Virtually True

  A boiling hypothesis. “So you can’t risk killing me just yet.”

  “Not yet. But I believe we can reach a mutually beneficial agreement.”

  “If I give you the chip and let you plant another chip, I assume a red herring, you’ll let me free?”

  “No. The deal is you let me replace this chip with one that will destroy my competitors.”

  “What do I get?”

  “A few extra months among the living, although it would depend on how soon they locate you. I won’t interfere. It benefits me to make it appear that you cracked my data defense. The more difficult you make it for them to catch you, the more they will believe nothing is amiss.”

  True’s been marked since before fleeing Luzonia, has been doing somebody else’s bidding, perhaps living out the computer profile Aslam alluded to. Was Aslam also set up by Sato?

  “I’m offering you a chance for survival, such as it is.” Sato calls in on his ring transmitter. “I’m paging my number one technical assistant.” He motions for True to join him inside. “Let’s leave the sun. It’s hot today, and I don’t like cancer treatments.”

  True’s eyes scramble to adapt to the darker room. “How do I know you won’t smoke me the second you get the chip?”

  “You don’t. But as I explained, you will be working for me.”

  “Like Odessa. What’s to stop me from warning your enemies?”

  “One of my subsidiaries markets a drug for torture victims to help them put negative experiences behind them. Most conveniently for me, you will forget any of this happened.”

  “Have I ever had this drug before?” True searches his memory. So many pieces are missing. Is it VR that stripped them from his mind, or has he been used like this before?

  Sato stretches out on Hot’s bed, keeping an oblique eye on True. “If you’d had this drug, you wouldn’t remember. And you won’t remember. So there is no reason to tell you.”

  True sits on the corner of the bed. “In Old China, before the place shattered into a dozen ethnic enclaves, there used to be these farmers markets. You could get almost anything you wanted. Vegetables, spices, clothes hangers, abortion pills, meat, books, computer software. One grand bazaar. I went there once and saw these puppies and cats in cages. I know how they feel about being caged. It’s awful not having control over your life.”

  Sato clasps his hands behind his head. But he’s listening.

  True continues. “I decided to save at least one of these animals from a life in a cage. Who knew when someone would buy one? I bargained. The lady was ancient, a century old. It took a while, but we agreed on a price. When I handed her the money, in the days when cash was still common, she took the puppy out of the cage. I could only watch as she broke its neck. She thought I was buying dinner.”

  The doorbell gongs. Sato stands. “We’ll have to discuss your psychological problems later.”

  A few moments of pressed silence, and True hears stirring outside the door. When he sees who’s there, his heart clutches. But before he can panic, Sato flashes behind him and butterfly-wings his arms back. For greater leverage, he plants a shoe in his spine. When he pulls there’s a sickening crunch. Scalding pain from within his bones. True tries to collapse in agony, but Sato props him up. The pain almost drives True from sanity.

  “He’s giving us the chip.” Sato’s voice, calm and metallic.

  Eden produces a scaly knife, holds it to True’s eye, but instead of blinding him digs the knife tip into his temple, twisting the blade. Blood pouring out of him, onto his shoes, the floor. She holds the chip up to the light, and True sees halogen beams glint off the blood and diamond-bright silicone. Sato tosses True to the floor. True, his arms broken and shoulders separated, stays in a heap, tormented by pain and betrayal, watching helplessly as Eden licks blood off the chip and analyzes its construction.

  “He’s all yours.” Sato takes the chip. Leaves True alone with his wife.

  Without a word Eden is standing over him, flops him over on his back. The broken bones hit floor. Needling fire. Torment. She stretches her body on top of his, kisses him deeply, her lips spongy soft. “I love you, True. But love isn’t the only thing.” She bolts upright and comes down with the knife. Stabs him in the chest. True barely feels the impact but sees screaming white. Cut. Stab. A burning sensation when Eden reaches into his chest to remove his heart. Holds it up and tosses it aside.

  True’s slipping away and the last voice he hears, would ever hear, belongs not to Eden or Sato; not to Aslam, Reiner, or even Rush.

  But to Piña. “Holy fuck! Oh shit. Oh shit. What the hell is this?”

  This is so unfair, True thinks, sliding toward hell and all stops between.

  PART THREE

  VIRTUALLY TRUE

  CHAPTER 19

  True’s in a netherland of consciousness, no landmarks to help measure the hours that fritter life away. How long, he wonders, has he been staring at the psychotropic pattern beamed overhead? It whirls, turns in and folds out on itself, like origami, or a 3-D rose in time-elapse, shooting from bud to bloom. Brilliant shades: red, orange, purple, flow into flecks of gold. Mes. Mer. Ized. Happy-happy-relaxation. Happy-happy-love-yourself. Happy-happy-self-esteem. Happy-happy-relaxation. It’s not important where he is or why he’s here.

  He blinks brittle eyes, manages to regrasp his gaze. He’s in bed. A hospital room. Ecru walls, a bare floor, nothing except a bedside table. Trouble focusing on objects only steps away. Paranoia rips through. He must be in Japan. Envisions racing to the door, running down the hall, outside, where he’ll have to stay on the run. Escape from Sato and his salary samurai, hide from his corporate ninjas, fly away, far away from Eden who betrayed him again—left him lonesome to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Why isn’t he dead? He remembers Sato wishboning his arms, cracking them into gravel. Eden crushing his heart. The torment is too great. He wants to run, hide, cry, and be loved, all at once.

  Most of all, he wants to know why he’s alive.

  True’s eyes are back on the swirls, and paranoia is supplanted by euphoric tingling. Wrenching free means terror’s return. Is he being brainwashed? Dosed on the drug Sato claimed would make him forget? But how could True remember something he’s sure to have forgotten? Something else tugs at him. This psychotropic personality enhancing pattern is one he’s experienced before, back when his virtual reality addiction crashed his mind. The same 12-step psychotropia therapy course. And although these patterns accomplish in a few minutes a day what takes psychiatrists years, True detests them. They certainly didn’t prepare him for life out of VR’s fold.

  It’s part of the new psychology. Hypnotic suggestion via broadcast patterns, an extension of the media-plagued world he knows he contributes to as a journalist. An FDA-approved method of public brainwashing. He closes his eyes to block temptation. Last time in test-band therapy, his appetite increased and test-taking skills improved while his need for FREEze and VR vanished; all welcome changes, he has to admit. But there was a downside. His savings went pffffft as his need for things material rocketed. Suddenly he hankered for a sports car, manufactured by an American corp in an Asian McLand, cutting-edge music techiae, and the latest in apartment furnishings. Step 12, Social Interaction/Romance pushed True into video-dating, requiring a whole new (expensive) wardrobe, available from participating online catalogs. He curses his corporate-sponsored health coverage. Luckily the psychotropic effects wore off when his insurance ran out.

  And a handy bonus: If True agreed to change sexual orientation, he’d receive free psychotropic test pattern software upgrades for life. Standard governmental policy across North America, Europe, and Asia, a means to muffle the population explosion. But True doesn’t wish for this, clinging to the belief that someday, somehow, he and Eden would be together again.

  Instead? He touches his temple. Scarless skin. Was the chip really extracted? And why are his arms and shoulders pain-free? He eye-contacts the pattern again, but struggling to a sittin
g position busts him free. Checks his body—no injuries. There’s a water pitcher on his bed table, next to a dusty glass. As he reaches for it, a door splays open. True drops the pitcher, which clatters. Through his haze, he recognizes a familiar silhouette. His throat spasms.

  “Ailey! You need a doctor, or are you just being dramatic?” Rush drops True’s wrist-top on the table. Not the one Reiner gave him. His, the one destroyed on the plane with the Japanese boy. True knows it’s his. The same scratches, battle scars. Personalized objects always feel that way.

  True waves him off. “No.”

  Rush puts the pitcher on the nightstand and looks at the screen. “Ohhhhh, the happy psychotropic test pattern. I know that one.”

  “Turn it off.”

  “What?”

  “The psychotropia. Turn it off.”

  “You sure? From what the docs say, maybe we should jack your ass into this permanently.”

  “Turn the damned thing off.”

  Rush shrugs, flicks a switch at the foot of the bed, and the pattern is sucked into white. True’s enraged at himself. He fell back into his virtual reality nightmares and couldn’t get out. What else accounts for the fact that Rush is alive, more alive than True, and his old wrist-top sits a foot away?

  Rush, spooked. “You don’t know what the hell’s going on?”

  “No.”

  He sits on the edge of True’s bed; his body with its multiple plastic installments, liposuction, hormones, and muscle grafts, is stiff, unyielding. True prepares for worse than worst.

  “You fucked up, Ailey. One minute you’re working on a story for me, the next I can’t find you. I give you a few days, figure you’re digging something up. Next thing I know you’re here. The docs say some no-legged black market woman found you rolling in your own shit.”

  True’s face sunburnt by shame.

  Rush clicks his tongue. “You were practically dead. At first, I thought you picked up the plague that’s going around. But turns out it was a virtual overdose. Your death certificate would have read you died from dehydration. I’d write your obit, say you OD-ed on entertainment.”

  “How long?”

  “In VR? Fuck if I know. The network brass in New York told me you’d been cured.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Nerula’s psycho hospice.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a wing in the National Hospital. Only those with private insurance plans get in. You’re lucky our corp’s generous. If it were up to me, I’d yank your coverage. Already you’ve raised premiums for everyone else. I wouldn’t even give you back your wrist-top, but the legal department informed me we’re contractually obligated to. By the way. You have to verbalize receipt.”

  After Rush confirms True’s DNA, True’s officially re-tendered his wrist-top. “What was I doing for you last?”

  “Last time we talked, I called to tell you to get your ass over to my place.”

  “Why?”

  “So I could fire you.”

  “For … ?”

  “Hanging out with an enemy of the state, getting me in hot water when he croaked. You’re supposed to cover news, not make it.”

  True blinks. Minuscule gray, black, and green dots spread, then coalesce.

  “Now, because you’re under treatment again, I can’t fire you. They say this thing you have for virtual reality is a disease, like drug abuse or alcoholism or schizophrenia. Personally, I think you just have a weak character.”

  True closes his eyes, sees nothing but the maroon of backlit eyelids. No dots, no nightmare. A good sign. Opens his eyes again. Rush is still there. Another good sign. Kind of.

  “I’m not the only one who questions your character,” Rush says. “The chief of police contacted me. Bong Bong claims you owe him something.”

  “Don’t pay Bong Bong. His info was useless. Besides, you give in now to him, you’ll be paying him the rest of—”

  “You are in no position to offer advice, VR man.” Rush clutches his stomach. Grimaces. Then, “WWTV’s lined up your old shrink.”

  “Oh, god. Dr. Powter.”

  “Yup. Dr. Powter. It’s a shame.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “I don’t mean about your shrink. I mean because I had, like, the greatest idea for a story. Our ratings would’ve kissed ozone. But … ” Rush lets silence snowfall.

  True’s curious, despite himself. “What story?”

  Rush shifts near. “You weren’t here last year, but you’ve heard of the annual Urban Survival Tournament?”

  “Sure. A race through Nerula’s worst slums. Idiots from around the world come here to die. You go in with only the clothes on your back and are left to the mercy of shanty folk, who aren’t known for displaying mercy. So?”

  “You know how we cover it?”

  “All the networks get together and chip in for the cost of a hovercraft, then share the footage.”

  “They used to give some of the contestants wrist-tops to feed live pics back, but they outlawed computer assistance when people cheated.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I wanted to hire our own hovercraft. A WWTV exclusive.”

  “Exclusive what? All the footage is the same. Contestants run, they get shot, stabbed, raped, their clothes ripped off their backs, and the hover-cam captures it for posterity.”

  “With our own hovercraft, I could record your experiences. None of the other networks would have that personal angle. Why, we’d rake in the ratings.” Rush’s excitement ebbs. “But you’re not going anywhere. And when you do, it’s strictly stateside.”

  “Too bad.” True looks at Rush like he’s the sick one.

  “Of course, if you run the race next week, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll recommend you get one more chance here. Otherwise, you go back to New York. And you know they’ll fire you just as soon your treatment’s up.”

  “The choice between corporeal death and career death? Is this why you dropped by?”

  Rush’s eyes glance off his hands, which are caressing his belly. “I had to come down anyway. I got some stomach ailment action, bilharzia—something else, too, docs say. Figured since I was here, I’d drop my idea off with you. It’s in your hands.”

  True spirals toward sleep. He hears Rush’s words cut through his inner dark: “Soon as they can, they’ll get rid of you. Work with me. At least you get another chance.”

  Under a quilt of guilt, True sleeps. Aslam’s face, older, with crow’s feet, crackling skin, peers up at him, asks what he’s going to do about his murder. True wonders about the earthquake and the capital staying Tokyo, Sato scarfing up land, and the microchip he would have killed for.

  “What chip, Ailey?” Rush still at the foot of True’s bed. “What the hell are you talking about? And you really think the Japanese are going to keep their capital on a bed of rubble?”

  “How long was I out?”

  Rush scoffs. “Out? You’re way the fuck out. But you closed your eyes for about a second.”

  “You read my mind?”

  “I listened to your words.”

  Letters melt down the walls. True strains to read them. Rush flickers in and out. A spider web unfolds and True studies the filaments that wind through the maze. Random letters sit in rows. Don’t make sense. A message there, maybe, but he can’t decipher it.

  Rush is gone. There are the psychotropic test patterns, and again True’s not sure whether he’s slept or not. He does know one thing. You can’t control time. Like Reiner, who in his imagined world was unable to stem aging tides; and himself, who experienced virtual weeks in real days, time clicks along. All you can do is ride the wave. But don’t try to control it.

  He struggles to right himself. He must turn off this psycho-cleanser. Like his need to get high with Reiner that imagined time in her apartment. Couldn’t turn it down. The only time he feels good is when the test pattern pulls him into its vortex, strengthening his feelings for himself. But it�
�s as fake as his imagined trip over the last couple of days. At least, he thinks it was a couple of days. Maybe it’s been a week, a year, a lifetime since Rush left. True checks his wrist-top for the date, but gets sidetracked. This psychotropia has to end.

  True lunges for the foot of his bed, reaches underneath for the off switch. Jabs at the button. Nothing. Artificial happiness smiles on. True realizes the switch is programmed to reject his fingerprints. Anybody else can turn it on and off, but he—the patient—can’t. He falls back to the bed, lets his eyes get sucked into the pattern. Let someone else run his life for a while.

  The test pattern dissolves, replaced by a familiar face. “Hello, True. I’m glad you’ve decided to accept me. Ready for another session?”

  “Dr. Powter.” True studies the gray stubble prickling a pudgy face. True hasn’t met him in the real but imagines that a cannibal would find he tastes medicine-y. “It’s been a long time, more than a year.”

  “A few hours, True. Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  “Good. You’re getting better.”

  “How so?”

  “Because the issues we dealt with were extremely unpleasant for you. That imagined electronic expedition you took illustrates many of the problems you are having in your life. For example, imagining that your wife embraced lesbianism tells me you are angry with her for leaving you. The assassination of your colleague with the same type of device that did in reality kill your friend, Mr. Aziz, is probably your way of dealing with the lack of justice in the world. You do not care for your colleague, Rush Gelding, do you?”

  “No.”

  “There is a chasm between—” Powter stops short. “Hold on. I have another call.” The screen stalls, cluttered with special offers for psychotropic software. Buy three, get a free therapy session with internationally recognized Ph.D. Dr. Christopher Powter, best-selling author of Simply Getting Better. What a quack, True thinks. Powter comes back. “I am sorry about that. Now, where were we?”