Light Shaper (5 page)

Barrow shrugged and headed for the door. He was surprised at how natural it felt to move on the floor he could not see. It was just like walking. When he reached the door, he first stuck his hand through the opening to make sure it wasn’t solid. When his hand reached the threshold, though, it seemed to dematerialize and disappear as if the wall were swallowing it. He yanked it back, surprised, but when he held the hand up to his face, it was undamaged. Barrow hesitated for only a split second. Then he plunged headfirst through the door.

“Mr. Barrow,” Armando Scholl greeted him. “So nice of you to join us.”

Barrow looked around in confusion. He was in an entirely different place now. When he looked back, the wall behind him was smooth and completely featureless, with no sign of the glowing door he had used to get in.

“Sorry,” Barrow muttered. “Got turned around.”

This new room was a bit more detailed than the other one, but it looked like a very bad attempt at creating the semblance of a workspace using the minimum number of lines possible. The floor was crisscrossed by more of the glowing lines, at least giving Barrow a sense of space and distance. It wasn’t very big, and the only other objects inside it besides his avatar and Scholl’s were a couple of boxy structures that might have been tables, or just cubes. The general darkness of the room had no impact on the way either of the avatars was lit. Scholl looked incongruous, standing in the middle of the rough, unfinished environment. It felt as if two different bits of technology had been used: the more advanced one to create the avatars with all their perfect details and some kind of low-budget special effects to try to create a semblance of space using only glowing lines.

None of the other new hires were there. Only Scholl was still waiting for him.

“Late again,” Scholl said and approached the place where Barrow was standing. “Is this the kind of first impression you intended to make, son? Or do you just really not give a damn about getting this job?”

Barrow scowled. Scholl’s avatar looked just like him, and now that they were standing face-to-face Barrow could see that the man in front of him was short, unimposing, and almost pathetically thin. He looked old but in that slightly emaciated way that some of the survivors from the Great Famine had. Barrow suspected that Scholl had been born in the slums, and he had gone through the famine that had struck Aurora thirty years ago, before Barrow was born.

“I do want this job,” Barrow said, trying not to get angry. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

Scholl gave him another long, appraising look. “You think I’m an idiot, Steve Barrow?”

Barrow blinked. “What?”

Scholl called up a screen in midair with a gesture. It showed Barrow’s record, even the confidential parts that the Otherlife Human Resources execs had been unable to check due to privacy and fair opportunity laws.

“How did you get that?” Barrow asked, brain racing. He was screwed. He had been counting on his lies to get him through the first few weeks, until he learned the ropes and became too valuable to fire lightly. He had gotten through two interviews and one assessment center session already with no problem, and now this guy called up his entire history and by doing so made all his efforts worthless.

Scholl began scrolling down the report, which showed a color hologram of Barrow several years ago. He recognized the holo as the one they had taken when they admitted him into prison.

“Steve Barrow, twenty-nine years of age,” Scholl read. “No record of higher education, high school unfinished. No living brothers or sisters, parents deceased. Arrested eleven years ago for armed robbery of a convenience store along with three other males, including charges of assault and resisting arrest. Given a sentence of five years’ imprisonment at Death Valley Prison. Granted freedom after four years and one month for good conduct. Hired seven months later by Aurora Transport as Security Guard of the class-3 trading airship
Titania
. Employed for six years, good attendance record and performance reviews. Recommended for promotion to Security Chief once, opportunity declined. Most recently fired from the position after an incident regarding negligence on his part, at least according to what was reported. His actions caused the loss of an entire shipment of valuable fuel cargo. Following a lawsuit, Aurora Transport was authorized to seize most of his assets in lieu of payment for the losses incurred. Confiscation team reported finding small quantities of illegal anabolic steroid and other hormone-based substances at his residence. Items were destroyed as per standard legislation. Interestingly, the Chief Navigational Engineer aboard the
Titania
was reported missing just prior to your dismissal. Later, he was declared dead. It makes you wonder.”

Barrow’s scowl had turned into a glower. It was one thing to know you had made some mistakes in your past. It was quite another to have somebody else pick his way through them as if he were giving an audio tour of his life story. And Scholl was too close to the truth in that last bit. Way too close.

Scholl mistook his silence for shamed acceptance.

“Well, at least you’re not denying it. Now, I want to know something. You tell me why I’m supposed to hire a man who cost his company millions at his previous post through negligence of his security duties.”

“That’s not what happened,” Barrow said through gritted teeth. “I did what I had to do.”

Scholl raised an eyebrow. “Really. I do my homework, Barrow. I saw the records of the lawsuit, and nowhere is it mentioned that you ‘had to do’ anything.”

Barrow was thinking quickly. Better to confess to a fake crime than lead Scholl in the direction of the real one.

“Well?” Scholl insisted. “I’m waiting.”

“It was a mistake,” Barrow said at last. “I made a judgment call, and it was wrong. I owned up to it, lost everything I had.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. Why should I hire you?”

“I’m a good security guard,” Barrow said. “I’m fast. I’m always alert. I know how to fight and how to use a gun, but I can disarm a man quietly without any weapons. I have a good memory, and I know how to follow orders… except when they don’t make sense. I’m not a soldier.”

“You lied in your application to get to this point. You were offered this job based on the lies you fed to HR.”

“Yeah. And you caught me. I’ve never been inside Otherlife before, like those other people who were here. I have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, but I’m going to try and learn. So, either give me a chance to prove I can do my job, or I won’t waste anymore of my time or yours and leave. Just say the word, Scholl.”

They looked at each other for a couple seconds, neither one budging an inch. Then Scholl nodded thoughtfully. “At least you’re being honest now. And you’re getting paid for today’s training whether I like it or not, so let’s see what you got. Go to the fight sector, Hub K7. Watch the users, see what it’s about. I’ll have one of my people start a disturbance to see how you handle it. Remember, though: you will be interacting with real, paying customers of Otherlife. I don’t care if their avatar is a sumo wrestler wearing a pink tutu and a big red clown nose, you’re here to ensure that their experience is enjoyable and safe, and you should always treat them with the utmost respect. I don’t want any complaints, understood?”

Barrow nodded. “Yeah. Got it.”

“Okay. Get going. Hub K7. I’ll let you know when the shift is over so you can disconnect.”

Barrow hesitated. “You mean I’ll be in here the entire eight hours while my body is on that chair?”

“Relax, Barrow. Time flows differently in Otherlife. Don’t forget this is all a simulation, and events can flow as fast as your brain can process them. A full shift here will be about three hours real-time, tops. Nothing you can’t handle on your first night. Now get lost.”

With that, Scholl’s avatar dematerialized. Barrow was left standing there, trying to remember how he had gotten to this room. He walked to one of the walls, reached out, and touched it. It was hard and unyielding, real enough to his hand.

“Um, take me to Hub K7,” he said.

He was relieved when the glowing door was etched on the wall immediately. A pop-up confirmed that he was going to K7, and he stepped through without hesitation.

There was suddenly noise.

Man, so much noise.

Most of it was shouting, although there were plenty of groans, thuds, and crashes thrown into the mix.

“Welcome to Hub K7, the fight sector,” the female voice announced. “Please take a moment to read and accept the user agreement prior to participating in the activities in this sector. Otherlife wishes to remind you that minors are forbidden from connecting to this hub. Any unauthorized connection attempt will be penalized with account suspension. Thank you.”

A large and long user agreement flashed into existence in front of Barrow. He tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, he scrolled to the bottom of it without reading it and clicked accept. The thing winked out.

Now he could see all of the people fighting without anything blocking the view.

The first thing he noticed was how real everything looked. Barrow had been to some of the illegal fighting circles in the slums many years ago, when he had still been hanging out with the gang of youths that got him locked up. They were nasty places, assorted gatherings of people in dimly lit alleys, abandoned warehouses, and so on. The couple times he had been with his friends to place bets, at least one fight had broken out among the spectators when somebody lost or somebody else didn’t pay what he owed. There were usually lots of prohibited or restricted substances for sale there, and the atmosphere of violence and excitement was almost contagious. Barrow had almost fought once, when a prospector cornered him and told him that with his huge build Barrow would make a natural fighter. Barrow had almost done it too. He had been eighteen back then, and he had only recently begun to use chemical enhancement to boost the results he got from his gym workouts. It was expensive, though. The fights would be easy cash—if he won. In the end, he hadn’t done it, but it had been hard to resist the magnetic pull of the crowds, the infectious atmosphere, the allure of all the attention, violence, and cash.

The same vibes thrummed invisibly through this sector. It was so real that he had to keep reminding himself he was inside a virtual simulation, nothing more.

The area didn’t look any better than the other places he had already been. The distant walls were dark, with only a token latticed pattern of glowing red lines marking the places where they divided this sector from the rest of Otherlife. Overhead, the ceiling was high but not terribly so, set at regular intervals with lights that were crude spheres of brilliance stuck in place and giving out a dim reddish light that added to the atmosphere. It was dark, but the avatars of the hundreds of people milling about and gathered in disordered circles around the raised fighting arenas were unnaturally bright, each detail perfectly visible no matter how far away they were. As Barrow made his way to the nearest arena, he had to shove and push through the crowds, and everything felt exactly as it would have felt in the real world. The shouts of the crowd were everywhere, and the grunts of the fighters sounded real. It was only slowly that he realized the simulation did have its limits, and when he noticed it, he felt strangely relieved. He did not like being in a world that was so much like the real one, except for subtle things that were hopelessly wrong.

There were no smells, for instance. Lots of people were smoking, and the place was so crowded that the air should have been heavy with the smells of tobacco, pot, and sweat. There was none of that, not even when Barrow managed to push his way to the front of one of the circles of people ringing the arena. He could feel the heat of their bodies, but there was no olfactory sensation whatsoever. It was a small thing, but having noticed it, he could not ignore it.

There was also the fact that almost all of the people surrounding him were perfect.

He first realized it as he began to scan the crowd for signs of whatever “disturbance” his boss would create for him. Given the already chaotic nature of the place, he suspected it would take very little to turn this crowd of eager screaming spectators, who were already feeling the adrenaline rush of witnessing violence, into a mob impossible to control. He began to analyze each face in turn with the eye of an experienced security guard used to sorting out troublemakers. Every single person he saw was impossibly attractive. At first he thought he was mistaken, but he craned his neck backward to scan people behind him, and it was the same thing. Even the two male fighters dishing it out above them in the roped-off and brightly lit arena looked as if they had stepped out of the front cover of a wrestling magazine five minutes ago.

Most of the women had perfect hair, slender figures, and long legs. They were all dressed differently, but the vast majority of them had perfect makeup on, and some even sported impossibly proportioned bodies designed to make themselves more attractive. They reminded Barrow of video game characters, with exaggerated characteristics that were unrealistic and completely at odds with the way regular people looked. And the men were no different. Most of them were caricatures of hulking gods, with perfectly chiseled bodies and imposing muscles. Barrow was a big guy, but most of the avatars surrounding him had arms thicker than his thigh. The fighters were extreme examples of this, reinforcing the artificial video game impression Barrow was getting from the environment. Only professional, full-time, and dedicated bodybuilders would ever be able to look like that, and Barrow seriously doubted that the fighters were heavy lifters in the real world. It didn’t seem to matter here, though. The crowd screamed and yelled at them to kill the other just as if they were fighters for real.

Barrow turned to his left to ask a woman next to him who the fighters were. She was dressed like a goth vampire, with extravagant makeup and eyes that glowed faintly with a crimson luminescence.