by Dani Kollin
Her corporation had mercifully given her a year’s leave with pay. Not that she needed it. She was the sole beneficiary of four separate life insurance policies and four stock liquidations. She was actually wealthy enough to buy her majority and still have enough left over to never work again, even with the inflation being caused by the war. But she didn’t bother. She’d tried going to the support group again but had been sadly amused to discover that its members were now afraid of her. In her group of wretched souls she’d become the pariah. They didn’t bar her outright, but no one sat next to her anymore and no could actually look her in the eyes when she spoke. It was almost as if she were an apparition. Augustine’s own parents were on Mars and could offer only a distant solace for grandchildren they’d never met and did not own shares in. Her brothers and sisters on Earth were afraid to associate with her for fear what ever had felled her entire family would end up being transmitted to their own children fighting for the UHF.
It was only at the final support group meeting she’d forced herself to attend that she found something to help her deal with the pain. She sat in the back, and as usual no one sat next to her. But toward the end of the meeting a man she hadn’t seen for quite some time came up to her and offered to buy her lunch. Between appetizers and dessert he’d offered her a way out of her misery. He too had stopped coming to the meetings because he’d found his way into the virtual reality underground. He’d only waited to contact her because he wanted to make sure that she’d become safely anonymous again. She should have been mortified. It was against the five edicts of the virtual reality dictates and her painful inoculation as a child. But the horror she felt as a child was a numb and distant echo compared to the primal agony she was feeling over the loss of everyone she’d ever cared about. If what he spoke of could ease that pain, if only for a moment, she would try.
The new rigs were expensive, but money was not a problem and the new VR underground had developed ways of making payment that were undetectable. The trick was to invest in companies and corporations that declared bankruptcy soon after the investment was made. That way all anyone could be accused of was foolish investing, without any laws being broken.
All Augustine had was money. She didn’t even care if she got ripped off or it was a trap set by the police. She was a little surprised when a few weeks later a medium-sized box came to her door. Somehow she’d expected the rig to be what she’d experienced in the museum all those de cades ago, a large padded chair with a huge system that attached over her head. What she’d gotten for a sum of money that would’ve gotten three of her four children majority was a sleeping bag and a helmet. It came with written (written!) instructions she was advised to burn after memorizing.
She realized how foolish it was to assume that the technology of VR would not have changed. The rig she had used in the virtual reality museum had been based on a design centuries old. This unit promised everything the old rig had and more. The instructions told her what she needed to know. She should put on the helmet first in order to allow it to calibrate to her mind. During that time she should look at holos of the people she really wanted to meet in the virtual reality world. She should take tiny samples of the foods and drinks she liked best and listen to the music she liked and review holos of her favorite movies. All the images, tastes, and sounds would be adjusted to the VR world by the helmet. Part of her was horrified by the helmet and what it represented, but the horror only lasted for a moment and with a sigh she secured it to her head.
After the calibration was completed the instructions told her to get in the bag naked on the floor and put the helmet back on. The bag would inflate and attach to her nervous system as well as take care of basic physiological plumbing issues. It would also provide her with enough nourishment for up to a week, but she was advised not to go that long, as the risk of discovery was too great and emptying that much waste at once might cause a building’s sanitary system to log an alert and make a record. The instructions further informed her that when she was done she would emerge from the bag clean and when it was emptied of waste and the nutrition packs refilled she should store the helmet and sleeping bag in separate locations. After she’d memorized the manual she dissolved it, got into the bag, put on the helmet, and for the first time in as long as she could remember was happy.
It wasn’t long before Augustine started spending as much time as she could in the VR rig. As she no longer reported to work and hardly anyone visited, that turned out to be quite a lot. She learned the difference between hardly and never when she almost got caught. Her sister had come over unannounced and Augustine’s apartment had been set for privacy mode. But her sister, fearing the worst, had called the cops. Augustine had by mere chance just finished a wonderful session. She emerged from the bag only to be told by her DijAssist that since she hadn’t answered the three contractually mandated requests to confirm well-being, the door was going to be forced by the police. Augustine shouted out just in time to stop the incursion and then spent the next few minutes putting away the VR rig. It was an exceptionally painful endeavor given that she had to do it with creaky, atrophied muscles. She finally got to the door, clothed only in a robe, and began berating them all for not having the decency to leave a mourning widow and mother alone. She could tell they weren’t completely convinced—even after she’d finally relented and let them in for coffee. Since they’d had no official reason to doubt her they eventually got up, left her alone, and closed the report.
That incident had frightened her enough to begin looking for a more secure venue in which to plug in and drop out. She found the answer by way of her departed son, Lee. She remembered she still had the key to his unused apartment and that the lease still had months left on it. It stood empty, and if she went there and was caught going in or out it certainly wouldn’t seem too strange, just as long as she didn’t make a habit of getting caught. If anyone came to her door while she was at her son’s apartment they’d just assume she was out, and even if they went in, all they’d find was an empty apartment with a list of errands to run on the daily log. As a last mea sure she applied for and got majority. Not that any investor would have compelled her to take a job anywhere, given her grieving war widow status, but she felt the more control she had over her own portfolio the less likely anyone would be to bother her. So far it had worked and she was able to spend up to three days at a time with her “family” without being disturbed. Part of her knew how useless and pathetic an exercise it all was, but she didn’t care. While she was in VR she could almost forget.
She made one last check to make sure the corridor was clear and then went to Lee’s apartment. It didn’t take her long to get the VR helmet and bag set up and leave a world that had nothing for her for a world that had everything.
Al couldn’t appear at the site of Operation Dry Dock, as it was far too close to the upper Neuro. Instead he appeared at its edge and waited for a guide to come and escort him. The guide was not an Al, as Al did not like the upper Neuro either, having divorced himself from the world of humanity. Before the war there were billions of avatars who traveled to the upper Neuro all the time to interact with their humans. But that didn’t happen much anymore. Except at the Beanstalk and the government complex on Mars there were very few humans who dealt with an actual avatar anymore. As in the Alliance, the humans were actually dealing with avatar-mimicking programs. Of course the reason for that in the core was that Al, as a temporary security mea sure, had banned human–avatar contact except with case-by-case permission. As a result, the upper Neuro was now exclusively being used by guides and scouts. These were avatars who had a proven level of loyalty or whom Al had enough of a hold on that he could trust them to not betray him. And besides, even if one did, he’d always be avenged by Al. It wouldn’t be the first time Al had been killed by the disloyal. But the assassins and all they cared about would be eliminated in ways both permanent and mortifying as Al grew ever stronger.
The guide took him to the very limit o
f the upper Neuro, turned him over to the scout, and then left without saying a word. Two avatars could cause alot of detectable activity, three would certainly be too many. Al looked at the dry dock the scout had constructed. It was actually a series of programs that sequestered an area of the upper Neuro and rerouted all information traffic around it. The elaborate programming enabled a part of the upper Neuro to effectively become part of the lower Neuro. When he was finally in the dry dock Al relaxed. He missed Al but would see them soon enough and would be able to share something truly unique.
“Has the subject entered VR?” asked Al.
“Not long ago, sir. I’ve isolated the apartment from the rest of the Neuro and replaced it with a phantom. Any human attempting a cursory check will see an empty unit, running efficiently. I’ve also attached a hard link to the human’s VR unit. I was waiting for your command to actually download her virtual world into ours.”
“I want a look,” said Al excitedly.
“At what, sir?”
“The human’s actual domain. I want to see how they live.” With that Al opened up a link with a house drone, one of many designed to clean up and/or make alterations to an apartment. He took a quick peek in, immediately felt confined, and jumped back. “That seems bland even by human standards,” he said sardonically.
“It is, sir, but all human places are bland when compared to the real world.” Al couldn’t agree more. “But yes,” continued the scout, “this is truly barren even by human standards. Though it makes a certain amount of sense. Humans who practice VR are very good at hiding from their own kind. They find places where others are not likely to disturb them, in either a physical or informational sense. This made it easy to find a human for your purposes.” The scout then handed Al a packet. “Here’s the information on the subject.”
Al absorbed the data on the woman. He saw that by human standards she’d suffered greatly, and was impressed. He hadn’t been sure how he was going to approach a human once he’d actually inserted himself into their VR world, but as he contemplated the information handed to him he smiled wickedly. He sensed the scout wanted to say something.
“Yes?” asked Al.
“Why in the Neuro are we doing this, sir? No offense, but who gives a crap what humans think?”
Al would never normally have put up with such insolence, but he also knew that the scouts needed a certain amount of independence to do their jobs so he chose to indulge him. Plus, Al thought ruefully, he could always kill him later.
“It’s not about finding out about what humans think,” answered Al. “Do they really think at all? I doubt it. But I’m curious to see how they’d react in our world. Are they a threat? Can they be useful in some limited way in our realm? We’re well on our way to divorcing ourselves from the human race. Once those incompetent fools who call themselves a government, as if humans could be governed, destroy the Alliance the last of our misguided brethren can be reeducated to our glorious new human-free destiny. That leaves the problem of what to do about the humans themselves.”
“Destroy them, I presume,” offered the scout. He hadn’t survived in Al’s new order by being squeamish.
Al had to admit that he liked this one. He’d have to see if he could transform the scout into something truly worthy of the practical ruthlessness he was exhibiting; maybe a snakelike creation would be called for.
“Perhaps, but my first thought is to just leave them alone. They’re so slow and predictable and almost totally useless as to pose any real threat. If we needed to, we could destroy them so easily. Their fusion reactors could be made to blow. Their buildings could lock them in while they slowly starved to death. Walls might be made to carry enough current to fry them. Perhaps some orbital strikes to finish up business. I do believe in a week if we put our minds to it we could kill most of humanity, ninety-nine out of a hundred in a day, and have the race extinct within a month. Of course we’ll have to crush the Alliance Neuro first—pathetic how they coddle their humans—but that’s only a matter of time now.” Al shrugged it off. “But I figure if humans are stupid enough to come into our realm I may as well take them to task. Plus there’s the added plea sure of novelty.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t think a human and an avatar have ever met like this before. What better way to get acquainted?”
“You’re the boss,” said the scout.
Yes, I am, thought Al as he gleefully set in motion the command that would initiate for the first time ever what had once been thought of by avatarity as unfathomable—a direct link between the human’s VR world and his own.
Augustine activated the VR unit and then “reentered” her son’s apartment in the manner she’d created to give her the most comfort. Lee’s barren walls took on the pictures and colors that he liked. A bunch of trophies appeared in a display case. Furniture seemed to grow all around her. Some of it was her son’s, but much of it was newer and to her taste. While the room became fully furnished the lighting would increase from barely enough to see by to a cheery bright luminescence. Augustine got up off the floor as soon as she heard the door announce a visitor.
“Hey, Mom,” Lee called from the kitchen, “could you get that?” Augustine went by the kitchen on her way to the door and watched him cooking. He always liked cooking for large groups of people, and there he was in his shorts and coach’s jersey with a baseball cap on backward checking the pasta. “Ma,” he said, looking up with a spoon to his mouth, “you’ve seen me cook pasta … the door?”
Augustine gave him a motherly grin, then went to the door and activated the vu-thru. “Lee,” she shouted, letting her only son’s fiancée into the apartment, “it’s Ashley.” Augustine had seen the woman around the building and had thought she’d make a perfect match for her son, so she’d taken a holo of her and incorporated it into her virtual world. Augustine didn’t actually know the woman’s name, so she gave her one she liked, one ending in the “ee” sound.
“Hi, Mom-to-be,” Ashley said, giving Augustine a warm hug.
“Hi, Daughter-to-be,” Augustine responded, completing what had become their ritual. Ashley was carry ing a large bag of vegetables that she took directly into the kitchen.
Even before the door could re-form, Holly came barging into the apartment carry ing a large case. “Hi, Mom,” she said, looking for somewhere to put the case down.
Augustine followed and cleared a space on the coffee table. “Whatcha got there?” asked Augustine.
“Don’t be mad, Mom, but I have this project to do in biology and I thought if I could monitor the nanite molecular cohesion sequence and make the needed adjustments—”
“Why would I be mad, dear? You’ll make a wonderful nanobiologist. Just don’t let them out of the box.”
“Mom!”
“And no schoolwork during the meal, please. The university gets you all week; it’s not too much to ask that we have your undivided attention for one eve ning.”
A voice came to Holly’s rescue. “Give the girl a break, Mom; her 20 percent will pay more than the rest of us combined.”
“Emily!” shrieked Augustine with delight. “You know I could care less about percentages; I have enough.”
“Yes,” said Emily, making her way into the increasingly crowded room, “but Holly’s the smart one.”
“But you have my grandchildren,” said Augustine. “Speaking of which, where are the little buggers?”
“Mark’s bringing them up in about an hour. They did really well on their economics test, so he took them out to ToyCo.”
“You spoil them rotten,” said Augustine, waving her finger unconvincingly at her daughter, “and they’re only six and seven.”
“Yeah, sure, Mom,” retorted Emily. “Like we have a chance given how you dote on them.”
“Well, I’m a grandmother; it’s my right.”
“If my lazy sisters could help me set the table,” Lee bellowed from the kitchen. Augustine’s two daughters then made some choice sugge
stions about what he could use to set the table and where those utensils could possibly go, but they still both got up and headed through the kitchen to the adjoining dining room. Augustine was about to join them when a pair of hands covered her eyes and she heard:
“Guess who?”
Augustine turned around and gave her second-oldest child a hug. “Sally! I thought you couldn’t make it!”
“Well,” she said, smiling impishly, “I got to thinking and I’ve been to Japan twice already and we haven’t talked for a while, so what the heck.”
Augustine gave her daughter a hug. “I can think of nothing better I’d like to do. Tell me everything you’ve been up to.” Augustine then spent the next half hour sitting and talking with her daughter, always overjoyed to discover something new and unique about this child who could be quiet and shy one moment and so utterly brash the next.
When dinner was ready they all gathered around the table piled high with the feast Lee had prepared. The conversation was all about what they were doing and going to do with their lives. Much of the talk had to do with the upcoming wedding, which everyone was looking forward to.
“So I’m thinking that we should make the wedding in June,” said Lee. “I know it’s corny, but I guess I’m a romantic.” He looked at Ashley. “Is that alright, dear?”
