This story was a winning entrant in a short fiction contest on the Eve University boards. Enjoy.
The light from the setting sun flowed across my office floor, making the deep shag carpet look almost cheerful despite bearing the influence of several cats. Even the phone book that held up my broken desk leg looked ebullient, as if to say 'don't you worry about a thing, I got this desk, you can just keep right on writing the checks. I got this.'
I didn't want to write checks. Rent was going to be late this month as it was. On the other hand, I had just suffered a big dramatic breakup - she had packed her things, called me various incoherent obscenities, and walked out, I wasn't even sure why. She was a fellow player, so I was hoping it was the start of a storyline, but it still stung. Her absence had left me with some extra funds. No date tonight, after all. That might help a bit, unless I decided to splurge on something consolatory. On the other other hand, as much as it made me laugh when the landlord's AI made him rant and sputter, I liked having my bills paid up. I checked the I Heart Obama calender, noting that I was two days away from having to pay a late fee, and sighed. Best to get it out of the way. I sat down at my desk...
...and the world was seething with red flashing light as the emergency cutout brought me back to myself, my disused frame shivering inside the capsule that gave me sustenance and expression. The crew of the industrial was agitated but still functional; the XO was just about to slap the com unit that would have roused me if the automatic cutouts hadn't already done so. He was clearly feeling guilty about interrupting my gameplay, sweetheart that he was. I spoke so that he could hear me.
"It's all right, Ivorn. I'm awake. Report, please."
My politeness was a social tool, much like my asking for a report when I myself could observe the ship's status and recordings more effectively then he. It was useful for the crew to feel ... useful. I valued them, and it was always worthwhile to ensure that they valued themselves. Also, his body language and mannerisms in giving a report could convey exactly how close to nonproductive panic he and the crew were.
"We are being tackled," he said. "By an Iteron, of all things. Coding says it's an independent, a private hauler, and it's firing at us! But it's an Iteron. It's barely dinging our shields."
He sounded simultaneously alarmed and relieved; he did not sound as if he knew what I knew, that the Iteron IV had us warp scrambled and webbed, and it's single railgun was indeed not doing any significant damage. The logic was obvious. Ivorn simply hadn't had time to think about the implications.
The Itty couldn't hurt us. But it could hold us.
So there was only one reason to hold us. They were waiting for someone else to hurt us. Badly.
We were on the most basic of courier missions, a wreathe making a trade run on behalf of our corp. By standard reckoning we had just collected cargo from a prearranged rendezvous less than twenty seconds previous; this was simple enough that my crew had handled everything. Exit warp, transfer cargo to our bay, align, resume warp. Simple. A small part of that plan was to ignore the other ships in the vicinity. This wasn't empire space, but it was hardly Rancer. If Ivorn had seen anything that looked combat ready, he would have alerted me instantly.
As it was, I couldn't have forseen being tackled by another hauler any more than he could. It was small consolation.
"Prepare to abandon ship on my order" I told him. "I'm going to try to talk to our assailant. There's a lot we don't know, but we have to prepare for the worst."
He nodded and began to organize for a potential evacuation. It was the closest thing we had to battle stations; everyone still doing their jobs, but with an eye to the nearest departure route. I turned my attention outwards.
None of the other ships proximate to the warehouse gave any indication of being involved. There were no visible scouts, no other industrials maneuvering for advantage. If we were to be fired upon in earnest, it would have to be by someone who had yet to arrive.
I took a leisurely two seconds to analyze the attack pattern of the Iteron, and cursed. The energy exchanges inside a capsuleer's brain occur at such a accelerated speed that we can take direct control of our ship's modules and synchronize them to each other as well as to the defenses and systems of an opponent, inasmuch as they are detectable. Our own systems, those of my Wreathe, were an open book; if the Iteron was controlled by a capsuleer it would have attacked us with perfect precision. It's offensive power would have done little better, but the timing would have been more efficient.
The Iteron's ineffiency strongly implied that it was not a capsule controlled vessel. A fellow capsuleer, even if an intransigent enemy, could have joined and concluded a colloquy in only a few seconds. An unplugged captain and crew would have to be conversed with in the normal way; normally this was good for a capsuleer, but time wasn't on our side.
I transmitted a hail; it was answered so quickly that either it was automated or the captain or com officer had been anxious to respond.
"This is Anthim Planckera, currently engaged in a corp run on low profit items, as should be fairly apparent. You can make little profit and many enemies by holding us here. If you release us now, nothing more will be said."
While waiting for the recipient to inhale, I sent out a call to my corpmates. Few of them were in range to do anything, but if there was even one cruiser able to respond he could probably melt the Iteron before more opposition arrived.
When the other finally responded, it yanked me completely into the moment.
"I've already got an enemy here," the Iteron transmitted. "I may not be able to kill you permanently, but I can make you pay. You can't make a fool of me like this."
The voice was female, ragged with emotion, and familiar. I knew her from the game.
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The life of a capsuleer is exciting at times, dull at others. I'll even go as far as to say that it is dull most of the time. There are moments when we experience the kind of excitment that would kill our bio-components through sheer stress if they weren't sustained by the capsules. Pod pilots who have experienced such things say that of the pain of having your armor stripped away by a fusillade of antimatter and the pain of being flayed alive, the antimatter rain is worse. Each time I enter space, I indulge in a full ambient sensory immersion, seeing light in wavelengths that make the visual spectrum look like black and white, feeling the touch of the hydrogen breeze kiss the skin of my shields, stimulating nerve endings that unaided humanity simply cannot know.
But between such moments our energized nervous systems require some form of stimulation. We can voluntarily slow our awareness of time down, but even that only postpones the problem. It wasn't long before we discovered the collective dream that is The Game.
The Game evolved from Mind Clash as a virtual environment in which we could interact. Unlike the chat-channels for corp and fleet, this virtual environment was fully persistent and interactive. It didn't permit nearly the degree of contention of Mind Clash, but that wasn't the point. The point was to live a mundane life, even while living a fantastic one in reality.
I had discovered The Game while working as a docking manager - a 'Scotty' - in a Sebiestor Tribe station. I had enjoyed Mind Clash but, loner that I am, hadn't taken well to the constant showmanship that seemed to be involved. The Game seemed like a decent trade-off; a virtual world into which I could escape from the reality of my sickly body, but without any more companionship than I desired.
Various worlds were available. After I was fitted for a pod I selected a historical one, just as a lark. The company that produced it, Carbon Cycle Productions, called it Idyll of the Rising Locality. It was all about the bygone world of Earth, set in the age of man's ascent into space in the twenty-first century, Archaic Reckoning. The world was so complex, though, that it was massively unlikely one person would experience many truly historical events. I took the part of a barely employed writer, and did just enough to be able to enjoy or endure the limpid, relaxing experiences of primitive peonage whenever I chose.
But there were other players in the game world of IRL. I chose not to avoid them utterly, and so it was inevitable that I would meet someone who interested me. Her name was Carol Christmas, or at least that was the name she chose. I had picked the name Bluto Craft as being a typical male name of that era.
The game was all about role-playing. We played our roles. For my part, I enjoyed playing the part of someone drastically different from myself; it was my way of exploring who I truly was, by divesting myself of everything I wasn't.
From childhood a crippling disease had weakened me. The disease was not me; accordingly, my persistent avatar was healthy and strong. I had learned from an early age that surviving in a world of predators and victims required a screen of vigilance and pre-emptive rage. My avatar was relaxed, friendly, compassionate, even distractible.
Even before my encapsulation I had accumulated some wealth and influence through careful application of opportunism and guile. My avatar was not a man of parts. He was a simple man.
I was a simple man in there. To my own surprise, I found that I revelled in it. I had simple needs.
Carol was willing to meet them.
We indulged each other.
I thought we were playing a perfect game, having fun and finding out things about ourselves and each other we couldn't have found out any other way.
And then she left. Just that 'day', effacing herself from my life as completely as possible, leaving abusive names to remember her by.
The idea of pursuing her didn't appeal to me. If she had stopped enjoying our time together, that was her business...
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Except here she was, captain of an Iteron, suddenly trying to volatize me in a fit of rage that I could only see as unprovoked. I considered the possibility that I was mistaken, but the game permits a wide range of divergence between player and character. I chose to be different. Carol had chosen to be the same.
It was her.
"Carol?" I said, carefully gauging her response. From respecting her privacy I now needed to know as much about the player as possible.
"Taashome Marr, Captain of the Even Reach!" Her voice was little less than a scream; being addressed as Carol seemed to enrage her, make her try to rebut through sheer volume. Except that I had given her nothing to rebut. The beauty of the game was that all language was automatically translated for the players, but vocal styles and patterns were imitated with precision, however idiosyncratic. In normal communication it was clear that her words were being translated from Caldari, but the voice was indesputibly the same.
She was the one who had created Carol. She had played Carol. Why was the mention of Carol now enraging her?
I responded with the language of a ship's captain, but I pitched it as close to my character as I could. "Ok, Captain Marr, that's you all over. But you're still Carol. Cut the crap, it's you."
Her voice dropped, but if anything her anger was growing. Every word was a sneering hiss. "Oh yes. You got it right in one, Captain Planckera. It's me. Bet you never thought we'd meet again, huh?"
"No, I didn't" I said. "You were pretty emphatic, no question. You didn't explain anything, didn't apologize, didn't leave a map, nothing, but you made it pretty clear you were through with me. Except now you pop out of nowhere and decide to ruin my day. My corp is going to want an explanation, you know. So is yours, come to think of it."
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I saw a spike in Local. Unfamiliar names. Her friends were faster than mine, closer. This wasn't going to end well. I triggered the Abandon Ship protocols; we wouldn't survive two salvos of real firepower, and it looked like that's what was coming. I told Ivorn and the others to take care of themselves, that I'd be back in-system as soon as it was convenient. It was the best I could do for them. Ivorn kissed his fingertips and pressed them to the hull as he boarded the escape pod, a gesture I found endearing. Then he was gone with the rest, leaving me to look down the barrel of another expended med clone.
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While this was going on, Marr was giving me information. Some of it useful. "I wouldn't worry about that. My CEO will understand. He's the one who gave me your game registration. It was public, but I hadn't bothered to look it up until I mentioned how happy I was, how exciting it was to be with you! How sweet you were, and how soothing, not like those other men - damn you! You know I'm a virgin! Was it a laugh? Were you laughing at me, you bitch!?"
"I wasn't laughing" I said. "I thought it was sweet too! I never knew it could be like that, it was good, it was right. If I ever laughed, it was because you were tickling me! It was fun, what does my registration have to do with anything?"
"IT WASN'T RIGHT, WHAT WE DID!" Marr's voice was now a full-throated scream of fury. "YOU'RE A WOMAN! DON'T YOU GET IT? YOU'RE A WOMAN AND I'M A WOMAN, THERE'S NOTHING RIGHT ABOUT IT!"
I still didn't have a lock on the problem, but at least it was on the grid. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "The body in my capsule is a woman's. In the game, I'm a man! I feel everything a man would feel, I know what a man would know. That's the way it's played, players and characters. You said it yourself; Carol Christmas is not the same person as Captain Taashome Marr."
"And isn't that sooo convenient for you, Anthim Planckera?" she said. "You're a capsuleer, everything is virtual reality for you, you might as well be a man as a woman! But some of us are still awake, still tied to the bodies we're born in! My body isn't just the biocomponent of a capsule! It was my first time! My first time ever!"
I had to wonder if she had secluded herself in her quarters for this convo or what. I had a hard time imagining the un-podded crew of any ship putting up with a captain who was so clearly in the grip of hysteria. Not that it much mattered; whatever was going on over there wasn't affecting the web or scram, or the fact that heavily armed ships had warped to the warehouse.
Or maybe it did matter. If Marr was in her quarters, maybe there was something I could do. It might not save my life, but it might help prevent this from happening again.
"Captain Marr, you're blending" I began. "You are still you, no matter what Carol is. That's why Carol exists, to do things that you would never dream of doing, to be who you are not. Let me show you; link your IRL ports to this com signal, it'll support it, then log in. Or just link it to the monitor, so I can show you something."
She was sputtering, something about betrayal and never playing again, but I was busy. I installed the character creator into the com program and uploaded my capsule monitors straight into it. Then I locked the channel; if she realized that she would no longer communicate via voice channel, she might activate the video inputs. And that would be enough.
Outside, the armed ships were turning away from the warehouse, turning toward us. Local showed a few of my corpmates had jumped into the system; I warned them off, they weren't nearly strong enough to beat the forces that were about to hammer me flat. We might get some payback later, but right now the only pertinent battleground was a tiny shard of IRL that I had built, extending an invitation to just one other person.
Maybe her desire to gloat was too strong to permit any restraint. Maybe it was mingled with some bit of remaining affection. But for whatever reason, Marr didn't open a video channel. She did as I suggested, linking the com channel directly to the game itself, and logging straight into the tiny virtual room that resulted. And for the first time, we came as near as we had ever come to truly looking into each other's eyes.
She looked exactly like Carol in a uniform similar to the caldari corporations. Her skin was pale, but not unhealthy, it set off the unaffected redness of her lips and the gleam of her wide, brown eyes. Her autumnal hair was pulled back into a more severe style than I had seen before, but that was no surprise. I was rather surprised at myself for being surprised at how tall she was. I should have expected that. I was used to looking down into her face from the point-of-view of a healthy man, not... what I was.
The IRL program had caused us to rez about three meters apart. From that distance I could see Marr shake her head as she saw me, looked me over. Then her face started to into a rictus of inner pain. "Is this some kind of joke? You're naked... did you just want to make me puke one more time, you vindictive bitch?"
"NO! I just didn't have time to program an outfit!" I said quickly. "And I wanted you to see all of me, see what I am. I wanted you to see what I played the game to escape, in the first place."
I fought to keep my voice as low as I could. My voice is naturally high. Ivorn had once said that listening to me talk was like listening to birdsong. In my few visits dirtside I had occasionally been disturbed by the racket of birds. I couldn't understand why Ivorn, or others in my crew, acted like they wanted to hear more of that, why they regularly asked me to sing. At the moment, my hope was that my screeching wouldn't get on Marr's nerves.
"Look at how short I am," I said. "My development has been stunted by a congenital condition, associated with a vitoc derivative. I'll never be taller than one point two meters. And as skinny as I am, I need these prosthetic reinforcers to move myself. Before I was a capsuleer, I was a Scotty. It was the best I could do for myself; working at a console was about all I could manage."
"Games were what I lived for. The neural induction that permitted me to play IRL gave me a chance to be bigger, to be strong, to breathe without these stupid gills in my chest. That's what we call them, because of how they look. My first pituitary activation ruined my breathing muscles; in order to put in the gills, they had to chemically truncate my sexual development. You think you're a late bloomer? Even if someone weren't disgusted with my looks, there is so much I'll never do..."
"At first I played myself, only without my limitations. But gradually, I realized that I could play without the limitations that went with being Minmatar, with being technologically encumbered, with being a woman, with being ... anything. Ultimately, the game is about living without limits."
As I had spoken, she had walked around me. I hadn't moved, letting her take the grand tour. I had even closed my eyes, making it easy for her to stare if she liked. In another part of my mind, the overview went from having only one red crosshair to having several. Our time was growing short.
"I have a lot of limits to live without, always have. I'm a Sebiestor technician in a shriveled, half-woman half-child's body. But in exulting at my freedom, I forgot that other people have limits too, limits far subtler and more binding than my own. I promise that making fun of you was never my intention. I left my registration public, didnt I? If I was trying to make a fool of you, do you really think I would have made it so easy for you to escape such a joke?"
For a moment there was silence, then: "You're not disgusting."
I opened my eyes. Marr was looking at my face, her expression conflicted, but her voice didn't tremble.
"You aren't. Your features are fine, and your eyes are bright. And sweet. Not many women will envy your looks, but you - you are not that hard to look at."
If she was trying to play some kind of game, her timing was terrible. As a glimmer of missiles appeared in space, I carefully disconnected the tactile damage inputs. They sometimes helped if you had a chance, but being fully linked to a melting ship was pointlessly tortuous. "I appreciate the thought, but I'll settle for your word that this is the end of this nonsense. You said you don't want to see me again. That's fine, if you insist..."
I was about to say more, but she cut me off. "Align. Just align, and warp to something. Anything. I'm sorry."
And then she was gone.
I closed the empty channel, reconnected to audio, but that seemed empty too. I aligned to a far planet, for as much good as it would do me.
Then as my shields failed under a missile salvo and my armor started to flare apart, I saw it - my overview showed me still webbed, but no longer scrambled.
I engaged warp drive, and the web pushed me quickly into faster-than-light. The next salvo flashed and died behind me. Marr had finally decided not to hold her blending against me.
The escape pods had their own slow but effective warp drives; I looked around for a potential safe planet and signaled my crew to meet me there. We were still in danger from Marr's corp who had been anticipating a profitable day's work and who probably wouldn't be inclined to let us go as easily as that. But I couldn't help but feel optimistic.
As I hastened, though, I thought about the game I played. I was hooked, there was no chance of my giving it up.
But I had relearned the lesson I kept learning and forgetting every few years, each time being reminded in a new way
The game was virtual. But the players were real.
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Topic: Virtually Virtual (Read 1232 times)