The Harmony Paradox

by Matthew S. Cox

  Nina headed left, away from the lobby toward the building’s physical plant. A ninety-degree right turn later, she paused at a pink spray-painted line on the floor, walls and ceiling. Fifty-four feet away, according to her targeting optics, a sentry gun swiveled to point at her. It scanned as a standard Class 4 rifle mechanism, 10mm caseless rounds. Within a half-second of training on her, it emitted a buzzing chirp, a sound she recognized as ‘bot speak’ for ‘shit, cop, don’t shoot.’ She doubted the drug source would be scanning everyone’s NetMini for police identity codes, but she made a note to disable it if she wound up on Ricky’s couch.

  The sentry resumed sweeping about. Nina no longer existed to its electronic awareness of the area. She approached the boiler room door, turned the knob, and pushed with a normal human level of strength, but the door didn’t move. A metallurgical scan showed the probable outline of a large tool shelf against it on the inside. She smiled and nudged the door with her body’s full power. With a jarring screech, door and shelf slid inward until she created a gap she could fit through.

  A massive chamber inside contained no boilers or anything even close to heating/cooling equipment, though the air tasted of industrial oil and metal. Broken bolts and mounting brackets, as well as two giant dark stains on either side of the space hinted at where machines once stood. A few meters to her right, a yellow-and-black exo suit slumped empty and powered down. Straps and buckles hung over a cushioned pad in the operator’s hollow, decorated with sparkly pink hearts and little cat head brooches.

  The majority of the cavernous room held shelves stacked to the ceiling, packed with either bins, robot parts, or idle delivery bots. Every so often, a flying brick about the size of a small dog took off from its perch on the right-side shelves, flew to a bin on the opposing shelf to grab a bottle or packet, and raced off to a hole in the wall.

  At the far end of the room, a slim woman with caramel-colored skin stretched out on a shiny, new Comforgel reclining bed, currently in chair mode. She wore a lacy, transparent slip with nothing on under it, a fact obvious in the orange-red glow of the gel beneath her. Beyond the bed, a desk held multiple terminals (also new), a high-end food reassembler (with the espresso attachment), a net deck, and a Yume Koujou game system.

  Jen Alvarez appeared lost in extreme concentration, though her eyes remained closed. Nina walked over, ducking once to avoid a delivery bot that apparently ran on route programs rather than active sensing. She stopped at Jen’s side, her gaze following a thin wire from the side of the woman’s head to the game system.

  Hmm. Pulling the wire out of a Yume is as bad as doing it to a deck jockey. The woman would be immersed in the game world, experiencing it as reality. The sudden shock of being launched out of that world into the real one would leave her stunned and disoriented for several minutes.

  Nina took a spare wire from the desk, connected it to one of her M3 ports in the back of her neck, and plugged in to the Yume. She ran the link in windowed mode, viewing the game’s output on a floating screen rather than living it. A musical jingle played in her head, the ‘Yume Koujou sound.’ A few seconds later, a dramatic orchestral score started that conjured images of running through the jungle away from some sort of temple guardian.

  The black screen faded in with the logo for Curse of the Lost Diamonds.

  Red text scrolled along the bottom: ‹Single Player Only: Press ‘a’ to start a private instance. Press ‘b’ to spectate current instance.›

  Nina glanced at the B.

  The screen shifted, and she looked down the length of a stone-walled corridor reminiscent of something one might find buried under the jungle in a cheesy action holo-vid. A buxom woman in short shorts, a camo shirt and combat boots hovered over a stone table, studying two-inch gold tiles covered in crude human figures carved with different facial expressions.

  Nina ‘walked’ up to the woman. Her presence appeared to radiate light, so she figured ‘spectators’ appeared as little ghostly balls to the player. “Hey.”

  “I’m busy,” said the woman. A second later, she paused in studying the tiles, and stared at Nina. “What the hell? Who are you? How did you get into this instance?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Fuck.” The woman stomped one foot and scowled at the ceiling. Handguns in her chest harness, far too large to be plausible, clattered. “I don’t know how the hell you hacked my Yume, but I am going to find you. Game pause. Logout.”

  Nina shook her head. She pulled her wire out, which did little to her as she’d kept her session on a screen.

  Jen blinked and sat up, bleary-eyed and grumbling. As soon as she lifted her head enough to spot Nina, she screamed.

  “As I was saying, I need to talk to you.”

  “The fuck!” shrieked Jen. She leapt for a handgun tucked between the Yume Koujou and one of the terminals, but Nina caught her and tossed her back on the Comforgel chair.

  “No guns.”

  Jen scrambled away and curled up near the headrest, staring over her knees. “How… how the hell did you get in here?” She shot a terrified look at the open door.

  “Nice little business you’ve got running here.”

  “You shouldn’t hurt me.” Jen ran a nervous hand up and down her shin before grasping her toes. “I’ve got friends.”

  “What kind of friends?”

  “Friends,” said Jen. “Lots of friends who’ll find you if you do anything to me.”

  Nina’s somatic response detection system lit up with wavering graphs and lines around the young woman’s face, pointing out an elevated heart rate, increased perspiration, and eye movements indicative of a lie. “You’ve got a couple buddies in the local street gangs, Mama Fine, aka Jennifer Alvarez. Age nineteen. Doing rather well for yourself. Thirteen point eight million credits distributed among fourteen separate accounts. You’re averaging around 450 grand a month all on common chems due to your wide distribution reach.”

  Jen stared at the door again. “How… who?”

  “My name’s Nina. I’m with Division 9.”

  “No…” Jen whined. “I haven’t done anything that bad.” She burst into tears. “Please don’t kill me!”

  Nina bowed her head and sighed. “Calm down. Unless you’re planning on pointing a gun at me, I have no intention of harming you.” Once the weeping stopped, she looked up. “Who do you get the Harmony from?”

  “Bunch of people.” Jen sniffed.

  “There’s one in particular responsible for the majority.”

  Shivering, Jen shrugged with one shoulder. “I dunno his name. He’s kinda weird. He didn’t wanna do the usual thing and trade on the ’net and let my bots pick the shit up. He always wants to meet in person. I thought he was like a serial rapist or some shit, so I got some friends go with me. Big friends.”

  A beep made Nina glance to the left. One of the terminals tracking incoming orders had an anime cat dancing across the screen for hitting the 2,500 orders mark in a single day. “How did this guy find you? What got it started?”

  Jen uncurled, letting her legs hang over the side of her chair. “I just got this message one day asking about an arrangement. This dude said he could, like, provide mass quantities of H for cheap. I was kinda suspicious at first, thinkin’ he might’ve been the police… but you guys don’t care about soft shit like H, right?”

  “Not usually, but this is an unusual situation.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured.” Jen ran her hands up and down her arms while emitting a nervous laugh. “He kept messaging me, but I didn’t bite. Then I get this picture of a van full of H. So I decided to check it out.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Dude was legit.”

  “All right… where do you meet him, and when is the next time?”

  “Umm. He sends me a message when he’s got stuff. We pick a place like fifteen minutes before I gotta be there.” She eyed her shelves laden with an assortment of chems. “Umm… So if the cops don’t care about the soft shit, why are you here? I’m
careful. I don’t deal the hard stuff.”

  “We don’t. I’m tracking down tainted Harmony.”

  Jen’s posture relaxed. She slipped off the glowing Comforgel to her feet, wincing from the cold concrete. “Mind if I put something on… basically naked in this thing.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Thanks.” Jen hurried to a cabinet on the right side of the desk, from which she pulled a pair of sweat pants.

  “I need to find this source. The next time he contacts you, vid me. I’m going to be one of your ‘bodyguards.’”

  Jen flung the diaphanous nightie off and wriggled into a sweatshirt. “He won’t believe you. You don’t look anything like a bodyguard. He’ll know you’re a doll, and I don’t handle enough credits to have a doll for a bodyguard.”

  “Actually, you do.” Nina chuckled. “All right. I’ll arrange for someone who looks the part to shadow you until you make contact.”

  “Umm.” Jen stepped into enormous white slippers shaped like cartoon cats. “You mean like stay here… with me?”

  “That’s right. Only until this guy calls you.”

  Jen eyed the chems again. “You guys aren’t gonna screw me over when this is finished, are you?”

  “Depends on how well you behave.” She smiled into a sigh. “Trust me. The chems you’re selling are the least of my concerns here. Really. I know your grandparents came here for a better life. I’m not here to shut you down.”

  “Yeah.” Jen looked down. “They did.”

  “Maybe you found what they were looking for with all this.” Nina gestured around at the whirring bots. “Looks like you’re getting as close as you can in this world.” She stared at the door and spoke a little over a whisper. “The Corporates are involved.”

  Jen raised and lowered her toes, making her cat slippers nod. “Figured. I’m not a rich bitch above the law. Why else would I have the shadow police in my place?”

  Nina opened a vid window to request another operative. “We don’t close every case with bullets.” Drummond’s head exploded in her memory for the thousandth time. “Just the special ones.”

  white-haired elf girl in a dress made from leaf-shaped spots of light flitted about the holo-panel in Nina’s living room. At her side, a man of ridiculous proportion wielded a sword so large it made her laugh to watch him whipping it around like a plastic toy. The two made their way across a forest full of neon-colored flowers and bizarre trees with great wooden faces. Every so often, one of the elf’s blue magic bolts would miss the little green men attacking them and hit a tree, causing it to sprout a human face and cuss her out with kid-friendly grumbling.

  Elizaveta sat on the sofa to Nina’s right, cuddled against her except for when the game made her flail her arms about to control her ‘magic.’ Joey draped himself at her left, the pair of them wearing senshelmets. Whenever a goblin arrow hit the elf or the armored man, red numbers somewhere between fifteen and a hundred appeared. The man’s life bar didn’t move much, though each hit on the elf took away hunks of green.

  Both Elizaveta and Joey’s characters seemed to do about the same range of damage, anywhere from eighty to five-hundred, only the elf could hit things far away and Joey’s guy could hit more than one thing at a time if they got close. Any goblin either one of them hit died instantly, regardless of the damage number.

  “Guess those are weak huh?” Nina glanced at the official NetMini, simultaneously dreading and eager for a call from Ricky or Jen.

  Elizaveta looked up at her; the senshelmet’s plastic shield covered most of her face, save for her mouth and chin. After a second, her lips pressed thin with frustration. “Sorry.”

  Nina repeated her comment in Russian.

  “23 Da. Slabovato.” Elizaveta nodded. “24 Ya izvenayus’ chto ya izuchayu angliyskiy slishkom medlenno.”

  Nina patted the top of the helmet since she couldn’t stroke the girl’s hair. “25 Nichego. Ne nuzhno speshit’.”

  “26 Chto ona skazala.” Joey pointed at Nina.

  “27 On govorit, kak robot,” muttered Elizaveta, grinning.

  “You got a chip?” Nina smiled.

  “Yeah. Kinda had to when she came running into the living room soaked, naked, crying, and rambling.”

  Nina stared at him, not that he could see her. “What the hell happened?”

  “Not a big deal. Autoshower freaked her out. You know how the door safety-locks when it runs?”

  “Oh, no…” She patted the girl on the back and rubbed her hand up and down, switching to Russian. “You tried to shower alone?”

  Elizaveta nodded. “I was trying to be brave, but I got scared when it wouldn’t let me out.”

  Joey grimaced. “’Course I had no idea why she’s screaming her head off. She just kept freaking out, so I ordered a chip.”

  A huge purple goblin, coated in writhing shadow magic appeared out of nowhere, hit the elf, and knocked her flat with an empty health bar.

  Elizaveta slapped her hands on her thighs and yelled, “Bullshit!” in English.

  Nina gasped.

  Joey whistled innocently.

  “Elizaveta!” Nina pulled the helmet off the girl. “That’s a bad word. You’re not old enough to say that.”

  Innocent blue eyes stared at her with zero comprehension. “I… say word.”

  “That’s a naughty word.” Nina smiled. “Plohoe slovo.”

  Elizaveta looked shocked. She pointed at Joey and blurted in Russian, “He says that every time his character dies. I thought it is what you say when your character dies.”

  Joey flashed a cheesy smile. His chip-Russian came out slow and lacking in proper inflection. “It is what you say when the computer cheats, not when you get knocked out.”

  Elizaveta leaned forward to peer around Nina at him. “But you say that every time you die. Is the computer cheating all the time?”

  The total sincerity on her face made Nina crack up laughing. The child stared at her in confusion for a few seconds before she sniffled and started crying.

  Joey made a pensive face while his chip chewed on her Russian, after which he muttered in English, “Yeah, basically.”

  Nina brushed at her hair. “Why are you crying?”

  “Am I in trouble? You’re laughing at me.” Elizaveta calmed somewhat, sniffling. “What is funny?”

  “Just the look on your face when you asked him that. You’re not in trouble, but I’d like you not to use that language until you get a bit older, okay?”

  “But, I’ve heard him―”

  Joey waved both hands at her in a rapid side-to-side gesture.

  “Okay. I won’t say the bad English.” Elizaveta wiped her face dry and nodded, her good mood back in an instant. “So, is the computer always cheating?”

  “No, sweetie. But, he seems to think it does.” Nina winked.

  “If it beats me, it cheated.” Joey poked himself in the chest with one thumb.

  “Ohhhh.” Elizaveta bobbed her head with a slow, exaggerated nod. “He just does not like to lose.”

  Nina reclined into the sofa while they resumed playing, content to watch them roam a lush enchanted forest. The endless throng of goblins gave way to an eerie clearing where the daylight did not enter. Elizaveta jumped and whirled around to look behind her; the elf woman on the screen mimicked the gesture.

  “Prizraki!” she yelled.

  “These are nice ghosts,” said Joey. “The quest-giver in that village said we needed to talk to them. Look for one with a lantern.”

  “Chto?”

  Joey sighed, but seemed more irritated with himself than the girl. He repeated the line in Russian.

  Elizaveta pointed. The elf approached a transparent human woman in a ball gown. Whispery dialogue came out of Joey’s helmet in English and hers in Russian. Soon, they left the ghosts behind and spent about ten minutes navigating a cave with a few giant spiders until they found a great door.

  “This is a good place to save,” said Joey in Russian. “It’s
bedtime.”

  “Aww.” Elizaveta slouched. “Okay.”

  She removed her helmet and carried it over to the stand where the Yume Koujou system sat. After putting it away, she ran off to her bedroom. Joey set his helmet on the floor nearby, leaned over, and took Nina’s hand. He kept gliding closer and closer until they kissed.

  “You’re tense,” whispered Joey. “Case got you wound up?”

  “Yeah.” She kissed him a little more before glancing down the back hallway. “Teeth!”

  “Okay,” yelled Elizaveta.

  Two seconds later, she stumbled across the hallway from bedroom to bathroom while pulling on a nightgown.

  “Your eyes light up when you look at her,” said Joey.

  Nina kissed him again. “Be right back.”

  She headed to the bathroom where Elizaveta waited with her toothbrush in hand. Nina set about helping the girl brush. These arms can tear people in half, bend plastisteel… And I’m brushing a six-year-old’s teeth. One bad circuit, one electron in the wrong place, and… Elizaveta made silly faces at her, chasing away the building worry.

  “Rinse.” Nina handed her a cup of water. “Don’t drink it.”

  Elizaveta swished water around her mouth and projectile-splattered it into the sink. Mostly. After, Nina walked her to bed, tucked her in, and sat at her side reading a storybook from a virtual holo-panel. The child fell asleep in minutes, and Nina crept out and back to where Joey lay comatose on the couch, with a wire running from behind his ear to the Yume Koujou.

  “I’m not sleeping.” One eye popped open as Nina sat. “Sec. Loggin’ out.”

  “What would you have done without that multitasker?” Nina crawled up on the couch and leaned into him. “Would you have waited patiently for me to come back or logged in and been a meat puppet?”

  Joey pulled the wire out and threaded an arm around her. He pursed his lips in thought. “Hmm. Fooling around with you or covering the walls of Gamma-9 with alien/demon blood. Tough call.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, well if I’m interrupting.”