodically checked all his pockets. But the only things left were small items, unlikely to be useful. He did find the stub of an energy bar he’d started eating earlier in the day, which he held up for her to see. “At least we can have dinner.”

  “And then we can get high and forget our troubles,” she said dryly, pulling a small packet out of her back pocket to show him: the drug from Seti VI. “I guess they had no idea what this was, or they would have taken it too.”

  “Or maybe they smelled it and decided to pass.” He managed a weak smile. His color was better now and he seemed more alert, which were promising signs, but a concussion didn’t always have visible symptoms. She’d have to watch him closely for a while. He looked around again, this time focusing much of his attention on the ceiling. “This tunnel isn’t just for transportation. It was designed to intimidate.”

  “How so?”

  He pointed to a section of ceiling. “See how that dips down in the center? That’s an old designer’s trick. It’s such a slight difference you don’t notice it consciously, but unconsciously you feel as if tons of rock are pressing down on you. Add a few fault lines, and the whole ceiling seems poised to collapse. Which suggests they put us in here to scare us. Structurally, it’s probably all stable.” He paused. “Probably.”

  She stared at him.

  “What? That doesn’t make sense to you?”

  “No, it does. I’m just not used to people whose specialty is designing ominous spaces.”

  He shrugged. “It pays the bills.” Using the wall to steady himself, he got to his feet, then reached up to touch the light fixture. It was too high for him to reach. “Give me a boost, will you?”

  “What for?”

  “If I can knock the cover loose, we might be able to break off some sharp fragments to use as tools. Or weapons. Hardly fancy, but better than nothing.”

  She remained sitting. “You don’t need to do that, Micah.”

  “They took our weapons away, Ru. That suggests something is going to happen where we might need them. Granted, this isn’t an ideal solution, but I don’t see any other materials to work with.” He spread his hands. “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

  In answer she bent her left leg in toward her, so that she could reach the bottom of her boot. A finger pressed on each side of the heel released the latch, and the sole swung open, revealing a shallow channel with a flat object wedged into it. She removed it and unfolded its origami-like outer shell to reveal a thin knife blade, then folded the shell in a different configuration to serve as its handle. She put the knife aside, reattached the sole, then moved on to her other boot. It was hard to open that one without using her injured hand, but eventually she managed, revealing a similar compartment. Inside this one was another knife, as well as two attached rings tucked into the hollowed-out heel. She took the rings out and pulled them apart, testing the thin strand that stretched between them. It glittered like a string of diamonds.

  “A garrote?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re carrying a garrote?”

  “Razorwire. Could be used as a garrote, I suppose. Also cuts through most common building materials. Though it does take a while to saw through metal bars. Sadly, I learned that the hard way.” She closed up her second boot, then offered him one of the knives. “The handle’s not very comfortable, but it indexes adequately and should do better than a broken shard of plastic. The blade is flexible, though, so you can slice with it, but don’t stab it into anything hard.”

  He didn’t move. Just stared at her.

  “Micah? You okay?”

  “You . . . carry hidden knives and a razorwire garrote with you . . . all the time?”

  “Of course. You never know when they might be needed.”

  He stared at her for a moment longer, then whispered, “Marry me.”

  She laughed. The sound drove back the darkness just a tiny bit. “For making me smile in this dismal place . . . I’ll consider it. Now . . .” She started to rise to her feet, and he moved quickly to offer her a hand. “I’m guessing,” she began, “that the core doesn’t have a lot of empty tunnels designed to intimidate people. Not enough space for that.”

  “You think it’s the Oracle’s labyrinth.”

  She nodded. “Seems likely.”

  “But why would they leave us in here?”

  “That’s the real question, isn’t it? Though not quite as pressing as ‘How the hell do we get out of here?’”

  “Ivar said that people who go into the labyrinth don’t come out.”

  “And he also said there were delusions involved. If that’s related to what we saw on Shenshido, and you were right about its being transmitted through the innernet, you and I should be safe.”

  “Hopefully,” he said.

  “Hopefully,” she agreed.

  He held the origami knife up to the light, studying it from several angles. “The obvious first step is to explore the place, mapping as we go. No matter how complex a maze it may be, it can’t go on forever. Like you said, space in the core is limited. So methodical exploration should eventually bring us to an exit.”

  “Except we have no water, so there is a deadline.”

  “All the more reason to start immediately.” He looked over his outfit for a place to stow the knife, but seemed unsatisfied with his options. Finally he made two short slices in the front of his jacket, then slid the knife down through one and out the other. It was a good idea, and Ru’s jacket was already riddled with tears, so she did the same. The metal rings of the garrote she looped around two fingers of her left hand, wincing as she did so. “You all right?” Micah asked, concerned.

  She flexed her hand to test it. It hurt like hell but seemed to be working all right. She had her wellseeker apply a mild painkiller. “Nothing I can’t deal with. You’re right, we need to get moving.”

  “Our headsets can track distance and direction and assemble a map from that. Meanwhile, we’ll mark the walls as we go, for backup. That’s the first rule of dealing with a labyrinth: never trust your life to only one system.” Something about the expression on her face made him stop. “What? Is that not a good plan? Do you have a better idea?”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I was just reflecting on how glad I am that I have someone with me who is properly schooled in labyrinth management.”

  “Says the woman who carries a razorwire garrote in her boot.”

  She chuckled softly. “We are quite a team, aren’t we?” She looked down the tunnel. “So which direction do we try first?”

  “I’d say let’s flip a cash chit, but our assailants seem to have taken all of those.” He held up the food bar in its folded wrapper. “Brand name up, we go that way.” He pointed down the corridor. “Ingredients, the other.”

  The silvery wrapper glittered as it tumbled end-over-end through the air. The bar bounced twice on the floor and then came to a stop. Brand name up.

  “There we go.” He picked up the food bar and put it back in his pocket. “And just as a side note, if you know any gods who specialize in helping people escape from mazes, now would be a good time to pray to them.”

  * * *

  Five hours. That was how long it took them to circle back to their original starting point. Five exhausting, pain-filled hours.

  The last one was the worst. By then they realized that they were headed back to where they’d started from, but there was nowhere else left to go. They’d walked away from th
at point, circled around it, avoided it in every way possible . . . and yet, in the end, here they were again. Every path in the labyrinth turned back on itself; every tunnel circled around to its beginning. If there was an exit—which Ru was beginning to doubt—this was not the way to find it.

  Discouraged and exhausted, they lowered themselves to the floor to rest for a few minutes and to figure out their next move. Micah seemed particularly drained, and Ru was concerned that part of the reason might be his head injury. Now and then she asked him if he was okay, and he said yes, but what did that really mean? If he became so weak that he couldn’t go on anymore, would he tell her, or struggle onward in silence, pretending to be strong? She didn’t know him well enough to guess. Her own wrist was throbbing, but that didn’t carry the same risk as a concussion.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he muttered. “What did we miss? Was there a passage somewhere that we didn’t see?”

  “There has to be. We got in here, didn’t we? Unless they teleported us through a wall, that means there’s a way in, and hence a way out.”

  He took the remaining nutrient bar out of his pocket, broke it carefully in two, and offered her half. “If you’re talking about a hidden door, the irregularity of the walls would make that all but invisible. Even if we knew exactly where it was, we’d be hard pressed to find it.” He looked up at the fault-ridden ceiling. “And if it’s in the ceiling, there’s not even a remote chance.”

  “Could the labyrinth be changing while we explore it?”

  “Walls shifting position? Sealing off any path that would take us out? It’s a possibility. Wouldn’t be any easier to detect than a hidden door, though.” He sighed. “Time we faced the truth: as far as we’re concerned, this place is an oubliette.”

  The image of a dark hole where ancient prisoners were left to die, alone and forgotten, was not a welcome one. Three days was the maximum time the average human being could survive without water. Was that the purpose of all this? To seal them up in this bizarre tomb until death claimed them both? Or was it to weaken them in body and spirit, until they no longer had the strength to resist whatever the Oracle wanted to do with them? Given all that Ru had seen on Shenshido, she wasn’t sure which was the more disturbing concept.

  “So.” Micah leaned his head back against the wall. “Is this when we discuss the option-that-shall-not-be-named? Or do we need to spend a few more hours pretending there’s some other solution?”

  It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “You want to connect.”

  “Shane said there was a map of this place online. If I connect to the innernet I can inload it.”

  And maybe some malware along with it. “All the other people who’ve been trapped here had access to that map. It didn’t help them. Why do you think it will help us?”

  “If not, there’ll be other information in Hydra’s database that can help.”

  “Which they also had access to.”

  “But did they know what they were looking for? Did they know as much as you and I do about the person who probably designed this? Or understand what kind of tactics that person uses? I’m more qualified for this search than any of them would have been.”

  “You want in,” she accused. “This is just an excuse. You want to explore the digital workings of this place. To see how outlaws organize their network.”

  “Well . . .” A faint smile flickered. “Maybe that, too. But the need is real, you’ll admit that.”

  It was real. That was the problem. In the back of her mind she could still hear the screams of the people on Shenshido, as they fought what they thought were monsters. The idea that Micah might wind up like that was chilling. But like he said . . . what was the alternative? “What if this was our captor’s purpose all along?”

  “Meaning?”

  “We’re sealed in a tomb with no visible exit. What if the purpose is to have us become desperate enough to connect to Hydra’s innernet? Just like you want to do now. The minute you make that connection, you’ll be vulnerable to any malware our adversary wants to throw at you. Maybe even a version of the program that infected you on Shenshido. Or perhaps something that would copy the data in your headset. Your notes on Shenshido, on Hydra, your calculations, communications . . . With that data, he may have realized how much of a threat we are.”

  “Except this is yours, remember?” He tapped the headset with his index finger. “There’s nothing on it other than what I’ve recorded today. And besides . . . let’s say you’re right. The moment I connect, malware starts feeding into my head. Our enemy would want to do that as soon as possible, right? Before I had a chance to sever the connection.”

  “Probably,” she said guardedly, not sure where he was leading.

  “That code would be the first thing to inload. The first thing.” There was excitement in his voice now. “Do you understand what that means? If I can record that transmission, I might wind up with a copy of the malware itself. And with it . . .” He drew in a deep breath. “We could figure out how it works. Where it came from. Maybe even how to neutralize it. Isn’t that what we came to Hydra to do? Wouldn’t it be worth a little risk to achieve that?”

  Ru hesitated. She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to insist that they could find some other way to escape this place, that he shouldn’t risk his sanity like this. At least not yet. But then she saw the spark in his eyes, a fire that was all too familiar. This was a threat from the digital world, and he hungered to test himself against it. If their positions were reversed, she knew she would embrace that same danger willingly, even eagerly. It would be the height of hypocrisy to deny him that same option. “You won’t be able to trust your own senses afterward,” she warned. “Not till we leave this station and get out of transmission range. Cutting the connection won’t stop the illusions, remember? You tried that on Shenshido.”

  “Yeah, but in the storage hold I didn’t know for a fact that my senses were being screwed with. I took off my headset to see if the rotting mess would still be there, but I was only testing the situation; I didn’t know for a fact all that was fake. Maybe once the brain accepts false input it maintains continuity on its own, until it’s convinced the input is untrue.” His amber eyes gleamed. “You’ll have to decide what’s real for both of us.”

  “And you can accept my call on that? Even if it contradicts what your own senses are telling you? It didn’t seem to work on Shenshido.”

  “Back then I didn’t know you. Now, if you tell me something doesn’t exist, I’ll believe it. Hopefully enough to banish any illusion that my own mind is maintaining.”

  I don’t want your life in my hands, she thought. I don’t want anyone’s life in my hands. The thought stirred echoes in her mind, fragments of memory from other times and places when she’d thought the same thing. With Tully. He’d been equally stubborn. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” She sighed heavily. “I hope to God this is worth it.”

  “We could both be wrong,” he reminded her. “Maybe nothing will inload that’s worse than an ad full of dancing kittens.”

  “One hopes,” she whispered.

  He took his knife from his jacket and offered it to her, handle first. “You should hold onto this. Just in case.”

  She hesitated, then took it from him. In that instant when they were both touching it, she thought she felt a faint trembling pass down the blade. Then he let go of his end, and the sensation vanished.

  “All right then.” He leaned back against the wall. “Let’s see if this stone age headset can provide a decent interface.”

  Her fingers curled around the knife as she watched him shut his eyes and begin to concentrate. His eyes flickered back and forth beneath the lids, like a dreamer’s. One second. Two. Five. Ten. He nodded slightly once and whispered, “Good.” The steel band crushing her chest eased a tiny bit. Every now and then he would whisper some reassurance, t
o let her know that he was still mentally intact, but those came less and less frequently. There was one stretch of silence so long that she began to get concerned . . . and then his eyes finally opened. He blinked, then looked around, taking inventory of his surroundings. “Creepy tunnel, check. Light fixture, check. Lack of zombies, check.” He looked at her. “One very worried companion, check.”

  “You found the map?”

  “Yes, and more to the point, notes from the guy who oversaw excavation of the labyrinth. The official map matches the one we made, but his notes don’t. Apparently we missed an access point. We need to go back there and check it out.” He turned his concentration inward for another few seconds, then removed a data chip from his headset and offered it to her. “Here’s a copy of the first transmission I received after I connected. Keep it quarantined as a backup. When we get back to the ship I’ll try to make it surrender its secrets. Hopefully that will include what’s needed to make sure that the nightmare on Shenshido never repeats itself.”

  As he pushed himself away from the wall, he swayed slightly.

  “You all right?” she asked, concerned.

  He laughed shortly. “Nothing that another hour of hiking without food or water won’t address.”

  She offered him the knife. He stared at it for a moment, then nodded and took it. He looked steady enough, now. Even strangely calm. Should that concern her? “You don’t seem very worried,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m worried, believe me.” He slid the knife back into its makeshift sheath. “Alien software screwing with my head? I’m fucking terrified. I’m just role-playing a guy who isn’t terrified, so I don’t worry you too much.” Before she had a chance to respond he offered a hand to help her up. “Shall we?”

  His hand, at least, felt reasonably strong. And he was hardly trembling at all now.

  DELVI

  The delvi does not seek enlightenment in the pages of a book, or at the feet of a teacher. It does not study the material world, for it knows that physical reality is simply an illusion. To gain true understanding, it must search beyond the world that others inhabit.