by Greg Herren
Decker smiled again. “Except for the strange stories those other spacefarers would’ve told about our passage.”
I shrugged. “True. But right now—apart from warning you that one of my way-weird snitches is about to join us—there’s only two stories we need to know about each other in order to bond. And they are that you are one of only four thousand human males on this planet with viable sperm; and I am Lambda Capra Jane of the Alpha-Omega Clan.”
My snitch was a tech-trader called Zippo Farqar. Tonight his avatar was a scaly humanoid with antlers and piercings. He sat, I ordered him a stinger, he sniffed at Decker.
“Weird one, this.”
“True,” I agreed.
“No. I mean frak’n weird,” Zippo insisted.
“How do you recognise each other if you’re always switching avatars?” Decker asked.
Zippo sniffed again. “Pheromones.”
I grabbed Zippo’s antler but addressed Decker. “Every trawler has a batch of tags, separate people-specific codes we can exchange. I enter Downside with my Farqar-tag switched on. If he’s in, and wants to meet, he finds me. Or vice versa. If incognito is preferred, the tags stay off or ignored.”
“Ah, she’s a cleanskin,” Zippo said, running a talon across Decker’s hand.
The reaction was instant, and bone-crushing. Zippo nursed three fingers.
“Impulse control not your thing?” I asked my new partner.
“Do I look like a she?” Decker asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Downside is the great lie, remember.”
“Want my intel, or not?” Zippo asked.
“Want.” I nodded.
“Okay. Uncle J came Downside three times. Or three times shared his tags.”
“I gave Zippo the master ID to Jimmy’s tags,” I explained to Decker.
“First time, he asked all around for word on stem factories, organ harvests, and gene therapy.”
“What the frak for?” That made no sense. Jimmy cared bugger-all for anything but hard-tech.
Zippo shrugged. “Second, he got took to a Zen-den down Styx Alley.”
“Which one?” I asked, giving Decker the “later” signal before he asked the obvious.
“Triple 6. Run by Charon Marx.”
“What did Jimmy want?”
“Charon wouldn’t say. Third visit, Jimmy gets turfed from Triple 6, goes troppo on Styx, and is rat-gunned and dies a click away by the flagpole on the Crop. Though no one saw nothin’.”
“Of course not.”
“This next is for your ears only.” Zippo waved a dismissive finger.
“Decker, go wait outside while I pay my dues.”
When we were alone Zippo said, “Didn’t think you’d want this shared with your weird frak’n girly-boy-Apollo. Intel threw up a connect to your Juno.” He raised his hand. “I know they had a thing, CJ. It was a threat against her.”
I stood. “Jimmy would never harm aunt Juno.”
“No, he was Downside doing whatever coz of the threat.”
Jimmy playing hero? That didn’t gel either.
“What’s with the she refs to my Apollo?”
“I thought you, of all dykesters, would have sniffed to that one.”
“I was with Decker when he cloaked. I chose his avatar.”
Zippo touched his nose. “I told you, CJ—pheromones.”
“Dream on. The person who masters original-trawler scent will be rich indeed.”
He smiled. “You know I’m a real-world Pharma. I’ve almost perfected it.”
“Almost is the word, Zippo. Come see me, real-world, when you perfect at least a valid gender ID. I might bankroll you.”
I rejoined the buff Milo “Apollo” Decker outside.
“Secrets?” he said.
“Maybe.”
I led the way to the seamier, nastier realm of Downside, the quarter known as Hangman’s Crop. We threaded our way between street vendors—hawking everything from food and microchips to T-shirts and banzai—and entered Crop Plaza. Trawling there—where Bernezlee Drag met Pyramid Way and the five Cracker Alleys—was a circus of freaky avatars trying to outdo each other with visible weirdness or strange behaviour. And Decker, still the dopey tourist, kept bumping into them.
“Watch it, jerkman!” snarled a three-foot Kewpie doll. With chainsaw teeth.
Decker recoiled, then snorted.
Please don’t laugh, Decker. I grabbed his arm in the same moment that mine—back in my rack—had been touched, reassuringly.
“The green Kewpie,” I said, yanking Apollo Decker from trouble, “could be an amped-up gym-jock. While lugnuts there,” I pointed to a scarified ogre, “is probably a schoolgirl.”
“The lie thing again.” Decker smiled.
“Yup.” Despite feeling strangely turned on by—I’ve no idea what—I clasped Decker’s forearm and headed for the flagpole at the centre of Hangman’s Crop.
“What are you looking for?” Decker asked as I scoured the area.
“This is where Jimmy bought it.”
There was no such thing as a crime scene in cyspace, no way to collect forensic evidence, and, as Zippo said, “no one saw nothin’.”
“And?” Decker said, sussing I was clueless.
“Doesn’t make sense that Jimmy died here. The feral with the Rat Gun was down an alley near the Pit Club.”
“Could he have made it here and then died?”
“Technically no. If a Rat Gun kills you, which it did Jimmy, then you die where you’re hit. Unless where I entered on his trail was the last moments of his life, not the end. I had to run; maybe he did, too.”
“You look excited.” Decker sounded surprised.
“Graffiti! Look for a message.” I turned to the closest walls.
“You’re joking!” Decker’s reaction was understandable given Downside’s exterior walls were an ever-evolving canvas of doodles, scribbles, and the rare masterpiece.
“Incognito,” Decker called.
“Yeah?” Whoa! An unconventional thrill surfed my brain. Decker’s fingers—back in my office—were on my arm again.
“Stop that,” I snarled. “I don’t do boys.”
“Sorry. But remember I can’t feel stuff in here like you can.”
“Doesn’t mean you get to real-world touch me. What do you want?”
He was on his knees, pointing at the flagpole’s base. “Did you say your Alpha-Omega honorific was ‘Lambda’?”
I joined him on the ground. “Oh, Jimmy, you clever, stupid bastard.”
My left office-hand took a snapshot of Jimmy’s graffiti. It was a small rough circle containing the letters λCJ, the words Daerin Juno, and the scrawl 37.48 144.57 libr.
“Damn. Zippo was right.”
“About what?” Decker asked.
“Jimmy’s being here was connected to my aunt. Come on.”
We headed into Chin Sha’s Emporium, zigzagged a multitude of tables laden with exotic curios, to the entrances of the five notorious Cracker Alleys. I pointed and named them for Decker: “Acheron, Erebus, and Tartarus; Hades—location of the Pit Club; and Styx—which is where we’re going. Welcome to, Hell Ensign Apollo; try not to draw attention to yourself.”
Decker gestured at his pecs and barely-there toga.
“It’s attitude not avatar that gets you noticed down here,” I said and waded into the ankle-deep fog that forever-curled above the flagstones of the sharply angled Styx Alley. We followed a centaur along its twists and turns until he slipped into Black Persephone’s Tavern. I then calculated the best route to the Zen-den enclave.
“You were going to elaborate about these Zen places,” Decker said.
“Ah, yeah.” I frowned. “They’re like last decade’s oxygen, b-boy, or porn bars,” I began, then recalled Decker hadn’t been on Earth last decade. “A Zen-den is this century’s hookah bar or opium den, where people zone on whatever floats their boat. Some dens have virtual reality pods; others are hands-on S&M joi
nts, fight rings, or saunas. Drugs, sport, or sex—pretty much covers everything.”
“Isn’t VR superfluous in a virtual world?”
“I guess; never really thought about it.” I stopped before a red door bearing a large brass 666, but had to grab Decker by his toga and yank him back to me. I rang the bell, an eyelevel door slot slid back, and a foul-smelling voice demanded the password.
“Frakn hell,” Decker swore, “how are we…”
The door opened.
I laughed and pushed my partner into the haze and heavy-metal thump of the Triple 6 before the door drek changed his mind.
“I can’t touch you, but obviously you can drag and shove me on a whim,” Decker complained. The hand that Apollo the avatar placed in the small of my back, was matched by Decker’s real one.
I glared at him. “Do that again and I will break your fingers.” I scoped for the Boss of 666. The place was kitted out like Valhalla—all stone, shields, and animal hides—but with demon heads on pikes and human torsos roasting over braziers. Wenches of indeterminate sexes delivered ale mugs to patrons at pitted log tables in barred booths.
“Popular joint,” Decker shouted.
“His joint,” I said, nodding at the towering mish-mash of scary mythic beings who sat on his skull throne on the dais above “Hades Gates.”
“Charon Marx?” Decker verified.
“Real-world Bruce May,” I said. “He is such a poser!”
“He’s not alone,” Decker said, running to keep up with me.
I knew the trolls and ogres loitering below the dais were Charon’s goons, employed to keep the hoi polloi at bay. Also knew the only way to the top of any pile is on the backs of those you step on. So that’s the route I took.
I barely touched the first five trolls, but they ended face-first on a beer-soaked floor rug. I felled a gnarly ogre on the second step with groin kick and another with an elbow to his throat, and then literally used them as a stepping stones to the top.
No idea where Decker was in 666, but beside me in my office there were noises suggesting he was being thumped or was choking in disbelief. No one else in the Hall paid much attention—except Charon Marx himself, who’d leapt into a defensive squat on his menacing throne.
“Step away from my man!” It was a Cyclops—with huge bare breasts.
I was still laughing after my spinning back kick laid her out at the foot of Charon’s high chair. I love my legs!
I leapt up beside the God of 666 and whispered, “Hey, Bruce.”
“Oh crap, CJ!”
“Come on, mate,” I cajoled. “Buy me a drink.”
Moments later Decker and I were sconced in Charon’s private suite chatting about old times.
“So tell me why you threw a punter into the alley about eighteen hours ago…”
Charon gave his best Overlord laugh. “Don’t know why the last five scrags were bounced, CJ, let alone yesterday’s—”
“To get chased and rat-gunned—to death,” I finished.
“Oh. Him.”
“Yeah, him. My uncle Jimmy.”
“Uh-oh.” Charon’s avatar morphed from the Hellgod of Supreme Ugly to a face and figure only a smidge removed from the original Bruce May—or at least the one I’d met in the flesh five years ago. This avatar was bald, thin, and ancient, but still oozing his trademark androgynous sex appeal.
Decker must have sensed a bit of reality had arrived in the Triple 6, coz he grabbed my real-world arm again. I didn’t raz him this time because Bruce really was almost a collector’s item.
“Hang on.” Bruce frowned. “You can’t have an uncle. It’s genetically…”
“Impossible, I know, Bruce. But he and one of my Matriarchs had a thing, so he’s almost family.”
“Don’t call me Bruce, you know I hate it, CJ.”
“Why was he here yesterday?” Decker was finally doing the cop thing.
I patted his real-hand encouragingly; then stopped immediately as that same damned-exquisite vibration flooded the parts of me that Zanzibar Black had switched on earlier. A burning urge to track her down and give her a piece of my…everything made no sense at all. And then…
Frakn hell; again?
“You okay?” Decker whispered in my real ear, while his Apollo-avatar faced the still-talking Charon. I made mine get up and pace the den.
“First, I didn’t know the man,” Charon stated. “He got ejected from my premises after a scuffle. Second, I vestigated after I heard he got fried and—still didn’t know the man—but Ragnor said he’d been here once before wearing a different Cloak.”
“A scuffle? Really, Bruce? Sorry, Charon.”
“Okay. A bloodbath brawl.”
“Jimmy was fighting?”
“Didn’t say that, CJ; said there was a brawl. Ragnor reported the now-fried pirate, er, your uncle, was in it; but it more happened around him. And maybe to him.”
“He got beat up in your establishment, so you threw him out?” Decker said.
“Threw them both out.”
“Two people had a bloodbath?” I said. “Was Jimmy cage fighting?”
“Course not, CJ. Was obvious to a gnat the bloke was a Startup.”
“A what?” Decker asked.
“Fresh meat,” Charon said. “Like you. All wooden and such.”
Apollo glanced down at his perfect form and then at me, and acknowledged, “Attitude not avatar.”
Charon poured three cups of mead and pushed ours over. “Didn’t know he was the same bloke till hours later.”
“What same bloke?” I asked.
“Same bloke as the one asking me about the Liebestraum Institute.”
“You said you didn’t know him, Bruce.”
“Oh. Right.” Charon downed half his drink. “I met him the time before, when he was a ninja and asked for an audience. With me, I mean.”
“You personally? Why?” I asked.
“Man wanted to know shit about organs.”
Well, that gelled with Zippo’s intel. “And stem factories?”
“No, just organs. Oh, and juice banks.”
“Why ask you that?” Decker asked.
“Don’t he know who I am?” Charon looked hurt.
“People forget, mate.” I shrugged. “Since you’ve moved in here, there’s a generation never heard of you.”
Decker’s hand was back on my arm as Apollo gave me a quick glance. Charon didn’t need to know that my partner was both too young and too old to have ever heard of the Liebestraum Institute, let alone Bruce May and his cohorts.
Although, strangely, I got the sense that he had. And that he knew… Decker removed his hand.
Okay. Knew what? I was starting to wonder if I hadn’t been tagged by that bloody Rat Gun. Obviously not enough to kill—unless this really was hell—but maybe a blast-residue had followed me out of Jimmy’s terminal. It would certainly explain the flashbacks and the inappropriately heightened libido and—that, too, dammit—that sense that someone was laughing at me.
“CJ? You okay?” I looked up to find that Bruce had resumed a smaller version of his Charon Marx avatar. Probably so he could sulk discreetly about being a long-forgotten rock star.
“What could you tell him about the Institute?” Decker asked.
Now, you see…very odd question. I looked at my partner, who was clearly avoiding eye contact. Given everything else he hadn’t known today, his question should’ve been: what is the Liebestraum Institute.
“I live there, man,” Charon said, as if the whole world should damn well remember that.
“I don’t understand,” Decker said.
“Charon, or rather Bruce and a motley collection of entertainers—”
“Motley?” Charon objected.
“Pooled their substantial fortunes to fund the Dreamscape Wing of the Liebestraum. It was then opened to anyone—who could afford it—to take up permanent residence, rather than, you know, die.”
“Your tone suggests disapproval, CJ,”
Bruce said.
“Talk to me when it’s available to all on UniCare and I might be less subjective in my opinion about who gets to die or not, Bruce.”
Decker tapped the table. “Dreamscape Wing; organ harvests?”
I looked at my partner again. Ensign Clueless had suddenly become Detective Impatient. What’s more, he continued to avoid eye contact.
“We have one thousand three hundred and forty-one Dreamers residing in the Dreamscape Wing,” Charon began.
“Who exist on life support, in induced comas, while living permanently in Cy-city,” I finished.
That made Decker look at me. “Living in here.”
“Will you show him, mate?” I asked the Undead Host of the Triple 6.
Without a word, Bruce May allowed his Charon Marx avatar to morph from the achingly handsome Rock God who’d been lead singer of Scattered Heads sixty years ago. Then on through the gracefully aging legendary lead of Fraught, to the avatar he shown us moments before, to—and I felt Decker’s shock, beside me in my office—the total reality of the wizened and barely recognisable comatose shell that he was now.
Although this avatar was looking at us with Bruce’s eyes, I knew that back in the Dreamscape Wing, his eyes—like those of the other 1,340 Dreamers—were closed, permanently.
“Remember I said some of the Zen-dens had virtual reality pods?”
Decker nodded.
“Well, one good use for them would be for Dreamers like Bruce.”
“Except I don’t use the pods.” A scowling Charon was back with us.
“I know, mate. Explain to Decker how the Dreamers get a different reality from the average Pod people.”
Charon got to his feet and beckoned. “Come with; I’ll show him.”
Decker and I fell in behind a regular-human sized Charon Marx and wended our way through the dance crowd in his great hall, to Hades Gates beneath his throne. The music dwindled to silence the moment we descended the nine steps to Charon’s suite of Zen-dens.
I’d been down here many times and knew the Triple 6 layout, so I kept half my attention on my partner’s reaction to his newest frontier.
“So, Startup,” Charon addressed Decker, “Bruce May exists at the Liebestraum but I, Charon Marx, live here. Close to five hundred other Dreamers live in Downside or other parts of Cy-City; the remainder live in CaraBazaar, SanFran, or Hawksnest; and a great many of them circulate throughout the zones.
