by Dan Wells
She raised her head to meet Marisa’s gaze, just enough to let a little light fall on her face. She was definitely Chinese.
“Híjole,” said Marisa, and called out to the girl. “Fang?”
The girl hesitated for a moment, before finally raising her hand and waving shyly.
“Sac!” cried Jaya, and ran to her. Fang winced, seeming to shrink even farther into her hoodie, and endured the round of hugs the rest of the Cherry Dogs subjected her to.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you sooner,” said Marisa, wrapping the girl in her arms. Fang was fifteen, two years younger than Marisa, and much shorter than she’d expected. Now that she could see her face inside the hoodie, she looked younger as well.
“It’s okay,” said Fang. Her voice, at least, was instantly familiar.
“Why didn’t you come introduce yourself?” asked Sahara.
Fang grimaced, and Marisa could see that she was searching for the words. Fang spoke perfect English—if she was looking for words it was because she was shy, or embarrassed, or simply uncomfortable. Marisa jumped in to help her, putting her arm around her shoulders: “The question is, why weren’t we paying better attention? She’s our guest, and we’re going to treat her like a queen.” She grabbed the handle of Fang’s long suitcase. “Are we ready?”
“Ready for a nap,” said Sahara. “You’re probably both exhausted, right? Let’s get back to my place—I’ve got a couch and an air mattress already set up.” She pointed toward one end of the long hallway. “Train’s that way.”
“I thought we were treating them like queens!” said Anja. She faced the front door, leading out to the pick-up/drop-off area, and spread her arms wide. “Gentlemen, your finest autocab for my friends here. We shall spare no expense!”
They shrugged and followed her—if she was paying, a cab was always preferable. They got the largest one they could find, the interior of which was almost the size of Marisa’s bedroom; its door opened smoothly, and they piled in with all their luggage. Jaya deactivated her suitcase’s auto-follow routine with a blink of her eyes, and Marisa helped her lift it into the storage area on the inside wall. Not only was it larger than Fang’s little roller bag, it was nearly twice as heavy.
“Qué pasó?” grunted Marisa. “What have you got in here?”
“I’m here for a week!” said Jaya. “That’s, what, fifteen different outfits?”
Marisa lifted Fang’s bag into the cab. “What about you?”
Fang shrugged. “I brought some clothes.” Her voice was almost too soft to hear.
“Is everything okay?” asked Marisa.
“Was I . . . not supposed to bring clothes?”
“No,” said Marisa, “what I mean is, you seem really quiet. Are you tired?” Fang was usually a crackling ball of energy and motion, trash-talking with the best of them.
“Yeah,” said Fang. “Just tired.”
Marisa nodded but wasn’t sure she believed it.
They settled down in the autocab, and Anja gave it the address. “Would you like some breakfast?” asked the cab. “There are more than one hundred coffee shops along our route—”
“Oh, for Cthulhu’s sake!” shouted Anja. “Will you please shut up! And tell all the other cabs to stop offering us deals every time we get in one!”
“Would you like to take advantage of our special no-ad extended pass?” asked the cab. “Save on ad-free rides, every ride you take. You can order it by the week, month, or year.”
“Give me the year, please,” groaned Anja, slumped so far down in her seat she was practically lying on the floor.
“I didn’t know that was even an option,” said Sahara, and looked directly into Camilla’s recording lens. “You heard it here first.”
“Oh my gosh,” said Jaya, “I didn’t even realize it! I’m finally on the show, aren’t I!” She waved at the camera, then wrapped her arm around Fang and leaned in close, their cheeks almost touching, and waved again. Fang smiled, but only for a second.
Sahara grinned. “All five Cherry Dogs, together in the real world for the first time. Cherry Dogs forever!”
The other girls—all except Fang—raised their hands triumphantly and shouted it back: “Cherry Dogs forever!”
“Woo!” shouted Marisa. The cab merged out of the airport access road and onto the freeway, speeding up just suddenly enough that Marisa reached out for the cab’s wall. She looked around the cab and couldn’t help but smile. “This is the best. You girls are literally the best.”
“Tell me about the forehead thingy,” said Anja, pointing at the gem on Jaya’s head. “It’s changing colors.” Marisa noted with surprise that the pale blue had turned bright yellow.
“It’s because I’m excited,” said Jaya. “It’s a mood panel—it changes with my neural patterns. Yellow is excited, blue is happy, violet is really happy, and brown is nervous. Green is pretty average.”
“What’s red?” asked Marisa.
Jaya laughed. “If you ever see it red, offer me chocolate and back away slowly.”
“That’s brilliant,” said Sahara. “I’ve never seen one of those before—are they big in India?”
“Not necessarily,” said Jaya, “but you see them around. I got mine about six years ago, when I was struggling with some emotional stuff. I thought I was just moody, and I figured my parents would be able to navigate my hormones a little better if I just had a sign on my forehead that told them what I was feeling.” She laughed. “So I got one installed. It didn’t really help, but I think it’s pretty, so I’ve left it in. The really valuable implant is this one.” She leaned forward, pulling up her sleeve to expose her upper left arm. She had a small metal console embedded in her skin, just below the shoulder, about the size of a tube of lipstick. A pair of lights sat at one end of it, one green and one blue, and at the other end was a small button. Between them was a small glass window, revealing some kind of readout that Marisa didn’t know how to interpret.
“This one’s not for fashion,” said Sahara.
“Pure utility,” said Jaya. She pushed the button and the console clicked open, revealing a little space in her arm with an off-white cartridge about two inches long. Jaya popped it open and held it up. “Turned out everything I was dealing with was related to depression. This helps regulate my brain chemistry so I don’t go all death and despair anymore.” She kissed it and popped it back into place, closing the console with another soft click. “Way better than the pills I used to take, since it can monitor and adjust medication levels on the fly. I don’t know what I’d do without it.”
“That’s awesome,” said Marisa.
“Back to the forehead thing,” said Anja. “Is it religious?”
“You can’t just ask that,” said Marisa.
“Why not?” asked Anja. “I’m curious.”
“It’s not religious,” said Jaya. “It’s super not—my grandma still has a fit every time she sees it. It’s not a bindi, and I can’t really wear a bindi with the panel in the way, so it’s kind of a whole thing.”
“I thought bindis were mostly just a cultural thing,” said Sahara. “Not really religious anymore.”
“That depends on who you talk to,” said Jaya.
“Does that mean you’re not really religious, either?” asked Sahara. “Marisa’s a pretty devout Christian, and Anja doesn’t care one way or the other, so it’ll be nice to have another atheist on the team.”
“I’m very religious,” said Anja. “Don’t impugn my faith.”
Sahara’s jaw fell open, and she stared at Anja for a moment. “You’re kidding.”
“I’ve never seen you do anything religious,” said Marisa. “Except mock it, I guess.”
“I’m a devout Simulationist,” said Anja. “My entire life is dedicated to my faith.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” said Jaya.
“Because she’s making it up,” said Marisa.
“Consider the facts,” said Anja, smiling as she leane
d forward. “In your opinion, is it possible to create a full simulation of the universe, indistinguishable from the real world?”
“Computer theory suggests that it is,” said Jaya. “Virtual reality games like Overworld are already pretty close.”
“Exactly,” said Anja. “And we’re closer to it now than we were ten, twenty, fifty years ago. And it’s not hard to imagine that with another ten, twenty, even a hundred years, we’ll get there. It might take a while, but it’s a completely believable, feasible technology.”
“Sure,” said Marisa. “So does a ‘Simulationist’ look at that technology as, like, saving the world or something?”
“Fact two,” said Anja, ignoring the question. “If even one such simulation exists—indistinguishable from reality—then we have a fifty-fifty chance of being in it. Just one simulation. If even two such simulations exist, we are more likely to be in a simulated world than in a real one.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Sahara.
“It is scientifically sound,” said Anja.
“So you think we live in a simulation,” said Marisa. She could barely believe what she was hearing. “You honestly believe that.”
Anja held up her finger, as if speaking words of inviolate wisdom. “Consider this: every mammal on the entire planet, regardless of mass or bladder size, takes an average of twenty seconds to pee. Every single one. What’s more likely: that this is some amazing biological coincidence, or that some programmer somewhere got lazy and just reused some animation code?”
“There’s no way that’s true,” said Marisa.
“Time yourself,” said Anja.
“I can’t believe you’re basing your religion around how long it takes to pee,” said Sahara.
“This is fantastic,” said Jaya. She was smiling from ear to ear. “So that’s what a Simulationist believes, but what does one do? How does it guide your life?”
Anja shrugged and lay back against the bench. “The only possible reasons to simulate a world are to study it or to play with it, right? I mean, those are the only reasons we ever do it. And since I’m pretty sure we’re not a game, we’re probably in a study, which means somebody is watching.”
Marisa laughed. “So God’s a scientist, and we’re all unwitting subjects in some massive experiment?”
“I don’t know who made it,” said Anja. “Call it God if you want. The one and only thing we know about this being is that it’s watching us, right?” A wide, wicked grin spread across her face. “I’m just trying to get its attention. I’m trying to be so unfathomably unpredictable that the big Lab Technician in the Sky can’t help but notice the anomaly and take a closer look.”
“And . . . then what?” asked Marisa. “He pulls you out of his little rat maze and you live forever in paradise?”
“Maybe,” said Anja. “Or maybe all we can do is ruin his simulation. I’m happy either way—who does that blowhole think he is, anyway?”
Jaya laughed, and Sahara stared at Anja with a look of strained patience. After a moment of glaring she rolled her head back to Jaya. “Welcome to Los Angeles,” she said. “Where weirdness is apparently a religion now.”
“I’ll be atheist with you,” said Fang. All four other girls looked at her in surprise, and she shrank back into her seat. “I mean, if you want.”
“Thank you, Fang,” said Sahara. “I’m glad I’m not the only sane person in this autocab.”
“I’ve never understood atheism,” said Jaya. “I mean, I’m not really a practicing Hindu, despite my family’s constant preaching, but I believe in it, you know? Like, I know what it says about the world, and what I should be doing to get all the rewards, or whatever.”
“But you’re not doing them?” asked Sahara.
Jaya shrugged. “Not really.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” said Sahara. “If I believed that there really was a purpose to this world, and to us in it—some big, guiding hand behind it all—I’d follow it to the letter. I’d build my entire life around it, because why wouldn’t you? Why would you believe something is true and then ignore it?”
“You believe math is true,” said Jaya. “But you’re not a mathematician.”
“So what do you want?” asked Marisa. She looked at Sahara closely. “Just . . . to be famous? More eyeballs on the vidcast, more wins for the team? You spend so much energy trying to master all of these little systems, but . . . what does that get you?”
Sahara looked back calmly. “It gets me another system to master.” She looked at Marisa a moment, then rolled her shoulders, working out some of the stiffness. “Honestly, though? What do I want right now? I want to save your restaurant. I want to get Alain out of that room he’s locked in. I want to wipe that smug look off of Kwon Chaewon’s face, and Nightmare, and . . . Leggy McSupermodel or whatever that white girl’s name was. I want to bring them all down.”
“Yes,” said Anja.
“I want to win,” said Fang.
“The first-place prize is ten thousand yuan,” said Sahara. “That would get San Juanito back on its feet.”
“But you’ve seen the other teams,” Jaya said. “With the exception of Chaewon, we’re the only amateurs there. Hooray for self-confidence and all, but honestly? Our only plausible shot at the final is if Anja’s magic alien scientist suddenly notices us and decides to mess with the simulation a little.”
“You never know,” said Anja. “At least, you never know until you paint yourself blue and go streaking through a supermarket.”
“We can win,” said Sahara firmly. “We can do more than win—we can dominate. The tournament’s being held in the Jeon Convention Center, right?”
“Yeah,” said Marisa. “So?”
“So that’s connected to the Sigan building,” said Sahara. “That’s how they’re doing the little ‘fake lag spikes’ thing they’re planning, by running it all on Sigan’s own closed network. But that’s also our big chance, because getting into one building means we can get into the other.” She grinned. “We’re not just going to win the tournament; we’re going to rescue Alain.”
NINETEEN
The taxi dropped them off at the restaurant, though it, like most places in Mirador, was closed Sunday morning. Marisa kissed Fang and Jaya good-bye and left them in Sahara’s capable hands, knowing that if she didn’t show up in time for church, her parents’ acceptance of the night’s activities would come crashing down in an avalanche of punishments. Her house was only about a half mile away, so she took her bag containing the scuffed remnants of her green dress—a nuli-borne crash landing was not good for your clothing, it turned out—and walked.
The sun was already beating down, even at eight a.m., though Marisa knew it would get worse as the day wore on. Sometimes she wondered why anyone ever bothered to live in the real world at all, when VR was so much simpler—plus you could fly. She laughed to herself, thinking of Anja’s lecture in the cab. Maybe they were already in VR, and just didn’t realize it. She hoped not. If whoever was running the world had the power to let her fly, and wasn’t doing it, she was going to be pissed.
And what about Fang’s odd behavior? She’d known Fang for years—longer than Jaya or Anja or even Bao. Fang had always been a bright spot in Marisa’s life, irreverent but loyal, mouthy but kind, tirelessly dedicated to the Cherry Dogs and to anything else their little group of friends got caught up in. Was she really just tired from the flight, or had something happened?
It occurred to Marisa that as much as Fang supported her, she’d never done much to support Fang. She’d never had to bail Fang out of a botched criminal escapade, like Fang had done for her last night. She’d never even helped Fang decide what to wear on a date, which she’d done for all the other girls—even Jaya, who lived on the other side of the world from her. Had she not been a true enough friend? She sent Fang a quick message as she walked, being careful not to trip on any cracks in the sidewalk:
I just wanted to say again how awesome it is to se
e you in person. You’ve been one of my best friends for such a long time. We can talk more when I get back from church, but please remember that you can always talk to me about anything. I’m here for you.
That would have to do for now. She walked the last few blocks to her house, Olaya automatically unlocking the front door as she approached. Pati came barreling down the stairs like a thunderbolt, and her mami soon after, hugging her and kissing her and telling her she looked like she hadn’t slept a wink, and what on earth happened to her shoulders, did she really get that banged up in the fall? The house smelled like eggs and frijoles and hot flour tortillas fresh off the stove, and Marisa returned their hugs and answered their questions while she slowly worked her way to the kitchen for some breakfast. Her abuela was hunched over the stove like always, in a blue nightdress and a pair of foam sandals, picking up hot tortillas with her bare hands and flipping them over on the hot black comal. Her father was sitting at the table, his arms crossed and his eyes flicking through the morning news on his djinni. He looked up at Marisa, opened his arms for a hug, and gave her a peck on the cheek when she leaned down to embrace him.
“Te amo, chiquita,” he said.
“Te amo, Papi.”
“Eat,” said her abuela, pulling a plate from the cupboard and covering it with eggs and beans and tortillas. “You’re skin and bones—boys like a little more booty to hold on to.”
“Are boys holding on to your booty, Marisa?” asked her father, still looking at his news feeds.
“Ay, Papi, no,” said Marisa. She washed her hands, then spooned chile all over her eggs. “Besides, Abue, I’m not skin and bones. I’m bigger than any of the other girls on the team.”
