CHAPTER 1: It's Been One of Those Days All Week
"Reintegration complete," Tom Keller called out automatically. His voice echoed through the intercom and an alarm buzzed automatically, signaling it was safe for the technicians to reenter the teleportation chamber.
From their stations within the control room, Tom and Kellous Scott, the project's chief medical expert, watched as Kevin Sawyer stepped off the digitization platform. The double-shielded door to the chamber slid open, and a group of half a dozen technicians filed in and started helping the cybernaut remove his pressure suit.
Kellous and Tom followed them in, both eager to hear the details about Kevin's latest foray into the cyberverse. When the helmet came off, they were surprised by the haggard face staring woefully back at them. Kevin looked like he hadn't slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot, there was a cut on his lip, and he had bruises on both cheeks and his right eye looked swollen.
"What happened?" asked Tom.
"I picked a fight with a brick wall, and it won," Kevin said, groaning pitifully as he extracted arms from the top half of the suit.
"From the way you look, I can believe it," said Kellous as he stepped forward to inspect Kevin's wounds.
He grimaced as he stepped out of his leggings. When the suit was completely off, they saw the rest of Kevin's battered body. There were more bruises along his arms and back, there was an ugly cut on his upper right arm, and his knuckles were split.
"God, Kevin," said Tom. "What happened to you?"
"I was in a bar fight," he said casually as Tom gently probed for broken bones.
"You were in a bar?" Tom asked, almost shocked. Drinking had never been one of Kevin's problems.
"Technically, it was a saloon," Kevin said, "and it wasn't a fight. It was fights. Plural. I was in more than one."
"What were you doing in a bar?" asked Kellous. He poked into a nasty bruise and Kevin winced. "Sorry."
"I wasn't there by choice, believe me," said Kevin.
"What about this cut?" Kellous asked, pointing to the gash on his arm. "This looks like a knife wound."
"Sword," Kevin corrected. "I got a little cocky with a samurai."
Kellous looked to Tom. He just shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know what to think, either. "Well, it's going to need stitches," Kellous reported. "Did you go into one of those cubes?"
"Something like that," said Kevin. "It's a long story."
"Why didn't you just let the Mainframers patch you up?" asked Tom.
"You know me and hospitals. I just wanted to come home."
"You're still going to have to spend some time in the infirmary," said Kellous. Kevin frowned. "At least let me sew up that scratch. It already looks infected."
"Fine," Kevin said begrudgingly.
He let Kellous and Tom walk him out of the teleportation chamber and to the infirmary. They arrived at the elevator just as the doors opened and Kelly Cleaver stepped out. Tom and Kellous managed to slip by her, but she deliberately stepped in front of Kevin.
"You're just the person I needed to see," she said.
Kevin ignored her. He tried to step aside, but she kept moving in front of him, blocking his way. After two attempts, he slumped his shoulders and sighed.
"You look like hell," she said.
"This must be Captain Obvious Day," he said.
"What's your problem?" she asked.
Some cluster of neurons fired in his brain, and Kevin immediately recognized the sight of an angry hornet staring him in the face, and this one had some kind of power over him. He couldn't remember exactly what kind of power she had — thinking only made his head throb — but he remembered she was someone who could make thing very difficult for him.
He rubbed his forehead. "What do you need, Miss Cleaver?"
"Do you own a tux?"
"Why do you ask?"
"The President's ball is next weekend," she said. "You're invited."
"Me? Wait, what ball?" The ache between his temples was getting worse, and coherent thought was becoming harder by the second.
"For his reelection," she said. "It's black tie. You need to be there."
"Why, exactly?"
"Because he wants to meet you personally. He wants to know why Virtual Man isn't ready for umbra-level operations yet."
"Can't I just write him a memo?" asked Kevin.
Cleaver pressed an envelope into his chest. It was his invitation. "Maybe I'm not being clear enough," she said. "You need to be there."
Kevin heard the undercurrent of her voice, and knew what she had left unsaid. You need to be there... or else.
He took the envelope, tore it in half, and tossed the pieces aside.
"Let's get a few things straight. You're not my boss. I don't take orders from you, and I don't give a damn about black ties, government functions, or kissing the President's ass. This project is my life's work, and if you can't make him believe I'm doing everything I can to get Virtual Man online then I suggest you find another job besides pushing me around like the paperwork on your desk."
She opened her mouth to say something, but Kevin cut her off.
"And another thing, if you even knew half of what my team is really doing here, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I've been stabbed, shot at, and generally beaten within an inch of my life this week, so when you get up in my face with this prissy 'I'm-the-boss' attitude, all I can think of saying is: Go screw yourself!"
He finally sidestepped Cleaver and entered the elevator where Tom and Kellous had been holding the door. Neither of them had blinked since the debacle started. Kevin punched the button for the next floor up and savored the sight of Cleaver's blank face, her mouth still gaping, as the doors closed.
"Remind me never to tick you off after a bad day," said Kellous.
"It's been one of those days all week," said Kevin.
An hour later, Kevin was pulling his old Volvo into his driveway with a nice fresh stitch on his arm and enough antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication running through his veins to ensure a painless recovery for the next two weeks.
Green Hill was located in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. It had been established as a research and development center by the federal government in 1992 and put under the supervision of DARPA. Chosen for its secluded location, Green Hill was nestled in the Allegheny Mountain Range of the Potomac Highlands. In Late 1992, the Army Corps of Engineers began acquiring 32,000 acres of land under the authority of the Department of Energy. Construction of the Green Hill facility began on November 3, 1992 and was completed three years later.
Kevin lived fifteen minutes away in Marlinton, the seat of Pocahontas County. As soon as he entered the house he smelled something wonderful wafting through the air from the kitchen. When he heard the clatter of dishes being laid out, he ventured into the hallway and walked into the dining room. Vivian Thompson, Project Virtual Man's chief physicist, was setting the table when he walked in.
The Englishwoman looked up and noted Sawyer's bruised face.
"You've looked better," she said. She poured him a glass of tea from a pitcher and handed him the glass. Kevin gulped it down. "What happened to the other bloke?"
He emptied the glass and gave a contented sigh. "I'll tell you later. How did you get in here?"
"You told me where the spare is, remember?" she asked. "Under the fake rock in the garden." She took the glass and refilled it. "By the way, you really need to spruce it up a little. Weeds are starting to sprout."
"I'll get right on that," he said as he drank his second glass of tea, this time more slowly.
"Sarcasm," she huffed. "One of these days you're not going to be able to hide behind it." She turned and went back into the kitchen.
"You'd be surprised how often the subject of my sarcasm comes up these days," Kevin said as he finished his tea.
"I wouldn't be either," she said. "You wear it like a second skin."
He entered the kitchen. Vivian was busy stirring something on the stove.
"You know, the last time I checked your degree was in physics, not psychiatry."
"There it goes again. The sarcasm." Kevin rolled his eyes, only to be reminded one was bruised and hurt like an open wound. He grimaced, and Vivian noticed. She put down her spoon and opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a can of cold soda. "Here," she said, handing it to him. "Put that on your face and go take a shower. Dinner should be ready by the time you get done."
Kevin, not in the mood to argue further, simply did as he was told. He stopped in the doorway and said, "You're the best, Viv. You know?"
She smiled one those sweet "I-know-but-it's-sweet-of-you-to-point-that-out" smiles and said, "Somebody's got to take care of you."
Vivian had many great qualities, not the least of which was her motherly personality. For some inexplicable reason she had become the mother hen of the group. Whether it was babysitting, offering a shoulder to lean on, or showing up and surprising you with a hot meal, Vivian was always ready to offer anything. Kevin didn't know what made her that way. Maybe it was because she was the oldest out of all of them, or maybe it was because she had no family of her own living in the states. It certainly wasn't her missing leg. Vivian had been in a car accident many years ago and lost her left leg as a result. She used a cane, but she could walk just as easily without it like she was right now. Aside from Tom, Vivian was the closest friend Kevin had. Every one of the project's administrative staff (Kevin, Tom, Sophie, Kellous, and Vivian) had become close over the years, and certain bonds had formed, some deeper than others.
Kevin returned to the kitchen after a relaxing shower. He had changed into fresh clothes, shaved (as carefully as he could considering the state of his face), and looked generally better than he had when he came in. Vivian was bringing out the bread when Kevin sat down. A steaming plate of angel hair pasta covered with red sauce was waiting for him. When Vivian sat down to her own plate, Kevin dove right in. Within seconds, it seemed, his plate was empty and he was raking himself another helping of pasta.
After this second helping, his appetite seemingly satiated, Vivian broached the subject. "So, are you going to tell me how you got so beaten up?"
"There was a problem in Mainframe," said Kevin. "Remember my last communiqué?"
"You said Welman was close to curing nullified sprites," Vivian said. "You were helping him build the reintegration machine or whatever he called it."
"Right. We almost got it to work."
"What went wrong?"
"We didn't have the right game codes for the machine to restore null sprites, so we had to work on getting some."
Welman and I had been working on the reintegration machine for weeks. It was almost an exact replica of our own digitization platform at the lab. The idea was to use specific game codes as a template to restore nullified sprites. The idea looked good on paper, but in practice it was harder to do. First of all, not every null in Mainframe owed its demise to game cubes. Some were deleted by the Twin City Explosion and other disasters the system had encountered over its history. So it became obvious from the get-go that the machine wasn't an all-around cure, at least not yet. Still, Welman persisted, and I continued to help.
When we finally got to the testing phase, we had a hard time finding a null that would accept the treatment. Finally, after three straight days (they're called seconds in Mainframe, Viv) Welman was so frustrated and depressed, he had to be taken out of his suit to rest. I made the obvious statement to Phong that we needed to update our library of game codes. Obviously, the more codes we had on file, the better chances we had of matching a null with the game that made it.
From my perspective, that was a week ago. The next day Welman was back on his feet and ready to begin again. I told him he needed to take some more time off to spend with Enzo. Bob was helping Dot negotiate a trade agreement with another system. Mouse and Ray were still around and offered to take him on a little road trip, but Dot wouldn't allow it.
AndrAIa had started giving Enzo lessons in martial arts, but her pregnancy made their sessions more or less sporadic. The kid was really starting to look down in the dumps, so I recommended Welman go play ball with him or whatever it is sprite parents do with their children. He decided to take my advice on the condition I would call him if I made some kind of breakthrough. A breakthrough was out of the immediate question, but I agreed to go into a game cube with Matrix to oversee the collection of new codes whenever one came down.
As it just so happened, one did. And that's where everything started going south.
"WARNING: INCOMING GAME. WARNING: INCOMING GAME." The faceless voice always struck me as eerie. The Mainframers were used to it. For them it was a normal part of their lives.
I was on standby with Matrix, Frisket, and Hack and Slash. The two droids were carrying the sampler. Welman had vidwindowed just a few nanoseconds earlier to make sure I was ready. I reassured him that I was in more-than-capable hands. In truth, I had a dreadful feeling Matrix would try to pull something on me while we were inside the cube. He and I never got along. Our first meeting started with the business end of a gun, and I guess we had "tolerated" each other ever since.
So there we were, standing outside the Principal Office, watching as the sky turned dark. A hole was opening over Beverly Hills. Specky relayed us the exact coordinates and we set off on zip-boards.
Now that I think about it, I'm probably not being very fair to Matrix. He's changed a lot since we first met. He and AndrAIa are married now, and expecting a baby in a few months. He seems to be more levelheaded now, less quick to anger. The more I'm around him the more he seems to accept me. Of course, the fact that I've been mangled, bashed, and generally had the crap kicked out of me on multiple occasions has probably earned me brownie points with him.
I'm getting off track. Anyway, we made it to Beverly Hills just as the game cube started dropping. Hack and Slash were distracted by one of their pointless conversations. To lighten the mood, I jokingly asked Matrix if Welman could have given them more brains when he rebuilt them. (Matrix had "accidentally" blown both robots to bits in a war game several months earlier.)
He replied, "He tried, but all the upgrades in the Net couldn't help those two dipswitches." He said it almost lightheartedly. I looked up and watched as the bottom of the cube grew larger in my view. "Listen up, you stay with the sampler. Let me handle the game. You can't reboot so you're more likely to get yourself hurt."
"What if you need help? You sure can't rely on Hack and Slash if the user turns out to be more than you can handle." He looked at me like I just insulted him.
"Right. I forgot who I was talking to."
The game landed right on us. The whole sector was replaced with serene countryside. We were standing in a glade. To the north and west was a dense forest populated with oak trees. To the south and east was open prairie with nothing but sloping hills and green grass. The sun hung in the middle of the sky, and I felt a light breeze across my skin. It was early or mid-summer, around noon. It was nice. It wouldn't stay that way for long, though.
Matrix rebooted into a Celtic persona. His clothes were transformed into a rustic variation of what he wore before. He now wore a cotton shirt covered by a leather poncho, wool breeches, and fur boots laced with straps of leather. He had a longsword at his side, and an eye patch over his damaged eye. Frisket turned into a red and orange steed with a saddle and headgear. Hack and Slash retained their robotic construction, only their outer plating was replaced with shaggy moss, and their limbs were made of wood. They must have been some kind of forest creatures or something.
"Okay, I've played this before," Matrix said. "Dragon Siege. It's a mythic game. The user has to slay the dragon on the last level and retrieve its heart to win. The game is full of demons, trolls, gremlins, and magic spells. Sawyer, you can't reboot, so the game characters will probably ignore you unless you pose a threat. Are you armed?"
"No. I'm fresh out of laser pistols." (I had lost my first pistol during a fight with Megabyte on my first trip, and the type-one prototype was destroyed with the OmniCron system. We really need to build a few more of those when we get the chance.)
"It's probably better that you're not," Matrix said. I wasn't sure if he was afraid I'd get trigger happy and draw attention to myself, or that he just didn't like the idea of me having a gun. In either case, he was probably relieved.
Of course, it meant I had nothing to defend myself with in case something nasty decided to cause trouble. Matrix, in his infinite wisdom and concern for my well-being, told Hack and Slash to stay with me while he chased down the user. I felt so safe.
As luck would have it, we made it to the game wall without incident. It was the limitation of the game environment. Up until now I thought game cubes were like tesseracts, that their internal geometry was independent of their exterior, and I later discovered this was true to an extent; however, games did have physical limitations. Anyway, we attached the game code sampler to the wall and waited as the digital readout steadily climbed, showing how much of the code it was assimilating. We were in the forest now. I recognized several kinds of trees native to the Earth. It was mostly made of tall oaks whose tops created a protective canopy against the midday sun. It was peaceful here, and I felt like I could have laid down and taken a nap.
Luckily I had Hack and Slash to keep me alert.
I listened through fifteen minutes of pointless conversation involving the words soup, squeaky, and sock. I wasn't really listening; I had tuned most of their talk out and only caught on words every few minutes or so. These particular words kept popping up, and how they related to each other I had no idea. I was getting ready to take a short walk around and stretch my legs when I heard movement a few feet away in the woods.
I told Hack and Slash to quiet down and listen carefully.
"What is it, Doc?" asked Slash. A twig snapped in the distance. Something was out there, and Hack and Slash heard it.
"Maybe it's Matrix," said Hack.
"It hasn't been that long," I said. "He couldn't have found the user that fast. Hack, let's do some recon. Slash, you stay with the sampler."
The obedient droid came to attention and saluted. It was a little funny and disturbing at the same time to see him saluting me. Slash and I spread out at a forty-five degree angle from the sampler, and we headed in the general direction where we heard the sound. It could have been an animal for all we knew, a deer or a bear maybe. Then again it would have just been the trees and their creaking and groaning as the wind blew across their branches. Still, I wanted to be sure. I hadn't had much experience in game cubes, but what little experience I did have told me to keep my bases covered.
After going about a hundred feet from the wall I saw something on the ground. It was a series of small holes barely a half-inch deep in the soil. They were parallel and ran back deeper into the forest. It was then I heard something off to my left, like something moving in the treetops. I looked up and saw only shaking leaves from a tall oak. I immediately felt my pulse shoot up. Adrenaline started fueling my blood. Something was here with us. Then I heard a scream. It was Hack! I ran as fast as I could toward the red droid's cry. When I found him he was lying on his back. He had scratches on his now-wooden hide.
"Hack, are you all right?" I asked.
"Oh, I felt that one," he said in pain.
"Hack, what was it? What attacked you?"
I didn't have to wait for an answer. I heard a thud behind me and felt the ground tremble a little bit as solid mass impacted the ground. Something had been waiting in the trees. I turned and saw something that made a childlike part of my mind scream in terror. It had the body of a scorpion and the torso and head of a praying mantis. Its claws resembled those of a crab and its tail had a stinger on its end that could punch through armor. Its color seemed to change as it moved, waves of blue and yellow and brown moving over its body.
A ghastly voice said to me, "What are you?"
At this point my legs were jelly, and a knot the size of my fist had formed in my stomach. I wasn't sure what to say so I said the first thing that came to my mind. "I'm Kevin... Kevin Sawyer."
"You are not a sprite," said the insect-thing.
"That makes two of us," I said.
I knew immediately I wasn't dealing with an aspect of the game. Nothing within a game cube knew about the world outside. The way AndrAIa explained it to me, game characters don't have the level of awareness to know their world is a game. To them a game is their whole universe, and nothing outside of it exists. Only AI sprites had the level of self-awareness to know what they really were. This thing had called me a sprite, not something consistent with the game reality.
"I am called Sphinx," said the insect. "I am a virus."
Oh, crap, I thought. The virus started to pace around me and Hack, who had apparently passed out after seeing the creature.
"You are not a sprite," it said again. "You have no icon holding your PID codes."
I stood straight and tried to follow the virus as it circled me, scurrying around on its eight legs. I was all too aware of the sweat soaking into my shirt. "What are you?"
"That's hard to explain. Let's just say I'm different and leave it at that."
Its mantis head looked over in the direction of the sampler and asked, "What is that thing over there?"
"We're harvesting code from the game cube." I kept my answers short and simple. I noticed Slash was no longer guarding the machine. Where had he gone? Maybe he had got scared and run away. I wouldn't put it past him. Hack and Slash were not known for impeccable performance under pressure. I also knew they were programmed to protect. Slash may have been cowardly, but he couldn't betray his function. So where was he?
"Take me to see it," Sphinx ordered.
I motioned to Hack. "You've hurt my friend. He needs help."
"He is not in danger," Sphinx said coldly. "I only delete worthy prey."
I took another look at his pincers and imagined him crushing my skull like a melon under the force of a hydraulic press. It wouldn't take much force for him to kill me. But he was obviously curious, so I decided to keep playing that until I could figure out what to do.
I led him over to the sampler. He inspected it thoroughly. I didn't know what he wanted or what he was planning to do, but he looked it over as if he had found a precious jewel or artifact.
"Finally," he said. "I have a way of escaping this wretched game cube."
"Escape?" I asked. "You've been trapped here?"
"For many hours," it said. "It was the only way I could escape the Cobol Warriors."
"You were being hunted?"
I was trying to keep him talking. The longer he remained distracted, the more time I had to figure out a plan.
"The Cobols thought they were so clever separating us, but we outsmarted them. They never fully understood the powers they were trying to control. I can hear them now, can't you? The voices of my brethren..."
Either my hearing was bad, or I was dealing with someone suffering from schizophrenia. I was leaning toward the latter, and that only made my situation worse because I had never met a virus with schizophrenia before and... well, come on, that just sounds like disaster.
My hope sort of peeked when I saw Slash hiding behind a tree not ten feet away. He was leaning over to see what was going on. I winked at him, and subtly motioned for him to remain hidden. He did.
Sphinx was still on his soapbox. "If I can get to the outside then we can reform and finally have revenge on the Codemasters. Then Infector will complete his function and infect all cyberspace!"
(What is it about viruses and global domination? Seriously, these guys are worse than comic book villains. Don't they have hobbies, or better yet, girlfriends?)
Vivian grinned at Kevin. "As if you're one to talk about girlfriends."
"Don't start, Viv," Sawyer said. "I've gotten enough grief from you over this, and it's old."
"I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt if you started dating yourself."
"I'm not interested in dating," Kevin said.
"I think you're just afraid of getting hurt."
Kevin was silent as he gnawed on his lower lip. "Because I've been hurt. Badly."
"How long are you going to let that hold you back?" Vivian asked.
"Are you going to let me finish this story or are you going to keep psychoanalyzing me?"
So, Slash was hiding behind a tree, Hack was still passed out, and I was chatting it up with a crazy virus who was hearing voices. And my day was just getting started.
"This device can download codes, correct?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Then I can use it to download myself into its memory."
"That might work," I said. Actually I wasn't really sure. "Then again it was designed for game codes. I'm not sure if it would accept viral coding."
"It will after I reprogram it," said Sphinx.
"Reprogram it? But it isn't finished copying the game. Aborting the procedure could damage the device."
Obviously this guy didn't want to listen to reason because he slapped me aside with one wave of his claw. And here I was being a nice guy. He accessed the internal touchpad and LCD monitor and started entering a series of commands into the sampler. Now was a good a time as ever to attack.
"Slash, he's going for the sampler," I yelled. "Stop him!"
When nothing happened my heart froze. Sphinx was looking at me like I was no longer a curiosity and more like a nuisance. He stepped away from the sampler and poised his stinger above him, ready to strike.
"Uh, Slash... now would be a good time to save me."
I heard a wild Tarzan call echo through the woods as Slash swooped down from a hanging vine. Sphinx turned just in time to see Slash as the bot rammed his roller-ball into the insectoid's face.
Slash dropped to the ground next to me and assumed a combat-ready posture. He waved his hands and chanted some phrase in a language I couldn't understand and a giant wooden broom with a knotty handle appeared over Sphinx. He looked up just as the straw head crushed him to the ground. All was still.
"Slash!" I exclaimed. "That was incredible! What did you do?"
"I'm pretty good at sword and sorcery games," he said, polishing his wooden fingertips. He was obviously pleased, and so was I. He just saved my life.
I got up and dusted myself off. "Slash, you are all kinds of awesome, man!"
"Really?" he asked it as if it were the first compliment anybody had paid him.
"Yeah!" I put out my fist. "Come on, ring that bell." He looked at his own fist, at first unsure of what I meant, then he balled it and hit it against my own. "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout."
(Okay, it was corny, it was geeky as all get out, but I was happy, relieved, and completely oblivious to how I was acting. But it made Slash's day. So sue me.)
Then the broom was thrown aside by Sphinx's giant pincers, and the moment was spoiled. The virus charged us. Slash and I took different directions. Sphinx was madder at Slash so it decided to go after him. Slash is no good when the pressure is really on, i.e. when he's being chased by a very big, very angry virus. So I turned around and ran after them even though I knew I had no way of helping Slash when Sphinx got to him.
By this time Hack had recovered and was up and about. When he saw Slash running for him with Sphinx two steps behind, he panicked and started running toward the sampler, arms waving in the air, screaming in terror like a ten-year-old who's just seen his parents doing the undercover tango.
I stopped where I was and yelled for Hack to stop. He was leading them right back to the sampler. I was too late. Sphinx knocked both droids aside like paper dolls caught in a whirlwind and stopped in front of the machine. He raised his stinger above his head and plunged it into the sampler.
I recognized the signs of viral takeover as an aura of violet energy began emanating from the sampler. There was an explosion of white light. I shut my eyes as I felt a strong wind push me on my back, knocking the air out of me. Then I passed out.
The last thing I remember thinking was, And it was such a nice morning.
