Gabby stood on top of a hill. Wide plains surrounded her. Behind her, nestled in golden fields of grain, waited the wooden white-roofed town.
"I come," said the humming voice from above.
Floating down from the sky was a white winged figure. She was used to strange skins from LifeGame. The kids at school had perfected the art of enhancing their features to make them more interesting or attractive, though always with a twist. Even Avony and the Evil Dolls mocked their inspiration by leaving gaps where joints would be and keeping vacant delirious smiles plastered on their faces.
The winged figure, clearly trying to mimic an angel, flapped its wings gently as it rode a cloud to the hill. Instead of floating all the way to the ground, it stayed aloft, keeping a judgmental distance.
Whoever had designed its skin had tried to make it the most beautiful creature ever seen. Gabby supposed it was male, though it had distinctly feminine features as well, including plumped lips and emaciated cheeks. But the effect that had been repeated at every turn, that more was better, had turned beauty into a horrible disfigurement. The angel was so beautiful it was ugly.
"Kneel." The humming voice reverberated through her head. At least that's one effect they got right. When she didn't move, a painful spasm racked her calf, forcing her to fall to one knee.
"This one calls Gabriella DeCorte, to join the Flock, and be obedient to its needs." The humming voice made her teeth hurt. When she put her hand to her jaw, it reached its hand toward her and she felt a burning sensation along her arm. It disappeared when she put it back.
Gabby glanced to the right expecting to see her LifeGame score. His little speech reminded her of a poorly written immersive. Deciding her best move was to play along, she bowed her head reverently and said, "Thy will is thy command, thy angel!"
A whole body spasm knocked her to the ground. "Do not mock this one! This one knows your thoughts!" The voice was a gale of vibration.
Gabby struggled back to her knees, regretting her choice of words, or at least the tone in which she delivered them. She would have to be more mindful that the neural actuator sewn into her skull could read her emotions.
"My buffest apologies," she said, but this time thought about snowfall at the farmhouse. She recalled a snowball fight that ended in a laughing pile, pink cheeks and cold noses.
"This one hears. Now return to the Flock and know that this one is watching always."
The angel began floating upward, its wings extended in reverent majesty. As it rose, white light surrounded it, until she was blinded. Gabby suppressed the thought of blowing it out of the air with a war game rocket launcher.
Then the lightness subsided and she found herself in a different place. She knelt in the dirt in the middle of the town. The two girls waited by her side with vacant rapturous grins.
"Der angle is glorious, isn't he?" said the first one, a blond girl with her braid hanging over her shoulder.
Gabby nodded in agreement while thinking about the snowball fight. She didn't know if "this one" was listening but she didn't want to test him just yet.
"You have to come with us now. The Flock is gathering for evening meal." It wasn't a request, but a command. Their haughty stares and downcast eyes made Gabby's fist clench. Snowfall. Snowfall.
Gabby followed the two girls who barely checked behind them to make sure she was still there while they talked about some woman named 'Char.' Gabby felt like she was walking in cardboard. She pulled at the stiff material that wound her waist. "Is this thing made with wire and sandpaper?" When the two girls shot her nasty looks, she shut her mouth.
Deciding not to press her luck, she followed dutifully and thought about her encounter with the angel. The whole experience had been completely immersive. Even the falling had been skillfully rendered. Right before she'd hit, she had almost doubted the vision and believed it real.
It was a good trick. It would work on anyone, but she'd played LifeGame. She knew that perception created reality and the eye-screens and sense-webs could simulate just about anything. Within the safe confines of the GSA, the possibilities of LifeGame always seemed limitless, but never malicious. Here amongst the Flock, she could already sense the direction they were trying to take her by changing reality.
Gabby knew in her gut that it would never work. She knew too much about LifeGame and the technology used to create it to believe otherwise. Even if they wanted to turn her world into a smoking ruin, she would know the real world lay underneath and hold fast to that idea.
Her complete surety was wiped away about three steps into the long vaulted mess hall filled with men in white shirts and women in long, brown (and scratchy) dresses like she wore. It wasn't the size of the Flock that damaged her confidence. It was who stood at the front on a raised dais, speaking to the assembled behind a stone pulpit, with a pitch and fury that only a believer could sound.
Chapter Seven
At the end of her time in the GSA, Gabby had uncovered the horrible truth about LifeGame. That the losers weren't sent to lesser jobs, but shipped off to an unknown location, to be killed or held prisoner or some other horrible fate. Gabby hadn't learned which. Her best friend Zaela was one of those people held or dead.
The fate of the losers made LifeGame into a sinister game rather than the beneficial societal force the GSA had made it out to be, but when she'd been living it, she'd never felt manipulated by the reality.
Sure they were constantly assaulted with advertisements and games to be played at every waking moment, but everyone understood the game and if you worked hard, you could succeed. Gabby could have become a Coder if she'd wanted—the very top of the GSA hierarchy.
The Flock was something else entirely. Choice and the perception of reality were only an illusion. She hadn't made it halfway to her table before she knew that completely. There would be no self within the Flock, only acting out someone else's sick fantasy like marionettes on a rotten stage.
She knew this because Milton stood at the head of the congregation. He preached from behind a stone pulpit shaped like a pair of wings. Vernon waited at his side, hands clasped behind his back.
"...and Vernon cast the demon from my body and der Angle cleansed my freed soul..."
Gabby cringed when Milton mimicked the horrible accent of the Flock, but it was also how she knew that it was actually Milton on the stage. She glanced one more time at him before taking her place with the other girls. Milton's eyes burned with a holy fire.
The other girls ignored Gabby as she took her place. With a bowed head, Gabby tried to find Mouse or Michael, but they were nowhere to be seen. When a hand touched hers, Gabby looked up and for a brief instant the girl across from her made a horrible face as if she were being burned alive and then it disappeared behind a pleasant smile, flickering like a stuttered feed. Gabby knew a skin when she saw one, and the Flock's program had hidden the girl's attempt at communication. Gabby shuddered with the implications.
With no sign of Mouse or Michael she focused on Milton. How had they turned him so quickly? It was his voice, but not his words. She'd heard him speaking for a couple of minutes already and not heard one sexual innuendo.
"...righteousness of the living must honor the dead with their sacrifices..."
Sure, they could be feeding him a script. He was probably reading it from his Flock interface, but the passion in his voice disturbed Gabby. She couldn't believe he'd turned into one of them so quickly, but it certainly sounded like it. His voice vibrated with intensity.
"I'm Delilah," said the girl whose face had been hidden by the program. Her hand reached out and they shook. Gabby felt a brief squeeze.
"Gabby," she said simply.
"Isn't the Flock wonderful?" said Delilah. The smile on the girl's face was a bright beacon, while her eyes made pleading intonations. A white scar cut a line through her eyebrow.
"The buffest, sure," said Gabby while continuing to glance around for her other friends.
"—for the love of der Angle!
"
Milton had finished his speech and everyone shouted, "Der Angle!"
When Gabby didn't, a hot jab to the ribs goosed her, so she yelled, "Der Angle!" in the quiet space after. At Neversoft High, that would have brought derisive laughter, but in the Flock, her fellows gave her approving nods and rapturous smiles.
Vernon stepped up and said a prayer to der Angle and waved on servers who'd been waiting at the doorways. The servers wore puke green dresses. Gabby wondered how they decided which color dress to wear.
"The weather der Angle brings us from the plains is glorious, is it not, Sister?" said Delilah.
Gabby nodded, while trying to check out the other tables. Gabby was struck by the ages of the assembled. The tables were filled with kids around her age. Only one in five looked old enough for University. She spied a few adults, typically sitting at the head of the tables.
"Never been better," Gabby mumbled while craning her head.
A girl in puke green dress brought them a bowl of a white creamy substance. As she slopped a mound of it on each plate, the girl would say, "Thank der Angle."
As the server splattered a pile on her plate, Gabby thought she saw Mouse in the next aisle over. She wore a server's dress.
"Aren't the mountains beautiful," said Delilah. "Der Angle made them."
Gabby briefly caught Mouse's eye through the rows of brown dresses. They shared a nod. Gabby turned back around before anyone noticed. Snowfall. Snowfall.
As she remembered the snowball fight to hide her thoughts, she realized what Delilah had said.
"Yes," said Gabby, locking gazes with her. "The mountains are beautiful."
Delilah nodded almost imperceptibly. She'd been asking where Gabby had come from and she'd almost missed it
"Do you like the mountains or the plains better?" Gabby asked.
"Der Angle made them all equally beautiful, but I like the plains." Delilah nodded in a southeasterly direction.
The girl had come from the plains. She was a Freelander. Gabby wished they could talk freely, she had so much to ask her. Maybe she would know how to get to Double Eagle lands. But that wouldn't do her any good if she was stuck in the Flock. Now that she knew where Milton and Mouse were, she had to find Michael and then figure out a way to escape.
They ate in silence for the rest of the meal. Gabby tried to think up clever benign questions that would hide her true purpose, but she couldn't manage to think of even one. A cutting barb to skewer one of the Evil Dolls, sure, she could think up a hundred in half a sec, but nothing to transmit knowledge covertly. She needed Avony's OOC program, but it wasn't compatible with the Flock and Gabby didn't have a copy anyway. That'd been lost with LifeGame.
When a cold foot touched her leg, Gabby jumped in her spot.
"Did der Angle touch you, Sister?" The girl next to her was speaking. She had a crooked nose and a missing tooth on the bottom row. Despite the creepiness of the girl's words, she said them with an honest fervor.
Gabby put her hand over her chest. "Only in my heart." Snowfall. Snowfall.
"Pity," the crooked-tooth girl continued, "for if der Angle touches you in this primary reality, it means he wants you to become his charwoman."
"Silence, fool," said the girl with the blond braid, "she's not to know the mysteries yet. She only submitted to der Angle today."
The crooked nose girl made a face which got painted over by the Flock's program. Something Gabby wasn't meant to see. The other girls went back to ignoring her, all of them except for Delilah.
This time when Delilah's foot touched hers, she didn't jump. Delilah tapped a pattern on Gabby's leg, alternating randomly between touching her with a toe and the whole foot. Gabby couldn't figure out what she was doing until she recognized the rhythm. Delilah was using Morse code and repeating the same word. The toe was the short code and the foot was the long code.
Short-Short-Short-Short. That was an 'H'.
The other girls were busy chatting loudly about der Angle and how they hoped to become charwoman. One girl squealed so loudly Gabby thought a pack of dogs would burst into the room at any moment. They reminded Gabby of the groupies that couldn't get in their own cliques back in Neversoft High. Instead, they idolized the groups like the Evil Dolls, talking about their exploits as if they were their own.
Gabby tuned them out and nodded to let Delilah know to keep going. She'd learned Morse to program their encrypted messages when transmitting over the GSA networks, but had never used it.
After a pause. Short. That one was easy. The 'E' was the most common letter in the alphabet so it was given the quickest code.
Short-Long-Short-Short. An 'L'. And then Delilah repeated the 'L'.
Gabby thought she was spelling 'HELL,' which would have been appropriate, but then she added a last letter.
Long-Long-Long. 'O' for 'HELLO'.
Gabby smiled and tapped the word back on Delilah's leg. With the greeting out of the way, Delilah started tapping a new word. She got as far as 'ESCA' when the assembly rose to leave.
They walked out in single file lines, so Gabby was separated from Delilah. In a sea of brown dresses she couldn't tell which one was Delilah once they'd left the mess hall. Mouse and Milton had been led different directions.
Gabby's line was led to a building. Rounded metal boxes sat on different desks next to piles of cloth. Gabby recognized them as sewing machines from a book she'd read in the library. Each girl sat at a corresponding sewing machine and set to work immediately.
Trying to blend in, Gabby made an attempt to follow the example of the other girls. Each girl pumped a heavy iron peddle with her foot, making the wheel spin which drove the head where the thread was punched into the cloth.
Gabby had the wheel spinning vigorously when a matronly voice assaulted her ears.
"No permission was given, girl. Have you been trained? I think not. You will not move unless I give the command. Have I commanded? Now stop that wheel!"
Gabby placed her hands against her ears trying to stop the volume, but the gesture was futile. The other girls giggled at her expense. Maybe this is like high school after all.
"I am your teacher, your watcher, your general of the sewing machine," the voice continued, and Gabby could believe the woman was a general by her authoritative tenor. "You will do what I say, when I say it, and exactly as I say it!"
Gabby thought about knocking the sewing machine to the floor. A bright ball of pain seared her hand. Gabby yelped and rubbed her palm. She cautiously looked at it to make sure it hadn't been burnt. The skin was undamaged.
"Keep that as a reminder! I tasted your defiance. That is my last warning."
The other girls giggled again.
Snowfall. Snowfall.
The voice, which Gabby began thinking of as General Matron, began giving her instructions. Gabby kept her defiance buried and followed as she could. At times, Gabby made mistakes and when she did, General Matron would berate her and if the mistake was egregious enough, her hand felt the singe of burning.
Gabby worked tirelessly the rest of the day, until a signal was given and they shambled back to the mess hall for dinner well after the sun had set. Gabby barely ate, since her hands were clenched into fists. Delilah's group came late, so they barely had time to say but a few words.
At this meal, Daniel gave a fiery speech. He didn't appear to be the same boy she'd met before and when he was done, he returned to a small table headed by Vernon. Milton sat at that table.
After dinner, they were led to their sleeping quarters. Despite her exhaustion, Gabby couldn't sleep on the wooden cot with a thin mattress. Her thoughts rounded on their predicament. The Flock had complete control of her system and no matter how she tried she couldn't think of a way they would be able to escape without being caught. She didn't even know where Michael was being kept.
Gabby wallowed in a moment of despair. They slept in their brown, scratchy dresses. It'd rubbed her waist raw, but her hands ached too much to adjust the dress. G
abby was about to scream when she noticed a flicker of movement on her fourth button.
Moonlight shown through the windows, so the cabin wasn't completely dark. Gabby pressed her fingers against her eyes and then opened them wide. Resting on her brown button like a giant mushroom was a little mechanical bug. Celia.
"Thank you," she whispered to the bug. The despair faded away. Celia and Drogan were still alive. With them on the outside, they still had a chance to escape.
The mechanical bug waved its wingtip and then fluttered into the air. Gabby lost sight of it soon after. After that, she slept soundly.
Chapter Eight
A routine snapped into place, easier than Gabby would have liked to admit, but it was hard to do otherwise when even thinking the wrong way resulted in immediate punishment. Gabby found herself thinking about snowfall more often during her sewing sessions with General Matron.
Gabby had determined the General Matron was a learning program injected with the ethos of the Flock, but that didn't keep her from hating it any less. Gabby imagined the General Matron as a big breasted woman, thick and wide, with a stiff rod in her hand. It was the rod she felt most often when she made mistakes.
Her mealtime discussions with Delilah had stalled. They could only fit in a few dozen words each time, but it didn't matter since their conversation had run aground.
Tap. Tap. Tap. 'Wagon?'
It was the second time Delilah had brought up the wagon. The goods the Flock made were shipped out every couple of days on a horse-drawn wagon. Even if they hid in the wagon, the Flock would find them, because the location tracking in their systems.
Delilah had mentioned destroying their systems, but Gabby couldn't do it. The GSA had made them redundant and virtually impossible to remove. She could destroy one piece, but the others would carry on the Flock's program and she didn’t even know where they all were. She knew she had two small boxes imbedded under her arm and one on her hip, but that was it. And it wouldn't help anyway, because Gabby needed her system to rescue Zaela. Besides, not having access to the augmented world gave her the shudders.
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