IGMS Issue 11 (14 page)

Once he settled into his avatar, the whiteness diminished to a dark void where countless streams of snow meandered every which way. Tekkai shook the gourd dangling from his rope-sash, making sure it was full.

Maeda's avatar drifted before him in sitting pose. Tekkai smirked at his accurate prediction of Maeda's skin: but for a black suit with the lightning Priority crest in a shade of rust, and a sheathed pair of swords at her belt -- a
katana
and a
wakizashi
-- she was an exact copy of her physical self, from her shoulder-length black hair to her shapely legs. Like his avatar, her neuro-rosette did not manifest.

"Katana against the
sennin
? I thought you knew better than that, Agent Maeda," Tekkai said. Normally, when an average user was "slain" in the mims, a failsafe subroutine protected the user from sensory overload, booting them from immersion until they could repair the avatar's matrix. However, the Immortals insulated against that virtual death, preventing them from being ousted from the system as a result of simulated damage. While this gave them their so-called Immortality, they could not override the sensation of pain.

Maeda stood and drew her katana. She touched its edge to Tekkai's throat.

Tekkai did not flinch.

"Do not discount so quickly that which you do not understand," Maeda said. "It may have the shape of a sword, but it is not meant to end a life."

She drew the polished blade quickly across Tekkai's neck, surprising him as the phantom steel sliced painlessly through his virtual flesh. The slow streams of snow sped into blurred lines of ice. Before Tekkai had a chance to react, Maeda had already sheathed the katana in its
saya
. The streams resumed their lazy course.

Though he did not enjoy her demonstration, Tekkai admired the weapon's power. "The edge slows time for whatever you cut. Intriguing."

Maeda pinched the thumb and forefinger of her right hand into the shape of a ring and blew through the center. Three crystal bubbles the size of a watermelons floated forth, holograms trapped within them.

Tekkai studied the images. Ichiro, tall and lanky as Tekkai always thought he'd be. Ichiro reclining on a mim-arcade chaise, true eyes closed but third-eye gleaming. Ichiro strolling in the company of friends, in navy-blue school uniform with his student cap askew atop his shock of hair. Tekkai could see much of his younger self in the lad.

"How are his grades?" he asked.

"Your son placed in the top ninety-eighth percentile in the Academy entrance exam," Maeda replied.

"Good, good." Tekkai nodded. "Is he happy?"

Maeda shrugged. "As much as you might expect of a fifteen-year old."

Tekkai studied the first bubble again. "Does he remember me?"

"You could ask him yourself."

Her words surprised him. "How? Does Ichiro have an avatar in the mims?" Perhaps he could send out a search algorithm

"I mean we are prepared to grant you early parole."

Tekkai's heart pounded.
So that's the real lure
, he thought.
I might not betray Gama for a mere glimpse of Ichiro, but I might for freedom!

The idea tempted him. For all he knew, his ex-wife Nanami had told Ichiro he was dead. There were so many apologies to make to his son, face-to-face. A reconciliation after nine lost years would be much to ask of Ichiro, but it was infinitely better than waiting twenty more years.

However, Tekkai remained cautious. "You don't parole a felon convicted of data-plunder and viral-sabotage on a whim. Tell me why the Priority needs Gama so badly, Agent Maeda, or I will go no further."

"It isn't what you think, Tekkai. We want to save Gama from himself."

I don't believe you for a minute
, Tekkai thought. "Your sudden compassion vexes me, Maeda. Since when do you care for the likes of us?"

"Think what you will, but the Priority does not wish for any of its citizens to die, even the seditious ones."

"Yet it does not flinch from crushing our spirits whilst we live," Tekkai replied, remembering the gauntlet of failed re-education games.

"Let me show you otherwise. Come with me to the Floating Worlds," Maeda said.

Her offer proved too tempting for Tekkai. Now that he knew what Ichiro looked like, he might be able to launch a search algorithm to find him. It would then take a simple utility to teleport to where his son was. He did not know what he would do when he found Ichiro, but meeting face-to-face with his avatar, even for a brief second, would ease his guilt.

Tekkai nodded and conjured a flurry of virtual snow. The crystals swirled around Tekkai and Maeda's avatars and carried them through the dark void, immersing them into the torrent of snow that was the Floating Worlds mimicstream.

The snow-devil left Tekkai and Maeda in the intersection of two boulevards in nighttime Ukiyo-Edo, between groves of cloud-raking neon bamboo and twin inverted obelisk arcologies balanced precariously on the points of needles. To the distant north, a painted mountain in the style of
nishiki-e
straddled the horizon. Long-deprived stimuli assailed Tekkai's senses: the whirl of a thousand hues, the mingled scents of green tea and cherry blossoms, the lick of the faux-spring breeze on his skin. Even that indescribable feeling of catching a fleeting apparition out of the corner of his eye. Tekkai shivered from these remembrances of old, fond things.

And yet the streets remained oddly silent for the virtual city, which normally, at any point during the day, boasted the hustle and bustle of true-world Tokyo. Tekkai surveyed the fantastical cityscape, from the rumbling Arch of Cascades in the east to the bright Shrine of Cranes in the west.

"Where is everyone?" Tekkai asked.

"Project Mirrorstream," Maeda answered. "Has news of it trickled into prison?"

"Can't say it has. Mimicstream upgrade?" Tekkai strode eastward with purpose.

"So to speak. With the rise of a global government, the World Priority has decided to combine the thousands of mimicstreams into a single, unified stream," Maeda said, following him.

"Why would you want to do that?" Tekkai asked, though he could guess. No doubt the Priority hoped to eliminate all mims except for one they would control. "The strength of the mims is in their diversity. Xanadu, Yggdrasil, Scheherazade, the Floating Worlds. Each unique, each rightfully proud."

"But having separate mims fractures the databank of sensory data," Maeda said. "Where are we going, by the way?"

Tekkai sighed and stroked his beard. "Allow me at least one indulgence?"

"Which is?"

"Food of the gods." He led Maeda down a narrow side-street paved with lava-veined cobblestones. "Go on."

"Every bit of information captured by a rosette teaches the mim to define its world better, but the data remains scattered," Maeda continued. "Suppose we merge the streams into one. A billion third-eye feeds, all contributing to a single, perfect model of Earth. This new virtual world will mirror the real one in its unimaginable diversity."

Tekkai laughed. "That's the Priority's concept of an ideal virtual world? A copy of this one? What's the point of staying within real-world limits when you can bend reality and pretend to be a god?" Citizens drunk on dreams of utopia might believe Maeda's simplistic answer, but he remained unconvinced.

"Flavor simulations true to countless dishes. High fidelity weather simulations. Replicating the fragrance of a rare orchid, when and wherever you desire," Maeda said, ticking off each example on her fingers.

Tekkai gestured back towards the precariously balanced arcologies. "
That
is the power of the virtual! Could architects manage such marvels in the true Tokyo? I think not. Where else can you find the splendor of the Floating Worlds but in a magical place like this? Only here can we can shed the chains of our flesh and seek transcendence."

"We're not saying that physical laws won't ever be broken," Maeda said. "Once the mims have been consolidated into the core-world Mirrorstream, functions like controlled avatar transport, perception filters, et cetera, will be added. Licensed substreams would draw from the same source code."

"Sounds more like you want to stifle individuality and control creativity. What else has the Priority planned for the Mirrorstream, Maeda? New intrusion countermeasures to cripple the Immortals?"

"A unified world culture will emerge whether you like it or not," Maeda said.

Tekkai spied a deserted ramen shop. "Ah, here we are. I'm dying for some
tonkotsu-ramen
. Like some?"

Maeda frowned. "It isn't even real."

"The bowl of noodles might be virtual, but the taste is authentic. Isn't that all that matters?" Tekkai availed himself of the kitchen. "How does Gama fit into all this?"

Maeda pulled a stool up to the ramen-bar. "Project Mirrorstream is ready to launch. The only problem is, to merge the streams means erasing all extant mims. Anyone still connected during the process may suffer irreparable brain damage. We've evacuated almost all users from the mims twenty-four hours ago, but there remains some resistance."

"Gama," Tekkai guessed. It took a minor conjuration to assemble a bowl of
tonkotsu
-
ramen
for himself.

Maeda rested her elbows on the table. "We do not understand his death wish. He and a small group of insurgents refuse to leave the Floating Worlds, and the mim-sys is so corrupted by Immortal tampering that we can't force them out."

"You can't postpone the upgrade?" Tekkai asked.

"No. The disruption of services has been planned since last year, and already we have extended it by an extra day. Any further delay would create chaos."

"And we can't have
that
," Tekkai said in imitation of Maeda's intonation. He set the bowl of piping-hot ramen on the tabletop beside Maeda. "Even I can't repair a mim-sys in twenty-four hours."

"All you need to do is to trace Gama's location. We will do a safe, physical disconnect. The Priority takes care of all its citizens."

Like hell it did. "That's touching, but I don't care much for your brand of hospitality," Tekkai said. He perched on the stool beside Maeda, lifted the bowl with both hands and savored a sip of the miso soup base. "Mmm. It's been too long,
too long
."

She watched him eat. "How is Gama avoiding detection?"

"Camouflage," Tekkai explained, tugging at a stubborn coil of noodle. "The
sennin
encryption fools your search algorithms into thinking he is merely a part of the background. We'll find him soon enough, or--"

A whirling shuriken shredded through the cloth sign at the front of the shop, flying straight at Maeda's head.

In the blink of an eye, Tekkai's hand snaked forth with the chopsticks, catching the shuriken like an errant piece of pork.

Maeda's hand flew to the handle of her katana, but she was too late.

"-- he'll find us," Tekkai finished. He flicked his chopstick hand and returned the shuriken through the front of the ramen shop, then pushed his unfinished bowl aside. "Come on!"

Outside, Tekkai caught a glimpse of a shadow springing across the rooftops. "Gama! Face me if you dare, toad-face!" he shouted. He activated a teleportation utility, only to find that Gama had sealed that function within the mim. If there had been more time, Tekkai might have broken Gama's lock, but for now, he had to catch his fellow Immortal before he could camouflage himself again. Performing a quick series of hand-signs, Tekkai surged onto the roof after his old accomplice.

The squat and warty Gama sprang frog-like ahead of Tekkai, leading him eastward towards the Arch of Cascades. Tekkai matched his rival's speed, close enough to the maximum velocity that Immortals could muster. Neither could slow down to cast a new spell without giving the other an upper hand.

Tekkai followed Gama, dashing across a gap atop a casino banner. "You suicidal fool. There are better ways to die than erased in a mim!"

"If that were all, Tekkai-
san
, I'd agree with you," Gama called back as he scurried up the trunk of a sabu tree. "Why save Maeda? What did she promise you?" He leapt onto an adjacent roof and resumed his run.