Dark Voices

by Darren Sant

  2. The Battle

  I hid behind a skip full of detritus in an alleyway. In my left hand, a Glock semi-automatic pistol. In my right hand, a razor sharp commando knife. I winced as I squatted. My opponent was good, he’d gotten off a lucky shot within the first five minutes of the battle. The graze on my thigh where a bullet had clipped me bled only lightly, but it hurt like a bitch. VR had reached such an advanced stage that the electrode you inserted into the upload socket at the base of your skull immersed you totally in the virtual environment. It fooled your brain that what you were doing was happening in the real world by manipulating those areas of the brain. All five senses could be used in the virtual. People got addicted to this total immersion. Radio Heads was the nickname for them. It was great for VR sex and any kind of interactive depravity you could imagine, but these addicts often starved to death or died from deep vein thrombosis. Battle was a whole different and nerve-wracking proposition. In this harsh world, where the Karma Police enforced the law with cold logic, total brutality and ruthless efficiency, virtual reality felt like a no consequence escape.

  My synaptic processing feed informed me, almost smugly, that my opponent was now odds on favourite and the betting was flowing against me. I felt my skin itch, even in the virtual environment, as I pictured the nano bots under my skin ready to attack me at any moment. I shook off the image and focused. I needed to be quick or I’d be dead. I threw a flash bang into the alley and turned my back against it. I dashed out of the alley as it exploded. I leapt over the bonnet of a nearby car. A hail of bullets followed me, pinging off brickwork. I crouched again, gritting my teeth against the pain in my thigh. I needed to conserve ammo until I could get to the next weapons cache. I was in imminent danger so I sheathed my knife and flipped the safety off the Glock. My opponent was too wily to come wandering out of the alley now. He’d try to get behind me. In a crouching run I broke cover and rounded a corner, slipping behind a large truck. The light in the ruined war torn city was starting to fade. Plumes of smoke kissed the sky on the horizon and I could hear the sound of an occasional shell hitting the ground with a muffled boom. The programmers had worked hard on this environment. It said a lot about my character that I’d chosen a war torn city and not some lush jungle. I didn’t want to think about that.

  I heard running footsteps approaching. I quickly slipped underneath the truck and watched as my opponent ran past the side of the truck. I rolled out from under it and fired, aiming high. A shot to the shoulder clipped him and he went flying to the ground from his dead run. As I got to my feet he crawled into a nearby alley. I ran a little closer to his position, flipped the pin from a grenade and lobbed it after him. An explosion ripped out of the alley, throwing out little chunks of masonry. I could finish him now. I stalked up to the entrance and, crouching down, looked into the alley. No one there. Damn, he was fast. I saw a trail of blood on the ground and slowly, carefully, set off after him. I changed the clip on the Glock as I tracked him. I wanted to keep a full clip for as long as I had the ammo. I was sent reeling as a fist came out the shadows and smashed into my face. My gun flew from my hand and skittered away down the alley. He stepped from the shadows of a doorway. As I fell my shoulder took the brunt of my fall. I saw him draw a pistol and lunged for his legs, dragging him down before he could get a shot at me.

  We grappled on the ground for what seemed like an eternity. All the while my processing node was recalculating the odds of a winner. The betting worldwide flowed back and forth like an invisible tide going in and out. He headbutted me and I felt my nose pop. I twisted to the side and punched him repeatedly in the face. I could feel his strength fading from the blood loss. Yet he fought like a mad thing and as my hands finally closed in a vice like grip around his throat, I realised that I didn’t even know his name. His game alias was simply Phantom. I saw the life fade slowly from his eyes as I squeezed. It was him or me, I kept telling myself. Him or me. As I lay panting with his corpse rapidly cooling beside me and shells dropping all around the city, a beautiful sunset above me slowly faded into night and the game environment slowly shut down.

  3. The Truth

  Back in the real world millions of individuals watched the camera feed as Phantom died. His muscles twitched and he convulsed all over as the assault on his body continued. A long agonising scream ripped from his throat and he slowly died as the last breath left his body.

  I heard the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs outside my flat. A loud, inhuman voice that sounded like a detuned radio boomed from outside my door.

  “This is the Karma Police. Open the door. You are charged with the murder of another human. In accordance with the law, your sentence will be death. Balance will be restored. All crimes will be punished. You have ten seconds to comply.”

  Now as they blasted my door into splinters I realised the fatal well-hidden truth. The contest winners were never heard of again not because they were living a new identity in luxury and sworn to secrecy. They were absent because the Karma Police always collected. They always restored the balance. I was conned by my own greed. There was no pot of gold at end of the virtual rainbow. The cause of my opponent’s death was me. The stain was on my karma. I would pay the ultimate penalty. I didn’t win, I lost myself. I lost myself.

  The Cage

  I

  My fingers flew excitedly over the keys. The speakers pounded out Metallica at a deafening roar. Empty cans of Budweiser littered the room around me. An open pizza box with one flaccid slice of hot shot lay discarded on the desk beside me. I had a productive evening of gaming. Our clan had risen a few slots in the leaderboard and, more importantly, we had decimated a rival clan. I was just about to log off for the evening when a stray link on a forum caught my eye. Something about it drew my eye. I clicked on it. The page loaded ultra-fast. What I saw baffled me. A series of padlock icons, each with a blank line requesting a password. No explanation to help me understand anything about the page. I tried Googling the link. I looked around hacking sites for references to it. Nothing, nada, zilch, nowt. How odd? Normally any website had some reference to it. Even military and government classified sites were common knowledge among the hacking community. We could not always access them, but we knew the source. I logged off and went to bed.

  II

  I awoke to the letterbox rattling and bills landed on my doormat with an almighty thud that reverberated around my head. I blearily sat up and surveyed the carnage around me. I stepped out of bed and onto a slice of pizza. I quickly wiped my foot on the carpet and picked up the pizza box, surveyed the even more flaccid contents, and quickly ate that final slice. What? They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all. I booted away a couple of Budweiser cans that were underfoot and did a double take. I clearly remembered turning off the PC. Yet the screen glowed before me. Like the old friend that it was. Inviting me to dip my toe into its deep and inviting life-consuming waters. On the screen, the log in to my web mail service was up and awaiting my log in. Weird. I knew damn well the bloody thing had been turned off. I sighed; more time tinkering with it to see what the hell was wrong. I switched it off and plodded my weary way to work.

  I shut the door behind me and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Christ, that was a hard day. Working in IT support often felt like trying to fold treacle, utterly pointless and downright impossible. After a hearty evening meal of pot noodle – beef and tomato, the only choice – I dressed down into my casuals and headed to the bedroom. I stopped in the doorway. The PC screen radiated invitingly at me and again my web mail service was on the screen and ready for log in. I shrugged and decided at the weekend I’d sort the fucker. I logged onto my web mail. I stopped typing … what the fuck? No spam. Nothing. Not a single message offering me Viagra or watches. A bank in Nigeria did not want to give me twenty million dollars. Disappointingly, no Russian lovelies wanted to be my fuck buddy. A day with zero spam was VERY odd indeed. There was one single untitled message with no subject. I opened it. It contain
ed a single word: COME and underneath that word was a link I recognised from the night before.

  I clicked on the link and again found it an ultra-fast load. I was once more greeted by the padlock icons. There were five of them. All of them were different icons, but all of them resembled a padlock. I hovered the mouse around the screen looking for hidden links. Nothing obvious came up, but then it could be as small as a pixel. I hovered the icon over a padlock icon; a hand appeared. I clicked. The padlock expanded to fill the screen in more detail. However, it filled slowly from top to bottom with colour. This struck me as odd. This site was running very quickly indeed. My machine was new with plenty of RAM and a superb graphics card, and yet this animation was moving as slow as the graphics on a 1980s text adventure. I concluded it must be deliberate. When the padlock had entirely filled with colour, a sort of purplish hue, there were no more animations, it just filled my screen. I clicked again and once more the padlock icon shrank to its former size and I got the original screen back. I tried inputting a random word onto one of the password lines. The word “INCORRECT” flashed up. I clicked on another padlock and got the same animation. However, this time the padlock filled up with a different colour, at the same excruciatingly slow rate. I repeated the process on all five of the padlocks. Each one was a different colour. I tried inputting the colours which corresponded, but none of them was deemed a correct password. I tried mixing up colours randomly, but still to no avail. After an hour or so I gave up and switched off the PC. I spent the evening watching the TV and hit the sack at about midnight. I drifted off into a fitful sleep, being chased by mutant padlocks wielding chainsaws. When I awoke the following morning the glow of my PC screen greeted me good morning.

  III

  I stared in disbelief. This time my web mail was actually logged in. A single message showed in the inbox. It read, as before, simply “COME”. I unplugged the PC at the wall and went to work. After a frustrating morning’s work, I slipped out during my lunch hour and wandered around town.

  I sat on a quiet bench and started to read the NME whilst munching on a meatball marinara. My phone bleeped out the theme to the Goodies to indicate I had a new text message. The number I did not recognise, but the message chilled me to the bone. A single word: “COME”. My pulse raced as I called the number. Nothing. Just a flat tone. I tried to regain my composure and read for the rest of my lunch hour, but I couldn’t help but keep looking over my shoulder.

  Naturally I couldn’t keep my mind on work that afternoon and I watched the hands of the clock creep so slowly across the dial. Four forty-five: fifteen minutes to go. I loosened my tie and breathed a tired sigh; my nerves were still jangling, but my phone had remained silent, aside from the usual sick jokes my friends constantly bombarded me with. I wondered if one of my mates would be so devious as to set this up to scare the shite out me. It was something to consider. My desk phone rang. No doubt some buffoon who had forgotten his password.

  “IT support.”

  Nothing, just a crackle.

  “Hello, IT support.”

  A flat voice spoke a single word that nearly stopped my heart; “COME”.

  “Dave, you devious little bastard, is that you? Stop fucking winding me up!”

  A click as the line went dead. I slammed down the phone. I looked up to find the entire office staring at me. I quickly put my head down and pretended to be working to avoid the curious gazes of my colleagues.

  IV

  My hand trembled just a little as I put the key in the lock. I had avoided coming straight home and had gone to the pub for a while. I had three pints of Hobgoblin and a bag of chips inside me. I held a bag containing a couple more beers I’d gotten from Booze Bonanza down the road. I sat watching a film about a young rich boy who constantly faked suicide and then fell in love with an eighty-year-old woman, as I supped my beers. I smiled to myself at the boy’s antics and the effect they had on his mother. I gradually relaxed, the beer doing the job intended. I awoke on the sofa the next morning, stumbled around, splashed my face with cold water. I shrieked like a little girl as I noticed the time. Fuck! I’d be late for work. The boss didn’t need another excuse to get rid of me. I dashed out the front door at a run and got to the end of the street before it hit me. It was fucking Saturday! I grinned to myself and went to the cafe to get a fry up.

  I gorged myself on a lorry driver special breakfast and generally felt better about the world. It’ll have been Dave the tricky little git. One of his elaborate wind ups. I bought a paper on the way home, I’d have a chilled out day, maybe watch the football, and see who was up for the pub later. I tidied the flat, watched City get stuffed yet again, this time 3-0. I wandered into the bedroom and stopped. The PC was on! I’d unplugged it. I could have sworn I had. My blood chilled as the screen saver kicked in. A single word bounced around the screen: “COME”.

  V

  Fuck this! I stormed forward and sat at my desk. I slammed the keys and logged onto the website. The five padlocks laughed back at me, taunting me. If they wanted to play then I would play. If I cracked this fucking code I could then go kick Dave’s arse. Afterward I’d hack his e-mail and cause some mischief of my own. A part of me didn’t want to believe my all too easy explanation of friendly mischief, but I ignored it as I got to work.

  I put on some thinking tunes and cranked up the volume. As Karma Police reverberated around the room, I started to write down ideas about colours and padlocks, trying to form connections. I clicked again and again, watching the colours fill in the padlocks on the screen before me. Why the colours? They must mean something. I did a screen print of each of the padlocks in its coloured state. A memory tickled at the back of my mind, something so obvious most would miss it. It eluded me for the moment. I looked at my prints. How best to identify a colour? It hit me: paint colours! They were identified by an index of numbers known as RAL numbers. I’d worked at a paint distributor as a student and they had a chart up on the wall. I pulled up a chart online and wrote the relevant number on each screen print. It could not be this simple, could it?

  My hands shook a little as I input the first code. My music suddenly stopped and the sound of a lock being unlocked issued loudly from the speakers. A simple animation showed the padlock opening and then the input line disappeared. Four to go. At this point I felt a primal unease, a fear deep to my core. I input the second code. Same result, success. My fear grew and my insides twisted into knots. Third code: this time a smiley face replaced the padlock. I gave a relieved sigh, why was I so tense? I rushed to input the fourth code and fumbled a digit. A cross appeared and a timer appeared at the top of the screen: 59 seconds showed in blood red. I tried again and got it right. However, the timer remained: 40 seconds. I breathed faster and typed the final code with deliberate care. The timer showed 20 seconds as I pressed enter. The sounds of a hundred thousand malevolent voices screaming in triumph erupted from my speakers. A second later the monitor exploded into my face.

  * * *

  As one man lay dying, computer systems around the world started to fail. Hard drives exploded and electrics shorted out. Thousands died as air traffic control computers failed immediately like the flicking off of a light switch. Military computers began an ominous countdown that no one could stop. With the death of countless thousands, a new life had just begun.

  Acknowledgements

  Revenge is a Warm .45 – First published by The Flash Fiction Offensive in 2010.

  The Ungrateful Dead – First published in Radgepacket Four by Byker Books in 2010.

  Dirty Deeds Dun Reel Cheep – First published by Shotgun Honey in 2011.

  Lola and Punishment – First published in Burning Bridges Anthology in 2012.

  Unforgiven – First published by The Flash Fiction Offensive in 2011.

  Skating on Thin Ice – First published by The Killing Pandemic in 2011.

  Boardroom Massacre – First published by At The Bijou 2012.

  Dope on a Rope – First published in True Brit
Grit Anthology 2012.

  The Sad End of Ernest Winthorpe – First published by Flash Jab Fiction in 2012.

  Karma Police – First published in Off the Record by Guilty Conscience Publishing in 2011.

  The Cage – First published by Thrillers, Killers ‘N’ Chillers in 2010.

  Thanks

  Thank you for reading Dark Voices. If you have enjoyed reading this collection, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, your blog or Twitter. They all help.

  You can catch up with me:

  on Twitter: @groovydaz39 or @Longcroft_Tales

  on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LongcroftTales

  or via email: dazzasaint@gmail.com

  Also available from Darren Sant:

  The Bank Manager and the Bum

  When branch manager Giles Macintosh arrives to open up one morning and finds an injured bum and his battered dog lying in the doorway of the bank, he little suspects what lies in store for them all.

  Giles does the decent thing and calls for help, then puts the incident out of his mind. However, having been witness to things he cannot explain, he feels drawn to the man and tries to track him down … only to find he has vanished.

  But who is the enigmatic, homeless Frank? Why are two very nasty men trying to find him? Why has a prostitute been abducted? And what does the future hold for Giles's seriously ill son, Jake?