Virtually Dead

Chapter Thirty-Five

Twist’s office was frustratingly slow to rez. Chas stood impatiently watching as hair sprouted from his bald head and clothes slowly took form on his grey body. Finally his skin morphed into tanned flesh. A ching alerted him to a waiting IM. It was from Doobie.

Chas responded immediately.

An invitation to join Doobie Littlething in Camelot appeared, and he clicked to accept.

He dropped from darkness on to a mosaic-patterned bridge with waterfalls tumbling on either side. Lush, green gardens rezzed all around, and he saw Doobie’s name on his radar. But it took nearly thirty seconds for her to appear. She was wearing a cross-over blue top and tight black pants cut off just above the calf. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, with a fringe falling loosely across her forehead.

She set off across the bridge on to a wide plaza with an open log fire burning at the far side, and up steps leading toward a vast mansion that overlooked the gardens. Chas followed her on to the stairway.

They passed between two suits of armour guarding the entrance to the mansion. Flaming torches burned on either side of the door, and a box on the step offered a free Tux for the discerning dancer. They entered a vast, baronial hall, its walls lined with renaissance portraits. Circular stairs led to an upper level where the floor was made of glass.

Doobie and Chas fell into a close embrace and swayed to the soft, romantic music plumbed into the Camelot sound channel. The entrance hall below them was disconcertingly visible beneath their feet, as if they were floating on air. In any other circumstance, Chas might have been seduced by the moment. But right now, romance was the furthest thing from his mind.

She detached herself from the poseball and vanished, leaving Chas dancing solo around the glass floor.

He jumped off his poseball and looked self-consciously about at the dancing couples who all seemed to be glancing in his direction. Had he just been jilted by a lover or offended the girl he was courting? The by-now familiar ching drew his attention to an incoming IM, and his heart very nearly stopped. It was from Angel. He hesitated to open it, feeling a strange cocktail of emotions. Anger, fear, apprehension, murderous intent.

And Chas realised then that she had been talking about Janey, and he felt a surge of anger rise up through him like molten lava. But he resisted the urge to let it erupt. She didn’t know he knew. And he wanted to keep it that way.

Chas stared at the dialogue box and felt tension tighten across his chest. She was going to kill him. What other reason could she have for luring him there? She’d failed to do it as Twist. Now the gloves were off. No more pretending. It would be crazy to go, he knew that. But he needed proof of some kind, some way of implicating his therapist — his extherapist — in the whole Goddamned mess. And at least he still had the element of surprise on his side. She had no reason to suspect that he knew about the Smitts and Mathews connection, or that she had killed Janey.

He went into his Inventory and attached all his weapons HUDS, so that he had an array of defensive and attacking firepower just a click away. He drew a deep breath, opened up his Landmarks folder, and double-clicked on The Blackhouse.