Argonaut

Clay just couldn't figure why someone would bother to do the slice-and-clout on his sex sim. His test files--maybe, but the sex sim? The stolen protocols consisted of Mistress Ravenna, a cartoonishly proportioned custom vamp with a subtle dominatrix overlay, as well as a few black-market dupes of popular actresses. There was nothing particularly extreme or unique in those sims--no necrotic orgies or pan-gender scenarios, no mutant genitalia or anthrobotanic scent-fucking. And yet the comm-queue now contained seven recordings from a person called 'Vestal' wearing the stolen features of his virtua lover.

The messages were pretty much identical, all mystery and foreboding without much substance. Clay hit on the final one: Mistress Ravenna resolved within the trid, body outlined in sheer dark latex, impossibly large eyes and lips shimmering like liquid silver.

"Do you ever ask questions?" said the familiar alto. "Question your luck? Your employers, maybe? Don't be afraid of the answers, Clay. Be ready for them."

Of course tracing the messages yielded the standard global list of access points, not a one of them originating in the greater Seattle area. So much for the who or the where. Why, though--that was the real question. Any remotely sensitive data was flashed to company storage and purged from his personal system prior to all full-length sim sessions. And the developers were supposed to know better than to contact him outside of standard channels.

Clay sighed and shook his head, thinking he preferred virtua mysteries to real-life ones. In a sim, the AI would figure out when you were having trouble and provide subtle hints and clues to help you move things along.

He glanced over at the corner of his flat and considered his second little mystery: the performance of his Elysium E-110 Virtua Rig. The tidy-bot had nearly finished cleaning the rig, and the black polymers of its muscular-skeletal motion apparatus now gleamed like lacquered plasmold. But less than an hour ago the E-110 had welcomed him back to the world of flesh by dumping him on the floor in a fetid stew of his own urine and feces. To this he'd promptly added a bellyful of regurgitated multinutrients. Too weak to immediately move about, he'd floundered on the floor like a sewer eel, waiting for his body to remember how to function. Unfortunately his sense of smell had kicked in first.

It was no surprise that he'd managed to overload the E-110's waste-removal system. He'd been twenty-five days in virtua, which exceeded the rig's maximum calibration by eight days and was eleven longer than the sim, Fist of the Bald Monkey, was supposed to run. No wonder his body felt so frail, so awful. Tiny red sores had formed a pockmarked pattern along his spine and up to the base of his skull. His eyeballs felt heavy and sluggish, his anus and penis burned and ached with infection from the waste overflow. And the kicker: his left calf and forearm muscles had atrophied and were now sore as all hell.

Clay assumed the rig's muscular-skeletal motion stimulator system had experienced an isolated failure sometime during the sim's first few days. Of course at that point the E-110 should have brought him out of virtua no matter where he was in the sim's narrative. And yet all the diagnostics checked out just fine.

With a groan Clay stood and began limping around his flat. This was the third time in the last few months a sim session had inexplicably run much longer than anticipated, and the second time his rig had experienced an annoying and potentially dangerous systems failure. He examined his frail left forearm, wincing as he rotated his wrist in small circles. Now they'd want to do a bunch of tests over at medical, and he'd have to request a replacement rig--how long would that delay the next play-testing gig?

He called his buddy, Kanu, got the standard 'In Negotiations' message. Then he popped some more recovery pills and ordered a pizza with extra cheese and meat--his stomach was rumbling like a hovertank. A few minutes later, Kanu's dark sharp-angled face appeared in the trid.

"Claymigo!" Kanu said, grinning. "Back from sim-land and...uh-oh, I know that look."

"Damn right you do," Clay said. "I go down for a fourteen-day sim, and come-to twenty-five days later? That's eleven days over, Kanu. Eleven. What the hell? And look at this shit!" He held up his forearms.

"You do got yourself a pair of pale skinny-ass arms there." Kanu frowned and scratched his chin. "Oh, now I see..."

Clay explained the E-110's failures in profane detail, from the muscle-stim problem to waste system overflow to faulty diagnostics.

"I don't know nothing about your equipment failures," Kanu replied. "But it was me who authorized the marathon-length session."

"You?"

"Yeah. A week in, this Elysium designer calls me up and says you've unlocked some kind of secret portal within the sim. Like a hidden bonus plotline or some such shit. Anyway, he says you're the first play-tester to activate it, but it will require more time, which will tax the E-110 unit to its limits. So I tell him--"

"To let it run," Clay finished. "Just like always."

"Right, man. It's not like I'm going to break the flow and have you revived just to ask your permission. Besides, the guy said they'd monitor your vital signs extra close. Said it would add seven days, max. And with the extra time, if you didn't come up tomorrow I was coming over to do the revive myself."

Clay nodded. "Okay, I guess I can buy that. But it still doesn't explain my E-110 screwing up. This is like the third time. You got to get me a new rig, man."

"Way ahead of you, Claymigo." Kanu said, his smile suddenly electric. "Haven't watched the news yet, have you."

Clay shook his head. Kanu chuckled and launched into a rapid summary of how Pacifico, the multi-national that owned Clay's employer, Elysium Virtua Systems, had done a precision gobble-swoop on several other corporate assets. The move had included Wal-Tsiang's Mars colony and support fleet, which gave Pacifico two-thirds of sum total assets beyond Earth's atmosphere. A week later Pacifico had announced an ambitious initiative for manned deep space operations, garnering heavy buzz and financial support from across the globe. North American Congressional approval was expected any day. And Clay's investment portfolio had rocketed accordingly. But that wasn't all: Pacifico was restructuring operations at a number of its research campuses, including the one in Seattle, which meant a shiny new contract for Clay.

"We're talking four-point-five to five years in length, and an improved matching funds ratio for your portfolio," Kanu said. "An increased housing allotment...we're talking significant base-pay increase."

"You for real?"

"Watch the news, man," Kanu replied. "I don't think getting you a new rig will present any problems. Elysium is about to roll out their next-generation units anyway. So they'll definitely want some testing done."

"They finally decide on a name?"

"Word is, it's called the O-series."

"O-series," Clay said, testing it out. "O-series..."

"Yeah, man, I think it means 'Orgasmic'."

Kanu asked him about Fist of the Bald Monkey, and Clay gave a preview analysis of the report he'd be delivering to the designers. The discussion then turned to some of the other virtua titles recently announced. It seemed the Pacifico initiative had triggered a scramble to release a new wave of space-themed sims, and developers were battling over the rights to old 2-D cinematic and video game properties--everything in the pipeline from lightsabers and warpdrives to hyper-authentic exploration docudramas. Clay found himself grinning despite his persistent aches and growling gut. No such thing as too many space adventures.

"Meantime, you ought to get off campus and enjoy some of that disposable income," Kanu said. "I've already got the call in to open up negotiations."

"Right. Okay. But I want a firm date for replacing my rig. And they damn well better be cooperative after this." Clay held up his left forearm.

"Of course, my man." With a final gleaming smile, Kanu waved off the call.

A few minutes later the pizza arrived through the delivery chute. Clay wolfed it down, watching summary briefings of Pacifico's big move.

He was two-thirds through the pie when it occurred to him he'd completely forgotten to mention the theft of his Mistress Ravenna sim and this Vestal-person's odd messages. He considered notifying campus security about the network breach, but surely they'd caught it already and were developing their leads.

Clay shrugged, yawned, and finished a final slice of pizza. The meds and analgesics had begun to kick in. Reclining on his couch, he drifted into his first realtime sleep cycle in nearly a month.

Clay was part of the V-kid generation. Full immersion intra-lobal virtual reality simulations made the transition from luxury product to mass market around the time of his birth, and virtua had always been there for him. It had always given him something to look forward to.

He'd grown up in Iowa, testing straight vocational at age twelve. His mother apprenticed him to one of the larger farm collectives and pocketed his sign-on bonus for herself. At trade school he excelled in table tennis and mechanical applications and discovered that high achievement was generously rewarded with sim-time. He graduated with honors three years later.

The next four years he clocked ten-hour shifts on hulking agribots--rudimentary maintenance. His contract provided an option to re-up at age twenty, one-point-five percent wage increase every five years topping out at age forty-five, benefits for a spouse and up to two child dependents, retirement option at age seventy-eight. Not bad--certainly above the poverty line. But by then Clay was the consummate V-kid, and he spent holidays, vacation, all his free time and money on full-immersion sims. His supervisors, citing possible obsessive behavior and a slight drop in productivity, imposed weekly caps on his virtua usage. So at age nineteen Clay snuck away from the farm collective and fled west, defaulting on the final year of his contract.

He ended up in Seattle doing fixit jobs for ganger-types to survive. Times were lean, but Clay did solid work and knew how to keep his mouth shut. Word of his talents soon reached a young street-agent named Kanu. Kanu was able to glom passable false ID and secure short-term gigs with various entities that ran only cursory background checks. Three months here, four months there--he even did a job up in the Lunar Shipyards--and plenty of cheap virtua flopshops for in-between time.

But Clay had no plan, and over the next few years the debts began to accumulate. Then the contract work suddenly dried up, the credit-uglies went from manageable to threatening, and Clay figured it was organ-pawn time. Sell a kidney, an eyeball, a testicle--you really only needed one--and earn enough cash to make a payment on the vig and rent that next sim session.

The chop-shop required a standard pre-harvest physical. After the results came back, the lab-techs were suddenly all smiles and hospitality, informing him his preliminaries seemed to match a rare physical profile. He immediately called Kanu, who instructed him not to sign anything. Then Kanu arranged for a complete battery of tests at a much nicer facility--reasoning and logic, personality, reflexes, hand-eye coordination--after which the profile was revealed. "Man, you hit the genome jackpot," Kanu told him. "Play-tester, Claymigo, virtua play-tester".

There followed interviews with well-spoken professional types and closely monitored trial runs on the latest hardware. They were interested in everything from his childhood to his schooling to how he survived off the grid. Clay worried that his defaulted Iowa contract would come back in his face, but Kanu managed to quash that and secure him a three-year deal with Elysium in the process. It included a nice flat within their Seattle research campus, an investment portfolio, full corporate benefits, and a signing bonus. Just like that, he was legit. Credit-uglies placated, flop-house room abandoned, and suddenly he could afford brand-name clothes, restaurants, even the occasional professional escort.

Better yet, he got as much virtua as he could stand--all of it free, all of it brand new. He play-tested exclusively on Elysium rigs, first shot at his choice of final-build sims just prior to their official release. All he had to do was provide his thoughts and reflections on said sims, as well as the occasional blood or tissue sample.

It was any true V-kid's dream setup. And now, a couple years later, they actually wanted to extend his contract and increase his pay.

Rehab progressed ahead of schedule, the shrunken muscles in his two limbs responding more quickly than expected. Clay conducted the usual post-sim interviews with the designers of Fist of the Bald Monkey, viewing selected replays on the trid, providing detailed feedback. They were quite interested in whether he'd retained any physical memory from the sim; they said it was the one of the title's most important experimental options. To Clay's astonishment and the designers' delight he was able to demonstrate basic competence in several Wing Chun and Tae Kwon Do movements--this despite his gimpy leg and arm, despite having never done any real-life martial arts training in his life.

The Elysium hardware rep was extremely apologetic about the problems with his rig and guaranteed delivery and calibration of a new O-5000 model in ten days time. At the same time, Kanu was calling in with updates on the negotiations--more money than expected, moving faster than expected, look for the final wrap-up soon.

Clay killed time watching sports replays and celebrity gossip and previewing new sim titles. On the way back from rehab at the medical wing, he would stop on the quad to toss the Frisbee with researchers out on break. He tried some of his new martial arts movements in front of the trid, working through katas learned in virtua.

He ate voraciously: burgers, kebabs, more pizza, Mongolian barbecue, wings--all arriving through the delivery slot in his door. His belly was soon swollen like a vat-grown porkpod. Kanu offered to send over Clay's favorite escort, Sobette, a soft-spoken double-jointed Brazilian. Though Clay preferred virtua sex to messy and erratic realworld sex, he was feeling adventurous. He booked double sessions with Sobette and another favorite, Mae Ling.

A week passed. Life was good.

He'd nearly managed to forget about Vestal and her strangely cryptic messages by the time she called once again. Mistress Ravenna appeared in the trid, her luxurious features somewhat frayed and fuzzy doubtless due to numerous anti-trace filters.

"Hello, Clay. Sorry it took me so long to contact you again."

"Not cool," Clay said. "Very not cool. Sex sim protocols are personal, you know?"

Vestal/Mistress Ravenna's enormous eyes narrowed. "I needed to ensure I had your full attention. Now please, we need to meet somewhere as soon as possible. I've found a place to--"

"Right," Clay snorted. "How about you tell me why a slicer with any juice at all bothers with a play-tester like me. I'm legit and above-board. No black market, not interested."

"The virtua scene doesn't interest me, Clay. My concerns are for you."

"Is that right," he said. "So show me your real face then. Tell me who you are and why I should listen."

She paused moment for a moment and looked around. Then the image in the trid grew dark and fuzzy as Mistress Ravenna morphed into a much plainer feminine face. She was pale with freckles, short brown hair, and an angular nose. Her eyes were hidden behind small circular sunglasses. "This is me, okay?" she said, her voice an octave higher, almost childlike. "The meeting place I've chosen will allow us to--"

"Let me think," Clay cut in. "You've already stolen some very personal shit of mine and you won't tell me your name. But, hey, no problem. Coffee somewhere? Dinner, maybe?"

She sighed. "I see. Some questions for you, then. Have you been excessively hungry lately? When was the last time you physically left the research campus? Has your virtua rig been acting up?"

He squinted, leaning forward slightly.

"Have you lost any muscle-mass or experienced a sudden loss coordination following sim sessions? Well?" She glanced around nervously. "My time's about up. I've embedded contact codes in this message. They'll only function on a mobile, and you'll want to avoid activating them on campus unless you want security questioning you."

"Wait a minute," he stammered. "How did you--"

"Think about those questions, Clay. I won't be around indefinitely."

The trid went blank.

Rubbing his weakened forearm, he replayed the call. When Vestal dropped the Mistress Ravenna persona to show her real face, the entire image turned gray and fuzzy and her voice became a neutral metallic monotone--she was packing some serious filterware. He tried to call Kanu but received the In Sensitive Negotiations message.

When was the last time he'd been off-campus? Not between his last two sim sessions--the time before that, maybe? He recalled going to a Sounders' match, a qualifier for the InterContinental Cup. But that had been almost two months ago.

Suddenly he found himself feeling increasingly anxious. He uploaded Vestal's message to his mobile and checked for the contact codes. Then he grabbed some cash and his jacket, and took off.

A plainclothes security officer awaited him at the campus main gate. The man greeted him with a friendly nod and a professional smile, explaining that a policy change now demanded an off-campus escort for anyone currently undergoing contract renegotiations.

Clay swallowed air, forced a smile. "This is something new, right?"

"Yep," the security officer said. "All part of the big restructuring, sir. I can either accompany you in standard fashion or from a discreet distance. If it helps, you won't even know I'm around."

"Uh, okay..." Clay said, eyeing the street beyond the gate. "No, that's alright. Maybe later."

"Suit yourself, sir. We'll be here for you if you change your mind."

As Clay trudged back across the quad to his flat, he found himself examining the campus's high thick walls and numerous surveillance towers. The many trees and archaic-looking buildings left over from its public university days made the place look like a well-landscaped fortress from one of those historical sims.

He ordered a burrito plate and replayed Vestal's call several more times, fingering his mobile. Then Kanu returned his call, teeth gleaming. "Negotiations concluded, man. Tomorrow is go-day!" His smile became a concerned frown. "Now what's up?"

Clay explained about the incident at the gate, but for some reason found himself skipping Vestal's call entirely. Then he asked about the security situation.

"That's my bad," Kanu replied. "I must have forgotten to tell you about the new policy, what with all the wheeler-dealering. And besides, you hardly ever leave campus anymore."

"Well, I don't know, it feels kind of disturbing, being assigned a bodyguard all of a sudden."

"They're just being cautious, Claymigo, protecting their investment. You're a valuable man." Kanu's electric smile returned. "I'm sending over the entire contract right now. Trust me, you're not going to be disappointed. Tomorrow, you sign, we celebrate." He waved off.

Clay paced around briefly before accessing the document. He looked at the figures and did the math. Kanu was right--the new contract and accompanying portfolio were more than generous. He was looking at true financial security in a few years. So why didn't he feel like yelling or dancing around in celebration? He printed out a hard copy of his contract, and munching on a burrito, began to pore over it.

The signing took place on the top floor of Pacifico's downtown regional headquarters. A trio of immaculately groomed suit-types spoke briefly about how vital the virtua tech division was to the Mars Colony and other deep-space initiatives, and how important a qualified employee like Clay was to those efforts.

When the time came for Clay to sign, he instead cleared his throat and rose from the table, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket.

"I just have a few quick questions," he said.

The previous night, while reading the contract, he'd found himself thinking about Vestal's warnings and the stepped-up security and how his virtua rig kept acting up. Something about it all tickled his paranoia-bone, made some of the contract's clauses seem vaguely sinister. So he'd made himself a list.

The list wasn't very long, but he was pleased with its organization and the question he was able to come up with. Why did they now need samples of his cerbraspinal fluid? Why so many physical exams? Why the vague wording in the campus relocation clause? And what about all those security provisions?

"...I mean, really, an armed security detail when I go on vacation? I just don't see what all this has to do with virtua play-testing."

Kanu shifted in his seat and attempted his best mediator's smile. One of the suit-types--a tall woman of indeterminate age--adopted an expression of professional sympathy and began addressing each of Clay's points. She had reasonable answers and smooth explanations for everything, and Clay found himself nodding in agreement more than once. He also noticed she did not budge on a single one of his points.

"You raise some good issues," she said, "excellent issues, truly, but in the end this is the reality at Pacifico. Our entry into the space arena simply demands more of each and every one of us."

Then one of the other suits slid the contract across the table, and Clay was soon scribbling his name, initialing, and pressing his index finger to the document's geno-codec. This was, after all, the only reasonable thing to do. The meeting concluded with smiles and handshakes all around.

Kanu launched into a rapid-fire diatribe of contract legalese and trash-talk as soon as they were in the elevator. By the time they made it to the street, he was talking about the exclusive party down in San Fran he'd scored invites to and all the celebrities who would be in attendance. Clay nodded and grunted as his friend maneuvered the hovercar out into traffic. He kept thinking about Vestal and her warnings and how her contact codes were still embedded in his mobile.

"Why don't you drop me off over on Beacon Street," he said.

Kanu glanced over at him. "What, man? Why?"

"We going to a party, right? I need some new threads."

"That's cool, Claymigo, but how about I tag along and, you know, provide fashionable advisement."

"No, that's okay," Clay said. "You got calls to make, people to see. And I can still get around town when I have to."

Kanu continued to pester him, but Clay brushed him off, and he was soon on the sidewalk before a row of upscale boutiques. He went inside and picked out a jumpsuit based on original Mars Expedition colonial gear, a pair of heavy all-terrain boots, and a color-swap trenchcoat. In the changing room he activated Vestal's contact codes on his mobile. The reply was a holomap and the address of some Redmond coffee bar with a simple text message, come alone.

At first it had that cool manic feel of a good espionage sim. In the coffee bar there was a bulletin board message that led to a netsite address with another set of encryption codes. This provided detailed instructions on how to spot a tail and ditch his mobile on the way to the next location. Then back into the city, where he received new instructions to yet another location. Clay got into it, zigzagging across the tube-lines, sometimes doubling back, jumping on or off departing trams just before the doors whisked shut. He changed the color scheme of his new trenchcoat intermittently from black to olive to brown.

Two hours later he found himself at a dilapidated intersection on the edge of the Barrens. A gaunt old man appeared, waved to Clay, and deposited a mobile phone on the ground. He pointed to the mobile then scampered away with startling speed. The mobile began to chirp; Clay picked it up.

"Don't say anything—not a word," Vestal said. Voice only—the display was blacked out. "They might be scanning for your voiceprint."

He bit back a retort.

"Just nod or shake your head. Since you've come this far, I assume you're serious about wanting to talk. If so, you won't mind a trip back to the old neighborhood."

A holomap appeared. Clay immediately recognized the location as an underground swapmeet beneath an abandoned elementary school right in the middle of the Barrens—the same place he'd traded stolen knickknacks for multinutrient gruel to survive those lean early days in Seattle.

"You remember the way there?" she said.

Clay nodded.

"Watch your back."

He turned to regard the Barrens with a sigh--crumbling burnt-out apartment buildings, rubble-strewn roads, hovels and mini-fortresses built from urban detritus--and started forward. When half-a-dozen hard-eyed muscular kids descended on him like shadows, any lingering allusions to virtua thrillers instantly disappeared. Clay flashed barely remembered hand signals, smiling through a chill sweat. For whatever reason, the gangers grinned and let him pass.

Three klicks of dodging and scrambling through the broken terrain was murder on his still-weakened left calf. By the time the school's ruined edifice appeared through the haze, he was limping along muttering lengthy curses to himself.

The paltry gathering of booths and kiosks within the swapmeet subbasement seemed even more rundown than he remembered. He bought a mini-taser from a pale dreadlocked boy without even bothering to haggle, paying way too much. Dealers and hawkers eyed his slick designer Mars-wear with suspicion. He could feel the more desperate types sizing up his slight stature and expensive boots as he passed.

Then she was waving to him from beside a snack stand. Short--five feet tall--face partially hidden beneath the hood of a dark camo-splotched poncho. Clay limped towards her, gripping the mini-taser in his pocket. Beneath her hood he saw lines and wrinkles around her eyes, shocks of gray shooting through dark brown hair. Her murky green eyes darted back and forth nervously. She held out a corndog.

"Quiet," she mouthed, before he could speak. "Follow me."

"Okay, listen," he said, grabbing the corndog.

"Quiet!" she said again in a harsh whisper.

Then she was off across the floor, and he found himself hustling after her, trying to ignore the many sets of eyes turning his way.

They left the swapmeet through a dim and moldy hallway, pausing at a heavy door guarded by an enormous Samoan-looking man. Vestal pressed a wad of bills into the giant's hand, and he let them pass. Then down an even danker passage, an access ladder, and through a trapdoor into a tunnel which Clay figured for an ancient sewer artery. It was pitch black with ankle-deep water.

Vestal pressed a pair of lowlite goggles into his hand. When he tried to speak, she immediately shushed him and motioned forward. He continued to grasp the mini-taser in his pocket tightly. His left leg was really killing him now, and he began to worry about the hike back to civilization.

After sloshing through the tunnel for about a quarter-click, she halted and produced four palm-sized saucers from beneath her poncho. These she attached to the tunnel walls at four pace intervals, and then activated them. They emanated a deep pulsing hum--some kind of ultrasonic scrambler, he figured. The scramblers also provided a soft blue illumination, and the two of them removed their goggles. Clay was seriously wondering what he was into, but he couldn't help being impressed by her preparations.

She turned to him, her face earnest. "I'm so glad you decided to come, Clay."

He smiled. "An old sewer? I swear I've done this in at least two different sims."

"Precautions," she said.

He nodded. "Right. And so this is where you reveal stuff. Like why you sliced into my files but only stole Mistress Ravenna. Who my father really is..."

"No more games, Clay. Surely you must have some questions for me."

"Okay, Vestal. How about who sent you?"

She smiled, her eyes wide and intense. "You might say that Pacifico sent me. If you're asking about my current corporate affiliation, however, I have none. What else?"

Clay stared back, trying to mimic her intensity.

"I can safely assume you signed the contract," she said. "The real question is whether or not you actually read it. Catch anything about collection of cerebralspinal fluid? How about those enhanced security measures--bet you're feeling safe now."

"Who are you?"

"And I noticed that limp of yours. The motion stimulator on the old VR rig not quite up to par? Let me guess--diagnostics checked out fine, and the techies had no real explanation, but they'll make it up to you with a new rig. It's probably on the way right now."

Clay sprang forward predator-quick, grabbing one thin arm and jamming the taser to her sternum. "Tell me who you are, goddammit!"

This close her eyes seemed very large and very green. She blinked rapidly, but her frank expression remained unchanged. "Impressive reflexes, just like your profile. My poncho is anti-assault by the way. Tase me and you go down yourself."

He slowly looked from her face to the poncho and back. Then he released her and stepped away. "Okay, okay, I just--I'm sorry, okay? I did read all that shit in the contract, and yes, when I tried to leave campus yesterday they insisted on security. It's just...you seem to know so much." He drew a deep breath and tried to keep his voice steady. "You're going to tell me, right? I mean, it's why we're here, right?"

She nodded and smoothed the shoulders of her poncho. "I used to be a team leader on Project: Argo," she began. "Pacifico's deep space research division..."

She explained how over a decade ago, Pacifico, with government backing from several smaller nation-states, had begun investing in long-range manned space exploration. She went into some detail about logistics and financial viability, and Clay soaked in what he could. Then she began talking about virtua: how improvements could help alleviate the unexpected lag in cryogenic technology, theoretically providing an outlet to stimulate and preserve the mental acuity of a deep space astronaut. How virtua could assist in training and maintaining an astronaut's skillset. Here Clay recalled the aftermath of Fist of the Bald Monkey and the way his body seemed to remember those martial arts stances and movements. But how would the human psyche react to months, years, decades in virtua? What about being able to distinguish reality?

"You're a hardcore V-kid, Clay," she said. "But do you ever think you're actually in the sim, that the virtua world is the real one?"

"No," he answered. "But I suppose it could happen, once the tech gets good enough. Or if someone was brainwashed or something."

She nodded and continued. "So, virtua for the mind, but what about the body?" She talked about how Project: Argo had to tackle numerous physical health problems, but one of their main concerns was human aging. Lengthy immobile sim-sessions would provide a kind of de facto suspended animation, and improving skeletal-muscular stimulation systems could keep a body functional, but cellular aging would still occur. Clay listened closely, trying to recall his basic biology. She summarized a process that would allow mass lengthening of telemores on the chromosomal level, substantially extending human life.

"We had to deal with the issue of sustenance, of course. And someone suggested fulfilling a subject's protein needs with material generated from their own DNA. That's when we discovered, almost by accident, that total self-sustaining immersion of pluripotent cellular material was integral to the process." She paused as if conducting a lecture.

"Protein rich foods, like meat products, grown from the subject's own body. Then fed to that subject in tandem with the proper biochemical cocktails to retard the aging process."

"Retard the...fed to the...oh, shit." Clay's said.

"A person's feces would be useful elsewhere in the process, but you're catching on. This is where you come in, Clay. You see, you're one of the test-subjects and--"

"Test-subject? No, it's play-tester. I'm a play-tester."

She stared at him briefly, and then began talking fast about the profile. Small body-type, physical resilience, quick reflexes: "You were quite the table tennis player back in school, right? Don't get sick very often?" She continued the list. "Average intelligence, heavy sim-use, an affinity for virtua going back to adolescence. Tough but stable upbringing, a certain stubbornness toward achieving goals..."

Clay shuffled backwards a few steps, staring. She listed details from his past and explained how they matched the profile--details that went beyond what he'd included in any pre-employment interviews with Pacifico.

"More importantly, they need people who can be isolated, gradually," she said. "People who can be made to disappear without much comment."

"Okay, so you've done your research," he said. "You're recording me now, right? Or maybe this is some kind of field test for some paranoid new sim."

"I know it's difficult to grasp, but here's how it will unfold. Your next sim-session will run a week longer than expected--same excuses as last time. And they will surgically install several tracking and monitoring devices while you're down, just to hedge their bets. Subsequent sessions will continue to run long. They'll keep claiming it's due to your wondrous virtua skills.

"Maybe a year later, you'll come-to in a completely different location, probably someplace remote. They'll explain that corporate restructuring forced them to move operations to a new more advanced campus, and they didn't want to interrupt the sim to move you. They'll bring in someone very persuasive and familiar--maybe that agent of yours--to help convince you. The next time--"

"Yeah, okay, I get it. Next time I come-to in a spaceship headed for Pluto, right?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "No, that would be premature. A few years down the line, maybe."

He laughed. "Sounds kind of cool. Me, a deep space astronaut--the first to reach the outer planets. And plenty of virtua along the way."

"You wouldn't be the first," she said, pausing to glance down the tunnel. "Two confirmed launches to date. The first ship only had one test-subject, and he was practically brain-dead to begin with. He's currently approaching Jupiter. Ship number two was manned by a trio of Mars colony convicts and outfitted with all our best technology. An actual trial run, keeping them in virtua ninety-five percent of the time. But one of them figured out a way to commit suicide, and then about fifteen months ago the sustenance system failed on the other two. There have been rumors of a third launch date coming up in the next few months."

Clay tried to recall what he'd learned about those first space explorers of the previous century--something about them being preceded by dogs and chimps...

"You'd be surprised how inexpensive it is, in relative terms, to produce a functional vessel for a one-way trip," she said softly.

He waited for her to continue, but she said nothing. "And after you found out about all that, you quit Project: Argo and hightailed it, right?"

She looked down at the filthy water. "No, Clay. I always knew about it. All of it. I was part of the project's conception."

Now she was talking about the increasing difficultly of justifying the means to Project: Argo's end, how the tools of rationalization began to feed her nightmares. She became more animated, pacing back and forth, her voice raised in pitch and volume.

Clay kept going back over what she'd said about meat products generated from a subject's own DNA: the food he'd eaten over the last two weeks, nearly all of it arriving through the flat's delivery slot. He realized he'd not gone out for chow once, and it was the same deal the previous time in between sim-sessions. He clutched at his stomach, which was growling hungrily once again.

Vestal detailed her flight from the project and subsequent entry into the anti-corp underground. She had made a personal vow of atonement to seek out every test-subject she could find and provide them with both the truth and an avenue of escape.

"Eventually, though, it's up to you," she said. "You have to decide to leave."

She stared at him, her green eyes intense and unyielding, her posture rigid. No way it was all an act, he thought, no way. His gut stopped rumbling and seemed to fall away as if he'd jumped from a skyscraper without a glide harness.

"Proof," he whispered.

"Of course."

She produced a palm-sized plastic container, and tossed it to him. Inside was a dark length of corrugated tubing about the size of his pinky finger, hollow on one end, an interface chip on the other--a jury-rigged geno-codec. She explained how to install the device and gave him instructions for contacting her.

"The others you mentioned. Did any of them..."

"I'll be honest with you, Clay. The few I've managed to contact all stayed with Pacifico." She shook her head and sighed into the gloom. "I can only remain in the area a few more days. Think about this, Clay, think about it hard. You can still get out."

She then pointed the best way out of the tunnel, collected her four sonic scramblers from the walls, and disappeared back towards the swapmeet. Clay stood alone in the darkness for a few minutes, pondering. He'd wanted to ask her what her real name was.

Protein was protein was protein. He'd been telling himself this for the last two hours. All the way back to campus he'd reviewed and analyzed his subterranean meeting with Vestal, picking at and attacking everything she'd said from every angle he could think of, trying not to believe her. Yet he found he did believe her.

And now, having hooked up Vestal's geno-codec tubing to his tidy-bot for a DNA test, he would have some confirmation.

The tidy-bot transmitted to the trid, which displayed three spiraling double-helix strands in vibrant color. Two of the three spirals corresponded to samples he'd taken from the fridge--leftover pizza-pepperoni and burrito-meat--and the third was from his own blood.

The text floating above the strands flashed from ANALYZING to TEST COMPLETE to IDENTICAL MATCH.

Clay stood there for a long moment, scratching his chin. Of course the makeshift geno-codec could be wrong--it could be a fake. But why? Why would she do that? What did she possibly have to gain?

He took a lengthy shower and returned to the front room to once again regard the identical multicolored spirals floating within the trid. He stared at the spot where he'd pricked his index finger, then his eyes drifted from the slice of pizza on the counter to the half-eaten burrito.

He tried to imagine his life if he rabbited now and took up with Vestal. Maybe he could help her contact and recruit the others--life on the run, one step ahead of Pacifico and their government lackeys, like any decent thriller-sim. More likely she'd set him up with some lame-assed false ID, and he'd be back to short-term maintenance contracts and scrounging for survival, constantly looking over his shoulder all the while.

Shaking his head, he banished the DNA test from the display and purged it from system memory. He unhooked Vestal's geno-codec and returned his tidy-bot to normal.

A pair of calls soon came in. The first was Kanu: "Your limo arrives at 7:00, my man. With Sobette and Mae Ling in tow and primed to par-tay. And don't you be sweating the pair of security officers who will likewise be in attendance. I checked them out and they're cool." The second was an Elysium rep wanting to schedule delivery of a brand new O-5000 Virtua Rig at his earliest convenience.

He ambled over to the counter and picked up the leftover burrito. For a brief instant he imagined a vivid sim-like scene: Vestal in a white smock and chef's hat, whistling while she spooned sizzling meat from a skillet onto a tortilla. Beside the skillet was a huge container with a label reading, 'CLAY-RIFIC Brand Reprocessed Meat Substitute, Grade-A'.

Clay sighed and eyed the burrito he was holding. Then he shrugged and took a large bite and chewed thoughtfully. Protein was protein was protein. And it tasted fine.

Scott Beem lives in downstate Illinois with his wife, daughter, and son. He does aggressive analysis and tech writing for work and creative writing for fun. Check him out at beemsville.wordpress.com.