Gunner Skale (3 page)

“This, Mr. Skale, is something we like to call the Mortality Doctrine.”

Hours later, Gunner had forgotten all about any promise he’d made to himself to rush home to Rachel and Sink into the VirtNet for a night out. He’d forgotten about every little thing in his life, enraptured by the code that George and his partners revealed to him piece by piece. Mesmerized, he sat and stared and listened, never wanting it to end, wondering if maybe it was all a dream. What he saw unravel before him like a long, long story seemed utterly impossible. And yet … it was there. In the code.

“We still have a long way to go,” George said at some point, long before Gunner wanted them to stop their presentation. “But hopefully we’ve shown you enough that you’ll believe in our cause. We want you to join us, Mr. Skale. Not only do we want your endorsement for publicity’s sake—we are practical, after all—but we want your counsel and advice. We want you as part of this team, a team that’s going to change the world forever.”

There was a whir of sound, and then everything disappeared, sucked back into the little fire pit in a great whoosh. Gunner could do nothing but stare at the ashes. Clouds and sky and planets filled the world now.

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. His tone must’ve shown them that his joining their cause was an absolute given. All he wanted now was to understand what he’d just witnessed.

“The possibilities are endless,” George replied. The man suddenly didn’t look so goofy in that medieval garb of his. He looked like the greatest warrior who’d ever walked the earth. “Educating the young with instantaneous downloads of information. Eliminating dementia with stored memories and photos. Breaking down language barriers by downloading every known language into every mind. Restoring brain damage with artificial intelligence. Endless, Mr. Skale. The scope of possibility is matched only by its sheer wonder.”

Gunner swallowed, his throat a desert. He’d always known the brain was nothing but an extremely complicated computer. And these people had figured out a way to meld
the mind with technology—in a way that seemed straight out of the wildest novels about the future. He was excited and terrified.

“If this got into the wrong hands …,” he started, then stopped. George and the others weren’t stupid. Not by a long shot.

“We know,” George replied. “Yes, we know.”

“So … what’s next?” Gunner asked.

“Can you come back tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he didn’t hesitate to say. “But not until we take care of some business first.”

For the first time that day, George looked surprised. “And what’s that?”

“I’m buying all of you Coffins. Brand-new. The best on the market.” Gunner paused, looking at the fire pit longingly. “No more VRSpecs, my new compadres. Tomorrow, we meet in the Sleep.”

They actually had to settle for three days later.

It turned out that purchasing, then waiting on delivery and installation of four NerveBoxes took that long, and it just about drove Gunner crazy. He spent his every waking moment thinking about or talking about what he’d seen, which in turn just about drove Rachel crazy. It was a sign of her love that she didn’t pack up and move to Europe.

Finally, an hour before his planned meeting with Virtual Solutions, she huddled in his arms, whispering in his ear.

“I’m proud of you.”

“Proud of little ole me? Why?”

She kissed him. “Just because you’re awesome. I could care less about you changing the world.”

“
Couldn’t
care less,” he said, knowing that’d get him a love smack. And it did.

He moved so that he could look her in the eyes. “Okay. It’s time for a cheese moment. You don’t get these often. Are you ready for it?”

“Oh, I’m ready.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, babe. This is something big—bigger than any stupid game. And I want you with me on this. We can do good things and always be together. That’s what I want.”

Gunner swore he saw a tear brimming in her right eye. “That’s what I want, too,” she said. “Forever.”

Thirty minutes later, they said good-bye.

George and his partners seemed to like celestial bodies, so Gunner didn’t have to think hard to decide which of his many VirtNet hangouts he’d use for their meeting. You didn’t become the best gamer out there without knowing how to code like a beast. Gunner Skale had programmed getaways in all kinds of places that no one else could touch—not even the VNS. A submarine on the bottom of the ocean, a cabin in the Rockies, a tree house in the Redwoods, a penthouse in the Empire State Building. If he didn’t know her better, he’d say that those sweet hideouts were the only reason Rachel stuck with him.

But for Virtual Solutions, he chose the Skaleship: a massive spaceliner that he could take anywhere in the VirtNet with a few swipes of code. And today he chose the rings of Saturn. The windows of the viewing port would probably never be physically possible on a real spaceship—they were twenty feet tall and as many feet wide—but this was the Sleep. The brilliant colors of the rings, flat as a pancake, with the mammoth sphere of Saturn lurking behind them, were utterly beautiful.

“Thank you for this,” George said as they all took their seats in the middle of the mostly empty room. Five people in all. Marta still looked like an old soldier, and Cherry’s red hair glowed in the light of the planet. Everyone had chosen their real-life Auras to keep things simple. Kent seemed happy to let George do all the talking. “Words can’t express how grateful we are to have your support.”

“And money,” Gunner said with a smile.

“Yes, that too.” George shifted in his seat. “But your counsel will be worth just as much.”

“Then let’s get started. Last time we got to see the fun stuff. I guess we better talk about your business plan this go-round. How protected is this coding, first of all?”

Marta answered that one. “We’ve taken all the necessary steps, legal- and business-wise. Securing and protecting our assets has been our top concern. I assume your … Skaleship is safe from prying eyes?”

Just as she finished speaking, Gunner caught a glimpse of movement over her
shoulder. He looked past her, through the huge windows, out at the rings of Saturn. There was something coming toward them, a darkness against the shining plane of the rings, that grew larger even as he stared at it. Gunner hadn’t gotten to his level of gaming by assuming the best of a situation. He shot to his feet.

“What is it?” George asked, following their host’s gaze.

“This location is secure. That shouldn’t be there,” Gunner whispered. “We need to get out of here. Now. I’ll take us to another of my hideouts. Link up with me.”

For the first time since he’d met him, George scowled. “What is this? Some kind of trick? Did you think we’d walk in here and trust you with our secrets, give it all to you? We’re still protected. We’re not a bunch of fools.”

Gunner tried to take a step back, surprised by the reaction, but his chair was in the way—he plopped down into the seat. “George … I … Are you insane? Of course I’m not trying to steal anything. I hardly even know anything about your project!”

“But you have your own resources,” Cherry said sharply. “Plenty, as you like to hint at all too often. I think we should Lift and reconsider, George. This is all too fishy.”

Gunner stood up again and regained his composure. The object outside the ship had tripled in size, coming closer and closer. “Listen, I don’t know what’s happening, but I promise I’ve been honest. I’m very interested in what it is you have to show me. Let me just …” Gunner froze. When he tried to access the code to change their location, something blocked him. He tried again. Nothing.

“What’s wrong now?” George demanded.

“What the hell?” Gunner said under his breath. “I can’t …” He looked at George and his partners. “We’re blocked from the code. And … I don’t know what that thing out there is. But I have a feeling it’s not good. I swear I had nothing to do with this! I don’t know what’s going on.”

Marta and the others were visibly struggling to access their own coding to no avail.

“Mr. Skale!” the old man shouted. “I demand you remove this block immediately!”

Gunner was at a total loss—nothing could block him from code. Nothing! “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m telling you, I don’t!”

The darkness now took up half the viewing port, the approaching object obscuring the outside world. For the first time since he could remember in the Sleep, Gunner had absolutely no idea what to do. They couldn’t leave, he had no way to access defenses, his potential partners had turned against him, and something was about to crash into his ship.

The others saw that he was just as upset as they were. They gathered around him and faced the huge windows.

All was black now. No stars, no Saturn, no rings. Just darkness. As he stared, a spot of light appeared in the middle of the abyss, then widened into a bright opening that almost blinded him. A shadow passed across it with lightning speed. There was a blur of movement, a thump of sound, a jolting clap outside that rattled the ship.

And then an enormous metallic object was outside the viewing port, hurtling toward them. It crashed through the windows with a hideous explosion of noise, and shards of glass rained down on Gunner. It was as if the VirtNet itself had just been shattered with a hammer.

Amidst it all, somehow George’s screams were crystal clear.

Gunner fell to the floor, arms thrown over his head, protecting his face from flying debris. His game-hewn senses were sharp, and his reactions were lightning fast. There was no loss of pressure because they weren’t actually in space, so the atmosphere of the ship remained stable, but he could tell that the coding had started to break down—he saw glitches and fading color and wavering edges.

Gunner brushed himself off and stood. Whatever had crashed through the windows was on top of George, massive metal arms pinning the old man to the floor. The intruder was like a giant robot—a thick, monstrous body of gleaming steel and chrome, an insectile head with blazing blue eyes, vents jetting red steam, mechanical grunts and hisses sounding with its every move. And then Gunner saw exactly why George was screaming.

From the robot’s torso, blades flashed in and out, stabbing the old man in the chest. The blood was a red fountain, splashing on the shiny metal of the attacker. George’s screams turned to gurgles and moans, then stopped altogether. Gunner knew it was a simulation, but the horrific sight still sent a chill up his spine. And he knew he had to fight this thing off.

Little flaps opened on the robot’s shoulders. Two long instruments with hooked claws on the end shot out and grabbed the sides of George’s head. A third arm came from the monster’s chest, tipped with a long, curling weapon that looked like a scorpion’s tail. It slammed into the man’s temple and viciously dug out his Core—that small metal chip that represented his fragile link to the real world—pulling the chip from the vicious wound and flicking it into the emptiness that hovered behind the shattered windows.

Gunner felt his world collapsing. Nothing had prepared him for this. Whoever was behind the attack broke new Virt laws every few seconds, each one worse than the last. Coding out the Core was not only illegal, but was an extremely difficult feat of programming. And the robot had done it as easily as tearing off a bandage.

Rachel’s face appeared in Gunner’s mind then. He didn’t care about anything
else. There was only Rachel. And he hadn’t spent the last ten years annihilating the Sleep to give up now.

Gunner let out a scream that emptied his lungs of air, and scrambled to his feet. He ran at the robot, jumping at the last second onto its enormous arm. He scaled its side and leapt onto the thing’s back. The robot moved, lifting and planting its arms and legs with jerky movements, heading straight for Cherry, as if it didn’t know or didn’t care that Gunner clung to it. With each step, glass crunched under the machine’s clawed feet. Slowly but surely, it caught up to the woman and swung with a huge arm, swatting her through the air until she crashed into the wall and then crumpled to the ground. Gunner hung on as the thing moved again. He searched for something on the creature’s exterior to pull or break or disengage, but his fingers found only a smooth metal hull.

Cherry didn’t make a sound when the machine tore out her Core. This time, the robot flicked the metallic coin into the air and zapped it with a sun-bright laser, obliterating it. Marta, who’d scrambled to the farthest edge of the room, was next. The robot caught her and yanked her into the air. Over the sound of her screams, Gunner heard her body breaking, bones snapping.

Still he searched, punching the robot’s metal shell with his free hand as he hung on desperately with the other. The machine was solid, unbreakable. Gunner tried again to access the code—he needed to pull a weapon from his endless stash of programs. But he might as well have been in the Wake for all the good his efforts did. He was blocked from the code like a severed spine.

The next few seconds were a blur of movement and sound. Marta erupted in one final scream as her Core was excised from her temple, and Kent didn’t even put up a fight, dying in one swift, crushing blow from the robot. Gunner knew without seeing that his Core would be removed as well. He searched his mind for possible solutions. But nothing came, and soon metal claws were gripping his arms, wrenching him off the robot’s back, throwing him to the floor.

Gunner landed with a grunt that sent the air rushing from his lungs. And then the massive machine—its gleaming body, its hissing steam, its groans of mechanics—was hunched over him, its brilliant blue eyes staring down at him like thrusters on a spaceship.

“At least tell me who you are,” Gunner said, forcing out the words even though his chest was on fire. “Tell me why.”

A voice—detached, almost dreamlike—answered.

“The Mortality Doctrine is mine. And now so are you. Say good-bye to flesh and bone, Gunner Skale.”

There was a burst of pure light and a rush of sound, and then Gunner felt his memories drain from his mind like sand down a funnel.