by R E McLean
“Sorry,” she said, remembering her manners. “Hello, Professor. I’m Alex.”
“Pizzling coffee.” He rubbed a stain on his sleeve. “And greetings to you too. Your colleague—Mike—calls me Prof.”
“So what should I call you?”
”Nemesis, of course.”
”Nemesis it is then.”
He turned away and led her into the space, crashing into a desk and muttering an apology to it as he righted it. Raised platforms held a library of dusty books; some arranged on shelves, others piled haphazardly on the floor. In between the piles were small wooden desks that reminded her of school. As they passed one, she peered at it.
Nemesis caught her eye. ”You're looking for the pen and ink.”
She shrugged.
”We're a bit more modern than that, you'll find. The Hivers let us borrow quite a lot of their tech.
“Hivers?”
He said nothing.
They approached a circular bank of desks and the screens beyond. The screens showed the world above; the entrance to the Hall of Justice, the view from the roof. Even her lab at Berkeley.
”Are you watching us?” she asked. ”Is this some kind of surveillance?”
”No. Of course not.” He picked up a remote control, a big, clunky thing made of a dull silvery metal with large, yellow buttons and one big red one at the top. It slithered out of his hand and he grabbed it before it hit the desk.
“Fuzzleskut.”
He hit one of the yellow buttons. More scenes of the world above sprang into life, but this time different. The offices and corridors, instead of being empty, were full of busy, serious-looking people, each sitting at a desk picked out by a well-aimed spotlight, the rooms clean and shiny.
They rounded the circular desk, which was made from what looked like cast concrete and printed in a rainbow of colors that demarcated each workstation. At the far side, sitting at a pale purple section, was a short, plump woman with the kind of smile a Disney grandma would have, before she turned out to be the wicked witch. A pair of half-moon specs hung round her neck on a silver chain. She wore a knitted jumper in a just-off tasteful shade of brown that meant it could only have come from Brooks Brothers.
“Ooh, our new recruit.” She stood up, patting her thick purple curls into place. ”Hello, my dear.”
Alex smiled. Nemesis was a younger version of the kind of physics professor she wished Berkeley was populated by, and this woman was everybody's favorite fairytale grandparent.
”I'm Alex,” she said, offering her hand. The woman offered her own hand up as if she expected it to be kissed. The hand was ruddy, with gleaming black fingernails adorned with skulls. A tattoo poked out from under the sleeve of the sweater.
”I'm Madge, my dear. Madge Ciccone.”
”Madge Ciccone?”
The woman grinned. ”I was born on the day Madonna had her first number one. My parents were fans.”
That made this plump, matronly woman no more than thirty-five years old, forty at a push. Like everything else here, it would make sense eventually.
”Nice to meet you,” Alex said. Madge gave her a little wave and sat back down at her desk.
Nemesis had his hand on her shoulder. ”And here's your wingman.”
Alex turned.
“Hello again. Why didn’t you tell me about all this?”
Mike shrugged. He was no longer wearing a shabby suit but had changed into blue jeans and leather jacket that looked like they had come straight from an episode of Law & Order.
He leaned in toward Nemesis and muttered in his ear. The two of them walked slowly around the central console, deep in conversation.
”Don't mind him, dear,” said Madge. ”He'll soon get used to you.”
“I don’t get it,” Alex replied. “He dragged me here, telling me it was life and death. Now I’m being given the tour.”
“Things work a little differently here. Plenty of time.” Madge gazed at Mike then put on a deep voice. ”Detective Sergeant Mike Long.” Her eyes moistened. ”He'll be showing you the ropes. Jumping with you.”
”Jumping?”
”We'll be sending you to Silicon City. Didn’t they tell you?”
“Silicon Valley?”
“Silicon City, dear. You’re going to love it.”
She watched Mike and Nemesis, deep in conversation. Mike had his hand on the gap in his beard. He traced it with his finger with an air of irritation.
“What’s with his beard?”
”Don't mention it. No matter what happens to it, say nothing. It really annoys him.”
Alex nodded. ”Can I ask you a—er—a personal question?”
Madge pushed her chair back from her desk and gave Alex a look that had about as much guile as a meerkat surveying the horizon. ”Of course. Fire away.”
”You said you were born on the day Madonna had her first number one hit. When was that, exactly?”
Madge smiled. Her teeth were small and very, very white. ”Into the Groove. Twenty-seventh of July 1985. Believe it or not, neither Holiday nor Like A Virgin hit the top spot. A travesty.” A pause. “You thought I was older, didn't you?”
Alex blushed. ”I shouldn't be so nosey.”
”Everyone thinks the same thing. In Silicon City, I look my exact age. It's all the rage. Fake ageing.”
”I like it,” Alex said.
'Really?”
”It suits you.”
”Why thank you. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me for quite some time.”
Madge glanced past Alex and licked her lips in a way that suggested nervousness mixed with anticipation.
Alex turned, expecting Nemesis and Mike to have returned. Instead, a slim, drop-dead-gorgeous young woman stood in their place, cocking her head at Alex and giving her a wry smile. She wore a purple velvet jacket and her skin seemed to shimmer in the light of the computer screens. Alex felt herself blush.
”Hello,” the woman said in a midwestern drawl. ”You must be Alex. I'm Sarita Jones.”
13
Braw
MIU
25 March, 8:46pm
Alex struggled to gain control of her dropping jaw. ”You don't look like a Jones.”
Sarita raised a well-trimmed eyebrow. ”Too Asian?”
Alex felt sweat sprout in her palms. ”No. Too—“Words, words, she thought to herself. Why had she said that? ”Too braw.”
“Braw?”
“I don't know. Modern. Smart.” Sexy.
Sarita laughed. It wasn't the laugh Alex was expecting; gentle, husky. Instead it reminded her of her cousin Sue's youngest son when he was watching YouTube. It was a high-pitched, infectious kind of laugh, a laugh that pushed you into a corner and smacked you in the face with its appreciation of the moment.
“You’re Scottish.” Sarita held her hand up and pointed to the back of it. “I’m from Michigan.”
Alex decided not to ask what was wrong with her hand. “I’m Alex. Shall we start again?”
Sarita gave Alex a lopsided smile and shook her hand. “I’m in charge of Materials.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It is,” Sarita replied. “Very. And today it means I get to show you your kit.”
“Kit?”
“Equipment. For Silicon City.”
“Oh.”
“You don't say much do you? Well, at least not much that makes sense.”
“Get me in a bar on a Friday night and I can talk the hind legs off a donkey.”
Sarita laughed again, that bizarre laugh of hers, like a hyena having a heart attack.
She turned and wove between the tiny wooden desks, in a direction that felt as if they were heading for the cab of the campervan. Alex followed. They came to a line of shelves set into a wall that seemed to be moving.
“Welcome to the funhouse,” said Sarita. She winked and pulled something down off the shelves.
She held out a multicolored pile of clothes, shoving them at Alex.
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“Take off your jacket.”
Alex slid her jacket off and Sarita rifled inside it. Alex hoped she'd thrown away the evidence of last night's dinner; a bag of popcorn from the 7-11. Finally Sarita's fingers reached the collar. She tweaked it up to reveal the label.
“How would you describe this garment?” she asked.
“It's a leather jacket. My favorite leather jacket.”
“It's plastic.”
“Don't be daft.”
Sarita shrugged. “Polyvinyl chloride. PVC in your language. A plastic polymer.”
“Hang on a minute.” Alex grabbed the jacket and brought the minuscule label up to her face. The man in the vintage clothing store had sworn blind that it was genuine leather, and she had been too polite to check.
“Believe me now?” Sarita asked.
“Yes. But what's that have to do with anything?”
“You can't jump wearing manmade fabrics.”
“Why not?”
”Don't ask me. I'm not a quantum physicist, I just work with the materials. You'll need to wear natural fibers. What about that shirt?”
“I’m not taking this off.”
”I'm not asking you to. Madge, d’ya mind checking the back of Alex's shirt?”
Madge reached up to put her icy fingers inside Alex’s collar. “Cotton Nylon mix,” she said.
“That's out too.”
“But my jeans are OK. Denim, that's made of cotton.”
“The dyes wreak havoc with the Spinner.”
“The Spinner?”
“The machine we use to make the jump.”
Alex felt her stomach shrink just a little. “That's a colloquialism, right?”
Sarita opened her mouth to reply then noticed Alex's face, which had paled. “Yeah. Just a colloquialism.”
14
Baklava
Silicon City
26 March, 12:18am
Claire lay back on the bed of purple violets the Hive had conjured up for her. She imagined the perfect scene—lights low, subtle music wafting in the background. Within seconds, she was surrounded by the exact scenario she’d pictured.
A low table sat in front of her, with artfully arranged plates of baklava, mini donuts and M&Ms. She reached out with an immaculately manicured hand and took a donut between her thumb and forefinger. She appraised it before swallowing it in one bite.
Perfect. It recreated the exact taste of the mini donuts served at her wedding. Piled high and smothered with molasses, they were the ideal replacement for a wedding cake.
This room—wood-clad walls, low lighting, candlelight from seemingly everywhere—had just one entrance. It was covered by a thin sheet of purple gauze. She could make out shapes beyond the fabric, hear low voices.
She’d been here many times, but no one had ever come through that entrance. If she wanted more baklava, she willed it onto the table and it appeared. If she needed a drink, she thought about a glass of her favorite Napa Valley red and it appeared in her hand.
She loved the Hive.
Tonight her heart was racing. Her real heart; here in the Hive, some bodily functions strayed from the real to the virtual.
That fabric was going to be pulled aside. Another human being was going to enter this space. Because she’d asked them to.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to focus, to be calm. If she panicked, the setting could disintegrate before her eyes. Even worse, it might morph into something different. A loud, student-filled bar, or a branch of McDonald’s.
She shuddered. The thought of eating food recently touched by the grubby hands of a McJob filled her with horror. She only bought food that was securely packaged, and then prepared it herself.
“Time?” she asked.
“Twelve twenty p.m.,” an attractive male voice returned. She nodded. Ten minutes.
She clicked her fingers; she didn’t want to wait.
“Time?”
“Twelve thirty p.m.”
That was better.
She saw a shadow fall on the gauze; there was someone there. She put her hand on her chest.
Was this wise?
“Is there somebody there?” she asked.
“There is,” replied a familiar voice. Male. Not quite as gravelly as the voice of the AI. She wondered about the ethics of artificially enhancing another user’s voice inside the Hive.
She swallowed. She brushed a stray hair away from her eye. She belched lightly into her hand—too much baklava—and waved it away.
She looked toward the shape.
“Come in,” she said.
He pushed the gauze aside and stepped in. He was wearing a black suit and white shirt, with the top two buttons undone. She could see the bulge of his pecs under the jacket. He may be slim, but he still had a dancer’s physique.
She looked up at him, picturing what he saw. She’d arranged herself to hide any signs of the last six years. She’d added some VR make-up and thickened her hair. She looked good, and she knew it.
“Sean,” she said. “Good to see you.”
15
Mario Kart
MIU
26 March, 12:23am
Nemesis and Mike were waiting at the central console, with Madge wriggling in her chair and humming to herself excitedly.
“Alex,” said Nemesis. “Mike is your guide for this trip. You do everything he says.”
Like her, Mike was wearing garish clothes: a scarlet polo neck, mustard yellow neckerchief and sky-blue trousers that made him look like a French architect in a paint factory.
“Seriously, he's jumped before and you haven't. You do what he says,” Nemesis said.
Alex tugged at her stiff cotton shirt and shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what this thing is going to do to me.”
“It’s going to send you to Hive Earth, dear,” smiled Madge.
“Where is Hive Earth?”
“Well it’s sort of right here, I suppose.”
“In a parallel universe?” Alex asked. “I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Bingo! I knew she’d get it.” Nemesis took off his specs and polished them. “Shuffling shizzmonkeys, this bit’s always fun.”
“But why?” asked Alex.
“Claire Pope isn’t dead over there,” muttered Mike.
“You mean Claire Pope exists in another universe?”
“Her equivalent.”
“Do I? Exist in another universe, that is?” Alex asked.
A shrug. “No idea.”
Alex wondered if he really knew the answer but wasn’t telling her.
“So she tells us who killed our version of her?”
“It’s not as simple as that.” Mike sounded like a parent telling his two-year-old son that no, kicking that ball against the fence for the seventy-third time wasn’t a good idea. “Come on.”
Madge clutched her hands together and beamed at them. Mike grabbed her shoulder and looked into her eyes. She stared back at him, her cheeks flushed.
Nemesis picked up his specs, which had slid off his nose and onto Mike’s shoes. “No harm in telling her,” he said as he placed them back on his nose. “Your job—well, Mike’s really—is to travel to another universe, find out who killed poor Claire Pope and make sure it doesn’t happen again over there.”
Mike frowned. “Your job isn’t to solve the crime, or stop another one. Yours is to keep an eye on the physics.”
“How do I do that?”
“Beats me. You’re the physicist.”
“I’m a postdoc. I grind numbers for a living. What sort of physics is it you want me to keep an eye on?”
“You’ll work it out, when you get there. That’s what Sally did.”
She said nothing.
“Come on, now,” interrupted Nemesis. “Let’s get you in the Spinner while conditions are good.”
Alex felt a jolt beneath her feet, Madge gave a hoot of delight and the floor started to move.
They shuffled downwards, the floor juddering with each movement. It didn't feel like the sort of mechanism Alex would trust to send her into another universe. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for a clue that they'd jumped. A change in the air pressure, a breeze, the smell of a dropped fart dissipating.
She threw her eyes open when she felt a hand on her wrist. Who would it be, and what would they be wearing?
Madge was peering into her face, looking concerned.
”You alright, dear? You look a little queasy.”
Alex blinked. ”Did you jump, too?”
”Oh no, dearie. We're just going down to the jump room. Nemesis likes to do it in style.”
Alex caught Mike hiding a smirk behind his hand. At last the floor stopped moving and they came to a lurching halt.
They were still standing on the same section of floor, with the circular rainbow console between them. Some sort of light within the desk was spinning continuously, reminding her of that really tricky 'rainbow road' course in Mario Kart. The effect was mesmerizing.
Nemesis coughed. “Welcome to the Spinner, everyone.”
16
Cotton Candy
MIU
26 March, 12:25am
Nemesis must have noticed the startled look on Alex’s face. “Don’t worry, we’re not all jumping. That’s it.” He pointed to a featureless curved wall beyond the console.
Madge withdrew her hands from her keypad and the console sank to the floor, creating a spinning rainbow path. Alex could feel her eyes widening but didn’t care; this was seriously cool. She wished she could tell Rik.
Madge walked to the external wall and swiped a screen. A line of three virtual buttons appeared on it; red, green, and amber. They were going to be sent through an inter-dimensional portal, using traffic lights?
Madge placed her finger, now sporting electric blue nail varnish, on the amber button. Alex heard a swoosh behind her and bit her lip. This thing even made Star Trek noises.
