End Code

by Jaron Lee Knuth

“It was part of my plea deal,” she says leaning against the wall as another patron enters the club through the nearby door. “I told them everything I knew, but I still had to agree to work at my mothers' company. In return they agreed to move Xen to a minimum security area and allow me visitation rights.”

  “You've seen him?” The question hits the lump in my throat on its way out of my mouth. “How is he? Where is he?”

  “Don't worry about it,” she says. “He's safe. That's all that matters.”

  I take off my cowboy hat and slick my hair back as I say, “No. It's not. His freedom matters. And until he has his freedom, until all of our friends get their freedom-”

  “What? You're going to what? Take on all of DOTgov by yourself? Do you actually believe the news-casts that are calling you a super user?”

  “If we could access her account, we could switch your access codes. We could switch your accounts. You'd effectively be controlling her actual avatar. You could connect to the mind prison. You'd be inside! With that kind of access, we might be able to access their servers.”

  As I open my mouth to explain Cyren's plan to Raev, Cyren adds, “But she'll never go for it.”

  Cyren is right, of course. I don't even have time to finish explaining myself before Raev is yelling back at me, “Grow up, Arkade. Maybe it's time you accept the fact that this isn't a game. You aren't the hero. You aren't going to win. You're not going to save everyone.”

  “I'm not trying to be a hero. I'm not trying to win anything. And I'm not trying to save everyone.” I try to catch my breath. “I just want to save my friends.”

  “No!” she screams, leaning in close. “Stay away from us. Don't try to help him. If they think he's involved in some attempt at a prison break, they could lock him deeper inside. We'd never get to see each other.”

  “She's doing the same thing she did with Xen's inebriation software addiction. She'd rather spend one more day with him like this than risk never seeing him again.”

  My fists clench. I'm sick of playing nice.

  “Please, Raev, don't let him suffer anymore just so you can get your weekly dose of him-”

  Cyren is telling me to stop talking as I continue to spit out the words. I don't think, I just speak, angry and frustrated. Raev's face freezes in shock, slowly melting into an uncomfortably calm pose.

  “You know what, Arkade? When they let me out of that mind prison, I was a little upset with DOTgov.”

  “We have to go,” Cyren says, mentally tugging on my arm.

  “I didn't think it was fair,” Raev continues, absentmindedly changing the color of her nails. “Here I was, being released from what I would very accurately describe as torture, yet they were still insisting on monitoring my every move. Like I was still a prisoner.”

  I take a step back. Then another. Cyren is yelling at me to run.

  “Tonight? I'm glad DOTgov is watching me,” Raev says in an unnervingly playful tone as I reach for the door next to us. “Because that means this whole time... they've been watching you.”

  01011101

  When I open the door, there's a sudden POP as a DgS officer teleports into the domain, right in front of me. Sleek, silver hands turn red and reach for me, fingers outstretched. I fall more than step backward, but I manage to slam the door shut, blocking the officer's approach. I stumble a bit and as soon as I get my feet solidly underneath me, I hear pops coming from every direction. I spin to survey the patio and see it filling with officers. They block every exit, a wall of DOTgov security, three officers deep.

  “User name: unknown. Please disable your illegal encryption, all access countermeasures, and any personally programmed software so that we may flag your account and log you out immediately to be processed IRL.”

  I spin around, scanning my surroundings. They've already blocked my own log-out, and if I use my battleaxe on myself, they'll track the denial of service attack back to my E-Womb. I'm going to have to run. The only way that isn't blocked is the railing of the patio. Below that: The ocean, the edge of the site.

  I dig my heels into the flooring and make a run for it, my spurs clanging against the floor with every step. My double-headed battleaxe appears in my right hand, Cyren doing me the favor of selecting it from my inventory. I swing the blade behind me, spinning it in my palm so that the serrated blade is facing forward. The flood of officers fills in behind me, but they slow as I take a step onto the railing and leap off the patio. They expect me to hit the edge of the site and bounce back to my point of origin, standing right next to them, where they could calmly grab my avatar. But I don't hit the edge. With a swing of my battleaxe, the serrated blade carves into the edge of the site, tearing open a hole, forcing a link to the next site.

  My body tumbles through the opening and I land on a wooden stage. An audience gasps. When I collect myself I see two avatars dressed as medieval knights, apparently in the middle of some kind of performance. Boos and hisses get thrown at me and one of the knights approaches. I glance back through the opening as I try to log-out from this new site, but officers are already disappearing from the patio. The all too familiar sound of DgS teleportation fills the stage. Without looking, I spin my battleaxe back around to the blade coded with my denial of service attack and swing it in a large arc around me. The crowd audibly reacts as a few officers hop backward and a few more are sliced in half, forcibly logged-out.

  Before the rest of them can react, I spin the battleaxe around and sink it deep into the stage. The floor folds open at the split and I jump through the tear in the site. The edge of the site slides past me and I drop into a square room made of dull, flat colors. No secondary items fill the space other than a single round table and six basic chairs. Sitting around the table are a group of default characters arguing about which menu to use in order to show each other screenshots of their grandchild's avatars.

  Senior citizen accounts.

  I'm well enough ahead of the DgS to swipe open the log-out menu, but whichever account is running the site is so bogged down with DOTcom advertising, the menu takes too long to open. DgS officers pop into existence right next to me. I duck and swing low at the officer to my right, cutting the avatar off at the knees. The officer is logged-out before the avatar hits the floor. The other officer reaches for me, but I manage to roll out of the way. Another two pops, then three more, and the room is nearly full. The senior citizens around the table take notice of us and start asking a string of questions about what's happening.

  I squat down to duck under one officer's thrusting hand and roll under the table. When I pop out the other side, I'm swinging the battleaxe upward and digging into the wall of the site. My momentum is so strong that I burst into the next site, expecting to fall onto the floor.

  But there's nothing there.

  It's not that I can't feel anything, it's that I'm not sure I have a body.

  “It's a deprivation club,” Cyren explains. “The idea is that they block all your senses. All but one.”

  There's an orchestra playing in my head. It's incredible, as if the music is coming out of me instead of into me. An absence of stimuli to enhance the only thing that's left. Music.

  I find myself struggling not to be overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of experiencing sound in such an all-encompassing way. I try to open my log-out menu. It's already being blocked. The DgS have already teleported into the site, we just can't see each other.

  “Can you hack the deprivation?”

  “On it,” Cyren says with a simple assuredness that makes me respect her more.

  I get nervous. If the DgS deactivates the deprivation before me, this is all over. Of course, that's a silly thing to worry about. They have to use legal menus. Menus that were designed by DOTgov. The NPCs have other ways of doing things.

  “We got it,” Cyren says, snapping her fingers to activate the rest of my senses.

  When I blink my eyes to focus my new found sight, I'm standing on a plain white square that's floating in a gray space. It'
s huge, housing hundreds of avatars standing shoulder-to-shoulder, lined up in a way that would most efficiently use that space. Off in the distance, across a sea of perfectly still avatars, I see a DJ booth that overlooks the entire site.

  It's quite possibly the strangest dance club I've ever been too, yet it might be the only one I would care to return to... if I ever find myself not being chased by DOTgov Security.

  A DgS officer is standing right next to me in the row, but the avatar is lost in the sense deprivation of the site. Another officer pops in next to the first. A chain reaction of teleporting officers fills my row, then fills the next.

  I push past the rows of avatars in front of me, trying to sidestep between the cornfield of people. When I reach the edge of the white square, I leap off without hesitation, swinging the battleaxe wildly in the air. My body hurtles through the gray until the battleaxe strikes the edge of the site.

  I slice through the sky and tumble into a room of psychedelic liquid. Translucent colors wash over me as I swim past the other users, all of them with goofy smiles on their faces. I know the officers will be alerted to my site change, even in the deprivation club, so I keep moving. I reach the edge of the site, ignoring the sales menu in front of me that offers all kinds of different inebriation software. The rainbow-colored liquid bubbles to the side as a DgS officer pops into existence.

  I cut through the edge again and find myself on the head of a pin. Angels dance around me. Strange bells ring in the distance. I don't try to make sense of who would come to a place like this, I just slice, trying to move faster than the DgS.

  I cut again, this time stumbling onto a sandy beach. The sun beats down against the brim of my hat. I peer underneath it and see a dating site stretch out along the coast. Inebriation bars and volleyball nets and elaborate social games meant to pair you off. It all looks awkward to me.

  “This looks like fun,” Cyren says appearing next to me only to flash me a wink.

  I think that means she's being sarcastic.

  An avatar made of fire, yet still inexplicably wearing a bikini, bounds down the beach toward me in slow motion. She's waving a sign-up sheet.

  I instantly slash my battleaxe across the sand and fall through, into the open sky. Tables and chairs tumble through the air alongside me. It looks like a random scattering of furniture, until I notice a couple sitting at one of the tables, staring into each others' eyes as they enjoy a meal, plummeting to the ground below. I glance down and see the ground, the edge of the site, hurtling toward me. I hold my battleaxe out in front of me and point the blade toward the ground. As the blade touches the earth, it slices straight through and my body slides between the edges of the tiny hole.

  The room is small. Dark. A single candle burns in the center of the room. It creeps me out. I slash the wall next to me.

  I step into a rather large, elaborately decorated space, like a palace bedroom. Young avatars roll around on a giant mattress covered in kittens and puppies. Every one of the fluffy creatures is desperate to lick the face of the avatars, and the avatars can't stop giggling.

  “You should bookmark this site,” Cyren says a little too genuinely. “This is adorable.”

  I slash the wall the second one of the kittens lays eyes on me and I step into the neighboring site. This time I run onto the carpeted floor of a nostalgia bar. This one is trying to capture a certain decade for its clients. Sometime in the 1950s maybe. Or 60s. I was never good with history. That's not the part of the site that interests me anyway. What interests me is that the rest of the site is unfinished. Bars of green glowing wires stretch out into the shapes of the different rooms, exposed without the graphics, the raw form of the bare design.

  A screen appears in front of me reading: “You have been misdirected into an unfinished site. You will be returned to your previous location in 5 seconds.”

  A site in this phase of development doesn't have log-out menus for users, just a built-in ability to throw me back to where I came from. In my case, that would be the waiting hands of DOTgov Security. As the 5 turns into a 4, I grip my battleaxe tighter, ready to slice my way into the next site, but I stop myself.

  Instead, I select a sticky sheet of plastic from my inventory and slap it onto the screen. The sheet of plastic acts as an overlay, scrolling different numbers and letters at a blinding speed as the countdown changes from a 4 to a 3.

  The 3 changes to a 2.

  “Don't worry,” Cyren says, appearing right behind me and placing her chin on my shoulder so she can see the screen. “I designed that password generator myself.”

  The 2 turns to a 1.

  I see the 1 disappear, about to be replaced by my instant bounce back into the room of puppies and kittens, when the numbers on the overlay lock into place and the password is accepted.

  The screen flips around, growing in size as it displays the list of “Admin Tools” available to me, the new site administrator. The DgS officers pop in, lunging for me, but my finger is already on the button that reads: Delete Site. I shove all my weight into pressing it and the world freezes, caught in that purgatory of paused options.

  Are you sure you want to do this?

  You will be logged-out of NextWorld while we remove your data.

  YES or NO?

  I yell, “YES!” and the entire site, including the DgS officers, falls away from me until it is nothing but a tiny dot of light.

  When that dot collapses, I hear a voice waiting to comfort me. It isn't the computerized voice saying, “Wireless connection disengaged from your nanomachines.”

  This voice is softer, and it comes from the mental image of Cyren lying right next to me in my E-Womb.

  “Nice job.”

  “Was it?”

  “It was quick thinking with that administrator password.”

  “I guess I'm getting good at running away.”

  “Really, really good,” Cyren says with a giggle.

  I reach up and open the door of the E-womb, releasing the warm air inside and feeling the cold air of the tower room rush past me. My body shivers, my skin raising into bumps. Ekko jumps up from the bed across the room and throws a blanket around me as I crawl out.

  He hugs me close and rubs my shoulders, trying to help keep me warm as he says, “Welcome back.”

  01011110

  “Any luck?” Ekko asks, ushering me over to my bed to sit down.

  “No,” I mumble, dropping onto the mattress with a floppy motion of my arms. “Still nothing.”

  He gives my shoulder a squeeze and says, “Don't worry. I'm sure you'll find something.”

  “He's right,” Cyren says, appearing next to me on the bed. “I can sense the temptation to give up rising in the back of your mind.”

  “I'm not going to give up,” I say out loud, “I just think there has to be another way.”

  “What are you-” Ekko says before he realizes who I'm talking to.

  It's taken him some time to get used to my invisible friend, but I give him credit for his acceptance. At this point he acknowledges the fact that this will be a part of me living with him and his partner. They've both been so welcoming to me, just happy to have me around. Cyren tells me that I'm filling a void in their lives. That might be true, but they're doing the same for me. Cyren might call that “codependency,” but I say there's a fine line between leaning on someone for support and letting them carry you.

  It's been nice having someone else. Someone disconnected from NPCs and DOTgov and mind prisons. Someone on the outside of all this craziness. When I log-out, I'm met with such a calm exterior that I actually find myself valuing my time out of NextWorld. It gives me a moment to decompress.

  “Relax,” Cyren says, leaning her head on my bony shoulder. “Get some rest. We can start fresh in the morning and look at this from another angle.”

  “But you're not going to sleep.”

  She smiles, kisses my cheek, and says, “Nope.”

  “You're going to get started working on a new plan
right away, aren't you?”

  “The other digital intelligences already have.”

  “Oh... well, I don't want to keep you-”

  “Thanks!” she says with a small squeal of delight and another kiss on the cheek. “I'll let you know as soon as we find something.”

  And with that, she disappears.

  “Bye,” I say too late.

  “Oh! Did Cyren... leave?” Ekko asks, running his hands under the water in the sink and splashing some in his face.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding my head nonchalantly. “She, um... she's busy with the... um... finding everyone thing.”

  Ekko smiles at me. “Are you hungry?”

  “Sure,” I say with a reluctant shrug of my shoulders when I notice my stomach growling.

  He sticks his finger in the small hole on his vitapaste dispenser and waits for the light to turn green. When it does, he retrieves the tube of vitapaste and motions for me to do the same. I push myself off the bed and lazily jam my finger into the hole. The light turns green and I yank out the tube.

  Ekko leans against the wall, squeezing a bit of the gray paste into his mouth. “The scrubbed account you're using is still... clean?”

  I twist off the cap at the end of my vitapaste tube and say, “Yeah. While I'm controlling my real account, this account is running on autopilot, spending all its time in DOTmed getting information on nanomachine upgrades. DOTgov just thinks you have a hypochondriac for a roommate.”

  Ekko squirts more vitapaste into his mouth, speaking through the thick glob. “So what did you and your real account do today?”

  I squirt a small dab of the thick, salty paste onto the tip of my tongue and swallow it fast. “We just... I don't know. Tried to figure some things out.”

  Ekko lets out a sigh and says, “And what were you trying to figure out?”

  I take a bigger mouthful of vitapaste, giving in to his request to share information about our day. I explain everything, from discerning the bandwidth patterns of the data-bank in order to find its location, to Cyren's password generator and my daring escape.