Versim (18 page)

“And then you’ll do it? You’ll wake up a host with twenty million sentient individuals going about their daily life?”

“Better than her dying and everyone immersed from the real world getting fried in a split second.”

“Constructs don’t matter?”

Hark knew Tripp had him. They both killed for a living. Hark had always acted superior, he’d admit, because he had killed hundreds of constructed persons inside, while what Tripp did always seemed worse because it happened in reality. Both of them eliminated constructed persons. And the principal antags and protags who were real people living out their fantasies or the fully immersed customers who chose to live in-V? They were paying for the privilege and were promised to be protected with expensive insurance policies. With a controlled host’s awakening, they’d all be retrieved in a timely and safe fashion. But in a catastrophe some of the policies wouldn’t work, like Binda’s, because it probably wasn’t premium. The constructs, though, they’d be gone in an instant …

“I guess I’m the angel of death in this scenario,” Hark said.

“Grim fuckin’ Reaper, brother.”

“I have to do it.”

“I heard you the first time.”

The piping voices of Frankie and Binda talking down stairs echoed over a broadcast. They sounded alarmed.

“It’s hit the news,” Tripp said. “Time to go.”

“Krista’s coming?”

“Soon.” Tripp smiled. “Enjoy.” He looked off into the middle distance. “It’s just a promise, big bro. Just a promise.” He disappeared.

“Asshole.”

27

Hark locked the door to a compact bathroom on the far side of the suite: a single deep, porcelain sink; a beveled mirror from which hung a row of soft lighting; a toilet in a teak closet, its door closed. He withdrew his AK and set it in the sink. He swiped his hand across it. The small display lit up.
 

“Messenger bots. Mirror conduit. Public access.”

The box’s light flickered off. Its familiar hum made Hark smile. He glanced at himself in the mirror for a moment, an urge to rip off his odd clothing nearly overcoming him. What he had to do would require his Skinsuit and gear, maybe even his mask, and nothing else.
 

The smile that had earned him millions of fans turned to a scowl, the one he used so many times before in a thousand fights. He nodded, sighed, and looked away from himself in the guise of the quintessential action hero. He felt like smashing the mirror, but only made a fist. The image of him as the one who saves the day made him so angry because of what he had to do: save one boy’s life, but sacrifice millions. Hark nodded to himself.
And I’ll do it
.

He set a large piece of hand soap near the box. Lasers emerged from the box like seeking tendrils. They began to eat away at the material. They stopped after ten seconds.

Out of the light, a tiny mist appeared that floated upward like ash from a fire. The swarm adhered to the glass, turning it opaque. In seconds, the entire mirror was covered. The opacity thickened, as if dirty ice.
 

Hark tapped on the material. It fell in pieces to the floor, crumbling into dust. He cleared the entire mirror until he looked at a digital directory he’d had created for this very type of scenario. His own personal phonebook, as they’d probably say in this current Rend-V.

He touched the glass to scroll until he saw Miesha Preston’s name, and a small thumbnail of her altered face. He touched it. The information changed from a list of people’s names to horizontal scrolling data.

“Harken Cole,” a voice said out of the mirror, causing the glass to vibrate. “I wondered when you’d call.” Miesha’s face appeared. She wore a slicked-back wig with gold streamers that flared like Medusa serpents. Sub-dermal implants looked like horns about to burst through the skin of her forehead. She had painted her face in gold and black lines, as if she were some human bumblebee. “Nice shirt, Specialist.”

“You look different … than when we met.”
 

“I’m a chameleon.”

“Sersavant director making a name for herself?” He tried not to stare at the turn of her lips, or how each tooth looked shaped to perfection. The dimple in her chin that had so beguiled him now made him want to shout at her,
Miesha, stop all this!

She shook her head. “It’s just getting fun.”

“Your mother?”

“She hasn’t been my mother in twenty years.”

He leaned on the bathroom sink, moving his face closer to hers. Her eyes widened, as if he might lean in and kiss her.

“They’ll make me do it, Miesha. They’ll make me keep my promise.”

“I want to see if you can do it. I want the world to see you suffer as you try. When I saw Roy offer himself for you, I knew you owed him. I began my plan to use you then in some way. Then I heard about your concern for Roy’s son, and I put two and two together. It didn’t take long to get EA on board. They snagged you with their contract. And I’ve been setting this up ever since. Pizer said it was genius because EA, as always, really had no idea what to do with you. My principled Harken Cole. He’ll murder a million to save one.”

“I will, if you make me.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I’ve got to go, Specialist Cole.” The turn of her lips softened her face. Even her eyes squinted, maybe a window into an imaginative mind wondering what the two of them together might be like. “You … will be the hero, like everyone expects. Like I expect. Or maybe the villain.” Now she leaned in. “Because your decision is only one of your problems. And it’ll get bad. Very bad.” She flashed a grin again.

She turned away and left.
 

Hark grabbed his kit and pulled on the bathroom door. It slammed open. He strode out with murder in mind. He hated what he would have to do, but that damn woman was going to make him, for a variety of complex reasons that gave him a headache. Politics, revenge, drama. Jesus H Christ. He wanted to break something.

Hark walked to the video screen the others were watching, which now showed several zombie-like cannibals rampaging a fine-dining restaurant filled with midday lunchers scrambling for their lives. He had to look for the power button to turn it off, but found it.

“Hey!” Frankie said. “That’s happening now. One guy was hiding in the bathroom.”

“I have something for each of you to consider.”

“That the world’s coming to an end?” Frankie said.

“We have time, so listen.”

“For what?” Binda asked.

“To prepare.”

“Yeah, for the zombiepocalypse,” Frankie said.

Celia, Frankie, and Binda sat on the large couch, an empty cushion between each of them, all three giggling nervously. Celia sat straight, as if she were in school, waiting for instruction. Frankie slouched, legs splayed, head back, chin down. Binda sat on her legs, chewing a pouty bottom lip.

 
“I just tried my last option to make this easy,” Hark said. “My bosses won’t listen. And the woman doing this won’t listen.”

“Woman?” Celia said.
 

Hark watched her struggle with the memories that, even now, were probably boiling up in her mind, each one mounting pressure, just as Frankie’s memories were dissipating like early-morning mist before warming summer rays.

“That means I have to wake up this entire city before … before it implodes.”

“How you going to do that?” Binda asked.

“By showing everyone the truth and helping them find their alarm clocks. Those with parachutes can get out.”

“Alarm clocks, parachutes?” Celia asked.

“They follow you around. Like that photo you found of yourself in the hotel.” Hark began to pace like a general. He even let himself grow a few edges in his voice, the time for joking aside. “You, Celia, need to look around this place. You need to find your parachute. Yours will be large enough to be within sight, but it’s probably hidden.”

“Look around?” Celia asked. “For what? A real parachute?”

“Your personal way out of … all this, Celia,” Binda said. “It’ll complete your wake up.”

“You too, Binda,” Hark said

She nodded. “I understand what you want me to do.”

“I already found mine,” Frankie asked. “Right?”

Hark ignored him because, like all constructs, he didn’t have a parachute—only alarm clocks and those did nothing but clear his false memory bank. “I have to get the message out, before it’s too late. Frankie, come with me.”

Hark grabbed the book bag and led Frankie out of the office.

The oval that was the secretary’s lobby was also deserted. Tripp had sent her home without harming her, Hark guessed.

Two glass doors led to a foyer with a single private elevator and a door to the stairwell.

Hark moved Frankie behind the desk where the secretary would sit. It was fronted by an actual counter where people would have to stand at attention while she called inside.
 

“I told you I’d explain all this to you,” Hark said.

Frankie nodded, looking frailer than before, as if he were a sacrificial victim. “Yeah, my memories are … fading.”

“I know.”

Frankie’s brow knit together. But he didn’t look angry, just confused. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re a constructed person, Frankie. You were put in this Rend-V by my sister to help me. She provided you with false memories, like making you fail that audition. She provided you with the job you just started. You’ve only been alive a day, my guess.”
 

Hark had seen awakened constructs pass out when they realized the truth. Some imploded emotionally, falling into a downward spiral. Others bucked up to the truth. The first step to real personhood: knowing what you are.
 

Hark continued, “I’m letting you know this because I want you to have a chance … after all this. If you’re woken up and told the truth in-V, you can then be assessed for future Rend-V work. You got spirit. I know they can use you, elsewhere.”

“Thanks.”

“How this is going to happen, Frankie,” Hark said, “is that you’re going to stand here and stop whatever comes out of that elevator from getting in the office.”

“Stop?”

Hark withdrew his Blaster.

“Sweet,” Frankie said.

“Open your shirt.”

Frankie yanked it open. “Yes! More happy time.”

Hark grinned at him. “You bet.”

He ran his fingers over the phone to activate it. He deactivated his Blaster’s security with a thought, and then transferred an open palm synch into Frankie’s phone. He placed the weapon in Frankie’s hand. Only Frankie would be able to fire it until Hark reactivated it. Hark adjusted a dial atop the weapon for a mid-power range, mid-rate of fire.
 

Frankie's turned it from side to side, examining it like a piece of treasure. “Not too heavy.”

“But very dangerous.”

“I don’t know how …“

“Doesn’t matter. You will.” Hark touched the phone again and sent a droning command.

Frankie’s eyes widened as the script propagated. His arm straightened and pointed the Blaster at the elevator. His chin lifted and his posture stiffened.
 

“Oh, cool,” Frankie said. “I didn’t do that.”

Hark sent another command to modulate the rate of attack based on perceived threat. The arm dropped to his side. Frankie stared like a highly trained attack dog salivating to pounce but held in check. His eyes remained fixed on the doors. He breathed slowly.
 

Hark leaned in. “Frankie. You don’t need to think about a thing, son. Just keep your eyes open. I gave you access to activate my weapon. And I programmed you to fire if anything scary comes out that stairwell or that elevator. You don’t need to know how to use the Blaster. It’ll change its rate of fire and power level according to your emotional response. Other than that, you stand there and you wait.”

“I can do that.”

“Good.” Hark righted the young man’s shirt and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back.”

Hark pulled off his fancy shirt and stepped out of his pants and boots. With a thought, he activated his reactive armor into defense mode, key portions enlarging slightly for added protection. Gloves appeared. The suit formed all the way to his chin and up the back of his head.

“Hey,” Frankie said as Hark reached the glass doors. “What’s coming?”

“Nothing you can’t handle.”

He smiled at the young man, who smiled back. But Hark saw naked fear in his eyes and knew he’d have to sacrifice him, if it meant saving the others. He left Frankie to his herculean task, entered the elevator, and hurried away. He wasn’t sure if Frankie would be alive when he returned.

28

Binda sat on the couch next to Celia. The older woman had been silent for the last few minutes after viewing horrific video footage of a family of five being torn to pieces by an unidentifiable assailant. The newscast kept replaying a few seconds, pausing on a blurred image of what looked like a werewolf. That was followed by footage in another part of the city of an unrelated incident: a man with an axe went on a rampage in a shopping center. A clearly shaken broadcaster then agreed to cut to another live report, this one showing a man in the middle of the street being—

“Turn it off,” Celia said as the clip clearly shows an insane man take a hammer and crack open a victim’s skull, while two others dive in for a snack.

Celia had turned a solid shade of white. She grasped the couch as if she might fall over.

“They were eating his brains,” Celia said.

Binda had seen it, as she’d seen the other news reports. She knew exactly what she was seeing: This was a clear case of bleedover insertions from some sort of pulp horror scenario.
Collides
was being hijacked and might flip. Hark was here to stop it. Someone wanted to turn the boring every-day narrative of soap-opera sex, love, hate, and intrigue into (if the news stories were right) a monster fest.
 

From what she’d seen it looked like a smorgasbord of horror tropes: she saw mutants, madmen, zombies, werebeasts. Like anyone with a license to perform, you had to have some sense of narrative history. You weren’t supposed to read fiction, of course. Binda believed novels were nothing but spell books authors used to manipulate the minds of readers. But, non-fiction historical accounts of how narrative worked in human history, especially the critical twentieth and twenty-first centuries were vital. And she had read her share to know what she was seeing.