Authors: Curtis Hox
He sat and smiled.
Charm, yeah, charm always works, he thought. Smile for the cameras, Hark.
“Listen, doll,” he winced, but he kept smiling. He chided himself, remembering such language was unfashionable by this point in history. “I mean, ma’am, I’m here to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
He looked around, expecting the drama to start in some showy fashion. The scenarios they used him for were always exciting thrillers to draw ratings. The action would happen soon enough. He had no idea what or when, though, so he smiled.
“What did your sister tell you?”
“To go with you and do what you say. She told me it was critical. Is she all right?”
“She’s fine.”
“Then why?”
Hark looked to his left. A man with pressed slacks and shiny Italian shoes sat alone at a table only three feet away. He was hidden behind an actual broadsheet newspaper—the kind made of real paper, black and white ink, no moving images. Hark grinned at the antiquated information delivery medium. On the first page was a story under the headline:
Manhattan Predator Strikes Again
. The sub header read:
City in uproar over NYPD’s lack of progress
.
Serial killer Rend-V? Could get ugly.
Hark was staring at a narrative clue, as sure as he was standing there. The directors liked dropping hints instead of doing a full memory dump all at once. As a specialist he’d eventually receive the most information of anyone in the Rend-V, but his bosses at EA kept even him in the dark. They had technical reasons, sure, but they also had their own agendas. And it was always something to spike ratings.
The woman saw him looking at it. She relaxed. “Body guard? My sister hired a body guard.”
He nodded, pretending. “That’s right.”
“Why do we have to leave now? I was about to order.”
He looked up as a delivery truck that had been parked at a light began to move. Behind it, down the street several blocks, hung a massive billboard on the side of a building. On a red field written in ivory, large letters the size of a human being read: WHO ARE THE VOXYPROG? It looked like a slogan for an upcoming film.
Goosebumps stippled his skin. He almost reached for her glass of water to buy some time. He gulped and tried not to stare. He maintained his charming grin, enough that she didn’t seem to notice. The Voxyprog were a secretive martial organization in the real world. They protected an army of mystic hackers who programmed the Rend-Vs, the Sersavants. The very chair he was sitting in was the creation of some programmer who’d coded it, then passed it along the network, where it was vetted, then fed into the proprietary system that made these worlds real. That very last step was mysterious to Hark beyond the most basic level: a team of high-level cognopsychics immersed in stasis vats took the code from the hacker corps of Sersavants and fed it to the host. And overseeing it all was the Voxyprog, a martial order that never advertised who they were in the real world, much less in-V. Versim was being broken with that billboard in the most visible way possible.
With a thought, he triggered all his bio systems accessible to him without his AI. He felt his senses sharpen, his heart rates steady, and his muscles relax.
“We really should be going, ma’am.”
“I want lunch.”
He considered grabbing her arm. But that would cause a panic. And he didn’t want to start their budding relationship by acting like a jerk.
Hark scanned his environment, allowing his HUD to tag everyone in data tiles that floated around them. Without Magdalena, though, he couldn’t translate the data as fast as he needed. So far, nothing was pinging danger-red. He triggered the mental command so that his energy carapace pushed out from his dermal layer an inch. The energy wafer embedded in his abdomen faintly vibrated. His fingertips sizzled, ready to explode.
“It’s urgent,” he said. “We need to get out of here.”
“I want lunch.”
If it had to be in a public place like a cafe, that was fine with him. She was about to get yanked to her feet. He’d apologize later. He continued to scan. He spotted three men in sunglasses and blazers threading their way up the sidewalk a block away.
“Show time.” He stood and grabbed her arm. “We’re leaving.”
She yanked it away. “Don’t touch me.”
He could have held on, but he didn’t want to hurt her.
A few diners glanced their way. One gentlemen who looked like he could handle himself stared over his plate of poached duck.
“My luck,” Hark said to the guy. “She’s a prima donna.” He leaned in close to her. “If you don’t get up and follow me. Those three tough guys,” he looked at the men moving up the sidewalk, “are going to kill you.”
Her eyes widened and a tremble rippled through her. He gently grabbed her arm and hurried her down the aisle.
2
A block up the road, Hark turned left into the shadows of a narrow alley between two tall buildings. It was full of swollen, stinking, black plastic bags that would soon be taken to the curb. Several side entrances to the buildings provided steps to doors.
“Hide behind one of those.” He led her to the steps and planted her behind them. She squatted in a pile of rotting cabbage. “Don’t say a word.”
Hark stepped back onto the sidewalk where strollers walked by. He faced his attackers, allowing them to see him. He stepped back into the alley.
He let his HUD run through their data. He read three men, well built, each over two-hundred pounds, all three carrying semi-automatic sidearms, all three with knives. Hark smiled at that. Let them pack the old stuff. Looked like two 9mms and a .357 magnum. Wouldn’t be a problem for him. He was about to make them regret waking up this morning. A red alert flashed in his HUD: one man registered several expensive bio enhancers, the kind only used in military special operations or high-tech Rend-Vs.
Definitely antagonist principals, Hark considered, as he forced his energy carapace to expand. These guys are players.
He stepped back a few yards.
The three men appeared and faced into the alley.
“Give us the woman,” one said.
The speaker was on the left. Short, clean-shaven, professional. The one on the right was the dangerous one. Taller, thicker. Looked Russian or Eastern European with a wide face and a nose as flat as could be. Broken before. More than once. The middle guy was jumpy, looked like extra help.
“What woman?”
The one on the right dropped the smile. His hand moved inside his jacket.
No patience
.
He’ll attack without provocation. He goes first.
Before the man could withdraw his weapon, Hark stepped forward and blasted a three-foot energy spear from his right hand. It felt like living fire summoned from the depths of the Earth to funnel out in glorious carnage from his fingertips. The heat line caught Flat Nose in the neck, punching a three-centimeter hole straight through. The cauterized wound was clean enough to poke a pool stick inside. For a moment, the man stood at attention. Then he began to gargle as his blood leaked through the carbonized flesh. He used his fingers to try to keep it from gushing out. He crumpled to the floor. The other two reached for their weapons.
Hark moved between them with such speed they both fumbled their draws. He felt the caress of the heat vents in his back splitting his skin, the thermal sinks venting air hot enough to burn. He hit them both with simple jabs augmented with six-inch spikes. One fell with an imploded heart. The other with a ruptured carotid.
He wished Magdalena was here to witness this. She always played the role of avid observer. She’d have had something witty to say about his performance.
A few strollers stopped in their tracks. They gaped at the bloody bodies on the ground. Only a few seconds to get moving before they realized what had happened.
Down the alley, Hark’s asset stood, both hands at her mouth. She was shaking her head in apposite disbelief.
“I told you,” he said. She was looking at the pools of congealing blood and a nickel-plated gun that flashed in the sunlight as it fell from Flat Nose’s bloody fingers. “Don’t pass out.” He reached her before her knees buckled. He led her out of the alley. He waved a taxi at a red light. He jumped in as the light changed. “Let’s go.”
3
The ride downtown consisted of Hark staring out the back window while Celia Preston tried not to hyperventilate. She gripped the armrest on the door and a handle attached to the front seat as if her life depended on it. Neither said a word. The cabby was a turbaned Punjabi Sikh with a greased handle-bar mustache who listened to a Championship League match between Arsenal and Barcelona that sounded, truth be told, as if it were actually playing. He kept talking to the radio in his native language, as if that would help.
Hark ignored him, each minute passing without Magdalena’s calm voice making him curse all the techno gods and their sycophantic Voxyprog lackeys who made the rules about Rend-V immersions. Celia’s name had come to him in a flash, which was helpful, but he had nothing else on her. For the first time he noticed what nice breasts she had. Her shirt was unbuttoned so that a hint of cleavage showed. He found himself staring at it, moving down to her tiny waist and hips that were meant for dancing and … all kinds of other things.
He looked away before she caught him.
“We … uhm … we,” she tried to catch her breath. “We should go to my apartment …”
As intriguing as that normally would be for Hark, he shook his head. “That’s the last place we should go.” He watched her bottom lip quiver, a shaky hand at her mouth. She fumbled with her sunglasses. He helped her. “A hotel.”
“Four Seasons. I have an account there. They know me.”
“Won’t work if they know you.”
He saw a renovated five-story hotel on a busy block of buildings with walk up rentals. “Right here.” The cabbie stopped. Hark looked at Celia. “Please pay the man, ma’am.”
She fumbled with a small purse on her arm. She handed over a twenty.
“Cash,” Hark said. “Quaint, but helpful.”
It only took five minutes for them to book a simple room with a single made bed, a closed half-closet. The thick blinds were drawn. A flatscreen hung from the wall. The place was clean and put together well enough, but cramped.
Celia walked straight for the tiny bathroom, shut the door, and sobbed.
Hark closed and locked the hotel room door. He drew the heavy blinds aside and peeked out the window at a brick wall.
He turned on the TV to a broadcast news station: something about trouble in the Middle East, Egypt in turmoil, Libya tottering, Syria attacking itself, the Arab League working with NATO. All ancient history from the real world and imported into this rendered one. The true technological Ruptures would make such socioeconomic troubles disappear as the developed societies turned their attention to a new dream of enhanced humanity and a new threat of smart machines. A hundred years after the Arab Spring, V-Theory would be on everyone’s lips as rendered worlds in the minds of cognopsychics became real. Hark listened with enough concentration to hear any clues, but didn’t pay much attention.
Should have gotten my full memory and all my stuff by now, he thought
.
Think, Hark. What’s the scenario here? It can’t be a simple run-and-hide narrative. Those standards are played out. The industry is bursting at the seams with them. Come on, your last gig was as a super soldier fighting chaos demons in space. What could this retro V be in an old Manhattan? Maybe a romantic thriller? You keep her safe from some serial killer? But the Voxyprog never, ever advertise. And their name was out in the open where you could see it. Be careful, buddy. She’s attractive, but you don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing.
Magdalena, where are you
?
One job they’d left his kit, of all places, under the bed … . He checked. It was empty, as was the closet.
Celia opened the door. Her eye makeup was smeared but she still looked like a queen. Hark moved to a desk with a mini-refrigerator. He opened it and withdrew a chilled plastic bottle of water. He waved it at her.
She shook her head.
He popped the cap and drank half.
“The Big Apple.” He smiled. “Nice to be here again.”
She began shaking. He guided her to the bed. “What’s happening?”
He settled down next to her, ready for the ‘Big Talk.’ This always happened in one form or another. When principal protagonists first expose themselves to a major conflict, shock always makes things interesting. The best performers are the ones who feel the deepest. He wanted to put his arm around her, not because she was so beautiful, but because he knew she was in this role because she was good, which meant she’d feel the drama deeply and express her feelings well. He looked around again, as if there might be a clue, or a hint of what was coming next. He wanted a full memory update so that he knew who she was and what they were up against. He wanted it soon.
She managed to control her breathing. “I was supposed to go to my studio. I have a dance session. We hired a new choreographer.”
“Not today. Sorry, but we’re hunkering down for a little while. Won’t be so bad. I’m a nice guy.” He smiled a big-toothed smile that usually made people feel better.
She stiffened, looked at him as if he’d just cursed her mother. She inched away.
“Who are you again?” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “My phone won’t connect.”
He frowned.
The Sersavant hackers loved to mess with people in-V like that.
“What?” she asked, glaring.
“Nothing.”
“This is funny to you?”
“Not at all.” If this were a romantic comedy, now would be a great time for a kiss. The ratings would love that. But maybe not so soon. If he knew what his bosses were hoping for (a heavy drama, or maybe something light and funny, something dark), he’d know how to proceed. “Look, I’m here to help you.”