by Jay Smith
Okay then.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ten floors down, the elevator opened onto a meeting floor. At least, that's what it looked like to me. A wide, white rubber carpet ran the length of the corridor on top of gunboat gray stone. The glass wall overlooking the main lobby rose from floor to ceiling with a single railing the entire hall length. On the opposite side, six sets of recessed double doors displayed a bright blue number where a handle should be.
I walked to Number 4 and stood in front of the door for a moment wondering if I should knock, touch the pad or…
The panel chirped at me and a familiar voice announced, "Program Complete. You may enter when ready." It was an old sound file of Majel Barrett voicing the ship's computer on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The doors parted. Instead of the familiar, futuristic whooo-hmmmmm of the holodeck, the thick steel doors rolled back into the wall with a disappointing hum and rumble of a department store entrance.
My Magic Book chimed. I opened the cover and read a text message from Ezrin.
WHERE ARE YOU??
I touched the link to open a voice channel to her phone. She picked up immediately and repeated the question.
"I'm exploring strange new worlds, new life and new…"
"You do NOT go places without me, milord! I cannot protect you if…"
"I'm down in the holography lab, Suite 4. Tracking down a lead. Come on down and guard the door if you're bored."
"That's not the fucking point, Winston."
"I'll be done in – Actually I have no idea how long this will be or what the fuck I'm doing."
"What's going on?"
The interior of the circular room rose twenty feet high painted white up to the domed ceiling. The edge of the floor dropped a foot except at the entrance and appeared to contain an elaborate network of projectors, speakers and other equipment I couldn't recognize.
A cold wind fell over me and I closed my coat.
"Like I said," I replied to Ezrin. "Following a lead. It's cold."
"Yes. That's what sustains the chemical mist used to reflect the images you'll see in the holography lab. It's why they call it 'The Igloo.'"
"Chemical mist? It's not dangerous, right?"
The door shut behind me and the call ended.
Eris's voice blasted through the room from all directions. "Please stand by. This is a secure location. No incoming or outgoing wireless communications are permitted beyond the simulator interface."
My Magic Book lost connectivity and went black except for a small window indicating:"CONNECTING TO LAB ~4 SECURE WINET"
With the door closed, the lights dimmed slow enough to disorient. I thought for a moment I might be blacking out until a low hum rose from speakers in the floor.
If there was another door to the room, I couldn't see it. The one I entered through didn't have a handle and fit flush against the wall with the same white panel as the rest of the room so I hoped I didn't get spun around to forget how to get out.
Grass grew and flowers bloomed across the floor, expanding beyond the boundary of the room to a distant, blurry horizon where a blue sky rose to the top of the dome, slashed by soft, white clouds moving with the persistence of a minute hand across the dome's face.
In the middle of it all, an improbable living room set materialized on the flat platform. Exotic fantasy elements befitting Aeternus made for a tasteful setting for informal gatherings. Four white columns rose from the corners, branching together in a nest of connecting supports open to the sky.
The humid air carried the scent of alcohol and lavender, like a mild deodorizer or cleaner.
The sudden appearance of the outdoors along with a cool, fresh breeze made me stagger backwards. The sudden open space bent my brain in such a way that I couldn't process it and that idea scared me. I thought I HAD blacked out, suffered one of those memory gaps I suffered during my brain bleed.
I stood on a dirt path through the misty, grass meadow. Bright yellow flowers, shuddering in the breeze, marked the path for me to a tree line far ahead and up a slight hill maybe a mile away. The trees sprouted from the ground in seconds from sticks and saplings to mighty oaks that rustled and thundered in their sudden birth. Flocks of black birds took flight in the distant sky.
"Hello?"
Grant Parker appeared ten feet ahead of me on the path.
I rubbed my eyes because he didn't quite come into focus. A fine mist rose into a column from the floor giving this image a shimmering, flickering appearance like soft-focus twinkle of a low-budget television angel. The mist forms a tight column spinning up from a fan under the floor. When Parker moved a little bit, the fan moved and the lights changed position, losing a little bit of detail in the process but still pretty impressive. And unnerving to me.
He was not dead, or rotten, or burned.
He was smiling like it was a good day to be alive.
He was healthy, taking in the view around him as though he were as amazed by it as me.
He wore the crossed pistols of his regiment on a gray hoodie, his favorite jeans and red Chuck Taylors. The only thing that seemed out of place was his military gun belt, complete with utility pouches, cuffs, and 9mm sidearm.
He turned toward me, eyes not betraying any recognition or surprise. "Hey, Winston!" He waved and offered his two-finger salute. It was as if he expected me to be there and we just parted company a few hours earlier.
I whispered, but the words carried. "What the fuck is this?"
Parker looked me in the eyes as though he could track my voice and eye line to really see me. "Before you start asking questions, let me say something." He paused and waited for an acknowledgement.
"Oh…sure, go ahead."
"Thanks. Before you freak out, let me just say that if you are seeing this message it means you have exceeded my expectations but realized your potential. You have come so far, man. It also means that I'm dead. Can you confirm?"
"Yes. You – the real Grant Parker is dead."
No reaction. Just processing.
"So," I sighed. "What's next?"
"To continue, I need you to speak the password and present The Key."
"Password?"
"You don't have the password? You can either go get it or answer a couple of security questions. How do you want to do this?"
I removed the purple felt bag from my pocket. The dice bag. "I've got The Key." Without any reaction from the avatar, I added, "I think."
"Good," the image said. "you have the dice. Roll them."
"Which ones?"
"Roll the dice."
"All of them?"
"Roll the dice."
More out of frustration than intuition, I held the bag out toward Parker’s image, turned it upside down, and slipped the string out of its knot with my free hand. Dozens of dice, colorful and sparkling and worn and dull, fell to the floor, clattering as they bounced across the room.
"Like that?"
The pyramids stuck close, but the tens and twenty-siders rolled a long way. As they rolled, each caught a spot of colored light from the ceiling; a yellow and then a blue, then a red and a green. Once caught by the light, the beam focused to laser sharpness and followed the tumbling die to its stopping point.
"The set is incomplete. You’re missing one die."
I fished a crystal 4-sider out of the corner of the bag and tossed it gently toward Parker. An orange light found it as it came to a stop a few inches from Parker’s Chuck Taylors. The lights, which seemed to come from the ceiling, flowed upward from the dice and merged at the eye level in the center of the room creating a bright point of white light that shot back to the ceiling. Each light sparkled and sparked as though each die in the crystal set were transmitting information or power up to the point of convergence.
"That’s dramatic," I said to myself.
"The set is complete. Achievement Unlocked: Security Information Access."
"Oh, that’s …neat, I guess."
The red beam burst like a firework and disappeared.
Parker’s image said, "Achievement Unlocked: Encrypted Archive of Lord Parque. Achievement Unlocked: Turing Quotient Increase on Parker AV and Access to Private Resource Database…Grant Parker Storage Order Released."
The orange beam off the 4-sided die burst. With each Achievement, another beam sparked and shattered.
The dice which had triggered the weird light show were clear crystal, a full set of gaming dice I assumed were part of Parker’s own collection added to our group’s old collection.
From behind me, Parker's voice – this one hoarse and labored added, "Mother fucker."
~
A holographic Grant Parker threw his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his Chuck Taylors. "How’s it going, Winston? In over your head yet?" The voice was smooth, soft – free of the mechanical inflection that defined the holographic imposter. The resolution of the image improved, too. Where I might have found Parker’s initial image at home inside the Realm game world, the upgrade looked real enough that I had to stare and look for imperfections and those only manifested in the odd distortion of his digital skin as it moved and flexed. The skin contracted where real skin would fold together and no amount of CGI could give this imposter the light behind the real Grant Parker’s eyes.
Dead, rotting ghost Grant Parker looked like he was dragged out of a shallow grave by wolves fighting over pieces of him. "Who the fuck dressed me and where is that mall so I can burn it the fuck down?"
I shook my head. It was enough for Rotting Parker to reply. "Okay. He's cute," Parker's corpse said. "Very clean and soft."
Hologram Parker scratched the back of his neck, impatient.
"What did all that mean, Park? What have I unlocked?"
"More of the real me. My Turing Quotient is now 120 and you've unlocked the memory inventory files of the user-controller, representing some 224 hours of text, chat, email, and other transcribed interactions with you along with the user controller's own inputs."
"So," I deduced, "You're more Parker now than before?"
"Yep. Again, man. I am so sorry to put you through this. But – honestly - you wouldn’t have come otherwise."
I paused. My head hurt and the smell of burning toast – or maybe it was wiring? – didn't help. I glanced back at Corpse-Parker but his state of decomposition made it impossible to read any expression. The two images reminded me of Dorian Gray standing across from his portrait – the well-preserved idealized image sparkled and beamed like the hero of some adventurous toothpaste commercial.
On the other side stood the abominable living dead. Ghost Parker's bluish-white skin pulled tight against his skull, straining the torn strips away from gray muscle meat. His torso swelled against his shredded uniform like it might burst through the wounds up his side. His intact eye sunk deep into its socket and took the appearance of crumbling cheese. All of this and the exposed bones of his hands and arms were concealed by a layer of caked dirt and sand.
Hologram Parker interrupted my thoughts. "Are you all right, Winston? Your heart rate and respiration have jumped. I'm sorry if this disturbs you, man. I didn't know how else to communicate what I know in the time I had to get it all down."
Corpse Parker stood still and quiet.
I asked, "Are we alone in this room?"
"Yes."
"Can you do an electromagnetic or…I don't know…psychokinetic scan of the room?"
"No," he replied flat – like he understood what I wanted but just couldn't.
That was a precise response to an abstract input. "Who is this speaking now? Really."
Parker’s face did not change but his voice lightened as though detecting my distress and doubt. "I am a Memory Avatar of the user controller. There are no remote links. Our conversation is encrypted. I’m reviewing all your online communications to get caught up on your progress."
"I don't buy it," Rotting Parker grumbled.
I had doubts, too. "So you say. Someone else could say the same thing through a remote link. It’s happened to me already."
"To unlock the final achievement, I need the password. Ask me a question only I could answer."
"Is the password in the answer or the question?"
"Just – humor me."
"Humor a fucking computer program. Okay." The image flickered a little as I disrupted the mist by folding my arms. "Fine. How did you cut yourself in my basement 22 years ago?"
"I don’t have that information. I’m not really Parker, remember. I’m a construct of his conversations and data streams over the past 5 years plus a private database of unique knowledge about our relationship."
"Well how the hell do I ask you a question no one else would know? What happened in my basement 22 years ago is unique to our relationship."
"I do not have a reference to cutting myself. If you’re asking me an indirect question, I’d say you’re really asking me about the time your mother attempted suicide. Is that the event? I’d try something else because there are public documents associated with that event."
He was right.
"Ask me – him me – about the girl who got away." The sound of dead Parker's voice carried the smell of ash.
"I've got Night of the Living Parker behind me and Tron Parker in front of me. I'm not obsessed. Really."
"I don't understand," Parker's Image said.
"Who did you want to take to senior prom, Parker?"
Dead Parker said, "The way I look there, he might say Josh Lupin. Not that there's anything wrong with it."
"Deborah Halpin," replied the image. "Again, not a hard one to figure out."
"No," I replied. "The one you only told me about."
"How do I know it's really you, man? Alan could have put this together."
"I know that your mother is sick and has been for a very long time. Your father meant the world to you and he left you when you needed him most. The only time you ever cried was that night I picked you up from visiting your mother up in Palmyra, the night she said she didn't want you to visit her again. She said a lot of awful things. I remember Claire being angry with you because we got back to your house so late and she missed some party or whatever. I know you have been a miserable, depressed son of a bitch for a lot of years."
"Who was my first crush?"
For a moment, I thought I stumped him or at least phrased the question in a way that broke the interface. But after a brief freeze, the image nodded, broke into that stupid school boy grin and answered. "Well, that's a question I would expect you to ask me. You married Heidi Kloutz in third grade under the apple tree in the playground. She divorced you at second recess when she met Doug something or other. That broke your heart. But then you went home and there was Amanda Flynn on television so you got over that pretty quick."
It wasn't the answer I had in mind. But he was right. Park – or rather the program – had answered better than I did. I'd forgotten about Heidi. "Our first Dungeon Master?"
"Nate Hamm was our first DM. He sucked. We played with his older brother Tom until their parents decided D&D was the work of Satan. Convinced yet? I can name the CDs you played during our Twilight:2000 phase, that night you called me from Burger King because you were with Deborah Greggson and your protection broke. I had to run to the pharmacy for you. What did we call that?"
"'The Massengil Run,'" I replied.
"Yes!"
I laughed out loud, "Yes."
"Achievement Unlocked: Encrypted Inventory of Lord Parque…Encrypted Captromance Folder… Congratulations, Winston."
"Holy shit," I gasped. "How are you doing this?"
"Two petabytes of data gleaned from email, conversations, chats, and hundreds of video diary entries. Also, there are some public information dumps that I access that allow me to make educated guesses related to gaps in my information.
"He kept all that?"
"The user-controller? Yes. I am what remains of his memories and personality. I have indexed over 400
people in his life and have varying degrees of knowledge about them. I may reach out to some of them to gather information to preserve the user's memorial."
Hologram Parker looked and spoke so well that part of me thought this might be the end of a very long practical joke, that my friend was still alive and put me through all this just to jump out of a closet, reveal a production crew with cameras and boom microphones, and shout "You been joker'd, son!"
But no illusion is perfect and even the best CGI has flaws. Vanity or data economy moved the program to clear up some telltale blemishes on Park's body. The smoothness of his elbows and the palms of his hands didn't match what stood out to me about him the first time he came home from a tour in Afghanistan. His eyes blinked with an odd regularity and when he wasn't intentionally emoting his posture and movements entered a rotation of generic movements, swaying and moving about in a small circle. After several minutes, the patterns became obvious. But when Parker spoke, it sounded just like he did on the phone in the weeks up until he died.
"What's next," I asked.
"There are things about Alan's organization that I did not upload to this avatar but are included in the encrypted inventory items I transferred to your account. They can only be opened by you personally and on my secured laptop. Did you bring it?"
I felt the thrill of failure bubble up from my gut. "I left it in Ebetha. I had no idea it was important."
"You'll need to go back and get it."
"That's a problem, too. Alan took over your cabana."
"Are you saying the laptop is lost?" the image looked more agitated than a program should. "This is very bad."
I lied. "I don't know. What happens if Alan has the laptop?"
"Then you need to punch out, take the money in your account and go home. Get Claire to go with you on a long vacation. Leave the country and don't tell anyone. Holy shit, Winston."
I kept the dialogue moving in the current context. "Claire's not going to want to up and leave her family and her job. I don't have the money to take a long vacation. I'm about to get fired for spending all this time chasing your…"
"Winston." The hologram stepped toward me, looming over me with wide eyes conveying genuine terror. "You HAVE to do this. If the laptop is gone, you have no protection. There is seventeen million dollars in assets that just jumped from my accounts to yours and then into a special off-shore account that can only be accessed through my laptop. Alan and his company will not be happy."
