This Virtual Night Read online

  And then he was alone. Unharmed, but utterly alone. Floating in the darkness with an evac suit, a six-hour supply of oxygen, and not much else. No one was around to attack him, but no one was around to help him, either. The suit’s propulsion could get him back to Shenshido, but were there people there? By the time he arrived the attack bots would be back in place, waiting for their next target to approach. Would a lone man in an evacuation suit qualify, or was he small enough to slip past their sensors?

  It didn’t matter. There was nowhere else to go.

  NANTANA

  The tapestry is eternal, without beginning or end. Its threads are so tightly interwoven that the eye must struggle to focus on any one of them. Its colors are so enmeshed one must labor to discern the greater pattern.

  The nantana can see each thread. It can identify each pattern. It knows, with instinctive certainty, where the addition or removal of a colored strand might alter the tapestry’s shape, or its color, or its purpose.

  Sometimes it moves a thread, for amusement.

  Sometimes it has purpose.

  Sometimes it merely watches.

  KAJA: An Outworlder’s Guide to the Gueran Social Contract, Volume 2: Signs of the Soul

  GUERA NODE

  TIANANMEN STATION

  THE DEBRIEFING was no better or worse than usual in terms of protocol, but the atmosphere was considerably more solemn. There were four Guerans sitting opposite Ru instead of the usual two, but given that she’d lost a partner, that was to be expected. They wanted extra nantana present to interpret her expressions and her posture and the pattern of her fidgeting, adding their observations to the report she had already filed. The only one of the four she knew was a man named Tye Jericho, who had apparently been promoted since their last meeting. How many of her debriefings had he overseen, now? Three? Four? The lavender bangs brushed back over his scarlet headset seemed to be begging for chromatic rescue. But his was a friendly face, and that saved her from having to recite the details of Tully’s death to a crowd of total strangers.

  There was a time in her life when she would never have allowed anyone to study her like this. It made her feel like a laboratory animal, poked and prodded with knife-edged words while dispassionate scientists muttered profound things like “Hmmm” and “That’s interesting.” But she knew this was the price she had to pay to explore new worlds and discover lost civilizations, so she endured. It was harder than usual with Tully absent, though. His empty chair was a painful reminder that she had lost not only a partner but a friend, and even an occasional lover. Once or twice she had to stop talking while she struggled to compose herself; the nantana no doubt took mental notes about her state of mind while they waited. What was considered “normal” when you were mourning a partner whose relationship with you had been so intimate, so complex?

  She did manage to get through the interview without revealing the real cause of Tully’s death, which was a small victory. There was no reason anyone had to know that it was Tully’s unwise choice of a sex partner that had caused the official First Contact strategy on Proxima 5 to explode. Apparently having sex with a woman in the priestly caste was punishable by death, if that woman didn’t seek her gods’ approval first. Jericho helped with that, redirecting the interview when it strayed in an unseemly direction. Why? Did he know that there were outriders who considered sexual experimentation to be one of their job benefits, who competed to see which one of them could rack up the most “first contact” experiences? If so, he didn’t say anything about it, for which she was grateful

  Thanks to Jericho, she never had to reveal that detail. Thanks to him, the meeting ended without her feeling angry, or anxious, or upset—her usual responses to administrative rituals like this. She nodded a curt farewell to her interrogators and headed for the exit. Her mission was officially done now, and the Guild no longer had any right to tell her where to go or what to do. At least until she signed on for her next job.

  There was a bar in the outer ring that had a drink with her name on it. The sooner she got to it the better.

  * * *

  The Lucifer Club was gone.

  Standing in the middle of the crowded promenade, Ru stared at the place where it had once been. PROMETHEUS CLUB, the sign said now. Same location, same storefront design, even the same font for the title—but a different name. So was it the same franchise? Lucifer’s whole selling point was that it never changed, so the thought that it might have done so, even in such a small detail, was disconcerting.

  A sensor light flashed briefly overhead as she approached the entrance, acknowledging that the club’s guest program had identified her. No doubt it was streaming her personal data to the staff right now. The familiar protocol soothed her nerves a bit, and when the doors parted she saw that the inside of the club was indeed the same as always. The floor plan, the lighting, the décor, even the music playing softly in the background were exactly the same as they had been twenty years ago, the last time she’d visited, and the time before that, and the time before that, ad infinitum. Worlds might change while an outrider slept, fashion and culture might race headlong into the future during her cold stasis sleep, but the Lucifer Club was always the same. Always home.

  Except for the name.

  There was a Runyat behind the polished wooden bar. Ru had never seen him before, but he nodded to her as if she were a regular. “Welcome back, Outrider Gaya.” His arms were bare, no doubt to show off their snake-like patterning. “The usual?”

  She nodded. “Please.”

  She flashed a quick query to the outernet to access his name and public profile, so she could address him as if they knew one another. The illusion of intimacy was the heart and soul of the Lucifer experience. Treat each guest as if they had been there yesterday.

  The drink that he handed her was clear blue with a minty aroma. “Blue galaxy, sans salt.” Then he offered her a small data chip. “Newly updated.”

  “Thank you, Basil.” She slid the chip into her headset but didn’t activate it. “If I may ask . . .” She glanced toward the portal. “What’s with the name change?”

  The bartender sighed. “There was a digital virus making the rounds a while back. Nasty thing. At first it only targeted Guild pilots, but then it started mutating into more destructive forms. Took them a good three years to hunt down every last version of it.”

  “Ah, let me guess . . . they named it Lucifer?”

  The bartender nodded. “People came here thinking there was some kind of connection. I’m not sure what they imagined that would be, but we started getting some really weird types in here. I mean, think about the kind of person who would find a bar appealing because it was named after malware. So in the end, management decided the old name had to go. The rest is all the same, though, I promise you.”

  And the myth is similar enough, Ru thought. Prometheus, bringer of knowledge to humankind, tortured for eternity. “Thank you.” She took a sip from her drink and looked around the club.

  “If you need anything more,” he said, “let me know.”

  “Of course.”

  The main floor was dominated by a restaurant, moody in color and dimly lit by faux-candles. That had been the style back when the Lucifer Club was founded, and so it would remain the style forever. A few tables were occupied, and she spotted one or two other outriders. Even if they had not been wearing the sakuna kaja—the symbol of their profession—she could tell they were outriders by the way they looked around the room: eyes yearning for some unseen comfort, souls strangely disconnected from everything around them. Experts had written volumes about the psychological effect of long-term stasis, but no outsider could truly understand what it was like to exist in a universe that was different every time you returned to it. This club, with its artificial familiarity, was a psychological lifeline.

  As she headed toward the back of the room she spotted an outrider she knew.
There were three Belial twins perched on high stools opposite him, bald heads and half-bare breasts gleaming in the candlelight as they flirted in eerie unison. Outrider groupies. Tully had enjoyed such attention, but Ru found it distasteful; as she nodded briefly to her colleagues she tried to avoid the groupies’ fetishistic gazes, so they would not address her.

  In their eyes you are a romantic figure, she reminded herself. Fearless explorer, discoverer of lost worlds, rescuer of civilizations. Such types have always been the object of lust.

  That didn’t make it any less creepy.

  In the back of the club were smaller, more private spaces, and she chose a shadowy alcove as far away from the other patrons as possible. There she settled into a chair, shut her eyes, and activated the bartender’s chip.

  WELCOME TO THE PROMETHEUS OUTRIDER PORTAL. PLEASE ENTER YOUR LICENSE NUMBER TO PROCEED.

  She was about to do that when an image suddenly appeared in her field of vision: a flock of animated birds trailing a banner behind them: HAI KAWAII! Annoyed, Ru directed her headset to block the image and anything like it. Advertising was one thing she didn’t miss when she was on a mission. She focused again on the task at hand, visualizing each letter and number of her outrider license and letting her headset transmit the images to the club’s private innernet.

  OUTRIDER STATUS CONFIRMED.

  Now she could access the club’s private databank, and with it the records she needed to bring herself up to speed: not cold, clinical historical files gathered from the outernet, but notes recorded by outriders themselves. Here was the history her comrades felt she would need to know, regarding the events that had made them feel the most lost when they returned home. The most displaced. Here was a list of references that had become part of popular culture while she was gone, recorded by those who understood how ignorance of common phrases could hinder communication. And here was social criticism, as well—brief, dry commentary on a changing world, as seen through the eyes of those who were perpetual outsiders. She added her own to the bottom of one thread.

  ARE OVERSIZED HEADSETS A REQUIREMENT NOW? I’VE SEEN SOME SO UNWIELDY I WONDER HOW THE WEARERS STAND UPRIGHT. IT’S JUST A TECH DEVICE, PEOPLE. IT’S OKAY IF YOURS ISN’T A UNIQUE FASHION STATEMENT.

  The birds returned. HAI KAWAII! She swatted at them reflexively, cursing under her breath. Damn advertisements!

  “You need to update your adblocker.”

  Annoyed, she looked up to see who was talking to her, invading her private time.

  Tye Jericho.

  She stared at him for a moment, part of her wanting to berate him for the interruption, another part—the far larger part—aware that she owed him for his support in the debriefing. Finally she sighed, accepting the inevitable. “So tell me, what the hell is ‘Hai Kawaii’?”

  “Advertising slogan for a fast food franchise. Very aggressive in their marketing. If they spent half as much money on food quality as they do on hacking adblockers, they’d probably be a Fortune 10,000 company by now.” He nodded toward a nearby chair that matched her own. “May I?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not feeling especially social.”

  “That’s fine. I’m here on business, not to socialize.”

  “You couldn’t have talked to me about it while we were still at Guild headquarters?”

  A corner of his mouth twitched. “Some conversations aren’t suitable for Guild headquarters.”

  His face was an impassive mask, impossible to read—as always—but the fact that he had launched directly into business was a gesture of good will. Two nantana would be having a very different conversation. Finally she sighed. What the hell. It’s not like there’s somewhere else I need to be. She gestured for him to take a nearby chair. As soon as he sat down a servobot rolled up to the table, carrying a blood-red drink with a multi-colored sprig sticking out of the top. Jericho must have ordered it when he arrived.

  “All right.” She took a deep drink from her own glass. The mild Frisian narcotic always helped her unwind after a mission. “So what’s so important that you had to follow me all the way out here to talk about it?”

  “Call it a job offer.”

  An eyebrow rose slightly. “I already have a job. Unless you know something about my employment status that I don’t.”

  “I know that your ship is being repaired, and it’ll be some time before you can take on a new assignment. So right now, you’re unemployed.”

  And I need to find a new partner before I can go out again. That’ll be a lot harder than getting my ship repaired. “So you thought I might be, what . . . bored?”

  There was a hint of a smile. “Restless, perhaps. Or curious about how much it would pay. There could be a lot of money involved.”

  “I need quality downtime more than I need a freelance assignment.” She waved her free hand. “But go on, I’m listening.”

  For a moment he just looked at her. It was a nantana gaze—piercing, invasive. She stared back defiantly. At last he asked, “What do you know about the incident on Harmony?”

  “You mean the explosion?” She shrugged. “Basic details. No one seems to know very much.” Except for the Ainniq Guild. They always know more than they let on. “Two people tried to blow up Harmony’s environmental control center. Since they blew themselves up in the process, no one knows why, or even who they were.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or have they figured that out now?”

  “The motives are still unknown. Medtechs think they may have been moddies, but there’s no way to tell for sure.”

  “Not enough of their brains left intact to study, I’d imagine.”

  “Exactly.”

  She took another drink. The Frisian narcotic was starting to work its magic in her veins: everything in the room was a little quieter, a little softer, a little less irritating. “Look, this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with me?”

  “The Guild believes they have identified traces of their last communications. Most involved an MPV—multi-player virt—that they were running. Maybe significant, maybe not. But they were also in contact with an independent station in the node.”

  “Independent, meaning not subject to Common Law? So you would need their permission to investigate further.”

  He nodded.

  “Still not seeing my role in this, sorry.”

  “What if I said the signal came from Shenshido Station?”

  “I’d answer that I don’t have a clue what that is.”

  “A small research station. The company that built it went under about a decade ago. Some kind of corporate war back on Earth. Shenshido wound up ownerless, effectively abandoned.”

  She chuckled. “And I’m guessing it lasted a whole day before scavengers picked it apart.”

  “They tried. Neighboring stations joined forces and drove them off. Possibly the only time Terran corporations have agreed on anything. In theory they all have access to Shenshido’s research facilities, but no one seems to be using the place.”

  “Not valuable enough to need, but too valuable to discard.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So . . . what? You think the two on Harmony were taking orders from someone there?”

  “It’s possible. We don’t know anything about what’s going on inside that station. It’s also possible some other party bounced a signal off it. It’s been done before.”

  “I’d expect the station would have a record of that.”

  “It probably does. It also has a board of corporate masters who have made it very clear that Gueran authority is not recognized there, and no Guild agent will be allowed to set foot on the station to investigate. We can communicate our concerns, they said, and they will investigate and let us know what they find.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “You see the dilemma.”

  “You need someone who
isn’t a Guild agent to go out there. Someone you know and trust—” Suddenly she realized where all this was heading. “Ah, shit, Jericho. Tell me you aren’t about to ask what I think you are.”

  “Like you said. We need someone who can go out there and take a look around. Someone they won’t connect to the Guild.”

  “I work for the Guild.”

  “Only when on assignment. Technically you’re a mercenary.”

  “Yeah, and I’m sure that’ll make a big difference to whoever tried to blow up a waystation.” She took another drink. The glass was almost empty now, but suddenly her buzz was insufficient; she would need a refill before this conversation was over. “You think if you hire an outsider they’ll give that person station access?”

  He said nothing.

  She put her drink down, slowly. “Jericho . . .”

  “I need you to investigate a crime that the masters of Shenshido might be involved in. Or at least have knowledge of. Asking permission for that would tip our hand.” He leaned forward. “You’re a professional observer, Ru. Trained to assess alien locations and peoples. That’s exactly the skill set needed here. And you’re used to functioning without the outernet. That’s equally important. Shenshido may not have a functioning innernet. Few others could handle that kind of environment for long.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s all very flattering, but even I can’t sneak onto a space station. As soon as an airlock opens, someone knows you’re there.”

  “I agree. You’d have to have a good cover story to explain your presence.”

  “Like what? I was bored between jobs, so I just thought I’d swing by an abandoned station and have a look around?” She laughed shortly. “I’m guessing that won’t work.”