The Pink Heist

by Adam El Shalakany

  "Think, Mr., think."

  He sat down on his bed and rested his head on his hand, in thought. When that didn't work he walked over to the cabin's internal computer and searched for the nearest planet. All the computer was willing to show him were humorous videos of people having funny accidents around the 'verse.

  One of them was a video of himself being dunked in the vat of electro-noodles back in Sweetspot. Mr. Qruise looked up the video's poster and found that it had been posted by 'PinkLady1'.

  He realized his predicament was worse than he had previously imagined and drank himself to sleep on the lush bed laid out for him. His problems flittered away to be thought about another day.

  Mr. Qruise woke to a pounding in his temples and at his door.

  "Mr. Qruise. Mr. Qruise." He could hear Mancy shouting from the other side. Then Mancy entered and saw the state of the cabin. Mr. Qruise, drunk, had destroyed the room. The bedding was torn and the computer monitor lay hanging off the cabin desk, shattered. The electro-noodle video kept replaying on the broken screen.

  "Yearhgh-ah" Mr. Qruise lay on the floor in his underwear, face down, next to an empty bottle.

  "Oh you're up. Great. We've arrived to pick up the fourth member of the crew." Mancy picked up Mr. Qruise's racer jacket from the floor. She sniffed at it and then, disgusted, threw it over the naked Mr. Qruise. "Pick out some new clothes from the closet while you're at it. We're going to be on the planet for a while."

  "Whaar?"

  "We're disembarking in twenty. See you there."

  A vibro-shower and a hangover pill later and Mr. Qruise was dressed in a new racer jacket and met the rest of the crew at the door.

  Zenbot was there, still six feet tall and still dressed in his black somber robes, which contrasted against his chrome exterior. Mancy was dressed out in a new outfit, a zipped up short leather jacket and tight leggings. All pink of course.

  "You're late," was all Zenbot had to say.

  "Sorry, sorry. I didn't know there was a deadline to finding someone. What's the rush?" Mr. Qruise's hair was still wet from the shower. His normally bushy hair and beard lay flat like wet fur.

  Mancy jumped and down in place, full of energy. "The rush, Mr. Qruise, is the rush of adventure, excitement, new worlds. I thought you'd understand you being an un-licensed archeologist and all."

  Mr. Qruise looked over to Zenbot, finding the calm inorganic a more soothing sight to look at than the bubbly Ms. La2x. Mr. Qruise thumbed his right temple feeling the last aches of the hangover disappear. "The rush, I feel it. To boldly go out there and…" Mr. Qruise twirled his fingers encompassing all of existence in the gesture, "go out there and… Where is out there exactly?"

  To answer his question Ms. La2x opened the docking door. Looking out Mr. Qruise could see towering gray blocks rising up to pierce the sky. Megalithic eyesores of wiring, metal and grey tore up from the earth and reached for the bright sunlit sky. It was a colorless world, dim and dead, even in the bright sunlight. Dust and rust coated everything. Wiring was roped around every building and lay between the towers in a scrambled mess.

  The weather was cold but the buildings seemed to thrum with an internal heat. "Where in the 'verse are we?" He asked.

  "This is Planet MO4, a virtual planet, Mr. Qruise. Have you ever been to one?" Mancy asked.

  "A virtual planet? You mean it's not really there?" He squinted his eyes trying to get a better view through the dust.

  "No, that would be a phantom planet. This planet is most definitely here. It's just everyone here is plugged into a giant network."

  "Oh, yeah. I've heard of those before. Never been to one though. Is it fun?"

  "It's a pauper's way to pass the time. I suppose." Mancy said haughtily, straightening her jacket. "I've never been a fan. Tried it for a few decades myself. Which is really a few millennia in there. I've never been to this planet before. You can never know what the people are doing inside. I've heard stories of orgies and hellscapes, heavens and Elysium. Let's just hope it's one of those fantasy ones with castles and fairies. Those ones can be terribly fun, you know." Mancy's bubbly personality began to seep through again. "Every time the Game ends, the winner gets to pick the rules and settings of the next one."

  "Who and where is the fourth clown in this thing?" Mr. Qruise asked, rubbing his temples.

  Zenbot's dim eye slits stared at Mr. Qruise. "If you look at this as a clownish affair you will not succeed as my student."

  "Why, ZenBob? You're the number one clown, don't worry."

  "My name is not ZenBob-"

  Mancy interrupted before the two could get into an argument. "The seventh best cryptographer in the 'verse is in there. Wouldn't expect to find him or her anywhere else."

  "Seventh? I thought you only go for the top?"

  "The La2x family only goes for the top. That's true. Daddy's already hired the best six so I have to go for the seventh. Anyway the difference between the first and the seventh is negligible, really. With the amount of cryptographers in the 'verse the difference between the top million is negligible, actually."

  "Fair enough. So where is this cryptographer?"

  "If we had the name I could find him or her quickly, possibly. But they're a real secretive bunch, cryptos. All we have is the alias: VII, so we're going to have to go inside to look."

  "VII? That's original. I guess we're not looking for Mr. or Ms. creativity. Not like rib-busting master ZenBob over here, ay?" Mr. Qruise nudged Zenbot in the ribs with his elbow.

  Zenbot shuffled away from Mr. Qruise. "The appropriate way to refer to your teacher, Mr. Qruise, is master. I'll have you know I can be funny. I was the jokester of my home planet. Would you like to hear a joke?"

  "Another time 'master'. I think we have to go. We're in a rush to nowhere, right?" Mr. Qruise descended the gang plank, and left the other two behind.

  The three were greeted by a grumpy old man hunched over a metallic rusty desk out in the open at the end of the gangplank. Sleeves of electro-paper piled up on one side of an in-tray set on the desk. A thick natural cigar jutted out of the left side of his mouth. A grey beard roped its way down his chin. He was however as bald as a coot on top of his head.

  The trio stopped short in front of the desk. The old bureaucrat coughed at them, catching the phlegm in his wrinkly liver-spotted hands and shaking it out on the ground. He looked the crew up and down and chewed a bit on his cigar before finally spitting out:

  "Names?"

  Mancy took the lead. "Mancy La2x for me, the inorganic is Zenbot and that thin coward is Mr. Qruise. 'Mr' is his first name just to avoid confusion."

  The man chewed on his cigar a bit more. "Parent's di'n't like him, ay?" He asked rhetorically as he entered the information on a transparent piece of electro-paper in front of him.

  "Something like that." Mancy added.

  "Reason of visit?" The curmudgeon continued through the form.

  "Looking for a person."

  "Name of person?"

  "Unknown. Alias: VII, spelled 'V','I','I'."

  The curmudgeon's eyebrows lifted in surprise. He whistled badly through his teeth. "Woo-hee. VII, ay? She's a tough som'a bitch. Met her in da last game, or at least she was a she in da last game. She broke my arms in two places, well four if you count each arm. She's not da best player by far but she's a damn tough one, gotta confess. When ya can find her dat is. Usually holed up in some nest. But cross her and she'll tear right inta'ya."

  "Why'd she break your arms?" Mr. Qruise had to ask.

  "Oh, can't hold it against her. She was robbing my bank, well… da bank I was working at. I was da teller. I tried to be a hero, pressed da alarm. She didn't like dat." The bureaucrat smiled, and looked down at his arms, surprised not to find them broken still.

  "You were a teller in the game? Isn't that a bit, you know, tedious?" Mr. Qruise asked as he sat on the rusty old desk. The bureaucrat's face showed that he wasn't amused.

  "When you getta be my age, sonny, everyth
ing's a wee bit tedious. No, no, I'm tired of da fighting and da robbing and da killing and all. All's I wanted out of da last game was to get a good job, get married, go home everyday, raise my family and have no more excitement den dat. Y'know, sometimes da heart gets heavy. We can't all's be VIIs and Storm-crushers, and Big-bones and da whole range'a psychopaths out der, getting der shits and giggles from violence and heroism. Good luck t'ya's, all's I gotta say."

  The bureaucrat filled the last of the form. "Look'ee here, boys and girl. Take dese here pills." The bureaucrat forced open one of the rusty drawers by the side of his desk, plucked out three blue pills and dropped them in each of the trio's outstretched hands. "On second thought, Mr. Zenbot, you's don't need a pill, do ya?"

  "No, I will be able to interface on my own." Zenbot replied, returning the pill it had been given.

  The bureaucrat stared at the pill returned to him and thought twice before pocketing it. "No need to amend da forms, ay?" He said with a wink. "Always good to have an extra pill. The rest of you's, these pills contain wee nanobots which'll burrow into your brain and interface you's with da Game. When ya want to get out, click your heels three times and say der's no place like home."

  Mr. Qruise interrupted again. "Uhhhhh….Mr…..Bureacrat sir?"

  "Yes Mr.? And it's John by da way. Mr. Bureaucrat was my da'." John the bureaucrat chuckled to himself, puffing away at his cigar and resting back in his chair.

  "What if I have a bomb in my brain, injected by a manipulative wench, will these nanobots know not to…um…touch it?"

  "Don't knows, sonny, don't knows about dat. Just take your Shen'amn pills and leave me alone, will you's."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Qruise." Mancy said with a smirk. "There's a slim chance of the interface interfering with the nano-bomb. Take them and Zenbot'll find a good place for our bodies. Zenbot you'll come join us inside as soon you find us a place to rest." Mancy walked over to a corner of the open air office and placed her jacket down on the ground, before sitting on it.

  Mr. Qruise looked at Mancy hoping to be spared the danger of more nanobots playing around in his brain, but she only sat there arms crossed, waiting for him to ingest his pills. "Come now, Mr. Qruise. None of us are going in until you take your pill." Mancy stomped her foot for emphasis.

  For the hundredth time that hour, Mr. Qruise sighed. Then he took his medicine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Woshu

  As the blue pill wormed its way into Mr. Qruise's stomach, the nanobots were released into his blood stream. He felt a slight dizziness at first, then searing pain followed by his vision going. He could hear the bureaucrat shouting something frantically to him while he disappeared from reality. "Ask dem what's taking dem so bloody long."

  Mr. Qruise's last sight, before hitting the ground with a violent thump, was Mancy laying back on the wall and winking at him, and then all went white.

  Out of the white, images began to form. Mr. Qruise blinked his eyes a few times and found himself lying down on a couch. A young man with a notebook on his lap, sat in front of him. Bifocals rested lazily on the bridge of his nose. There was a gun in one hand and a pen in the other. He looked down at Mr. Qruise. "Are you awake?" The man asked.

  Mr. Qruise coughed and cleared his throat. His body wouldn't react to the messages his brain was sending, mainly to run.

  "Are you awake, I say?" The young man cocked his pistol and aimed it at Mr. Qruise's head. "Or should I abort?"

  Mr. Qruise, coming to slightly, waved his hand drunkenly at the young man before finally being able to push a few words out of his throat. "Shens. That felt horrible."

  "Oh it's not as bad as all that." The man relaxed and put the pistol away. "Welcome to the world of tomorrow Mr….?"

  "Got it in one." Mr. Qruise mimicked a gun with his hand and shot the air. He looked around and found that he was the only one in the office. It was a leather filled room, decorated with brown on brown. There was a heap of white powder piled on top of an old oak desk. "Where's Mancy?"

  "Who? Oh, there were others with you, Mr.? The Game must have sent them to one of my competitors. You'll meet them eventually. Is this your first time interfacing?" The young man twitched his nose. "It's not so hard. It's just like the outside world. If you die you wake up on the outside and have to take care of the administrative functions until the Game is over. Other than that relax and just have fun."

  "And how long is a game? We're on a bit of a schedule."

  "The Game keeps going until the last person dies." The young man took off his bifocals and cleaned them with a cloth. He squinted at the heap on his desk.

  "That's horrible. That'll take decades and decades. I mean if you're using pre-modern human mortality that's what? A century give or take."

  "Why would you assume it's human mortality?" The young man made a note in his notebook. It made Mr. Qruise feel uncomfortable. "But luckily if you die early," the young man continued, "the actual Game takes only a day or so in 'real time'." He put real time in between quotation marks. "Now, before you go out into the big wide world, we need to fill out a couple of forms, you entering the Game mid-play and all. It's quite unusual if I may say so. Why is it, you think, you chose to join late?" He made another mark in the notebook. "No, you'll have to schedule a session if you want to discuss these issues. If you don't mind we'll get right down to it."

  The young man went through a couple of forms with Mr. Qruise. He asked Mr. Qruise to look at a few pictures and give details about his childhood and his sexual preferences. When the forms were filled out, he fed them into a tiny vacuum tube messaging system to his side. When the man was done he asked Mr. Qruise if there was anything he could help him with. "That's kind of my job in here." He got up and sat behind his desk, bridging his fingers over the heap of white powder.

  "You have jobs in here? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?" Mr. Qruise stood up and stretched out the kinks in his shoulders.

  "This being your first time I understand you think we're all flying around like Shens in here. We do do that every once in a while. But mostly, we get to live out different lives in here. Perpetual reincarnation. It's great. You'll really love it once you get into the habit of it. We have jobs, families, lives, salaries, suffering, everything that gives life meaning."

  "That sounds boring."

  "Well, there's always a twist don't worry. Might be a revolution tomorrow, or an earthquake or an invasion, so enjoy yourself in the meantime and go with the flow."

  "Always a twist, ay? I don't like the sound of that." Mr. Qruise rubbed his neck. "You say you can help. I'm looking for VII, any idea where I can find her or him?"

  "Or it? VII could be an it." The man made another note. "You really aren't a modern man, are you Mr.? Yes, I can help you there. VII's the name of one of the rebellion leaders in here. Always disrupting the lives of honest working men and women and those in between and those not. You know I can barely walk to work without being afraid of a firefight erupting between the proper authorities and those rebellious scum. You stay well away from the Rebellion, it'll be better for you. Just go and live a full fruitful life. That's the best help I can offer." The young man shooed Mr. Qruise away and tore out one of the note-papers, the one with Mr. Qruise's childhood details, and rolled it. He stuck it into the heap of powder and eyed it expectantly.

  "Or what, I'll die? Big deal." Mr. Qruise huffed, refusing to leave.

  "Mr., it still hurts like a bitch." The man said flatly. "It's a well designed life experience at MO4. You don't want to die, trust me. I've done it a thousand times and it doesn't get any easier, but," the young man shrugged his shoulders, "no pain no gain." He stood up and walked over to the office door, opening it for Mr. Qruise. His hands trembled.

  "You guys are crazy. Why the hell would any one do this voluntarily? I only ever want to die once, and even that I'm having second thoughts about. I don't need your suggestions on living a full life. The sooner I can find VII the sooner I can get out of this place. Where can I
find this 'Rebellion'?" Mr. Qruise made air quotations and mouthed the word 'Rebellion' sarcastically.

  The young man returned to his desk, leaving the door open. "Don't know, don't care 'Mr.'. Now go along with you. I've got …. to wait for the next visitor."

  As Mr. Qruise left the office he could hear a long loud snorting sound behind him.

  Outside the office, Mr. Qruise found himself immediately in the middle of a large urban sprawl. Towers of shimmering glass formed an immaculate skyline. Gardens sprouted out everywhere and crept up the towers and the shorter buildings. Men, women, aliens and robots and everything in between roamed the city grounds shuffling from building to building going about their business. Others were resting in the lush gardens, lying with their backs on the greens staring up at the sky. It was a clear cloudless day, the sun was high in the sky and a second and third sun, much smaller than the one at its zenith, were rising and setting on the horizon respectively. The effect was a kaleidoscope of colors. A belt of asteroids ran a ring right through the heavens. The belt cut the sky at an angle and so didn't obstruct the view of the shifting suns. Large winged birds flew listlessly overhead. Their musical caws wafted lazily down to earth. It was undeniably a beautiful day wherever Mr. Qruise was.

  Mr. Qruise having no clear way to go, walked aimlessly through the city. It was a clean and pristine city mostly, only marred by graffiti every once in a while. A strange message of "the owl flies at midnight" was spray painted in the alleyways between the immaculate buildings and hidden from the cameras which hung from every block. After one of the suns had set and the color of the sky had shifted from its previous array of colors to a more consistent mixture of red and blue, Mr. Qruise having made no discovery other than the striking beauty of the city he was in, ducked into the nearest shop. It was luckily enough a coffee shop, of all things. The clientele were all gathered behind a counter, waiting in line for their beverages while a few baristas worked diligently from behind. The shop's name lit up in large bright colors above the counter was 'Kafe Fabuleuze'.