by Ted Weber
Charles stood in the corner, fingers fidgeting. She waved at him.
He nodded but didn’t smile.
Waylee trudged up the stairs and knocked on her sister’s door.
No response. She eased it open.
Of course. Even banana pancakes couldn’t compete with hyper-reality. Encased in her black immersion suit, Kiyoko sat in midair, hanging from a network of fibers, legs spread apart. Barely moving, she looked like a spider perched in its web, or maybe a trapped fly, its situation so hopeless it didn’t bother struggling.
The support cylinder was a lot narrower than the one in the game room, hemmed in by tall Ikea wardrobes packed with clothes and costumes, and display cabinets crowded with Japanese toys and stuffed animals. It was bolted to the ceiling for added stability.
Still in her strange position, Kiyoko rocked back and forth.
“Kiyoko,” Waylee said.
No response. “Kiyoko!”
A muffled voice leaked from her helmet, “Be right back.” She pulled off the black spheroid and shook her rainbow-streaked hair. Still suspended in the air, she faced Waylee. “I can’t believe you interrupted me while I was flying on my dragon friend. This had better be important.”
“What are you, eight?”
Kiyoko’s face flared with anger. “Why don’t you get out of my room.”
Waylee regretted her words. This wasn’t the time to argue. “Sorry. Listen, I have a big favor to ask.”
Her sister’s cat, Nyasuke, jumped off the antique bed at the end of the room and navigated the narrow pathway between the sewing machine, cabinets, and wardrobes. He announced his arrival with a loud meow. Kiyoko looked down at her cat and smiled.
Just the defusing she needed. “You said you wanted to help out, right?”
Kiyoko nodded. “I drove yesterday, didn’t I? And worked my ass off to trade for those masks.”
“Yeah, thanks. So, Pel and I need a lot of BetterWorld credits, and you’ve done well with your virtual fashion line.”
“Costumes and accessories. Everyone needs them.”
“And marketing our music.”
Kiyoko planted her feet and stood. “I’m the only one who cares whether we’re successful or not, so you should be grateful. All that money’s invested in advertising and equipment.”
Took a wrong turn. “And you rent out BetterWorld space?”
“Tenants in my realm, yes.”
“Like a feudal lord?” Waylee regretted her words again. It was too easy to fight with the ones you loved.
Her sister frowned. “I suppose. The Fantasy Continent has a medieval motif, and that’s how medieval Japan and Europe were structured. Look, I need to get back.”
“This is important. We need two million credits to help buy what we need for the president’s fundraiser. Can Pel borrow it? He promised the broker he’d have it today.”
Kiyoko’s frown deepened. “And how’s he gonna pay me back? Anyway, the timing’s bad, I upgraded my suit last month.” She smiled. “It’s got an electric field that stimulates the skin receptors, pretty much the coolest thing ever.”
The porn industry will love that. “So you spent all your money on that?”
She squinted her left eye. “No, mostly I’ve been equipping my army. Prince Vostok, I tell you, is the bane of my existence. He is evil personified, and he wants the Vale of Waterfalls, the best part of my kingdom. I told him no way, I spent two years creating it, but now he’s trying to steal my tenants away and goads me into these battles…”
What the hell is she talking about? Waylee tried not to scream. “Please, can you get the credits together?”
Kiyoko sighed. She twirled a gloved finger in her hair. “I think I have an idea, but I’ll need help.”
* * *
Dingo
“Zoom!” M-pat’s three-year-old son, Baraka, pushed a friendly faced locomotive along a brightly colored plastic track. M-pat had snapped the course together that morning before Dingo arrived. It filled the entire living room floor of his family’s narrow townhouse.
From the sofa, Dingo gave Baraka the thumbs up. “You go, little man.” He snatched another Cheeto from the bowl that M-pat’s wife, Latisha, had set on the sparkly clean coffee table. Fuck knows what’s in these things, but damn they’re addictive.
For some reason Latisha had decided to run the heat even though it wasn’t that cold outside. The faint smell of burning oil wafted up from their basement. Dingo felt like unlacing his boots and freeing his toes from sweaty confinement, but settled for unzipping his hoodie.
M-pat knelt next to the meandering track. “You got to hook up the freight cars, son. Whole purpose of a locomotive is to pull cars along.”
“Gaaa!” Baraka let go and fumbled with the coal cars and flatbeds he’d left behind.
M-pat returned the locomotive to its starting point and showed his son how to hook them together.
“You should get one of those electric train sets,” Dingo said.
M-pat turned and nodded. “Yeah, maybe next year. They expensive though, and we only had this a couple months.”
A birthday present, Dingo remembered. He and Shakti—actually, everyone in the band house—had bought Baraka toys.
Latisha walked in from the adjacent kitchen, where she’d been chopping something. She stood at least a foot shorter than M-pat, and had much lighter skin. “Why not a Christmas present?” She looked at Baraka and smiled. “Maybe Santa could bring it.”
M-pat sighed. “I already bought zawadi gifts for Kwanzaa. Santa’s a white thing.” He glanced at Dingo. “No offense.”
Dingo shrugged. “A, I ain’t white but maybe a little, and B, Christmas is corporate-religious bullshit.”
Latisha put her hands on her hips. “You two just say some foolish nonsense sometimes.” She pointed at M-pat. “We celebrate Kwanzaa ‘cause you insist on it. But we do Christmas too, like everyone else. That means church, that means a tree, and there ain’t no reason we can’t have Santa.”
“I’m pretty sure Santa’s not in the Bible,” Dingo said.
M-pat glared at him, then looked at his comlink. “We gotta go. Appointment’s soon.”
Latisha frowned. “Where y’all goin’?”
“Business, baby.”
“In other words, you ain’t gonna tell me?”
Dingo decided to intervene. “We just goin’ to a meeting. Only worry is we might fall asleep.”
Latisha glanced at him, then returned her attention to M-pat. “When you comin’ back, then?”
M-pat kissed her. “Back by dinner. Gotta make the rounds after the meeting.”
Dingo turned to Baraka and waved. “Alright, smell ya later, little man.”
He waved back. “Bye!”
M-pat picked up his son and kissed him on the forehead. “Back before you know it.”
They hopped into M-pat’s black electric Honda and headed out of the neighborhood. Dingo threw on his data glasses and checked his messages. Nothing. “So what’s this Rosemont crew like?” he asked as M-pat turned onto U.S. 1.
M-pat kept his eyes on the four-lane road. “They like all the rest, they just got the best chemist I hear.”
“How big’s their zone?”
“Rosemont neighborhood. That’s why they called Rosemont.”
“So they got this great chemist but they only got—what—twenty blocks?”
“More like thirty.”
“Either way, that’s not a lot of territory. Not a lot of income to support a hot shot chemist.”
M-pat turned right on Caton Avenue and headed north. “They producers, Dingo. They export. Which means they a lot bigger than their home turf.” He looked even grumpier than usual. Had been since the breakout yesterday.
“What’s up, kicks? Why the frown?”
“Just don’t like taking my car on shit like this.”
He washed that damn car every other day. “Well we can’t exactly take the RV. You sure worry a lot.”
&nb
sp; M-pat glanced over with that homicidal expression he got sometimes. “Easy for you to say. You ain’t got a kid.”
“And thank God—or the lack thereof—for that. But a’ight, I get you. Baraka, he’s a cool little dude.”
M-pat scratched his sorry excuse for a beard. “Gettin’ popped at gave me cause to think on this whole thing. You do know Waylee’s crazy, right?”
“No crazier than anyone else.”
“Well, I got a family to think on. I’ll help out—I keep my word—but no way am I breakin’ into a presidential fundraiser or matchin’ moves with Homeland.” Red brick townhouses gave way to vine-choked trees and the makeshift tents of squatters as the road entered Gwynns Falls Park.
“Your loss.” Dingo went over Pel’s specs in his head. The drug had to relax inhibitions quite a bit but not be obvious. Make whoever drank it at the gala open up and feel talkative. Dissolve quickly. No taste or odor.
They exited the parkway and stopped at the end of a street lined with more two-story townhouses. Discarded plastic vials lined the curbs. “Here we are,” he said. “Leave your gun, if you got one. Including stun guns.”
“So we’ll be defenseless?”
“So we get in. And put your glasses away.”
“What for?”
“Makes folks nervous, they think you recordin’ ‘em.”
Pel showed me how to disable the camera indicator light. But maybe lots of people did that. Dingo unzipped his hoodie and stuffed his data glasses in the inside pocket, where they’d be hard to steal. He stashed his stun gun under the seat and followed M-pat toward a townhouse on the corner.
It looked like the ground floor was once a store of some sort. Two serious-looking men in stiff jackets with big pockets sat in folding chairs outside the front door. Soldiers, no doubt. Both wore data glasses with dark mirrored lenses but no voice tube. Double standard here, but it’s their turf.
“I was expecting something grander,” he said to M-pat as they approached. “Like a mansion or somethin’.”
“What you want, white boy?” the soldier on the left said, not moving from his seat. He looked to be Dingo’s age, early twenties.
“I ain’t white,” Dingo said. “I’m Latino an’ shit. Different check box on the forms. We’re here to—”
M-pat slashed the air with his hand. “Tell your captain,” he said to the soldier, “M’patanishi’s here to see him. We got an appointment.”
Neither soldier moved. “DG, Captain,” the one on the left said. He paused, eyes on Dingo and M-pat. “These two want in. Say they’ve got an appointment.”
After a couple of minutes, Dingo heard the front door unlatch. An un-smiling woman opened it. A large common room lay beyond, a pool table visible with the balls racked and a man standing to the side. The front window was barred and blinded.
The woman waved them in. The man frisked them while she stood there with a hand in one pocket. Apparently satisfied, he pointed at a leather sofa. “Sit.”
They hadn’t been sitting long when another man entered from the interior hallway. He was about thirty, trim, dark. Head shaved and buffed shiny. He smiled and exchanged West Baltimore peace shakes with M-pat, fists morphing to skin slides turning to interlocked fingers. M-pat designed the shake five years ago during the truce talks, and people still used it.
“M’patanishi, the living legend. Welcome to Rosemont.”
“Thanks.”
He grinned. “Back when you called yourself Midnight, you beat mo’ ass and nailed mo’ ho’s than anyone in West B’more. You the master of B&E, like a ninja. Got all special forces an’ shit holdin’ yo’ crew’s turf. Now you retired and playin’ peacekeeper.”
“Latisha, she straightened me out. And Nyerere. You gotta read him. And now we got a kid, my seed’s what I sow. Know what I’m sayin’?”
Mr. Shiny Head clenched a fist to his heart. “I feel ya.”
M-pat pointed at Dingo. “This here’s Dingo. He’s the one lookin’. I can vouch for him, he’s one of my deputies.” He gestured toward Shiny Head. “This is Noah. Operations Captain. Just below the boss.”
“’Sup,” Dingo said, and gave Noah the peace shake.
Noah’s eyes narrowed. “Ain’t never heard of you.”
“Been living ’round West B’more near five years. Wanderin’ here and there before that.”
“Street thug, huh?”
“Ain’t no thug. I’m out doing the people’s business, givin’ Authority the smackdown.”
Noah smiled. “You do look a gutterpunk.”
“Ain’t no gutterpunk neither. Not for years. I’m with a People’s Party crew, we’re settled like family, but—”
M-pat held up a hand. “He respectable.”
Noah nodded. “A’ight then. So M-pat says you got a special order in mind?”
“Yeah. I got a special concoction that needs brewing, and heard your chemist’s the best.”
“And discreet,” M-pat added.
“Both true,” Noah said. “Follow me.”
He led them down a flight of stairs into a finished basement that smelled faintly of vinegar and smoke. A big iron furnace squatted on stout feet in one corner. Several people, mostly old, sat at tables squirting liquids from big bottles into plastic vials. They screwed little caps on the vials and labeled the sides with sharpies. An attractive dark-skinned woman in a pressed jacket and skirt sat in front of a wallscreen, swiping a touchpad and moving clusters of colored balls around the screen.
“This your lab then?” Dingo asked Noah. “I expected tubes and Petri dishes and shit.”
M-pat rolled his eyes.
“No, we got a proper lab,” Noah said. “Different location, obviously.”
“So we going there to see your chemist, or is he coming here?”
The woman, made up like a model, turned and smiled, showing gleaming teeth and perfect legs. She stood. “I’m the chemist.”
Whoa. Hello, sexy scientist.
“Got a Ph.D. and everything,” Noah said. “We pay better than academia, and Big Pharm’s mostly outsourced these days.”
“Well, you certainly got chemistry,” Dingo told her. “I’m Dingo, that’s M’patanishi.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and turned to M-pat. “Pleased to meet you.” She didn’t offer her name.
Bitch is rude.
“We talkin’ here?” M-pat said.
“We all family here,” Noah said. “But…” He motioned for the sexy scientist to follow them, and they walked up two flights of stairs to an office. No one sat.
Dingo described the drug they wanted, and said they needed it in three weeks.
The chemist pursed her lips and tapped a high-heeled foot. She turned to M-pat again. “Well, we have something like that, clubsters like it, but it’s probably too euphoric and sensory for your needs. Why does it need to be so subtle?”
“It just does,” M-pat said. “Can you do it?”
She crossed her arms. “In three weeks? I’d have to drop everything else and bring others in. It’d be expensive.”
Uh oh. “How expensive?”
She glanced at him and shrugged.
Noah stepped forward. “Gotta confirm with the boss, but I’d guess 50 G’s down, 50 on delivery.”
Dingo’s anus contracted. “You’re fuckin’ joking.”
“Lab time’s crucial for everything we do,” the chemist said. “So of course it’s going to be expensive. On the other hand, once the R&D’s done, the product might be relatively cheap.”
8
Kiyoko
Princess Kiyoko surveyed the army before her, arrayed along the highlands in concentric semicircles. Red banners fluttered in the wind as five thousand armed men and women awaited her command, by far the biggest army she’d ever assembled. Their leaders included nobles, samurai, magic-weavers, healers, unicorns… even a dragon. Matching the banners, Kiyoko had donned red hair and robes to bring luck.
She risked everything. Prince Vostok
sought to dominate the entire Fantasy Continent of BetterWorld, and her realm of Yumekuni bordered his. Six months ago he offered a pittance to buy its richest part, the Vale of Waterfalls. Of course she could never let it fall into the hands of a tyrant like Vostok.
Even though Kiyoko owned her land legally, and he couldn’t actually seize it by force, Vostok tried to wear her down by drawing away her supporters and goading her into battles that she always lost. When she complained to the BetterWorld administrators that he was harassing her, they said he wasn’t breaking any rules. Vostok and his equally obnoxious followers then called her a ‘baby’ and ‘carebear’ on the message boards.
Good never bows to evil, she decided, and she raised an army to crush him, recruiting allies and purchasing non-player soldiers and equipment. After her sister’s plea for credits, she increased the stakes.
“If you want the Vale so bad,” she challenged Vostok in public, “see if you can take it from me.” She proposed a battle on a duplicate of their terrain, which only the combatants could access. Battlefield success and relative casualties would determine the winner. Not an unusual challenge except for the bet. If Vostok won, she’d give him legal title to the Vale of Waterfalls. If she won, she’d get an equivalent combination of land and development points from Vostokia, Prince Vostok’s narcissistic and unimaginative name for his kingdom.
Vostok had responded immediately. “Name the time.”
Selling his land would take time that Waylee and Pel didn’t have, so Kiyoko bet her remaining credits on the BetterWorld gambling market. Given that Vostok long ago reached maximum level as a fighter, and had beaten her three times already, the odds started at 2:1 against her. She encouraged friends to post messages saying she was clueless when it came to combat. As Vostok liked to point out, she was just a girl after all.
The official odds were now 4:1 against her.
Kiyoko lifted a brass telescope to her eye. Vostok prepared his army just past the Neutral Zone, on both sides of the Sylvan River, which began in the Vale of Waterfalls and widened beyond. He’d gathered player guilds and mercenaries, and around eight thousand non-player combatants. Ten-foot tall ogres stood strapped to two dozen wheeled trebuchets and carts of boulders. Others carried long ladders or giant wooden shields.
