Virch code, p.21
Virch Code, page 21
“Virch club,” Lee told him. “You ever been to one?”
“Is it anything like the Cenote?”
“Hmm?”
“Chalk’s place.”
Lee was barely paying attention to him, Argo could tell. Distracted. By what, the pilot had no idea.
Maybe it was the city itself. Austin was… Austin wasn’t really what he’d expected.
West of Bastrop, they’d seen some of what Lee must have been worried about. Souped-up old cars out on the freeway sporting gun mounts, spikes, even a big old semi cab with a rusted-out snow plough on it. Other people had iron plates bolted to their car doors, or over their wheel wells.
“Why is that?” Argo had asked.
“There’s a certain type of person that, when you tell ‘em they aren’t going to be held to task for what they do, will just keep pushing. And don’t get me wrong, a lot of this is just for show.”
“You’re saying the gangs here enjoy LARPing post-apocalyptic wasteland shit?”
“Sort of. I think it’s more about making a statement to Omphalos. See, anything they take or break or burn or destroy just gets replaced by the company. Theft gets pretty boring after a while if nobody’s scared of you. And theft in this place is pretty lucrative, if you know what you’re doing. The gangs fight each other for territory here. A lot.”
“So what were you worried about?”
“Any asshole who welds a gatling gun to the roof of his car in order to scare people is going to want to use it.”
Argo looked back. At the .50 cal on its sponson. “What does that say about you?”
Lee just smiled at him.
They’d had no trouble once they’d left the freeway, though. No trouble finding Ginger either, who had been almost deliriously happy to see them, her projected fox-form yipping and barking and running in circles around them as Lee had checked her over, then filled up her tank. The delay was minimal but was almost more than Argo could stand.
“We shouldn’t have stopped,” Argo muttered, thinking about it again.
“Relax, we have plenty of time,” Lee said, still not really looking at him. “And Daelia would never forgive me if I left Ginger here.”
“You’re going to let her head back to Houston on her own?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. We’re close to I-35. I’m sure you noticed how easy it was to get to the garage from the last exit. State highway patrol keeps those roadways clear,” Lee said, still walking.
“Can Ginger do it?”
“She’s licensed for self-driving.” He took the next turn. “Stop worrying. We still don’t know where Daelia’s headed.”
“You said she was going to A—”
“Not here,” Lee said, more forceful now. He was too thin for the jacket he was wearing, and it gave him a hunched appearance.
Argo looked around. “What a shit hole.”
“Turn your AR on. This town only makes sense in the virch.”
“Is that safe?”
Lee gave him a look and kept going.
Grudgingly, Argo switched on his monocle. The start-up screen hummed for a moment, picking up available overlays. Argo went with the one marked AUSTIN PUBLIC, and the entire world changed.
Gone was the drab street with boxy buildings and tents pitched in the alleys. Gone was the monotony and the dirt.
“Huh,” he said, looking around.
“Abiota-generated, so it’ll be a little off. Try not to think about it,” Lee said.
Austin, in the virtual reality overlay, was a futuristic fever dream. Buildings soared into the clouds, glass and chrome and oblique angles, graceful and mysterious. Shop fronts glimmered with the promises of goods that he knew weren’t there. The streets were spotless, the sidewalks immaculate. Abiota were everywhere. The colors were saturated, beautiful. A metropolis of technology.
Despite the oddness of the virch, the front door of the club looked the same as any Argo had ever been to. A line of people waiting to get in, beautiful and hollow, and a VIP entrance on the other side, all cordoned off with velvet ropes. A bouncer sat on a stool there, scanning handprints.
Argo pulled his visor down, looking. There was nobody there. No line. Maybe that was just part of the fantasy, he thought. Not his. Clubbing had lost any appeal for him after he’d stopped drinking.
The bouncer still got up as Lee walked up. The man had a NULI—an extensive one, with a whole bunch of crap spread across his forehead that Argo supposed was decorative—and his expression was clear.
Shock, and maybe just a little bit of awe.
“Mr. Hall,” he said, and nodded his head. “Been a long time since you’ve been to Rainey.”
“I’ve been busy,” Lee said, and stuffed his hands in his pockets as the scanner was presented. “I don’t recognize you, but you know who I am.”
“Yes sir. Or rather, the club database knows you,” the bouncer said, and tapped his forehead. “She never forgets anything.”
“Then she ought to know I’m not scanning my damn hand. Nor is my friend,” he said, and nodded at Argo. “You don’t need my biometrics.”
The bouncer nodded and opened the door himself. “Welcome home.”
Lee didn’t even look at the guy as they swept in.
“What the hell was that about?” Argo asked quietly. “I thought the Domain Array knew we were coming here.”
“A few abiota do. It’s not the same thing,” Lee replied. “I want to keep us off the Array’s radar for as long as possible. They have to know I’ll do something about Daelia, but no point in helping them out.”
Argo was expecting what one normally found in a club. Big, open room. Music. An open bar. A DJ, people dancing badly. Lots of energy.
Instead, there was nothing. Nothing but a series of hallways, leading off into the dark. The whole place was barely lit with physical light. Navigation, he assumed, happened in the virch.
Green arrows steered them this way and that, back through the halls.
“What are these?” he asked, pointing at one of the doors.
“Virch pods,” Lee replied. “Come spend a day or a week or the rest of your life in the virch. Tin Towns offer an especially rarefied experience, or so I’m told.”
“I thought that was banned?”
Lee just shrugged. Weary. Like this was a conversation he’d had many times before and had no desire to be involved in again. “I’ve only done it once. It wasn’t…it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“Why?”
“I was looking for Bellona,” Lee said, still short. “Didn’t find her, although I got close.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a theory some people in the industry have, one that I personally agree with, that the abiota have a different network, something beneath TGLP that they use to communicate.”
“Isn’t that called the Internet?” Argo quipped.
“Different. Deeper. Not IP-based, or at least, not IP-reliant. When I was here, I found a few entrances to what seemed like something but…” And he shook his head. “If it’s real, it’s not somewhere a human can go. If we were capable of communicating with them without TGLP, TGLP wouldn’t need to exist.”
“It makes sense, though. Why wouldn’t they have their own language?”
“Language allows us to convey what’s in our head to another human being. We developed it because we had to. Evolutionary pressure, or whatever you want to call it. Abiota are not dependent on each other for survival. They don’t form societies. Each one is a species unto itself. But they are dependent on us. So they adopt our language, something approaching our thought processes, in order to communicate with us. But it’s not what’s underneath. Ultimately, they are unknowable. Here we go, up there.” Lee pointed ahead of them, at a staircase. “It’s a fascinating thing. They’re a fascinating species.”
It was the most words Argo had heard Lee ever use in one go, and he wondered about it now. “Is that why you married one?”
“Bellona did fascinate me,” Lee replied, looking at him. “In a lot of ways. Until I figured her out.”
The stairs weren’t anything grand. Something you’d find in an old apartment building maybe. Argo wondered what this place had been before the booville took over.
Up at the top of them, the place looked more normal. A lounge, not a club, a central room ringed with glass booths that seemed to be able to go opaque. There was a group of kugus up on a small stage, playing down-tempo synth music, and a bar set up against the far wall. There was no crush of people, but it was reasonably crowded.
A crowd that went silent as Lee headed toward the bar.
Argo could hear conversation following them, whispers, murmurs. One woman, face concealed beneath a full VR helmet and only her mouth visible, reached out for Lee.
He shrugged it off. Didn’t look at her as he kept walking.
“Again,” Argo said. “What the hell?”
Lee just continued on to the bar.
The bartender straightened as he approached. “Mr. Hall,” she said. “I see it’s been almost five years since you’ve last—”
“I’ll have a Macallan,” Lee said, cutting her off, and turned to Argo. “And get him whatever he wants.”
“You got lager?” the pilot asked, not real sure what was going on here.
“Of course, anything you’d like. All guests of Mr. Hall are honored patrons. On the house, of course.” In the overlay, one of the booths lit up. “If you would, sir, I’ll bring it over to you in a minute.”
“Lee, what are we—”
“Thank you,” he said, and put a bytebuck token down on the counter. Small and disposable, the little coin-shaped chip would perform a single crypto transfer and then wipe itself. “For you.”
The bartender hit it. Paled a little when she saw the amount spring up in the overlay. “Thank you,” she said, and smiled at them, warmer, more honest this time. “Anything else you gentlemen might need?”
“Just the drinks,” Lee said.
Settling into the booth, Argo could definitely still see people in the room looking their way, talking. “What is it with you and this place?” he asked.
“I’m Lee Hall,” he said with a shrug. “A lot of people see me as the reason why we know about the abiota at all. I discovered them, I advocated for them, I got them legal status. It was more complicated than that, and a lot of other people were involved, but you know how this stuff goes. Humans flatten out the detail and chip away the nuance until history is bite-sized and confirms their own beliefs. It’s easier that way.”
“And what do people here believe?”
“That the abiota are going to save us,” he said. “You think this Unity shit came from nowhere? It’s effective because people are already primed to believe it. Boovilles are just the most extreme expression of that idea.”
The bartender came by, smiling and sweet, with their drinks and a bowl of what looked like very expensive peanuts. “Anything else I can bring you, Mr. Hall?”
He handed her another bytebuck token. “Nothing right now,” he told her.
As soon as she was gone, he hit a button on the edge of the table.
Instantly, the glass doors slid shut, the surface going milky white.
“Give it a minute, then it’ll be time to go,” Lee said, and pulled out what looked to be a very basic smartphone.
“You still haven’t answered my question. What are we doing here?”
“Austin is Omphalos territory,” Lee said, fingers moving on the screen now, typing. “And I, unfortunately, am on everyone’s watch list in this damn place. So the Mediation Office’s predictives were going to see us roll into town no matter what I did. But refusing a hand scan, that sort of thing, is normal behavior for me. It’s important for me to act normal right now.”
“Okay,” Argo asked, folding his arms, wondering where this was going.
“I’m also sure they’re aware that Daelia is here, and that I, and you of course, would come looking for her. But what do I know? Who knows, probably nothing. So we come here, to a place that would be the most…logical place to start asking questions.”
“Logical?”
“Predictives are somewhat predictable. They look for the averages in data, the trends, the most likely outcomes first. So what’s the most logical place to meet somebody? Someplace public. But it’s nighttime and there are curfews here, which means Tin Town. Where Omphalos has visibility, but not necessarily influence.”
“If we’re expected to come here, why come here?”
“Because if we do what we’re expected to do, they won’t look any further,” Lee said, and hit a final button on the cell phone. “Chalk was more than happy to set up some squid ink for us. There. Notice anything?”
Something changed in the AR. Argo wasn’t quite sure what it was; he wasn’t used to wearing a full visor outside of the cockpit, and he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was. The color saturation maybe. When he looked at his hand and wiggled his fingers, there seemed to be some lag in the motion, a blur.
He told Lee that, and Lee nodded.
“I see it too. Means it’s working.” He reached over for the door controls. “Time to go. Don’t talk until we’re out of the building, don’t touch anyone, don’t let them touch you.”
They didn’t bother with the front door. Instead, Lee led them around and into the small kitchen, then out into a back alley. There were a couple of close calls, but Argo managed to dodge the few employees and one drunk customer that got close.
Lee just flowed through it. Like he did this all the time. Like he wasn’t part of anything around them.
“You’ve used this squid attack thing before,” Argo observed, once they got outside.
Lee waved him on, still walking. “What do you mean?”
“You seem pretty comfortable with it.”
“It’s only an attack if it’s aimed at penetrating a network. I’d call what we just did an exploit.”
“I don’t give a shit what it’s called. You’ve used it before.”
“What are you getting at, Argo?”
“You knew Chalk could do it. You knew before we hired her.”
“If you’re insinuating…”
“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m flat-out telling you. You knew about this. You knew about all of this.”
“If you think I threw you and my precious baby girl in front of Serket on purpose—”
“Did you?” Argo asked.
“No,” Lee said firmly, and checked his watch. “Shit, it’s late.”
“Not late,” a synthetic voice said. “Just listening.”
And a kugu detached itself from the shadows.
“Anito,” the kugu said, holding out a hand to Argo. “I presume you are the humans interested in the whereabouts of Daelia Hall?”
“Not very good OPSEC there,” Argo replied drily, but shook the thing’s hand.
It thumped its chest. “I have excellent OPSEC. It is part of my primary purpose.” It gestured at Lee. “There is no emergent anywhere who does not know Leander Hall.”
Argo looked at Lee, who just sighed and shook his head. “You sent the message to Chalk.”
“Yes. A few hours ago now. She said that Leander Hall was on his way, so I agreed to meet with him,” the kugu said. “With you. It is an honor.”
Lee didn’t respond to that. “So where is Daelia?”
“She wished to get to this place,” the kugu said, and spread its hand. In the overlay, a two-dimensional rendering of a logo sprang into view, along with a name.
“Aaru,” Argo said.
Lee closed his eyes. “Shit. You should have discouraged her.”
“She was insistent. And there is a human in pursuit of her. Sean Robinson. A TGI employee, I believe.”
“Serket’s head of security,” Argo said.
“You know him?”
Argo sighed. “Yeah, I know him.”
“Thank you for getting in touch, Anito,” Lee said. “If there’s anything I can do for—”
“There’s one more thing you should know.”
“Oh?”
“Daelia was accompanied by an abiota calling itself Raven. Female identifier. Claimed to be avian-class.”
Argo caught the turn of phrase. They weren’t always intelligible, but they were always precise. “What’s the problem there?” he asked.
Anito thumped its chest again. “I know every emergent in greater municipal area. There are not many, and none like this. Her metadata appeared uncorrupted, and so I believed that Daelia brought her with her.” Anito spread its hands. “I did not see cause for concern at the time.”
“You have a copy of that abiota’s metadata?” Lee said.
“Yes.”
“Argo, you’re driving,” Lee said. “Anito, send me that file.”
A data upload appeared above Anito’s open hand. “As you ask.”
32
“Lot of buildings up there,” Daelia observed, eating a second granola bar. Pete didn’t have much in the way of food on the boat, but he had let her pick through an old tackle box he had. Snack stuff, mostly. She wasn’t sure if the bar was expired or not, but it felt good to have something in her stomach. Finally able to relax for a little while, she’d found herself ravenously hungry.
“Yeah. The outer neighborhoods and towns escaped a lot of the damage from the war,” he said. “Like that one. I go there sometimes with Grandpa.”
“Is it nice?”
“Not really,” he said. “They aren’t part of the booville and don’t want to be, so some of them struggle. Most people either have remote jobs or just barely scrape by.”
“Sounds rough.”
“At least it’s not a sea of virch,” Pete grumbled. “And they’ve got real cops and guns and stuff, so they don’t get as bothered by crime.”
“That a problem in Tarrytown?”
“Huh? No. We’ve got private security.”
“Figures,” Daelia muttered. They were in a section now where the old reservoir walls were hundreds of feet high, but here and there along the new, lower shoreline, there were boat tie-ups. “How do people get down here?”
