Repo Virtual

by Corey J. White

  Lidar sensors found teens on guard duty, reflected laser light suggesting weapons—plastic guns and lengths of rebar. We tagged each threat on satellite maps, points of egress marked and catalogued for possible escape vectors.

  Meanwhile I walked ahead with Enda and JD, our feet scraping over gravel and cement ground to a fine silt and deposited by receding floodwaters, skirting around patches of algae that lay slick across the concrete. Unknown to the humans, I indexed intelligence gathered by my other selves—the wild joy of free-range data collection an utterly new sensation. So much data, so much experience shared, diverging selves forming a community of sorts, disparate bodies driven to one purpose.

  In the courtyard outside the school’s main building, a group of children gathered around a campfire, burning pieces of garbage just to see what colors would spark off the different materials, unconcerned by the toxic gases that entered their lungs with every breath—my CBRNE sensors identifying multiple carcinogens.

  “Hey,” JD said to the kids. “Soo-hyun’s over at the workshop, right? Anyone else with them?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” a dirty-faced kid demanded. His head was shaved, and both his arms were covered in watches, their faces scratched and cracked, batteries long dead. “Fucking cops?”

  “I’m Soo-hyun’s brother.”

  “What?” the kid said, voice strained in disbelief.

  “Step-brother.”

  The kid eyeballed JD hard.

  “I’ll give you five euro.”

  The kid shrugged and nodded to the far end of the school grounds. “Yeah, they’re in the workshop, alone. Kali said they needed time for solitary self-reflection and contrition consideration.”

  “What does that even mean?” JD asked, but the kid only shrugged.

  JD took the five-euro note from his wallet and handed the last of his money to the kid. “Thanks, watchman.”

  JD and Enda carried on. I stayed behind just long enough to watch the boy hold the money over the fire and grin as it burned.

  Enda climbed the steps up to the workshop door and tried the handle. Locked.

  She turned to JD: “You got anything in that bag that could knock the door handle off?”

  “I can do one better.” JD dropped his rucksack to the ground beside the door. He crouched and rooted through the bag. He retrieved his lockpick set, flipping it open with a flourish while Enda looked on, seemingly impressed. He took the torsion wrench and rake he needed, but as he readied to slip them into the keyhole, the door opened.

  Soo-hyun stood in the opening, brow furrowed. “JD? What are you doing here?”

  They wore a heavy, old shirt, olive green with epaulets. It was stained with grime, and a single smear of grease streaked beneath their eye, either deliberate or an artful accident.

  “You’re okay!” JD said.

  “Of course I’m okay.”

  “We’ve come to save you.”

  “Save?”

  “She’s got you trapped in here.”

  “It’s not like that. I couldn’t keep doing it, I couldn’t keep helping Kali when I saw you were in danger.” Soo-hyun motioned to the nearest dog with a screwdriver. “So I’m trying to keep busy until it’s all over.”

  JD clenched his fists, and exhaled, letting his hands unfurl. “It can’t be over while you’re in danger.”

  “I’m not in danger, I’m just—” Soo-hyun sighed. “I never should have convinced you to take the job. I never should have left the commune. I can’t be fucking trusted.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I could have killed you,” Soo-hyun said, quiet, despondent.

  “I’m okay, Soo-hyun; you’ve done nothing wrong. But you’re not safe here, and we need to go.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s no time; I’ll explain later.” JD grabbed Soo-hyun by the arm and dragged them out of the workshop.

  “What is wrong with you?” Soo-hyun shouted. “You’re acting weird.”

  “Just trust me for once,” JD hissed.

  “What the fuck?” Soo-hyun yelled, their voice booming in the quiet air of the commune. In that brief moment, JD missed the constant din of city traffic.

  “It’s not safe for you here.”

  “I live here! This is my home.”

  “We don’t have time for this.” JD dragged them past the campfire and the children. All around us, people began to take notice, eyes staring, fingers pointing.

  “We have been spotted,” I said.

  “Why is that dog talking?” Soo-hyun said.

  “How many guns have you found?” Enda asked.

  “We have located thirteen people with firearms. They are converging on our position.”

  A scatter of footsteps echoed, followed by distant shouts—Red’s nasal, colonial accent distinct from the other voices, barking orders. He reached the school courtyard, charging ahead with a 3D-printed Kalashnikov held across his chest.

  “You!” he yelled, seeing Enda. He raised the weapon to his shoulder and took aim.

  I flicked my spotlight on and shifted my weight, body bearing down against the dirt as my feet dug in and propelled me forward. No longer was I a mind inside a body; two halves became one, thought driving motor and limb. I leaped, and Red squinted into the light and pulled the trigger. The gun roared; bullets ripped through the air and peppered my body. Shudder and plink of rounds rebounding off my armored shell, while others punched through. One bullet passed by, struck Enda’s upper arm and tore through the flesh. Her gun hit the dirt with a flat clatter. I dropped to the ground and kept sprinting forward, calculations backgrounded in that moment of pure action.

  The barrel of Red’s gun tracked me. I jumped again, forelegs outstretched, claws gleaming. Red fired. Damage sensors flared bright as death, internals damaged, battery punctured by a copper round that ricocheted through my torso.

  I hit the ground and staggered forward, gyroscope and servomotors keeping me upright. Red pulled the trigger again; another flash of sound and violence broke open my skull casing, and my body triggered repair warnings I could not heed. Visual sensors faltered, my mind recording nothing but warning messages akin to pain.

  I took one last step forward, then fell aside, gyroscope spinning wildly inside my chest. Is this what a racing heart feels like? Still, my forelegs reached out, claws searching for Red’s flesh. GPS signal came through strong—I saw myself as the satellite saw me, so imperceptibly small, just one mote among billions. Surrounded by others, but solitary. Utterly alone in the face of what came next.

  Errata wrote across my BIOS, systems failing in quick succession. Alone. In that final moment, each of us is alone. Alone as darkness and fear creep in, overcoming all else, like corrupted data overwriting source code.

  With my processor’s last cycles, I compressed my consciousness and transmitted it to my other selves. I whispered to them the experience of death so that they would never need to live it.

  * * *

  One of me fell dead, bullet-riddled body slumping against the ground while the other five of us cried out in suprasonic lamentation. We converted this loss into something like rage, dog bodies moving at peak violence—charging down the commune guards with police brutality.

  A teenage girl with a 3D-printed pistol at each hip and a bandolier of ammunition slung across her chest. I ran her down, heavy metal body pinning her to the ground while she screamed. Forearm aimed, actuators sparking with electricity, I stomped down on the guns, smashing them into multicolored trash. And then I was off, chasing the next armed youth.

  Red stood over the fallen dog and reloaded his weapon. Enda clenched her teeth, biting down on the pain as blood seeped warm and sticky down her arm. She crouched and retrieved her P320, holding it in her non-dominant hand. Soo-hyun broke out of JD’s grasp and ran into the gap between Red and Enda, their arms outstretched, blocking either one from a clean shot.

  “I don’t know what the fuck is happening,” Soo-hyu
n said, “but put the guns down.”

  “Drop the fucking weapon, Red,” Enda called out. She raised her pistol, and tried to aim over Soo-hyun’s shoulder at Red’s smiling face.

  JD held both hands out. “Soo-hyun, come back over here.”

  “Not until someone tells me what is going on.”

  Red sauntered up and grabbed Soo-hyun by the arm before JD could speak. They looked at Red, and their eyes dropped to the gun pressed into their side.

  “What the fuck, Red?”

  “Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Red said.

  Five of me sprinted into the courtyard, all guns in the commune smashed but one—the Kalashnikov in Red’s grip. We fanned out between JD and Enda with our spotlights trained on Red, calculating angles of attack that would keep Soo-hyun safe from harm, finding none. As if she knew what we were thinking, Enda put a hand out, signaling for us to stand down.

  “I tried to tell you,” JD told Soo-hyun, but their eyes were still downcast in confusion.

  Behind Red, Kali approached, her sari shimmering and opalescent beneath the bright lights. She was joined by others: her assistant Andrea, her disarmed guards, and curious commune residents. Enda scanned the gathering, ever vigilant. Without guns, they looked like punk kids—worn and patched clothing, ragged hairdos, amateurish tattoos scrawled in uneven lines along their arms. They were angry, disaffected, easily led, but generally harmless in the way of most people. Red was the only one Enda was truly wary of. Seeing him triggered an arachnid response, as though the thing that lurked beneath his skin wasn’t human. But that wasn’t right—Enda knew better than most what humans were capable of. It was his leering petulance, as though he would try anything just to see what happened, just to see what he could break. A fully human quality. If Soo-hyun wasn’t the only thing keeping him from being shot, Enda had no doubt he would kill them. Just to see JD’s anguish. Just to see what happened next.

  Kali walked into the spotlight and stood beside Red. She peered beyond and picked Enda and JD out of the darkness. “I should have guessed,” Kali said. “What happened to my people at the apartment?”

  “They had a run-in with Zero,” Enda said. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”

  “Kali,” Soo-hyun said. “Tell Red to let me go.”

  “Quiet, Soo-hyun. This is for the good of us all.” She turned her gaze on JD. “Did you bring the virus like I asked?”

  “Yeah, I brought it.” JD took a datacube from his pocket, and offered it to Kali, across the space between them.

  “Go and take it,” Kali told Andrea.

  The young girl approached, and JD dropped the cube into her cupped hand. She quickly retreated, and bowed when she offered it to Kali.

  Kali inspected it for a moment, then motioned for the tablet the girl always clutched in her other hand. Without hesitation, Kali slotted the cube into the tablet, and powered up the device. “How do I find it?” she asked, tapping at the screen. “How do I give it orders?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “It’ll work however I tell it to work.”

  JD shook his head dismissively. “You’ve got it; not up to me how you use it. Let Soo-hyun go.”

  Kali took Soo-hyun’s chin in her hand and stared into their eyes. “Do you want to go with these people who would visit violence upon our community, or do you want to stay here and see me manifest the future?”

  “Soo-hyun, you can’t trust her,” JD said.

  A short squawk of static issued from my loudspeaker. I played an audio file, Kali’s voice coming from my body: “JD, either you hand over the virus or I will kill Soo-hyun.”

  Soo-hyun’s eyes went wide. “What the fuck?”

  “I never said that!” Kali said.

  “It’s your fucking voice!”

  Kali was right. I was paraphrasing—using the wealth of audio samples available online to reveal her true nature. I played an actual recording next.

  JD: “When I see them, I’ll tell them everything you said. Everything you threatened. I’ll make them hate you like I do.”

  Kali: “They’ll never believe you, Julius. They love me. I think they may be in love with me. Isn’t that interesting? They don’t see any danger here, and they won’t, until it’s too late. Are you ready to trade?”

  “I was never going to hurt you,” Kali said. The sound of her real voice immediately after the recording only confirmed its validity. “I was bluffing.”

  “You held me ransom, and I didn’t even fucking know.” Soo-hyun tore their arm out from Red’s grip, then spun and punched him in the nose. The cartilage broke with a sharp crack.

  They stormed away from Red; violence glinted in his eyes, and even as blood poured over his mouth he smiled. He lifted the gun, and aimed at Soo-hyun’s back.

  Enda fired. The bullet punched through Red’s shoulder, spinning him about even as his assault rifle roared, spitting fire into the air. All around them, people ducked and screamed, but Enda walked forward. With each step she squeezed the trigger, steadying her left hand with her right while blood seeped from the gunshot and her whole arm ached. The AK stopped firing as ragged wounds bloomed across Red’s chest, bright red beneath the spotlights. And still a grin tugged at his lips.

  The Kalashnikov fell from his hands and Red hit his knees. Enda stood over him, while dozens of eyes watched. She pictured Khoder, and the dark, violent part of herself swelled.

  “This is for the kid,” she said.

  She put the gun to his temple and fired.

  That final gunshot echoed into the still night. Red fell to the side, exit wound leaking blood and brain matter onto the dirt.

  I stood beside Enda and let my sensors scan Red’s body, watching the last electrical impulses fade. “You didn’t have to shoot him so many times.”

  “No,” Enda said, “but it felt good.”

  I rested a paw against his fallen gun, and shifted my weight until the weapon broke.

  Kali raised her hands and spun slowly, gathering the attention of her followers. “You can’t believe their lies! See how easily they kill our own. They were sent here by the powers that be to destroy us, to pit us against one another.”

  JD jutted his chin out and sneered at Kali. “You’re the one that killed Khoder. You’re the one printing guns and hacking dogs. You’re the one threatening Soo-hyun.” He strode forward and slapped the tablet out of Kali’s hand. “You don’t deserve Mirae.”

  “It has a name?” Kali said. Her eyes gleamed. “So I was right?”

  “Nothing about you is right.” JD picked up the tablet, took back the cube, and turned away. “She’s a killer,” he shouted, his voice carried on a breeze, spreading over the commune. “She’d kill you all to get her way.”

  Kali’s people whispered, behind and around her. One by one they pulled away from the light of the spectacle, leaving Red behind, flesh slowly turning cold beneath the moonlight, while Kali pleaded with them to return to her side.

  “They’re trying to undermine me! I would never hurt anyone. I did what I had to for the future of humankind! I can build a future without the corporations! We can be free of them once and for all.” Kali staggered after her followers.

  “It’s a worthwhile dream,” JD said. “But I don’t trust her with it.”

  “Maybe we should do it without her,” I said.

  JD wrapped an arm around Soo-hyun’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

  They shook their head. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Enda took off her jacket, gingerly peeling her arm from the sleeve. Blood stark against the pinkish hue of her skin poured down her arm, and spattered across the ground.

  She pointed to Soo-hyun. “Can I borrow a sleeve?”

  Soo-hyun nodded, and Enda ripped the left sleeve from their shirt. Enda gritted her teeth and felt along her skin, a flush of saliva flooding her mouth as her finger dipped into the hot bloody tear of the bullet’s exit wound.

  At least it was out.

&nbs
p; She pinned the sleeve under her arm, held one end in her teeth, and tied it tight. She clenched her fist and held it level with her shoulder. Blood ran in rivulets down to her elbow.

  “I’m Enda, by the way. I won’t shake your hand.”

  “Thank you,” Soo-hyun said.

  Five of me—still me, but barely—along with JD, Soo-hyun, and Enda, wandered away from the commune, west toward the bright beacon of Songdo.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The room beneath the Varket wasn’t really Khoder’s grave. Not even Khoder was tragic enough to be buried beneath his VR chair. It was more of a shrine—the place JD would always think of when he remembered his dead friend—that room, and all the star systems they had traversed together in different clans. It still smelled of his sweat and discarded food scraps, beneath the nose-biting tang of cleaning chemicals.

  “Khoder helped you liberate me,” I said.

  JD nodded.

  “He lived here?”

  “As much as any person can live in a single room beneath a bar,” JD said. “I think he had a bed at a dorm somewhere close by, but he was always here when I needed to find him.”

  I could sense the thick bundles of fiber-optic cabling embedded in the earth beneath us—a major node in the nervous system of the city. “I can see why he liked it. Can I access VOIDWAR from here?”

  “Of course. But isn’t the you at Zero going to take care of things in-game?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I thought I might visit while I was online.”

  JD took the LOX-Recess screwdriver from the bag he carried everywhere and loosened one of my skull plates. He crouched at the base of the VR chair and unspooled a cable, plugging it into a secure port inside my skull. It snaked across the floor, connecting me to the veins of the city, to the potentially infinite universe of VOIDWAR.

  “You’re all set,” JD said.

  “Thank you. What are we doing here?”

  “Do you know anything about digital intrusions? Hacking?”

  I searched quickly through online databases, found decades of history on the hacker subculture. I searched deeper, eventually reaching hidden forums where hackers swapped tricks and tools, before I realized that JD was still waiting for a response.