by M. R. Forbes
Prithi wrapped her arms around Dannie, trying to squeeze the life out of her while she cried. “You’re alive,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”
“Pissy?” Amos said. “What the fuck are you doing here? And what’s with the name change?”
Prithi backed up, looking Dannie over. Then she shifted, and without warning cracked her open palm across my face.
“You son of a bitch,” she said at the same time my head snapped to the side, and a burning sensation rose from my cheek. Before I could recover, she had her arms around me, too. “Oh, Conor, I’m sorry. I’m happy to see you.”
“Could have fooled me,” I said.
She pulled away from the embrace, pointing at Dannie. “Is that? Is she really?”
“Yes. And yes.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Dannie said. “Who are you?”
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Amos said. “Where’s my camera?” He started digging in his trenchcoat.
“Dannie, meet Prithi Sharma. You know her from the Machine.”
“Azeban,” Prithi said, putting out her hand.
Dannie’s face immediately turned beet red.
“There it is,” Amos said, laughing. “Oh Baldie, this is so worth the price of admission.”
“You’re Azeban?” Dannie said. “I. Uh.” She paused. “Okay. Fuck it. Why not? What happens in the Machine stays in the Machine, right?”
“It doesn’t have to,” Prithi said.
“So,” I said, hurrying to change the subject. “I second Amos’ question. What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were hanging with Death.”
“Which is the reason I slapped you. That guy scared the shit out of me. Anyway, he was going to drop me back in Vegas, but I told him I didn’t want to go back to Vegas, or anywhere else where some other random creep might pick me up. He brought me here, instead.”
“Where some random creep came to pick you up,” I said. “Only I’m not random.”
“You’re not a creep, either,” Prithi said. “Creepy? Yes. Creep? No. What are you all doing here? You’ve got the whole entourage.” She noticed my hand, or lack thereof. “Oh, shit. What happened?”
“Where was Death keeping you, North Korea?” Amos said. “Newsflash, there’s an ancient lich on the loose, and he’s got designs on ending, well, pretty much everything.”
“And I’m the only one who can stop him,” I said. “Lucky me. He was the one who did this.” I held up my stump.
“I’m sure Mr. Yellow can heal that, or at the very least get you a replacement.”
“No time,” I said. “Besides, missing body parts makes my mojo stronger.”
“You should cut your balls off, Baldie,” Amos said. “It ain’t like you need them.”
I ignored him. “What we need right now is to get into the machine. Tarakona had his hoard there, and in the hoard is a spell that will let me open a portal to the underworld.”
“Seriously?” Prithi said.
“I kid you not,” I replied. “By the way, you remember Ashiira, right?”
I motioned to him. Prithi gave him the once over. “Aren’t you supposed to be a dragon?”
“It’s a spell,” he replied.
“Dragon?” Cecil said. “I think I missed something.”
“Welcome to the club,” Frank said. “Happens to me all the time. I’ve learned to just roll with it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“If I weren’t gay,” Prithi said. “Anyway, I can hook you up. Literally.” She laughed like a nerd and backed toward the rigs.
“What about Myra?” I asked.
“What about her?”
“She thinks you’re dead.”
Prithi shrugged. “It wasn’t working out anyway. She’s afraid of everything.”
“Says the girl who wet herself the first time she rode in a car with me,” Amos said.
“Shut up,” Prithi said.
“Wow. Strong words. I think I might piss myself.”
“Amos,” I said, glaring back at him. He laughed. “I heard you can hook us up with cheats.”
“Are you kidding?” Prithi said. She looked back at Danelle. “Does he even know what cheats are?”
“He didn’t until two minutes ago.”
“I figured as much. He’s been terrified of the Machine since, well, uh-”
“I’m here, now,” Dannie said. “It all ended well, right?”
“I don’t know, will it?”
Prithi winked at her, and the two of them stared at one another for a moment.
“Man, you could melt steel with those eyes,” Amos said. “I didn’t think you were into that, Dan-o.”
“I was dead,” Dannie replied. “After that, I’m open to pretty much anything.”
“Oookay,” Amos said. “I never thought I’d be the one to say this but, moving on.”
“Right,” Prithi said, looking back at me. “Cheats. I can load a few in for you. I hope you won’t need them. If Aldus notices you’re cheating, you’re liable to get banned, or at the very least he’ll have some fun with you..”
“As long as I don’t get banned until after I get what I need, I’m fine with that,” I said. “Every time I go into the Machine I hope it’s the last.”
“I feel the same way about Olive Garden,” Frank said.
“When you say have some fun, do you mean make being in the Machine miserable?” Dannie asked.
“Pretty much,” Prithi replied. “Which cheats do you want?”
“You’re the one who’s into this shit,” I said. “You pick them.”
“Okay. Why don’t you all have a seat?”
“I think I’m going to wait here,” Amos said. “Claustrophobic and all that.”
“Me too,” Frank said. “The last time I was in the Machine I promised myself it would be the last time I was in the Machine. Too fake for me. Give me a nice cold beer right here in the real world any day.”
“Amen to that,” Amos said. “Hey Pissy, do you have any brew in this joint?”
“Can you let her help us get this show on the road first?” I asked.
“Oh. Yeah, sure Baldie.”
“Conor, why don’t you sit here.” She pointed at a rig at the front, a fancy thing that looked like an upgrade from the last fancy thing. Whatever, they were all the same to me. “Dannie, you can sit here. This is my personal rig.”
“Thank you,” Dannie said, swinging around to it.
“Your personal rig?” I asked. “You’ve only been here a few days.”
“And made herself right at home,” Cecil said. “I like your upholstery choice. Is that real leather?”
Prithi patted the seat of the contraption. “They call it vegan leather.”
“What the fuck?” Amos said. “It’s either leather or it ain’t.”
Dannie sat back in the chair, letting Prithi strap her in. Their eyes lingered on one another. Prithi was approaching lustful. Dannie was spilling out a mixture of curiosity and general sensuality.
I made sure to groan as Prithi circled back to me, getting me stabilized in the rig.
“You used to be shy,” I said.
“And then I met you,” Prithi replied. “Seeing what can happen to you once you die really forces you to reflect on how you live.”
“And the conclusion you came to was to have more sex?”
“Shut up.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t speak another word. Prithi retreated to the front of the room, while Frank and Amos lingered near the back. I glanced over at Dannie, who made quick, defiant eye contact before grabbing her helmet and pulling it down over her head. I did the same a moment later, leaving myself in the Machine’s immediate darkness.
“Here we go,” Pritihi said, starting the inception sequence that would carry our minds into the VR construct. “It’ll take a few minutes once you’re in to get the cheats loaded. Try to stay out of trouble for that long, mmkay?”
“You know us,” I said.
&nb
sp; “That’s why I warned you.”
“Let’s just get this over with.”
A tingling sensation started working its way down my spine, provided by the magic embedded in the helmets used to enter the Machine. I didn’t feel the same sudden spike of fear the Machine usually elicited, and I wondered if it was because Dannie was going in with me. I had a chance to do this with her again, and I was going to be as careful as I could not to fuck it up.
“Starting transfer,” Prithi said. “In five… four… three… two… one…”
13
Ghosts in the Machine.
“Interesting,” Ashiira said.
I looked at him. I had been wondering what the Machine would do to him, too. I wasn’t even sure if a dragon could play in the Machine.
Apparently, one could if they were so inclined.
Of course, his avatar was closer to a humanoid version of his real self than the rock-star hunk that was resting in a rig back in the real world. It wasn’t that the Machine made him that way. Prithi was having some weird fun with him. Or maybe it was some kind of lesbian jealousy bullshit? Dannie seemed to be going both ways since her return from the dead, and I could only hope it was a side-effect of being ripped back from the beyond and the whole overactive libido thing would wear off.
Now couldn’t be too soon.
“It’s an avatar,” Dannie said. “A digital representation.”
“It makes me feel self-conscious,” Ashiira said. “Exposed.”
“That’s because you don’t have any clothes on,” I said. “Prithi, can you hear me?”
“I’m right here,” she replied. Sort of. She had entered the Machine in her Azeban avatar.
“I thought you were keeping an eye on things outside?” I said.
“Cecil’s got it. I thought you might need me in here.”
She snapped her fingers, and Ashiira was suddenly wearing a tuxedo over his reptilian scales. His wings extended from cutouts in the back. It was the top hat that made him look ridiculous.
“Much better,” I said, shaking my head.
“It isn’t the clothes,” Ashiira said. “I don’t typically wear clothes. The magic that brought us to this place? I don’t like it.”
“I can kick you out,” Prithi said. “You can wait with Frank and Amos.”
He didn’t seem too eager to do that, either. “I will deal with it for now.”
“Okay. Just let me know if you need the boot.”
“So,” I said. “Tarakona’s hoard? Since you decided to join us, you get the honor of being our guide.”
“Fair enough,” Prithi replied. “All of the Houses keep their stashes in the same place, called the Bank. It makes it more secure for all of them because the Banker has a lot of incentive not to fuck anything up.”
“The Bank?” I said. It was deja vu all over again. “How is the Bank different from the Vault?”
“How is a latte different from a cappuccino?”
That was her answer? “Enlighten me.”
“The Vault holds digitized magic. The Bank holds more mundane stuff.”
I still didn’t get what that had to do with coffee drinks, but I wasn’t about to keep heading down that path. “Like ancient, super powerful spells?”
“Apparently.”
“Is the Banker automated or a Machine user?”
“A little bit of both. Aldus has written code for the Bank, too.”
“Of course he has. How do we get there?”
“That’s the fun part. The Bank isn’t just there, somewhere.” She waved her hands around the open expanse of nothing we had entered into.
I hadn’t noticed it before she did that, and it made me feel a little disoriented. Usually, we plopped down in a city or a building, or somewhere that had other users nearby. Not so this time.
“So where is it?” I asked, feeling a little nauseous.
“Unless you’re a House Messenger, it’s nowhere.”
“I think I did this quest already.”
“We need to find a House Messenger?” Ashiira asked.
“Now you’re getting it.” Prithi-as-Azeban smiled. “This is going to be fun.”
“I fucking hate the Machine,” I said. “You do realize there’s an ancient evil bastard out there who wants to convert every living being on Earth into an undead zombie?”
Prithi’s smile vanished. “Way to kill the mood, Conor.”
“Fuck the mood,” I said. “At least put us somewhere with buildings or people or something. It’s creepy out here.”
I didn’t like being in here. I didn’t like the emptiness. I didn’t like the whole damn thing. I wanted out of it. All of it. Because it had never been fun, and it sure as hell wasn’t fun now.
She snapped her fingers again. The world shifted around us, putting us in the middle of what appeared to be a slum of some kind. Dilapidated buildings, graffiti, winos, bums. The whole deal.
“Oh, this is much better,” I deadpanned.
“The Machine runs on data, Conor,” Prithi said. “Information. Whether you’re talking about a simple cheat or you’re trying to find a Messenger.”
“And someone who works for the Houses is going to be hiding wherever this is?”
“Conor,” Dannie said. “Are you being intentionally obtuse? House Messengers don’t go around broadcasting who they are, that would get them hacked in about half a second. But people in the Machine know people in the Machine, and that’s how you find out who’s who.”
“And I happen to know a lot of people in the Machine,” Prithi said. “So chill.”
I stared at Prithi. Who was this person, and what had Death done with the real Prithi Sharma?
“Okay,” I said, giving in. Why was I so eager to march to my death, anyway? “Who are we here to see?”
“A Dealer named Ralphie,” Prithi said.
“Dealer? Like drugs?”
Dannie sighed. “Not drugs. Code. Hacks. Cheats. Mods.”
“I thought mods were legal?”
“Most of them are. Not all.”
“Okay. Why would a Dealer know a Messenger? Can’t the Houses get whatever they want?”
“Not at all,” Dannie said. “This is Aldus’ House, and he runs the show here. No special treatment. The Houses have what they have here because they have money, not magic.”
“Now you’re starting to make sense. Hey, Ash, didn’t your father have a Messenger? Maybe we can skip all of this cheap direct-to-streaming stuff.”
“If he used the Bank, he had a Messenger,” Prithi said. “But more likely he used a freelancer. A Ghost.”
“His memories are too generic for me to pinpoint a specific person,” Ashiira said. “And he was only starting to teach me how to run the House. I’m sorry, brother.”
“I figured it was worth asking.” I looked at Prithi. “Lead on.”
“Conor, you come with me,” Prithi said. “Dannie, you and Ash can wait here.”
“Why?” Dannie asked.
“We don’t want to spook Ralphie. He’s a little nervous, for obvious reasons.”
“If Aldus catches him, he’ll get banned?” I guessed.
“For life.”
“And in this nerd-world, that’s a fate worse than death, right?”
“For those of us who don’t know Death personally.”
I smiled. “Right.”
I followed Prithi away from Dannie and Ashiira, along a deserted street and around the corner until they were out of sight. As soon as they were, Prithi looked over at me.
“What’s the deal with Dannie and your dragon friend?” she asked.
“Seriously? You have to ask me about that now?”
“Come on, Conor. I’m helping you out.”
“Is this the only reason? Did we even need to leave them behind?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Look, Dannie’s been through a lot. She was dead. Now she’s not. I think her body’s still a little hyped up.”
&
nbsp; “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s been acting like a kid in a candy store when it comes to anything even remotely sexual. She’s making eyes at you now, but don’t get your hopes up. Once she settles into being alive a little more, she might not feel the same way.”
Prithi’s avatar’s face fell. “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense, I guess.”
“I don’t think she’s going to keep treating Ashiira like a piece of meat, either. At least, I hope not. I’m the one looking at trying to use a spell to kill Samedi, and everyone around me seems to be focused on everything that isn’t that. Look at me.” I held up my hand, trying to make a point. Both hands were whole and healthy here. I put it down again. “Do you think I like being Michael Jackson, only with a blank space instead of a fucking glove?”
“I’m sorry, Conor,” Prithi said. “Hanging out with Death wasn’t exactly fun for me, either. I didn’t appreciate being used as an incentive for you to take the job.”
“Then I guess we’re even,” I said.
“Let’s call it that,” she said, nodding. “And get you your spell.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Ralphie’s is this way,” she said, pointing down the street at a pharmacy toward the end of the block.
“Aldus doesn’t think someone running a pharmacy in the Machine is suspicious?” I asked.
“Hiding in plain sight,” Prithi said. “Aldus has a billion users to worry about.”
“Point made.”
We started walking. “Is it always so dead around here?” I asked.
She glanced over at me. “You know, I hadn’t noticed. Now that you mention it-”
I heard the softest swishing sound, like a scarf in the air. Then I saw the dark shapes tumbling from the nearby rooftops. They landed around us in a circle, dressed in black, carrying swords.
Fucking ninjas?
I really, really hated the Machine.
14
Cogs in the Machine.
The ninjas were surrounding us, about a dozen in total. They didn’t speak, keeping their blades up and remaining in a crouch, ready to skewer us if we tried anything funny. I wound up with my back against Prithi’s, wishing we had all stuck together.
