Chrysalis

51

Roz Madrigal looked over the motley — there was really no other word for it — group that had gathered in Theater One of the main soundstage, adjacent to the Chrysalis VR labs.

First to show up had been her boss, Wrigley. His slicked-back hair was askew, and the forty-eight-hour shadow he meticulously affected had been let slide an extra day or two. He told her to turn off all the lights on the soundstage, empty the R&D labs on the pretext of some last-minute electrical work in preparation for the morning rollout, and get ready to greet a few guests — quietly.

The tech staff had been working for days straight, and were only too happy to get an unexpected break — Wrigley, Roz said, would alert them when it was time to return. An Awareness alarm had been set off throughout the Complex, but this wasn’t especially uncommon — a level-one alarm could be anything from a stuck elevator to a collision of passenger carts on the concourse — and nobody paid attention. Roz got the last holo-artist out and managed to collect half a dozen Li-ion flashlights just seconds before the next person appeared: Dr. Purchase of BioCertain. He looked nervous, and as she escorted him into the darkened theater, she felt it grow contagious.

Next was a thin, youngish Black man she had seen on rare occasions — at a rave or one of the restaurants — but whom she’d never actually met. He seemed reluctant to introduce himself, but after an awkward moment said she could call him Virgil. He nodded at Dr. Purchase upon entering the theater, then walked into the darkness and took a seat in the rear.

Five minutes later Jeremy Logan appeared, and then — immediately afterward — the biggest surprise of all: Orris Peyton, high priest of Chrysalis security, arrived in an electric cart driven by a lithe, muscular woman with short black hair and cold, cobalt eyes. Both were wounded. Peyton had a rudimentary tourniquet around his right arm. The woman, who introduced herself as Dafna, wore a pair of submachine guns slung crosswise over each shoulder like fashion accessories. There was a shallow wound on her neck that was bleeding freely, even as she dabbed at it with some sort of compress. Even stranger was the sight of Karel Mossby, who’d been barred from Infinium months before, sitting in the rear of the cart with one wrist handcuffed to the seat frame. Dafna unlocked Mossby and escorted him into the theater. Dafna, Peyton, and Virgil seemed to know one another, because Virgil immediately came down the aisle to check on Peyton, pulling a weapon from his suit as he did so. Wrigley and Jeremy Logan joined them.

“What are you doing back here, you pariah?” Wrigley asked Mossby.

“Everybody left their ID badges back in their own sectors, right?” Logan asked.

Nods all around.

He turned to Dafna. “That query I sent you. Any luck finding Wing Kaupei?”

The woman shook her head. “She is not in her quarters. A search party was dispatched.”

An urgent, whispered confab now went on for several minutes. Roz found herself holding her breath. If they’d only tell her what was going on, she’d be a lot happier.

Finally, Wrigley detached himself. “Roz, would you mind going to medical and getting a few things for the wounded? Hemostatic gauze, cotton wool, liquid bandages, betadine?” A pause. “Better bring some forceps and a couple fentanyl patches from the locker. We need to treat these wounds.”

“One minute,” Dafna said. “How far away is ‘medical’?”

“The dispensary is just down the tech lab hallway.”

Dafna nodded. “Be quick. Be quiet.”

Roz dumped the flashlights she’d gathered on a chair and took one. As she turned away, a new conversation started up around Mossby.

“You know what you have to do?” Peyton gasped, clutching his arm.

“Your dominatrix here only told me about ten times. Locate the BioCertain line feeds supervised by this guy Prone.”

“Prawn,” said Dafna.

“Look for any meddling: video-frame jitter, or any other artifacting that indicates looping. Isolate it. Restore the feed that was replaced by the loop.”

“Right,” said Logan.

“Piece of cake. Except for one thing: looping security vids is child’s play, and undoing it is just as easy — but if whoever did it overwrote the original feed, then there’s nothing left.”

There was a pause.

“Normally, that might be true,” Dr. Purchase said. “But the tangential backup system just suffered an, ah, abnormal shutdown. Certain material flagged for deletion can be recovered.”

“ ‘Tangential backup system’?” Mossby said, rearing back in mock surprise. “Well! You mean the secret project nobody knows about, but whose name begins with H, is screwed up?”

Nobody replied.

“This all sounds like loads of fun, but I don’t see why I should help any of you,” Mossby said. “I mean, not after what that bastard Kramer did to me.”

Peyton started to speak, but the movement caused his words to morph into a groan of pain.

“Shut up, Karel,” said Wrigley. “Okay, apprehending you was a mistake. You know it, and I know it. But just because security would never rest until they had you behind bars is no reason to whine about it now. We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“Wait a minute,” Logan said. “You knew locking up Mossby was a mistake? That he wasn’t a target?”

“He doesn’t know that,” Peyton said. “Obviously.”

“See?” Wrigley said to Mossby. “They were running in circles, desperate for a suspect, almost any suspect. You were the raw meat. And, to be fair, you did keep trying to break back into the Palace even after I fired you.”

“Hey, that’s private!” Mossby cried.

“What palace?” Logan asked simultaneously.

“The ‘Palace of Sublime Pleasures.’ Shanghai, circa 1920. Karel’s pet project.”

“That’s private —!” Mossby repeated.

“At first, I humored him. We learned a lot about coding virtual environments. But he just wouldn’t leave it alone.”

“And you never let me say goodbye to Rosebud,” Mossby muttered petulantly.

Wrigley chuckled at the irony while Mossby went into a sulky silence. Meanwhile, Logan was busily putting this unexpected exchange together. So, what? Mossby created some kind of personal bordello while Omega’s persistent reality was under construction? It made sense — perfect sense, in retrospect. No wonder Mossby got fired — and no wonder he kept trying to break back into Arc E. To see Rosebud, apparently. It seemed just the kind of thing Mossby would do. But he was too embarrassed, or proud, to admit it to security. Wrigley knew they were too riled up to listen anyway.

“So you were hacking away, breaking rules left and right,” he said to Mossby. “But not to wreck Omega — to get back into your Palace of Sublime Pleasure.”

“You’d do the same, if I had ever let you in,” Mossby fired back, smart-aleck attitude returning to the fore. “These knuckle-draggers would never have understood. And speaking of that, Peyton, I think your boy Kramer enjoyed it — roughing me up himself. Doesn’t he know how to delegate authority? Like, to somebody with smaller fists?”

Dafna jumped up and Logan stepped between them quickly, turning to Mossby. “You want a reason to help us? I’ll give you a very good one. You might be able to save many innocent lives.”

Mossby shrugged.

“There isn’t much time. We’re being hunted.” Logan’s voice rose in exasperation. “A thousand people could die.”

“You know,” Mossby said, “I read a statistic somewhere that said nearly two hundred thousand people die every day on our planet. That’s, what, four hundred a minute? I mean, you nab me out of nowhere, lock me up for days, then administer a beatdown. For no reason. And now I’m supposed to help you save lives. I mean, really?”

“You can die, too,” said Dafna, yanking the charging handle on her submachine gun and pointing the weapon at him. “How about saving your own life?”

Mossby licked his lips. “Hey, Chief,” he told Logan, “this dominatrix is more persuasive than you are.”

Roz was still standing near the door, listening in confused fascination. Now she heard Wrigley bark at her. “Roz!” He cringed at the noise he’d just made, lowered his voice. “Roz. Hurry.”

As she ran for the theater exit, she heard Mossby’s nasal voice again. “Hey, another thing: a surgeon of my caliber needs the right tools for the right job. Like a fully configured supervisory workstation, with all clearances and a suite of forensic software.”

“This way,” Wrigley said.

Roz moved onto the stage, and the soundproofed door closed behind her with a deep thunk. Complete darkness surrounded her. She flicked on her flashlight and began making her way as quietly as she could toward the dispensary.