Strange Flesh

by Michael Olson

  I tilt my head at her. She shrugs.

  “I’m saving up to go to the Fashion Institute of Technology.”

  “Your parents know you’re here?”

  She gives me a hard look. “My dad is in Afghanistan. I’ve been all over the world. This is no big deal.”

  Of course she’d be an army brat: Rosette, the daughter of a general. I glance at her as she stares out the window, arms crossed over her chest. A trail of holes runs down the edge of her left ear. Evidence of a rebellious stage? But oddly her ears aren’t pierced in the normal place. Instead a short vertical scar notches each lobe, as if she once wore earrings but . . . had them violently jerked out. Then the torn flesh was stitched back together. Maybe this one is a fighter. Or maybe she’s been abused. I notice she didn’t mention her mother.

  I decide to risk trying to slip past the fourth wall. “Ah, this may sound crazy, but let’s just say that you weren’t really going to a meeting.”

  “What?”

  “Just bear with me. Let’s say that someone offered you some money to come up here and pretend like you were going to meet with this company.” Her frown deepens. “All I’m saying is I know some people who would pay you a lot more if you could provide any other information about why you’re here.”

  She shifts away from me, her hand inching toward the door handle. “Man, what are you talking about?”

  I back off. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I must have you confused with someone else. Forget I said anything.”

  She eyes me warily. “I thought you said you were just the driver.”

  “That’s right. I am.”

  “Then why don’t you just drive?”

  Our arrival at the graveyard goes more smoothly than I expected. While a lot of New Yorkers find Wall Street’s emptiness at night spooky, Rosa just sees a bunch of nice buildings, any one of which could be a hotel. I park along Trinity Place across from the Amex building. The church is perched on a knoll right above us. A hoary, now eccentric brick wall lines the embankment. An archway is carved into it midway down the block, and a steep stone stairway leads to an oak door that doesn’t look like it’s been opened in the church’s four-hundred-year history. Tonight we find it unlocked, and the door loudly protests our disrupting its repose. The gloomy climb up into the churchyard finally breaks Rosa’s composure.

  She jerks on my sleeve. “Hey . . . Where are we? Why’d you take me here?”

  I pretend to check something in my cell phone. “This is the address I was given. I think someone is supposed to meet you.”

  “No. That can’t be right. This . . . This place is a graveyard.”

  “It’s right. Trust me. Someone’s coming to get you. Just sit on that bench over there. It’ll be fine.”

  “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “Well, I was just told to bring you here. So now . . . I have to go.”

  She can’t believe what I’ve just said. “You’re leaving?”

  I relent. “Look, I have . . . my orders. I’ll tell you what.” I write my cell number on a twenty-dollar bill. “Stay here for fifteen minutes. If they don’t pick you up by then, call me. I’ll come get you, and I’ll check you into any hotel you want. The Ritz-Carlton is a couple blocks away.” I give her the twenty and walk briskly back toward the stairs.

  “The Ritz . . . Wait, no, don’t leave.” She trails after me. “Hey man, don’t leave me here.” She’s on the verge of tears.

  But my orders are clear: “Don’t look back.” I shut the door and hear it latch.

  “Come back . . . Please.” The last word is a high-pitched cry.

  I get into my car and head slowly down the street.

  My instructions implied that I would be watched, but I can’t see how he’d pull it off. The street around me is empty, no cars, no pedestrians. I make a couple quick turns. Billy could have stationed someone in a building with a view of the churchyard, but there’s no way an observer could see to the adjacent streets through the cluster of skyscrapers.

  Don’t be an idiot. You’re buying into his absurd atmospherics. And no matter how well-run his game is, you cannot leave a scared teenage girl alone in that graveyard at two in the morning.

  I swerve right up Liberty Street and then dart the wrong way down William to head back toward Trinity Place. Turning right, I park on Pine Street two blocks above the church. After slinking down another block among the columns of a temple to commerce, I take refuge in the entry to a Citibank with a good view of the churchyard. I’m hoping Rosa sat on the bench, because then I’ll have a perfect view of her through the statuary.

  But Rosa is gone.

  I survey the area, but there’s no trace of her. Other than her bag sitting abandoned on the bench. That doesn’t seem good.

  Stop it. This is just overproduced street theater. She’s gone because Billy can’t have his audience follow the actors into the wings.

  But I can’t help thinking about the awful fate visited upon poor Rosette in 120 Days.

  Come on. She’ll be fine. They’re probably taking her out for dinner tonight.

  All the same, Sade’s infernal images have colonized my head.

  46

  That uneasiness makes me log back into Savant as soon as I get home to see if I can discover some clue to clarify what just happened. But I merely wander around the eerie castle battling the creeping, sub-rational feeling that I’ve done something terrible.

  Maybe that’s why I start so violently when I hear a familiar voice say, “Congratulations . . . Jacques.”

  The voice is right behind me, and I spin around so violently that my knees bang into the right trestle of my desk. But there’s no one there. Just my rear channel speakers. I realize the voice must have come from Savant. Run through my audio system, it sounded like he was in the room with me.

  It dawns on me that I didn’t have NOD’s voice chat feature turned on. For some reason people generally prefer regular text chat to voice. And yet someone just started a session with me without my permission. In NOD, the only person who could do that would be the guy who owns the sim.

  I mash keys to turn my av, and at last I behold the virtual alter ego of Billy Randall.

  But I can tell right away that’s not quite right. The av in front of me is a dashing rake in all the finery of a pre-revolutionary aristocrat, and Billy has made him tall, athletic, and extremely fair. A faithful image of his brother Blake. And now I know why the voice was familiar. It’s a spot-on impression. Confirmation that Billy’s virtually impersonating his brother to place him as a member of his fake Pyrexians.

  His NODName, Fedor_Sett, stumps me at first, but eventually I work out “Feed Durcet.” Of Château de Silling’s four Friends, Curval the judge and Durcet the banker have the most pronounced appetites for ingesting filth. If Billy’s assigned Blake the latter role, then I can see why the freelance waiter at Demeter looked surprised when his offering was rejected.

  I take a deep breath to settle myself and say into my desktop mic, “Ah, thanks. I’m glad to finally meet you.” While speaking, I start a trace on the IP address from which Billy’s av is connecting.

  But Fedor_Sett doesn’t respond. With an impressive flourish of animation, he extracts a card from his jacket pocket. This av is merely a messenger.

  I’m surprised Billy hasn’t masked the originating IP address for his NoBot, which comes back as 192.0.2.133. The first domestic one I’ve seen from him. But those numbers feel familiar as well . . .

  Because he’s spoofing the connection record to appear as though it came from IMP. So Billy’s impersonation goes even more than skin deep. When I take the item he’s offering, the NoBot rezzes out.

  The card reads:

  For the favor you’ve done

  From our collection here’s one

  So to discharge our debt

  Please enjoy this vignette

  Fedor_Sett’s “vignette” link leads to the first of the videos Billy stole from his sister. A clip that
stars him and the twins as young children. Blake sits on top of Billy, force-feeding him a dark mushy substance that sadly does not look like chocolate pudding. Billy repays Blake’s culinary exertions by vomiting all over him.

  A charming childhood scene that should really appeal to the Sade fans’ interest in bodily fluids. The video makes clear where the roots of Billy’s rage against his brother were planted.

  So this is how Billy’s planning to expose his family dirt. He’s mixed his awful childhood mementos in with a trove of reward videos for his players. I’ll bet he’s assembled a record of Blake’s crimes that covers everything from youthful cheating at Wiffle ball to his recent indecorous investments. Since the videos have to get progressively worse, he probably intends the climax of these atrocities to be Gina’s suicide video and will then detail his reasons for laying her body at his brother’s feet. Billy must think that as people start digesting his gumdrops, the pressure on Blake will ratchet to a point where he’ll start to envy her.

  47

  I’m far from the only one helping to pump Savant’s poison into the real world. Judging by the series of news reports sent from Red Rook’s clipping service, Château de Silling has turned a wave of its inmates loose on the streets.

  Several online crime blotters have noted an uptick in sexual misdemeanor cases in certain metro areas. One put together an interesting montage of cuffed men in police cars wearing full powdered wigs.

  Sex worker boards are filling with alerts defining archaic terminology. For example, this one on The Erotic Review:

  Ladies, if someone asks if you allow “fustigation,” the answer is “No,” or “Fuck off.” It means beating you with a stick. And red-flag him for your sisters. Has there been a full moon this past week, or what?

  Then this appeal from a woman posting to the main Savant forum:

  Thread: Reward for Information

  Frantic_Mom

  Joined: 2/01/15

  Posts: 1

  Location: Los Angeles, CA

  Please help me!!!

  My son has been missing for four days. I got into his computer, and I know he spent a lot of time playing this game.

  I don’t care what he’s been doing, I just want him back.

  I have $5,000 for anyone who can give me information to help find him. No questions asked. He is only sixteen.

  Attached to the post is a picture split in halves. The left is a yearbook photo of a spindly, nervous-looking teen. The right shows a screen shot of his burly leather-lord NOD avatar.

  I guess these days one picture isn’t enough.

  Blake finally got back to me later that evening.

  He left a voicemail asking to meet at an unfamiliar address in Brooklyn, a small bar called Paul’s that is more or less the inverse of the Racquet and Tennis. At six PM, the place is dark, dusty, and deserted. Paul must be going through a long-term identity crisis. Woefully maintained Irish accents are muddled by pictures of Mexican national soccer teams from the 1970s.

  Blake has secured us a pair of martinis, and he tips his glass as I take the seat next to him. He says, “I didn’t suppose the little bastard would ever have the balls to attack my sister. Think this might add some urgency to your efforts?”

  “Do you really believe having him committed is going to prevent people from finding out that you’re building a virtual sex empire?”

  My question was meant to jar him, but it fails miserably. Blake beams a satisfied smile at me, like his prize pupil has just solved a complicated proof. “Virtual sex empire. I like the sound of that.”

  “Think your board will? What about your sister?”

  Blake just shrugs as if the questions, or at least the questioner, are of little consequence. I try a different approach. “You know, my work would have been a lot easier if you’d told me all this at the beginning.”

  Blake sips his drink and says, “True. But I needed to know what you could find out and how you’d go about it. I won’t mention the fact that your disclosures on this topic were, shall we say, less than candid?”

  “Fair enough. But I’m trying to help you, and you’re making that more difficult.”

  “Okay. Absolute honesty henceforth.” But his eyes sparkle mischievously. As if mocking the whole concept of veracity. “What would you like to know?”

  There’s a lot I’d like to know. Why does Billy blame him for Gina’s death? Does he really think his brother is crazy? What’s he going to do if he finds him? But all these give way to my real concern: his intentions toward the Dancers.

  I ask, “Why are you backing IT? With this huge merger coming up, why give your brother the ammunition? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You have any idea why I wanted to meet you at this shithole?”

  Exasperated, I shake my head.

  “Good. Let’s take a walk.”

  Five minutes later, we’ve stepped across the street to an anonymous red brick warehouse. Now we sit in a conference room, empty except for a pair of odd contraptions. While I’m used to mechanisms with human orifices, these things look like the open mouths of giant robotic squids. Each has a steel center ring five feet in diameter around which stand a series of eight spiky robot arms. In the center of the ring are two segmented beams bristling with heavy-duty motors. They terminate in what seem to be extraterrestrial ski boots with soles supported by large air cylinders.

  “Welcome to Project Holy Duck,” says Blake.

  He walks up to the first machine, slips off his shoes, and steps carefully into the boots. A rack hanging from the ceiling holds a pair of HMD goggles and a foam maul. Something about its fat cylindrical head attached to a thin plastic handle sets off hazy recognition signals.

  Leveling his now sightless gaze at me, he says, “When I said ‘let’s take a walk,’ I hope you didn’t think I meant just across the street.”

  Blake gestures at the other machine, and I climb aboard. A series of bladders inflate around my feet, and I rise a couple inches on what feels like a cloud of air. As if I’ve strapped on a pair of Mercury’s winged sandals. Then the visuals rez up, showing almost the reverse.

  I stand in front of a polished brass mirror in an underground burrow. Tree roots meander along the dirt walls. My reflection shows that I’ve become a garden gnome, complete with bushy white beard and red conical hat. I wiggle to test out the body tracking. It’s seamless. I look over to see that Blake’s assumed the form of a tiny fluttering fairy.

  He says in a voice processed into a squeaky chirp, “Hurry, Gwilligur! Our burrow is under attack!”

  With that, he sparkles open the room’s door and flies out. Without thinking about it, I follow him. Only as I cross the threshold and enter a long, torch-lit passage do I fully realize what I’m doing.

  I’m walking.

  Perhaps the most crucial problem with this kind of simulation has been the lack of a natural way to move oneself through space, which tends to ruin the illusion of presence. Here I’m not pushing my av around the screen with a joystick, but actually walking like a normal human through a fantasy world. Just to try it, I turn and walk in the other direction down the hall. Blake’s mechanized boots handle this without a hitch.

  He’s got a working omnimill.

  Technically you’d call it an omnidirectional locomotion interface. Most of these have been developed for the army, and various labs have tried everything from motorized roller skates to giant spherical hamster balls, with varying degrees of success. But Blake’s system represents a real breakthrough. The complete gestalt.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a trickling of dirt down the wall in front of me. A hole opens, and out of it emerges a small but demonic-looking purple mole. Its giant claws and pulsating star nose remind me of something from a fifties creature feature. It calmly steps out onto a nearby root, takes a tiny crossbow off its back, loads a bolt, and fires.

  I’m startled almost to the point of panic when I feel a sting on my chest where the arrow hits me—the snap of a
rubber band fired from close range.

  Can Blake’s machine actually be firing BBs at me?

  “Ow. That hurts.”

  His fairy grins at me. “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

  Just then I feel another much more painful sting on the left side of my neck. Instinctively, I lash out at the horrible mole with my maul. I’m expecting an airy visual damage metaphor, but instead I get a sharp twinge in my elbow when my mallet impacts with an unbelievably delightful crushing sensation. Right then I realize what’s familiar about this setup: it’s a thirty-years-overdue update of the classic carnival game Whack-A-Mole. As the most tactilely satisfying game of all time, there’s no better app for Blake to show off his next-gen VR system. This game lets the player stroll about and whack moles, not in a restricted little box, but all around him.

  And the moles can fight back.

  Blake flutters over to inspect the green goo dripping off my war hammer. “I give you Walk-A-Mole.” He pronounces its name like the avocado dip that bears a strong resemblance to the remains of the creature I just pulverized.

  Suddenly, there’s a huge cascade of dirt from the surrounding walls, and a regiment of mutant moles begins unloading on me. Mass slaughter ensues, and three minutes later, after a desperately fought running battle, I stand victorious. Out of breath and sweating, I contemplate the single most compelling digital experience I’ve ever had—save of course my first date with Ginger. But what Blake has done here is even bigger. He’s finally put us all the way into the machine.