Troubleshooter

by R.K. Nickel

I step out of the one-seat autocar, debating whether I’m more annoyed by the ungodly hour or the opulence of the neighborhood. I settle on the opulence. Hell, a quarter-acre per lot? People would kill for that much space. People do kill for that much space.

The house that looms before me boasts floor-to-ceiling tremorglass--beautiful as hell, but nearly impossible to crack. They even have a pool.

Place’d feel a lot more welcoming without the holographic yellow police tape shimmering across the gate.

“Ya seeing this?” I say to Trap. Well, not say, exactly. Trap’s my Comp, an A.I. that can communicate via Direct Thought by way of an implant in the back of my neck.

“I see it,” Trap DTs, sending the thought straight into my mind. “And it makes me wonder, how come we don’t have a place like this?”

“You’re the one who always reminds me about my dwindling bank account,” I DT back to him.

“And you’re the one who fails to fill it back up, thus preventing me from living in the style I so truly deserve.”

As he says this, Trap flickers right through my car and steps up beside me. Annoying bastard likes to project himself into my field of view, really make use of my augmented reality contact lenses that always itch like crazy. Today he’s made himself look like a robot version of Sherlock Holmes, that funny old hat resting on a metal faceplate, imaginary pipe in hand. Cute.

Lieutenant Go meets me at the front door, takes a quick look at the pair of us, and nods. “Trap, Zain,” she says--she’s a believer in the less-is-more line of thinking. And she’s patched into my A.R. feed, so she can see Trap just fine. “Come on.”

The bed must cost more than I make in a year. One of those regen mattresses that shoots nearly-microscopic needles into you while you sleep--supposedly helps sooth and maintain muscles, but I’m pretty sure their only real function is to drain your bank account.

Oh, and there’s the body. A pale kid, mid-twenties, gaunt to the point of malnourishment. As far as I can see, he’s unharmed, but a spatter of blood paints the floor beside him and leads around the bed. There, a gray-haired woman who’s clearly had too many grafts and tucks lies slumped against the wall, butchered.

Her splayed-meat wound gapes open, giving me a clear view straight into her left lung. You see enough of this shit and it stops phasing you. Mostly.

“What do you think?” asks Trap.

“Don’t think much, yet,” I reply.

“I think she got stabbed,” says Trap.

“Tell me again why I bring you along?”

“Because you have no say in the matter.” Trap leans down with me. “You’d think one day stabbings would go out of style, but humans are admittedly slow to evolve.”

I clock the wound--just one long slice in her dark abdomen, probably fifteen centimeters of parted flesh. At the top, the hole widens. Whoever did this twisted the blade.

“Trap, you mind checking her Susan?”

“Sure thing, partner.” Trap’s eyes flicker as he communicates with the Department of Technological Defense’s main database.

Everyone on the planet has a file. Every site you visit, every camera you step in front of, it’s all logged under your Social Security Number, aka your SSN. We call ’em Susans.

“Reyana Gcobani. No flags. Jobless, lived on monthly Vitcur checks.”

“It’s not the old woman I’m worried about,” says Go, finally chiming in. “Check the kid.”

I take another look at him, push up his sleeve. Thin bands of black-blue metal criss-cross the kid’s skin, marking him as an Unraveler. Hacker types who’ve gotten too inflated for their own good, they’re led by the kind of mysterious mob boss everybody expects to be some sort of A.I. but is probably just a talented, sociopathic asshole.

“Susan might take a while,” says Trap, “Hidden behind standard Unravel walls.”

Of course it is.

Strange. There’s not a mark on him. No sign of a struggle.

“Cause of death?” I ask.

“If I knew the cause of death, you think I’d drag your sorry ass out here?” Go fires back. She’s got a point.

When the CalSouth PD calls me in, it’s usually because there’s overt signs of magic. Spontaneous combustion, skin the strength of steel, that sort of thing. Not that any of them believe it is magic. Sure, Go has some idea, but usually the line of thinking is just--things are fucked, call the Troubleshooter.

Oh, right. I don’t tell a lot of people this because mostly they look at me like I’m crazy, but I’m a Troubleshooter, and Troubleshooters, well, we’re basically sorcerers.

I hold out my hand. A thin, black, carbon-fiber gauntlet reinforces my left forearm, leaving the top halves of my fingers free. Not only can it stop a bullet, but more importantly, it acts as a focus for my less destructive spells.

Plus, it looks cool. Pairs nicely with the long burgundy coat my ex gave me because “it hides the blood.”

My ex…

She flashes into my mind, but that’s a road I refuse to go down, so instead I just mutter “techscan.”

As I speak, I focus, pouring a dram of energy into the spell.

It takes power to do magic, because all Tech takes power. Every algorithm, every script, every keystroke. You think your Comp runs on dreams and fairy dust? We may have come a long way, but nobody’s ever gonna be able to get one over on entropy. You want to run some lines of code on a processor, you need a battery.

And when it comes to magic, you are the battery.

The verbal part, that’s just a macro, a trigger word to tell Trap to run one of the hacks I’d spent so long perfecting. You see, nobody can interface with the Core directly. Too many failsafes, all in place to prevent human meddling. But Trap--Trap’s another matter. He can plug into the code that runs all of reality and alter it, shoving the kernel I’ve programmed right through a chink in the Core’s armor. Spells…spells are just computer viruses that let you do, well, whatever you can figure out how to do.

All this made possible because we live in a simulation. Sorry if this comes as a shock, but none of us really exists. At least, not in the way we like to think. Back around 2060, the climate got so bad the planet started cracking apart. Scientists gave us a few years at most. Turned out they’d been overly optimistic. So the top governments banded together to create the Federation of Continents. Its one mission: to save the Earth.

They failed.

But by that point we’d been putting AIs into our heads for nearly a decade, and almost 40% of the world population was running around with a Comp. So the FoC secretly bought the code to Secondary Universe, the world’s most popular MMO. The game was near-to-life realistic, and when you pour the combined GDP of most of the countries on earth into upgrading a code base so that it can mimic total realism, there’s a lot you can accomplish.

The FoC handed out free Comps as fast as they could manage, trying to get everybody interfaced into the system.

They hadn’t been quite finished when the mantle cracked.

Flip a switch, and zap, 88% of the world experiences a brief blackout, and then things continue as normal, except instead of an Earth full of living, breathing people, we’re just code copies of our former selves living on a solar-powered server orbiting the sun, maintained by self-replicating nanites that harvest asteroids for resources.

The other twelve percent, well, they didn’t have Comps. The official story was that a solar flare had fried the brains of everyone without one, and the health measures programmed into the Comps had saved the rest. They called it the Reckoning. Didn’t make any sense, but people wanted something to believe.

And when you’re in a simulation, if you’re as clever as I am and you decide to look hard enough, you can find ways to bend it to your will.

It’s a lot, I know, but hey, we all grow up sometime.

My spell resolves--it only takes a second--and I stand. “No trace of Tech,” I say. “If he was killed with magic, I can’t sense it.”

“Captain wants me to write it up clean,” says Go. “Murderer, victim, self-defense, everybody’s dead. But that grandma sure as shit didn’t kill that kid. As far as I can tell, kid should still be alive. So I told Cap reports take a while and it’s my niece’s birthday. Gotta have it on his desk by end of day tomorrow. So whaddaya think? Any ideas?”

“Not a one,” I say.

“I love a good mystery,” chimes in Trap, that smug smile on his face.

“You were programmed to love mystery,” I tell him.

“You were programmed to be contrary,” he replies.

“So,” says Go, “wanna meet the witness”

“There’s a witness?” I ask.

“Yep.”

“When were you gonna mention that salient little detail?”

“Didn’t want to taint your clean perspective.” She heads for the bedroom door. “And just a warning: I expect you to keep your jaw off the ground.”

All I can think is: I’m shaking hands with the most beautiful woman on the planet.

Not my words. She was List’s “#1 bombshell of the year.” Kelse Gcobani.

Kelse-sounds-like-“else” is one of the rare VeeRlets who’s kept her natural face. In fact, she pretty much started the trend away from perfect symmetry. And I’m actually standing here. With her. Jaw on the god damn floor.

“I’m just so shaken,” she says as we settle into a pair of stark metal chairs. “My mother and I weren’t close, but--oh god,” she starts to cry, the dry, racking kind in the back of the throat.

“Sorry you had to see that,” I say. I consider reaching out to her, resting a hand on her in some attempt at human connection and comfort. I don’t. Instead, I just say, “I promise, I’ll get to the bottom of this.” Hollow words.

“Trap, you mind pulling up her Susan?” A moment, then Trap gives it to me.

I speak in a clear voice. “619-47-8921-F,” I say, and she snaps to attention, her whimpers instantaneously silenced. “Tell me what happened,” I continue. “I compel you.”

She answers, her voice slipping into the dreamy half-whisper the compelled always use. “I was regening in bed--it was my off day.”

“Go on,” I say, and she does. She has to. Because if you know someone’s Susan, you know them. Inside and out. Names? Names don’t mean shit. But get your hands on a person’s Susan, you can make them do anything. Just saying it aloud is a macro hard-coded into the Core, a spell that puts someone under your complete control. Makes things easy for Troubleshooters. No lies, no obstacles.

Unless you’re up against another Tech sensitive, of course, and Kelse sure isn’t that.

“When there was a knock on the door,” she continues, “I assumed it was the Malta salad I’d ordered, so I disabled the remote lock and told him to leave the food on the coffee table. Next thing I know, he’s in my bedroom, and there’s a knife in his hand. I remember the way his hand shook,” She looks absent-mindedly down at her own hand, “like it was disconnected from his body.”

“Checked the security footage, partner,” Trap DTs. “Scrambled.”

“At least it’s more interesting if the perp’s not a total idiot.” I DT back.

“He told me he loved me,” Kelse continues in that airy tone, “that we were meant to be together. It’s strange, don’t you think?”

“What’s strange?”

“How most people can so easily feel a connection?”

I grunt in response.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she goes on, “being a VeeR star. People aren’t people to me anymore. Everyone knows you. Everyone wants something from you. Everyone’s already gotten something from you. I…miss having peers. Being able to slip into a crowd and think, I am the same as you. We are of a kind.”

Why do Noplacs--non-player characters--always have to get so fuckin’ honest and existential when you compel them? Sometimes I miss deflections. Sometimes I miss outright lies. “I know exactly what that’s like,” I say.

“I think you do, don’t you?” Her eyes finally focus on me. She holds them there, and suddenly I start to feel like maybe I’m the one under a spell.

“Tell me, Mr. Valence,” she says, “have you played my games?”

Flashes of my time with this woman lance through my mind. All in the VeeR, so real you can practically taste it. I’ve ridden dragons with her, shot bad guys with her, made love to her, watched her die, reloaded, watched her die, reloaded, watched her die.

What? So I’m not great at games. I’ve got more important things to do.

“Who hasn’t?” I say.

She nods. “See, you have me at a disadvantage. We’ve done so much together, but here I am, in the dark. Which version of me is more real, do you think? Me, or the VeeRlet who’s lived through twenty-eight billion playthroughs? You certainly know one more intimately. And that one, that one has made more of an impact on the world.” She stares beyond me again. “Sometimes even I’m not sure.”

I finally look at her then, not as Kelse Gcobani, denizen of the male eye, not as 619-47-8921-F, but as the person across from me. Her shaved head reflects the austere light. A few droplets of blood stain her tight wrap. Her eyes, even in this state, glisten with distant worry.

Sometimes I’m not sure what’s real either, lady.

“Partner?” Trap DTs. “Think we should get back on track?”

“All right, all right.” Moving on. “So you’re different. Me too. Now gimme the facts.”

The facts, as she tells them, are these:

He’d kept her there, said they were going to get married and run away to Argentile, but then her mom showed up unexpectedly, which happened from time to time. The would-be groom stabbed the mom, then dropped dead. Really? Just dropped dead? Yes. Just dropped dead. She insisted. Neither she nor her mother had done anything to him. One minute he’s sticking a knife into her mom, the next, the lights in his eyes go out and he’s on the ground. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

I hate to admit it, but Go’s Captain is right--not much point in figuring out how exactly a perv tapped his final logout. Might as well say a prayer to Buddha for the stroke of luck and call it done.

“Just got past the Unravel wall.” DTs Trap. “Killer’s name is Ovid Nacelle. Linked to a cube down in New Torrance.”

I release the compulsion on Kelse and stand. Her eyes light up the way they always do when free will returns, and she gives me a little shake of the head, as if waking up from an unremembered dream. “Thanks for your time,” I say, “and again, I’m sorry.”

“I appreciate that.”

She stands, wobbles, and almost falls over, but I manage to catch her by the shoulders and pull her up. Her skin is soft, warm, human. I can feel her breath on my face.

I let her go.

The cubes. Five by five by five. Not a lot of meters to work with, but the savings in rent’ll buy you a lot of fast-curry.

Not much of a police presence in this part of town. Because CalSouth constituents have to be able to afford peace of mind, apparently. When the Federation of Continents flipped the switch, they kept things the same, class bullshit and all. Because of course the ones making the decision never had to worry about living in a space more suited to hamsters than to humans.

As I approach the kid’s cube, wondering just how someone’s idea of romance can get that fucked up. But then a wave of emotion crashes over me.

My ex…

The wit on her. Loved me despite all my bullshit. Kept me in check, too. But when you know someone’s Susan, when you know it so deep down it’s hardwired into your brain, how can you tell what’s real? Did she ever really love me, or was I subtly compelling her? Sure, she claimed her feelings were real, through all the tears, the yelling--but I couldn’t take the chance. For her sake.

I was a Troubleshooter. I had a job, and it came at the cost of living. She’d understand. One day. Maybe.

I step inside and look around. Bed, sink, drone pad. Nothing special there. Clearly all the kid’s money went into the VeeR rig. Unraveler geek for sure. Discarded stimshots all over the carpet, half-eaten snacks--the kinds with the bags that crinkle so loud you think your ears’ll bleed.

“Trap, think you can get in?” I DT, tilting my head toward the kid’s VeeR rig.

“You wound me, boss,” he replies, then sets to work. Since he doesn’t, ya know, exist, he has to route through the core and find the device based on geolocation data. That plus whatever Tech safeguards the kid’s put in place mean it might take a while. On the plus side, everybody involved is already dead, so no rush.

I switch on my VeeR, and the cube we’re in dissolves into the kind of loading screen meant to suck young boys into spending their parents’ money for a chance to see in-game tits. Not that most parents have a lot of disposable income these days. Sure, U-Base keeps people from starving, but extra vitcur? That’s tough to come by.

The advertisement pops up almost instantly: Kelse’s latest game. Came out just last week. Most immersive yet. Maybe Ovid played it. Maybe it pushed him over the edge.

Maybe it’s research.

“You haven’t gotten a paycheck in two months,” admonishes Trap, seeing what I’m doing.

Pointedly ignoring my comp, I click buy, and in moments--

I stride past a planet, each step propelling me toward a pair of binary stars, one of which is being consumed by a massive, tentacled monster.

“If we don’t stop that Zephron, this entire world goes extinct.” She’s right there beside me, energy boots carrying us tens of thousands of kilometers at a stride.

“Kelse,” I say, but she interrupts.

“That’s Commander Triton, 18th Humanist Battalion. Pay attention, soldier.”

I quickly ask Trap to turn off some settings and hop back in. Perks of being a Troubleshooter, the ALs running the core give you some leeway. We used to call ‘em AIs, but then there was a typography error, and ALs just had a nice ring to it. Saves a syllable.

“Kelse,” I say again, knowing she’s in there. The games are programmed based on VeeRlets real-life Comp data--these girls are basically selling copies of themselves to every gamer on the Serv.

“Yeah?” she asks, all trace of Commander Triton gone.

“Do you know a fan named Ovid Nacelle?”

“Doesn’t ring any bells, but my Comp deals with all my fan mail. Lot of crazies out there.”

“You’re telling me.”

“You have fans?” she asks, as she dives past a small moon, using its gravity to alter her trajectory and send her hurtling toward the monster.

“Not exactly. I’m a Troubleshooter.” Sometimes it’s nice to chat with an in-game AI. Can tell ’em all your secrets and then just wipe their memories. Makes me feel comfortable.

“Oh shit. I didn’t realize they really existed.”

“We try to keep things under wraps,” I say.

“Doesn’t that get tiring?”

“You mean presenting one face to the world while you live another?” I ask, and she gives me a nod as if to say “touché.”

Strange to think she’s sitting at home, weeping, and yet here she is, in a sense every bit as real, because those neural scans running through her brain up until the release date are just scanning code anyway. Copies of copies. Turtles all the way down.

I try to probe for information, but she’s got walls up. Even with my ability to alter settings, it’s early in the game, and some of the code throttling dialogue trees based on player level bleeds through. I haven’t built up the relationship points needed to get deeper. Frustrating how much it mirrors real life.

Still, there’s something about her, even here, something that gives me a flicker of hope. Maybe two people who feel like nobody’s real can be real to each other. Or maybe I’m fooling myself.

“I’m in,” DTs Trap, and I unplug from the game.

“What’d you find?” I DT back.

“He’s definitely a Tech,” DTs Trap as he stands from the VeeR rig and turns to face me. “Thousands of searches on Tech sensitivity, on whether our reality is merely code, et cetera--the standard spectrum of troubled darknet youth. I also found allusions to some sort of secret hideaway. I compared scans of this room to schematics of the cubes in this area, and I believe there may be a hidden door somewhere. How exciting is that?”

I channel my will, gauntlet outstretched before me, fingers spread. “Reveal,” I mutter. The codeword draws on my energy and triggers a macro, causing the gauntlet to emit a wan light. Wherever the light touches, a faint glimmer of source code appears. Used to be unsettling, seeing branching, quantum-computing fractals hovering just behind the world. But humans are quick to adapt.

Doesn’t take long to find the door. Kid had woven a spell that blended it with the wall--simple, but seamlessly executed. Ovid definitely had skill. In fact, if he weren’t dead, I might actually be worried.

“Unravel,” I say--a little joke to myself--and the layers of the kid’s illusion drop away as my spell deletes key bits of his code. When it’s finished, I open the door. Well, I try to anyway. Thing’s physically locked. Who bothers with meat-security anymore?

“I can try to research lockpicking,” DTs Trap, ever helpful.

Fuck that. I pull out my gun, a sleek, black weapon covered in interwoven fiberoptic violet light. Looks so futuristic NoPlacs assume it’s the weapon, not me, that’s a wizard of death. And hey, it is a bit magical. Bad boy auto-reload after every shot, simply hacking a bullet straight into existence in the chamber. Was pretty proud when I figured that one out.

I shoot the lock. It holds. But nine rounds later, the thing’s busted beyond recognition.

“Very sophisticated method,” DTs Trap.

“What can I say? I’m a sophisticated guy.”

The secret room’s less of a room and more of a shrine to obsession. Kid’s laid out plans, pictures of VeeR stars, every fucked-up manifestation of stalker psyche you could imagine. Kelse dominates the place, but below her, there’s more of them. A lot more.

Each VeeRlet is paired with schedules, maps of their routines, information about their lives, their families, their pets. Women shouldn’t have to put up with this shit. If I ever decide to abuse my power, find a way to really hack the Core, I’m making it illegal. Or maybe I’ll just set an algorithm to watch for this kind of stuff, and if somebody gets flagged, I’ll snap my fingers, and whatever part of their brain turns them into monsters will disappear. Forced rehabilitation.

I stare at the photos, trying to get into this kid’s head. What did he want? And if Kelse wasn’t the only object of his obsession, was he just a VeeRlet perv in general? And why the knife? Why at home? There had to be easier ways for him to do…whatever it was he was trying to accomplish. Nothing ever made sense where the

Unravelers were concerned.

Just to be on the safe side, I forward the info to Go, then summon an autocar. While we wait, I ask Trap to log everything. He quickly begins crafting a virtual copy of the room--never know when I’ll need to check it out again.

“Ya know, boss?” DTs Trap, “I think we’re gonna solve this one.” And then he starts whistling, of all things.

Just before the autocar pulls up, I get a ping from Go. “What’s up?” I ask.

“Zain, there’s a break-in at Ireets McCoven’s place.” The second VeeRlet on Ovid’s list. “Officers aren’t responding. Presumed dead.”

Before I even have time to think, my gun’s in my hand, aimed into the sky. I mentally imbue the chambered bullet with power and fire upward at a 45-degree angle.

Even at a right angle, your most basic handgun can shoot a bullet upwards of 2.5 kilometers, and this ain’t a basic handgun. You see, it’s hard to cast spells long distances--more code between you and the target--but if I pour a little Tech into an object on my person before it leaves my vicinity, it creates a tether for me to latch onto.

I count off the seconds, then mutter the macro I’ve coded for geotagging. The moment the word leaves my lips, my Susan’s linked to the bullet, then poof--one second, I’m standing on the ground, the next, I’m in the air, just above the bullet, over a dozen blocks away.

Sometimes being a Troubleshooter is cool.

I smile, like I always do when I’m soaring above the city.

Then I remember the girl. Ireets. Odds are she’s dead already.

Before the smile leaves my face, I’m plummeting toward the ground, but I fire again, then port again, fall straight down, fire, port, fire, port, flying through the city on a daisy-chain of tungsten-carbide wings.

In just a couple minutes, I’m at the house. I fire one last bullet into the yard, and the moment it hits the ground, I port, appearing a foot above the grass--an easy fall.

I look around. Another massive tremorglass window. The dead cops lie nearby, slumped by their squadchopper, two more casualties of delusional infatuation.

A scream pierces the night.

Without hesitation, I shoot through the glass--good thing I’ve got one of the only guns that doesn’t give a shit what kind of glass your windows are made of--and port inside just before my bullet thunks into a wall.

Up ahead, someone’s muttering, a blue glow radiating from his hands as he tries to hack his way into Ireet’s high-secure office, but in response to my gunshot, he twists and fires at me.

His bullets must be magically enhanced, because they’re on me before I can even yell “shield.” Luckily Trap can auto-trigger my gauntlet, and the slugs slam into the burst of blue-white light that flares to life around me.

The impact hurls me back. Hell of a lot of kinetic energy. Bullet after bullet slams into my shield, each one draining me, sapping the precious energy that keeps my macros running. My stomach rumbles. I gasp for breath. Then dive behind some meatspace cover.

“You get an ID?” I manage to DT.

But Trap’s squinting as if he can’t make the guy out. “Some sort of illusion Tech. Can’t read his Susan, partner.”

Of course. I peak my head above the orb-flowers growing in a heavy hydroponic planter in front of me, and I can’t make him out either. Whole body shimmers, one big, vaguely-humanoid blur of refracting light. God dammit.

“Remember how I was asleep a couple hours ago?” I DT.

“I remember everything. Endless disc space. Or did you not…remember?”

Why do I bother?

More rounds slam into the planter, and this time, where they hit, some sort of acid oozes outward in a sphere, eating through the air, the ceramics--anything it touches.

I reactivate my shield and run for it. A slug explodes into me and I skid across the floor. Close enough to the kitchen to duck behind a counter.

I throw up.

Yeah, it’s gross. Yeah, some of it bounces off the still-flickering shield and splashes back onto me. Fighting Unravelers isn’t all machismo and sex appeal, okay? Sometimes you take enough slugs that fast and it’s like an army workout. Energy is energy, whether it’s a thousand pushups or pouring out a spell to make sure you don’t get 125 grains of metal in your throat.

In the moment it takes him to retrain his gun, my mind’s flying. Ovid having an accomplice really fucks up the whole crazed fan theory. If it’s coordinated, why? What’s the end game? Not like the world’s gonna change cause some silicone-carved fantasies bite the dust. They do that plenty often themselves, usually from OD’ing on carpe. Something is three shits sideways.

Acid pours over the kitchen counter. Might be impressed at the way the stuff’s eating through code if it weren’t pissing me off so much. Okay, time to Troubleshoot.

I leap up, imbue my bullet with power, and take aim. Bam. He dodges, but I’m not aiming at him.

The round pounds into the ceiling above him and explodes into a massive fireball. Burns out almost as fast as it starts, but I can see it took him some energy to resist the heat. Maybe even caught him off guard enough to hurt.

I port, and I’m at the ceiling. I fire. Make fire. He shoots back, but I’m already porting, imbuing another bullet. The house is utterly fucked, but two left feet or no, this is a dance whose rhythm beats a bassline right through my gut. Wall to wall to wall, porting, keeping him off guard, keeping him hot, too hot to do anything but hurl up defenses and deflections.

Even still, he’s good. Unravelers usually are. If they manage to live for any significant amount of time, that is. Nine outta ten kids who start messing with the code try to give themselves big dicks or fix their acne, and they’re dead just like that. Even here on the Serv, biology’s a pretty intricate son of a bitch.

Finally, one of my rounds pierce’s the kid’s shield and takes him through the eye, blood and brains adding a layer of paint to some long-dead artist’s masterpiece. Hopefully it was a reproduction.

I take a breath.

And slam through a coffee table. What the fuck?

“He’s still here,” DTs Trap helpfully.

He’s right. The kid’s shooting at me, somehow alive. I fire back, and my bullet tears through his chest, but this time I see it, a flicker. He’s creating mirrors of himself--complete, instant rebuilds. Serv equivalent of copy and paste.

And every single one of them is firing at me.

And every single bullet creates another facsimile.

Fuck.

There are so many laws against this. The ALs catch wind of this kid, they might even send in more of a team, maybe the Troubleshooters who cleaned up the CalNorth syndicate and made my job a hell of a lot less interesting.

Bullets are pounding me, anvil-hammer blows, and I’m feeling more and more molten. I need a damn hamburger.

“Ideas?” I shout.

“Might want to start believing in a god?” DTs Trap.

Only plus side is, kid must be low on energy too, cause he’s not making any more copies. Hell, I don’t even know if he is a kid. Maybe he’s Ovid’s boss. Maybe he’s that mysterious leader everybody fantasizes about.

“What do you want?” I shout, but my voice is drowned out in the metallic hail shredding the last reserves of my energy.

Well, I had a good run, right?

Of course, of course I’d think of my ex, here at the end. Not the pulses I want slashing through my brain as I log out, but guess that’s just how I’m programmed. I wish I’d talked to her again…I definitely should’ve listened more. Maybe she was right.

Or maybe Troubleshooters just aren’t meant to find happiness.

I sigh, ready to let the last vestiges of my shield drop. My muscles burn. My head feels like it’s been slagged already. And then Ireets bursts out of the safe room, trying to make a break for it.

“Wait!” I yell, but she’s caught in the crossfire before the word can leave my mouth. From star to stiff in zero point two seconds.

A booming "God dammit!" rings out above the noise, and I turn to see Go, flanked by four of her officers. After that, the place is strangely silent. I’m a wreck. The girl’s dead. And worst of all, the Unraveler’s gone, just like that.

I try to stand. Fail. As my mind drifts through the low-blood-sugar shimmer-haze of semi-consciousness, my thoughts fire haphazardly.

Did Ovid's accomplice just want Ireets dead? If so, why bother with the whole hostage act with Kelse? One was an attempt at subtlety, the other was pure, raw firepower. Only connection’s that they’re both VeeRlets.

Dammit. If I don’t figure this out fast, more VeeRlets are gonna get deleted.

“Zain.” Sounds like Go, but I don’t open my eyes. The floor is too comfortable. “Zain, get up. There’s work to do.”

I think I manage to mumble a thanks of some kind. She probably saved my life. Not the first time. Probably won’t be the last.

“You okay, boss?” DTs Trap.

Images of Kelse flicker through my mind. They’re nice images. Maybe if I don’t move, everything will just go away.

Wait. If the kid wasn’t working alone, Kelse isn’t safe. This second killer could double back any minute, try to finish the job. I shoot upright.

“Kelse’s Susan. Where is she?”

“So that’s a ‘no, I’m not okay?,’” asks Trap.

“Just tell me.”

Trap harrumphs, clearly enjoying his chance to be indignant, but in a split second, his face changes. “You’re not going to like this,” he DTs.

“Out with it.”

Trap flashes the location into my eye display, and I see the ping of Kelse’s geotag--someplace I’m all too familiar with in my line of work.

The morgue.

I know it’s stupid, but all I can think is, maybe it could’ve worked. I could’ve saved her, could’ve gotten to know her. But you don’t want start a relationship by saving someone, do you? Probably just me fantasizing about playing hero.

Guess I’ll never find out.

Shitty thing is, I know there’s no one out there, not for me. How am I supposed to connect with someone when I know the truth, that none of it’s real. And the only people who figure it out end up becoming murderers and psychos, or more dangerous than that: Troubleshooters.

I don’t know what it was, but when Kelse and I were in that room together, when I touched her…

I never believed in a “connection” back on Earth. But on Earth, we were just meat, and when our bodies touched, they’d have sent some biological impulses, and the feelings would be nothing more than manufactured endorphins, serotonin, whatever. But here, when you touch, that’s a comingling of code. An actual coming together into a single algorithm.

As the autocar takes us toward the morgue, I flip into the VeeR and hop back into Kelse’s game, silencing Trap before he can admonish me. Hell, I ate my cricket protein bar, and the IV is pumping saline into my arms. Should be good as new in no time. Well, I’ll be mediocre in no time. Or if not that, I at least won’t die of exhaustion quite yet.

We land in the swamps, our power boots absorbing the impact. Whichever scientists created the star-eating tentacle monster, their work is based here.

I can tell because hulking beasts stand guard throughout the marsh, resting on their knuckles like gorillas. Their overgrown bones pierce their flesh, sticking a half-meter out from their skin and tapering to deadly points. Blood drips from the constant wounds, steaming when it collides with the inky water.

“Plan?” asks Kelse.

And I turn to look at her.

She’s there. Standing there. Right beside me. Even as her corpse rests in a too-tight metal tube.

“You’re dead,” I tell her.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she replies, hoisting a too-big-to-realistically-carry machine gun and resting it on her shoulder.

“What were your parents like?” I ask. I’m not sure why, but I want to know more about her. For the investigation.

The settings Trap tampered with are still there, so she answers honestly, as Kelse.

“They were nice enough,” she tells me she unloads round after round into the gorilla-things. “Dad serviced 3D replicators. Mom cut hair for people who wanted a human touch. Don’t think they expected me to be, well, me.”

“Your dad still in the picture?” I ask, picking off enemies. That connection. It’s still there. Working in tandem, as if we can predict each other.

“He got hit by the gyre flu.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I say.

“Happens.” She shrugs. “Mom’s out in the Mids. You?”

“Parents weren’t around much,” I say. “Spent my days on the Farms.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, they need kids to crawl through the tight server halls. On the plus side, I picked up a thing or two about computers.”

“Always wished I knew more about that kinda thing,” she says, slaying beasts. “Might’ve lived an entirely different life. Not that I don’t like what I do. It’s just…”

“Lonely. Yeah.”

We defeat the monsters, but the neutron star has nearly set, and we’re injured, so we make camp.

There, she lures me in, talks about the mission, how it’s been wearing on her and I’m the first breath of fresh air she’s had in a long time--someone who actually cares. I know we’re back on the game’s pre-written rails, but her words pierce me with an alluring doublespeak.

I allow myself to be convinced, to play into what the game wants, and when the dialogue options lead inevitably to her leaning in for a kiss, I press myself into her, dig my fingers into her waist, explore her lips.

Her hands fumble for my belt, and I’m clamoring to rip off her shirt, and her skin is so soft and smooth--

Impossibly smooth.

I pull away with a violence that surprises me. She’s dead. This girl. Lying in the morgue.

How fucked up is that? And millions of people across the globe are doing exactly what I’m doing, living this exact moment. They’ll continue to, even after the news breaks. Hell, news might drive more people to it. VeeRlets have died before--sales always go up. Humanity. Sometimes I wonder if saving us was the right choice.

I yank myself out of the VeeR.

“Have fun?” DTs Trap, and I shoot him a scowl.

“Patch in the 360 of Ovid’s place, would you?”

“Sure thing, partner.”

“Which is it?” I ask. “Partner or boss?”

“Up to you, boss.”

I scowl again, but before I can come up with a witty retort, I’m back in Ovid’s room. Or more accurately, Ovid’s room appears around me, piped straight into my mind via my implant.

I walk the edges of the cube, running my hands along the wall. What am I not getting? Let’s see…

His place is a disaster. But so what? Tons of kids are a mess. Doesn’t mean they snap and end up offing their celebrity crushes.

What else? Cube’s sparse, but that’s no surprise. Most of the decorations are probably just AR stickers that only show up in his lenses. Cheaper that way.

Odd. There’s a mirror on the wall.

Nobody bothers with mirrors anymore. Digital imaging is so much more precise--your standard-issue VeeRcam can blow up imperfections at resolutions that give today’s middle school kids dysmorphia on a pore-by-pore basis. So why bother? Some strange hint of vanity? Obsession with looks? Hard to say.

I take a seat at Ovid’s VeeR console, and his landing portal materializes before me. As I look through his history, I notice something: there’re mirrors in here too. I glance at my reflection, and I’m not Ovid. Most people, they just play as themselves. The whole point is total realism.

But Ovid’s hacked an avatar into the system. He’s beautiful. That’s the only word that pops to mind. Such slim cheekbones, large, innocent eyes, long hair flowing in a perpetual, virtual breeze.

And then the mirror flickers, and arrows appear on either side. I nod to the left, and my reflection melts, coalescing into a new form, a stocky man built from muscle and mana, not an ounce of body fat to be found.

I cycle through them. Avatar after avatar. Each as beautiful as the last, in their way. How long must he have spent in here, crafting these? Sure, even in the Serv you’re still “born,” but surgery has come a hell of a long way. Eye color, gender, height--you can look pretty much however you want to look, especially once you can afford to do yourself up with AR alterations. And nobody gives a damn. It’s 2074 for fuck’s sake.

The self-loathing he must’ve felt to lock himself beneath different skins, to desperately want to be anyone but himself, even when he was all alone…

No, screw that. I’m not about to pity this kid. I catch the bad guys. That’s the line in the sand, and I’m on the right side of it. Right? I have to be. I have to be.

I have Trap end the patch.

Everything’s gotten fucked six ways to sunrise. I liked it better when I could lie to myself, pretend that being a Troubleshooter made me more isolated than everyone else. But Ovid’s as lonely as I am, and I’m as lonely as Kelse. Round and round, each of us trapped in our own minds, desperately seeking connection.

The autocar stops. I’m at the morgue.

I burst through the doors, half-driven, half-languid as my feet compel me forward. The guy behind the desk recoils--must be something about the look on my face.

“Kelse,” I say by way of explanation.

A mortician appears from somewhere, mumbles nonsense, tries to block my path.

I could kill him with a thought.

“Let’s stop a moment and breath?” DTs Trap, flickering into existence beside me. “Whaddaya say?”

I spot the autopsy room up ahead. Body on a table, covered in a sheet.

It has to be her. If more bodies had stacked up tonight, I’d have heard about them. Go would’ve told me. And no way Ireets beat me here. Gonna take Go’s team a few gallons of coffee to get that crime scene sorted. Especially since, ya know, half of them are sure there’s no such thing as magic.

I breathe.

She was alive a few hours ago. I stared into her eyes. I touched her hand.

I don’t want to lift the sheet. But what does it matter? It’s already happened. For all my power, the ALs won’t let me bring back the dead. I stop criminals. And in trade for my hard work, do I get to make any changes that might actually bring me a modicum of joy? No, of course not. Because I’m a cog in a literal machine.

I grab the sheet--hesitate, fingers curled in the scratchy, mass-produced fabric.

It’s an investigation, like so many before. Just an investigation, and…

I rip off the sheet.

It’s not her. It’s actually not her.

It’s the kid.

A half-heartbeat of elation pumps through me, that biological jolt before I reach awareness. Followed by a big, fat, what-the-fuck-is-going-on.

“Trap, explain.”

“I, uh, your guess is as good as mine, partner.”

In the distance, I can hear the mortician talking on the phone. Probably calling the police. Good for him, using government-provided services like a little worker drone. As if anyone would be able to stop me.

“Double check,” I DT.

“On it.” A moment as he taps into the Serv. “Her Susan puts her right here. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Some new Unravel hack? Throwing false Susans?” I ask as I walk out of the room.

“I suppose it’s possible,” DTs Trap, trailing behind me, “but I don’t see how. That’s kind of the highest level of security the ALs’ve got.”

“If they’re cracking Susans, the DtD is gonna be pissed. And it’d make Troubleshooting a hell of a lot harder.”

I pass the mortician.

“Hey! Get back here,” he says. “The police are on their way.”

Police are the least of my problems.

“More likely it’s just a lower-level hack,” says Trap, though I can hear the worry in his voice. Still surprises me sometimes, how real he is. “Something to fake location.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Ovid’s partner had to know I’d investigate. Is there a reason he wants me here? Does he need me out of the way?

I yank on the morgue door. It’s locked.

So I pull out my gun. Fire through the glass. It shatters, and the mortician screams. A dram of energy, and I port to the bullet embedded in the pavement just outside. Wasteful? Probably, but I don’t give a shit.

I hear the sirens. Look around. Morgue’s security cams are trained on me. A drone hovers in the air, relaying footage to the cops. Eyes everywhere.

“Trap,” I DT, gears turning, “You sure Kelse’s surveillance footage is scrambled?”

“You know just as well as I do that I don’t make mistakes.”

“Play it anyway.”

He nods, and the footage immediately projects through my implant, playing our right there on the city street. And it’s nothing but meaningless static. Trap’s right. He doesn’t make mistakes.

A chill breeze manages to work its way through my trench coat. CalSouth gets cold nowadays. And I’m not allowed to fix it.

“What’s the last thing we see?” I ask.

Trap rolls it back. The sirens are closing in, but I block them out, focusing on the augmented reality surrounding me. The footage projects a calm doorway, then static. “When does it come back?”

Trap scrubs forward. The static ends, and Kelse’s door closes just as someone enters. I can maybe make out the back of Ovid’s shoe as he steps inside. Maybe. Then the door. Nothing but the door. Twice as tall as I am. That tremorglass must’ve cost a fortune. Who knows if Kelse even wanted it. More likely it was simply something she felt compelled to buy to maintain her image.

That door. Something about it scratches at the grey matter of my memory.

“Whole lot of nothing,” DTs Trap, but I don’t respond. I just stare that that unmoving door. “Except cops,” he continues. “Lots of cops. Going to be here any moment.”

“Keep it rolling.” Something should happen, shouldn’t it?

“I already watched the whole thing,” Trap DTs. “At ten thousand x, I might add.”

“Oh shit.” And just like that, everything clicks.

“What?” Trap’s clearly confused, and I know he doesn’t like it when I’m smarter than him.

“The salad. It never shows,” I say.

“Come again?”

“Check her cur card.”

I tell myself it must’ve been a botched delivery. Or maybe the guy showed up during the scuffle, freaked, and left. Dozens of explanations race through my head, because each one is a hell of a lot safer than the fear needling at the back of my brain just above my implant.

“No purchases that day, boss.”

Fuck.

She lied to me.

But she couldn’t have lied to me. I compelled her, activated her Susan. That’s the bread and butter of Troubleshooters. Perps are easy to crack when they don’t have any choice but to tell you exactly what they’ve done.

Unless. Unless it wasn’t her Susan. Unless she played me.

“Pull up the kid’s Susan. Quick.”

Police cars turn the corner, sirens deafening.

And then Trap projects a CalSouth map into my AR. Ovid, Ovid, who’s supposedly dead, whose body is lying on the floor of Kelse’s bedroom, Ovid the stalker, the fanboy, the killer, is on the move. And what’s worse?

He’s closing in on a third VeeRlet’s house.

I smash into Tanya Esson’s lawn with a grunt, shock reverberating through my bones. I need a massage. I need to go back to bed. I need to stop answering Go’s calls. No. I can still save one of them.

Another mansion. I can hardly tell the difference. Except that it’s quiet. I must’ve beaten him here.

Speak of the goddam devil. Ovid steps through Tanya’s gate, form blurred.

“Hey, Ovid,” I say to Kelse’s body. He turns and looks at me, momentarily confused. And then the realization washes across him. He drops the blur, and there she is, the Kelse I’ve thought so much about.

So strange, to see her walking, upright, alive.

And he scowls, because I know. I know that this kid found a hack unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Complete identity theft. Transporting his consciousness into someone else’s body.

But his Susan stayed the same, because the code knows. The code always knows. He’s still Ovid in there. Kelse is just another avatar he’s wriggled into, wearing her like a second set of skin.

The real Kelse is dead. She’s been dead since before I ever met her. That person I felt such a connection with, the person I started to fall for, that person was Ovid this entire time. Murderer. Loner. Psychopath.

Ovid recovers just as I fire--I’m not about to wait around to hear what he has to say--and he manages to leap out of the way, copying himself as he goes.

I’m staring down three Kelses.

“His Susan, quick.” I DT, and Trap gives it to me, just as fast.

“844-21-7393-J,” I say in a clear voice that absolutely does not reveal my exhaustion.

“Shut up,” say three voices in perfect unison, but because they’re spread throughout the lawn, they’re just barely off-sync. The effect is uncanny, like stepping off a curb only to realize the street is further down than you thought.

“He’s got some sort of defense up,” DTs Trap. “Trying to crack it, but don’t think that’s gonna happen before one of you kills the other.”

Ovid had been able to lie to me because I’d never compelled him. I’d used the Susan of someone who no longer existed. But he knew enough to act the part. Son of a bitch. Now that I looked back, of course the story felt wrong. When he’d described the killer’s shaking hands, he’d stared down at his own as if in memory. When he’d taken a step, he’d fallen, unused to the new body.

The bastard had it all planned, but he hadn’t counted on the mother catching him in the act. If he could’ve dumped his own, dead body, nobody would’ve been the wiser, and he could have lived his life as Kelse. But once the investigation had started, he’d attempted to switch to his second choice, Ireets, and now here he was at his third. There’d never been a partner. Just the same disturbed Unraveler, moving down the line, hoping to get ahead of us. But I’d been there every step of the way. Maybe we really do belong together.

The Ovids point their guns in triplicate and fire a spell at me. I toss up my shield. Acid bursts against it, green goo splattering against the flickering blue of my defenses, and the grass beneath me burns away with every droplet. I charge, shooting. I should be porting, trying to confuse him. I should get him talking, get it all recorded. I should, should, should, but all I want is revenge. Revenge for what could have been.

All I want is to lose myself in fury so that I don’t have to face the fact that this is who I was drawn to, that the only person in the world I felt like I could love was even more fucked up than I am.

Acid swallows the ground beneath my feet and I tumble, stopping just beside the pool.

“You have talent,” I shout, trying to mask my exhaustion. “You could’ve done something useful.”

“Oh please,” he says, “spare me the last-minute lecture.” At least he’s talking. Gives me a moment to breathe. But a few breaths aren’t gonna change the fact that I still haven’t eaten, and I’m tired, and I’m not as young as I used to be, and there’s Kelse, fucking Kelse, staring me down. Kelse, mind replaced by a murderer.

He fires, and the impact shatters the remnants of my shield and sends me hurtling into the pool.

“You know what it’s like living in a cube?” he says as he strides toward me. “Having nothing but the VeeR, and then figuring out your real life is just as fake as the games you spend all your time drooling over?” Bam. He shoots, and water explodes in a shower of green and blue.

“All I wanted was to matter, to have people look at me.” He fires again. And this time the shot catches me on the gauntlet, and I feel my forearm break beneath the weave. I barely have the energy to acknowledge the pain.

Bam.

I shoot straight up, porting just as the pool beneath me explodes in a maelstrom of acid.

“Boss,” DTs Trap, “your heartrate’s off the charts. You gotta get out of here, call for backup.”

“No.” Playing hero. Always playing hero. I hear Trap doing something, but I ignore it. Instead, I just scream, trying to kickstart some adrenaline. I fall from the sky, unloading. Fireballs blossom with every bullet strike. One Kelse-copy burns to ash. I watch her die.

I immolate another. And watch her die. Another. And another. And another.

Which version of this burning corpse did I ever think would understand me? The one I fucked in the VeeR? The one I never fucking met?

I crash into the final Kelse, who’s cowering from the fire surrounding her, and she breaks my fall. Pain sears through my arm as Ovid and I crumple to the ground together. His gun skitters away.

Bruised, battered, bloody. The trees around us burn, flickering red in the night.

I’m on top of him, pinning him down with my weight, and I stare into his eyes. They’re as impossibly blue as I remember. It’s her face. Those lips. They’re parted. Panting.

“You want to know why, Zain?” Ovid rasps. “Because it doesn’t fucking matter. None of it’s real. I can do whatever I want, and I’m not doing it to anyone. It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

He triggers a macro and throws me off of him, and for a moment, I don’t rise. Because he’s right. All my life, I’ve told myself there was a reason I discovered the truth, that I was meant for some higher purpose. But I’m just an algorithm executing lines of code. I didn’t choose to be a Troubleshooter. Ovid didn’t choose to kill Kelse.

None of us is even here. There is no here.

“Look out!” DTs Trap, and I roll, some survival instinct kicking in despite the existential bullshit coursing through my brain. Ovid’s got his gun back. Again? Again with all of this?

The two of us square off, and I know in that moment, I truly have met my equal.

I hit him with walls of force. Shoot patterns in the ground, then snap my fingers, connecting the lines and deleting the Earth within them. He falls. Then rises. Fires, flickers, copies.

He’s losing focus. He might be stronger, have more stamina, but I’m an old hand, and his emotions are running hot. Mine, mine are numb.

“We’re better than them,” he screams as he presses forward. He slips as I delete the space beneath him, stabilizes, presses forward. “We know the truth. It’s a game, Valence. We might as well beat it.”

I hesitate, faltering. Could I really start over? Hop into a new body? Do things right this time. Let go of the hacks and the macros and every line of the Troubleshooter bullshit, just be somebody to somebody and call it good enough.

And then, for the second time that night, Go is there.

“Valence!” She shouts. I catch sight of her just in time to see the acid hurtling her way. I port in front of her, tossing up a shield, but it flickers wildly. I have just enough time to think, oh yeah, gauntlet’s busted. Then acid blasts through my flimsy defenses, coats the left side of my body. I scream.

“I was born with nothing!” Ovid yells in Kelse’s alluring voice. “My parents worked jobs that bled them dry. They died young. The climate’s going to destroy the planet. Again! And why? So that things could stay the same? So people in power could maintain a status quo that rewards bullshit? I don’t have to listen to their rules, Zain. I don’t owe them anything.”

“Stay with me,” says Go as she drags me behind a hulking statue. “Stay with me.”

As the pain threatens to take me, I turn my eyes on Trap. That chassis. That stupid fucking hat. Is he a companion, or is he one of them, watching, keeping tabs. My fingers feel the implant at the back of my neck. If we really put our minds to it, could we change things?

“We have to get you out of here,” says Go. “Don’t worry about the kid. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”

Ovid takes a step closer. “Don’t you want to find out what kind of person you could be? Without their shackles?”

I could be anything.

I look at Go. And I can tell…

She cares. She knows it all too. The good, the bad, my ex. The deaths I’ve caused. The crimes I’ve committed. And she cares. How did I ever think I was so lonely?

And for the second time that night, everything clicks. It doesn’t matter if it’s god or the big bang or a server farm, doesn’t matter how we got here. For all we know, our life on Earth was a simulation even before we got switched to the Serv. As long as we’re all operating under the same rules, our choices matter. Right. Wrong. They’re not external forces that persist outside of us, floating through the universe. They’re our perception, the way we affect each other.

“I know what kind of person I am,” I say. “The kind who kills people like you.”

I pull the trigger. He thought he had me with his little speech, so his guard was down. Bullet goes straight through his forehead, and I watch Kelse die one last time. Bastard was so sure of himself, never thought I might come to different conclusions.

I should be in more pain, I think. Shock, maybe, or the way things feel when your nerve endings get fried to shit. Can’t quite remember.

Wait, who’s that? Someone’s coming out of the house. Right, that’s right, the VeeRlet. She’ll be okay. Good. That’s good. I close my eyes, listening as someone talks. Wonder what they’re saying. Might even feel a hand on mine. What’s it mean to feel a hand on yours again? A half-forgotten thought sparks in my mind. Something about a comingling of code. Overhead, I hear the thwump of the incoming choppers, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel quite so empty.