A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL
A NaNoWriMo Challenge (Chapter 27)
27
There was a sensor beeping somewhere in the distance and Alison came on to tell me there were two sentient beings claiming to be with the local chapter of the AP. Sentient beings? I thought to myself as Sandy came out of the back room, her short, blond hair still wet from the thermadose. She was wearing my shirt, and little else. She stretched up to kiss my cheek, giggling.
I looked down at her; curious, but expectant.
“Do you want me to talk to them?”
She’s laughing of course, and I smile at her, shaking my head.
“Before, or after, you get dressed?” I ask, walking out to the chute to greet my guests. The enamel wall slides down as I approach and the door to the tube opens and closes with a hiss, sealing me in. A small, white, sterile room, cylindrical in shape, and fully telescopic, it takes me anywhere in the apartment I tell it to. Alison takes the time to tell me she’s been honing her programming of late, and I’m forced to hang on to one of the handles while she releases the airlocks, bringing the tube into a stop so that I can meet my guests at the exact moment the entry chute opens. She likes to play games like that; I never know if she’s testing my limits, or her own.
It doesn’t matter how advanced as a society we become, I tell myself, you still have to meet the AP in person.
The name Authorized Personnel pretty well sums it up, doesn’t it? They can go wherever they want, do whatever they want, and answer to no one. Well, they answer to someone, but no one you’ll ever meet in your lifetime. And why would you want to? Even so, it’s good to remember it’s never in your best interest to avoid the AP.
While I’m in the tube, I ask Alison if the guests are treated the same.
“Of course not, Steve. That would show a lack of respect,” she says.
The irony isn’t misplaced.
“At least we agree on that,” I reply, but at the same time I’m asking myself if that’s supposed to be a playful tone in her voice.
The door of the tube I’m in slides open just as the two AP Directors step out of the entry chute. I can hear the pneumatics still hissing as the entry chute comes to a stop and the doors close behind them. The first AP is a tall male, with dark hair and grey eyes that have a feral light to them that is striking. The first thing I think seeing him is that he looks familiar. He steps out extending a hand and smiling at the same time. Not what I was expecting with everything I know about the APs.
“Jared,” he says, by way of introducing himself. “You know me from your game?”
“My game?” I wasn’t expecting that either, and I think he must’ve seen the confusion on my face.
“The Age of Cataclysm?” he reminds me.
“I know you from my game?” I said, taken by surprise. I wasn’t going to lie to him and say I remembered him. But he did look familiar. The woman beside him looks even more familiar, and I’m afraid I stared at her for a moment too long. I lead them into tube, the door slides closed, and in a moment we’re in the house, the ride as smooth as it’s ever been. The door closes behind us and the wall slides back into place, its glossy finish fitting into place with seamless precision.
“I keep getting killed off,” Jared says, following me into the room. “Twice so far,” he adds, and then I remember him.
“Jarel?” I laughed, and he grins when he realizes I remember him. Admittedly, our meetings have been brief, but I wondered why he wasn’t made a Time Guide while he was in the game—which I’m sure is where I remembered the woman from.
“This is Jen,” he says, and then adds: “Maybe you know her better?”
“She looks more familiar than you do,” I say, looking at Sandy as she comes into the room, dressed and looking amazing. She was dressed in the height of fashion, with her left breast exposed, the nipple capped off with a golden pectoral. The dress shimmered in the light. It was created with nano-tech, of course. She stood beside me with pursed lips; it was obvious she was trying to remember her. It only took her a moment.
The woman had serious, short, red hair. Everything about her looked familiar, and I smiled as I shook her hand, which was deceptively firm.
“Alison, would you send in refreshments?” I said, pointing to two chairs.
“Of course, Steve. It would be the polite thing to do,” Alison replied, sounding soft and seductive.
“I’m glad to see we agree.”
Jen and Jared were discussing something between themselves, but standing behind me, whispering, and even though I tried not to listen, I couldn’t stop myself. Nothing I can hear between them makes any sense to me, though, and I think to myself, how typical. The refreshments are brought in and I was never so grateful to taste a martini at 11:00 am, than I was at that moment.
I look at Sandy beside me and smile, raising my glass to her in a mock toast.
“Can we ask you how much you remember about the Game you were in?” Jen asked.
“The Age of Cataclysm? Yes. You were both in it, weren’t you?” I asked.
I wonder if maybe I sound condescending. It’s the last thing I want them to think I am, and then tell myself I’m just being paranoid. I’ve done nothing wrong except to ask them a question.
“We know that it takes time to remember things—to sort through things and figure events out—so we wanted to give you some time,” Jared says.
“I appreciate that—we appreciate it,” I said, “but what does the game we’re playing, have to do with an investigation by the AP?”
“Perhaps you saw the holo about the latest murder?”
“I saw it. I know the one you mean,” Sandy says, taking her OJ and sitting on the couch, tucking her feet under her. “Nasty business, that,” she says, posing and waiting. There’s a sudden flash and both APs jump. Startled.
“Sorry,” I said, “she has Alison programmed to snap a picture whenever she sits down in a new outfit.”
“We were going to go out to the country,” she explained.
“We’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” Jen said.
“Yes, well, we’re trying to track every lead,” Jared said with some hesitation.
“Then why come to us?” I ask, sitting down beside Sandy.
Alison snaps another picture.
“We believe this person is coming through a VR feed. We think that’s how he finds his victims. He piggy-backs his way into a game, any game. Then he finds out who’s playing the game, and stalks that person in the real world before he kills them.”
“That’s horrible,” Sandy said.
“The horrible part,” Jen said, “is that they can’t fully die, and so they slip into a coma.”
“What do you mean, they can’t?” I said.
“Only when he kills them in the game, do they die for real.”
“And you think whoever this person is, hitched a ride into the game on our signal? I mean, that’s it when you take all the techno chic out of it, right?”
“He used our signal to get into the game?” Sandy asked. She looked like she was having a hard time accepting it.
“We think that’s the way he’s doing it,” Jared said.
“How many has he killed?” she asked
“Six,” Jen says.
“Six? How many of them were in our timeline?”
“Six,” she replies.
“I don’t believe that,” I said.
“Why not?” Jared asks.
“Because we haven’t met anyone in the game, outside of the game—other than you two. In fact, the only time I’ve met you, is to see you die,” I said, and Jared tried to hide a smile.
“I’m not very good at the game.”
“There was one other. Jimmy, I think,” and turned to look at Sandy. “You brought him in, I think.” I looked at Jen, finally realizing where I knew her. “Yeah, it was you that brought him. Is that who you’re looking for?”
She nodded.
“I don’t understand,” Sandy said. “Why did you bring him into our game?”
“I didn’t. I was bringing him in for questioning. We thought the only way we were going to catch up to him, was through the VR he was using. He’s been known to hitch up with new recruits. I had him in custody when something happened. I don’t know what, but it threw everything off.”
“The SID over at Elite told us there was a glitch, so they gave us another week, free,” I said.
“A glitch? What kind of a glitch does a machine like that get?” she said, shaking her head. “No. He programmed the glitch so he could escape. We don’t know his digitals outside of the game.”
“So you don’t know who he is outside of the game?”
“I guess that’s the kind of glitch that’s going to happen when someone hitches onto your signal,” Sandy said, smiling.
“Isn’t it, though?” Jen said, levelling a look at her.
“I don’t remember too much about being where we were. Steve remembers more than I do, but that’s because he had…” she turns and looks at me. “This is her?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” I said.
“She’s the one you were travelling through the wilderness with? Her? With her tits out?” She looks at Jen and smiles. “And those are nice tits, by the way.”
“Am I supposed to say thank you?” she said.
“Doesn’t matter. I said it, it’s out there,” Sandy laughed.
I smiled, not knowing what else to do.
“He’s a Time Guide, isn’t he?” Sandy said softly. We all look at her, and she looks up, smiling. “It has to be.”
“Why?” Jared asks.
“It’s what the SID at the kiosk said they call people who beat the game. That means they never died once while they were playing. They were able to stay alive and regenerate.”
“Wait a second. Regenerate? You can do that?” Jared asks her.
“How do you think Steve was able to stay alive?” Sandy asks with a shrug.
“How come you didn’t tell me about that?” he asks Jen.
“We thought you might like to try the game in real time,” she said, trying to hide behind her smile.
“Who thought that up? Pardy?”
“This isn’t the time, or the place,” she said, and turned back to look at us. “Sorry. A little office humour, at his expense. But you’re right, Time Guides are people that’ve beaten the game. Why do you think it’s one of them? That’s what I am.”
“You beat the game? I mean, legit? That’s what that means, right? That you beat the game?”
“Yes.”
“And you already knew what happened?” Sandy said.
“They told us it was a glitch,” Jared said. “After we lost him. They apologized; they offered us my game time.”
“The SID at Elite said Time Guides can enter the game anytime they want,” Sandy said.
“And they can leave, too,” I add.
Jared said. “Why does he enter the game to choose his victims?”
“A lot of people do it from their homes. We were going to, but the SID suggested we come in first, to be monitored. They have all sorts of extra goodies they give you when you stay in the kiosk,” I said.
“Goodies? What kind of goodies?” Jared asked, looking at Jen again.
She smiled, and tried not to laugh..
“I suppose you got the goodies, too?” he asked her.
“Did you tell them you didn’t want the goodie bags?” I asked, smiling.
“Bags? You mean there’s more than one? I didn’t tell them I didn’t want the goodie bags. No. It was Pardy, wasn’t it? Bastard kept everything for himself.”
“You get a bag as long as you don’t die in the game,” Sandy smiled.
“ ‘SORRY, YOU DIED,’ ” Jen smiled. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at me and trying not to laugh.
“I apologize,” Jared said, looking at us both. “We’re supposed to be conducting ourselves in a professional manner, and I let an office prank get the better of me.”
“That’s alright,” I said. “It puts a different light on the AP as far as I’m concerned.”
“Time Guides?” Jen asked. “Why?”
“Yes,” Sandy said. “We were going to take the game home, but like Steve said, the SID suggested we buy the Elite program first. The Exclusive. You get pampered. I guess we already know only one of you stayed at the kiosk. Did you do it at home?” she asked Jared.
“We did it at the station, in a controlled environment.”
“What did you think you were going to find?” I ask.
“No,” Sandy says slowly. “Why our game? That’s what I want to know.”
“We told you, he finds new recruits and piggybacks his way in.”
“How many has he killed?” she said.
“So far? We’ve found six bodies,” Jen said.
“Yeah, you said that. How were they killed?” I asked.
“You know we can’t tell you that,” Jen says.
“Well, were they all killed the same way?” I tried.
“Was it a laser?” Sandy asked, and I shifted myself to look at her.
Alison snapped another picture.
“Why do you think that?” Jen asked, looking at her for a moment too long, I thought.
“It was something I saw. You were there,” she said to Jen. “I remember. You’d already died,” she said to Jared.
“Of course,” he said.
“I do remember,” Sandy said. “There was a glitch of some sort. We were both in the heads of the two others we met. Whit and his wife—”
“But I thought we were Whit and his wife?” I said.
“The Time Guide had come into the game to help us,” she said to me, as if reminding me, and I nodded.
“Jimmy,” I said.
“He never said there was a problem; I remember that much. He never said anything about being in a game. It was so real. It was after, that’s when we found out there was a glitch. The SID told us—that’s why it offered us another week for free,” Sandy said.
“That’s why I never thought twice about it,” I admitted.
“Yes, Jimmy,” Jen says. “He’s the one we’re looking for.”
“What do you mean? He was with you; I remember that,” I said. “That was the first night we were in the game. We got separated because of the glitch, and Jimmy brought us all back. He fixed the glitch from inside the game.”
“He said he was your brother,” Sandy said to me, and I nodded.
“Do you know who he is?” I asked, looking at Jen.
“I think it shouldn’t be too hard to find out who’s won the game? It can’t be a big list,” Jared said.
I enjoy standing out on the veranda, looking out at the city where it spreads out below me; the lights drifting out toward the horizon. It’s nice living on the forty-third floor. You can still see the sunset, for one thing. The veranda is enclosed because the temperature’s a little cooler up here. Alison keeps the temperature set at a comfortable 22 celsius. There are a couple of louvres up near the top that are partially open, allowing the air to circulate. The windows tint during the day. Nano-tech, again. It’s everywhere.
Sandy comes out to join me on the veranda, tucking her legs under herself and asking Alison for a cup of coffee. It only takes a moment to brew it and have the service-bot bring it out. She sits, sipping her cup, her hands wrapped around the mug and blowing on it between sips. She’s watching the sun set over the Vandals. The colours are brilliant. The sun reflects off the windows around us, and the windows reflect the light back like diamonds.
“I found out why those two APs showed up today,” she says between sips.
“Oh?” I turn to face her, my hands behind my back. “And that would be…?”
“They found a pregnant woman last night.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was in a drainage ditch.”
“Is that supposed to mean something? Does it mean anything to you?”
“It should mean everything to us,” she said, looking up at me.
“Why?”
“Because we’re still playing the same game, right?”
“Of course we are,” I said.
“What’s that girl’s name? The pregnant one? She was the wife of the hunter guy.”
“Whit! But I thought when we started, that was me. I remember being him. And you were my wife. Everything went for a shit with that glitch, though. Didn’t we change timelines?”
She sat up. A small, knee-high, tubular pedestal came up out of the floor for her to put her coffee on.
“We did,” she said in a slow voice. “But we went back into being the Garbage Man and the Cop, thinking we’d Time Traveled. Remember? That girl? Whit’s wife,” I said, trying to remember her name. That’s the part that’s annoying, the not remembering.
“His pregnant wife,” she reminded me.
“I’m pretty sure she didn’t die in the last game,” I said.
“She did.”
“What do you mean? When? I don’t remember that.”
“That’s because I never told you.”
“How’d she die?”
“Remember when we went home after that first night and you asked me how I liked it? I said it was a little different from what I’d expected.”
“Yeah, not exactly the ringing endorsement you want to hear after spending three million credits.”
“When they do those initial tests on you, they look into your background.”
“And? So? We’ve got nothing to hide.”
“You don’t,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The memory they gave me when his wife was taken by the Slavers? Remember that part? When we were separated because of that glitch? You were the Garbage Man and I was the Cop? Only instead of being Whit and his wife, we were in their heads.”
“Yeah, I was with her, Whit, and her brother—that AP guy—”
“Jared,” she smiled.
“Yeah, him. Jarel, I think?”
“But he died. And he died twice. When they fixed the glitch, Whit died. And then the girl.”
“You never told me she died,” I said.
“Because the scenario they gave me, was her being raped.”
“What! Why would they do that!” I exploded. “I’m going to demand my credits back—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
“I hardly think that’s being ridiculous.”
“My point is—and I do have one—that this Time Guide is piggy-backing off of our game. That means, he’s in control of our game. But I know what I saw now—when we met him the last time. When he saved us from the glitch.”
“What?”
“I saw him kill Whit. Does that make me some kind of a witness? If those two APs are right, and he has to kill him in the game, because he’s already killed him in real time, what does that mean about the woman they found?”
“You think she’s Whit’s wife?”
“I do.”
“She not dead here, though. Remember? They said his victims fall into a coma. They can’t die because a part of them is still inside the game. And since we were in the kiosk, I’m thinking he somehow spliced into our game to access the other players. That’s when he kills them; while they play the game at home.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“Do you?” she asked.