Versim (24 page)

Krista nodded. “Yep, they’re using him, Hark. I couldn’t stop it. Miesha’s directing this one.” She moved closer. “I knew you’d come back right away.”

Hark took a few steps toward Celia, who cowered on the sofa, as if whatever evil thing she was to become hadn’t fully emerged yet.

Krista did as well. “Hark, listen, there are millions of innocents still alive in this city.” She edged as close as she could without touching his carapace. “Hark, please, for once, be sensible. I need to know you wouldn’t destroy an entire V.”

“Stay back,” Hark said. “I’m sorry, Krista, for whatever assets or Spinner lore you’ll lose over at your library. EA told me I’m still under contract—”

Krista appeared to panic with a frantic waving of hands, something he rarely saw her do. “You know they’ve been setting this stage for years. He stays safe and is allowed to live as long as you play along. But he’s in the narrative now, as are you. That contract’s over. You did your duty. No need to kill the host.”

“Krista, earlier today I was told the contract’s still on.” Hark stared at her, sure his sister was lying to him. “He’s in transit. He’s not in-V … which means I can kill the host, and he won’t be harmed.”

Krista struggled with that as if it were her own death sentence. She’d probably thought he’d relent if the boy wasn’t in play right now. She’d miscalculated, he wanted to tell her.

“You’ll bring it all down, Hark?” He hated hearing that strident tone from his older sister. It usually got her whatever she wanted from him.

“I have to.”

Binda and Celia held onto each other, cringing. He could see they were as rational as they were before—only the eyes and faces had changed. They were the same women. But they were altered to glare at him with such hatred that neither had said a word.
 

Krista shook her head, as angry as he’d ever seen her. She looked like she might start one of her tirades. “You are such a thick-headed ass—”

“You should go, Krista. Go now.” He moved to his sister. “Seriously, call it in. Have Garce get you.”

“Garce isn’t tunneling me anymore, Hark.”

“What?”

“They found our clinic.”

“You’re legal?” She nodded. “You’re lying, Krista. Time for this to end. You haven’t been in long and you’re not deeply immersed. It won’t be a difficult recovery for you. Will you leave, please?”

She shook her head. “I’m staying.”

Hark leveled his Blaster at Celia and, without a thought, fired.
 

Krista’s hands went to her mouth, her face stretched into a mask of shock.

Binda screamed and jumped a foot in the air.
 

Hark didn’t look, but he saw the demon-queen topple over the back of the couch. He’d shot with enough power to take down a water buffalo. There wouldn’t be much left of her upper body. Binda was on the floor, scrabbling into a far corner, where she huddled, staring at Hark as if she were next.

Krista stood riveted, mouth open, lips quivering.
 

Hark placed his Blaster back on his chest and breathed deeply. He looked around, waiting for it to end, waiting to wake up in an immersion clinic with technicians tending to his recovery …

We’re still in, sir.

This V should have shut off already, Magda. I’ve never been in one when it happened. But I’ve heard it’s instantaneous. Something’s not right. I killed the host …
 

Krista’s hands were still at her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes. “She’d been in-V for twenty years, Hark. That’ll be almost impossible to scrub.” She banged on his chest now that his carapace was muted. “You know that. Celia Preston … might never recover.”

“I had to.” Hark looked around, unable to comprehend he was still standing there. “Saul has a month before EA can legally allow him to live in the real world. This was my last obligation to fulfill. I had to either wake or kill the host of this V.” Hark looked over the suite, out the windows. The world outside seemed intact. “Besides, his father would never want him in a flipped, post-apocalypse narrative. This place will be a haven for nutbags with pain fetishes. Think of how many real psychos will immerse to ride along with a werewolf. You know that. I can get him out of here, let him have a real life—not one given to him by a Vox producer. Why are we still here?”

Hark looked around, waiting for something to happen. He assumed he’d see seams in the walls opening, or maybe in the floor, a world coming undone. Then,
snap
, he’d wake up in his immersion vat, probably disoriented, definitely in need of scrubbing. He looked at Binda and considered saying something comforting. But she was in character and bared her teeth at him. She was shivering in fright. Krista saw it too and wrung her hands.

I killed the host, Magda, what’s going on?

Krista stood in the same place, and even in the gloomy half-light from the white emergency-exit lamps, he could see she’d blanched. “You did it. I can’t believe you did it.”

Hark walked over to Binda, who cowered like a fearful animal. He reached down and gently grabbed her, trying to avoid looking into eyes transformed into something monstrous. He had no idea what she was now, or what they intended with her. But it was all going to be over soon.

“Who’s the host, Krista?” he asked his sister, but she wouldn’t meet his eye.

40

Binda lay in his arms like a child. She didn’t fight. She didn’t try to slither out. Krista followed silently. Hark knew he was going to suffer an earful at some point. Her apparent grief for the in-V death of Celia Preston, graciously, earning him a bit of quiet at the moment.

He carried Binda down the flights of stairs until the darkened street, where he let her walk.
 

Fearful, she grasped Krista’s hand. When a shadow moved, Hark used his Blaster to level a path back toward the apartment he’d chosen. The sound was deafening, but acted like a warning. Once they found the other building, he led them up stairs, as if they were his prisoners. Still the V was whole, not a single sign its foundations were crumbling.

Once inside the apartment, he glared at the women. “Start looking for your parachutes. Both of you. And hurry.”

He stood over Binda while she cowered in the middle of the room, where broken picture frames littered the floor. Krista wandered to the far side and ran her finger along the edge of a wall shelf.
 

The world should have ended in an instant. Something was delaying it, but without a host, it should be done by now, and he wanted them both safe before it did.
 

He had studied Rend-V engineering enough to know Celia Preston was being taken from her stasis vat, her mind being prepped for cogno-therapy since its connection with the mind of her narrative self was gone. He, as well, as everyone else should be waking up with a dual self, two lives, two souls. Such a catastrophic event as a host dying in-V had always been an unpleasant possibility. All they had were a series of steps to evacuate as many of the important principals and immersed customers with insurance policies. That should be happening right now.
 

“Krista, why are we still here?” Hark said, biting down his frustration.
 

“Why, oh, why, Hark?”

They stood in a pocket of streetlight from automated lamps on battery power below the apartment windows. Both women stood at one end of the living room, before a hip-high case of books. Krista, under normal circumstances, would probably take a week to catalog them. Under any other circumstances, he’d sit with her and talk about each one.

Outside, the forlorn baying of what sounded like wolves rang from a few blocks away. In the distance, a horrific ululating wail responded as if something more than a wolf was coming.
 

“I’ve made a deal to keep all this alive,” Krista said. “That’s why we’re still here. If you’d have let me explain …”
 

She guided Binda to a seat in front of a corner desk holding a computer monitor. Binda sat like a docile child. Hark couldn’t stand the fact she hadn’t said a word. The girl who’d jumped into his arms and placed a kiss on his lips was long gone. At least in this narrative.
 

Krista said, “You have no idea what’s at stake in a Rend-V of this size, and you proved it when you shot the host. For ten years, I’ve been working to archive every piece of original written and visual artifice formed in this V, and other mundanes like it.” She edged closer to him, walking with confidence. “I couldn’t let you destroy it, and I knew telling you the details of the archive wouldn’t have mattered. Would it? It’s more than a library, Hark. It’s a repository of bleedover lore that can be used in the real world.”

“This is about your bleedover magic?”

She frowned at him. “See? That’s my point. You don’t get it. You never have. So much potential in that brain of yours, but you waste on … playing the hero. It’s more than that. It’s about understanding the truth of how these Vs are generated, where the tech comes from, and how to use it in the real world.”

Hark ignored her insults. He’d heard them before. Whenever things got truly heated between them, it came down to this. “Why are we still here, Krista?”

“Because the world’s not going to end, Hark. This V is fine. No insurance policies are being cashed in.”

“Bullshit.”

Magda, what do you have?

Nothing, sir. I’ve been scanning the real-world data feeds. There’s a continued increase in viewership, in fact. It seems your hopes for a denouement with the killing of Ervé and Celia have been premature.

Premature?

Hark felt a familiar sense that always came when he was at the center of things, as if all the eyes of the world were on him.

“What have you done, Krista?”

“You didn’t kill the host, Hark. Celia Preston was removed from the shrine and made a principal character yesterday. You’ve still scrambled her brains, though. I took her place, Hark. I’m the host.”

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“You are not.”

“I am.”

Hark stared at his older sister with such clarity he felt stupid denying it. Swapping herself for Celia was the very sort of thing she would do. She was a Spinner, a technowizard who used the Vs to generate the impossible in the real world. He had never challenged her over these radical practices because he’d never had a reason to. But now they had crossed paths, and he realized she was the one with true determination in the family. She had forced his hand. And damned Saul …

“The boy,” Hark said, barely able to get the words out of his mouth. His breath seemed to have left him. “Krista, what about Saul?”

Hark heard Binda stand. He considered turning his night-vision on, but he could see her clearly by the window. She no longer looked fearful.

“The boy’s not in transit anymore, Specialist Cole,” Binda said in another voice. Hark recognized Miesha Preston. It was the same lilting tone she’d used when she’d manipulated him into making the Promise. Binda was being used as a remote proxy. She walked over to a flat screen TV in an entertainment center. She flipped it on. “He’s back in-V, Hark, in a secure place.”

Hark saw the boy Saul asleep on what looked like a simple single bed. The covers were pulled up under his chin. He appeared to be sleeping soundly. At the foot of his bed stood an old woman, who appeared to be watching over him. But Hark could clearly see that the scene was depicted to reflect menace.
 

“Contract time,” Miesha said through Binda. “Let’s see how professional you really are.”

“Who’s the goddamn host of this Rend-V?”

Magda?

Working on that, sir.

Hark leveled his Blaster at Binda.

“I am!” Krista yelled.

Miesha used Binda to tap the TV, as if controlling the scene from afar. “I had wanted to play this out with a full season, maybe two, but since you … took matters into your own hands and removed Ervé, the boy dies now. One grand moment of crisis for our hero, Harken Cole. What will he do?”

Hark watched the old woman grin at the screen. He felt Magdalena put his brain into rapid ratiocination mode. He had to make a critical decision fast. If the boy died in-V, he’d experience a real death. That could harm him for life. If he were connected to a V he just immersed in and the host died, he would wake up with barely any cognitive disturbances at all. The longer you were in, the worse it was. Krista was in-V, but temporarily. If she died, she’d get scrubbed and be fine. The fact they were all still standing in the V meant Celia wasn’t the host.
 

Magda? I need info now on the host.

I’ve got nothing sir. It’s all hidden.

“Hark, Binda’s just a proxy,” Krista said.

“They either keep him here, or they send him back to
The Borderlands
. He doesn’t have a real body yet. He’s never been husked. He’s not a legal person yet.” The anguish of knowing in a month, the contract would be over and the boy would be of age to exit the constructed world in which he’d been born was too much for Hark.
So close
. “And if I don’t fulfill my end and wake the host … they harm him now or shut it down.”

“Hark, listen to me,” Krista said.

“Don’t do it, Miesha,” Hark said to Binda. “Give me a minute.”

Binda tapped the TV again, and the old crone paused—skeletal finger raised above the boy’s head like some serpent ready to strike. “You’re determined, as always?”

“I am.”

“Hark,” Krista said, “don’t listen to her. I’m the host. It’s over. You won’t shoot me. I know you won’t shoot me. You can’t do anything.”

Hark lowered his weapon, moving his eyes between the two women.
 

Binda moved like a lithe cat through the furniture of the living room. She paused a foot or two away, as if she might pull him into a slow dance. “Your sister is lying. You can tell, can’t you.”

Hark rarely saw desperation in Krista. But there it was: the strain that turned her face into a mask of anxiety. Even in the dark, he saw the pull in her scowl. “If you were the host, you know I wouldn’t shoot you.”