REHO: A Science Fiction Thriller (The Hegemon Wars) (14 page)

“I grew up
in this sector of the city,” Gibson said. “We call it the
Chronicle
.” Gibson explained that most of what was known about Earth’s history before the Blasts had in some way or another come through this sector. They were also closer to the outer fringes of Neopan, where surveillance was less likely. Information seemed to just find its way here.

The flow of the city changed as the trio stopped in front of a shop Gibson called Kawasaki’s Gadgets.

Gibson held the door open as Reho and Rainne descended the steps to a room filled with an assortment of electronics, books, VHS tapes, cassettes, vinyl records, and other OldWorld items. Reho had never seen so many artifacts piled about in one spot. One corner alone contained thousands of books and what looked to be journals, magazines, and used notepads.

“This isn’t what I brought you here for,” Gibson said. “There is something even better than this.”

They followed Gibson behind the counter and into a back room that was bigger than the one through which they’d entered. It, too, was crowded with OldWorld items. Dust hung in the air.

“The junk is out front,” Gibson said. “The real artifacts are back here.” He pushed aside a rack of fur coats that blocked a third room. Gibson knocked twice.

As the door opened, a bright light from within silhouetted a tall, portly man in black military fatigues. Numerous devices flashed and beeped from his neck to his wrists. One was an AIM.

“Get in here,” the man said. “It’s just me today.” Reho gathered that they’d interrupted something important.

They walked through a narrow hall, its ceiling as high as the tunnel’s had been. Beneath them, their feet splashed on the wet concrete.

“Why is it so wet in here?” Rainne asked.

“Because the only things that are supposed to run in the back of these buildings are the coolant systems,” Gibson replied. “With everything we have back here sucking on the same power outlet, the coolants tend to overheat and malfunction.”

They were led into a room filled with wires and electronics. Rows of monitors filled the available table space, casting an eerie blue light throughout the room. Several lights hung overhead, one of them dripping water onto a table. Buckets scattered the room, collecting the larger leaks and drips from the ceiling.

“You fool!” Gibson said. “You’re going to electrocute yourself back here, and no one is going to know.” He shifted one of the buckets to catch the drip.

“It is what it is,” Kawasaki replied. “The coolants need to be adjusted to stop the leaks, but there is no time for that.”

“We came for some external plugs,” Gibson said. “My friends are not relocaters. They are just here for a few days and want to enter Arcade, preferably without Log noticing. And your coding has always been good.”

“Good?” Kawasaki’s laughter rumbled through the room.

“All right,” Gibson said, “it’s the best. But remember that line of code—”

“That line of code proved useful,” Kawasaki said as he dug through several boxes before locating the pouch he was searching for. He emptied four plugs onto the table, each the size of an OldWorld half-dollar. Attached to the flat, round devices were two prongs, one shorter than the other.

Reho picked one up. It weighed less than a piece of fabric.

“The chip in these things is from the aliens, but their coding is entirely mine.” Kawasaki beamed with pride at this achievement. “The coding is identical to immersant implants, but it doesn’t contain the tracker script.”

“You can enter Arcade, and, unless you do something stupid, you can remain anonymous,” Gibson said.

“Why would someone want to go untraced inside Arcade?” Reho asked.

Kawasaki motioned the group to a table across the room. The chairs were OldWorld, padded leather and on rollers. A bottle of clear liquid and a box of tissues sat on the table.

“For those like us,” Kawasaki said, waving a hand toward Gibson, “we were born here in Neopan. We received our immersant plugs on our eighteenth birthday. Not exactly the same thing that I am about to hook you up with though.” He nodded to Gibson. “Show them.”

Gibson turned and lifted his shirt.

Reho had noticed the black spot on his lower back before but thought it a tattoo. The spot was a perfect circle surrounding a triangle, both cut into the skin like a wall plug. Reho hadn’t noticed it before, but the skin wasn’t solid there.

“We call it a trinity,” Kawasaki said. “What I’m giving you are called external plugs.”

Gibson pushed hard on it with his thumb. There was an audible snap, and the triangle was illuminated, blood-red.

“This is an implant,” Gibson said referring to the trinity at the base of his spine. “When activated, it takes my subconscious and transfers it into the digital program called Arcade. Right now it’s turned on. If I were to sleep, I would wake inside the program.”

“What about back when we were on the ship?” Rainne asked. “Couldn't you have entered then?”

“No,” Kawasaki said. “It sends a signal and only works if near enough to the receiver. Arcade’s server is housed in the Chapel Towers Complex. It occupies fourteen stories in the top of both towers. Fifty thousand employees maintain the system, filling the entire building with programmers and maintenance staff.”

“Where you worked?” Reho asked.

“Where we both worked until meet—”

“I see you have that switch still flipped to
More Magic
,” Gibson said.

Reho didn’t know what he meant by that but saw a smile spread across Kawasaki’s face. Gibson reached across and took one of the externals. His eyes met Reho’s.

“It would take days of talking—an entire book, even—to explain the function and purpose of Arcade,” Gibson said. “Fifteen minutes there and most of your questions will be answered.”

Kawasaki rose from his seat. “Yeah, and new questions will haunt your mind.” He slid the jar and tissues across the table toward Rainne and Reho.

“This stuff is strong enough to knock most people out for fifteen to twenty minutes. It’s easier than waiting for you to fall asleep. The external plugs will sting, and the holes they leave behind won’t close up.”

The prongs lit Reho’s skin with white fire as they pushed into the base of his neck, tapping into what Gibson called
the stem
. Just as quickly as it came, the pain was gone. Rainne squeezed Reho’s arm, her fingers triggering one of the buttons on his AIM. Reho glanced at the screen. The map showed the layout of the room they were in.

Gibson pulled a lever under the chairs, sending them to recline position.

“When you wake, you’ll feel alert,” Kawasaki said, dabbing some of the solution onto a tissue. “Normally people wake in the same room they fall asleep in. Some wake somewhere else. So don’t freak if you feel lost. Just make it to the streets and find a city map. They are posted throughout Arcade.”

Rainne slipped her hand into Reho’s, tangling their fingers together.

Reho took a deep breath and . . .

***

Reho sat up in the recliner. The room was empty.
Where is Rainne?
He reached for the external plug at the base of his neck, but it was gone, though he could feel the two indentions left behind. Everything felt normal.

He traveled back through the hall from which they’d entered and saw a door he hadn’t noticed earlier. Reho tried its handle. Locked.

Kawasaki’s shop appeared the same, except that part of the room was empty. The stacks of books in the corner were now gone. He ventured outside. He could hear people talking, but the streets were not as busy as they had been thirty minutes earlier.
They’re in here with me. Where’s Rainne?

Reho walked the way they had come. The city looked the same. Gibson had referred to Arcade as a mirror of Neopan, a reflection of what really existed.

A girl brushed his shoulder as he stood looking at the sky, wondering how far he could walk before he reached some sort of barrier. Her hair was short and black, her body thin.
Red highlights.

He followed her. A few blocks away, she entered a shop with a fire-breathing dragon painted across the window.

A bell sounded as he entered the shop. The far wall was lined with chairs, tubes dangling from the ceiling above them. Each chair faced a mirror and cart full of instruments Reho recognized. It was a tattoo shop. Drawings of dragons, animals, symbols, faces, and abstracts covered the walls, but one section stood out from the others. Reho examined the designs, unsure of what they were or meant.

“They’re code.”

He turned. She stood a few feet away. Her eyes were sky blue.

“What do the codes mean?”

“In theory, they should make you better at something. Like this one.” She pointed to a series of zeroes and ones, about fifteen numbers long. “It increases your luck.” She lifted her shirt and revealed the codes etched across her hips.

Reho looked at the codes inked in
to her virtual skin. “Why would someone need luck here?”

She smiled and lowered her shirt. “Everyone needs luck.”

Reho heard voices from behind the counter. A thin black veil cut the room off from the back of the shop.

“What about this one?” She laughed. “This one enhances your chances of attracting a woman.”

Reho walked closer to the counter, distracted, not hearing what she’d said.

“What are you doing in here? It’s obvious you didn’t come in to get a tattoo.”

Reho didn’t answer.
How long have I been inside?
His Casio displayed 1:43. He should have glanced at the time before he left.

“You’re here for something else, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Reho replied. “I’m just curious.”

She pulled back the black curtain and motioned for him to follow her.

The last thing Reho expected to see was a room filled with books. Stacks of them towered from floor to ceiling, reminding Reho of Neopan with its sky-high buildings. The shelves had long been filled; four ladders connected to wheels lined the walls.

“My father was one of the wealthier immersants. A few years back, he went on a shopping venture, buying all the duplicate copies of books he could find. And now, here they sit.”

“Was?”

“He died a few months ago. His boat was pirated while returning from one of the islands to the south. They threw his body into the ocean. My brother led the search party that found his body.”

Before he could find out more, a lanky, handsome man wearing a black suit and red tie walked in. He twirled a cane, reminding Reho of the Monets. “We have a customer. Good. About time we start to see some of these worthless things sell. Right sister?” His voice was cold and hurried.

She shooed her brother out of the room. He sneered at her gesture then left.

“Take a look around,” she said. “If you want something, take it. My brother is an idiot, and he has more points then he could ever spend.”

Reho didn’t have much time left. He picked up the book closest to him.

“How do I keep . . .” Reho stopped, realizing it might be too dangerous.

“How do you keep the book? You’re not registered with the system are you?”

Reho wasn’t sure how to answer. He turned back to the endless rows of books. One sat open on the bottom step of a nearby ladder. Reho recognized the sketch—a navy ship he’d seen back in Virginia Bloc. It had been rusted and stranded on the beach farther north in 3E. Reho remembered his uncle saying it was from the OldWorld, but it had become home to wanderers looking for a place to spend the night. Although damaged and decaying, the name had remained partially visible on its side:
USS Mars
.

The sketch depicted the ship floating in a harbor. Below it, a date and location were recorded:
Dutch Harbor, Alaska: 2039.

Reho thumbed through what wasn’t a novel but someone’s journal. The cover of the marbled black and white notebook read:
The Incredible Journal of William III: Military Brat and Survivor of the Apocalypse, Year One
.

“What’s the story with this one?” Reho asked, turning around to find himself alone. He felt light-headed as the room brightened, the light forcing his eyes closed. He held tight to the notebook.

Reho woke to find everyone crowded around him. The white light dissipated, replaced by the comforting, soft blue glow of the monitors. Under his jacket, something flat and hard pressed against his chest.

***

Kawasaki explained that the external implants should stay attached for twenty-four hours before taking them out. This would give their bodies proper time to adjust to them. Afterward, they could be taken out and plugged in whenever they wanted to enter Arcade.

They sat in the Shining Moon Hotel lounge waiting for Thursday, Ends, and Sola to return from the meeting with their employer. Reho kept the journal in his jacket, unsure if taking something out of Arcade was normal or not. Gibson had explained that they’d entered unregistered, that Log wouldn’t detect their presence unless something happened to draw its attention.
Had taking the journal out of Arcade and bringing it into Neopan been detected?