One strong hand grabbed her around the waist from behind, another moved across her face. She felt something being pushed into her mouth, a little sting of pain, and then she was released. She tumbled to the soft earth, damp grass staining her hands and knees.
“Five minutes,” said Dr. Wu, gazing down at her impassively. “Go watch the exit, Kevin.” Kevin nodded and withdrew.
Helen felt her jaw going numb. A sharp, shooting pain ran across her left shoulder. Desperation promoted inspiration. She began running across the grass to where the upper rim of the wall was lowest, pulling her console from around her waist and feeling along it, hand over hand, searching for the panic button. She squeezed it hard, morphing the memory plastic of the console into the shape of a flat disc.
Kevin realized what she was doing and sped after her. Too late. She skimmed the console upwards like a frisbee towards the wall. Watched as it rose higher and higher, then started to dip. Would it make it? A sudden, knifing pain ran down her left arm, locking it in position. She could no longer move it. Dr. Soames was already at her side, taking that arm, feeling it. She pulled away from him and started across the grass again. Then her legs went numb, too, and she fell over. The three doctors strolled across to where she lay. She tried to crawl away, and now she felt the same shooting pain in her right arm as the Strangler Fig seed sent tendrils down inside it, following her veins and arteries, dipping its little suckers into them to feed on her blood. She screamed and rolled onto her back as more tendrils ran down her spine, hardening as they descended, pulling her into a new shape.
The knowledge of what was happening to her made the pain all the worse. There was an exhibit card displayed back in the visitors’ center:
THE STRANGLER FIG originated in the rain forests of northeast Australia. Its seeds were deposited on the bark of a tree in the droppings of a bird or animal. From there they worked inwards to feed on the tree’s sap. Gradually the fig would grow tendrils that clung to the tree, working its way around it; each tendril dipping itself in to drink more sap until eventually a network of tendrils completely surrounded the tree, strangling it, killing it. The tree would die, leaving only the cage of the strangler fig still standing.
Now this venumb, this half biological, half mechanical device, was doing exactly the same to her. A venumb designed for use in a war that had never happened. Today it was finally being tested—on her. The pain was incredible. Where was Social Care? Couldn’t they hear her cries? Another spear of agony seared through her body, jerking her head back. She could see her console lying on the grass over there. It hadn’t made it over the wall. Someone’s feet moved into her view and she heard a voice.
“Look—the first protrusions from her skin. Is that metal or wood?”
Someone else knelt down by her.
“Metal, I think.”
“Don’t touch them,” cautioned a third voice urgently. “They may contain seeds, too. Secondary infection of any soldiers who came to the victim’s aid…”
Helen screamed again. A throbbing pain was building in intensity beneath her skull as the fig’s tendrils searched for a way in. There was an explosion of light…
Level One
A rich pool of green grass lapped the walls of the cube’s interior. It was as if someone had filled a tilted square bottle with green water. The process had not yet begun that would flush the cube’s inside clean and start the construction of floors and internal walls. A second plastic collar, set in the grass near the far wall, enclosed a set of steps leading down to the fully formed cube that lay immediately below ground, the first of a descending sequence of stealth rooms that extended obliquely deep into the earth. “Can we go to the level below?” Kevin asked. He gave her a significant look. “It should be more…private down there.”
Helen wordlessly took his hand and led him across the sunlit interior of the roofless cube to the plastic collar set in the earth.
The first room beneath the ground was a fully functioning stealth area; it wanted to maintain its integrity and that meant sealing the hatch to the surface. Rather than disable the room in any way, the arboretum had placed the plastic collar in position to stop the door to the outside world from closing totally. Helen made her way down clear plastic steps, her shoes squeaking on the nonslip surfaces. She felt a little thrill as Kevin’s body blocked out the light behind her. She wondered what he had in mind.
The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down towards one corner of the room.
“Everything in the cube is at a slant,” Helen said. “Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs.”
Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the several raised platforms that filled the interior of the room.
“Got it,” Kevin said, tapping one of them, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone.
“Got what?” she asked. Her mouth felt very dry. She had a sense of retreating from her real life up in the world above. Hemmed in by grey rubberized walls, by ancient machinery and hidden software, she suddenly felt stifled. She thought of the climb up the plastic stairs to the surface, of the long lines of poplars, the dappled collections of broadleaves awaiting autumn, the paper delicacy of the groves of Japanese maples that stretched between herself and the visitors’ center…
“What’s the matter with you?” Kevin said.
“N…Nothing,” Helen stuttered. “What have you found?”
“The isolation room.”
Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her.
“They always built them inside these old cubes. Failsafe. If anyone managed to violate the integrity of the outer skin they would find nothing of interest. Everything that was really important went on inside the isolation room.”
He tapped the floor and a panel sprang open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.
“I never knew that was there,” she whispered. “How do you know so much about this cube?”
“Part of the job,” Kevin said. “Helen, I want you to go inside.”
Helen found herself drawn closer to the entrance to the isolation room. She would have to stoop to enter it. Once she was in there, would she be able to get out?
“I don’t want to go in,” she said.
“Don’t be silly,” Kevin said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
Helen peered cautiously through the door. Kevin placed a hand on her back and gently but firmly pushed her inside.
“Hey…” she said, turning to him. He filled the doorway.
“I’m going to lock you in here.”
Helen didn’t waste time with words. She flung herself at him. As he reached out to catch her, she caught his arm and twisted. She heard him grunt with pain just as she felt the sting in her leg.
Her body went limp.
“Relaxant,” Kevin said. He dragged her back into the cubicle by her arms and propped her in the corner.
“Good move there on the arm, Helen. You really hurt me. Some of our customers here will like that.”
Helen looked at him. Her lips felt numb; her words became mushy and half formed.
“Wht cstmers?”
“You’ll find out.”
“Sshl Cr.”
“Social Care?” Kevin laughed. “No chance.”
“Knws m here.”
“They don’t know you’re here. That’s part of the stealth technology of this cube. The people who designed these things didn’t want it advertised who might be attending meetings inside them. As soon as you come within range of this cube, it creates various ghost objects on any senses observing in the vicinity. It will appear as if you never came in here. You simply vanished into the woods.”
“No.”
“It’s true. Social Care may have all the best AIs working for them, but the senses it relies upon are just the same as those used by everyone else.”
Kevin looked at his watch. “A
nyway, got to go. Someone will probably be along in an hour or so.”
“Wt!”
Too late. The door slid shut. Helen lay helpless in the corner of the room, looking around the mirrored walls at the slumped shapes reflected all around her. She could feel dread rising from them, filling the mirrored room to capacity.
Level Two
The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down towards one corner of the room.
“Everything in the cube is at a slant,” Helen said. “Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs.” It was all she could do to keep the longing from her voice. She could feel an aching between her legs when she looked at Kevin.
“Let’s go down another level,” he said, giving her a knowing smile.
He pressed down on a section of the floor and a hatch opened up.
“How did you know about that?” asked Helen.
“I read up on this sort of stealth cube before coming to the arboretum,” said Kevin.
They descended to the second cube below the ground.
“So what do you want with me down here?” she teased.
Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the raised platforms that filled the interior of the room.
“Got it,” Kevin said, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone.
“Got what?” she asked.
“The isolation room.”
Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her.
He tapped the floor and a panel sprung open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.
There was someone in there.
Level Two, Variation A
Kevin took hold of Helen’s arm and pulled her into the room. A woman sat on the floor, gazing up at Kevin with a hopeless expression.
“Good afternoon, Mona. I’ve brought you a friend.”
Mona looked at Helen with an expression of fear and pity. Helen’s sense of foreboding turned to alarm. She recognized the woman who sat in the corner of the room, gazing up at Kevin with empty eyes.
“That’s Mona Karel. She vanished two months ago. Nobody could explain how!”
“Well, now you know,” said Kevin. “They’ll be talking about you in the same way this time tomorrow.”
He pressed his hand against Helen’s cheek. As he took it away she saw the skin on his fingers was dyed blue.
“Relaxant,” he said as Helen slumped to the floor beside Mona.
Kevin looked down at them both, then checked his watch.
“Mona, your next customer will be arriving in about four hours. Helen, you can learn what’s expected of you by watching Mona. You’ll be on duty four hours after that.”
“Please,” Mona said. She was shaking. “Please, no.”
Kevin smiled and the mirrored door slid shut.
Level Two, Variation B
Kevin took hold of Helen and pulled her by the arm into the room. A woman walked towards Kevin and kissed him on the cheek.
“Hey,” said Kevin. “You’re not Mona!”
The woman who had kissed Kevin placed a hand on each of his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. She had long, straight black hair, pulled into two halves so they looked like the carapace of a beetle. At the nape of her neck the hair was wound into a complicated bun arrangement held in place by a thick horizontal rod of lacquered wood.
Her face was utterly white save for her black lips and eyes that seemed to float over that white space, unattached. When she opened her mouth, a living red tongue ran across brilliantly white teeth. When she blinked, black lashes swept down over black irises. She wore a black kimono from which white hands and feet with black-painted nails emerged. She should have been terrifying. Instead, Helen found her strangely beautiful. When she spoke, her voice was soft and lilting, her accent vaguely Irish.
“Good afternoon, Kevin. Remember me?”
“Judy! How could I forget?” He had not been expecting this woman to be in the room, that much was obvious, but who would expect someone who seemed like a cross between a black-and-white geisha and the most sinister clown from their childhood? Strangely, Kevin seemed quite unconcerned. He casually looked around the room, searching for something.
“If you’re looking for Mona,” the woman said, “she’s somewhere safe, being counseled by Social Care.”
Helen looked on, a sense of unreality settling on her like snowflakes. Truth be told, things had seemed rather strange since she woke up that morning: the world just a little too bright, the colors just a little bit too simple. But this was a step too far. Kevin reached out into the space immediately before him and began to twist his hands, as if searching for something.
“No point activating the escape hatch,” said the woman. “I’ve taken control of this processing space.”
“Ah,” said Kevin. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his console.
Helen looked from Kevin to the black-and-white woman, utterly confused. Kevin still seemed quite relaxed.
“No problem,” he said. “There’s always a failsafe.”
He pressed his console and vanished. Helen jerked backwards in surprise, banging into the mirrored wall behind her.
The black-and-white woman turned to look at Helen.
“I’m Judy,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met yet, Helen.”
Helen gazed at the woman for a moment, her lips moving silently. She suddenly understood.
“I’m a personality construct, aren’t I? This isn’t the real me any more.”
Judy’s black lips formed into a smile.
“You’re not as sentimental as your personality profile makes out, are you? No matter how many readings Social Care pass on to me, they never give the same feel as actually meeting a person. Each time I’ve met you, you’ve faced up to reality straight away.”
Helen bit her lip thoughtfully. “Each time we’ve met?” she said. “There is more than one copy of me?”
“Oh yes, you’re very popular in this little chamber of horrors.”
Judy’s console made a shushing noise, and Judy tilted her head a little, clearly listening to something.
Helen opened her mouth, and Judy raised a hand to silence her. Helen looked around the mirrored chambers, at all the black-and-white women who raised their hands to the young blond women, images receding into infinity. Helen had a sudden sense that she was not looking at reflections; that, instead, each of the pairs of figures that she saw was another Helen and Judy, trapped in another computer simulation. Each one of them awaiting some dreadful fate.
Judy lowered her hand.
“Kevin has shown up on one of the Level Three simulations. I’m going to intercept him. Helen, you will be safe within the stealth cube area for the moment. Don’t wander too far into the arboretum; the simulation only extends for a few hundred meters beyond the limits of this construction.”
“But…” said Helen.
“Read this while I’m gone.” She thrust a thin plastic pamphlet into her hand.
“What…”
It was too late. Judy had vanished. Helen looked down at the pamphlet. Written along the top were the words “Welcome to the Digital World. Welcome to your new life!”
Level Three, Variation A
Helen crouched in the corner of the mirrored room, knees pulled up tight against her chin, arms hugging her shins. She guessed she had been trapped in the room for about six hours now. Long enough to make herself hoarse, shouting for help. Long enough to realize that Social Care weren’t coming. Long enough to realize that she faced the awful prospect of being a victim to those crimes she had thought were only vicarious entertainment on historical shows. Rape. Murder. Torture. She gazed at nothing, not wanting to look into the terrified eyes of the other Helens who shivered around her. The wide eyes, the pinched cheeks, the pale faces all served to amplify her own fear.
“Watcher,” she whispered. “If you are t
here. If you really exist. Please, please. Help me.”
Then there came the noise of the seals in the door disengaging. Helen whimpered with fear. How much would it hurt?
A thin, unshaven man stepped into the room, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he saw Helen.
“Please,” Helen said. Reflexively she felt for her console, but it was no use; Kevin had taken it away when he had first pushed her into this place.
The man giggled. “Say it again,” he said. “Say please and I might be nice.”
Helen felt something inside herself harden. She pushed herself upright against the wall, gazing at the man’s fingers as she did so. He didn’t look so strong, really. Maybe she could get behind him, hold his blue-stained hands away.
Too late. With a speed that took her by surprise, he lashed out, brushing his fingers against her cheek. She felt her legs give way.
The man stood back and looked down at her thoughtfully.
“Now,” he said. “Where shall we start?”
“How about with a profile readjustment?”
The man jumped at the voice.
A woman stepped into the room. Black hair, black lips, white face. The sight of her terrified the man.
“No,” he croaked. “You don’t understand. This is not what it looks like…”
The woman smiled. “Hello, Helen. Hello, James. My name is Judy. I’m—”
The man’s face crumpled. “How did you know my real name? They told me that my anonymity would be assured.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “James, they are running illegal personality constructs. They are collaborating in the torture and murder of said constructs. I think it may be a fair assumption that they are not the sort of people to be trusted when they tell you that your anonymity is assured.”
The man stared at Judy, trying to understand the full import of what she had just said.
Helen was a lot quicker on the uptake. “You mean this isn’t real? I’m a personality construct?”
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