by M. J. Scott
Now it was generally just called Dockside. It was kind of notorious. Nat usually avoided Dockside gaming clubs like the plague, claiming they were full of tourists and wannabes.
"Tell me again why we're down here," I said as the driver held out his datapad and I tapped for the credit transfer.
Nat's smile looked even stranger in the weird light thrown by the neon and the reflections of the water. "It's a new club. The Righteous guys told me about it."
I couldn't picture either Eli or Benji down here. But there were some wild guys amongst the testers. "What's wrong with Decker's? Or Pandemonium?" Nat's other regular club. I didn't mind going there. Great coffee bar, plus quieter places to hang around and observe the games. And I knew a fair few people who played there. I doubted I'd be seeing any familiar faces tonight.
I should've done some checking up once Nat told me where we were going, but she'd been eager to get going and there hadn't been time. Pity. Feeling less like I was walking into the unknown might have dispelled the unease riding me.
"PD's okay. Same old, same old. Trust me, you'll like this. It's chill." Nat started down the street, weaving her way around the puddles left by the rain on the uneven paths. Thunder still rumbled in the distance after the storm, each distant boom reinforcing my jitters.
The developers had left a lot of the place untouched because the tourists liked to come and look during the day. See what a big quake could do.
Personally, I preferred not to remember.
Fortunately we didn't have far to walk through the crowds of street vendors trying to hawk everything from dubious fast foods to even dodgier datapads and entertainment loads. There was even an outdoor nanotatt parlor.
Talk about the height of stupidity.
If you were going to get drunk or stoned and pay for a cheap Dockside tattoo, far better to go for the traditional ink and, at worst, be up for a pricey skin regen to get rid of it later. Letting some street hack set you up with nanotech—which had the potential to do all sorts of permanently nasty things if it went wrong—was insanity.
It didn't matter how pretty and enticing the moving, sparkling, infinitely alterable nanotatts looked on the pictures hung around the booth. When it came to messing with tech, the old adage held true—you got what you paid for. At the prices flashing on the hover sign above the booth, you were getting third-rate chop-shop gear out of South America or Eastern Europe. And hygiene and training of the tattooists out of God knew where.
Just thinking about it made the healing scar on my wrist hurt.
Or maybe I was just getting old.
Nat had gone ahead of me while I was distracted by the tattoos. I jogged to catch up with her, slipped my arm through hers, then jumped when static sparked between us.
"Ow." I rubbed my arm. "Damn storm."
I always got static around thunderstorms. And for once my shoes didn't have rubber soles to counteract the effect.
Nat didn't seem to notice. Her gaze was fixed on a sign about fifty feet down the street. The simple white letters were halogen bright and stood out like a beacon among the flashing and whirling colors around them.
UNQUIET.
"That's where we're going?" I asked, pointing. Nat nodded, and my stomach twisted. Dumb. It was just another pretentious club name. Nothing more.
Still, my hand curled around the datapad in my jacket pocket as we approached. Help was just a call away if something did go wrong. I hoped.
The line was longer than you might expect from a Dockside club on a rainy Sunday night, and I relaxed slightly. It couldn't be too bad if lots of people were keen to play here. Could it?
Nat bypassed the line, ignoring the damp-looking scowls directed as us, and headed straight for the head of the rope line. The scantily clad bouncer held out some sort of scanner, and something glowed briefly on the back of her hand.
Damn. She'd purchased a pass or a membership to this place already?
"She's with me," Nat said to the bouncer.
"Guest fee is one hundred. Cash." His voice was bored, as was the expression on his overly painted face.
One hundred? For one night? Down here? One hundred was ridiculous for one of the Haight clubs. For a waterfront tourist trap, it was extortion. But Nat was already headed for the door, and I wasn't going to let her go in alone. I dug a hundred credit chit out of my purse and snapped it into the slot the bouncer indicated. He smirked, stamped my hand with a complicated squiggly symbol, and let me through.
As soon as I stepped through the weather shield around the club's entrance, I realized why the high price tag. And the attraction for the damp crowd waiting outside.
The air inside was scented with a throat-catching cocktail of smoky scents; I recognized tobacco and marijuana and Sandman, just for a start. There was also some sort of incense burning, adding sandalwood and something spicier to the mix. The tobacco license alone had to cost them a fortune.
"Filter?"
I nodded at the skinny girl dressed in the same sort of skimpy translucent outfit as the bouncer and took a filter pack from the basket she offered. "Anti-tox?" I asked as I snapped the tiny plugs into place in my nose and took a welcome unscented breath. She jerked her head at the other side of the door, and I saw another girl dispensing patches.
I slapped one on my arm and reminded myself to breathe through my nose as I moved deeper into the club, scanning for Nat.
Now that I was inside, I was even more confused about why we were here. Nat hated smoking and any hint of the drug scene. Most of her clubs were clean or only allowed gamer stims. I blinked repeatedly as the smoke stung my eyes. The haze in the air didn't make it easy to spot her.
I found her standing near the bar.
"Nice atmosphere," I quipped.
"Isn't it great?" She flipped her hand at the room behind us, grinning.
In what universe? I stared at her. Maybe she was high. If she'd spent last night playing here, then, even if she'd worn filters and a patch, some of the stuff could've gotten to her. And while I couldn't tell if she had filters in now, I definitely couldn't see a patch anywhere on the skin her game vest left on display.
She had to be high to like this place. The floor oozed stickily and it was crowded and noisy, with some kind of unpleasant metal pop blasting away. The smoke—and there were people smoking wherever I looked—hung in the air, giving everything a layer of hazy grime. I hoped my hundred had at least bought me top-class filters. I hadn't been to a club this low rent since college.
The bar guy—who fit right in with the crowd, with his shaved head and red leather pants—came over to us and I asked for water. To my relief, Nat did the same.
"C'mon," she said after our sealed bottles were delivered. "The games are upstairs.”
I hadn't realized there was another level, but the room did have kind of a low ceiling for a club. It added to the dive bar atmosphere.
Maybe there'd be less people on the game floor.
I followed Nat through the crowd to the far wall where another scan of the symbol on our hands gained us access to an elevator.
The noise level upstairs was mercifully quieter, more game club than the trash party vibe downstairs. There wasn't any music up here, just whoops and cheers and the muted bleed of game noises from the various bays.
I glanced at the screens in each bay as we walked past, recognizing one or two games. But most of them were unfamiliar, leaning heavily toward the violent bloody death genre.
My sense of unease returned. Like me, Nat was a quester at heart. She didn't usually do gore for the sake of gore. I was debating excusing myself to sneak off and call Damon when we reached the farthest bay. It was small, only four game chairs. Two were already occupied, though I didn't recognize either of the men, and the screen showed a desolate nighttime landscape, full of weird shadows and odd shapes. Two avatars—overly muscled scaly humanoids whose bodies were slung with various nasty-looking weapons—were standing motionless in the foreground of the screen.
&
nbsp; "This is us," Nat said. She tapped something into the game port, and one of the monsters waved, then made a beckoning motion. "They've been waiting until we got here."
Hair rose on the back of my neck. "I'm not sure I feel like playing. Plus, no chip, remember?" The game chairs were state-of-the-art like the ones at Righteous. Apparently Unquiet didn't spend all its money on narcotics licenses.
Nat frowned. "You can use a headset."
Pushy. Which wasn't like her either. I shook my head. "I'm not ready after the last time. You go ahead."
Something almost hostile flowed through her eyes, and I fought the urge to take a step back.
"You said we'd hang out. That we'd have some fun," she said.
"We are hanging out." I cracked open my water and took a swig to ease my suddenly dry mouth. "What's with the pressure? You've never minded me just watching before."
"This game is really chill."
"I'm sure it is. But like I said, I'm not in the mood. I'm still feeling hinky since the surgery." I could see the figures on the screen making impatient gestures and couldn't shake the spooky feeling that they could actually see me.
Which was impossible.
But whether or not it was impossible, it gave me the creeps. I took another sip of water, feeling hot and vaguely nauseous even though the smoke haze was thinner up here.
Maybe the filters weren't doing such a great job after all. I had to remember to breathe through my nose or I was going to end up sandbagged, or worse. I didn't need—or want—any more weird experiences.
Nat was still watching me, anger lurking in the back of her eyes.
I wanted to tell her we should just go home but didn't think that was going to go well. "Look, how about you log in and I'll catch up. I need to go to the bathroom."
Nat's shoulders relaxed. "Promise?"
"I won't be long," I replied.
To my relief, she nodded and took a seat in one of the empty chairs, snapping her chip into place with an eager expression.
A third figure materialized on the screen. It wasn't quite the same as the other two, but it didn't look like any avatar of Nat's that I'd ever seen. For one thing, it was male, and Nat usually stuck to girls. She sometimes used a guy if she was doing hand-to-hand combat games—she said they had better reach—but the landscape on the screen didn't look like the usual exotic arena format of a smash-and-bash.
So why the guy? I waited until Nat's breathing had slowed and all her telltales were green, telling myself to relax. Maybe the game didn't use custom avatars. Maybe it was an all-male scenario.
I watched as the three figures started moving into the distance and couldn't help hearing Cassandra's voice in my head, talking about intuition.
It was time to listen to mine and call for some backup. Someone who knew more about games than me. Someone with clout.
Only one name sprang to mind.
I found the bathrooms and called Damon.
"Maggie?" he said groggily. "I hope this is a booty call."
"Not exactly. But it is a chance to be a knight in shining armor." I slipped into an empty stall and shut the door, then tried not to touch anything. Unquiet didn't spend much money on bathroom maintenance, apparently.
"My armor's in storage." He sounded vaguely cranky. "What's up?"
"I'm down by the Piers. At a club called Unquiet."
"I've heard of it. What are you doing in a place like that? You don't . . . ." Maybe he realized that inquiring about my taste in drugs was an awkward question for him to ask an employee.
Better to clear that up. "No, I don't do drugs. Nat wanted to come. She's been here the last two nights. She said some of the Righteous guys brought her here."
"Possible. They have a license for a couple of our early games, but none of the later stuff, if I'm remembering correctly. They like the heavier stuff."
"Heavier?"
"More violent. Does Nat like slashers?"
Violent. Well, that explained some of the nastier-sounding graffiti gracing the walls in here. "Not really. That's kind of why I'm calling. She's acting strange. And she wants me to play this game I've never seen before. I don't recognize the other two players she's teamed up with. I don't know if they're from Righteous."
"Strange how?" All traces of tiredness had vanished from his voice.
"Just moody. And she's been out all night two nights in a row. Normally when one of us is sick, the other sticks around."
"You're still not feeling well?"
I lowered my voice as someone lurched into the stall next to mine with a muttered "fuck," followed by a string of less comprehensible curses. "No, I'm okay, but it's just weird that she didn't want to just hang at home after I'd had surgery."
"You don't think it's connected to the other testers, do you?"
"I don't know. But I'd appreciate it if you could come down here and help me get her home. We're in the last playing bay upstairs."
"Hang tight. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Thanks." But he'd already disconnected. I took as long as I thought was plausible to wash my hands, racking my brains for ways to talk Nat into leaving. Maybe Damon could tell her she was needed at Righteous or something.
I made my way slowly back to the bay. All three of them were still hooked in, and the screen still showed the same dark landscape, only now they were running through it, weapons drawn and held ahead of them. Just visible in the gloom ahead of them was another figure, pale green and delicately built.
It was running too. No. Fleeing.
It kept looking back over its shoulder at the pursuers, its face holding a desperate sort of hopelessness. The expression was way too realistic, like whoever had built the game was well versed in terrorizing their prey.
I shivered and turned away. No way was I plugging into that.
But hopefully I wouldn't have to. If none of them logged out, then they had no way of knowing I was back. And once Damon arrived, he'd know what to do. It was his area of expertise, after all.
Unfortunately, my luck didn't hold. I tried not to look at the screen too often over the next ten minutes, but each time I did, it showed nothing but blood and violence. The three of them dispatched the green thing and then flushed another similar victim from a stand of trees only to chase it off a cliff. Mercifully the screen froze at that point, and Nat and the other two started to move and stretch. Nat opened her eyes as she disconnected her chip.
"You're back," she said with a strangely pleased smile. "Are you ready to play?"
"Actually, I'm kind of thirsty," I stalled. "How about we get another drink? Or something to eat?"
Nat twisted in her seat, looking at the other two players. One was a shortish dark-skinned guy and the other one was tall with some sort of tribal tattoo covering half his face. I still didn't recognize either of them. "You guys want to take a break?"
They shrugged, stood, and moved off without saying anything.
Friendly. I was going to have a word with Damon about his hiring policies if these guys did work at Righteous. "Chatty, aren't they?"
"Just trying to stay in the zone," Nat said, combing her sweaty hair with her fingers. "Let's go. We shouldn't take too long."
"What's this game called?" I asked.
Nat either didn't hear me or was ignoring the question as we made our way to the bar. I ordered syncaf. Nat pulled a face at me and asked for vodka. I bit my tongue as she downed it in two gulps.
"What?"
"You don't usually drink much when you play."
"Sheesh. Relax, Mags. You should have one."
"The doc said no booze for a few days." A lie. But Nat didn’t know that. I sipped my drink slowly, wondering where the hell Damon was.
I'd almost reached the bottom of the mug, stalling while Nat tapped her fingernails restlessly against the bar, when I spotted his dark head moving fast through the crowd. Relief made me smile.
"You're taking forever," Nat said, tugging at my arm as I swirled the dregs, waiting for D
amon to reach us. "Let's go back."
"Almost done. You're the one making me stay up late, so you can't begrudge me some caffeine."
She tugged again. "C'mon."
"Why is this so important to you?"
Her grip tightened, and for a moment her eyes looked almost black in the dim lighting. Black and calculating. I stepped back but she didn't let go, just clutched me harder. "You'll see."
"Ow." I pulled my arm free just as Damon appeared by my side.
"Hello, ladies," he said. "What brings my two favorite employees to this neck of the woods?"
The look Nat turned on him was vicious. "What are you doing here?" she snapped.
"Just checking out the clubs. I like to keep up," Damon said mildly. He eased himself closer to me, and I resisted the urge to hug him. "What are we playing?"
"Nothing at the moment," Nat snapped. "Maggie's being a baby."
I clenched my jaw not to snap back. Her temper tantrum or whatever the hell it was she had going on was beginning to be seriously annoying. But I didn’t want to make things worse if I could avoid it. I took a breath. "I'm not the one acting childish here. I'm just not in the mood to play."
"Not with me, anyway," Nat snarled. "Bad decision."
So much for not escalating. Well, if good cop wasn’t going to work on her, maybe bad cop was the way to go. "What the hell are you talking about?" I said. "Are your filters not working or something?" If the drugs in the air were getting to her—and had been getting to her for the last couple of nights—that would be one explanation for her behavior.
"I'm just fine. I'm just trying to show you—" She broke off as Damon stepped between us. The look she directed at him was savage. "Get out of the way."
"Calm down," he said. "Maggie's tired. She just wants to go home."
"Home with you. Well, that doesn't work. I had her first." The words came out almost as a hiss, and I rocked backward as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
"Is she high?" Damon asked, turning to me.
