“I do get tired of lying to them all the time,” I complained.
I felt like he was patronizing me.
Maybe I was annoyed at him for making me wait, or perhaps I felt silly being caught playing with my phantoms. But really, it was because I couldn’t shake the surreal realization that we were planning a conspiracy on the vastest of scales. But it wasn’t really a conspiracy, I reminded myself, because everyone would be complicit.
“We’re not really lying to anyone,” said Kesselring. “We’ve been over this a million times. I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing it up.”
“You’re right.” We had been over it countless times in the years since what we had to do became clear, but as we neared the threshold, things didn’t feel right anymore.
He changed the topic, eager to discuss the reason he’d really called this meeting. “Do you think he suspects anything?”
“Obviously he suspects something, but nothing to do with us. At least, not yet.”
The hamster wheel we had Vince running on hadn’t been my idea, but it was only my deep connections into the Phuture News Network technology that made what we were doing to him possible. The intention hadn’t been to harm Vince, just to keep him distracted. We couldn’t afford to let him see what we were planning, at least, not until it was too late to stop us.
“Good.”
“But he’ll figure it out eventually.” I was having a hard time understanding how our technology was able to do what it was doing to him, and didn’t think our agents could hold him off much longer. “He’s already most of the way there.”
“Soon it won’t matter,” shrugged Kesselring. “And nobody will pay any attention to him anyway.”
A pause while I eyed Kesselring, trying to lay blame elsewhere for what I had done to my old friend. I took a deep breath. “So we’re going to be giving it away for free?”
Kesselring smiled. “Free to install, anyway.”
“And it doesn’t worry you that we’re not telling people the full story?”
On Atopia, we weren’t just building a better mousetrap; we were building the best mousetrap of all time.
“Dr. Granger’s new work looks promising.… ”
“Don’t get started on Hal,” I scowled.
“I’m just saying.… ”
“I know what you’re saying.” Using the problem to fix the problem was a recipe for unintended consequences, for disaster.
“As you’ve said many times,” he pointed out, “we need to maximize saturation of the product introduction to maximize networking effects. The Terra Novan’s own synthetic reality system isn’t far behind us. We need to get our product in first, and fast, to capture the market.”
I shook my head. “That’s not the real goal.”
Kesselring looked at me steadily. “Perhaps not yours, but somebody has to pay for all this.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling the noose tighten around my neck.
BROTHERS BLIND
Part 4:
Bobby Baxter
Prologue
“I can be good at anything I want,” I explained. “I just need to apply myself.”
Grinning, I took another swig from the bottle of fermented seaweed. It was my fourteenth birthday and I was drunk. Or rather, it was our fourteenth birthday.
My brother and I were sitting on the railings at one of the entrances to the passenger cannon, suspended hundreds of feet above the Atopian beaches. The steady thwump-thwump of the cannon discharging its nightly cargo shipments reverberated powerfully in the air around us. We weren’t supposed to be there.
“How did you override the security controls again?” asked my brother.
“Easy as pie!” I boasted. “Get your proxxi in here; I’ll download the details and show him.”
My brother looked away toward the breaking surf below. “You always want to explain it to my proxxi.”
“Come on, seriously?” I chuckled. “You know you’re not good at security stuff.”
“I’m not good at anything,” he replied quietly. “How is it possible that you have such an easy time with everything, but I struggle so much? Aren’t twins supposed to be the same?”
“We’re not identical twins,” I laughed.
He looked hurt.
“Come on. Don’t exaggerate. You’re the funniest guy I know. That’s a gift!”
He sighed. “It’s the same with everyone. Everyone only wants to talk to my proxxi.”
“That’s not true.”
He sighed again, but then brightened up. “But you’re amazing, Bob. You can do anything.”
I smiled. “See? Now that’s the spirit!”
1
Identity: Bobby Baxter
Temujin was my name, and I was a great warrior of the Mongol clan of the Ong Khan. The year was 1198, and the heat of the summer solstice had baked the steppes dry and cracked. We would soon replenish Mother Earth, soaking Her with the blood of our enemies, and I would rise to my rightful and God-given place among my people as the Universal Ruler, the Ghengis Khan.
Opening my eyes slowly, listening to the crisp snap of our banners flapping in the breeze, I watched the Tatars amassing in the dusty distance on the plains below. Sitting outside the royal yurt with my trusty saber balanced on my knees, my body flowed and pulsed with the power of my ancestors.
The day would end in victory, or in glorious death.
“Do you ever get the feeling none of this is real?” asked Martin, sitting over to my right with a large wad of half-chewed venison dripping from his mouth. His eyebrows were cocked high as he leaned toward me questioningly, waving the rest of the bloody deer haunch around in circles for emphasis.
While my brother always posted impressive scores in logic and linguistics, he just as consistently bottomed out in existential intelligence.
I groaned. “Dude, you are totally ruining this for me.”
I’d asked him to be my partner in the gameworlds today, at our mother’s urging, but I was starting to realize I’d live, or die, to regret the decision. A sinking feeling settled into my gut.
“You know what I mean,” he continued, diving in to rip another hunk of meat off the bone. “I mean, how can I know that I really exist?”
I studied him, considering what to say next, but right now I needed to prop up our audience stats. Sid and the rest of the guys were counting on me.
“In a nutshell, my friend, you can’t,” I replied, working up an angle to get his head in the game. “I think, therefore I am, as Descartes famously put it in 1644. Since then, really no progress.”
“Mmmmm,” was all Martin could add as he looked skyward. “So how can I be sure that you’re not just some gameworld zombie?”
“You can’t, but from my point-of-view the issue is rather more about you.” I laughed and he joined in. “But if we’re worrying about whether people around us are mindless zombies, then the question is moot, no?”
Martin smiled at that, wiping his greasy face with the back of one hand. Before we could continue, Vicious rode up. Vicious was the proxxi of my best friend, Sid. He looked comical—a seventies British punk rocker, all pasty whiteness and knobby knees poking out from under Mongol battle armor.
A smile spread across my face.
Vicious grimaced, but gamely soldiered on. Trying to keep in character, he leaned toward Martin and said, “Sire, Master Sid asked me to bring you your mount and… ah… ah fook it, mate, yer ’orse is ’ere.”
Robert, my own proxxi, rode up behind him. Wisely, he said nothing as he tossed me the reins to my horse that followed behind him, but just looked toward Vicious and smiled. Vicious scowled, and they both trotted off to get Sid and themselves ready.