Immersive clowns cheered the workers in one section, while another section was draped in an underwater motif. One older gentleman with white hair and pale gray parchment-like skin, weakly swung a hammer at neon green gophers popping out of a plate. The whole scene was a nightmarish and often cartoonish carnival run by forgotten programs and workers who probably couldn't even tell what they were making anymore.
The overwhelming feeling that any of those people could be her parents had kept her from focusing on the code, which was a mess of socio-economic game design. Clearly, the factory had been a test for hundreds of Coders before her. Gabby had puzzled at the overlapping structure, like layers of paint haphazardly sprayed on a wall and left to chip and wear at random intervals.
Eventually, Gabby had stopped looking at the code and just watched the people. The design was supposed to be a game, keeping the factory workers interested in their daily job, so they would maintain high output, but the rules had long ago become lost under the layers.
Instead, the workers jumped through successive visual cues trying to keep up or they would be shocked or buzzed or sometimes nothing would happen, which was just as confusing as the pain. Underneath the mask of their skins, and they were all required to wear them to keep the appearance of morale high, Gabby had seen their vacant eyes and open mouths.
Disgusted by the conditions, Gabby hadn't added a single line of code. Instead, she'd stripped out sections, removing them whole cloth, with no regard for the interconnections. She might have stripped it down to the base code had she not seen a girl she thought she recognized from Neversoft High.
With her stomach wrung into a knot, Gabby had stormed from the factory expecting to be reprimanded for not adding any code or fixing the poor output. Her surprise had probably kept her from spitting out the truth when they congratulated her on the solution.
By removing the conflicting layers, she'd put the factory back into a better state, improving it by a modest four percent, while the previous tinkering had usually reduced the efficiency. Her decision had confirmed Damon's request to put her into the Coders.
The higher level Coders had been giddy with her success, explaining how she was the best prospect in a decade, while she'd been torn up inside thinking of the workers. If that's what the GSA did to its workers, what did the Southlands do?
So, when Gabby found herself at a similar industrial complex, that knot of regret returned. But Gabby didn't have long to dwell on her remorse for ever supporting the GSA. Damon had brought up a holographic display in the middle of the squad to explain how they would be deployed.
Gabby was hardly paying attention when she realized the line of clouds to the south were in the wrong place. Rolling into the complex was a gloaming fog that didn't match the sparse wispy clouds above. Stricken by their strangeness, Gabby mutely watched as the fog crept closer.
Avony noticed her gaping and spoke up. "Um...Damon."
Damon's red eyes glowered until the rest of the squad noticed the fog. Then he followed their collective gaze.
"Is this the invasion?" Gabby asked.
Damon made a derisive snort. "We'd know if they were invading, Coder DeCorte, so put away your petty fears and concentrate on my instructions. It's not LifeGame anymore." Damon glanced back at the fog, which had covered the southern edge of the complex. "No, this is probably a test. A new weapon perhaps? We'd best be on the ready."
A cold pit formed in Gabby's stomach. Had something changed while he was sent away? Was their deal even valid? Or was Damon just keeping pretenses up for the Coders?
To Gabby's horror, she was placed in a team with Unthar. Damon probably didn't know about the incident at the school, but he knew about Unthar's hatred of her, which made his choice curious.
But when he put Avony in their team, she thought it might have been habit, or he assumed they would be professional and put away their differences on the battlefield. They had worked well together in LifeGame, despite being enemies. Gabby decided to try to work with Unthar, though she wouldn't turn her back on him.
Damon joined them as they ran off toward their objective. When four hovercraft flew overhead towards the fog, Gabby asked, "Why aren't you staying back to direct the aerial support?"
His disappointment came through an appraising squint. "They'll be useless in the fog. I've got them on auto scan, but don't expect useful intel."
Unthar led them on the short run to their rally point, keeping his automatic at the ready. By the time they reached the edge of the warehouse district, the fog had nearly reached them. Its relentless advance made it seem a living thing. Gabby almost expected to see tendrils of fog reach out.
"Full comms," Damon whispered as if the fog could hear them.
Gabby turned on her squad interface, bringing up a cyclone of information around her. Bright shadows in the distance indicated the locations of the other teams, some now reaching the edge of the fog. Statistics rolled through various counters and view screens alternated between squads cameras. Even for a LifeGamer, the information presented was overwhelming. Gabby flicked away a few pieces so she could concentrate.
"What do you think the fog is for?" asked Avony, keeping her voice low like Damon's.
"It's blocking out all the factory cameras. Not even the worker sensors are picking anything up, though they currently don't know anything's going on. The fog makes a great canvas for eye-screens," said Damon.
Unthar started laughing, not bothering to keep quiet. "Who cares what it's hiding. What ever it is will be dead soon." Unthar shook his weapon toward the fog.
Gabby watched the screen hovering on her right that showed the lead team entering the fog. A grayish-whiteness enveloped them. Gabby held her breath as she watched. The forward team had been sent near the busy factories.
"That's strange..." said Damon.
Gabby caught it, too. The environmental statistics were jumping wildly. Whoever was creating the fog, and they assumed it was the Southlands, was attacking the local networks. They might be able to disrupt them some, but the GSA used powerful repeaters so Gabby shouldn't be worried, even though she was.
She stopped watching the numbers bounce around when she caught movement on the forward team's screen. There'd been dark shapes in the fog. The forward team had exercised their impulse control and not fired. Gabby wiped away a bead of sweat from her forehead.
Thoughts of Final Raid and the smoke dragon Asphyxia returned to Gabby. That same creeping unease had settled on her shoulders, though part of her smirked at the irony of her team mates. The flashback wasn't lost on Avony either. She mouthed the word 'Asphyxia' and Gabby nodded.
Unthar glared back at the three of them, watching the forward team. "Let's stop screwing around and get in there. We'll find out what it is for ourselves in no time."
Gabby was about to respond when those dark shapes surged out of the fog at the forward team. Then the screen inexplicably went blank and they heard gunfire in the complex. But not through their implants. The sounds were strangely coming over the buildings as real echoes.
Then piece by piece, the rest of her interface went blank, until only a few empty frames remained.
While they'd been watching, the fog had advanced until it was about to slip past Unthar. Gabby and Avony shared telling glances.
"My whole interface is debuffed..." The words trailed away from Avony's lips as the fog covered them up, flowing past. The mist felt eerily warm, like the hot breath of a living creature. When the fog passed Damon, only his red eyes really showed through and even though Unthar wasn't far ahead, she could barely see him. The fog was thicker than she'd thought it would be.
"I don't like this," said Damon.
Gabby was about to suggest a rapid retreat when the whole world turned to static.
Chapter Three
The static didn't last long, but when it returned, a wave of vertigo buckled her knees. The fog still surrounded her but her interface and squad mates were gone.
The urge to wheel
around and look for them was strong, but Gabby kept her feet planted exactly where they'd been. With the fog blanking out landmarks and her interface gone, if she moved more than a few feet, she'd be lost.
The other fear was that the Southlands had found a way to infiltrate her system and impose their own reality on her. Had it not been for her experience in Double Eagle she might have thought it impossible.
The eye-screens and sense-webs were designed to constantly check back with surroundings and confirm the expectations of reality while the repeaters overwhelmed attempts to circumvent. Obviously, the Southlands had figured a way around those precautions.
Keeping her feet stationary, Gabby glanced around trying to catch a landmark she recognized. To her right, she could see the outline of a building wall, the corner perhaps, but it didn't match her expectations of where it'd been before the static.
Gabby closed her eyes and played back the run in her head, mentally orienting herself. Then she opened her eyes to check the location of the building. As she thought, they'd rotated the world by ninety degrees. A wholesale adjustment was easier than picking and choosing which parts of reality to show.
She closed her eyes again and mentally created her surroundings, bringing back memories of the escape from the Flock. Except this time her opponent wasn't knocked out on the floor. Southlanders were probably moving confidently through the fog, taking captives and dumping them in the back of featureless trucks.
The reason for the fog became abundantly clear as she worked up the nerve to use only her memory to run out of the factory complex. The fog washed away the infinite details of reality and made imposing a false one simpler. Even Damon had said as much when he called the fog a 'great canvas for eye-screens.'
The itch of being watched tickled her shoulder blades, so Gabby turned until she thought she was facing down the empty street, and then she began running, cautiously at first, but when she didn't hit anything, picking up speed.
Gabby had the sensation of movement over her head, goosing her faster. It took all her self control not to break out into a full run, despite her eyes being clamped tight.
Then she crashed into a wall, jamming her arms into her gut and smacking the bricks face first. She might have blacked out, but she wasn't sure since her eyes had been closed when she hit. Her forehead throbbed from the impact.
When she opened her eyes, she found her interface had returned. The edge of the fog lay not but a few dozen yards away, but it wasn't moving any nearer.
On closer inspection, half her interface was blank and the other half was malfunctioning. Attacks on her system flickered up like sparks on her monitor.
Gabby climbed to her feet and for a brief moment, she saw Avony standing in the street, spinning around, lunging her gun out as if she was trying to keep someone at bay. When Avony disappeared, Gabby knew it was a projection, but why she saw her didn't make sense until other people and objects appeared in random places. The war for control of reality garbled the information until it came through as halting snapshots.
Any attempts to contact her squad mates were met with a blank signal. While it appeared she had full awareness of her surroundings, she couldn't reach the other Coders or Cassius, who would be watching the action.
Gabby stared at the fog, willing her teammates to run out. She was free, but her freedom was worthless. If Damon had been captured she would never get a chance to rescue Zaela. Even if this wasn't the beginning of the invasion, Cassius would never allow her to leave the Coders to be a spy. Only Damon would do that and only because her friends held his daughter hostage at the Blood Farm.
After weighing her options, the mist lost its menacing appearance and became almost inviting. Rather than wait to be a spy, why not walk willingly into the Southlanders' arms? Be captured and put to work for their side? It was going to be the winning side by all indications. Maybe she could find Zaela once she was there. Of course, Gabby's status as a Coder probably wouldn't allow her quick integration into their society.
Either way, Gabby needed to go into the mist again: to save Damon and maybe Avony if she could, or to turn herself over to the Southlanders. But if she went in, it would be under their control. Game theory dictated that the advantage went to those who could choose the conditions of the battlefield and even though they were on GSA lands, the Southlands had flipped the advantage. It would do her no good to give the Southlands the advantage by going in willingly.
Crouched in a thinking position, Gabby sprang up when she saw a black shape move along the barrier of the fog. The disc hovered above the buildings, dipping through the billowing edge like a black whale in the sea.
Damon had left the hovercrafts on auto scan to provide aerial support, but the fog had left them almost useless. Gabby brought up a link to her Double Eagle interface. The Coders allowed alternate systems, for both study and missions. Gabby had kept it mostly as a memory of her friends.
A quick dash of code established a connection to the hovercraft sensors through the Double Eagle interface. Gabby attached her screens to those sensors. A hazy whiteness appeared in six different views. Gabby could tell the upward facing sensors by their contrast to the downward ones.
Using a modification of Celia's program she took control of the hovercraft. When it responded to her controls, Gabby breathed a sigh of relief. Routing connections through other systems usually caused issues.
While she waited for the hovercraft to fly back to her location, more fragments of reality from within the fog appeared like brief hallucinations. She kept an eye on the street as she converted the screens into an overlapping view. The hovercraft sensors would replace her eyes and ears.
The hovercraft landed and after tying herself to it in a sitting position, she tested the setup. She switched her eye-screens blank and blocked her sense-webs. Gabby wasn't just riding the hovercraft, she was the hovercraft. Gabby flew up and down the alley before venturing into the fog.
She stayed low, otherwise the mist would block out her vision. She just hoped Damon or Avony hadn't wandered into a building where the craft wouldn't fit.
Deep in the mist, a familiar smell tickled her nose reminding her of lilacs, the welcome smell wafting above the industrial oils and unscrubbed streets. Gabby found it almost luring her forward while the overwhelming whiteness seemed less dense ahead, inviting even.
Gabby shook her head. For a moment, she thought she'd heard her whispered name. Gabby retreated until the claustrophobic fog surrounded her, keeping her vision limited to a meter at best. It took all her self control not to race through the streets away from the presence in the fog, risking a messy impact with a wall since her hovercraft was not made to be a passenger vehicle.
The hovercraft slipped through the streets, silently cruising until Gabby's heart leapt when she came upon a figure in the fog. Multiple figures, in fact, shambling in a drunken walk. The fog parted revealing four factory workers shuffling with their arms outstretched.
They were swallowed back up by the smothering whiteness when she turned down a different street. Gabby thought she'd found a tentacled beast writhing on the ground when she realized it was a group of workers wrestling with a woman. She was putting up a good fight, flailing in all directions and keeping them from getting a hold.
It was Avony. The workers mutely grabbed for Avony's limbs, reacting as if they were moving through molasses. There were six of them and only one skinny blond girl, but she kept them off through sheer determination. Or were the workers drugged?
Then Gabby realized what was going on: the Southlanders hadn't invaded, they had taken control of the worker's systems and were using them to capture her squad. The whole attack could just be to kidnap Coders.
But just like in the factory, they couldn't control the workers, only encourage behavior through visual cues and tactile stimulus. The workers limp grabs reminded Gabby of zombies from shooter games. The analogy was unfortunately too close to reality.
Gabby pushed the hovercraft into the wor
kers, nudging them away from Avony. Her teammate, either through luck or programming skills, began fighting towards the craft.
When she was near enough, Gabby pulled Avony onto the hovercraft, which was tricky given she was viewing herself in the third person, but countless games had given her the tools to adjust her mental processes to compensate.
"Who's there?" asked Avony.
"It's Gabby."
The halo of the sun burned through the fog as she glided toward their original rally point. The outlines of the buildings dialed into focus as the mist dissipated on the northern boundary.
"Figures."
The attack was winding down but Gabby still hadn't found Damon. With Avony clutched in her arms, she flew out of the fog and let her slide off before heading back in search of Damon. Without him, her quest to rescue Zaela was futile.
Two streets down, Gabby thought she saw Unthar hunting through the lingering mists. It didn't appear he still had his weapon. Gabby left him.
Concerned Damon had already been taken, Gabby chanced the Coder interface. Gabby pinged him a few times and was about to give up when a ghostly representation formed in the distance, indicating his direction.
She hoped it wasn't a fragment hallucination, but desperate for a clue, she sent the hovercraft barreling down the streets towards the location, oblivious to the dangers. Gabby skipped the hovercraft off a parked FunCar and ricocheted off a brick wall before returning to her previous speeds.
Damon's image was moving south at a pace that indicated he was not going willingly. Gabby dodged two more vehicles hiding in the fog before deciding to continue following on foot.
After untying herself, Gabby set the hovercraft to trail from behind and above her. The view gave the impression that her body was an avatar rather than the real person and that she was controlling herself in the third person. It was an out of body experience.
With the hovercraft following like a balloon, Gabby continued her pursuit through the streets. When the Damon image blinked out, Gabby started sprinting toward the location, so he didn't get away.
Coders Page 2
