Dead Man's Resolution (3 page)

Peeking through a hole in the wall, he surveyed the office. The man waiting in the doorway was the Cutter, the same man who’d appeared in the middle of his school lab table.

“No need for all this running, nub. We just want what ya got in your pocket,” Cutter called out as he twirled the numb-gun in his hand.

Tibor closed his eyes hoping the man would leave. Then he heard an amused grunt. Cutter had turned down his corridor with his head down. He seemed to be examining something on the floor.

Looking down, he realized what the man had seen. His footprints in the dust led a trail to him. Cutter was nearly upon him.

With the bald man steps away, Tibor put his shoulder into the cubicle wall. Cutter mumbled surprise and the numb-gun came level with Tibor. Before Cutter could use it, the momentum from the cubicle took hold and three sections folded over on him, redirecting the projectile into a far wall.

Tibor left puffs of dust at each footstep as he sprinted to the exit. The man burst from the pile of walls, knocking another section over. Half the room collapsed in reaction, sending a massive cloud into the air.

The rust-streaked door resisted his initial attempts get through. So Tibor put his shoulder into it as he jammed the handle. Once through, he vaulted the steps three at a time.

Sunlight peeked through a partially open door at the top of the stairs. With heavy footfalls ringing below, Tibor barreled toward the door ready to burst through. As his shoulder hit, vertigo overtook him and he collapsed on the pebbly, tarry rooftop.

Dented, tarnished vent ducts stuck out at intervals on the wide roof. They hadn’t ever bothered to program the tops of the buildings since they were dangerous. William had nearly fallen through one early in their explorations of the warehouse district, so they stayed on the ground.

The warehouse stood above the others around it by a meter. No other doors could be seen. Tibor loped along the side hoping an emergency ladder would grant escape, but the two he found had rusted away to piles of reddish brown dust.

Another projectile impacted near his feet. Cutter chased him across the rooftop firing his weapon. Tiny silvery spheres sailed through the air. Tibor dodged around an air duct as a projectile flew past.

With only one exit, he was trapped. Tibor still couldn’t feel his upper arm. The only way off was to another roof. Even if he could make the jump, he might fall through a rotted ceiling.

Before he could reason himself out of his escape plan, Tibor started sprinting to the back edge. A silvery capsule burst near his foot, but the spray missed him. He stutter-stepped to avoid the numb puddle and leapt early.

Tibor’s premature leap saved his life. He planted his foot a good three feet behind the edge and a strange sensation hit his toes as he pushed off toward the other roof. Flying through the air, arms flailing, he realized he’d be a few feet short. He hoped he could grab onto the edge before he plummeted to his death.

Instead of falling past the edge of the building, his feet slammed into an invisible floor. The rapid change in momentum folded him over and he tumbled onto his back. He might have dislocated his shoulder upon impact, but the adrenaline from the jump made the pain a distant sensation.

He unsuctioned his goggles from his face. The world shifted three feet back into its original position. The man had hacked his reality, changing his geospatial alignment. Tibor knew then how the man in the dumpster had died.

The man appeared on the edge of the warehouse roof. A raised eyebrow on his bowling ball shaped head transmuted surprise at Tibor’s survival. The hesitation was enough to let Tibor get out of range of the man’s projectiles.

After finding the exit, Tibor sprinted through the alleyways with his goggles stuck to his forehead. Cutting through the maze-like gaps between the broken warehouses and crumbling buildings, he let the fear carry him.

Eventually, the effort stole the breath from his lungs, and he hunched over heaving great gulps. The feeling returned in his paralyzed arm and both arms shook violently as the weight of the events collapsed around him. After a few minutes of uncontrollable shaking, Tibor straightened.

A deep mechanical voice spoke into his ear,

Tibor was not surprised by the voice and guessed what would come next.

His frantic flight had only gained him room to think. Would Cutter trade fairly, or would he be walking into a trap? He wanted to ask for proof that William was still alive, but after the events on the rooftop, he couldn’t trust any reality Cutter presented to him.

Tibor caught the plurality of his demands and assumed there was more than one. They had all the advantages and he was just a kid in high school. If he thought the trade would be fair, he’d gladly give up the ARNet. The man had ambushed him using William’s system and had found him in the blacksmith’s shop.
Shit. They can probably find me right now.

The two possible answers oscillated in his head as his face scrunched tight, hoping to squeeze the right one out.

Two can play games with the truth.

Tibor put his goggles on to see that a map with a blinking red dot had been pushed into his HUI. He accessed the dead man’s programs and scrolled until he found a trio of mods he’d sniffed before: BlackTome, Somania, and Bang.

He mapped his system to the dead man’s ARNet and activated the three programs. Immediately, new interface tools floated in his HUI, including a red blinking box in the center with the word “Bang!” circling the edges and “Nuke Remote Hack,” in the middle. Triggering the box sent him to his knees as the world shifted toward him. His augmented vision and the real world had snapped back to its normal alignment.

Tibor jogged back the way he came. With a half a kilometer to go, he stopped and activated the ‘Remove Fog of War’ button that now hung on his mini-map and smiled when three dots appeared. Two dots huddled together on the upper side of the map, another kilometer from his location while the third lurked near the rendezvous point. He hoped one of the dots was William.

To get to William he’d have to pass near the first dot which he assumed was Cutter. He knew they could spy his location, so as soon as he bypassed the meeting site, they’d know he wasn’t trading.

Tibor checked through BlackTome to find a option that would help him. The structure had been organized in a way he couldn’t fathom. They weren’t alphabetical, by size, usage, or any other method he could fathom. Sifting through the files, information bloomed in radial designs until a garden of named blobs floated in front of him. He slowed to a walk to give himself more time.

Cycling through the blooms, he misclicked on a blob called ‘Spell.’ Three spheres floated out of the blob: Illusions, Transmutations and Evocations.
William would have found this right away.

Under the illusions sphere an option called Create Doppelganger grabbed his interest. He activated it, and suddenly he was staring at the backside of himself. Another dot had formed on the map, nearly overlaying his original. Using controls similar to the Portal mod, he moved the doppelganger forward. A small view screen showed what his double could see.

Tibor moved it to a location a few hundred meters from the bald man.

Then Tibor circled the long way around. When Cutter’s dot moved toward the doppelganger, he exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

He wouldn’t have long before his ruse was uncovered, so he broke into a run. Once they knew he wasn’t trading, it’d be more difficult to get William back.

In the courtyard where William was being held,
ki-yops
and grunts echoed. A samurai in full battle-regalia stepped through a precise kata with a traditional curved sword. Tibor admired the man’s style. He felt guilty for peeking under his goggles to see a young Japanese man in a dark blue suit practicing his moves. A numb-gun sat on the hood of a sleek Kia luxury sedan. He’d never be able to reach the gun before the samurai did.

Cutter neared his double’s location, so he moved the simulacrum away to stall for time.

said Cutter.

He needed more time to get William out of the car, even though he didn’t know how he’d do it.

The bald man’s dot stopped.

Tibor composed his mindtext, hesitating before hitting the send button. He couldn’t know if it’d stop the man or make him mad.

The silence was damning until he heard the modified voice.

He’d bought himself more time, but he still didn’t know what to do about William’s stylish guard.

Rotating through the blooms, he found another spell fitting his needs. After formulating his plan, he circled around to a nearby corner. Along the way he grabbed an old left turn sign with most of the yellow paint missing.

Waiting a few feet around the corner from the courtyard, Tibor activated the spell. He couldn’t find any panthers, but he was able to scale up a black cat until it stood at hip height. He let the panther wait on the far wall until the Japanese man glimpsed it.

When he did, the Japanese man switched off his samurai skin and grabbed his numb-gun. Tibor traced a path for the panther to follow that led to his hiding spot. It leapt and sprinted across the courtyard in long graceful bounds. As the dot on Tibor’s mini-map moved to the corner, he realized his plan hinged on the man’s weapon being a numb-gun and not a real one.

With no time to adjust, Tibor readied his illusion. As the Japanese man rounded the corner, Tibor sent the enlarged black kitty onto him. Recoiling in surprise, he unloaded his gun at the creature.

Tibor, who had constructed a virtual diorama of the street to hide behind, waited with his piece of sheet metal. As the man fired his gun, Tibor pushed the sheet forward. A half-dozen projectiles exploded on its surface splattering the man with hundreds of numbing droplets. He fell to the ground in slow motion.

Tibor dropped the sheet as his fingertips numbed under the splatter. The man lay on the ground lurching mechanically as random sections of his body succumbed to the liquid. The gun lay in the dirt covered by an oily goo.

He found William in the car, bound and tied. His friend embraced him as soon as his arms were free.

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

Tibor noticed the bald man’s dot had disappeared from his mini-map.

“We’re not free yet. Let’s get moving.”

Upon exiting the back of the car, William cried out and crumpled to his knees. Tibor feared the worst, until he saw the Japanese man on his back with the numb-gun pointed at them. The shot had hit the car and the spray had covered William’s leg. Helping him to his feet, they moved away before the man, twitching on the ground, fired again.

“Shit,” William said after a few blocks.

“What?”

William stopped, and they nearly toppled over. “We should have taken the car.”

“No. We don’t want to give them more reasons to come after us. It’s bad enough we have the computer.”

“You vag! You didn’t throw it in a lake?”

Tibor’s stomach tensed into a horrible knot.

“I’m sorry. I should have, but can we worry about this later? I almost died earlier.”

William’s face shifted from anger to concern as they resumed their three-legged hobble.

“This looks familiar. Let’s head through here." Tibor recognized it as the blacksmith’s shop without the digital renderings once they were inside. They didn’t have long to rest when Tibor heard a shout from behind them.

“Stop right there!” The bald man ran through the street toward their hiding spot.

Tibor dragged his friend to the stairs.

“He’s behind us. We need to lose him in the building.”

The bald man wasn’t coming quietly as he cursed all the way up the stairs. They headed straight for the roof.

Once there, Tibor verified the world matched his expectations. He didn’t want to get fooled again. They hobbled to the far side as Tibor checked for any escapes that he might have missed last time. Cutter hadn’t reached them yet.

“Think you can jump, William?”

“Jump? Are you crazy?”

Tibor pointed to the warehouse roof across the gap. “I jumped to that roof last time.”

William leaned against a vent housing and then slid to a sitting position. “I can barely run Ti, let alone jump. You go. Maybe you can rescue me again.”

Tibor kicked a small vent pipe producing a puff of dust from its hole. “Shit. How did I get trapped again?” He scrolled through his options looking for another way when he saw the man appear in the rooftop doorway.

“He’s on the roof.”

“You go, man. Maybe you can lead him away.” The defeat in William’s voice lay heavy in his words.

Tibor checked the gap again. If he jumped now the man might turn around before he found William behind the vent housing.

The bald man took his time.

Tibor gave himself room to run. The man’s lack of urgency in chasing them down bothered him. With his back to the man, he flipped his goggles up again to make he hadn’t been geohacked.

“Sure as pajamas, I wouldn’t do that, boy,” the voice commanded.

Tibor steeled his resolve and began his sprint. The vent pipes and housings passed him at a rapid pace. The gap loomed as he concentrated on his footsteps.