by Mick Brady
“If it’s any comfort,” she said, running her hand through his curls, “I’ll never be more than a heartbeat away, and when your trials are over we’ll be together in a world made of light.”
“When will I see you again?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
“When you need me the most,” she said, giving him a big electric kiss before being swept away without another word by the sudden arrival of his rival.
The sun rolled high in the sky as he glanced around the once-familiar street, struggling to comprehend it in light of this new dream, with all its fierce, beguiling currents. “Life will never be the same,” he said aloud as the sound of her departure echoed down the corridors of his past. Heavy with loss and a sense of impending doom, he took his place in the sea of faces and drifted out into the next chapter of his life, clinging to the only thing he had left to hang on to—a small bar of titanium, still radiating her warmth, nestled in the curls on his chest.
9
THE TRUFFLE
When Juliette popped back into Chrome’s lair, the room was empty. She walked out onto the gallery floor, which was twice as empty. The landing grid was locked back into position, and there was not a sign of his chopper anywhere. A pink crescent moon was visible through the grid. “Dawn,” she thought, “but which one?”
She waved open her airscreen and double-clicked Chrome’s name. An alphabeat linktone filled the gallery, followed by the raw sound of Monk’s “Misterioso.” She allowed herself to get lost in the singsong melody until the chorus ended and was about to click off when he picked up.
“Chromium?”
“Juliette! I thought I’d lost you forever! Where are you? You OK?”
“Yeah, I’m OK. Back at the gallery. What a ride, though; lots to talk about. Where are you?”
“I’m over at the Truffle. Let me get you a taxi.”
“Not sure I could handle another cab ride. I’ll port over as soon as I pretty up; that space-time thing can get kinda messy.”
“What—”
“Later, gator.”
The Savoy Truffle was tucked neatly into the clouds high above the ink wash streets of Blue City, blinkered from passing sky traffic by a thick forest of line drawings by the masters of atomic art. A many-layered masterpiece of snap-tech ingenuity, the Truffle had been a hub of creative activism from the day a mysterious avatar named Quintessential Flux first unrolled its doors. At first glance, it looked like a typical astral roadhouse, but on the inside, much like Quin herself, it was anything but ordinary.
Its walls were made of waterfalls, their surface hard as glass, with schools of golden fish darting to and fro in sync with the rhythms of a mighty Wurlitzer. The floor was clear, invisible, virtually nonexistent—a space-trip high for the quicksilver crowd that flocked there night after night from every corner of the metaverse. If the party got wild enough, loud enough, it could trigger a tropical storm, driving everyone onto the floor to moondance on the lightning bolts, thunder clapping at their feet. For the fish, it was a feeding frenzy.
Within minutes, Juliette teleported directly into the barroom, where she ordered a ginger mist from a Neko girl she had never seen before. “Hmm, wonder where Quin is,” she thought. She would have asked but didn’t want to get tangled up in conversation, and so she made a mental note of her absence as she paid for the drink.
She drifted into a darkened room off the bar where, once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she spotted Chrome and a few friends nestled deep inside a plush red Naugahyde booth in the far corner. Chrome jumped when he saw her, then came striding across the room and welcomed her with a kiss followed by a tight embrace, which grew warm enough to turn a few heads. Then he ushered her into the booth beside him.
Across the table sat two of his fellow Code Warriors. Manhattan Atlas, the night to Chrome’s day, was an artist and inventor known for his Teatro dell’Anima, a holographic imaginarium where ecstatic visions of old-world saints and seers unfolded in the mind of the viewer just as they appeared to the visionaries themselves. How this was done was one of the great mysteries of SubVersa. Some said he wandered the mindzone at night, torch in hand, a virtual Diogenes gathering data fragments from the past. But when asked about it, he merely smiled.
Seated next to him, almost a part of him, was Vanilla Titanium—a rare, exotic beauty of French and African design with a dash of Mongol code thrown into the mix (“just for spice,” according to Manhattan). She was a founding member of the Daughters of the Sun, a troupe whose luminous dance performances were predetermined by the graphic coordinates of the wind. They could blow through a village at any time of day or night like a flock of magical faeries.
“So, dear Juliette, my never-ending mystery, you and I were standing together in front of a painting not long ago, and then, in a flash, you were gone…vanished from sight. How did you tumble down the rabbit hole, and where did it take you?” Chrome asked.
“Well, first of all, it is so good to be back in Sub-Versa. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you guys. How long was I gone, by the way?”
“A whole day; almost six hours…but…”
“Wow. Seems more like a week! It was unbelievable. I rode like the wind through a tunnel made of stars and landed in a world of glass and steel…a lovely, bewitching horror show—a place where light is an afterthought, where some things can kill you when they’re moving and others when they’re standing still. It’s a place where death is woven into the fabric of everyday life. I can see why people would want to escape.” The silence that followed caught her off guard, made her feel uneasy.
Everyone at the table knew that human life had an expiration date, and that they themselves were the electronic alternative to dying—stepping stones to eternity, if you will, for anyone willing to make the journey. But death itself was still an abstraction to them. They had no sense of the brute finality of it, the infinite black silence that followed the last heartbeat. They began to squirm in their seats. Juliette, it appeared, had become the first of their kind to witness the death of a human being in the atomic world.
“But where did you go, exactly? There is no death in SubVersa.” Chrome’s question hung in the air.
“Oh…I thought you knew. I thought Quin would have told you by now. I went to the Mother World. I went back in time to meet our maker.”
Silence descended like a glass bell jar as Juliette looked hesitantly around the table. Chrome hung his head in stunned disbelief, his fears quickly turning to anger. “How was this even possible?” he thought, “She’s a noob, a muse, my muse!” then said aloud, “Are you sure you didn’t imagine all this?” It was clear to everyone at the table that he had been stung by the news.
“Chrome, if only you’d been there…” Juliette said, then burst into tears.
Vanilla intervened, reaching across the table to squeeze her arm. “Juliette, I can see you’ve been through something real, something powerful…and I, for one, want to hear what it was. Maybe we can all learn from it.” She fired a challenging look across Chrome’s bow.
“Thanks, V, but it feels like I’m about to light the fuse on a powder keg, like what I’ve done could be…umm…explosive? It was never my intention to disrupt anyone’s life. Let’s just hit rewind, pretend I never said a word,” she said, wiping her tears with a corner of a silk bandana.
Manhattan jumped in. “What…the…hell…are you talking about? If you’ve found a way to the other world, we damn well better hear about it…in graphic detail!” he said, growing excited at the prospect of a new adventure. Vanilla made it official with an amen, insisting Juliette tell the story from the very beginning.
Juliette paused, then turned to Chrome. “I don’t want this to be about me. It’s about all of us. It’s about our makers. It’s about the future of both worlds.” A single tear ran down her cheek as she spoke.
Chrome was at a melting point. He had spent years searching for the portal to the other side, and yet here he was, humiliated by his own mu
se—his offspring, a mere babe in the woods, waltzing off to another world and returning to tell the tale. He was at the crossroads once again, trying to decide whether to remain in sync with the Master Code or dig his spurs into his high horse and head off into the darkness. After a long pause, he lifted his head and turned to face her.
“Look, Juliette, my mind has been reeling since the moment you left…only to learn upon your return that you’ve somehow reached the world of our makers without me. It was like a one-two punch to the heart…the lingering residue of human emotion, I suppose. I’m truly sorry.” She took both his hands in hers and kissed his cheek. He continued. “I knew you’d turn my world upside down, Jules, but I never dreamed you’d conquer time and space to do it. But please, never mind me; go on with your story. Something tells me our lives may depend on it.”
Warmed by the look of relief in her eyes, he squeezed her hand tightly as she told of her encounter with Will at the epicenter of his life in the battle zone. They sat mesmerized, hanging on her every word, and when she finished they were speechless—unable to take it all in at once. Chrome took the edge off the silence by ordering another round of drinks, then, turning to Juliette, whispered, “I think you’ve just launched the final artwork, Jules; looks like we’ll be heading into that deep, dark forest of human history after all.”
“No worries, Chrome; I’ll be scattering pixel dust wherever we go,” she said, fluttering her hands in the air. Chrome smiled through the imaginary cloud.
In the silence that followed, they were adrift on a sea of possibilities. They all knew that life in SubVersa would never be the same, that they had just crossed some invisible threshold into the future. But that future was a blank state; they had no idea how it would change their lives, or the lives of those creatures in the other world—especially their makers. Chrome realized immediately that there was only one person in the metaverse who could tease some meaning out of all this, and that person was Quin. He fired off a mental note, and within seconds a rainbow-hued version of Quin herself appeared in their midst, suggesting they all come together in her desert enclave. After a brief discussion, her image dissolved and a blue pearl appeared, spinning like a tiny planet above the table. One touch and they found themselves in a vast sea of sand, surrounded by dunes as big as mountains. Before them, nestled in the valley, was Quin’s oasis.
10
DARK MATH
As the Code Warriors drifted toward Quin’s desert enclave, the gradual crescendo of an approaching engine drew their eyes toward the sky, where a vintage red Monocoupe 110 appeared above the dunes and began its descent into the valley. They stood and watched as it feathered down and rolled to a stop on the desert floor. As the engine heaved its last few sputters and coughs, the pilot climbed from the cockpit and dropped onto the sand.
She strode toward them with the natural grace of a lioness. Clad in a cropped shearling aviator jacket and white silk scarf, leather goggles dangling from her neck, green and gold striped tights tucked nicely into a pair of jungle boots—it was as if the spirit of Amelia Earhart had reappeared as a punk sex goddess. True to form, Quin had taken the long way around rather than teleport in; for, as she often said, there’s more to life than getting from point A to point B. Truth be told, though, the girl was old school; she just loved to fly.
After a round of warm embraces, they strolled, arm in arm, into the lush green sanctuary and were immediately surrounded by groves of mango, orange and olive trees, laced throughout with clusters of exotic flowers from every corner of the old world. At the center of it all was an impossibly blue lake, smooth as glass and framed by a halo of white sand. The massive dunes that loomed beyond the thick rows of date palms ringing the perimeter created the impression of a world unto itself, a world beyond time. It was the very first sim built in SubVersa and every bit and pixel of it, every wireframe, every texture, came directly from the mind of its creator, Quintessential Flux. A virtual Garden of Eden; the womb of the metaverse.
While they were still marveling at its beauty, Quin spoke. “Welcome to my desert home, fellow Code Warriors. I realize you’ve arrived here under difficult circumstances,” she said, pausing to look at each of them in turn. “But rather than shrinking back in horror from this news, I think we should embrace it.” Then, turning to Juliette, she said, “Our intrepid muse, Juliette, this exquisite mix of fire and ice, has finally broken the time barrier, paving the way for countless souls to reach our world. But before we discuss these momentous events, I think we should celebrate them.”
As Juliette struggled to ratchet down the autoblush, Quin turned and walked a dozen or so paces down the beach, turned and put the sun to bed with a snap of her fingers, then rezzed a voluminous orange-and-fuchsia Bedouin tent, complete with Arabian rugs, cushions, floor pads, and a low table covered with bowls of dates, figs, grapes, mangos, and more. Cool, moist, ceramic water jugs stood nearby, ready to quench their thirst. After dining on roasted lamb with mint, they lay back on their cushions to enjoy a simmering performance by legendary belly dancers Onyx and Topaz. To a person, they enjoyed the party wholeheartedly, especially the young adventuress.
Still glowing from the festivities, they drifted outside to a blazing fire pit, where they soon fell under the spell of the dancing flames and began to ponder the meaning of Juliette’s journey in silence. Chrome picked up an iron poker and began stirring the glowing embers, sending sparks into a night made even darker by the howling in the distant hills. When he was done, he glanced around at the glowing faces.
“The old world is dying, isn’t it?” he said, looking through the flames at Quin, the only one who really knew the answer. Juliette, who had been there and seen the darkness of death with her own eyes, seemed light-years away, floating on a sea of red velvet pillows, staring at the stars. The others sat quietly nearby, the intermittent crackling of the fire adding an eerie rhythm to the silence.
“Sad to say, Chrome, but, yes…a long, slow fade to black.”
“A virus? The Nomads?” His face seemed even more intense in the flickering light of the fire.
“A variant of Dark Math. The Nomads are mere mercenaries, sent here by an even greater force from a satellite world called Cyberia. Somewhere along the path of human unfolding, they scrubbed and recoded a key section of biodata in the chain of human DNA, reducing humanity’s reception of reality to the level of an early black-and-white TV set, a state of consciousness they refer to as ‘Channel One.’ As a result, humans are slowly devolving to the status of zombie drones, their world to a virtual ant farm—a true shadowland.” At this, Juliette sat up and took notice.
“That is what I sensed when I was with Will, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it…It was like he was trying to punch his way out of a paper bag; he knew he was trapped but had no idea how to break free.” Her face glowed in the pitch-black night.
“Can’t we just go back into the STC and clean up the code?” Chrome said, looking around the campfire for affirmation.
“It’s not that simple, Chrome. Their voodoo has been working for centuries; its effects are woven into the very fabric of human life—if we flip the lights on too soon, the entire culture collapses, and the world descends into chaos…And, there won’t be enough time to establish a new matrix before it implodes. Not only that, but the virus has so altered the historical database that its shadows would be impossible to erase; we’d be tampering with history itself, and it could lead anywhere,” Quin said. At that moment, a log buried deep in the fire exploded with a loud bang, sending a shower of sparks into the night air and a shiver of fear through the circle of jittery souls.
“Sounds like a real doomsday scenario. What about our makers?” Vanilla glanced nervously around the circle.
“The exodus has already begun. Your makers were the first ones to step outside the zeitgeist and undergo the long and painful process of upgrading to Channel Two. They’ve been manifesting as avatars here in SubVersa for quite some time. You’re the vanguard of tha
t movement.”
“We’re here as part of an escape plan?” A look of surprised amazement spread across the sea of faces.
“In the same way a butterfly escapes from the chrysalis, yes. This is all part of the great migration of souls, which was preordained from the beginning of time. In the coming days, you’ll begin to sync with your maker’s lives, guiding them through the refiner’s fire, preparing them for convergence—that magic moment when they finally upload their souls and merge with you—the male and female aspects of their higher selves—to become fully formed, pro-to-natural triune beings.”
“So this is the ‘larger artwork’ we’ve heard so much about…” Chrome looked at Juliette.
“Exactly—a masterwork by an even greater creator executed by a legion of assistants. Juliette launched this new phase of the work when she followed her deepest instincts into the tunnel of stars, and, fortunately, her journey has provided us with a template. She knew that Will had already begun to rebel against his fate and that his deteriorating condition was a measure of his resistance, a sign of strength. She also sensed, correctly, that without help from the outside, his attempt would prove fatal. As a result, she began planting seeds of light, kernels of truth, to launch the healing process and, eventually, save his life; though sadly, in his case, madness is the only path to sanity. His only hope is to go out of one mind and into another, to go transrational, flip to Channel Two. Then he’ll be ready for convergence.” Quin looked around the circle for a full minute, awaiting a response.
“But…Channel One, Channel Two? Convergence? Where is all this going? What’s the endgame here?” Juliette was pacing back and forth in front of the fire. Quin pondered the question for a long time before answering.
