Versim (7 page)

Her pod broke off above a huge platform where a multitude of tourists waited to see the shrines of their favorite Rend-Vs. It then raced across a massive chamber large enough to contain its own small city.
 

Before passing into another tunnel to take her directly to the shrine, she glanced down at the people who fueled this new world. We’re all narrative’s children, she thought. And she wondered if she were making a mistake today. To send such a powerful request to a host of a Rend-V as large as
Collides
and to influence that Rend-V like Krista planned could get her disappeared—but she had to try.

The VIP entrance to the shrine consisted of a young man dressed in the signature robe and cowl of the Voxyprog: his was a finely-pressed gray garment, flaring at the wrists, with a zipper down the middle open to his navel. He wore regular clothes underneath.

“Busy today?” she asked.

He was watching a Rend-V on a holovid projected off his table. He swiped his hand through it, turning it off. “Packed.”

He was your typical low-level Sersavant wannabe: skinny, pale, without a hint of physical enhancement beyond intellect. Those blackheads on his nose and the greasy sheen of his brow were proof he thought the body was a flesh sack. She looked into his blood-shot eyes, wondering if he had the requisite intelligence to get promoted. The way he slowly scanned her, she imagined him already to be half-fried from attempting to advance into the more difficult ranks.

He waited for her data to appear on his screen.

“Bleedover investigator?” He smiled the kind of bent smile she imagined on his face while looking at some twisted V sludge. “You any good?”

“I can do in real life what your hackers do in here.” She tapped her head. The smile dripped from his face as if melted. He sat a little straighter. She leaned forward. “Open the door.”

The single door swished into the wall. And Krista Cole walked toward a shrine where a world lived in the mind of Celia Preston.

10

Tripp Cole shook his head once more to push away the remaining drowsiness from this morning’s immersion. He sat in a crowded pub buried beneath the Upper Deck, not far from Sammy’s illegal immersion apartment. This place hadn’t ever seen daylight, and most of the people who patronized it were the unlucky breed born to live and die underground.
 

Tripp nursed a steaming hive-brew that tasted like synthetic coffee spiked with whiskey swill.
 

He had changed out of his Upper Deck finery into a thick, workmen’s jacket with a high collar and plenty of pockets. He hid behind black wrap-around Mirrorshades to hide the golden oval flashes of his retinal lenses. He had even tousled his hair.
 

The booth’s upholstery was cracked. And the poured plastic wall was dented and scratched. He sat in the corner and watched patrons jockey for position at the bar. The din was a constant buzz that his AI, Sunni, muted for him. Behind the four bartenders scurrying for drinks, a wall that curved into the ceiling played several popular Rend-Vs.

All mind-candy, soap-opera types, he thought. I bet
Collides
will be up there at some point. Maybe I’ll get a peek at Hark.

Tripp sipped his drink, while Sunni scanned the room in the background for any threatening activity.
 

He chuckled to himself when he saw two troll-like women who probably worked as machinists wedged against the bar, staring at their favorite romance. They both took up two nearly stools each. They both had necks as big as a buffalo’s, wore grimy coveralls smeared in grease, and looked like they’d never seen a dress. Some men preferred their women to look like that, he reminded himself. Ah, the wickedness of the lower wards.

His target walked through the doorway, Sunni silently sending an alert. Tripp leaned toward the aisle to be seen. The man looked out of place in his Upper Deck business suit, although he’d loosened his tie, and stared around like someone about to drown. He spotted Tripp, waved, and hurried forward.

He stepped out of the aisle and sat in the booth. “Madhouse down here.”

“Where the wild ones live. You look like a fool in those clothes.”

He glanced at his pinstriped suit made of a fine cotton blend that must have cost more credits than Tripp cared to imagine. It even glimmered in the multi-colored lights of the bar. “Should I?”

“Would be best.”

The man removed his jacket.

“I don’t have much time,” Tripp said. He doused his HUD to a dim rectangle. The target sat in the center, all of his vital stats scrolling in neat AR tiles. He ignored them while Sunni performed the heavy analytical lifting in the background. “I need to know a few things, and you’re going to tell me.”

The man knit his brow. “Wait a minute. I thought I was here to buy access to …”

“You can get your versim snuff somewhere else.”

The man bunched his face into a mask that probably worked wonders up in the financial corporation where he was some king shit. To Tripp it was an invitation to smack him in the mouth. “You have a client. You’ve been legally funneling monies for—”

“—I can’t talk about any client.”

“He just moved twenty million Consortium credits into a buried account.”

“How did you …?”

“The info was mine for the taking, buddy.”

The man melted into his seat, all his fire doused. He looked like he just realized he was in a world of steaming shit. “Who are you?”

“Repo Agent Tripp Cole.”

The man blanched, and even in the low light, Tripp could see he was about to panic.
 

Respiration increasing, sir. Heart rate, as well
.
You love telling them that, don’t you, sir?
Sunni’s voice was a soft melody in his ear, like a lover’s, and it always made him smile.
 

Sunni, you know I do, and you love hearing me. Let me know if you think he’s going to bolt.
He didn’t have to move his mouth to speak to Sunni. The conversation happened quicker than a real one.

Tripp didn’t actually enjoy telling people he was a repo agent. Everyone knew who they were. And everyone was screaming-scared shitless of them. It often ruined a conversation. Today it worked in his favor, though. He had a Consortium license to arrest whomever he wanted. He could also, with minimal authorization, execute someone on the spot. His job, officially, was to remand bleedover assets who escaped into reality. Krista worked them to her advantage, claiming her Spinner methods were best to insure the continuation of a sane world. Tripp eliminated them just to be sure. Unofficially, he was one of the best EA hitmen in the agency.
 

“I need to know who sent that money and where it went. And you’re going to tell me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Two reasons: that account is funding bleedover assets who are causing trouble in a major Rend-V and, if you don’t, you won’t walk out of this bar alive.”

“Bleedover? That’s real?” The man licked his lips and inhaled deeply.

A HUD alert registered the man’s vitals were spiking. Hark noted sweat welling on the man’s brow. Already, two lines dribbled down the sides of his face. His underarms were pumping out liquid as well.
 

He’s about to panic, sir. Since that doesn’t seem to matter, maybe show him your shield …

Sunni loved stating the obvious.
 

Trip withdrew his repo shield: a crystallized matte-black, alloy star in a black-leather folding wallet. All he had to do was flash that and the world was his. He set it on the table.

The target gulped, his eyes now glowing as if backlit.
 

Sir, that should do it.

I don’t have time to make him love me, do I?

“I … uh … the account … is …”

“I know: confidential.”
 

Tripp placed both his hands on the table and splayed his fingers. In the popular imagination, a repo possessed ingenious methods of dispatching his enemies. Specialists like Hark were human tanks. A repo was a bloodshed artist.

“Now,” Tripp said, “the names, before I get impatient.”

The man’s mouth hung open far enough Tripp saw his epiglottis shiver. He stumbled through two innocuous sounding names that had to be covers. The sender and receiver, for sure. Sunni began cross referencing them while Tripp sipped his beer and stared at the pathetic asshat who used his position as a financial magnet to help undermine the sanctity of the Rend-Vs.

Got them, sir, both major players. Sersavant intelligence officer, Pizer Dauk, is funding an up-and-coming director, Miesha Preston, the daughter of the host of Collides … . She’s rumored to be backing a principal antag who’s missing, Ervé Wrighter. He’s a—

“What did Dauk offer you?” Tripp asked.

“Excuse me?”

“For laundering his funds to Preston.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on. You can tell me. You’re helping a rogue Voxyprog intelligence officer and a controversial EA Rend-V director run an evil prick so that he can do his thing: Ervé Wrighter. You know the name. Everyone does. He’s a major antag. Major status. And he’s been on the run, until recently.”

“I had no idea he was involved—”

“Right, so you aren’t a fan. Let me guess what Dauk promised you. Access to a harem Rend-V. A week of dipping it in as much rendered snatch as you can. You into the twisted Vs?”

That’s it, sir
.

Tripp didn’t need Sunni to see the slight change in the man’s face. Pizer Dauk had access to the deepest secrets in the Voxyprog fortress. He’d promised some sort of fetish dream you couldn’t get in reality. Tripp had seen it all. He would like to sit around and get this guy’s story. You never knew when you’d hear something original, like the tale last week of a guy who wanted his own Rend-V world full of fembots who battled to be in his bed at night.
 

Tripp saw flashing lights outside the single window. The cops were clearing the space near the bar, a wide interior corridor with a thousand other shops. The small portion of the hive would be in lock down until they bagged the criminal.

When the door kicked open, everyone inside dropped to their knees, hands up. Stormtroopers in black riot gear rushed in and locked on the booth. They made sure to keep their weapons away from Tripp.

He stood slowly, sipped once more from his mug. “Arrest this asstard for funding illegal bleedover activity.”
 

11

Krista stood to the side of the shrine in a pocket of inky shadow. The shrine sat nestled in the nave at the end of a dim hall in which two lines of pillars ran on either side. Inside each pillar, large tapers that illuminated the place in flickering ghost light sat in niches lined with mirrors. Eager but quiet tourists formed a single line that inched toward the shrine before exiting through a side door. A few robed and cowled Sersavant ushers swung incense-burning censers, insuring that everyone spoke in hushed tones. Krista stood alone in a place reserved for people of her station.
 

Krista stared at a golden sculpture in the round of a giant woman sitting cross-legged, her arms outward in a gesture of supplication, each hand in a mudra of serenity. The elephant-sized sculpture sat on a raised dais, around which tourists dropped curios: hand-scribbled prayers of intercession for certain characters; hints about how to make the narrative better; threats that if so and so doesn’t get something the entire story will fall to pieces; pictures of a favorite character; roses for the host.

Behind the sculpture a holovid of
Collides
flashed into space, showing random scenes generated from the host inside. Nothing on Hark yet. That was being kept under wraps, even though word was spreading.

All I need to do is pretend to be a fan, she told herself. No Spinner would ever be allowed to drop a prayer at a shrine. The Voxyprog are too afraid we’ll ask for just the right element to snatch control. I’m not so bold. But I do need something. I just have to be quick about it.

Krista found herself staring at the golden shrine, its beautiful luster an effect designed to dazzle pilgrims. She bit back an urge to curse her moment of reverence. The magic of the immersed host, a cognopsychic in stasis working for a living, was explainable. Yet here she was staring wide eyed like the most devout pilgrim who’d traveled for a glimpse at this world maker.
 

Inside, Celia Preston floated in an immersion vat, a living human suspended in warm biotic nano-liquid. She had been submerged for twenty years, dreaming her dream that gave life to the constructs in the Rend-V. Her imagineer mind was a prized tool valued in the trillions. She had been promised a small percentage of the sales of the Rend-V. According to V-Society pundits, her net-worth reached into the billions—just from her time as a host. A cognopsychic like her, when she finished, would command a legion of followers and continue her god-like status, as all the retired hosts did.

And my job is to investigate what these psychics create when they bleed over into reality, she reminded herself. Without her, I’m unemployed. Worse, without her, ten years of work will disappear inside
Collides
. Without her I lose my library.

Krista retrieved a tiny rolled up piece of paper from her pocket. She palmed it. Her AI, Atticus, just finished telling her how foolish this was, especially after Tripp’s message that a high-ranking Voxyprog official, Pizer Dauk, was funneling money and resources to controversial bleedover director, Miesha Preston. And everyone knew Miesha’s favorite principal Rend-V actor was Ervé Wrighter. They also knew how much Ervé hated Harken Cole.
 

Krista glanced at the paper. On it, a few lines from texts written inside Collides—lines cribbed together in a particular fashion and done so for the effect they would have in the real world—would insure the safety of her project. She was staring at a genuine piece of bleedover lore. It was a spell, she’d admit, if someone forced her. Centuries of intellectual labor had gone into understanding this mysterious process. She had printed it on actual vellum, the fine hairs on the backside soft to the touch.