Thrill Switch E-Book

Tim Hawken

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 494

Beschreibung

No fingerprints. No DNA. No suspects... except one.

Detective Ada Byron is pumped to finally be assigned her first murder case - until she sees the crime scene. Someone has been killed exactly the same way as her father was seven years earlier.

But the psycho who did that is in jail, isn’t she?

To see if this is a copycat, or something more sinister, Ada must work with her personal nightmare Jazlin Switch, who knows much more that she’s letting on. What follows is a mind-bending, heart-stopping ride through the dark side of reality and the virtual world.

A gripping, techno noir thriller that will have you questioning what is real and what is even possible.

“Welcome to a sci fi version of
Silence of the Lambs”
★★★★★
- Gordon A Long

“A science fiction fan’s dream”
★★★★★
- Residual Sizzle

“This is a thriller that doesn’t stop!”
★★★★★
- Audiobook Reviewer Magazine
*content warning: contains violence, references to sexual abuse, and adult language.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Guide

Contents

Start of Content

People think it’s impossible to kill someone for real in VR. They simply lack imagination.

If you can give someone a seizure by flashing a strobe in their eyes, consider what you can do by hijacking their entire sensory system.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

Flip the Switch. Reap the consequences.

- Excerpt from the Hyperrealist’s Manifesto

1

RAMA WOKE FROM his nightmare to an even worse reality. His hand was cuffed to a dirty hotel bed. A steady drip, drip, drip from the roof landed on the pillow next to him.

Where was he?

Had his politics finally caught up with him?

Had she?

Rama struggled to sit up. He noticed three hunting knives laid out neatly on the bedside table. They weren’t his. His heart froze. He checked himself for injuries. There were no cuts on his body. No blood on the sheets. Not yet. Rama thought about yelling for help but didn’t. The owner of the blades might arrive instead, as cold and sharp as those implements of pain.

Rama rattled the handcuff around his wrist as quietly as he could. No use. Held tight. He twisted to look at the bedhead he was tethered to. Old. Metal. The frame was joined to the base in a rusted corner. Pushing his weight back, Rama tested the strength of it. The joint groaned and cracked a touch.

A noise in the hall. Rama’s eyes darted to the door. He held his breath. One count. Two. Three. Silence.

Quietly, carefully, Rama leaned back onto the bedhead again. It separated further. Rama rocked back and forth, pulling at the bedhead with his spare hand, eyes trained on the door. He strained with everything he could. No use. He was weak. Skinny. Out of shape. He wished he’d used his muscles more. Had done the workouts recommended for people like him.

Rama pushed back and forth on the headboard with his shoulder, trying to gain leverage.

Another noise outside. Scraping?

Rama stopped his rocking. Waited. The door remained mercifully closed. Rama eased the end of his cuff down the bedhead, onto the cracked joint. He pulled again, hard. The metal around his wrist dug into his skin. Pain lanced up his arm. The thought of those knives digging instead kept Rama trying, desperate, tug after tug. The bracelet of the cuff started to pull through the joint. The metal was now slick with blood that seeped from his wrist.

More scraping in the hall. Rama could feel himself getting frantic, his breath coming in gasps. Sweat joined the drips from the roof.

Still, he pulled.

Almost there.

Rama wiggled the cuffs.

Wrenched.

He pulled free to a groan of metal. Bang! The headboard snapped back into place. The noise sent a jolt through Rama. He scrambled up from the bed and snatched one of the knives from the dresser, holding it in front of him. The blade point shook, as unsteady as Rama’s heartbeat.

No other movement.

Rama crept toward the door and looked through the peephole. Outside seemed deserted. Then something made him pause.

It couldn’t be.

The carpet. Red with yellow swirls.

He was in his own apartment building.

Rama opened the door, creeping out, knife first. He looked left, right. The hallway was empty.

Where had that scraping come from?

No marks on the carpet. No scratches along the walls.

Not waiting for an answer, Rama half walked, half ran toward the lift at the end of the hall. Each door he passed felt like a trap ready to be sprung. His captor could be hiding behind any one of them, watching, waiting.

Rama got to the lift and punched the button again and again.

Down. Down. Down.

The doors slid open. No one inside. The lift’s light flickered off and on. Rama didn’t care. He stepped in and hit close.

Close. Close. Close.

A scraping out in the hall. Footsteps coming. Rama lifted his knife, ready for the worst.

The door shut, cutting off the sound. The lift began to move downward. The dread in Rama’s gut lifted. He dared to hope. Allowed himself to breathe.

The light above strobed.

Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light.

The lift stopped mid-floor.

‘No!’ Rama gasped.

He pushed the ground-floor button again. All went black.

That scraping again. Metal on the door outside. Impossible between floors. Terrifying.

Scrrrrrratch. Scrrrrrratch. Scrrrrrratch.

The light flicked on.

A blade poked through the gap in the doors. Sharp. Deadly.

Rama pushed his body against the back of the lift. The knife stabbed in and out, trying to catch him. It slid up to the top. Down again.

The light went off.

Darkness.

Then on—light glinting against the metal of the blade.

‘Help!’ Rama banged on the side of the lift. He pushed the emergency alarm. Grabbed the phone. No dial tone. Dead. He let it drop, tears welling.

The blade scraped and stabbed at the empty air in front of Rama.

Darkness.

Rama pushed into a corner.

Another noise. Breathing. Not Rama’s. He felt hot air on his face. Smelled rotten meat.

He tried to move away but a hand grabbed his throat. The light came on. No one there.

The invisible hand squeezed Rama’s windpipe. Lifted him off the ground.

Rama choked, knowing this wasn’t real. Not a nightmare either. Something in between.

He gasped for air. His feet kicked.

A pixelated face digitized in front of Rama. Horrid. Half man, half spider. Its pincers dripped venom, moving as the thing spoke.

‘Where is it?’

Rama clutched at the hands around his throat, trying to tell himself this wasn’t real, that he could breathe if he tried hard enough.

‘You’re… working, for her,’ Rama managed to say.

‘Maybe I am her,’ the spider replied.

‘I don’t have it!’

‘Time will tell,’ the spider said. ‘Tick, tock.’

The spider rammed a blade into Rama’s gut. Again and again and again.

Rama screamed in pain.

The spider smiled in delight, then bit down on Rama’s face. Blood sprayed.

The light flicked off again.

Darkness.

2

I ALMOST DID a fist pump when my first murder case came in. Then I remembered it was because someone had died. Rather than look like a total douche-canoe, I smoothed my suit out, grabbed a notepad, and took a self-drive to the crime scene.

Las Vegas streets whipped by. I headed to the Old Strip, its former glitz now a faint glimmer in the center of the city. Over the decades, all the casinos had turned into mass jack-in centers—cheap accommodation for those who spent most of their lives in the virtual world, the Holos. Vegas was no longer the gambling capital of America. Now, we were the virtual hub of the planet. Our secure electrical grid powered servers instead of neon lights. Our towering high-rises were the perfect place to fit the city’s skyrocketing population. Thanks to relaxed laws protecting virtual rape, murder fantasies, and worse as ‘freedom of speech’, people from all over the world flocked here to live out their darkest desires with impunity. It was still Sin City, just in a different way. Give me your poor and your huddled masses, Lady Liberty once said. What she’d really meant was give me your paying customers to plug into our system. That might all change with the new legal proposals coming but, for now, it was full steam ahead into damnation. Not that I took part. The Holos was a sewer. You wouldn’t catch me dead inside. Not since that first trip so many years ago.

I self-consciously fiddled with my tie. I needed to look pristine. Together. A reflection of how I should feel inside. I checked my hair in the derm screen of my wrist-comm. Red bangs snipped as straight as a cutthroat’s razor. Good. At least that part of me looked sharp.

The whole way to the Strip I thought why me? Why this case now? I’d been banging my head in the missing persons unit for a year and hadn’t been granted a transfer to homicide, even with a Ph.D. on serial killers. The serial killer. Maybe my lack of progress was because I was a woman, or because they thought I was too young. More likely it was my unfortunate habit of making off-color jokes at inappropriate times.

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Not Billy, he’s missing.

Not funny, apparently.

The car stopped at the building address I’d been given. This place used to be called Treasure Island. Now it was called the Bolodair Apartments. The elevator ride up to the crime scene was nauseating. Old casino lifts had a habit of jerking upward before smoothing out. The worn carpet along the hallway wasn’t much better. It reminded me of vomit swirls and blood. Or pineapple on top of pizza. Just as disgusting. Since most of the residents of this place spent all their time in digital, the common areas were never upgraded. As long as the connections were fast and equipment state-of-the-art, no one cared about the rest.

A streak of yellow tape at the end of the hall indicated where to go. Standing outside the unit was Gibson, homicide department lead. A bollard of a man. His thick neck and bald head made him look like a giant thumb with a face. Gibson turned to see me. I gave him a thumbs up, figuring it might look like a tiny mirror and keep him happy. It didn’t.

‘Byron?’ he grunted as I approached.

I was a full head taller than him but there were no illusions about who held the most power.

‘Ada is fine, Deputy Chief Gibson,’ I said. ‘Have the scan team been through?’

‘Yes. That’s why I called you.’

Without another word, he dipped under the tape blocking the door. I followed but stopped when confronted with the scene. A VR immersion rig sat in the corner with a limp body strapped into it. The corpse’s back was to us, so I couldn’t see the helmet or head. Its fingers were covered in blood. The plasma dripped into a puddle that spread along the floor. A Holos unit was stacked onto the back wall along with feeding tubes and a store of liquid nutrients. On the far side of the room, black writing was scrawled on the wall. The script was too small to read from this distance.

‘Trauma includes abrasions on the fingertips and a burst eyeball,’ Gibson said. ‘No DNA or fingerprints, other than the victim’s.’

‘Right. So no eye-popping evidence?’ I asked.

Gibson just stared at me.

‘Any security footage of someone leaving or entering the room recently?’ I hoped vainly.

‘Plenty of footage of empty halls,’ Gibson said. ‘The only person that came near this room was a cleaner who found the body this morning.’

My mouth went dry.

‘Cause of death is from a massive loss of blood?’

Gibson nodded.

‘Through the eyes?’ I managed to ask.

‘Through the eyes. Time of death was around midnight last night,’ Gibson confirmed.

This couldn’t be right. My gut clenched. I saw now why I was called here. The serial killer. But that wasn’t possible.

‘You think this might be linked to the Specter Slaughter?’ I asked, point-blank.

‘You did your thesis on it,’ Gibson said. ‘You tell me.’

‘Did the scan team note anything else?’ I asked, grasping for evidence to the contrary.

‘The victim’s blood contains mildly elevated traces of potassium.’

‘Maybe he had a banana addiction?’ I offered, trying to lighten the darkness I was feeling.

Gibson leveled a cold gaze at me.

‘Bananas?’

‘You know, high in potassium?’

‘Is that a professional opinion?’

‘Perhaps an unprofessional one,’ I said.

‘Then give me some actual insight, if you have any.’

I swallowed my creeping dread, looking at the scene again. I didn’t want to say it yet, lest it became real. I straightened my tie again. It was dark crimson, like my hair. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about bloodstains.

‘May I?’ I indicated the body.

Gibson stepped aside to let me through. I tentatively walked up, took the corpse’s wrist, and checked the hands. The fingertips were lacerated like Gibson had said, fingernails all broken backward. I considered the helmet. Scratch marks studded the edges where the victim had clawed his own immersion rig trying to get out. There was something strange about the marks that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They weren’t exactly what I expected. Pushing that information to the back of my mind, I twisted the body in its rig. The Holos resolution screen had already been pulled up. The corpse’s blood-caked face stared at me, his black eyes bugged out. One of them had ruptured into a gory mess.

I stepped back at the sight. My mind swam. I tried to drag my thoughts to the surface. How could I prove this wasn’t possible without stating the obvious? They’d know the obvious already; wouldn’t have called me if it were that simple. I glanced at the helmet again.

‘Isn’t it standard procedure for a scan team to return anything they moved back to the original position?’ I asked.

‘Yes. So?’ Gibson shifted.

‘So why didn’t they put the victim’s display shield back in place?’

Gibson looked over at the body and frowned. He clicked the comm-screen attached to his wrist and scrolled through some information.

‘Says here it was already open.’

‘That’s odd,’ I clicked my tongue, thinking. ‘If it’s supposed to be a Specter slaying, this guy shouldn’t have been able to turn off his Holos simulation at all.’

Gibson simply stared, waiting for the punch line. He seemed to be growing impatient. Was he going to say it?

‘Could Jazlin Switch have done this?’ he asked.

And there it was, the Devil’s name. Hearing it aloud oddly calmed me because I knew this couldn’t be her work.

‘She’s been in digital confinement for the last seven years. Still is.’

‘But no one has spoken to her in there for five years,’ he countered. ‘Not since her last three interviewers committed suicide.’

‘She’s still there,’ I said. ‘We can see her avatar on the virtual feed.’

I didn’t say that I looked at it every single day, just to reassure myself.

‘And she’s done nothing but sit and meditate in there,’ Gibson said. ‘She won’t respond to audio prompts. For all we know, the footage is on some kind of loop and she’s found a way to jack out of virtual into the real world.’

Hairs stood up on the back of my neck. If that had really happened there’d be more than one body found this morning. Her first slaughter had clocked into the hundreds in a day. I could hear the screams. Feel the shock of people dropping all around me. The terror of dashing to escape my first trip to the virtual world, hoping my dad made it out too. The Holos. The horror. There had been more killings the day after that and again the day after, until they caught her. Almost a thousand people had been murdered in the end.

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again to steady myself in reality. Actual reality.

‘No one can unsync their mind from digital confinement,’ I said, sounding calmer than I felt. ‘Not even Jazlin Switch. If someone found where she’s plugged in and tried to pull her out manually, she’d die. And good riddance too.’

‘I want you to go in and interview her. Make sure.’

I actually laughed. That wasn’t going to happen. No way, no way, no way. Gibson and I locked gazes—a stare off I had no interest in winning.

I looked over to the body again.

‘It could be a copycat,’ I ventured. ‘Perhaps someone broke in here and killed this guy, making it look like a Specter Slaughter.’

‘Really?’ Gibson raised an eyebrow. ‘No footage. No DNA. No nothing.’

‘But no one has been able to do what she did— kill people inside the virtual world so they die here. Not even close. Filton Fukami confirmed his Holos developers refactored the code that made it possible. How has that changed?’

Gibson stood silent, letting the question hang in the air.

I walked over to look at the writing on the far wall. Neat, block letters read:

IT’S MORE ABOUT MONEY THAN POWER.

Above that was a scrawl in different handwriting.

Free the body and the spirit will soar.

I shuddered. That was something Switch had written in her Hyperrealist’s Manifesto. A blank set of fingerprints signed off the scrawl at the end. It was the mark of a movement Switch had belonged to that prized anonymity as the way to freedom from government and corporate manipulation. It was as if someone was trying hard to connect this to the Specter Slaughters. Really hard. But if this was supposed to have been a Specter killing, the victim must have written it. This was getting more confusing by the minute. I didn’t like it.

It’s more about money than power was new, too. Something different. I used my wrist-comm to take a photo of it.

‘That looks like a motive perhaps,’ I mused. ‘Do we know who the victim is?’

‘No,’ Gibson said. ‘Zero DNA match in the national system. Probably an anonymous jack-in. Indian descent. Male. Twenty-seven.’

‘What about the lease of the unit?’

‘Paid for in SureCoin under the name John Smith. Untraceable.’

I thought for a moment, gathering all the relevant information to recap aloud.

‘So,’ I said, ‘we have something that looks like a Specter slaying, but it’s a one-off. There’s also the potassium in the blood, the open display helmet, and a possible motive beyond mere psychopathy. Those things all point away from Switch. I don’t think we need to interview her.’

‘I do,’ Gibson pressed.

‘Then you do it,’ I snapped.

Gibson’s face turned as red as a Vegas sunset.

‘You’re the expert,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s why I called you in. I thought you’d jump at the chance. You’re more qualified than anyone to do it. I’ve started the clearance process with the military unit who’s holding her. Took a lot of string pulling.’

‘I don’t go into virtual,’ I said, crossing my arms.

‘You what?’ Gibson scoffed. ‘Not even unsynced? You’re not one of those Luddites are you?’

I paused. The screams. My father’s body dead in my arms.

‘No. I just prefer the stability of the real world,’ I said.

‘You must be the only one.’ Gibson shook his head.

‘Look,’ I said, still wanting to make my mark here. ‘Let me work the clues of the scene first. Switch isn’t going anywhere. Hasn’t gone anywhere. I’m sure of it. I’ll find something. I promise.’

Gibson mused, rubbing the top of his thumb-like head.

‘I’ll give you 24 hours,’ he said. ‘It will take that long to finalize digital confinement access with the military anyway. If you find nothing promising, you interview her. It doesn’t have to be long—just enough to confirm she’s safely locked in digital confinement. Right?’

I dipped my head in a reluctant nod.

‘Good. I’ll leave you to it then.’ He turned to leave before pausing. ‘And don’t say anything about the murder to anyone outside the unit. If this gets into the media we’ll have a panic. Right?’

‘Right.’ I nodded, my own mini-panic rising.

I had a day to find a real lead or march into electro-prison to face the woman who killed my dad.

3

FILTON FUKAMI STRODE onto a giant stage in the virtual world. A deafening roar went up from the crowd of millions gathered, come to see the creator of the Holos. These people had voted him in as a senator of Nevada—their official place of residence, even if they never went outside.

Fukami’s avatar was the perfect picture of how he looked in real life—the quintessential Japanese businessman. Fit. Suited. Groomed black hair with hints of grey on the sides. The stadium around him was like a colossal Coliseum. Ancient-looking pillars contrasted with cutting-edge, Tru-Res screens. On the top tier of the stadium were glass skyboxes fitted out as full luxury apartments. The elite’s way to view history.

A shimmering screen unfurled behind Fukami, showing lush green fields. He held up his hands for silence. The crowd gave immediate respect, the roar dropping to a hum.

‘The Holos is our world of promise,’ he said. ‘We must fight to keep it free!’

Cheers erupted again. Cyberpunks, military nuts, fantasy freaks and more, all watched in supplication. Every faction clapped with their hands in the air.

‘The Holos has been the only place where we can express ourselves as we truly are,’ Fukami continued. ‘The only place we can fulfill our deepest, darkest desires without harm or fear. It used to be we could say, write or print what we liked in this country. That same freedom of speech should extend to digital visions too. Fantasies of the mind that feel truly real. That stimulate our souls.’

The screen behind Fukami flashed with writhing naked bodies, then a gun battle with zombies, then back to the clean, clear fields of grass.

‘But our paradise is under threat!’ Fukami shouted.

The cheers turned to boos.

Fukami’s background changed to an image of polluted skies. Of trash mounds, heaped and rotting.

‘Before the Holos,’ he said, ‘our scrambling for material wealth was raping the planet. Pandemics were commonplace.’

Footage of crowded hospitals and piles of dead lit up around the space. All then flashed back to green fields.

‘Now we can have everything we desire. All the prestige and physical possessions we want, without using resources and polluting the land. All of our physical needs and fantasies fulfilled without the risk of getting infected.’

Images of people driving luxury cars roared to life through the air above the crowd. Then models sipping cocktails. The good life as a light show. All went black again. Bright images of the world’s capital cities strobed on the big background screen. Clean streets of New York City. Flawless skies above Beijing. Orderly traffic in New Delhi. People lounging on lawns in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

‘Since the Holos started, our carbon emissions have dropped globally,’ Filton went on. ‘All electricity is produced sustainably from solar. The climate has stabilized. People are enjoying themselves in both the virtual and the real on unprecedented levels.’

He stopped. His avatar grew. It towered above everyone, projected lifelike as a hundred-foot giant in the front of the stage.

‘And it's all because of freedom,’ he boomed.

The applause from the crowd was ear splitting. People screamed themselves hoarse, stomping their feet. Fukami raised his arms for silence.

‘These new laws Senator Rommel has proposed will take that away,’ he said gravely.

Silence. Not a peep.

‘Your freedom will be gone. We will go back to the poverty and pollution of the past. To the disease and famine and suffering. Do we want that? Or do we want a free Holos?’

The reaction was instantaneous.

‘FREEDOM. FREEDOM. FREEDOM.’

Fukami let it go on for a full five minutes. He stood with hands clasped in front of him, nodding sagely. His projection then shrank back down. Fukami glowed with pure light on stage. The crowd hushed again.

‘Let Senator Rommel know how you feel. We will not stand for her tyranny, for draconian laws in the digital world. Blog. Vlog. Flit. Feed. Scream it from the rooftops. She is a public servant just like me. She needs to serve your will. Let that will be known. Squash her policy proposal before it gets put on the open market. Show her it won’t be successful. Tell her you’ll not invest in a dark future. Let her know the Holos will not be shackled. Anonymity. Freedom. Fulfillment.’

The three words lit up behind him in neon. A slogan anyone could remember. The crowd took up the call.

‘ANONYMITY. FREEDOM. FULFILMENT.’

‘Now go!’ Fukami said. ‘Create action. Show you’ll protect your home by any means necessary!’

People streamed out of the public square, jazzed up, ready to do his bidding. It felt like an incitement to riot, even though he hadn’t used the words.

I sat back from the hologram screen, taking out my earphones. The police station buzzed with movement around me. Coffee slurped, donuts chomped—the sound of cases being cracked. I tried to filter it all out and concentrate. That Fukami speech was utter drivel. It was the eighth result of millions that had come up when I’d searched for ‘Money, Power, Holos.’ There was no way it related to the case. Fukami might have once worked with Jazlin Switch on coding and connecting the Holos, but that was ancient history. He’d disavowed anything to do with her when she went full psycho. She’d almost destroyed what he’d worked so hard to create.

An endless scroll of unread articles sat beneath the speech footage. That avenue was starting to feel hopeless.

I rearranged my things, shifting my keypad to be parallel with the edges of the bench. Dead center. My earphones went in their case, lid securely closed. The case went in its dedicated slot. Order. Now that I could concentrate again, I swung around to another screen, which showed security footage of empty hallways in the Bolodair Apartments. A cleaner appeared on the day of the body discovery. He meandered from room to room in the hall, doing his thing inside each one, then exiting again, until he came to room 842.

He opened the door, paused for a few moments in shock, then ran back down the hall. The cleaner had reported the murder right away and made a statement with the scan team. Nothing unusual. No one unusual. Nothing he didn’t see every day… except for the dead body.

‘Go back 24 hours and play again on four-times speed,’ I said to the screen wearily.

The footage kept rolling. I grunted in frustration. Five years ago I would have just clicked a mouse or banged the side of the monitor if that didn’t work. These new hologram screens were a nightmare.

‘Go back 24 hours and play again four-times speed,’ I said slowly and loudly, as if talking to an idiot.

Still nothing. I wanted to hurl something at the screen, but it would just pass right through.

‘Need a caffeine injection?’ a voice said behind me.

I turned to see Cline, our digital analyst. More hair than man, he had an unkempt afro, bushy beard, and eyebrows you could hang a hat on. He held out an extra-large cappuccino. I took it gratefully.

‘Cline, if you waxed your fun nuggets, you’d be marriage material,’ I said, taking a glorious sip. ‘Can you fix this stupid thing? I want to rewatch the footage again, but faster.’

Cline nodded knowingly. My I.T. support savior. He never got frustrated with me, just fixed things and moved on.

‘Q, back 24 hours. Quad speed, please.’ The footage immediately jumped back and ran. ‘You have to say ‘Q’ first, remember?’ He smiled.

Q. Siri. Alexa. It was hard enough remembering people’s names, let alone computer systems.

‘Do I have to say please too?’ I asked grumpily.

‘Well, manners never hurt.’ He shrugged. ‘You find anything?’

‘Not yet,’ I admitted. ‘Waiting for a doc’s report on the potassium in the blood. I’ve read that it could mean kidney failure, but we both know that’s not what killed him.’ I indicated the hallway on the screen. ‘You sure this footage hasn’t been tampered with?’

He nodded.

‘I ran it through the AI. No scrubbing found at all. It passed all the deep-fake detection programs news media need to run before being allowed to publish anything too. You could stamp it with a blockchain watermark and call it legitimate in any jurisdiction on earth. More to the point, there were no suspects pinpointed. Not in a whole month of footage.’

‘I don’t get it though,’ I said. ‘Most security systems like this run on motion detection. There shouldn’t be footage of empty hallways. It’s too random. There has to be some kind of manipulation here.’

‘Maybe they’ve got rats?’ Cline shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know what those places are like. Did you get anything on the keyword search from the writing on the wall?’

‘Money, power, Holos. Are you kidding?’ I said. ‘I may as well have typed in ‘free music, porn, cat photos’. It’s even worse with Senator Rommel’s Holosian bill hitting the policy market yesterday. Every man and his vlog are covering it.’

‘I hear its only paying $2 already,’ Cline said. ‘I got it at $3.50. If it gets down to a dollar five for a whole day and becomes law, I’ll make a handy profit.’

‘You bet on it?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Didn’t you?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d be all over more law and order in the Holos.’

‘I don’t bet on policy,’ I said. ‘We should vote on them, like the old days.’

‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ Cline asked, getting worked up. ‘It’s bad enough we still vote on what goes into the National Welfare Index. Old-school democracy is dead. Futarchy is the future.’

‘Whoever named that system needs an old-school bullet in the head,’ I said, looking back at the screen. ‘Now, how am I going to sort through this junkyard of articles?’

‘Have you tried narrowing the search by adding anything like ‘Indian Man?’ or something?’ he asked.

‘I should have done that already,’ I said, chastising myself.

The pressure of interviewing Jazlin Switch had me rattled. I was about to put fingers to keys, when a new result appeared at the top of the scroll. Its bold headline thundered out from the screen like a throat punch.

My breath faltered. Cline saw it too.

‘Shit,’ he said.

I almost did one in my pants. This wasn’t good.

CHRISTOS RAMA SLAIN IN SPECTER STYLE KILLING.

An image of the crime scene from the apartments sat beneath, True-News watermarked to prove authenticity.

‘Mother…’

‘…Fucker!’ the shout came from Gibson’s office.

His door swung open a mere second later, smacking into the wall behind. Everyone in the place turned his way.

‘You two,’ he said, leveling a finger toward Cline and me. ‘Briefing room. Now.’

4

LILITH’S SELF-DRIVE crept through traffic toward Coliseum 2.0. It seemed like half the population of the Holos were heading to one event—Senator Rommel’s first virtual rally. Thousands of soapbox preachers stood on raised sidewalk platforms, yelling their three-word slogans at the masses streaming by. Some held signs reading #KillHerBill, a hash tag Lilith had created and now partly regretted.

Lilith could tell by people’s avatars who was there to support Rommel and who was there to protest. The Free expressed their individuality in wild ways: Mohawks, body mods, clip-on augmentations. The Luds looked like they did in the real world—regular people with regular hopes and dreams. Lilith could respect that. There was a lot to be said for normal hopes, fair opportunity, nurtured families, and safety. That kind of life hadn’t been possible for Lilith, but she did envy it. Lilith looked around at the crowd again. This wouldn’t be like Fukami’s fanfests in virtual—it would be polarized chaos. The unrest already bubbled on the street. A group of ragtag paramilitary grunts were hassling two well-dressed women doing their best to stay calm. A giant boy soldier in fluorescent camo slapped one of the women on her ass. The woman flinched away, but another one of the goons slapped her on the ass again from the other side. It was tame behavior for the Holos, but things could easily escalate. Fear and confusion already gripped the women. The scene made Lilith’s blood boil.

‘Q, stop car,’ she ordered her self-drive.

The all tinted-glass vehicle instantly obeyed, to honks of anger behind. Lilith stepped out casually, glad she was still wearing her business avatar from earlier today—an elderly Englishman dressed in a three-piece suit. It grated her that this was still the best look to demand respect during contract negotiations, but if there was anything Lilith knew, it was how appearances created mood and mood set the foundation for all interactions. Her normal avatar, the one she called her true self, wasn’t practical right now anyway. The appearance of Holos celebrity Lilith Lace would cause a flat-out riot in a crowd this charged. Another horn honked. Lilith waved her apologies then tapped the top of her self-drive twice. A steel casing materialized from the vehicle and formed a ramp up and around that other cars could drive over. The Politisphere of the Holos was coded to prohibit flying cars for safety reasons, but that didn’t mean traffic should get too backed up. The small disruption had done enough to cause the paramilitary crowd to look her way, taking their attention from their would-be victims. Lilith turned their way theatrically.

‘Trisha! There you are, Trisha!’ she boomed in her modified, English accent toward the women who had been in trouble. ‘Do you need a lift?’

The woman Lilith had addressed as Trisha looked utterly confused at the use of a name that clearly wasn’t her own. Her friend, a diminutive brunette, caught on immediately though. She grabbed ‘Trisha’ by the arm and led her toward the car.

Lilith smiled a friendly grin, nodding curtly at the women’s harassers, who lost interest almost immediately. ‘Trisha’ and her companion came within a few feet but held their ground, still tentative.

‘Hello, ladies,’ Lilith said, ‘Why don’t you take this car where you need to go. It’ll be safer and easier.’

The small brunette frowned. ‘Are you sure? That’s awfully kind of you.’

‘Seems like you deserve some kindness after those brutes laid hands on you,’ Lilith said in her most appeasing voice. ‘It’s the least I can do. Not everyone in the Holos is so rude, I assure you.’

With that, Lilith tapped the door of her self-drive and it opened. At that moment, a car buzzed over the top of the self-drive’s ramp. The motion made the women step back. Lilith could tell they were still on edge. They must be full-time real worlders, only here to support Rommel.

‘It works like a regular self-drive,’ Lilith said. ‘Just tell it where you want to go and it will drop you at the door. It’s programmed to go to my virtual garage afterward when not in use.’

‘What about you?’ ‘Trisha’ said.

‘I’ll walk,’ Lilith replied, ‘I’m almost where I need to be anyway. Good day.’

With that, Lilith promptly turned and started to walk away with the crowd. The women would feel safer without her avatar standing over them.

‘Thank you!’ The words followed behind her.

Lilith glanced back and waved again, seeing the women enter the car. It detracted its ramp and started crawling through the traffic again. The sight made the knot in Lilith’s chest ease a little. They were safe, for now. Lilith knew only too well the fear of being a target. She’d been one for years where she grew up, in a poor neighborhood of a rough city. People took what they wanted in that life if they were strong. She was physically petite, so the apex predators took all they wanted from Lilith. She could feel their hands groping her even now. The cold of steel pressed against her throat and the disgusting whispers in her ear that if she moved the wrong way she’d never move again. She wouldn’t wish that life on anyone. And yet, perversely, it had made her what she was. From that original terror she’d built a strong will block by block. She had reclaimed her power by recreating her attacks in the bedroom, but with her in control. At first she was disgusted with herself, thinking she was sick in the head. But she’d learned that whatever she needed to do to feel whole, to feel pleasure again, was healthy—as long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. That epiphany had led her into the Holos to recreate and create more depraved acts. To mix them in with her love of music. To perform. In this playground, she always had control. She radiated that power to others who enjoyed watching. At first, Lilith was niche; a novelty. But the combination of two viral phenomena, sex and K-Pop, had spawned the X-Pop genre. Many tried to imitate, but she was the original, one of the biggest stars the virtual world enjoyed. She’d earned her fortune and regained her sanity in the process. She’d also campaigned tirelessly against domestic and sexual abuse in the real world. Pushed for those burdened with dark desires to only unleash their evil in the Holos. But now those lines were blurred for Lilith. She didn’t know if she was helping the problem or making it worse. Did X-Pop give people ideas? Whip them into spirals of escalating fantasy? Make them want more? Make them want the real experience? Crimes in the real world seemed to be declining but virtual sex without consent in the Holos was skyrocketing. That’s what the media were calling it: virtual sex without consent. She called it what it was: rape. It was why she was willing to hear out what Senator Rommel had to say. These new laws for the Holos might protect victims, but still allow actual fantasy to help satiate and rehabilitate those who needed it. There were, however, some points that made Lilith’s gut churn. Having Mercury instead of SureCoin as the official Holosian cryptocurrency was the main one. It meant less anonymity for her and for others wanting to do as they pleased without feeling like social outcasts. To not be judged for desires that weren’t entirely in their control. Anonymity also protected them against becoming targets of those wanting to harass the same person over and over and over, mobbing them no matter what avatar they took on.

Lilith snapped out of her reverie. She’d made it to the resident’s entry of Coliseum 2.0. Stepping up to the door, she pushed her hand onto the security disk. It read her unique biometric rhythms through her avatar—a failsafe only those who had permission to access the Skybox Apartments could pass. The door opened and she stepped into the lift, using her hand again to select her floor.

Upstairs, Lilith swept into her apartment. It was one of many she owned in the Holos, but the key place where she felt safe. The wide windows looked over the inside of the Coliseum, which rapidly filled with people below. Lilith went straight to her wardrobe and opened up to find her specially-made selection of avatars. She had spares of them at all of her homes. Another one of her business avatars was on the rack. There was also the charity face she dressed in at giving events—a chaste-looking matron in a modest-cut dress. Then there was her. The real her: Lilith Lace. Black hair cut into a short bob, slim yet sensual Korean body dressed in tight, all-black leather, and Stiletto heels that ended in knife points. Sex and power in a five foot five package. Of course, she was all of her avatars really: the businessperson, the altruist, and the BDSM musician goddess. She could easily reconcile all three sitting in her true self, but others couldn’t. The real world had trouble with complexity. It was easier to break down appearances and play directly to the audience she was speaking to.

Lilith slid her consciousness out of her business avatar and into her true self. She breathed a sigh of relief. Even dressed in the leather and heels, it was how Lilith felt most comfortable, most in control. She walked across the lounge and over to the windows. The sea of people roiled below—a cauldron ready to boil over. Lilith tapped her wrist and her Feed screen flared to life. She typed out a quick post: LET’S HEAR WHAT ROMMEL HAS TO SAY. STAY CALM. SHOW RESPECT.

A few moments later, the lights in the stadium dimmed. A single spotlight lit the stage. The figure of Sheila Rommel walked out. A mix of jeers and cheers rumbled through the place. A large backing screen flickered to life, showing Rommel at a wooden lectern, dressed in her tweed power skirt and jacket, hair short and pinned up neatly. There was no pomp. No lightshow or Fukami flare. Lilith recognized that this was a statement all in itself. Rommel was projecting that the focus should be on the issues. That this would be truth without spin. Whether that was actually the case remained to be seen.

Rommel cleared her throat and the crowd’s noise dropped enough for her to be heard clearly. Her face on the big screen showed calm determination.

‘Fellow citizens,’ Rommel said. ‘Americans, Holosians, friends in other parts of the world. This is a critical moment in history. A moment where we can choose to live in order or chaos. For too long, evil has been able to run unchecked in this virtual heartland of opportunity. You come here to play and work and enjoy your lives, yet now all you do is look over your shoulders in fear of violence. We’ve turned our backs on this threat for too long. We need to face it head on. To look that darkness in the eye and say ‘no more’. We deserve better than this. We are better than this.’

Rommel paused to let her words sink in, before continuing. ‘Folks, ask yourself right now: am I truly happy? Do I feel safe here? Would I be willing to bring my children into the Holos without worry?’

The last few shouts of protests fell silent at Rommel’s words. It wasn’t a question anyone could easily say yes to. Rommel pressed on.

‘We know that when a country brings in laws to protect their citizens against digital crime, quality of life goes up. America is the very last country to follow this logic. Our state of Las Vegas the slowest of all.’

Jeers of WE LEAD! and FREEDOM! went up from the crowd.

‘Yes, Freedom,’ Rommel nodded, pointing at one of the protesters. ‘That’s the reason you’ve been given by those who run this place to avoid any laws. Those like Senator Fukami, who stands to profit from leaving criminal behavior unchecked. Those people are elites who can afford personal security and digital fortresses inside this metaverse. They buy their freedom. But again, ask yourself, are you really free? Are you free to exist without the terror of being attacked? Are you free of bullies? Free of thieves? Free to call for justice? Do these criminals respect you and your personal freedoms? I say no. You are not free! You live in a prison of fear while they go free!’

Now Rommel’s supporters cheered. The noise was an upwelling of song. Some protesters still tried to have their voices heard, but the tide had well and truly swung in Rommel’s favor.

‘I say enough!’ Rommel slapped her hand onto her lectern. ‘It’s time we show these lowlifes what real freedom is. What real justice is. That common people deserve common decency too. It’s time to put laws in place. We need a way to track these enemies and shut them down. This is what my new bill will do. Give you real freedom again. It’s time we took back our lives! It’s time we had justice for all!’

Clear white words stood out on Rommel’s background screen: JUSTICE FOR ALL.

The spotlight went dark. The noise was raucous. Lilith looked down to see what was happening. The main lights of the Coliseum went on. Rommel was gone from stage. Both sides of the aisle were now turned to each other, yelling, screaming, waving hologram-generated neon signs. They held back on actual violence though. Even the Fukami diehards knew that to attack anyone now would prove Rommel’s point for her. They had to keep the peace.

Lilith folded her arms, thinking. Rommel hadn’t engaged with the Mercury issue properly. She hadn’t talked about how the unique cryptocurrency could trace its users to a verified real-world identity. Lilith shouldn’t be surprised. No politician dealt in nuance anymore. No marketer willingly pointed out the weak points of their product. Lilith stared out the window absently, trying to think about how she might be able to help bring these laws in without resulting in people’s anonymity being sacrificed. She’d have to send Rommel yet another message about her concerns and how they could be addressed. Commit her celebrity to promoting a middle ground for the campaign, if they could agree on it.

Then a reflection in the window caught Lilith’s attention.

Someone was behind her.

Lilith spun. A half man, half spider hung in the shadows. It stepped out, taking slow, deliberate steps toward Lilith.

‘Who are you?’ Lilith gasped, backing up against the glass.

No one could get in here. No-one. How was this even possible? Lilith searched around for weapons, something to defend herself with. She’d let her guard down completely. There was nothing. The creature was almost within reaching distance to her now. She was cornered.

‘What do you want?’ Lilith asked, pulse rising. ‘Who the fuck are you?

‘I am your fears become real,’ it growled, then lunged at Lilith’s throat.

Lilith couldn’t even scream. The grip of the beast cut off all air and all sense of hope.

5

A REPORTER’S FACE filled the briefing room screen. She was Chinese, with three different colored eyes. If this wasn’t her Holosian avatar, the real world was getting too weird for my tastes. Our True-Resolution display made it feel like the reporter was larger than life in the room. Titles below her talking head announced her name as Yu Ying.

‘This morning,’ Ying said. ‘Las Vegas Police discovered a crime scene that bears similar hallmarks to the Specter Slaughter, where Holos pioneer Jazlin Switch killed hundreds of people via virtual link seven years ago. A phrase written on the wall of the apartment ties the victim to Christos Rama's real world identity.’

‘Pull a file on this Rama person!’ Gibson barked at Cline, who nodded.

Ying’s report continued. Virtual footage showed Rama dressed in a Christian priest’s cassock, dyed saffron like Buddhist robes. He was giving some kind of sermon. Ying’s voiceover drawled on over the scene.

‘Rama, who has been publicly supporting the new Holosian Crime bill via his evangelist Feed channel, has long been campaigning to bring morality to the virtual world. His catch cry 'it's more about money than power,' calls out those who benefit from keeping the Holos free of government interference, saying they're hiding behind the idea of freedom for monetary gain.’

Rama’s sermon kicked into volume. He was animated behind his pulpit, passion dripping from every syllable.

‘We need real laws to stop the filth of virtual rape, pedophilia, murder, and violence running rampant in the Holos,’ Rama preached. ‘We need a transparent currency that allows governments to trace those who benefit from pimping immorality for their gain. That's why I support Senator Sheila Rommel's move for this new policy.’

‘Find out the full details of that policy too, Cline.’ I said. ‘What are people most polarized about?’

Cline typed like his fingers were on fire, swiping documents into files for us to digest later. His wild eyebrows caught sweat dripping down his forehead. The large screen in front of us flicked back to Yu Ying, who seemed to stare right at me with all three eyes.

‘Considering Jazlin Switch was a passionate supporter for absolute freedom in the virtual world, there is concern she might be involved directly with the murder,’ Ying said. ‘Is the Specter Slayer loose? Or has someone else finally been able to replicate her method of killing after all this time? I’ll bring you more news as it comes to hand. This is Yu Ying with a Feed Original Investigation.’

The screen went dark. Gibson slapped the table, making me jump.

‘Detective my ass,’ he said, glaring my way. ‘Cline, find out how those images got leaked to the press. I kept this team small for a reason and I know I’m not the fucking rat.’

Cline stood and scurried from the room. Gibson wheeled toward me. His thumb face looked like it had been hit with a hammer.

‘Jack-in station, one hour,’ he said. ‘You’re interviewing Jazlin Switch now whether you like it or not. Clearance just came through.’

He left without another word. I sat there staring at the dark screen. It reflected how I felt at my core. Black. My thoughts tumbled into that hole, back to my seventeenth birthday when my dad bought me a trip into the Holos. Fully synced avatars. Top line gear. Harnesses that would allow us to jump, fall, fly. True-Res helmets that projected the Holos as a perfect representation, with olfactory vents that simulated taste and smell too. Virtual reality without the V, as the slogan went.

I’d resisted the lure of the Holos up until then, afraid of the dark side of human nature on display there. My mother had described it as a brain sewer, where all the sludge of our minds mixed together. She refused to go in. As a gym teacher, she demanded all her classes were in a physical space. She even mistrusted virtual classrooms linked only to the National Education Network, saying I should never trust what I couldn’t touch and see with my real body. Anything else was too easily manipulated for someone else’s gain. I should have listened, but I was seventeen. I wanted to experience the worlds. Both of them. Dad was more liberal. He agreed there was some darkness in the Holos but thought it was eclipsed by light—the creative side of what we could imagine. The art. The ideas. The experiences. They were the fantastic creation of the human mind. He said we should be willing to draw inspiration from everywhere. That fantasies were there to be enjoyed, not to be taken too seriously. Now that I was becoming a woman, I had to see and decide for myself.

The day started innocently, soaring through the clouds, wandering ancient civilizations, letting the music of generations flow over me. It was wonderful. Dad showed me everything he loved. The bright side of the Holos, he called it. The true side. He wore an avatar that looked just like his smiling self. He encouraged me to do the same, saying if I wasn’t comfortable with who I was in the real world, I wouldn’t find peace in the virtual one. Still, he let me try on outfits of outrageous designs, rolling his eyes good-naturedly at my choices. He then helped me pick out something that reflected the sweet girl I was at that point. It was right then that a tall, warrior-looking brute walked past and said only true sluts dressed like librarians. I wanted to cry with the shock. Dad simply put his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

‘Don’t worry about what other people think of you,’ he said, ‘Take the world as a joke and you’ll always be smiling. Take the work you do seriously and you’ll always be successful.’

It sounded wise, so I smiled. He was successful after all. Liked. Happy. His skill at refitting vintage cars drew people into his showroom from all over the country. His easy charm had people buying them too, despite the premium pricing. ‘If you can afford the insurance to manually drive it yourself, you can afford the car as well,’ was his favorite line, delivered with a grin.

I shook off the brute’s comment and refocused on the moment. Dad worked such long hours, it was wonderful to have one-on-one time with him.

‘What’s next?’ I asked Dad.

His eyes sparkled with excitement.

‘I hear there’s a new showcase happening from one of the Holos’s brightest minds,’ he said. ‘Something that will knock us flat.’

We went arm-in-arm to the public square where all the biggest events were held. All kinds of people were gathered—beings that defied description. People experimented freely with how they could look now that they weren’t burdened by biology. It was like performance art.

Just after we got there, the stage burst with light. A person walked onto the platform. A woman of impossible grace. She had an assurance that only came with true power. Everyone watched Jazlin Switch. She waved her hands theatrically and screens swept around the space, boxing everyone in. People started looking a little uncomfortable but no one objected.

My mind had wiped exactly what happened next. The details of it. There was a sense of pressure. Of neon glare from all around that penetrated the skin. There was screaming. Bodies spasming. People running. I ran with them, yelling for dad. Only screams responded. Through the chaos, a voice came to me. A face appeared. It was Switch. Her cat-like eyes bored right into me.

‘You’re an innocent one,’ she said. ‘Only the darkest will die this day.’

And all went black.

I knew Switch was a liar as soon as I woke, because my dad didn’t wake up too. He shuddered as I held him, covered in blood that wouldn’t stop coming. It streamed from under his helmet that I couldn’t get off. When two technicians came to help, Dad was still breathing. Still alive, just. They took him away then, said they’d do all they could. But ‘all they could’ wasn’t good enough, just like my pitiful attempts. He died and I hadn’t even been there. For some reason that was the worst of it. That I hadn’t held him until his last breath.

For years, that woman’s face haunted me at night, spoke to me when my mother wouldn’t. That face almost drove me insane before it drove me to study. To understand. To bring order to the chaos of that day. To figure out why she’d killed my father. To see how I could make sure it never happened to anyone else again.

Closure didn’t come, but an accelerated Ph.D. fuelled by my obsession did. There was also police training and escape to Las Vegas, away from my mother’s silence. A new place to take my work seriously but treat the world as a joke. That face. That face. No joke there.

And now, I had to face it. Her. In virtual reality without the V.

6

I SHOOK LIKE a shitting dog. The jack-in room was sterile and white, like the morgue they took dad to. I forced myself to breathe. This technically wasn’t going into the Holos, it was digital confinement, carefully controlled. I’d be in an unsynced avatar that wasn’t hooked into my body rhythms and brain waves. Safer. Harm free. Not quite as real.

And yet, she’d be there: Jazlin Switch, the only person to ever truly kill people in virtual. Someone who somehow convinced her last three interviewers to suicide in the months after they spoke with her. We’d since left her in her electronic cage to rot.

Switch was jacked in somewhere at a secret location, stuck in her mind, kept alive by nutrients the most committed virtual-worlders stockpiled to last entire lifetimes. She was beyond committed. She was a zealot.

Gibson checked the monitors, already watching Switch in her prison on the virtual feed. Two female, military technicians double-checked the equipment. They confirmed clearance through their firewall. One of the technicians, who had a head like a ferret with a perm, handed me a specially-designed immersion helmet.

‘You’ll go through three separate firewalls,’ she explained, ‘each of which is a different color. Green. Orange. Red. As you go, you’ll be exposed to stronger and stronger deep-brain stimulation that holds people’s minds inside. The helmet filters out most of the actual sensation. If something goes wrong, which it won’t, we can simply pull off the helmet and you’re free. A 24-hour migraine will be the worst of it since nothing is synced. If you manually unjacked with a normal rig in a synced avatar, it’s a grand mal seizure followed by brain death.’

‘Same reason I don’t go to rave parties.’ I smiled weakly, taking the helmet.

Gibson stood and turned to me. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought he even looked a little sympathetic. He put his hand on my shoulder and looked in my eyes.

‘All we need to know is that she’s still safely locked away. Anything extra is a bonus.’

I nodded once, clenching my teeth to keep my lips from trembling.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Gibson continued. ‘We’ll be here, watching. We’ll pull you out at any hint of trouble.’

Ferret-head helped me strap on the helmet while the other tech turned some dials.

I put on some haptic gloves to simulate a sense of touch and gave a thumbs up. My visor snapped shut. It was pure darkness for a second, then my vision opened up.

I was now in a green room. I looked my body up and down, studying my hands that weren’t my hands. They looked plastic. No use in getting too deep into the illusion, I guessed.

‘Walk toward the orange wall,’ a voice said in my ear. ‘Go straight through, wait in the next room for us to stabilize everything, and then move through into the next.’

I did as I was told, approaching the far orange wall. Reaching my hand out to touch it, I felt a brief resistance before it turned to a thick liquid. The membrane let me pass through. It felt like I was walking through a waterfall of jelly. Sounds rushed in: squeaks and hisses. Tastes followed: sour lemons, bitter craft beer, sweet honey. Smells were next: awful pungent wafts that made me gag, frying fat, excrement. I felt disoriented. Nauseated. There was a buzz around my head. I stumbled. Steadied. I was now in the orange room.

Slowly, surely, everything settled back down.

‘Okay, all looks stable. Move to the next room,’ the technician said again.