by Olga Werby
The side street was much more rundown with fewer vendors and lots of unmarked doors lining the narrow passage. Almost on instinct, I sucked in the dark grunge of the place and made myself blend in. Even my orange-tinged snakes turned brown and gray; only their eyes retained their bright gold color. The eels under my skin looked like ghost patterns circling just below the surface. I looked scary even to me. And the giant black cat necklace only added to my badassness. I didn’t run, but I walked very, very fast down the cramped alleyway. If my hands were free, I could have touched both sides of the street at the same time.
You’d think that after all I had just been through, a ghost or two wouldn’t scare me. But as soon as I spotted them gliding out of the doorways both in front and behind me, I felt that torschlusspanik coming back. They were blocking me, forcing me to slow down.
I finally had to stop. I didn’t want to push myself through a wall of ghosts with the wills of god-knew-who imprinted on them. I just wasn’t that brave. I’m not that brave even now. So I sidestepped through an open door and shoved it closed behind me.
“Anyone home?” I called into the darkness. On the other side of the door, I could feel the ghosts gathering. But apparently they had no authority to enter. Not that I had any, either, but I was in and they were out. “Hello?” I called again.
In front of me, there were stairs to go up and stairs to go down. I chose up. There was no rational reason for that; up just felt like the right direction. I climbed the stairs cautiously. There was no hurry now and I didn’t want to make another mistake.
It was a triangular spiral staircase and it felt like it went up at least six stories. From the street, the houses along the alley didn’t look that tall—three stories max. But that’s cyberspace for you, nothing is ever what it appears to be on the surface. I also noticed that the staircase was really shaped like a steep pyramid that narrowed as I went up. It got more and more difficult to fit Doc’s avatar through the tight space.
Finally, I was at the top. There was a tiny door, much smaller than Doc or I could fit through.
“Now what?” I said in frustration. It would have been a drag to haul Doc back down. I couldn’t even turn around easily up there. I kicked myself for getting stuck in another stupid predicament. Back home, Dad was probably calling our building manager to break down my bathroom door.
“Now you come in,” said a small voice.
I looked down and the tiny door swung open. A cute little orange tabby peeked out.
“And who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Sleazy, Doc’s friend,” the cat said.
“Okay, then. How do you propose we get in?” I asked. I didn’t even bother to verify his credentials—where else was I going to go? I was stuck.
“Just keep walking. It will all work out,” Sleazy said and stepped aside for us to go through.
“Sleazy, huh?” I said and took what felt like three steps in the space where a moment ago I couldn’t even move. Another step and I was in. I had a strong feeling of dépaysement—that sense that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. It was unsettling, to say the least.
Sleazy closed the door behind me. I spun around and almost bashed Doc’s furry big head on the wall…virtual head on a virtual wall.
“What?” I protested.
“It’s okay, Jude. We’re Doc’s friends from school. In fact, Doc’s body is in Pixie’s closet,” said the orange tabby.
“So, Doc is safe?” I asked. I felt an almost palpable relief, like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. “Hey! What are you doing?” Doc’s avatar was lifted off me and placed on the floor of the tiny room. Or was it tiny? From my new inside perspective, it was actually quite spacious.
There were three more feline avatars inside. One was a colorless gray, almost invisible—Ghost, I learned his name later. It looked like he had Doc’s light sucking app set to eleven. Another was violently pink, standing on her hind legs, with a long flowing aurora-colored mane cascading down to the floor. She—I was just guessing at the gender there—wore pink patent leather kitten heels—very not catlike. The third was a big ball of multicolored hair. I just assumed there was a cat motif somewhere underneath all that fur.
“We need to examine him,” said the pink grimalkin. She sauntered over to me, swaying her hips like a strawberry milkshake pendulum. Cyberspace allowed for extreme motions—if you could program it, you could do it. I figured she was good, very good, at programming…or knew where to get the best code. “I’m Pixie,” she told me.
Of course you are, I thought but didn’t say. I smiled instead. “Pleased to meet you, Pixie.” I didn’t have to introduce myself, they already knew my name. “Are you a medic?”
“She’s better. Pixie’s a member of the Apothecarium,” the ball of fur said. I couldn’t even tell where his mouth was. “I’m Slick,” he added. That name wasn’t an obvious fit. But neither were Doc’s name and avatar. So whatever, anything goes. In cyberspace, we can all choose to be what we want to be. I considered that I might need to pick a nom de plume for myself one of these days. It seemed safer than going around as Jude, and Lizard Girl was pretty bad. I decided to give it some thought when I had a free moment or two.
Pixie bent over Doc’s prostrate panther avatar. “Has he been like this the entire time?” she asked.
“I don’t know how he was before we ended up in a cell together, but ever since then, yes,” I said. I vaguely wondered what Apothecarium was and whether I should be impressed. Lacking information, I just smiled enigmatically.
“You did a nice job of breaking out of it,” Ghost said from his dark corner. “I just don’t understand what took you so long.” One hand giveth, the other taketh away. Jerk.
“It takes time to learn one’s powers,” I said, trying to keep the nice in my voice.
“But Ghost gave you all those tools,” said Sleazy.
“What?” I wasn’t getting it. “What tools? The eye options? Doc bought them for me.”
“Not everything is for sale,” Sleazy said.
“Is that so? Sleazy, isn’t it?” I was not amused by this clowder of cat avatars. Snotty kids, all of them.
“I got the name due to the socially-positive hacks I create,” he said.
“What? Porn?”
“No! We don’t do that kind of sutaffu,” Sleazy said indignantly. “I mean I program cyberspace emojis—three-dimensional heart fountains, a bouquet of exploding flowers, little twittering song birdies, rainbow unicorns—anything that you upperclassmen like to buy to prove your self-worth to each other. I’m just the guy who facilitates your pitiful love-struck communications. The AnimEye option is mine too, and so are the Baby Blues, and Fireworks, and Starzz.”
“Well, I’m not really into all that flirty stuff,” I said with a carefully-composed look of disgust—I had actually kind of hoped Dude would get me one of those chocolate surprises: “You never know what you’re going to get.” And I did use the Starzz thingy on Dude. But now I wouldn’t be able to enjoy any of these little pleasures. Damn. And I’d certainly never admit to using them. Ever. “How old are you, anyway? Twelve?”
“Sleazy is ten,” said Pixie. “But we don’t put much emphasis on the meat and bones age around here. It’s what you can do that counts.” Obviously. I bet she was trying to tell me I was useless out here.
“Well, I did manage to blow up that cage,” I said quietly, pouting a little. I was sure I was going to get just the right trepverter later; much, much later. Much good that did me at that moment.
“Ghost designed that little app,” Pixie said without looking up at me. She was still hovering over Doc’s body, doing god knows what. “He’s our security expert. Need something or someone blown up? Want to put a bug on it? Want a tracer? A bit of infection? Ghost is your guy.”
“Good to know,” I said. “But I was under the impression Doc got all of those eyeball features for me.”
“He told us that some schlimazel wanted to take his sister o
n a date to the cyber arcade and that she needed protection. So, we all pitched in together and made a little sutaffu package for you.”
“That was nice of you,” I said. I had no idea Doc was worried about me. Good kid. “I really liked the X-Ray vision and the Lazer Glance was super. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” Sleazy said. “I hope AnimEye was a hit, too.”
“Never tried it, sorry.”
“Oh well, next time. It’s really awesome.” The sleazy cat actually winked at me! “It’s designed to add a bit of forelsket into your experience.”
“What?” I hadn’t heard that expression.
“You know, forelsket—that touch of euphoria at the beginning of love,” Sleazy said, smiling. For a ten-year-old, he knew a bit too much about those kinds of things. I bet he’d never even kissed a girl, not in the real world.
“That’s not really a visual appearance feature,” I said, all cool and composed.
“And neither is the ability to blow things up,” Ghost said.
“True.”
“There are flashy, skin-deep detailing apps—that’s what most of your friends probably spend their money on,” Sleazy said and looked pointedly at the triple Ds protruding out from my chest. I folded my arms, trying to hide my inflated boobs, and promised myself to get their size reduced to a more life-like proportions when I got the chance. “And then there are compulsion enhancements,” he continued.
“What?” I felt so dumb. I was the oldest one here but I knew positively nothing.
“Compulsion enhancements,” Ghost said. “My specialty, really.”
“What are compulsion enhancements?” I hated that he made me ask.
“It’s when you program things to need to respond a certain way to someone’s actions.” Ghost put a strong emphasis on need. “Like when you used your X-Ray Vision, the things outside of your cell needed for you to see them. That’s why the walls became transparent—they needed to accommodate your desire to know what was outside.” That was not at all how I imagined that feature worked. Not at all. I was sure there were some darn strange applications of that “compulsion,” although nothing leapt to mind. “And the Lazer Glance?” He was gloating.
“Don’t tell me—it made the walls of our cell want to melt under my stare,” I said.
“Essentially.”
“And the Fireballs made the things I looked at want to explode.”
“She’s not that dumb,” Pixie said. Little feline bitch.
“Oh, come on, Pixie. Jude’s okay. Doc told us so,” Slick came to my defense. I was of two minds about that, but the fuzzball clearly meant well.
“So, how is our patient?” I asked, eager to move the conversation away from judging my intelligence.
“He’s been infected with some malware,” Pixie said.
“Can you cure him?”
“I’m running a MalSpy diagnostic now,” she said. That app sounded familiar. Maybe it was part of my sutaffu package. If not, I wanted it. “Then we need to find out if there’s a fix for this. If not, Ghost will need to write one.”
“How long will all of this take?” I asked. I was worried that I was running out of time back in the real world.
“Not sure. But you can go and come back later,” Pixie suggested.
“And how can I make sure I come back here, specifically?”
“Use the Mirror-Mirror app,” Slick said. “Mark this position on your map app while you’re using Mirror-Mirror. Then ask to go home. When you’re ready to come back, reverse it. Simple, right?”
“Absolutely,” I said and I even meant it. I cateyed and pulled out my hand mirror. In my head, I told the map app to view my current position through the mirror then mark it. It looked like that worked. “Well, thank you very much, everyone. Take care of Doc. I’ll be back,” I said in a confident voice. “Mirror-Mirror, take me home!” And I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom. I heard Dad pounding on my bedroom door. Damn.
8. I’d done nothing!
“What were you doing in there?” he screamed at me.
“Dad! You can’t come in here like that,” I protested. My CT connection set was carefully hidden inside the laundry basket under the dirty towels.
“Yes, I can—” he tried to tell me, but Ms. Evil stopped him.
“I’ll talk to her, dear. You go finish filling out the police report,” she said and gave him a weak smile. Dad gave me one last stern look and went downstairs.
“Thank you, Claudia,” I said. “I was just—”
“I don’t need to know what you do in your own bathroom, Jude,” she stopped me. “We were just worried. With Bartholomew missing, we’re both tired and edgy.”
“I know. I’m really sorry.” I almost wanted to tell her that Doc was “resting” in a friend’s closet, but I held my tongue.
“And I know that if you knew anything, you would tell us right away.” She had this look on her face like she really cared about the boy, like she truly was suffering.
“I spoke with Bartholomew last night,” I said weakly. I had to say something.
“What did you talk about, if you don’t mind me asking?” she said and ushered me towards my bed. We both sat down, pushing the messy blankets and unmade sheets to the side.
“Nothing, really.” I was too tired for this. I couldn’t lie effectively. My head throbbed.
“I’m asking because the police are on their way and they’ll want to question you.”
“They are? They will?”
“Of course. So please try to remember. Even unimportant details can be crucial to a missing person investigation.”
The way she was talking, all reasonable and with this strong dose of sorrow, made me want to tell her everything. Everything. Damn, she was good. No wonder men fell for her. Tom, then my dad.
“Anything?” she prompted me again.
“He was telling me stuff about the cyber world. You know, the arcade?”
“I know it well,” she said. “My company works in that part of cyberspace extensively.”
“Yeah, so Doc…I mean, Bartholomew was telling me how custom avatars worked.”
“I sometimes call him Doc, too.” She had this sad smile on her face.
“You do?”
“Sure. My son is very smart and he is great at making little things that make the cyber arcade more fun.”
“Hmm.” I didn’t know what was okay for me to share, so I had to resort to nonverbal replies. And I was so tired, my limbs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each. If I swung them at Ms. Evil, I’d have knocked her out for sure. At least it felt that way.
“You didn’t know that he works as a hacker?” she asked innocently. Of course, she knew that I knew. I might have been feeling like a sledgehammer, but she could run mental circles around me. One thing Ms. Evil wasn’t was dumb. She was evil and smart—doubly dangerous.
“He mentioned it. But he said it was no big deal,” I managed to say finally.
“He’s always so modest.” Her voice was like honey.
“Uh-huh.”
“You know, I know that he sells some of his inventions in The Far Cinct.” She studied me as she said it, trying to figure out what I knew and what was news to me.
“The Far Cinct? Isn’t that dangerous? For a kid, I mean,” I said, oh so innocently. I wondered if I was fooling anyone. But I was a high school student; I was skilled with lies and their presentation—survival skills, you know.
“It can be,” she said vaguely, then added, “Just last night, one of the enterprises my company invested in was attacked by rogue data eaters.”
“Really?” I instantly knew she was talking about the Enhancements Try-n-Buy Emporium.
“Laws are loose out there. I’ve always told Doc to be careful. I invested in the Emporium because my son wanted to sell his stuff there. I was trying to protect him, but even I couldn’t stop the stupid games that some sickos play out there in The Far Cinct.”
&n
bsp; “I didn’t know you had a business out in The Far Cinct. I thought only the criminal elements worked there.”
“Of course not.” She smiled at me and I felt cold. “Lots of legitimate businesspeople operate in The Far Cinct. There is freedom to do real research out there, beyond government intervention. But I admit that it’s risky. But big risks, big rewards, right?”
“I guess.”
“I think Doc went to The Far Cinct last night,” she said, turning to look me in the eyes. “I think he went into that Avatar Enhancements Emporium.”
“I see.” I felt myself sweating, little rivulets running down my back.
“And I think he did it for you,” she finally got to the point. “Am I right?” Neither of us blinked for what felt like forever. I didn’t break. It was hard. Very hard. “The police will question you,” she said after I didn’t respond, “and you can’t lie to them. They’ll just trace your cyber whereabouts and know where you’ve been.”
“They can do that?”
“Of course.”
“I think they’d need a warrant for that. And I’m a minor—I can’t legally give consent.”
“As your stepmother, I already have,” she said. And I saw an evil smile playing behind her sorrowful mask.
I was really afraid then. What did she want from me? I really didn’t know anything. Well, I knew a little. But Doc’s munchkin friends were going to revive him soon and he’d call home. I didn’t need to say anything; Doc could do all the talking. Any time now. Any time. I glanced at my watch, feelings of iktsuarpok on overdrive.
“Waiting for something?” Ms. Evil asked.
“No, just worried. Doc’s been gone a long time,” I said.
“If you know—”
“I’d tell,” I said. “Doc was really just trying to teach me how things worked out there. I had a date—”
“With Dude, was it?” she asked. “I never got the boy’s real name.”
