by Ian Whates
Malcolm came over to join him. Philip's education was set to continue even into the evening, it seemed. He felt obliged to question the process. "Couldn't this information simply be uploaded into me?"
"It could," Malcolm acknowledged, "but where would the fun be in that?"
Philip tried to recall if Malcolm had been this capricious before he died, but didn't think so.
"Yes, information can be supplied that way, but cold facts taken out of context are no substitute for those learned by experience," Malcolm explained. "Trust me, I've tried both methods and my way's better."
"Fair enough." Not that Philip was entirely convinced by his father's argument. He suspected the real reason for the hands-on approach was that his old man was actually enjoying the role of teacher.
"There are basically two types of citizen in Virtuality," Malcolm explained, "avatars and partials. The avatars are ephemeral, only here for as long as the corporeals who generate them are plugged in, whereas the partials are permanent residents. The majority you'll encounter here will be avatars, since partials are limited in many ways and generally slaved to specific tasks, but it would be a mistake to assume you're always dealing with an avatar.
"And then there's us.
"The avatars are the ones you have to watch for, especially the kids. To them this is a playground, a wonderland where anything's possible and nothing really counts. They see Virtuality as a version of the 'real' world but with the safety catches removed, somewhere they can get as wild and reckless as they like without the responsibilities and consequences that would normally apply. There are areas here best avoided, dangerous places where the kids let loose, where they try the things they'd never dare to do on the outside."
"How do you tell the difference between an avatar and a partial?"
"Attitude, mainly. The partials don't want to be damaged, the avatars don't care. That's a sweeping generalisation, but you'll find it holds true more often than not. Besides, partials don't tend to have fully rounded personalities. More often they're two- or even one-dimensional, depending on how much money's been invested and how much care has gone into their making. After chatting to one for a while you'll soon realise this isn't a whole persona you're dealing with."
"Avatars can't be hurt, then?" Philip said.
"Oh, they can feel pain all right, or rather the corporeal animating them can. Remember when you were at the Death Wish, you picked up a beer? You could feel the glass, right?"
"Yes."
"Same thing with pain; sensations are transmitted, but an avatar has an easy cop-out. He or she can simply disappear any time they want, stepping out of Virtuality and returning to the real world. Shoot an avatar and it vanishes. You've kicked it out of Virtuality, forcing its corp to reboot in order to come back and even then there'll be limits as to where the avatar can resume. Shoot a partial and you'll damage it, maybe enough that it has to go off and repair itself, maybe to the point where it can't be repaired and a new partial has to be uploaded."
"Shoot either of us..." Philip said.
"Exactly. Nothing left to upload. We're it. Shoot us often enough and accurately enough and we're dead."
Now there was a sobering thought.
"Don't get me wrong, a partial is a lot more difficult to damage than an avatar. After all, an avatar is just a quick imprint, not as deeply embedded in the programming. By the time I've finished with you, you'll be a lot more resilient than your average partial. It's not all doom and gloom."
"So we're tougher than the avatars but at the same time more vulnerable, because we have a lot more to lose."
"Now you're getting the hang of it."
Philip was forced to continually revise his perception of this place, expanding it to encompass each new gem of information Malcolm chose to reveal. He was desperate to learn all there was to know about this new existence, to familiarise himself with its limits and potential. "I want to see," he said.
"See what?"
"Everything, starting with one of these dangerous places, the ones where the kids go wild."
Malcolm looked at him for a moment, as if assessing how serious he was, and then said, "All right, if that's what you want. A club, I think. I'll take you to Bubbles."
The thud of music struck him as soon as the doors parted. He expected pulsing lights but there weren't any, just a dim grey dinginess. They stood on a balcony - mesh flooring and metal rails which would have been more at home on a construction site than in a club.
A doll-cute blonde with raggedly chopped hair and vivid blue eyes framed by black eyeliner glanced up from where she leant against the railing and smiled at him, all invitation and provocation. He had time to wonder if she was this eye-catching in reality before Malcolm strode confidently past him. Philip tore his gaze away from the girl and followed. They walked along a narrow corridor, walls, floor and ceiling lined with steel mesh - a square cage tunnel. They emerged onto a terrace packed with people, and had to force their way through to reach a marginally less crowded space.
Dull golden spheres - small enough to fit into the palm of his hand - floated in the air, not in dense clouds, just dotted around in ones and twos, but they were everywhere, occupying the few spaces that people weren't. The balls were semi-transparent and reminded Philip of miniature balloons, though each was a perfect sphere, so, more appropriately, he should probably think 'bubble.' A neat gimmick. Philip casually warded one off with a hand as it drifted between him and Malcolm. It promptly burst and rewarded him with a flash of kaleidoscope fireworks. Another brushed his shoulder. No fireworks this time, but he felt a surge of euphoria sweep through his thoughts as the bauble disintegrated.
"What the f - ?"
Malcolm laughed. "Welcome to Bubbles."
Philip looked around and, now that he knew what to look for, could see the tiny globes disappearing in all directions as they came into contact with people. He didn't see flashes or fireworks any more than he felt the kick of pleasure, but guessed that each was delivering a shot of something to whoever it touched, and there were always more to replace the ones that burst, with no apparent end to the supply of little golden spheres.
"It's like free narcotics," he said, as another bubble-rush of happiness surged through him.
"I know, and not even on tap but floating around in the very air!"
Nodes of temporary code, Philip guessed, each primed to give a short term boost to specific areas of programming. Two or three varieties, constantly replicated - you wouldn't need any more. Ingenious. Philip had to admit that he was impressed.
A statuesque girl in a shimmering, figure-hugging dress, her bright red hair swept to one side so that it fell onto her right shoulder in a tumble of ringlets, caught his eye. She winked at him and, in doing so, changed - abruptly, as if a switch had been thrown - into a man wearing a shimmering vest, red hair combed into a lopsided peak above his right eye. In a split second he had become she again and then back, constantly flickering from one gender to the other. Philip smiled at her/him and nodded in appreciation at this novel approach to transgender. Only then did he worry that his response might be construed as an invitation. Very deliberately, he looked away, shifting his attention to take in the rest of the room.
Beneath him was the dance floor, where a horde of youthful forms gyrated to the bass-rich music. Wall panels pulsed in time, though never straying from the silver, black and grey that characterised the club's décor, contributing to the grungy, edgy feel.
Philip had yet to see anything here that merited Malcolm's ominous description of the place as 'dangerous, where the kids let loose.' Maybe it was a generational thing. Easy to forget sometimes that he and Malcolm had grown up in very different eras. All Philip could see down there were people having fun.
"Shall we go down?" he said to his father.
"If we must."
They headed for the stairway.
Philip felt himself swaying to the mesmeric beat, itching to hit the dance floor. When was the last time
he'd had the chance to dance? He couldn't remember; not recently at any rate, and now seemed the perfect opportunity to make up for lost time. With all due respect to Malcolm, his vote was with the kids.
In the very centre of the room stood the source of the bubbles, an opaque column of light stretching from a low plinth on the floor to the ceiling. It contained a core of what looked to be thick, swirling smoke, which was spinning like a dervish - a tamed whirlwind struggling to burst from its confinement. The core was laced with silver flecks that flashed and winked and dazzled as they reflected and magnified the surrounding light. A stream of bubbles erupted from near the top of the column, flung out by its spinning to float across the room in a dispersing cloud.
They were halfway down the stairs when he felt Malcolm's hand on his shoulder. He leaned in close so that Philip could hear him above the music and warned, "Watch out for the black ones."
Philip laughed. "Why, what do they do?"
"They kill you."
Philip stopped and stared at the older Kaufman. "You're serious, aren't you?"
Before Malcolm had a chance to answer, things changed on the dance floor. The music stopped, cutting off in the mid-beat, leaving Philip's ears buzzing in its absence even after so short a time here. Everyone drew back from an abruptly isolated figure, like oil chased across the surface of water by a drop of soap. The figure, a willowy, dark-haired girl, stood encased in a block of light, which resembled a miniature version of the central column.
A man's voice boomed out across the suddenly music-free room. "We have a winner!"
All eyes were focused on the girl. People were whooping and cheering. Hands began to clap, picking up a constant rhythm.
"What's it to be, folks?" the amplified voice asked. "Remember, you decide."
"Fire, fire, fire..." Initially a few voices and then more and more picked up the chant, until the whole room was calling out the word in time to the clapping hands.
Inside her column of light the girl laughed, shook her hair, and lifted back her head to stare at the ceiling, as if waiting to receive some divine revelation.
"All right, I hear you," the voice declared. "You want fire? Let there be fire!"
A roar of approval rose from the crowd, many of whom started jumping up and down in their excitement. The rhythm of clapping faltered and collapsed into a rolling rumble of applause.
The girl abruptly screamed, her high-pitched agony cutting through the ambient noise, which dipped temporarily in response. Flames sprouted near her ankles, climbing and licking at her legs, tongues of blue radiance that quickly took hold. Her skin blistered and withered away at their touch. "Yes, oh God, yes!" she screamed in a semblance of ecstasy as the flames became a conflagration.
The cheering rose in renewed crescendo as those watching went wild, becoming a flailing, jostling mass of arms and kicking legs. The girl was now a pillar of flame, blazing brightly for a few seconds before collapsing to sputter and fade. With her demise the column of light disappeared and the music swelled up again, to drown out the sounds of celebration. The dancing resumed, if anything even more energetically than before, and the sea of people spread out to cover the spot where the girl had died, for all the world as if she had never been there at all.
Philip glanced at Malcolm. "A black bubble, I take it."
His father nodded, looking as shaken as Philip felt, and presumably he'd known what was coming. Philip turned and continued down the steps.
"You're not still going down there?" Malcolm called from behind him.
"Hell, yes!"
He understood. Even though his motivation was a little different, he knew why the kids did this. They wanted to play with the devil and court the ultimate danger, if only by proxy. They sought a taste of what it might be like to die, whereas he and death were already acquainted. They were there for the kick, the buzz, the thrill, while he merely wished to prove to himself that he wasn't afraid, that he could stare into the abyss without turning tail and running.
Malcolm hung back by the stairs. Philip didn't care. This was no longer about what his father could show him, but was one aspect of this new life that he preferred to embrace on his own.
He moved to the edge of the throng and danced. Nobody minded. There was no sense of proprietary resentment over floor space or dance partners. While a few couples had obviously paired off here and there, most people were dancing with anyone and everyone. He even began to enjoy the music, feeling himself relax and knowing that his dancing improved as a result.
Then he realised that somebody was dancing with him, or perhaps even at him. He gazed into piercing, black-rimmed eyes that looked up at him from beneath a shaggy fringe of blonde hair, and instantly recognised her as the girl who had been on the gantry as he and Malcolm first entered. She must have followed them.
She was shorter than him, barely reaching his chest, but perfectly formed, with a slender waist and gravity-defying bosom which her low-cut top made impossible to ignore. And, God, could she move.
Nobody here was ugly. The men either tended towards tall, muscular and media-gloss handsome or dark, brooding and dangerous, whereas any of the women could easily have featured in the various sexual fantasies he'd entertained over the years, but even in this company the girl stood out.
Philip noted the glances and outright stares of the men around them, and a good few of the women as well. There was something primitive and dirty in the thrust of her hip, the tilt of her head, the way her eyes never left his as she performed in front of him; and this was a performance, he was under no illusion about that, one which captivated him entirely. The woman simply oozed sex appeal in a way that no one he'd ever met in the real world had. That was it, of course. He wondered again whether she looked or behaved anything like this in reality, picturing a mouse-timid girl too shy to interact with boys, someone who could escape here and live out all the suppressed fantasies she was too insecure to act upon in the real world. The image was swept away and forgotten as the girl raised her arms, clasping her hands behind her head, jiggling her upper body rhythmically, hips swaying in counterpoint as she slowly turned around to rub against him. Then she had her back to him, her buttocks grinding into his thigh. Philip's hands moved almost of their own accord, reaching forward to grasp her hips, feeling her warmth, her movement, as he attempted to match her rhythm but instantly abandoned the idea, having failed dismally. His body reacted to this attention exactly as it would have done in the real world, and her smile as she drew away and spun back to face him suggested that she had felt his burgeoning erection rub against the top of her buttocks even as he had, and that this was exactly the effect she'd intended.
Philip felt a surge of lust course through him and knew that before the night was out he was going to fuck this woman. He had to have her. Even as reason receded, an analytical corner of his mind still functioned and that part couldn't wait to find out what sex here was like.
Only afterwards did he stop to wonder whether this aggressive surge of lust was entirely due to the girl - although he certainly wouldn't have ruled that out - or whether an unseen golden bubble had burst and delivered a jolt of stimulant programming.
He would never know.
In the club's dim lighting, the black bubbles were more difficult to spot than the golden ones. Philip only saw the one that struck his new friend the instant before it dipped down to burst on her head.
The music stopped instantly, as a cubicle column of light enveloped the girl.
Philip's heart sank. People were already drawing back and the clapping had begun.
"And we have another winner!" the voice boomed out. "What's it to be this time, folks?"
For a fleeting instant the girl's eyes sought his and he thought he saw in them frustration and disappointment, as if this was the last thing she'd wanted to happen, but then she spread her arms and thrust her chest forward, craning her neck and staring upward, lost in the moment, or perhaps the part.
"Slice, slice, slice..." the
crowd chanted in time to the steady hand clapping.
"Okay, okay, I get the message. Here at Bubbles we always give you what you want." Someone grabbed Philip by the arm, pulling at him. Malcolm. He shuffled backwards as directed.
"You want her sliced and diced, cut into wafer-thin ribbons, then so be it. Let the slicing begin!"
The crowd roared, the girl screamed - and now there was no question of her acting. A dozen toothed discs appeared in the air around her, circular saws supported by nothing obvious. They immediately became blurs of motion as they spun and converged on the girl, slicing across and around and up and down like some lethal mechanised production line gone rogue. Again the crowd went mad, closing in on the block of light even before it had faded and the girl's dismembered parts had finished falling to the floor. The music thumped out louder than ever and the crowd stamped and leapt and whooped like a mob of savages.
In a sense, that's precisely what they were, Philip realised. Savages. People robbed of constraint, reverting to something more primal and basic. Of the girl's remains there was no sign; no blood, no slippery gore to make footing treacherous for the dancers, who simply tramped and hoofed and cavorted over the spot where she'd been.
"Are you all right?" Malcolm asked.
"Yes, I'm fine," Philip assured him. She wasn't dead, he kept telling himself, just returned to the real world a little earlier than intended. As he gazed around the room, no longer feeling anything in common with these revellers, he noticed something. Built into the far wall beyond the central column of swirling smoke and light was a digital display, a clock which seemed to be running backwards. Currently it showed a little over three and a half hours.
"What's that?" he asked Malcolm.
"The countdown to night's end. When all the bubbles turn black."
Philip stared at him. "All of them?"
His father nodded. "Every night at Bubbles ends with a bang, though not of the kind you were hoping for."
This was what they were here for, all these kids, not merely to tempt fate as he'd assumed but to actually feel the Reaper's touch. Philip shook his head.
