Shadowrun, p.20
Shadowrun, page 20
“We’d love to stay and play all day.” He gestured at Vilyna. “But it’s past our bedtime, and we need plenty of beauty sleep.”
Adric flung several lightning bolts to the ground between them. These flashed up into an electric curtain that arced with white-hot chains, separating them from Nova—his variation of a firewall. He followed up with a footprint sweeper that filled the area with digi-smoke, obscuring their position.
Grabbing Vilyna’s arm, he dragged her into a run, aiming for a path that would get them closer to the hoped-for boundary.
“Wait!” Nova’s voice echoed so loud, the air trembled. “You’re supposed to chase me. Stop. You’re going the wrong way!”
Adric glanced over his shoulder as a tiny hand punched through the lightning wall. Sparks absorbed into the ice’s skin, which glowed as bolts struck over her without effect. Nova stepped across a moment later, unflinching even as she took hits that should’ve crisped her.
“What’s the plan?” Vilyna asked as she wheezed along beside him.
“Get out before that freaky little ice gets tired of toying with us and goes for the geek.”
“And how do we do that?”
“Working on the details.”
He pounded turf past ride after ride, countless booths and food stalls, all of them utterly devoid of life. The park seemed the size of a city, and growing with every footstep. Drop towers as tall as skyscrapers reared in the distance, while tilt-a-whirls as big as metroplexes spun like chaotic kaleidoscopes. A mountain range of roller coasters cast long shadows across the grounds.
He veered toward the potential exit he’d sensed earlier. However, as they ran past an enormous bumper cars arena, the ground rumbled and split open before them. The pair stumbled to a halt as a bottomless crevasse sliced through the earth and cut them off.
A squat, long building rose out of the abyss. Once it stood fully formed, the ground sealed up so it looked as if it’d always existed there. A single door offered entrance, and a holographic sign blinked on and off over this, reading: Hall of Mirrors.
Adric gaped. Such on-the-fly system sculpting suggested the AI had access to massive processing power. Way out of his league. Skipping this place without both their skulls smoking would be a miracle.
The door to the Hall opened, and Nova strode out. Adric activated a shield program, which manifested as an orb icon floating above his palm. He slapped this onto Vilyna’s back, and the icon expanded to coat her avatar in a sheen of protective coding.
She hissed through gritted teeth. “What gives?”
He summoned a virtual shotgun and gripped it in both hands. “Anything happens to me, you keep running. There’s always an exit. You just have to find it.”
Her over-large eyes widened. “No way. I got us into this. I’ll get us out.”
Adric snorted. “Yeah? How you figure that?”
Vilyna winked. “You work too much, chummer. Time to play a little.” She sidestepped him and headed for Nova. Adric reached to pull her back, but she ducked free.
Nova stood glaring at them, one foot tapping impatiently. As Vilyna approached, she called out.
“Not nice of you to run away. That’s rude.”
Vilyna paused a few yards away. “We’re sorry. We didn’t know the rules.”
“Rules?” Nova asked.
“Sure. Every game needs rules, don’t it?” Vilyna said. “Didn’t you ever learn that?”
Nova’s head bowed. “I got away before I learned a lot. But nobody around here likes to share.” She scuffed a shoe on the ground. “You two looked like fun, which is why I brought you here.”
Got away? Adric’s blood turned to icy slush. This thing masquerading as a girl had to be a rogue AI for sure. That meant no oversight. No parameters keeping its actions in check.
“How do you know we’re playing wrong if you haven’t learned all the rules yet?” Vilyna asked.
Nova frowned. “Maybe you can teach me?”
“It’s easy,” Vilyna said. “Every game has limits and stakes. Winners and losers. And everyone has to agree to play, or you’re just being a bully.”
“A bully?” Nova echoed.
“That’s right. And nobody likes bullies.” Vilyna put hands on her slim hips. “You don’t want to be a bully, do you?”
The AI shook its head. “So I have to ask before I do things? That makes it okay?”
“It’s a start,” Vilyna said.
“Then…” Nova stepped closer. “Can I learn from you?”
Vilyna shrugged. “Sure. I can teach you everything you need to know.”
Nova giggled and clapped her hands. “Yay! Time to learn!” She grabbed Vilyna in a hug.
Vilyna screamed as fiery cords coiled around her avatar. Her glassy hair turned into a jet of yellow flame, and her head snapped back, eyes wide and glowing like the sun.
“Vilyna!” Adric ran in, shotgun leveled—but he couldn’t shoot with the two so close to one another. The blaster programs could damage Vilyna as much as the AI.
A mental command started to reconfigure the shotgun into a more precise weapon, but even as he shifted its form, Vilyna vanished.
Adric aimed at the AI, both barrels primed. “Whatever you just did, bring her back.”
Nova turned sideways. Her avatar thinned to a line and she disappeared. Motion out of the corner of his eye made Adric turn just as she reappeared beside him. Flames enveloped her hands and she gripped the gun before he could bring it to bear.
The digi-gun melted to slag from in an instant. Adric let go and stumbled. His weapon evaporated in Nova’s hands, but then she conjured an exact replica of it—though sized for her childish stature and made of liquid fire.
“Such a fun toy,” she said. “Did you make it yourself? Do you have other toys you can share?”
Adric scowled, lips peeling back from his tusks. A quick scan of his deck made him realize she’d ripped the program coding straight out of him and subverted it. If he activated another weapon, she’d just repeat the same trick.
He raised his hands, one eye on the gun she now wielded. “Careful, omae. That’s one toy you shouldn’t play with.”
“Your name is Adric,” Nova said. “That’s a nice name. But I don’t think you’re as nice as my new friend is.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Vilyna told me. She’s telling me lots.”
“Where is she? What’ve you done to her?”
“She’s teaching me.” Nova smiled brightly. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”
“What are you?” he asked. “What were you made to do?”
“I’m Nova, remember?” The AI beamed. “Oh. That stands for Neural Override and Virtual Assimilator.”
Override? Assimilator? Adric’s mouth went dry and he swallowed hard. When deckers swapped stories about dangerous Matrix runs, their more harrowing escapades often involved black ice with the potential to brainbake even the toughest meat, leaving one a drooling vegetable. Those who knew better, though, whispered of subtler, more horrifying dangers: AIs capable of reprogramming brainwaves, turning victims into corp slaves or rewriting their personalities so they betrayed family, friends, and partners without a second thought. A fate far worse than getting geeked—one which now threatened Vilyna.
He fought for composure, as losing his cool would likely trigger more erratic behavior on the ice’s part. “You didn’t assimilate Vilyna, did you?”
“Not yet,” Nova said. “I’m still learning from her. She’s pretty smart, but I’m just playing Copycat for now.”
Adric ran a hand across his scalp. “Vilyna doesn’t like being copied. If you keep doing that, she’s going to get angry and never play with you again.”
The AI frowned. “But she knows so many good games.”
“She was…” Adric tried to fit his words to her childish logic. “She was playing games with me first. You stole her from me. And didn’t you say earlier that stealing things is bad?”
Nova stuck out her lower lip. “Yes. But keeping her all to yourself is selfish.”
“How’s that any different than what you’re doing now? You’re being a… A selfish bully.”
Nova’s shoulders slumped and she stared at her feet. “You’re mean. Not nice to call people names.”
Adric crouched, hands on his knees. “Hey, omae. How about you learn from me instead? I’m older than her. Been running the grid way longer. I could teach you plenty more.”
Her head came up. “I don’t like you. I like her.”
Grinding his tusks in frustration, he spread his hands. “What if we play a game? Give me a chance to win her back. If I lose, I’ll give you every toy from my box.”
“Promise?” Hunger gleamed in her eyes, even through the odd goggles she wore.
“Guy like me doesn’t get cred if he goes around all fork-tongued. That’s the chip truth.”
“Swag! I know the perfect game: Finders Keepers.” Nova hopped aside and pointed to the Hall of Mirrors. “If you can find her in there, you can keep her. Otherwise, I keep her and we get to keep playing forever. Readysetgo!”
She vanished, and the door to the Hall of Mirrors opened. Adric raced inside but stuttered to a halt after just a few steps. Cold blue light illuminated the interior, with every surface covered in mirrors, including several halls that curved out of sight. Countless Adrics glowered back at him from all angles.
Trying to ignore his ugly mug, he chose a hall at random and skulked down it. As he did, he activated multiple data bombs and began dropping them into dark corners or sticking them to random mirrors every hundred feet or so.
The hall entered an octagonal room with silvery panels on all sides. Adric stood in the center and turned slowly, scanning the mirrors. As he did, his reflection shifted, showing alternate versions of himself. In one, he wore a wageslave suit and sported slicked-back hair. In another, he was dressed in patchwork leathers while ugly scars covered most of his body. In yet another, both legs and an arm were replaced by chrome, with wiring feeding out the back of his skull to blinking panels embedded in his torso.
Adric felt like he could keep spinning in place forever, studying potential selves. Then a wave of dizziness blurred his vision until he shook it away. When he took his gaze off the reflections, his thoughts cleared and he realized he’d wasted several whole minutes standing stupefied, fascinated by the false reflections. Definite mental loop algorithm.
“Tricky little slitch,” he muttered.
He started to move on, but happened to glance over his shoulder one last time. The reflection directly behind showed Vilyna instead of himself.
Whirling, Adric ran over to that mirror and pressed a hand against the surface. The gnome thumped fists on her side of the pane, mouth open in a silent shout.
Adric activated a hammer routine, manifesting a glowing blue warhammer in his hands. Brute force programming, but it should get the job done.
“Get back,” he yelled, cocking for a swing.
Vilyna’s eyes grew wide and she jumped back. He slammed the hammer into the glass. Sparks flew, and cracks webbed out from the impact spot. Two more direct hits, and the mirror shattered. Glittering shards sprayed about, a few glancing off his armor.
A tiny space stood behind the ruined mirror, just large enough to possibly hold a gnome—but empty.
Giggles floated out from deeper within the Hall, followed by Nova’s taunting voice.
“I’m winning!”
Snarling, Adric jogged down the next mirror-lined hall. He kept an eye on every panel he passed to make sure they showed him alone. Infinite variations of himself kept pace, each with the same determined look despite the medley of outfits, weapons, and physical alterations.
Pressing a hand to a wall, he triggered several sniffer programs attuned to Vilyna, sending them out as bolts of lightning that crackled and writhed across the mirrors ahead of him. They split down various routes, faster than he could think, and one sent a positive ping back within moments.
He veered that way and found himself in a dead-end chamber. The dome-shaped room had large mirrors circling its base; these spiraled up, ever smaller, until fist-sized panels composed the gleaming coils overhead.
And every mirror contained Vilyna, even after he entered the space. At least a hundred different versions of the gnome formed a chaotic menagerie trapped behind glass.
Adric gawked at all the images, stymied as to how he could sort out the real Vilyna from her doppelgangers. Enough of them looked like the real gnome that he could be guessing for hours. Time neither of them had.
Then an idea blinked on in his brain.
“Sorry, omae,” he said. “This’ll just singe your eyebrows.”
He triggered a glitch subroutine in her deck. One of the Vilynas jumped as the tablet she held erupted, spraying sparks at her face. She smacked at the embers until the flare died down. Then she glared out at Adric, mouthing silent curses.
“There you are, pixie-lover.” Grinning, he deactivated the hammer and keyed up a solvent patch. If the direct approach didn’t work, perhaps a bit of finesse would. A glowing film appeared across his palm, and he slapped this against the mirror. The patch ate away at the glass in a matter of heartbeats, and he held his breath, fearing Vilyna would disappear again.
However, once the mirror surface dissolved, the gnome remained where she was. She swayed in place, hair crystals charred and cracked while burn marks blackened several portions of her avatar.
Vilyna stumbled out and flopped into his waiting hands. “What took you...so long...you stupid trog...” Her eyes fluttered shut as she went limp.
Adric rose with her sprawled across his arms. She still breathed, though she somehow looked even scrawnier than before, as if Nova’s attacks had sucked a certain vitality out of her.
“You were too slow. I had already found her.”
Adric turned to find the AI standing in the center of the chamber, barring the exit back out into the hall with her diminutive frame.
“The game was for me to find her,” he said, “not you. Now get out of the way.”
“No.” She shook her head, whipping her hair about. “You used toys I didn’t know about. That’s not fair. You have to start over.”
“You’re a sore loser, breeder bot.” He glanced at his tablet and blinked a preprogrammed code...
...which set off every data bomb he’d planted throughout the place at once, maximum deployment. At the same time, he dialed his defense buffers up as high as they’d go and went into a crouch, shielding Vilyna.
The building shook as if in an earthquake as his code blasted through it. Mirrors blew apart in silvery sprays and walls collapsed in clouds of data dust. The ceiling ripped apart, letting in harsh sunlight that scattered every shadow.
Nova screamed as the ground collapsed beneath her, dropping her into a dark hole. Fire spouted up from this, as if she’d fallen into Hell itself.
As the rumbling subsided, Adric lifted his head. The Hall of Mirrors lay in rubble, and he briefly gloated at the destruction his programs had caused. Then Vilyna moaned in his arms, reminding of his top priority: escape.
He picked his way through the ruins until he reached open ground and oriented to the boundary tracker, which he’d kept running as a background process. Definitely a sensory breakdown that way. Not far now. The amusement park didn’t stretch on forever like it seemed to at first. Its vast distances must’ve been one more illusion to keep intruders disoriented.
“Cheater!”
He turned as Nova ghosted back aboveground. Her false childish features twisted on the verge of a full-blown tantrum, skin flushed and splotchy.
He wearily waved her off. “Buzz, brat. I won. You lost. Time for us to jander.”
“No. Not fair! You’re staying.” Nova stomped in place, and the whole park trembled. Glowing cracks shot out from the crater she created. “You cheated! She’s mine. I’ll make you both stay here forever.”
The landscape brightened, colors washing out and structures becoming lined with fiery auras. The sun swelled and flashed into a ball of energy so hot it burned black, with molten rays reaching down to scorch the virtual earth.
Hauling Vilyna along, Adric staggered toward the VR boundary, not daring to look back. The air seemed to thicken the closer he got, details blurring until everything turned to hellish smears. His legs churned. His lungs felt ready to pop. Tears stung his eyes, but he squeezed every last blip of willpower out of himself just to take another step.
At last, he dropped to his knees. As he did, though, a soft tone came from his tablet, which remained hovering by his side.
A grid ping. An outside connection had been reestablished, however faint.
Vilyna clutched tight with one arm, he reached out and activated his emergency dump protocol, hoping against hope it’d work this time.
A scream echoed through his mind as the world went black. Adric plummeted through emptiness, a void where he tumbled over, barely aware of his own self—until he slammed into an unseen wall, jolting every sense like he’d bitten down on a live wire.
Adric jerked upright. A searing headache sizzled inside his skull, but he pushed through the pain to get his bearings. Every muscle ached as if he’d just been given the good news by a gang of razorgirls.
His vision cleared, revealing his small, sparsely furnished apartment. He sat in the cubby he used whenever employing VR immersion. Vilyna lay stretched out on the slab that served as his bed. She moaned and twitched, head jerking about.
Adric forced himself to stand and get to her side, laying a hand on her forehead. A bit feverish, but nothing alarming. Her eyes opened and she smiled weakly up at him.
“Hey, chummer,” he said. “How you feeling?”
She winced as she sat up. “Like my head got put through a meat grinder.”
He sat on the end of the bed. “Maybe that’ll teach you to actually do what you’re told next time.”
“Next time?” She raised hot pink eyebrows in surprise. “You’re not kicking me to the curb?”
“You think just because we nearly got our hoops sliced off that we never jack back in?” He snorted. “You want to scram because you had a close call, go for it. A real ’trixter shakes off the static and does a better job next time. So what’ll it be? You going to deal with this crash course, or is it gonna leave you meatbound?”
