Virtually True (41 page)

Millimeters separate her finger from her thumb: almost OK. “It’s close, not perfect. Something I’ll have to work on when I patent the upgrade.”

“You said the plastic packaging spilled in solvent by accident. I know from covering terrorism that napalm can be made out of styrofoam soaked in kerosene. That’s what you dropped on Bong Bong from the clock tower.”

“I had to make sure you didn’t stray too far from the model. I was unlucky I was put in the position of having to save your life. The Rajput shouldn’t have called from the same phone bank twice; definitely shouldn’t have bought off-the-shelf technology next to the phone bank.”

True wonders what Eden finds more galling, the Rajput’s calling from the same phone bank or that she bought off-the-rack software. “Bong Bong heard you, which is why he went upstairs in the clock tower. How’d you get up there?”

Eden flexes, mocks him. “I climbed out of the window, used the clocks for footing. It was easy. Bong Bong didn’t check the roof. I only wished I could have seared that legless bitch.”

“You used me.”

She brushes this aside. “Everybody uses everybody. You’ve known for a while now, but you didn’t confront me because you needed my help.”

“I didn’t murder anyone.”

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead. Bong Bong, Sato, ADC would have iced you.”

“Why not kill me after I stole the chip from Sato?”

“You had to break the story. Much better coming from a TV journo than leaked to the press. It was imperative the leak wasn’t traced to ADC. Who the hell would have believed it anyway, especially with all the bad PR in the States over the trial?”

True has nothing to add. It started with Eden. It ends with Eden.

She says, “Don’t you want to see the computer model I made? See yourself, how well you played the game?” She gestures and four walls display thousands of cubed snapshots of True. A pyramid beginning with Aslam and True in 24-7, options branching from that conversation, True says yes to Aslam, True says maybe, True says no and storms out, True says no and stays, discusses it further. Hundreds of thousands of possibilities, the one True ultimately follows inked in red, leading to Aslam’s assassination outside 24-7. This leads to other options, the real earth choice marching on while others peel aside. True’s web of truth, possibilities, consequences.

Eden fast-forwards to his virtual reality trip, what occurred, what might have occurred, and True delving into Sato’s banks. She skips forward again, and True and Eden are arguing over whether he should be going out to check out the phone bank. The model indicates no preconceived paths for this choice. The word improvising fills the room seemingly a million times. Then the action is picked up during the clone/merc battle, True and Eden on the telelink, Maxi dying, True face down in his colleague’s sticky remains. Back to the apartment and True’s summations.

Then True and Eden in the here and now.

“What does this mean?” True hears himself, once, twice, a million times asking the same question.

“A meeting point. Each point leads to millions of alternatives. The wall monitors show the paths most likely to be pursued. You scored well, since you’re so logical, taking most of the broad boulevards.” Galaxies of Eden faces say the same things in precise time. “It’s the final level. Your future is up to you.”

“Up to now, free will has been an illusion.” True’s life’s unfolding as it’s happening. Disconcerting. Imagines he could, with one well-timed stroke, ruin Eden’s plans to superimpose her artificial universe on the real world. He sees the outcome of that via a monitor on the left hand side of the room. He’s breaking her neck but can’t bring himself to kill her. He’s dead soon after. That path is no good. Watches another as he and Eden go away together all forgiven, live their lives intertwined. He dies soon after. Guilt.

Options play out. By gaining Eden he loses himself. By losing Eden he still loses himself. He studies a series of empty images in the corner. What the computer model can’t predict. A window of opportunity? If only True knew how to blaze through it.

“All games come to an end. Your time will come, too.” Eden wraps her arms around him, nuzzles his ear. “I am on the cusp of great discoveries. I can invent almost perfect worlds. For us. Together.”

“The model says I’ll die.”

“Not if you accept me and it. I know we’ve had our glitches, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I want us to be together.”

“Accept you, as a god?”

“No.” She conducts symphonic air. “Like God.”

the final frames of Eden’s model, shanty orphans, tattered and violent, are busting down the door, instantly killing True and Eden. Inside reality, just True/Eden not dead yet fearful of the soon-to-be. Children’s shouts in the hall. Heavy knocks, heaves, the apartment door creaking, collapsing in, a teen pack wilding inside, here to ransack. An end-over-end glass splits True’s lip. He’s dazed, bleeding. Eden is carted away, screeching “True! True!”

In the doorway, Piña’s propped up on prosthetic legs. Shoulder-long hair frames a strong jaw, deep mustard eyes, ultra-high cheekbones. He never noticed them before. A designer dress hangs from her shoulders to her ankles, bruise-colored silk, strapless, formal, accentuating her muscley arms and tapering to her combat boots. Tattoos still there. Scars, too. Quintessential guerilla chic. Piña’s had a serious beauty makeover. She bends down, her equilibrium off kilter, unused to balancing on two feet. Rubs away True’s blood with her spit.

Pina’s bleached teeth, a supermodel’s surgical smile. “I told the motherfuckers I didn’t want you hurt. Better get your ass up. Come with me. These bastards are cra-a-azy.” She’s doused in lemon, rose, gardenia.

“With Piña?” His speech is slurred through swelling lips.

“With me.”

She takes his hand—she’s almost as tall as he is, now—and they help each other outside, through the mayhem. Piña shouts and a path is cleared, for even in anarchy Piña is Piña, a force of terror. Her arm is wrapped around True’s neck for balance, a life preserver in this sea of discontent. She leads him to her motorcycle, a street urchin guarding it, splayed on the seat, playing with the brakes.

Buildings are a-toast, the sky burnt charcoal. Shanty dwellers settle old scores and compose new ones, content to destroy what they can’t shoulder. Piña and True rev through the disenchanted throngs to her apartment. She hollers over her shoulder, “Just bought a new VR system. The best money can fucking buy. Runs all the hottest software. We won’t even have to go outside. Just us. And VR.”

Piña kisses him as they skid still and park by the door. He falls inside Piña’s home, she after.

And as the door shuts, True listens to the din from outside rush to silence.

THE END

About the Author

Adam L. Penenberg
is a journalism professor at New York University who has written for
Fast Company
,
Forbes
, the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
,
Wired
,
Slate
,
Playboy
, and the
Economist
. A former senior editor at
Forbes
and a reporter for Forbes.com, Penenberg garnered national attention in 1998 for unmasking serial fabricator Stephen Glass of the
New Republic
. Penenberg’s story was a watershed for online investigative journalism and portrayed in the film
Shattered Glass
(Steve Zahn plays Penenberg).

Penenberg has published several books that have been optioned for film and serialized in the
New York Times Magazine
,
Wired UK
, and the
Financial Times
, and won a Deadline Club Award for feature reporting for his
Fast Company
story “Revenge of the Nerds,” which looked at the future of movie-making. He has appeared on NBC’s
The
Today
Show
as well as on CNN and all the major news networks, and has been quoted about media and technology in the
Washington Post
, the
Christian Science Monitor
,
USA Today
,
Wired News
,
Ad Age
,
Marketwatch
,
Politico
, and many others.

Wayzgoose Press is proud to present Adam’s novel
Trial & Terror
, available on Amazon:

The good news was, Public Defender Summer Neuwirth just won her first case.

The bad news was, her defendant might have been guilty.

And what’s more, he seems to know something important about Summer’s past.

As Summer battles her next case, this time to keep a woman she knows is innocent off death row, elements of that past—a mysterious case of childhood amnesia, her police officer father’s involvement with a serial killer, a terrifying attack she sustained just a few years prior—entwine with her present legal work, her missing mother, and her rocky relationship with a private investigator to culminate in a thrilling trial… and terror.