The Immortality Game

by Ted Cross

  Moscow

  Sunday, June 8, 2138

  5:59 p.m. MSK

  Seeing The Pyramid up close was unsettling for Tyoma. When he had pensive moods, which was often, he would listen to jazz while standing at the wall screen of his seventy-ninth floor apartment and gaze down at the brilliantly lit monstrosity that now filled the air car’s entire view screen. No buildings in Moscow could rival the size of the central skyscrapers, but The Pyramid made up for its lack of great height with ostentatious audacity. The glittering pyramid that gave the casino its name straddled the Moskva River near Gorky Park, while the twin arms of the accompanying hotel towered more than a hundred stories into the sky, curving upwards like a warped horseshoe or the claws of some grand alien crustacean.

  Tyoma had always admired the view…‌from a safe distance. He knew, of course, that the casino was run by Lev Abramovich Romanishin, one of the two most powerful mob leaders in the city. Who else could force the city government to grant The Pyramid exclusive gambling rights within all of Russia while outlawing online betting? Who else could keep such a vast open area like Gorky Park free of refugees when such land was so desperately needed by the authorities? The only real question Tyoma’s friends had when discussing Romanishin was: did the Russian government control the mobster, or was it the other way around?

  The shorter thug, Oskar, puffed vapor from his sim-cig and grinned at Tyoma. “You ever been here before? If not, you’re gonna love it.”

  The air car dropped steadily toward a dark mouth in one side of the pyramid. Tyoma held a hand up to his eyes to shield them from the nearly blinding lights that flashed silver and blue from every pane of the structure.

  “No, I’ve never been here,” he murmured.

  “Don’t like to gamble, huh?” Oskar said.

  Tyoma glanced sideways at the gangster. “You chat like this with all your kidnap victims?”

  Oskar pulled the sim-cig from his mouth and laughed. “I like you, old man. Most people we bring in to see Viktor blubber like babies, weeping and begging and making me sick.” He held a hand up and clenched it. “I just wanna punch them bloody. Come on! Be funny some more.”

  Tyoma scowled and clenched his jaw. The air car skimmed silently through the entrance to the parking garage and settled into an empty spot in a row of similar cars.

  The big mobster, Alexei, was the first to leap out as the doors slid upward. He glared at Tyoma and jerked a thumb toward a nearby doorway. “Come on. Out!”

  Tyoma sidled out of the door, but his foot caught on the edge and he would have sprawled onto the concrete if Alexei hadn’t grabbed him and yanked him up by his jacket.

  “You’re clumsy, grandpa,” Alexei said. “Now go on, walk.” He propelled Tyoma toward the doorway with a shove, and Tyoma had to catch himself on the wall to keep from falling.

  “You ever heard of treating your elders with respect, young man?” Tyoma said.

  Alexei grabbed Tyoma again and guided him through the doorway. “I’d respect you right off the edge of the building if I didn’t think Viktor might like to see you.”

  The smaller mobster chuckled. “You wouldn’t be the first person he’s tossed off a building today.”

  The corridor was dimly lit and the stench of stale alcohol wafted up from the green shag carpet. To the right Tyoma heard the sounds of the casino—tinkling, ringing, buzzing, laughter, and shouts of dismay or glee. Alexei snatched his arm and tugged him in the opposite direction, toward a tube lift. The big man waved Oskar in first and then sandwiched Tyoma into the middle before saying to the wall speaker: “All the way up.”

  Tyoma barely felt movement as the lift began to glide upward. “Why do you need me? You have what you were after. I can’t do anything more for you.”

  “Have to guarantee you gave us the right merchandise,” Oskar said. “I kind of hope you didn’t; I love watching Viktor when he goes to work on someone.”

  It was stifling in the small lift with the two goons pressed up against Tyoma. He nudged Alexei in the back to try to gain some space. “Have you ever considered taking an interest in something other than threatening or intimidating people? Take up body surfing in Thailand perhaps?”

  Oskar grunted. “You behind the times, grandpa? Don’t need to leave your couch to do things like that.”

  “Ah, that’s right,” Tyoma said. “Reality is passé.”

  “We get plenty of reality every day,” Alexei said. “And then we can go home and create an even better one.”

  “What are young fellows like you doing here? Shouldn’t you be off fighting in the war?”

  “You really are an idiot. What’s that word?” Oskar snapped his fingers several times. “Naive! That’s it. Only the powerless waste their lives doing stupid shit like that.”

  The lift stopped and the big gangster stepped out into a small tiled vestibule with two leather benches lining the walls to either side of a single steel doorway. Oskar propelled Tyoma onto one of the benches, while Alexei stood in front of the door and spread his arms wide. Tyoma couldn’t see what scanned him, but a few moments later Alexei stepped aside and waved Oskar forward to receive the same scan. Then it was Tyoma’s turn. He wanted to get all of this over with, whatever was coming, so he jumped up and mimicked the stances he’d seen the two goons use. He felt a pulse of warmth pass through his body and his spine tingled. The door in front of them slid upward, revealing an oddly-angled but richly appointed room. One wall sloped inwards to the ceiling. Another was set as a full-length window to watch the approaching sunset through the towering thicket of skyscrapers that made up the city center. The breathtaking view showed Tyoma that the room must be at, or at least near, the apex of the pyramid.

  A cough from Oskar snapped Tyoma’s attention back to the room. The two gangsters stood at loose attention, facing a long scarlet and gold divan on which sat a horrifying man, if indeed he was a man at all. The figure wore an expensive dark suit over his slender but muscle-corded body, but his face…‌his face looked like something out of an ancient sci-fi horror vid. From chin to forehead it seemed to be titanium or some similar metal. The teeth were sharp and grinned like a bare skull, and the eyes were tiny disks that flashed vivid blue-white light as they moved.

  “We got it, boss,” Alexei said.

  The monstrous man rose smoothly and held out a hand to take the card from the gangster. Tyoma was surprised at how normal and mellow—almost kind—the voice sounded from the robotic death mask that was the man’s face.

  “At last. The general will be pleased.” The man turned his frightening eyes on Tyoma. “I am Viktor. Please sit.” His arm indicated a comfortable-looking armchair to the left of the divan.

  Tyoma found it difficult to pull his eyes away from Viktor’s face, so he used one hand to guide himself into the chair.

  “Yes,” Viktor said, tracing a finger down the side of his titanium jaw. “Always the face. I was a soldier, you see, when I was young. You’re old enough to remember. Twenty ninety-eight, just as our government was beginning to piece itself back together after the Dark Times. My patrol triggered a dragon mine near Chisinau. I was one of the few survivors, though whether you’d consider that lucky or not…” He waved a hand at his robotic mask of a face. “For a year, when I’d surface from the drugs, the only thing I begged of them was to kill me. The pain never quite leaves, you know. Well, let’s talk of pleasanter things, shall we? How did you fare during the Dark Times?”

  Tyoma forced his eyes away from Viktor’s and stared out the window as he called up memories he’d sooner forget. “I was hidden away in a bunker most of those years. We heard what went on outside, of course, survival of the fittest and all that. I was lucky. Had a few professors from the university amongst our survivors, and with little else to alleviate the boredom, they spent their time teaching us. Twenty ninety-eight? We’d just emerged from our sanctuary the year before, having heard the city was relatively safe again. I was picked out right
away as one of the star pupils and put to work for the government.”

  “Where you’ve been toiling ever since, yes?” Viktor said. “Building better war machines?”

  “My interest was in coding,” Tyoma said. “Working on their projects gave me nearly free rein to pursue my own interests.”

  “And that leads us to this.” Viktor held up the combat card and his eyes locked onto Tyoma’s. “Does this work properly? Is it the finished version?”

  Tyoma’s skin crawled as the metallic eyes flashed red before returning to steely blue. He felt like Viktor could read his mind, and he had an urge to admit the card was an older version. He shoved the urge aside. “There are always more improvements to make, but this is the latest, yes.”

  “The general will want to test it. I’m sure he’d like to keep you around to answer any questions he might have.”

  “Why do you kowtow to General Andreykin?”

  The steely teeth parted for a moment and emitted a croaking laugh. “We get what we need from the general, and in return we sometimes get him what he needs.”

  “We’ve always been straight with the generals,” Tyoma said. “It’s not right to turn over projects that are not fully tested. These combat cards are—”

  Viktor waved a hand in dismissal. “You scientists, always such perfectionists. Surely you can understand that to the military time can be more important than perfection? And you said it yourself, you will always see something you think needs improvement. As far as the general is concerned, he thinks you’ve had more than enough time.”

  It was easier when Tyoma didn’t need to lie at all. “In the little testing we’ve managed to do with that card, we’ve already encountered some serious flaws. General Andreykin will not want to use these in their current state. We must be allowed to improve them.”

  “You know,” Viktor said with a shrug, “I don’t really care. The general wants this from me. I’m giving it to him. You may try to convince him to grant you more time. It’s time to let you speak to my brother. The general should join you shortly. Come, lie back and make yourself comfortable.”

  Tyoma was confused for a moment, until he saw the zip-cable in the arm of his chair.

  “That’s right,” Viktor said. “Jack yourself in. The firewall scan will take longer than you would normally expect. My brother is…‌let’s say…‌protective, perhaps even paranoid.”

  “He’s a Mesher?”

  The croaking laughter again. “I wouldn’t use that term, though it’s understandable you’d see it that way. He has his own private reality, not because he’s an addict, but because he can live no other way. Lev is one of the tiny percentage of people who is highly allergic to nanobots, and one of an even tinier percentage who managed to survive what they did to him.”

  “Where is he?” Tyoma said.

  “Come on, jack up now. You’ll still be able to talk while the scan runs.”

  Tyoma tugged out the cable and clicked it into place in his slot. An access request flashed momentarily until Tyoma granted permission for the scan to begin. Involuntarily Tyoma gasped as he recognized the type of firewall Lev used. This was not the type of protection that came standard with most slot interfaces, the type that had allowed him to backdoor into the general’s mind. No, this firewall was the best of the best, better even than the specialized one protecting the top secret military research out at the dacha. The source code for this one was designed by Javier Saenz, the American genius behind the sentry routines that had freed the Web from viruses and spam two decades ago. There was no way Tyoma was going to be able to break through this one.

  “That’s better,” Viktor said and then sat on the edge of the nearby coffee table. “My brother’s body is more highly guarded than any gold in Russia. Stuffed away in a vault that could withstand a nuclear blast, in fact. He has a state-of-the-art bed…‌I call it a coffin myself, but then I have a rather macabre sense of humor. This,” he pointed at the zip-cable, “is the only way to see him.”

  “How will the general join us? Surely he won’t allow himself to sit unprotected in one of these chairs while he enters virtual?”

  Viktor clacked his jagged teeth together. “Do you feel uncomfortable going under with us here watching? The general has his guards, but you are right, he’s not happy with the idea of lying exposed in front of us. We have some special beds in the wall over there for VIP’s. They slide out of the wall just like in the morgues you see in vids.”

  Tyoma’s eyelids began to droop and he knew he was about to slip into Lev’s virtual world. He saw Viktor slide the combat card into an interface on the coffee table just before everything went white.

  He waited.

  He’d spent years of his life in virtual worlds, primarily within his favorite Medieval fantasy sim Swords and Scrolls, and it never took so long for something to happen. Then it struck him that the whiteness wasn’t pure. There were layers. He glanced down and realized that he could glance down. Tentatively he took a step forward. The floor, if it could be called a floor, was solid. I’m standing, he thought, though he’d been seated in the real world.

  A disembodied voice said, “How would you like me to appear?”

  “Huh?”

  “How about this?” came the voice, and in a blink Vera stood before him, smiling and wearing his favorite lingerie. “Will this work?”

  Tyoma blinked. It was disconcerting to hear the deep, smooth voice coming from her perfect lips. He attempted to speak, but his throat seized up and he coughed several times instead before he finally found his voice. “No, not her. Are…‌are you reading my mind or something? How do you know about her?”

  Vera vanished and was immediately replaced by a familiar-looking man, pleasant faced with sandy hair and arresting blue eyes. “We do our homework, Mr. Grachev,” the man said in English with a soft British accent.

  Now Tyoma recalled where he’d seen the man. It was Peter O’Toole from one of his favorite old vids. “Why are you doing this? I thought you wished to examine our combat card?”

  “I just want you to be comfortable,” the man said. “I don’t know what I would look like if I were healthy, so I tend to take on whatever form I think will be pleasant for my visitors. When my men combed through your flat, one of the tidbits they reported back was that you admire this actor. If this disturbs you, tell me what form you would like me to take.”

  “What did your men do to my apartment?”

  “Nothing that you’ll notice. It’s standard operating procedure.”

  “Mr. Romanishin—”

  “Please call me Lev. Let’s make this friendly, okay? Or do you prefer formalities?”

  “Lev…” Using the first name felt wrong to Tyoma’s tongue. “You, ah…‌you and your brother seem a bit…‌urbane to be mobsters. Not like I imagined you’d be.”

  Peter O’Toole—Lev—pressed his palms together and smiled broadly. “Thank you, Artyom. May I call you Artyom?” He barely waited for Tyoma’s nod before continuing. “Our mother, Viktor’s and mine, was an actress, you see. I suppose you might say we were raised in a rather theatrical atmosphere. Then things began to go wrong for our family. When the first mandatory nanobot injections were issued, I barely survived, and I never really recovered. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a perfectly functioning mind trapped in a husk of a body?”

  Tyoma understood that Lev didn’t require a response, so he simply stood still and waited for him to go on.

  “And before Viktor could do anything to help me, he was drafted and sent off to the Moldovan front. You saw what happened there. His face melted. He was blinded. It should have been the end for our family. Like so many millions during the Dark Times we should have faded into oblivion. Fortunately for us, our mother was quite a good actress. She managed to hook herself a new husband…‌a very powerful husband given that he became one of the first Duma members under the reconstructed Russian government. His wealth, his power, gav
e us new possibilities.

  “Ah, but you don’t need our life histories. Let’s just say that Viktor, despite his pain and humiliation, had ambition and resourcefulness. And he had my mind. It was all I had, after all, and given a proper interface…” Lev waved a hand around at the whiteness. “…my mind could be put to use.”

  “You couldn’t have chosen to do something decent with your talents?” Tyoma said.

  Lev gave a melodramatic sigh. “Viktor was far too bitter. He raged at life. He needed an outlet for his anger. I tried my best to direct his venom into something useful. You can see, he’s calmed down considerably.”

  “I’ve heard stories,” Tyoma said.

  Lev flashed Peter O’Toole’s brilliant teeth. “He still needs to vent every so often. Who can blame him?”

  Tyoma peered around at the whiteness. “Must it be this way? Can’t we—”

  A large, cluttered, very British room appeared. Tyoma gaped down at his immaculately tailored trousers, his shoes half-buried in a plush carpet. He looked up at Lev and saw that O’Toole’s clothing had changed to a comfortable ruby bath robe, and he held a tea cup in one hand.

  “Have a seat,” Lev said, and seated himself on a high-backed wooden chair. “Tea?”

  A similar chair was just behind Tyoma, so he sat. Though he knew it wasn’t real, he decided tea was just the thing to help calm his nerves. A china cup steamed on the end table next to his chair. He realized he was ravenous; there had been no time to eat lunch earlier and it was close to dinner time now. He considered asking for something to eat, but since it wouldn’t be real, it seemed pointless.

  Lev sipped his tea, then leapt up from his chair. “Ah, General Andreykin! Good of you to join us.”

  Tyoma turned to see the bald general stride into the center of the room in full uniform, colorful ribbons and medals flashing across his chest. The general met his gaze and scowled.